Big Three-Thriller Bundle Box Collection (24 page)

“I do not know. That is possible.”

“Dirty bastards,” I said. “My son is in their hospital ward. If they’ve done anything to him, I’ll kill every last one of them.”

“Let us not fall to conclusions. We must first determine what is going on exactly. We can go to Biotronics tonight, if you wish. I am to be at work in one hour. You can come with me. Security is strict, so we will devise a plan to get you inside.”

“Where are we going now?”

“To my home. You will be safe there.”

“No,” I said. “I’d be endangering your family. Let’s go back to my place.”

“My friend, I have seen your place, and it is not very good. Many holes are in the walls there. You would find it to be incredibly drafty.”

“But we might have an ally. A man named Major Jackson. I think he might still be alive.”

“I will go with you as you wish. You will be my Lone Ranger, and I will be your faithful companion Tonto. But we must have much caution.”

I stopped and looked about. I had no idea where we were.

Rajiv said, “It is this way, Kimosabe.” He pulled me to the right of where we’d been headed, and we began a slow trot. Within a few minutes, voices came from in front of us and we slowed down. We skirted the clearing where the knocked down trees looked like matchsticks. When we came to my small backyard, I heard a semi-truck pull up in the front. Police had blocked the street in both directions and there were two armed men at my back door.

Staying out of sight in the trees, we made our way around to the side of the house as at least a dozen men
leapt from the back of the semi-trailer and sprinted toward the front door. Some carried gurneys, some carried boxes, some plastic bags. Before long they were coming back outside, carrying loads from the house. I couldn’t tell how many bodies were removed in the confusion. I hoped the major’s wasn’t one of them.

Nothing more would be gained here.

“Let’s go,” I told Rajiv.

When we turned to go back, bright lights danced up from the direction of the crashed helicopter in the ravine. The high-pitched whine of a revving engine echoed through the woods. My first thought was a motorcycle or four-wheeler. The thing was hard to get a fix on, jostling up and down, from side to side, engine growling angrily as it leapt over rocky terrain and knocked down saplings. It had no lights, but a search light beamed down from the snow-filled night sky and illuminated the surrounding ground, revealing the noisy, rapidly approaching object as some kind of scintillating, blurred mass. Fire shot from the sky like lightning bolts toward the noisy thing on the ground, and I once again heard the beating of a helicopter rotor. It was as if some sort of apocalyptic beast were roaring up the gully.

Chapter 22

The guards at the back of the house raised their weapons as the screaming vehicle raced wildly up the trail. We ducked before it dashed past us, and the attacking helicopter stopped to hover over the backyard. The beast seemed to have some sort of reactive camouflage integrated into it, at times making it nearly invisible. But when the lights hit it just right, it appeared as a shimmering olive drab dune-buggy-like vehicle
— a DPV, I recalled from somewhere, sometime. It didn’t slow down. The guards pulled two shots then ran in opposite directions. The DPV rammed into the already weakened back wall of the house and knocked out a large portion of it.

When it backed up, I saw a flash of red hair from the driver’s side. It was Sunny, hair flowing from under a helmet with night vision goggles. In the back was a huge soldier, manning a fifty-caliber machinegun. He swung the thing around and turned it on the chopper overhead. When the gun spat fire, it knocked out the chopper’s searchlight, and the aircraft banked, moving away swiftly.

Sunny stopped the off-road vehicle in the yard and jumped out. Franticly, she ran about the back of the house. The soldier behind the machinegun trained it on several men coming around the side of the house and drove them back with a volley of large caliber rounds.

“Robert!” Sunny cried out. She paced several feet. “Robert! I’m sorry. Please. We’re here to help you. Please, Robert!”

Rajiv and I looked at each other.

“She is an acquaintance?”

“Sort of. She claims we’re old friends, but I don’t remember her. And she did pull a gun on me.”

“She is exceptionally brave.”

“Yeah, she is at least that,” I said and stood up. “I think we have no choice but to trust her.”

“My fate lies in your hands, my fakir.” He stood also.

“Sunny,” I called out. “Over here.”

I hoped the machinegun wouldn’t now swing around to me
— that Sunny wouldn’t pull out her gun and shoot me down. She didn’t.

“Oh, my God!” she said, then tossed her helmet into her vehicle. She ran to me, her arms reaching, and hit me like a linebacker. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”

“Come on, Sunny,” a deep voice called from the vehicle. His machinegun reported a dozen more times and several of our adversaries ducked around the corner of my collapsed house.

“We gotta go, Robert,” she said. She took my hand and all three of us ran for the DPV. The German shepherd that had confronted me earlier leapt from the side and danced happily.

“Good golly,” Rajiv said, running alongside. “We are being rescued by Rat Patrol and Rin Tin Tin!”

“Another friend?” Sunny asked as we got to the DPV.

“He saved my life,” I said. I figured Sunny didn’t find Rajiv threatening since she did nothing to stop him from coming along.

Rajiv nodded. “My name is Rajiv. I am considered a harmless geek by almost everyone I know, and I hope you will kindly let me join your
Mod Squad.
”

“Nice,” Sunny said to Rajiv. “You’ll have to share with Gunny Sampson.”

“I can do that,” Rajiv said. “I can do that very fine. Kindly take us from this place now, please.”

We hopped into the vehicle and Rajiv hung onto a roll bar above the back next to the big guy. I sat on the passenger’s side behind some sort of grenade launcher. Sunny returned to her place behind the wheel, and the dog poked his head in between us from the back.

“Your . . . car?” I asked.

“Just a little test drive before I buy,” she said. “You remember how to operate one of those?” Sunny asked nodding toward the grenade launcher.

The question was ludicrous. I’d never touched one before, yet some sort of instinct took over, and I pulled the cocking lever back to chamber a round and flipped the selector off safety. “Hmm,” I said, “I guess I do.”

“It’s nonlethal. Modified to shoot vortex ring charges, mean little rings of smoke that hurt like hell, but usually aren’t lethal.”

I smiled at her and nodded as if it were something pleasant she was telling me like a preschool had recently opened down the street, or that bananas were on sale at the local grocery.

As Sunny backed the vehicle around and turned off the headlights, behind us the big guy she’d called Sampson instructed Rajiv on a weapon he’d handed him. I noticed Sampson’s fatigues and rank insignia on his collar. The black rank pins indicated he was a Master Gunnery Sergeant in the U.S. Marines.

“This is an anti-traction weapon,” he told Rajiv. “Squirts out some of the slickest shit you’ve ever seen. It’s like one of those Super Soaker squirt guns kids have these days. Range is about seventy-five feet. Trigger’s right there. Try it.”

Just then, three armed men came from around the side of the house.

“Try it, now!” Sampson said, and Rajiv shot the liquid into the faces of the attackers and they quickly went down. They became covered in the oily substance from Rajiv’s weapon, preventing them from getting up, or even getting past thinking about it. All three men were on their backs, and no matter how much they tried, they couldn’t roll over.

Rajiv grinned widely at Gunny Sampson. “I am finding this to be great fun!”

Two more men busted around the corner, one of them sliding past the other three and fifteen feet into the yard, like he was a kid on a Slip ‘n Slide. The other man managed to stay on one knee. He started to swing his M-16 toward us, but the thing slipped from his grasp and clattered on the ground. He reached for his weapon, but it slid barely out of reach from his fingertips. He began to fall and grabbed for the side of the house, but his hand skidded from the lap siding and he ended up on his back like his companions.

Sunny drove toward the neighbor’s yard, our weapons blazing. Two additional armed men came around the other side of the house, and their bullets whined by us as I popped a vortex ring charge at them. A smoke ring shot from the muzzle and grew exponentially as it raced to them-from an inch to probably six feet in diameter. The shock that overtook these attackers knocked them from their feet. They lay writhing in pain as we sped away. After going through two fences, we turned toward the street and came out on the other side of the police roadblock. The big man on the back slung lead into the two patrol cars blocking the road, flattening their tires as we sped away.

We made several turns and drove slower once we were sure of not being followed. Sunny took a back street, and we ended up on a dirt access road leading up a wooded hill. Even though I had been born and raised in Gold Rush, I couldn’t remember ever seeing this passage that was now barely visible in the snow-covered ground.

After pulling off the narrow road, we stopped under a clump of tall cypress trees.

“I’ll shut this noisy thing off,” Sunny said and killed the engine. “It’s hell on ears without the muffler.”

“We can’t sit here too long,” the big man said. “They’re sure to have infra-red.”

I don’t know why I blurted it out, except that it dominated my thoughts and I felt the need to get it out into the open. “I killed my wife.”

Sunny turned to me. “What?”

“I killed my wife. Just like the others. She fell dead right in front of me. I didn’t mean to, but I know I’m somehow responsible.”

Sunny grimaced, studying my eyes. “Robert, I’m . . . truly sorry. Very sorry.”

I turned away and shook my head, changed the subject. “So, what’s the plan?”

“We don’t have one,” Sunny said. “Not since you wouldn’t cooperate.”

“So this is my fault,” I said.

Sunny’s eyes dammed up and tears spilled down her cheeks. “No, Robert, no.” Her emotions seemed genuine as she reached over and hugged me. “It’s just that we were so close. Our helicopters were right over the ridge.”

Now she was in that lovey-dovey mood again. I couldn’t help but think this woman had serious bipolar or hormonal problems. “The helicopters?”

“Yes, the ones we came in to rescue you.”

“Why?” I asked. “What in the hell is going on?”

The big man turned to me, frustration on his face. “What’s going on is, we’re rescuing my buddy. And we’re not going to leave until he’s safe.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He means my husband.”

“All right, how does your husband fit into all of this?”

“He’s been kidnapped like you and we think you know where he is.”

“What are you talking about? I have no idea.”

“Look, Robert, after all that’s happened, can you accept maybe you’re missing a little bit of your past. Like there are things you don’t remember. I mean, look at how you handled this gun. You said I looked familiar. Can you believe, if for only a little bit, there might be some things in your life you’ve somehow forgotten?”

“I suppose so,” I said. “Like knowing you?”

“Maybe. Let’s say we were friends back in college. Let’s say you know my husband Daniel McMaster well, and although sometimes you don’t act as if you like him much, you’re still close.”

I frowned, not knowing what to make of all of this. “Go on.”

“He’s my buddy, too,” the big man said.

Sunny looked back at him and smiled. “This is Master Gunnery Sergeant Bernard Sampson. He and Dan were in the Marines together.”

“Yeah,” Sampson said. “We went through a lot of shit together.”

“Kindly excuse me, please,” Rajiv said. He reached out and shook Sampson’s hand, then Sunny’s. “I am Rajiv Shekhar, and I too have been in shit.”

Sunny asked, “Where’d you find this guy?”

“He found me,” I said. “He knows some things about Biotronics. I think he can help us find out what’s been going on around here. But then, maybe you can just tell us, now.” I stared at Sunny.

“Okay, Robert. I’ll tell you all I can.”

“All you can? That’s not all you know, though, is it.”

“Robert, please. This is what I can tell you. Let’s say
— ”

“Oh, now we’re on the ‘let’s say’ kick again.”

Sunny ignored me. “You were kidnapped by Mount Rainy Biotronics. My husband and dozens of others, too. I think you can help me find them.”

“Now why would Biotronics kidnap me? And when did this kidnapping supposedly happen?”

“Two years ago. You’ve been gone that long.”

“Gone? From where?”

“Your home in California.”

“My home is here in Gold Rush.”

“No, this is your prison.”

“Gold Rush is my prison?”

“Yes, this town is the prison. You’re as captive as a bird in a cage. They’ve erased your memory and given you a new one and — ”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold up a minute,” I said, shaking my head. The dog squeezed through from the back, used my thighs for steps to get to the floorboard in front of me and laid his head in my lap. I was alarmed at first, but his head lay still, seeming to mean no harm. I began stroking his neck.

Sampson said to Sunny, “You’re going too fast. You’re going to lose him.”

“We don’t have much time,” Sunny told him. “We have to get him at least this far.” Sampson nodded. Sunny went on. “I believe many of the residents in this town are also their prisoners.”

Rajiv said, “That includes me, also! I have been feeling like this bird you speak of. In Chicago they told me I was to be in the witness protection program after my family and I saw a gang shooting right there in front of us. We had a nice home in Chicago. The FBI knocked on the door one day and the next, I find we are in this place. We found this to be a pleasant home at first. Nevertheless, as time has gone on, I find it to be more like that birdcage every day. I would like to fly back to Chicago, now, please.”

“Okay, okay, Raja, we’ll get to your problem later,” Sunny said.

“That will be fine. But please, kindly do not forget us. My children, and sometimes even my wife — they are especially dear to me.”

I said, “What about my wife, my kid? You’re not claiming Michelle wasn’t my wife, William isn’t my son?”

“And if I did?”

“I’d get really pissed, get out of this thing and walk away.”

“Let’s say, then, what I believe about them doesn’t matter right now.”

“It does to me.”

“What’s important to all of us now is getting out of here. I’m not leaving without my husband. Sam and I have the chopper. If you want to leave with us, you’ll have to go along with what we say. I promise, it’ll be the best for all of us.”

“And my son?”

“We’ll get him out, too. And Raja’s family. You’re right. We need to go to Biotronics. I think that’s where we’ll find answers.”

“My son’s in their hospital wing.”

“Yeah, you told me. If he’s there, we’ll find him and bring him with us.”

“I have a plan of my own,” Rajiv said. “I think I can help. Many armed men are surely searching for you. After all that has happened here tonight, the security at Mount Rainy Biotronics will be tighter than a camel’s butt at fly time. You will be unable to drive this contraption into the facility, guns flatulently blazing and expect to get to anyplace but down a rocky road to hell. Besides, it does not have a bumper pass.”