72 Hours (A Thriller) (43 page)

Kline was belted in, suspended by his restraints above Dunbar.

Kline struggled to grab for his Glock but his arms were pinned.
 
He turned his head so that he could see Dunbar.

Dunbar twisted around to face him, blood streaming down his face where a gash had opened up on his forehead.
 
He licked blood off his lip with a flick of his tongue and smiled up at Kline.

“Hell of a day to be you, Kline,” Dunbar said.

The driver was struggling to free himself from his seatbelt.
 
But suddenly the car quit spinning and the window above the driver’s head imploded, the barrel of a shotgun being smashed through it.

The driver had only enough time to close his eyes in anticipation of death before his brains were sprayed all over the interior of the car.

Kline fought to release the catch on his seat belt.
 
Finally got a hand on his Glock.
 
Pulled it from the holster under his coat.
 
Too late.

“Drop it now!” a voice above him shouted.

Kline twisted his face up to look.
 
The muzzle of the shotgun was half an inch away from the bridge of his nose.
 
He could smell the hot stench of cordite.
 
Realized this was the moment his entire life had led up to.
 
Realized he had indeed failed to fulfill his promise to Sidney and Robin.
 
Realized that Dunbar had found a way to beat him.

Kline dropped the Glock.
 
The gun rattled down against the door where Blackwell lay dead.
 
Then he closed his eyes and pushed away his fear of the inevitable.

But the gunman simply cracked him in the side of the head with the rock hard muzzle of the shotgun, Kline’s head whipping ferociously to one side.
 
There was a millisecond of horrific, mind-bending pain, and then there was only blackness.

CHAPTER 115

The Chevy pickup rattled up alongside the open door of the white Kia minivan.
 
Noella Chu shut the engine and heaved open her door.
 
A swell of dust swept past her.
 
She held the Walther at her side.
 
She stood among the triangle formed by the parked vehicles.
 

Noella Chu stood still a moment, studying the scene of carnage she had created.
 
Her eyes flicked from the body of the kid with the greasy hair to the body of Ryan Archer.
 
She approached the bodies.

Most of the kid’s head was gone.
 
A direct hit.
 
He never felt a thing.
 
The lights simply went out and he was sent surfing through the crazy waters of the afterlife.
 

Archer was sprawled facedown on the packed dirt.
 
Blood from his head had turned the ground black.
 
She sighted down the Walther at him, kicked at his leg.
 
Pressed the heel of her shoe into his kidney.
 
Crouched down near his head.
 
Noticed that the blood had come from his nose.
 
Probably broke it when he hit the ground, she guessed.

She remained unimpressed by Ryan Archer.
 
She had expected more.
 
More of a fight.
 
More of a challenge.
 
She shook her head in disappointment.

Then she stood and turned her gaze toward the church a hundred yards out.
 
Took one step away from Archer’s head.

Something stopped her.
 
Something had clamped around her ankle.
 

In the next instant she felt her legs jerk out from under her.
 
She hit the ground hard, the Walther clattering away and out of reach.
 
Felt the big hands clawing up her legs.
 
She twisted onto her back and saw Archer’s blood-smeared face looming over her.

Noella Chu gasped, manically kicking at him with both her legs.
 
She hissed at him.

“GETOFFME!”

Archer drilled a fist into her ribs.

She clawed at him, digging her fingernails into the soft flesh of his face.

“Get OFF!” she hissed again.

Archer pounded her with another blow from his fist.
 
Then he lunged for her throat.

She twisted out from beneath him and scrambled across the dirt on her hands and knees, clawing toward her gun.
 
She reached out and touched the barrel.

Archer pounced again.
 
He crashed down on top of her from behind and hooked the crook of his arm around her throat and clamped down against her windpipe.

Noella Chu pulled a knife from a sheath strapped to her lower leg and slashed into Archer’s thigh.
 
Then she bucked him off and got to her feet.
 
She twisted to one side and spun, catching him in the side of the head with a roundhouse kick.

Archer went down on his shoulder.
 
Blinked blood from his eyes and raised his head.

Noella Chu had already reset and was coming at him from the opposite direction with a similar move.

This time, Archer blocked the kick with his forearm and brought her down hard onto the road.

She sprang up to grab him, but he slammed her in the larynx with a hard right.

Noella Chu collapsed, coughing, holding her throat.

Archer staggered to his feet, spotted her knife in the dirt and scooped it up.

Noella Chu was floundering about on her back, wheezing, desperate to catch her breath.

Archer pinned her to the ground by pressing his knee down on her chest.
 
Then he cut her throat wide open with the blade of her knife, slicing her ear to ear.
 
Her eyes rolled back in her head as she quickly began the tortuous process of suffocating, drowning in her own blood.

“Suck on that awhile,” he said.

She clutched both hands to her ruined throat, sucked for breath that wouldn’t come.
 
A moment later she grew still, her mouth gaping like a fish swept onto dry land by the cruel tide, eyes staring vacantly up at the sky.

Archer pitched the Walther and the knife out across the withered desert scrub, and then retrieved his Beretta.
 
He rested his weight against the fender of the Hummer and took a moment to get his wind back.
 
He pressed a hand to the gash in his thigh.
 

He staggered to the white van and opened the rear door.
 
No sign of Penny.
 
The van was empty.
 
He turned for the Chevy truck.
 
Approached it on foot with caution.
 
Glanced through the side glass smudged with dust.
 
No one inside.
 
Then he spotted the lumpy blue tarpaulin in the back.

Archer dropped the tailgate and lifted himself into the bed.
 
He threw the tarp aside.
 
Penny Lockwood lay slumped facedown before him.
 
She groaned.
 
She was alive.

“Penny, can you hear me?”

She groaned again.
 
Her eyelids fluttered.
 
She managed to squint up at him against the stark morning light.

“It’s over,” he told her.

She was clearly in a lot of pain, but she still managed to produce a small smile.

“Archer?” she whispered.

He nodded.
 
“That’s right.”

He carried her to the Hummer and placed her gently inside.

“Where are my brothers?” she asked.

Archer ducked the question.

“You’re going to be fine,” he assured her.

He shut the door and climbed in behind the wheel.
     

Archer drove the Hummer up to the steps of the church and limped inside.

Lindsay was cowering in a corner of the building, the furthest point from the open front door.
 
She rushed into his arms.

“Oh my God,” she said.
 
“I thought you were dead.”

Archer pulled open his shirt.
 
Revealed the Kevlar vest underneath.
 
Showed her the deep impression on the vest where the rifle bullet had struck him.

“A few more inches toward my head and I wouldn’t be standing here talking to you,” he said.

“Where is she, the assassin?” Lindsay asked.

“She’s dead.”

“Are you sure?”

Archer nodded.
 
“Most definitely,” he said.

CHAPTER 116

Almost exactly thirty-six hours before his scheduled execution, Gaston Dunbar was a free man.
 
He was pulled from the wreckage by one of the men in jumpsuits and directed to a waiting truck.
 
Already sirens could be heard wailing in the distance.

Dunbar pulled the door open and climbed in.
 
The man behind the wheel wore a jumpsuit and crash helmet, with an AK47 resting on the seat between them.

“Go!” Dunbar said.

As the big truck passed into the shadows beneath the Hollywood Freeway, Dunbar spotted his next ride – a Mercedes idling alongside the flow of traffic.
 
The truck slowed to a stop beside the German sedan and Dunbar dropped to the street and scrabbled into the backseat of the car.
 
The truck rumbled away.

The Mercedes tooled through several intersections before sliding onto West Sunset Boulevard.
 

Dunbar unzipped a garment bag and removed an Armani suit.
 
He dressed quickly, and in a matter of minutes he had been transformed yet again.
 
He tore off the wig and the beard and snipped off his ponytail with a pair of scissors.
 
Dunbar completed his ensemble with a pair of dark designer sunglasses.
 

“Is the plane ready?” he asked.

The driver nodded.

There was a thick oversize envelope on the seat beside him.
 
He briefly rifled through the cache of forged documents and passports, credit cards and currency from a dozen different countries.
 
For the indefinite future he would be traveling under numerous aliases.

Dunbar took great pleasure in the memory of the the final expression on Special Agent Kline’s face.
 
What a bitter pill to swallow.
 
Dunbar allowed himself a small smile.
 
He would be in the air and out of the country in half an hour.
 
He was never going back because he would make certain they never found him.
 
No matter how hard the looked, and no matter how much money they spent searching the far reaches of the globe, he would never let them catch him.
 
Never.

*
   
*
   
*

A dozen LAPD cruisers rolled onto the scene three minutes after the ambush had begun.
 
All three cars were still burning.

Ambulances screamed through the city streets.

Police officers scrambled to the scene, surrounding the burning wreckage, weapons drawn.
 
The only thing clear to them was that something terrible had happened.
 
They began frantically pulling bodies from the twisted metal and someone spotted an FBI badge lying in the middle of the street.

There appeared at first to be no survivors.
 
But then one of the FBI agents they had pulled from the wreckage began showing vague signs of life.
 
Unconscious but breathing.
 
When the first ambulance arrived, they loaded Special Agent David Kline into the back and rushed him to the nearest ER.

*
   
*
   
*

The Mercedes slowed to a stop outside a hurricane fence at the perimeter of the airport and parked alongside a black limousine.
 

The rear window of the limo buzzed down.

“So you made it,” Leonard Monroe said.
 
“Congratulations.”

“You did well,” Dunbar answered.

“Half the four hundred million dollars you promised me is in an account in Nassau.
 
You are a free man now, so I expect to receive the remainder of the payment to be made immediately.”

Dunbar looked bored by the lawyer’s greed.
 
Dunbar nodded.

“It will be deposited into your account within the hour.”

“Make it happen.”

“I’m going far away now.”

“I didn’t believe you could really pull it off.
 
You’ve done the impossible.
 
I tip my hat.”

“I’d suggest you forget you ever knew me,” Dunbar said.