JO02 - The Brimstone Murders

by Jeff Sherratt

  “Christ, Ben! I could’ve talked him out of it!” Krause exclaimed.

  “He had it coming. You got a problem, too?”

  “Hell no! You did fine by me. I’ve got plenty stashed. You’re right, he had it coming. But hey, I gotta get outta here too before the authorities show up.”

  I ducked back and crossed the room. Glancing out, I saw the plane sitting on the runway. Damn, the pilot was headed this way, coming to get Moran. He’d walk in the door and spot me. I darted back, desperately looking for a place to hide. Nope, nowhere.

  Moran’s voice came from the other room: “The plane should be here by now. So long, Burt.”

  Any second Moran would come through the office door and the pilot would walk in through the back door. I’d be caught in the middle.

  But wait, the pilot was farther away, and Moran was just on the other side of the door. He’d get here first, before the pilot could warn him, then I’d have the drop on him. I held my breath and drew my gun. I’d jam it in his face and force him to release Rita. I stood at the edge of the doorway. My heart did a rumba in my chest as I waited. But Moran didn’t appear. He was still talking in the other room.

  “Hold it a minute,” Krause said.

  “What, goddammit?”

  Too long. The pilot would be here any second. He could be armed. I’d be in the middle of them. They’d all draw their guns and it’d be over.

  Hurry up, Moran. Goddammit! Get in here.

  “O’Brien’s still out there,” Krause said. “Could be hiding on the other side of that wall, for all we know.”

  “Yeah, you could be right.”

  Oh, Mother of God! They figured I might be here. My pulse raced. My plan was going down in flames. I’d be nailed after all.

  “Get the guards,” Moran said. “I’ll need an escort. I’ll take the girl too. She’ll make a good hostage. I’ll eliminate her in Mexico.”

  Christ! If he came through the door with a gun on Rita, we’d never make it. Think, Jimmy, goddammit. Think!

  All of a sudden, rapid gunfire from outside shook the room. An instant later the pilot staggered in, blood pouring from his chest. The guards had shot him. Must have thought the guy was me. In the dim light, our eyes locked. He fell on his face at my feet. I recoiled and flattened myself against the wall.

  “What the hell?” Moran appeared in the doorway, holding Rita in front of him, twisting her arm behind her back. A cocked gun was in his other hand, pressed against her ribcage. One twitch of his finger, and she’d be dead. The black pouch hung on his shoulder. Moran didn’t see me standing in the shadows.

  “Aw shit!” he shouted. “Someone shot the goddamn pilot. Stupid fucking guards! How in the hell am I gonna to get outta here now?”

  He shoved Rita farther into the dim room. She struggled, kicking and thrashing, her cries muffled by the tape across her mouth. He stared down at the dead pilot.

  Krause shouted from the office, “I think the cops are here! All the guards took off, shooting it out with the cops. I hear gunshots coming from the road. I gotta move!”

  Sol’s troops were coming. They’d be here any minute, firing their weapons. Moran would use Rita’s body as a shield. She’d be killed for sure.

  I tucked the Beretta in my belt under my jacket and stepped out of the shadows.

  “I’ll fly you out,” I said. “Just let her go.”

  C H A P T E R 41

  Moran swung his revolver around. “I don’t trust you. The girl goes with us.”

  At first Rita was shocked at seeing me, but now the shock had turned to anger. She shook her head violently and stomped her foot. The words couldn’t escape the tape that covered her mouth, but I knew what she was trying to say. She didn’t want me to fly Moran out. She knew he’d kill me when we landed somewhere; I figured the same thing. But she didn’t know that I had a little surprise in mind for him once we got into the air. I had to stall, though. My plan didn’t include taking Rita along.

  “You’ve got two seconds.”

  “I said I’d fly you out of here,” I said. “But damn it! Let her stay.”

  “Shut up. We’re taking her. If she’s in the plane you won’t try anything.”

  I heard gunfire in the distance. The police were still shooting it out with the guards. They’d shoot their way back here any minute, firing their riot guns.

  I gestured for Rita to cool it. She understood, but shook her head and glared at me. I had no choice. All three of us would be in that airplane.

  Moran stuck his cannon in my face. “Move. If we’re not off the ground before the cops get back here, I’ll kill you both.”

  He meant it; he had nothing to lose. “Okay, Moran. Let’s go. But be careful with that gun. Anything happens to her and I swear…” There was no need to finish the statement; he knew what I meant. But with the .38 Magnum in his hand, he probably figured it was a paper threat.

  We hurried to the Cessna. Moran frogmarched Rita behind me, the gun in her back, as I moved fast around the slag piles and junk.

  After I climbed in the plane, Moran shoved Rita into the back seat. She sat directly behind me. He got in next to her, keeping the gun pointed at her the whole time. He had the hammer cocked, holding it with his thumb. Even if I could draw my weapon, aim, and somehow hit him, his reflexive action would cause his gun to fire, killing Rita.

  I cranked the engine to life and eased in the throttle; the Cessna moved forward. Moments later I was gazing down the length of a short dirt runway. I wasn’t much of a pilot. I’d had a few lessons. Susie taught me enough to get the plane off the ground, and how to control it in the air, but I was never any good at short field landings and had tried it only twice. Both times she had to take over the controls at the last minute to bring the plane down safely. I would’ve crashed the damn thing.

  I felt the gun barrel tap the back of my head and jammed the throttle to the wall.

  The engine howled. The plane raced down the runway. Fifty on the airspeed indicator, then sixty. A building loomed ahead. I pulled back on the yoke. The wheels lifted, but then hit the ground again. The plane bounced, and we were airborne.

  Moran shouted, “I thought you said you could fly this thing.”

  “Screw you, Moran. We’re in the air, aren’t we? Be careful with that gun. Ease back on the hammer. It could get bumpy. And if she gets shot, I’m going to fly this thing into a goddamn mountain. I mean it!”

  He fully cocked the gun, locking the hammer. The barrel was still pressed against Rita, but at least it wouldn’t go off accidentally. “Just do as I say and no one gets hurt.”

  Yeah, sure… I glanced at the flight gauges; they were bouncing around, telling me nothing. I hauled the yoke back some more.

  The nose shot up, the airspeed fell, the plane shimmied—stall! The warning horn blared. Forward on the yoke until we were level. The right wing dipped, but I brought it back with the aileron control.

  Sweat gushed from every pore. I fought the plane and wondered how long I was going to be able to keep it in the air. But then I figured as long as I was flying it, Moran couldn’t shoot me. I took comfort in that thought.

  I felt Moran’s breath next to my ear. “Take a compass heading of 180 degrees,” he said.

  I glanced at the compass above the windshield. It was tumbling and spinning. But 180 degrees was south, and I was heading north. I pressed the left rudder and turned the wheel in the same direction. The nose of the aircraft veered, the plane rolled through an arch. I stopped the turn when we were pointed in the opposite direction, toward the northern slope of the Calico Mountains off in the distance.

  I seemed to have the airplane under control. At least I could keep it in the air. The technique was coming back to me. But navigation was always a mystery, a lot of jargon about bearings, headings, and lines of azimuth and altimeter settings, Zulu this and Zulu that; it made no sense. The wings were level, and we continued soaring toward the mountains.

  “Are we at 180 degrees now?”
Moran asked.

  I had no idea what the heading was. The compass bounced and bobbed, impossible to read. “Yeah, we’re flying at exactly 180. Now what?”

  “Tell me when we reach the Mexican border. I’ll give you a new heading then.”

  What did Moran think, that there’d be a big white line painted on the ground, one side saying “America,” the other “Mexico” in big bold letters? It’s all desert out here. How in hell would I know when we crossed the border? But one thing was certain: Moran knew less about navigation than I did. He couldn’t read the compass either.

  “No tricks. If we’re not in Mexico in an hour, your cute little partner is going to be a dead little partner.” Cocky old bastard; the gun that he held against Rita’s side gave him a sense of control.

  Fishing around in a pouch attached to the door, I found an aeronautical chart. I unfolded it and held it up with one hand, pretending to examine it.

  “Mountains ahead,” I said over my shoulder. “Might hit a few air pockets, some turbulence.” I brought the nose up and climbed steadily at several hundred feet per minute. One of Moran’s borax mines was below us now. I could see trucks coming and going, nothing unusual. We were about ten miles west of where we’d started.

  I shouted again over my shoulder: “Right on course, Moran. Why don’t you take a little nap? I’ll wake you when we get there.”

  “Funny, O’Brien. You’re a regular riot.”

  After I got free of Moran—and a plan was unfolding in my mind—I wanted to be close to the facility. I for sure didn’t want to get lost out here in the middle of a billion square miles of desolate wasteland.

  I glanced at Rita, who sat quietly with her back ramrod straight, her eyes opened wide. She was scared, and it was going to get worse. I wanted to let her know to be ready, but Moran’s eyes stayed fixed on me and he would have caught the gesture. I faced forward.

  The Calico Mountains weren’t that tall, just a pile of gray granite and rocky ledges a few thousand feet above the ground. But when the hot wind racing across the desert floor hit the mountain slopes the air above them whipped into a turbulent fury. Susie had explained how turbulence was nothing to be afraid of—provided it wasn’t severe. But if I flew real close to the mountaintops, the little plane would be tossed about violently.

  “Hang on, the wind is blowing hard. We’re going to hit turbulence.”

  “Just get this goddamn plane to Mexico,” Moran snapped.

  I headed straight for the small mountain range, aiming just below the top of the ridge.

  A few heartbeats later we were close to Calico Peak, and just as I figured, the airplane rose, lifted by the upsurge of wind flowing up the mountain’s side.

  At first the little plane just bounced in the air, like a boat in rough water. Then as we neared the peak, it got worse. The plane jumped and fell, whipped from side to side, dancing in a hard, violent rhythm with the wind. The left wing pointed toward the sky, then the ground. I thought it would roll. The nose lifted and we soared higher, pinning me in my seat, before dropping back in a freefall.

  Moran was bellowing, but I couldn’t understand his words. The Cessna shook and shuddered, ten-point-zero on the Richter Scale, but we continued to move forward, bouncing furiously; I prayed that the wings wouldn’t rip off from the utter force. Then, a moment later, we shot up like an elevator and skimmed over the top of the mountain. In a matter of minutes we caught the downdraft on the mountain’s backside. We sank fast. My stomach jumped into my throat. The nose dropped due to the air current, but I pushed the yoke in some more. The wind roared over the wings, sounding like a hurricane.

  The plane was almost vertical, speeding to the ground. We screamed down the face of the mountain for a couple of seconds, just long enough for Moran to fall forward, losing his equilibrium.

  I eased back on the controls, the throttle and yoke, and the Cessna stabilized. We were through the worst of it, flying level now, five hundred feet above the ground.

  “What the hell are you doing? You got too close to that goddamn mountain!” He struggled to get back in his seat.

  I leaned forward.

  “What’s going on? Why are you bending that way?”

  I pulled the gun from my belt and put it in my lap. With my other hand, I reached down next to the seat and turned off the gas valve. Any second the engine would quit.

  I held the Beretta low in my right hand, where Moran couldn’t see it.

  The engine coughed once and quit. The silence was eerie.

  “Goddammit! What the fuck!”

  I slipped the gun barrel in the gap between the seat backs, turned, and faced Moran. Our eyes locked.

  “We are experiencing a little momentary difficulty,” I said.

  He swung the gun away from Rita. “Get the engine started, now! Goddammit! I’m going to blow your brains—”

  I shot Moran in the head.

  C H A P T E R 42

  “Goddammit, Rita! Quit kicking the seat. I gotta get the engine started.”

  Holding the yoke with one hand, I quickly reached down and flipped the gas valve to open with the other. The plane was losing precious altitude, gliding with the propeller windmilling, but almost instantly the engine caught.

  The seat back jumped; Rita had kicked it. It jumped again—hard. “Hang on a minute. Let me get this thing under control.” Her muffled cries competed with the howl of the engine. But right then I had other things on my mind—like how to keep us from flying into the ground.

  I added backpressure to the elevator control and the little plane, with its nose high, soared into the air. It climbed smooth and serene. It was as if the Cessna sensed that Moran was dead and no longer an infection festering in its belly.

  I knew I wouldn’t lose any sleep over his death. The guy was evil, a greedy bastard, sacrificing others for his own gain. I did what I had to do to save Rita and myself from being killed, either during the flight or when we landed in Mexico. The only remorse I felt was that Moran wouldn’t stand trial and be punished for his crimes: kidnapping, torture, and murder, to name just a few. It seemed to me that he got off easy.

  The seat thumped firmly against my back. Rita’s legs were like spring-loaded battering rams. I turned. She leaned forward; I hesitated, but only for a moment, then reached back and tore the tape from her mouth.

  “Ouch! Damn, that hurt.” She squirmed and turned until her bound wrists were thrust toward me. “Here, untie me quick, Jimmy. I can’t stay back here with… him.” She nodded at Moran’s corpse slumped in the seat next to her, its head lolling to the side. He had died instantly, so only a small amount of blood trickled from the bullet hole that had replaced his left eye.

  I trimmed the plane so that it would fly straight and level without too much effort from me. Fishing in the glove box, I found the small emergency kit: matches, beef jerky, and a hunting knife. I cut the cords binding Rita’s wrists.

  One leg came over the seat back, exposing a lot of thigh, and then her fanny appeared. I tried not to gawk. Finally the rest of her followed. She plopped down in the passenger seat with a stern look on her face, as if trying to hold her dignity intact.

  “What are you looking at?” she demanded. “Concentrate on the flying, buster.” She had a nice figure, but oh my, I’d never seen it from that angle before.

  “Hey, were you scared?”

  “Scared!” Rita exclaimed, her brown eyes flashing. “No, it’s been a picnic. I love being tied up with a big gun stuck in my ribs. And it’s so much fun flying around with a guy at the controls who’d ask such a stupid question.”

  I tried to lighten it up. “Just another day in the life of an O’Brien Law Firm associate. An associate who wants to be a partner someday, I might add.”

  “Don’t give me that crap. I had no choice, did what I had to do.”

  “Just a minute. I’ve got to fly the plane. Mountains ahead.” I had to think of something to take Rita’s mind off the ordeal she’d just been through, or I
wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the task at hand. “Look in the glove box. See if there’s an owner’s manual in there, something that will tell me how to fly this thing.”

  “Oh, my God! What have I gotten myself into? I had a better chance with Moran.” I glared at her and she started fumbling in the glove box. “Damn you, O’Brien.”

  The plane meandered. I turned the control wheel and applied a little rudder and the plane drifted back on course—the imaginary line I had drawn on the map in my mind.

  “There’s no manual in here…” She raised her head. “You were kidding, weren’t you? You really don’t need a book. Do you?”

  “Don’t worry; I know how to fly the thing. I was kidding. But seriously, I know you’ve just been through hell. We both have, but we survived.”

  Rita stared out at the horizon, taking a moment to compose her thoughts. “Jimmy, I was scared, really scared, and when I saw you I almost lost it. I knew you came to save me and I knew we were both going to be killed. Jimmy, you were foolish to…”

  “Hey, I couldn’t sit there and do nothing. But anyhow, I’m proud of you, proud of your courage and the way you didn’t fold up when it mattered. Are you going to be okay?”

  “I’m fine now, I guess,” Rita said. “But in the future can we just stick to DUI cases, maybe a little petty theft when things get dull?”

  “As long as we don’t do any corporate law. I’ve met enough big-time crooks already.”

  We flew at five thousand feet over the Calico range. Glancing down, I saw the complex, structures scattered like tiny toy blocks in the valley way off in the distance. I didn’t mention it to Rita, but I was worried about landing the plane on that short strip. I thought about flying to Barstow or someplace where they had a longer runway, but I knew I’d get lost. For now I was doing fine, the Cessna cruising along as smooth as a Coltrane riff.

  I took a quick look at Rita. She sat quietly, alone with her thoughts. “So, Rita, it’s just you and me alone up here with a pouch full of diamonds.”