Perilous Panacea (36 page)

- - - - -

As the car swerved around the bend and shoved his body against the door, Applenu felt Lori Reedan’s body push up against his side. He wanted to reach out and protect her from Beecher and Maxwell. Was she frightened? She didn’t show it. Considering their fates, she was holding up remarkably well. She reminded him of his sister, always strong.

On the other side of her, Maxwell crowded up to her, his pudgy hand now on her leg. She shoved it away, but it snapped back.

They sped up. Beecher swung the car into an opposite turn, wheels squealing. Applenu slid toward Lori Reedan and shoved her into Maxwell.

“Come on over here, cunt,” Maxwell said, laughing, his right hand cupping his crotch. “Come to daddy.”

“Why don’t you let her go,” Applenu said to Maxwell. He motioned with his head back to where the green car should be. “We need to concentrate on them.”

“Don’t worry about me, Doc. I’ll take care of them when the time comes. Right now, I’ve got other things on my mind.”

Beecher accelerated on a straight stretch. Applenu glanced back at the truck, which dropped back rapidly as Beecher speeded up. No green car back there now, although it lurked somewhere around the two curves they’d just taken.

“Speed it up some more,” Lormes said.

“I’m going as fast as I can on this fucking road.”

Back at the petrol station when they discussed the plan, Applenu had an almost irresistible urge to say “sod it” and get out and walk away. He would have, but he could not get to his backpack in the car boot that contained almost seventy-five thousand dollars—his emergency cash. With it, he could try to disappear, maybe take Mrs. Reedan along with him. She seemed full of the fight he felt waning in him ever since they left the factory in flames. He envied Reedan. She was the kind of woman that went well with his professor-at-Ohio-State dream.

Then he saw the headline on the paper in that petrol station: IRAN PLACES ATOM BOMB IN U.S. CITY. Mosely again. Fortunately, Lormes didn’t see the headline. Lormes asked about the Iran rumor when it first hit the papers. He didn’t seem too happy to be working for Iranians. That latest headline would cinch his unhappiness. In retrospect, he thought, maybe he should have shown him the headline.

Applenu’s mind reverted to Sherbani’s doubts about his loyalty. Could he stave off that inevitability with Sherbani by agreeing to go to Iran and work in their nuclear program? Perhaps that was the best he could hope for. After all, the FBI knew he had a British accent and was probably Iranian. Maybe walking away and becoming Ian Deby was not a possibility. What was Teheran University’s Nuclear Engineering Department like? Was there a Mrs. Reedan type waiting for him in a lovely black chador? How do you chat up a bird in a long black robe and veil?

“Faster,” Lormes said. “It’s showdown time.”

- - - - -

“Could they have a place out here in the boondocks?” Eberhard asked.

“Not likely,” Curt said and reached under his seat and touched the pistol. His leg wouldn’t stop its mad jiggle.

They were leaving the really small town of scattered houses called Raphine, which reminded Curt of some of the small farming hamlets in rural Iowa, such as his hometown of Dref.

Outside of Raphine, the road narrowed and the curves began. They were heading west past scattered farms and corn fields, like table-flat Iowa only set in a mountainous terrain. According to a sign they passed, Wades Creek was eight miles ahead.

The cell phone chimed. It was Agent Spanner reporting that they would be airborne in Washington in about thirty minutes. The helicopter from Richmond was on its way.

With no traffic in sight, Eberhard hung back to make sure they weren’t seen. They glimpsed the other two vehicles in the distance only when they crested a hill or came around a long curve. After a couple of miles on the road, they crested a tall hill that looked over a long straight stretch.

“They’re gone,” Eberhard said. “They must have put the gas to it.”

“Let’s go.” Was it a trick? Curt wondered. “Does that mean they know we are following them?”

“Maybe they turned off.”

“No other roads. Just move it.”

Eberhard floored it, barely got the speed to sixty before having to brake back to below forty for another sharp turn. “There’s the truck. It’s turning off the road. Where’s the car?”

“They probably led the way.”

Eberhard turned onto a much narrower road than State Road 606 and with more curves. Barreling around a blind curve, they suddenly found the truck crossway in the road. Eberhard hit the brakes, squealing the Chevy to a halt fifty feet from the truck.

Markum climbed down from the truck and ran toward them.

Curt braced himself on the dashboard and reached for the pistol. “Turn it around!”

Markum kept coming, one hand held behind his back.

Eberhard slammed the Chevy into reverse and tromped down on the accelerator, throwing Curt toward the dashboard. Wheels squealed, then squeaked to a stop, throwing Curt back against the seat. He turned and saw the Lincoln Town Car twenty feet from the rear bumper.

Beecher burst from the driver’s side and ran toward them, his hand reaching inside his jacket. Maxwell pulled himself from the other side of the car and trudged toward them.

Curt hesitated, the gun held ready between his legs.

Markum jerked open Eberhard’s door, and Beecher shoved his pistol through the door and waved it at Eberhard. “Okay, big man, keep your hands away from your body and get out of there.”

Curt shoved the gun into his belt and pulled the tails of his light-blue shirt over it, just as Maxwell jerked open the door.

“Well look who we’ve got here,” Maxwell said. “It’s our old buddy, Doctor Reedan.”

Curt turned, and through the back window he saw Lormes emerging from the Town Car.

Chapter Forty-Four

Lori found herself alone in the middle of the back seat. As soon as Beecher slid the car to a halt, he and Maxwell drew pistols and rushed toward the green car; Lormes followed at a slower pace.

Applenu left the car, reached into the driver’s side door and pressed a button to pop open the trunk. He disappeared behind the car. She heard the trunk lid close.

Seeing the corn fields on both sides of the road, Lori knew immediately what she had to do. Once she stepped between those rows of six-foot-high stalks, they’d never catch her. Her mind flashed on Iowa corn fields, remembering her young self dashing through the rows to elude her brothers, and in later years running and hiding from Curt and then letting him find and catch her. No game this time, but if they didn’t see her slip out of the car, they wouldn’t know which way she went.

Applenu, a backpack slung over his left shoulder, stuck his head into the back seat. “Mrs. Reedan, let’s get out of here while we can.”

“What…you’re one of them.”

“Not really. Come on let’s go before they miss us.”

Then, through the windshield, Curt appeared, stumbling around the side of the green car, being shoved by Maxwell. He looked terrible: a big red scratch across his face, oily, straggly hair, unshaven, and limping again. Karl Eberhard came from the other side prodded by Beecher.

“What in bloody hell is Reedan doing here?” Applenu asked, looking at her. “He’s quite a good bloke, eh?”

She nodded and knew there was no running in corn fields, no escape. Why now? “I guess I’ll need an alternate plan,” she said.

Hands shaking, she dug into her handbag. She ignored the extra bullets floating around the bottom of the bag; there would be no time to reload. She should have brought an extra magazine. It would be eight shots and out, she thought, just like shooting bottles from the fence at home. Every shot would need to count.

Applenu saw the gun. “Where did you get that? You know how to use it?”

“We’ll see,” she said as she slipped onto the hot asphalt. She snapped off the safety and jerked back the slide to chamber a round. “Stay behind this door,” she told Applenu as she slipped behind the open front door.

As she listened for their voices, she became aware of corn stalks rustling in the breeze—sounds of home.

Lormes was talking: “So it’s just you two assholes. You thought you could take us, huh? The game is over, Reedan. Same for your fat friend there, whoever the hell he is.”

“What do we do with them?” Beecher asked.

“Whatever it is,” Maxwell said, looking at Curt and smiling. “I want Reedan.”

Lormes looked around. “Why wait? Take them into that corn field, and get it over with. He nodded to Maxwell. “Go get Mrs. Reedan, and take her, too.”

A cell phone began a musical interlude in the green car.

“Why don’t we save the cunt till later?” Maxwell said. “Me and Beech have some romantic plans for her.” He looked at Curt and began to laugh.

The cell phone music continued. It sounded to her like Mozart’s Eine Klinest Nacht Musak.

“Take her, and take our former friend, Dr. Applenu. Hurry up before any cars come by here. And somebody shut off that fucking cell phone.”

The cell phone stopped chiming as Maxwell started toward the Town Car.

Lori sucked for breath, her heart hammering in her ears. She stepped around the door and took a wide solid stance like Dad showed her. Arms extended, she steadied the gun in both hands. She aimed at Maxwell, who walked toward her, his eyes on the ground, his left hand pressing at the bandage on his head. Temporarily speechless while stupid phrases from police movies rattled around her head, she finally got it out: “Drop the gun, Maxwell. You too, Beecher.”

Maxwell halted fifteen feet in front of her, his gun hanging in his hand at his side, his right eye wide open. Slowly, that evil grin from that evening spread across his puffed face. He cocked his head to take in all of her with his good eye. “How’d you get that gun,” he asked. “You think you can use it?”

“Lori,” Curt yelled. “Thank God.”

She glanced at Curt, who started toward her.

Beecher stepped in front of him and shoved his gun into Curt’s ribs. “Take the gun away from her,” Beecher yelled.

Her eyes snapped back to Maxwell. Her arms began to ache with the heavy weight hanging out in front of her. Concentrate on the target, she told herself. Ignore everything else. “I said drop the gun, Maxwell.”

She realized she’d have to keep track of the others. Beecher’s gun was leveled at Curt. Who else had a gun?

Beecher kept his gun jammed into Curt’s stomach and glanced at her over his shoulder. Although the redhead was partially blocked from her view by Beecher and Curt, she sensed his movement.

Maxwell just laughed and took a step toward her. “No way is a cunt like you going to use that forty-five.”

“Well, this cunt will use this gun if she has to.”

Maxwell took another step forward. His gun, held along his thigh and pointing downward, inched forward and upward.

Lori felt the weight of the gun tug at her locked arms, the pain building and setting off a wobble in her hands.

Concentrate, she told herself. Concentrate on what? Too many to keep track of: the redhead shuffled sideways, now behind Karl; Beecher looked over his shoulder, his gun still pointed at Curt; Lormes turned for a better look, and Maxwell’s gun swept slowly forward like a pendulum, the motion at the direct angle meant to be hidden from her eyes.

Her heart beat quickened, a lightness spreading through her body. “I said drop the gun.”

Maxwell stepped toward her, and with one quick motion he snapped the gun up to point the muzzle at her.

The explosion at the end of her arms snapped the gun toward her face, but she held it and did not flinch. As the sound echoed across the corn fields, she saw only his open eye, huge and gaping in startled terror.

His arms jerked outward, and his gun sailed off to his right. Like the cardboard box in the field, his unwieldy body leaped backwards and then collapsed onto the pavement, a red circle appearing on the dirty white shirt.

Lori stared straight ahead to where Maxwell had been, her thoughts careening to the rats her brothers shot behind the corn crib, their bodies jumping into the air, blood splattering the dust. She did not want to pull the trigger. He deserved it more than the rats did.

She swallowed back nausea that poked into her throat and threatened to gag her like morning sickness. She dropped her gaze to Maxwell’s body to see if there were any signs of life.

“Shoot the bitch,” Lormes screamed.

Curt yelled. “Lori, watch out!”

She glanced up, just as Beecher turned from Curt and aimed at her. Curt threw his body at Beecher.

She stood rooted to the spot, arms outstretched. The roar of the shot swept over her as the bullet smashed into the windshield three-feet to her right.

When she saw the redhead aim, she dived behind the open door. His bullet shattered the window of the door and sprayed glass across her back. She heard Applenu’s feet scrape the road as he ducked behind the back door. She peeked around the side.

Beecher recovered his balance and shouldered Curt against the green car. Curt bounced off the car and tumbled to the ground at Karl Eberhard’s feet. Beecher turned and started toward the Town Car in long, swift strides, his gun out in front of him. The redhead fell into stride at Beecher’s right.

Curt, now behind Beecher, dragged himself to his knees and pulled a gun from under his shirt. He pointed it at Beecher and yelled, “Drop the gun, Beecher.”

Beecher and the redhead turned to look at Curt.

Lori jumped out from behind the door and pointed her gun at Beecher.

Curt pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He tried again. Still nothing.

“For Christ sake,” Karl Eberhard yelled, “chamber a round. Pull the slide back and get a round in the chamber.”

Beecher laughed; he raised his gun and aimed at Curt.

Lori squeezed the trigger.

Beecher jerked forward, as if slapped on the back by a powerful hand. He grabbed at his back with his left hand and turned his head to look at her over his shoulder, his body bent forward. Slowly, he forced himself to turn and face her. He raised his gun to aim at her.

That look, that same superior look on his face that he had that day when he forced her to kneel before him.

She fired. Then she fired again.

The first shot straightened him up; the second one exploded his face into a violent red fountain as his body sprawled backward onto the pavement.

“Lori, get down,” Eberhard yelled.

She glanced up to see the redhead aiming at her. Before she could duck behind the door, a shot rang out. Markum toppled to his knees, grabbing his shoulder.

Curt ran forward, his gun pointed at the redhead’s face. He hesitated, and then tossed the gun at Curt’s feet.

Curt turned to her, his relief shining through his scraped and tired face.

Lori’s vision blurred and her mouth twitched uncontrollably until a surge of relief and joy coursed through her body and she was once again able to a smile.

- - - - -

Curt started toward Lori through the tang of cordite that floated over the hot pavement. He faltered; suddenly aware of the heat, his body quaked and his heart pounded. He wiped his scorched face on the tail of his drenched shirt. Everything happened so fast, with no time to think or be afraid until now.

In the darkest moment of an array of dark moments these past few months, he looked up and there she stood.

Lori smiled at him. At the sight of the tears glistening in her eyes, his eyes clouded. She started toward him, stopped suddenly and assumed that two-handed stance of hers, gun raised and aimed past Curt. He turned to see Lormes stooped over for Beecher’s gun.

“Don’t do it,” she yelled, her voice husky and threatening to crack.

Lormes jumped back from the gun. He stumbled sideways and almost fell over Beecher’s body.

Curt picked up the gun, shoved it into his belt, and then collected Maxwell’s and Markum’s guns.

Karl Eberhard emerged from the police car, the cell phone held to his ear. He shut off the phone and pocketed it. “The FBI should be here within an hour,” he said.

Curt nodded, handed him the two guns, and turned back to Lori, who stood with her pistol pointed at Lormes.

Lormes suddenly spoke up. “You’ve got all the nuclear material, so what do you need me for? I can get you up to a million dollars if you turn me loose.”

Curt shoved Lormes toward Markum. He turned and yelled for Simmons to come out of the truck with his hands up. The truck door eased open, and Simmons climbed down from the cab. Eberhard herded him over to the other two.

“You’re making a big mistake, Reedan,” Lormes said. “We’ve got powerful people behind us. You turn us in, and they’ll get you and your family. You can mark my word on it.”

Curt turned to Lori, who stared down at Maxwell and Beecher, splattered on the hot asphalt as if discarded by some giant hand. Maxwell lay sprawled on his back, arms and legs splayed, a shiny red stain growing on the front of his dirty white shirt, his mouth and one good eye wide open, permanently surprised by the scene. Beecher’s body lay twisted, his upper body facing to his right, the left side of his face pulverized, his left leg crossed over the right. Four shiny green flies crisscrossed the red mush and the blood pool expanding on the steaming asphalt.

Curt touched her shoulder, and she melted into his arms. With his legs trembling, he closed his eyes to erase the scene and all the scenes of the past weeks. He pulled her head up, searching for her mouth.

When they parted, she gazed up at him and forced a laugh onto her bruised face. “The guns,” she said, holding hers out and nodding toward it. “What a terrible way to have to get back together. What a terrible time this was.” She stopped; her mouth quivered slightly. “I never thought anything like this could happen to us. Never.”

“We made it, though.”

She turned to look back at the Town Car as if remembering something. “I just thought about that other guy—the Iranian.”

“Applenu? Was he with you?”

She nodded. “He was going to help me escape, but then I saw you. I think they were going to kill him, too.” She laughed. “He must have vanished into the corn field.”

“Good luck to him,” Curt said and pulled Lori back to him. “Thanks to him, I escaped last night. Actually, I don’t think he was with you after all.”

She smiled up at him. “Come to think of it, I guess he wasn’t.”

They kissed, long and tender. They parted, and he looked into her brown eyes. “God, it’s good to be with you,” he said.

She nodded rapidly, smiled, and looked around. “In a way, it’s like before we were married. We’re surrounded by corn fields again.”

He cleared his throat to get rid of his hoarseness. “I love corn fields. I love farms and farm girls. I love you.”

“I love you.”

They stared across the corn field to the side of a hill, where a tractor crawled silently through a hay field. A cool breeze stripped away some of the cordite haze, and for a moment, they smelled the freshly mown hay.

“There is a difference between here and Iowa,” he said. “They’ve got hills here. I hear they’ve got hills in Colorado, and it’s a nice place to raise kids.”