Cold Blooded

by Bernard Lee DeLeo

  “It’s good,” Jean said, her mouth half full of Spaghettios.

  “Glad you liked it.” Nick made a face at her. “What's the verdict, Wonder Woman? Is Spaghettios the breakfast of champions?”

  “Absolutely,” Rachel mocked Nick’s one word answer for nearly everything, holding up a Ritz cracker covered with Spaghettios before popping it into her mouth.

  “Speaking of the breakfast of champions.”

  “Don’t even tread down that trail, Psycho,” Rachel warned, covering her mouth as she lost a few crumbs in her haste to rebuke a now laughing Nick. Rachel felt her face flush hotly.

  “What’s so funny, Nick?” Jean looked intently from one adult to the other.

  “He only thinks he’s funny,” Rachel told her, trying to stare warningly at Nick, but only succeeding in heightening the sudden desire she had for him.

  “Our time together has been pretty scary, huh Jean?” Nick changed the subject. “I guess you’ll have to be in therapy until you’re forty.”

  “Huh?” Jean asked, and then smiled back at Nick. “Oh, you’re kidding me. I’m not scared. I saw Terminator II. It was my favorite. You’re like the good Terminator in the movie, and I’m like the little John Connor.”

  This caused Nick to nearly unload the swallow of coffee through his nose. He coughed and cleared his throat while Rachel and Jean laughed at him.

  “I didn’t see that one coming,” Nick muttered, clearing his throat while pondering Jean’s take on the insanity since leaving Pleasanton. “What makes you think I’m a good Terminator?”

  “Come with me if you want to live.” Jean’s brows knitted in an attempt to gain a threatening aspect. She lowered her voice into a cracking mimicry of Arnold Schwarzenegger, at which Nick and Rachel convulsed in fits of laughter.

  “Okay…” Nick held up his hands finally in a gesture of acquiescence. “I see why you might make the comparison.”

  “Will you show me how to make pipe bombs and stuff?”

  “Jean!”

  Nick laughed again, shaking his head. “Ah…no. While we’re all here, I better check in with Grace again. It will have to be a short call. If they’re under surveillance, a long conversation will put us in danger.”

  “You didn’t give Grace a chance to speak last night.”

  “I gave her the highlights. This time you and Jean talk to her. I’ll get the phone and connect for you. Don’t say anything revealing,” Nick directed on his way out of the kitchen.

  Rachel wondered as she watched Nick leave the room if pipe bombs and stuff were in their immediate future.

  * * * *

  Nick rigged his satellite phone to a small attachment with a blinking green light. He had decided to take no more chances with forces outside his control. He brought the altered phone with him into the room where Rachel and Jean waited.

  “Everything’s fine until this light turns red.” Nick showed both Rachel and Jean the phone. “Hit this button if or when it turns red.”

  When they nodded their understanding, Nick made the connection. Tim answered the phone.

  “Tim, we’ve reached the destination and I’m -”

  “Nick, what the hell’s going on!?”

  “Like I told Grace last night, we were in danger, and I knew a safe place to go.”

  “Let me talk to Kim.”

  “Here she is.” Nick handed the phone to Rachel, noting the less-than-friendly tone of Tim’s voice. Into each life a little rain must fall, Marshall Dillon.

  Nick pointed at the light again before handing the phone to Rachel, and going into the living room. He switched on the television set, listening with one ear to the conversation in the kitchen. Nick had been reluctant to check the news, more worried than he let on about the Bakersfield incident. As he suspected, grainy videos and camera shots of him in action were highlighting every major news broadcast. He breathed a sigh of relief when it became apparent no one had any clue as to who he was. Rachel came in and handed the phone to Nick with the green light still blinking.

  “Wherever you are, stay there, Nick,” Grace’s voice told him. “We’re still compromised. You were right to leave. Did you use any credit cards getting where you were going?”

  “No, cash only, everywhere,” Nick replied, glad someone was taking this seriously.

  “Do you have enough to stay out of sight for a while?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Can you update us and stay in touch? We’re working all the angles right now, but there’ve been some complications. I’m sorry we dragged your ass into this, Nick; but it seems you’re a lot more than you appear, old buddy. Any thoughts?”

  “Like do I have a red cape tucked away somewhere? The answer is no.”

  Grace laughed. “No, but I must admit, Tim has come up with some interesting coincidences involving you and your overseas travels.”

  Uh oh.

  “If I keep partnering up with you and Tim, I may not even be alive much longer. Maybe you and Timmy should concentrate more on who’s trying to kill us, and less about bestselling authors, namely me.”

  “Fair enough,” Grace allowed. “Maybe you could give us a little more direction, Mr. Big Time.”

  “Let me get back to you on that, Grace. Rachel and I are working on a course of action you and Tim would have to be a part of to make it work. How long do you think we need to lay low?”

  “Oh, it’s Rachel now, is it? Can you keep your heads down for at least two weeks? We’re close to sealing up our agency and looking for branches into it.”

  Nick considered the two-week time frame, glancing over at Rachel and Jean, who were avidly watching news coverage of the Bakersfield stunt. “Two weeks might be doable. Did you make any headway with the shooter from our night on the town?”

  “Yeah, about him…ah…he had a little accident, Nick. We -”

  “I’ll bet he did.” Nick cut her off. “I hope to hell you’re putting everyone who even sneezed his way under a microscope.”

  “Tim and I are out in the wind a bit right now.”

  “Well, either start flying kites or get into the cellar kiddies. There’s a storm on its way.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you and Timmy better figure out what line can’t be crossed. We all know there are some bad people involved in this. If the two of you want to stay safe let me know now.”

  “Am I ever going to know who the hell you really are?” Grace asked with only a slight trace of resentment.

  “Absolutely.” If I’m dead.

  * * * *

  “Is this your morning surprise? I thought you hated the desert.” Rachel looked around at the forbidding landscape as she walked with Nick, Jean, and Deke away from the Cadillac Escalade, parked well off the main route.

  “Did we have to get up before dawn?” Jean added.

  Even Deke voiced a quick ‘gruff’.

  The dim light barely gave the group enough illumination to walk safely along the mostly level hard-packed surface. They walked together over the desert moonscape with Deke wandering far and wide around them, examining every hole, crevice or shrub. Silence was palpable. The motley group created the only audible sounds while walking along. Nick carried a pack weighing over eighty pounds, with Rachel shouldering a much smaller one.

  Nick grinned at his soon-to-be sniper team. “Unfortunately, we need to do this at least every other day until we leave for Florida. I have an area set up already, where we can be relatively certain not to be disturbed, and we won’t start deep frying until later in the morning. I told you it was a surprise because of the way you two are reacting now. Every day we do this, and no one complains, we go to the waterslides in Sin City after we get back. Any complaints, and we sit in the house and mope all day.”

  “Waterslides!” Jean yelped, dancing around with Deke joining her, while nipping at Jean’s cuffs.

  “That’s a pretty neat bribe. What do I get? Can I go to the casinos?”

 
“Oh sure.” Nick gestured at the sky in supplication. “I’ll send you over to the most intensively videoed area in all of creation, where security cameras are so high tech, they reproduce themselves every five seconds.”

  “Ah…point taken, waterslides it is,” Rachel replied. “Couldn’t Jean and I have waited for you at the house? Devil dog could keep you company.”

  “I’m going to train you in spotting and shooting, Wonder Woman,” Nick explained. “Can you get your head around that?”

  Nick noticed how Rachel clamped her lips together by force of will, as he imagined every anti-gun, peace at any risk, Kum-Ba-Ya cliché she’d ever heard threatening to pour out of her mouth. Nick saw the inner battle being waged and pulled out the card he had been saving.

  “Think of watching Tanus through a spotter scope, knowing he would never order another death ever again. It’s no different than ordering me out in Bakersfield to help the cop.”

  “Going on offense has done wonders curing my tendency toward insomnia.” Rachel nodded in agreement. “I’ll do what I can but I hate having Jean with us.”

  “Hey!” Jean chirped, yanking on Rachel’s arm. “I’m part of this Terminator team too.”

  “I’m going straight to hell,” Rachel whispered, covering her face.

  Twenty minutes later as they walked around a small rock formation, Nick stopped. He took off his pack in a spot shaded by the small hill. He pointed across the small sloping valley of sand and rocks to another craggy upheaval of boulders. Nick knew it looked only a few hundred yards away, but in actuality was nearer to a mile distant.

  “You’ll be able to see the targets I have set up across the way better once I give you the spotting scope. I have two scopes, Missy Connor, so you’ll be able to watch and spot too.”

  “Cool!” Jean exclaimed. “What’s a spotting scope?”

  Nick helped Rachel out of her pack, and unloaded the three small cases he had put into it. He opened the larger of the cases and removed the spotting scope.

  “This is a Leupold Mark 4 spotting scope.” Nick spent the next few minutes explaining the basics of using it, refraining from burying his audience in details.

  Nick gave Jean the smaller, but very powerful, digital range-finding binoculars he had brought along, schooling her on how to use them and estimate distances. Next, Nick unpacked his M107 Barrett.50-caliber long range rifle with special silencer for noise suppression, setting it up firmly in the packed ground at their feet. He then steadied the spotting scope on its tripod near him and handed Rachel yet another digital tool.

  “This is a Kestrel 4500 wind and weather meter. If the wind whips up a little in about an hour, you’ll see the differences it makes in a 1500 meter shot without correction. It also reads wind direction, temperature, relative humidity, altitude, and a bunch more items you’ll get used to checking,” Nick explained. Both Rachel and Jean were listening raptly to him while glancing at the sniper rifle with a mixture of excitement and fear. “I have six four-inch-thick cast iron plates anchored at various spots against the rock wall over there. See if you two can find them through your scope and binoculars.”

  Once Nick showed Rachel and Jean how to make minuscule movements, in scanning for targets within invisible quadrants, they were able to pinpoint each of the plates within minutes. Nick took three earmuff type protectors out of his pack and helped Rachel and Jean put theirs on. He also handed out safety glasses.

  “My silencer here will reduce the noise so it won’t bother Deke at all. The ear covers are for safety. I’ll hit the plate all the way on the left first. The spot in the middle, gouged out the most by prior shots, is my target. I’ll hit the target first and then the dirt near it. Try and gauge how far off my miss is. Tell me when you have the target in sight. Don’t look away from the target. You will hear the discharge and a moment later see the hit.”

  Nick donned his vest with shoulder pad and made ready to fire. Rachel and Jean told him they had the target in sight. Nick fired. The plate jolted from the concussion. Nick had hit the plate inside the already gouged middle. He shot a second time and dust kicked up near the plate.

  “You hit two feet to the right, and three inches below center,” Rachel said.

  “Very good.” Nick was impressed with Rachel’s concentration in spotting the missed hit amidst the dirt explosion. “How’d it look to you Jean?”

  “I saw a lot of dirt fly. I think I blinked.”

  Nick laughed. “It happens.” He noted that Deke had taken up a position next to him in spite of the sudden sound. “The barrel heats with every shot and accuracy diminishes slightly. You two take turns spotting and calling out the target you want hit. I’ll fire at your choice. Keep glancing down at the wind and weather meter Rachel so we can track gradual changes over the next half hour.”

  After completing all he had planned for the day, Nick packed up his gear, and passed out cold water and trail mix. Deke received a small plastic bowl of water and some food Nick had packed in a baggy. When they were ready to begin hiking back to the Escalade, Nick showed them the digital compass built into the Kestrel 4500. He also pulled out his plain plastic Sunto compass, going over the differences.

  “We’ll map our way out here day after tomorrow using a terrain map,” Nick added, fending off Deke, as the dog snapped at the loose pack straps waving around as Nick moved. “I think we made a good start today.”

  “I hope we have some kids in the neighborhood,” Jean said. “I’m getting tired of hanging out with you two. This Terminator stuff’s pretty cool, but it’s hard work.”

  “Maybe you’ll meet some locals at the waterslides. I never paid much attention to the neighbors around my place so I’m not sure if they have kids or not. As the good Terminator, I’m hurt you no longer wish to hang out with me.”

  “Don’t worry, Mom’ll help you over the rough spots.”

  “Jean!”

  Chapter Eight

  Choices

  “This is wonderful.” Rachel gestured at the inside of the cabana, featuring plasma television, refrigerator, and ceiling fan. “Thanks for the wardrobe, you pervert.”

  Nick glanced over at Rachel from his lounger next to her, admiring the black bikini with very little material. Oh yeah. “You’re welcome. Man, am I lucky the Excalibur had this cabana available for rent.”

  “Jean can be a bit difficult when she has her mind set on one thing and it doesn’t work out.” Rachel laughed. She looked out at the giant pool with splashing children and adults with what Nick thought was satisfaction. “At least you found a place with lots of kids.”

  “Tell me about it. How was I to know they closed the ‘Wet & Wild’ back in ‘04?”

  “Are we taking a big chance coming here?”

  Nick shrugged. “I have the beard going a little. With this ball cap, I doubt any book fans will recognize me. It’s not like I’m a movie star.”

  “I don’t know.” Rachel turned on her side, lowered her sunglasses and peered speculatively at Nick. “You look pretty good in swim trunks, Psycho, six pack and all. Navy blue is your color. Growing the beard does make a difference, especially since you razor trimmed it. I was surprised you had a whole other identity here.”

  “It wouldn’t do much good to hide out in a place under my real name.”

  “Ouch! I was just making conversation. What in the world made you pick Roscoe Weatherby?”

  “Roscoe Nikolas Weatherby to you. It took me a while to establish the residence and driver’s license under the Roscoe name, so show some respect. Don’t forget, you’ll have to pick out a different name if you’re asked around here. I was thinking you can get away with Rachel Weatherby.”

  “I like it.” Rachel reached over and stroked Nick’s thigh. “Jean’s excited. She ran into a little girl and her brother who live around the block from you on Ketchikan Street. They knew Fort Bowie Street right away when Jean mentioned it. The brother’s her age and the sister is only a year and a half older.”

  �
�Oh good.” Nick shook his head, looking up at the sky, his thigh feeling as if it were on fire. “This is what happens when I assume facts not in evidence, like the need to not volunteer information to strangers. My bad.”

  “I was playing around with them in the pool and I happened to mention your house was on Ft. Bowie. I’m sorry, Nick.”

  “Forget it. Stop stroking my thigh.” Nick turned toward her, breaking contact. “Any more of that and I won’t fit in my trunks. We’ll get better at this. I have to think like I’m not alone. It takes some getting used to. You didn’t meet the parents and invite them over for dinner or anything, did you?”

  “No!” Rachel reached for Nick, but had her hand enveloped in his instead. “I said hello to their Mom. They pay for access to the Excalibur pool. She wasn’t real friendly after hearing we had rented a cabana. How are you paying for all this, Nick?”

  “I have credit cards to go with Roscoe, but only as a reference when they demand it. I pay cash. Trust us psychos to be flush with cash. We’re also paranoid to a fault about leaving financial trails. I keep a fund here at the local Citicorp bank, too, under my Roscoe ID.”

  “I want you,” Rachel whispered.

  “I’m not that easy,” Nick responded casually while trying to keep from jumping Rachel right there in the cabana. Lord have mercy, did that ever sound good. “Okay… maybe I am. I’m disappointed in you though.”

  “Huh?”

  “You never questioned me at all so far about my taking you and Jean out in the desert.”

  “I’ve accepted my need-to-know position.” Rachel pulled Nick’s hand over to her bare side. “Being two steps behind in this from the beginning gave me an inferiority complex.”

  “I like your instincts.” Nick ran his hand lightly over Rachel’s hip. “There’s nothing inferior about you. This will hurt a bit, but Rick gave up the Sarasota safety deposit box location and your maiden name on it.”

  Rachel swung her legs over the lounger and sat up, grasping Nick’s hand in both hers. “What do you know?”