72 Hours (A Thriller) (10 page)

CHAPTER 25

The yellow Prius was parked on an unpaved shoulder of the road with its lights off.
 
Soji was inside with a cigarette and his camera.
 
This was wild stuff.
 
He’d never seen anything like it.
 
He had the window down, the camera resting on his forearm as he leaned out.
 
He was parked at the top of Vista Verde Drive.

He had slouched down in his seat as the first wave of the mob arrived like Viking raiders running ashore on foreign soil, having crossed an iron-gray sea to conquer and destroy.
 
The air turned thick with aggression.
 
Gunfire popped through the warm Malibu air before the first vehicles had even reached Vista Verde Drive.
 
It was every man for himself.
 
The hunt for Lindsay Hammond was winner-take-all.

Soji watched as the mob descended upon the hills above Malibu.
 
Swarming across lawns and over fences, breaking down doors, crashing through windows.
 

When the NBC helicopter buzzed overhead, he craned his neck out the window and watched it cruise slowly above the treetops.
 
And when he heard the loudspeaker calling out to Lindsay Hammond, he knew she would make a run for it.
 
He noted the house where the chopper was hovering, and he made some quick mental calculations.
 
The Escalade had nowhere to run.
 
That meant they would leave on foot.
 
And their only option was the wooded acreage behind the house.

Soji opened his laptop on the passenger seat and pulled up a topographical map of Malibu.
 
It was time to play the guessing game.
 
Where would they run to?
 
How best to find them?

He started the motor and made a U-turn in the street.
 
He switched on the headlights, goons with guns crossing through the darkness in front of him to join the bedlam.
 
Soji slipped open his cell and dialed Smackdown to feed him an update.

CHAPTER 26

The woods behind the house were dark and disorienting, even with a full moon hanging in the California night sky.
 
Lindsay fell hard, impacting the ground without benefit of a buffer.
 
She’d not had time or the presence of mind to get her hands down.
 
And her feet were elevated slightly above her head so her right hip absorbed most of the brunt of the fall.
 
The impact jarred her entire body.
 
Rattled her teeth.
 
Her neck snapped back hard.
 
But there was simply not time to acknowledge the pain.
 
Every second she remained on her back on the dirt and pine needles was a second lost to her pursuers.
 

She rolled onto her side.
 
Wyatt and Ramey helped her to her feet.
 

“Hurry…this way!” she whispered sharply.

They entered the wall of darkness.
 
Pines and oaks and maples were impossible to differentiate one from another because the canopy of leaves and boughs sprawling above blotted out all but a minimal glow of celestial light.
 
The terrain sloped away.
 
They scrambled, tumbling.
 
They had no sense of direction except to keep moving downhill.
 
Then they heard the fence rattle behind them in the dark and knew that the first of the pursuers was climbing over.
 
Lindsay knew the slim head start would not last.
 
She pushed through the pain, willing herself forward.
 
Sirens wailed in the distance.
 
Her lungs burned as she gulped breath.

The fence rattled hard in the darkness behind them, again and again, boots and weapons scraping against the wooden slats.

Lindsay had Wyatt and Ramey by the hands.
 
They ran without a path to follow, out of breath and weak with fear, branches and thorny boughs slashing them in the face and throat.
 
And then, suddenly and without warning, the ground fell away beneath them.

CHAPTER 27

Far below the FBI helicopter, the lights of the city shimmered like jewels.
 
Special Agent Kline spent much of the flight to FBI headquarters in Los Angeles talking on his cell, straining to hear the voices on the other end of the line.
 
He touched base with Sperry, who had remained behind at San Quentin.
 

Archer was quickly getting a better understanding of what he was heading into.
 
He pulled his Beretta from the duffel bag, checked that it was loaded, and shoved it down the waistband of his khakis.
 
He hadn’t experienced this level of adrenaline in a long time.
 
Almost five years to be exact.
 
This wasn’t the same thing as catching the perfect wave.
 
This was an altogether different animal.
 

The McDonnell Douglas 530 was en route to 11000 Wilshire Boulevard.
 
FBI headquarters in Los Angeles.
 
A slight twist formed in Archer’s belly.
 
He hadn’t set foot inside 11000 Wilshire Boulevard in years, and his last memories of the place were not pleasant.
 
In fact, his last memories of Special Agent David Kline were not pleasant.
 
He glanced out the window at the city.

The radio headsets crackled as a call was patched through.
 
An agent named Myers was suddenly in their ears.

“Kline, we have James Hammond on the other line,” Myers said.
 
“His ex-wife called.”

Kline glanced over his shoulder at Archer.

Archer met his eye in the surreal light of the cockpit but offered no hint of reaction.

“Put him through,” Kline said.

There was a series of digital tones on the line as the connection was made.

“Mr. Hammond?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Mr. Hammond, this is Special Agent Kline speaking, sir.
 
It’s good to hear from you.”

“Lindsay called about seven minutes ago.
 
She’s still on the line.”

“Can you conference her in with us?”

“Yes, okay.”

A pause, and then another digital tone.

“Lindsay?” James Hammond said.

The voice that responded was barely audible.
 
“I’m here, James.”

“Lindsay, I have Special Agent Kline with the FBI on the line.
 
Do you remember him?”

Silence for a long moment.

“Lindsay?” Hammond said.

The frail whisper returned.
 
“Can’t…can’t talk now.”

Kline took command of the call.
 
“Lindsay, are you in immediate danger?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Kline said.
 
“We understand.
 
Are the kids with you?”

“Yes, they are right here.”

“Good.
 
Can you tell me your present location?”

Silence.

They could hear controlled heavy breathing on the line, but nothing else.

“Lindsay?”

No response.

“Myers, are you working on her cell?” Kline said through the headset mike.

“Affirmative.
 
We are talking to her service provider to get a lock on her location.
 
They are working on the triangulation.
 
Should know something in the next few minutes.”

Radio squawk filled their headsets.

“Lindsay, can you still hear me?” Kline asked.

Again, no response.
 
A few seconds later the line clicked and the call ended.
 
They had lost her.

“She dropped,” Myers said.

“Did you get a trace?”

“Give me a second.”

Archer was replaying her frail, frightened voice in his head.
 
That was the voice of the woman he would be responsible for keeping alive for the next seventy-two hours.
 

Myers was suddenly back on the line.

“Okay.
 
We’ve got a rough location.
 
She’s in Malibu and it looks like all hell has broken loose up there.
 
How far out are you?”

“From downtown?”

“Affirmative.”

Kline glanced at the pilot.

The pilot said, “Ten minutes.”

Kline nodded.
 
He glanced over his shoulder at Archer.
 
“What do you think?”

Archer was breaking it down by time, distance, and speed.
 
“I want to be on the ground in fifteen minutes.
 
She won’t last long on foot on her own, and she can’t protect her kids.
 
From the talk coming over the radio, those hills are turning into a parking lot.
 
The sooner you dump me up there the better.
 
Any deviation is a waste of time.”

“How do you plan to get them out of there?”

Archer glared at him.
 
“Let me worry about that.”

“If that’s the way you want it, I won’t argue.”
 
Kline gestured at the pilot.
 
“Okay, Jimmy, turn it around.”
 
He pinwheeled his index finger in the air.

The pilot acknowledged his orders with a nod of his head.
 
He manipulated the controls, and the McDonnell Douglas banked hard, changing course and buzzing away from the city.

The radio squawked with reports of random gunfire and bodies on the ground in Malibu.
 
The Malibu 911 system was going crazy.
 
Home owners had been shot and homes were on fire.
 
Kline thought it would be a miracle if Lindsay Hammond was still alive by the time Archer got on the ground and found her.

“Seven minutes,” the pilot said.

Kline turned in the forward seat and handed Archer a cell phone.
 
“This has Lindsay Hammond’s cell number already programmed into memory.
 
You’ll have to maintain contact with her to locate her because both of you will likely be constantly on the move.
 
And here,” he said.
 
“Hook this on your ear.”
 
He handed Archer a Bluetooth earpiece.
 
“So you can communicate handsfree.”

Archer frowned at the cell.
 

Kline said, “The cell will also provide me a way to contact you, and vice versa.”

“The instant I drop from this chopper, I’m a ghost.
 
For three days I don’t exist, so don’t waste your time.
 
The woman and the two kids are my only priority.”

Lights from the interior of the cockpit highlighted Kline’s silhouette.
 
He moved on to his next thought.
 
“What about money?”

“What about it?”

“For expenses.”

“There won’t be a lot of expenses where we’re going.”

Kline reached a hand over his shoulder, offering Archer a fold of cash.
 
“A few hundred bucks.
 
Just in case.”

Archer took the money without response and without breaking eye contact.
 
He slid the cash into a pocket of his shirt and buttoned the flap.

“Three minutes,” the pilot said.

Kline stared out the front glass of the chopper.

Archer tilted his head to see out the side.
 
The hills of Malibu rolled into focus to his right, the infinite blue-gray of the Pacific to his left.
 
Ribbons of low-hanging cloud brushed past his window in the slate-colored night.
 
Lights from homes among the lush vegetation dappled the mountainside like stars twinkling in the sky.

They sailed inland a few miles, riding a thermal, following the rise of the mountains.
 
And nearly all at once the spectacle unfolded beneath them.
 
Smoke rose up in twisted columns, carried westward by coastal winds.
 
The chopper dove through a curtain of smoke and made a wide sweep above the treetops that towered over a maze of winding and intersecting streets.

“Good God Almighty,” Kline said under his breath as they thundered over rooftops.
 
“They’re everywhere.”

The streets were alive with movement.
 
Knots of activity silhouetted against the mundane backdrop of paradise, dark figures scurrying in every direction.
 

Archer felt the old juices kicking in, his muscles tensing, his eyes taking on a cool, calculating alertness.

Kline said, “There have got to be hundreds.”

“And it’s just getting started,” Archer said.
 
“This time tomorrow you won’t be able to count them, let alone control them.”