I slipped through a siding gap and scrambled toward the Jeep on all fours. After seeing no one else in the vehicle, I tapped on the window.
Shanker's startled face whined toward me, wide and white. It took him several seconds to recognize me. Then he got out.
'Where's Jasmine?'
'Inside.'
Shanker followed me through the hole.
Jasmine shook his hand and without preamble asked, 'Did you bring the second CD?'
Shanker shook his head. 'There isn't one.'
Jasmine and I stood speechless.
'There never has been,' Shanker said, his voice heavy with regret. 'They got to Talmadge before he told me where he hid the rest of the documents. But they don't know that. They would have killed him by now if they knew the CD didn't exist.'
'You lied!'
'I'm sorry. I had to. It was the only way to save his life. I had to get you involved.'
'That's no excuse-'
'Please, hear me out.'
Pain colored Shanker's words. 'More's at stake than Talmadge. Braxton's a psycho car bomb headed for the White House. Even if he doesn't disintegrate like Talmadge, Braxton has no compassion, none at all. We can't afford to have his finger on the trigger of the world's most powerful military power.'
Something rustled against the tin siding. Instinctively I ducked and pulled Jasmine down with one hand and brought the H amp;K up with the other, thumbing the safety off as I did. The rustling stopped. I let go of Jasmine and scanned the room with the night-vision scope. Nothing.
'Possums,' I said as I stood up and offered my hand to Jasmine.
Shanker exhaled loudly.
'Jay, do you have any idea where the documents might be?' Jasmine asked.
'I suspect they're buried in or near one of the duck blinds he used, but those are scattered all over the state from the Ross Barnett Reservoir down in Jackson all the way up this side of the Mississippi River to Tunica. It might be anywhere.'
'Do we have to have those documents to make the case?' I asked.
'Absolutely' Shanker said. 'Without the original records, and preferably Talmadge's testimony to establish the trail of evidence, Braxton just might get off the hook.'
'Meaning we somehow have to spring Talmadge, recover the documents, and keep him alive to tell his tale.'
'Not an awfully practical matter,' Jasmine said. 'He's being held in a guarded, topfloor room at the VA hospital in Jackson.'
Suddenly, the shrieking syncopation of a helicopter shattered the silence, followed by a swift blur of simultaneous terror. First came a red laser dot's lethal dance, which found its mark faster than I could react. The unmistakable crack of a Heckler and Koch MP5 reached my ears an instant after Jay Shanker's head opened up like a dropped melon.
Before Shanker hit the ground, the red dot danced over Jasmine like a red wasp heavy with death. I threw myself against her and prayed.
CHAPTER 71
The man hiding amid the ruins of the old cotton gin loading dock watched a Hueysized chopper close in, leading a convoy of military Humvees down Sunflower Road, straight for the T-intersection at the gin. None of the vehicles had lights on. As the convoy approached, the sounds of racing engines came from opposite directions on MLK Jr. An instant later, the light bars on two police cars lit up, with sirens in full opera soprano mode.
The man's jaw dropped as an old stake-back truck raced down the middle of the street, from his left, pursued by one police car and heading straight for the second. With no options left, the stake-back truck careened left onto Sunflower Road head-on into the convoy.
Then the night filled with a concerto of squealing brakes, skidding tires, and the eruption of broken glass and tortured metal. The concerto's second movement commenced when the other vehicles in the convoy rear-ended each other in an extended chain reaction.
The two police cars skidded to a stop behind the stake-backed truck. The helicopter lit up then and spotlighted a tall, thin black youth as he sprang from the cab of the stake-back truck. Uniformed police officers leaped out of the squad cars and gave chase.
A third police car arrived less urgently and disgorged a huge man with a uniform and a black cowboy hat. The sounds of more sirens grew closer. The big man walked over to the Humvee as the passengers got out. Undamaged vehicles made their way around the collision but found themselves blocked by the Itta Bena police cruisers. A tall man with gray hair and a cigarette screamed obscenities at the huge man in the cowboy hat. Men in helmets and SWAT gear swarmed out of the vehicles.
The far end of MLK Jr. Drive lit up then with more police light bars. The faintest of scraping sounds came to the man as he took in the scene. He whirled, but saw only the blur of a boot disappearing through a gap in the siding. The man followed the boot inside.*****
The MP5's next shot lifted the hair at the back of my neck as I rolled Jasmine away from Jay Shanker's lifeless body. But the red dot was relentless. There was no time to aim my H amp;K because the slightest pause meant certain death.
Just as I feared history would repeat itself, a sustained burst of full-auto weapons fire came from the front of the gin, shunting the persistent red dot off into the darkness to paint a still life on the rusty tin roof.
My relief deepened with a totally unexpected voice.
'Old son, don't you have enough good sense to stop pissing off the federales?' 'Rex?' I stared at a shadow emerging from the darkness.
'Keep your voice down, podnuh. We don't want our buddies outside to connect the dotted line between you and me. Not too soon anyway.'
I helped Jasmine stand up as Rex's compact muscular form grew near. From outside, the sounds of urgent voices and the thuds of running feet sifted into the gin's confined space, filled now with the smell of gunfire and death. 'How… why?' I stuttered.
'Because nobody else is going to keep pulling your cojones out of the fire, my man.'
I shook the gloved hand he offered me as tin siding rattled at the rear of the girl. We all three dropped for cover and brought our guns to bear.
'Don't shoot.'
The voice was familiar.
'Uncle Quincy?'
'Jasmine!'
Quincy Thompson emerged from behind a sheet of corrugated tin siding, which swung out like a secret door at the back of the gin, right about where it abutted the adjacent building.
Instants later, I made out Quincy's face, which changed from relief to anger when he turned his head from Jasmine to me. Then he spotted Rex.
'Who the hell are you?'
'Chill out, cap'n. I'm just along for the ride.'
Quincy muttered something beneath his breath. Then: 'Come on! Quick!'
As we followed Quincy, the sounds of a siren grew near; flashing lights leaked through the old siding at the side of the gin. Then, almost lost in the dazzling of light-bar flashes from outside, a red dot danced about Quincy's back.
'Down!' I yelled, and launched myself into the backs of Quincy's knees, cutting him down with a clip that
