Minnie Chase Makes a Mistake (14 page)

Keeping flat to the wall, she peered out of one of the windows again and could see Greene and Levchin standing near some garden furniture underneath the shade of huge oak tree. No one was sitting down. She couldn’t exactly describe it as a relaxed atmosphere even though the garden setting was serene. 

Then she noticed the men in black. Security had multiplied – terrible spiders darting here and there. It was only a matter of seconds before someone would sweep the house again and then she would be found and removed. Minnie considered darting back to her hiding place then imagined thermal heat imagery picking her up, a red quivering blob in the towel closet. She would be grabbed by iron hands and the game would be up.

The situation worsened as a black shadow passed directly in front of the sun. It was an ominous sign. It also came with alarming sound effects. Minnie peered up and saw a helicopter angrily buzzing above Greene’s home. It was an enormous glass eye with shimmering blades, chopping and slicing the air. 

Time up. She took the exact route Greene and Levchin had earlier – straight through the patio doors and down a flight of marble steps onto the lawn, although at a considerably quicker pace. She knew she had to sprint as fast as she could to get to Greene if she was to convince him that she was able to help him out and fix this mess.

The helicopter had started to land a little too close to the house, the sudden torrent of air picked up gravel and hurled it against the windows. It was a good job that Minnie couldn’t hear herself think. She focused on Greene and pounded towards him, elbows pumping, knees up.

All that noise, action, instruction and confusion combined to create a charged atmosphere. Minnie could sense that she was in real danger as it became all too apparent that she was considered a threat.

She sprinted faster, harder, gasping for breath. Greene spotted her and was staring, mouth open slightly. There was a faint sign of surprise on the otherwise measured face. 

It went from bad to worse in a heartbeat. 

‘PANIC ROOM!’ screamed someone. Four men raced towards Greene.

Levchin was pushed to the ground, not for his own protection, but because he was standing in the way. 

Minnie told herself that you don’t slow down when you’ve come so far. 

The noise from the helicopter blades continued to batter Minnie’s ear drums and people dodged out of the way as gravel fired like shrapnel. 

The shouting increased to compete with the noise of the helicopter. Incredibly, Minnie managed to dodge an enormous man who had his feet planted apart and his arms stretched wide as though he could throw out a sticky web and snare Minnie mid-flight. She ducked and dodged around him. Greene was now surrounded by a circle of man power who were marching him away from Minnie but she thundered after them. She screamed at the top of her lungs. ‘Mr Greene, I just want to talk to you.’ 

Still running, she hurled her contact details, a paper plane, in the direction of Greene. It soared over Dragonet heads in the helicopter’s wash.

The human shield surrounding Greene was broken as one of the men stepped out of the protective circle. 

He turned to face Minnie straight on. His outstretched arm was holding a gun. 

Minnie’s brain didn’t register the severity of a lethal weapon pointing straight at her because she reasoned that no one in their right mind would
shoot
her.

Then the man shot her.  

If you did that to me, I’d probably kill you,
whispered Jackson’s words in her head, as the person pulled the trigger. At precisely this moment Minnie was sure she saw falling stars or flashes of coloured light from a broken rainbow. 

The noise seemed to pop and explode. There was nothing graceful about the end of the race; indeed, Minnie didn’t even get a chance to reach the finishing line. Arms outstretched, her fingers grasped at the air as the ground disappeared from beneath her. She felt herself falling until the blow to her shoulder tossed her into the air again. She became a powder-filled firework soaring, burning, crackling but there was no appreciation of beauty from the watchful eyes beneath. Heat coursed through her whole body and she felt as though she was burning fiercely until the sparks went out. Then, all too quickly, she crashed to the ground, blackened and lifeless. 

Finally, it was quiet at last. 

10

Second chances

Everything happened so quickly. Everything happened so slowly. Minnie’s world was a blur of motion, noise and pain. She felt the ground rush up and hit her. She screamed but it sounded far away, under water, just a gurgle in her throat. Much closer was the high-pitched crackle of the gun, sharp and distinct, ricocheting inside her ears. Her head collided abruptly with the immaculate grass and the last, lingering crackle was replaced by a dull thud that rolled around inside her head like approaching thunder. She felt a powerful blast ripping effortlessly through cotton, skin and muscle until the bullet smashed into her collar bone and across towards her shoulder. She twitched, she groaned. Her right arm was tingling and felt on fire. 

She was stunned and confused. Clouds quietly congregated above her. She looked around for the angels but could only see men in black.

Then faces, pushing in front of the clouds, loomed over Minnie – alien spaceships in a holding pattern. It was a strange and unsettling perspective but Minnie hurt too much to move. She tried to croak out a few words but struggled to even catch a breath. She turned her head fractionally to the right. Unbelievably, there was no sign of any blood. 

One of the faces loomed even closer to get a better look, a mouth moved and said, ‘Subject is down. No more Taser intervention.’

Minnie’s brain took a moment to process this information. She. Had. Been. Tasered? 

‘There will be no lasting change in the subject,’ barked the voice. ‘She’ll be fine in a minute. Then arrest her.’

He had barely finished speaking when, whoosh, Minnie was hauled roughly to her feet – a San Franciscan minute evidently passing more quickly than in the rest of the civilised world. Minnie wouldn’t have been surprised if an electrical current was still coursing through her body. The enormous Dragonet, who now jammed his hands under her armpits, didn’t appear to get a shock when he touched her so she was obviously no longer ‘live’. Perhaps his rubber-soled boots, life-saving in a lightning strike, worked to his advantage.

Minnie could not believe that an electroshock weapon had been used on her, had struck her down. Admittedly, it was the lesser of two evils, particularly when the alternative could have been a gunshot wound. Still, she wasn’t exactly feeling thankful that she had been Tasered instead of shot.

She started to shake. She didn’t feel as though she would be fine in a minute. Her muscles ached, and not just where she had been hit but throughout her body. It didn’t ease the feeling when her arms were savagely pulled behind her back. Then someone roughly handcuffed
her. 

This can’t be happening
, thought Minnie, panicked and dazed. She was frog-marched across the grass towards the helicopter. ‘Please, no!’ she managed to croak. But the deafening noise from the helicopter’s engine and rotor blades tossed her words around with the flying gravel. No one could hear her. 

The persistent
whop-whop-whop-whop from the blades drowned out peripheral sound. People were shouting but Minnie couldn’t work out the words. Someone forced her head down so she wouldn’t be hit by blade tips as the helicopter dipped and danced into position on the grass. Minnie thought her situation couldn’t get much worse but she hadn’t factored decapitation into the realms of possibilities.

She was half pushed, half hauled into the helicopter. Two armed Dragonets jumped in beside her. 

The second she tried to use her phone it was slapped out of her hand and pocketed. The men spoke to her in what sounded like grunts and hooked a safety belt around her. No one told her where she was going.

After the flight checks were completed communications moved from grunts to words. Minnie’s mouth gaped when she was told that she was under arrest to which Minnie responded, ‘You are joking, right?’

Her voice was starting to sound normal too, not as scorched and croaky.

Then one of the Dragonets read out her Miranda Rights. 

‘You can’t
arrest
me,’ said Minnie, flabbergasted. ‘Security teams don’t have the power to arrest people.’ 

It was the pilot who answered this time. ‘Mr Greene can do whatever he wants,’ he said without turning to look at her.

At this point, Minnie was more scared than she had ever been in her entire life. Problem-solvers love a challenge but even Minnie knew it would be near impossible to work this one out. 

She managed a last backward glance before the helicopter took off. Greene had halted the procession to the panic room and was watching all the action with cool, reserved disdain. Levchin, on the other hand, judging by the expression on his face, was lapping up the most excitement he had seen in years. 

Then Minnie was whisked up into San Francisco airspace knowing it wasn’t going to be the tour of the city she had hoped for.

No one waved her off.

The helicopter’s continuous roar began to hurt Minnie’s ear drums but she was starting to feel more alert now after the shock of however many thousand volts. She silently observed the helicopter’s flight path as it followed the highway away from the city before veering abruptly right towards a landscape of rough terrain. Minnie had a clear view of the various dials in the cockpit. By the time the helicopter’s nose started to dip towards its destination Minnie had quickly worked out that the same journey from San Francisco by road would take around three hours and 48 minutes, depending on traffic. She was still in California but now further away than ever from Greene. Meanwhile, the enormous Dragonets sat like road blocks on either side of her. She was going nowhere until they told her so.

As the helicopter landed, Minnie craned her neck to get a better view. It was immediately clear that this was no walking tour of Alcatraz. However, the no-frills building that sprawled like an enormous rock on the dusty earth beneath her did have a more maximum-security penitentiary look about it than a first-class spa retreat. Minnie didn’t like the look of it at all.

‘Excuse me,’ Minnie shouted above the thunderous roar of the engine, ‘where are we?’

The Dragonets looked straight ahead. No one answered her.

Minnie lightly tapped a knee belonging to one of them. Her hand was roughly shoved back onto her lap, a slight twist bent her fingers back just to get the message across – no contact. She squeaked and rubbed her wrist. 

The pilot eventually offered up some information. ‘Monitor Pass. Prepare for landing.’

‘Is this… a… a jail?’ cried Minnie, stupefied. Horrified.

No one spoke.

Minnie was bundled out of the helicopter and hurried across into the bleak building where everything got very legal very quickly. Greene had apparently already filed a list of complaints. These were read out to Minnie as someone busied themselves with paperwork. The officer’s voice was an unemotional monotone. He began with kidnapping charges citing Dr Levchin as the victim. Then followed criminal harassment, detailing how Minnie had terrorised the victim – Greene this time, not Levchin. Stalking was mentioned although Minnie wasn’t sure, at this point, if this was a separate charge or not. Disturbing the peace and threatening to fight in public was included on the list. Greene, apparently, also intended to sue Minnie under defamation law, which highlighted loss of work as a result of the Parkinson’s slur she had made against him. Finally, there was a possibility that a restraining order would be brought against Minnie instructing her to stay away from Greene’s home and place of work. 

Minnie unwittingly reserved her right to remain silent. She was so stunned at the accusations that she couldn’t think of a thing to say. 

Once all the paperwork was processed Minnie was in no doubt at all why she was here. More iron hands led her to a holding cell with a bare concrete floor. The cell contained nothing except steel benches and a group of other wearisome women who looked in need of a good night’s sleep. They were downbeat and miserable. The temperature was freezing, which didn’t improve anyone’s mood.

Minnie quickly backed herself into a corner and then read the list of bail bondsmen on the wall to avoid making eye contact with anyone. She was petrified, convinced she wasn’t going to survive in here. Silence wasn’t going to save her. There was a roar rising in her throat and she inhaled deeply to make this shout reach ears at the front of the building. ‘LET ME OUT,’ she screamed. ‘THERE’S BEEN A MISTAKE!’

It was an impressive roar but not everyone appreciated the noise. 

A sharp voice from within the cell shouted, ‘I’ll shut you up girl if ya don’t quit hollerin’. Someone else added, ‘Who the hell d’ya think’s listenin’ t’ya anyway?’

Minnie was growing more desperate by the second. ‘Please! Help me!’

Someone else made an angry sound and the atmosphere inside the cage changed. There were sudden, agitated movements as people picked themselves up off the floor and began to pace around, practically pawing at the floor. Minnie finally, fearfully, looked around. She didn’t see compassion or sympathy on the faces of her inmates, just snarled-up expressions and unrest. Minnie felt threatened and trapped. Obviously, she wasn’t the only one who wanted out. A couple of the women were heavily restrained, handcuffed and manacled, chains rattling as they moved. She felt genuine menace from them. 

One of them started to approach Minnie in stealth mode, slightly hunched and low to the ground as though she was prepared to strike. She was a large thick-set woman who moved surprisingly lightly on her feet despite the chains. She had several smudged tattoos and talon fingernails. She stared at Minnie with a feral light in her eyes. Minnie pressed her back against the bars and waited for a clawed paw to slash her across the face.