“ Nothing surprises me anymore.” Lila started the car. “Maybe they’re all at work. Maybe they thought it was a car backfiring or maybe they knew it was gunshots and they just don’t give a shit.” Lila gave a quick look to the neighbors, both sides and across the street and saw no curtains pulled aside. If somebody was looking, they were being careful. Still, it was time to change the plates on the Jag, maybe even get rid of the car.
“ I vote for they don’t give a shit,” the girl said.
Five minutes later Lila dropped her at the McDonald’s at the east end of town. Then she was off again, heading west to Medford, Oregon and Izzy Eisenhower, but only a couple miles outside of town, right after she made the right turn onto Highway 49, she knew she wasn’t going to make it. She would need all of her wits when she met up with Eisenhower. Right now she was afraid of falling asleep at the wheel. She saw a sign for a rest stop twenty-two miles up the road.
She could go that far, but not much further. At the rest area, she parked in the farthest spot from the restrooms, put up the top, closed her eyes and went straight to sleep.
The sun was straight up when she woke. The clock said 12:30. She started the car, put the top down. It was a gorgeous day. The sky was cloudless. It was unseasonably warm for November. The road had just been repaved. There was no traffic. It was as if she were alone in the world. The snow on the side of the road, combined with the tall pines and the sun filtering through them, made her feel like she was in a magical place.
She pushed the Jag up to sixty-five, seventy, seventy-five, decided to hold it at eighty. She’d be in Medford in time for dinner, then she’d find Eisenhower.
She turned on the radio, wondered if she’d find a rock station. She found the news instead, learned about a lot of dead people back in Reno.
Mansfield had called on his government friends, the black ops kind. There was no other explanation. He was pulling out all the stops. If Lila didn’t find Eisenhower before the end of the day, they would and she’d be out her five million. That bastard.
A shadow moved over her. She looked up, saw a helicopter flying low. It was only a momentary distraction, but it was enough, eyes back on the road she saw the deer, saw it an instant too late. She clutched, slammed the stick into second, popped her foot off the clutch, hit the brakes as she turned radically to the left, hoping to spin the car around and maybe hit the animal a glancing blow in the process or maybe not hit it at all.
Had she started a fraction of a second sooner, she might have been able to keep control of the car.
“ Oh fuck,” she muttered, car going sideways heading for the deer, which seemed too stunned to move. Then, just before impact, the animal leapt out of the way. Still spinning the wheel, she heard the horns. A semi was bearing down on her, coming from the west.
The roaring truck beast filled her sight. She saw the driver, black as night, a determined look in his dark eyes. He was fighting the behemoth he was driving, but the metal monster’s wheels screeched in protest against the man trying to tame it.
Still spinning the wheel, she hit the accelerator, hearing her own wheels screech, smelling the burning rubber, the truck’s and her own, as she spun through her one eighty, with the truck so close the sound of it’s engine drowning out the world. Foot still on the accelerator, the wheels found purchase and the car shot away from the braking semi like a scalded race horse, flying back the way she’d come.
Safely away, she pulled over to the side of the road to let the truck pass, but instead the driver pulled in behind her. She got out of her car as he climbed out of his cab.
“ Holy shit, that was close!” He was basketball tall, with the darkest skin she’d ever seen on an American black man. He was wearing a military green field jacket and faded Levi’s. He looked tough. He looked old.
“ Yeah, sorry.”
“ Saw the deer. You did real good.”
“ Thanks.”
“ You’re shaking,” he said.
“ No, I’m not.” She didn’t shake. She was as cool as they came. God didn’t make anybody cooler than her.
“ Yes, you are.”
She held her hand up in front of her face, expected it to be rock steady, but it wasn’t.
“ You’re right. That’s not like me.”
A shadow passed over her. She looked up, that chopper was still up there. Hovering. The black man was looking skyward as well. He pulled a set of miniature binoculars from one of his large jacket pockets.
“ Birdwatching’s a hobby.” He put the binoculars to his eyes, said, “Not good.”
“ You think?” she said.
“ Man up there’s got a gun and they ain’t police.”
“ You’re right, not good.”
Lila could tell the helicopter wasn’t military, more like the kind the TV traffic reporters used. It was high enough that under ordinary circumstances, she wouldn’t have given it much thought. She could hear it, but she lived close to the airport and was used to planes and helicopters. Anybody who lived near RNO automatically blocked out those kinds of sounds, but now those whirling blades were beating a thundering tattoo through her brain.
The helicopter did a three sixty, banking, like the passenger was watching them.
“ What kind of gun?”
“ Say again,” the black man said.
“ You know, what kind of gun did you see up there?”
“ Mac 10.”
“ Shit.”
“ You piss anybody off lately?” he said.
“ Maybe, you?”
“ Once upon a time there were some bad people might’ve wanted me dead. Not anymore.”
“ They’re here for me.” Lila sighed. “I think they’ll wait till you leave. You should go.” She reached into her coat, pulled the Glock from the shoulder holster, but kept it concealed from the men in the chopper, however the man next to her saw it. She figured he’d hightail it on out of there pretty quick.
“ You really think they’ll let me go?”
“ Don’t know, maybe.”
“ They know you got the piece?”
“ Maybe.”
“ So maybe it ain’t gonna be a surprise. Maybe they’re expecting you to pop a few caps at ’em.”
“ Maybe.”
“ Okay, Katie, shake my hand, like you’re telling me goodbye. Then I’m gonna walk on over to my rig, climb in my cab and while they’re focused on you, I’m gonna blow the motherfuckers outta the sky.”
“ My name’s Lila.”
“ Sorry, you reminded me of someone.” He smiled down at her, held his hand out. “Shake my hand, now.”
She grabbed his big hand, squeezed tight.
“ It’ll be okay, Lila.” He released her hand.
“ Sure.” She watched him sort of shuffle back to his truck, get in and as if on cue the helicopter dropped from the sky. Apparently she’d been wrong about them letting him go. Mansfield probably had told them not to leave any witnesses.
She dove behind her car, expecting automatic fire from the helicopter, but instead she heard one gunshot, she turned toward the sound of it, saw the old black man standing next to his truck, with a rifle pointing skyward.
Lila looked up. The chopper was stationary, but it wasn’t. It seemed locked in place, but the body was whirling around, like the blade was still, driving the body below it. Did he get the pilot? Was he dead? Wounded? Could the gunman control the plane?
And as if in answer to her unspoken questions, the chopper stopped it’s ring around the rosy craziness and started climbing, backwards. After only a few seconds that felt like an eon, the flying machine stopped its climb, was stationary and hovering, like a praying mantis about to strike. Then, like a dive bombing mosquito, it started downward, hungry for blood. It seemed to be heading straight for her.
