Mad Powers (Tapped In)

by Mark Wayne McGinnis

  I’d been lost in thought with Jill on my mind. Their presence was juvenile and an unwelcome distraction from what I needed to do.

  “Well, if it isn’t my friend from Denny’s,” Russell said, back to his cocky bravado.

  “What do you want, Russell? Brought your pals to fight your battles for you?” I kept my eyes on the older guy, though, now standing several feet in front of me.

  Russell moved to get off his bike, but the older biker held up a hand and shook his head.

  “My name is Tag. You’ve already met Russell, Jordan and Wriggly. You’ve probably also noticed that they’re idiots. There’s nothing I can do about that. But I do value their loyalty. What’s a gang of bikers without loyal dependability?”

  “Was that a rhetorical question or do you actually want me to answer?” I asked, straight-faced.

  Tag was not amused, and he looked tired. He looked like a man no longer inclined to do the types of things expected of him from the gang’s less-bright members. I almost felt sorry for him. He stood tall and puffed out his chest.

  “I’m not going to kill you … What’s your name?”

  “I appreciate that. You can call me Rob.”

  “Rob, you will need medical attention after this. Hopefully, you have health insurance.” His last comment evoked several chuckles from the bikers.

  Tag’s mind was definitely on something else. I’d been peering into his thoughts. He had killed a lot of men—more than he wanted to remember. He feared an accounting was coming due. Not karmic, nothing so esoteric. But he was realistic enough to know every leader, such as himself, eventually faced his own reckoning.

  “Listen, Tag. I don’t think you want to fight me. As you said, those three are idiots and you certainly must know they got exactly what was coming to them. I have no beef with you. How about we just—”

  Tag was moving before I finished my sentence. He leapt forward, thrusting a hand out for my throat.

  I blocked it and countered with a left punch to his lower lip, then a follow-up right to his temple. He staggered, caught himself, and stood with his fists raised.

  “Do you really want this to be that day, Tag? The one you’ve been worried about?”

  He looked at me as if I’d uncovered his deepest, darkest secret. Maybe I had. I continued: “When I put you down, right here in front of your gang, your woman—it will be too late. You’ll never regain their respect … it will be the beginning of the end.”

  He lashed out with a wide haymaker to my head, missing me by a mile. He came at me again—eyes full of spite and teeth clenched and bared, like a crazed animal. He threw two more punches, one connecting with my cheek. I stepped back and let him follow after me. He’d regained some confidence, but had dropped his guard. He’d let his fists fall too low, instead of keeping them up, where he could block a punch. Or in this case, a crescent kick to the side of his face. His head jerked violently to the left, which caused his whole body to spin. With his back partially exposed and totally unprotected, I kicked out again, hitting him behind the knees. As Tag fell backward, I sent him to the ground with an uppercut to the chin. He was down for the count. On his back he looked up at me. I saw fear in his eyes. His thoughts were crying out for help. Don’t let this be the day. His eyes stayed on mine for a long minute, then drifted to the crowd of onlookers. He took in their uncomfortable expressions. Some looked back, beckoning him to get up and fight the fight. Others looked away, embarrassed by his defeat.

  Russell was the first to come at me. He’d pulled his knife from his boot and was quickly moving in my direction. Surprisingly, it was the woman who stopped him. With the palm of her hand held to his chest, she simply shook her head. Russell stopped, but kept his eyes firmly on mine. The woman biker dismounted, walked over to Tag’s outstretched body, and stared down at her man. They looked at each other for what seemed an extended period. Then she smiled and started to laugh. Tag, anger subsiding, began to laugh too. She held out her hand and helped the big biker to his feet. They climbed on their bike—first her, then him. When he finally looked at me again, he simply nodded. He started his bike, and the others followed suit. They left. Russell was the last to leave and, by his expression, I’d be seeing him again.

  I had just enough time to cross over Andy Devine Avenue and catch the bus. It would take about thirty minutes before the bus would reach the Kingman Regional Medical Center.

  Chapter 14

  By the time Pippa and Giles landed, showed their creds to retrieve their stowed weapons and had made their way over to the Hertz desk to rent a sedan, it was already close to noon. Giles was signing the auto rental form when Pippa’s phone vibrated in her pocket.

  “Rosette,” she said, turning away from the counter.

  Giles took the paperwork and the car key from the agent. He watched Pippa, who was listening intently, her expression serious.

  “I understand. No, we were going to grab a quick bite, but we’ll head on over there now. Yes, sir.”

  Pippa put away her cell phone and looked up at Giles. “One of the nurses who’d attended to Chandler has been killed. We’re to meet up with the Kingman PD. A Detective Whittier will debrief us, and we can move forward from there.”

  Pippa had opted to drive. She needed to think, and driving always helped her work things out in her mind. With a three-hour trek ahead, from Phoenix International to the city of Kingman, she’d have plenty of time to mull things over. In light of the latest developments, catching up to Chandler had become even more pressing. She briefly wondered if Chandler was really capable of cold-blooded murder. Could she have been that wrong about him?

  “Huh, look at that,” Giles said, pointing at an all-you-can-eat advertisement on a billboard now disappearing behind them.

  She’d realized early on that once Giles started talking he rarely came up for air.

  “What kind of name is Pippa, anyway? Hey, you’re a single girl, aren’t you? You have roommates? You dating anyone right now?”

  “That’s all a bit personal, Giles. Yes, I’m single. Yes, I live by myself, but no, I won’t talk about my relationships.”

  “That’s fine. Hey, just making small talk here. We haven’t really worked together—you know, in the field before.”

  Pippa nodded, but found it best not to say anything in response. Giles would take any comment she made and turn it into more questions, more talking.

  Giles flipped down the sun visor and looked at himself in the mirror. He retrieved his comb and gave his hair a few quick swipes. He turned his head from side to side. Apparently pleased with his looks, he flipped the visor back into place. Pippa watched him in her peripheral vision. Surprised how obsessed he was with his hair yet he allowed more than a few inches to hang over his belt.

  Pippa’s mind was back on Chandler. The last time they’d seen each other was eighteen months earlier. They both were returning from completed assignments in the field, first Pippa and then Rob. He said it would take no more than a month to tie up some loose ends, and then he’d join her back in the States.

  She smiled to herself, thinking how insecure he had been around her. For someone who was second-to-none in undercover ops, he had an almost childlike innocence when it came to forming a personal relationship. Their last week together at the embassy in Kabul, he’d asked her if she would see him exclusively, when he got back to Washington. She hadn’t answered right away—wanting to make him wait for some stupid reason. She’d fallen in love with him long before he’d begun to take their burgeoning relationship seriously. They’d kissed a few times, but she had never let it progress very far. And now she regretted that decision, too.

  Now she contemplated whether what she thought they’d once had was even real. She’d written him a note, letting him know that yes, she’d wait for him. Of course she would. But then he was gone without a trace. Thought to be dead, and after all this time she had come to terms with the loss. But now, knowing he’d been alive this whole time, she felt humiliated. Had
she been played as easily as some characters he’d played while undercover? She drove in questioning silence for three hours.

  Giles had dozed off. A large sign welcomed them to Kingman, Arizona.

  “Giles, wake up. We’re almost there.”

  * * *

  Never staying in one place more than a day or two, Harland looked around his seedy hotel room. He pulled the thick inner curtains tightly together to keep any sunlight from streaming in. Even worse than the pain in his hand, he found bright light excruciating. He turned off the television set, pleased to see that each of the local networks had reported the murder. Big news around here.

  Harland had gotten quite a bit of information from the nurse before she finally bled out. He’d dumped her limp body in the culvert and had made an anonymous phone call to the Kingman PD on her body’s whereabouts. He needed her murder to make the morning news, news he was sure Chandler would see.

  The discovery that Chandler had some kind of amnesia meant that finding him would be that much easier. Chandler had already made more mistakes than Harland thought possible. Stupid, amateurish mistakes.

  Sweating, Harland wiped his brow. He’d definitely left the hospital earlier than he should have. He still had a fever, his hand hurt like a bitch, and his left knee wasn’t working quite right either. “Fucking snakes!” he yelled out. I tried to do too much yesterday, he thought to himself. After the time spent with Jill, exhausting, he’d had to hide her car and find another one. Fortunately, he’d overheard an old man talking to his son in the hospital. He was dying, being fast-tracked to hospice. Harland had little trouble tracking down the old guy’s address and absconding with his rarely-used Buick that had been tucked away in his garage for close to a year.

  His phone was vibrating on the bureau across the room. Dizzy, he got to his feet, took a few steps and almost passed out. “Fucking-fucking-fucking SNAKES!”

  Caller ID said the number was blocked, but Harland knew who it was. No one else had this number.

  “I’m here.”

  “I take it that was your handiwork, last night?” the baritone voice questioned on the other end of the line.

  “Collateral damage. It’s not like I enjoyed it or anything.”

  “Uh huh. And Chandler?”

  “I have every expectation that part of the contract will be fulfilled today,” Harland replied.

  “Well, there’s something else I’m sure you’ll be interested in.”

  “What?”

  “Rosette. She was wheels down in Phoenix this afternoon—she’s probably there in Kingman now.”

  Harland let that sink in for a beat. “Here?”

  “Apparently Chandler voluntarily gave up his prints and DNA to the local PD. So you’re going to have a whole lot of company in that hell-hole of a town in the next few hours.”

  Harland was having a hard time believing Chandler was the same man he’d known. “So what do you want me to do?”

  “We want both of them. Alive.”

  “No. That was not our deal. You know what this is about for me, Dwight!”

  “Don’t say that name again; I won’t warn you again.”

  “Let me take care of the two of them. Same contract, same price. Think of it as my way of making up for voicing your name.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line. Eventually, the man spoke again. “We want them apprehended and confined. Keep them alive until we question them. After that, you can do with them whatever you want.”

  Harland let it play out in his mind. He’d take Rosette right in front of Chandler—make him watch. Chandler would beg him to stop. Then Harland would kill her ever so slowly. Chandler’s death would come only when he’d been beaten and humiliated. It wouldn’t make up for Harland’s own loss, but it sure would go a long way.

  “Okay, I can live with that. I’ll be in contact.”

  He lay down on the bed and tried to find a comfortable position for his pounding, aching head.

  Harland continued to stare up at the ceiling. “I really need to get up,” he said out loud. He let his mind wander back to familiar territory and its inevitable replay of the same images, like a filmstrip run in slow motion: Chandler, hearing a sound, spins to his left. He raises his weapon and shoots. Two quick pulls of the trigger and Veronica’s chest erupts in a wash of dark red. She looks surprised, confused. She then begins to drop; her hands rise up, but then fall limply to her side. She falls to the ground. Her eyes are open, but then slowly close. She’s gone. Harland’s wife is dead.

  Harland sat up and swung his feet to the carpeted floor. I’m certainly not accomplishing anything lying around here. Chandler will be making his way over to the hospital, and I’ll be there waiting for him.

  PART 2 — REMEMBERED

  Chapter 15

  I continued to listen to the drone of the big diesel engine. Practically empty, the bus to the Kingman Regional Medical Center allowed me several minutes to think. The problem was, the dots just didn’t connect. What was I missing? I started from the beginning, with the well-planned highway hit on my life. Why go to so much trouble? Seemed overly elaborate, when a bullet to my head would have sufficed just as well. No … whoever did this wanted it to look like an accident. I let that sit for now and moved on to ponder again who and what I’d been in my past life: highly capable in close-combat situations; riddled with bodily scars and bullet holes; bearing an affinity to orderliness and the military. Definitely a soldier at one time, but not recently. So what did that leave? I was some kind of policeman? No, that didn’t feel right, either. The obvious conclusion was agency: FBI, CIA, DHS? Yes, that did feel right and it fit. Okay, so I am—or was—an agent. I let my mind wander to the bald-headed man. Another agent? An agent assigned to kill me—to rig the ridiculously elaborate highway accident?

  I sat up straight in my seat. Shit! Had the bald guy, agent, whatever, somehow killed Jill? Killed her to get to me? He definitely had recognized me—he knew who I was.

  I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, massaging my temples. Where the fuck are my memories? How long will this amnesia last? Frustrated, I kicked the back of the bench seat in front of me. I saw the bus driver’s head tilt up and his eyes lock on mine from his elevated rearview mirror.

  The bus pulled to the curb. This was my stop.

  * * *

  Middle-aged and wearing a floral blouse with hues of light pink and blue, the woman sitting at the reception counter was reading. I peeked into her mind:

  As his passion grew—so had hers. She was instantly lost in his musky scent, his raw masculinity. Strong, rough hands enveloped her small hips and pulled her in close. She resisted, feigned objection, but they both knew she wanted him to continue, to dominate her …

  I cleared my throat, startling her. She folded and creased the top corner of the page and placed the paperback book down on the desk in front of her. She smiled and raised her eyebrows. Cheeks flushed and breathy, she said, “Hi, I’m Connie. How can I direct you?” in a friendly, albeit businesslike manner.

  “I’m actually not sure. I was recently a patient here. Released yesterday.”

  The woman nodded.

  “While I was here I had made friends with another patient. I’d like to visit him, check in on him.”

  “That’s nice; I’m sure he’ll appreciate the gesture.” She brought her eyes over to a computer monitor off to her right, her fingers poised over a keyboard. “What’s his name? I’ll give you his room number.”

  “Well, that’s the thing. I can’t remember … But I can describe him. Would that help?”

  Connie pursed her lips and continued to look at the monitor. “No, not really. Sorry, physical descriptions aren’t listed,” she said with a shrug and looked back up at me.

  “He had an injured hand. Bald head?”

  She was still shaking her head, then abruptly stopped. I knew what she was going to say before she said it.

  “Wait. I know exactly who you’re talking about. Sna
kebite victim. Snakebites, multiple, actually.” Her fingers were tapping at her keyboard, her lips pursed again. “Yeah, I remember, he bolted in the middle of the night. He’d given the hospital a phony name. Skipped out on paying his not-insignificant bill.”

  I presented an astonished expression and looked speechless. “He seemed, I don’t know, like a good guy. I guess you never know … you know, who someone really is?”

  “I guess not,” she replied.

  “I’ll let you get back to your book. Thanks anyway.”

  As I turned to leave, something in my pocket vibrated. The pager Whittier had given me so he could stay in touch. I retrieved the small device, and saw the illuminated phone number. I turned back to Connie. “I need to find a phone for a local call.”

  “Right over there in reception; pick it up and I’ll patch you to a local line,” she said and smiled.

  “Thanks.” I sat down on a brown leatherette couch and when the phone rang, I snatched up the receiver. I mouthed a ‘thank you’ to Connie and dialed the phone number on the pager.

  On the third ring, Whittier answered. “Rob?”

  “Yeah. You paged me?”

  “Yes, I did. I wanted to let you know your results came back quicker than I’d expected. I have your identity.”

  “Excellent. So who am I?”

  “Your full name’s Robert Michael Chandler. But listen, I’m in a meeting right now. There’s quite a bit to go over here. You have an interesting past, Rob. Nothing to worry about, but I want to go through all this in person—if that’s all right?”