Suddenly, Lena felt uneasy. She moved away from the keyboard and listened. It took her a minute to figure out what was different. It was too quiet. The TV downstairs had been blaring away for hours and now it was off. She’d gotten so used to the noise that the quiet seemed strange. She focused again. That was it. They’d just turned off the TV. It wasn’t anything to worry about, but she still wished that Ramon was back. She’d feel safer when he was.
She turned back to the computer and was about to type in a new command, when she heard a noise. The creaking of a stair. Adrenaline surged in Lena’s body. Something wasn’t right. She pushed back her chair, stood up, and moved toward the door, putting her ear close to listen. She heard it again. Another creak. The roommates never came upstairs, it couldn’t be them. Maybe it was Ramon, back from his run?
“Ramon?” She called out his name, but no one answered. “Is anybody there?”
Still no answer.
Her heart thumped wildly. It was probably nothing, she told herself. But she felt on edge, her breath tight, her stomach queasy. It just didn’t feel right. She quickly locked the door, just in case. Lena was about to sit back down when the floor creaked as someone heavy stepped onto the landing. Then another creak—someone was trying to sneak up on her. They were whispering something. She couldn’t make out the words, but someone was definitely whispering.
Frantically, Lena scanned the room, looking for something to use as a weapon. Her purse, with her can of mace, was in the other room.
Someone outside grabbed on to the doorknob and twisted, but it didn’t move. “Shit! She locked it.”
“Then break it!”
It was the roommates. What were they doing? Why were they out there? What was going on? She couldn’t see anything in the room to use as a weapon.
The door thudded. They were banging their shoulders against it. A tin can filled with pens and pencils was on the desk next to the computer. Lena grabbed hold of a ballpoint pen, gripped it in her fist, and faced the door. It thudded again, but this time, the lock broke. The door crashed inward and the two roommates tumbled in.
Lena stepped backwards, holding the pen. “Stay away from me!”
Frank, the dark one, was in front. Jelly, the fat one, was a step behind. Their eyes were wild. Frank grabbed for her arm. Lena jabbed at him with the pen. The tip pierced the flesh of his forearm.
“You bitch!” Frank grabbed her arm with one hand and twisted it while he used his weight to push her against the wall. He pried the pen out of her hand and threw it on the floor. Then he stepped back and smacked her hard with his open palm.
Lena cried out in pain and slid down the wall.
Frank looked down at her and screamed, “You gonna get nasty? I’ll show you nasty. We own you, bitch!”
Lena looked up from the floor. They were towered over her. Her face hurt. Her lip was bleeding, and she could taste the blood inside her mouth. She’d felt so secure before, but now that was gone. She bit the inside of her lip and willed herself not to cry.
“The wetback’s going to be back soon. Go check out the other room and see what you can find,” Frank ordered. Jelly sauntered out of the room.
Frank stood over her, licked his lips, and grinned. “We’re gonna have some fun tonight, bitch. You can bet on it.”
Jelly thrashed around in the room next door, throwing things on the floor and kicking around. What would happen if Ramon came back now? Would he be any match against these two? She prayed that he would be.
From next door, Jelly suddenly yelled. It was a whoop, a victory call. A moment later, he rushed back into the room.
“Hey, Frank. Look what I found.” Grinning from ear to ear, he looked like Yosemite Sam, holding a gun in each hand.
Ramon ran longer than he intended. It was dark when he turned onto the block to Philip’s house. The air was cool and still, and his sweat dried on contact. He was tired, but it felt good. He touched his finger to his neck and checked his pulse as he slowed to a walk. It was racing, but he knew he’d recover quickly.
As he walked, cooling down, he listened to the night sounds of crickets and cicadas. The run was refreshing. It was good to be outside in the fresh air, his muscles moving, his head clear. He wondered how he’d survived so long in prison. He needed the space of the outdoors, the sunlight, the smell of clean air. It was freedom, something he’d taken for granted until he’d lost it. Now he knew he’d rather die than go back.
By the time he reached the house, his pulse was back to normal. Philip’s car wasn’t there yet. It looked like another late night at the office. Ramon took the key off of the cord on his neck and unlocked the door.
Something seemed wrong as soon as he stepped through the door. It was too quiet. Normally, the TV was blaring. Tonight, it was still.
His muscles tensed, he listened for any other sign, but couldn’t hear a thing. As he closed the door behind him, Ramon sensed movement from behind him. Adrenaline shot through his body—someone was behind the door.
He started to react, but too late. Frank stepped out from behind the door and shoved the pistol barrel up against Ramon’s skull. The metal felt cold against his skin.
“It’s time to party, dude.”
Suddenly there was a flash of white light. Ramon saw starbursts and felt himself slipping. It was all an explosion of white. And then there was nothing.
20
Cain knew his stock was dropping. Back at the base, everyone feared and respected him. Rank was irrelevant, he was The Man. He was the power, the colonel’s law. If something had to be done, he did it. No questions asked, no excuses given. He’d get it done. He did the hard jobs, quickly and professionally, leaving no loose ends. But this project wasn’t going well and it was costing him in too many ways.
He’d started the hunt confident it would just be a matter of time before the rabbit was found and neutralized. But from the start, there’d been setbacks. Then, when he finally found his prey, he botched the job. It was inexcusable. Now instead of one rabbit, there were two. And the trail had gone cold. It had been two weeks now without a reliable sighting. The rabbits had completely dropped off the radar. With the whole country looking for them, somehow they just disappeared. There was no way that they could have done this on their own, which meant that someone, somewhere, was hiding them. The contagion had spread again.
Living with the failure was bad enough, but what really set Cain’s teeth on edge was that the colonel seemed to have lost interest. After the fuck-up in Austin, the colonel was ready to pull the plug and start over with a new team. He’d stayed with Cain, but now it looked like he was working with different options. Cain’s calls to the colonel were currently being passed through to Major Durmo. Something was going on and he was so out of the loop that he didn’t know what it was. Priorities had changed and his resources were being cut. First they’d pulled Rev Tanner, his top aide, off the detail. Then they’d cut the rest of his team to the bone, leaving him with no more than a skeleton crew.
So now it had come to this. He was staying in a Holiday Inn in the Chicago suburbs, a double room no less. He glanced over at the other bed, where his roommate for the night, Virgil Ortman, a tall lanky lieutenant from New Jersey, was sprawled out. Ortman was okay, but it irritated him that he had to share a room. And besides, it was partly Ortman’s fault they were here. If he’d done his job back at the base, the rabbit never would have escaped in the first place.
Cain took a deep breath and closed his eyes as he felt a headache coming on, a band of pressure ratcheting tighter on his skull. He sat up straight and rubbed his temples as he turned his gaze to the TV on top of the dresser. The theme music for America’s Most Wanted Criminals began to play.
This was his last gamble. He’d pushed hard to allocate reward money and get the show on the air. In the end, he’d had to nearly get down on his knees and beg. The colonel finally agreed. He interceded with the network and pulled in some favors to make it work. But this was desperation. If the
targets didn’t show up after this, it was over. If he failed now, Cain would be called back to the base and the rabbit would win.
Cain had two men at the studio manning the 800-line, screening the calls. The most promising leads were to be relayed directly to him on his mobile line so he could decide how to proceed. If this didn’t pay off, Cain was out of options.
The lab had analyzed the paper found in the stolen car. Lena’s fingerprints were on it, so there was no doubt it was linked to his prey. When Cain first looked at the paper, he could make out the imprint of the words TRUE BELIEVER. The lab detected more writing underneath. It appeared to be directions. Starting in St Louis, it described a route northwest into Illinois. The last notation was 294-north heading toward Wisconsin. They couldn’t make anything out after that.
They were obviously directions to this TRUE BELIEVER. But from what was written, the location could be anywhere in northern Illinois or Wisconsin. And the paper was two weeks old, so by this time, the targets could have left and gone anywhere. But it was all they had to go by. This Holiday Inn, in the suburbs north of Chicago, was as good a spot to set up operations as any. They’d been working out of the motel for the last week and a half.
All the other lines of inquiry came up empty. He’d tried to trace down places where they would have computer tape readers compatible with the stolen computer tape. But the number was too high to follow through. Though old, it was a popular model with the corporate and institutional market. Besides, he was assured that the tape was encrypted and impossible to unscramble.
Cain found out that his targets had been in St Louis because that was where they recovered the stolen car. But they hadn’t made that mistake this time. No car had been found that could be linked to them.
He still had a man in place at the Defense Department in Washington, but so far, his targets hadn’t tried to reach their contact there again. Everything was coming up blank.
The last lead left was the name, TRUE BELIEVER. Believer in what? Cain thought it had to be some kind of religious association. But looking into the reporter’s past, there was nothing to suggest a strong connection to any organized religious movement. Nothing for the rabbit either. They checked through all her known contacts looking for some connection, still nothing. The only listing they could find in the area with the name was the True Believer African Methodist Church in Waukegan Illinois. A storefront church in a rundown section of town. They checked it out. He even put two men on surveillance there. But again, this lead came up empty.
So now his only hope was that another shot of publicity and a big reward would be enough to flush them out into the open. Cain stared at the TV, but it didn’t hold his interest. He’d seen it all before. The blood pounded inside his head. The dull ache starting to spread, the pressure growing.
He forced his concentration back onto the TV. Neither he nor Ortman spoke as the show went on. He watched the re-enactment of the shooting of the attorney—it didn’t look at all like he remembered it. He cringed as they replayed the video from the ATM machine. Unconsciously, he brought his hand to his nose, touching the damaged area. The show ended with the toll-free number flashing on the bottom of the screen.
Cain got up, turned off the television, and paced across the room, willing his phone to ring. Ortman sat up on the other bed and looked at Cain. He seemed like he was about to speak, but Cain glared at him and he remained silent.
The quiet was unnerving. Cain continued pacing back and forth across the room as the time passed. He had to be moving. He wanted to do something and it hurt to be in such a passive role. The only sounds in the room were the hiss of the air conditioner and the occasional clunking of the ice machine down the hall.
Cain’s head pounded now. The pain intense, magnifying his feelings of frustration. As he continued pacing, he felt his rage grow. This was his last chance. He’d gambled everything on the show, and nothing. If someone was going to respond, it would happen quickly. The longer it took, the less chance there was that something would pan out. Calls had to be coming in, but his men were screening everything. They’d have to follow up on whatever they found later, but he was hoping for a breakthrough. Something so big it would require his attention now. He glanced down at his watch. It had been too long. It was too damn quiet.
Ortman sat up on his bed and cleared his throat. “It don’t look like anything’s happening tonight, Captain.”
Cain spun around. “What did you say?”
“Well, I’m just saying, it’s been awful quiet, sir. Maybe nothin’s going to happen tonight. Maybe you should just chill out and relax a little.”
Cain’s muscles tensed. It was bad enough he had to share his room with a subordinate. But now this loser was telling him what to do. The pressure in Cain’s head was too much. He felt like a bomb about to explode. He’d kept his discipline. He’d maintained control. But this was too much—he needed relief.
His eyes bored into Ortman. He wanted to hit him. He wanted to beat him hard, to rip him apart with his bare hands. He wanted to smell fresh blood and feel the crack of snapping bones. Consequences be damned, he clenched his fists and stepped forward.
Then the phone rang.
When Ramon opened his eyes, all he could see was white. His first thought was that he was back in the base, tied to the bed in the white room. But that wasn’t right. He was restrained somehow. He couldn’t move his arms, but he was sitting up, propped against something. And the white wasn’t from the room, but the color of something covering his face. It was a loose fabric that covered his entire head. His breath was trapped there, it came back hot on his face. His breathing sounded so loud. His ears rang and his head hurt like hell.
He wanted to move his hand up to check his head, but couldn’t. His hands were tied together somehow. He felt disoriented, not sure what had happened, but it came back quickly. The roommates had jumped him as he came in the door after a run. Frank had his gun.
Ramon couldn’t tell for sure, but didn’t think he’d been shot. With the pain in his head, he’d been hit hard and knocked unconscious. He didn’t know where he was, but it had to be somewhere inside the house. What was going on? Why had they attacked him? And where was Lena? He hoped she was all right.
Ramon stopped moving, tried to slow his breathing, and listen. He knew he was still in the house when the compressor on the refrigerator kicked on. It seemed so quiet otherwise. There was usually loud music playing and the sounds of the two roommates yelling or fighting. What was going on? He held his breath as he strained to hear. It was hard to concentrate with the ringing in his head, but with effort, he could. There was a rumbling, banging sound in another part of the house. Was it upstairs? He thought it was.
He took another deep breath, held it, and listened again. He thought he heard something closer by. Someone breathing.
“Is anybody there?” he spoke just over a whisper.
There was a muffled reply, almost a groan. Ramon’s breath caught in his throat. He couldn’t be sure, was it Lena? What had they done to her? He had to help her.
He struggled against his restraints. They were tight, but he was determined. He tried to get to his feet. He leaned back, leveraging himself against the wall, and pushed up off the floor. He was starting to get his feet in position, when he heard the voices. Frank and Jelly. The sound was coming from above, a room at the top of the stairs. Ramon dropped back into a sitting position. It wouldn’t do to have them come down when he was on his feet but still restrained. They’d just club him again and then he’d be useless. He tried to relax, slump over, and sit as still as he could.
They sounded like thunder as they crashed down the stairs and into the room. As the footsteps came close, Ramon had the urge to tense his muscles, but he tried to loosen up and sit as motionless as possible. The footsteps came right to him. Without warning, he felt a jolt of pain in his thigh. One of them had kicked him. He clenched his mouth tight so he wouldn’t cry out and let his body go limp. He flopped over to the
side. He felt so vulnerable. There was nothing he could do to protect himself. He wished he could see what they were doing. He lay still and tried not to breathe.
“Maybe you hit him too hard. I think he’s dead.” It was Jelly’s voice.
“He’s not dead. And even if he is, we were just protecting ourselves. He’s a killer, man. We’d still get the reward.” Frank had a smug edge to his voice.
The footsteps moved away. “What are we going to do with her, Frank?”
“I know what I’d like to do with her,” he laughed.
Ramon heard a low moan. Now he was sure it was Lena.
“But we’ll save the fun for later,” Frank continued. “We’ve got to get everything ready first. The Dweeb should be home any time now. We’ve got to wait for him.”
Ramon listened as the footsteps moved away. He thought he was in the living room, and it sounded like they were heading toward the kitchen. He knew he was right when he heard the refrigerator door open. Ramon moved his hands around, trying to get a grip on something, trying to feel what he was restrained with. He didn’t have much time, he knew they’d be back soon. He grasped some material in his hands. It felt like linen. As he inhaled, he could make out a faint scent of laundry detergent—they’d tied him up with bed sheets.
He pulled on the fabric, looking for some slack, but his efforts only pulled the sheets tighter. He heard the popping sounds of two beers being opened.
“You got the number?” Their loud voices carried into the living room.
Ramon flexed his shoulders and pushed out with his arms, trying to loosen the ties.
“No, I thought you wrote it down.”
“I didn’t write it down. I told you to.”
“Well, I didn’t have a pen.”
Ramon rolled his shoulders and stretched as he listened to them arguing. The sheets loosened. He grasped on to a portion of the fabric with one hand as he continued to move. It was working. He could feel the knots giving way.
Living Proof Page 24
