Instinct, p.27
Instinct, page 27
The vehicle is parked facing outward, unlike all the other vehicles. Another stamp of Greg’s personality, and a cop’s training: always be ready to go at a moment’s notice.
I reach the door and pull the handle, hearing the satisfying sound of the latch giving way. I throw the door open hard, slamming it into the black exotic next to me with a crunching noise that fills me with a queer pleasure.
“Fuck was that?” a gruff voice says from outside.
I glance toward the fountain.
Seconds ago there’d been no one there, but now two men stand by it, one on either side. I saw them earlier, standing behind the couch, flanking the senator meeting with Mrs. Conaty.
These men are professional bodyguards. No, that’s not right. If they’re here, they’re complicit in all this. I should call them what they are. Thugs. Gangsters. Trained killers.
They’re also twins, I suddenly realize. Blond hair, clean-shaven faces with sharp features, and identical assault rifles in their hands.
In unison they grin at me.
Then their weapons come up. Conaty may have ordered me brought in alive, but these two apparently haven’t been injected with Ang’s invention.
Their rifles roar.
As the bullets fly, I dive across the bench seat of Greg’s car. The front window splinters into a million shards, then the rear window shatters. Rounds pummel the metal bodywork, the engine, the wall of the garage, and the vehicles around me as the two killers indiscriminately hose down the area.
There’s no shotgun in Greg’s car, but there is a fire extinguisher in the passenger footwell. I release it, the plan forming in my head subconsciously. When the men outside pause to reload I chance a reach for the visor, swing it down, and catch the keys just like Greg always did.
Bullets flying all around me, I push the key into the ignition and twist. The engine starts despite all the rounds slamming into the radiator up front.
Grunting with effort, glass in my hair, I shove the fire extinguisher between the base of the driver’s seat and the gas pedal. The engine roars. Ignoring the thuds as the car is turned into Swiss cheese, I back out of the vehicle and, once my knees are on the floor of the garage, I stretch for the gear lever and shift the car into drive.
It lurches forward, tires screeching. At the same instant I throw myself the rest of the way out. My body slams into the black sports car beside me at the same time Greg’s cruiser rams straight into the fountain in the middle of the circular driveway.
There’s a thunderous crash. The car heaves upward, front wheels off the ground and spinning, the hood crushed. Water pours from the smashed side of the fountain. The two killers lie on either side, having dived out of the way. One seems to be hurt, but I don’t wait around to find out.
I crawl backward, and at the rear of the sports car I dart toward the small side door I’d entered through, keeping low, hoping no one sees me. With any luck they’ll assume I was in the vehicle, and waste time searching it and then the driveway beyond.
At the door I almost crash into Captain Tweaker. He’s managed to get to his feet and is stumbling into the garage. Without breaking stride I ram my fist into his nose for the third time that evening, and this time the blow makes his eyes roll back and all the life goes out of his legs. He drops like a puppet with its strings cut. With a single long step I’m over him and rounding the side of the house, darting across the lawn while, I hope, all attention is on the driveway. I pass the dormant shape of the sleek helicopter, ringed by still-flickering fake candles resting on paving stones. Grass crunches under my feet as the house falls away behind me. Ahead is that big garden shed, its doors open. Inside I can just make out the shape of the ATV, and next to it, a red Harley-Davidson that is most definitely familiar. I assume neither will have keys, so I keep my focus on the wall instead.
Too high to reach the top. I cast about, then spot a small trestle table beside the ATV’s shed, with some empty planting pots atop it. I brush them aside and move the iron table a few feet until it’s wedged in the corner between the wall and the shed. The thing may be old and disused, but it’s sturdy as hell and holds my weight just fine. Reaching the top of the wall is easy, hauling myself up not so much.
Perched there, I ready to leap down to the other side. If this were an action film, I think, that mansion behind me would be exploding right now. I pause, there, unable to let go of the image of the mansion exploding as I remember Ang’s lab in the basement, likely full of his research. Not to mention their equipment. The machine producing pills.
I should go back. Destroy it all. End this right here, right now.
But I only manage to turn toward the mansion before Conaty’s voice erupts from the intercom again. Shrill words, yet loud and clear even from a hundred yards away.
Her orders to the Broken Nose Gang have changed in a rather critical way.
“You will kill Mary Whittaker!” she shouts.
Over and over and over again.
By the time I reach the river my nose feels like it’s on fire. Pain throbs through my head, pulsating behind my eyes.
At the edge of the water I allow myself a chance to rest. There’s a boulder the size of a shopping cart, about the only cover here, so I put my back against it and fill my cupped hand with some of the cool babbling water. This I trickle down the back of my neck and across my forehead. Tentatively I probe my nose under the bandage, and my fingers come away red. That entire area of my face itches like a dozen mosquito bites, but the cool water helps so I drip more onto the bandage and let it soak in.
Once my breathing is under control, I take a tentative look behind me. The first glance back I’ve made since scaling the wall perhaps fifteen minutes ago.
The hillside leading up to Ang’s mansion is quiet. But then it would be, I suppose. From just about anywhere up there one could see this entire river. Me crossing to the other side would be a sniper’s dream. Easy pickings.
There’s really no choice, though. I have to keep moving. Every second I sit here is a chance they’ll think to look this way, and post someone with a rifle up there. Crashing Greg’s car bought me precious time, and I’m wasting it by resting here.
But God the water feels good.
I gulp some from the stream, not caring if it’s polluted from the old mine. The icy liquid makes me gasp, burning like whiskey, but I take three more swallows all the same.
Then I’m up and trudging through the water. With each step I expect the light inside my head to go out as a sniper round rips through my body, but no shots ring out. There’s only the sound of my soaking wet boots smacking on the rocks as I pick my way up the opposite bank, back onto the mountain that is my home.
At the tree line I stop and look behind me one last time.
No one has followed. At least, not that I can see.
There’s only the moonlit river, the dark trees. An owl glides silently from the branches of one. It vanishes into a patch of tall grass, then emerges a second later, wings flapping soundlessly. Though a few hundred feet away, and in darkness, I can see a rat or squirrel dangling from its beak.
“That’s an omen I didn’t need,” I mutter.
Retracing my steps from earlier, I start up the rocky bank. The switchback trail is grueling going uphill. Several minutes later I find the dirt trail Tweaker rode on his ATV, the tracks still visible.
A low noise begins to grow, like a deep humming, briefly reminding me of the sound of Kyle’s ringtone. I hit the dirt, unsure what I’m really hearing, my eyes scanning the darkness around me, ears pricked. It’s distant, I realize. A car engine? Yes, but not one. It’s a pair of big V-8s, and they’re on this side of the river valley. Ahead, well up the slope, I can see their headlights catching the trees. The two vehicles making their way up the mountain toward Silvertown, driving fast.
I’d be tempted to race the last stretch of this trail and try to flag them down, but chances are good that I’ll be greeted by a red Ferrari and a black sports car with a badly scratched door. So I wait. Five minutes for them to go on past, heading toward town. The glow of their headlights is lost to me before the sound of their engines is. Finally I can’t hear them at all and decide it’s safe to continue.
But then comes the sound of a third vehicle. Slower, less powerful, but going the same direction. Unsure who it might be, I decide to let it go by as well, if for no other reason than to fully catch my breath.
Finally I set off again. My wet boots feel like they weigh a hundred pounds. The water, so blissfully cool on my feet just minutes before, has made my toes numb and set my teeth chattering. Add to that the comedown off an adrenaline high like I’ve never known before, and exhaustion starts to get the better of me. I stumble, skinning my knee on a rock. Warm blood trickles down my leg from the scrape.
I’ve no idea how long it takes, or when I stopped following Tweaker’s ATV trail, but suddenly there’s asphalt under my feet, the road half-hidden by red and yellow leaves. No lights in either direction. I look for a mile marker, but there are none to be seen.
A choice needs to be made, even though all I really want to do is sleep. I shake my head vigorously and try to focus on the two choices. Head east, up the mountain toward Silvertown? Or west, toward Granston?
“Neither,” I mutter. The real goal, I realize, should be to return to my cruiser, which I left in front of that gate on Meridian Lane. I might not have its keys, but at this point I’m okay with putting a rock through the window in order to get at all the gear stowed inside. So for the moment I choose neither direction, instead turning around to study the valley behind me. Partly to look for any sign I’ve been followed, but mostly to look for the senator’s mansion. If I can spot that, I might get a better idea of where I am, and which way my car is from here.
There’s a glow in the trees on the other side of the river valley, which I think is probably the house, but knowing this doesn’t help. It’s too far away to help me triangulate. I’m about to turn away when a new light catches my eye. A blinking red beacon in the trees. As I watch it begins to rise.
The helicopter.
Instinctively I move closer to the nearest tree, even though the chopper is a mile off. It’s going to head right for me, I think, with a searchlight scanning the road and those gangster bodyguards leaning out the doors with high-power rifles.
This doesn’t turn out to be the case. The helicopter instead makes a direct line for Silvertown. I know I should move, get up there, do my job, but I’m transfixed by the blinking light and the distant thumping pulse of the rotor blades.
The helicopter slows and starts to lower, and I know the place instantly. It’s landing in the parking lot of the graveyard, where Greg and I attended Johnny Rogers’s funeral. Just west of town, and a full two miles from me at least. Now that I have a landmark, I know my car is to the west, and not far. Worried about the town, and Kyle and Clara in particular, I set off again, urgent now. I’m limping a little, thanks to my throbbing knee, and gritting my teeth at the pain and the fresh feel of warm blood snaking down into my ice-cold boot.
I see the wavering yellow glow before the cruiser itself.
Fire engulfs its aluminum frame. Even a hundred feet away I can feel the heat on my face.
I sink to my knees, not caring about the flare of agony that erupts from my wound.
Only the skeleton of the Dodge Charger is recognizable. Fire roils over its innards. The gear and computers and radios inside have long since melted away. A plume of thick black smoke spouts upward from the carnage, shooting up toward the treetops, where it seems to simply merge with the sky. On this clear night there’s no clouds to catch the orange flicker of fire. No way anyone would have seen this and called it in. No fire trucks will come to help. Not from our volunteer force, or the professionals from County.
There’s a pop as some internal component fails and its fluids ignite, sending a spray of flaming shrapnel out from the vehicle. A tire goes next, making the car list for a second before the other three all fail nearly simultaneously. The smell of burning rubber makes me want to gag, and I force myself to get to my feet and move away, back to the main road.
Now I really have to choose. It’s a four-mile walk from here up to Silvertown, and roughly the same distance downhill to the edge of Granston. East or west. East or west.
I turn east, and start the long hike to Silvertown.
* * *
It seems like days later when I finally reach the thin narrow lane that leads up to the little bluff where the graveyard offers its striking view of the valley. The lane is curvy, walled in by trees on each side, which means from the state route I cannot see the parking area or the cleared hill and all its gravestones. The helicopter is still there, of that I feel certain. The sound of its rotor ebbed and vanished earlier when it landed, and I’ve heard nothing of it since.
The temptation to go that way is strong, but in the end I decide to keep on toward town. If the chopper is still there, it’s likely guarded, and I’m unarmed. Those fuckers have already tried to kill me, more than willing to hose down a garage full of expensive cars with automatic gunfire just for the off chance they might get a bullet into me. They also set my own car on fire. Something tells me if they spot me approaching their aircraft there won’t be any warning. They’ll just shoot me dead and then chuckle at the realization that I’ve delivered myself quite handily to the graveyard. Nothing left to do but the digging.
So I keep on.
But not all the way to town. Not yet. Because half a mile out I recognize another street, and this time I feel there is something worth stopping for.
It’s another winding narrow lane, but instead of trees walling in each side, there’s a mixture of lawns, hedges, and houses. Of Silvertown’s few neighborhoods, this is considered the nicest one. Back in the day, Conaty Corporation executives would have lived here. Not mansions, per say, but large homes with big yards that buffered them from any chance of having to suffer through the sound of a passing car.
With the company long gone, regular folk moved in, snatching up the chance at a nicer place as property values here nosedived in the wake of the scandal that sent all the executives scurrying off to Houston.
And one of them in particular is known to me, because almost every time I drive by it I see Doc’s Volvo parked at the end of the long driveway, just outside a detached garage. The home is just three driveways down on the left.
Locals call it the Smiley Mansion, and I haven’t yet thought to ask why. It’s an older place, perhaps as much as a hundred years old. From the look of it, though, it’s been renovated several times, and while not nearly as well preserved as Barbara Rogers’s home, the structure and the grounds are well kept.
“Damn it,” I whisper, upon seeing that Doc’s car is not in the driveway.
The windows of his house are all dark. In fact, the whole street is dark. It takes my exhausted brain a second to understand. The power’s been cut.
I hesitate, unsure now what to do. I’d hoped to find Doc’s car where it always is. There is a garage, though. Might as well try there. I still have the keys to the car. And, I realize, his house.
Despite the cover of darkness I still move up the lawn slowly, hunched over, every sense on high alert. There’s a good fifty feet separating his place from the neighbors on either side, and no fences, so I scan their windows, too, just to be sure no one is watching.
It’s only when I’m halfway up the drive that I realize I’m doing it again. Going it alone. Doing the opposite of what used to be my strongest instinct. The thought takes mental effort to complete, like pulling an old friend’s phone number from memory. Once I manage to grasp the concept, though, there comes a second conscious effort to ignore it. I do need help. I know that, even if I can’t keep the idea in my head when it matters. But right now, I think maybe the new go-it-alone Mary Whittaker is the better one, because after everything I saw in Ang’s mansion, I don’t know who I can trust. Certainly anyone with a broken nose is to be avoided, but Doc’s neighbors? Who knows if he’s drawn them into this mess, or used them as early guinea pigs.
No, right now I want to get into Doc’s place. Confront him if he’s there, or at least search his bathroom for a first aid kit so I can bandage up my goddamn skinned knee.
I try the garage first, though.
The actual door has no external manual release. There’s a keypad on the frame, but without power it’s useless to me. I go around back, happy to be concealed from view to anyone driving by. Not that anyone is.
There’s a back door to the garage. I twist the handle and open it a crack. Already adjusted to darkness, my eyes pick up nothing but stacks of moving boxes and the usual assortment of tools and lawn care equipment. No car, though, which is a bummer. Yet no car also means he’s not here, and that’s a decent consolation prize.
Resting atop a shelf by the door is a flashlight. A rechargeable one, but it’s plugged in. I grasp it and flick the power switch while pressing the business end against my hand. A glow of red instantly appears.
“Nice,” I breathe, and turn the device off again. Time to check the house.
A covered patio runs the length of the rear of the building, looking out on a slightly overgrown lawn and meager garden. Double French doors look in on a dark interior. The door itself is locked, but a quick jab of my elbow to the pane by the handle is all it takes to gain access.
This is far from proper behavior for a cop, but given the circumstances I figure no one is going to mind, especially since my boss is one of the bad guys. The thought of Greg Gorman, with his bandaged nose obscuring that kind and wizened face and that ridiculously bushy gray mustache, twists my stomach into a knot. I wonder how they got to him, and when. Must have been when he left for the airport, I decide. His nose wasn’t broken before that. And I can just see how they might go about it. Perhaps staging an accident on the mountain road, waiting for someone to stop to help, then abducting them and bringing them to Ang’s mansion for the “treatment” and the test.
