36: A Novel Read online

  Twenty-seven seconds. I reached the turn and swung to the right. Walked past apartment 2E. Thirty seconds and I was passing 2D. At thirty-three seconds I came to a stop directly in front of 2C, glad to note the blinds covering the windows next to the door were tightly drawn. I hadn’t thought about what I’d do if they hadn’t been, but didn’t dwell on the topic.

  Preparing myself, I raised the rifle and aimed at the seam where the door met the jam, two feet above the knob. The instant that door opened, I was going to fire, and follow the bullet into the apartment. My heart was pounding in my ears and I was thankful for the gloves. Sweat was popping out all over and I could feel it trickling out from beneath them and running down my raised arms.

  Forty-four seconds. Sixteen to go. My heart leapt when there was a gasp of shock from my left. Without moving the rifle, I snapped my head around and saw a woman standing in the open door to 2D. Frozen in place, she held a bulging plastic garbage bag in her hand as she stared at me in shock. Shit!

  “Get inside!”

  I hissed the words and a moment later she jumped back and slammed her door. Fuck! She was probably running for the phone to call the cops. And I’d lost count because of the distraction.

  Focusing my racing mind, I maintained aim and waited. And waited. It felt like hours, but was actually less than ten seconds before I heard the deadbolt turn. Leaning forward, I pulled the rifle tight against my shoulder and moved my finger onto the trigger. One second later the knob rattled as it turned, then the door opened.

  As a gap appeared, I saw a form standing in the opening. I didn’t look any higher than the center of the chest. In an instant I verified there wasn’t body armor protecting the target’s vital organs. Then my finger pulled the trigger twice in quick succession and the sound suppressed rifle spat out two quiet rounds.

  The figure fell back, and I paused to check the target behind him. Seeing the next man, I went into motion. Hitting the door with my shoulder I bulled into the room, putting three rounds into the man who had been following the one who’d opened the door. Absently noting both of them falling to the floor, I kicked the door shut behind me and swiveled the rifle, keeping it in perfect sync with my eyes.

  Four more rounds and two more bodies hit the floor. Half way done. Still turning, I fired as one of the faces I’d memorized as a pistol carrier came into view. He was tearing at his shirt, trying to draw his weapon as a single round punched through his forehead. Five down.

  A man was in the kitchen, yanking open a cabinet. Trying to reach a weapon? I didn’t wait to find out. He was turned away from me and I shot him in the back of the head. Six.

  I was out of targets. Where were the other two? Moving fast, I headed down the hall for the master bedroom. The rifle was up and I quickly swiveled it to the side before I passed the kitchen to make sure someone wasn’t on the floor, waiting for me to show myself. Only the body I’d put there.

  Refocused on the hall, I moved quickly to the master bedroom door, which was closed. Shifting, I put my back against the opposite wall and paused a beat. Listening. Loud music was coming from the other side of the cheap, hollow core slab. So far I’d been the only one firing a weapon, and the suppressor had done a good job of keeping things quiet.

  Not that the rifle was completely silent, but as I stood there listening I doubted anyone in the room could have heard the muted report over the thumping stereo. That surprised me, but maybe it was my own cultural bias. I hadn’t expected radical jihadists to be listening to American music. But what the hell do I know?

  Raising my leg, I lashed out with my foot, striking the flimsy door next to the knob. The thin layers of fake wood shattered as it sprang open and I lunged forward, rifle up, seeking a target. And immediately spotted two of them. The woman I’d seen in my briefing, Janice Bass, was scrambling across the bed, trying to conceal her nudity with a thin sheet.

  I assessed and dismissed her as a threat in a heartbeat, turning to track a bare, brown ass as the terrorist who had apparently been screwing her dove for the closet. I fired twice, putting a round into a hairy butt cheek and his lower back. He flopped to the floor, paralyzed by the second shot. I adjusted aim and drilled a bullet through his skull.

  Whipping back around I aimed at the obese woman cowering in the bed and paused. I clearly remembered being instructed to consider her a threat if she was in the apartment, but it was hard to send a round into her pasty white, terrified face. Until she pulled harder on the covers and a pistol slipped into view.

  She froze for an instant, eyes darting between me and the weapon. I could see her thinking. Calculating. Deciding if she could make it.

  “Don’t do it,” I said.

  My voice galvanized her into action and she made a clumsy grab for the gun. I fired a single round that ended her life.

  As I’d moved into the room, I stepped away from the open door so there wasn’t as great a risk of someone coming in behind me. Now, I had a good view of the bathroom and closet, both doors standing wide open. The closet was clear and unless someone was in the tub, the bath was clear, too. But I had to check before I moved on. The leader of this merry little band was still unaccounted for.

  I was halfway across the room when a metallic clatter caused me to spin around. It had come from the tiny balcony, right outside a sliding glass door which was wide open, filmy curtains blowing gently in an evening breeze. The noise came again and I rushed to the open door and peeked around the edge.

  A portable, emergency escape ladder hung from the metal railing surrounding the balcony. It was bouncing against the top rail, creating the noise, as someone climbed down. Stepping out I looked over as a man reached the ground and raced away along the length of the building.

  Raising my rifle, I tried to get a shot, but there were too many trees that quickly blocked my sight line. Cursing, I slung the rifle and swung over the railing, scampering down the narrow, folding ladder. I dropped the final few feet and immediately began running after the escaping terrorist.

  Pulling the rifle around so it was in my hands and ready, I pushed hard, thankful for all the mind-numbingly boring hours I’d spent on the treadmill. Without them, I would have been moving slower and knew I’d be tiring quickly.

  Ahead, I saw a running figure dash out from behind some bushes and into the parking lot. Seeing where he was heading, I angled away from the building and cut between two parked cars. Within a few seconds I closed half the lead he had gained. I had the angle on him and when he passed under a streetlight I got a good enough look to recognize the leader.

  Running a few more paces, I skidded to a stop against the trunk of an aging Chevy and threw my upper body across it. The rifle came down and I stretched forward, putting myself into a stabilized shooting stance. It only took a second to find the runner in the scope. Tracking him, I gave it a couple more seconds to adjust my lead and compensate for his speed.

  He was naked and barefoot, running with long strides across the flat asphalt. For a beat, I thought about the significance of the two terrorists in the bedroom with the girl, all of them in a state of undress. Not liking the mental image, I exhaled and pulled the trigger.

  A heartbeat later the man went loose limbed and tumbled to the pavement, rolling to a halt against the front tire of a Nissan pickup. Keeping the rifle aimed, I stood and ran forward, firing two more rounds into his body as I approached. I walked the rest of the way and looked down.

  With the toe of my shoe, I hooked under his shoulder and rolled him over. The rifle was aimed, my finger on the trigger, but I didn’t need to fire. Lifeless eyes stared at the dark sky above.

  Lowering the rifle, I looked around. Didn’t see anyone, but did spot a couple of security cameras mounted high up on light poles. So much for keeping this quiet. Even if I moved the body, there was a recording of what had happened in the parking lot.

  But, if there was no reason for anyone to look, maybe I could still pull it off. Slinging the rifle, I bent to gather the corpse into my a
rms. I intended to haul it back into the apartment, but stopped and looked around when I heard a faint siren. I listened for a couple of seconds, and it was definitely getting closer, coming at a fast clip.

  With no time to clean up, I ignored the body at my feet and stood. Was it too late to make a clean getaway? With all these weapons, yes. Cops were probably about to flood into the area. Remembering what I’d been told, that the weapons would come with me when I snapped back to real time, I began pulling them off and dumping them on the ground next to the dead man.

  I debated keeping a pistol, but there were now multiple sirens closing quickly. The cops were going to want to search anyone out and moving, and I didn’t want them to find a weapon on me. Dropping the pistols and all of my knives, stun gun and baton, I quickly shrugged out of the vest and body armor, pulled off my gloves and tossed everything onto the corpse.

  Weaponless, I turned to run for the sidewalk, pausing when I remembered the mask. Ripping it off my head, I threw it to the ground and headed away from the scene with my face lowered away from the view of the cameras. All I had left was the small pack that held the phone and iPad.

  Stepping onto the sidewalk, I saw two police cruisers roar around a corner, lights flashing and sirens blaring. Three more appeared from a side street a moment later. One of them saw me and a spotlight lanced out and lit me up, blinding me. I jumped when a hand slipped into mine, nearly hitting Julie before I recognized her.

  “You’d better tell me your name before they start asking who we are,” she said as the first police car screeched to a stop in the street next to us.

  “JR Whitman,” I said, wondering why the hell she was putting herself at risk to help me.

  27

  “Officer, we heard gun shots! And there’s someone on the ground, right over there!”

  Julie moved towards the patrol car, dragging me along by the hand as a cop that looked too young to have even started shaving stepped onto the street. He already had his weapon out, and I was glad to see it was pointed at the ground and not us. With his free hand he reached up and pressed the transmit button on the radio clipped to his shoulder, tilting his head sideways to speak into it.

  “Where?” He asked when he finished talking into the microphone.

  “Right over there, on the other side of that truck. We were walking by and saw him and some guns and were running inside to call you.”

  While she was speaking, two more cruisers screamed up and pulled to a stop, completely blocking the street. The drivers jumped out, one of them with a pistol in his hand, the other a rifle. The first cop to arrive spoke to them briefly, pointing in the direction Julie had indicated.

  “Get behind my car and stay put,” he said to us.

  We moved forward as the three cops spread out and began walking towards the body of the man I’d killed. It was only about fifty yards away and wouldn’t take them long to find. It, and the pile of weapons, and they would quickly realize we weren’t what we seemed.

  I looked up and down the street. More cop cars were arriving, blocking intersections. I could see darkly dressed figures running, converging on the parking lot. At the moment, no one was paying any attention to us, but that wouldn’t last long.

  The three cops were halfway there, weapons up and trained ahead. Their full attention was focused on what was ahead of them, and I had no doubt the others were racing to back them up. I took another quick look around. No one was watching us.

  “Let’s go,” I hissed, tugging Julie’s hand as I headed across the street for a darker residential area.

  She didn’t resist. Maintaining her grip on my hand, she ran next to me. We made it across the main street without any of the cops shouting for us to stop. The new road ran a short distance then branched out as it fed into the neighborhood. Twenty seconds later we were around the closest turn and concealed from the main area of activity.

  But there was no time to relax. A helicopter would be on the way. And more cops. Probably K9 units that could track us by scent. And my scent was all over the gear I’d left behind. We needed a vehicle, and we needed one fast. Had to get out of the area before it was completely shut down.

  I didn’t want to get caught, but it wasn’t the end of the world if I was. The Universe would solve that problem by sending me back to real time in a few hours. But for some unfathomable reason, Julie had stuck her neck out for me and gotten involved. If she was caught, she didn’t have a get out jail free card.

  We were walking fast, moving down the sidewalk through the quiet neighborhood. Most of the front windows of the small, working class houses were lit with the blue light of a television screen. Everyone was inside, glued to whatever program they liked to watch.

  My heart skipped a beat when headlights turned out of a side street a few houses ahead of us. I expected to see a police cruiser and was ready to make a dash for a backyard. But it wasn’t a cop. It was an older Kia SUV and it pulled into a driveway two houses away.

  I stopped, holding Julie back, and watched. After what seemed like a long wait, a heavyset woman stepped out and walked to the back of the vehicle. She stuck a key into the hatch gate, turned it and moved back as it slowly rose. Leaning in, she gathered several grocery bags and headed for the front door of the house. The keys were still in the hatch lock.

  “Stay close,” I whispered, moving forward as the woman fumbled with the front door.

  She either didn’t lock her house, which I highly doubted in the LA area, or there was someone home. Either way, she got the door open without her keys and stepped through. We had already covered half the distance, and as soon as she was out of sight I sprinted forward, Julie on my heels.

  Slamming the hatch, I grabbed the keys, ran around the side of the SUV and jumped behind the wheel. There were more groceries in back and the owner would be stepping out the front door any second. Jamming the key in the ignition, I started the engine as Julie jumped in the passenger seat.

  “Hey!”

  I looked up to see the woman staring in surprise from the front porch. Yanking the gear selector into reverse, I stomped on the gas and screeched out of the driveway into the street. The Kia was still rolling backwards when I shifted to drive and floored the throttle. Tires screamed, then we were moving.

  I took the first turn we came to, roaring down another dark, quiet street. Ahead, I could see a stop sign and the steady flow of cross traffic on a better lit thoroughfare. Searching the dash, I found the light switch and turned it on, coming to a fast stop at what seemed to be a major boulevard.

  “Three minutes at best,” I said to myself.

  “Three minutes what?” Julie asked. I guess I’d said it aloud, too.

  “Three minutes. She’s probably on the phone with 9-1-1 right now. It won’t take them long to connect the stolen vehicle with the scene at the apartments, then every cop in California is going to be looking for this thing. We’ve got to dump it quick.”

  There was the sound of a helicopter in the night sky as I finished speaking. Sticking my head out the open window, I looked up. It was easy to locate, a brilliant spotlight stabbing down not too far behind us. Probably lighting up the parking lot where the body was.

  There was a break in traffic and I made a left, turning to open some more distance between us and the cops. I pushed the small engine hard, not worrying about being pulled over for speeding. All the cops in the area were busy at the moment.

  “Use the hem of your shirt and wipe down any place you’ve touched,” I said to Julie. “We’re going to ditch this in a minute and I don’t want them finding your prints.”

  She looked at me for a beat. Maybe the reality of what she’d gotten involved with was sinking in. Maybe not. Before I had to tell her again, she grabbed the edge of the baggy shirt and started wiping every surface on her side of the vehicle.

  “What about you?” she asked as she worked.

  Shit! I hadn’t been thinking. I’d taken the gloves off, and now I was creating evidence that woul
d be left behind.

  Ahead I saw a large grocery store, probably the one the woman had just come from, and turned into the parking lot. It was big, and I drove to a point farthest from the street and the store entrance before parking. Ripping my T-shirt over my head, I frantically wiped down the wheel, gear shift and every other surface I could have possibly touched.

  Jumping out, I took the keys with me and wiped each one before tossing the ring under the SUV. I cleaned the exterior door handle, then ran to the back and wiped a large area around where the keys had been hanging.

  “Did you get your door handle?”

  “Yes,” Julie said, coming to stand next to me.

  I pulled my shirt back on and took her hand, walking slowly towards the street.

  “What are we doing?” She asked.

  “Busy road and there’s lots of pedestrian traffic. For the moment we’re blending in until I can find us a place to lay up for a few hours.”

  Julie didn’t say anything else, just held my hand tightly and stayed right against my side as we stepped onto the sidewalk. It was early evening, and there were a lot of people moving. Shopping, going to dinner, stopping in at their favorite bar. For the moment we were OK, but there was probably a dash cam in that first patrol car that had captured our faces.

  How long would it take the cops to broadcast the images to every law enforcement officer in the state? I didn’t have a clue. But I was going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it would be fast. I’d gotten a good amount of training on the technology boom that had occurred while I was in prison. Once I got over my amazement, I realized just how much easier it was for the authorities to locate someone than it had been even a decade ago.

  With that thought in mind, I knew we had to get off the streets. Fast. But where? While I tried to answer that, I kept us moving. We weren’t running, but we weren’t strolling either. Just walking at a reasonably fast pace that covered a lot of ground.