by Bob Mayer
The driver of the surveillance van cursed as the rear of the tractor trailer loomed in front of them, closing at a dangerous rate. He slammed on his brakes and threw the wheel to the left. The van hit the shoulder of the road at twenty miles an hour. A tree suddenly appeared in front of the van, and the driver threw up his hands in front of his face as the front end crumpled inward.
“Yea-hah!” Bubba screamed. “Did you see . . .” He paused as he looked at Lisa. His voice dropped to the closest he could manage to a concerned whisper. “You all right?”
Lisa nodded, wiping her sleeve across her face.
“Well, you won’t have to worry about your husband for a while, ma’am.”
Lisa nodded, unable to speak.
“Hey, listen,” Bubba continued uncertainly, the excitement of the moment wearing off. “Where you heading? You got some folks to stay with?”
Lisa sucked in her breath and tried to get control.
“You can drop me off wherever you’re going.”
Bubba looked at her and opened his mouth to speak but then shut it. He drove on.
“This is Surveillance. We’ve lost the target and we need maintenance help. I-85, mile marker forty-two. Over.”
The commo man twisted in his seat to look at Master, then quickly turned back to his computers as his boss’s face contorted in anger. “This is Master. Say again. Over.”
“We’ve lost the target and are broken down at mile marker forty-two. Over.”
Master’s hands gripped the edge of the console in front of him until the white showed clearly on his knuckles. Somehow he managed to control his voice. “We’ll clear you out. Over.”
He kicked the panel separating him and the commo man from the driver. “Get moving!” he yelled.
“What about the target?” the commo man dared ask.
“We’ll get her,” Master muttered, picking up the secure portable phone. “We’ll get the bitch.”
“I need to make a call,” Lisa said as she spotted the sign for a rest area.
“Sure thing, miss.” Bubba had been getting nervous during the past thirty minutes, half-expecting a state trooper to pull him over for running that van off the road. The guy must have reported it by now. All this time the woman had simply been sitting there, not responding to his attempts at conversation, staring blankly out the windshield. He pulled into the rest area and rolled up to the bank of phones.
“I’ll wait here,” he said. Lisa hopped out without a word.
She made her way to a phone and pulled out the change she’d gotten at the diner. On the card Donnelly had given her she noted that the number had an 800 prefix—someone had been thinking. She punched in the number and it was picked up on the third ring. A recorded voice talked to her: “Enter your code, please.”
With a shaking hand she punched in the four-digit code written on the corner of the card. There was a buzz and then an extremely long pause. Lisa was beginning to think she needed to redial when a sleepy voice came on the line. “Yes?”
It all poured out in a torrent. “This is Mrs. Cobb. I was given this number by Agent Donnelly. She said to call if there were any problems and… and my husband, he’s been killed. I saw his body. They were carrying it out of the motel room. And they’re after me. They were following—”
The voice was fully alert now. A distinct New England accent. “Hold on. Wait a second, Mrs. Cobb.” There was the sound of movement. “You say your husband is dead? When? Where?”
The story came out in a rush, the voice on the other end occasionally asking questions to clarify. When Lisa ground to a halt, she finally realized she didn’t even know to whom she was talking. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“You can call me Simon.” The voice continued. “All right, Mrs. Cobb. Where exactly are you right now?”
“The rest area on I-85 just before Greensboro.”
“North or southbound?”
“Northbound.”
“All right. From what you told me, you’re not in danger right now. Stay where you are and I’ll get people there as quickly as possible.”
Lisa looked around the rest area. A dozen or so trucks with their parking lights on were in the truck parking area. Two cars with misted windows sat in front of the building housing the restrooms.
“How long before someone will get here?” she asked.
“I’ll have people there within an hour,” Simon replied.
“How will I know who they are?” she asked.
“They’ll know who you are. Just wait there.”
“All right.”
The phone went dead in her hand and she stared at it for thirty seconds. She put it back slowly on the hook and walked wearily over to Bubba’s.
“Get through?” he asked as she stepped up and opened the passenger door.
“Yes. My friend will be here within the hour to pick me up. I really appreciate your help.”
Bubba nodded, his eyes meeting her red-rimmed ones and then scanning the dark parking lot. “Well, I don’t have to deliver this load until six. I can wait.”
“Oh, no,” Lisa protested. “I’ll be fine waiting in the building. You’ve been a big help and I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
Bubba shook his head. “It ain’t right for a lady to be waiting in one of these places all alone. There’s strange people come through here at night.”
“I’ll be fine, and I’ve already inconvenienced you enough.”
Bubba frowned and spit into his plastic coffee cup. “Ain’t no inconvenience to help a lady.”
“Please,” Lisa pleaded. “I’ll be fine.”
Bubba sat back in his seat and sighed. “Well, all right, ma’am. But you take care, you hear?”
“I will,” Lisa said. She leaned across the large stick shift and kissed Bubba gently on his right cheek. “Thanks for everything.” Tears welled up in her eyes again.
Bubba’s already red face went a shade darker, and he mumbled something inarticulate as Lisa climbed down from the cab.
She walked under the lights to the back entrance of the small rest stop building, entered the brightly lit interior, and sank down wearily on a hard wooden bench facing the front where the cars were parked. She glanced at the large clock hanging on the wall—ten minutes since she’d gotten off the phone with Simon. She leaned back against the wood and her head immediately started to droop, her eyes feeling the urge to close, her body no longer capable of producing any more adrenaline to keep it going. She snapped her head up and peered about, struggling to keep awake. For the next forty-two minutes she alternately slipped into a sleep more like exhausted unconsciousness, then woke to a fretful but disoriented awareness.
At precisely 2:23 a.m. a car pulled to the front of the rest area building, its lights reflecting off the glass. Lisa awoke with a start and blinked, blinded by the high beams. Two men got out of the car and headed toward the building. Lisa stood—it had to be the people Simon had sent. She reached the door just before they did and stepped outside. “Mrs. Cobb?” one of the men called out, holding up a hand in greeting, his form silhouetted by the lights of the car.
The last bit of energy drained out of Lisa and she leaned back against the door, glad the nightmare was finally over. “Yes.”
The man’s other hand raised and there was something in it. Lisa’s mind tried to react, but it was slowed by a quagmire of exhaustion and shock. There was a sharp snap, and something flashed across the six feet of space separating them and snagged the front of her windbreaker. Lisa’s eyes turned downward in confusion and then she tried futilely to scream as the electric current tore through her body.
The two men hustled her into the back of the car and slammed the doors. “Let’s go!” the man with the electric stunner yelled at the driver. The car pulled away from the rest area building and headed for the interstate.
The man looked down at Lisa lying on the floor in the back and allowed a small, satisfied smile to play over his face. He picked up the hea
dset that was plugged into the radio.
“Master, this is Julian. We have the secondary target under control. I confirm the target. Over.”
“This is Master. Terminate. Out.”
Julian pulled out his pistol and centered the muzzle on Lisa’s forehead. The car swayed as the driver pulled onto the ramp connecting the rest area with the highway. “Turn off the power,” he ordered the other man, who promptly released the trigger on the stunner.
“Good-bye, bitch.” As his finger tightened on the trigger, the right side of the car burst inward, throwing Julian against the left door, his shot tearing through the floor. The car was being pushed across the white lines on the highway and into the grassy median.
In his cab, Bubba let out a rebel yell. He grabbed the Colt Python he kept stashed next to the seat as protection. The car had rolled over on its left side in the grass; the wheels were still turning as Bubba hopped down from his cab.
The passenger door flew open and a head appeared.
“Hands where I can see ’em, asshole!” Bubba yelled, leveling his pistol at the man climbing out. Bubba moved closer and yelled again: “You all right, miss?” His eyes widened as an automatic weapon appeared in the man’s right hand. Bubba fired two wild shots and dove for safety underneath his trailer. A return burst of fire tore into the livestock in the trailer, and the cattle screamed wildly in pain. Blood splattered against the side panels and the trailer rocked as the animals panicked.
The rear door of the car sprang open and Julian and the other man crawled out.
“Watch out!” the driver yelled from his perch in the open passenger door. “It’s some fucking cowboy with a gun—”
The man’s words were cut off as a large red spot blossomed in the center of his forehead. His head snapped back as the rear of his skull was torn off by the trajectory of the .357 magnum slug. The body slumped back into the vehicle.
Julian and the other man immediately hit the ground, peering up at the road. “See him?” Julian hissed.
“Negative. He must be behind the trailer.”
Julian nodded. He flicked the selector lever of his FA-MAS Commando rifle from single shot through the three-round burst to fully automatic, then settled the butt of the weapon firmly into his shoulder. He rolled to his knee and sighted down the laser sight built into the top handle of the short weapon. The red dot slid along the asphalt in front of the trailer from right to left, the arc of bullets following it, hitting the hard surface and ricocheting off—a line parallel to and eight inches above the road surface.
One of the twenty-five rounds ripped into Bubba’s left calf, the high velocity of the 5.56mm NATO round splintering the bone and tearing off a huge chunk of muscle as it tumbled through and continued on. Bubba fell to the ground, shock already setting in—as much from the surprise of being hit as from the bullet.
Julian smoothly pressed back the release, dropping the magazine that rested between the trigger and the rear of the stock—the innovation that allowed the French-made weapon to be only sixteen inches long—and slammed a new magazine home in less than two seconds.
Bubba was trying to get up on his one good leg and crawl behind the wheel of the trailer when Julian centered the red dot on his chest. A long, savage burst tore into the prone man. The first two rounds killed him, but Julian continued firing, bullets punching into the body and rolling it a good ten feet away from the truck.
Julian stood slowly and walked forward, surveying the mess. The left front of the tractor truck was dented where the driver had slammed into the car. Julian had no idea who this crazy person was, but it didn’t matter now. Cleanup was the number one priority. Luckily no traffic had come along during the brief firefight, but they couldn’t count on that much longer.
“Get on the radio,” he snapped at the other man. “We need all the help we can get right away to clean this up.”
The other man turned and ran back to the car. His shout startled Julian. “She’s gone!”
“What?” Julian asked, sensing an already screwed-up mission going farther down the tubes.
“She’s not here.”
Julian spun and scanned the immediate area. A set of lights roared down the interstate toward him. He drew up the MAS to firing position, then relaxed as he recognized the van. It slid to a halt and Master stepped out, surveying the scene with his lips set in a tight slash. Julian ran up to him.
“We’ve got one body there. Cobb’s gone.”
“Where to?” Master demanded.
Julian shrugged and looked about helplessly. “She must have run while I was terminating the interference.”
Master looked around, taking in the car on its side, the body of Bubba, the dented tractor-trailer rig with animals in back, some still screaming in pain. “Kill those animals and drive the rig back into the rest area. I’ll take care of the car.”
“What about the woman?” Julian asked.
“Our first priority is to clean up this pile of shit before we get state troopers all over the place!” Master yelled over his shoulder as he started toward the van.
On the far side of the interstate, huddled in the thick shrubbery planted there, Lisa Cobb shivered with fear, her body incapable of running any farther. She’d scrambled out the back door of the car right behind the two men and sprinted away into the darkness, without looking back.
Now as she watched the truck being backed into the rest area, she knew what had happened: Bubba must have stayed in the truck rest area and spotted her being abducted. Tears filled her eyes as she watched the body of her brief friend and protector thrown into the van that had pulled up.
She blinked as the car from which she had escaped went up in flames. The men all jumped into the van and it sped off into the darkness. Lisa remained hidden, refusing to come out, even ten minutes later when the lights of state police cars and fire trucks appeared in the darkness and lit up the night.
Chapter Five
CHICAGO
29 OCTOBER, 7:34 a.m.
The change of guard occurred gradually as the caretakers of the night slowly closed down and passed the duty to those who made their way in with the rising sun—all well before the required time of eight. It was habit and tradition in the Chicago Police Department—you always came on duty at least fifteen minutes, more like a half hour, before your shift was supposed to start, so the person you were replacing could leave a little earlier.
Lieutenant Donna Giannini made her way through her old domain, Homicide, on the way to the little cubicle where she’d been exiled. She wasn’t replacing anyone—her job was done only during the day. She was a short, slender woman with black hair, slightly tinged with gray, cut tight against her skull. She wore black slacks, flat shoes, and a thick sweater. Her Mediterranean ancestry showed up clearly in her olive skin.
Giannini paused at the table holding the large coffeepot, retrieved her mug, and poured herself a generous dose of the strong brew. As she turned to leave, Vince Lorenzo spotted her and gave a yell. “Hey, Lieutenant!”
“Yeah?” Giannini didn’t like Lorenzo, and she knew he didn’t particularly care for her either. She waited, her right hand curled around the warmth of the mug. It was a game—it always was—Lorenzo had his feet on his desk, expecting her to come over. She held her ground, knowing, by virtue of her rank of lieutenant and his of sergeant, that he should come to her. The only problem was that she was a lieutenant without a following, which made everyone question her position.
Lorenzo gave it ten seconds, then swung his legs off the desk and lumbered to his feet. He shifted through the mess of papers on his desk and extracted a message slip. Beer belly leading the way, he shuffled over to Giannini. “Got a strange message for you.” He scratched his head. “This guy—he’s called about six times. I told him you wouldn’t be in until about seven thirty, but he sounded kind of upset.” A smirk played around his mouth. Giannini could almost read his mind as he speculated about her personal life.
“Can I have the
message, please?” Giannini asked patiently.
“Oh, yeah.” He proferred the piece of paper. “He wouldn’t leave his name,” he added.
She looked at the scrawled message. “Remember ices at Antonio’s? Stickball at the school?”
“Kind of weird, eh?” Lorenzo asked, his curiosity now clearly in the open. “He said he’d call back.”
“Did he say what he was calling about?” Giannini asked, half her mind already in a long-ago place.
“Nope.”
“He calls again, you put him through right away.”
“I go off shift,” Lorenzo said smugly.
“Then make sure you brief Carter and the rest of the guys on the day shift,” she snapped. Without another word, Giannini left Homicide and walked down the hallway to the former supply closet that now served as her office. She spun the dial on the padlock and swung open the door. Once inside, it was impossible to close the door, because the chair, when pulled out from the desk, was in the way. She sat down and looked at the message, her thoughts shifting backward through the years.
Antonio’s had been the corner grocery store in the neighborhood where Giannini grew up. It was a treat to buy one of the nickel Italian ices there. And then, after getting an ice, she’d walk down to the playground at the public school and play stickball—using a broom handle and a Spaulding rubber ball in the inner-city version of baseball. The strike zone was marked on the side of the school with chalk. It was pitcher against batter—scores made by blasting the ball over the chain link fence.
Several people from Giannini’s childhood could have left that message, but she knew instinctively who it was—Tom Volpe. That name brought a rush of conflicting feelings—memories of hot, lazy summer days spent talking, lost in the innocence of youth, flanked by the harsher memories of entering adulthood and divergent paths. The last time the two had talked was more than four years ago, Giannini remembered.
The phone startled her out of her memories, and she grabbed the receiver in the middle of the second ring. “Giannini.”
