The Austin Job (22 page)

After checking the access route, and stashing an electric lamp, he returned to the car. As he sat down and clutched the accelerator handle, the main question haunting him was whether Oleg had come and gone, or had yet to arrive. If he could tell that much, he’d be good.

With his left hand still on the gas he switched to the passenger-side console. Cracking his knuckles, he waited as the streetcar clacked onto the bridge and neared the river’s edge.
Time to derail this baby
.

Jamming his hand down on the button for the saws, he grabbed the controls and buried the right conveyer into the asphalt like an anchor. Instantly the rear wheels bucked off the tracks. Rooster-tailing sparks, the back end swung wide until impacting the embankment. Lickter yanked the controls free with a grunt. The sudden lurch tossed him backwards until the front end collided with the bridge railing, flinging him face-first onto the dash.

He swore as the shockwave shook the entire bridge. Cracking his neck, he lifted himself high enough to see past the front of the car which now dangled over the bridge’s edge. “Perfect. Now one last thing, or this is all for nothing.” He lay down on the floor of the streetcar and hung his head out the entrance far enough to see under the bridge.

After a few seconds he caught glimpse of what he was looking for. Just beneath the level of the river, a cast-iron grate still sealing the mouth of the storm drain tunnel announced its virgin status.
Oleg hasn’t passed
. Lifting his gaze up river, he realized he wouldn’t have to wait long.

A hundred yards off, the water rippled with a phantom ‘V’—no snake or bird on the surface to make it. With more effort than he would have liked, Lickter lifted himself back into the cabin of the car and took a seat behind the machine guns.
Let’s make this look good
. Clicking open the trigger guards, he depressed them both simultaneously and did his best to fill the river with lead.

Water spit from the surface as he plunged round after round into the river, rattling the cabin of the streetcar in the process. Just when he feared Oleg wasn’t taking the bait, a deluge of bubbles burst from the front of the sub as a torpedo churned toward the storm drain. Distracted, Lickter let up on the triggers. Instantly a spout of flame slammed into the streetcar, engulfing the windshield.

Retreating from the driver’s seat, he bound down the length of the car and out the back. He took two bullets from his pocket, gouged a deep slash across the primer with his knife and tossed them into the fuel tank. Catching his breath, he counted to three while Oleg continued to assault the bridge with burning oil. Slowly he took a book of matches, tore a single stick from the rest, and held it in his hand. Everything depended on timing. Diesel’s flash point wasn’t until 125 degrees. The smokeless powder in the bullets wouldn’t normally cook off until 250. By damaging the casings he hoped to find a sweet spot—burn off enough of the fuel to heat the bullets while leaving the tank open for oxygen intake until…

The alarm in his head went off. He struck the match, held it to the book and dropped the entire thing into the tank, igniting it with a woof. Turning to hustle clear of the car, Lickter spotted Starr galloping out of the smoke and heading straight toward him. He swore while still distancing himself from what he hoped would be a spectacular explosion.

Remaining clear of Oleg’s line of sight, Lickter jumped and waved his hands. Starr continued barreling towards him. “Stop! It’s gonna blow!” Finally the situation dawned on the senator. Lickter continued at a sprint, narrowing the gap between him and Starr to a dozen yards. “Get down!”

The bridge shook, rocked by a thunderous explosion. The last thing Lickter saw, before a wave of fire and hot wind flattened him, was Starr and his horse hurdling the bridge railing just ahead of the flames.

TWENTY-THREE

Over the Edge

Too late, Starr recognized the danger. Like a 2x4 the wall of air struck his face and chest as it tossed the streetcar end over end. No where to hide and buffeted by relentless flames, he and Willy veered for the bridge’s edge and leapt. The glowing surface of the river danced with burning oil and wicked shadows—an eerie, luminescent mirror reflecting one’s deepest fears.

A roaring wind pursued them as screaming metal and fragments of cement whistled in every direction—fire and shadow battling upon every surface. All the while, Starr and Willy sank, plunging ever downward in a failed effort of what? Heroics? The moment when one’s life is supposed to flash before one’s eyes, and all Starr could think of was, “I’m sorry.”

Slapping the surface of the water, an entirely different roar engulfed him. The muffled churning of Willy’s limbs, the rhythmic whirring of a propeller nearby, the constant boil of bubbles bursting and forming and bursting again. Before he could orient himself, a second shockwave slammed against him, forcing him down as water compressed his eyes and ears shut. Tumbling and helpless, the slick metal surface of the streetcar plunged past him like a javelin.

With a crumpling thud the car struck the bottom, jolting his awareness. Thrashing about in his tattered suit, he located the surface of the river. Next he caught the metallic shimmer of a propeller as it passed from the river into a large underwater tunnel. Finally, as if the viscosity of the water had slowed his thoughts along with his movements, he recognized the flagging efforts of Willy to swim to the surface. Before the jumble of information could translate to reaction, a stray hoof struck his temple, turning off the show.

~~~

After the invisible hand holding his face to the asphalt relented, Lickter heaved himself onto his feet. Stumbling to the downriver side of the bridge, he struggled to focus his eyes below the fire-scarred surface of the water. But the rippling mirror refused to reveal what lay beneath.

As the contents of his brain sloshed into place, a jumble of thoughts surfaced at once: Daisy, Starr and Oleg key among them. The rear of the streetcar jutted visibly from the river where it had embedded itself. That much of the plan had gone off without a hitch. But Starr and his damn hero complex. He swore, putting real emotion behind it. He shouldn’t have been such a hard ass with him.

On the northern shore Lickter spotted Starr’s horse, collapsed and motionless. The concussion alone probably pulverized the maze of tiny capillaries woven beneath the surface. He’d seen men survive a mining explosion just to drop dead minutes later, blood leaking from their nose and ears. The thought panicked him enough to check his own nose with the sleeve of his jacket. Relieved, he found it clean of blood.

The fall, the water, the streetcar—sometimes a man proved tougher than his horse. Maybe Starr had made it. Lickter genuinely hoped he had, but his feelings didn’t change the fact that Oleg had his daughter. Somewhere beneath the streets of Austin his Daisy shared the same recycled air with a sick, deranged bastard. With any luck he’d sold Rodchenko on his own death. He wanted Oleg to relax, stick to the plan. The tunnels—the place where Oleg felt most secure—would give Lickter the opening he needed. And he only needed a hair’s width.

If he could wring one more precision killing from his rotting bones and hollow conscience, he’d make it this one. If he had to greet the devil on the other side, he’d do it with outstretched arm. This was his business and his blood, and even the devil knew not to begrudge him that. Fumbling for a toothpick, he found his shirt pocket empty. He spit and strode toward the tunnel access a block north of the Congress Avenue Bridge.

~~~

Starr jolted awake as burning crude lapped against his arm. He rolled, half in the water and half on the muddy shore, until he struck something solid. Dizzy and coughing up water, he hoisted his face from the mud.

“Willy.” The horse’s side rose and fell faintly. Chunks of missing hide, burned away by the explosion and the globs of floating oil, revealed pink meat beneath. Starr heaved a thin bile, mostly water, as he wobbled on hands and knees around his companion’s battered body. The same two words from before raked his mind.
I’m sorry
.

For all the world’s wrongs from the beginning of time—if he could have apologized for them at that moment, he would have. Finally he rested his head on the horse’s cheek, Willy’s eye flitting open and shut. A weak snort registered his awareness of Starr. “Shhh, go to sleep, boy.” He stroked the bridge of his nose and scratched underneath his jowls. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow, when we go for our ride.” With that the horse quaked a final time, exhaling his last and falling limp.

His dead horse’s body cooling beneath him, Starr surrendered to the choking grip of failure. Accusing finger by accusing finger, it encircled him one flailing identity at a time. A bumbling lover, a fickle friend, an incompetent politician, a faithless son. A worthless nobody.

The oozing darkness absorbed his every thought, then his more delicate feelings, leaving nothing but fear and loathing. Like the smoldering tar on the river’s surface, the acrid anger clung thick to the walls of his heart—destined to either burn him up from the inside out, or burst forth like the human torches on the capitol lawn.
So Oleg’s poison has consumed me after all…
Teetering on the edge of blackness, he fell.

~~~

Wearily, consciousness crept through the veil until Starr found himself shaking with tears and draped over Willy’s neck, unaware of how much time had passed. Most of the fire on the water’s surface had gone out, the oil consumed. The sun crouched low in the west, peeking beneath the blanket of smoke curling outward from Austin like fog in a mountain valley.

Starr put a hand to each side of his head and squeezed, trying to push everything back into place. “Willy.” He brushed the animal’s cheek. “I’m sorry, boy. You deserved better. You were right about me. You always were.” Starr sat up on his knees, slowly surveying the scene around him, and struggling to remember how he’d gotten to the shore.
Pain.
He focused on the intimacy of his pain. “I’ll make it right.” The last thing he remembered was the bridge… the streetcar rippling with explosion. But there had been something else. Something about Daisy. His eyes widened as his conscious dawned.
A tunnel.

Like a newborn foal, Starr stood, testing the uneven ground beneath him. He hadn’t been the one to kidnap Daisy. He hadn’t blown up the streetcar or lit the river’s surface with fire. Oleg had killed his oldest friend and threatened his newest—his partner, his soulmate. Nothing else mattered. His skin cracked with each new movement, and a pain so deep it emanated from his bones, pulsed with each beat of his heart. But he could see his next steps illuminated before him, his eight second instincts guiding the way.

With an awkward smack he dove back into the water. Working his skin and muscles loose with each stroke, he reached the tunnel’s opening. After rising to the surface for another deep breath he broached it head-first, like everything else in his life, for better or worse.

~~~

His mind sharpened as the water filtered the last of the murky light from the outside world. Subtle currents tugged at his clothing. He surrendered to them while progressing with full, even strokes. After nearly thirty seconds below the surface an idea occurred to him. Taking the sonic gun from its holster, he fired it into the pitch black water. A solitary red light flashed, the grip vibrating.

Several more times he fired. As long as no rebounding waves washed past, he kept moving straight. When they did, he corrected. Following a twinkling of light, a faint wink, he thought a mirage, he reached a pocket of air moments before instinct overrode mind. Assaulted by the echo of a subterranean pool, he gulped down several breaths before opening his eyes.

Far above his head a handful of pinhole lights twinkled. The effect filled Starr with a strange home sickness for worry-free nights under star-filled skies. The urge to lay fully unfurled on a scratchy wool blanket with Daisy’s warmth curled tightly against his own possessed him—the smells of sticky skin and love-making spinning in his head. It wasn’t just the urge for consummation, but the longing for confession—to be visible to and with another.
Daisy.

His consciousness pulsed with it, like she’d sparked a beacon within him, showing the way to her. He swam another several yards in the darkness before finding the submersible, docked and waiting for its owner’s return. Having locked onto Daisy’s presence, Starr climbed from the water and tracked them on foot. He embraced the odd confidence budding in him like a kernel of corn, one forgotten kernel among hundreds of others, aware of its smallness yet fully consumed by its singular passion to be buried in order to multiply a hundred fold.

The pieces, with all their jagged edges, fell into place with clarity. The same thing that drove himself, had been driving his rival.
Is all about family
, Oleg had said. That was the card Ms. Lloyd held over Oleg making their feud personal. She promised something Oleg couldn’t refuse. In return she needed him to be the bogey man, kindle the peoples’ fears until they’d gladly cling to the savior of her design. Namely, one James Starr, governor elect.

Oleg and all his murderous intent had been fueled by Ms. Lloyd—the fires, the auction, the money. The truth blossomed. Of course she would have to replace any money lost from her vault. But she had replaced it already. The largest counterfeiting operation in U.S. history, and Oleg’s role was to divert and destroy. Lickter’s was to handle, while his own was to unknowingly unite the people in support of the culprit. His was the least excusable role of all.

Bend after bend of the tunnel he came closer to the full truth. He, Oleg and Lickter shared G.W.’s stage. But as obvious as the need for returning to the Grandview was the stark reality that even Ms. Lloyd danced for someone. Someone, or a group of someones, had built the tunnels and the towers. Their intent had not yet born mature fruit. Starr felt himself a bud on the vine. Ms. Lloyd had begun to mature before him, but he was determined to come to fruition more quickly.

He stopped suddenly in the all-consuming darkness, as if the forgotten pulse of the sonic gun had finally returned to warn him of imminent danger. Muffled thuds and distant vibrations spoke of life outside his cocoon. He shivered, still dripping wet, and thought wistfully of a warm towel and a cup of Ms. Lloyd’s Turkish coffee. Taking another step, he kicked something. He stooped to discover an electric lantern covered in something sticky. Flicking its switch, a dim yellow beam splashed against the far wall, pushing back the shadows.