I didn’t hesitate.
“If I come with Drake, do you guarantee Lisa’s safety?”
“Let’s put it this way, Doc. I guarantee her a slow, excruciating death if you don’t.”
Jaw furiously working, Sergeant Polk stepped a few feet away from the table, indicating that the rest of us should do the same. He spoke in an urgent whisper, bloodshot eyes flitting between Arthur Drake and me.
“This is bullshit. I can’t let either o’ you do this. Not without clearin’ it with Biegler. Maybe even Chief Logan.”
Drake drew himself up. “Don’t be absurd, Sergeant. You think Julian’s going to wait while we call them?”
“Not a chance.” Payton frowned. “Sounds like he wants to wrap this thing up as fast as he can.”
“I agree,” I said.
Nobody spoke for a moment. Then Raj gave Polk a tentative tap on the shoulder.
“Sir, we could put a wire on Mr. Drake and the doctor. Or a GPS tracer on the car they use.”
“And risk Lisa’s life?” Drake’s eyes narrowed. “You saw what happened the last time we tried some funny business.”
Payton nodded. “Again, I’m with Drake on this one.”
The unearthly metallic voice crackled from the speaker behind us. “Time’s up, folks. What’s the verdict?”
Before anyone else could respond, I turned around.
“We’ll do it. Drake and I will bring the cash. Now tell us where and when.”
***
It was dusk by the time we’d covered the first two hundred miles. Drake and I were in his own car, a Lexus, and the lawyer was behind the wheel. I sat next to him, the black suitcase filled with stacks of bearer bonds on the floor at my feet.
Julian’s instructions had been simple. Drake and I were to set his car’s odometer to zero, and, leaving from the front gate of Harland’s residence, drive exactly two hundred thirty-three miles east on the turnpike. At which point we’d find an access road heading north, barred by a wooden gate. There we were to park and await further instructions.
No sooner had Julian hung up than Polk was on his cell to his boss. I could only imagine Biegler’s response as Harry explained the situation, but I had no interest in lingering to hear it. My sense was that every second counted if we were to find Lisa Campbell alive. From his stricken look, it seemed that Arthur Drake shared my conviction.
The lawyer and I spoke only a few words during the long drive. Shared anxiety about whatever real or imagined dangers lay ahead, no doubt. But I also wondered if it was something else. After his frank disclosures to me in his office, Drake seemed suddenly diffident. Uncomfortable. As though perhaps he regretted having taken me into his confidence.
The sun had dipped lower, purpling the sky. The wind had risen, too, more sharply as we left the city further and further behind. We were now heading into the verdant woods and rolling hills of rural Pennsylvania. Past weary towns shorn of their former industries, and family farms lost to foreclosure or agribusiness. Past old railroad tracks and unused covered bridges and exhausted coal mines. Past the vestiges of a small-town way of life made irrelevant by the globalized economy.
We were about twenty miles from our first designated stop when Drake abruptly opened his window. The wind coming out of the thickening dusk roared briskly into the car, as though summoned. The whistling, insistent gust was cool and slightly damp against my skin. The promise of a spring rain.
I saw a smile slowly form on the lawyer’s lips.
“Whenever I feel a strong wind, I think of Elvira.” He glanced over at me. “Our old nanny when I was a child. She used to say the sound of the wind was the wail of lost souls, the dead flying around the world looking for a way into heaven.”
“Wow. That’s the kind of thing that would’ve given me nightmares as a kid.”
“Rest assured, it did. For years. Until the horrors of the real world took its place. The illusions. The false promises.”
I realized then that I’d been wrong. His silence these past two hours hadn’t been due to shame about what he’d revealed to me. More likely, something about the deadly nature of what we were doing, its life-and-death consequences, had triggered a cascade of memories. Sober reflections on his life, his choice of profession. Of his friends and lovers.
As I’d learned in my therapy practice, the old saw—that in the face of impending danger or death, your life flashed before your eyes—was frequently true. Certainly enough of my patients had related their experience of it at times of great stress or fear to convince me. Especially those victimized by violence, or the threat of violence.
I studied Drake’s profile, backlit against the setting sun. He’d turned to focus again on the road, hands tight on the wheel. Driving with increased intensity. And with good reason. A quick glance at the odometer told me we’d almost arrived at our first stopping point.
My throat grew dry. For both the lawyer and myself, there was a real possibility we’d soon be joining those unhappy souls crying in the wind.
***
At mile two hundred thirty-three, a weathered wooden gate appeared on the left side of the highway. Not an off-ramp, but a dirt access road, as Julian had described. Drake slowed and pulled the car onto the wide gravel strip in front of the gate. Then he cut the ignition.
“Now what?” His hands still clamped to the wheel.
“We’ll find out soon enough.”
I peered out through the windshield. Nothing but fields, dotted with leafy oaks. In the far distance, a sluggish creek shone dully in the moonlight.
Not ten minutes passed before Drake’s cell rang. Exchanging a quick, nervous look with me, he picked up.
“Get out of the car. Both of you. Open the gate. Walk a hundred yards up the access road.”
I could hear the same digitally altered voice through the cell’s speaker. Then, before Drake could reply, the call ended.
I let out a long breath, then reached for the suitcase in front of me.
“Ready when you are,” I said, giving Drake what I hoped was a mildly encouraging smile. I don’t think it worked.
We did as instructed. The gate was unlocked, and swung open freely on its hinges. The access road on the other side was primarily dirt, flecked with gravel, and rose to a slight elevation in the near distance. An easy hundred-yard walk.
My grip tight on the suitcase handle, I took the lead as we started along the road under a clear, star-strewn sky—clouds having long since scattered by the ardent sweep of the wind.
As we trudged along in silence, I couldn’t help but think of the last time I carried such a suitcase climbing up the path to the Allegheny Observatory. And how that night had ended.
I pushed those thoughts from my mind and kept walking. I glanced behind me once, to find Drake swiveling his head from side to side searching the barren fields whose few shrubs and tall shoots were white-tipped with moonglow. Peering anxiously, compulsively, into the open darkness.
“There’s nothing,” he whispered. “No one. I don’t see anything out there.”
I met his gaze, but didn’t reply. Then faced front again.
By my mental reckoning, we’d walked about a hundred yards. I stopped, took a look around myself. Nothing.
Drake came to stand beside me. “Think that’s a hundred yards?” he asked.
“Close enough.” I put down the suitcase.
Swallowing hard, Drake pulled out his cell. Stared at it.
“Come on, why don’t you ring? Ring, dammit!”
Silence. Not a sound. Nothing but the whirr of the wind, bending the branches of distant trees.
Suddenly, off to the right about twenty-five yards, a light flared in the fields. Bobbing as it came toward us. The familiar lift and drop of a flashlight in hand. Someone was coming.
I tensed. Hands instinctively balling into fists.
Pure muscle memory, from all those years ago…
The man was getting closer. Then abruptly stopped, not more than ten feet away from the side of the road.
“Nice night, eh?”
I recognized his voice, even before he took another couple steps and I could make out his hard, chiseled features.
It was the big man. Griffin. The same jacket, same jeans. He aimed the blinding light directly at us. Flare-bright, silhouetting us against the darkness.
“I wouldn’t try nothin’ if I were you, Rinaldi. Guess what I got in my other hand?”
I didn’t have to guess. The ugly gun barrel, nose pointed at me, glinted in the pale moonlight.
“Now,” he said smoothly, “it’d make my life a lot easier if I just whacked you two fucks right now. Then all I’d have to do is pick up the suitcase and be on my way. But Sykes wants to see you. Especially you, Doc.”
The gun swung in a steady, gut-high arc, back and forth between Drake and me.
“So let’s get going. Straight up this same road, about another hundred yards. You two in front, me in back. And all the time itchin’ to blow your fuckin’ heads off. Which I’ll gladly do, if either o’ you losers tries anything. Everybody on board with the plan?”
I mutely nodded, and saw Drake do the same.
Griffin spit into the grass at his feet. “Okay, then. Let’s hit it. And, Doc…Don’t forget the suitcase.”
Chapter Twenty-three
We must have walked another hundred yards or so before we saw it. Parked off to the side of the access road, wheel-deep in tall grass. The same van in which Gloria Reese and I had been held, its headlights shining bright as miniature suns.
At Griffin’s urging, Drake and I left the road and stumbled across the uneven field toward the van. As we approached, I squinted against the bright lights, trying to make out who was sitting in the passenger seat. But all I saw was the outline of a slender man, and the faint orange glow of a cigarette tip.
“Okay.” Griffin’s voice cut through the rustling of wind. “That’s close enough.”
Drake and I stopped about a dozen feet from the front of the van, bathed in the harsh glare of its headlights. Taking a breath, I risked a glance over at the lawyer, whose hands trembled at his sides. His lean face painted a ghostly pallor.
Griffin stepped from behind us and took a position just to the side of the van’s front grille. Backlit, he seemed somehow even taller and more formidable. His gun pointed steadily at a spot between where Drake and I stood. So that a flick of the wrist could put a bullet into either one of us.
Just then, to my surprise, Drake boldly called out.
“Is Lisa in the van? I demand to see her.”
Griffin laughed. “You don’t get to demand shit, douche bag. Besides, your part in this is pretty much over.”
He indicated me with his gun. “Sykes wants to talk to the Doc here. After he sees the money.”
I tightened my grip on the suitcase handle and took a step toward Griffin. But Drake crossed in front of me, and began walking briskly toward the big man. As though fueled by a long-suppressed outrage, a panicked belief in his moneyed omnipotence.
“Enough of this! You have your damned money. Now where is Lisa? I’m not leaving without her!”
“You’re right,” Griffin said easily. “You’re not.”
He raised his gun and shot Arthur Drake in the head. The lawyer staggered once, then fell backwards onto the tall grass.
“Drake! No!” I cried out. Stunned, I scrambled over to him, crouching by his side. “Jesus…”
A single bullet hole was centered in his forehead, blood oozing thick and darkly red. He’d died instantly.
In the obscene brightness of the headlights, every line and plane of his contorted features met my eyes. His countenance a blanched mask, registering equal parts surprise and indignation.
“Griffin…” My words a strangled gasp. “Why’d you..?”
Bent over Drake, I heard the big man striding toward me. My hand still unaccountably gripping the suitcase, I rose quickly from my haunches, pivoted, and slammed the heavy bag at Griffin with all my strength.
Instinctively shielding himself with his forearm, the impact of the blow discharged his gun. Blinded by the sudden muzzle flash, he roared in anger, stumbling backward. Out of the bright glow of the van’s lights, and into total darkness.
Foolishly, unthinkingly, I threw down the suitcase and headed after him, blood pulsing in my temples. Eyes scanning the grass and dirt around me for his gun. Assuming he’d dropped it when startled by the muzzle flash—
Then I remembered the second man, the one in the van. Sykes himself, probably. I halted, gasping, and turned toward the still-blazing headlights. Half expecting to see Sykes climbing out of the passenger seat, raising his own gun…
Heavy footfalls brought me around again. It was Griffin, stepping once more into the light. Powerful frame almost shaking with rage. Eyes tear-streaked, squinting with pain.
I froze where I stood. Somehow, the ugly revolver was still in his grasp. Its barrel rising to point at me.
“Fuck Sykes!” He steadied the gun with both hands. “I’m smokin’ your ass!”
I was a dead man, and I knew it.
Suddenly, a sharp, staccato blast of the van’s horn sounded. Harsh, demanding.
Momentarily startled, Griffin turned toward the van. The flaring, unremitting lights.
It was all the chance I needed. His attention diverted, I took off, running at full speed toward the darkness of the fields beyond. Toward the clutch of shadowy trees outlined against the low hills, the cold spray of stars.
I hadn’t gone a dozen yards before I heard the shot. Felt the breath of the bullet’s path as it narrowly missed my ear. Griffin, obviously unmindful of Sykes’ warning with the car horn, was chasing after me. Firing as he ran.
Two more shots echoed. Then silence. He was re-loading. Given a man of his skill, he was probably doing so on the run.
I pushed myself to go faster, almost stumbling on an upraised root. But the image of Griffin in pursuit, his murderous single-mindedness, was enough to spur me on. I was literally running for my life.
I’d just reached the first tree, an ancient oak, when a bullet buried itself in the bark inches from my head. Heart pounding in my chest, I moved further into the trees.
Within moments, I was plunged into a spiny cluster of low-hanging branches and thick foliage that concealed what little moonlight there was. Hearing nothing but the sound of my own labored breathing, seeing nothing but shadows and obscure shapes looming before me, I pressed on. Twigs snapping underfoot, pushing my way past an endless tangle of leaves and gnarled branches. Waiting every moment for the telltale signs of Griffin closing the distance between us, listening for the whistle of that fatal bullet.
Finally I reached a dense cluster of trees, and positioned myself on the other side of the largest one, back pressed against the rough bark. Willing myself to stay calm, quiet.
Behind me, not a hundred feet away, the sound of movement among the low weeds and tuffs of grass. Slow, heavy footsteps.
Steeling myself, I peered around the curve of the tree trunk and saw the beam of Griffin’s flashlight, sweeping the untracked brush and exposed roots in his path. He was getting closer. Revolver gripped in his other hand, upraised. Straight-armed, he followed the arc of his light as it scythed across the gloom.
Panic rose in my chest. I knew I couldn’t stay where I was, hidden behind the tree. But if I tried to run, I’d be pinned in that oscillating, unforgiving light.
Griffin kept moving, a remorseless juggernaut. Closer and closer. I could now hear his deep, resonant breathing. Steady, unhurried. The practiced hunter on the trail of his prey.
Get a grip! Words echoing soundlessly in my mind. Scolding. You can’t stay here, you have to move! You h
ave to—
Instinctively, I took a step back. And felt my foot sink into the rich dirt beneath me. Startled, I quickly righted myself, then got to my haunches.
I’d stepped into some kind of depression in the ground. A scalloped pocket of sunken earth, perhaps four feet deep.
I didn’t hesitate, sliding as far down into the dark crevice as I could. Huddled amidst twigs and sodden leaves and caked, loamy dirt.
Moments later, I spotted Griffin’s flashlight beam poking restlessly along the upper edge of my hiding place. Then it flitted on past, taking up again its steady arc, illuminating a nearby low-hanging branch or knotty tree trunk.
I held my breath. Listening for the measured tread of Griffin’s advancing footsteps.
At the same time, I kept replaying the image of Drake’s death. The awful suddenness with which his life had been snuffed out. Less than five hours ago, we’d been sitting in the tidy comfort of his office, having drinks. Discussing the conflicts plaguing the dignified lawyer, his unrequited love for James Harland, his suspicions about Mike Payton.
And now he was gone, at the hands of a ruthless killer. Body lying in a nameless field in the middle of nowhere.
I closed my eyes, willing myself to come back to the present. To stay focused on that same killer, now bearing down on me. But was he? I’d been straining to catch the telltale snap of a twig, the crunch of a boot on dry leaves. Yet I wasn’t hearing anything.
Then, as quickly as it had appeared, that piercing beam of light winked out. Now all I saw was the familiar ink-black blanket of night. All I heard was a rustle of movement, the sound of Griffin turning, heading back the way he’d come.
Still not daring to breathe, I waited another couple minutes, until I was sure he was gone. Searching elsewhere.
At last, I felt safe enough to risk using my cell phone. I pulled it from my pocket and clicked it on. No signal. Probably not a cell tower for a hundred miles in any direction.
But there was no use staying where I was. Better to keep moving, since I doubted Griffin would stop looking for me. He might even have gone back to the van to enlist Sykes’ help.
Phantom Limb Page 16
