With an awkward smack he dove back into the water. Working his skin and muscles loose with each stroke, he reached the tunnel’s opening. After rising to the surface for another deep breath he broached it head-first, like everything else in his life, for better or worse.
~~~
His mind sharpened as the water filtered the last of the murky light from the outside world. Subtle currents tugged at his clothing. He surrendered to them while progressing with full, even strokes. After nearly thirty seconds below the surface an idea occurred to him. Taking the sonic gun from its holster, he fired it into the pitch black water. A solitary red light flashed, the grip vibrating.
Several more times he fired. As long as no rebounding waves washed past, he kept moving straight. When they did, he corrected. Following a twinkling of light, a faint wink, he thought a mirage, he reached a pocket of air moments before instinct overrode mind. Assaulted by the echo of a subterranean pool, he gulped down several breaths before opening his eyes.
Far above his head a handful of pinhole lights twinkled. The effect filled Starr with a strange home sickness for worry-free nights under star-filled skies. The urge to lay fully unfurled on a scratchy wool blanket with Daisy’s warmth curled tightly against his own possessed him—the smells of sticky skin and love-making spinning in his head. It wasn’t just the urge for consummation, but the longing for confession—to be visible to and with another. Daisy.
His consciousness pulsed with it, like she’d sparked a beacon within him, showing the way to her. He swam another several yards in the darkness before finding the submersible, docked and waiting for its owner’s return. Having locked onto Daisy’s presence, Starr climbed from the water and tracked them on foot. He embraced the odd confidence budding in him like a kernel of corn, one forgotten kernel among hundreds of others, aware of its smallness yet fully consumed by its singular passion to be buried in order to multiply a hundred fold.
The pieces, with all their jagged edges, fell into place with clarity. The same thing that drove himself, had been driving his rival. Is all about family, Oleg had said. That was the card Ms. Lloyd held over Oleg making their feud personal. She promised something Oleg couldn’t refuse. In return she needed him to be the bogey man, kindle the peoples’ fears until they’d gladly cling to the savior of her design. Namely, one James Starr, governor elect.
Oleg and all his murderous intent had been fueled by Ms. Lloyd—the fires, the auction, the money. The truth blossomed. Of course she would have to replace any money lost from her vault. But she had replaced it already. The largest counterfeiting operation in U.S. history, and Oleg’s role was to divert and destroy. Lickter’s was to handle, while his own was to unknowingly unite the people in support of the culprit. His was the least excusable role of all.
Bend after bend of the tunnel he came closer to the full truth. He, Oleg and Lickter shared G.W.’s stage. But as obvious as the need for returning to the Grandview was the stark reality that even Ms. Lloyd danced for someone. Someone, or a group of someones, had built the tunnels and the towers. Their intent had not yet born mature fruit. Starr felt himself a bud on the vine. Ms. Lloyd had begun to mature before him, but he was determined to come to fruition more quickly.
He stopped suddenly in the all-consuming darkness, as if the forgotten pulse of the sonic gun had finally returned to warn him of imminent danger. Muffled thuds and distant vibrations spoke of life outside his cocoon. He shivered, still dripping wet, and thought wistfully of a warm towel and a cup of Ms. Lloyd’s Turkish coffee. Taking another step, he kicked something. He stooped to discover an electric lantern covered in something sticky. Flicking its switch, a dim yellow beam splashed against the far wall, pushing back the shadows.
Squinting and cupping his hand in front of the beam, he recognized the sticky substance as blood. Adjusting to the light, he discovered a shred of golden gown stuffed in a crumbling mortar joint between two stones—the second piece of Daisy’s dress he’d seen in the last several hours. He hoped the rest was still in her spirited possession. Quickened by the thought, he doubled his pace.
Maybe Lickter had caught Oleg off guard and hauled him off to fulfill his role in G.W.’s morbid human drama, or possibly Oleg continued to stack the deck in his favor. Either way, Daisy held the key. Only she could save him from the spark of ambition coursing through his blood. He felt the twin streams of humility and vanity clashing internally, a water spout erupting from his soul. Only Daisy’s faith could quench his insecurities.
Navigating the tunnels like a bronco’s back, he felt each twist and turn before it happened. Moments after finding the lamp, he stood gawking at a pair of smooth metal doors. Identical to the elevator doors of the Grandview building and with the same singular keyhole to their right, he recognized them instantly. But the key?
He’d anticipated some sort of hidden door with a bull’s head or some similar mechanism. Cursing his stupidity, he caught a glint through the corner of his eye. Directing the handheld light, he discovered a key cast there like a breadcrumb. Maybe he’d done it out of self-preservation, but the sheriff was nothing if not shrewd. He grabbed the key, fit it in the hole and turned it.
Standing back, he aimed the sonic gun while bracing it with the light in his off hand. Behind the closed doors he heard the mechanisms of the lift engage, smoothly dropping the closet downward. In the seconds he had to think, he couldn’t decide if he wished it to be empty or hoped to find Oleg staring back through cold eyes. Player or no, he knew this time he wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. And with the sonic gun, even he couldn’t miss.
The lift drifted slowly into place, initiating the final process of opening. A narrow thread of light split the doors as they slid silently away until the dancing beam of light in Starr’s hand reflected off a golden, sparkling heap crouched in the corner. Before he could lower the light, the occupant of the dress burst from the lift with outstretched nails and a blood-freezing shriek.
TWENTY-FOUR
Endgame
Attempting to both surrender and defend himself, Starr stumbled backward while catching Daisy’s bound wrists. Her fingernails slashed at his eyes. “Daisy!” He choked on her name, not having spoken since the life drained from Willy.
Still tense, she ceased struggling enough to brush the hair from her face. “James.” She threw her bound wrists over his head and snuggled against him like a tie. He longed to envelope her, but before he could complete the embrace, she stiffened. “You were dead.”
He tried to smile, but his eyes wouldn’t crinkle right and his chapped lips split with the effort. “I feel like I still am.”
“Well, Senator—”
He clutched her shoulders. “I thought the same about you once today.”
“Me?” She rolled her eyes. “I was never in danger. I’ve got three fathers making sure of that.”
Starr was stung and confused at the same time. “But I… three?”
She banged her fists into his chest. “Never mind.” Standing, she gripped the restraints in her teeth and mumbled throughout her efforts to loosen them.
He stood on his own after holstering the sonic gun and switching off the lamp. “Daisy, I’m sorry.”
“Starr.” She held up her wrists, allowing him to help her. “I’m relieved you’re not dead. Really. Take that as a win and help me save my Father.”
He stripped the lashing from around one wrist. She quickly seized upon the other while backing into the elevator. Biding his time, he nodded and took what she was willing to offer. “How did you—”
“I don’t know. Oleg clocked me and I must have woke up when you pushed the button for the lift. Sorry about the eye gouging. I hope I didn’t—”
“No harm.”
“Because you look horrible.”
“Thanks.” He inserted the key and pressed the button for the third floor. Daisy raised an inquisitive brow. “Time to gain some perspective, don’t you think?”
The doors slid shut, a distant mot
or tugging the elevator upward. “My father can be annoying, but I love him, and I’m not leaving him with that—”
“Ms. Lloyd’s in on it. All of it was her idea.”
Daisy froze, her mouth still open. “My father?”
Starr shook his head. “He’s helping her. There’s no other answer.”
“But why?”
“The money. She’s counterfeited the whole bundle.”
“And if Oleg destroys the evidence—”
“Exactly. That doesn’t mean your father isn’t in danger, but we have to find out what we’re heading into first.” Starr drew the sonic gun from its holster. “I think I know how.”
The elevator began to slow. “But the third floor is G.W.’s personal office, right?” Starr raised an inquisitive brow. Daisy nodded. “There is no G.W. is there?”
Starr smiled. “Oh there is. Gwendolyn—”
“Winifryd—”
“Lloyd.” They finished the name together as the lift slid to a complete stop.
“Stand back.” Starr attempted to shield her.
“Please, Senator.” Daisy brushed past him as the doors opened, striding straight for the service bar across the room. Within seconds she’d draped a gun belt around her narrow waist, spun the cylinder of a .38 Tri-star, clicked it shut and holstered it.
Starr restrained the urge to chuckle, the dry skin around his face cracking with even a slight grin. “You sure you wouldn’t rather…” he indicated the sonic gun and its shoulder holster.
“I’m using the last notch. And no, if I gotta shoot someone holding my father, I don’t want to burst his ears. He already pretends he can’t hear me.” She shifted the loose belt. “No one makes a gun belt for the petite woman these days.”
Starr lost it, but his chuckle quickly degrading into a coughing grimace, the warm taste of iron oozing from his lips. “Maybe you and Ms. Lloyd can do something about that. But for now—”
“We’ve got to save my father.”
Starr threw open the double doors to G.W.’s office. “I’ve got a plan.”
“Really?”
Starr shrugged. “Sure. Why not?” He took a seat behind the wooden desk and hit a button on a built in console. “Seen these anywhere?”
“Sure. It’s an intercom system.”
“The radiola made me wonder, if voice can be amplified, why not transmitted?”
“And?” She failed to see the genius.
“Why not without people’s knowledge?”
“Oohh, how wonderfully creepy.”
Starr spun the volume knob all the way up and progressed through a series of buttons labeled with a system that gradually made sense. Some connected with nothing but static, while others with too many voices to discern. 1WB1 revealed a jumble of what sounded like women in hysterics. 1WB2 had been quiet. Finally a button labeled 1WB3 crackled with the sound of Oleg’s thick Ukrainian accent. “Good. Soon show will begin.”
“And the sheriff?”
“Leave him here. I will deal with him. Keep looking for Ms. Lloyd. I prefer she watch.”
A movement caught Starr’s attention. Pushing the chair back, he stood and drew his weapon.
“He won’t find me, although it appears you two have.” Ms. Lloyd glided into the room, still looking magnanimous, if haggard. “I see great minds think alike.”
“What? Yours and Oleg’s?” Starr lowered his weapon but kept it ready.
“Hardly.” Ms. Lloyd stood across the desk from them. “I meant it as a compliment, but if you’re going to get nasty, perhaps I could inquire as to why you’ve broken into my office instead of assuming you’re here to stop a madman and save your father.” She shifted her cold stare between the two of them.
What had chilled Starr earlier in the day only boiled his blood now. “Neither you or Lickter are very high on my list currently.” Daisy tugged on his arm. “But the sheriff is Daisy’s father and so I’d die to save him if it’s what she wanted.”
“James.” Daisy barely whispered his name as Starr continued unabated.
“As for you,” he shrugged, “we’ve entered an arrangement I intend to keep. Thanks to all this nastiness, as you like to call it, I’ve seen how you regard arrangements. For that, and only that, I’m grateful to Oleg. But to simplify, yes, the plan is to ensure the immediate death of the professor and the continued life of Daisy’s father.”
“Very good.” Ms. Lloyd sat. “The com link you are listening to?”
Daisy responded. “1WB3. It’s the woman’s bank on the first floor, isn’t it?”
Ms. Lloyd smiled. “WB1 is the teller’s area behind the counter. Two is the powder room while 3 is the lobby.”
“The tellers are being held behind the counter, the powder room is empty and Lickter seems to be in the lobby with Oleg and his student minions.” Starr finally holstered the sonic gun, offering Ms. Lloyd’s chair to her. “You tell me how to get in, and I’ll do the rest.”
“We.” Daisy interrupted.
Starr hesitated for a moment, then with full resolution stepped into the embrace he’d been reserving for this moment his entire adult life. Clutching Daisy to him at the small of her back with both hands, he stooped and used his chin to raise her lips to meet his. The need for preserving life, along with the need for propagating it, swelled in him. But as he kissed her, and she kissed him back, the larger need to be known and to openly share every aspect of life with this frustratingly complimentary individual overwhelmed his more primal needs. “We,” he whispered into her ear, “always and forever, if you’ll have it.”
“What!” She pushed away from him, wiping her lips with the back of her hand.
“Together, partners.”
“And?” She scrutinized him.
“Lovers.”
She winked, taking his hand in hers. “Ms. Lloyd, you were saying.”
“The powder room. I’ll show you how to get in undetected.”
~~~
Oleg drained the last of the purified water from his flask. He scrutinized the engraving, “Y.O.R.” His father’s initials. The nicest thing his father had owned had spent fifty years filled with cheap barley and potato vodka. He stooped to hold it close to Lickter’s swollen face.
“See these letters? To history they represent one more cog in wheel, a pawn. Same as you. Same as me.” He spit in Lickter’s eye. “To me is family. As father used to say, ‘Blood is thicker than vodka,’ no?” He stood while putting the flask back in his jacket, making a show of it. Then he kicked Lickter in the chin, prompting a grunt.
He turned to face his new number one, Pilot, as the student approached shaking his head. “We can’t find her, but her private elevator is in use.”
Oleg nodded. “Very well. I leave you in command. No one follows. Remember, this is my choice.” He addressed the half dozen young men standing around the room with shotguns and rifles. “I alone take blame. When alarm go off put down weapons, and no harm will come. Today is great day for people of Texas. Be proud of what you have accomplished.”
He turned and strode quickly out of the lobby and down a narrow corridor to a locked, metal door. He knocked five times to the rhythm of “shave and a hair cut,” leaving off the “two bits” at the end.
The door opened from the other side where Barabbas greeted him. “Good evening, sir. I was beginning to worry.”
“Acceptable improvisation.” Oleg stepped past, the younger man limping out of his way. “You are injured.”
“A small price to pay, sir.” Barabbas closed the door behind them without locking it. Oleg observed the tourniquet Barabbas had tied around his thigh and waited for him to explain. “The sheriff nicked me before I could get into place.”
“Oh?” As the student hobbled down the stairs in front of him, Oleg wondered if, after everything, his plan would fail.
“It was my fault. I tried to take him out. He’s so old and slow.” He shook his head. “I still can’t believe I botched it.” At the base of the stairs he
turned to face Oleg. “But don’t worry. There’s no way he knows about the hidden access. I lost him.”
Oleg pondered the name he’d given his most loyal follower. Barabbas, the insurrectionist let go in place of Jesus the Christ. Oleg gathered his surroundings. “No plates?”
“No sir. She must have taken them.”
“As expected. And vault?” Oleg moved quickly toward the far end of the room and the corridor leading to the predestined setting for the final showdown.
“Full of freshly printed bank notes, just like you said. But sir,” Barabbas loped awkwardly to keep up. “I ask you one final time to reconsider. We could simply burn the money and destroy the press. The statement would be just as strong.”
“No.” Oleg reached the vault, the secure door standing wide open. “A martyr inspires where words cannot. I have lived several years without enjoyment of living. This ends tonight.” Oleg stood on a crate, testing the ventilation grate in the wall behind which Barabbas had spent the last several hours. “I ask hardest job of you.” He stepped down and took the young man by the shoulder, looking him eye to eye. “You must stay long enough to ensure I am dead.” Solemnly, Barabbas nodded as Oleg took a seat on a heap of bills. “We will not wait long.”
~~~
Starr kicked the grate downward and dangled his boots through the opening. With a final exhale he dropped almost ten feet to the marble floor, landing as gracefully as a farm cat from a hayloft.
“You’re starting to get the hang of this.” Daisy’s voice echoed from the ventilation shaft above.
“Hush up and get down here. These guys might be college boys, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous.”
The Austin Job Page 18
