The Minnesota Candidate (41 page)

“Quit your bitching. There is no pleasing you,
Doris. First you complain about the dark and then you complain
about the light. You’re always doing that. Can’t you ever be
happy?”

“I’ll be happy when we’re out of here.”

“You’ll never be happy.”

Doris blinked until her eyes adjusted to the
white light. They were standing in some type of underground garage.
There were two loading docks at one end and there was plenty of
clearance for trucks to maneuver in and out. A long tunnel ran away
from the garage, disappearing around a bend. “I wonder where that
goes,” she said, pointing at the tunnel.

“That must be the secret entrance,” said Marie.
“This is just like the Bat Cave.”

Doris nodded her head. There were three black
vehicles parked in the garage. One was a Cadillac limousine and the
other two were black SUV’s. “Maybe we can drive out in one of
those,” she said. “Because I’m not leaving the same way we came
in.”

“You can say that again, sister. But we’re not
leaving just yet. We’ve still got some money to collect.”

Doris was physically exhausted, but she knew
that Marie was right. They might never get another opportunity to
search the house. They had to keep going. There were several doors
near the loading docks. Doris chose one and she began to walk
toward it. Marie followed along. “How long do you think those cars
have been down here?” asked Doris, pointing to the stretch
limousine.

“Probably five years,” said Marie. “I’ll bet
we’re the first people to have been down here since Shari’s parents
died.”

“I’m sure we are,” agreed Doris, walking up to
the door. She tried the handle and found it was unlocked. The door
opened into a long, brightly-lit, corridor, where several other
doors stood to either side. Marie and Doris continued inside,
pushing doors open as they walked along. Most of the rooms were
small and filled with office and lab supplies, but there was no
question that someone had been there before them. The shelves were
swept clean and the floors were covered in debris.

“Son of a bitch,” muttered Marie. “This doesn’t
look good.”

“What do you think they were looking for?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know? I’m not a
mind reader.”

“Well, I don’t think they’re looking for money.
Why would they look for money in supply closets?”

“I don’t know,” said Marie, “probably for the
same reason that we’re looking for money in supply closets. Do you
ever listen to yourself?”

Doris twisted around and pointed a finger at
Marie. “Why would I? Nobody else does.”

“Huh? Look, whatever… just forget about it. I’m
starting to think that maybe those cars haven’t been here long. I
think that whoever they belong to, those people are somewhere ahead
of us, looking to take what’s rightfully ours. We have to find them
and kick ‘em out of here. Look at this mess they’re making. What
business do they have being down here? You’re Shari’s mother
in-law. You have a right to be here.”

Doris was still angry with Marie for her earlier
comment, but she couldn’t help but to agree with her. Wherever they
were, this was still part of Shari and Tommy’s house, or so she
thought. Whoever was ahead of them, Doris was sure they had no
business being down there. “That’s right,” she said, squatting down
to pick up the broken leg of a steel table, “those people are
trespassing. We have to find them.”

“You’re exactly right,” said Marie.

They continued walking down the corridor,
opening doors and finding that each room had been tossed like a bad
salad. Marie armed herself with a ballpeen hammer and the two women
grew angrier with every step. At the end of the corridor, they
entered a long, rectangular room, filled with odd-looking machines.
Broken tiles from the suspended ceiling were scattered on the floor
like mutant snowflakes. There was no sign of the people responsible
for the mess. “Those bastards,” said Doris, pointing to a sleek
machine that appeared to be straight out of a science fiction
movie. “We might have been able to sell that.”

“You’re damn right,” replied Marie, slapping the
business end of the hammer into her palm. “Do you know what this
place is? This is a laboratory. I’ll bet these machines cost a
small fortune. Look at them, now. This is bullshit, Doris.”

They waded into the ruined laboratory, picking
their way along the aisle of smashed machines and broken dreams.
Doris felt a surge of helpless anger and she smashed her table leg
against some stainless steel shelving. There was a thunderous crash
and the empty shelving unit teetered, before it toppled over and
smashed to the floor. Satisfied, Doris looked for something else to
swat.

Marie grabbed her by the shoulder. “Knock it
off,” she hissed. “We were trying to get the jump on them. Now they
know that they’re not alone. That was really stupid.”

Doris was about to reply, when something caught
her eye on the white tile floor. The floor appeared to be seamless,
except for a small square that seemed to be cut into the floor
underneath where the shelf had been. Inset into the square was a
small steel ring.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” said Marie. “We
don’t want to be cornered in here like a couple of trapped
rats.”

Doris barely heard her. She was already on her
knees. She reached down and pulled up on the ring. The square of
tile was much heavier than she imagined, but she heaved on the ring
and it popped free. She turned to face Marie, but she was already
halfway to the door. “I found something!” she shouted. “Hang
on!”

“Lock them up with the Chosen One,” ordered
Peabody, but just as he said that, a loud crash echoed from the
next room. He spun around. “What the hell was that?”

The crash was followed by a much larger crash.
Tom closed his eyes, positive that he knew the source of the
racket. Sam turned to him. “I guess we know where your ma is,” he
whispered.

“Do ya think?” replied Tom, rolling his eyes and
shaking his head.

“You three,” grunted one of the Secret Service
Agents, “down on the ground, face down. Lace your fingers behind
your heads. Do it, now!”

“One of you,” growled Peabody, “stay with them.
The rest of you, get in there and bring me whoever is poking around
in there. We have to find out how much they know. Am I making
myself clear? I want them alive.”

Tom and Sam did exactly as they were told. Tom
felt the cold steel of a gun barrel pressed against the back of his
head. “Don’t either of you move,” whispered a male voice. Behind
him, Tom heard the sound of running feet. Through the clutter, Tom
tried to see Chona, but she was at least twenty feet away. With the
lone Secret Service Agent guarding him and Sam, would Chona try to
escape? Tom hoped so. There was the sound of a door being thrown
open and the footsteps quickly faded away.

“Hi-ya!” grunted Chona from across the room.

“Get away from me,” shrieked Peabody. “Get back
on the floor! That’s an order!”

Tom felt a thrill of adrenaline as it ran
through him. But, that thrill lasted barely a nanosecond. There
were two thundering explosions, just over his head. Tom twisted
around and saw the Secret Service Agent, crouched in a shooter’s
stance. His ears ringing, Tom kicked his leg up and caught the
man’s arm, sending the third shot into the gutted ceiling.

Suddenly, Sam was climbing over Tom, trying to
get at the shooter. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. The
Secret Service Agent calmly leveled his gun at Sam, just as Tom
kicked out with his leg. But this time his leg felt like it weighed
two tons. Tom watched in horror as the shooter, a blonde-haired man
who looked like a clean-cut Owen Wilson, pulled the trigger. The
bullet slammed into Sam’s chest and Tom began to scream.

Doris reached down into the empty chasm and she
felt a small steel case. Anxiously, she jerked it free of the hole
and she began working at the clasps. The case was roughly the same
size as the one that held Tommy’s band instrument, a clarinet. “Get
back here!” she shouted at Marie, but Marie was still clumsily
plodding toward the door. “Marie, I found something!”

“We’ve got to get out of here,” cried Marie.
“Get up and run!”

Doris fumbled with the clasps. Her fingers acted
as if they were sausages and she grunted in frustration. Finally,
she unlatched the first latch. She then attacked the second. After
what seemed like ten minutes, Doris pried open the small case.
“Shit!” she growled. Inside the velvet lined case was what could
only be a gun. Doris had seen many handguns over the years, but
this gun was unlike anything she had ever laid her eyes on. She
picked it up and examined the stainless steel weapon. The end of
the barrel tapered to a point and it was solid. Doris turned it
over in her hands, but she could see no place to load ammunition.
On the bottom of the grip, Doris spotted a switch. She flicked it
to the on position and in shock, she nearly dropped it. The gun
made a low humming sound and pulsed with some type of kinetic
energy.

“Freeze!” shouted a man’s voice from the open
door.

“Please, help me!” cried Marie. “That woman has
been keeping me against my will!”

“Get down on the floor!”

“But I didn’t do anything! She’s the one you’re
after!”

Still on her knees, crouched behind the fallen
shelves and ruined machines, Doris felt a rage like none she had
ever felt before. And while Marie had betrayed her a thousand times
in the past, none of those betrayals had held a candle to this one.
Her eyes were wild and Doris bared her teeth. She grasped the gun
in both hands, just as her father had taught her, and she rose up
from her hiding position. Doris leveled the gun at Marie’s broad
back and pulled the trigger. The butt of the gun felt as if it held
a million watts of electricity. Blood-red light, obscene in color
and brilliance, exploded from the end of the barrel. Marie was
swept off her feet by the red light, and she was sent tumbling
across the tile floor. The five men across from her were flattened
against the far wall.

Still, the gun continued to fire the widening
laser beam across the room. Doris released the trigger and the red
light disappeared. “Holy crap,” she muttered, keeping the gun
pointed at the men against the wall. One at a time, the men in
suits slumped to the ground. Doris began to advance on them. “Don’t
anyone move!” she shouted. “There’s more where that came from!”

Something was snapping and sizzling and Doris
smelled smoke. The machines that had been in the line of fire were
burning. Doris stared down at the little weapon, amazed at the
power it packed. The men against the wall appeared to be either
dead or out cold. Still, Doris wasn’t taking any chances. She
advanced upon them as if they were playing possum. Marie had come
to rest just a few feet from the well-dressed men. She was sprawled
out in an awkward position, with her face down and her big caboose
in the air. Marie’s pants were split wide open. Suddenly, Doris was
ashamed at what she had done. She hadn’t wanted to kill Marie, or
so she told herself. She reached down and was about to check Marie
for a pulse, when gunshots exploded from close by. Doris jerked her
hand away and charged out of the room.

There was a pause of silence and then there was
another shot. Doris ran down the corridor to the open doorway.
Holding her weapon in both hands in front of her, Doris charged
into the room. She then pulled the trigger and fanned the gun
around the room. The red neon light blasted two men off of their
feet. Each was thrown back as if they had been hit by a runaway
train. Doris continued squeezing the trigger as she bullied her way
through the wreckage. Machines burst into flames as the gun
thrummed in her hands. Doris spotted Sam’s Asian girlfriend and she
let go of the trigger. “Oh no,” she cried.

Chona lay face down on the tile floor. Her back
was covered in blood and she wasn’t moving. Doris ran to her, but
then she spotted her son. “Tommy!” she cried. “Oh Tommy, are you
alright? I got here as soon as I could.”

There were tears in Tom’s eyes and he pointed to
the floor. “He shot Sam,” Tom whimpered, pointing to one of the
fallen men.

Doris felt another blast of rage and she ran to
the man that Tom had pointed to. She stuck the gun in the man’s
pale face and she pulled the trigger. “This is what you get!” she
screamed. The man writhed in agony, twisting and turning, thrashing
his arms. “How do you like that?” cried Doris, still blazing away
with the electronic weapon. More machines crackled and popped and
burst into flames. Tom staggered over to his mother and grabbed her
by the arm. Doris released her pull on the trigger.

“Let me out of here!” cried Levitz.

“Shut up!” replied Tom. “We have badly injured
people out here!”

“But I’m a doctor!”

Tom and his mother stared at each other. Tom
clawed his way to the back of the ruined laboratory. And that was
when he noticed that the giant hatchway was also burning. “Holy
shit,” he groaned. From beneath the hatch, Tom could hear the sound
of frantic pounding. He tried to ignore the sound. If Sam and Chona
were to survive, he would need to get Levitz out of the cell. His
nostrils were filled with the acrid smell of burning wires. Tom
reached the door to the cell and he gave it a pull. The door was
locked, but it didn’t look like it had been locked by a key. Tom
pointed at the cell door. “Senator Levitz,” he shouted. “Get down
on the ground! Mom, give this door a quick blast!”

Doris nodded her head. “Out of the way, Tommy!”
she shouted. She waited a few seconds and she blasted a torpedo
shot of red light at the cell door. Sparks flew from the locking
mechanism. Slowly, the door fell open. Doris held the barrel of the
gun under her lips and blew on it.

With flames licking up at the twenty foot
ceiling, Levitz fought to stabilize Sam. He had been shot twice.
The first bullet had grazed his left side, catching him just above
the hip. The second shot had slammed into the right side of his
chest. The bullet had passed through Sam, collapsing his lung.
Blood bubbled out from both sides of the wound and Sam’s breathing
came in short gasps. Levitz explained that if Sam had any hope of
surviving, they would have to stop the bleeding. “See if you can
find a first aid kit,” said Levitz. “I need some gauze and
bandages!”