by P. R. Adams
He could see the two patrolmen inside tracking the rental vehicle with their gaze.
Then the cruiser started to roll slowly toward them.
36
11 March 2164. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
* * *
His apartment building seemed miles away; the steps to his apartment seemed to stretch up forever.
“Stay here.” He climbed out of the car. The dirt-laden wind knocked him off-balance. He took a step to recover.
The cruiser, an older, heavy, blocky EEC model that he hadn’t seen outside Europe lately, came to a stop five meters away. He could see the two patrolmen both staring at him. He looked up the stairs again, then back at the patrolmen. The patrolmen stepped out of the vehicle, the wind nearly tearing off their brown campaign hats. Rimes’s stomach flipped.
“Jack Rimes?” The driver shouted over the wind.
“Is everything okay, Officer?” Rimes couldn’t stop looking up the stairs.
“We just need to talk to you, Mister Rimes. Would you mind answering a few questions?” the second patrolman asked. He was big, his voice deep, but it barely carried in the wind.
“Is my wife okay?” Rimes had to keep from charging up the stairs.
“Everything’s fine, Mr. Rimes,” the driver shouted. “It’s about the altercation you were in at the Oklahoma City Bus Terminal recently. We just need some additional information.”
Rimes relaxed. “I’ve been out of town for a while, so when I saw your car, I started to worry. About my wife.”
“No problem, Mr. Rimes.”
The taller man looked past Rimes at the rental car. “You can tell her everything’s fine. This shouldn’t take long.”
“Right.” Rimes walked back to the car, shading his face from the wind. He opened the passenger door enough to poke his head in and tossed his travel bag on the floor. “Something’s up.”
“What?” Kleigshoen looked past him.
“I’ll explain in a minute. Just be ready.”
Rimes walked back toward the cruiser, still shielding his face from the wind. He smiled at the second patrolman, who was getting into the car. “Looks like we brought this weather in from Virginia. Sorry about that.”
The big man nodded cordially and waved toward the rear door, then turned toward his own door. The wind caught his hat, lifting it off his head. Instinctively, he reached up to grab it.
Rimes pivoted on his right leg and kicked the big man's exposed back with as much force as possible. That drew a gasp, then the man staggered forward into his open door, losing his hat. He recovered and turned. Rimes closed, ducked beneath a too-slow swing, and drove an elbow into the man’s solar plexus before dancing back.
The big man desperately clutched at Rimes; he drove a knee into the man’s groin and a quick backhand into his throat. Another strike to the jaw, and the big man dropped, gagging.
A gunshot rang out, and Rimes flinched. He dropped to the ground, grabbed the fallen man’s gun, then fired off several shots beneath the car at the driver’s shins. The driver screamed and fell to ground.
Rimes pistol-whipped the big man, then ran around the car to kick the driver full in the face. A second kick, and the driver was out.
“Jack!”
Rimes pulled the driver’s cuffs from his belt and turned him over, cuffing his arms behind his back. The driver’s gun and spare magazines were next. Rimes stuffed them into his pants. The wallet was last, tucked into a front pocket.
Rimes returned to the big patrolman, punched him again, and cuffed him as well.
Kleigshoen fought through the wind and stopped a few meters short of Rimes. “Have you gone mad?”
Rimes climbed in through the cruiser’s passenger door, stretched across the driver’s seat, and popped open the trunk to let the real patrolman out. He jogged back around, then pulled up short.
Empty. Where’s the real patrolman?
“Do you even realize what you’ve done? You’ve just assaulted two policemen,” Kleigshoen shouted.
“I told you, they’re not cops,” Rimes shouted back.
He checked the driver’s identification. His stomach flipped. It looked legitimate at first glance. Rimes sat back on his heels and blinked dirt out of his eyes.
No. I can’t be imagining this. I know I’m right.
“Let me call Jim. We can get in contact with their chief or commissioner or whatever. We can explain how this happened. You’ve been under a lot of stress, you felt threatened …”
“When was the last time you saw police riding in pairs?”
Kleigshoen groaned. “Jack, did you ever think they might consider you dangerous?” She pointed at the bloodied driver for emphasis.
“They came driving toward us before I even got out of the car.”
Kleigshoen rubbed her temples. “I can’t believe you’d assault police on something that flimsy. They could have come by here, talked to Molly, and simply been waiting for you. We were in a rental car right outside your apartment building. How often does that happen?”
Rimes pocketed the driver’s identification and walked over to the other patrolman. “How did they know you were in the car?”
“What?”
“This guy told me to tell you to drive on. He specifically said ‘her.’ He couldn’t possibly have seen you were a female through the sand, not at that distance.”
Rimes searched for the big man’s identification as he talked. It looked as legitimate as the driver’s. He muttered a curse.
“If they talked to Molly, don’t you think she would’ve said I’d be with you?”
Rimes stood. He turned his head and squinted against an intense blast of wind. “Fine. But that still leaves one problem.”
It was the wrong car. They don’t drive EEC. They drive HuCorp single-seat cruisers.
He slammed the passenger door shut. The edge of the state patrol decal was loose.
“What?”
“There’s no way the highway patrol would get involved with a case involving a bus station in town. It’d be city cops.”
“Well, they’re involved now,” Kleigshoen said. “Either way, someone is going to call those gunshots in.”
Rimes handed the identification cards to Kleigshoen and took the big patrolman’s spare magazines. “I’m going to get Molly. Get ready to get out of here.”
“Jack, you need to think this through. Running won’t—”
Rimes thrust his jaw forward. “Check the IB database. If you can confirm those are legitimate highway patrolmen, I’ll turn myself in.”
Kleigshoen stomped back to the car. Rimes hefted the patrolmen into their car, locked the doors, and closed them. His heart raced as he ran up to his apartment and let himself in.
It was deathly quiet and dark inside.
“Molly?”
Molly staggered out of the bedroom. She looked ill. “Jack?”
Rimes ran to Molly and held her. “I need you to pack a bag, baby.” She had vomit on her breath.
“I threw it up.”
He held her tighter. “We’ll talk. But now … just get dressed. I’ll pack.”
Jack walked to the bedroom, covering his face against the smell. He stripped the vomit-matted sheets off the bed, bundled them up, and tossed them into the washing machine. The machine kicked on, immediately monopolizing the hot water pressure. Molly squealed in shock.
A few seconds digging around in the closet, and he had Molly’s travel bag. He focused on functional clothing rather than anything fancy. He wasn’t sure where they’d go, but he wasn’t figuring on a four star hotel.
As he detached the toiletry bag from the travel bag interior, his earpiece chimed. Rimes settled it into his ear and walked into the bathroom. Molly was leaning into the shower spray, letting the water wash over her. He quickly packed her toothbrush and toothpaste.
“Jack, you were right,” Kleigshoen whispered. She was barely audible over the shower. “They’re criminals.”
“We’ll be
down in less than five minutes.”
Kleigshoen went silent for a moment. “What do we do?”
“We have to assume Marshall thinks I know he’s behind this. I shouldn’t have let on about Kwon’s memories. I just didn’t know. You’re committed now, whether you wanted to be or not. I’m sorry.”
“We’ll have to move fast. We can transfer some credit into cash cards, but only so much. They flag anything above $2,500.”
Rimes heard the shower shut off. “Three more minutes.” He ended the call.
“Was that her?” Molly asked. She was leaning out of the bathroom door, naked, dripping, a towel in her hand.
“Yes.” He didn’t know what to say to make it any better. “She’s downstairs waiting on us. Please hurry, Baby. We’re in danger.”
Molly blinked. “I’ll get dressed.”
As they descended the stairs, Molly’s eyes locked on the cruiser. “Jack? The cops—”
“Those aren’t the cops, baby,” Rimes said.
By the time they exited the parking lot, he had a plan.
37
13 March 2164. Helena, Oklahoma.
* * *
Rimes jerked awake from a troubled nap. The heavens burned as the sun disappeared on the western horizon. Wind whistled through the watchtower’s shattered glass, carrying with it the smell of approaching rain.
He shifted on the sleeping bag, listening. His earpiece chimed.
It was nearly six.
He scanned Third Street with his binoculars. They were crude and simple but functional. They were also all he could afford.
At first, the street looked empty, just another stretch of broken pavement in another abandoned town. Then he saw it: a mini-car, a rusted out HuCorp two-seater.
He focused on the car’s grime-streaked window and sighed. Better late than never.
Rimes scanned the rest of the town; there was no movement. He opened the door to the stairwell, listened for a moment, then jogged down.
Halfway to the bottom, he pulled an ancient walkie-talkie from his pants pocket. “He’ll be here in a couple minutes.”
The walkie-talkie hissed as Kleigshoen answered. “Ready.”
Rimes waited a moment at the bottom of the tower. “Molly?”
“I heard you. I’m going. Um, ready.”
Rimes jogged in a half-crouch toward the entry gate, alternating between quick jumps and rapid jukes over patches of grass and lengths of weed-covered, cracked cement.
Aside from a few determined rodents, the James Crabtree Correctional Center had been abandoned for decades. It had been a state-run, low-security facility. Corporate-run prisons built for truly dangerous criminals rendered it obsolete. Its shutdown marked the beginning of the end for Helena.
Rimes scanned the compound interior. Long shadows draped the facility’s sagging cement structures.
Nothing moved.
An iron beam wedged the rusted gate shut. Rimes hid behind a pillar until he heard the mini-car approach, then stepped out of the shadows and waited for it to brake.
Martinez stared at him from the driver’s seat with J.C. next to him, anxiously twisting her hands together. They were in jeans and flannel shirts and appeared unarmed.
Martinez lowered his window and stuck his head out slowly. He scanned the gate and the prison grounds beyond. “Open it up, Jack.”
Rimes kicked the beam from the gate and pulled it open. The mini-car drove through, coming to a stop next to Kleigshoen’s rental car in the shadow of the old administration building’s lobby.
Rimes closed the gate and jogged over to meet them.
Martinez climbed out of the vehicle, his knees making an audible pop. “You’re crazy. You know that, right? Calling me up at o’dark thirty to come out to the middle of nowhere.” He rubbed his knees, then straightened. “Want to clue me in?”
Rimes watched the car until J.C. got out of the passenger’s side, then stood next to Martinez. What was it about her that could drive a man like Martinez—an honorable, decent soldier—to turn into a traitor? She was a wisp of a woman with a mercurial nature and a love of alcohol, but she was dead serious when it came to money.
Eighteen years of bickering and near-divorce. Eighteen years of hard partying. Eighteen years of “it’s never enough.”
You’re the one who got him in this mess, J.C.
“You should’ve come alone.”
Martinez shrugged. “I don’t like going anywhere without J.C. anymore. Now what’s up?”
“Tell me about the X-17.”
Martinez looked at J.C. sheepishly. “So that’s it, huh? You want in on the money, too?”
“You know me better than that. I just want to know what happened.”
“What do you think happened? Moltke came to me with a proposition. We needed the money. This was worth more than any of us could make in a lifetime.”
Rimes shook his head.
Martinez shrugged. “Same job, better pay, Jack.”
“That’s not going to wor—”
J.C.’s clenched her little fists tight at her sides. “He’s taken bullets for this country. He’s nearly deaf in his right ear. That knee of his is never going to be right. And what’s he get for all that? Two hundred dollars a month until he turns seventy? That’s bullshit, and you know it. He can’t take care of me on that kind of money. He can’t even take care of himself! At least he did something about it, unlike you! What kind of husband are you?”
Martinez grabbed J.C. around the waist and gently pulled her to his side, smiling at her. “She’s got it right. We’ll be broken men when we leave the service. If we even live to. You’ve got a kid on the way. How do you plan to feed three mouths on what you make?”
“We took an oath.” Rimes glared at J.C. She’s twisting things, confusing him.
“Sure we did. And now that you know about the X-17, that oath’s still applicable? That stuff was cooked up by the military and intelligence communities. It was put together so we could wipe out enemies, foreign and domestic. You understand what I’m saying?”
“No, and I don’t think I care.” Rimes locked eyes with Martinez.
“Listen,” Martinez raised his hands, palms open. “X-17 is the perfect weapon for a coup. You put the right people in the right place, and you could wipe out every single politician in the capital. No trace of anything. They authorized making this stuff after all the program cuts, and they buried it under so many layers of security, no one really knew about it until it was finally done.”
“They who?” Rimes said.
“Does it matter? Generals, intelligence directors, unelected leaders. I’m no radical, Jack, but this goes against everything we were sworn to protect.”
Rimes sighed. “It’s too late to play the patriot.”
“I’m not,” Martinez said. “But you need to step off that high ground you think you’re standing on and see it for what it is. This was an illegal weapons program being run by a bunch of power-hungry megalomaniacs. Making a little bit of money off it, taking away from their stockpile … what’s wrong with that?”
“What about those Americans you killed to get to it? You see anything wrong with that?” Rimes asked. “And your friends are trying to kill me. I sure as hell have a problem with that.”
“No one needs to kill anyone,” Martinez said, waving Rimes down. “Let me talk to Moltke. He wanted to recruit you from the start, but I told him no. He thinks you’re an ace, Jack. We all do.”
“It’s too—”
A shadow passed overhead, and Rimes instinctively flinched. A bullet ricocheted off the cement where he’d been standing.
One of the unit’s stealth-modified helicopters—a UH-121—whispered past. Rimes dove to the ground, and a second shot thudded into the dirt next to his right shoulder.
“Sniper!”
Martinez ducked and ran for cover, his hand instinctively reaching for J.C. Another shot ricocheted off a cement wall. He turned as she collapsed, blood oozing from a hole
in her forehead.
Rimes rolled and scrambled across the ground, sneaking into the administration building a second ahead of Martinez.
Rimes glanced back to where J.C. had been standing. She lay on the grass.
“Is she … ?”
Martinez’s face was an emotionless mask. “You have a gun?”
Rimes knew what Martinez was going through, just like when Wolford had died. They had all learned to compartmentalize, to seal themselves off from the pain of the moment. It was the only way to survive. Rimes handed Martinez one of the guns taken off the fake patrolmen. “I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.” Martinez looked skyward. “They’re going to have to come in on foot now. I assume you’ve got some sort of plan?”
Without another word, Rimes ran for the maximum-security building, taking cover wherever he could, changing his pace, zigging and zagging. Martinez followed, quickly falling back on training and habit.
They moved through the darkness of the maximum-security building’s debris-cluttered stairwell. Rimes stopped occasionally to listen to their footsteps echoing off the concrete walls. When he was confident they weren’t being followed, he moved again.
They were in the compound’s newest and tallest building. Not only did it have the greatest structural stability, it offered the best cover—which also made it the most likely target for a helicopter landing or fast-roping assault.
At the third floor, Rimes exited the stairwell with Martinez immediately behind him.
Rimes quickly played a penlight across the room beyond, which had an unfinished sally port and a cage door a meter beyond it. Cement, short spans of rusted rebar, and rotten tarp littered the floor. A rusty acetylene torch lay abandoned in one corner, an even rustier propane tank in the opposite corner.
“Nice place you got here,” Martinez said.
Rimes smiled. It was familiar, tension-defusing banter, the sort he’d missed while working with Kleigshoen and Metcalfe. He feared it might be the last time he enjoyed it with his mentor.
