Flee, Spree, Three (Codename: Chandler Trilogy - Three Complete Novels) Page 31

  Another strike.

  “Tell me!”

  After the third blow, the pain became so bad Fleming passed out.

  A whiff of ammonia brought Fleming around again. Back to her world of pain. She recoiled from the smelling salts, the agony so intense, she threw up.

  Malcolm stepped to the side, distaste apparent on his face. He pointed the ASP at her.

  “Give me the unlock code. If it doesn’t unlock the phone, I’ll see how many pieces I can make out of your femur. In fact, I’ll take it as a personal challenge.”

  “I swear, I have to be the one who—”

  He raised the baton over her thighs. “The code!”

  “I’ll tell you! Whatever you want.”

  “Now.”

  Fleming had lost. Her death wouldn’t come easy.

  But she could still destroy the phone. And maybe take this arrogant asshole out as well.

  She rattled off the first six numbers of the sequence.

  Malcolm tucked the ASP under his armpit and punched them in.

  Fleming told him the next six.

  He hesitated, narrowing his eyes, makeup creasing in his crow’s-feet.

  “I can do it,” Fleming said.

  Malcolm motioned for the young soldier to take the transceiver. “Punch in the rest.”

  Fleming’s throat grew tight. That bastard. Maybe he could read minds.

  She glanced at the young spook. Probably not too long out of training. His whole life ahead of him. But what could she do? He’d made his choice. Malcolm had headed off her bid to kill herself and deflected her chance to kill him. The least she could do was take care of the transceiver.

  Malcolm brought the baton down, the steel rod sending agony through her.

  When the ringing in her ears cleared, she could hear his voice.

  “Repeat the numbers.”

  Swallowing hard, she forced out the last digits.

  The young guard, just following orders, tapped at the phone. He stopped with two digits left.

  “What are you waiting for?”

  “I don’t remember the last numbers.”

  “Five and seven. Oh, just give it to me.” Face as red as his port wine stain, Malcolm reached for the device just as the guard punched in the last two numbers.

  The transceiver exploded, showering Fleming with blood and bone.

  But, sadly, none of it was hers.

  Chandler

  “You should keep your friends close, and your enemies closer,” the Instructor said. “But make sure you know the difference between the two.”

  I’d traded my hooker outfit for jeans and a black sweater and had been waiting for Tequila on the corner of Wabash and Twenty-Sixth for almost half an hour, standing under the scorched marquee of a burned-out liquor store. The area could be generously described as “underprivileged.” A block south I’d actually seen some homeless guys huddling around a burning barrel, something I’d never thought existed outside of the movies. Earlier, two kids, each no more than twelve, tried to sell me meth. A pimp who couldn’t even shave yet attempted to force his game on me, talking trash and flashing the butt of a gun sticking out of his saggy pants. I relieved the teen of his piece and two teeth, and then chased him off. Now I was growing increasingly paranoid that he would be coming back with reinforcements.

  I caught sight of someone walking toward me, opposite side of the street, and wondered if yet another kid would try to shake me down. But on closer inspection I saw it wasn’t a black youth, but a short white adult.

  Jack had mentioned that Tequila was a gymnast, but she hadn’t mentioned he was two inches shorter than me, and I’m no giant. He wore a Blackhawks Starter jacket, jeans, and boots, and approached casually, a small bounce in his step, hands at his sides. As he got closer, I noticed the wrinkles on his face. I put him in his late forties, maybe early fifties. Blond hair in a buzz cut. A completely neutral expression. If he’d had a cigarette and a cowboy hat, he would have looked exactly like the Marlboro Man, if the Marlboro Man had been a member of the Lollipop Guild.

  My first impression was that Jack had slipped a gear in her brainbox, because there was no way this elderly midget would be any help. That pissed me off, because I’d wasted a lot of time waiting for him when I could have been on my way to Baraboo.

  Tequila stopped a meter in front of me, hands at his sides. This close he looked even shorter.

  “I get five k a day, plus expenses.” He had a deep, scratchy voice, as if he didn’t use it often.

  I smirked—his figure was outrageous. “And what do you do to earn that five k?”

  “Whatever it takes to get the job done.”

  “Former military?”

  He shook his head.

  “Done any freelance overseas?” I asked.

  “I’m mostly local.”

  “Any training at all in espionage, counterespionage?”

  “No. My experience is in beating people up and shooting them.”

  I managed to refrain from rolling my eyes. “I don’t think you’re right for this job. Sorry to waste your—”

  And the next thing I knew I was on my ass.

  I hadn’t seen the guy move. Wasn’t even sure how he hit me. His body was in the exact same position it had been when I was talking to him. Except now I was on the ground, trying to catch my breath from a sharp blow to the diaphragm.

  “Jack said you needed help. The kind of help I’m good at giving. You want to test me. So test me.”

  He held out his hand. I took it, and it was like gripping a two-by-four. As I pulled up to my feet, I shifted my weight and spun behind him, throwing a reverse side kick at his head. He caught my foot with his other hand, dropped to a knee, and flipped me as if he were sparring with a practice dummy.

  I rolled with the throw, coming up on the balls of my feet, twisting my hips, and following up with a spin kick. Tequila did a back handspring away from it, and then another handspring, and then a somersault, landing in a crouch. Somehow during the maneuver, two silver .45s had appeared in his hands, both aimed at me. Before I could react, he raised the guns above his head, firing so fast that it sounded like a machine gun. Then the BO’S LIQUOR sign was falling on me, the chains holding it up having been severed.

  I rolled forward, narrowly avoiding being crushed, and Tequila was right there when I came to my feet, his guns back in his shoulder holsters and his hands empty.

  “You’re not as good as you think you are,” he told me.

  I shrugged off my backpack, tossing it behind me. “You’re old and short.”

  He didn’t react at all. I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing.

  “If you want my help, Chandler, you have ten seconds to impress me.”

  He didn’t appear cocky or smug. He appeared certain, which was even more irritating, especially after the day I’d had. But it was also a challenge. He’d had two chances to seriously hurt me, and one chance to kill me, but he wasn’t interested in that. If anything, he was acting like a pro, and I wasn’t. Even if I chalked it up to stress, or exhaustion, I wasn’t channeling my best.

  “I apologize,” I said. “It’s been a tough few days.”

  “Five seconds,” he said.

  I nodded, bowed to show respect, and struck a kyorugi joonbi—a centered tae kwon do attacking stance. He did me the courtesy of bowing back, and then stood in a moa sogi, feet together and arms straight at his sides, awaiting my attack.

  This time I gave him my best, leading with a front kick, following with a palm strike, spinning on my axis, and drilling my heel into his chest before he could block it. He jumped, surprisingly high, and did a spinning kick, which I got under, connecting my shin to his thigh. I followed up with another palm, coming up under his chin, pulling it so I didn’t hurt him.

  But I hadn’t needed to pull it, because he had captured my blow between his elbow and palm.

  A move identical to what Rochester had done to me.

  I rolled away, ducking
the follow-up elbow, my fists clenched hard.

  “What was that?” I said.

  He offered only the same maddening blank expression.

  “The block with the hand and the elbow,” I said.

  “It’s called skull and crossbones.”

  “What’s its style?”

  “Jailhouse Rock.”

  Jailhouse Rock. I thought back to the tattoo on Rochester’s hand. JHR.

  Tequila tapped his elbow, his chest, his neck, and then began to pick up speed, beating out that familiar rhythm.

  “Five thousand a day, plus expenses,” I said over the noise. “But you have to teach me that.”

  He stopped the beat and shook his head. “You haven’t impressed me yet.”

  So that’s how it was? Fine.

  I switched to muay thai, jumping at him with a shin kick. He moved to block it, and I let him push me off balance while I reached down and tweaked his nose. We both knew I could have broken it, but I didn’t rest on my laurels, instead twisting in the air and hitting the sidewalk on my bad shoulder, damning the pain, arching my back and kicking up to lock my feet around his neck. He made the mistake everyone makes with this move; he tried to pull me off. I allowed him to yank my legs, grabbing his heel as he did, letting him pull his own feet out from under him with me as the lever.

  We ended up on the sidewalk, him on his back, his head between my thighs and my knees pinning his arms.

  If I’d had a knife in hand, I could have gutted him from groin to clavicle. Instead I gave him a firm slap on his belly to let him know I was in control. It was like hitting concrete.

  With one fluid move he bucked me off and skipped up to his feet, and as he spun with his hands digging into his jacket, I produced the Beretta from my waistband at the same time.

  We each crouched there, pointing our weapons at each other, him looking blank and me smiling wide. A police siren wailed in the distance.

  “I recognized the tae kwon do, the judo, and the muay thai,” Tequila said, “but what was that last move with the legs on my neck?”

  “That’s one of my own.”

  He seemed to think it over, then said, “You kill people for the government.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t trust the government.”

  “Neither do I.”

  Another short stretch of silence.

  “Jack said something about breaking your sister out of a secret prison. This is personal to you.”

  I thought about lying, but decided against it. What was the point? “Yes.”

  The sirens got closer. I had no idea what he was thinking.

  “My truck is parked a block over, on State,” he eventually said. “I brought clothing and provisions for three days. If it takes longer than that, you pick up the expenses.”

  I didn’t have to think it over. “Agreed.”

  “You’re in charge, so you call the shots. But I reserve the right to challenge your authority if I disagree.”

  “Agreed.”

  “I’ll take two days’ pay in advance. Cash. And you pay me every two days, as long as I’m needed.”

  Cash wouldn’t be a problem, at least at first. But that would run out, and if I accessed any of my accounts, I had no guarantee they couldn’t be traced.

  Then again, those with the proper equipment could trace me anyway.

  “Agreed,” I said.

  He tucked away his guns and stood up, holding out his hand. I stood up and shook it. Tequila held my hand longer than he needed to, and I saw something flash in his eyes. Amusement? Respect?

  Attraction?

  “Any witnesses saw a man and a woman fighting,” he said, releasing my hand. “I’ll grab my truck, meet you on Twenty-eighth and State. It’s a white SUV. See you in three minutes.”

  He turned and walked off, leaving me to wonder if I’d just improved my odds, or made an enormous mistake.

  Fleming

  “Once you are captured, your biggest battle is with yourself,” the Instructor said. “The enemy has as many ways to beat down your spirit as they have to hurt your body. It’s up to you to find ways to keep your mind strong, your hope intact, in the face of whatever they throw at you.”

  After the explosion, more guards had come rushing in. Malcolm had ordered Fleming sedated and left the room, clutching his mangled hand. They escorted him out, and removed the remains of the young man who’d punched in the destruction code.

  She felt a stab of regret for him, but Nuremburg had shown that just following orders was a fool’s game. He’d died, but the transceiver had died with him. She took solace in that.

  Unable to fight against the straps holding her down, she felt the sting of the needle plunge into her arm, then dizziness, then nothing.

  Fleming didn’t know how long she’d been out, but when she awoke, she was alone in a tiny room. The wheelchair was gone, and she lay sprawled on a concrete floor, naked under a bright overhead light.

  She forced herself up to one hip. Pain pulsed through her ruined legs. Her head felt light, and it took a few minutes for her to solidify her balance and survey the room. This space was smaller than the last, about ten by ten, but it had the same white cinder block walls, lack of windows, and concrete floor. It also had the same recessed light, and she did her best to blink back its glare. A black plastic bucket was the only thing in the room, no handle, probably meant to be her toilet.

  Also like the room where she’d been interrogated, the air was cold and held the dampness found underground. Shivers shook her. She tried to cover herself with her arms, but even as she did, she knew it was no use.

  Nakedness was a tactic, of course, intended to strip her of her identity, make her feel vulnerable, let her know she was defenseless against the forces controlling her life.

  It also kept her from tearing the hospital gown into lengths that she could tie into a noose.

  She’d hoped to kill herself and take her knowledge with her, but with the smooth walls, empty room, and lack of anything but the bucket, Malcolm had taken away even that escape. They’d stripped off the long bandages the hospital had used to wrap her legs, leaving nothing but gauze stuck to her flesh by blood.

  A noise filtered into the room, a low keening, like the complaints of a wounded animal. It grew in volume, becoming a feminine scream.

  “No…no…please…no…”

  She quailed at the sound. Chandler? She couldn’t tell.

  Pulling in a breath, she forced herself to continue her observations, taking note of her surroundings, filing details away in case they became useful later. Performing her job, following her training…something she could control.

  This room wasn’t as clean as the last. The odor of mildew, dust, and mice droppings reached her, along with blood oozing from the wounds on her battered legs. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been here, passed out on the floor, but her mouth was dry, and her throat felt swollen. Bladder was fuller than before. She’d have to use the bucket soon, an enormous indignity considering she wasn’t able to squat.

  The woman’s screams wrapped around her mind, impossible to ignore.

  “Stop…please, stop…I’ll tell you whatever you want to know…just no more.”

  Fleming’s chest constricted. Was that Chandler? She couldn’t tell by the voice, but Fleming couldn’t imagine Chandler begging.

  Unless they’d broken her.

  Could they have broken her that quickly?

  What were they doing to that poor woman?

  Fleming thought about calling out. She wanted to.

  But no good could come of that. It would only weaken her.

  Instead, Fleming leaned back against the whitewashed wall. She cleared her mind and focused on breathing.

  In four counts. Hold four counts. Out four counts.

  It took several reps before she could feel her airway start to relax, then, using her hands, she dragged herself to the door.

  There was no knob, no way to open it from this side. A f
ew shoves, and she could tell it was solid steel and likely secured with dead bolts.

  She wasn’t getting out of here unless Malcolm or his men came to get her. If they did, it meant he was ready to make good on his threats, to wring every last bit of useful information from Fleming’s mind.

  “Oh, God…no. I’ve told you all of it. I swear…just…please…don’t…”

  Until then, they’d keep her naked and cold, trapped underground, the echoes of another woman’s anguish beating her down like a physical force.

  “Please! I’m begging you…no!”

  Fleming tried to block out the sounds.

  She couldn’t.

  Chandler

  “The difference between an enemy and an ally can be minimal,” the Instructor said. “Sometimes the only line between the two is timing.”

  When I saw the white truck I immediately thought Cop. White with blue trim, tinted windows, a spotlight above the side mirror, multiple antennas on top. But then a window rolled down and Tequila leaned an arm over the driver’s door. I hopped in, putting my bag at my feet.

  “We have to stop at my apartment.”

  “You’re hot,” Tequila said.

  “Thanks. I try to keep in shape.”

  He gave me a quick sideways glance that conveyed bottomless disapproval. “Hot. Too many people after you. They’ll be watching your apartment.”

  “I need equipment.”

  “We’ll get more equipment.”

  “Some of it is specialized.” I wanted to add, I also need to pick up more money to pay your outrageously expensive salary, but I kept that bit to myself.

  Tequila pulled a cell out of his jacket. Like mine, it was a TracFone—one of those disposable models you could buy at drugstores. Untraceable.

  “Give me a list of what you need.”

  I began to rattle off items, which he typed into his phone using his thumb while also managing to successfully navigate Chicago traffic without killing us both.

  After he hit send, he said, “Tell me about the mission.”

  There wasn’t much to tell. We needed to locate the black site, infiltrate, and escape with Fleming.