Carolyn Jourdan - Nurse Phoebe 02 - The School for Mysteries (14 page)

Chapter  29

Phoebe stiffened her arms, leaned back as far as possible, and took her foot off the gas. The car rolled a long way, then gradually came to a stop. She looked at Nick slack-jawed.

“Oh. My. God,” she said. “I think I’m gonna throw up.”

She stood up so she could clamber out of the doorless car. Then she got out as carefully as she could, trying not to scratch anything.

“We can’t just stop,” Nick said. “We have to keep going.”

Phoebe shook her head violently and then burst into tears. She was horrified at what she’d done. Phoebe was crazy about cars. She couldn’t believe she’d raced off in a one-of-a-kind museum piece. An irreplaceable bit of automotive history.

How could she, on her first attempt, have stolen one of the most expensive cars in the whole wide world? She’d
never
be able to forgive herself. She’d never be able to pay for the damage either.

Her life was ruined. How could she have been so stupid. She’d gone insane. That’s what a few moments of fun would get you every time. Regret. And years of incarceration.

“I … can’t,” she said, holding a hand over her mouth. “I can’t hurt it any worse than I already have. These roads,” she waved her hand, “are too rough for …. .”

“Then I’ll drive,” Nick said easily, and he moved over into the driver’s seat. He rummaged in the back seat for male attire, then slipped the Red Baron goggles on, donned the leather gauntlets, slapped the flat cap atop his head, and took hold of the steering wheel with gusto. “Come on, old girl,” he said. “Can’t have you losing heart now.”

Phoebe took her shoes off and carefully stepped over the side of the boat body and into the passenger side. Her nose was still red from crying. Nick put the car in gear and took off as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

“Out of all those cars, why did I have to pick
this
one?” Phoebe moaned. “I didn’t mean to. I did it because I was afraid we wouldn’t be able to steal any of the ones that weren’t already running. I don’t know how to crank start a car, do you?”

“Nope,” said Nick, smiling, obviously enjoying himself. He’d been smiling continuously since they’d stolen the car.

After a few minutes Phoebe realized it, and said, “You’re a really good driver.”

“I used to drive a lot, professionally,” he said.

“You were truck driver?” Phoebe asked. She couldn’t picture it, but of course she didn’t know him, not really. “Why’d you quit?” Phoebe asked.

She wondered if it had to do with the agoraphobia, which he seemed to be totally over, probably on account of some inability of the human brain to stack more than half a dozen death scenarios at a time, combined with adrenal exhaustion.

“I got tired of it,” he said. “I mean how many times do you need to drive around in a circle until you grasp the concept?”

“What?”

Then he pressed harder on the gas, and said, “I drove racecars.”

It took a few minutes for Phoebe to adjust to riding in a $1.2 million museum exhibit piloted by a singularly strange stranger who’d just confessed to being a racecar driver.

She considered his rhetorical question about how many times a person had to go around a track to learn a concept, and had to admit that she’d been going around and around the same, or similar, tracks for most of her life and she still didn’t understand much.

Phoebe didn’t know what to think about anything anymore. The longer she lived, the fewer opinions she had. Life was complicated and we all came into it totally inexperienced. The older she got, the more she resisted second-guessing herself or anyone else. You did the best you could, then you moved on. End of post-game critique.

She looked out at the passing landscape. What a paradise. And riding in an open top car, made it even nicer. “I’m not sure what this says about my life,” Phoebe said, “but I’ve gotta admit, being chased by homicidal maniacs with you is more fun than any date I’ve ever been on.”

He shot her a glance, gave her a rakish smile, and said, “What if this
is
my idea of a date?”

Gradually, as Nick drove masterfully through the woods at speed, Phoebe pulled herself together and began to relax. She removed the cell phone from of the little bag she was wearing on a lanyard under her tunic and was thrilled to discover it still worked even after all her hijinks.

Waneeta’s answering machine picked up and Phoebe left a message requesting a callback immediately.

Next she dialed Lester.

Lester was the head of the two-man crime wave that was headquartered in White Oak, the tiny rural Tennessee mountain community where Phoebe lived. Lester ran the biggest car theft ring in the southeast. He was also a sociopath. But, for reasons known only to God, he liked Phoebe and was always nice to her. He’d come through for her before in an awkward and dangerous situation, so she knew she could count on him if she needed his help again.

Lester’s main office was in an old Esso Station that he’d spared no expense in restoring to its original condition. The station didn’t actually sell gas, but sometimes you could wangle permission to use the pristine antique pump, just to keep it in working condition. But you had to pay the going rate rather than the 31¢ a gallon it was set at.

Thinking about the Esso station reminded Phoebe that she had no idea how much fuel was in the million dollar car. She wasn’t sure if it had a gas gauge. She didn’t even know if it ran on gas. Oh, well, it was too late to worry about that now. She hoped they had enough to make it to wherever they were going. If only she knew where that was.

One thing she did know was that Lester and his boys were gonna love this car.

Fate, Lester’s second in command, answered the phone at the Esso station. “Where are ye?” he asked.

Phoebe tried to explain her situation to him as quickly as possible with a minimum of emotional content or babbling. Early in her narrative he interrupted her to say, “Puttin you on speaker so Lester can hear.”

Otherwise neither of the men said anything to stop her from describing what was going on and asking for their advice and help.

“You need to get to the national forest,” Fate said, when she was finished speaking. “Yer right on the edge of it now. If ye can git into there, there’s all kinda loggin roads. They’ll never be able to foller ye if ye’ve got a good lead.”

“Talk fast,” Nick warned. “As soon as we top this ridge, we may lose the connection.”

Fate explained the route he wanted Phoebe to take. She repeated everything he said to Nick, so he could help her remember.

“We’ll head your way now,” Fate said. “If ye can stay ahead of em for an hour, we’ll take over from there and handle things. Do ye think ye can do that?

“I don’t know,” Phoebe said, “We have a good lead now, but I’m not sure how long it’ll last. We’ll give it our best shot.”

She heard Lester say something in the background and the speakerphone went off. Lester said, “Give me your cell number.”

Lester and Fate were already on the move. If there was one thing hoods loved, it was a fight.

Chapter  30

The Gryphon glared at his subordinates and said menacingly, “If this gets out....” He left the rest of his threat to their imaginations.

He paced in front of the wall of glass, oblivious to the spectacular panorama of Central Park. “This can
not
get out,” he said, with emphasis.

“Don’t worry,” his lieutenant said, “It’s too complicated. People are too lazy to focus on anything this arcane. There’s no entertainment value.”

“What’s the entertainment value of anything on television these days?” the Gryphon responded.

“You’re right, sir, of course, I should have said that the sort of sex and violence and lifestyles of the rich and trashy that are successful now, are a far cry from post-graduate level economics and ugly moments in history that are best left forgotten. This guy has no financial resources, no media platform, and no friends.”

“Then how did he escape from an aircraft
in flight
nude and without a parachute? How is that even possible?” He slapped his desk with an open hand making a sharp crack, then he screamed, “How is that possible!”

The Chief of Security stepped forward and assumed the rigid stance the military used to simulate relaxation and said, “Sir, there is no way this man can survive.”

“Where is he now?” he asked, giving his security chief a hard stare.

“He’s in the Appalachian Mountains near the border between North Carolina and Tennessee. We’re about to regain his position. Then we’ll handle him. This will be over within the hour.”

When he was back in his own office, the security chief smirked and said, “There’s no way a bunch of hillbillies can win this.”

“You’d better be careful,” his lieutenant warned. “The mountains breed
fierce
people. And their home terrain is naturally defensible.”

He flipped a switch that illuminated a screen mounted on the wall. He clicked some keys on a wireless keyboard and a world map appeared. Then he made some hand gestures in the air that set various markers on the screen.

“Consider the European Micro-States like Andorra, Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, San Marino, Luxembourg, and Cyprus. Mountains define these places. Think of the intractable wars in Afghanistan, Tibet, Kashmir, the Caucasus, Rwanda, and the Nuba Mountains in Sudan. Do
not
underestimate your opponents.”

If he’d been smarter he’d have added Ireland and Scotland into that list of irascible and intractable foes. A dozen generations of these feisty souls had been born and raised in Appalachia and now a handful of their most outstandingly reactive descendants were blithely awaiting his arrival.

Chapter  31

Nick and Phoebe were lucky in so many respects. It was a glorious summer afternoon and the car was running perfectly. After they located and made the first crucial turn off the hardtop road and onto a dirt logging road that led into
the Pisgah National Forest, they both felt considerably safer.

Although the tall wheels on the car gave them excellent ground clearance, they had to slow down on the narrow uneven surface. But even at the reduced speed, they were still making good time.

Phoebe knew her friends would be hurtling toward them. She didn’t know who the people were who were after Nick, but she knew one thing for certain, they were no match for Lester and Fate.

Angry Appalachians were justifiably world famous for their ability to create mayhem. The White Oak area was the Afghanistan of the Western World. It had been invaded several times and was occupied by two alien forces at the moment—the National Park Service and retirees from Michigan—but they’d never be conquered.

Fate had given clear instructions, so Nick and Phoebe were able to maintain a relatively steady heading for the crucial hour he’d asked them to give him.

“There they are!” Phoebe shouted, as she pointed to the two pieces of heavy equipment beside the road up ahead of them. There was a track hoe with pincers and a ferocious looking machine with jaws and a saw on a boom. This was heavy-duty commercial logging equipment. Phoebe assumed it belonged to the company that had the contract with the government to log the area.