Monica pushed them on faster, more desperate now to get them inside the place Gracie and Joe had found. A professional above almost anything else, she wanted to keep their package safe. Professionally that was what she knew she had to do. Personally, she needed to get them hidden and secured so she could look for Joe. She knew him too well. He was badly injured.
She also knew about Reds. They each got their supply from Gracie and the cigarettes the child offered them when they needed a boost. Joe hadn't had a smoke in the last twenty-four hours... that meant his supply of Reds was probably reaching exhaustion, just like Joe would be if the damage was serious. "Gracie, honey. How much longer can Joe hold out without a new set of drones? If he's hurt, is he in pain by now?"
"Yes. A lot. I asked him to smoke a cigarette a couple of times yesterday, but he said he was feeling fine. I asked him before he went to town, too. He wanted to save the cigarettes we have left so you and Mommy could have one first. I tried to tell him there were other ways for me to give you all a set, but he was trying to repair the window in my room, and he wasn't really listening."
Monica stopped, looking off in the direction where she had seen the explosion, standing still, as if watching for him would make him appear. "That's our Joe! Thinking with his heart and not his head. We can buy more cigarettes. The minute we see him, you'll fix him up again. Okay?"
"Sure." Gracie's smile always brightened Monica's spirits. Newmeyer had called the tall woman a tough cookie, and she was that, no doubt. Not much could seep inside her hard exterior. But this young girl had saved their lives, and saved Joe from the hell that had tortured him for the last year. Monica owed Gracie and her mother more than just gratitude. She owed them safety, total protection, a chance for life.
But there was Joe. A year without him had been torture. He hadn't worked much or well without her; but she had felt adrift without him to anchor her. During the year they'd spent apart, Monica had lost a package. It was the only client she had ever lost. She had learned first hand how Joe felt. At least she hadn't lost a child... just the father of six, who had learned his accounting skills were providing laundered cash for a drug cartel. She had failed him and his six, failing to keep him safe when he had determined to head home for one child's birthday. She hadn't seen it coming. A piece of birthday cake had cost the man his life.
She had to admit it. She needed Joe to back her up, to make her complete, to keep her sharp. She didn't like to admit she needed anything or anyone that much, but DAMN IT, she did. And more than that, she loved him.
"Monica, are you okay?" Helen had seen the worried look on the woman's face. She missed her husband Warren, and knew that Monica Quik loved Joe Keyes just as much as she had loved her man. "Are you worried about Joe? Do you think he's in trouble?"
"Oh, yes. I know he's in trouble. He admitted it. He didn't say how badly he was hurt, so it's probably pretty bad."
"Do you want to look for him?"
"Yes!" She stopped herself. "No. Joe will find us if he can. If I go looking for him, I will leave you and Gracie in danger. Those men are not going to stop coming... not until they find us. We've got to get Gracie somewhere safe."
"But what about Joe. We need him too."
"Joe's alive. If he's able to move, he will find us. We are all his family now. He will stop at nothing to find his family. Come on. Let's get to where he knows where to look."
It was all his fault. After four months of nobody coming after them, months of feeling so much better than before, he had let down his guard. He should've smoked the cigarettes like Gracie asked him too. He just really didn't like the taste of the stuff anymore. Yet, the kid had a way of knowing when their resources, the Reds, were low... especially his resources. And his resources weren't just low any more... they were gone, too long gone.
He knew that now. The bleeding from his shoulder hadn't stopped. When the pain and the blood continued to come, he had asked himself exactly what were these Reds he had bought into, taken so willingly into his body. Was one outcome of accepting Reds a lessening of the body's ability to heal itself once the Reds lost their power? He didn't know, but he was paying for not having the little drones inside him. Tired, nearing exhaustion, feeling nauseous from the loss of blood, he had fallen more than once on this run. Each contact of skin with ground had produced another streak of blood. They were just small scratches, one at his head, more on his hands and feet. They were more like what a kid got on a playground, but Joe had noticed that they didn't stop weeping blood any more than his shoulder did. It was all his fault.
He pushed himself up again. He had avoided direct contact with the former homestead. He knew they weren't there. Knew too that the ones who hunted them had blown the place apart. He knew Monica had them all out, moving on foot. He regretted the loss of the car more and more with each pace. Monica would be tired too, especially with the combined burdens of clients and the heavy bag of hardware she carried. She would neither have left it behind, nor allowed her companions to carry it.
He was running again now, ignoring the pain and fatigue, making a not so direct run for the new old place he and Gracie had stumbled upon. He hoped the child remembered the placement of the old buildings and the little trap door that had connected homestead with root cellar, and on, further still, to the dilapidated barn. The place had been somebody's hideout, now it was going to be theirs... at least until hunger or danger forced them to move on; the groceries had gone up with the car. He hoped somebody had the cigarettes. He didn't remember needing a cigarette this bad even when he had been a tar-kettle smoker.
To take his mind off his pain and the tired body that was left to him, he had tried to think of anyone who would want to kill a little girl, her mother, and two protectors who meant nothing to them except an obstacle that stood between them and the Deep Red they wanted. It occurred to him that Newmeyer's need for the Deep Red might have been more than a lust for longevity. Maybe his goal had been to make himself the important one, the one they wouldn't kill, the one who held the coveted Deep Red within him.
It was at times like this when he would miss Lew Ramirez the most. Lew liked the thinking and the set up; Joe liked the doing, the tracking; Monica loved the parts that required stealth and secrecy. They had been an outstanding team. Now the thinking fell to the remaining two. It wasn't that they couldn't do it... it just gave them the added burden and the memory of their friend, no longer there to help put it all together.
Joe was thinking about who could be after them when "Who the hell is that" shot through his mind. He picked up speed. The two figures were between him and the homestead his family was trying to reach. The two were in military fatigue, dark, blending with the greenery around them, only visible now because they had to cross a small clear cut in the trees. He thanked the timbermen who loved profit more than replanting and keeping the forest alive. The men quickly negotiated a small gorge covered in crumbling rock, and then a small creek. If he let them get much farther ahead, they would be hidden again. If he let himself be seen crossing the same areas, how far the two got, and how close to his family they came, would cease to matter to him, mostly because Joe Keyes would be dead.
He changed his line of pursuit, running inside the first available trees. His luck held as he realized the trees would provide shelter and make it possible for him to dodge the gorge, giving him only a smallish part of the creek to cross. The route was infinitely better than having to manage the rocks and climb into and back out of the tiny chasm. It also closed the distance between him and the figures he had seen. He pulled up sharp at the edge of the woodlands, seeing Monica and her charges slip into the house. A few minutes more, the figures in black stumbled into sight, beginning to check for evidence of others at the place.
Joe had swept the ground clean of tracks the last time he had visited the homestead. Monica, moving quickly, hadn't had the opportunity to do the same. The taller of the two trackers spotted something, and they began to follow. He hoped Monica didn't leave tracks at the trap door... they needed somewhere to hide.
Monica needed him. She didn't know why he had impressed it upon Gracie that this was a place to come to if the homestead was in danger. All he had told her and Helen was that he had found a backup location, and that Gracie knew where it was.
"Gracie?" Monica asked in a voice only marginally louder than a whisper, "What did Joe tell you about this place. Why did he bring you here?"
"I found it. I told him it was here. He came with me the next time. All he told me was to remember how to get here, and to tell her that if he didn't make it here, there was an underground route to get further away."
"Another route? Where?"
Helen was watching through the dirty windowpanes, and saw their pursuers emerge from the gorge. "They're coming!!" Her eyes were wide in fear, not knowing where they could turn now.
"Gracie? Where is the underground route?"
"It's in that closet over there beyond the wood stove. He says it was the place they stored wood at one time, but now, it's just hiding a trap door. Says they made it well, that once we're inside, people who don't know it's here, who aren't looking for it, will think it's just a closet. Come on... I 'll show you."
"Where does it go, Gracie? Do you know where it goes?"
"He says to a barn at the back of the property. I didn't see it. He says there's a false root cellar, and I was to tell you that we ought to go down into the cellar, rock the potato bin backwards, and follow that path. Said when we got clear of the bin, he'd put a mallet and three pegs there to make sure the bin didn't open again."
"When did he do this?"
"He came two days ago. He said not to tell anyone where he had gone unless we had to run."
"Oh, good girl. You're sure you remember everything he said absolutely clearly?"
The child smiled and rolled her eyes. "I remember. He made me repeat it ten times!"
"That's our Joe." Monica went toward the closet beyond the stove. She reached under the bottom shelf, knowing to leave no visible prints to let followers know where they had gone. She lifted the shelf and smiled when a well oiled hinge swung out of the way and extended a set of stairs into the darkness below."
"It's so dark..." Helen stood back, her eyes again wide.
"There is nothing to be afraid of. Look, I have two flashlights in my bag. We'll just use one, save the other in case this is a really long hike. But come on, we have to move now or they will come in that door back there and find us."
"What about Joe?"
"Gracie? What was Joe going to do. If I put those pegs in place, he won't be able to follow us."
"He said he would meet us at the barn, that he would deal with anyone following us. He said he knew another way to get there. And he said if we got this far, and if it was time, I wasn't to move past the root cellar until you had both had another cigarette."
"That's my Joe. Monica moved them down into the dark, and only when she had moved into the darkness herself did she let a tear fall."
Joe pulled his Glock 19, 9 millimeter pistol from his boot. He had fifteen rounds plus one in the chamber, and one extra clip in his pants pocket. It would have to do. Monica could scold him later, maybe, for having left the more high-powered semi at the homestead and not under the seat of the car where she always kept it. He hoped he had a chance to hear her scold him again.
Standing inside the trees had given him a few minutes to observe the two men and draw air into his lungs. His shoulder still bled, but didn't seem to be bleeding nearly as much as it hurt. The bleeding from the smaller cuts had finally given up. He wasn't going to stop; he didn't care if they bled. He had sucked a little water from his hand as he had leaned down to scoop it from the little creek. He was ready.
Keeping low, he left the shelter of the forest and zigzagged his way through brush and tall weeds and grass. He made good time, until he flushed a covey of quail from their roosts, sending them skyward, turning the two hunters toward himself. They froze instantly, one pointing and obviously yelling to the other... the taller one... the one who faced him and began the pursuit. Joe cursed himself and turning west, he ran back into the denser trees, hoping to lead the tall one on a chase away from the homestead. That would leave Monica only one to stop... if he did his part, and didn't fail them again.
PHOENIX
Michael Biehn Archive
Choose skin:
The characters belong to various production/film/TV companies. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.
|
Author's Chapter Notes: By Anne Tolar |