Born to Run js-7

by James Grippando

  “My friend Jack needs you,” he said. “Why did you take off?”

  She was still trying to catch her breath, and her response came out in bursts. “I-saw them.”

  “You mean the cop car?”

  She shook her head, pausing to take another breath. “The black car.”

  “What black car?”

  Her eyes widened with fear, as if she’d just seen death itself. “That one,” she said as she jumped to her feet. “They want to kill me!”

  Theo looked toward the street. A black sedan rolled past the entrance to the parking lot and then hit the brakes. The driver threw it into reverse, and the car backed up so fast that the tires squealed. Obviously, Sofia wasn’t blowing smoke.

  “It’s them!”

  Theo picked her up in his arms-he was at least double her weight-and ran inside the store. They ran past the cookies and knocked over a tray of snack cakes. The sight of Theo moving that fast was enough to push the skinny white kid mopping the aisle to the brink of cardiac arrest.

  “Don’t hurt me!” he said as he dove behind the malt-liquor floor display.

  Theo stopped, glanced back through the storefront window, and saw two men jumping out of the black car. Hiding was futile. He turned, Sofia still in his arms, and ran past the beer coolers into the stockroom.

  “Hey, you can’t go in there!” the cashier shouted.

  Theo headed straight for the store’s emergency exit in the back. The alarm sounded when he pushed the door open, and Sofia shrieked at the shrill noise. Theo carried her into the alley, not sure which way to go. It was a narrow block of barred doors and windows, the back entrances to restaurants, bars, and Laundromats that had closed hours earlier. The glow of high-voltage crime lights gave the night a yellowish tint. The alley was actually bright enough for Theo to read the graffiti on the walls-not a good thing, when you were trying to disappear. He sprinted to the left, past a mound of green garbage bags, past a pickup truck that had probably been there since the Clinton presidency. Thin as Sofia was, she was feeling heavy in his arms, and outrunning these goons was not a winning strategy.

  Hide. Gotta hide.

  He nearly blew past a narrow walkway between buildings, but he spotted it out of the corner of his eye and made a quick right turn into total darkness. The lone streetlamp in the side alley was burned out, and the passageway was so narrow that Theo had to be careful not to bump Sofia’s head and feet against the walls of painted cinder block on either side. He went deeper and deeper into the darkness until he could walk no farther. A blind alley. He turned around, but backtracking was not an option. He could hear the echoes of footsteps-the men in pursuit-in the main alley.

  “What now?” Sofia whispered.

  Theo was breathing heavy and weighing his options. The business establishment at the very end of the alley was a mom-and-pop grocery story, and a nine-foot tower of crushed corrugated boxes was stacked up behind it. A fine hiding place-for pussies. The ten-foot mound of green garbage bags, filled with stinky rotten produce, was a much better choice.

  “There,” Theo whispered.

  He made a beeline for the bags, Sofia in his arms, and they buried themselves beneath Mount Trashmore.

  “What are-” Sofia started to say, but Theo shushed her.

  Theo peered out from beneath the bags of trash and saw two silhouettes standing at the end of the narrow alley, their black bodies backlit by the yellowish streetlights of the main alley. Sofia reached over and held Theo’s hand-Theo could feel hers shaking-and they waited.

  Then slowly, the silhouettes came walking toward them, the click of leather heels echoing in the darkness.

  Theo watched as they approached. It had taken all this time for his eyes to adjust to the total darkness, and the men’s tentative steps told him that he would have the advantage of night vision for a few minutes more. He looked around quickly and found a box of rejected apples. The first two he handled were so rotten that they turned to mush in his hands. He found one that was still firm, and he grasped it like a baseball.

  The sight of Theo armed with nothing but fruit triggered a look of utter terror from Sofia.

  “They have guns,” she whispered.

  He shushed her again, then slowly maneuvered himself into throwing position, down on one knee, still hidden behind the mound of garbage bags. He reared back and let the apple fly with all his strength. It soared into the night sky, invisible in the darkness. It seemed to take forever to return to earth. Then, finally-splat-it landed somewhere in the lighted alley behind the men.

  The two men turned quickly, weapons drawn.

  For a moment, Theo thought they’d been fooled. He was only half right. The larger man signaled his partner to check it out. The good soldier turned and retreated, but the leader stayed on mission. He was headed straight toward the mound of garbage bags behind the grocery store.

  Theo glanced at Sofia, and the look of terror in her eyes had just popped off the charts. Theo gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, and then he squatted even lower, ready to pounce like a cat.

  The gunman was just fifteen feet away and closing.

  Keep coming, thought Theo. I can use a new pistol.

  At five feet away, Theo grabbed a big green bag of garbage with both hands.

  One more step.

  The man stopped and aimed his pistol. Before he could shoot, Theo leapt from hiding, hitting him first with the bag of garbage, and then laying into him with his entire body. The gun flew across the alley as Theo took the man down, hard, to the pavement.

  “Get the gun!” Theo shouted, but Sofia was frozen.

  The man was a tough fighter, but Theo had top position, and his fists battered him like a jackhammer.

  “Sofia, get the gun!”

  Out of nowhere a knife appeared and slashed Theo across the forearm. His cry of pain jolted Sofia into action. The men rolled toward the center of the alley, and when they stopped their tumble, Theo was on the bottom. His arm and fingers were cut from fending off the blade, and the blood from his wounds had splattered into his left eye, turning half his world into a dark blur. He saw his attacker’s arm jerk back, and he saw the tip of the blade coming toward him.

  Then he heard the gunshot, and the man fell, his body draped over Theo like a lead blanket.

  Theo pushed him off and ran to Sofia. She was trembling, tears running down her face, the gun still in her hand.

  Theo grabbed the gun and pushed her behind the mound of garbage. Another gunshot rang out in the alley just as Theo dove into the mound behind her. He whirled and fired at the shooter, who fired right back. Theo squeezed off another half dozen rounds, unleashing enough firepower to send the message that he meant business. Then there was silence.

  Once again, he heard the click of heels on pavement, but they were unsteady and fading this time-the sound of a wounded man in retreat.

  Chapter 56

  Frank Madera knew it was bad.

  He staggered through the alley, stepping in a pile of juicy mush as he crossed from one side to the other. It smelled like apples. Stinky, rotten apples. It was amazing how the sense of smell could remain robust even as the rest of the body was shutting down from trauma.

  His feet were heavy and could carry him no farther. His knees buckled, and he fell against a Dumpster. He managed to grab the rusty lid and hold himself up, but not for long. Slowly, he slid down the side of the green Dumpster, his back swiping it with a long crimson streak. Too much blood. The exit wound from the bullet was even worse than he’d feared.

  He reached inside his jacket to assess the damage. The entry wound was just to the right of the sternum. The clean hole on his shattered rib could have been full-metal-jacket ammunition, but Madera sensed that something even more deadly was at work. Though his body was slipping into shock, the pain not fully expressed, he could tell that this bullet had yawed violently on impact and blown through his body like a snowplow, compressing soft tissue, shredding his lung, and pushing bone fragments
out what had to be a devastating hole in his back. Perhaps it was just his mind running wild, confusing rifle with pistol ammo, but the wound had modified.45-caliber FMJ written all over it, probably a tail-heavy cartridge with an interior tip of aluminum, or possibly wood pulp. What did it matter?

  I’m a dead man.

  He pulled his cell phone from his inside pocket. It felt incredibly heavy in his hand, and he had to wipe the blood off the keypad with his sleeve. He was about to dial 911 when he noticed that the eerie black flow at his sternum was starting to foam. Pneumothorax-a sucking chest wound. He’d watched a fellow soldier die from one on the battlefield. Two weeks later, he’d shoveled the remains of his best friend from a street in Baghdad after a car bombing. He himself had been wounded in combat in a second tour of duty, this one in Afghanistan. None of the suffering or sacrifice, however, had diminished his sense of duty. He’d come home and joined the Secret Service, the only member of his class to have seen combat and hold a Purple Heart. But as time wore on, others were promoted, and Madera was not. Two of his classmates made it to the presidential protection team, and he was denied. That was when he’d cut his deal with Joe Dinitalia. The way he saw it, Madera was good enough to fight for his country, good enough to kill for it, and good enough to die for it. He was good enough to lose a tiny bit of hearing in his right ear in service to his country, only to have the Secret Service hold it against him. He was damaged goods, not good enough to guard the president. So, he figured, he might as well own him.

  His breath was short. The foam around his wound was thickening. Madera had even less time left than he’d thought. Calling for an ambulance would have been pointless. He could have called Dinitalia to tell him that he’d failed, but that, too, seemed pointless. Nothing seemed to matter, except for one thing.

  Maybe the loss of blood was making him delusional. Perhaps the shame of a good soldier turned bad finally came to a head. Or it simply could have been a dying man’s bitter sense of irony. Whatever was driving him in those final moments, Agent Madera chose to make things the way they should have been.

  He did his Secret Service duty and called the commander in chief.

  The call came on an encrypted cell line that only one man ever used. The message, however, was unlike any that President Keyes had ever received.

  “Agent down,” said Madera, “and it’s me. Sergeant Chavez, MDPD, is your go-to on the Greek. Texting you his number now. You’re on your own with Sofia.”

  “What?” said the president, but in the time it had taken to put the question, he grasped Frank’s meaning. That hollow, fragile voice reminded the president of his father’s final breath.

  “Frank, are you still there?”

  The line was silent, but the president didn’t hang up right away. No matter how he felt about Frank Madera, hearing him utter his last words-a warning-was unsettling.

  The president tucked away the phone and peered out the dark tinted window of the armored black Cadillac DTS.

  Traffic was stopped at every intersection as the presidential motorcade, thirty-five vehicles in length, headed away from the airport. The president and Harry Swyteck were alone in the rear compartment, the president facing forward and Harry seated directly across with his back to the driver. The television was tuned to Action News, and Harry’s eyes had been glued to the standoff-until Madera’s phone call.

  “You look upset,” said Harry.

  They passed a Japanese car dealership that was flying a lighted American flag as big as Montana. The president looked at Harry and said, “You really want the truth?”

  “I told you I did.”

  President Keyes nodded, turning very serious. “The truth is that my worst fears have been realized.”

  “How so?”

  “Frank Madera killed Phil Grayson.”

  Harry’s mouth fell open. “How do you know?”

  “He just confessed to me. He said he’s going to turn himself in to the FBI immediately.”

  “I can’t believe this.”

  “Think about it. Frank was in Florida when Phil died. He was head of his security detail. He had access to and control over everything Phil did, everyone he saw, everything he ate, everything he drank. It’s entirely plausible that he overmedicated Phil, so to speak, which caused the heart attack.”

  Harry took a moment. “That’s a lot of information you just gathered from a half-minute phone conversation.”

  “Much of it is deduction on my part.”

  “I don’t understand the motive. Why would Frank Madera kill the vice president?”

  “Like I mentioned to you before, Phil had his thing with Chloe Sparks when she worked for him. Things were heating up between the two of them again. Don’t quote me on this, but it’s beginning to sound to me like some kind of deadly vice president, Secret Service agent, girl-gone-wild triangle.” The president glanced at the television, then back at Harry. “And this Demetri character seems to have figured it all out.”

  “Incredible,” said Harry.

  “Incredible, yes,” said the president, wondering how much of the story Harry was really buying. “And yet entirely plausible.”

  The telephone rang in the FBI command center. It was another star-69 return call from Demetri. Andie answered on the second ring.

  “Do you have protection for Sofia yet?”

  Andie hesitated. The worst thing for any negotiator was to be caught in a lie, but she could tell from Demetri’s tone that there was only one acceptable answer.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Good girl. Let me speak to her.”

  “She’s not with me.”

  “You said you had her, liar!”

  “No, you asked if I had protection for her, and we do.”

  “Don’t play word games with me! Where is she?”

  “Everything’s cool, all right? I’m going to follow up right now and prove it to you. I can call you back in ten minutes with an update.”

  “You’ve got five minutes, and counting, to put Sofia on the line. Or I start shooting.”

  He hung up on her.

  Andie’s hand trembled, but not for long. As quickly as she could, she dialed Theo’s number.

  Chapter 57

  Theo couldn’t hear his cell phone ring over the sounding alarm, but he felt the vibration in his pocket. He kept running, leading Sofia by the hand.

  Theo had backtracked halfway out of the dark alley when he thought he’d heard reinforcements coming. His only choice was to push onward, and in a blind alley, that meant breaking through the mom-and-pop grocery store. A single gunshot to the door lock had done the trick-and triggered the alarm.

  “Keep moving!” said Theo.

  An orange beacon swirled overhead, and a shrill pulsating alarm assaulted their ears as they raced up the aisle and past the bread and cereal. Sofia was keeping pace, just barely, as Theo pulled, more than led, her past the checkout lanes and to the entrance doors.

  “Stand back!”

  Sofia ducked as Theo fired a shot at the sliding glass door, shattering it into thousands of pellets of safety glass that scattered across the floor. Theo grabbed Sofia, and together they ran through the busted door and out into the parking lot.

  A police siren sounded a few blocks away. Theo stopped and faced Sofia, a hand on each of her shoulders, as he tried to talk sense into her. “We should stay right here and let the police find us.”

  “No!”

  “That’s the safest thing.”

  “If Demetri thinks I turned myself in to the police, he will never listen to me. And then I’m no help to your friend or those other hostages.”

  The siren was getting closer, and the old woman had a point. Some folks were raised to trust cops, but Theo hadn’t grown up in that neighborhood.

  “This way,” he said.

  He led her across the parking lot to the street. A pizza delivery car was rounding the corner. Theo threw himself down in the middle of the lane, flat on his back, as if he we
re dead.

  “Flag him down! I’m hurt and I need to go to the hospital.”

  “You’re hurt?”

  “Just do it!”

  Sofia waved her arms at the approaching set of headlights. Theo watched with eyes wide open and his ear to the pavement. The delivery car didn’t seem to be slowing down. Sofia waved more frantically. The car only sped up, and when it was close enough for Theo to read the spoof license plate-DRIVE IT LIKE YOU STOLE IT-Theo rolled into the gutter. The car zipped past him, a split second away from turning him into roadkill.

  “Asshole!” said Theo-though he knew that in Miami he was lucky if the guy didn’t back up and try to kill him on the second pass.

  Theo jumped to his feet, grabbed Sofia by the hand, and led her across the street. The siren blared even louder, and Theo could see flashing police beacons in the intersection up the street. No way would the cops arrive at the scene of a break-in and ignore the black guy standing on the sidewalk. They needed to get out of sight and fast. Just then, Theo noticed a second pizza delivery car parked outside the strip mall.

  “The pizza joint!” said Theo.

  They hurried across the parking lot to the little storefront pizza parlor. The sign in the window said OPEN TILL 4 A.M., and they’d just made it. A bell chimed as Theo yanked the door open, and they ducked inside. Behind the counter, an old man was tossing a giant Frisbee of dough high into the air, singing along to “Saturday in the Park” by Chicago.

  Theo walked up as if nothing had happened. “Medium pepperoni, two Cokes, one with extra ice, and the key to your bathroom.”

  “Takeout only,” he said. “Dining area’s closed.”

  “No problem, dude.”

  Theo glanced out the parlor window and saw police cars pulling up to the grocery store across the street. “We really need to use the bathroom.”

  “They’re in the back.”

  “Perfect,” said Theo.

  “You’ll need a key.”

  “Even better,” said Sofia.