Hillary turns to me and says, “Do it.”
But before I pull the trigger, the gunman laughs and says, “Too late.”
“What?” I say.
“You all have 10 seconds to live,” the gunman says and grins. “I already initiated the bomb.”
I should’ve known. Suicide bombs are en vogue, and this guy looks nuts enough to be fashionable.
Ten seconds should be enough time to make it to the exit, but apparently the Russians use a different type of clock. I only make it a step before the explosion rips through the museum.
10.
Watch enough TV and movies or, hell, even read too many adventure novels, and you get the sense explosions happen in slow motion. The characters watch a fireball unfold like a flower blooming. This allows plenty of time for one-liners, cool walkaways with destruction raining down in the background and a chance at decent cover.
Now let me tell you how those things actually happen.
The bad news is that a bomb going off offers zero warning ahead of time and not much in the way of movie-grade special effects. Those near the explosion don’t know it happened, which, if your number gets called, isn’t the worst way to go out. For everyone else, they can only observe the effects of the bomb rather than the blast itself, as with electricity or faith in a higher power.
The good news, however, is that if you’re aware that a bomb went off, you lived through the explosion. And I can say with great certainty from my vantage beneath an overturned display case that, yes, a bomb did indeed go off at the Museum of the Bizarre. That I’m alive is a testimony to the terrific volume of crap the museum stocked. The blast knocked me on my ass, but it took enough metal, stuffing, wires and wax along with it to snuff out most of the impact. The sharp irony isn’t lost on me. If the museum didn’t house a bunch of hoaxes, I’d probably be dead right now.
That doesn’t change the fact my body hurts like hell, although I can’t tell if that’s from the explosion or the beat down from the bikers. I’ll call it a draw between the two and try to find my .45 in all this mess. Half of the museum detached itself from its foundation one bolt at a time. Just my luck, the laser sight is still on. All I have to do is follow the red dot projected onto a plaster cast of a Bigfoot track back to its source.
I clean the .45 off and holster it beneath my bush jacket, confident it’ll still work the next time I need to pull the trigger. Not the first time it’s lived through an explosion.
Movement from beneath a pile of debris reveals Hillary struggling to get to her feet. I rush over and give her a hand.
“You OK?” I say.
“I think so,” she says, dusting herself off and picking debris out of her hair. Looks like she caught a load of stuffing from a Jersey Devil mount. “What about you?”
“I’ll live,” I say, although the threat of slow-revealing internal injuries gnaws at my conscience. “If you start to swell up anywhere, though, we need to get you to a hospital right away.”
I sense more movement in the rubble. A section of drywall shifts, and one of the bikers crawls out in a cloud of gypsum dust. He coughs, gives us the thumbs up and lights a cigarette as if this is the third time he’s been in a museum explosion today. He doesn’t appear fazed that his buddies aren’t following him out of the debris.
“At least our friend the Russians sent didn’t make it out,” I say with a wheeze. The dust is killing my lungs. How that biker can smoke at a time like this is beyond me.
But I’m wrong. Before the biker can take puff number three, a hammer connects with the side of his temple. It’s not just any hammer, of course. It’s the Cursed Gavel of the Sixth Duke of Devonshire, who used it in court to sentence political enemies to death. Or so they say. I couldn’t tell you what a duke is in the first place.
My eyes follow the hammer back to a man’s mangled body covered in tatters of a black suit struggling to remain upright on a pair of broken legs. He looks like someone rolled a saucy meatloaf in confetti.
The biker collapses, cigarette still perched in his mouth. I draw the .45.
“Exactly who the hell are you?” I say to the Russian.
Hillary doesn’t bother waiting for an answer. She picks up the nearest club-sized plank of wood and marches toward him. I lower the .45 and let her have the satisfaction of finishing what the bomb started. The Russian wasn’t going to give much up anyway, seeing as how his jaw holds on by a thread. Used to hold on by a thread. Hillary does a hell of number on him. Can’t blame her. Her investment is ruined.
I hear sirens in the distance. We’re a ways from Austin proper, but none of this took place in a vacuum.
We’ve got to get out of here.
I wait to interrupt Hillary when the plank of wood breaks, which it does in short order. I glance over to my Jeep Wrangler. It’s still in good shape, having been parked away from the explosion. Thank goodness. It’s a rental.
“But I need to explain this to the police so I can file an insurance claim,” Hillary says as we shuffle our battered, dusty frames toward the Jeep.
“Take my word for it. The police and your insurance policies can’t help you,” I say. I want to follow that up with, “But I can,” except I’m not sure that’s true. All I’ve accomplished so far is getting beaten and blown up. We’re no closer to finding the Iceman than before, especially since our only possible source of information is dead.
“Where are we going?” Hillary says as she climbs into the Jeep. Dust and debris hitch a ride with her.
I rummage through my bags in the back seat and grab a pair of binoculars. I stuff it into the center console before pulling out my keys and hopping into the driver’s seat. Firing up the Jeep, I don’t peel out the way the movies would have you believe, where the hero fishtails in a hurried getaway. That just leaves tracks. I’m not interested in leaving a trail of cookie crumbs for someone to follow.
“We’re going to wait this out, but we’re not sticking around,” I say.
“What’s the plan?” Hillary says.
I point the Jeep in the direction opposite of Austin and head toward the nearest hill a quarter-mile or so away.
“That’s the plan,” I say, pointing at the hill. Austin gets a bad reputation as a featureless flatland. In truth, there are plenty of hills. They’re pretty obvious to anyone standing around on the flat areas, but that’s how the zeitgeist works. It’s the same for topography as it is with legends like the Iceman. One person puts an idea out there, and it’s hard to convince people otherwise. The first impression really is the one that counts.
“That doesn’t look like a plan. That looks like a hill,” Hillary says.
“Exactly,” I say, gently steering the Jeep onto a dirt road that winds its way to the backside of the hill. We’re not completely hidden, but we’re out of view from the museum.
I kill the engine and offer Hillary a bottle of water from my bags. We down one after another, inflating what the intensity of the explosion took from us.
“I don’t get it,” Hillary says. She gets a nervous twitch in her right eye. “We’re going to wait behind this hill and then what?”
“This Russian guy, he wasn’t working alone. If he were, he wouldn’t have blown himself up after stealing the Iceman. That’s actually quite helpful,” I say.
“How so?”
“Three things,” I say. I unload the .45 and give it a quick field strip on my lap. A spare T-shirt helps to clean the layer of dirt and dust from the parts. “First, it means your Iceman is still out there. It’s probably in good condition, too. No one going through that much trouble to get it is going to destroy it.
“Second, if I’m right about the first thing, we’re dealing with an organization, very likely the Russian government or some secret wing of it, with a specific purpose in mind for the Iceman. This organization is going to act logically. It might be full of assholes that harass museum curators, but at least those assholes will follow a degree of common sense.
“Third, t
hat means someone from said organization is going to check up the success of the bomb. It won’t be a thorough check. Might just be a drive by. He, she or they won’t show up until the first responders, media and gawkers clear out. That means we have until late tonight to wait for our special visitor. We can watch from the top of the hill with the binoculars.”
“Where’d you learn to do all this? Writing books?” Hillary says. She picks up the ‘nocs and holds them up to her face.
I grin. Working as a lone wolf, it’s not often someone compliments the sixth sense I’ve honed through the years.
“I try,” I say and holster the .45 after snapping its pieces back in place.
“Might want to try again with these binoculars,” Hillary says and lowers the pair from her eyes. “Not a lot of good these will do at night.”
Good point.
“We’ll count headlights then,” I say. I fire up the engine, turn on the AC, flip on the radio and lean the seat back. “Best thing to do now is grab a little sleep before the fun start tonight.”
Hillary pretends to follow suit, but I catch her quietly sobbing once she thinks I’m asleep. A lifetime of her earnings was wrapped up in that museum, and it all disappeared in an instant. It reminds me why I don’t like getting too attached to people or dreams. Hurts like hell when I lose them.
I adjust in my seat, keeping my eyes closed. Hillary goes silent.
Am I doing this right?
Then, feeling the .45 and the ESEE knife weighted against the rising and falling of my body like children napping on their father’s chest, I know the answer.
Yes.
11.
After the sun sets, Hillary and I hike up the hill to watch for headlights below. The moon is in full, Olympic gold medal form, giving us plenty of light to pick our way through the dusty outcrop. We choose a spot behind a conveniently placed slab of rock that offers a decent view of the museum’s remains below without giving away our position. I kick away the cacti and a few stray scorpions before settling down.
Spotting the visitor, if one even shows up, will be a challenge. It’s not like the headlights will spell out the words, “Here’s the person you’re looking for, Mr. Baker.” I’ll know it when I see it. The vehicle will pause ever so slightly as it rolls by. It may even stop. The angle of the vehicle might also change to inspect the wreckage. That’s what I’m watching for anyway. Traffic is thankfully light after dark on this road.
Hillary’s focus, on the other hand, lies elsewhere.
“How far does that laser beam you were using before go? Could you put a dot on someone at the museum?” she says, referring to the laser sight on my .45.
Damn. We don’t even have a target yet, and she’s already out for blood.
The laser sight should have no problem beaming out a bright, red dot. That’s the good news. The bad news is we’re too far away for it to make much difference. The museum is a quarter-mile away from us. That’s the equivalent of almost four and a half football fields. The best shots in the world could pull that off with a .45 on their best days, but that’s still a stretch.
Plus, bullets aren’t laser beams. Laser sights don’t “tell” the projectile where to go. That I can project a dot onto a target doesn’t mean the bullet will hit that exact spot. That’s true for targets from a few feet away out to a quarter-mile and beyond.
Still, Hillary’s questions give me an idea.
“I’m out of range even with the laser sight. We don’t want to start shooting from here anyway. We’ll want to talk to this person, not kill him. Or her,” I say.
“Shoot first, ask questions later. Isn’t that what people like you say?” Hillary says.
People like me?
“You mean the ones you launder your violence out to so you can sleep with a guilt-free conscience? Those people?” I say.
I take her comment more personally than I should, but I’m here on my own accord to help her. I could stand up and walk away right now and not be any worse for it. And then she whips out the “people like you” comment as if I owe her something. Fuck you. Find someone else to do your dirty work for you. Call up the Bandidos and tell them you need another 500 pounds of collective gristle to toss into the sausage grinder if you think my “people” are so disposable.
My cooler senses prevail, though. My chance encounter with Hillary may well turn out to be one of the best things to happen to me, if only for the financial return.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” Hillary says and sighs. “These past few weeks have been so bizarre. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
“I know the feeling,” I say under my breath.
A set of headlights slowly making its way down the road near the museum thankfully interrupts our conversation. The vehicle pulls up to the scene of the explosion and stops an inch from a large section of pocked wall. The sound of a car door closing is all the confirmation I need. This is no gawker. This is it.
Hillary gives me a look. I nod.
We only have a minute or so to make our move. I burn half of it explaining the plan to Hillary, but execution won’t take long. We make our move.
12.
Because of laws basically banning handguns in New York City, I would leave my .45 at my place in Albany when I went to visit my daughter, Ava, in Gramercy Park. Although that’s an affluent part of Manhattan, the walk back to the subway could get dicey at night. So instead of my usual sidearm, I carried a 12-inch flashlight. As I passed a particularly sketchy stretch, I’d fire a beam onto the ground by my feet.
Paranoid? Depends on your perspective. No one ever bothered me because the flashlight brought to mind law enforcement. Who else walks around with a flashlight at night? And if some low-life had tried to pull something on me, I carried a battery-packed club to defend myself with that fell within the legal boundaries of New York City and easily fit inside my bush jacket. Reasonable or not, this is how my brain works.
Perched up on this hill overlooking the museum, I deploy a tweaked version of the flashlight trick with the laser sight on the .45. A bright, red line connects my position to the shadowy figure near the museum. It doesn’t matter that I’m not going to pull the trigger. I want whoever is down there to think that I’m ready to shoot, that I’m actually a SWAT team armed with assault rifles. This is why there are prank videos involving laser pointers and giggling idiots on YouTube.
The human-shaped, shadowy blob stops in its tracks as soon as the laser connects with what I assume is its center of mass. I can’t let whoever that is panic and bolt off to the vehicle, though, so I thumb the laser sight off, allowing the incident to be written off as a product of imagination. I’m not the only paranoid scab around with an overactive brain.
I play cat-and-mouse with the laser sight to keep this shadow blob of a person guessing. The point isn’t to mess with anyone’s head, although I’m seeing now why those YouTube videos are so popular, but to buy us some time for what comes next.
What’s coming next is Hillary in the Jeep, closing the quarter-mile dash at 75 MPH on a road designed for 40. The blur of the Jeep racing toward the museum is a fitting portrait of her rage.
She hits the brakes in time to come to a skid behind the vehicle parked against the museum ruins, blocking it in. I keep the laser sight trained on the shadow blob until the dust settles. Between Hillary and I, we probably come across as a police sting operation, which would only be partly true.
I hear muffled shouting as Hillary exits the Jeep. That’s my cue to holster the .45 and hike down the hill to join her. She’s armed only with the experience of the last 24 hours, which in all likelihood is more than enough to see her through until I show up.
Good luck, whoever you are down there. For the sake of the attorney’s fees, I hope you’re not some gawker who stopped by the wrong place at the wrong time.
The shouting becomes clearer as I approach the museum. Hillary’s voice cuts through the sound of gravel crunching under my feet as I hustle over.
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“…dumb bastard…son of a bitch…,” I hear her say.
My morning jogs pay off, and I’m not out of breath by the time I finish the quarter-mile dash. The moonlight shows what my laser sight couldn’t. The shadow blob reveals its true identity as someone out of a James Bond movie. It’s not the well-tailored hero, though, but one of the villains. Bald, older gentleman. Eye patch. Bad teeth that are obvious even at night. Dark military fatigues. A Russian accent thick enough to stand out in the labored breathing coming from his position on the ground. Pretty textbook bad guy. He’s lying on his back with a pistol in his right hand. He’d be firing it were it not for Hillary’s shoe keeping his hand in place. Her other foot plants itself on his throat.
I take out the .45, making sure its stainless steel frame catches the moonlight.
“Damn, Hillary. Nice work,” I say.
Hillary stares at me like we’ve never met before. Her lizard brain is still catching up to the situation.
I reach down and rip the pistol away from the bald man with my free hand. I release the magazine, letting it fall to the ground, and rack the slide to clear the chamber. I stuff the empty pistol into a pocket of my bush jacket, then flip on my .45’s laser sight. I’m not done playing with this guy yet.
“Let off him, Hillary. Do it slowly,” I say as I plant a red dot between the bald man’s eyes. This time I’m close enough for the threat of a shot to actually mean something.
Hillary steps away, although I notice a bit of reluctance in her movements.
She actually enjoyed kicking this guy’s ass.
“We haven’t met before, have we? My name is Chase Baker. All you need to know about me for the moment is that I’m a trigger pull away from delivering a bullet at 2,000 feet per second into your forehead, which is a hell of a lot faster than you can do anything,” I say. “Since you’re carrying a pistol and poking around the site of an explosion late at night, I take it you’re not some gawker. Then again, this is Texas. I could give you the benefit of the doubt, but I’m not feeling generous tonight.”
Chase Baker & the Humanzees from Hell (A Chase Baker Thriller Book 8) Page 4
