Sweepers

by P. T. Deutermann

  Mcnair studied the ground for a moment. “That’s a real reach, G-man. But maybe that’s the best we can do. And you’ll keep me cut in on what you get out of that?”

  “We have so far, haven’t we?” Karen said.

  “Yes, you have, Commander. Which is the intelligent thing to do, when there’s homicide on the table. But I’m also worried about the Navy getting ahead of us. I told Mr. von Rensel here that my bosses have been getting some heat about this case from some federal sources-as in the Sherman problem involves a federal situation best left to federal solutions. It wouldn’t stun me if the Navy told both of you, for instance, to return to the fort and leave Galantz to the real Indian fighters.”

  Train looked sideways at Karen. Mcnair caught it.

  “Uh-huh. Already happened, am I right?” he said.

  “Sort of,” Train -said. “Although I’m not entirely sure what the game is. I take my orders from the Navy JAG, Admiral Carpenter, as does Commander Lawrence here.”

  “And those orders currently are what, specifically?” Mcnair demanded.

  “Not to pursue Galantz. Not to interfere with the efforts of other people who might be pursuing Galantz. To keep Commander Lawrence safe from any more attempts on her life.”

  “And Admiral Sherman was sent on some kind of temporary duty? Is that like suspension with pay?”

  “Not normally, but in this case, I’d say he was put somewhat in limbo,”

  Train said. “It’s almost as if the admirals are waiting for something to happen. But I don’t know what the hell it is.”

  Mcnair nodded but remained silent. He drew his Coat closer around his throat as the drizzle deepened into rain.

  “I think,” he said, “I need to go talk to my lieutenant again.

  This is getting too political for us snuffles. And if the feds are well and truly in it, it’s gonna get pretty screwed up.”

  He looked up at Train with a wry smile. “No offense intended, G-man.”

  Train laughed. “None taken. No arguing with reality.”

  “So’we’re agreed?” Karen persisted. “We’ll get in touch with Admiral Sherman, Navy-to-Navy, as it were, and see where it takes - us?”

  “I guess So,” Mcnair said. “But just in case, let me confirm your car phone numbers.”

  Train and Mcnair exchanged numbers and then Mcnair closed his notebook.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m headed back to D.C. And, Commander, when you have your meeting with Sherman and Junior, leave that forty-five at home, all right?” Mcnair grinned again as he headed for his car. Train wisely said absolutely nothing.

  An hour later, Karen put the road map back up in the sunshade over her seat and switched out the map light. “Route 216 from here down to the interstate,” she said.

  “Got it,” Train replied. -“It’s nice having a navigator. I usually wing it and then get to see lots of unusual sights.” ‘“Not that you would stop and ask for directions?”

  “Naw. Against all the guy rules.”

  “Right. Is Mcnair still behind us?”

  Train looked in his mirror and said yes. They were headed down a two-lane state road in the darkness of the Maryland countryside.

  Mcnairhad followed them out of the hospice parking lot in his departmental car. Train was maintaining a fairly constant sixty in deference to the slick roads.

  “So,” she said, “how do we go about getting in touch with Admiral Sherman?”

  “Call him,” he said. “We know he’s up here at the hospice tonight. I’m going to assume he’s checking his voice mail.

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  “Then I guess we’ll contact with him at the motel. I had hoped not to reveal that we know the details of this situation.

  It like a Peeping Tom, looking at that tape.”

  Karen had been struggling with that problem since they had left the hospice: how to regain contact with the admiral without letting him know what they now knew.

  It started to rain a little harder, and Train slowed down to fifty-five.

  The two-lane black asphalt road glistened in their headlights between indistinct boundary lines. They appeared to be passing through some low foothills, with intermittent farmsteads fleetingly’ visible under barnyard security lights among the trees. The farmhouses were all, built practically on the edge of the road, and the barns were enormous. Train looked back in the mirror.

  “Not much happening out here in the sticks on a Friday night,” he said.

  “We and Mcnair are the only people out here.”

  As if to make a liar out of him, a. pickup truck came past in the other lane, trailing a cloud of spray. Train had to hit the windshield cleaners after the truck passed. Karen turned in her seat as the truck went past, which momentarily illuminated the car behind them. She looked and then turned around quickly.

  “I don’t think that’s Mcnair,” she said. “Unless his car sprouted one of those cop-car spotlights since he left.”

  Train looked into the side mirror and then the center mirror. “I can’t see anything but headlights. You sure?”

  “I think so. I’m going to look again the next time a car comes past. How far back do you think that car is?”

  “Maybe ten lengths. He’s been pretty constant. That’s why I assumed it was Mcnair.”

  She wanted to turn around again, then realized that if she did, the driver back there might see her face. “Didn’t Mcnair give you the number for his car phone?”

  “Sure did,” he said, fishing in his shirt pocket for the piece of paper.

  Karen read the number and dialed it up on Train’s car phone. The signal was weak and scratchy, but she could hear four rings, then the recording saying the customer was not available. She hung it -up.

  “Not available,” she reported, resisting the urge to turn around again for another look.

  “That doesn’t prove it’s not him,” Train said unconvincingl,./ ..7.

  “So now what do we do? Mcnair’s car was white; that one back there looks like a darker color. And there’s that spotlight. I I

  “Did you see antennas? Like a state cop car?”

  Karen thought for a moment. “Yes, I. think I did. On the roof. Maybe it’s a state cop, or a county patrol car. Are you speeding?”

  He shook his head as they entered a stretch where the woods came tight down to the road on either side in a blurry embrace of rain-soaked forest. The road curved to the right and began to climb a long hill.

  Train slowed down to an even fifty. Karen watched the car behind them in her side mirror. The distance did not change. Whoever was back there was paying attention.

  “Next paved side road on the right,” Train said. I’ll m going to make an exciting turn. If this guy follows us, we’ll either get pulled over or we have a problem.” He doublepunched the door locks and the compartment opened under his left elbow. He took out the Glock and passed it over to Karen. “Hang on to this for me. If it’s a cop car, I’ll put it back before he gets to the window.”

  Karen took the heavy pistol and put it in her lap.

  “That’s a Glock,” he said. “It’s double-acting. Point it and pull the trigger. It’ll fire once and then it’s s&miauto.

  Don’t hold the trigger down.”

  Train accelerated a little, keeping both hands on the wheel as he piloted the big vehicle through the winding turns of the hilly road.

  There was no sign of any side roads, and she suspected they would have to get back down to flatter land before there would be any. She could still see the headlights behind them, staying right with them. The rain had stopped, but the ‘roads were still wet. I Then a loom of headlights in the opposite lane was visible over the next hill, and this time Karen had time to get ready. The car flashed by them, and Karen got a good took at the car behind them. It definitely looked like a cop car, with at least two aerials visible, a large chrome-plated spotlight on the driver’s side, a single driver in the front, and maybe another figure in the backs
eat.

  She whipped her head around and described all this to Train, who was still having to concentrate on the road.

  “See any blue lights? Bubble-gum machine on the roof Anything blue on his dashboard? In the grille?”

  “No. No lights.”

  “So maybe not a cop car. Maybe Somebody who wants look like a cop car.”

  They were coming down out of the to patch of hills now, with the terrain leveling off.

  “Should we call nine-one-one9” she asked.

  “And tell them what? There’s a car behind us? Hang on-there’s a county road sign.’ “

  Karen tightened her seat belt and gripped the Glock as Train slowed down imperceptibly. They drove down toward a bridge crossing a tree-lined creek, beyond which she could see a T intersection with what looked like a gravel road bisecting the two-lane one. Train tightened his own seat belt, flexed his hands, and then swung the Suburban in a noisy, gravel-spitting right turn. Karen could feel the vehicle lifting off its left wheels slightly before Train hit the gas and sent them hurtling down the county road, accelerating through the dense woods on either side. She looked back in time to see a flare of red brake lights and then a pair of high beams swinging over the trees and pointing toward them.

  “Here he comes,” she said as Train punched it.

  “Look for cop lights,” he ordered.

  She almost hoped for flashing blue or red emergency lights, but there was only that steady stare of high beams coming up after them in the darkness. She turned back around as Train careened through an unbanked curve, once again throwing up gravel all over the place. The road was almost as wide as the state road.

  “I was hoping for a paved road. Oh well,” he shouted over the road noise. Karen punched out 911 and transmitted a call for help. Nothing happened, and then she had to hang on as Train took them through another curve. She had a fleeting glance of an embankment whipping much too close past the windows, and then they passed some kind of tower.

  She checked the phone and saw that there was next to no signal. She swore. Then the light behind them became much brighter.

  “He’s using the spot,” Train yelled, squinting as a blaze of bright white light flooded into the Suburban. The car behind them was a lot closer. Train batted down the center mirror and then swore as he nearly lost control going around the next bend. The road was almost too wide, and, being unmarked, it was nearly impossible for Train to hold the center. There were also more potholes now, and the Suburban was banging noisily through some of them. Karen wondered if the road went on much farther. But it had to go somewhere, didn’t it?

  “He’s trying to pass! Get down!” Train yelled as the enng over on white light moved up on them, from ‘ the leftrear side of the car. Karen ducked as Train swung in front of the pursuing car, trying to block it, and then careened back across the road as he overcompensated. -The Suburban was too big and heavy for this sort of high-speed maneuvering on gravel. Their pursuer was holding tight on their left rear, that big spotlight throwing back blinding glare from every reflective surface, including the front windshield.

  Karen realized Train must be having trouble seeing anything at all.

  He swung back to the left sharply, too sharply, and the Suburban began to fishtail. He instinctively hit the brakes for a second, which allowed their pursuer to surge up abreast on the left. She remembered the Glock and raised her hands to bring it to bear behind Train’s head as the other car’s nose drew abreast of their rear doors, the spotlight blasting white light at them Re some kind of ray gun. in the light reflecting off their own left side, she saw that the right-front window of the other car was sliding all the way down, and she screamed at Train to lean forward so she could get a shot as the other car crept forward.

  But Train was still fighting to regain control. At that instant, the other car pulled up abreast of them, blanking out the spotlight, and she caught a glimpse of a solitary figure in the other car, one hand on the wheel, the other holding something in his hand. Not a gun. Something smaller. Shiny. For a split second, she had the ridiculous thought that it was a flashlight.

  Flashlight.

  Light. Light! She remembered that purple-red flash that had stunned her into insensibility in the barn.

  “Close your eyes! Close your eyes!” she screamed at Train, clapping her left hand over her own eyes and squeezing them shut as tightly as she could. Even so, she felt the brain-stunning power of the retinal flash as it imprinted the cracks between her fingers on the underside of her eyelids.

  Then the other car shot past and the Suburban was slowing down as Train, groaning, slumped into a semi-stupor behind the wheel, his eyes staring sightlessly. Karen dropped the gun and grabbed for the wheel, but her seat belt kept her from reaching the brakes. She punched at the belt latch just as the big vehicle swerved toward the edge of the road. She fought the wheel hard, her left foot punching desperately to find the brake pedal between Train’s feet. The flare of red brake lights flooding the windshield alerted her to the other car. She finally found the brake pedal and tried to stand on it. Train leaned against her, and she looked right, in time to see that the other car was close, right in front of them. Just beneath the Ford emblem on the trunk was what looked like a very large gun barrel, pointing right at her. Oh my God!

  She groped for the Glock as her foot slipped off the brake pedal. But now the lights and her view ahead disappeared as something spattered all over the front windshield, something opaque, something that instantly blotted out all the light from their own headlights and the other car.

  It sounded as if they had entered a sustained rainsquall of heavy, wet plaster as she found the brake pedal again and wrestled the Suburban away from the embankment closing in on the right-front window. The interior became cavelike as she stared uncomprehendingly at the now-blackened windshield, her right shoulder pressed up against the dashboard as the car decelerated. The drumming noise continued as whatever it was covered the front windows on both sides and then moved down the left side and back windows, the spray clattering down the side and over the back of the -car like the pressure nozzles of a car wash.

  Then abruptly the Suburban tilted as it ran off into the ditch on the right side, banging its frame over the edge of the gravel road and screeching the right side against the embankment before finally stopping with a loud bang.

  She was momentarily stunned as the right side of her head hit hard on the center mirror. The engine raced, the rear tire,, machine-gunning gravel out from under the chassis, until she realized she was stepping on the accelerator. She jerked her foot off the pedal, but it was too late. The big car swayed once and then settled all the way over onto its right side almost in slow motion, in a mighty crunch. Karen screame( but was able to jam the shift lever over into the park position as she slid across the front seat and banged up against the right-front door, pursued by a small landslide of all the little things that accumulate in a car. Train sagged down towarc her, thankfully still in his seat belt, although the top bel bolt was creaking ominously as she struggled to get herself upright. The engine stalled out. It had become almost pitch. black inside, with only the instrument lights providing illumination.

  For a moment, she just sat there, trying to get her bearings. Train was out of it, hanging like a sack of potatoes it his seat belt. The side of her head stung, and she was disoriented. The smell of gasoline began to penetrate the Sub, urban’s interior. Then she heard something outside.

  She froze.

  Silence. Then another noise, behind the car, but muffled Whatever was on the windows was making it hard to hear Another noise. She felt around in the clutter piled up against the right-front door for the Glock but couldn’t find it. Train groaned softly. He started trying to unlatch his seat belt.

  “Don’t undo your belt,” she whispered. “We’re over on side. Someone’s out there.”

  The smell of gasoline was getting stronger-Then she thought she heard a car start up. Train groaned, rubbing his eyes. �
�I can’t see a thing,” he whispered. “Bastard got me.’ I

  “My eyes are okay, I think,” she said.

  She was pretty sure her eyes were working. She scrunched herself up against the dashboard and helped Train to release himself from the belt and slide his legs down to stand on the right-front door. He was rubbing his eyes furiously.

  There were no more sounds from outside, other than dripping and gurgling noises from the engine compartment.

  Conscious of the gasoline, she switched the ignition off, leaving the interior of the car pitch-black. She reached up and turned on one of the map lights over her shoulder. She looked around at the windows, but they were covered in what looked like thick dark paint. “There’s something all over the windows. It came from the other car, when I was trying to get us stopped. There was some kind of gun sticking out of his trunk.”

  Train rubbed his eyes again. “Everything’s purple. I never saw the damned thing coming.”

  “You had your hands full,” she whispered. “I recognized it at the last instant and covered my eyes.”

  They both. shut up and listened. They could hear the sounds of the engine block beginning to cool, and other noises from outside. “You think he’s still out there?” she said.

  “No. I don’t think so,” he whispered. “But we’re going to have to get out of the car to find out. Where’s the Glock?”

  She finally found the gun lodged under the right armrest.

  “Can you see well enough to use it?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “That phone have a signal?”

  She recycled the phone and waited for it to go through the warm-up sequence. “Two dashes. Not much of one, if any .

  “‘Antenna may be busted,” he said, “Try nine-one-one anyway. Tell them we’re overturned a few miles west of State Road 216, on a county road. I think I saw a fire tower.

  I don’t know the county road number.”

  While Karen transmitted the message in the blind, Train popped the door locks and then pushed up on the left-front door. It was stuck shut.

  Then he reached over and tried the leftrear door, with the sameresults.