Radiant Dawn (31 page)

"You got a gun?" Storch asked Stumbo, who looked at him as if he'd just materialized in his cab.

"What? Shit, man, I thought you did. Well, I got a little police special under my seat—"

He started to go for it, but Storch was faster, and had it out of its plastic snapcase. He popped out the barrel, scooped up one of the three speedloaders packed with it and notched one in. Stumbo watched him and then looked over at the checkpoint, and whatever rapport he'd built up with Storch drained right out of his face. "Whatcha gonna do, man? Those're cops."

Storch dropped out of the cab and limped down the line, almost hopping to keep weight off his ravaged left leg. When he reached the last truck, a BP tanker, he jogged left and ran down the shoulder to the cover of a stand of eucalyptus trees. As soon as he felt secure under their canopy, he turned to see if he'd been spotted. The lines inched on, and Storch wondered if he hadn't made a big mistake not killing Stumbo. It could've been done neatly enough that murder wouldn't be suspected until an autopsy was performed, and by then, he'd be gone. Stumbo's big mouth would give him fifteen minutes, at best, to get away. On foot.

Then, for the first time since the Fourth of July, Storch had cause to feel lucky. Just beyond the stand of trees and a partially collapsed chainlink fence, lay a commuter train station. Storch took note of the stop, for the suburb of Madera, and paced the line of cars at the edge of the lot. He picked the station wagon, because it would be least likely to get pulled over on looks alone, and had tinted windows, and a green ticket on the dash, which meant the driver was paying by the day, so he'd have the four hours he'd need to get back to the truckstop. He'd sat in the driver's seat for longer than was healthy, thinking about which way to go. An impulse he couldn't name or put completely down told him to go southwest to Norwalk, and see his father. If only to have a mirror in which to see the extent of his own damage. They'd be waiting for him there. He doubted he'd have much chance to turn himself in, if it came to that. He would go straight to the truck stop, and repair himself by getting answers, instead.

It hadn't been that easy.

Traffic backed up in Oildale, six miles north of Bakersfield, and Storch panicked. What if this was a full checkpoint? There'd be nowhere to run, especially if Stumbo had given them a description. He considered bolting the car and picking up another, but he knew it wouldn't pay to tempt fate twice. The cars lurched forwards and then stopped again, at a measured pace that Storch began to count off with questions:

Where are you coming from?

Where are you headed?

Have you seen this man?

Thank you, sir or ma'am.

He bit his lip as the traffic came around a bend and into a concrete canyon, walls rising up as offramps peeled off the main highway to feed the outlying towns of Bakersfield. A perfect boxing in. It was already too late to run. If he could hold out until he actually approached the checkpoint, there'd be a moment's chance to disarm the highway patrolman and take him as a hostage. A chance to get away, stepping over the bodies of more policemen, this time ones he'd actually killed.

The walls of the freeway flashed red and blue, scattered huge, multifaceted silhouettes of walking figures flitting up and down the walls like patrolling ghosts. All the light came from the median. Storch sank into the seat, exhaling and exhaling until he was empty of stale air and fear. It was an accident. Just a fucking freeway accident, and all these assholes slowing down to rubberneck.

When he finally did reach the accident, he looked too, having paid in time for the privilege. The ambulance was loaded and had its lights on, but seemed in no hurry to shove off into traffic, and two tow trucks, three police cars and a pair of CHP motorcycles were lined up behind the spent combatants, a minivan and an old El Camino. Storch's eyes glanced across the wreck and back to the road, then ricocheted back to the minivan just as it passed by his window. He rolled it down to get a better view, and, yes, the front driver's side of the minivan is smashed in, but the El Camino's hood is smashed in, too. They'd have to have hit head-on. In the argent glow of the roadflares, the minivan's white paint and smashed grill were flecked with dark paint. It might've been blue or green or black, but it wasn't the faded phlegm yellow of the El Camino. He fumbled at the switch closing the window and glanced around. Then up.

And he saw them.

Four men in dark raincoats stood at the rail on the overpass, spaced out so that one overlooked each lane. Each had a tripod-mounted camera with a lens like the barrel of an elephant gun. Each was closely surveying each vehicle that inched beneath him and past the fake accident.

Jesus Christ, that's for me, that's it.
Suddenly, the moral question of killing cops didn't hold much water. They thought he was a cop killer and would treat him accordingly, thus, making him one. He'd done things to change his appearance, but he was no master of escape and evasion in urban areas, this was stupid, he could just get out of the car now, and give himself up.

He almost did. Then a horn honking behind him became a symphony of monotone fury and he noticed that the lane in front of him was empty to the horizon. He wouldn't look up, they were looking down at him, snapping pictures, turn myself in? Fuck that. He stomped on the gas pedal and didn't stop until the gas gauge needle lay inches past the E, and luck was with him again, because with its last gasp, the Taurus had brought him right back where he started from.

Lucky.

The station wagon coasted up to the rows of cars parked in front of the truck stop's diner. Storch looked around long and hard before he got out, painfully aware of all the flavors of stupid he was already dipping in. He should've ditched the car after the surveillance stop in Bakersfield. He should've stopped Stumbo's heart. He should've gone to Mexico in the first fucking place, and then none of this would've happened. Now it was too late. If they paid this much attention to highways in Bakersfield, there'd be a federal law enforcement convention from San Ysidro to Brownsville. But it was no stupider, any of it, than what he was about to do.

Storch was born into the Army, had hardwired its rigorous discipline and chains of command into his psyche long before he enlisted. Alone, he'd made a piss-poor showing for himself. Cut off from any opportunity to go to the authorities, trapped in a situation he couldn't begin to grasp, he needed to go somewhere where things made sense, needed someone to point out the enemy and send him at them, or he might as well go into the hills and kill himself. Down to his bones, he was a soldier, and without an army behind him, he would be trampled by both sides.

He saw no immediate threat in or out of the truck stop. Semis parked in ranks like an invading army at the far end of the lot, and beside them, encircled by a barbed wire-topped hurricane fence, were the cargo containers where they'd kept him before.

He reached around into the pouch he'd sewed into the waistband of this and all his other pairs of boxers and pulled out the phone list he'd taken off the sentry in this place two days ago. He got out the station wagon's cell phone from the drivetrain storage box, flipped it open and began trying the numbers.

The first of ten got him an automated weather report. The second was a highway patrol communications center in Barstow. Storch stabbed the hang-up and tried the third. This one was disconnected. Likewise the fourth, and the fifth, and the sixth. Probably, the numbers were deactivated when the phone was lost. He skipped down to the last. No answer. So were six, seven, eight and nine. He tried the last number, and let it ring.

And ring.

And ring.

An answering machine picked up on the fourth. A bored middle-aged man's voice with a slight Hispanic inflection said, "You have reached Liberty Salvage and Storage. Our regular business hours are Monday, Thursday and Friday, ten AM to three PM. Your call is very important to us, so leave a message. For towing, call somebody else." Storch barely heard the words as he tried to frame something that would make sense without giving himself up to the wrong people if the number was a bust. To this was added the pure agony of talking to an answering machine.

Storch loathed them, thought of them as one of the best things about having nobody to call, and would have gladly done just about anything else to get their attention.

A beep, then Storch was on. "This is the man you picked up by the side of the road the other day. I'm right back in the place you dropped me off, and if it's not too much trouble, I sure would appreciate another lift. Send somebody as soon as you can, because I'll be gone by dawn, one way or another."

He hit the OFF button and pocketed the phone. He looked around, half-expecting to see someone closing in on him now, rifle shouldered and trained on his head. He was out of gas, hope and destinations, but slowly, he began to feel lifted. His scalp burned and itched like it was sprouting barbed wire, he hadn't eaten anything since he got back from Colma, and he was pretty sure he'd vomited that up when he'd been gassed out in his motel room. His leg screamed for attention and his arm throbbed dire warnings of permanent damage through the painkillers he'd gobbled. But when he closed his eyes, he felt as if he was rising, being lifted out if this sorry, tattered, hunted skin and into something else.

The stench of his own body odor mingled with the heady reek of diesel filtering in from outside, making Storch's empty stomach flipflop and hinting nastily at the return of the Headache. The frigid, dusty desert wind rocked the Taurus on its suspension, and he could imagine he was on a slow river. Which he was, really, except not slow so much as a series of cataracts, sheer drops and narrow chutes down which his future flailed and struggled not to be dragged under. He'd been fighting to get out for so long that he'd just about drowned himself before any of the unseen predators below could finish him. Now he'd committed himself to swimming the falls, he could feel the world around him again, and begin to fit what he'd seen into it.

He did this for about a half an hour, and nobody came to kill or claim him. Then,
Fuck it
, he thought,
I'm gonna go eat.

Two paces from the car, he gagged on the unfiltered olfactory roar of diesel fumes, and slumped across the hood. Blood thickened, nerves rolled up and went on strike, lungs tried to slam shut against the poisons flooding them. His legs buckled, and he clawed at the rain gutters at the base of the windshield to keep from sprawling on the ground. He felt as if his body was rebelling against him, dragging him away from the controls and deep within himself like a snail in a sandstorm. This was the sickness he'd hidden away from for eight long years. It would not take him here, not like this. Biting deep furrows in the meat of his lower lip, Storch levered himself upright with his slinged left arm and balanced himself precariously on locked knees and wobbly ankles. In another five minutes, he reached the big glass revolving door at the nearest end of the truckstop.

He threw his whole weight against the door to make it swing round and deposit him inside.

His first breath of the air inside began uncoiling his wound-up system, even as the freon and canned humidity of the air conditioning began to work on his lungs. Still, it was nothing he couldn't eat through.

The diner occupied the bottom of the colossal L-shaped truckstop; the elbow was a convenience store, with phones, restrooms and showers; the upper end was a truckers-only area, with lounge, sleeping facilities and a rec room. A drowsy teenaged girl stood guard at the entrance to the truckers' lounge, checking licenses.

Storch knew it would be wiser to buy some snack foods, go back to the station wagon and eat, then see about some other form of transportation out of here if no one came. But he went into the diner and took the last booth beside the window.

Even for four in the morning in the middle of the Mojave Desert, the place was doing a slow trade. A heavyset man in flannel shirt and jeans and a Snap-On Tools baseball cap slept undisturbed beside a half-eaten bowl of chili. Two bikers at the end of the counter sipped coffee and watched the door. He might've been invisible as he passed through their glazed gazes. Through the kitchen, he could see the cook and the busboy standing out on the back loading dock, sharing a cigarette. He waited, and joined in watching the door and the still black night outside.

The busboy didn't even look at him as he slung a glass of ice water and a menu across the table. The waitress was so jacked up on something that she never looked at Storch as she took his order. A big green salad with lots of tomatoes, any fruit juice they might have, and any fresh fruit, especially pineapple. She rolled her eyes and said, "Wendy's at the next exit has a salad bar," and skated back into the kitchen. He heard a door slam.

Then Storch heard movement behind him, and turned to see the sleeping man had risen and closed the door leading to the truckstop, and was coming down the aisle towards him. Eyes flicking towards the kitchen once or twice, but not with the guilty, fearful look of one about to do evil, but only concern that no one will get hurt who shouldn't. A silencered automatic of the kind cops used to carry in ankle holsters looked like a party favor in his meaty hand. His features were Hispanic, his carriage noncom, a lifetime sergeant with a serious impulse control problem.

Storch ducked down in the seat and checked behind him. The bikers were both up and less than twenty feet away, with line of sight on him under the table. They both carried silencered MP5 assault rifles slung at their sides.

Any reaction he might've once taken instantly and instinctively completely failed him. His good hand trembled, but wouldn't go for his gun. He settled back in the booth. The room smelled like burnt coffee, refried potatoes and overcooked chili, a not unpleasant funk that smothered the stink of his own sweat. His pains and his exhaustion faded into the background as the moment took hold of him and made him ready for what was to come. He closed his eyes and prepared himself for judgment.