by Theo Cage
He squinted at her. “I’m serious.”
“Not as much as they are.”
They stared at each other for a very long twenty seconds. Sweat began to roll down the back of her neck. He wasn’t giving up. She noticed a look of desperation in his eyes she hadn’t noticed first go-round. Maybe he did have it in him to shoot someone. Maybe not her, but some burly rig wrangler bored and angry from one too many rubbery pancakes and coffee so thick you could patch asphalt with it.
She broke the silence. Besides, people were starting to stare. Her voice came out low and a bit breathless. “OK. Have it your way. But I have a slight problem.”
“What’s that?”
“If I just give you the money here in the till, my boss will accuse me of stealing and I’ll lose my job. May even get run out of town.”
“That would be a shame.”
“More than you know, Jesse.”
“Jesse?”
“As in Jesse James. You have a Jesse James look. So let’s go with that.”
He shrugged. “Fine.”
“So I have to make a fuss here, let people know I’m the rob-ee, not the robber.”
“Whatever.”
“But these truckers, they will decide they need to both protect my honor and kick your butt. Which is a shame considering it’s a fairly fine butt. But after they are done, it will be unrecognizable. And they won’t stop there.”
“You’re not scaring me.”
“I’m not done yet. They will then call all their trucker buddies on their CB’s and will go posse on you. I imagine a lynching could be next and we haven’t had a good lynching in these parts for, well, at least three weeks. You make a peep in here and I give you five minutes, max.”
“Hmmmm.”
She leaned back, crossed her arms. “Just being helpful, Jesse.”
“When you say Jesse like that my heart just about melts.”
Addie smiled. “You’re welcome.”
Jesse thought about what she said for a moment, chewing his cheek. “Good advice. But I’ve got another plan.” He pulled her roughly from the other side of the counter, whirled her around and wrapped his left arm around her throat. She tried to scream, but it came out like a weak warble. He placed his gun against her head.
“OK folks, this is a robbery. You get up or scratch your butt or even say good morning and I will shoot this poor girl right through her pretty blond head.”
One of the two guys she served at table four spilled his coffee trying to get to his feet. “What did I say?” yelled Jesse. The man sat down again.
“Where’s the boss?” No one answered. Some of them eyed the kitchen, but no one made an appearance.
“Fine. Guy who owns this place has no balls. Wants to leave his best server in the hands of a homicidal maniac.” He released Addie and gestured her towards the till. She rubbed her throat and glared at him angrily as if to say you didn’t have to be so freaking rough.
“Open it up.” She rang the release bell. The till banged open.
“Scoop!” he ordered. And she scooped. He threw her a dirty backpack.
“Put it in there. And get it all, now!” She lifted the drawer up and pulled a hundred dollar bill from underneath. She gave a customer change for Benjamin Franklin two days before. If Frank had any brains he would have done the cash-out properly and this little baby would be in the safe. Now isn’t that just too bad, she thought. Where was that chicken shit anyway?
“That’s it?” He growled, trying to sound menacing.
“I guess the safe is next then.”
“The safe…” he said, his voice vibrating.
“Yeah, you said you wanted to look at the safe, right?” Jesse looked from her to the folks in the diner. One guy actually sipped from his coffee cup. Caffeine addicts. Wouldn’t let an armed robbery get in the way of their habit.
He waved his gun in her direction, then turned the barrel back in the general direction of the diner. He glared at the man in the red baseball cap, sucking on his coffee. “Right. The safe. But make it quick.”
She walked through the passageway into the kitchen, straight line of sight from the front counter, carrying the backpack. She peered into the kitchen and saw Frank crouching down by the prep counter. He put his fingers to his lips. She shrugged her shoulders.
Addie headed for the brand new, top of the line safe. The only thing in the restaurant not made in China or Taiwan or bought second hand. It sat on the floor in the cubbyhole Frank called an office.
Frank hissed at her. “What are you doing?”
Addie turned her eyes to the front counter. Jesse stood there, a serious look on his face. She wasn’t fooled for a second. A minute ago she was close enough to him to see the tremor in his hands.
She yelled back at Jesse. “I’m opening the safe now. Don’t shoot. This will only take a minute.” She bent down and twirled the dial. She knew the combination, which was going to be a heart-stopping revelation to Frank, who slowly turned purple. She flipped the heavy door open and reached in for the cash. Then her hand froze. She heard the drug trade was lucrative out here. Even losers like Frank were raking it in. But she wasn’t prepared for the stacks of twenties and fifties crammed into the shelves.
She shoveled the money out and crammed it into the bag.
She stood and gave Frank one more glance. His head was vibrating, his jaws clamped shut. He had one hand out, reaching for her, but his greed couldn’t quite overcome his terror. He wasn’t coming out of hiding.
She made her way back to the front counter and plopped the backpack on the glass display case. Inside was a lemon meringue pie Frank had baked in the 90’s - and looked it.
“Come here,” Jesse said. She complied. He turned her around again, only gentler this time, and placed the cold working end of his gun against the nape of her neck. He pulled out some of the money from the backpack and pushed the cash deep into the pockets of his greatcoat. Then he addressed the restaurant.
“We’re leaving. You follow, she dies.” Then he added as an afterthought. “It will be bloody, too.” He looked around. There were no takers. He handed the pack to Addie and walked her backwards out through the glass and aluminum front door, the cool spring wind taking her breath away when it whipped around her.
“Got any more smart comments?” he asked. She shook her head. “Too bad. I kind of enjoyed that part.”
CHAPTER 6
Ghost Lake, Mt. Rainier
TRENT RAZER LAY on a shallow rise of raw granite, a natural shelf just south of the cabin, when the old building disintegrated into a hot ball of flame. He could tell by the color of the smoke that it was C4 induced. Did they take this guy for granted or what? As he leapt to his feet, splinters of old cedar came cutting through the air, one slicing through the fabric at his knee, cutting him to the bone. He lost sight of his brother seconds before the blast. He was pretty sure Brent was inside the cabin when the device ignited. He dove off the rock and headed into the smoke and debris, his knee growing weaker by the second. Then he stumbled over something soft on the ground. He felt with his hand and found the body. He prodded his way up to the head and neck, searching for a pulse, when the body moved. It was Brent. Not the Third Man. He let himself breathe again.
“Are you OK?” he hissed through the smoke. A hand came up in Trent’s face, the thumb pointed skyward.
“We’ve got to get out now. Meet me back at the car.” Trent patted his brother’s head and took off in a low crouch towards the crater that was once a cabin. Above him a thick plume of gray smoke reached thirty to forty feet into the churning morning sky. He wondered how visible that plume would be to the local authorities, but he was absolutely certain that the roar of the blast would have made an impression on anyone in the vicinity. Which meant the police or the forest service would soon be poking their noses into their business. He didn’t have much time to grab Rice and get off that nasty mountain road.
He crept around the stone rubble remains of the foun
dation and found his way to the edge of a steep ravine, a few splintered deck boards still clinging to the rocks. He peered carefully into the dark space below. With the limited light, he could just barely make out a few large boulders and fallen trees. Rice must be down there. Where else could he have gone? But how? If he used a ladder, it was long gone. Trent swore. He had no idea how he could make his way down without proper mountain climbing gear and no time to waste. He swore loudly. His client offered them a helicopter to assist. He refused, saying it could compromise the mission. Calling for one now would be useless and would raise more questions.
They had dramatically underestimated this retired agent. Despite almost ten years of living alone in the wilderness, it looks like he hadn’t quite lost his edge. And now the famous Rice was on the loose again. In the wind. Or in CIA-speak, on the black.
CHAPTER 7
Ghost Lake, Mt. Rainier
THE RAZER BROTHERS WERE RARE polar body twins - one human egg fertilized by two separate sperm and born exactly twenty-two seconds apart. They had both competed for rights to their mother’s egg and miraculously, had both won. They have never stopped competing since.
Both Trent and his brother were nearly identical physically although Brent was broader in the chest. He spent an hour every day in his personal weight room while Trent organized the projects, sat in on meetings and brokered deals. Brent was only interested in the action. He was an excellent marksman, a tri-athlete, and a religious vegetarian. Together they founded a company registered in Maryland, Virginia called Global Imperatives Inc. They were hired almost exclusively by the Executive Services branch of the U.S. Government. But sometimes they did projects for allies such as Britain or Germany.
Today, Brent sat in the front seat of their dusty Crown Vic, his brother at the wheel as they plummeted down the mountain road leading from Burroughs Rice’s recently decimated hideout. Brent had his hand on his head where his scalp had been shredded by the flying remains of the cabin. Blood had run down his face and dried on his cheeks and neck. He was only alive for one reason. When the Third Man had rushed the cabin without giving them any warning, Brent had hit the ground concerned that Rice knew they were coming. Somehow he didn’t think the ex-agent would just let a spook waltz into his home, so he assumed he must be in the trees to the south. He was wrong, but that move had saved his life. He ended up with a lacerated scalp, which itched like hell; otherwise he would have been skewered by thousands of deadly shards of dried wood and rusty nails traveling at the speed of sound.
“Old cabins make great anti-personnel weapons, when you think about it!” he yelled out over the noise of the descending Ford.
Trent nodded. It was true. They were lucky to be alive. Rice had turned his mountain retreat into a huge IED, a very clever improvised explosive device. The Third Man, taking matters into his own hands, had dissolved in an instant. A red mist. Which was fine, since it saved them dealing with the remains.
Trent turned to his brother. “We got zoomed by a guy twice our age. And now he’s on the run. How are you going to explain that to Kreegar?” Kreegar was the man who was paying the bills for this operation. Head of a government agency called SOT. The Strategic Operations Terrorism unit.
“You’re the explainer. Dream something up.”
“I’ve got to get to a place that has Internet access and check out our satellite photos of the area. There are places he can go and places he can’t.”
“You think?” Brent said, doubtfully. “The guy’s like some mystic mountain man. He’s had ten years to design a dozen escape routes, and from what I’ve heard about Rice, he’s run every one of them more times than we can count. Just for practice. “
“He’s got limited options though. Look at this place! He’s not going to climb Mount Rainier. And he’s not going to go into the tourist zones like Paradise. He’s probably got another safe house and he’s making a beeline for it.”
Brent wondered about that. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on this guy, and he believed his brother would figure out the ex-agents escape route. But something about Rice going back into hiding didn’t ring true for a guy addicted to action. “I don’t know. If this guy is anything like me, he’s about had it with hiding and licking his wounds. We might just have released the hounds.”
Trent slid down the next turn, gravel ricocheting against the front quarter panels. His brother might have something there. Rice could have another hidey-hole in mind. Or maybe he’s just decided that life is too short and it’s time to get back in the driver’s seat. If he was right, there were going to be a lot of very nervous power brokers back in Washington D.C. suddenly making plans to get out of the country.
CHAPTER 8
Yakima, Washington
ADDIE SHOWED NO SURPRISE when Frank pulled her aside after the police left and summarily fired her. What else did she expect? In a way she was relieved. Frank was one of those guys who attracted disaster and mayhem like a magnet. Sooner or later he would stupidly cross some other drug dealer or amateur gangster and some innocent bystander would likely get caught in the crossfire. She promised herself that would never happen again. So she put her worn jacket on over her waitress uniform, the one Frank made her buy with her own money – asshole – and walked out into the parking lot.
What now? There wasn’t another business within twenty miles. Jobs didn’t grow on trees around here. She fingered the chunk of cash in her dress pocket that Jesse forced into her hands as he jumped into his souped up Honda Civic. The gesture came out of nowhere. For the first time since she moved to Washington State, she was speechless.
He kissed her roughly on the mouth, with his patchy beard scratching her cheek, like a bandit in a B-movie. She slapped his face. Hard. She was angry, but not so much at him. Her life always seemed to draw her to losers and gamblers and immature wannabe rock stars. Was it her face? Her voice? Some other hidden quality that doomed her to men with huge gaping craters in their souls?
She remembered how her fingers stung after slapping him across the cheek. Thinking back it all felt very Hollywood. But what the hell, she didn’t ask to be kissed.
Then he proposed something to her, quietly, under his breath. She looked him in the eyes, saying nothing. Then he left. They could hear the police sirens in the distance.
She took a bus to work that morning, but the next one was a few hours away. She didn’t own a car because that would mean registration and a driver’s license. Not something she could risk. So she stood on the tarmac by the front door and considered her options. Eventually she would pull the cash out and count it. When she was far enough away from this hopeless truck stop that had filled a few months of a life that seemed to be going nowhere. She did some strange things today. Thinking that made her smile, but she wasn’t entirely sure why.
Addie told the police that the robber escaped in a red Camaro. He actually drove away in a dark blue Honda. She described Jesse with a scar across his cheek and a tattoo of a black swan on his left hand. All made up. She also quietly told one officer that she suspected Frank Fast dealt drugs.
“Keep an eye on him when he takes his weekly drive up to Canada,” she added.
Over the three months Addie worked at the truck stop, she met a lot of drivers. There were a few creeps, but most of them were good guys. Sometimes on the verge of collapse from drinking three quarts of coffee a day, but generally respectful and harmless. As Addie walked away from Frank’s truck stop, she ran into a driver she knew. Everyone knew him as Tex. He was headed to the washrooms.
"Tex!" she yelled. He turned and smiled, obviously glad to see her. "I need a ride."
"Sure thing," he said. "I'll be a few minutes. "I'm at the pumps. Just jump in. It's not locked."
. . . . .
RICE JUST SPENT two hundred dollars in cash filling the tanks of his eighteen-wheeler parked next to the diesel pumps at the Sunoco station in Yakima. Flopped on the covers in the back of the Kenworth’s sleeper, he was checking the Internet on the tr
uck stop's WiFi, when he heard his passenger door open and someone climb in. He froze. He reached into his waistband for his gun and nudged the curtain aside with the barrel. A young woman sat in the passenger seat wearing a long beige car coat and staring down at her cell phone. He watched her for several seconds. She wore a waitress uniform under the coat; her blond hair tied in a ponytail. Her fingers flew over the touch screen like she had been born with a smart phone in her hands.
Rice envied her familiarity with the technology. He missed most of the inventions of the past decade. Wilson had tried to keep him up to speed but it wasn’t the same as watching her manipulate her smartphone with such natural ease.
Rice cleared his throat, and the girl jumped. She turned to him and he saw her eyes. Two different colors. He thought that only happened in the movies.
"Who are you?" she asked, more surprised than alarmed.
"I own this rig."
The girl frowned. "You know Tex?" she asked.
"Can't say I do." The girl reached for the door handle, ready to run. Rice slid over into the driver's seat.
"You need a ride?" he asked. She turned to him. "Sorry, I got in the wrong rig." Then they both turned as another police cruiser pulled into the lot and two officers got out. Addie watched them closely as they surveyed the lot. Rice thought they were just stopping off for a coffee, so ignored them.
"Where you headed?" she asked, focused on the cops.
"North on one-forty," Rice answered, watching her hands. She had a death grip on her phone, the fingertips almost white. She turned back to him suddenly, her breathing shallow. She gave him a quick once over with her eyes.
