“Whatever you want to believe,” Kevin said.
“Boy, you must be in big trouble to let me help you.”
“To tell the truth,” Erica said, “we are. Someone should probably know in case…something happens.”
“Well, it can’t be trouble with the police, seeing as how they just let you go. Do you kids owe money to someone?”
Kevin looked out the side window, brooding. Erica knew that the issues between him and Murray weren’t going to be worked out on this short trip, so she let Kevin sulk.
“No, it’s not that simple. Some men are after us. We think we know why, but we still don’t know who. They want something that we have. The place you’re taking us has equipment that will help us get out of this.”
“Okay,” said Murray. He seemed reluctant to go into any more depth on the subject, and Erica didn’t push it.
Up ahead, a sign showed the exit for the North Dallas Toll Road.
“How long until we get there,” Erica said. Her watch read 6:22. Rain was just starting to spatter against the windshield.
“About 30 minutes if we don’t hit any traffic. I’d go faster, but the toll road always has plenty of cops during rush hour. We’d never make it if we got stopped.”
Erica smiled. “I think I’ve had enough of the police for one afternoon.”
* * *
Thirty minutes later, they were still ten minutes from LuminOptics. A wreck on the toll road had slowed traffic, but it could have been worse. Erica had been stuck in traffic for an hour several times while she had been in Houston, and she’d heard Dallas was no better.
At 7:03 they pulled into the almost deserted LuminOptics parking lot. The facility was located in the middle of Greenmont, a long, dead-end street off Abrams Rd. Similar squat warehouse-type buildings lined the street. Like LuminOptics, most of the parking lots allowed open access to the street, but a ten-foot-high chain-link fence separated the rear delivery lot from the front, as well as the LuminOptics lot from the one next to it.
Only one car remained in the lot, and Erica prayed that it was the sales rep’s. Activity at the other buildings along the street was nonexistent.
Murray stopped the pickup in front of the building. It was pouring now. Kevin hopped out, scurried through the rain to the front alcove, and knocked on the door. A man in his early fifties opened it. Erica cracked the window.
“You Kevin Hamilton?” the man said.
Erica was relieved; it was the same wavering voice she’d spoken with this afternoon.
“Yes, and that’s Erica Jensen,” he said, pointing toward the truck.
“I was about to give up on you two,” the sales rep said. “I was just locking up the place when you knocked. Come on in.”
Kevin ran back to the truck and picked up his backpack.
“All right,” he said to Murray. “We can take it from here. Have a good life.” Kevin began to turn and walk away.
“Will you call me sometime…Kevin?” Murray asked.
Kevin turned back and stared at him. “I don’t know,” Kevin said, surprising Erica because it wasn’t a flat refusal. Then he walked into LuminOptics.
“What are you going to do now?” Murray said.
“We can call a cab. We’ll be all right now. Thanks for getting us here in time.”
“I was glad to do it. And I’d like to ask you to do something to return the favor.”
“Sure, anything.”
“I didn’t want to tell Nick this to shame him into calling me, but I have cancer. Lung cancer. I guess I didn’t give up cigarettes soon enough.”
“What’s the prognosis?”
“Oh, I’ve probably got a year left at least. But you have to promise not to tell him. I don’t want his pity. Just try and get him to call me. I have my friends and the business, but he’s my only family.”
Erica saw sincerity in his wide hazel eyes.
“I’ll do my best.”
“I knew you would. You seem like a fine match for Nick. Don’t let him lose you.”
“We’re just friends.”
“No you aren’t. I can tell. It’s in the way you take care of him. If you’re not together now, it’s just a matter of time.” He winked.
“Goodbye, Murray.”
Erica shook his hand and climbed out of the truck. She smiled and waved to him as he drove back toward the freeway. Then she went to look for Kevin.
Like most Texas buildings during the summer, the LuminOptics offices were chilly from the air conditioning. A receptionist’s desk stood in the first room. Through the doorway, she could see a hall with open offices on either side. She headed to the only one that still had its light on.
When she entered the office, the sales rep nodded and then returned his attention to Kevin, who was examining a piece of equipment. It looked like a telescope, about three feet long and six inches in diameter, cradled in a receptacle.
“Is he gone?” Kevin said without looking up.
“Yes. Is this what we need?”
The sales rep chimed in. “I believe so. The model XXP-2400 blue light laser. The most reliable in the industry.”
“Yeah, it looks okay,” Kevin said. “Do you have the check?”
Erica pulled the cashier’s check out of her purse and handed it to the sales rep, who examined it as closely as Kevin had studied the laser.
“I’ll just need to make a call and verify this.”
After the sales rep left the room, Kevin began boxing up the laser.
“Why’d you have to be so hard on him?”
“What are you talking about?”
“He seemed like he was trying to make amends with you.”
“Oh, you mean my dad.”
“Who else would I mean?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’ve been bottling up everything for so long, it had to come out somehow.”
“Then you don’t hate him?”
“I never hated him,” Kevin said.
“You could’ve fooled me.”
“Well, maybe I did. Now, I just try not to think about him. But seeing him brings up all these memories. It’s more painful than anything else.”
“Then you’ll call him?”
“I don’t know. We’ll see. Right now, we’ve got to call a cab.”
While Kevin finished repacking the laser tightly in its box, Erica used the yellow pages and telephone on the desk. She gave the address to the cab company and hung up.
“They said it’ll be twenty to thirty minutes,” she said as the sales rep returned with a large smile on his face.
“The check cleared with no problem,” he said. “Is everything to your satisfaction?”
“Yes, thanks.”
The sales rep put on his coat and escorted them to the front door, helping Kevin carry the laser. They placed it gently on the cement outside the building under the awning to protect the laser from the rain, which was now coming down in sheets. The sales rep locked the door.
“I’m sorry I can’t let you wait inside,” he said.
“That’s all right,” Erica said. “You’ve done enough already. Our cab will be here soon.”
The sales rep looked curious and then shrugged. The circumstances were rather strange, Erica thought. But the money seemed to quiet him, and he climbed into his car.
A minute after the sales rep drove away, a Taurus turned onto Greenmont. Erica didn’t pay much attention to it; it was probably an employee returning from dinner for some late night work at one of the other offices on the block. She was about to ask Kevin where they were going to go when the Taurus suddenly veered into the LuminOptics parking lot.
“Oh shit!” Kevin said almost under his breath. The next word was shouted. “Run!”
Erica’s stomach dropped when she realized Kevin’s terror. Kevin grabbed her hand and sprinted toward the far end of the parking lot, the downpour drenching them almost immediately. The Taurus drove straight at them as if it were going to run them down. Kevin and Erica tried angling away
from the chain link fence separating them from the parking lot next door, but the Taurus skidded to a stop ten feet in front of them, blocking the only way out of the enclosed lot.
A smiling man with perfectly coiffed black hair lowered the passenger window. In the driver’s seat sat a beefy younger man with a crewcut. Her focus left the black-haired man’s grinning face when he lifted a pistol above the window sill.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Hamilton,” he said. “You can’t know how happy I am to see you.”
CHAPTER 23
Kevin couldn’t believe he was seeing them again. But his eyes weren’t deceiving him. In the car before him were Barnett and Kaplan, the fake policemen from Houston.
“I can tell you are surprised, Mr. Hamilton,” Barnett said. “We will have plenty of time to answer your questions.” His gaze shifted to Erica. “And I’m glad I finally get to meet Miss Jensen. You know, you both had us worried for a while. The trick with your credit cards was quite ingenious. I will be interested to find out whose idea that was. Now, please open the back door slowly and climb in.”
Kevin looked at Erica with dismay. If he tried something stupid, like charging them, he’d only get shot. He was about to tell Erica to do what the man said when an engine roared from his left.
He turned in time to see his dad’s truck hurtling toward the Taurus from behind. In the next second, as he and Erica scrambled to get back, the pickup smashed into the Taurus, collapsing its trunk and catapulting it into the chain link fence twenty feet to their right. The Taurus hit the fence straight on and careened backward, coming to rest about five feet from the fence, its engine stalled.
They wasted no time and ran to the truck. Even with such a heavy impact, only minor damage showed on the truck’s front bumper. Murray was already opening the passenger door.
“Hurry!” he yelled.
Erica got in first, then Kevin.
“Nick, the glove compartment! My gun!”
Kevin opened it and found a Glock 17 in a leather holster. He hesitated and then saw groggy movement behind the Taurus’ limp airbags. Quickly, he unsnapped the holster and drew the Glock. His dad was heading toward the parking lot exit.
“Wait! The laser! Dad, we need to go back!”
His dad threw him a surprised glance. “What are you talking about?”
“The company entrance. We have to go back.” When he saw that his dad wasn’t turning the wheel, he yelled. “Go back!”
“I must be nuts,” Murray said. He yanked the wheel around and headed back to the LuminOptics front door, where the boxed laser was still sitting. As they screeched to a halt, Kevin glanced back at the Taurus. Shit! He could hear the engine beginning to crank. The passenger door opened. The man he knew only as Barnett climbed out. Blood streamed down his face.
“Dad! Put the truck between that package and the car.”
Murray pulled the truck’s front up to the awning, its left side to the Taurus, and Kevin jumped out of the truck.
“Everybody use this door.”
Erica and Murray followed him. Just as they did, he heard the pop of a pistol. Kevin chambered a round.
“Get down!” He rose above the truck’s bed and fired three quick shots in the direction of the Taurus to give them some cover.
“Erica, help dad put the laser in the back of the cab. I’ll try and slow them down.”
He scooted to the back of the Chevy and peered around to see Barnett getting back in the Taurus. Even with the trunk shortened by half, it was moving. The rear suspension had obviously come through the impact unscathed. He couldn’t let them get any closer, and he sure as hell didn’t want a second car chase in as many days, especially not with this lumbering Chevy truck.
Kevin propped his right wrist in his left hand and sighted carefully through the notch on the Glock’s barrel, letting the old habits come back. Even through the rain, the Taurus’ right rear tire was sharply in focus as it came in his direction and then blurred as he focused on the Glock’s front sight. Gently, he squeezed the trigger.
The right rear tire blew out with a satisfying pop, sending the Taurus spinning to the right. Kevin quickly repeated the motions, but the car was now moving much more wildly. This time it took two shots to take out the left rear tire.
Kevin turned to see his dad and Erica maneuvering the box into the cab’s rear storage area. They’d be finished any second.
He’d kept the Glock pointed at the Taurus and now saw its passengers scrambling out the other side. He realized that he’d unconsciously kept count of his bullets, just as he used to. He’d fired six. If his dad had a full clip in there, there should be 5 rounds left.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw first his dad and then Erica crawl into the truck cab. Kevin fired two more rounds and bolted for the open door. He dove, pulling the door shut behind him.
“Go!”
He stayed on the floor as his dad backed up ten feet and then slammed the truck into Drive. Bullets plinked into the driver’s side of the truck and then the rear as they raced toward the parking lot exit farthest from the gunmen.
The truck veered crazily to the left as it sped onto the road, its rear end sliding to the right on the slick pavement. Kevin sat up in the seat. He could see his dad fighting to bring the Chevy under control, steering into the skid.
The truck’s nose shifted back to the right, pointing them straight at a shallow drainage ditch running along the opposite side of the road. But Murray was no longer attempting to turn the wheel. His hands rested almost lazily on the bottom arc.
Trying to avoid plunging into the ditch head on, Kevin reached across and knocked the wheel counterclockwise. The truck again veered to the left, all six tires skidding. The Chevy tilted sideways, sending mud spraying to their right, and came to a rest with its right tires at the bottom of the ditch.
Kevin was about to yell at his father when he saw Erica’s bloodstained left hand.
“He’s been shot,” Erica said. “Left side, no visible exit wound.”
“Shit!” Kevin said, crawling over the back of the seat so he could get to his father. Then he remembered the gunmen. Barnett and Kaplan were still out there.
He leaned back to look toward the LuminOptics parking lot through the rear window. They were running towards the truck, pistols held in front of them. Bastards! Kevin thought and yanked open the rear sliding glass. He shifted the pistol to his left hand and fired.
The gunmen dove behind the low retaining wall separating the drainage ditch on the other side from the parking lot.
“Kevin!” Erica yelled. “He’s hemorrhaging. We need to get him to a hospital now!”
He looked at the driver’s door and saw blood dripping from the armrest.
“You take care of him,” he said. “I’ll drive.”
He kept aim on the retaining wall as Erica dragged Murray to the right. She was straining mightily, but gravity was on her side.
“Okay!” she said when she was in position.
He fired the last of the bullets and jumped into the driver’s seat. The truck had stalled, so he had to waste precious seconds shifting it into Park, turning the engine over, and shifting it back into Drive. In the rearview mirror, he saw a head poking around the end of the retaining wall only a hundred feet behind them.
He slammed the accelerator down, but the rear wheel spun in the muddy ditch. Shit! The rear was a live axle; if one wheel was spinning the other wouldn’t turn. He looked down, praying he would find what he was looking for. At first, he panicked, not seeing it. He’s got to have it! Kevin thought. Where the hell is the knob? Then he realized he was looking for the wrong thing. It wasn’t a shifter. It was a rocker switch on the console.
“Thank God!” he said and engaged the four-wheel drive system.
He pushed on the gas again. This time all six tires bit into the ground. The truck wanted to stay pointed straight ahead so he had to force the wheel to the left. The truck bounced as it came out of the ditch and level on the paveme
nt. Looking in the side mirror, Kevin floored it.
Barnett and Kaplan were racing toward them, lifting their pistols to fire.
“Down!” he yelled and heard the hail of bullets hitting the truck bed’s rear door.
They continued accelerating and Kevin raised his head. The gunmen were now 100 yards behind them. Their pistols were now at their sides, knowing that they were too far away to take an accurate shot. Kevin came to the T intersection and turned right without stopping.
“I think we’re okay now. You can sit up.” His father was slumped against Erica. He wasn’t unconscious as Kevin had earlier thought, but he was on the verge. Erica unbuttoned Murray’s shirt, which was soaked in blood.
“How is he?” Kevin said.
“It’s hard to tell. He’s lost a lot of blood.”
“Should we stop and try to do something for him?” He began to slow down.
“No, I’ve got some pressure on it now. I couldn’t apply it as well when I was crouched down. The most important thing is to get to a hospital as soon as we can. Do you know where one is?”
“I think so. I saw one on the way here. It can’t be more than five minutes from here.”
Kevin wasn’t paying as much attention to the road as he should have been, and the truck hit a foot-deep pothole. The impact jarred Murray awake.
“What? Where are we?”
“It’s all right, dad. You just rest. You’ve been shot. We’re taking you to the hospital.”
“I surprise you?” Murray slurred the words.
“Yeah, you did. Thanks. Now just be quiet. Erica’s taking care of you.”
“After I dropped you off, I saw a car that was near my house this afternoon. Looked like the guy was watching you. I decided to hide and see what he wanted. Trouble.”
“You did real well, Murray,” Erica said. “Don’t try to talk.”
“Saw their guns. Saw them chase you. Had to do something. I…” Suddenly, he began to wheeze, trying to take in huge breaths with great difficulty.
“Damn!” Erica said.
“What? What is it?”
“It sounds like a hemothorax.”
“English!”
“I can’t tell for sure, but I think he’s got a collapsed lung. It’s okay, Murray. Just try to breathe normally. We’ll make you feel better in a few minutes.”
The Adamas Blueprint Page 17
