Bugatti was wishing the same for the listeners.
Then Jumper asked for his version of what happened at the time of the murder of Mimi Jansen in the corridor of the Splendor Hotel.
Does it matter? John asked himself. Is there still one decent, relevant person who is able to use my viewpoint for anything worthwhile? But he gave his version of events anyway, including his unfortunate, identity-revealing slip of the tongue.
Afterwards they spoke about Bud Curtis. Tom Jumper called his program the Last Bastion, and what could be more fitting when they were on the subject of Curtis? The question was whether what they said would do more harm than good.
After they’d been conversing for half an hour with only a couple of musical interludes, Jumper made a sign to the sound technicians. “Now, dear listeners, during this next musical interlude please meditate on these uppercuts we’ve just dealt our great American democracy. We’re going to play something rather different from Johnny Cash this time, and in the meantime we’ll be changing frequencies again, so . . .”
Suddenly a loud ringing in the studio interrupted them. John was completely startled.
“Just a second . . .” said Jumper into the microphone, his eyes on the two sound engineers who were waving their arms on the other side of the glass. Again there was a loud noise, and the men opened the hatch to the truck’s cab.
“What’s happening?” cried John, watching them pick up the guns from the mixer and release the safety catches. They were in trouble—there was no mistaking it.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Jumper yelled to him, pointing at his microphone. “Turn off that switch over there.”
Then they flung open the door to the engineering room.
“I’m afraid they’ve localized us, Tom,” one of the engineers shouted. “Phil Kinnead saw some vehicles stopped by the side of the road. Now they’re following us.”
Jumper opened a drawer underneath the mixer and pulled out a heavy automatic weapon.
“What are you doing?” yelled John. “Are you going to fight back? What if those vehicles are full of soldiers? We’ll all be dead before we know it. You know what they do with militiamen they catch after a gun battle, don’t you?”
“Shut up, John. Take this and crawl up on the roof through this hatchway. You’re just in the way.” He handed him a compact little weapon and placed a chair under the plexiglass hatch. “And stay up there till we know how things turn out.”
John stared at Jumper, full of wonder. Was this the same man who, just a month ago, could be bothered to spend his time and energy trying to get a woman from Queens to explain why she preferred looking like a whore to wearing a dress that covered her tree-trunk-sized thighs? It was a metamorphosis that could take your breath away.
The driver shouted something to one of the sound engineers while he steered the bus through a sharp curve. “Get up there,” ordered the other sound man, shoving John from underneath so he could get through the hatch and up on the roof of the van.
The cold wind hit him right in the face when he was finally all the way up. Headlights from military vehicles were only fifty yards behind them. He lay down flat on his chest, trying to cling to the slippery roof with sweaty hands. Thank God it had at least stopped raining. “Put your foot on the gas!” he yelled into the opening, before they closed it from inside.
Through the distorted plexiglass window he could see them preparing for a fight. Maybe they weren’t scared, but he was.
He heard a violent argument erupt inside the van as they approached a fork in the road, with Hume towards the north and Vernon Mills towards the northeast. They were obviously in total disagreement as to which direction to take, though it hardly mattered, since now two more military vehicles were rapidly closing in on them.
“Is this how it’s all going to end?” he whispered, thinking about Danny as the van made a sharp turn up Route 688, sending his body sliding sideways. What the hell could he hold on to? Next time they turned like that he’d be flung off the truck. He lifted his head cautiously, spied the plexiglass skylight’s frame, grabbed for it, and succeeded in pulling himself back to the middle of the roof. When they wheeled around the next curve he could see that their pursuers from the south had reached the fork before the other vehicles, which looked like personnel carriers. He could also see that there were two armored vehicles of the kind used to bring democracy to Iraq. The shouting inside the van was getting louder; they were apparently urging the driver to coax more power out of the heavily laden vehicle.
John turned his head instinctively, just in time to see streetlamps fly by as they barreled full-speed through the town of Markham. He closed his eyes for the next couple of minutes, praying no cars or pedestrians got in their path. Just as suddenly they were back on a small road, heading in the direction of Sky Meadows State Park. For a moment he thought they’d lost their pursuers, until he heard the first ticking of the armored vehicles’ machine guns. He flattened himself even more but could still see the blue-red muzzle fire from the machine guns light up the trees by the roadside. The whole van shuddered as the rear doors were peppered by bullets that spent themselves in the crates of accounting reports. It was a constant smacking noise, like hailstones on a tin roof. He’d heard that same curious, deadly sound half a lifetime ago while covering the drug wars in Colombia, only that time he hadn’t been the target.
Shots ripped open the tires on the van’s right side just as it reached another thicket of trees, and for a moment John actually considered throwing himself at the tree limbs as they shot past. Oh, God, he thought, panicking. This is it! They’re going to see me! These branches are going to knock me off the roof! Then the truck started swinging wildly, first towards the forest on one side of the road and then a ditch on the other side. The two men in the cab were still shouting at each other as a third man crawled in to them through the partition hatch.
John hugged his weapon and began to pray. Any moment he’d be lying crushed under the huge van, he was sure of it. He could feel every lurch and quiver as the driver fought desperately to keep control, but it was a losing battle. More shots rang out from behind, and tree branches were constantly raking John’s back.
“I can’t let them notice me, otherwise I’ll die right here on the roof,” he whispered, and tried to shield his head with his arm. As though that would help.
He felt another great lurch as the front tires finally found traction, and the locked brakes stopped squealing and finally brought the van to a halt. At the same moment he felt his fingernails lose traction as they scraped over the roof’s rivets, and peeling paint and his body slid towards the cab until his feet were hanging over the side in midair. The yelling inside the van was replaced by hectic activity that indicated they were getting ready to take up the fight outside the vehicle. They made it out of the cab before their pursuers reached them, but the shots continued, slamming constantly into the back of the truck and past its left side. Before he could try to warn the driver not to exit on the left side, the man jumped out into a hail of bullets. His dead body was blasted ten yards up the road before it hit the ground.
Directly beneath him he saw how two more of the men attempted to run for cover in the dense, pitch-black forest and how a couple of short bursts of fire stopped them in their tracks. Then the pursuing military vehicles finally began screeching to a halt, and he heard hysterical commands surrounding him as soldiers poured out of the personnel carriers. It was a waking nightmare.
His midriff contracted in cramps of fear that sent shivers of pain through his body. He clenched his teeth and could hear the two remaining men in the engineering room screaming beneath him as one of them squeezed himself through the hatchway into the cab, trying to escape. He hoped Tom wasn’t one of them. It didn’t seem right that a man like him should die like a cornered rat.
Then there was a crash of gunfire from inside the truck. It was a man sho
oting out through the hatch. Oh, no! Shit! This was it. Any second they would fire a shell into the van, and they’d all be incinerated. He tried easing his cramps by inhaling deeply, but nothing helped. If he screamed out his pain and angst, he’d be one dead reporter for sure. Men like him were simply not equipped for situations like this. Maybe one of Associated Press’s hotshots who was used to war zones and the closeness of death, but not him.
Why’d you ever do this, John? he tormented himself. Why didn’t you stay in your nice, warm bed in Danny’s house? Why didn’t you do as your father said, and become a gynecologist? His masochistic train of thought ended with the sound of three or four short salvos being fired straight in through the cab’s windshield to the accompaniment of bursting safety glass.
The man inside had stopped shooting.
“Pull him out through the windshield,” yelled one of the officers. “Get him out here on the ground.” He heard the ripping of clothing as the body was pulled through the jagged remains of the windshield and over the hood of the cab. “Yep, that’s him!” someone yelled, and suddenly John felt his guts relax. They’d gotten Tom Jumper. It was over.
“Is he alive?” someone else asked.
“Are there more in there, asshole?” cried a third soldier, followed by the sound of four or five dull body blows. Each one felt like it had landed on John instead.
“Are there more in there, asshole?!” The shouted question was repeated.
He heard Jumper groan that he was the last one. He groaned once more, and then they shot him without a second thought. Farther behind he could hear the last of the military vehicles arriving, and someone called out that they should take as many live prisoners as they could, not knowing the issue had already been settled. At the same time directly alongside the van, soldiers were muttering about how Jumper’s summary execution must not be reported, that he’d died in the heat of battle. That it had been unavoidable.
John noticed once again that he’d forgotten to breathe, and exhaled silently. Thank you, Tom, he said to himself, afraid his pounding heart might be audible. Thank you for saying you were the last one.
He dragged himself a couple of feet towards the middle of the roof with throbbing fingertips. Behind him the soldiers were discussing what to do with the moving van, eventually deciding it demanded a closer inspection. It was supposed to be the last mobile radio unit with such a powerful transmitter, but one never knew. Perhaps there was a network of transmitters; maybe there were already others who were carrying on Jumper’s work.
A couple of the soldiers began rummaging around inside the truck. John’s face was ten inches from the plexiglass skylight, but he didn’t dare stretch himself forward to look in.
It was at precisely this moment that John remembered his suitcase and laptop, his coat, cell phone, and passport—everything—was all still inside the truck. The adrenaline was pumping so fast, he was afraid the eyes would pop out of his head. Now there was no getting around it: He had to force himself to the skylight to see what was happening. If just one of his possessions caught the attention of a soldier, he was finished. They would realize it had been his distorted voice on the airwaves twenty minutes earlier, they’d check all the bodies and discover that none of them were that of the famous NBC reporter, and then they’d start searching for him until they found him. If they found his passport or driver’s license, he’d throw his gun as far into the forest as he could. Then he’d identify himself and surrender, stating his name with as much composure as possible in the hope that it would have a calming effect on his captors. This was his plan of last resort.
He pulled himself forward inch by inch until he could peer down into the sound engineers’ room.
No one appeared at first, but then a soldier who had been searching the studio came into view to take a last look around. He had a fat neck and stood with one finger cocked around the trigger of his machine gun.
“There’s no one inside here,” he yelled out to the others, through the smashed front windshield. John watched the camouflage helmet rotate 360 degrees as the soldier scanned the room one last time—including the ceiling. In a couple of seconds they would be looking straight at each other. John tried to pull back a bit, but the tip of his shirt collar got caught in a rivet that was holding one of the plexiglass hatch’s hinges to the roof. In spite of the cold wind, he broke out in a sweat, having no choice but to wait for the soldier’s eyes to meet his own. In situations like that, one didn’t wait to see if the enemy was willing to surrender; the soldier would tip his machine gun upward, empty it into the ceiling, and that would be that.
John closed his eyes halfway and pictured Danny’s tired, beautiful face before him. They’d had a good time together. Better than most.
The soldier’s gaze stopped moving across the ceiling. There was no sign of life in the van, and he was gone.
CHAPTER 32
The soldiers collected the bodies and left the moving van where it stood. There had been more skirmishes up north along the West Virginia border, and suddenly, after the officers held a meeting under a floodlight from one of their vehicles, everyone was gone. John lay like a corpse on the van’s roof until the deep rumbling of the convoy faded completely on the other side of the forest. Then he tried opening the plexiglass hatch, but it was fastened from inside, so he rolled to the edge of the roof and judged that the distance to the ground was about twelve feet. The last time he’d jumped from such a height he’d been a schoolboy and had weighed a quarter of what he did now.
He stuck his gun in his pocket, rotated his body, and slowly, slowly let himself down the side of the van. The roof’s steel rivets caught on every fold in his pants and every button on his shirt and poked into his soft body. “Okay, time to let go, old boy,” he said, when he was finally hanging over the roof’s edge by his fingertips.
The little click his ankle made when he hit the ground was practically inaudible, but it hurt so much that John had to clench his jaw tight to keep from screaming. He was breathing hard and afraid to look at his foot, convinced that it was facing backward. But it wasn’t.
Ten minutes later he was sitting in the engineers’ room with one of Tom Jumper’s colorful neck scarves bound tightly around his swollen ankle, well aware that the sooner he got far away from there, the better.
Stepping around the pool of blood where Jumper had died, he retrieved his suitcase and computer case and left the van. Now the wind outside was ripping through the trees, setting even the heaviest branches in motion. The van’s headlights had grown weaker but still lit the road north for a couple of hundred yards. He hitched up the suitcase and tried putting his weight on the damaged ankle. It didn’t appear to be broken, but it hurt like hell.
He looked at his watch. It was two o’clock, Sunday morning, in the middle of a curfew that would last another three hours, so he couldn’t expect a lift before then—if at all.
He shook his head. Who the hell would be driving through this godforsaken countryside, anyway?
He didn’t even know where he was, not to mention where he should be heading. And even if he did, how the hell was he going to manage with this injured foot?
He took a tentative step; it didn’t feel good. The suitcase seemed to be filled with lead, and his back and thigh muscles were already bombarding his brain with shooting pains. He’d never been good at pain.
You haven’t a choice, he thought. Hop, stagger, crawl—whatever it takes. Just get away from this goddamn truck. He looked towards the rolling fields to the south. That direction was out of the question. If a car came, he’d be totally exposed; there’d be nowhere to hide quickly. So he had to head north where there still was some forest to offer cover.
He clenched his teeth and started out, looking over his shoulder constantly. Which was why, after only about twenty small steps, he noticed a blinking blue patrol car light approaching from the south. He immediately ducked into the shrubbe
ry by the side of the road, throwing his suitcase before him, already hearing the police siren. He’d only just hidden himself when the patrol car reached the moving van. He heard the cops get out and begin discussing the situation as his pants sucked up the moldy moisture of the underbrush. Even though the night was pitch-black, he didn’t move a muscle because the officers had strong flashlights that they were shining back and forth along the side of the road and into the forest, as well as at the van’s shot-up rear end.
Apparently, they were inspecting the big truck’s back doors; in any case he could faintly hear their comments about the military’s thoroughness and firepower. Their tone of voice was a mixture of envy and disgust.
“We’ve got to get the technicians up here, Damien. Will you take care of that?” said one of the hushed voices, as it moved alongside the van. “Fingerprints have to be taken, so we’re going to have to be careful.”
Shit. They were already bringing technicians out. That meant the area would be crawling with cops. John tried to distribute his weight better in the underbrush; he was going to be there a long time. The question was whether it would be better being caught by the police than by the military. It was a tough call.
The policeman walked around to the front of the van and shined his flashlight on the pool of blood left on the ground where the van’s driver had landed. It was less than thirty feet from where John was crouching, swallowing his pain like a wounded animal. The officer gave a low whistle as he poked the asphalt and tried to reconstruct the scene in his mind. He didn’t seem the type who would show much mercy if John were discovered.
“They’re asking if we want anything from town,” the other cop called, from down by the patrol car.
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