Misisipi

by Michael Reilly

  Scott snatched the case from the hood, spinning as he propelled away from the car. His arm extended, became a locked-straight lever, as he whirled at Stencek behind him.

  Stencek lunged toward Scott, pulling his gun free. He saw the silver blur of the case coming round. He faltered, skidding to a halt, feet woefully backtracking, deciding to duck. Almost! The edge of the case—Too late!—caught him cold above his left ear. He slammed into the car, spilled into the dust behind it. Gun up, getting to a shooting crouch over the trunk, beading on Scott, seeing Scott now empty-handed—What the fu—the free-flying case skidded across the trunk and punched into Stencek’s face, putting him on his back. He smelled blood. His eyes swam as he righted himself. Grey sky became white stone. Gravel beneath his hands, both now empty—Fuck!—seeing silver smuts as he hunted for the gun, springing forward as he spotted it near the rear tire.

  Scott’s hand dove down in the same pursuit.

  As their hands clashed inches above it, a shockwave exploded through each man’s fingertips. The gun jumped, alive with sparks, and flew, possessed, away from their grasp. Both men turned to see it land several feet behind them.

  Scott shoved his hand in Stencek’s face and pushed him flat again. He bolted up, heading for Stencek’s gun again. He got one step to it, when the gravel started spitting around his ankles. Stencek rolled behind the cover of the car—“Jesus, Larry!”—as a succession of brittle rifle shots zinged through the air, like sticks snapping at unholy speed.

  Scott spun round to see Larry leaned on the Navigator’s open window, a compact rifle drawn tight to his shoulder and cheek. One eye squinted shut; the other open, like the dark muzzle of the rifle, was fixed at the space between Scott’s own eyes.

  Scott raised his hands. The ground had stopped spitting but the zinging still crackled in his head. He wanted to look down to see if he’d been shot. He felt no noticeable pain.

  That changed when Stencek regained his feet and slapped a cuff on Scott’s right wrist. He brought each of Scott’s hands behind him with a sadist’s skill that made Scott’s shoulders wrench and grind. He could have done it politely and painlessly, but he made a point of hurting Scott as he cuffed him. When nervous people did stupid things, someone got bloodied. As he started to taste his own now, Stencek was sorely tempted to return the favor.

  Had it been anyone but Scott Jameson, you bet your ass he would have.

  The Book Of Daniel

  The Man in the Maze

  For choice and direction

  Chapter 38

  Sunday August 28

  9:00 am CDT, Katrina Landfall -20 Hours

  No one spoke the entire morning that they raced the clock out of Virginia.

  As Larry drove, the cuffs bit into Scott’s wrists every time he adjusted his position in the seat behind. When he remained still instead, his shoulders screamed with tension within minutes. In the brief respites between these states, he looked at the back of Larry’s head and wondered about the outcome if he’d gotten to the handgun. It would have been a first for Scott: to handle a firearm. Larry would have surely killed him the second Scott lifted it. The expression staring down the barrel at him assured Scott that it wouldn’t have been a first for Larry—the killing part more so—and Scott now realized he had joined a privileged minority: those come face-to-face with a lethal weapon and tell the tale after. He corrected himself on one point though. The unprivileged remainder didn’t constitute a majority. They didn’t constitute anything. They were simply dead.

  Upfront, Stencek tended his scrapes and scratches: gashes above his ear and on his lip and, most urgently, his now-gushing nose. He worked through several medical pads until he had stymied the flow, sterilizing them with a bottle of mouthwash. When it was under control, the nose didn’t appear broken and Scott was grateful for that. But it had to hurt like hell, and watching Stencek pop painkillers like pistachios thereafter, Scott was grateful for that too.

  The Navigator now reeked of peppermint mouthwash. Mercifully, Larry cracked the driver’s window when he lit a cigarette. Scott leaned against his own and let the incoming breeze, its welcome scent of peach and cotton, waft over him. He closed his eyes and drank it in with the greed of a man reprieved and the gratitude of a man condemned.

  They had already parted company with Lillian back at Flat Gap. From his seat in the Navigator, Scott had watched her retrieve her briefcase and limp over to his BMW. He couldn’t hear the exchange but it was clear from their body language how Stencek gave her a monumental ticking-off for allowing Scott to get the jump on them. After that, there was a moment of curious intimacy, at odds with the dressing down. It didn’t escape Scott how Stencek’s hand lingered on her arm as he helped her into the car or that she didn’t brush it away.

  She was first to leave. Scott didn’t give her the satisfaction of watching her go so he missed the fact that she did look at him. He doubted she’d bother to keep his ashtray pristine now. Minutes later, as the Navigator made its own way off the mountain, Scott decided he probably wasn’t seeing his car again, period.

  About the time they crossed into Tennessee, Stencek finally got done patching himself up. He peeled his jacket off and discarded his bloodied shirt and tie, tossing them into the same trash bag as the medical pads. Scott appreciated just how in fighting-shape the man upfront, now stripped down to his wife-beater, actually was; broad muscular shoulders with a boxer’s trim triangular torso. Stencek also had a bullet hole in his left shoulder, a raised ugly white circle of scar tissue. Shirt replaced, as Stencek wrestled his jacket back on, he briefly looked back at Scott, the first and only communication between them all morning. Scott got a good look at the angry swollen welt on Stencek’s lower lip and the reddened nose. When he saw the stormy look in Stencek’s eyes, it ended Scott’s feeling grateful for anything much else.

  They reached Knoxville at Noon and Larry followed the Sat-Nav to a desolate industrial zone north of downtown. Stopping outside a two-story brick factoryhouse with vacant lots either side, Stencek fetched Scott from the Navigator and switched his cuffs to the front. Larry leading, the trio entered an unmarked door in the faceless base of the building and filed up the steep dimly-lit stairway behind it.

  Scott blinked as they emerged at the back of a large pool hall comprising the entire second-floor. Wicked blades of sunlight stabbed through large dirty windows at the front end, sharp enough to make him squint, but most of the room was obscured in a sooty palpable darkness. A few table lights fanned down on the handful of patrons enjoying a little Sunday stick, their skins as pasty as the cue balls they stooped to address. Cigarette smoke hunted in and out of the light and Scott could smell a fresh joint. If catarrh were a color, this place would be painted with it, he thought.

  Shadowy figures sat round distant tables, silhouetted by the main windows. Scott thought he could make out a card game. Others were reading the Sports pages. One or two seemed to be watching the newcomers and Scott became conscious of the metal restraints winking conspicuously at the ends of his arms.

  “Toilet break,” Stencek snapped. “Two minutes. And don’t go getting ideas. This place is more 1-87 than 9-1-1 when trouble comes calling. Got it?”

  “Yeah, I got it,” Scott replied.

  Stencek escorted Scott into the men’s room and indicated the single stall. “You need to shit? This is last train to Brownsville.”

  Scott checked the filthy bowl. “I’ll never ever need a shit that badly,’ he said, backing out, raising a laugh from Stencek at least.

  Back in the hall, Stencek found the manager seated behind a raised counter overlooking the scene. He handed the man an envelope. The manager produced a compact green metal case and handed it over. The wordless exchange was completed in seconds.

  “What’s that?” Scott asked, when they were back on the street.

  “A big sack of mind your owns.” Stencek handed the case to Larry and opened Scott’s door. “Here’s the deal. Cuffs stay but you can keep em on front if yo
u think you can curb the heroics. If you can’t, just say so now and you go back to scratching your ass for the next eight hours.”

  “Front,” Scott decided. “No more heroics.”

  “Good.” Stencek ushered him into the Navigator. “Cause if you fuck over my better nature one more time, I’ll put you outta the food chain, permanently.”

  He slammed the door on Scott and walked up the sidewalk to make a call.

  As they waited in the Navigator, Larry spoke for the first time all morning. “I don’t have a better nature. So please, try something.”

  Leaving Knoxville, Stencek spotted a restaurant—Gridiron Burgers. “Road rations,” he announced. “This is it for the next 24 hours, gentlemen.”

  Stencek brought the menu out to the Navigator and Scott watched the two men bicker for a solid five minutes over the latest Mad Cow scare. Larry ordered three different beef combos and made nasally Bak-Bak noises when Stencek opted for chicken.

  When Stencek offered Scott the menu, Scott simply shook his head. He had no intention of breaking bread with his asshole captors.

  Chapter 39

  2:00 pm CDT, Katrina -15 Hours

  As they coasted I-75, Stencek produced Scott’s laptop case and pulled out the papers from the front pouch.

  He turned to face Scott. “Save me the trouble, huh? Do you know where your wife is?” He didn’t meet Scott eye-on. Instead, Stencek’s stare danced over every inch of Scott as he waited for an answer.

  “Why should I tell you? Why are you looking for her?”

  “Because it’s my job to find her and it’s in her interests that you help me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I say so.”

  “Oh yeah. I forgot—Agent Special. You’ve been hounding me since Winchester.”

  “Boston, actually,” Stencek corrected. “But that was technically tailing. It’s hounding when you can see us.”

  Scott gasped, incredulous. “You tried to run me off the road. He”—indicating Larry—“shot at me. Hell, you even drugged me. Now”—Scott rattled the cuffs—“this is technically kidnapping.”

  “Actually, it’s abduction. I don’t intend returning you any time soon. But answer me this. Have I injured you, hurt you, done any real damage to you… yet?”

  Scott shook his head.

  Stencek nodded. “Help me keep it that way then. Dallas is a dead-end, so you know.”

  “I knew that,” Scott snipped.

  “So you know where we’re going now?”

  “New Orleans.”

  Stencek furrowed his brow. “Do you have any idea where she is in the city, why she went there?”

  “What if I do?”

  “Then you need to make peace in that pretty-boy head of yours with the notion how it might actually be in everyone’s interests if you work with me on this. Your wife is in danger. I’m not the bad guy here. I don’t think you are either.”

  “No? You’re just looking to recoup four-million dollars as a civic duty, right?”

  “I’ll level with you, Scott, if that gets you on the level with me. There is no four-million dollars. What’s actually going on has much higher stakes, especially for her. That’s all I can say.”

  “Now we know you’ll say any crap to get me onside.”

  “I’ll give you this much. My only goal is to find her alive, keep her alive, and get her out alive. You don’t matter to me. So you better decide what matters to you. As of now, the sharing circle is closed. Do you know where Julianna is? Yes or no?”

  Scott closed his eyes. “No.”

  Stencek sighed. “I wish for her sake you were lying.” He turned away and skimmed through the papers. “These are new. You got em in Norton?”

  “Yes. A local—” Scott stopped himself.

  “Rebecca LaForce, senior at Robert Lee school in Staunton.”

  “How the hell did you know that?”

  “Boyfriend’s Bernard Becker. Took Mom’s car to the tree-hugger convention yesterday without her permission. Rebecca’s the most frequent entry in his cell call list.”

  “Who are you people? You’re not investigators. You’re certainly not cops. You Feds?”

  “Fed-up, more like. No, just concerned citizens like yourself.” Stencek held up a single sheet for closer examination.

  “You better not have hurt—”

  Stencek cut him off with a raised hand. He took a highlighter from the glovebox and marked several snippets on the page. Grabbing a pen, he furiously scribbled a list in the margin, opened his cell, and speed-dialed.

  “Mark? It’s Stencek. Round three. Try the following names. Michael Pontin. Don Andrews. Leonard Anthony. Andrew Rogers. And Peter Bellevue. See if the system can hunt for variations too. One more thing I just thought of. Cross check them against Medicare records for anything to do with diabetes. Drugstore prescriptions, insulin, that sort of thing. Anything in the greater NOLA area for the last year. Leave all physical parameters as they are. K. Thanks.” He hung up.

  “So, you’re name is Stencek, not Irving?” Scott asked. “More bullshit.”

  “Oops!” Stencek smiled. “Looks like we’ve been made, Larry.”

  “Jesus, Mike,” Larry snapped. “Maybe you should let him take pictures.”

  Stencek grinned. “We’re not the ‘Men In Black’, Scott. Just working Joes trying to do a job.”

  “This is like something out of a bad Dan Brown novel,” Scott groaned.

  “Is there any other kind?” Stencek replied.

  “Working for who exactly?” Scott threw his glance around the interior. “This doesn’t look like a cheap operation. And you sure as shit aren’t working for Jonathan. It’s not his style. Who’s calling the shots?”

  “Look,” Stencek sighed. “It’s gonna be a long day. Do me a favor. Don’t keep asking questions I can’t answer right now. Just… détente me for now, ok?”

  “Well, why can’t you trace Julianna’s phone?” Scott pressed. “It’s obvious you have the ability to.”

  “We did. It turned up in Helsinki four days ago.”

  “What!”

  “Guess she ditched it at Logan in some sap’s luggage.”

  Scott was open-jawed. “Why would she do that?”

  “You tell me. You’re married to her.”

  Scott pffted. “Given your treatment of me now, I don’t blame her.”

  Stencek reached down and produced an unopened Gridiron order. He passed it back to Scott. “Maybe this’ll shut you up. Eat. Don’t eat. Whatever. Just get outta my grill for five minutes, would ya?” He turned away and left Scott to it.

  The cheeseburger and fries were cold and the Coke was flat. Still, hunger trumped hostility so Scott ate. As he did, he meditated on the nature of the man in whose possession he found himself. He didn’t feel safe. But he no longer felt alone. That was strangely comforting. For the first time, he realized that Julianna hadn’t been in his thoughts all day. He couldn’t summon her and she wouldn’t come.

  Stencek’s phone rang. He snapped it open. “Mark, make me happy, man.”

  He scribbled on the page as he listened. “Just the one?” he asked.

  He listened to the caller. “Hell yeah, I’ll take a photo if you got it. Send it through. Match or not, thanks for all you’ve done. Appreciate it, my friend.”

  Stencek hung up and twisted the data console unit on its flexible mounting, angling the screen secretively toward himself. Intrigued, Scott leaned discretely to try to see the screen for himself. Now Stencek watched it, nervously tapping his pen against the frame. Larry darted his own eyes sideways and monitored Stencek just as closely.

  Stencek bounced the pen faster against the unit.

  The color Sat-Nav map disappeared. A new image flashed up.

  Stencek’s pen froze mid-tap. He tried not to crack a smile, to stay stony-faced for his audience. He knew Scott was desperately craning to see the screen.

  Larry caught the merest curl of Stencek’s mouth anyway. “Mi
ke?” he asked. “Our man? Tell me, man.”

  Stencek prodded the photograph on the screen. “Gotcha,” he whispered.

  He flipped open his cell and dialed. “Rondell?”

  He listened, then asked, “Where are you?”

  Listened. “Ok. Game time. Grab a pen. Got an address for you. Ready?”

  Listened. “Eight, Camp Road, White Kitchen, Slidell. Dude’s going by Donald Andrews. You know where it’s at? Make it sharp.”

  Listened. “You mean to tell me, all the toys you bozos boosted, you never kept a Sat-Nav for yourself?”

  Listened. “Then go buy a Garmin, you cheap prick. Stores close in three hours.”

  Listened. “Enough already with the goddamn hurricane. You gotta job, you’re not bailing on me til it’s done.”

  Listened. “Well, I’ll evacuate your tiny mind, how bout that? Then your chicken liver can crawl into the space left and use that as shelter. Hurricane? I’ll be your perfect storm if you don’t stop whining, Rondell.”

  Listened. “Oh. You want what now? Double? Did I hear you right?”

  Listened. “My apologies, man. It’s just that it felt like you just tried to slip your big black dick up my naive Polish ass. Aren’t you supposed to say you love me first?”

  Listened. “No, fuck you! Here’s the math, Rondell. You want double? Fine. When I get there, tell me which half of your crew you want me to put bullets in. Boo-yah! You get double.”

  Listened. “Yeah, well think twice about that too. I get there and don’t find you on station, well… Matter of time, man. Matter—Of—Time. I swear the only thing you’ll get for sure is a closed casket.”

  Listened. “Hallelujah! Negotiation 1-0-1 pays off.”

  Listened. “It’s good. He’ll be there.”

  Listened. “He’ll be there. It’s good! It came outta Wikafuckinpedia! Why wouldn’t it be?”

  Listened. “Well, if you learned how to use a computer steada stealing them for a change.”

  Listened. “No, we’re not coming straight there. Hold on. Larry, E-T-A downtown?”