Becoming Quinn

by Brett Battles

  “He’s discovered some information that would have been better kept from him.”

  “What information?”

  “He found out his name was put on the termination list, and he thinks I’m mainly responsible for that.”

  “So he’s not happy,” Jake said.

  “No. He’s not. He has also always considered you a problem.”

  “Me?”

  Durrie then told Jake about how they had been tracking him since he’d found the matchbook, how they’d known where he’d gone and who he’d talked to.

  “If he’d had his way,” Durrie said, “you would have been dead before you went to your superiors. You’re the one who uncovered things, you’re ultimately the one who put the X on his back.”

  “That’s not true. I don’t even know his name.”

  “Larson,” Durrie said, without hesitation. “That’s what he goes by. And like it or not, you and I are the cause of his problems. Now he’s looking for us. Unfortunately, I have a feeling he might know where we are.”

  Jake felt a sudden chill. “So what are you going to do?”

  “Not me. We.”

  Jake paused for a moment. “All right. What are we going to do?”

  “Three choices. One, we sit and wait and deal with what comes. Two, we prepare for his arrival. Or three, I wish you luck, and we split up.” He paused only a second. “Before you go jumping on option three, I should warn you that’s the most guaranteed way of getting yourself killed. You may not want to believe me, but you know I’m right. My vote is option two, but I’ll leave it up to you. Which do you—”

  “Number three.”

  “Were you not just listening to me?”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “And you’ll die.”

  “So you say.”

  Durrie’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Jake. “I guess you’re not exactly who I thought you were.”

  Jake stared back. “Is that your way of telling me number three wasn’t really an option? That you were just throwing it out to see how I would respond?”

  Shaking his head, Durrie said, “No. If you choose option three, then you’re free to go.”

  “Right now?”

  “If that’s what you’d like.”

  “That’s what I’d like.”

  Durrie stood there for a moment longer, then turned and walked out of the room, leaving the door open.

  • • •

  This has to be some kind of trap.Probably a way of killing me so it looks like an accident.

  As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Jake paused. Look like an accident? Since when did he think like that?

  Cautiously, he approached the open door, then peeked out into the hallway. Durrie was gone, but on the floor next to the door were Jake’s shoes and a pair of socks. He dropped down against the wall, and quickly pulled them on.

  The door at the end of the hallway was open, and beyond it he could see a set of stairs. He started walking toward them, but soon found himself running, his freedom so close. When he hit the bottom step, he slowed again so as not to trip on the steps.

  The staircase was longer and steeper than he expected. It was almost as if there was a missing floor between the level Jake had been held on and the one he was headed toward, making him think that the basement he’d been in was deeper than most. Though there were light fixtures lining the stairway, the majority of illumination was streaming down from the open door at the top.

  Daylight. The first Jake had seen since the parking lot near the airport.

  He paused when he reached the top step, worried once more about a trap. The space beyond was not large. A small foyer with a window directly across from the door. Off to the left of the opening he could hear the sound of movement and things being set down on some sort of surface.

  “You’re wasting time,” Durrie called out.

  Jake stood on the step a moment longer, then he curled his hands into fists, tensed the muscles in this arms and shoulders, and stepped out.

  Immediately to the right was a large room with windows on three sides. There were kitchen, dining, and living room areas undivided by walls.

  Durrie was standing next to a long wooden table in the kitchen. Laid out in front of him were several firearms. By Jake’s quick count there were eleven pistols and four rifles. Jake’s knowledge of weaponry was not vast enough to know all the makes and models, but he could pick out the Smith & Wesson, the Colt, and the SIG SAUER. Three of the rifles were identical compact semi-automatics, while the other was a long intricate-looking weapon with a very high-tech scope attached. Next to all these was a stack of boxed ammunition.

  As much as Jake would have liked to grab one of the pistols, Durrie would be able to easily pick one up and put a couple bullets through Jake’s chest before he’d even get close.

  “That’s for you.” Durrie pointed at a worn leather chair in the living area. Sitting on it was an olive green canvas satchel. “There’s food inside, and a map and compass. I won’t be able to drive you out. You’ll have to walk.”

  Jake stepped over to the chair, and opened the top of the bag. Inside was exactly what Durrie had promised. “Walk out of where?” he asked.

  To answer, Durrie merely nodded at the window.

  Jake pulled the bag over his shoulders, then took a look outside. There was forest in all directions, and in the distance, tall rugged mountain peaks.

  “Where the hell are we?” he asked. He had thought they were still somewhere in Arizona, but this was not Arizona.

  “Colorado,” Durrie told him.

  Jake looked out the window again. “We’re in the Rockies?”

  “Glad to know you’re familiar with geography,” Durrie said. “My suggestion? Don’t stick to the roads. You’ll stay alive longer that way.”

  “How far away is the closest town?”

  “Fifty, sixty miles. But don’t worry about it. He’ll catch you before you get there.”

  Jake looked at him. “This is some sort of game you’re playing, isn’t it? Maybe you’re just letting me out so you can hunt me. Am I right?”

  The look Durrie gave him was almost one of pity, then the man focused on the guns arrayed on the table, carefully moving his eyes over them until he finally stopped on one. He picked it up. Jake saw it was the SIG SAUER, the model number he wasn’t so sure about, but that didn’t seem important since he thought he was about to be shot.

  Then Durrie did the last thing Jake expected. He turned the gun around so that he was holding onto the barrel, then he tossed it across the room at Jake.

  Jake, surprised, reacted late, and nearly dropped it on the ground.

  “Chamber’s empty, but the mag’s full,” Durrie said. “But in case that’s not enough…”

  He picked up a box of bullets, quickly whipped a rubber band around it to hold the top down, and lobbed it on the same trajectory he’d sent the gun. This time, Jake had no problem catching it.

  “Blanks, right?” Jake said, not willing to believe Durrie would actually arm him.

  “Try it,” Durrie told him, his face impassive.

  “Right. The moment I raise the gun, you shoot me and it looks like self-defense.”

  “You watch too much TV. But I’ll tell you what…” Durrie took a large backward step away from the weapons-strewn table. “Better?”

  Now there was no way he could reach one of the guns before Jake got a shot off.

  Without hesitation, Jake chambered a round, and pointed the SIG at his captor.

  “Go ahead,” Durrie said. “You want to know if those are blanks or not? Pull the trigger.”

  Jake held the gun on Durrie a moment longer, then moved his aim just to the left and pulled the trigger.

  The report was deafening in the room. But Jake wasn’t paying attention to the sound. His eyes were on the wall behind Durrie, the wall that had most definitely just been hit by a bullet.

  “Satisfied?” Durrie asked. He stepped back to the
table. “Now go if you’re going. He could be here anytime.”

  Jake wasn’t ready to leave quite yet, though. Taking the pack off his back, he removed two bullets out of the box of ammunition, popped the mag out of the SIG, and added the rounds to it so that it was filled to capacity. As he inserted the mag back into the gun, he could see that Durrie was closely watching him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Durrie replied.

  Jake pulled the bag back over his shoulders. “Thanks for the hospitality, but I hope you understand if I don’t recommend this place to any of my friends.”

  “You use humor to cover up your nervousness, you do realize that, right?” Durrie said. “It’s a tell. Immediately lets me know what you’re really feeling.”

  Jake’s eyes narrowed a bit. “Nervousness is not what I’m covering up. It’s a growing sense of regret that maybe I shouldn’t have moved my gun before I pulled the trigger.”

  Without taking his eyes off Jake, Durrie pointed off to his left and behind him a little. “The town is that way. Good luck.”

  Jake walked quickly to the main door. “Yeah,” he said, hesitating. “You, too.”

  He left.

  28

  Jake made a beeline through the clearing that surrounded the cabin, into the woods on the other side. He wasn’t about to take Durrie’s word on where the town was. In fact, he doubted it was even fifty or sixty miles away, but it seemed prudent to at least give the appearance that he was following directions. If this was a trap, Jake wanted Durrie to think that he was heading where he’d been told to go. But as soon as he was deep enough in the trees, he circled around until he found the road leading away from the cabin.

  Durrie had specifically suggested he not use it. In one sense, this was sound advice. Walking on the road would make it very easy for Jake to be spotted. But that didn’t mean the road wouldn’t be helpful. He could travel close to it, in the cover of the woods, and use it as a guide. He was sure there was a much better chance it would lead him to civilization than striking out through the forest.

  After about half an hour, he spotted a small rise a little further away from the road, with only a smattering of trees on the top. It would be a good place to get his bearings, and see if he could actually find where he was on that map Durrie had given him.

  When he reached the top, he took a moment to eat some of the food Durrie had given him. As he chewed on a piece of cold chicken, he looked around. What he saw did not exactly give him hope.

  The forest went on in all directions, broken only here and there by ridges and other high points like the one he was on, except in the West, where the spine of the Rockies rose high above everything else. Nowhere could he see a town or village.

  He spread the map on the ground. There was a small X that he assumed Durrie had marked to represent the position of the cabin, but Jake thought it could very easily be misdirection. It took him several minutes, but by using the landmarks he could see, he was able to make a pretty fair guess of where he was. Surprisingly, this also meant the X of the cabin was in the right spot.

  He tried not to think what that might mean as he scanned the map for where he should go. He saw that Durrie had also been truthful when he’d pointed Jake in the direction of the town, and while Jake could get there going the way he was going, Durrie’s path would have been at least ten miles shorter.

  Double back and try it? Or stick with the road?

  If Durrie had been truthful about all this, what else was he truthful about? The dark-haired man who was supposedly coming after them?

  He looked at the map again, and decided to stick to the path he’d chosen. By staying near the road, he might come upon other homes hidden in the woods, which could mean shelter or, please God, a phone.

  He returned the map to the bag, took a few sips from a bottle of water, then headed back down the hill.

  • • •

  As Durrie was coming back upstairs from the basement earlier, he’d been content to let Oliver go. It was the option the kid had chosen. Granted, it was the wrong one, but there was nothing he could do about that. Oliver would strike out on his own, and before morning came, he would be dead.

  But then the kid had come up the stairs and twice surprised Durrie.

  The first surprise had been when he’d actually pulled the SIG’s trigger, and sent a bullet flying just past Durrie’s head. That showed not only nerve, but confidence. Confidence that he could fire a shot that passed that close to another person without hitting them, and confidence that Durrie wasn’t going to retaliate.

  The second surprise came just before the kid left. He had made sure to replace the two missing bullets in his mag and thus maximizing his chances for survival. Most people in a similar stressful situation would have just left and not thought about it. Even those who did would probably have just replaced the spent bullet, forgetting that initially there’d been no round chambered in the gun, which meant there was room for a second shell. Jake had automatically pulled two rounds out of the box.

  It was a tiny thing, so small, but an important detail. Durrie had found himself staring at Oliver. That was the moment he decided if he let the kid go on his own, it would be the same as Larson deciding Berit Davies had to die.

  Durrie gave Oliver a ten-minute head start. During that time, he stored all of the weapons, except two of the pistols and the sniper rifle, in the safe locker built under the kitchen cabinets so no one else would find them. He then packed the pistols and a few other items in his own bag.

  When time was up, he activated the tracking device that was tuned to a signal emitted by a chip in the lining of Oliver’s satchel. Durrie had intended it only as a way to locate the kid’s body when this was all over.

  He wasn’t surprised to see that Oliver had diverted from the path he’d pointed out. Oliver had no reason to trust Durrie, and following the road was a guarantee of finding civilization somewhere. Only Durrie hadn’t been lying to him. Taking the road was also the easiest way for Larson to find him.

  Durrie adjusted the straps on his pack, swung the sniper rifle over his shoulder, then headed out.

  • • •

  An engine rumbled in the distance.

  Jake paused. A car. It could get him downhill a whole lot faster than on his feet. He listened again, but the way the sound was bouncing off the mountains, it was impossible to pinpoint which direction it was coming from.

  He glanced around. A ridge rose just on the other side of the dirt road. He raced over to it, and didn’t stop until he was halfway up the slope.

  His hope was to find a clear view of the road ahead, but all he could see were a few asphalt-covered spots several miles away. That told him something, though. The road he was following was still dirt, so somewhere ahead it either changed or met a whole new road. His bet was on the latter.

  In the farthest spot, he saw a sudden flash of blue. A sedan, he thought, but knew he could be wrong. The glimpse had barely lasted a second, and the distance didn’t help.

  He hustled back down the ridge, then briefly contemplated using the dirt road before deciding to return to the woods. Better to stay cautious.

  He couldn’t exactly run through the trees, but he did pick up his speed. If the other road was close and he could get there before the car did, he might be able to flag it down.

  Dead branches and needles crackled under his feet for a while, drowning out the sound of the car. But soon the motor grew louder, and Jake knew he was going to be cutting it close.

  “Come on!” he silently yelled at the asphalt road ahead. “Where are you?”

  With all the twists and turns the dirt road had taken, Jake knew it was possible any intersection was still a mile or more away. So he increased his pace, dodging through the trees and hoping he didn’t trip over a root or rock.

  Ahead he could see that the trees seemed to end in a distinct line, and realized it had to be the road. He could hear the car, too, maybe a half-mile away at best
.

  Forgetting his earlier reluctance, he angled over to the dirt road, and sprinted down it.

  The path curved, and suddenly, a hundred feet in front of him, it T-boned into the asphalt road.

  He was almost there when caution once more exerted itself.

  What if Durrie’s right? What if that’s the shooter?

  Jake put on the brakes. As much as he just wanted to run out into the road so the driver could see him, he knew that would be foolish. He had to be sure first, see who the driver was.

  Reluctantly, he moved into the cover of the trees, and down to a point along the new road about thirty feet down from the intersection. Though he couldn’t see the car, he could hear it. It was just around the bend a hundred yards further down the road. The car was apparently traveling at a leisurely pace, which was good. It would give Jake more time to get a look at the driver before he had to act.

  He watched the curve, and waited.

  Ten seconds later, the car came into view.

  • • •

  What the hell is he doing? On the tracker, the dot representing Oliver’s bag had suddenly darted to the left. Durrie automatically looked in the direction the dot was going.

  There was a ridge, but not much else. He glanced back at the tracker. The dot had stopped only halfway up. Was Oliver being chased? Had he seen something and was trying to hide? What?

  Then Durrie heard it. A car. But it wasn’t particularly close, so Oliver couldn’t have been running from it. No, but if he got up on the ridge, he might be able to see it.

  Dear God, please tell me he’s not going to pull something this stupid.

  Durrie pulled out the map he’d stuck into his pocket earlier. A half-mile ahead was a little used country road. That had to be the one the car was on.

  “Dammit,” he said as he put the map away.

  He knew the dirt road was the only way he would be able to make up the time. He moved onto it and began to run. Unfortunately, doing so meant he couldn’t monitor the tracker at the same time, and, a few minutes later, he almost blew it when Oliver suddenly emerged from the trees fifty feet ahead of him.

  Durrie darted to the edge of the road so that he would blend in with the trees and slowed to a near stop, unsure if he wanted Oliver to know he was following him yet. Thankfully, the kid’s attention was focused in the other direction and soon he disappeared around a curve. Once more Durrie picked up his speed. When Oliver came into sight again, Durrie saw that he was standing in the middle of the road near the intersection.