Leon unlocked his front door and turned off the security alarm next to it. They entered, and Coulter closed the door behind them. Leon put his briefcase on the couch, and turned to face his guest.
Coulter was standing there with a black automatic in his hand, and it was pointed at Leon.
“What the hell is that for?” asked Leon.
“Just in case you’re also part of my problem, Leon. I haven’t been able to read you as well as the man I’m after.”
Coulter backed up to the door, and opened it. Six men came into the room. They were dressed in black from head to toe. Deep red plastic-looking masks covered their faces, and they carried ugly, black and stubby weapons that looked like machine pistols. It was as if they’d been in his house before. They walked straight to his basement door, opened it, and went down the stairs.
“Guess they wouldn’t fit in the Mercedes,” said Leon, and smirked at Coulter.
“I don’t think you realize how close you are to dying,” said Coulter, and carefully aimed his pistol at Leon’s head. “You and Price are probably in it together, but I’m going to give you one chance to show some loyalty and give me a reason to keep you alive.”
“The last I heard, you gave Eric Price more money that you’ve given me in a year. And now you don’t trust him? That doesn’t sound smart to me.”
“Money does lots of things, including diverting people’s attentions. Makes them easier to read, Leon.”
“Whatever the hell that means.”
Coulter took a step closer, and lowered his gun to aim at Leon’s chest. “What it means is Price isn’t selling. He’s digging for the identity of my employer, and has no intention of providing what I’ve paid for. He’s a spy, just like you, Leon; only he’s more open about it. That makes him dangerous, so I’m eliminating him, and if you don’t help me I’ll eliminate you too.”
“Bribery is one thing, but murdering a federal officer makes you a dead man,” said Leon.
“Words can’t describe how much that frightens me. Now get down the stairs.”
“Why?”
“You’re going to lead us through that tunnel of yours to your neighbor’s house, and then you’ll get him down to the basement so we can kill him there. And when that’s done, maybe, just maybe I’ll believe you’re working for me.”
“Bullshit. All you have is suspicions. Eric has never given me a reason to think he’d cross you. He wants a good retirement as much as I do.”
“Leon, if you don’t move quick I’m going to kill you right here. I don’t want it that way, but I’ll do it.” Coulter straightened his arm, and Leon saw a tendon bulge in his hand as he began squeezing the trigger.
“Okay. Okay! I’m moving, but I think you’re wrong about Eric, and getting rid of him is just going to mess things up.”
“That’s another reason to kill him. Get going.”
Coulter waved his gun, and Leon went to the basement door and down the stairs. His own weapon was loaded and locked, but the safety was on, and the holster it was in was velcroed to his ankle. He would need a big distraction to get to it, and now, as he came down the stairs, seven men were watching him.
“Very nice,” said Coulter, and he looked around the room. “You must get a lot of practice.”
“I keep my hand in it,” said Leon, and was careful to keep his hands in sight. Coulter and his thugs had stupidly not bothered to search him for a weapon. If Coulter had the slightest bit of trust in him right now, it was the only card Leon had to play.
Coulter opened a cabinet door and saw six pistols hanging on hooks there. He selected one, a Sig forty-five, checked the chamber and magazine to be sure it was unloaded, and handed the weapon to Leon.
“What’s this for?”
“You’re going to lead us through the tunnel and knock politely on the door at the other end. If nobody answers you’ll open the door with that gun in your hand. If somebody does answer you’ll be standing right there, ready to shoot, but of course you won’t be able to do that. You might get lucky. Price might be able to control his instincts, and not shoot you, or, anyone guarding him might be smart enough to see what’s going on before they blow you to pieces. Either way, we’re coming out that door right behind you, and Price is going to be a dead man.”
“And if I get through this alive, can I anticipate any kind of a reward for my participation?”
Coulter’s smile was more of a sneer. “You’ll get to live, for starters, and just maybe there’ll be another donation to your retirement fund.”
Leon paused a moment to let Coulter believe he was thinking about it, then, “Okay, let’s get it over with. But I still think you’re wrong about Price.”
“Yet you’ll still help us kill him,” said Coulter. “Your loyalty is outstanding.”
“I’m loyal to one person,” said Leon, “and that person is me.”
Coulter waved his pistol towards the tunnel door. “Then by all means, let’s proceed.”
Leon stepped up to the door and opened it. The tunnel lights flickered, and then came to full brilliance. The air smelled of paint and oil and something sharp, like a solvent. The vent pumps came on almost immediately, and the walls vibrated with a dull throbbing.
Coulter’s men bunched up behind Leon, and Coulter trailed behind them. After a few steps he ordered his men to form a widely spaced line behind Leon. “Watch for tripwires. Stay on the catwalk, and don’t touch anything else.”
“That sounds like you’ve been in here before,” said Leon.
“Shut up,” snarled Coulter. “No talking the rest of the way.”
The tunnel ran straight for fifty yards, and then curved slightly to the left. There were no buttresses or cutouts where Leon could jump to and pull out the weapon strapped to his ankle, but he was looking for them, anything he’d forgotten. He was searching the walls as he came around the curve in the tunnel. For one instant he thought he detected movement at the edge of his vision, but when he looked ahead nothing was there, just another hundreds of yards of tunnel and the door at the end of it.
The nearest man was only a few feet behind him. Leon glanced over his shoulder, was surprised to see that Coulter was now several yards behind them, his forehead glistening with sweat. The man looked scared. He looked ready to run.
Eric was armed. If Leon could warn him, the attackers could be shot down one by one as they went up the basement stairs. That meant getting the door open. But what if Eric was right there, waiting for them? A single, lucky shot and Leon could be dead.
The tunnel was nearly soundproof, but not perfectly so. Gunshots would certainly be heard in the basement, and maybe upstairs. If Leon could start and maintain a firefight in the tunnel for even a few seconds, it might be warning enough. He thought about it, watched the tunnel exit coming closer and closer. He looked back again; saw Coulter twenty yards behind, and slowing. What the hell? Leon looked forward again, lost some balance and stepped off the catwalk. As he did it he felt something heavy and sticky brush up against his left side. It shocked him, and his heart pounded hard. He stepped back on the catwalk. The man behind him had closed up, was within arm’s reach. And Leon suddenly knew what he had to do.
It was five yards to the door, and Eric’s basement. Leon slowed, felt a man’s body and the hard muzzle of a weapon press against the back of his head. He reached out to the door, turned the lock, the doorknob, and pulled back hard.
“Eric! Watch out!”
Leon slammed back against the man behind him, and twisted. There was a muffled explosion, and he felt searing pain in his right side. He got his arm around the man’s neck, as there were two more explosions, then a staccato of gunfire down the tunnel. Leon pulled up under the man’s chin, then jerked to the right and heard a satisfying snap. The man slumped. Leon went down with him, scrabbling for the gun strapped to his ankle.
Leon’s gun came loose from his holster and he thumbed the safety without thinking. Coulter’s men charged as Leon twisted around his hu
man shield and emptied the magazine of his pistol as fast as he could pull the trigger. One man staggered and went down, but the other three kept coming, and Leon felt the terrible impact of three bullets in his chest. He watched his pistol fall from his hand, and slumped against the doorway as the three men trampled on his legs getting past him. Down the tunnel, Coulter had disappeared, and two other men were still struggling.
There was a long burst of gunfire from behind him, and then Leon’s hearing failed as he plunged into cold oblivion.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
FIREFIGHT
On the drive home, Eric realized why he’d been short with Leon. The guy really did care about Nataly, and was being protective of her for good cause. Who am I kidding? he thought. A paid killer with my track record can never give her a happy life. Divorced over neglect, estranged from a daughter for the same reason, I’m a poster child for government slavery. Be honest with yourself, for once. You’ve hated your job for years, but are afraid of doing anything else. The idea of doing something in the private sector terrifies you.
Terrific. Having thought all that, he was still crazy to see Nataly, touch her, even hear the sound her voice. And he really did have other things to worry about.
His plan was to throw a pizza in the oven, boil some peas, and have some ice cream after. Nothing cerebral in the evening, some junk TV, a beer, and bed early. There was no preparation to worry about. The entire startup sequence was clear in his mind—up to a point. That point was when the green light lit up on that third panel by his right knee. Up to that point his instinct was telling him that Sparrow was going to go very fast and very high.
And then what?
Eric thought about Nataly getting ready to close her shop. She was so meticulous about everything, always ended up staying open longer than planned. It was about that time when he pulled into his driveway. He garaged the car and went in the house through the side door. He turned on the oven and left it to heat while he went downstairs to scan the surveillance videos for the day, and checked the little string still lodged safely at the top of his front door.
In fifteen minutes the oven was properly heated. Suddenly weary of pizza, Eric took two potpies out of the freezer, put them on a tray in the oven. A handful of peas and some water in a pot, and dinner was on its way. He got a beer from the fridge, opened it, and walked to the front room to turn on the TV. Just as he got there he saw Leon’s Humvee rush by the house, followed seconds later by a black van. Unusual. There were few houses beyond his, and it was getting late for hiking in the canyons. Or maybe Leon had a guest.
He turned on the television, and sipped his beer. The pies would be ready in twenty minutes. Eric checked his watch, went to the stove and turned on the burner under the peas when the pies were nearly finished.
The sudden explosions he heard were muffled, but distinct. It took him a heartbeat to recognize them as gunshots, and they were coming from the tunnel in the basement. He thought he heard someone call his name. That thought was not complete as he gripped the long-slide Colt in his hand, jerked from the shoulder holster without conscious reaction.
He leaped to the basement door and opened it. The tunnel door banged open at that instant, and someone lay crumpled in the doorway. Gunshots echoed in the tunnel, and three men dressed head to toe in black crowded their way through the doorway into the basement. They looked left and right, waved machine pistols, but neglected to look upwards.
Eric went down on one knee, arm rigid, shoulder locked, and fired seven rounds into the heads of the three men below him. The far wall of the basement splattered red with their blood. Eric scrabbled at his shoulder holster as he released the Colt’s empty magazine, then slammed another magazine home and worked the slide. There were two more shots from the tunnel, then a gurgling scream, and silence.
Eric crab-walked down the stairs and kept his aim on the tunnel door. He jumped to one side, stepped up to the door, dared a quick glance down the tunnel, then a longer look. There was no movement. Two men were crumpled by the doorway, two others in black were sprawled steps away, and there was an isolated puddle of blood beyond that.
From upstairs came the roar of a vehicle rushing past his house, and Eric remembered the black van following Leon.
Leon. Oh, shit.
And then, right where he stood, someone groaned.
Eric looked down. At first he saw only a man on his back, face masked by a solid, opaque plate, arms to his sides. But there was a third arm jutting from beneath the man’s waist, a coat-sleeve shimmering gray.
Eric rolled the masked man over, and stared with dismay into Leon’s face. There was a blue pallor to his cheeks, and his chest was soaked with blood. Leon’s eyes flickered open. He smiled weakly.
“Heard—shots. Didn’t think—got you,” he gurgled.
Eric pulled Leon’s coat aside, saw three entrance wounds there, two high in the chest, one lower, close to the heart.
“I’ve got to get you medical help quick. You’re losing a lot of blood.”
“S’okay. No pain. Just cold. Coulter did this. Wanted to kill you. Did—what I could—Eric.”
Eric watched Leon’s life pumping out of him with each heartbeat. The base had no hospital he knew of, only an infirmary. He could call Davis, and wait half an hour for someone to come. There was no surgery in town. The nearest was in Cottonwood, another half-hour down the road. And it would take over an hour to get him to Phoenix, even if a helicopter was called.
Leon didn’t have half an hour. Eric considered his options for two heartbeats, and decided.
“I’m taking you to Cottonwood, buddy. This’ll have to hurt.”
Eric picked the man up like a baby, and Leon groaned.
The groaning stopped halfway up the stairs, and Eric felt Leon’s head fall against his back. There was an ache in his chest, a sense of futility as he carried Leon into the garage and lowered him into the back seat of the car. Leon’s skin was horribly tinged blue, and his breathing made sinister bubbling sounds. Eric had seen the signs before, in a far away war the newspapers had never heard of. He could try as hard as he could, and had to do that, but the result would be the same. Leon would be dead in a matter of minutes, and they were too far from a hospital to save him.
Eric gunned the engine, thumbed open the garage door and the gate at the same time. The tires squealed as he backed up, but one look in the rear view mirror and he slammed on the brakes hard.
Military vehicles were pouring in through the gate, and blocking his way out.
Eric opened the door so hard the hinge shrieked. “I’ve got a gunshot victim here! He’s bleeding out!” he shouted. There was a Humvee, two vans and a jeep, all in desert beige, and the sight of the man in the jeep astonished him.
It was Sergeant Alan Nutt.
Eric gaped at him. Men poured out of the vans and Humvee. Alan gave orders, pointed, and some of the men ran right by Eric and headed for the garage.
“Is the door unlocked?” asked Alan.
“Yes,” said Eric. He hadn’t even thought about locking it. “My partner has been shot up bad. He needs immediate surgery.” He opened the back door of the car.
“He’ll get it,” said Alan. Two men came up from behind him, carrying a stretcher. A second stretcher was being carried into the house.
Leon didn’t make a sound when they put him on the stretcher and carried him to a van. Eric felt a lump in his throat when Alan put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll do what we can,” said Alan.
Eric swallowed hard, and tried to distract himself. “How did you know we needed help here? You must be hooked in live to the surveillance cameras, but even so you got here awful fast.”
“We’ll talk later. Are you okay?”
“Yes. I got three of them. Leon got three others, and I know who was behind the attack. His name is John Coulter, and the next thing I’m going to do is kill him.”
“The next thing you’re going to do is fly Sparrow,” said Alan. “Get in the j
eep. I’m taking you straight to the base and under guard until the flight. Give me your keys. We’ll clean up here, and lock the house for you.”
Eric gave Alan his keys. Alan gave them to a corporal returning from the house. Two stretcher-bearers were with him, and they carried a man covered with a blanket. His eyes flickered, and he looked at Eric as he passed by him.
“We turned off the stove, sir. Your dinner was burned,” said the Corporal. He took the keys, and went back to the house.
Eric nodded at the man on the stretcher. “Where did he come from? I looked in that tunnel, and Leon was the only person alive in there.”
“Guess you didn’t look close enough, sir,” said Alan, and took Eric’s elbow to steer him towards the jeep.
Eric went with him, got in the back seat of the jeep. Men were now carrying body bags out of the house. The injured man was put into the van with Leon, and the van sped away. The body bags were put into the other van, and the doors closed.
The jeep carrying Eric went out the gate, turned left, and sped towards the canyons, Eric sat in the back, counting numbers in his head.
Two injured men, and six body bags made eight people.
But including Leon, Eric had only seen seven.
* * * * * * *
At a distance, they followed the van that carried Leon. As Eric expected, the van was returning to the base. It raised a cloud of dust ahead of them once they were off pavement and bouncing on red earth and scree. When they arrived at the fenced-in hut that was an elevator, the van had gone underground, and they had to wait ten minutes for the gate to open again for them. They descended, raced along the main tunnel and passed the van parked at a cutout near the entrance to the portal bay. The back doors of the van were open, but nobody was inside.
Alan said nothing to him the entire trip, looked back at him a few times, and once reached back to pat him on the knee as if to say “It’ll be all right.”
But it wasn’t going to be all right. Eric knew a mortal wound when he saw one, and had heard the last words of dying men. Leon had been shot defending a man who’d treated him like shit on more than one occasion, and now that man was feeling badly about it.
Sedona Conspiracy Page 23
