Power Play (36 page)

“Fuckin’ English cars’re no fuckin’ good. No way.”

Except for Monster’s flashlight it was dark in the entryway; all the lights in the lodge were out.

“Doesn’t Leeds have an emergency generator?” Younger asked, sounding incredulous that a U.S. senator could be so shortsighted.

“That’s the least of our troubles,” Jake muttered as Monster led them into the lodge’s main room, flicking the flashlight beam ahead of them.

One battery-powered hurricane lamp was lit, by the big window overlooking the lake. And there in front of the dark fireplace was Glynis, sitting in one of the rustic chairs, her body taut with tension, hands clasped on her lap, looking angry and fearful at the same time. She was dressed for Tomlinson’s costume party in a pirate wench’s outfit, lace-up black bodice, off-the-shoulder white blouse, ragged colorful skirt, and a scarlet red scarf knotted around her waist.

Jake felt the air gush out of him. She’s all right. They haven’t hurt her.

Not yet, he silently added.

As Younger rushed over to her, Jake saw Nacho Perez standing by the window, fidgeting nervously, his jacket flapping open, the black butt of a pistol showing at his belt. A pair of other men stood in the shadows by the bar, thickset, blank-faced, wearing dark suits. They had Mob written all over them, Jake thought.

“Who the hell are you supposed to be,” Perez sneered, “the three musketeers or somethin’?”

Ignoring Nacho’s sarcasm, Jake demanded, “What’s going on here? Why are you holding her?”

“Me? Holdin’ her?” Perez’s lean face broke into a sardonic grin. “She came up here on her own. Di’n’t you, babe?”

Glynis glared at him, said nothing.

Stepping closer to Jake, Perez fished in his jacket pocket as he said, “She came up here to talk to me about Sinclair and his wife. And that doc in Florida. With this in her purse.” He waved a thumb-sized digital recorder in one hand.

Younger asked Glynis, “Are you okay?”

She nodded, her eyes riveted on Perez. Jake was looking at Perez, too, and the two hoods behind him. And Monster, looming in the shadows on the other side of the room. I’d need a machine gun to take on this mob, he said to himself. Wish I had at least brought the sword in with me from the Land Rover.

Younger said to Perez, “We’ve come to take her home.”

“Yeah,” Nacho replied. “Sure.”

“I mean it!”

“So you mean it, so what? My pal here,” he gestured toward Monster, “can’t get her fuckin’ car started.”

“It’s English,” Monster grumbled, as if that explained anything.

Glynis spoke up. “They mean to kill me, Tim. They want to arrange an accident on the highway. I’ll skid off the road and get killed.”

Impulsively, Younger grabbed at Perez but before he could reach him, Monster gripped the engineer’s shoulders in his massive paws and lifted Younger clear off his feet.

“You better siddown,” Monster said. Softly. While he held Younger dangling in his hands.

The other two goons barely moved. One of them smiled a little.

Monster released Younger, then pointed to the chair near Glynis’s. “Take it easy,” he said to the engineer. Rubbing one of his shoulders, Younger sat.

Jake realized it was cold in the lodge. No electricity, no heat. The logs in the fireplace were phony, for decoration. Even if the place has an oil heater, the thermostat needs electricity to run it, he realized.

“So what happens now?” Jake asked.

Perez shrugged his narrow shoulders. “I’m waitin’ for a phone call. Just take it easy for a while.”

“You can’t kill all of us,” said Jake.

“Sez who? You two guys came up here ’cause her stupid English car wouldn’t start. You drive off inta the blizzard. You have a smash-up.” He shrugged again.

Jake thought, QED. Just like that. Problem solved. They kill all of us.

Glynis said, “You don’t think three more deaths are going to pique the FBI’s curiosity?”

“Hey, lady, you guys get yourselves killed in the snow, what’s the FBI got to do with it?” He waved the miniaturized recorder again. “Long as I got this and you don’t, we’re okay.”

Younger asked, “The phone’s working?”

“The landline is,” said Perez. “So what?”

“So let me call Lignite, get the generator working. We can end this blackout before it gets worse.”

“Let you make a phone call? No way!”

Jake said, “Wait a minute. That could make your alibi airtight. Let Tim phone from here. It’ll show that he was okay while he was here. You’ll be in the clear when they investigate the accident.”

It was the only thing Jake could think of. Let Tim call Lignite. Tell them he’s at the senator’s lodge with Glynis and me. Get them to start up the generator, and at the same time make it known where we are. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

Perez stared at Jake. “You think I’m stupid? He yells for the cops over the phone.”

“He won’t,” Jake promised. Turning to Younger, he said, “You won’t tell them anything, will you, Tim?”

“The hell I won’t,” Younger growled.

Jake’s shoulders slumped. There goes whatever chance we had to get out of this.

WAITING

Jake stood in the middle of the shadow-filled room, trying desperately to think of some way to get out of this jam. They’re going to kill us! he thought. They’re going to bundle us into Tim’s Land Rover and drive it off a bridge, make it look like we skidded in the snow.

“You can’t just kill us all,” Jake said.

Perez, still standing off to one side of the spacious room with the two Las Vegas musclemen behind him, chuckled dismissively. “I seen it done, kid.”

Jake turned to Monster. “Are you going to let them do this?”

Monster shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. “Hey, Jake, you got yourself into this. Ain’t my fault, what happens.”

“You’ll go to jail for it, just the same as they will.”

“Nobody’s goin’ to jail,” Perez said. “We’re protected.”

“By whom?” Glynis asked.

Perez glared at her. “None of yer business.”

“It’s Senator Leeds, isn’t it? He’s your protection.”

“That cream puff?” Perez scoffed. “He’s just the window dressin’.”

“The front man,” Jake said.

“Yeah.”

“For who?”

With a shake of his head, Perez said, “Somebody you never heard of, kid. He don’t even live in this state.”

“From Nevada?” Glynis asked, eagerly.

Perez grinned at her.

“But why did you have to kill Professor Sinclair?” Jake asked. “I don’t see why you did that.”

“Wasn’t me,” Perez snapped. “The prof was fallin’ apart. What with his wife’s habit and all … he was gonna break up. So we put him out of his misery.”

“And his wife,” Jake said. “And that doctor.”

Perez shrugged. “That’s whatcha call collateral damage.”

“Three murders—”

The phone rang.

Everyone froze where they were.

Perez crossed the room to the bar and picked up the phone. “Yeah?” He listened, then replied, “Yeah, it’s snowin’ like hell and we got no electricity. We’re freezin’ our cojones off up here.”

Jake looked around the room. Younger was sitting beside Glynis, with Monster standing a few paces away, looking imperturbable. Perez was on the phone at the bar, along with the two sluggers from Las Vegas.

“We got two extra guys now,” Perez was saying. “Yeah, they came up here to get the girl. Big heroes. Yeah … What choice do we have? Right.”

Stepping closer to Monster, Jake whispered, “Are you going to let them do this to us? To me?” He was disgusted with the pleading whine of his own voice.

Monster looked uncomfortable, but replied, “Hey, it ain’t my decision, Jake. I told you you shouldn’ta come here.”

“But they’re going to kill us!”

“It won’t hurt none,” said Monster. “Just a whack on the head to knock you out. Then we put you in the car and find a nice high overpass. No seat belts. You won’t wake up.”

“Monster, it’s murder!”

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

A weapon, Jake thought. I need a weapon, something to fight with. They’ve got guns. I’ve got nothing. They’re going to kill us, kill the three of us and I’m standing here talking it over with one of the killers. If I had a gun, even that stupid sword from this dumb costume …

He saw the heavy brass lamp on the low table between the chairs where Younger and Glynis were sitting. If I could get to it, Jake thought, and take out Monster with it … Then he realized that Perez or one of the Nevada guys would gun him down.

Even so, he calculated, they’d have a hard time explaining a body with bullet holes in it as an accident. Yeah, sure, some plan. Get yourself killed. Brilliant strategy.

Perez hung up the phone. “Okay. That’s it.”

Younger started to get up, but Monster laid one paw on his shoulder and the engineer sat down again.

Perez asked Monster, “What was this guy drivin’?”

“Land Rover,” Monster replied.

“Good.” He turned to one of the gorillas and said, “Go outside and get it started.”

The thug nodded, turned to his companion. “Come on.”

They headed for the door. Jake thought, That leaves only Nacho and Monster.

ACTION

Jake edged closer to Younger and the low table that bore the heavy-looking lamp. “Tim, could the big rig really stop this blackout?”

His brows rising slightly with surprise, Younger answered, “It could light up all of Lignite County, easy. Maybe more.”

“The capital city?” Jake was standing in front of the table lamp now.

“If the fartbrains running the system pipe the juice that way, yes,” Younger said, clearly unhappy with the executives in charge of the state’s power grid.

“Uh-huh…” Jake grabbed the neck of the lamp with both hands and tugged as hard as he could. The lamp was indeed heavy, and for a moment the cord connecting it to the wall socket held fast. But only for a moment. Jake yanked it loose and, turning, banged it at Monster’s surprised face.

“What the hell?” Perez snarled, fumbling for the pistol in his belt.

Monster tried to shield himself with his beefy arms, but Jake bashed him twice, three times, and the big guy went down to his knees. Jake bonked Monster squarely on the top of his head, then threw the heavy lamp at Perez.

Perez got off several shots before the lamp banged into him. Jake was right behind it, leaping at Perez, struggling for the gun. They crashed to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs. Glynis screamed.

Perez was wiry and stronger than he looked. Jake was gripping the gun with both hands, twisting it out of Perez’s grasp. Perez butted Jake’s face, punched with his free hand at Jake’s ribs, his kidneys, but Jake wrestled the automatic out of his hand and smashed it across his lean jaw. The man went limp.

Getting to his feet, Jake saw Monster pushing himself to his knees, blood streaming down his face from a gash on the top of his head.

“Tim’s been shot!” Glynis cried, kneeling beside Younger, who sat slumped in his chair.

Jake pointed the automatic at Monster, who lurched toward him clumsily.

“Don’t make me shoot you!” Jake begged.

Monster grinned crazily through the blood. “You ain’t got a chance, Jake. When those two mooks come back they’ll shoot you.”

The two Las Vegas guys burst into the room, guns drawn.

“Hold it!” Jake snapped, in what he hoped was a believable imitation of countless TV cop shows.

Pointing the automatic at Perez, Jake yelled, “I’ll blow his head off if you don’t get the hell out of here.”

The pair of thugs glanced at each other.

“Go on back to Las Vegas or wherever the hell you came from,” Jake said, pointing the gun at the still-unconscious Perez.

They dithered. Jake cocked the automatic with his thumb. The click sounded very loud in the shadowy room.

“C’mon,” said one of the goons to the other. They turned and left the room. Jake heard the lodge’s front door slam.

Monster was sitting on the floor now, his knees drawn up. “They ain’t gone,” he said, in a low mumble. “They’ll be waitin’ for you out there.”

“Then we’ll stay right here,” said Jake. “With our star witness.”

“Jake, Tim’s been shot!” Glynis repeated. “He’s bleeding!”

“It’s not bad,” Younger said through gritted teeth. “Just nicked me, I think.”

Younger had clamped one hand to his side. That half of his fancy western shirt was soaked with blood. But Tim seemed to be breathing all right, he was conscious, alive.

“Get on the phone, Glyn,” he told her. “Call nine-one-one, tell them we’ve got a gunshot wound. We need an ambulance and the police.”

Glynis got up from her chair and started for the phone. She made a swift detour, though, and filched her digital recorder from Perez’s jacket pocket. Then she went to the telephone.

Perez moaned softly. His legs stirred, then his eyes opened. Focusing on Jake, he muttered, “The three fuckin’ musketeers.”

With the phone on her ear, Glynis reported from the bar, “They say they’ll have a hard time getting here through the blizzard.”

“But they’re sending an ambulance?”

“And a highway patrol car.”

“Did you tell them there’s two armed men outside?”

But just as Jake asked that he heard the growl of a car engine starting up. They’ve decided to get out of here, he thought. I wonder how far they’ll get through the snow.

“Bring that phone here,” Younger said, wincing with pain. “I’ve got to call the big rig.”

“You just sit there,” Glynis said, “while I find something to use for bandages.”

“Bring me the phone!” Younger insisted. He started to push himself up from the chair.

“No!” Glynis shouted. “Sit. Here’s the phone.” She crossed the room swiftly, the telephone cord trailing behind her. It didn’t quite reach, so Glynis put the phone down on the floor and pushed Younger’s chair close enough to it.

Jake stood in the middle of the room, keeping watch on Monster and Perez. Glancing at the cold stone fireplace, Jake wished the logs in it were real. We could use some heat in here, he said to himself.

Grimacing with pain, Younger was snapping orders into the phone. “Skeleton crew or no skeleton crew, you get that damned rig working! Start her up! Get your butt into the control booth and start the fire-up procedure. Stay on the line and I’ll talk you through it.”