by Aimée Thurlo
“We probably won’t uncover the box before daylight, but we can put a dent in the digging,” Lee said with a shrug, walking to a spot about five feet away where the ground looked relatively soft, then stabbing his shovel into the earth. If he was going to dig, he wanted to find an easy place to start.
After a few hours passed, they still hadn’t found the box, and the sun was nearly up. Muller was hurrying Lee and Diane toward the hogan. The vampires had found a rope outside John Buck’s hogan and used it to connect Lee and Diane by their ankles. Neither could run or move quickly without yanking the other off their feet.
Ingrid had also stolen blankets and food from Buck’s house, and the vampires had pulled their vehicle right up beside the front entrance of the hogan, under the trees. They managed to block out light leaks, and the windows in the vehicle screened out the harmful rays. Ingrid and her husband were putting the final touches on sealing up things and were fifty feet away.
Lee caught Diane’s eye, nodded imperceptibly, then stumbled slightly, enough to alert Muller, who’d been turning back to look at the horizon every few seconds.
“Clumsy ass. Watch your step,” Muller growled, “or I’ll kill the woman right now.” He swung his pistol around at Diane.
Lee raised his shovel, threatening Muller. “I’ve had about enough of your Nazi mentality.”
Instead of swinging the shovel at Muller, however, Lee jammed it down with all his superhuman strength. He severed the rope with a stab of the sharp edge, then dove at Muller’s midsection.
The vampire was fast, but Lee’s unexpected tactics had taken Muller by surprise. Lee managed to get a grip on his enemy’s gun hand, pulling it around toward the hogan. The pistol went off with a loud pop, and Ingrid and Kurt dove to the ground, scrambling for their own weapons.
Diane was gone in a flash, heading right toward the rising sun at full speed. Lee tried to spin Muller around, holding on to the gun with both hands, but the vampire was more powerful, angling his pistol toward Diana despite Lee’s efforts.
Lee kicked Muller right in the groin, doubling him up, then tackled him. “Get this bastard off of me,” Muller yelled, “but don’t kill him. Then get the woman. No shooting.”
Lee knew it was coming, and moved in close as Kurt and Ingrid ran up, pummeling him with lists and feet. He looked back toward the sun, which was almost up.
He felt the impact of a knife in his back, but hung on tight to Muller to keep him from following Diane. But he couldn’t fight long, and slowly sank into blackness as the cold pain continued. Then he passed out.
Lee regained consciousness sometime later. He was lying on the ground and something hard was poking him in the back, but at least it wasn’t a knife. The musky scent and absence of light upon his closed eyelids told him he was inside the hogan.
He’d fake unconsciousness as long as possible, trying to gather information before they realized that he’d recovered.
The sound of crinkling paper and the crunch of teeth reminded him of granola bars, and he worried about his stomach growling. Coming back from near-death always gave him an appetite.
He wasn’t worried that they might be speaking in German. That was one of several languages besides Spanish he’d learned in his long life. Being alone nearly every moment of those years had given him time to study, and though he’d learned to play dumb around some people, like Muller and his fellow criminals, he held college degrees, honestly earned, in three of his identities.
He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, and realized that it must be Diane. She hadn’t gotten away after all, but at least she was still alive.
“Has he healed yet?” Muller’s voice was distinctive, and in English.
“No, but his heart is beating. You nearly killed him, you pigs.” Diane’s voice rose slightly, but she was in control.
“He’s probably used to that after all these years. You should be grateful we brought him inside instead of letting him burn up in the sun,” Ingrid said coldly.
“That’s just because he’s the only one who has any idea where to dig for whatever he hid. We didn’t find it last night, did we? Why are you so sure there was plutonium in that box anyway? There was never any report of any turning up missing that I know of, and everything from that era has been declassified by now,” Diane was trying logic.
“Not everything. Governments lie, it’s part of their nature in order to survive, just like a wolf killing a lamb. And when the military is involved, it’s almost a guarantee the entire truth will remain hidden. Of course wed stacked the deck. One of our spies was in a position of power within the military and knew it had never been found or reported missing, officially. But we flew aerial surveys, and got a strung, very localized image somewhere within a hundred meters of this location, even with the crude instrumentation we were able to rent. It’s here, all right,” Kurt added.
“So why are you after the plutonium now? You’re terrorists, I know that, and so does every law-enforcement officer in the country.” Diane asked Muller.
“If we tell you, we’ll have to kill you. Still want to know?” Ingrid laughed.
Lee knew from their meeting in Albuquerque that Interpol suspected Muller’s group was trying to find a way to free one of their comrades who’d been captured during a foiled assassination attempt. Diane was obviously hoping for confirmation. Sometimes people with a conscience had the need to explain their actions. But such a concept was lost on these animals. He knew they’d be killed anyway. Like Muller, Ingrid was deeply disturbed, and Lee had heard that women made the best terrorists.
“You think we’re really going to tell you our plans?” Muller sneered. “Ingrid’s right. You don’t want to destroy your only chance of getting out of this alive.”
“We’re going to die anyway. What does it matter?” Diane continued.
“Forget it. You’ll see for yourself what’s coming.”
“Or maybe you won’t,” Ingrid whispered.
The conversation ended, but Diane stayed by his side, he could hear her breathing. She slipped her hand down upon his, and held it for a while. He took a quick look and saw the concern in her eves, though she wasn’t looking at him at the moment. Finally, realizing that soon they’d know he was awake, he gave her hand a squeeze, and opened his eyes.
Kurt saw the movement, and raised the pistol he had in his hand. “Resurrection time.”
Muller, who’d been keeping watch from a narrow gap between two logs, turned around to look. Then he checked his watch. “An hour. We’d have healed completely in half that time. He’s a weakling.”
“Must have been that German blood that turned me. Half beer, no doubt.” Lee had been feeling fine as of more than fifteen minutes ago, but he was just as happy to have them underestimate him.
Diane was scowling at him now. “Sorry, I hoped to buy more time for you, Agent Lopez,” Lee said. “The sun was coming up, and I thought . . .”
“Ingrid, that vampire bitch, is pretty fast. But I still nearly made it into the clearing before she tackled me.”
“I should have cut your puny throat yesterday, or thrown you out of the helicopter with the pilot. Bet you would have bounced higher than he did, with all that baby fat.” Ingrid took out her knife.
“You sound like a man, and you’re built like one too, you skinny skit,” Diane replied.
“Ladies, ladies, no catfights, please. We have hours to go before dark, and I hate bickering.” Muller laughed. “What do you say, Ingrid?”
“She was a wildcat even before I turned her, Wolfgang. Right, Liebchen?” Kurt reached over and pulled his wife roughly to him for a kiss. Ingrid responded passionately, then he yelped, ended the kiss, and laughed, rubbing his lip.
“That’s why you love me, Kurt. I bile like a vampire.”
“You not only bile, you suck,” Diane grumbled.
Lee laughed, and sat up. “Well, now that we’re all friends again, when is lunch? I’m hungry.
“You think we’re going to f
eed you, cop? Forget about it. You eat once we get the plutonium,” Kurt sneered, and Ingrid laughed.
“Feeling weak after all that energy burn? Healing costs calories,’ Ingrid added.
“Feed him before he starts cracking those lame jokes of his,” Diane added. “I’m hungry too, and I still haven’t died yet today.”
“We can fix that, Ingrid said, reaching for her knife.
“Liebchen, you can kill her after we get the plutonium. For now, give them both a candy bar and some water. If they can’t dig tonight, we’ll have to do it,” Kurt answered.
“Save the peanut-butter cups for me, though. Give them the yogurt clusters. They suck,” Ingrid sneered.
Diane started to speak.
“Don’t say it, mortal,” Ingrid said, pointing her finger at Diane.
“Go for a walk and cool off,” Lee said to Ingrid with a smile, gesturing toward the door.
Diane smiled, but said nothing. Muller and Kurt groaned at the same time.
“God, I can’t wait until both of you are dead,” Ingrid sighed.
“You first, sunshine.” Diane smiled, then ducked as Ingrid faked a jab at her.
“This is going to be a hell of a long day.” Muller shook his head slowly.
Time passed slowly and the hogan began to heat up as midday approached. The vampires took turns watching the area from the inside of the van and through a few chinks they’d discovered between the log sides, making sure to avoid direct sunlight. But it was relatively quiet except for the occasional buzzing of a fly. While one of the three kept watch and another guarded them, the third slept. They’d been on the run nearly as long as Diane and Lee, and Muller knew they were running down as well, despite their phenomenal constitutions.
Lee indicated to Diane that they should both rest, knowing that they’d be forced to dig that evening. He slept fitfully, but Diane seemed to be asleep, at least part of the time. It was hard for either of them to think of sleeping through so much of their remaining short lives, but little else could be done, at least until they were outside where there was room to maneuver. Up close, they were hopelessly outclassed, not only on strength, hut with reaction times as well.
On several occasions Lee moved to a new position, or tried to stand, and that instantly got all their attention. Ingrid was the jumpiest of them all, and definitely the most volatile. Lee noted that she carried a grenade in her jacket pocket.
He was dozing, around four in the afternoon, when he heard the roar of heavy machinery somewhere close, and was instantly awake.
“What the hell is that? Sounds like a tank.” Muller, who’d been sleeping, rushed to one of the chinks between the logs to look out. Ingrid stepped aside, and Kurt, who was guarding them, looked anxiously toward the doorway.
“Listen. The sound has changed, like it’s in gear.” Kurt’s voice went up a note higher than usual.
“Maybe it’s that Navajo man who lives across the stream, down there in the house beside that other hogan. You said he was there the night you tried to find Nez and this woman.” Ingrid grabbed Muller by the sleeve. “Did he have a tractor? I didn’t see any fields, not big enough to plow, at least.”
Lee looked at Diane, who shrugged. Like him, she was subtly stretching, getting ready to move quickly.
“Stay where you are,” Kurt said, motioning toward her with his pistol. “You’re not moving unless we move.”
Lee listened, and thought he recognized the sound, having been around a lot of highway construction sites while on patrol. He nodded to Diane. “Sounds like good news to me.”
“It’s some kind of tracked machine! Listen to that clank. Those are treads. Kurt’s voice went up another level, and Muller nodded.
The German pilot turned to Lee. “That Navajo who lives near here. What does he do?”
“Some kind of medicine man, I think. But maybe he has a part-time job working for the highway department. Perhaps someone is grading the road.’
Muller shook his head. “He knows about us, doesn’t her What did you tell him?”
“Oh, that a couple of vampires—three, I guess with the Amazon here—were out to get us. He believed that right away.”
The sound of the machine was getting closer, and picking up speed. Muller looked at Kurt, then Ingrid. “Get them into the van, and watch them closely. If either one moves, shoot her in the stomach. That’s particularly painful, I’ve learned.”
The ground started shaking, and Ingrid looked back at Muller. “Come on you two, move now, or I’ll shoot her.”
Diane stood as slowly as she dared, and stepped forward. Ingrid pushed her toward the entrance. On the other side of the blanket was the open sliding door of the van. Diane stopped there, and Ingrid pushed her so hard, she fell onto the seat. “You next, cop.”
Lee stepped forward, took Diane’s arm, and led her to the backseat. It was a minivan designed for a large family with three bench seats. “Not all the way back, in the middle seat.” Muller looked over, then motioned to Kurt.
“Get the shovels, the maps and blankets loaded up, quickly. We’re going to have to get out of here,” Muller yelled.’
The ground was moving even more now, and dust was shaking down from the ceiling of the hogan. The covered hole, where Bowlegs’s body had apparently been removed years earlier, was starting to change shape slightly. The logs on that wall had been cut open, and they weren’t resting very securely anymore.
Kurt grabbed the remaining food and a blanket from the earthen floor. He moved past Muller, and sat down in the driver’s position. Lee could see something large, lumbering, and yellow coming up the dirt track. It was definitely a bulldozer, and he wagered that if the driver wasn’t John Buck, he was still responsible for it.
Muller yanked the last blanket off the van, hopped in, closed the door, and turned to watch Lee and Diane. She was smiling. “I wish that was me on that bulldozer right now,” she said.
A loud crunch was followed by a pine tree toppling like a fuzzy domino, and a massive, shining steel blade appeared just fifty feet away, lumbering toward them.
“Get moving. If he hits us with that blade, he’ll open this van like a can of sardines,” Muller yelled.
Kurt put the van into gear, and inched forward, running through waist-high brush that scratched noisily at the undercarriage. The vehicle rattled and rocked as he turned sharply to the left. The roar of the bulldozer was overpowering now, and Lee looked over his shoulder. The machine sloughed to its left, and now was aimed directly to intercept the van.
“Faster. He’s going to ram us!” Ingrid shouted, taking her eyes off Diane and Lee to stare, open-eyed, at the shiny blade and clanking treads that were approaching. Black smoke rose up from the tip of the exhaust stack, but the driver was out of view.
CHAPTER 21
The van fishtailed, hopped over a rock in its way, and shot past the heavy caterpillar treads, quickly reaching the trail the machine had just made.
They bounced up and down like ripples across a pond on the hard earth formed into two corduroy tracks as Kurt tried to put some distance between them and the bulldozer. Lee’s teeth rattled, but he managed to hang on and turn back to look at the dozer, which had already spun around and was coming in their direction again.
Ingrid was looking back too, and he thought of trying to grab her pistol. “Don’t try it, Nez! Ingrid, pay attention! That slow machine will never catch us now,” Muller yelled.
“Watch Nez. I’ve got an idea,” Ingrid shouted back. “Let the dozer get closer, Kurt.” She reached into her pocket and took out the grenade, then slid open the window about four inches, keeping her hand back from the opening and the direct rays of the sun. She pulled the ring, and held the grenade beside the window, watching the dozer rumble closer.
Lee couldn’t reach Ingrid without jumping over the back of the seat, and Muller could stop him before he could do that. And if the grenade fell inside the vehicle, it would probably explode before anybody could pick it up and throw
it outside. Diane would certainly be killed, and if there was a fire, they might all die.
“Slower, just a little closer,” Ingrid teased.
Diane looked at Lee, then Ingrid. “Come on, raise that blade some more,” she urged, noting that whoever was operating the dozer had raised the blade slightly to compensate for the uneven ground, not wanting to strike the surface at that speed and get thrown out of the operator’s seat.
“Now!” Muller yelled, and Ingrid raised her hand and dropped the grenade from the window. Lee looked up and saw it bouncing along the ground just in front of the dozer. He reached over and pushed Diane down below the seat, covering her with his body just as the explosive device went off.
There was a muffled roar, the ground shook, and several small objects whistled by the van.
The bulldozer’s engine noise dropped suddenly, and Lee looked back over the seat. Ingrid was watching out the back window, laughing. The big machine had thrown a track, and careened to the side before coming to a halt. “Got you, you sorry bastard.”
Kurt drove down the trail toward the Interstate at a more leisurely pace now, avoiding the churned-up ground, and Lee looked anxiously for any other vehicles that might be around, possibly containing police officers, or even the FBI.
All he could see was a dump truck with a large trailer hooked up behind it parked on the trail. It belonged to one of the local highway department contractors. John Buck, or whoever was operating the dozer, had apparently come alone.
Suddenly there was a muffled gunshot and the right rear tire of the van exploded. The van fishtailed, Kurt nearly losing control Lee hung on, keeping one arm on Diane to steady her while turning to look For the source of the gunfire.
Beneath the trailer he caught a quick glimpse of a .30-30 poking out, and right away he knew where John Buck was. The vampires couldn’t leave the vehicle now to fix the tire or run away, not with the sun at its brightest, and John was going to make sure they couldn’t use the van to get very far either. He had a feeling John knew they were in the van too, and that’s why he wasn’t peppering the sides of the vehicle with bullets.
