The Lonely Mile

by Allan Leverone

  Canfield laughed. “I’m a monster. And you’re what? A hero? Maybe. But I’ll be a living monster and you’ll still be a dead hero. For what it’s worth, I will emphasize to my bosses and the media how close you came to rescuing little Carli here. It’s a great story and will go a long way toward shifting people’s attention off any lingering questions they may have about my role in this whole thing. Not that the Bureau will want to dig too deeply, anyway.”

  Canfield’s voice trailed off, and she appeared wistful. It was the first hint of emotion Bill had seen in her otherwise blank eyes since she had snuck up behind him when he was about to blast Martin Krall. In a way, seeing that tiny shadow of her former humanity was even worse than the almost robotic lack of emotion she had displayed up to this point.

  It looked like she had finally satisfied her inner need for explanation. That was bad. If she was talking, she wasn’t shooting. Time had run out, and Bill still had no idea what to do.

  Some time in the last few minutes the storm outside had finally dissipated, and he could hear the almost imperceptible sound of Carli sobbing atop the filthy bed off to his left. It was as if she didn’t dare make any more noise than she absolutely had to, but she simply couldn’t hold in the terror. His right hand throbbed from where he had scraped his knuckles on the splintered pine support strut hanging half off the ratty two-by-six beams that seemed to sum up this entire crumbling home perfectly.

  FBI Special Agent Angela Canfield nodded to herself. “Yeah. This’ll work,” and she adjusted her two-handed grip around Martin Krall’s dead hand, using the first two fingers of her own right hand to force Krall’s lifeless pointer finger through the trigger guard on his Glock. She aimed took dead aim on Bill Ferguson’s chest, center mass, just as she had been taught back at the academy.

  “Look at the bright side,” she told Bill. “At least you get to go first. You don’t have to watch your little girl take one between the eyes.”

  She squeezed the trigger.

  CHAPTER 57

  May 28, 4:30 p.m.

  BILL GRABBED THE ONE-INCH by one-inch pine support hanging uselessly off the two-by-six joist directly over his head, yanked it hard in one smooth motion, down and to his left, across his body, and slashed at Canfield, half-stepping to the right as he brought his arm down, driving it toward the murderous agent.

  Two nails, which stuck out the front of the support at an oblique angle, pierced the skin of Canfield’s delicate neck just as Martin Krall’s gun discharged. For the second time in a matter of minutes, the ear-splitting boom of a handgun rocked the enclosed space, and the sharp smell of the discharged weapon filled the air.

  Carli screamed. Instantly, Bill felt a burning sensation in his left arm above the elbow, and he knew he had been shot. He continued driving the makeshift stake through Angela Canfield’s neck, somehow keeping his balance as the bullet ripped through his left arm, following through like a baseball pitcher throwing toward home plate. A great spray of blood, crimson and terrifying, erupted from her neck as the stake ripped through her carotid artery, opening a gaping wound.

  Canfield tumbled backward, crashing into Carli’s cot and falling onto her side, grabbing reflexively at the wound in her neck. Krall’s gun flew from her live hand and his dead one, skittering across the floor through his pool of rapidly cooling blood, coming to rest almost directly between the wounded FBI agent and the wounded father.

  Bill stumbled to his knees as the momentum from his adrenaline-fueled thrust caused his makeshift sword to smash onto the cement floor and clatter away. He scrabbled on his hands and knees toward Canfield’s gun, desperately trying to reverse direction before she could recover and lunge for the weapon.

  Bill watched in something resembling slow motion as Canfield rolled off her side and moved toward her gun. She slipped and slid in the spilled blood of the I-90 Killer as her own blood spurted between the fingers of her left hand, which was clamped firmly but ineffectively over the massive wound in her neck. She was injured grievously, maybe mortally, but like Bill, was still operating under the anesthetic effects of adrenaline.

  She was going to get there first. He had been marginally closer, the gun laying on the floor maybe a couple of inches nearer his body than hers, but his momentum was carrying him away from the weapon while hers, after bouncing off Carli’s cot, had propelled her toward it.

  She dived through the blood on the floor, like Rickey Henderson stealing second base. The gash in her neck began hemorrhaging the moment she removed her hand to lift her weapon into a two-handed shooter’s grip, again, exactly as she had been taught.

  Rolling onto her back, Canfield lifted the pistol and once again took aim at Bill Ferguson’s body, the body she had so recently caressed and pulled into her own. For the second time, she aimed center-mass and squeezed the trigger.

  CHAPTER 58

  May 28, 4:31 p.m.

  CARLI WATCHED THE WHOLE catastrophe develop with the dispassionate detachment of a shell-shocked war vet. She had lived through unspeakable horror in the last twenty-seven hours, and most especially in the last twenty minutes. Her head throbbed from the gash Krall had opened in it with the dirty steak knife. Her underwear was still damp after being pissed in several times, and her pants smelled like a baby’s diaper. The pee stains on her jeans were covered up by a new addition: blood stains, first from Krall’s obliterated skull, and now from the wound her dad had opened up on this crazy chick’s neck.

  And now, she had to lie here on this disgusting mattress on top of this lumpy, uncomfortable bed that had to be fifty years old, and witness her dad’s murder, an act which would be followed, undoubtedly, by her own execution. Her dad had somehow found her, just as she had known he would, and had nearly rescued her, too, against all odds, turning the tables on the FBI woman, who he had thought was one of the good guys.

  Her father struggled for the I-90 Killer’s gun, which lay on the floor of the basement like some kind of treasure. The idea that the fate of her dad and herself—whether they lived or died—rested entirely on who would be the first to reach a lump of metal not much bigger than her hand was absurd, but, of course, it was no more absurd than everything else that had taken place over the last day-plus.

  Carli could see that her dad was not going to make it. He turned his big body, struggling against the effects of momentum, which had been his ally when he was swinging the stick, but which was now, most definitely, his enemy, and the woman was smaller and quicker despite being so badly injured.

  The agent reached the gun first as Carli had known she would, blood spurting wildly from her neck, shooting out like a geyser an impressive distance before splattering to the floor. She rolled onto her back and sighted down the barrel at Carli’s dad, and Carli knew he was going to die. And then she was going to die.

  And that was unacceptable. This whole impossible nightmare was unacceptable. Carli Ferguson bellowed, the sound rising from deep inside her chest where all the hurt and fear and especially anger were stored. She roared and yanked hard on the handcuffs, pulling them against the metal bed frame with all the strength she could muster from her 105-pound frame.

  The pain exploded in her wrist from where the skin had been rubbed raw and the bones bruised by the handcuffs and by Martin Krall during their fight over the steak knife, and still she pulled. The bracelet had been weakened by Carli’s near-obsessive scraping against the cement wall behind her prison bed. She pulled, and it finally snapped.

  Carli let out a guttural shriek of pain and rage and spun on her mattress—there was no time to get up—and swung her arm at Angela Canfield as the FBI agent pulled the trigger on Martin Krall’s gun. The razor-sharp edge on the broken, silver handcuff glittered menacingly as it sliced into Canfield’s throat, opening another gash to complement the one she had already suffered. Fresh blood immediately splattered from the new wound, an amazing amount of blood, joining its sister injury in spilling Canfield’s precious fluid, covering Carli, but this time Carli didn’t noti
ce.

  She watched in transfixed horror as her dad dove to the right, over her cot and onto the floor, at the exact moment the gun roared; he looked like an Olympic swimmer flying gracefully into the water to begin a race. Except there was no water on the other side, only concrete, and she could see his blood begin to flow as a bullet ripped into his leg.

  The Glock bucked in Agent Canfield’s hand, and fire ripped from the barrel. She fell back against the cement basement wall next to the metal bed frame that had been Carli Ferguson’s prison until seconds ago. The agent’s left hand waved in the air, reaching up to stanch the new wound on her neck, but not making it that far. It fell to the floor with an audible thud as she lurched sideways and lay still.

  Bill hit the floor on the far side of Carli’s cot and bounced once, his head striking the concrete wall with a sickening thud. His limp body came to rest in the corner. He kicked his legs once and was still. Blood oozed from the fresh bullet wound in his left leg.

  And Carli screamed.

  CHAPTER 59

  May 28, 4:32

  THE FBI CHICK WAS alive. Carli checked for a pulse, and it was there. It was weak and ragged, but, for the moment at least, it was there, and she was hanging on. Not that Carli cared one way or the other. This woman, this supposed law-enforcement professional, this traitor, had tried to kill her dad, had shot him twice, and had planned on turning the gun on Carli next, so sympathy for the woman’s predicament was in short supply.

  She grabbed the I-90 Killer’s gun, which had fallen on the floor next to the unconscious woman, and then reached into the agent’s leather shoulder holster to take out her service weapon and tuck it under her arm. Finally, she rolled Canfield onto her side and, grimacing with distaste, plucked her dad’s Browning from under the waistband of the woman’s slacks, where she had shoved it after taking it away from her murdered co-conspirator. She was a freaking one-woman armory!

  Carli slid each of the weapons along the floor to the far side of the basement. She knew nothing about guns and hoped that one of them wouldn’t somehow go off and blow her brains out. Wouldn’t that be ironic—surviving the I-90 Killer only to shoot yourself by accident! But she had to get them away from the crazy woman, just in case she somehow came back to life like they always seemed to do in the movies.

  For the first time since being kidnapped off the school bus yesterday, Carli was thinking clearly. She couldn’t imagine being more frightened, but her dad needed her, and after he had risked everything to save her, she was not going to let him down now. Her nerves thrummed, and her stomach lurched, and she felt as though she had drunk about seven cups of coffee—and was it possible that she had to pee again?—but her mind was clear.

  She crawled over the bed to her dad—God, please let him be alive, please don’t take my daddy from me!—and before kneeling next to him to check for his pulse, she had a discomfiting thought. What if this Agent Canfield snuck up on her while her back was turned toward her dad and began strangling her or something?

  Carli had seen enough horror movies to know that the bad guy was never truly out of the picture until the credits rolled, and even though the woman seemed barely alive, with blood oozing out of the two massive, gaping gashes in her throat, she didn’t dare discount her entirely. So Carli reluctantly stood up next to her father’s unmoving body—remember, God, I’m still begging you not to let him die!—and walked past the fallen agent’s body to a work bench in the far corner of the basement.

  After spending hours trapped down here with nothing to do but saw those metal handcuffs back and forth against the cement wall behind her headboard, Carli had committed the entire basement and its contents to memory. She knew exactly what she wanted and where to find it.

  She picked up a roll of electrical wire and a wire cutter and returned to the FBI traitor, who was still alive but prone on the floor, very much unconscious. Bending down next to her, Carli tied the agent’s wrists and ankles together with the stiff wiring, twisting the strands around and around to form her own set of impromptu handcuffs. Then, she tossed the roll back onto the workbench, finally confident she could check on her dad without worrying about being taken by surprise from behind.

  Her dad’s pulse was much stronger than the woman’s. In fact, his eyelids blinked, and he moaned and almost seemed to be trying to wake up as she knelt over him. He had a pair of bullet wounds that were sluggishly oozing blood—one in his right arm and one in his left thigh—and it was obvious he needed medical attention, but Carli guessed he wasn’t in any immediate danger; at least not danger of the life-threatening kind. He had probably been knocked out when his head hit the wall and was going to have a massive headache when he woke up. Maybe he had even suffered a concussion.

  She realized she had been holding her breath as she checked out her dad’s injuries, and she let out a ragged chuckle. Thanks, God, she thought to herself, I owe you one. Then she warily passed the woman’s unmoving body and climbed the stairs to look for a telephone. The FBI chick probably had a cell phone somewhere on her body, but Carli couldn’t bring herself to touch her to check for one. There had to be a phone in the house, probably in the kitchen, and that would be just fine with Carli.

  As she climbed the stairs, she wondered how she was managing to keep herself together and when she would start crying—she could tell it would be soon—and if she would ever stop once she started. Then, she spotted the telephone and got to work.

  CHAPTER 60

  May 28, 4:51 p.m.

  AT FIRST, SPECIAL AGENT Mike Miller thought the call was some kind of joke. Some yokel claiming to be Sergeant Carter from the Town of Mason Police Department had told Mike that his partner, Special Agent Angela Canfield, was currently hovering near death in the basement of a crumbling home located out in the boonies at the westernmost edge of his town.

  “It’s a bloodbath here,” the cop told Miller, “and I think you’re going to want to see this. There are two witnesses to what went down, and they’re both claiming your agent was involved in the I-90 Killer kidnappings.”

  Miller responded with one word: “Impossible.”

  Then he hung up and pulled everyone off the search of Leona Bengston’s property—they were getting nowhere anyway—and the team piled into their Bureau cars for the thirty-minute drive to the address Carter had given him for the home in Mason. On the way, Miller called the SAC at the FBI’s Albany Field Office, filling in Special Agent in Charge, Hamilton Granger, on the information he had, which was very little.

  “I’m told by this Mason Police officer that they suspect Canfield was somehow involved in the kidnappings,” he told Granger as he navigated the lonely backcountry roads at high speed with three, identical Chevrolet Caprices in tow. A long silence greeted his statement as the Special Agent in Charge digested the news.

  He finally replied, tersely. “Where is that coming from?”

  “The Mason Police claim to have two eyewitnesses telling exactly the same story.”

  “Oh, man. Keep me informed. I want to know the minute you have any information. If it’s bad, you can plan on seeing me on-scene, A-S-A-P.”

  “Roger that, boss.” Miller terminated the call and shook his head. What in the world had Canfield been up to?

  The four-car caravan nearly missed the unmarked entrance to Turner Road, just as Bill Ferguson had almost driven past it less than an hour before. Miller screeched to a halt, cutting his wheel sharply to the right, and then accelerated again onto the glorified cart path. The storm had finally departed the area, but branches hung low, burdened with accumulated moisture, and the road’s sandy shoulder resembled a mud pit from the effects of the heavy rains.

  It took the team nearly ten minutes of fighting their way through the mile of jungle-like terrain to arrive at the remote address they had been given. As the lead driver, Miller said a silent thanks for the wonders of GPS navigation, knowing there was no way he would ever have found the place, otherwise.

  He rounded a turn, slipping an
d sliding in a more or less successful attempt to keep at least two of his car’s wheels on the paved portion of the road, and then nearly collided with a bulky red ambulance. The vehicle shot out of a weed-strewn gravel driveway, lights flashing and siren blaring, and turned toward civilization, nearly sideswiping all four Bureau cars, one after the other, before continuing on the narrow road. It looked like a gigantic, rushing beetle.

  This is obviously the house, Miller thought, and the GPS confirmed what he already knew. It was the only residence he had seen since turning off Route 37. Another ambulance sat, blocking the driveway, its skillful driver somehow having managed a three-point turn without getting stuck in the mud. The vehicle sat empty, hazard lights flashing, engine idling, waiting for another victim to exit the house. Miller eyed the positioning of the big ambulance and wondered how the driver had accomplished the turnaround. Smoke and mirrors, he decided.

  With no room in the driveway, and not wanting to block the ambulance’s departure, the team parked their vehicles on the side of the road just past the end of the driveway. They exited en masse and made their way toward the beat-up old house in the middle of nowhere.

  Now, slipping under the yellow “Crime Scene” tape and descending Martin Krall’s rickety basement stairs, Miller gasped as he got his first view of the scene. His initial thought was that Carter’s description had been right on target. It was a bloodbath. A pair of paramedics worked feverishly over the body of Angela Canfield, who lay crumpled and unmoving on the basement’s cold cement floor, just feet away from the body of a man—presumably the I-90 Killer—with half of his head blown off. It was plain to see the man was dead, an assumption that was confirmed by the fact that the medical personnel steadfastly ignored him as they worked on Canfield.