Death of Secrets

by Bowen Greenwood

  The loud report of the gun stabbed Kathy’s eardrums, and the fact that she'd actually shot a gun at people shook all the rest of her. She stood dazed and blinking for a moment, whispering prayers. She saw all three men on the ground. Each was lifting his head, though, so obviously none of them were dead. In fact, she couldn’t see any blood at all. They’d simply dived for cover when she fired.

  She held the gun pointed at the three men on the ground. Kathy’s dry throat kept her from saying anything at all, but that was OK. The smoking barrel of the gun spoke volumes on its own. None of them moved.

  Michael helped John to his feet, and the three of them began backing slowly away from the men on the sidewalk. Somewhere in the distance, Kathy heard a police siren wail. "Should we wait here for the cops to arrest them?" She asked.

  In between pants for breath, Michael said, "I would much, much, much rather find a way to resolve this that didn’t involve my name showing up in official police records."

  "Oh yeah," Kathy replied, a bright pink blush spreading up her cheeks. "Sorry, Mike, I didn’t even think of that. What, then? Hail a cab?"

  John spoke up. "Nope. My car’s just a block back from us. Let’s get out of here."

  Kathy inched backward from their attackers, holding the gun out in front of her and waving it slightly. The thought flashed through her head that she should say "Nobody move," or something similar, but she didn’t trust her voice enough. Behind her she heard the doors of a car opening, and she threw a glance over her shoulder to see the source of the noise. John already sat in the driver's seat of his sport-utility vehicle, and Michael had the passenger door open, as well as the rear door. When she turned her head forward again, their assailants were climbing to their feet, so she loosed three more bullets, making sure this time to aim far away from actual people. Kathy threw herself into the back seat as Mike clambered into the front. She was just pulling herself to a sitting position when John stomped on the gas and pulled away from the curb. Kathy was thrown back down and hit her head lightly on the window. She dragged herself back up. As she fumbled with the seat belt the back window shattered.

  Kathy screamed.

  Mike said, "They're shooting at us!"

  "They shot out my window!" John yelled at the same time.

  He hung a hard left at the first intersection they came to. Kathy gave up on the seat belt. She turned around and looked out the open space where the rear window used to be. "They're following us!" she called out.

  John grunted. "We'll see about that."

  "What’s on that flash drive, anyway?" Mike muttered.

  "If I knew thaaaaa…" Kathy's retort was cut off when John took another sharp turn and she slid across the seat. "Still there," she reported after a glance to the rear.

  Michael, facing forward, shrank back in his chair as he saw John racing toward a red light without so much as tapping on the brakes. "The horn!" he suggested, gripping the armrests on his bucket seat.

  "Good idea," John said between clenched teeth. He jammed his hand down in the center of the steering wheel. He was rewarded with a long, jarring honk.

  It was too late to matter. Mike cringed. A mid-sized sedan bore down on them, horn blaring. Over the noise of both horns he could hear the sedan's tires screech as the driver braked and swerved desperately to avoid them. Kathy added her screams to the cacophony of noise as the motion of both vehicles brought the sedan into her field of view.

  In the blink of an eye it was past them; the danger of collision was gone. Instead the sedan struck their pursuers a glancing blow before coming to rest perpendicular to the sidewalk. By the time the driver had gotten out to shake his fist and curse, he was far behind them.

  "Where we goin' again?" John asked.

  "Leesburg," Mike replied.

  John grunted. "Gotta get to a bridge first." He yanked hard on the wheel, pulling the car into an abrupt right onto M Street. Michael's eyes squeezed shut involuntarily as John changed lanes, shoehorning his four-by-four into a space barely large enough for a Hyundai. The driver behind them honked angrily, then skidded off the road when the pursuers tried to match John's maneuver without equivalent space.

  The sound of another bullet hitting his vehicle elicited another curse from John. "Does insurance cover bullet holes?" he asked.

  Kathy watched in impotent terror as the distance between their SUV and the pursuing van slowly narrowed. It seemed that every time she blinked, there was a foot less separation between the two vehicles. "Can't this thing go any faster?" she asked in frightened frustration.

  They all leaned perilously over in their seats as John cut another corner way too sharp.

  "No," Mike replied, "and SUVs have a horrible record of rollovers, too."

  John grimaced and made yet another turn. This one, though, put them on the Francis Scott Key Bridge between Washington, D.C. and suburban Virginia. The late hour meant little traffic, and he opened up the throttle in a mad dash for the other side.

  Mike was right. His SUV wasn't built for speed, and the van gained ground quickly. John rocketed off the bridge on an exit ramp to the right, and found himself on the George Washington Parkway in Virginia. He couldn’t see a single streetlight illuminating the dark road, and John’s grip on the steering wheel got even tighter. To his right was a small grassy strip by the side of the road, and then what would have been a scenic view of the Potomac in better lighting. But between the grassy strip and the river was a steep drop off. John shuddered, thinking of what would happen if he lost control of the car.

  "They must have that sucker souped up somehow," John muttered. "They shouldn't be this much faster than us."

  In another second, though, the thought became academic. The van pulled into the left lane beside them. John had time to glance over at them and curse before the pursuers broadsided them.

  The painful shriek of metal against metal assaulted their ears as the two cars rubbed against each other. John grunted as he fought for control of his car. He shut out Kathy and Mike's panicked yells and yanked on the steering wheel, pulling away from the pursuers. The van lost velocity in the ramming, and he saw just a second where he was free. He jabbed his foot mercilessly on the gas.

  John had only a few seconds to savor his victory before Kathy shouted, "Here they come again!"

  This time, the van pulled completely even with them before ramming. Despite their speed, John risked a quick glance over at their pursuers. In a flash he recognized the man behind the wheel. It was the man from table eight, who Kathy'd asked him to get rid of.

  The moment passed, and John saw the man pull his steering wheel hard to the right. This time, though, John was ready. In the same moment the van veered right and accelerated sharply, John jammed on the brakes.

  He felt the wheel punch his chest hard as his vehicle screeched to a stop. Out the corner of his eye he saw Michael thrown forward so hard his head hit the dashboard.

  All that faded, though, in comparison to the picture in front of him. The van was moving so fast that it crashed over the grass shoulder. Now on his right side instead of his left, John managed a mere second’s worth of glimpse through the driver’s side window of the van, and saw the bearded man covering his face with his hands. Then they plunged headlong out over the river.

  The moment froze in his vision: the river gurgling softly far below, and the black van suspended there mere feet past the edge of the cliff, but too far.

  Then it was over. In less time than it took to blink, the van was gone, sucked out of sight by merciless gravity. They heard a mighty splash, then John pressed lightly on the accelerator, starting forward at a much more sedate pace.

  None of them could think of anything adequate to say.

  ***

  In the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C., Congressman Vincent lived in a home that combined bachelor pad efficiency with serious income. There was a an expensive living room set with a sofa that looked like it served as a bed most nights, a pricey coffee table weari
ng neglected cup rings, and an entertainment center that looked like the most expensive item in the house. Kathy tried to keep her eyes off the unwashed dishes in the sink.

  "I can’t say what it was for sure, Kathy," John said, sipping a cup of coffee at Mike’s kitchen table. "The way he said that just worried me. ‘If that’s the way she wants it…’ Well, it just seemed threatening. I figured I better keep an eye out when you left."

  "I’m glad you did," Kathy replied.

  "OK," Michael said, taking a seat at the table after pouring everyone coffee. "We need to go through this, right from the beginning, and you need to fill me in on what’s going on here. I think it’s obvious now, after that guy offered you a hundred thousand bucks for it, that the thing they were after when they broke into your room was that flash drive. It’s also safe to assume they didn’t get it, since they’re still bothering you. Am I doing OK so far?"

  "Yeah, my roommate has it. I’m sure you’re right, Mike," Kathy replied. "It also explains why they’d tear up Colleen's computer, right? In case she had some record of the flash drive on there?"

  "Yeah, that does make sense if they’re as concerned with you not knowing what’s on it as they are with getting it for themselves. Where was the flash drive when your dorm room got broken into?"

  "Colleen took it with her to class. She was going to see if the computer lab had anything she could use to see what was on it."

  Michael leaned back in his chair. "So I assume you tried to find out what was on it and failed?"

  "Yeah. She worked on it for like, two hours or more. Colleen is a genius with computers."

  "So the flash drive itself gives us nothing as far as an explanation for why these people want it so bad. What about the guy you got it from?" Michael was leaning forward now, his eyes focused intently on Kathy. "He must have said something, right? He didn’t just put it in your hand and kick the bucket, right?

  "Yeah, he told me to take it somewhere. It was… like a country name. I think… it rang a bell when I heard it, but I can’t remember now. I’m sorry, geography isn’t my strong suit. You know how the papers are always saying we modern students don’t know squat about geography? Well, they’re right."

  Michael frowned and harrumphed. "Kathy, that’s about all we have to go on, so you’re going to have to remember it."

  "I’m sorry, Mike, I just can’t get it. But I’m sure it was the name of a country. It can’t be that hard to just find a list of all the countries in the world and read through it, right? Maybe I’d remember it if I heard it."

  "OK, that’s a start. Let me get my computer."

  As the Congressman went off to find his laptop, John stood up and helped himself to another cup of coffee. "This is about the weirdest stuff I ever seen. Glad I mixed myself up in it. Hate to miss out on something like this. Gives me something to tell the guys about, y’know?"

  "Just try not to tell the guys about the Congressman, OK John?"

  He laughed. "You kiddin' me? By the time I get done telling it, he'll be the President."

  Mike returned with a computer and fresh cups of coffee for himself and Kathy. "OK, then, let’s just do this. We need to remember what that guy told you before he died."

  The Internet yielded a list of countries and their major cities and Mike began reading through it, with Kathy following each name by saying "Nope. Nah-ah. Not it. Nope," and so forth. The list was beginning to seem interminable when he had only gone about a third of the way through it. At about that point, though, Michael read, "Indonesia, capital city Jakarta."

  "Jakarta! That’s it!"

  "You’re sure?"

  "Positive! But no way am I going to randomly fly off to Indonesia! And what am I supposed to do with it once I get there?"

  Mike came out of his chair and hugged her. "I knew you could remember it. And as for going to Indonesia, let’s not buy any airline tickets yet. This is just a starting place – something to go on. Any chance you remember anything else he said?"

  "There was nothing else. Just ‘Please, get it to Jakarta, please.’ Then he died. What I want to know is where his body went between my leaving to get help and coming back."

  John spoke up here. "Well, it fits with everything else that’s going on, doesn’t it? These guys seem like cloak and dagger types, hiding a body sounds right up their alley."

  Michael agreed. "Yeah, and the thing that’s scary about that is that they can’t have been far off when you first found him."

  ***

  Sam Franken cruised the streets of the nation’s capitol, head tracking left to right. Patrolling was long, often boring work. But it was also a vital part of his job. He wasn’t technically patrolling, of course. He was returning from a call. But Franken had only been promoted to detective a few months ago, and he still thought in the terms of a young cop patrolling a beat. Far better to scare a crook out of his crime than to catch him afterwards. And often a visible police presence was all it took to deter a criminal.

  Or, he admitted in his more cynical moments, at least make him go somewhere else to do it. And Georgetown had some of the wealthiest, most powerful taxpayers in the DC area. Making the crooks move to another, less influential area of the city was an important government goal.

  He grunted. "Save the sermons for Sunday," he muttered out loud, and went back to scanning for anything that looked like trouble. Turning a corner, he went on with his patrol.

  Georgetown was a boring area. Complaints were far more often over-loud college parties than drug busts. And those came mostly on weekends. Franken’s eyes kept moving, but his mind was moving too. Questions about his unpleasant interview with Lieutenant Washington took the place of gripes about the boredom.

  Admittedly, a homicide was a serious matter. Misreporting one did, indeed, deserve attention. But what made the commander so sure this was misreported? Bodies disappeared from time to time. It wasn’t every day, but it certainly did happen. A murderer wanting to conceal evidence of his crime might very easily come back to the scene after the witness left to call 911, and take the body away. So why was Washington so set on the idea that the body last night at this time couldn’t have ever been there?

  ***

  Kathy, Mike and John were way too wired to sleep. They sat around Michael's kitchen table mulling over the flash drive and what could possibly be on it.

  "This is futile," Mike said. "We don't have the first clue about what's on it, so it's useless to speculate."

  "Might as well do something," Kathy replied. "None of us ca…" She stopped in mid-sentence when the lights went out.

  Mike stood up. "Power’s out?" he asked, and walked up to the picture window in his living room. "That's odd. My neighbors' porch light is still on."

  Michael caught sight of a bright flash in his front yard, and then his window shattered. Something landed on the floor behind him, and a hissing noise started. At first Michael just looked at the little canister in confusion, but when his eyes started watering painfully he knew what it was, and he shouted a warning to his friends.

  "It’s gas!"

  He ran for the kitchen table to get to Kathy. Already he knew that this was no ordinary power outage. If someone was shooting tear gas at him, they would have cut the wires leading to his house as well. That meant his burglar alarm would do him no good at all.

  Kathy was in the grip of a coughing fit when he pulled her out of her seat. Mike didn't have time to ask himself how they had been followed. He only accepted the obvious truth that they were under attack, and that his front yard was clearly occupied. He heard the front door burst open and a voice yell, "Everybody freeze!"

  Michael ignored it. Eyes squeezed shut, he dragged Kathy in the general direction of his back door.

  John had the same thought. Blindly he staggered toward the place he remembered seeing the back door. Unable to see, he ran headlong into a man who burst in the door at the same time.

  Both of them fell to the floor and John heard a clatter. He groped blindly a
round himself and hit pay dirt. He didn't need his vision to recognize the feel of a gun in his hand. Bigger than a pistol, it felt like a rifle or submachine gun.

  He risked opening his eyes and immediately the burning pain intensified. But even through the streaming tears he could see Mike and Kathy, trying to make it to the back door. He also recognized the weapon in his hand. It was a carbine with a built in silencer. Judging by the size of the magazine, it was in a pistol caliber like 9mm or .45. In other words, serious hardware.

  He saw two other people in the house, one of them training a gun on his friends. John tried to keep his eyes open as he jerked his gun around toward the threat, but the pain was too much. He had to squeeze them shut. He never talked to people about his years between football and being a bouncer, but he'd learned then how to pull a trigger. It was something he'd never wanted to do again.

  But the intruder was pointing a gun at Kathy. John forced his right eye open, aimed and squeezed. He was a bit taken aback when multiple shots went off with a single pull of the trigger. A fully automatic weapon was serious hardware indeed.

  He was rewarded with a shout of pain. When he risked another peek, he saw the man lying on the floor, writhing in agony.

  John spun around and loosed another burst in the direction he thought he’d seen the other intruder in. Then the man from whom he'd taken the gun grabbed his ankles and pulled John down to the ground.

  The bouncer lashed out blindly and skinned his knuckles against Michael's floor. He cried out in pain just as his opponent threw a punch. The fist landed between his teeth. Anguish exploded in John's head, but his opponent cried out in pain as well.

  John's eyes flew open from the blow to his mouth, despite his efforts to keep them squeezed shut. This was just in time to see a foot flash into his field of vision and kick his opponent in the head.