4 Real Dangerous Place Read online

  “That’s . . . great.” Tiny little scared-girl voice.

  “Mind if we look in the back of the truck?”

  My breath caught for a moment. Then I shook my head. “No . . .”

  “Is it locked?”

  “I don’t think so.” I actually didn’t know.

  “Well, we’ll just go see.” He nodded to his companion. “Come on.”

  I held my breath, until I heard the panel truck’s rear doors grinch open on their rusted hinges. Looking up in the rearview mirror, I saw the late afternoon sunlight silhouette the two men in the opening.

  “Look at this.” Short nodded in appreciation. “Little lady’s got a boyfriend.”

  So much for nobody knowing that Elton was hiding out back there.

  “Hey –” Elton raised his hands in the air. “I’m just trying to stay out of trouble.”

  “That’s cool, man. Don’t sweat it.” Short gave a little calming gesture with his hand, the one that wasn’t holding the grip of his rifle. “Just relax . . .”

  Elton lowered his own hands a bit. “I’m relaxed.”

  Tall climbed into the back of truck and scanned around at the tools and welding equipment strewn around. He tapped the barrel of his F1 against the acetylene tanks as he looked back at Short. “Better call Mozel,” spoke Tall. “He should take a look at this.”

  Short nodded and took a radio-phone from his jacket.

  A couple of minutes later, Mozel was there, climbing into the back of the panel truck. He gave Elton and the welding equipment a once-over. “What’s all this crap? You some kind of repair man?”

  “No –” Elton shook his head, as I watched them in the mirror. “I just work on my own motorbike.”

  “You ride?” Mozel raised one of his overly thick eyebrows.

  “Sometimes.”

  Mozel fingered a couple of full-body racing leathers, black with red stripes across the chest, hanging inside clear plastic bags on the side of the cargo area. “Competition?”

  “Used to,” said Elton. “Then I had a disagreement with a hard turn. Now I got a couple of steel pins in one thighbone.”

  First I’d ever heard any of this.

  Mozel nodded sympathetically as Elton tapped his right leg. “They hurt?”

  “Like a sonuvabitch. Especially when it rains.”

  Mozel brought his face close to Elton’s, then reached over and squeezed Elton’s leg, hard enough to produce a wince.

  “Good.” Mozel’s voice was colder now. “I approve of people who know what pain’s like. They don’t need so much convincing.”

  He let go, then pulled back and gestured at the stuff in the back of the panel truck. “Get rid of it,” he told Short and Tall, standing outside. “Everything.”

  “Hey!” Elton shouted after Mozel, as he climbed out and headed back toward the jackknifed big rig. “That gear’s expensive!”

  Mozel stopped and looked back at him. “You really want to worry about that now?”

  “Oh-kay . . .” Elton got the message. “No problem.”

  Short and Tall started with the tools, hauling them out and tossing them over the guardrail. Then they pulled loose the torches and hoses, throwing them over with the rest. The stuff clanged and clattered down the side of the freeway, then scattered around on the street below.

  “Damn.” Tall grunted as he lifted an end of one of the acetylene tanks. “Bastard’s heavy.”

  “Leave ’em,” said his buddy Short.

  “But Mozel told us –”

  “Screw Mozel. This guy can’t do anything with them now. And besides . . .” Short smiled. “They’ll add to the effect.”

  “Yeah –” That got a smile in return from Tall. “Just like the Fourth of July.”

  They left the acetylene tanks where they were, climbing out of the panel truck and slamming the rear doors shut.

  Elton squeezed through the gap between the truck’s front seats and sat down beside me, there being no reason to hide out any longer. We watched the two armed men head back toward the others at Richter’s command post.

  “What was all that about racing motorbikes?”

  “Well . . .” Elton gave a shrug. “Had to tell ’em something. I mean, about why we got all that welding equipment back there.”

  “Did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  “Race,” I said. I was prepared to be at least slightly impressed if he had.

  “Not much.” Another shrug. “More crashing than racing, actually. Hitting them hay bales gets old after a while. I just brought my leathers out here with me, case I wanted to do a few track days. They make you suit up no matter how slow you go.”

  “So that bit about the steel pins –”

  “Oh, yeah.” He nodded. “That part’s true. Makes going through airport security a bitch. I’d just as soon drive, whenever I go home for a visit. Not that I’m doing much of that lately.” He looked around the front seat area. “Hey, you gave those guys my phone, too.”

  “So what?” I gave him a look. “It wasn’t like you were getting any use out of it.”

  “No, that’s cool, actually. Doing me a favor – I’ve been trying to get rid of that stupid thing for months now. Hate people calling me up all the time.”

  “Great.” I turned away, shaking my head. Of all the people I could wind up being trapped on a freeway with, it had to be this Luddite.

  NINE

  OVER IN Karsh’s limo, just like you saw in the movie, Ferdie the driver dialed across the dashboard radio. The only thing that came out of the deluxe multispeaker sound system was an ear-splitting squeal of static. He switched off the radio and glanced back over his shoulder at his boss.

  “I don’t think we’re going to be getting any more news, Mr. Karsh. At least not from there.”

  In the limo’s rear seat, Karsh looked disgusted with both the general situation and his girlfriend Alice fidgeting beside him.

  † † †

  At Richter’s command post outside the jackknifed big rig, his electronics guy Feldman fired up a thermal imaging screen next to the bigger monitor.

  “Too many heat signatures –” He tapped his fingertip on the screen. “Coming from that school bus. It’s going to be hard to keep track of all those kids. Look at that.”

  Richter leaned over his shoulder and studied the blurry dots squirming around.

  “Kids are a pain in the ass, anyway,” said Feldman. “We ought to cut ’em loose.”

  “No.” Richter shook his head. “Nobody leaves.”

  “Come on.” Feldman’s nervousness visibly increased. “We got enough pressure on us already. People flip out if you mess around with kids. The cops are gonna –”

  “Leave the police to me. You just do your job.”

  Still sweating and twitching, Feldman shrank away from the other man. “Well,” he said weakly, “it’s your show, but if it was up to me, I’d –”

  “It’s not up to you,” snapped Richter. “Nobody leaves.”

  Feldman clammed up, just sitting there, gazing morosely at the screen.

  † † †

  By now, there actually were some cops on the freeway. They were outside the rear of the bottle, shepherding off the last of the drivers who’d had the other truck blow up right in front of their faces.

  One of them, some self-important business type, gave one of the officers a load of guff.

  “What’re we paying our tax dollars for?” The guy waved his briefcase around. “Just get this mess cleared up – I’ve got a meeting to get to!”

  “I’ll write you an excuse.” With long-suffering patience, the police officer gazed at the man. “Now just move it.”

  Muttering darkly, the business guy joined the others being led off the scene.

  † † †

  The police department was doing lots of other stuff, right about then. As could be expected.

  At the command post that had been set up on the surface street below, Captain Glover got a re
port from one of his men.

  “Rear of the area is cleared and secured, sir.”

  Glover didn’t have time to respond. A communications officer already was holding a field phone out toward him. “The mayor’s office wants to talk to you, Captain.”

  “Tell ’em I’m busy.” Glover turned toward one of the SWAT team leaders. “Get some snipers up in those buildings on the other side of the freeway. Make sure they’re far enough away that these bastards don’t get twitchy. If they start looking nervous, back our guys off.”

  The communications officer holds out the phone again. “It’s the Chief, sir.”

  “He wants to talk to me,” said Glover, “he can bring his brass-plated ass down here. Which won’t be likely.” He turned to another officer. “Let’s get some spotlights up there as well. We’re going to need to see what’s happening up there.”

  “Sir –” The communications officer again.

  “I told you –”

  The officer held the phone at full arm’s length. “It’s him.” The officer nodded toward the freeway above.

  Which was right where Richter was holding his own radio phone to his ear. “Let’s talk,” he said quietly.

  “All right.” Glover’s calm, collected voice came through the phone. “Let’s see if we can’t get this thing resolved, okay? What is it you want? Help me out here.”

  Richter glanced at the monitor screen, on which Feldman had brought in the live television coverage. “I want all the helicopters to leave,” said Richter, “except the news copter for –” He glanced over at Feldman, who held up nine fingers. “Channel Nine. If I see another helicopter within a mile, I kill a hostage every five minutes until it leaves. Is that clear?”

  In the police command post, Glover gave a single nod as he held the field phone to his ear. “Got it.”

  “Is MacAvoy on the way?”

  “Yes. Just like you asked for. He’ll be here in ten minutes. He’s coming in a helicopter, though. That’s the only way we could get him here so fast.”

  “That’s fine,” said Richter. “That one can come into the area, but as of now, you have two minutes to get the rest out of here.”

  “But –”

  “Have MacAvoy call when he arrives.”

  “I will,” said Glover. “Anything else I can –”

  “That’s all.”

  Up on the freeway, Richter thumbed the phone off and handed it back to Feldman.

  † † †

  Meanwhile, there was somebody else keeping an eye on everything that was happening – or at least all that he could see of it. Just watching and figuring out his own plans.

  That was my brother Donnie.

  As he was gazing out the school bus window, silent and impassive – I’ve seen him get that face before, when he’s working on picks for his NASCAR Fantasy League – that other kid Mitchell was getting all squirmy and antsy. Kind of kid that ADHD medications were invented for.

  “What’s with you, freak?” Mitchell made the mistake of targeting my brother. “You just gonna sit there and stare like your eyeballs are burned out?”

  “I might.” Donnie didn’t bother to look over at him. “You got a problem with that?”

  “As a matter of fact, yeah.” Real belligerent when the other kid’s in a wheelchair. “You creep me out, freak. I might just have to hammer you a couple of times.”

  Now Donnie turned to look, his stare cold as the mountains of Pluto. “Really?”

  Mitchell shifted his own gaze uneasily. “You better watch it. That’s all.”

  Donnie turned away again, gazing back out the bus window. That false bravado stuff never got far with him.

  What Donnie was watching, though, wasn’t there in the bottle where the school bus was trapped with all those other vehicles. Instead, he was scoping out what was happening on the empty side of the freeway, across the center divider.

  Scavulos – I found out later that was his name – was the member of Richter’s crew who had slewed the second truck across all the lanes on the other side. Now he was down on the pavement, busy with a long metal pry bar. He was undoing the tie-down chains on the massive object loaded on the truck’s flat bed. Soon as Scavulos had tossed all those chains down onto the freeway pavement, he pulled away the canvas tarp, revealing an impressive piece of heavy equipment.

  If I’d been there with Donnie, I could’ve told him exactly what the machine was. There was one like it back at the display yard of Karsh’s company. The sales reps there all called it the Claw. This one, on the flat bed, was even bigger. Tank treads that came up nearly to a man’s head, plus a great big articulated arm with glistening pistons on the side. At the end of the Claw’s arm were four steel talons, perfect for picking up major construction debris, wrecked cars, just about anything you’d want to, long as you didn’t care that whatever it was would get pretty messed up in the process. Heavy equipment companies like Karsh’s sell a lot of ’em to salvage yards in Thailand and the Philippines for busting up decommissioned freighters. This Claw, the one that my brother Donnie was looking at, was almost big enough to pick up a truck – and not just a little panel job like the one Elton and I were sitting in.

  As Donnie watched, Scavulos dropped the pry bar and climbed up into the machine’s windowed cabin. He had already extended the unloading ramp from the flat bed. Now he steered the Claw down the ramp and onto the empty lanes’ pavement. Fiddling around with the control levers, Scavulos extended the Claw’s massive articulated arm out over the center divider and across the other side of the freeway. The Claw’s taloned arm floated across the trapped vehicles like the shadow of death.

  Donnie’s eyes widened as he looked up through the bus window at the Claw. You have to admit, something like that is pretty cool. Especially for boys his age. Or any age – I imagine Elton would’ve dug it, too, even given the situation we were in.

  In the Claw’s cabin, Scavulos spotted Donnie at one of the bus’s side windows. A lopsided smile twisted one corner of his mouth as he lowered the Claw’s arm toward the bus.

  Mesmerized, Donnie watched the Claw’s talons slowly reach toward him. The curved steel tips came within inches of the window, then suddenly snapped together, the tips scraping the glass. Donnie jumped back in his wheelchair.

  In the Claw’s cabin, Scavulos snickered. That had been enough fun. Working the control levers, he swung the articulated arm away, as though he had already forgotten about the kid in the bus.

  Which was a mistake on that guy’s part. I wasn’t there when this bit happened, but I’m still pretty sure about what kind of narrow-eyed look my brother shot at his back.

  Richter wasn’t happy, either. He’d walked over from the jackknifed rig and now stood glaring at Scavulos on the other side of the center divider. “You done screwing around?” He pointed to a sporty-looking Mercedes convertible farther down the bottle. “That one there,” he said. “That’s the one I want.”

  With a quick nod, Scavulos got to work, pushing the levers inside the Claw’s cabin. The arm reached out and lowered, talons crunching into the convertible’s doors. The yuppie-type driver screamed, figuring he was about to die.

  Instead, the Claw lifted the convertible up into the air, swinging it around and dropping it onto one of the vacated lanes on the other side.

  “Your lucky day.” Richter pointed his gun at the dazed-looking driver. “Run.”

  The Mercedes’ driver gazed wide-eyed at the gun for a few seconds, then scrambled out of the car and hightailed it down the empty freeway. Richter didn’t watch him, but just turned and went back to take care of more business.

  † † †

  Down below, the surface streets around the freeway section had been all barricaded off. Outside the police command post, the news teams were setting up.

  “Afraid we don’t have much else to go on right now.” A reporter holding a microphone did a stand-up in front of his cameraman. “Pamela, Ray – back to you.”

  He lowered th
e mike as the cameraman switched off the broadcast unit resting on his shoulder. “What a pile of crap,” he muttered. The whup-whup noise of a helicopter sounded above. He glanced up at it. “Lucky bastards.”

  † † †

  Actually, that wasn’t the rival station’s news copter. It was the one bringing in Colonel MacAvoy. From inside it, he looked down at the trapped vehicles, all lined up on one side of the freeway, with the burning explosion wreckage at one end and the jackknifed big rig at the other. Somewhere in that mess was one of his old enemies – and he already had a feeling who it was.