Gps, p.35
Gps, page 35
The man smartly ripped off his shirt and helped Simmons stem the bleeding. He helped Josh back to his feet, and the two scrambled up into the low-lying rocks on the south side of the canyon below Jeff’s position.
No one had fired a shot at anyone.
Within seconds, one, then two, then three and four pink balls of fire with long tails of smoke shot into the air, sending cascading trails crashing down into the crowd, which shrieked more in delight than panic at the sight of them. Without consideration of the FB watchmen he was supposed to take out first and which he still had not even seen, Jeff took aim at the closest tank adjoining the back of the house and tried to force himself to wait before pulling the trigger. He knew Simmons couldn’t live long out here without medical attention.
Fonseca had insisted they wait at least a minute from the time the flares went down until they could take the first shot. He wanted perfect chaos, but as it happened, the chaos was coming at that exact moment, whether they fired the first shots or not.
Both sets of headlights were in perfect view now, set to come rambling into the canyon and at high speed.
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Through the main gate to the north came a single, speeding vehicle, which even in the faint glow of the fire was visibly fish-tailing as it came around the ring of trucks toward the rear of the house. Just before it disappeared behind the house’s far front corner, Jeff saw through his rifle scope that it was a silver sedan, Josh’s silver Lexus.
Charles, who’d finally righted himself on the mountain roads around Destinoso thanks to the GPS on the Lexus windshield and had made it to the main highway, knew if he could get inside the main house, get on the radio and call his own men to their guns, even their drunken bullets would find some targets out there tonight. He still had no idea what was actually happening, but he knew his fishing expedition had landed Simmons on an apparent assassination mission.
The Lexus picked up even more speed as Charles curved around the north side of the house, romping right overtop of the yuccas and other brush in his path. Though terrified of being shot, Charles hoped the sight of Simmons’ car would create enough confusion with the revolucion men he knew were lurking in the hills to mask his identity and let him steer around the corner. There he could slip through the back door and sound the alarm before it was too late.
Before he made the corner, the vehicle casting the other set of headlights materialized fully from the abandoned road in the southeast corner. It was a black FB Rover that came storming out into the ranch clearing down to Jeff's right. It too came in at high speed and was also heading for the backside of the house, directly at the oncoming Lexus.
As the Rover sped into the clearing, the shots Jeff and Josh had been waiting for began to ring out from the cliffs beneath the pinkened, smoky sky — one, then a small handful, and then a storm of them — at the sight of what appeared to be some lost, drunken FB soldier who’d found the party via the old mountain road at the worst possible time. Even as bullets began to pop holes into the truck and take out its windows, the SUV was running with such reckless abandon it was impervious to them. It kept on toward the rear of the house and the gas tanks. It actually sounded from Jeff’s distance like the truck sped up when it came into the clearing from the road.
Jeff followed the scene as best he could, keeping his rifle scope on the SUV but not joining the shooters yet. The light of the flames cast a perfect reflection against the side of the Rover, Jeff caught a glimpse of the face of David Hawkins — the guy he’d rear-ended that night outside the stadium — behind the wheel. Even in a distant flash, there was no mistaking his thin, haunted and angry face.
Jeff pulled the scope away and watched with his naked eyes as the SUV raced toward the back of the house. The Lexus had come to a stop but still had its headlights on. Whoever was behind the wheel was going to try to get inside the house. Jeff caught a glimpse of the car’s interior light coming on and the silhouette of the occupant sitting on the driver’s side.
The driver must have thought he’d arrived in the middle of hell, whoever he was. The screams of fright were just beginning, shots were starting to fly in every direction and as Jeff watched the SUV bearing down on the parked car, and the gas tanks behind it, he couldn’t help but want to turn one of his eyes toward the crowd and see the giant ring of gasoline-soaked trucks erupt in flames. He couldn’t see Josh down below, but knew he was likely in a fight for his life that wouldn’t last long.
The FB truck kicked awkwardly up and over a boulder, lost control and spun directly into the Lexus. Just before impact, the Lexus driver — still inside the car — had tried to evade the SUV, pulling the car forward suddenly and in effect helping to propel the Rover into the air, spinning end-over-end and directly into the gas tanks.
In the second before the canyon was engulfed by the light and thunder of a petroleum explosion which gradually echoed away to leave the sounds of human screams and heavy gunfire, the SUV with Hawkins inside — which was still showing as a red dot on the monitor in Simon’s bedroom just a few feet away — smashed head-on into the fuel tanks. Instead of exploding with them, straight into the air, however, the Range Rover seemed to just disintegrate into the green towers without ever making contact with the back of the ranch house, which immediately after the blast had the orange glow of flames beginning to leap out from the eaves of its roof. The tanks had erupted in giant blasts of fire, and in a bizarre, domino effect, the ring of FB trucks ignited one-by-one in a merry-go-round of bursts.
The people inside scrambled like angry ants.
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The Lexus was thrown forward by the might of the blast.
The surge of heat that washed over the canyon was enough to knock Jeff back and nearly onto his butt. It was followed by a wave of suffocating black smoke which blanketed everything, and for a moment darkened the inferno below. It obscured the entire canyon for a few minutes before organizing into several distinct, billowing towers stretching into the sky.
As soon as the blast rocked the canyon, Jeff stood, steadied his rifle on his shoulder and waited for enough clarity below to find a target. When the smoke filtered, he locked the scope on Josh’s would-be killer, just getting to his feet after being blown down by the force the explosions. Jeff dropped him dead with one shot to the chest. He then began scanning the edge of the burning vehicles for FB men trying to flee.
There weren’t many of them, so after just a minute or so, he stood and began scaling the rough terrain down to the ground floor of the canyon, knowing that friendly fire was his greatest enemy.
But he had to find Josh and get him out alive, if he still was alive. He lost his footing at the base of the canyon and fell onto his side, forcing him to look at the scene from the ground up. What he saw was the entire canyon being overrun by smoke and flames. There must have been more fuel tanks inside the long, flat building on the north side of the canyon as well, because there were also massive black plumes coming from the building’s wooden skeleton.
The ring of burning cars imprisoned its occupants. The massive bonfire the partiers themselves had ignited now served as an incinerator, sending out its own waves of heat while the flames from the tanks and the cars sent their own heat right back, squeezing the life out of those trapped inside. The men in the cliffs were largely unneeded, as few of the people on the canyon floor were able to escape in their direction. Those that did were mostly not looking for a fight when they got out, and they had been gunned down by snipers without retaliation.
The chaos Paulo dreamed about was in full swing, and none of his own men were being sacrificed. The hose men had done their jobs, and the FB trucks kept the entire canyon illuminated.
While Paulo very likely stood still and watched in awe, Jeff was thinking of the giant map on the wall at the stadium, the sea of black pins. As he scrambled toward the inferno to find Josh, he wondered how on earth things would play out from here, and not just tonight but tomorrow and beyond. There would be hell to pay for this, but he supposed that was well understood.
At the second the initial explosion thundered through the canyon, Jeff had seen the Lexus shoved forward. If it was still running, there was a chance to rescue the car and get Josh out, but he had no idea if he would be able to make it back up the spiraling hill to his own car. Even if he was, would it still be there?
His eyes adjusted to the action at ground level, and Jeff saw a group of men crouched behind a stand of rocks with guns aimed at the ranch, so he ducked his head and sprinted in their direction. When he arrived, the five or so men first reared back and turned their guns in Jeff’s direction until a familiar voice, Josh’s voice, shouted hoarsely. He was lying on his back with a tourniquet around his bleeding neck. “Don’t shoot, assholes, it’s Delaney! Delaney! Get us out of here!”
His blood suddenly boiling in anger at the sound of Josh’s weakened voice, Jeff pushed the other men aside. “Come on, Josh! You gotta stand up and put your arm around me. Use your other hand to keep the pressure on your neck. Come on man! What’s the point of dying now?”
They hurried along the edge of the canyon wall toward the house, shots still flying from the cliffs, and a nonstop tone of despair coming from the crowd, some of which had now stampeded through the ring of trucks on the north side and spilled out onto the main road and out of the ranch.
Burned from the blast, stunned from the impact of the Range Rover vaulting up and over the Lexus and staggered by the tidal wave of smoke which had filled the cabin of the car, Simon Charles came staggering out of the Lexus in a daze.
Somehow he still knew the back door to the house was just over his left shoulder. Before he could turn and stumble over to the door, a bullet plunged into his left thigh. Another pierced the flesh of his shoulder. A third and a fourth went zinging past his head. Then a fifth one, shot from Jeff’s sniper rifle after he and his hemorrhaging companion had gotten within 50 yards of Josh’s car and saw the man come staggering out, struck a fatal blow to his temple.
At the time, Jeff had no idea who he had shot, just that his personal death toll had grown at a rapid rate since his arrival.
The beautiful shining car Josh had bought with his signing bonus from the Padres was still running. Like Jeff after him, Josh had gone through a period of disbelief about the travel between worlds and the war and what it all meant. And like Jeff, when he decided he was in, Josh went through an extensive set of preparations at home before coming back to fight, and he had continually tweaked it, trying to perfect his own comfort and safety in the desert.
Part of that effort was sinking thousands of dollars into customizing the Lexus in every way imaginable. It had bulletproof glass and paneling, and the entire frame was reinforced for high-impact driving and collisions. Even the magnificent silver paint job, the thing which had gotten Josh found, contained a special anti-sun, flame-retardant agent to help protect it while he was on revolucion business.
“Get in, Delaney! I’ll take you up. If your car’s not there, we’ll drive until we run out of gas, and when we run out of gas, I’ve got 10 more gallons in the trunk.”
“No way, Josh. You gotta get out while you can. My car is my problem —”
“Fuck that! Get in and let’s go!”
Jeff jumped into the passenger seat still holding his rifle, and although the GPS was already on, it was clear Josh didn’t need it to find his way out of Destinoso. He threw the car into drive and, after a jolt, he got it in gear and slammed the gas pedal. “God! I can’t believe it!” he shouted, steering the car out of the view of the ranch toward the old road, ignoring the blasts and gunshots behind him. “My last night, and I get careless. And look at me!”
The machete must have either missed Josh’s jugular vein or barely grazed it because he was still alive, still alert. If he didn’t get emergency care soon, though, it wouldn’t matter because he would bleed every drop of life out of his body. “I’m gonna be on the DL in the middle of the summer,” he went on. “I’m gonna be screwed. I’ve got a game at 7 tomorrow night!”
“Josh, if you don’t get to the other side and magically land in the parking lot of an emergency room, you might have taken your last at-bat,” Jeff said as the Lexus veered off the road and pulled down a steep path leading into the Rio Vera Canyon and, he hoped, up to his car. The glowing sky over Destinoso sent bands of light through the series of mountain peaks and evergreen treetops above, and the sounds of the scene were still audible.
“Don’t wait on me, Josh. I’m serious, man, you’re gonna die out here,” Jeff said, his hand on the door handle. “Just let me go up on foot. I mean, if my car’s gone, I’m sunk anyway.”
“Not happening,” Josh said calmly, using his left hand to steer the car across the canyon — which was surprisingly calm and quiet, with all of the revolucion trucks still parked in a neat row — and his right to flip and reapply the blood-drenched tourniquet on his neck.
“Jesus, man,” Jeff said, stripping off his sweat-soaked shirt and forcing it into Josh’s hand.
The car zipped across the back end of the canyon and slowly began crawling up the spiraling path. On the rock face down to their right were the reflections of fire, flashes of flame that would be burned into both of their brains forever. About half way up, Jeff realized Josh was breathing in gasps now, leaning his head against the window, and on the most treacherous road conceivable.
“Are you gonna make it or what?” Jeff asked.
“Listen, Delaney. I have no way of knowing if I’m going to make it so don’t ask me,” Simmons moaned as the car wound up into the clearing where the FB had picked up Josh’s trail. “Get up through that brush and pray to God they didn’t find your car too.
“Then we both make it back down the hill real nice like, and we get the hell out.”
As he jumped out and began jogging in the direction of his parking place, Jeff was certain the Celica would be gone or completely trashed. No way they’d found Josh’s car out here and not his. He just knew it. He was so nervous, he began talking quietly to himself, trying to convince himself he’d survive. Paulo had pulled off a masterpiece of an attack and he had little to fear if he could just crawl inside his car and get out of here. Then, he’d really have a decision to make.
“If it’s here, I’m never coming back. I’m going back home and I’m going to set things right with Sandy, the Mets, whoever. I love baseball, and if the car is here, then I’ll definitely, almost definitely, probably, never ever want to come back to this crazy place. Please be here. Please.”
It was there.
For a second, Jeff’s heart sank because he was so scared he wouldn’t see it that he thought at first he didn’t in the dark thicket overlooking the edge of the river bed, but it was there.
He almost cried at the sight of it. He hurried around the side of the car, still terrified the FB might have found it and simply not wanted it. Maybe the doors would be locked or the keys gone, or the GPS, or maybe it was rigged with a bomb. He got in, hands shaking, thinking how odd it felt to be leaving a battlefield in the same car he’d tried to get lucky with Riley in, the car he’d driven since his mid 20s. Before even trying the ignition — his next terrifying hurdle — Jeff pulled the key out and scrambled around to his trunk, the smell of smoke heavy even under the cool rock shelf.
He popped the trunk and, making sure the safety was on, he slid the Springfield rifle into the compartment and lightly shut the trunk lid. With his keys in his left hand, Jeff pulled the Blackhawk out of his waistband with his right. He planned to keep it on his lap until he was sure he was safe. In the few steps he took from the rear of the car back to the driver’s seat, Jeff could not shake the fear of what he thought would happen next, when he slid the key back into the ignition and turned it, and he was right.
The car didn’t start.
Then, after a panicked flurry of attempted restarts, the engine kicked to life, but the headlights and the dashboard lights blinked off after Jeff switched them on, and the car sputtered. Then they flickered and came back on again. “Warren GPS Technology. Welcome.” The GPS, like always, kicked on without being prompted and, like always, it scared the shit out of Jeff.
“If I get out of here, I’m never coming back,” he said aloud again, more confidently, pulling the car slowly out of its hiding place in the rocks. “It was eye-opening, and Paulo was great, taught me a whole new way of looking at things. But this shit is too crazy for me.”
For the first time, Jeff noticed interference on the GPS each time the car’s electricity flickered. The battery must have been dead and the GPS was running solely on the car’s power. Josh looked to be nodding off when Jeff pulled into the clearing and his fading headlights found the silver Lexus, which had black burn marks on its rear end. He stirred and sat up when he saw the lights. Blood was now all over his shoulder and the driver’s seat, but he coolly lowered his window as Jeff pulled up beside him.
“I gotta get flying man. Is your GPS good to go?” Josh asked, words sounding slurred.
“I mean, just select Home 2, or whatever, and go, right?”
“Yeah, but don’t do it until we get back out on the main road where it’s flat.”
“I mean, is there any way I can go with you to make sure you make it?” Jeff asked. “I know, shut up and come on, right?”
Josh didn’t answer. He slid the window closed and led the way back down, and it was a good thing. Every time Jeff’s car hit a bump on the winding road down into the parking lot canyon, the headlights and dash lights and GPS all dimmed in unison. There were moments when Jeff relied solely on Josh’s headlights and taillights to keep from driving off the edge. When they reached the bottom, Josh took off, kicking up gravel into the windshield of the Celica. Since he was forced to slow down, Jeff reached for the GPS, pressed MENU, selected My Trips and highlighted Vacation Home without selecting it.
