by Archer Mayor
We began traveling the quiet, darkened corridors and staircases like trespassers, pausing furtively to look around, keeping our voices low and our footsteps silent. In the dim light, I cast a glance at Lew Corbin-Teich, studying what I could see under what turned out to be masses of snow-white hair. The plastic surgery had obviously been of high quality, although not knowing the “before,” I was hard pressed to judge the “after.” Nevertheless, there was a stillness to his features, an absence of mobility that suggested a mask. Watching it, I couldn’t help feeling his face embodied everything that had happened to me since discovering “Boris’s” body. Nothing had turned out as it had at first appeared, and none of the subsequent explanations had been any more real than Corbin-Teich’s remodeled appearance. Given what I’d been through these last few days, I couldn’t help wondering how he’d survived half a lifetime of it.
Our silent progress stood us in good stead. Just shy of the building’s entrance, we rounded a corner and saw two men in dark clothing loitering in the lobby, one of them with his eyes glued to the scenery beyond the plate-glass door.
We backtracked quickly but not before the other one saw us.
“Stop,” he shouted, as Corbin-Teich grabbed my sleeve and pulled me back along the wall. Rarig was ahead of us, heading for a door to the left. I was about to follow when Lew yanked on me again. “No, this is better.”
We slipped through a door on the right and vanished as into an absolute vacuum. From the comparative light of the hallway, we were now in total blackness.
Lew continued pulling at me, keeping me off balance. “This way. Follow me.”
I sensed from how his voice vanished into thin air that we were in a huge room, probably another of the theaters, but this realization was of no use whatsoever as I stumbled down a sloping aisle, sightless and clumsy until falling down outright, brought low by a cluster of metal chairs that had been left in our path.
Corbin-Teich fell with me in a tangle, smacking my hand against one of the chair backs and sending the gun I’d just unholstered skittering across the carpeting.
Simultaneously, the door we’d used flew open, outlining our pursuer in silhouette, a pistol in his hand. Without thought, I reached for the front of Lew’s jacket as he squirmed on top of me, yanked out the laser pointer he’d clipped there earlier, and pointed it at our pursuer. The tiny red dot stuck to his chest like an angry insect.
“Freeze,” I yelled, disentangling myself.
I saw the man’s head duck down to look at the red dot, misinterpreting it, I hoped, for an infrared gun sight.
“That’s right,” I said. “Face down on the floor.”
I saw him following my instructions as the door slowly swung to behind him. Before the light vanished, however, I was close enough for the laser alone to supply a poor substitute.
“Slide your gun over here.”
He did as he was told. I picked it up, pocketed the pointer, put my knee into the small of his back and his gun to the nape of his neck, and frisked him for more weapons. I retrieved a dagger from a sheath strapped to his lower calf. I then dragged him over to the edge of the aisle, placed his hands between the legs of one of the bolted-down row seats, and snapped my handcuffs around his wrists.
I returned the pointer to Lew and asked him to search for my own gun.
“Where’s your buddy?” I asked my captive, twisting one of his thumbs.
His voice was understandably tight. It, too, was heavily accented. “We help you.”
“Right.” I twisted a little harder, making him wince. “Answer the question.”
He tried to wriggle away. “No English good.”
“You Russian?”
“Yes, yes. Russian.”
Lew Corbin-Teich was back, crouching by my side, my gun in his hand.
“Ask him who he is,” I told him.
Corbin-Teich shot out a short, guttural question, which the other man answered with obvious relief.
“He says he works for Padzhev,” Corbin-Teich explained. “That they were sent here to protect me from Edvard Kyrov.”
“Who’s he?”
Corbin-Teich rapidly asked a couple more questions and then translated. “He says Kyrov is an old rival of Padzhev. That he is a very bad man—a longtime criminal, even back to the old days.”
The clear sound of a gunshot reverberated out in the hallway. I quickly moved to the door, opened it a crack, and squinted into the dim light. Rarig was standing over the body of the second man, having obviously doubled back from the door he’d used, to reemerge into the corridor behind his follower. It seemed clear he’d shot him in the back.
“Drag him in here,” I told him.
He grabbed the man’s feet and pulled him toward me. There was no blood on the carpeting.
After he’d passed by, I propped the door half-open so we could see what we were doing. “You just killed him, no questions asked?”
Rarig looked at me angrily. “I’m seventy-five years old, for Christ’s sake. I’m not going to play around with some bastard like this. I just hit him in the back of the head. It was his gun that went off. Not mine.”
I checked the body and found a pulse, slow but steady. There was no saying how bad an injury he’d suffered, though. Reluctantly, I undid half of the first man’s handcuffs, and chained him to his buddy. “This one says they were sent by Padzhev to protect Lew—from someone named Edvard Kyrov. You ever hear of him?”
“Only by reputation. He’s a crook—a black marketeer.”
“He may be the one behind all this.”
There was a noise from outside. We both scurried to the crack in the door and looked out as a young man wearing a small backpack trudged by, earphones perched on his head.
“I don’t give a goddamn who anyone is right now, or says he is,” Rarig whispered. “I just want to get the hell out of here.”
In the light from the corridor, I could see his forehead shining with sweat. His job was done, or almost, and he’d spared no one, deserving or not, in achieving it—from possibly killing the man behind us, to using me from the start. His blatant self-service finally burned through the desperation that had been driving me, leaving me clear-eyed, furious, and decided on my course.
“Fine,” I said, “but as soon as we get Lew to a safe place, I’m calling the cops. This thing is ending now. Is that clear?”
He nodded. “It’s all I wanted from the start.”
“You crap artist.” I held out my hand. “Give me your gun.”
His jaw tightened. “Not till we’re out of here.”
I exploded with rage. I took the dagger I still had in my hand and shoved its tip into Rarig’s nostril, making his head snap back until it smacked against the wall. His eyes popped open with fright.
“Look,” I said, my eyes five inches from his, “I’m sick of all this horseshit. Give me the fucking gun. Now.”
There was no doubt he could have just shot me at close range, but my obvious disregard for any such logic persuaded him to merely push the gun into my hand.
I removed the knife. “Thank you. Now collect your friend and let’s go.”
Feeling his nose gingerly, he nodded toward the two men on the floor behind us. “What about them? What if they do belong to Padzhev?”
“I don’t give a damn,” I told him. “I’ve played this game long enough, and not a single person involved in it has turned out to be what they said they were.” I walked over to Corbin-Teich. “Give me my gun.”
He complied without comment. I noticed then that the unconscious man’s arms were outstretched before him, his hands empty. My fury reignited, I swung back on Rarig, pushed him hard enough against the wall that the air flew out of his lungs, and went through his pockets as he doubled over in pain. I quickly found the Russian’s pistol and added it to my collection.
“You asshole,” I muttered to Rarig and spun him around to face the door, motioning to Corbin-Teich to join us.
“Simple plan,” I explai
ned to them, speaking softly. “We move quickly out to the parking lot, get in the car—me driving—and we leave town the fastest way possible, Route 30 heading south. Understood?”
Nobody made a sound. I pushed them out ahead of me, and the three of us marched down the hallway, turned the corner, and entered the welcoming daylight of the building’s lobby. The sunshine, even fading as it was at the end of the day, made me feel for the first time that regardless of the consequences, I was regaining some measure of control. I knew it wouldn’t make any difference overall. Fred Coffin and the court were still waiting to give me the run of a lifetime, and I still had no contrary evidence to stop them, but my temporary elation made all that immaterial.
Chapter 18
WE WALKED IN LONG STRIDES TOWARD Rarig’s car, my jacket swinging heavily with its cargo of weapons, until Lew faltered and stopped, pointing up the curving drive that connected the parking lot to Route 30 above. “That is the same car. The man who shot Andrei.”
Ruefully missing the two bodyguards we’d just left behind, I caught the small of his back with my hand and propelled him forward. “Keep going, Lew. One problem at a time.”
But the car had me worried. It was poised motionless on the crest of the drive, as a lookout, which implied a number of things, all of them bad. Kyrov’s men had probably followed Lew to the arts center—after flushing him outside the Geonomics building—and waited for Padzhev or his people to make an appearance. Now that we’d made a hash of that plan, things were likely to become a whole lot less subtle.
My newfound self-determination had lasted all of two minutes.
They waited until we’d climbed into Rarig’s car, probably because they preferred us contained and possibly, I hoped, because they were slightly confused, Padzhev’s men having mysteriously vanished from the equation. In any case, immediately after I started the engine, I saw a second vehicle slowly nosing down the road to our east, cutting off the only other exit from the parking lot.
“Look,” Lew said from behind. Rarig and I both turned, expecting him to be pointing out the new car. Instead, he was staring at several men on foot, coming from around both ends of the building, a couple of whom had cell phones held to their ears.
I looked around, reading the terrain. It was mostly flat and open, lending itself to a cross-country run, but there were ponds and ditches and clusters of trees scattered about—and no doubt other obstacles lying just out of sight. Any errors now, I knew, might well prove the end of us.
I reached into my jacket and extracted Willy’s radio. “Willy—you see what’s happening here?”
His reply was immediate. “I see a black car at the top of the drive.”
Sammie’s voice followed. “And I’ve got a couple of guys walking along the front of the building toward your parking lot.”
“I think we’re in trouble here,” I told them. “Better put out a Mayday to the locals.”
“Where do you want us?” Sammie said.
“I don’t want you anywhere. I’m about to move—fast. I don’t know where and I don’t know how they’ll react. Just stay out of the way and see what happens.”
I was suspiciously surprised by her ready acceptance. “10-4.”
I put the car into gear. “Fasten your seatbelts, gentlemen.”
To confront either vehicle seemed counterproductive. The men on foot, however, were fairer game. I hit the accelerator and aimed straight for the two coming around the back of the arts center.
They were halfway across a broad pedestrian promenade spread out like an apron from the center’s rear entrance, and, as I bore down on them, my intentions now clear, they stopped, pulled guns from under their jackets, and prepared to fire.
“Get down, get down,” I shouted, veering back and forth to provide a poorer target. I didn’t hear the gunshots over the roaring engine and the bone-jarring thuds as we jumped the curb, but a couple of crystalline holes suddenly appeared in the windshield like flattened bugs, and I felt a fine shower of glass sprinkle across my face. Through the web-like cracks, I saw both men jump out of the way at the last moment, their pistol muzzles still flashing. As we tore past, one of our side windows blew up with a crash, provoking a scream from Lew in the back.
“You okay?” Rarig shouted to him.
His voice was feeble over the wind now whistling through the various openings. “Yes, yes. I think so.”
I heard Sammie’s tinny voice, slightly muffled by my having returned the radio to my pocket. “Joe, top car’s in motion, moving south on Route 30 to cut you off.”
That was just one of my problems. Ahead, where I’d been hoping for a clean shot at the building’s far end and the service road beyond it, I saw a low retaining wall barring my way, with only one narrow gap in it. I wrenched the wheel and headed in its direction.
Rarig yelled, “They’re coming up behind us.”
I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw that the second car had followed us onto the promenade and was moving to cut us off before we could reach the opening.
Rarig began pawing at my jacket. “Give me a gun.”
Without looking, I swatted at him, hitting him on the side of the head. “Back off. You start shooting now, you’ll probably kill one of us.”
We reached the gap almost simultaneously, but my angle was better. The other car careened into my front left fender, pushing us up against the wall, but then it bounced away, thrown off course. I slammed on the brakes, hooked a right, and spun through the opening, heading for several playing fields and the golf course beyond. Out of the right corner of my eye, I saw the first car closing in from the southern service road with another vehicle in close pursuit. Sammie had yielded to instinct.
“How’s the car we hit?” I asked.
“Still moving.”
Ahead, the lay of the land again dictated my choices. To my front, all that open ground turned out to be hemmed in by trees, leaving only the right and left as possible escape routes.
“Go left,” Rarig yelled, as if reading my mind. “Head for South Street.”
That much was obvious. Speeding across the almost flat grassy surface, the second car was already closing in fast from the right. Sammie seemed to realize our predicament. She peeled away like a sheepdog, cut across behind me, and prepared to run interference between me and the first car, which was rallying to shut me off on the left.
The terrain, as we all swerved away from the edge of the golf course, began to roughen, making control that much more difficult. I was now paralleling the edge of a wooded outcropping. To my rear, I could see the second car closing in; to my left, Sammie and the first car were jockeying for room, occasionally colliding as Sammie fought to keep my narrow slot open. Ahead, since we’d now almost completed a full loop, lay the lower access road off the art center parking lot, and beyond it a grouping of houses, fences, and more trees. Whichever route I chose, I realized, the end result was going to be a mess—possibly a terminal one.
Sammie was losing ground. All of us were leaping and skidding badly by now, hitting small depressions in the ground, rocks, and hillocks. My seatbelt was cutting into my lap every few seconds. But Sammie’s car was lighter than her opponent’s, and I could see her profile, tense and focused, as she struggled to maintain both position and control.
It was becoming a simple matter of time—and Sam’s suddenly ran out.
The second car sideswiped her just as all three of us catapulted up and over the access road, sending her into a pirouette and yanking her from my sight as if she’d been attached to a cable that had suddenly played out.
Keeping my eyes front, I shouted, “How is she? She okay?”
Rarig twisted around in his seat. “She’s over on her side, but I think she’s all right. The spinning took most of the steam out of it.”
He turned back and looked at me, speaking surprisingly calmly, and added, “I think we’re in trouble, though.”
That, I already knew. With one car tailing me by only a few feet,
and the other one so close I could see the expressions of its occupants, I saw my only hope was to negotiate a path through the houses ahead and to the street beyond, losing both escorts along the way. I didn’t hold out much hope of success.
“There’s the cavalry,” Rarig suddenly yelled, pointing to the right.
Through the side window, I could see the bright flickering of blue lights approaching from the south—out of town—presumably from backup units called in for mutual aid.
We’d run out of open ground. Our speed abruptly magnified by the proximity of trees, bushes, and outbuildings, we all three smashed through a fence, flew off some carefully landscaped terracing, skidded across the broad backyard of an enormous house, ricocheting off a shed and a swing set, and finally exploded onto the street between another house and its garage.
It was too much for the Ford. My steering wheel was wrenched from my hands as the car’s front end plowed into the opposite curb, we spun around in a dizzying, weightless circle, surrounded by a medley of breaking metal and glass, and finally came to rest up against a tree, covered with icicle-like shards, enveloped in a sudden, deadening silence.
Not an absolute silence, however, since approaching at a fast rate was a screaming siren, bolstering what shred of hope I had left.
I should have known better.
Shaking my head to clear my vision, I saw men already clustering around our car, guns out, pulling open the doors, giving orders I couldn’t understand. Beyond them, down the street, as I, too, was jerked clear by the scruff of my neck, I saw a state police cruiser come slithering to a stop, acrid smoke curling from under its shuddering tires.
The two officers inside never had a chance. Before their vehicle had even come to a complete stop, its surface began to implode under a torrent of bullets, its windshield becoming snowy white, its lights disintegrating and dying, its tires sagging onto the rims like horses shot in battle. In the deafening staccato of automatic gunfire, I reached for my own pistol, felt a shattering blow to the back of my head, and saw the Ford’s seat come sailing toward me as my knees buckled.
