3 Great Thrillers

by Churton, Alex; Churton, Toby; Locke, John; Lustbader, Eric van; van Lustbader, Eric

  I climbed into the Hummer and drove another hundred yards. Then I climbed back onto the roof and waited for the remaining security guards to make their stand and for the dogs to make their charge.

  Nothing happened.

  “I got one,” said Hugo.

  “Two more on my side,” said Quinn.

  The dogs charged through the fence and got tangled up in the circus net. I fired a burst near them, which heated the air and knocked them all down again. I didn’t think there would be much fight left in the dogs at this point, but I couldn’t take a chance on being wrong and having them kill some of the clowns. I could have shot them, but why kill the dogs if I didn’t have to? The guards were different. They were here by choice, so they were fair game.

  The clowns untied the net, closed it off, and dragged the dogs behind the Winnebago, out of the line of fire.

  “There’s one guard missing,” I said into my cell phone. “Anyone got a bead on him?”

  They did not.

  I climbed into the Hummer and used the walkie-talkie. “Joe, I’m coming to get you and your men. Seven security guards are dead. One remains alive. I’m directing this to the guard: Come out unarmed with your hands up and we’ll not harm you. This is not your fight, and you’re in way over your head. You’ve got thirty seconds to let us know where you are. Then we’re going to kill you.”

  The clowns got the main gate open and carried their trampolines in, flanked on both sides of the chain link fence by Quinn and Hugo.

  The last guard came out with his hands up. Hugo put a plastic twist-tie on his wrists and looped several more around his hands and a support pole to secure him to the chain link fence.

  Then Hugo and two of the clowns went back to the Winnebago, fetched the ADS weapons, and carried them into the area we had captured. They stopped while we regrouped. Our next barrier was the concrete wall. The problem for Joe and his men was that we had effectively made them prisoners within the wall. Our problem was the entrance gate gave Joe and his men opportunities to pot shot us. My biggest concern before getting the drone photos was if Joe had thought to put ledges on the inside of the walls. Had he done so, his men could have manned the walls and shot us as we approached, but the drone confirmed there were no ledges.

  I drove the Hummer very slowly through the main entrance and aimed the pulse ray at the entrance gate. Quinn and Hugo flanked me from thirty feet on either side and trained their rifles on the same target. They squeezed off a few rounds to discourage Joe’s men from trying to take advantage of the clowns’ momentary vulnerability. If they tried to drive through the gate, I’d blast them with the PEPS weapon. Otherwise, I meant to keep them bottled up. I wasn’t worried about them using their cell phones because who were they going to call? Not reinforcements. Joe already had all the shooters he could trust. Not the police. If they showed up they’d be able to search his house and no telling what they might find in there.

  But on the chance Joe might call the police anyway, Darwin and Lou had notified local dispatchers and 911 operators that Homeland Security was on the premises and any calls requesting aid to Joe’s address should be diverted to Lou Kelly.

  I had Hugo turn around and keep an eye out behind us, just in case.

  The clowns carried three trampolines and three ADS weapons, keeping the Hummer between them and the entrance gate. On each trampoline were throwing knives and electric drills with extended circular concrete drill bits measuring an inch in diameter.

  Here’s what we had: three clowns at each of three stations on the right side of the residential entrance gate. Each station had a drill and a trampoline, a cache of knives, and an ADS weapon. Quinn was guarding the front, Hugo the back. I had the PEPS weapon trained on the front entrance gate.

  The clowns started drilling holes in the wall.

  My cell phone rang.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Joe DeMeo asked.

  “The deadline for my money came and went,” I said.

  “All this because of the little kid who lived?”

  “That and the hotel,” I said.

  “You might want to rethink it,” he said. “I’ve got your wife and kid.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I’ve got their house surrounded. One word from me and they’re dead.”

  “What’s the address?”

  He told me.

  “That’s not my family’s address,” I said.

  “They’re at a friend’s house. I’ve got it wired to blow.”

  49

  “You probably don’t believe me,” Joe said, “so hang on and I’ll conference you with the guy who’s going to kill Janet and Kimberly tonight.”

  I listened to the high-pitched whine of the drill bits while waiting for the connection to go through. I didn’t think Janet and Kimberly were in trouble because Callie was with them and she hadn’t called. Sal’s men were guarding Janet’s house, where Joe’s men would have gone first.

  On the other hand, it always gives you a sick feeling when someone threatens your child’s life.

  Joe came back on the line. “Sal, are you there?”

  “I’m here,” said Sal Bonadello.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. Then Sal said, “Creed, it’s over. I got your blond trapped inside with your bitchy ex and your bratty kid and the family that owns the house. I got gasoline all over the outside walls and Molotov cocktails ready to throw.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  Sal said, “You think we got a deal, like I’m—whatcha call—monitoring Janet’s house, but your blond followed your kid to a friend’s house. Then your wife showed up, and now they’re all inside and the blond is so busy trying to keep everyone calm, she don’t even know we’re here. So this is payback time, my friend. For livin’ in my attic and jumpin’ through the fucking ceiling and shooting up my bedroom and scaring the shit outta my wife, you lousy prick.”

  “I saved your life.”

  “The life you put in danger in the first place.”

  I didn’t say anything. Joe DeMeo said, “Creed, you’ve taken a shine to that girl in the burn center. So I’ve decided to burn your kid, too. And if she tries to run out the door or jump out a window, we’re going to shoot her.”

  “Unless?” I said.

  “Unless you put down your weapons and come to the front gate. All of you.”

  Two of the clowns had gotten their drills through the wall. The third drill made a shrieking sound as it hit a steel reinforcing rod. That clown moved the drill a few inches to the left and started over.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Joe.”

  “You’d let your wife and kid die?”

  “Ex-wife.”

  “Still,” he said. “Your kid?”

  I sighed. “You’re going to kill them, anyway, Joe. And me, too, if you get the chance.”

  “It’s your little girl, for Christ sake!”

  “Which will give me that much more incentive to boil your body with the special weapon I’m bringing into your home.”

  “Say good-bye to your family, Creed.”

  “You tell them for me,” I said. “I’ve got work to do.”

  The first two clowns put the nozzle of their ADS weapons into the holes they’d drilled. The third clown was nearly finished with his second attempt. We all waited for him.

  Hugo walked over to me while keeping his eyes trained on the area behind us. “I heard that bastard on your speaker phone,” he said, “and I heard what you said to him.”

  “And?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “That’s the question I’ve been asked all my life.”

  The last hole was completed, and the last ADS weapon was fitted to it. At each station, a clown attached the power packs and flipped the switches. At the same time, a second clown jumped on each trampoline several times until he could see over the wall. When they felt safe enough, they angled their jumps and landed on top of the wall. Then the remaining clown at each station tos
sed them six knives, two at a time. The clowns on top of the walls placed the knives in their knife belts and scampered along the wall top until they reached the area where the second-floor roof overhung the wall. They jumped on top of the roof and got into position behind each of the three back gables.

  Then I climbed down from my perch, pulled a tear gas gun from the back seat, and tossed it to Quinn. While I covered the entrance with the PEPS weapon, Quinn made his way to the gate. Once there, he started pumping tear gas into each window in the house.

  I was surprised by the lack of gunmen in the yard. Once the fighting started, they all must have hidden in the house. The PEPS weapon will do that to people. Even so, why wouldn’t they station themselves at the upstairs windows? Maybe they were all hiding in Joe’s panic room. I hoped so. That would make it much easier for me.

  I heard a scream. “Got one,” said one of the rooftop elves. “Trying to climb out the back window onto the roof.”

  I heard several blasts of gunfire coming from the front of the house. Quinn ducked behind the wall just in time. Then I heard the types of screams one can only make when exposed to the ADS beam—except there were four of them.

  “Got one,” said another rooftop elf. “Same idea, different window,” he added.

  We heard an engine start up in the garage.

  “Stay at your posts,” I yelled into my cell phone.

  Quinn sprinted back to his post where he’d set his rifle down. He picked it up and aimed it at the front gate.

  When the gate started to open, I fired up the PEPS weapon. Joe’s car came flying toward the entrance at an angle, and I gave him a full-power blast that melted his tires and caused his car to flip and slam into the corner of the gate. Several men jumped out and started to run, including Joe DeMeo.

  They got about two feet before the ADS beam found them.

  “Shut off the beams!” I yelled. I drove the Hummer through the gate, slamming Joe’s Mercedes out of the way to clear a path for Quinn and the three clowns who were standing by with the rest of the knives. There were four guys on the ground. We gutted the two who had followed me and Joe at the cemetery the previous Saturday, and twist-tied Joe and Grasso’s wrists behind them.

  Joe spit at me and missed. “I should’ve stayed in the panic room,” he said.

  “It wouldn’t have made a difference,” I said. “I’d have taken that machine off the truck and aimed it at the wall. You saw what it did to your car. Imagine what it would have done to your panic room.”

  “If you knew where to aim it,” he sneered.

  “You got me there, Joe.”

  “By the way,” he said, “your family’s dead.”

  “So you say.”

  The first four that were hit by the ADS ray were dead, which was to be expected, having been exposed for several minutes. My personal best was less than twenty seconds, so I could only imagine their suffering.

  We guessed we’d gotten all of them, and if not, I didn’t care. We gathered up all our equipment and headed back to the campground. We’d beaten nearly twenty armed men and eight attack dogs without taking a single hit in return. That’s a hell of a campaign, I thought.

  Back at the campground, there was just one thing left to do: humiliate Joe.

  It has never been my style to humiliate my vanquished enemies, but Hugo insisted it was a time-honored clown tradition, so I didn’t stand in their way. He grabbed a seltzer and sprayed it in Joe’s pants while the other clowns formed a circle, interlocked arms, and sang, “A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants!”

  They had so much fun they all took a turn spraying Joe and Grasso. Before long, their pants were a soggy mess.

  “You’re fuckin’ nuts!” Joe screamed again and again. “But I got you, Creed. I killed your kid!” he shouted. “I killed your fuckin’ wife!”

  “Ex-wife,” I said.

  50

  Of course, Joe hadn’t killed Kimberly or Janet, and neither had Sal Bonadello. Sal’s conference call with Joe and me had been part of the plan. It gave Joe what he thought was a bargaining chip, gave him a false sense of security. When I kept coming after him in spite of the threat to my daughter, he came to the conclusion I was certifiable. He reasoned, if I didn’t care enough about my own kid to try to save her, what chance did he have with me? Joe, already in a panic, must have felt like a trapped rat. At least I thought he’d feel that way, and I hoped to flush him out.

  Because, truth is, I really didn’t know where his panic room was hidden, and he had a hell of a big house. As it turned out, the architect and his wife knew nothing about a panic room. If Joe had one, the architect guessed it had been added by the second architect, the one who revised the original plans and completed the construction effort. That guy had disappeared shortly after completing work on Joe’s house.

  Lou had pulled the building permits and gave us the name, but apparently DeMeo had told the second architect not to file the revisions. Quinn and I felt terrible about kidnapping and torturing our architect and his wife with the ADS ray, but they were okay now. Hopefully they’d be able to look back on the experience some day and laugh about it. If not, who would believe their story anyway, right?

  Our captured included the architect, his wife, the security guy, Joe DeMeo, and Grasso. That’s a lot of people to deal with, so I did what I always do when I’ve got a mess to clean up.

  I called Darwin.

  Darwin sent a company cleaning crew to Joe’s house, and the clowns kept an eye on the architect and his wife and the security guy until the cleaning crew could round them up. Meanwhile, Quinn and I tied DeMeo and Grasso to the sides of the Hummer and made them run a few miles with their pants around their ankles to amuse the clowns. When we got tired of that, I pulled over to the side of the road and put a gun to Joe’s head and made him call Garrett Unger at headquarters. Joe claimed he couldn’t remember the passwords, so I made him run a few more miles. Unfortunately for Joe, he kept falling and spent most of the time being dragged. Then I repeated the process again and again until he remembered enough to make me square with Addie and Quinn and Callie and Sal Bonadello.

  After Joe came through with the passwords, Quinn tied him and Grasso to the PEPS weapon on the roof. Then I hauled them off to Edwards to meet Jeff Tuck, my eccentric L.A. operative. Jeff couldn’t understand why it took so long to drive thirty miles to the base. I told him we got a late start.

  Joe and Grasso had been dragged half to death, and their faces and bodies showed the effects. Jeff took one look at them and said, “Relatives of yours, Augustus?”

  To me, he said, “Do I want to know why their pants are sopping wet?”

  “I wouldn’t think so,” I said.

  “You got any dry clothes they can wear so they don’t ruin the jet seats?”

  Quinn and I gave Jeff our camouflage blankets and watched him wrap them around the two waifs. I remembered the two thousand dollar suit and tie Joe wore last week at the cemetery and thought, You never feel the splinters on the ladder of success until you’re sliding back down.

  Jeff flew Joe and Grasso to Washington and turned them over to Darwin’s security staff, and Quinn and I took one of the company’s Gulfstream jets back to headquarters.

  51

  “It was the suit, man. I swear to God, she loved the suit.” This was Eddie Ray, telling his story about the girl he met in sporting goods. “Words can’t describe her.”

  “You were probably drunk,” said Rossman, and the others laughed. The old friends were hanging at Daffney Ducks, the neighborhood watering hole. Eddie Ray had grown up and lived his entire life—forty-six years—within five miles of this place.

  She’d been shopping for a birthday present for her dad. A fly rod. It couldn’t be just any rod, had to be the best. Eddie Ray was so stunned at her beauty, he’d just stood there without saying a word. She’d said, “That’s a great-looking suit you’re wearing. Is it an Armani?”

  “Laugh all you want,”
he said to his drinking buddies, “but I’ve got a lunch date with her tomorrow.”

  “Tell us where,” said Lucas, “and we’ll all give her a ride.” He made an obscene gesture with his hands and hips.

  More laughter.

  “She ain’t like that. This is a high-class broad. Seriously.”

  The blond beauty had asked about his suit, and he couldn’t just stand there and say nothing. Eddie Ray had choked up the courage to say, “I’m not sure of the label, but I got it at the JC Penney’s.” She’d nodded, impressed. Things were going good, so he tried for a joke. “But it cost a hell of a lot more than a penny!” he’d said, then added, “Pardon my French.” It hadn’t mattered about the profanity. “I like that,” she’d said. “You’re funny.”

  Now, back at the bar, buying a round of drinks for his skeptical buddies, Eddie said, “I’ll take a picture, and you can judge for yourself.”

  “Make sure you get the front end,” said Rossman. “I’ve always wanted to see lipstick on a pig.”

  “I’ll take a picture, all right,” said Eddie Ray, “and when you see it, you’re gonna shit!”

  They’d talked a few minutes, and he’d picked out the best rod in the store for her. She’d been impressed by his knowledge of the sport. He’d asked her name, and when she said, “Monica,” he said, “I knew a girl named Monica once, back in high school. Real pretty, she was.” Monica had smiled a sly smile and said, “I bet she was your girlfriend,” and he’d winked and said, “You’d win that bet for sure.” They’d laughed, and she’d said, “You probably had lots of girlfriends in high school if you had that cool mullet back then,” and he’d modestly said, “No more’n my share, I expect.” Then he’d told her about being on the football team and how he blew out his knee that last season, and by then they were checking out and he couldn’t help but give her the employee discount, meaning, he bought the rod and let her reimburse him, which she did with cash. Cash he was now blowing on drinks for his friends.

  “Hold up,” he said to his friends. “I can only do the first round. I gotta save my dough for my date tomorrow.”