by Darrell Bain
"You don't need to call again, Jim. I think we've got what we need. And I think it would be a good idea if you made sure all the cultures and samples are destroyed. You can always get more from us if needed."
"I'll take care of it, Mike."
"Okay. Thanks, and good luck."
"Us Redskins are so sneaky we don't need luck. Take care."
Mona turned the phone off.
"Turn it back on then pull over and I'll chunk it in the ditch,” I told her.
"Good idea."
At the first exit, we tossed the phone onto the edge of a drainage ditch in a patch of weeds and headed back to Cedar Hill.
"What was all that Indian stuff about,” Mona asked.
"Huh? Oh. The colonel and I are both one quarter Cherokee Indian. We used to joke about it a lot."
"We have something in common then. I'm part Cherokee."
"I'll take your word for it. You look more like a princess than an Indian, though I believe I have heard you yell like one."
She laughed. “You made noises too mister, if memory serves, and it does. Not that I minded,” she added, reaching over to poke me in the ribs. “Anyway, I take after my mother, mostly.” She turned serious then. “Your friend said it killed the mice and the cell cultures. I wonder why it's not affecting us that way?"
"I don't know.” I thought a moment. “I don't suppose both us both having Indian blood has anything to do with it?"
"Why not?"
"There's just not that much genetic difference in races."
"Couldn't it be some sort of recessive gene that doesn't show up often?"
"I guess it could be,” I admitted. “Whatever, just be glad we're not mice."
"In more ways than one,” Mona said, taking her eyes off the road long enough to throw me a smile.
I couldn't have agreed more.
* * * *
We hadn't left anything worth bothering to return to the hotel for. Instead, we went straight home. To Mona's home that is, although I was already starting to think of it as ours, which was careless of me, but I've always been easy going. With no immediate danger threatening, I had relaxed. I turned on the news while she began fixing us a meal. There was nothing interesting going on. I turned it off and circled around the bar to the kitchen to see if there was anything I could do to help. There was. She sent me to the store for milk.
I took her car and left. Just as I was turning the corner, I saw two cars coming from the opposite way. They both turned into our street, driving slowly. Though they were different colored, both had tinted windows and had the undistinguished look of government vehicles, bought in quantity. I was suspicious enough to circle the block and come back around.
Mona's house was about three down from the corner, close enough for me to see one of the cars parked at the curb. Our front door standing open. It looked as if it had been forced, though it was hard to tell from where I was. Damn all, we had stayed here too long. I felt an adrenaline surge, telling me to run, that there was nothing I could do now except get myself captured and probably killed along with Mona. I couldn't make myself do it, even though I was as scared as a rabbit with a fox's head already in its cage with its jaws open. I felt my heart beating wildly and my mouth went dry with terror at what was happening. I think the only thing that kept me from running was having been in combat, albeit briefly. It isn't courage that keeps you going in those situations, it's loyalty to the others in it with you.
Without even knowing what I could do, and without any real hope that I was going to live through the encounter, I drove back around and into the alley, hoping that I might be able to go in that way and rescue Mona. The first thing I saw was the other car parked beside hers. Of course. They would have covered both exits. Nevertheless, I pulled my little Glock forty and thumbed off the safety while I steered the car one-handed for a moment. Then I got smart and stopped, turned around and backed down the alley. Just in case it turned out that I lived through what was coming, I would be able to take off quickly.
I stopped again and got out of the car. I was just in time to see Mona burst out the back patio door, then stumble and fall. She kept her hold on her pistol even as she went down. There was already a little circle of blood on the back of her blouse. I was so revved up that I barely heard the gunshot that felled her. I crouched down and braced the automatic on the hood of the car, partly to help my aim, but mostly to still my shaking hands. I was just in time to catch two of the same men who had been at the hospital by surprise as they came rushing out in pursuit of Mona. I recognized that thin little mustache on one of them at any rate. I fired four times as fast as I could pull the trigger and got both of them, shooting for the head rather than the chest when a saw that they were wearing armor.
I came around the car holding the Glock out in front of me. I figured there were still at least two more men inside the house, probably more, but I didn't give a damn right then. If they had killed Mona I was going to go in after them. When I stopped beside her, she began struggling to get to her feet. I helped her up.
"How many more inside?” I asked, backing toward the car, holding her up with one arm and trying to wave my gun in three different directions with the other.
"Three. T—two of them are d—dead. Help me to the car then go get the other one."
I didn't know what she was talking about, getting the other one. All I wanted was to get the hell out of there so I could take care of her. I pocketed my weapon and picked her up bodily, then managed to support her weight with one arm momentarily while I unlocked the passenger side door, cussing myself for not thinking of it earlier. I got her into the car and ran back to the driver's side. I started to get in, but Mona was insistent.
"Mike, please. The other one. He's alive. I saw him moving as I left. He—he'll call this in. You have to—don't worry, I don't think he—can hurt you."
She was thinking clearer than I was, even being hurt, and she was perfectly right. If we left any one of them alive, they would be hot on our tail in minutes, even if we did get away momentarily.
I ran back to the back door and entered cautiously despite Mona telling me not to worry. I did worry, but as soon as I saw him, I saw that she was right-and I was just in time. He had crawled to the phone, leaving a trail of blood from his mangled hands as well as bloodied scalp and was using a pen held in his teeth to try to dial, probably 911.
I kicked the phone away from him, then when he tried to grapple with me, I kicked him under the chin, sending him tumbling backward. I aimed the Glock at his head, intending to kill him, then hesitated. Goddamnit, I was tired of being chased and harassed and being on the other end of rude men trying their best to kill me, and now Mona. While he was still groggy, I reached down and removed his backup weapon, riding in an ankle holster, then grabbed him by the front of his shirt and yanked him to his feet. I could feel the bullet proof vest under his shirt. Off to the side I could see the two others who had come into the house with him. They were both dead from head shots. I figured Mona must have fired for the chest with her first shot and hit this one's hands as he was holding his gun in front of him, crippling and numbing both of them, then realized instantly that they were wearing armor and shot for the head. I noticed then that it wasn't a chest wound he was bleeding from, but a bloody scalp. Mona's aim had been a bit off, but not by much.
The only way I could figure that she got all three of them was either total surprise from them not expecting her to be armed or perhaps not being trained really well. There were lots of Homeland agents who had come from the immigration service rather than being opted from the FBI or CIA. Or heck, they might not be from Homeland Security at all. Not that it made any difference now. I just wanted to get out of there and take that dude with me and try to get some answers. I could always kill him later, I thought brutally. He tried briefly to resist but I stuck the barrel of the Glock under his chin and growled savagely, “You can come along quietly or I can put a bullet in your brain right now. I really don't giv
e much of a damn which."
That got his attention. He came. I got him quickly out to the car and made him crawl into the back from the passenger side so that his head and torso would be behind me as I drove. I reached in across Mona and flipped the seat dividers down so that she could see him clearly. I didn't even have to say anything; she had already guessed my intentions. She had her weapon out and pointed at him. He shrank back against the corner of the seat when he saw the hatred in her eyes.
I ran around to the driver's side and got in.
"Keep him covered and if he so much as moves his mouth wrong, shoot him,” I told Mona. “And if you feel like you're going to pass out before we get somewhere we can stop and bandage your shoulder, shoot him anyway."
The agent cringed enough so that I thought he was thoroughly cowed. I don't know what he could have done with those hands anyway. One was a bloody mess with at least one finger missing and the other hung askew from where the bullet had shattered the bones in his wrist. He was still bleeding but I didn't give a damn. Let him bleed.
CHAPTER TEN
Amazingly, no one had come to see what the shooting was about. I guess most of the neighbors were at work and any others stayed huddled inside, not wanting to get in the line of fire. That was probably a good idea on their part. The way I was feeling right then, with the rage to fight still coursing through my body, I probably would have gunned down anything that moved. As it was, I drove away without any problem and just hoped like hell no one had been peeping through a window and gotten our descriptions and license plate number.
As soon as I had driven a few blocks away, I pulled over intending to see how badly Mona was hurt.
"Go! Don't stop Mike!"
I did as she said. She seemed to have regained some strength once she was off her feet. With my side vision I could see her fumbling for the glove compartment latch while still keeping our prisoner covered. She grimaced as she moved her wounded shoulder the wrong way, but that was still a hopeful sign; if she could move it at all, the slug couldn't have hit the joint at least. When I saw what she was after I almost burst into hysterical laughter. But really, what better type of bandage can you use to plug a bullet hole than a clean tampon?
But she didn't try to tend to her wound then. She dropped the package to her lap and reached inside again and came out with a vial of pills.
"My pain pills,” she explained. “I keep some in the car in case the Lupus gets real bad away from home. Can you twist the top while I hold?"
I could and did, though with some difficulty. Fortunately, it was one of the easier child proof caps. She shook out a couple of pills and swallowed them dry.
I had a sudden thought. “Give our guest back there some too, if you can spare them,” I said, turning my head toward her long enough to wink.
She caught on. Maybe they would make him more inclined to talk, especially if he weren't used to them. She shook out three more and stuffed them into the mouth of the wounded agent while he leaned forward.
I was driving right at the speed limit in the neighborhood, wanting to get the hell out of there but not wanting to get stopped either. I passed a section on one street with two vacant lots side by side and screeched to a halt. Again, Mona caught on before I could say anything. While I kept our prisoner covered, she unbuttoned her blouse and removed it and her bra, then put the bloody blouse back on, leaving it unbuttoned and hanging loosely, down almost to her waist. She tore the wrapper off a tampon and tried to use it to plug the hole in the front of her shoulder. It was too large. Instead, she just pressed it to the wound and the tacky blood held it there.
When she was finished with her front, she turned away from me. I could see the exit wound, just under her armpit. The skin was flayed back in strips from the explosive exit of the slug but it wasn't bleeding much. I took out my handkerchief and pressed it down over the wound after pulling the skin flaps that were hanging from the wound back into place as best I could. I held it there while she pulled her blouse back up and buttoned it again. She leaned back against the seat to hold it in place, hiding most of the bloody sections of it. She picked up her gun again and I put mine away and got the car back onto the street and continued on our way.
It wasn't until she was finished that I realized that I hadn't told her what I was doing; she seemed aware without me saying a thing. It wasn't much and I didn't think of it again until much later. At the moment, all I could keep my mind on was how to get a long way from the area without getting caught, and in the meantime figure out some way to have Mona's wound cared for without alerting the law. I wasn't encouraged by the prospect of either action succeeding, but what I did was head back toward Dallas. I figured that if a chase got organized, there would be road blocks up on all the roads and highways leading away from the city.
On the way, Mona talked to me. Her voice was shaky at first but gradually became stronger.
"They knocked first, but I had seen them drive up and knew what they were after, and I was right. After one knock, they simply battered the door open. I ran back to the bedroom and got my gun. I—I read a lot. I knew how they would work it from reading mysteries and thrillers. One would stay beside the door while the other burst through. As soon as the first one came rushing in, I..I fired right through the wall where I thought the first one would be standing, then shot the other one in the back of the head before he could turn around. At least I tried to shoot him in the back, but my hands were shaking so much it got him in the neck. And the one that had been by the door—that shot went low. It hit him in the groin. He was moaning, but still alive."
She paused for a moment and I could sense that the next part was hard to relate. “Mike, he was still alive and still had his gun in his hand. I—I shot him in the head, even though he wasn't aiming it at me. He may even have been unconscious. I almost got killed while doing it, because just then the guy in the back seat there came at me.” She shuddered. “The only thing that saved my life was because he was so excited he shot wide. I should have tried for his he—head since I knew by then they were wearing vests, but I was so scared I just shot straight a—at him. He was holding his gun in both hands and—and I guess you can see what happened. My shot hit his hands. But then I panicked. I should have stopped to kill him d—dead but I just wanted to get away and find—find you. Oh God, Mike, why is this happening? I never wanted—to—to kill anyone.” She began crying, but she kept her gaze on the agent in the back seat.
My God, she was complaining and she had done better than I ever would have in the same circumstances, even if her encounter hadn't gone down exactly like I thought it had. She had even steeled herself to finish two of them off, realizing that we couldn't leave any of them alive and still stay free ourselves. I felt my heart go out to her. I reached over to pat her leg. I would have worried if she hadn't shed tears. It isn't easy to realize you have killed someone. “You did what had to be done, sweetheart. They would have disposed of us as casually as stray cats. Whatever the ultimate reason, they aren't going to let this thing we have spread. I'm sorry as hell I got you into this. But I'm glad you didn't kill this one. Maybe we can find out what in hell is going on now."
"Quit apologizing. You didn't buy my gun and you didn't force me to pull the trigger. And you certainly didn't infect me deliberately. Do—do you think we can stop at a convenience store?"
"It should be safe enough for right now. Tell me what you need and I'll get it."
"Buy me a package of tampons. The brand doesn't matter. And some sort of bandages."
"Are you sure you can watch him while I'm gone?"
"If I can't, I'll just shoot the son of a bitch."
Just those words were probably enough to keep him quiet.
I pulled off at an exit in one of the little communities at the very south edge of the Oak Cliff section of Dallas and parked as far from the entrance as possible. We had filled the tank on the way home so that wasn't a problem yet.
"Get the little bag from the trunk and hand i
t to me before you go in."
I popped the trunk, found what she had asked for and handed it to her.
"Okay, go ahead. I'll be fine.” She winked at me and smiled as if she were on a Sunday outing rather than running from the scene of a gun fight with a grievous wound in her body. I think she was already much calmer than I was. My hands were still trembling slightly and I could feel my pulse, still running fast.
All I could find in the way of first aid supplies were some stretch bandages, some topical antibiotic ointment and a pack of variable sized adhesive bandages. I got those and the tampons, and while I was at it grabbed a couple of souvenir tee shirts. I figured Mona could change into one of those to replace her bloody blouse. I bought a six pack of bottled water and some snack food while I was at it, not knowing when we would have a chance to stop again. Wherever it was, I wanted to do something about Mona's wound. It didn't appear to be bothering her too much now but I knew it would as soon as the shock wore off. It really needed a surgeon but we didn't dare go to a hospital or doctor, not for a gunshot wound. They would report it, first thing.
Mona had already anticipated what the sight of a woman in a bloody top would stir up if anyone noticed, and used the time I was inside to dispose of her bloody blouse and pull a windbreaker on, somehow keeping the prisoner under control while she did it. Zipped up, no one would notice anything untoward now, and the blood wouldn't soak through the waterproof outside of it and show. Smart, but she thanked me anyway for the tee shirts.
"Hon, I wish to hell we could take you to a hospital. You must be hurting, but we just don't dare have a professional look at you. They'd call the cops in a heartbeat."
"I know. Open one of those water bottles. I'll take another pill now that you're back."
"I'm sure glad you have them,” I said."
She laughed, then winced when it hurt. “Yes, me too. I always keep a few emergency supplies of this and that in the car. I guess I've been scared I'd have to leave home without warning. Mike, I don't even have any fake ID now. I do have a spare clip and a partial box of bullets in the glove compartment, though."
