Three Minutes to Midnight (23 page)

CHAPTER 22

M
AHEGAN WAS AWAKE AT
5:00
A.M.
T
HE SUN HAD NOT YET CRESTED
, and Grace continued to sleep in the same position on his chest. He watched her eyelids jump, her eyes moving beneath them, as she dreamed. Not wanting to interrupt whatever story her brain was telling her, he continued to lie there until he felt her move some time later.

She opened her eyes briefly, muttered something, then closed them again. He wished she would wake up, as he needed to slip away. He did his best to slide the pillow under her head without changing the elevation. He had pillows under her leg and head as he gently rolled off the bed, and she continued to breathe in her steady rhythm. He dressed, left her a note, closed the door quietly behind him, and walked back to the shopping mall parking lot to retrieve the Crown Victoria.

He drove to the Wallaby in Apex, where he saw the work line starting to form. Manuela was already there, but as usual, Papa Diablo was probably hiding or having breakfast. Mahegan parked the car in the shopping center parking lot and walked across the street to the Wallaby, where he found Manuela, the big Hispanic man from his fence job three days ago, by himself, pacing back and forth beneath a streetlamp that was competing with the slate gray of dawn.

“
Hola
,” Mahegan said.

“
Hola
—” Manuela stopped short when he saw Mahegan.

“Come with me,” Mahegan said.

He led Manuela behind the car wash associated with the gas station. There was a pool of oily water on the pavement where the cars drove through the dryer.

“Bad people,” Mahegan said. Manuela stared at him, as if he didn't understand, so Mahegan tried his limited Spanish. “Muy malas personas.”

“Sí. Sí,” Manuela said, pointing at Mahegan.

“No. Not me.” He paused and constructed the sentences in his mind. “Les hombres de petróleo y gas. Muy peligroso. Díselo a tus amigos.” Mahegan stuttered through his broken Spanish but thought he did okay.

Manuela took a step back. Mahegan knew he had put these men in danger, but if he had not been there, Petrov probably would have killed them.

“There is talk,” the man said in basic English, clearly not wanting to have to listen to Mahegan try his Spanish again. “That day we went. The day before us, a two-man crew never came back.”

“I remember.”

“What you say may be true. I tell my friends. We not go with those men.”

“Take this,” Mahegan said, handing a burner cell phone to Manuela.

Mahegan saw Papa Diablo walking quickly across the lot about fifty yards away. That meant one thing: a promising truck had arrived.

“Mierda,” Manuela said. “Mierda, mierda, mierda!”

Papa Diablo was already in the back of the same truck in which they had ridden three mornings ago. Petrov was standing outside, looking for someone, most likely him and Manuela. A tall Asian man stepped out of the passenger side of the truck. When they didn't choose any other workers, Mahegan knew that they had come for all three of them. They were loose ends.

Manuela walked toward the truck, which drew the attention of both Petrov and the Asian man. Mahegan watched as Manuela removed his jacket. He was preparing for a fight. While the Asian man appeared more bookish than ruffian, Petrov would make up for him. Mahegan had caught Petrov completely off guard before, and this would not happen again.

Mahegan was taken aback as his military mind ratcheted into gear.
Two of America's most threatening enemies, China and Russia, in the same truck?

Petrov came around the back end of the pickup, lowered its tail, and gave Manuela a welcoming grimace. “Yes, yes. You did such good work the other day.”

Manuela walked up to Petrov and got in two good jabs before Petrov figured out what was happening. Once he did, though, he was the Olympic boxer, leading with his left foot and left hand. He got inside on Manuela and landed three good jabs to the face and drew blood. Manuela, no slacker, scored a few body blows that made Petrov cough. It was the straight right that stunned Manuela long enough for Petrov to get in close and hammer him three times across the face with roundhouse hooks, driven by the pivot of Petrov's right foot and the whirling of his shoulders into perfect strike position.

Manuela was down and then in the back of the truck with Papa Diablo, who had not moved, because, as Mahegan saw, the Asian man was holding a pistol out of sight of the lineup of men, but clearly visible to him and Diablo.

“You. White but not white. Your turn,” Petrov said.

Mahegan strode the twenty yards between them with long strides, then veered away at the last second and landed a solid right cross on the Asian man. Mahegan threw the punch from his hip, extending his fist outward, rotating it as it arced through the air, twisting it just as it struck the spot between the nose and forehead, then snapping it back, ready for the second punch. The pistol bobbed in the man's long fingers until Mahegan grabbed his wrist, threw an elbow into the man's gut, and squeezed his hand until the weapon clanked to the ground. He palmed the man's head like a basketball and slammed his forehead into the truck, then turned to find Petrov closing on him.

Having the presence of mind to kick the pistol under the truck, he blocked Petrov's right cross and drove his left fist into the left pectoral, which he had cut with the posthole digger. Mahegan pivoted this time off his left foot, turning his hips to provide extra momentum, and twisted the fist into the injury. Petrov stepped back, stumbled a bit, and Mahegan saw a cloud cross over his eyes. Either he was in intense pain from Mahegan's punch or the man had moved to another place mentally. Mahegan guessed both.

The Russian took up a fighter's pose, while Mahegan enticed him away from the truck. He watched as Diablo and Manuela scampered out the back and hurried behind the drive-through car wash with the rest of the day laborers, who were watching the fight go down. Out of his periphery, he saw that the Asian man was still down and that no one had gone for the pistol. Petrov probably had a weapon, but he could see the man was focused on mano a mano.

He watched Petrov's rhythm. The man rocked back and forth, obviously falling into a pattern he had developed as a boxer. His technique was too good to be anything but professional. He looked uncomfortable moving farther than a few feet toward Mahegan, as if he expected to stay in a square boxing ring. So Mahegan continued to draw him away from the truck, out of his comfort zone, out of the ring. Petrov looked confused, perhaps wondering why Mahegan would not stay in the zone and fight him. Petrov stumbled and lost his bounce but quickly regained his step. One, two. Left, right. One, two. Left, right. Mahegan watched and waited. He stopped, and Petrov kept coming forward, but his steps were out of sync. Mahegan had deliberately stopped when Petrov's right foot was forward, where he had less power.

Mahegan's wingspan was over seven feet wide. He had learned in fighting to create his own internal safe zone, which was a little over three feet. Anything inside three feet and Mahegan could tap, tap, tap it all day long with a powerful jab or a right cross. Those were his two basic punches. Having wrestled in high school, he could also fight close, but he avoided that now. He had learned the hard way that weapons could appear from the most unlikely places.

Petrov stumbled into that three-foot zone, and Mahegan scored a firm left jab on the boxer's forehead. He kept coming inside that zone, though, like a Joe Frazier or a Mike Tyson with no reach, and started going for Mahegan's body. Petrov landed some good blows into his rib cage with a strong right uppercut. Mahegan violated his rule and slipped into wrestling mode when Petrov kept pummeling. He dropped down into a fireman's carry takedown and lifted the man onto his shoulders, absorbing some body blows in the kidneys from Petrov's weaker left hand. But still, it counted.

Mahegan strode forward with Petrov's active weight on his back, like he was carrying a live bear, and flipped him into the bed of the pickup truck with a loud
thunk
. Petrov was up quickly, and they both stared at each other when they heard sirens blaring, as if the round had ended and each fighter had to go to his respective corner. Soon Mahegan could see blue lights flashing from about a half mile away. Petrov leapt out of the pickup bed, pulled the Asian man into the cab, climbed behind the wheel, and sped away in the opposite direction.

Mahegan walked across the street, watching as the police cars fishtailed into the parking lot of the gas station. As he looked over his shoulder, Papa Diablo and Manuela waved and nodded, an unspoken thank-you for most likely saving their lives. The two informal leaders of the group disappeared in the parking lot, like ghosts. Mahegan figured most of the day laborers were illegal and wanted nothing to do with the police. As he walked to his car, he thought again about the plight of these men, who got in vehicles with people they didn't know, went to locations they were unfamiliar with, and worked for an undetermined wage.

There had to be a better way. But he had done his duty, righting a wrong or, if not that, at least protecting those men, who were so desperate that they would have gladly gone back on the job. He also knew that he had removed all doubt that he was the nemesis to Gunther and Throckmorton and their EB-5 commandos.

The battle lines were now clearly drawn.

CHAPTER 23

H
E DROVE TO WITHIN A MILE OF HIS APARTMENT, WALKED THROUGH
the woods along a firebreak, grabbed his secure smartphone from the safe, and used his Zebra app to send a message to Savage. He pocketed his phone, relocked his safe, backed his Cherokee out of the barn, and drove back to the mall where he had parked Griffyn's car. He walked the remaining mile to the hotel.

As he rounded the bend, he saw a yellow Lamborghini in the Holiday Inn parking lot. Mahegan girded his mind for the worst possible scenario. In the past three days he had killed and fought more people than he had on some of his worst days in combat. His missions were usually designed so that he had to move quickly in and out. This mission, however, resembled his last, involving the American Taliban, in which he fought and killed suicide bombers trained in America and ready for action on U.S. soil.

Here he was, fighting to save the life of an Army officer and her daughter . . . and to avenge his mother's murder.

As he was walking into the hallway of the Holiday Inn from the side entrance, Mahegan heard loud noises coming from his room. Shouts, mostly, and female voices. Leading with his pistol, Mahegan opened the door to the room to find Grace, three other women, and Ted the Shred seated in chairs or on the beds. The Shred had his hands tied behind his back as an attractive blond-haired woman yelled at him. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail that fell midway down her back. She wore a black Under Armour outfit that made her look a bit like a ninja with no mask, Mahegan thought.

“You're part of this, Ted, you asshole, and . . . ,” she said, looking at Grace, then at Mahegan, who focused his pistol on her.

“Who the hell is this?” Mahegan asked.

“Elaine, this is Hawthorne,” Grace said. Then to Mahegan, “You can put down the frigging pistol, Hawthorne.”

“Who let him in on this?” Elaine demanded, turning her attention away from Ted and to Grace, who was now standing between the two double beds. “This is
our
deal, Grace.
We
are taking these assholes down.”

Mahegan didn't know Elaine, but she certainly had an edge.

“This guy has, like, saved my frigging life ten times in the past couple of days,” Grace said.

“I don't care if he's the pope. We said this was classified. No leaks.” Elaine's thin neck showed sinewy tendons as she emphasized her point.

“This is actually my room,” Mahegan interrupted. “I'm going to give you a couple of minutes to explain what's going on here, and then I'm going to decide whether or not you can stay.”

Elaine looked at Grace and then at the two other women, who wore similar clothes to Elaine's. Black jumpsuits. They were the Don't Frack the Triangle, DFT2, Chapel Hill watch team Grace had mentioned, Mahegan guessed. Besides Elaine, there was a short, stocky woman with a close haircut, looking almost like a man. The other was striking and lean, and she looked at Mahegan with curious eyes, as if trying to place him.

“Like Pink says, ‘Just when it can't get worse, I've had a shit day. . . . Blow me,' ” Elaine said.

“I think that last phrase is actually from Pink's ‘Blow me one last kiss,' ” Grace snapped. Then to Mahegan, “Elaine thinks everything you need to know in life can be explained by Pink songs. Study those and we're all good.”

Elaine was watching the dynamic between Grace and Mahegan.

“We're all lesbians, so don't get any ideas,” Elaine barked.

Mahegan looked at Grace, who shrugged. Elaine saw the interaction and turned to Grace.

“You slut. You slept with him?
Fuckin' perfect
.”

“Let's focus here, Elaine,” Grace said. “We've got Ted here, and Hawthorne can be helpful to the cause. Pink can't help us.”

“Why is Ted here?” Mahegan asked. “And who are these people?” Mahegan waved a hand across the room. “And why are they here?”

“This is Brandy,” Grace said, pointing at the stocky, dark-haired woman sitting on the bed, holding a big industrial flashlight. “And this is Theresa. They've been a couple for a few months.”

“As
we
used to be,” Elaine said to Grace.

“Oh, get over it, Elaine. That was two years ago,” Grace said.

“It's been written in the scars on our hearts!” Elaine pointed her finger at her chest as she quoted another Pink song, Mahegan guessed. He had heard of Pink, mostly from the female soldiers talking about listening to her music. She had a large following among the troops in Afghanistan, but he wasn't certain that he would be able to identify a Pink song on the radio.

They didn't look like a couple, but what did Mahegan know? Theresa was lithe and athletic, and she had the silky brunette hair and high cheekbones of a runway model. Brandy was the opposite. Grace and Elaine, he could picture. Or maybe it was easier to picture those two together than it was Brandy and Theresa. He shrugged.

“Okay. Not my business. These are your watchers?” he said.

“Grace!”

“Lighten up, Elaine. He knows more than us about this, and we've been watching these guys for three months build that rig at night,” Grace said. She walked over to Mahegan, who was still standing by the door, which was closed.

The room had the confused air of a school classroom with no teacher, Mahegan thought. Ted was the dunce in the corner, primitively bound and gagged. The four girls were the students, who were fighting, not knowing what to do. Somehow they had reached an impasse in their decision-making process.

“What about your man there?” Mahegan nodded, trying to move the conversation along.

“I bought a disposable cell at the grocery store next door while you were gone, and called Elaine,” Grace said. “Turns out, the Shred was stalking her, trying to find me. Mickey Mantle here slugged him with that flashlight when he stepped in the room. I found some rope in your duffel bag. Sorry.” Grace cast her eyes downward.

“In the Army we called this a goat rope,” Mahegan said.

“About right,” Elaine agreed. “Did my time. Navy.” He saw her size him up with an obvious vertical scan, as if he were a bar code, then turn toward Grace. “If you're going back to the dark side, Grace, this one will do. Better than that dickhead.” She nodded at Ted the Shred.

“Appreciate the permission, Elaine,” Grace snapped. She turned to Mahegan and said, “We were about to question the Shred. Maybe you have some special techniques?”

“Maybe I do. Depends on what you're trying to find out.” Mahegan looked at Ted, whose eyes were wide as he listened to the conversation.

“He knows stuff about what is happening at the drill site. So, we figure it's time for him to tell us,” Brandy said. She lifted the flashlight and said, “We took his ass down hard.”

“Up all night?” Mahegan asked. The three women were amped on something, maybe just caffeine.

“Been drinking that five-hour energy stuff all night long,” Elaine said. “We've got a buzz, for sure. Hiding out by our big rock.”

“So why don't we all sit down?” Mahegan said. He guessed that was the best way to get a handle on the awkward moment. Theresa sat next to Brandy but kept her furrowed brow stare on Mahegan, and Elaine pulled over a chair from the computer work area, which was standard fare in all hotel rooms. Grace sat on the bed nearest the door. Mahegan remained standing.

“So who tied and gagged Ted?” asked Mahegan.

Brandy raised her hand. “That would be me.”

“Did you take the battery out of his cell phone?” Mahegan asked.

The ladies looked at one another.

“No. We pulled it from his pocket, though. It's right there,” Brandy said, pointing at the table.

Mahegan saw the blinking light indicating there was a message. He walked over, picked up the cell phone, and crushed it against the corner of the table. He picked at the shattered parts, snatching the SIM card and the battery and pocketing both.

“People were tracking you, Grace. They're probably tracking him. We don't have much time, so let's remove the gag.” After thinking for a moment, Mahegan asked all the women, “Are your phones on?”

“Of course,” Elaine responded, as if Mahegan were an idiot. Then, “Oh shit.”

“Remove your batteries, just to be safe. If you can't, then turn off the power completely.”

The women fumbled with their phones. Brandy and Theresa had Droids with removable batteries, but Elaine had an iPhone, which turned off. Grace kept her burner operational.

That task completed, Mahegan thought through his approach with Grace. He had neared a trust boundary where he was willing to share certain information with her, but he knew nothing about the three watchers. He had to make a decision, though, about the women and the information he would share with them, if any.

Brandy had stood and had started walking toward Ted when Elaine said, “Wait a damn minute. How do we know if he's not going to scream or something stupid like that?”

“I'll shoot him,” Mahegan said, holding up his pistol. He nodded at Ted, who had clearly heard him and who acknowledged his cooperation with a silent nod.

“Fair enough,” Elaine said.

Mahegan briefly pictured Elaine and Grace together. Elaine dominant and in control, with Grace more submissive and tender. He could see it.

Mahegan was also thinking about the high technology tracking devices that Throckmorton and Gunther had used to find and follow them so far. How long did they have before this room would be burned? he wondered. How had Ted found Elaine? If they were holed up in hide positions, watching the drill site, how had Ted found them?

Brandy made quick work of the handkerchief, and Mahegan thought of the old English proverb “In for a penny, in for a pound.” He was vested here, and he might be able to enlist the help of the watchers. Sometimes it paid off to hold secrets, and sometimes it was more profitable to share information. While Mahegan wasn't necessarily in a sharing mood, they had captured Ted, and his bounty of information, whatever it might be, was equally their booty, whatever their purpose.

“Okay. I'm going to ask the question here, ladies,” Mahegan said. Then to Ted, “How did you track Elaine and find her?”

Elaine snapped her head toward Mahegan and then toward Ted. “Yeah. Good damn question.”

“Elaine, please be quiet,” Mahegan said. The timbre of his voice was that of a commander issuing orders, but restrained.

He sized up Ted, who was shaking his head, smiling. The man had an arm in a sling from the crushed wrist. His forehead was swollen and red from where he had slammed it into Grace's front door. The ropes crisscrossed his chest and legs, binding him to the second chair in the hotel room.

“You guys are something else,” Ted said. “Three dykes, a bi criminal, and a BFI.”

“BFI?” Elaine asked, obviously still engaged.

“Big effing Indian,” Mahegan said. “I've heard it all before. Now, Ted, I guess you've been in touch with at least your dad, if not some of the others from the fracking operation. You guys are in deep stuff. You've lost six workers, maybe seven, and you know all the other bad things your father and his partners have done. So answer my questions, or I will hurt you even worse than I did the other night.”

“Damn. You did all that?” Brandy asked, nodding toward Ted.

“I told you he's saved my life, like, ten times,” Grace added. “Now, let him do his thing.”

Mahegan saw that the right wrist was in a cast, which could be used as a lethal weapon, if Ted were given the opportunity. He pulled out his Duane Dieter Spec Ops knife and flipped open the blade with a well-practiced turn of his wrist. He stepped toward Ted, who began stuttering.

“Hey, man. Hey, man. What the hell, dude?”

Mahegan lifted Ted's right forearm and slid the knife inside the cast, then sliced through the plaster easily. He removed the cast loop over the thumb and tossed the device aside like a Civil War doctor disposed of severed limbs.

“I'm going to grab this wrist right here,” Mahegan said, placing his large thumb on top of the broken ulna. “And I'm going to squeeze until you tell me how you found Elaine. I imagine you think you're tough, but trust me, you aren't.”

At the slightest pressure on the weal, Ted howled.

“Wait a sec, Ted. We had an agreement that you weren't going to make any loud noises that might call attention to us. You're violating all kinds of agreements here, which is going to have severe consequences for you immediately, because I'm guessing we've got precious little time,” Mahegan said.

“Damn. I'm liking this,” Elaine whispered.

“So, last chance,” Mahegan said. With a little more pressure on Ted's wrist, tears streamed down the man's face. Having surfed, Mahegan knew that the wrists were crucial for paddling and popping up into position on the board. Ted wasn't going surfing any time soon unless he was an idiot, which, Mahegan figured, might be the case.

“We have a cell phone scanner. A Stingray. I've got numbers, and we've got a GPS tracking system.” Ted coughed. “Damn it, let go!”

“We're getting somewhere, but we're definitely not there,” Mahegan said. “Where is this system, and who controls it?”

“Man, you guys are in way over your—”

Mahegan applied enough pressure to break the bone, again. He felt it give through the soft tissue that had swollen to protect it and help the injury heal.

“Damn. Damn it!” Ted howled again. Mahegan passively watched him grimace and squeeze the words out of his tightly pressed lips. “Okay. Okay. It's at Dad's compound, but you don't need to be there. You can access it through a computer. That's how I found Elaine. Like that app you can use to find your phone if you lost it.”