by Diaz, AJ
Abby ran across the open for the house. Walking tentatively, she stopped before the doorway and poked in her head. The captain was tying Taylor to the metal stairway railing. The stairs led to a small loft.
She continued watching as the captain showed Taylor a bomb, which looked like a small box with a timer on the face. He was explaining what would happen to her and how he was planning to get away with it.
Abby thought this was as good a time as any. She ran through the door and side-kicked Hamell as hard as she could. Hamell went flying and crashed onto the floorboards. Hard.
Taylor was smiling. Abby smiled back. But Hamell got up. “Watch out, Abby!”
The captain pulled out his gun, but Abby grabbed the barrel and shoved it into his waist. Pushing him backward, she spun the gun out of his hand, bending his trigger finger back until it broke with a crack. Taylor recalled Abby saying she knew Karate.
Now Abby had the gun in hand, and she aimed it at Hamell.
“Let’s not be hasty,” he started to say, but then he tackled Abby at the waist and took her to the floor. His weight crushed her, and the gun slipped from her hand and slid across the wooden floor. Hamell rose and harshly yanked Abby next to Taylor. Abby was breathing heavy and groaning at every yank and pull.
The captain tied her to the railing, rubbed his hands together in relief, and returned to his bomb.
“Like I was saying”—he started twisting small knobs on the bomb—“I’m setting a timer. Ten minutes should do. I’ll go back to the police station, and when you two blow up into pieces, I’ll have an alibi. Good plan wouldn’t you say?”
“Bad plan,” said Taylor, “because the lieutenant knows you’re a dirty cop.”
Hamell laughed so loud Taylor was almost sure someone had heard. But that was probably wishful thinking. “The lieutenant doesn’t know right from left,” Hamell was saying, “I doubt he figured out I’m in on the robberies. I chose him as lieutenant for this very reason. He’s dumb!”
“I told him.”
“You didn’t even know until I told you,” he said.
“Or I just pretended not to know. What do you think?”
“You’re bluffing.”
“I’m not saying one way or the other,” said Taylor. “I’m just posing the question.”
“Did you tell Jeff?” yelled Hamell, huffing. “Did you tell him?” A beat. “You better answer me, little girl or—”
“Or what? You’ll kill me? It looks like you are doing that already.”
The captain grunted, then started twisting knobs on the bomb again. “I’m setting it for fifteen minutes. That’ll give me time to kill Arterman and get to the station for my alibi.” He leaned the bomb against a far wall so Taylor and Abby could watch the countdown.
“Adios.” Hamell stepped out, and they listened to his car’s engine start and eventually fade away in the distance.
Abby, looking at the bomb, said, “Sorry. I don’t know what happened. I could have shot him, I—”
“No you couldn’t have,” said Taylor. “You’re too nice to shoot someone. I couldn’t have done it either.”
“Yeah, but now we’re going to die.”
A few tears rolled down Taylor’s cheeks.
Abby started crying too.
“I don’t think this is working,” shouted Jeff.
“You’re not trying hard enough,” responded Chad.
His back against the embankment, Chad had his laptop open on his lap. He was looking at several camera angles of the gang of men approaching them. Jeff was holding his gun with both hands, resting it at the top of the embankment overhead. This way there was no possible way he could be shot.
Chad looked at Jeff, then the computer screen, then Jeff. “Move your gun a little to the left,” he said. “No, not too much. Right there. That’s perfect. Shoot!”
Jeff pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Out of ammo. The lieutenant reached into his sports coat pocket. After finding nothing, he frantically checked his other pockets. He finally found a magazine in one of the inside pockets.
He clicked a button on the side of the gun, and the empty magazine landed in the dirt. Pushing the new one in, he cocked the gun and lifted it back overhead. “Let’s try this again,” he said.
Chad checked the camera angles on his screen again. Then he looked at Jeff’s gun to see if it lined up with any of the men. “A little to the right this time.”
Jeff moved the gun to the right. Suddenly, turf shot skyward just several inches from his hands! He jerked away. “This isn’t working.”
Chad closed his laptop. “I say we run. We can try it again behind another bunker.”
“Good idea.”
Scrambling to their feet, they started for the next bunker behind them, across an open fairway. The fairway was sloped downward, and the gang couldn’t see that they’d left until they were almost to the green. By this time they were much too far for the pistols to be accurate.
Settling in the bunker, Chad flipped open his laptop. “What hole is this? I need to find the cameras.”
The lieutenant scanned the area until he found a sign with the number on it. “Nine . Hole nine.”
“Hole nine already!”
Jeff explained, “The course doesn’t go in order from hole to hole. The holes are against each other and double back and such. We didn’t take the normal path, which is why we made it to nine. You didn’t know that?”
“I’m scared of golf courses.”
“Isn’t that ironic?”
“Okay,” said Chad, “we only have one camera angle here. But I think it could work.”
“Where’re the tangos? Tangos mean bad guys.”
“I know what it means. The tangos are inching into the camera shot as we speak. Still at least a hundred yards from us.”
“Good.” Jeff cocked his pistol. “Shall we try this again?”
Taylor lifted her head. Her and Abby had been crying the last two or three minutes. She checked the bomb countdown. Thirteen minutes left.
“I’m sorry.”
A pause. Abby sniffled a little. “What?”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all the times I was mean to you. I was... being so unchristian, if that’s even a word.”
“No,” said Abby, “I’m the one who’s been unchristian. I’ve just been obsessed with making you mad and jealous.” She dropped her head. “An outsider wouldn’t even be able to tell we went to a Christian school.”
“I’ve also tried to make you jealous,” said Taylor. “And I’ve lied. The truth is I’m not even going to the dance; I’m going to be on vacation with my grandparents on those days.”
Abby wasn’t surprised. “Yeah, well, I still feel bad. See, I lied too. Jason didn’t ask me to the dance. He asked that other girl that you saw him kissing.”
Taylor sighed, recalling the last week’s events. “Yeah, well, not only have I lied about the dance, I’ve lied to my parents and been totally disrespectful to them. I coaxed Chad into disobeying his parents. And I put Susan in dangerous situations she didn’t want to be in.” A tear fell from her eye. “Now she’s been shot in the leg. Chad is in danger. And I’m about to die. Not to mention I dragged you into all this.”
“I came willingly, Taylor.”
“I also,” continued Taylor, “lied to the police department and broke the law like a million times in the last few days. Lied, hid information…” She stopped because she was crying again. “What a way to die?” she said sarcastically. “In fact, I believe the last thing I said to my dad was that I hated his guts.”
Tears gushed from Taylor’s eyes. She had been so rude to her parents lately. If only she’d known that she was going do die, she would have acted completely different. But that was no excuse for her behavior. Everyone’s days are numbered. And everyday is important.
“I don’t even want to think about how I’ve treated my parents,” said Abby. “Since I’ve become a teenager, I’ve been extremely mean to them. I had
this idea in my mind that they were dumb and useless, or something... Now that I’m about to die from a bomb, I can see I was wrong thinking those things.” Abby huffed. “Can you believe that? It takes a bomb to get me to wake up to reality.”
Taylor was nodding, still crying. “Well, I just wish I could see my parents one last time. I wish I could take back what I said to them, and how I acted. It hurts them, it hurts God, and now, it’s even is hurting me.”
Silence filled the room. After thirty seconds, Taylor’s eyes suddenly snapped open wide. “Parents! Abby, my cell phone is in my back pocket. If you can reach it, I can text my dad. He would know what to do.”
Their hands were tied behind their backs to the stair railing. There wasn’t much slack, but they milked what they could. Taylor stretched and pulled until her hands bled. At last Abby reached Taylor’s back pocket and picked the phone out. She passed it to Taylor, who was a whiz at texting.
Taylor’s iPhone had gotten lost when they’d went off the cliff, so she was using her mom’s phone with a slide-out keyboard. Probably easier for this predicament, she thought. The phone was behind her back, so she couldn’t see the keys or the screen; but she had used it a million times. Closing her eyes, muscle memory kicked in and she sent a text to her dad.
“I did it.”
Abby looked at the bomb timer. “Ten minutes until.”
“Let’s pray.”
Chapter 25 “I’m really getting tired of this. When can I shoot?”
“Patience.” Chad was looking at his monitor. “They’re not close enough yet.”
“Pretty soon they’re going to be too close!” said Jeff harshly.
“Okay, okay.” Chad alternated between Jeff’s aim and the monitor. “Just a few more seconds.”
The bullets weren’t as frequent but were still passing overhead. “Now!” yelled Chad.
Jeff shot. Since the gun was over his head, it kicked him backwards, causing him to fall on his back in the sand pit.
“We got him!” exclaimed Chad, looking excitedly into the monitor.
“Killed him?”
“No. But we got one of them in the hand.”
Jeff slammed his hand on the ground angrily. “This isn’t going to work.” The gunshots were coming two at a time now. “Adding to the failure, it’s made them madder.”
“It’s going to work.”
The lieutenant grabbed Chad by the arm and pulled him upright. “We need to get to the next bunker before we’re blown away.”
Suddenly the bullets stopped. Time passed. “What’s happening?”
Footfalls rose in decibel as they listened. Looking into his laptop monitor, Chad yelled, “They’re coming.”
Jeff and Chad immediately took off for the hole behind them.
“The next green doesn’t have any bunkers,” hollered Chad.
“No, but the one to our right does.” They veered and ran collateral. The gunshots started up again.
“I don’t think we can make it that far.”
Jeff was going to disagree when a bullet skimmed his shoe. “Keep running!”
Andrew Kelsey was sitting at home working on some architect drawings when he got the text from Taylor. It said, “tn mntes t ive.. hlp” It only took him a few seconds to decipher. “Ten minutes to live… help!”
Christina was out shopping. He clutched his cell phone, grabbed the keys to his old truck—the only vehicle available to him—and set out. He didn’t know where to find Taylor, but he did know she had gone golfing. That was a good start.
Then he had an idea. He forwarded the text to Chad. Chad knew electronics and such; he would probably know how to track the text. “Please know how,” Andrew muttered.
Hopping in his old dusty truck, he spun out.
He only had ten minutes!
Chad and Jeff dove behind yet another bunker. This bunker was one of two behind the eighteenth hole. He still didn’t understand how he’d gotten to the eighteenth hole—which was supposed to be the final hole at every standard-length golf course—after just crossing a few fairways. But it was no matter; this bunker seemed by far the safest.
“Willing to give the shooting thing another go?” he asked.
Jeff frowned. “ Why not?”
“Wait, I’ve got a text.”
“We don’t have time for texts.”
Chad almost listened and put his phone back in his pocket, but it was already out, so he checked. “It’s a text from Taylor. She’s in trouble!”
Jeff scooted next to Chad to read the text. “Ten minutes… What?”
“Ten minutes to live, help! Wait,” said Chad, “her dad forwarded it to me.” While he was considering, his phone rang. Andrew was calling.
“Hello.”
“Chad, can you trace that text.”
“No,” came the answer. Chad thought through his options. “But Taylor’s wearing one of my watches. It has GPS technology in it!” Keeping the phone to his ear with his shoulder, he rapidly pressed keyboard buttons on his computer. Files and programs opened and closed. “Aha! Here’s the address she’s at. It looks like it’s by the ocean.” He relayed the address, and Andrew plugged it into the GPS on his cell phone.
“Got it. Chad, I don’t think I can make it there in time. Can you?”
“Maybe.” Chad hung up. “I’ve got to go, Lieutenant. Sorry.”
Jeff took a deep breath. “It’s all right. But how are you going to get past all the guys.”
Reaching under his shirt, Chad procured a smoke grenade.
“What! You had smoke grenades this whole time.”
“I didn’t want to waste it. I only have this one.”
That said, Chad threw it out front and darted back and away from the men, before making a large u-turn and running for the parking lot. From the parking lot, he could see the smoke reaching skyward, mostly transparent, almost disappeared.
“Help Jeff,” he prayed. Looking around the parking lot, he realized he’d come in Taylor’s car. He didn’t have the keys! There was an ambulance—of course no police—and a lot of cars, but none with people in them. “Ahhh! I wish I knew how to hot wire a car.”
He saw a golf cart on the grass in front of the clubhouse and figured that was his best bet. The golf cart seemed fast at first, until he turned onto the road. Cars were honking and passing him at frequent. He finally turned off and drove on the shoulder of the road.
Checking the coordinates on his laptop against a timer he’d set on one of the widgets, a weight rose from his gut to his chest. Not enough time to save Taylor. At least, not at his current pace.
Susan’s eyes wearily opened. Everything was blurry, and she felt nauseous. Wanted to puke. Then she remembered what had happened. She’d been shot. And Taylor had been kidnapped! The room that had been spinning around her a second ago became clear. She was in the clubhouse on a gurney. A paramedic with a mask over his face was standing over her. Beside him was Mike Adamson.
Susan tried to sit up. “Don’t sit,” said Mike. “You just got shot.”
The paramedic spoke, “We’ve got an ambulance just outside. We’re taking you to the hospital and you’re going to be just fine.”
Susan laid back in bed, but couldn’t help thinking of what danger Taylor was in.
Taylor grunted and pulled. Blood from her wrists was dripping down the ropes and soaking the floor. Abby’s too.
“I don’t think it’s any use,” she screamed.
Abby pulled at her bindings a few more times. Each time with a moan. “That guy knows how to tie a knot.”
Sitting back, Taylor drew a few deep breaths. “Seven minutes left. I don’t think we have a chance.”
Abby sat back as well. “I think you’re right.”
Jeff was behind the bunker, alone. He bobbed up and down and shot. Ducked, shot, ducked, shot. Bullets hurtled past in scary proximity every time he rose. Reloading, he wiped sweat from his forehead.
Boom! Boom! Boom! The gunshots were relentless. They w
ere tearing up the green overhead. Dirt and grass was constantly spraying over his head like a mister at Disneyland. Cocking his gun, he jumped up, fired three times, and then dropped back down.
So far, they’d exchanged hundreds of rounds of ammunition, but still only one man was shot. And that was in the hand. Yelling, he rose again, leveled his gun, shot.
And then, slowly and painfully, he fell with a piercing scream. A bullet had tore through his shoulder. Blood gushed down his shirt. The pain was more intense than anything he’d ever experienced. He fell supine in the sandpit, gun at his side.
Chapter 26 Andrew Kelsey was zooming around cars like a maniac in his monstrous old truck. He’d already scratched the paint off several vehicles. But he could really care less. He had only a few minutes left with more than a few minutes to reach the destination according the the GPS.
Honk! Honk! Honk!
He continued honking as he skillfully weaved his way through traffic on the freeway, which was clogged up at the moment. Coming to a reluctant stop in the slow lane, he peered around the line of stopped cars to see his exit just ahead. He pulled onto the side of the freeway and sped through the dirt.
Susan watched the roof change into the sky as the paramedics wheeled her toward the ambulance. She couldn’t shake Taylor out of mind, though. Giving in, she sat up, turned toward Mike, and said, “Give me your car keys.”
Mike eyed Susan, then the paramedics. “No.” He put a hand in his pocket to feel for the keys. Susan memorized which pocket.
Swinging her legs off the gurney, she stood. Pain flashed through her leg. “What are you doing?” said one of the paramedics.
“What I should be doing,” she said, plunging her hand into Mike’s pocket and swiping his keys.
“Hey,” said Mike. “You can’t—”
