by Peter Darley
“But we haven’t done anything,” she said. “Once they find that out, they’ll let us go.”
“We’re dealing with psychopathic, corrupt officials. If the police take us in, they’ll come for us and we’ll be killed.”
Belinda shuddered. Seeing nowhere to run, they remained where they stood, unarmed and helpless, with the sound of the sirens growing ever closer.
Twenty-Eight
Labyrinth
“Oh, my God, Brandon, they’re coming!” Belinda shrieked.
He looked around him, listening intently, but the sirens were coming from all directions. He realized he’d made the right decision using public transportation to get them to L.A. If they’d used the van, it may have been spotted by the police. Even if they’d got away, the license plate could have identified the location from which it had been purchased. That would’ve been two vans they’d know about that came from Aspen.
However, without transportation, he had no idea how they were going to escape from the side street. It was a no-win situation.
Taking Belinda’s hand, he chanced heading toward his immediate right where the sirens sounded marginally quieter. “Come on,” he said, and hurried toward a side street.
Belinda struggled to keep up with him, but she managed to keep a tight grip on his hand as he led her toward a labyrinth of side streets.
“We’ve got to lose ourselves and lay low,” he said. “We need to look different, so we’ve got to find somewhere to change clothes.”
They found themselves in a remote suburb that showed a sudden rift between the corporate areas and an off-beat impoverished zone. Their desperate flight continued, propelling them into the shadows.
Payne’s eyes opened. He found himself slumped on the hard concrete landing of the fire exit’s first floor. It took him several moments to realize what had happened. Unaware of how long he’d been unconscious, the fear of capture caused his adrenaline to surge.
He stood as quickly as he could manage. The blood drained from his head, and his disorientation caused him to stagger.
He picked up his pistol from the floor, and made his way down the last flight of steps using the railing to brace himself. Regardless of his condition, his obsessive need to catch Drake overcame his reason.
He edged out of the exit. Carefully peering along either side of the street, he saw that all was clear, save for the persistent sound of the sirens.
He turned to the right and moved toward a lane. He conjectured Drake and Reese wouldn’t have dared to risk exposure on the main thoroughfare with so many police around. As he entered the inlet, he inhaled in an attempt to clear his head. Once he’d regained his senses, he moved forward, his pistol grasped firmly.
***
A team of ten police officers from the Los Angeles Police Department, attired in riot gear, approached Kevin Hobson in Studio 5. Tara had concluded the broadcast in a hurry, her delivery notably impaired by the trauma of the events.
Hobson struggled to process what had happened. He pondered his public statement, although he was finding it difficult to focus.
LAPD’s Chief of Police, Jared Tepper, gestured for his men to apprehend the two remaining, disoriented gunmen as a priority.
A seasoned veteran of the police force in his late forties, Tepper’s eyes possessed a long-since-honed, penetrating stare. His past dealings with Hobson had resulted in a strained relationship. Discussions regarding countless crime reports, newsworthy stories, and what incidents should be kept under wraps, had led to numerous disagreements.
Within moments, the two remaining assassins were pulled to their feet, handcuffed, and read their rights.
Tepper turned to Hobson. “I wanna talk to you. What the hell did you think you were doing?”
“We exercised our First Amendment rights, that’s what. I’m in the clear, Jared,” Hobson said.
“You were harboring a fugitive wanted by the FBI, and an AWOL soldier. In so doing, you recklessly endangered the lives of every man and woman in this room.”
“They were going to give themselves up right after the broadcast. And would you mind telling me how the hell putting them on the air live can be considered harboring them? You’re walking into a legal gray zone here. Freedom of the press is constitutionally sacrosanct.”
Tepper exhaled, realizing he had no case, although he didn’t buy the line about Drake and Reese planning to give themselves up. “Just look around you. It’s only by a goddamn miracle nobody was killed.”
“We gave them a chance to give us an honest interview about what’s really going on and this is what we got.” Hobson gestured to the carnage around him. “How the hell could anyone expect to know this was going to happen?”
Tepper conceded reluctantly, but knew he was wasting time. “Where did they go?”
Hobson glanced at the exit door. “I think they headed out down the fire escape. If you ask me, they didn’t have any choice. That third psycho went right out after them with a loaded gun in his hand.”
“How long ago?”
Hobson shrugged. “I don’t know . . . four, maybe five minutes ago.”
Tepper turned to his subordinates. “All right, men, they can’t have gotten far. I want all of you out of the studio and down that fire escape. Cover every street, side lane, back yard, and garage. And set up roadblocks within a two mile radius.”
The officers ran across to the exit, climbed down the fire escape, and split up in the street. Three headed out to the left. Four took to the right to join up with their colleagues outside the front of the building. The remaining three took the side lane.
***
Payne revived to the extent he could walk with a brisker motion, and continued through the maze of streets. He listened intently for any sound or the barest hint of footsteps, but he couldn’t hear anything. Drake could have lost himself anywhere in a sprawling, urban environment such as this.
He paused for a moment to catch his breath, and heard footsteps running behind him.
Bracing himself behind the wall, he peered around to see three police officers running in his direction a considerable distance away.
He took another side lane, broke into a slow run, and managed to turn into another street at the moment the officers passed the exit. He held his pistol next to his chest with the unhesitant intention of killing any who might discover him.
Deep into the backstreets, Brandon and Belinda knew they were lost. That gave Brandon a moderate advantage. If they didn’t know where they were, there was more of a chance nobody else knew where they were, either.
They stopped in the shadows of a warehouse alcove to catch their breath. “We can’t rest for long, baby,” he said.
“I know.”
“First, we need to find somewhere to change into casual clothes. If those assholes hadn’t burst in and screwed everything up, we could’ve caught a cab and we’d be at Union Station by now. We’re losing time.”
She looked at him perturbed. “What do you mean?”
“We’re in deep. Every second that ticks by is a second that makes us more recognizable than ever. Our second appearance on TV creates even more people who know what we look like. We’ve got to grab the first opportunity to change our appearance again. I can’t tell you how much of a priority that is.”
“Then we’re wasting time. Come on,” she said, despite her exhaustion.
He was relieved by her insistence. He’d stopped purely for her sake, but her eagerness had clearly superseded her weariness. “So glad you said that.”
They continued running, the dusk sky providing an increasingly effective cover. However, they both knew the police could be around any corner.
In the distance, almost two miles from where they’d started they saw an old, derelict building.
“We could change clothes in there,” Brandon said. “It’ll be dark inside, but that’ll help as a cover.”
“What if the police are waiting for us inside?”
“I’ll che
ck it out first. We have to take the chance. Just keep behind me.”
She reached forward, held onto his back-stretched hand and continued.
As they came within two hundred yards of the building, they stopped. The surrounding area resembled a war zone. There were two burned out cars and litter scattered all around. The building showed signs of fire scorching, and almost every window had been vandalized. The location offered an aura of menace, and Brandon had no idea where they’d stumbled into.
They made two steps farther forward, and Belinda screamed. A line of switchblades appeared before their eyes. Shining, silver edges of death were ejected, one by one, from their hand grips.
Twenty-Nine
Gangland
Belinda gasped as six hard-looking gang members stood before them. Their cold, unflinching gazes conveyed the message they intended to slice them to shreds.
“Get behind me!” Brandon bellowed to her.
A tall black man thrust his switchblade toward them. “Drop the bag!”
Brandon experienced a surge of panic. The police were pursuing them from behind. Ahead was a street gang threatening to kill them unless they surrendered the equipment they needed to escape from Los Angeles. The situation was hopeless, but he couldn’t allow anything to happen to Belinda. The thought of harm coming to her was beyond his capacity to even contemplate.
An instinct came over him and he stepped back with the speed of a cheetah, his left foot falling into a perfectly-balanced stance. Casting the backpack behind him, his consciousness gave way to something akin to autopilot. His right leg flew into the air and curved inwardly. The edge of his foot flashed across the line of switchblades causing each one to fly from the hands of their assailants. The knives landed ten feet away.
The six thugs were momentarily startled, with their weapons out of reach. They turned their attention back to Brandon. The black male lunged for him first.
Brandon sidestepped him with ease and threw the blade of his right hand into his attacker’s throat. The man fell to the ground gasping for air. Brandon thought the oxygen must have left his brain because he fell unconscious within moments.
A Caucasian youth displaying a moderately muscular physique was almost upon Brandon. An explosive kick to the chest sent the kid crashing onto the hood of a burned out BMW.
Through her terror, Belinda noticed the scar on Brandon’s forehead throbbing. His eyes once again assumed their chilling glare of unbridled hatred.
He leaped into the air, as he had done in Wyoming, and executed that same dazzling, acrobatic spin-kick into the jaws of two gang members. With shattered teeth, they fell to the ground senselessly.
She couldn’t help her amazement at how he’d managed to take down four of them already, and all within a few fleeting seconds. He moved so quickly. If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she wouldn’t have thought such feats were humanly possible.
She saw a Hispanic gang member drawing a pistol from underneath his jacket. “Brandon, he’s got a gun!”
But Brandon was upon the man before he could even aim. He wrapped his arm around his opponent’s, locking the firearm past the back of him, beyond the range of his body. As Brandon grasped the gunman’s throat, the shock caused his finger to accidentally depress the trigger. The bullet struck his friend behind them squarely in the chest.
Belinda covered her ears against the deafening sound of the gunshot. The young man fell to the floor grasping his wound with crimson spurts coating his fingertips. He glanced at the blood for a moment before slipping away.
Brandon pressed the palm of his hand against his opponent’s chin, forcing his head backward, and hurled him to the ground. The impact caused the thug to loosen his grip on the gun. Brandon took it from him and cast it aside. He pummeled his fists into the man’s face repeatedly, leaving his nose broken, his jaw disfigured, and his face bloodied.
Despite the fact that the man was unconscious, Brandon seized the pistol beside him and trained it toward the assailant’s forehead.
“Brandon, no!” Belinda cried.
A flash came before Brandon’s eyes. He appeared to be in some kind of warehouse, or aircraft hangar. There was a bare-chested man ahead of him, with his arms above his head, suspended by ropes. Brandon recognized him as a captured operative for an al Qaida-Taliban hybrid group. Brandon’s unit had been interrogating him in Afghanistan for information regarding the whereabouts of a terrorist cell in the desert, just outside Helmand Province. The incident had taken place on the day before the explosion, which had caused his head injury and re-assignment to Mach Industries.
But the events had not transpired as he was now seeing them. He sensed a cruel rage possessing him. A bloodlust. He felt as though he was laughing at the unbridled terror in the eyes of the captive, and sensed the gun in his hand was no longer a gun. It was a blow torch.
His friends, including David Spicer, were in the hanger with him. They were pleading with him to stop. He could barely make out the echo of their voices behind him:
Drake, this isn’t the way. Don’t do this. We’re not like them.
We’ve got to stop him.
How? You know what he can do.
We can’t afford to be under a fuckin’ Abu Ghraib inquest, Spicer. We’ve got to do something.
There was also someone else in the room. Brandon could feel it. It felt like his grandfather, but that was impossible. His grandfather had died when he was a boy. The entire scene was impossible. It wasn’t Brandon in the hanger either, but he could see himself and feel it as though it was.
In the vision, he came closer to the captured terrorist with the blow torch, and could feel the heat radiating from the blue flame. The man before him screamed even before he touched him, but nothing was going to deter him. He continued forward as the captive braced himself for the searing pain.
Brandon came back to reality, the vision of the restrained prisoner replaced by the unconscious hoodlum on the ground. Disturbed and disoriented, he dropped the gun and shook his head.
“A-are you all right?” Belinda said as she approached him with the backpack.
Shaken, he tried to explain to himself what he’d seen in his mind. “I-I don’t know. I just saw . . . something. I don’t know what it was.”
“What? What did you see?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, desperately trying to assimilate the vision. “It was me . . . But it wasn’t me. I don’t know how else to describe it.”
“Brandon, there’s no time for this. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“You’re right. I’m going to check out that building.”
She followed him as he carefully edged along the side of the deserted factory. It was growing darker by the minute, and the aura of menace that persisted in this place was oppressive.
They looked inside through a broken window. There was no sign of life, and no sounds they could hear, although there was still the continual wail of sirens in the distance.
“I think it’s OK,” he whispered. “Let’s just get in there and change out of this smart gear.”
“OK.”
Hurriedly, they made their way around to the side of the building and stepped inside the dark, dank, foreboding interior.
Having heard the gunfire earlier from two streets behind, Payne headed in the direction it had come from with his pistol drawn.
He came to an abrupt halt at the sight of six unconscious thugs on the ground and then carefully made his way forward. He picked up a gun which lay beside an unconscious man and slipped it into his pants. He wasn’t about to risk the guy coming around and taking a shot at him.
The young hoodlum groaned insensibly as Payne knelt down beside him. Payne grasped him by the lapels with one hand, and held his own gun against the kid’s jaw with the other. “What happened? Who did this to you?”
“D-don’t kill me, man,” the kid stammered weakly.
“I’m not going to kill you. Just tell me who did this.”
�
��Some guy. N-not . . . human.”
“Not human? What the fuck are you talking about? Was he alone?”
The punk shook his head slowly.
“Who was with him?”
“Some blonde girl.”
Payne was momentarily silent. It was obvious these thugs had tried to roll Drake, who, in turn, had literally wiped the floor with all six of them, single-handedly. This was far beyond Payne’s own combat capabilities, or those of any other man he knew. It raised an alarming question. Why would Treadwell have put him up against someone as lethal as this? “Did you see where they went?”
The kid shook his head again, and Payne coldly cast him back down. He stood quickly and made his way across to the building.
Brandon and Belinda drew their casual wear out of the backpack, shivering with the cold interior of the dilapidated structure. Their feeling of vulnerability, being almost naked in such a dangerous environment with the authorities on their trail, hastened their pace.
The building was damp and dusty. Even the slightest move echoed throughout the vast, empty space. Rows of pillars lined the reception areas, with rusted tools and mechanical equipment scattered around. Brandon assumed it was part of an old car manufacturing plant, but it was difficult to be sure in the darkness.
Two offices in the main area, and the remains of a restroom with toilets and sinks, had long-since been vandalized.
They re-dressed themselves, replaced their business shoes with sneakers, and then crudely crammed their suits into the backpack.
He handed her a baseball cap and her dark wig. “There’s no way I can do the prosthetics in here, so we’re gonna have to keep our heads down.”
“OK.”
Images of what he’d seen in the vision persistently haunted him, but he knew his priority was getting Belinda to safety.
