“Maybe to another locked door.”
“Or not. Let’s find out.”
Without further discussion, Beth took off in the direction they had yet to explore.
WITH THE LIGHTS on in Meggs’s office, Lothian stared at the splintered door leading to the mineshaft under the hospital. For a moment, he struggled to comprehend what had happened here. Then, an extremely nasty possibility popped into his head.
The cave at the river. Maybe there was a connector with the mine, and the two they’d been chasing hadn’t drowned.
Angered at how elusive the fleeing pair had proven to be, and knowing he could easily handle them by himself, Lothian darted across the room and slipped through the partially open door to the mine.
Before dashing down the steps, he turned and flipped the light switch Carl and Beth had failed to notice beside the door.
ALL THE BARE bulbs lining the ceiling of the main part of the mine suddenly came to life, flooding the shaft with light, and for a moment, nearly blinding Carl and Beth so they had to stop running.
“Hope whoever did that is behind us and not in front,” Carl said, shielding his eyes.
“There’s no lighting in the tunnel we passed,” Beth said. “Want to go back?”
Carl hesitated, his mind churning over their options. He looked down the shaft in the direction they’d been running. With his eyes now adapting to the lights, he could see about seventy yards away, the shaft turn gently to the left. If he had his bearings right, (and there was no assurance he did) that direction would lead to the canyon behind Artisan, a likely spot for the mine entrance.
SYLVESTER LOTHIAN jumped from the last step down to the mine floor. As he turned to his left, he saw a glimpse of two people too far away to have any hopes of hitting. But he fired off three rounds anyway, the sound booming off the walls and rushing down the passage like a tidal wave.
Then he lost sight of them as they disappeared around the bend leading to the parsonage steps. Now he finally had them.
Chapter 24
THE SHOTS Lothian fired didn’t even come close to hitting Carl and Beth, but hearing them, neither felt optimistic about their chances of continuing to stay out of range.
But when they saw what lay around the bend, some hope returned. They were no longer in a bare mineshaft but had entered a much larger space with a concrete floor. Parked against the right wall were two Honda SUVs, one black, one blue, and a silver Lexus. Straight ahead was the mine entrance Carl had been looking for, but it was closed by a big, jointed overhead door.
Knowing they had no more than a minute or two to find a way out, he said, “Check the right side of that door for a button. I’ll do the left.”
But there were no buttons.
“The cars,” Carl said, “if we can get into them, there may be an electronic door opener in there.” He ran to the driver’s side of the black SUV and yanked on the door. Locked. On the other side of the car, Beth found the same thing for the passenger door. She turned and tried the driver’s door on the blue SUV. It, too, was locked.
Carl darted between the blue SUV and the Lexus, where he checked the SUV’s passenger door, then turned to the Lexus.
Open. The Lexus was open.
While he searched for an electronic door control on that side, Beth hurried around to the passenger seat of the Lexus and checked the glove compartment.
Nothing.
They didn’t have much more time left.
Beth pulled her head out of the Lexus and looked around for something they could use as a weapon. Her eyes went to a set of metal steps leading up to a catwalk above the entrance they’d come through. On the steps was a metal toolbox with an open lid. She ran over and checked the box, but all it held was a pair of wire cutters, a wire stripper, and some other useless electrical stuff.
WHEN LOTHIAN turned the corner and faced the open parking area, he stopped running and surveyed the space.
Empty except for . . .
What was that sitting on the floor in the middle of the room? It looked like a backpack. Figuring the pack was meant to coax him into walking directly to it so he’d pass under the center of the catwalk, he moved to the left and started running forward.
ON THE CATWALK Lothian was worried about, Beth waited with the spare tire from the Lexus balanced on the railing. To her left, the heavy metal door for an electrical panel set into the wall behind her stood open and ready.
Carl’s hastily conceived plan was for her to try and hit Lothian with the tire when he came into the room. Then, without waiting to see how effective she’d been, she was to retreat to the rear of the catwalk. There, she would use the electrical panel door as a shield in case she missed and he began shooting at her.
Armed with the jack handle from the Lexus, Carl crouched near the back wheel on the driver’s side of the black SUV. After the tire hit Lothian, or after Beth missed him with it and his attention was drawn to her, Carl intended to rush out and disarm him.
Even as he’d told Beth the plan, neither of them had much faith in it. But it was all they could think of.
From where Carl was positioned, he wouldn’t be able to see Lothian until he was well into the room. So as he waited, he listened hard, trying to make his ears do what his eyes couldn’t.
BETH COULD sense the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. Despite still being chilled from her wet clothes, her hands were perspiring. She was definitely frightened, but at the same time, was filled with a pulsing energy.
She heard rushing footsteps. Before she could react, Lothian was ten feet into the room, too far away and against the left wall, where she couldn’t begin to reach him with the tire. He whirled and began firing at her.
The first slug sliced into the tire’s treads, angled up through the casing, and came out the sidewall, leaving a hot trail across Beth’s skin as it brushed against her right thumb. The second round zipped past her opposite shoulder and slammed into the electrical panel behind her.
LOTHIAN’S FIRST rounds were fired before he’d confirmed that someone was indeed up there waiting for him. He saw Beth and adjusted his aim at almost the same instant. At this range, there was no way he could miss.
BETH YANKED THE tire up in front of her just in time so that three slugs smashed into the rim, ricocheting in different directions. But a lot of her was still exposed.
THE ERUPTION OF each round from Lothian’s Mauser was accompanied a second later by its spent casing dancing over the concrete floor . . . a lethal symphony. Fortissimo and pianissimo, sometimes separated, often superimposed. No fan of this music, Carl rushed forward from his hiding place, the tire iron in his right hand cocked behind his head.
Had Lothian not been so focused on Beth, Carl wouldn’t have made it two steps before he was shot dead. But by the time Lothian sensed the danger in his peripheral vision, Carl was on him.
Lothian spun toward Carl, bringing the Mauser around so it was pointed at the bridge of Carl’s nose. But just as Lothian pulled the trigger, Carl swung the tire iron in an overhand loop into Lothian’s wrist, driving the gun down and to the side, where it discharged a round into the cement floor beside Carl’s foot.
Using the momentum of the downward force on his wrist to his advantage, Lothian kept his arm moving, bringing the gun around in an arc that sent the Mauser’s barrel on a direct backhand toward Carl’s head.
Carl ducked, and the gun missed hitting him by millimeters. Lothian’s choice of a backhand countermove gave Carl a huge opening. He pivoted to the left and brought the tire iron up hard with both hands. It clipped Lothian under the chin, snapping his head back.
At that instant, Carl believed he had prevailed, but Lothian, toughened by a lifetime of street fights, stepped forward so his left leg slipped behind Carl. Then he pushed, sending Carl sprawling onto the floor.
Grinning, his teeth stained with his own blood, Lothian brought the Mauser around for the kill shot. But before he could fire, Beth suddenly blasted into him with the spare tire clutched to her chest, sending him reeling against the rock wall. Lothian’s breath rushed out of him with an audible whoosh, and the gun clattered to the floor.
Carl scrambled for the weapon and leveled it on Lothian while getting to his feet. But for the moment, the thug was no danger as he’d apparently hit his head against the wall and was barely conscious. Carl looked at Beth, who was still holding the spare tire.
He held the gun out to her. “You take this while I check his pockets. If he gives me any trouble, shoot him in the legs.”
Beth threw the tire to the side and took possession of the Mauser, pointing it at Lothian with both hands. After what he’d seen so far of Beth in action, Carl had no doubt she’d use the gun if she had to.
Trying to keep one eye on Lothian’s face to judge whether he was about to be a problem again, Carl bent down and thrust a hand in the right pocket of Lothian’s jacket. He didn’t find the car keys he was looking for but did discover a two-way radio, which reminded him that the thug had probably called for help.
He and Beth needed to get moving.
STILL CURSING AT his inability to get into the locked hospital and his failure to raise Lothian on his radio, Hanson parked his golf cart near the back entrance to the parsonage and ran inside. He was trying not to believe the prowlers in the hospital were Carl Martin and Beth Corbin, but who else could it be?
He headed for his study to get his duplicate master key from his desk. He would rather have let the two Germans handle this, but he hadn’t heard from Lothian since he’d called from the cemetery. By then, Mead had hot-wired Martin’s car and was halfway around the state highway loop leading to the mine, so he wasn’t available to back Lothian up.
That left only Hanson.
CARL WAS NOW in possession of a set of keys that included a Honda car key that had to fit one of the SUVs. He had also managed to secure Lothian’s hands with the thug’s own belt.
He looked at Beth and jerked his head toward the vehicles. “Come on,” he said, heading for the black Honda. On Lothian’s key ring was a device Carl hoped opened the door over the mine entrance. Without slowing, he pointed it at the door and pressed the button. There was a whirring sound and the door began to slide up.
But the key didn’t fit the black vehicle.
Worried now that he was holding a useless set of keys, he ran around to the driver’s side of the blue SUV and shoved the key into the lock. It mated smoothly with the mechanism, and he popped the locks.
He threw his door open, but hesitated while Beth opened the passenger door, threw the backpack over the front seat, and climbed in.
Seeing Carl standing motionless outside the vehicle, Beth said, “What’s wrong?”
“Give me the gun.”
Beth handed it to him across the seat. He ran to the rear of the Lexus, pointed the Mauser at the left rear tire, and fired. The tire exploded and flattened.
OVERHEAD IN THE parsonage, Hanson had decided to go to the hospital through the mine. As he opened the door that led there, he heard the sound of gunfire from below. Beretta drawn, he cautiously started down the steps.
CARL FIRED A shot into the opposite rear tire of the Lexus, then moved to the black SUV and aimed at its nearest tire. He pulled the trigger, but nothing happened.
He checked the position of the slide on the Mauser and saw that it had not returned to its forward position, the sign its magazine was empty.
Feeling they couldn’t waste any more time, he ran to the other SUV where Beth waited, piled in, and tossed the useless gun into the back. He fired up the engine and backed up in a tight turn, then shoved it into forward and laid on the gas, sending the vehicle out of the mineshaft into the night.
Chapter 25
HANSON HOPED that when he got to the bottom of the steps, he’d see Martin and Corbin’s dead bodies. But as he stepped out into the parking area and did a quick reconnoiter of the situation, he saw three things in rapid order, all of them bad: the entrance door was open, one of the vehicles was gone, and . . . shit . . . Lothian lay against the near wall trussed up in a belt.
He rushed to Lothian, knelt, and untied him.
It took a moment for Lothian’s eyes to focus. When they did, the rest of his recovery followed with remarkable speed, and he leapt to his feet.
“Who was it?” Hanson asked, knowing the answer but still needing to hear it from an eyewitness.
“Corbin, like you said, and some guy.”
“And they’re now driving one of our cars.”
Lothian looked at the two flat tires on the Lexus, then shifted his eyes to the remaining SUV, which looked intact and ready to roll.
“Not for long. Give me your gun and I don’t want any crap about what happened to mine.”
“Which do you mean? The one you lost earlier or the other one?”
Through clenched teeth, Lothian said, “Don’t push it. I’m in no mood.”
Hanson handed Lothian the Beretta. He shifted the gun into his left hand then held his other palm out and wiggled his fingers. Knowing he wanted the extra key for the intact SUV, Hanson got out his key ring and gave him that, too.
“I’m sure they’ll head for Little Rock,” Hanson said. “So at the main road, go south. By now Mead should be at least halfway to the mine turnoff. I’ll call and tell him to watch for their car. Between the two of you, we’ll have them.”
THE ROAD FROM the mine passed through a deserted coal camp with a few rotted wooden buildings crowding the road and some old machinery rusting just out of range of the SUV’s headlights. Then it rose to make a steep climb out of the valley, so Carl had to pour on the gas just to keep the SUV at the same speed. He checked the rear view mirror to see if they were being followed, but the road had so many twists in it he couldn’t see very far back.
“You sure you’re a librarian?” he said, shifting his eyes to the small patch of illuminated road constantly being renewed in front of them.
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
“I never knew a librarian could do the things you can.”
“So you’ve been guilty of stereotyping?”
Carl nodded. “Guess I have at that. How do you feel about being a felon?”
“Because we stole this car?”
“Grand theft auto.”
“They’re not going to report us.”
“No?”
“They’re hiding something so important they’re willing to kill to protect it. They don’t want any attention from the outside.”
“Rotten thing about all this is we don’t know enough about what’s behind their actions to go to the authorities ourselves. Now that we’ve gotten Meggs’s and Hanson’s attention, we have to keep working on it until we know a lot more than we do. And we’ll have to do it on the run.”
They topped a small rise and there was the state highway. Instead of going south Carl turned left.
“Aren’t we going back to Little Rock?” Beth said.
“Not right now. When they find the guy you slammed into the wall, they’ll probably call Meggs and tell him to watch for us heading that way.”
LOTHIAN REACHED the state highway thirty-three seconds after Carl and Beth did. He was so intent on catching them he ran the stop sign and headed south without looking to his left. Out of habit, he did check his mirror once he was on the highway, but by then the other SUV’s taillights had just disappeared around a curve.
CARL TURNED INTO Daniel O’Toole’s driveway in suburban Little Rock, just as O’Toole was getting in his car to leave for work. Seeing someone blocking the drive, O’Toole closed his car door and came toward the SUV, a puzzled look on his face.
Ten
years back, Daniel and Carl had been fraternity brothers at the University of Tennessee. They’d kept up with each other over the years by email, and six months ago had found themselves both working in Little Rock. Now, they played racquetball together once a week and had dinner monthly.
After what Carl had been through in the last eight hours, it was a tremendous relief to see a friendly face. As Daniel walked toward him, Carl remembered fondly how no one in the fraternity thought the big guy with the unkempt blond hair would ever amount to much. But here he was, hair just as wild, but now owner of his own computer security firm. And hopefully, ready to give them the assistance they needed.
Carl and Beth had spent the night parked behind a rock shop in the Ozarks, running the engine and the heater of the SUV for as long as they prudently could without using up too much fuel. Even with the heater running during the trip back, they’d hit the city limit still moist in the creases. Feeling very fortunate they hadn’t run into Meggs or anyone else on the road, they’d found another Walmart and bought a change of clothes, some toiletries, an electric razor, and a box of shells for the Mauser. They’d changed and tidied up in a McDonald’s restroom.
Carl stepped out of the SUV.
When O’Toole saw who it was, a big grin mitigated some of the confusion on his face. He extended his big hand and Carl took it. “Hey, buddy, what are you doing here?”
Daniel glanced at Beth through the windshield. Seeing that, Carl motioned for her to join them. When she did, he made the introductions, telling Daniel nothing more than Beth’s first name.
“We need a favor,” Carl said.
“Whatever you want.”
“We’d like to use your rental house for a few days. Is it still available?”
Behind Daniel, Carl saw the big guy’s wife, Doris, peering out from behind the curtains. For some reason, Doris didn’t like Carl, maybe because she was jealous of the time he and Daniel spent together. In any event, Carl hoped she’d stay inside and not chip in what would surely be a negative vote for his request.
The Blood Betrayal Page 13
