Cut Out

by Bob Mayer

  “One male. One female. Description for both fits, but the lighting’s lousy and I can’t confirm it. Over.”

  “What about the escort? Over.”

  “Gone. No sign of anyone covering them. They’re all alone. Over.”

  “Roger. Hold. Out.” Master leaned back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair. He was a large man, his arms corded with muscles, his hair prematurely gray. His face was permanently set in a scowl. What people noticed about him on first meeting were his eyes. They were such a pale shade of blue that they immediately drew people’s attention. On missions where he could be spotted, he normally wore colored contact lenses.

  He pressed both hands together and cracked his knuckles. The waiting was the worst part. It was too early. Too many people about. Later would be better. But the window of opportunity was narrow. He made his decision and checked his watch. “All elements, this is Master. It’s now twelve eighteen mark twenty seconds. We go at twelve twenty-one. All elements report in with a confirmation on that. Over.”

  “Door. Roger. Over.”

  “Support. Roger. All clear. Over.”

  “Surveillance. Roger. All clear from up here. Over.”

  Master glanced at the man sitting in front of the communications console. “Anything?”

  The man pulled one of the cups off his left ear and pointed at the glowing computer screen. “Nearest patrol car is four miles away.” The use of computers in police vehicles—while of great benefit to the officers—made the location of those cars available to anyone who had the right equipment to lock into the police band and decrypt the continuous transmission those computers send back to patrol headquarters.

  12:19 a.m.

  “You need to tell her when she comes in,” Jill insisted.

  Philip wrung his hands. “Listen—I couldn’t just let it go and never talk to you again but this—this was wrong of me. I shouldn’t have done it.”

  Jill drove home her attack. “But you did! And you know why you did? Because you love me. What has she done for you in the past year? Huh?”

  Philip pressed his palms against his temples and closed his eyes. He wished everything and everybody would disappear.

  Jill Fastone smiled, the game done. “Oh, don’t take it all so seriously, Philip. It doesn’t matter anyway.” Her right hand dropped into her purse. “You don’t think I came down here because I love you, do you? You’re such a fool.”

  Philip looked up in confusion. “What?”

  She pulled the silenced pistol out of her purse and aimed it squarely at his chest. “You first and then your wife when she gets back.”

  “But why?” Philip protested in surprise.

  Fastone ignored the question. “First, there’s something you need to tell me, isn’t there?”

  Philip stared. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know what I’m talking about,” she answered. “Where’s the money?”

  12:21 A.M.

  The unmarked panel van slid in front of room 107. Three men smoothly exited the sliding side door, leaving it open. They wore black ski masks, and small boom mikes hung in front of their lips. The middle man was the one in charge, and he was whispering their progress in his mike as they approached the door.

  The lead man slid the passkey into the lock while the second man stood by with a sledgehammer in case the chain had been put on. There was no need, because the knob turned and the door swung open. The leader took aim and fired the weapon in his hand. A small metal dart shot out, reeling out a thin line behind it, and struck Philip Cobb in the chest, attaching to his shirt. The first man released the doorknob and fired his own electric stunner, hitting the woman, who was swinging around toward them, a pistol in her hand.

  Both men pressed switches on the handles of the weapons. The couple’s look of surprise changed to one of rigid pain as the volts coursed through their bodies, locking up their muscles and freezing them. The third man swung the door shut behind them. The second man ran forward and pulled the pistol out of Jill Fastone’s hands. The entry had taken all of three seconds.

  The leader strode up to Philip Cobb and peered at his face. “Master, I’ve got a confirmed ID on the primary target. Over.” He pulled out a white plastic drop cloth that had been tucked under his belt, threw it on the ground, and kicked Cobb’s legs out from under him. Philip landed on the drop cloth with a thud, the scream he was trying to let loose stuck in his throat by the electric current. His eyes, already opened wide, watched the man pull out a pistol with his free hand and point it at him, right between the eyes.

  “Primary ready for termination. Over.” The bulky silencer on the end of the barrel was rock steady.

  “This is Master. Terminate. Over.”

  The man pulled the trigger, and a soft-nosed bullet tore through the center of Philip Cobb’s forehead. The mercury inside the metal jacket expanded, sending shards of metal through his brain. The bullet disintegrated and spent its force inside the skull, killing Cobb but making a minimal mess. His head thumped back on the plastic, with only a slight dribble of blood oozing from the black hole in the center of his forehead.

  “Shit, it ain’t her!” the first man exclaimed.

  The leader shifted his gaze from the body. The woman was lying on a similar plastic sheet; the first man had his gun centered on her, but he was looking at the leader. “It ain’t her,” he repeated. He held up her silenced pistol. “And she had this on her aimed at him”—he jerked a thumb at Philip’s body—"when we came in.”

  “Master, this is Door. We’ve got a negative confirmation on secondary target. Over.”

  In the van, Master leaned forward in his seat and grabbed the boom mike, as if by holding it the message would come out clearer. “What do you mean it isn’t her? Maybe they did a make-over. Over.”

  “Negative. I’m telling you it isn’t her. Over.”

  “Who the hell is it then? Over.”

  The cell leader gestured for the lead man to turn off the stunner. He pressed his pistol in the middle of the woman’s forehead. “Check the bag,” he ordered.

  The lead man grabbed the woman’s purse and pulled out her wallet. He flipped it open and saw her Illinois driver’s license. “Jill Fastone,” he informed the cell leader, who promptly relayed the information over the radio. “She was in here with the primary and she was holding a weapon on him. Over.”

  Master recognized the name from the mission briefing. He quickly calculated his next move, feeling precious seconds ticking away. “This is Master. Terminate. Over. Break. Surveillance, we’re missing the secondary target. Find her. Over.”

  The door to the ladies’ room swung open and the waitress peered around. “Are you all right, miss?”

  Lisa raised her head from the sink and met the other woman’s eyes. “I’m all right. Something I ate.”

  “I was just checking on you—the way you ran in here and all,” the waitress explained.

  Lisa blinked and tried to sort out her thoughts. She couldn’t confront Philip here in the bar, and not with that woman next to him. She decided to go to the room and wait for him. “I think I’ll just go back to my room and lie down.”

  Lisa walked out on unsteady legs, her eyes seeking the booth where she had seen Philip and the woman. They were gone. Lisa continued toward the door to the lounge, fearing the coming stormy confrontation.

  “Please,” Jill Fastone whispered, her eyes riveted on the large black bore pointed at her. “Please don’t.”

  “What are you doing here?” the cell leader asked.

  She shook her head. “Please. Just let me go. I won’t say anything.”

  He held up her pistol. “What were you going to do with this? Who sent you?”

  “I can help you!” she pleaded. “I can give you information about—”

  “Let’s go!” The third man hissed, not interested in what she had to say. “Master said terminate. We’ve been in here for seventy-five seconds.”

  The cell lea
der pulled the trigger, and Jill Fastone’s body settled onto the plastic with a thump and a twitch. “Let’s wrap ’em and go,” the cell leader ordered. They rolled the bodies in the white plastic. The third man, who’d been watching out the window all this time, cracked open the door and took a quick look. “All clear.”

  The cell leader and the first man picked up Philip Cobb’s body and headed out the door.

  “This is Surveillance. I’ve got what looks like the secondary leaving the lounge. Over.”

  “Door, did you get that? Over.”

  The cell leader looked up from his end of the body they were carrying and spotted the woman on the sidewalk fifty feet away. “Fuck!”

  Lisa Cobb stared at the two men with the bundle between them, and she realized they were staring back at her. They dropped the bundle, and she gasped as Philip’s body rolled out of the plastic. The men were pulling guns from their jackets. She turned and ran.

  The door cell leader hissed into his microphone, “Where’s she going? Over.”

  “Into the lounge. Over.”

  “This is Master. Clean up and let’s get the fuck out of here. Over.”

  “What about the secondary? Over.” The door cell leader watched the woman disappear into the lounge; he was torn between taking care of the dead body at his feet and the live one running away.

  “You want to follow her in there?” Master’s voice snapped at him over the air. “Do as I goddamn tell you. Clean up and clear out. Surveillance, you maintain. Over.”

  The men dumped Philip Cobb’s body unceremoniously into the back of the van. Jill Fastone’s followed. The three men swept the room, removing all signs of occupancy and relocking the door on the way out.

  The van pulled away from the motel and was on the interstate heading north within two minutes.

  “Do you have a phone?” Lisa demanded of the bartender.

  He looked at the desperate woman and jerked his head toward the restrooms. “There’s a pay phone back there.”

  Lisa glanced at the front door, expecting at any minute to see the two men come hurtling through, guns ablaze. She reached across the bar and grabbed the man’s arm. “I need to call the police! Right away.”

  The bartender extracted his arm from her grip and peered at her, his mind struggling with the conflict between the woman’s obvious panic and the house rules. He grudgingly reached under the bar and pulled out a phone.

  Lisa grabbed the receiver and punched in 911. The other end was picked up on the second ring.

  “I’ve got a call!” the commo man yelled out. “A unit to respond to this location. Possible two-five-one.”

  Master twisted in his chair. “Who’s responding?” The commo man glanced at his screen as he listened. “One-four.” He tapped the glass. “This one. About five minutes out.”

  “This is Master. Everyone pull back to alternate assembly point. Over.”

  “This is Surveillance. What about the woman? We’ll lose her! Over.”

  Master leaned forward and spoke slowly into his mike. “This is Master. We won’t lose her.” His voice became ice cold. “The next person who questions my orders is dead. Out.”

  Chapter 4

  CHARLOTTE

  29 OCTOBER, 12:44 a.m.

  The cop looked around the empty motel room and then back at Lisa Cobb. “Doesn’t look to me like anybody was in here, never mind someone getting killed.” He scanned a page of his notebook. “The desk says this room is reserved for a Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart, but they never checked in.”

  Lisa sank down in the cheap chair and stared around her. Philip was dead. Everything was gone. All she had was the few dollars in her purse. She didn’t exist as a real person anymore.

  “And,” the cop added, “since you can’t show me any ID, I think we might have a problem here. I talked to the bartender and he told me that one of the waitresses says you were sick in the bathroom just before you called nine-one-one.” He considered Lisa. “I don’t smell any alcohol on you, miss, but there isn’t anything to back up what you’re saying. I’d take you in and run you for drugs, but I get off shift in thirty minutes.”

  He stuffed his notebook back in his breast pocket. “I don’t know what your story is, lady, but don’t waste our time. If your boyfriend dumped you here and is gone down the interstate now, then call someone who can come get you.” He gestured for the door. “Get out of here and I’ll forget all about this.”

  “But I’m in the Federal Witness Protection Program and my husband was too, and they killed him!” she explained for the fourth time.

  The cop nodded. “Right. And you were just sitting here in a motel and the mob found you and killed him and left you alive and made everything disappear. Uh-huh.” He pointed at the door again. “I’ve heard better stories than that to get out of a speeding ticket. Get going.”

  Lisa stepped out of the room, feeling the early morning chill sink into her bones. The cop opened the door to his car and paused, watching Lisa. She turned and walked down the sidewalk, not sure where she was going but knowing she had to get away from the motel. Her body was working on automatic, her mind no longer able to function after too many shocks.

  “The cop called in clear.”

  Master leaned forward. “She’s not with him?”

  “Negative.”

  “Nothing from the room?”

  An irritated look flashed over the commo man’s face, but his back was to the other man. “The cop’s going off shift. He called in nothing on the woman or the room,” he repeated.

  Master’s foot pushed the transmit button. “Surveillance, this is Master.”

  In the van parked next to his at the rest stop, the man sitting in the passenger seat pressed his own transmit. “This is Surveillance. Over.”

  “It’s clear. Move in and reacquire the secondary target. Over.”

  With a squeal of tires, the van roared out of the parking lot, heading back to exit 12.

  The radio crackled in the van. “Master, this is Door. I know what to do with the remains of the primary, but what should I do with the other one? Over.”

  Master thought about that for a few moments, then a nasty smile crossed his face. He pressed the transmit button with the answer.

  The lights of the all-night truck stop beckoned just before the on ramp to the interstate. Lisa walked along the side of the road, her shoes crunching in the gravel. The patrol car drove by slowly, the officer swiveling his head to look at her pointedly. She saw his brake lights come on; he was waiting to see what she did. She walked across the oil-spattered asphalt and into the diner. A couple of truck drivers eyed her briefly over their steaming cups of coffee as she settled onto a stool. She looked out the window and the cop car was gone.

  “Coffee,” she said as the waitress came up. She had to think. She opened her purse to grab a dollar bill and spotted the card that Donnelly had given her. She grabbed it the way a drowning person would a life preserver.

  “Can I have some change, please?” Lisa said quietly, giving several dollar bills to the waitress.

  She took the change and went outside to the pay phone on the wall. A set of headlights shining from the off-ramp caught her eye. A van with dark windows rolled by slowly. Lisa caught her breath—the van looked exactly like the one Philip’s body had been thrown into. She dropped the phone and quickly walked back into the illusive safety of the diner, then watched from the window as the van disappeared into the darker shadows of a closed gas station on the far side of the road.

  “Got trouble, little lady?”

  Lisa tore her eyes away and stared at a man in grease-stained overalls. A big wad of chaw poked his cheek out to the left, and the broken veins in his nose spoke of large quantities of alcohol imbibed over the years. The skin around his eyes crinkled as he smiled. “That’s my rig there,” he said, pointing at a run-down tractor truck with a livestock trailer attached. “You need to get out of here?” he persisted.

  Lisa glanced across the street one m
ore time and then nodded. “Yes. Where are you going?”

  He grinned and stuck out his hand. “Carrying a load to slaughter up at Greensboro. Name’s Ted, but back home in Texas they call me Bubba.”

  “Lisa.”

  “Let’s roll, Lisa.”

  “Secondary is getting into a tractor trailer. Georgia license AFT- 649. Too many people to do anything here. Over.”

  “Shit,” Master swore to himself. He keyed his mike. “Maintain contact.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle of aspirin.

  “You just get in a fight with your husband or something?” Bubba asked.

  “What?” Lisa said, her red-rimmed eyes momentarily looking away from the rearview mirror.

  “Well, you got a wedding band on your finger there, and you been crying, and some asshole’s following us,” Bubba reported succinctly.

  Lisa thought quickly. The van had been behind them now for the last ten miles, ever since they’d pulled onto the interstate. “It’s him. He’s been beating me.”

  “What?” Bubba glanced over with his forehead furrowed.

  “My husband. He’s been beating me. I’ve got to get away from him.”

  Bubba sat in silence for a few moments. “Son of a bitch,” he said, pounding the steering wheel. “Son of a bitch. I hate assholes who hit women.” He looked over. “You got any kids?”

  Lisa felt her heart lurch. “I had a daughter.”

  “Had?”

  “She died two years ago.”

  “Shit, ma’am, I’m sorry.” Bubba’s face tightened. “He didn’t kill her, did he?”

  Lisa couldn’t do it anymore. She slumped forward, head in hands, and the tears came out in great heaving sobs.

  “Oh, shit,” Bubba groaned. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m real sorry.” He looked in the rearview mirror and spit a gob of chaw out the partially open side window. The van was about two hundred feet back. You fucking asshole, he said to himself. He eased up on the gas pedal, and the van crept to within a hundred feet before the driver started to compensate. Bubba slammed his foot on the brakes and, with a startling screech, the rig slid, wheels locked.