Earth's Survivors, page 125
She had been the one person he truly trusted. The one person he truly loved. And she had turned, or... Or he didn't know. Could April Evans have somehow turned the tables on her? Nikki? He himself had taught Nikki how to use a knife: A gun; her hands. He just couldn't believe some white trash trailer park girl would stand a chance of any kind against her.
A car slowed, turned around and then cruised by the lot checking it out as it drove by. It had only been a glimpse, but he had seen who it was. Jimmy West. Tommy had sent Jimmy to take care of things and here he was about to finish the job; about to clean it all up.
Now he had a choice to make. Step in now or later. He might be able to get all three if he stepped into it now, or he might end up with only one, if they split up he could not follow all of them.
Jimmy was good. He might, if Ben left him alone, take care of both of them. Then Ben could simply come along, relieve him of the virus and disappear him. If Tommy looked for anyone after that it would be Jimmy, not Ben. It might even be a better plan all the way around. But could he let go of her that easily? If it was Nikki?
The car came back, slowed: Pulled into the driveway and drove out back. He'd have to decide now, he told himself.
Sammy and Don
Don listened.
"Don't hang up," he said at last. "I want to tell you something first. I can fix this for you, April. I can do that. I never believed that Billy or you were truly involved in this of your own will. It was circumstances, April, I know that. I can even get the news to stop saying negative things about you. I can make that happen, but before that happens you have to know something. Ronnie Lee Sipos is dead. I just talked to a cop who spent his morning pulling his body out of a swamp. Will you please hear me out, April? Let me say all of this and if you want to hang up go ahead, but I want to give you some important information to keep you alive. I'm the guy that can do that for you. Will you listen? Promise me, April, will you?" Don asked.
Sammy had perked up as soon as he'd heard the name April. He knew who Don was on the phone with. He had no idea how Don had pulled that off, but he had.
"Okay. I'm not saying I'll buy it, but I'll listen," April said.
Ben Neo
'In for a penny in for a pound,' Ben thought. He'd scoped out the area back behind the Burger Joint. It backed up to the loading docks for a huge computer discount place called Data Terminal. It was really only a 6 foot high board fence that separated the two places. But to drive from the Burger Joint to the Data Terminal would take 10 to 20 minutes depending on the traffic. He looked at the fence and he was positive he could scale it in back of the dumpsters where the raised lid would keep him from view: Drop down, do what he had to do and liberate the money and the virus. Leave the drugs for the cops to find. He had a briefcase with him that would hold the virus. Jimmy could get dead easy enough and the whole thing, all the suspicion that might have fallen to him, would fall on Jimmy instead. He could leave the rest of the mess for the cops to clean up.
He started the car and headed for Data Terminal. The traffic was light; he should be there before they got much of a conversation going.
Sammy and Don
Sammy listened.
Don continued. "First, I know you've been trying to unload the drugs, we know about Dean. He's dead, you know, him and his girlfriend. They even killed his two young daughters. I figure Dean set you up to make a deal with Ronnie lee, but Ronnie lee is also dead: And a young girl too, nearly a second young girl; most likely the same guy that killed Dean, his girlfriend and daughters, the same guy that killed Alice, April. And he wants you. He's looking to get what you have. That stuff was stolen from two different organizations. And they both want what's theirs back: One the money; the other the drugs. It's a mystery. They're looking for you. There's fifty grand on each of your heads. No conditions, alive or dead." Don sighed. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.
"April, let me come get the two of you. You can get a good lawyer and walk away from this. I'd bet that you won't see any charges against you at all... Maybe Billy, but you can both explain how you had to run. You had to, to stay alive. With all these people after you, you had no choice. I'm sure you'll walk. Hell, probably Billy will walk too, but if this guy gets to you he'll kill you both, April. He'll kill you both," Don said.
Jimmy West
Jimmy pulled close to the back of the Burger Joint, and stopped. He was not about to get himself trapped in there. He had to be ready. A hundred feet and a left turn would take him behind the building, but that would have to wait. Right now he had to handle the pain. He could only afford a little bump: Just enough to take the edge off. He fumbled his kit out, fixed himself a small shot and put it to work: As small as it was it nearly put him out anyway. He took six of the little red pills on top of it and dry swallowed them. He sat and waited for those to work. About ten minutes and they would kick in. He needed a clearer head. He needed the pain leveled out, but he needed to be able to think too. He sat and waited.
Billy Jingo
She covered the phone with her hand. "He says Ronnie Lee is dead. He thinks the same psycho that killed Dean and his family is coming after you and me. He says it's a set up," April told Billy.
Ben Neo
A tractor trailer was backed into the loading dock. There was no way to get close enough to go over the fence. He jumped from the car and ran quickly to the fence. All quiet, but this was not going to work out. In fact if he'd been in here, where he had wanted to be, he would have been stuck. He cursed his luck as he jumped back into the Taurus, punched the gas pedal, and slipped around the front of a pickup that had pulled into the back area as he had been checking the fence. Maybe it was a little too open after all, he thought. He hurried back out of the Data Terminal's parking lot and onto the main road: As he picked up speed his phone rang.
Sammy and Don
"Hold on... Hold on," Don got the car to the side of the road. "Tell me and I'll be there. Just tell me... What... I can't do that... You know that... I... You leave the drugs and I'll let the two of you go. I'll let you drive away. That's all... That's all, April. I'm a cop. That's my ass right there... Leave them and drive away. That's all I can give you... I don't care about the money... From what we heard it's not enough to cause that big of an uproar. If I have the drugs to show and that psycho, that's a lot to me... Do you have it? April, don't you deny it; you have my word that I can fix this for both of you or let you go: My word. Now, do you have it?" Don asked again. He listened, hurriedly snatched his pad out of his pocket and wrote on it. He turned in his seat to see how far he was from the exit number she had just given him. Two, he saw, and he was already pointing in the right direction. He shot the car into drive, cut off two cars as he shot out onto the roadway and headed for the Burger Joint. "I'm on my way... Stay in the car, April, I'm on my way." Don said.
Billy Jingo
"Fuck," April said, "I lost him. He got cut off. He may not have heard how to get here," she said.
"Calm down, baby," Billy said. "Call them back: Probably just lost the connection."
"Here," April said. She pulled two guns out from under the seat and gave him one. "It's loaded. Just in case that psycho gets here before the cop," she said.
Billy looked at the gun, flicked off the safety and watched the mouth of the alley the car would have to turn into.
April punched the number in and listened to it ring.
"Yeah?" Ben asked warily. He listened, then folded the phone and tossed it onto the seat. The smile that had been missing came up on his lips and loosened his face up a little. He punched the gas and headed back as fast as he could get the car to move.
April smiled and closed the phone. "I got him, he's on the way," she said.
"April," Billy said softly. "Why after all of this are we suddenly giving up?" Billy asked. "Why not just drive out of this lot and go?"
"You're sweet, Billy." April frowned. She looked at him. "But you're not too bright." She bought the gun up and pointed it at him. "Billy, Neo is coming too... Ben Neo didn't die in that car. That body wasn't his, complicated, but true... The cop is crooked: He probably only wants to fuck me and then take the money; he'd say anything to get me to give it up. But, see, he fucked Neo over. And so Neo has to take care of him. The second call I just made was to Neo, not the cop. I knew he was around. I left him enough goddamn clues, including you buying a truck in his name. And who else but me could make you look like him? So I knew he was around… Remember that guy that I told you was stalking me? Driving around that parking lot checking me out? Well I lied… It was Neo. We sat right here in this car and talked everything out while you were inside. He's coming back now,” she frowned deeply. “He'll kill you, Billy, he'll have to. And he won't be happy with me if he finds out I actually fucked you. So I'll do it now. It'll be better for you, Billy. Really it will. Don't hate me, Billy,” she said. She pressed the gun against the middle of his forehead.
“You're not April,” Billy said.
"Nope: Killed the little bitch the day before when she walked up on me hiding in the woods: Crazy bitch; I made her tell me all about her life before I did it though... She had a thing for you, Billy... I guess you didn't know, but she did,” she shrugged her shoulders and fixed him with her eyes. She smiled sadly, and then the smile slipped away, a grim frown replaced it. “Nothing personal, Billy; same as this.”
She pulled the trigger. The gun clicked.
Billy smiled, lifted his own gun and shot her between the eyes. Her head bounced off the side glass and it shattered.
He looked at her. “I switched clips... Baby. Guess I'm not as stupid as you thought.” He reached over, pulled the keys from the switch and walked calmly around to the trunk. He unlocked it, pulled the two pink backpacks out and slipped one over his shoulders. The second one he held onto by the straps. He looked around: Spotted the six foot fence behind the dumpster and headed for it. A few seconds later he was on the other side of the fence, running past the end of a tractor trailer.
Sammy and Don
Don forced himself to pull into the parking lot slowly. He passed a car whose driver looked to be passed out, rounded the end of the building and swung out past where the dumpster sat.
At first the Camaro looked fine, but then he saw the glass and blood on the driver's side of the car. He stopped the car and jumped out: Sammy coming out of his side at the same time. He looked through the open passenger door at the girl's body, slumped against the door. The back of her head was gone. A small, blood-spattered hole in her forehead. One eye stared, sightless: The other was closed. His eyes went to the ignition switch, empty, he saw. Sammy passed by on his way toward the back of the car.
"Somebody killed her," Don said as he came to the back of the car. The trunk lid was up and a blue duffel bag rested inside on the floor. Two large taped bags of pot sat close to it. "We got it," Don said.
He looked up into the barrel of Sammy's gun.
I got it," Sammy said. He fired and Don fell backwards. Sammy hurried back, got the keys from the rental car, unlocked the trunk and then hurried to load the two huge bags of pot and the blue duffel bag. He had held that same goddamn bag in his hands just nights before, and a few thousand miles back, and he'd lost it. He had it now though. He threw the bags into the back of the rental car, straightened up to slam the trunk lid home and the man was right in front of him: Leaned against the side of the car: His gun up and aimed at Sammy.
"You killed her," the man said. "Why?"
"Hey... Hey," Sammy said, "Easy... I'm a cop... You don't want to..." The guy bought his gun up and shot Sammy twice in the chest.
"That's for killing her you fuck. You bastard," Neo said. He stood for a second looking down at him. In the background he could hear sirens growing closer, he had to move. He had to go. He turned and walked right into Jimmy's gun. He bought his own gun up and fired once before the two rounds from Jimmy's gun took him down. He found himself on the pavement staring at a small white stone that was caught in the tread of the back tire of the car the cop had been driving. He blinked. He blinked again and then closed his eyes.
Jimmy took two steps back and sat down hard. The pain was incredible again: The shoulder and now his chest too. He fumbled his kit out and got the syringe ready. He could do it. He would do it he told himself. A second later he found himself looking up into the clear blue sky. No clouds... He was... He was going to do something, but it seemed unimportant now: Like it truly didn't matter. He swallowed. He could taste blood in his throat. He tried to bring his good arm up to shade his eyes, but it stopped halfway up and then slowly sank back down to the pavement.
Sergeant Alice Tetto
There were sirens screaming, the cops couldn't be far behind. Alice pushed the dead trucker to one side and jumped down from the tractor trailer: She ran at the fence. She had tracked Ben Neo halfway across the country. It had started as a game: Kohlson had put her on to him, one of the last bits of information he had given up. Ben Neo was a curious man who wanted to know more about things that he had no business knowing about in the first place. Kohlson had spilled his guts for a few beers and a little money. She had begun to watch Neo after that, hoping to find the missing virus and the REX agent. After all, if he was looking for the same items, she may as well let him do the work for her.
She had bugged his cars in Rochester, and she had been more than a little surprised when both of them had left for Watertown the previous Thursday. The one had sat seemingly abandoned, hidden off Lott road since early Thursday morning. The other had hovered around the public park, waiting for something it seemed. She had been unsure, but she had finally made the trip out Lott road early Friday morning and found the car hidden on one of the service roads. She had waited, the girl had come and gone, making her sure that something was happening.
When late morning rolled around and nothing had seemed to happen she had nearly written it off. She had decided to get the bug back, electronics were expensive, they were also inventoried, and just maybe he was dumping the car: By that time she had a pretty good idea what Ben Neo did for a living. She had nearly made up her mind when the second car had suddenly begun tracking in the same direction. To her way of thinking there was only one reason for that, to ditch the first car and pick up the second car. Had to be, but as she had made her way through the woods on foot, she had happened along just in time to see the touching scene between Nikki Moore and Ben Neo in the panicked moments right after the crash. It had nicely filled in the balance of the picture for her.
She had not had the name to put with the girl at that point, but she had figured out fast enough that the girl was the one on the run with Jingo. She had also yet to lay her eyes on the items, but she felt satisfied that if Neo was chasing along behind the girl, it was safe to assume the girl had the items.
She made the fence and lunged for the top, the rubber soles of her boots digging into the weathered wood surface of the boards. She had heard gun shots from the other side as she had jumped from the tractor cab: She wouldn't be far behind those shots, whatever they had meant. She had seen the kid jump from the top of the fence, but she could have cared less about him. What he had been carrying was not what she needed.
She had tracked Neo from New York to Alabama. One long drive, he had driven as though he had known exactly where he was going, and maybe he had: Maybe the girl had been in communication with him, she didn't know. She had simply kept him in range and the satellite linkup had done the rest. Military tech toys: They could be great at times, but she had accidentally followed him into the back lot of the Computer Depot and she had been afraid that he had caught her tailing him, but his eyes had swept over her as if she hadn't existed. She had parked as though she had every right in the world to be there and then she had strolled casually over to the fence to see what had bought him there. She had seen all she needed to see through a small knothole in a warped board before the trucker had interrupted her with a friendly hello. Bad luck for him. She had a motto she lived by. A dead witness was a good witness. She had followed him back to the cab with a promise of a better look at her. It was funny how easily a woman could tempt a man into an untenable situation.
A quick chop to the throat and the trucker had folded. She had slit his throat afterwards to be sure. She had just been about to jump down from the cab when the kid had sailed over the fence like a pole vaulter. Lucky for him she had not been on the ground and in view. She had checked herself, waited the split second while he cleared the back of the rig, and then dropped to the ground on a hard run for the same fence.
She scaled the fence in less than a second and easily dropped to the ground from the top. She pulled her knife from her sheath, letting it travel restlessly from hand to hand as she stood to her full height. The place looked like a war zone. The car nearby, the girl, obviously dead; the rental car the cops had been driving, and the car Jimmy West had been in.
She tried the Camaro first. The trunk lid was up and the space empty. The sirens were screaming in her ears now, but she forced herself to remain calm. She ran toward Jimmy West's rental car, but stopped at the car the two cops had been driving instead when she saw the lid up and the two bags shoved partway into the small trunk space. In a few seconds she had the knife plunged deeply into both bags. She felt the resistance in the first bag, ripped savagely, pot flying out of the trunk to the ground: Two silver cases slid forward onto the floor of the trunk. A moment later and the last case was freed from the second bag. A few seconds after that and she was launching herself from the top of the fence as somewhere behind her a deep voice had screamed at her to freeze. She felt the bullet graze her shoulder before she heard the shot. A split second later she was on the ground rolling, and then running for her life around the tail end of the tractor trailer.
She made her truck, threw herself inside, and less than a minute later she was blending into traffic on Airport boulevard, watching the police cars streaming into the area from all directions. A glance in the rear-view showed her, her wound: Torn at the shoulder level, a small patch of blood seeping into her blouse. She reached down, retrieved her jacket from the seat and shrugged it over her shoulders hiding the wound from view. She made the turn off for I 65 calmly, signaled and left the jammed traffic behind her as she came up to speed.
