Fatal (23 page)

Beuhl had been watching and waiting. From previous nights, he knew that the men swapped out at midnight, one team relieving another. At the Ag Center, the back door opened and four figures stepped out into the night. They split into groups of two, one pair headed toward Beuhl’s side of the compound, the other walking toward the opposite, where Cassie was supposed to be waiting.

The men reached the halfway point of the yard. Beuhl could barely make them out now as he released the clutch. The tractor lurched forward and stalled. Beuhl cursed, turned the key, and breathed again when the engine caught. He let up on the clutch again, easing into it this time. His reward was a steady jump forward. He kept it in low and pushed the throttle to the floor. The tractor began to pick up speed in the grass, lurched into a low gully, and came easily up the other side. A slight downhill grade helped and the tractor engine was roaring when Beuhl shifted into second gear. He was rocking in the seat as the tractor accelerated. Twenty yards from the fence, he pulled on the handle that worked the bucket attachment on the front, lowered it to waist high, and tore into the corner fence pole with a lurch and the screech of protesting metal. The fence crumpled under the weight of the tractor. Beuhl downshifted and stomped the gas again, managing to crawl forward another fifteen feet before stalling. He heard shouting, and a figure came out of the night.

On the other side of the compound, Cassie heard the initial impact when Beuhl hit the fence, a terrific crunching sound of metal meeting metal. She was crouching behind a big oak tree, two cigarettes in her hand. Each was jammed lengthwise into a pack of matches. She waited two seconds, enough time for the men on her side to turn their heads to the sound of Beuhl’s collision with the fence. When the shouting started, she lit each cigarette in turn, relying on the watcher’s attention being on the opposite side of the yard. The first five gallons of gas went on the ground in a line along the fence. She could see the watcher clearly now. He was standing with his back to her. The shouting went on and the watcher took two steps toward the other side, trying to get a better view of what was happening. He hesitated and finally took off at a run. Cassie planted the other gas can firmly against the fence on top of the gas-soaked ground. Her fuses went on each side of the line of fuel-soaked grass. She now had about three minutes.

Beuhl threw the tractor into reverse. He turned on the headlights now, blinding the man in front of him. His partner, who had come running through the ankle-high grass, was screaming into a radio. Both threw up their hands in front of their faces when the light hit them and Beuhl could see guns. The bottle of Jack Daniels rattled around on the floor and Beuhl laughed, a loud hysterical screech. He found first gear again, popped the clutch and tore off down the fence line past the guards. He now had four men chasing him, two early shift and two late shift. He could see more coming. “All hands on deck!” he screamed, crashing into the fence fifty feet further on. So far, so good. Nobody was shooting and he had their attention. The fence was leaning dangerously. Beuhl threw the tractor into a long looping turn, now coming at the fence straight on. One of the guards pointed his gun up in the air and pulled the trigger. The shot banged out in the night air. Beuhl left the tractor in gear and jumped out.

Cassie was already inside the fence when the shot rang out. While Beuhl was carrying on, she crawled to the darkest spot she could find and began cutting away at the links with the bolt cutters. In two minutes she had the wire peeled back. She was over the wall and halfway to the back door when it opened. Two men stepped out. One was Luke Francis. She slid to the ground, rolling the rifle off her shoulder at the same time. Francis was shouting orders. Cassie racked the bolt. In the distance, a series of shots went off as the guards finally decided the tractor had to be killed. Francis moved away from the back door of the building, trying to get a better look at what was happening across the yard. His man was talking on the radio, nodding his head to something. Cassie brought the scope to her eye, searching for a target. The scope was too much, the image huge. Damn, I should have thought of that, Cassie thought, furious with herself. The scope came off with a twist. She tossed it on the ground, found Francis’ radio man in her line of fire. The rifle jumped, a solid kick against her shoulder. The radio man went down. Francis turned, saw him on the ground, turned again in Cassie’s direction, then broke for the back door. Cassie worked the bolt, got another round in the chamber, and brought the rifle down for another shot. Behind her, the fence line bloomed into flames.

*****

Inside the building, Ronnie heard all hell break loose and smiled to himself. It could only mean Cassie was here. He shoved his wallet, which Francis had allowed him to keep, into his back pocket. There was nothing else in the room he needed or wanted. Some kind of alarm sounded, a low buzz that set his teeth on edge. He stepped into the hallway to find Wesling coming at a run.

“Is this her?” Wesling asked. Ronnie nodded. Wesling was surprised to see him smiling. “Yeah, that’s got to be Cassie,” Ronnie said. “I don’t know what else it could be. I’m the only thing here worth stealing, unless you haven’t told me something.”

“Ronnie, listen to me. You have to find a way to stop this. She’s going to get killed.” Wesling put her hand on his arm. “If you can get her to come in, I can help. I know some people. We can try and get Francis out of the picture.”

“Can you guarantee that you’ll get Francis removed?” Ronnie said. “Because if you can’t, then we’re both screwed. Cassie will have turned herself in for nothing. Can you guarantee me that?”

Wesling shook her head. “I can’t guarantee anything, no. But it’s a shot.”

Ronnie could hear more shooting outside. The building itself was strangely quiet. Francis must have pushed every available man into the fray. Strangely enough, only Wesling had come to his room. Ronnie was still free, but he expected that to be over soon. It was time to move.

“Listen,” he said to Wesling. “This is my chance to get out. Come with me. If we can get out, you can try to set something up for us. But we have to do it now, tonight. Let’s go.” He took off down the hall at a fast pace. At the end was a set of double doors. They were locked, Ronnie knew, but Wesling had a key. If he couldn’t convince her to open them, Cassie would have to come all the way into the building.

“Open the doors,” Ronnie said when they got there. “Open it now.”

“I can’t. You know that.” Wesling was getting desperate. “I open those doors and my whole career goes down the tube. Francis will destroy me. He might even kill me. I want to help, but he’s insane. He’ll kill anyone who tries to help you.”

Ronnie blew up. The last few days had been building up in him. The stress from worrying about Cassie, maintaining control around Francis, the exhaustion from the viewings, all came together, exploding out of him. He pushed Wesling hard against the wall. The impact stunned her.
“You don’t have a fucking clue,” Ronnie said. He grabbed her by the collar, pulling her face in close. The change in him was terrifying. “Francis is the least of your worries. Cassie is out there and she can’t hold off the whole place by herself. I have to get out of here and I have to go now. You either give me the fucking keys or I’ll kill you myself.”

Wesling reached into her pocket, fumbled out a set of keys. The lock worked smoothly. Ronnie found himself in another corridor, with another set of doors on the end. These looked to be solid steel, painted grey, and the lock was larger. Wesling produced another set of keys. Ronnie stepped through the doors and the chaos outside immediately got louder. He smiled as he saw the open door at the end of the hall, a door that opened to the outside. A few more steps and he would be free. He would find Cassie. They would get to a safe place and then decide what to do.

*****

Clayton Beuhl limped through the darkness back to his house. The roll off the tractor had been bad, his foot twisting on a stump hidden in the grass. The first few yards were a scramble on his hands and knees. It wasn’t until he realized that the guards were so busy shooting at his ancient John Deere that they didn’t know the driver had bailed that he stood up. The pain in his ankle was bad, but he forced himself onward at a quick pace. Behind him, the shooting tapered off to an occasional pop. He stumbled around the side of the house where Karen was waiting in his pickup, the engine running. The door creaked as he pulled it open. Gotta oil that, he thought. If we make it out of this. Karen threw the pickup in gear, spewing gravel all the way down the driveway. Beuhl looked through his window and saw the far side of the compound ablaze. He smiled to himself. This might be the most fun he’d had in his entire life.

“Slow it down some,” Beuhl said. “We can’t get there too fast.” The plan, laid out by Cassie late the night before, was for Beuhl and Karen to be waiting down the road from the Ag Center in a small crossover tucked off to the side. How she planned to get there, Beuhl didn’t know. “Are you hit?” Karen asked. She took her eyes off the road long enough to look down at Beuhl’s leg. Is it bad? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Just twisted my ankle.” He laughed aloud. “Goddamn, that was something else. Those guys didn’t know whether to shit or go blind. When I turned the lights on, that guard looked like a deer in the headlights. Too bad about the tractor though. At least it died a glorious death instead of rusting away in the barn.”

“We’ll buy another tractor. We’ll need it for the garden anyway. That old thing wasn’t going to last much longer.”

“What garden?” Beuhl asked. The lights of the dashboard gave him just enough illumination to see her smiling as she drove.

“The one I’m going to plant when this is all over and I move into your place,” Karen said. She rounded the corner onto the main highway that would take them past the Ag Center, downshifted into second gear, and punched the accelerator.

“Oh,” Beuhl said.

*****

The flames lit up the entire back of the building, bathing Francis in light. He was running full stride now for the door. Cassie could see everything in perfect detail. Francis was wearing a sports coat. It flared behind him as he ran. His shoes, polished to perfection, reflected yellow fire against the gravel. Cassie felt her heart pounding against her chest. She was completely in her element. The young girl, fresh into college and full of life, was gone. She was a deadly animal now, her other life forgotten. There was no future, no past, only the enemy in her vision. An icy calm came over her. Death was at hand and she would deal it out. The iron sights were black and took up half the running figure when Cassie settled in. She was in a direct line behind Francis and the door, which stood open and inviting. She could see movement inside the building, more people moving down the hall from inside. Here’s where you get yours, she thought, as her finger tightened on the trigger. The rifle kicked back against her shoulder just as the extra five-gallon can of gas on the fence went up in a thundering whump. Francis stumbled and fell. A few seconds later a woman began screaming.

*****

Wesling could do nothing but follow Ronnie as he ran down the corridor. The light coming from the door was waving and flickering. Outside, she saw Francis bellowing orders, screaming at someone. One of his men was standing next to him, a radio at his mouth. Ronnie was ahead of her, moving fast. She heard a gunshot, deeper than the rest. Rifle, she thought. The man with the radio was gone. Francis turned. She could see fear on his face, his eyes wide. He was moving now, racing to get back inside. Ronnie was still running toward the same open door and freedom. Her mind flashed on an old movie she’d seen, a comedy from when she was a little girl, in which two men tried to get through the same door at the same time. Francis’ shape had almost eclipsed the light from outside. He was mere feet from the door. Ronnie was running full tilt. There was no avoiding a collision. Outside, something big went up, some kind of explosion and at the same time she heard the crack of the rifle.

*****

Luke Francis took 150 grains of copper-jacketed lead three inches to the left of his backbone. The bullet was moving at just under 3,000 feet per second. The impact knocked him forward. With no significant resistance to stop it, the slug continued through the chest cavity, nicked a rib on the way out and deflected upwards. He fell ten feet from the door, just short of safety. The deflection off his rib was enough to make the bullet rise a few inches as it blew out of his chest cavity. It crossed another fifteen feet in less than a second and entered the doorway, where it hit Ronnie Gilmore full in the throat. He spun, a huge gout of blood splashing the wall, and died with his eyes open.

*****

Wesling watched as a small figured emerged from the darkness, a rifle in her hand. The figure stopped over Francis, turned and looked in the doorway. Wesling pressed against the wall. The rifle came up again. Ronnie’s body lay in the doorway. The figure, Wesling could see it was a girl now, collapsed to her knees. She rolled Ronnie over. A great screaming wail of agony filled the air.

*****

It was Wesling who eventually took control of the facility and Wesling who got Cassie out, into the care of Clayton Beuhl and Karen Strait. For weeks afterward she thought they would lose her. Cassie spent most of that time in a bed in Beuhl’s house. She ate next to nothing, her bones began to show through her skin. Wesling went to see her daily.