Fatal Demand: A Jess Kimball Thriller

by Diane Capri

  Could they be trying to trick him? He smirked. He didn’t need a reason to kill Wilson Grantly right now. But if his parents wanted to supply an excuse, Luigi would gladly convey the message to his brother.

  He kept as tight a distance between his sedan and theirs as possible, but he was too far back. Luigi moved up one car length at a time whenever he could find a gap. He was a good driver. He’d learned on the streets of Rome and Tuscany where aggressive tactics were not only desirable, they were necessary.

  After a few miles, he saw his opening.

  He swerved left into the fast travel lane between two oversized vans and back right into a center lane between an eighteen-wheeler and a subcompact and another right to second center between two motorcycles.

  Luigi continued to weave in and out of small traffic gaps in each of the travel lanes until he could once again see the Grantlys’ limo several car lengths ahead. The driver was holding a stable speed and running in the second center lane closest to the right shoulder. Luigi saw his bumper from time to time. Not quite good enough. He needed to leapfrog one car closer.

  An oversized pickup truck blocked the lane in front of him. On his left was a white Mini with a lumbering RV right up on the Mini’s rear bumper. The Mini slowed as it entered a thicker patch of fog.

  Luigi peered over at the Mini. All he saw were lights that looked like milky blobs lost in the swirling water droplets. The fog thinned. He saw the space in front of the Mini too late. It would have been the ideal moment for him to overtake the Mini, but the little car darted forward into the gap, the driver no doubt spooked by the bulky RV in the rearview mirror.

  Luigi checked in the direction of the Grantly’s limo. He could barely see it up ahead. The Grantlys could leave the freeway and be gone before he could react.

  The situation was unacceptable.

  He looked left at the Mini again. The RV was mere feet from its tail.

  The fog was getting thicker.

  The Mini was slowing.

  A gap was opening up. Not big enough for his rental, but good driving was all about being bold.

  He cut the steering wheel sharply left in front of the Mini.

  The Mini braked hard, tires squealing, enlarging the gap.

  Luigi shot into the growing space, stamped on the accelerator to pass the pickup, and swerved back into the middle lane. The Grantlys’ limo was clearly visible. They wouldn’t get away from him now.

  Behind, he saw headlights dancing, swerving, and sliding in the fog. He snorted and then laughed. Idiots that hadn’t learned to drive. Fools and amateurs, struggling in the fog. A danger to themselves and everyone else. But he didn’t care. The vehicles and their inept drivers were lost to the world behind him, and in moments he forgot all about them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Jess leaned forward, her eyes wide, staring out of the SUV’s windshield into the heavy, swirling fog. She’d driven hard. Weaving through gaps. Making headway using the constant repetition of mirror, signal, and maneuver.

  Good progress in rush hour traffic, and faster than a limo, surely? But she ran out of luck as she came up behind an ocean-liner-sized RV. The big vehicle was charging hard, and the lane to the inside was nose-to-tail. She was stuck.

  The fog grew thicker, an almost solid white out, like a Denver blizzard.

  She eased back and reduced speed as much as she dared.

  The RV’s red taillights fishtailed ahead as it braked hard in the fast lane of the interstate. The rear of the vehicle weaved across its lane. The driver was losing control.

  Jess gripped the steering wheel at nine and three, elbows wide, muscles clenched, feet hard on the brake pedal with all her weight. The SUV shook, the ABS pulsing the brakes.

  The RV’s red lights loomed larger. She was gaining on the monster.

  She glanced right, and jerked the wheel, diving for a gap in the next lane. The car in front of her there was braking hard, too.

  She took her foot off the brake, and wrenched the wheel right again.

  The rental speared forward through a brief gap in traffic in the slow lane, across onto the hard shoulder.

  The SUV swayed and bumped and planed, but held upright until the tires gripped the grassy edge of the pavement.

  She kept the SUV moving, keeping pace with the vehicles swaying and braking to her left, and staying off a concrete retaining wall to her right that guarded a steep downward bank. The RV was way off in the fog.

  An eighteen-wheeler emerged from and disappeared back into the mist.

  Steel collided ahead, beside, and behind her in an ever-lengthening pileup.

  Glass burst.

  The sound of screeching tires was punctuated with the sickening pounding, slamming, crunching of metal. Drivers who were half a second less alert than her were paying the price for inattention.

  The concrete guardrail to her right ended abruptly. She brought the rental to a stop parallel to the pavement, but angled downward on the steep grassy bank beside the road.

  Jess’s chest heaved with ragged breaths. Her heart pounded as if it might break through her ribs. Her hands clutched the steering wheel so tightly she saw white knuckles and felt clawed fingers frozen into position while her arms vibrated with tension.

  Her legs were fully extended, both feet still pressing the brake pedal against the floor.

  She’d been lucky. Her seatbelt held.

  The top-heavy SUV had not rolled over. She hadn’t been hit.

  And she wasn’t sandwiched by the colliding vehicle train in the chain reaction collision now choking all westbound lanes of the interstate.

  A lone wheel came toward her from the twisted wreckage ahead and flew past, a bouncing loping gait. A thirty-mile-an-hour cartoon stalwart that could kill. It hit the guardrail. A glancing blow that separated a football-size chuck of concrete.

  She had to move. Now.

  Get out! Get out!

  She may have screamed the words aloud.

  Through sheer force of will she pried her death grip from the steering wheel, threw the transmission into Park, and stopped the engine.

  Her phone lay in a cup holder. She fumbled picking it up. Her hands shook. Her fingers disobeyed her simple instructions.

  The phone’s plastic slipped from her grip, leaping upwards. She swatted at it with her hands, brought it to rest, embraced against her chest, pinned down with her arms. She slid it down into her bag, and felt to confirm her Glock remained nestled securely in its interior pocket.

  Confident she had her weapon, she slid across the seats. She shouldered the door open and staggered out on the marginally safer side of the SUV.

  The grassy slope on the side of the freeway was steep and rough. She slipped and fell and scraped the skin off her arm before she pushed herself upright again.

  The cacophony from the multicar pileup assaulted her ears. Vehicles were still slamming into each other, caroming across the lanes and onto the shoulders and medians like billiard balls after opening break.

  She ran from the SUV before it was added to the pileup.

  Twenty feet, forty feet, fifty feet, constantly glancing back over her shoulder, fearing heavy metal heading to mow her down. The more distance she put between her and destruction, the better.

  At seventy-five feet, she felt a wave of heat. She looked back, and saw the SUV on its roof, rolling down the steep embankment, flames pouring from the rear. A barely recognizable pickup truck flopped sideways where her SUV had been.

  She kept running toward an exit a hundred yards ahead. She slipped on the graveled shoulder and fell twice more. Her hands were scraped and embedded with small stones. Pavement had scrubbed skin from her forearm in a burning rash.

  Emergency vehicles raced in the opposite direction, speeding up and onto the interstate using the exit ramp.

  She ran on.

  Flashing lights zoomed past. Yellow, red, blue, and white. Wailing sirens added to the noise.

  She reached the intersection at t
he base of the exit ramp and staggered to a stop. She fell back against a telephone pole, sweat-soaked, breathing hard, every inch of her nervous system vibrating.

  Battered, bruised, scraped, bleeding, and limping.

  But alive.

  So far.

  Emergency vehicles weaved through the chaos. Firefighters arrived to contain blazes. A helicopter, invisible in the fog, circled overhead.

  She worked to slow her breathing. She wiped her forehead with her sleeve to soak up the sweat on her face.

  She was outside the danger zone, but should she go back? She had extensive training in emergency first aid. Maybe she could help. If she could help, she should.

  Her skin felt cold and clammy through the thin fabric of her shirt. A smattering of blood mixed with sweat on her sleeve. She patted herself down and found nothing broken.

  She was shaky, but okay. She had to go back.

  She pushed herself away from the telephone pole.

  Her legs wobbled and her knees buckled. She fell back against the pole, its rough iron surface scraping at her side.

  She took a deep breath. “You’re okay, Jess,” she said aloud.

  Her hands trembled. She was weak, she had clammy skin, and her breathing was rapid. Classic signs of mild shock. She’d had it before. It would pass. She took long slow breaths. Deep draughts to get oxygen into her bloodstream.

  She breathed and eased herself away from the pole, one foot in front of the other. Small steps. Her knees balancing her weight. She put her hand on the pole.

  There was no way she would be able to run back up the ramp. If she did, one of the first responders would probably end up with another patient. Or she’d make it back there, but couldn’t help.

  The entire scene was in chaos. Flashing lights were everywhere, some visible, some pulsing deep in the fog. Emergency personnel were on scene. Two ambulances were weaving their way through the carnage to provide assistance where it was most needed.

  She shook her head. She would be no help to anyone. The professionals needed to triage the situation unobstructed.

  She wanted to call Morris, but what good would it do? They had their plan, and she needed to do her part. If she didn’t make it to the flight, no one else would be able to help the Grantlys. She knew immediately where she was needed most.

  Across the side road, a bus was waiting at a traffic light as emergency vehicles drove through. From the road it was on, it should be heading in the direction of the airport.

  She stumbled across the grass and a three-lane road and reached the next stop. She collapsed onto a hard plastic seat under the bus shelter’s awning.

  Her legs trembled. She breathed hard, trying to regain control of her muscles.

  A few minutes later, the bus pulled up. She had no idea where it was headed, but anything was better than walking. She got on.

  The bus driver frowned at her. “Honey, you okay?” He leaned forward, looking into her face. “You don’t look so good. Not gonna faint, are ya?”

  She shook her head. Her body rocked back and forth. She stopped moving her head. “I’m okay. Thanks.” Her voice sounded shaky. “The airport?”

  The driver nodded and pointed to the price posted on a board.

  She dug into her bag, found the fare, and pushed it into his hand. She moved deeper into the bus. The air-conditioning washed over her face as she passed the vents. It felt good.

  She worked her way, handhold to handhold, along the tops of the seats until she reached an empty bench and collapsed onto it.

  She sat quietly, controlling her breathing, and waiting for the cool air to return her body temperature to normal. Her pulse slowed. The tremors lessened along her limbs.

  She held her hands out. The right was steady, the left twitched, still not under her control. She was getting better, but she wasn’t right yet.

  Her phone buzzed with a message from Morris. He’d secured seats from Orlando to New York on Skyway Airlines Flight 1804. He’d also booked the two extra seats in first class for the Grantlys to sit across the aisle next to her. He said nothing about the last leg of the trip from New York to Rome on Skyway Flight 12 at midnight.

  At least as important to Jess, he had cleared her to transport her gun via the curbside check-in desk without scrutiny. A blessing in itself.

  Flight 1804 didn’t depart for another few hours. Plenty of time to reach Orlando airport, prepare for the trip, and get herself cleaned up.

  She couldn’t skip on the cleaning up, either. She needed to look respectable for the airport security people, so they didn’t get suspicious and awkward with her gun. And she needed to look human to have any hope of getting the Grantlys to talk to her.

  She settled into her seat, and let her head drop back. She closed her eyes, making every effort to relax. Once her heart stopped slamming like a bongo drummer, Jess began to formulate a new plan.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Orlando, Florida

  May 11

  Luigi raced from the rental car bus into the Orlando International Airport terminal. He’d had to abandon his surveillance of the Grantlys to return the rental car. He couldn’t dump it. The rental car companies required credit cards to hire their vehicles, and even though his card was stolen, he did not want to take the risk that something might trace it back to him before he was out of the country.

  But that wasn’t his concern right now. Returning the car meant the Grantlys had been out of his sight for more than thirty minutes. He walked the full length of the terminal, but there was no sign of them, which was probably a good thing. Maybe it meant they had progressed through security.

  He had checked in online at the hotel last night with his false identity. His documents were examined briefly before he boarded a tram that carried passengers from the main terminal to the gate.

  It would be almost effortless to bomb the Orlando International Airport, Luigi thought as he strolled a suitable distance behind the other passengers.

  He was bored.

  The Grantlys were the last of Marek’s clients. Before Enzo terminated him, Marek had chosen the Grantlys because they were exploitable. Easy money. Likely to go all the way.

  Marek liked everything to run smoothly right up until the end.

  Luigi craved a more capable adversary.

  Even while he’d hidden the untraceable .22-caliber Smith & Wesson 22A pistol in the locker and added the key to the others on his key ring, he’d noticed that yes, years after the airplane bombs hit New York City and billions of dollars were spent for increased security measures, the central terminal building here was absurdly vulnerable to a reasonably clever and mildly determined terrorist.

  Imagine what a well-trained terrorist could do.

  The idea intrigued him. Perhaps he’d do it himself one day. Easy work was boring. Suitable for old men like Marek and Enzo. But Luigi craved more excitement.

  Perhaps he’d take another trip to Karachi next week. District East was the best although both hunters and prey worth hunting were plentiful everywhere in the city. Executing unarmed people on the busy streets was one of the games he particularly enjoyed.

  His chest swelled with pride when he recalled that he’d contributed at least fifty kills last year, Karachi’s deadliest year ever. Almost 3,000 total killed in the city.

  Still, he could do better. Maybe he could contribute at least one hundred kills this year. He could do it if he spent a little more time and focused on feeble targets. Beggars on the streets were easy to pick off in groups. Children were the hardest to kill because they darted about unpredictably. Others were targets of opportunity. A woman with her back turned. A pair of old men arguing.

  Yes, target selection was the key to improving his performance.

  Of course, the game would have been more exciting if local authorities weren’t so inept. He shrugged. Can’t have everything.

  He passed a television reporting an 84-vehicle chain reaction crash on the interstate. The news copter footage showed a
n area Luigi had driven through on his route here from Winter Park. He thought he recognized the mini. Hadn’t it been traveling behind him?

  He shrugged. Traffic would be tied up for hours. He was lucky the Grantlys had decided to arrive so early this morning after all. Otherwise, they’d have missed the flight.

  God is good, as Enzo would say. Luigi’s brother was a religious man. Luigi wasn’t quite so sure.

  The boarding pass he’d printed downstairs and his false identification were briefly examined before he entered the tram that carried passengers from the main terminal to the gate. He’d pick up his Italian passport where he’d stashed it in New York before boarding Flight 12 to Rome.

  The electric tram ran smoothly to the airside area. It was a circular pod building for processing passengers where planes were parked nose first at the gates, while their tails protruded like spokes on a wheel. The tram stopped, the doors slid open, and the passengers exited to line up at a physical security checkpoint.

  Luigi joined a long, winding queue of passengers backed up in front of him at the tram’s exit, engaged in the elaborate and worthless security game that apparently made Americans feel safer. The Italians, the Israelis. They knew how to screen passengers. Luigi shrugged. No matter. After tonight, he wouldn’t be back in this country for a good long time.

  He stood eleven passengers behind the Grantlys in the winding line that reminded him of Euro Disney. He comforted himself with thoughts of success and greater wealth. The Grantlys showed no signs of failure or desire to fail so far. He relaxed into the patience his business required.

  Almost finished.

  From twenty feet ahead, Harriet Grantly turned around and looked at the long line of passengers behind her. Briefly, her saucy blue eyes touched his face. He brought his right hand up to obscure her view, pinched his nose at the bridge with his thumb and forefinger, and tilted his head down as he did so.

  Neither of the Grantlys had met him yet. He didn’t want her to notice him too soon.