Scott Free

by John Gilstrap

  “Slow down!” Scott yelled. “We’re gonna wreck!”

  The old man stood on the brake and cranked the wheel as if he were turning an aircraft carrier. The tires skidded and the back end fishtailed, first into a snowbank and then, on the rebound, into the side of the mountain. The left rear fender sent out a spray of sparks as it dragged along the rocks. But Old Man Pembroke hung on, never losing his concentration or his grip as the truck stayed on the road to complete the curve.

  Scott couldn’t believe it. He whipped around in his seat, surveying the damage—or the lack of it—and let out a war whoop. “You did it! Holy shit, I thought for sure we were gonna go flying, but you did it! All right, Mr. Pembroke!”

  The old man tried to look annoyed by the outburst, but smiled in spite of himself. “Before you get too carried away, start looking through that window again.” Ahead of them stretched a long, narrow bridge.

  “Why, do you see him?” Scott spun in the seat.

  “No, not yet, but he’ll be there. After we get to the other side of this bridge, it’s almost all uphill.”

  The engine screamed from the effort. For ten full minutes, which seemed like five full hours, the ancient pickup lumbered up the hillside, barely able to get out of its own way.

  “See that sign up there?” Pembroke called, pointing to a rectangular plaque that read SCENIC OVERLOOK 1/2 MILE. “That’s the halfway point on this hill.”

  Scott nodded, relieved. “Well, I still don’t see any sign of Isaac’s truck.”

  ISAAC DE HAVEN, a.k.a. Kevin Clavan, had broken off his chase nearly twenty minutes ago. That was stupid, driving at fatal speeds while shooting and being shot at, left-handed, no less. Amateur stuff; movie stuff. You never let your target have a level playing field, let alone let him have the advantage, but that’s exactly what he had done. Surprised the shit out of him, too, when the kid took a shot at him. All things considered, given the mistakes he’d made back there, Isaac was lucky to be alive. He tried to tell himself it was because he was pissed, but that didn’t make it any better. He was a professional, for God’s sake. He couldn’t afford to get pissed.

  That was then; this was now, and finally, he had his advantage. As in all hunting, the secret to Isaac’s line of work was to know two things very, very well: your prey and your terrain, and in this case, he was preparing for a turkey shoot.

  The road to Eagle Feather traced the outline of the Arroyo Gorge, some geological formation in which Isaac had exactly zero interest, beyond the fact that on busy tourist days, traffic would back up for miles as cars pulled in and out of the scenic overlooks that faced each other on opposite sides. The view was indeed spectacular on a clear day, but at this hour, it was just a black stain against the night. Knowing that Pembroke would have to drive past the wide-open overlook, Isaac had set up shop in the pullover on the near side.

  On a good day, with clean roads, the circuit from overlook to overlook would take fifteen minutes. With conditions the way they were, and given the condition of Pembroke’s rattletrap piece of shit, he figured a minimum of twenty-five. At the fifteen-minute mark, just to be on the safe side, Isaac took his night goggles and his rifle and walked to the far side of his Suburban, there to wait for his prey to cross into the open.

  He left the MP5 on the front seat and unlimbered the latest addition to his arsenal—a Heckler & Koch PSG-1, the most accurate semiautomatic sniper rifle in the world. At nearly eighteen pounds, it was heavier than his previous long-range guns, but the trade-off in performance was more than worth the compromise. The shot he’d have to make here would be a bitch, well over a thousand yards, but the road on the opposite side was very steep, and the opening fairly wide, so Isaac figured he’d have a solid ten to fifteen seconds to pump in as many rounds as it would take.

  After twenty-five minutes, he was having a hard time keeping warm. He stomped his feet and marched in place to keep the blood circulating.

  Headlights approaching from behind startled him. It was three in the morning, for Christ’s sake, too late for tourists and too early for truckers to be making their rounds. He saw it from less than a quarter mile away, and he barely had time to sweep the goggles off his head and stash the rifle behind the right front tire before the approaching car’s headlights swept over him. Isaac winced against the glare, concerned that the car seemed to be slowing.

  His concern deepened when the blue-and-white light bar jumped to life on the vehicle’s roof.

  SCOTT DIDN’T UNDERSTAND why Pembroke had pulled the truck to a stop. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Any signs of him yet?”

  “Nothing but empty road,” Scott said. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Pembroke shook his head and wiped his nose with the palm of his hand. “I don’t like it,” he said.

  Scott couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Don’t like what? Jesus, let’s go!”

  “I don’t think so.”

  A new fear gripped Scott’s insides. Maybe Pembroke was changing his mind. Maybe he wasn’t going to help him out after all.

  “There’s a big clearing up here,” the old man said, scowling into the night. “We go through that, and we’ll be wide open for a good long time. Fifteen, twenty seconds, maybe more.”

  “So?” Scott’s voice strained with incredulity. “Isaac’s nowhere to be seen.”

  Pembroke pointed at the boy with a gnarled forefinger. “That, young man, is the problem. Where the hell is he? He’s had plenty of time to catch up. So, I’m thinkin’ he’s not behind us at all no more. I’m thinkin’ he’s on the other side of the Arroyo Gorge waiting for us to cross so he can take us out.”

  “Is there another way?”

  Pembroke’s whole face pinched together as it folded into a hard scowl. “Nope. ’Fraid not.” He opened his door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “The overlook’s just up there a bit. I’m gonna go take me a look.”

  Scott opened his door, too. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Stay put,” the old man said, waving him off. “Keep them feet warm while you can. And keep an eye out the back window in case I’m wrong.”

  Before Scott could object, Pembroke was off, disappearing into the darkness beyond the headlights.

  “HOWDY,” SAID THE COP, as he stepped around the front of his cruiser.

  “Evening, officer,” Isaac said. He moved quickly to meet the cop before he had a chance to see the rifle he’d stashed. He extended his hand. “Kevin Clavan,” he said.

  The cop eyed him suspiciously, then gave in and shook hands. “Officer Tingle,” he said. “Something wrong with your vehicle?” he asked.

  Isaac seemed surprised by the question. “What? Oh, no. Only with my bladder. Too small for my own good. When you gotta go, you gotta go.”

  He didn’t like the look the cop gave him when he said, “Uh-huh. Could I see your license and your registration, please?”

  “Um, yeah, sure,” Isaac said, reaching for his wallet. As he tossed a look over his shoulder, he noted that the clearing was still empty.

  SCOTT THOUGHT FOR A MOMENT that Pembroke was dancing a jig as he reappeared in the wash of the headlights, then he realized that the old man was merely jogging back to the truck.

  “He got pulled over by a cop!” the old man announced as he pulled open his door and climbed in. “Sure enough, he’s over there, but I see flashing lights on the other side.” He laughed, but the sound was more of a high-pitched wheeze. “Well, that’ll sure as hell put him on edge.”

  “So, what do we do now?”

  Pembroke ground the transmission into first gear and popped the clutch. “We wave at him as we drive on by.”

  AS HE SEARCHED HIS WALLET for his driver’s license, Isaac riffled through his options. Killing a cop was a mistake. It was always a mistake, no matter how small the jurisdiction. Politicians were nothing compared to the ire raised by offing a cop. On the other hand, the kid knew too much; and, by extension, so did the
old man who sold him out. Plus, professionalism be damned, Isaac was plain-ass pissed off, and he wasn’t going to be able to live with himself if he let them just get away.

  Now, if he could get this cop to move along before Pembroke’s truck appeared in the overlook, then everything might work out just fine.

  “Sometime tonight would be nice,” said Officer Tingle.

  Isaac forced a chuckle. “I guess my fingers are a little slow tonight,” he said.

  “I can hold a light for you, if you’d like.”

  Isaac shook his head. “No. No, that’s okay. I know it’s here somewhere.”

  Nearly a mile away, he saw headlights enter the clearing, and he dropped his wallet into the snow. “Goddammit.” He bent down to retrieve it.

  And came up with his rifle braced against his hip.

  Jesse Tingle jumped as if he’d been zapped with a cattle prod. He didn’t even reach for his weapon to defend himself. Instead, he raised his hands to his face and yelled, “Jesus!”

  Isaac fired a single round dead into the center of his chest and turned away, not even bothering to watch his victim sprawl backward into the snow. He knew the cop was wearing a Kevlar vest, just as he knew that it wouldn’t even slow down the armor-piercing bullets he’d loaded.

  Moving fast now, Isaac hurried back to his chosen sniper’s nest along the guardrail and slipped the night goggles back into place. Dammit, the pickup was already halfway through the clearing, leaving maybe five seconds to make his kill, and nearly two of those seconds would be lost to the flight time of the bullets. It wasn’t supposed to be this difficult!

  Settling the rifle into his shoulder, he rested the forestock on the guardrail post, acquired his target and started squeezing the trigger. By the time the fifth round left the barrel, the first one had nearly reached its target.

  PEMBROKE WAS STILL LAUGHING. He couldn’t get over the irony of it all. “There he is!” he shouted, pointing past Scott to the flashing lights a mile away. “Can you see anything?”

  “Just the lights,” Scott said, squinting through the fogged window. He rolled it down halfway for a better view. “Looks like two people just talking.” As he watched, the man on the right bent down, and when he stood again, the man on the left flew backward onto the ground.

  “Oh, shit!” Scott yelled. “Oh, shit, he just shot the cop! Move! C’mon, we gotta move!” The booming report reached them a few seconds later.

  For the first time, he saw genuine fear in the old man’s face. “She won’t go no faster!”

  Scott continued to watch out the window. From this distance, in the dark, cut only by the lights from the police car, it was tough to make out any real detail, but he could see enough. “I think he’s getting ready to fire.”

  Up ahead, the clearing was giving way to a protective wall of trees. “We only need a couple more seconds,” Pembroke said.

  They didn’t have it. Scott watched as a thin tongue of flame danced in the dark.

  “Shit!” he yelled. Without a conscious thought, Scott pulled hard on the door handle and rolled to his right, out of the door and onto the snow-packed shoulder. As he tumbled and rolled, he heard the bullets hit. It was the sound of marbles hitting the bottom of a galvanized trash can, a terrible metallic pounding, punctuated by exploding glass and flying sheet metal. The heavy booms of the gunshots arrived later. The entire assault lasted all of five seconds, and then it was over, the pickup barely moving to the cover of the trees. Scott clawed his way to his feet and scrambled to catch up, jumping on the passenger side running board and hoisting himself back through the open door.

  “Mr. Pembroke, are you all right?” The inside of the cab had been torn to shreds, the vinyl upholstery and the windshield—what was left of it—spattered with blood. “Oh, God.”

  “I been better,” Pembroke said. He tried to laugh again, and the result was a bloody spray. “I think I was hit.”

  Scott was horrified. What was he supposed to do now? God, he was going to bleed to death if he didn’t do something. As the truck slowed more and more, it finally shuddered and stalled out. “I think you might be right,” Scott said. He reached across the old man’s lap and set the parking brake. “I need to drive now.”

  As Scott grabbed Pembroke under his arms to pull him over to the passenger side, the old man howled with agony. “No! Don’t! Lord Jesus, don’t do that!”

  But he had to. It was that or just sit there in the driver’s seat and die. Every place he touched was slick with blood. “I’m sorry, Mr. Pembroke,” he said as he pulled again. “It’ll be just another few seconds.” Pembroke screamed and he cussed, but he didn’t fight the boy.

  Scott was careful not to touch him or hurt him any more as he climbed over him into the driver’s seat. He was shocked when the motor caught on the first try.

  32

  PEMBROKE WAS IN AGONY, moaning endlessly, his rattling lungs producing sounds unlike anything Scott had ever heard. Propelled by fear and rage, the boy drove like a madman, his foot all the way to the floor, the sloppy steering careening him from one shoulder to the other. If a car had been coming in the opposite direction, they’d all have died.

  As smoke poured from the damaged motor, the smell of burning rubber combined with the stench of spilled blood and shit to form a mixture that turned his stomach. Every time he dared a glance at the passenger seat, the old man’s skin looked grayer, even as the crimson pools grew larger on the seat.

  “Hang in there, Mr. Pembroke,” Scott yelled. The smoke scratched his throat, making him cough. “We’ll get help for you. Just don’t die, okay? Please don’t die.”

  The sign read, Eagle Feather 1 Mile.

  “All right!” Scott cheered. “Did you see that? We’re almost there. We made it, okay? We made it!” He cheered again, but not Pembroke. The old man wasn’t making any sound anymore. “Mr. Pembroke? Come on, stay awake for me. Mr. Pembroke!” The man didn’t move.

  Scott leaned over to his passenger. “Come on, Mr. Pembroke, wake up! Please wake up.” Grabbing a fistful of the old man’s jacket, Scott pulled him closer, until Pembroke sat upright. Then the bleeding man came the rest of the way, sliding sideways and then onto the floor, his head faceup on Scott’s lap, one eye closed and the other staring into nothing, dead. “Oh, Mr. Pembroke,” Scott moaned.

  When he returned his eyes to the road, there was no time left to miss the tree.

  BRANDON HAD DOZED OFF, his feet propped up on somebody’s desk. Sherry sat at another desk, her eyes closed, head resting on her folded arms. At this point, the police station was merely a place to be, a place not to be alone. A twisted, fitful dream had taken Brandon to Scott’s funeral, and he woke up terrified, burdened with a terrible sense of dread. At the front of the big room, Whitestone and Alexander were still locked in a discussion with Sanders. None of it interested Brandon anymore.

  “What’s wrong?” Sherry asked sleepily. Her head was still on the desk, but now her eyes were open.

  “I thought you were asleep,” he said.

  “Ditto.” She sat up straight. “Are you all right?”

  Brandon tried to smile, but the best he could manage was a smirk. “Not really. Are you sure you don’t want to go back to the chalet? You’ve got the press conference tomorrow.” He checked his watch. “Make that later today.”

  “No,” she said, “I want to be here. Do I look as bad as you do?”

  “You couldn’t possibly look as bad as I feel,” Brandon said.

  “I keep watching them,” Sherry said, nodding to the Jamiesons.

  They had arrived at the station about a half hour ago, summoned by a phone call from Chief Whitestone. Hearing the news that Scott was still alive, they’d arrived full of hope. “I’m sure that your son would have said something if Cody was in danger,” Annie Jamieson had said.

  Sherry could feel their agony as they spoke. “I’m sure you’re right,” she’d replied. “I’m sure they’re both going to be just fine.”

  Si
nce then, the old couple had just sat there, holding hands tightly and saying nothing to anyone.

  “They make me sad,” Sherry said to Brandon.

  In the back of the squad room, a door labeled Communications opened quickly, and out stepped a woman whom Brandon had never seen before. A tiny boom microphone lined her cheek, coming from a plug in her left ear. She carried the connection for the thing in her hand. “Hey, Chief?” she called from across the room.

  Whitestone looked up from his discussion with the others. “What is it, Mattie?”

  “I can’t find Jesse Tingle.”

  Whitestone scowled. “Can’t find him? Was he lost?”

  “I mean, I can’t raise him on the radio. About forty-five minutes ago, he called in that he was making a stop out on the main road, but I haven’t heard a thing from him since.”

  The chief’s face showed concern, but not worry. “You’ve tried alternate channels?”

  “Every one of them,” Mattie said.

  “What kind of stop was it?”

  “He never said, exactly, but he didn’t seem upset by it. It’s not like him to just disappear off the air.”

  “Probably holed up taking a nap,” said Agent Sanders, earning himself a withering glare from Whitestone.

  “Is that what you and your agents do in your spare time?” Whitestone shot back. In the background, the buzzer sounded from the front door. James Alexander rose from his chair to answer it.

  Sensing the opening salvo of another turf war between Whitestone and Sanders, Brandon headed for the coffeepot in Whitestone’s office. “Want any?” he asked Sherry.

  She shook her head no and closed her eyes again.

  This was Brandon’s fifth cup since he’d arrived this morning, and even before he poured it, he knew that he’d regret it soon. Maybe with enough cream and sugar…

  His back was turned to the inner door when it opened, but just from the suddenness of the sound, he knew that something was wrong.