The Legacy

by Stephen W. Frey

  “Because he was following me until yesterday,” Cole murmured. It was all falling into place.

  “What?”

  “Bennett was the first messenger, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Tori was the second.”

  “Right.”

  “You set up two plans as insurance.”

  “I had to be careful.”

  “And you were wise to be, because Bennett turned on you. He wanted money.”

  “I’ll rip him apart.”

  “I seriously doubt it,” Cole said quietly. “Not in your condition.”

  “Did Bennett take the first tape from you?” Jim didn’t want to hear about his weakened condition.

  “No, others did.”

  “Others?”

  “It was as you and Bennett thought. There was an operation buried in the DIA. Bennett explained all that to me when I thought he was my friend,” Cole added.

  “Jesus.”

  “They got the first tape before he could, so he made himself out to be protecting me. Somehow he knew about the second tape.”

  Jim shut his eyes tightly. “It was a mistake to tell him it existed. I should have known better.”

  “He figured if he kept watching me,” Cole went on, “I’d lead him to it.”

  “And once he made the decision to go for the money, he couldn’t take the chance that I’d get up and walk out of here.” Cole’s father was working through the scenario. “He didn’t want to kill me, because if you didn’t lead him to the second tape, he figured he might be able to get me to talk. So he had the General bolt me to this damn bed,” Jim moaned, pulling weakly at the shackles again for a few seconds.

  “Easy, Dad.” Cole could hear the congestion in his father’s lungs. It was thick and horrible—enough to make Tori turn her head away and put a hand to her mouth.

  Jim was having a difficult time sucking in air as he gasped, “Get out of here, Cole. Now. I’m not kidding. And take Tori with you. Bennett’s going to be back here soon. I heard them talking. He was just going into town to buy a few things.”

  “We’ve got to get you out of these shackles first.”

  “Forget me!” The cough was back. “It would take hours to cut me out of these things,” he sputtered. “And unless you’ve got a bazooka in your vehicle, don’t bother trying to break them by shooting them. That won’t work. They’re too thick and strong. We use these things in the DIA. You’ll need keys.”

  “They have to be here.” Cole glanced at Tori. “Search this room,” he ordered as he stood up.

  “Right.”

  Cole hurried back into the main room, knelt down beside the General, rifled through the man’s pockets but found nothing. As he searched, the General began to moan. Cole sprinted to the door on the far wall, which led into the garage. He yanked it open and peered around in the dimness until he found a piece of rope lying on the garage floor next to a tire. He picked up the rope, brought it back to where the General lay and bound him tightly. Next, Cole moved into the kitchen, still searching for the keys, but he found nothing there. Finally he tried the dresser in the first bedroom. He found no keys, but in the top drawer was a revolver. He scooped it up and returned to the bedroom in which his father lay prisoner.

  “Did you find the keys?” he asked Tori.

  “No.” She shook her head.

  “Get out of here,” Jim said. Veins bulged in his arms and neck as he struggled.

  “I can’t leave you, Dad.”

  “You can and you will, you son of a bitch!” he yelled.

  Cole recoiled as if he’d actually been hit with something.

  Tori saw the hurt in Cole’s eyes. “Jim, you don’t need to talk to—”

  “Shut up, Tori. I told you to make sure he got money for that thing. I haven’t done many good things in my life.” Jim gazed steely-eyed at Cole. “I’ve killed people who didn’t need to be killed. Your mother is dead because of me. And I’ve stayed away from you my whole life because I was afraid of finding out what you thought of me. I’m not the kind of man you can be proud of, Cole. That’s the reality, harsh as it is.” He was laboring with his breathing again, trying desperately to suck in air. “But I can begin to make amends with that tape. The public can see what really happened that day in Dealey Plaza. I can help Tori with her career. And you, Cole, I can get you a great deal of money. It doesn’t come close to making up for my absence all these years, but at least it’s something. That tape is my legacy. I’m ashamed of what I’ve become, but if the tape makes it into the right hands and I can do something for you, then at least I’ll feel like my life wasn’t a total waste.” He coughed once more. “Now leave me. Please.”

  “I’m going to save you, Dad.”

  “No one can save me at this point, Cole. I’m going to hell. Straight to hell without passing go or collecting two hundred dollars. I’m gonna burn, Cole, and the match is already lit.”

  “Huh?” A chill and then a wave of heat passed through Cole’s body. The match was already lit. “You mean you’re dying?”

  “We’re all dying, Cole. I’m just dying a little sooner than the rest of the world.”

  Tori brought her hands to her mouth. “Oh no.”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Of what?” Cole asked.

  “Hodgkin’s disease.”

  “That’s treatable.”

  “Not at this point. I found out about it six months ago. Now I’ve got a few months to live, tops.”

  “But doctors could have treated you.”

  “I didn’t want to be treated,” Jim gasped. He convulsed into another coughing fit. He had contracted pneumonia in his weakened condition. “Get out.” Tiny drops of blood appeared at the corners of his mouth. “Get that tape someplace safe, then come back for me if you really want to.”

  “I—”

  “Cole! We have to go! He’s right. There’s nothing else we can do.” Tori looked up at him. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Thank you,” Jim said sarcastically. “If you’re too stupid to figure it out for yourself, boy, listen to the woman.”

  Cole turned his head to the side, as if to deflect the remark.

  Tori grabbed Cole by the arms. “Don’t worry about what he’s saying or how he’s saying it. He’s just trying to protect you. He doesn’t mean it.”

  “The hell I don’t.”

  Cole glanced at his father. “All right, Dad,” he said calmly. “The hell with you.” He placed the revolver he had taken from the dresser drawer in the other room on the bed beside his father’s right hand. There was enough slack in the shackle that he would be able to fire it if he needed to. Cole had checked the gun for ammunition and found that it was fully loaded. “You might need that.” Cole turned to Tori. “Come on, let’s go.” He walked from the room without looking back.

  Tori bent down and kissed Jim on the cheek. “You didn’t have to be that harsh with him.”

  “Yes, I did,” he whispered.

  24

  Cole and Tori moved past the General, now wide awake and struggling against the ropes, and into the garage. Cole had seen another vehicle as he found the ropes he would use to tie up the General. It was an aging black Bronco. Its fenders were rusted completely through and its tires were caked with mud. Cole yanked open the Bronco’s door and checked the ignition. There were no keys.

  “We’re going to take this thing down the mountain?” Tori asked. “It doesn’t look as if it could make it.”

  “The alternative is to climb back up the mountain, then go down the other side to the Jeep,” Cole answered curtly. He was visibly upset. The meeting with his father hadn’t gone as he had envisioned. “That would take a couple of hours. If we take this Bronco instead, we’ll be back on the interstate in fifteen minutes.”

  “But what
if—”

  “What if Bennett Smith is coming back up the mountain while we’re heading down?” Cole finished the question for her. “That’s a chance we’ll have to take.” Cole tossed the General’s gun onto the dashboard of the Bronco. “And it hasn’t been all that long since Bennett left. He probably hasn’t even gotten to town yet. By the time he gets back here, we’ll be halfway to Helena.”

  Tori hopped in the passenger seat as Cole reached beneath the steering wheel, popped the hood latch, then moved to a switch on the wall and pushed it. With a grinding noise the garage door began to rise in front of the Bronco and sunlight bathed the interior.

  “Did you find the keys to this thing while you were looking for the key to your father’s shackles?” she asked.

  “No.” Cole raised the hood, moved to the side of the Bronco and leaned over the engine.

  Tori hunched down and gazed through the opening between the dashboard and the raised hood, trying to see what he was doing. Suddenly the engine roared to life and she jumped back, startled.

  Cole slammed the hood closed, removed his backpack and threw it on the backseat, jumped in and thrust the Bronco into first gear.

  “Hot-wired the car, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re a man of many talents, Cole Egan.”

  Cole had already popped the clutch and punched the accelerator. They were hurtling down the winding driveway, skidding on loose gravel as he navigated the unfamiliar road.

  “Look out!” Tori yelled, clutching the handle above the door as they careened around a tight turn and the ground on her side fell steeply away toward the canyon floor several hundred feet below. She turned her head and buried her face in her shoulder. “I hate roller coasters!” she yelled.

  Suddenly the white sedan they had seen leave the General’s house appeared in front of them as they raced around another bend. The sedan was less than a hundred feet away.

  “He must have seen the Jeep!” Cole yelled.

  The sedan skidded to a stop, blocking the Bronco’s path, and Bennett Smith jumped out. He knelt behind the open driver’s-side door, leveled his gun at them and fired twice. The first shot smashed one of the Bronco’s headlights and the second smacked the middle of the windshield and tore out the back window. The windshield didn’t shatter, but it cracked so that it looked like a spiderweb and Cole had to strain to see out.

  As they bore down on the white sedan, Cole jerked the steering wheel left, toward the mountain. It was his only choice. There was nothing to the right but a vertical drop and certain death. All four tires left the ground as the Bronco hurdled the deep drainage ditch paralleling the road. Then the left fender and the front left tire dug into the soft hillside, pitching Cole and Tori forward. Almost instantly, the Bronco’s momentum exploded it up and out of the dirt, throwing Cole and Tori back against their seats as Cole instinctively pulled the steering wheel to the right.

  Bennett rose up and fired several more times over the sedan’s roof as the Bronco screamed past, but the bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the vehicle’s doors.

  Now the Bronco was tilting precariously to the right, at the same angle as the mountainside. Cole and Tori screamed. It seemed inevitable that they would roll. But the right front of the Bronco slammed into the bottom of the drainage ditch, tearing the bumper from the chassis, and then they were soaring skyward. Though Cole frantically pulled on the steering wheel, it was a useless effort because all four tires were off the ground and the vehicle hurtled toward the edge of the cliff. When the Bronco at last bounced onto the gravel road, it didn’t turn.

  Tori closed her eyes. The front of the Bronco was headed straight for the precipice. She was certain they were going down, but at the last second the front tires caught the side of the road, spinning the rear end of the Bronco crazily out over the edge of the cliff. The passenger door popped open as Tori slammed against it, and her legs were suddenly outside the vehicle. Desperately she clung to the overhead handle. For what seemed an eternity they slid forward sideways, the front of the vehicle barely hanging on, tires spewing grass and small rocks over the cliff.

  Cole gunned the accelerator once more and suddenly they were back up on the road, all four tires making full contact with the ground. A few quick swerves and he was again in control of the vehicle. He reached across the passenger seat, grabbed Tori by the belt and pulled her back inside. “Close the door!” he yelled over the rush of the wind through the front seat.

  But she was paralyzed, unable to move.

  “Close it!” he shouted again, glancing into the rearview mirror. Bennett had already scrambled back into the white sedan and was turning it around on the narrow road. “Come on, Tori!”

  Finally she responded, reaching out and yanking the door shut. “I take it that was Bennett Smith!” she screamed.

  “Yes.”

  “Nice man.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I thought I was dead.” She shook her head. “I thought I was going out of the car.”

  But Cole wasn’t listening. He was analyzing their options. They could head to Powell, which was ten minutes away on the interstate, and hope to get help at the outfitter’s shop where they had purchased the binoculars. But there was no telling what kind of firepower Bennett might have in the sedan. He might have automatic weapons. If he came into the shop blazing, the General’s handgun wasn’t going to be much of a deterrent.

  They could head out across the open meadow at the bottom of the hill across from the General’s driveway entrance. The Bronco would easily negotiate the terrain, but the Missouri River was out there. The big wide bend was a quarter mile from the interstate, surrounding the meadow on three sides, and Bennett might be able to pick them off with a rifle as they tried to swim across the river.

  Or they could get out onto I-15 and drive to Helena, which was only twenty minutes away at ninety miles an hour. If he could keep Bennett at bay as they raced down the interstate, they might be able to make it to a Helena police station. The DIA might have put out a bulletin, and he might lose possession of the Dealey Tape, but at least they would be afforded protection. If he could elude Bennett on the way to Helena, he might even be able to hold on to the tape.

  Cole steered the Bronco down the driveway. It was straighter, wider, and less steep here. Suddenly the canyon floor seemed to rise up to meet them and they were tearing down a long straightaway toward the paved frontage road that led to the interstate. He glanced in the rearview mirror but could see nothing through the cloud of dust the Bronco was kicking up. “I’m going to head toward Helena when we reach the interstate!”

  Tori nodded, still clutching the handle over the door. “Whatever.”

  Cole managed a smile. “Are you having fun yet?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  As the Bronco reached the paved road and Cole whipped the steering wheel left, he looked back down the General’s long driveway. He could make out the white sedan racing through the swirling dust now. Bennett was no more than a quarter of a mile back. “This is going to be a helluva ride, Tori!”

  “It couldn’t get any worse than it’s already been.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  She shuddered. “Just don’t hang me out over a cliff again. Please.”

  “I’ll try to keep that in mind,” Cole yelled as he swung the Bronco off the frontage road and up the entrance ramp to the interstate. He slammed the stick shift into fourth gear and gunned the engine, surprised at the vehicle’s power. The thing was faster than he had anticipated. As he pressed the accelerator to the floor, the speedometer’s needle quickly passed sixty. He glanced into the side mirror. Bennett was just reaching the bottom of the entrance ramp. Cole looked back at the speedometer. It was approaching eighty. Then he noticed the fuel gauge hovering on empty.

  He slammed his fist on the dashboard and Tori jumped in her seat. “Hey, that’s
my thing. What’s the matter?”

  “We have hardly any gas,” he yelled. “At this speed we’ll burn fuel very fast.”

  “How far away is Helena?”

  “Thirty miles, give or take a few.”

  “How far can we go on what we have?”

  “Thirty miles, give or take a few.”

  As the speedometer climbed past ninety, the fuel light came on. Cole checked the white sedan in the mirror. At least Bennett wasn’t gaining. “Listen to me!” he yelled to Tori over the whine of the engine. “If we run out of fuel, we’re going to split up.”

  “No!” she screamed.

  “It’s the only option.” Through the cracked windshield, Cole made out the shape of a truck ahead. It was the first vehicle they had encountered since entering the interstate. He glanced in the mirror once more. Bennett was slowly making up ground now that they were heading up a long incline. “He can’t chase both of us. If I pull over, you take the tape. He’ll probably chase me. He’ll figure I have it.” Cole checked the mirror again. The white sedan was less than a hundred yards back now.

  A highway sign flew past. “Twenty-two miles to Helena!” Tori yelled.

  “Keep your head down!” Cole shouted. “He might start shooting.”

  Cole suddenly noticed that the General’s gun was gone. He checked the floor but couldn’t see it near his feet. “Look for that gun I threw up on the dash when we were leaving the General’s house!” he yelled.

  “I thought you said for me to keep my head down.”

  “You can do two things at once!”

  Bennett was only fifty yards back now. As Cole guided the Bronco abreast of the eighteen-wheeler, a bullet screamed through the Bronco and hit the windshield just over Tori’s head as she leaned down, searching the floor on her side of the vehicle for the gun. Glass sprayed forward, then blew back into the front seat with the gale-force wind. Instinctively Cole raised his arms in front of his face and the Bronco lurched to the right, glancing off the back tires of the truck. He slammed on the brakes, slowing from ninety to forty in seconds.