72 Hours (A Thriller) (44 page)

“Done,” Monroe replied.

Neither man had made eye contact.
 
Heat shimmered up off the asphalt between the cars.

“Enjoy the money,” Dunbar said.

Monroe nodded.
 
“Enjoy life as a fugitive.”

Dunbar offered no reply.
 

 
*
   
*
   
*

The jet was a silver Gulfstream.
 
It had been hired for forty-eight hours, paid for in cash through a dummy corporate account.
 
The pilots didn’t ask questions.
 
They were there to simply do their job.
 
The flight plan was nonstop to Tokyo.
 

Dunbar stared out a window and watched the ground drop away.
 
He said goodbye to the city of Los Angeles.
 
He was seeing the last of it.
 
He was never coming back.
 
There was no other choice.
 
His days in America were over.

CHAPTER 117

About the time the Gulfstream jet carrying the man formerly known as Gaston Dunbar had turned away from the coast and headed out across the Pacific Ocean, Special Agent David Kline began to slowly regain consciousness.

He was on his back on a table in a room full of faces looking down at him.
 
The sights and sounds and smells of a hospital.
 
One side of his face was badly swollen.
 
He could feel that he was bruised and cut and burned.

He tried to open his mouth to speak but there was a plastic oxygen mask strapped over his face.
 
His breath fogged the plastic mask.

“…umb….urr…” he said, but it came out as a gravelly whisper.

“He’s awake,” one of the nurses looming over him said.

“Ummm….haaaaarr…”

The nurse pushed her face down near to his.

“Please don’t try to speak,” she said.

“Werr….es…heee,” Kline grunted, breathing hard into the mask.

“Sir, please,” she told him.
 
“You’re going to be OK, but you need to lie still and relax.”

Kline attempted to raise his arm but it was secured to the table by a strap.

“….ere…iz…unbar…”

She shook her head, frowning with confused, kind eyes.
 
She adjusted an IV tube taped to his arm and marked something on his chart.

He grunted into the plastic mask.

“Say again,” she said.

Pain rippled through him.
 
He stared at her with intensity, the whites of his eyes amplifying his desperation.
 
He concentrated to enunciate his words so that she would understand, but his words were muffled by the plastic mask.

“Where…is…Dunbar?” he said, or
believed
he’d said.

The nurse smiled, patted his arm, and drew away from him.
 
She shook her head.
 
She looked at him with pity like he was delusional from the pain meds.

“I’m sorry,” she replied.
 
“All I hear is gibberish.”
   

*
   
*
   
*

They sat in the darkness of the motel room and waited.
 
The lights were off and the drapes were drawn shut.
 
The only illumination came from the flickering screen of the small television and the muted glow through the drapes.

Lindsay sat on the bed with her arms around her children.

Archer stood in a corner next to the front door, thinking.

They waited through the long hours of the afternoon.
 
Waited for the day to pass.

The Hummer was parked behind the hotel, out of sight.
 
Only two vehicles drifted into the hotel parking lot over the entire afternoon.
 
Dirt devils of dust and grit swirled across the highway.
 
Clouds came and went.

They stared at the news.

Archer left them at the motel and went to sit with Raj and Penny.
 
Raj was still asleep.
 
He’d slept for hours.
 
Dr. Fay sat at his cluttered desk with his reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose, itching for conversation but understanding that neither Archer nor Penny was in any real mood to talk.

Archer stared at the floor.
 
Stared at his watch.
 
Stared at Raj and Penny.
 
Penny refused to leave Raj’s side.
 
She had been crushed by the news of Simeon’s death.
 
She blamed herself.
 
She was in a lot of pain.
 
Her shoulder was heavily bandaged where Noella Chu had shot her.
 
The .22 bullet had hit nothing vital, and Dr. Fay had been able to easily remove the slug.
 
Dr. Fay insisted that she was a very lucky woman, that if Archer hadn’t been there to find her when he did, she would have bled to death.
 
She sat very still, holding her brother’s hand, her eyes glassy and vacant.
   

Archer stood at the back door and stared out through the window blinds.

The doctor’s telephone rang off and on throughout the day.
 
Dr. Fay came and went.
 
Late in the afternoon he answered it and held the handset out for Archer.

“It’s your lady friend,” the doctor said.

Archer nodded as she answered the line.

“Archer, you’ve got to come back to the motel,” Lindsay said.

“Why?
 
What’s the matter?”

“I think it’s over.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it’s over.”

“What are you talking about?”

“CNN is reporting that Dunbar is dead.
 
He committed suicide.
 
We don’t have to hide anymore!”

Archer glanced down at Dr. Fay, then flicked his eyes across the room toward Penny and Raj.

“OK, stay put,” he told her.
 
“I’m on my way.”

*
   
*
   
*

Archer sat at the end of the bed, staring at the television screen.
 
Every network had interrupted their regularly scheduled programming to break the news.
 
They all said the same thing.
 
Dunbar was dead.

Archer stared in disbelief.

Lindsay hugged her kids and cried.

It was a miracle.
 
The nightmare was over.
 
No more running.
 
No more hiding.
 
No more living in fear.
 
No more mobs or trained killers tracking them across hundreds of miles of mountains and desert.

Archer could only shake his head in disbelief.
 
Something about the news didn’t add up.
 
He found the cell phone Kline had given him and dialed a number in the cell’s call log.

He was forwarded directly to Kline’s voicemail.
 
He left a message.

“Kline, this is Archer.
 
We’ve seen the news on TV.
 
What’s going on?
 
Is Dunbar really dead?
 
Get back to me as soon as you can.”

The room darkened as the sun went down.
 
They stared at the TV late into the night.
 
They had survived another day.
 
They had made it safely through to the other side.
 
Tonight maybe they would get some real sleep for the first time since the nightmare had begun.
 
Then in the morning they would rise with the sun to find out the truth, to find out whether or not the nightmare was truly over.

*
   
*
   
*

The call came in the middle of the night.
 
Archer answered his cell after the first ring.
 
It was Kline.
 
He had finally checked his voicemail.

“Tell me Dunbar is really dead?” Archer said immediately.

“That’s the official word,” Kline replied.
 
“It’s over.
 
The money is off the table.
 
You can bring them in.”

“Is he dead?”

“I’ll tell you all about it as soon as you return to the city.”

“You’re hiding something, Kline,” Archer said.
 
“What is it you’re not telling me?”

The motel room was quiet and still.
 
The TV was off.
 
All three of the Hammond’s were sound asleep, piled together on one of the beds.
 
The faint glow of the moon was visible around the edges of the drapes over the windows.
 
Archer was seated on the floor against a wall across from the bathroom.
 
He was watching the front door.
 
As far as he was concerned it was still not safe to let down his guard.

“I’m not hiding anything,” Kline replied.
 
“I’m telling you it’s safe enough now for Lindsay to return to LA.”

“What happened to him?”

“I’ll tell you tomorrow.
 
Just get back here.”

“OK.”

“How are Lindsay and the kids?”

“They are alive.
 
All of them.
 
Exactly as promised.”

“Bring them in.”

“We’ll be there,” Archer said.

*
   
*
   
*

The mansion in Bel Air was dark.
 
Every light was off.
 
Johnny Smackdown wandered the halls of his huge home in his robe and bare feet, a big Smith and Wesson .45 held in one trembling hand.
 
He had watched the news on TV.
 
He had seen that Dunbar was dead.
 
The bounty money had been rescinded.
 
Mr. Jupiter would come looking for him.
 
Smackdown was losing his mind.

Smackdown hadn’t been sober in two days.
 
He had taken his first shot of heroin when he could no longer get in touch with Soji.
 
And he freaked when he heard the news about Dunbar.
 
By midnight he was stoned out of his mind.
 
Now he was hallucinating badly.
 
Seeing things.
 
Hearing voices.
 
Talking to the walls.
 
Having three and four and five separate conversations with himself at once.

He didn’t hear the bullet blow out the lock on the patio door downstairs, because the gun had a silencer and his home was sprawling.
 
He didn’t hear the door open.
 
Too many voices filling his head, drowning out the sounds of his environment.
 
And he didn’t hear the soft footsteps creeping slowly up the stairs.

Smackdown walked with one shoulder dragging against the wall.
 
He was sweating furiously but shivering.
 
The heroin had given him the eyes of a wild man.
 
His long ratty hair was a greasy, mangled mess hanging down over his face.

He didn’t hear the footsteps approaching from behind him.
 
Couldn’t feel the big shadow sliding up his backside.
 

But then he heard a voice that sent chills circulating up and down his spine, though he was certain it was simply one of the dozens of voices in his head that had combined into a chorus to form his current state of insanity.

The voice said simply, “Greetings from Mr. Jupiter.”

Smackdown was briefly aware of a cool metal ring pressed to the flesh at the back of his skull.
 
Then his head exploded.

*
   
*
   
*

Soji had staggered through the desert to the highway and then managed to hitch all the way back to LA.
 
A VW bus dropped him at his apartment.
 
He didn’t know what time it was but knew it was late.
 
He eagerly sorted through the mail that was dumped through the slot in the door.
 
But right away it was obvious there was no package from Smackdown.
 
No money.
 
No hundred grand.
 
No massive payday.
 

Smackdown was a liar.
 
Soji was done with him.
 
He’d almost gotten killed because of Smackdown.
 
Better to cut his losses and just move on.
 

Soji found a bottled water in the fridge, popped off the cap and took a long swallow.
 
Then he sat on the dirty floor in one corner of his dirty kitchen, the water bottle sweating on the warped tile between his legs.
 
He would give himself half an hour to catch his breath and get over the disappointment of the hundred grand.
 
Then he would shake off the dust, grab a camera and stalk out into the night to do his job, to go on scratching out a living off the glitz and sleaze of Hollywood.