BioKill (24 page)

Lilburn waved Evangeline across to him.

“You see that small building? I’m guessing we’ll find some help there. Are you ready to follow?”

“Yes.”

The two siblings, known locally as The Rock Chuckers
,
had stopped work for a lunch break. Fuz Cooney sat playing Solitaire, sitting down next to an upturned wooden box which doubled as the lunch table. He played with a ragged grimy pack of playing cards handed down from when his father used to work the family business. The denominations had almost worn off — and had been crudely drawn over with a biro. His brother Chugga, just shy of two years his senior, was the first of the two to work the quarry, as a sixteen year old. That was twenty years ago. Chugga was leaning over an old wooden door, which in turn lay on two empty 44-gallon drums; the innovative office desk added a touch of character.

“Hey, Fuz. We up to Miz June yet?”

“Dunno, but I like Miz June a whole lot bett’r’n Miz July. Jes keep Miz June. She got betta tits.”

Chugga flipped over the page of the calendar and gave the picture a thorough examination with an expert eye. After what he thought was the right amount of time for a true connoisseur to appreciate the
art form
, he acknowledged his brother was correct. “Yep.”

“Tarnation!” Fuz threw down the cards in his hand in disgust.

“Lose agin?”

Fuz grabbed a twirl in his long unruly red beard he saved just for these occasions and twiddled it between his thumb and forefinger. His brother was working out the months left in the year on his fingers as a stranger appeared outside the open door. “July, August, September, Oct… Holy shit, mister, ya scared the livin’ daylights outta me!”

“Sorry, boys.” Lilburn reached into his rear pocket and pulled out a Homeland Security ID. “Would you mind if I made a phone call?” He stepped up into the shack. Fuz pushed back the chair he was sitting in, the sound rattling over the undulating floor boards, then moved across next to his brother. Lilburn couldn’t help but notice the immense size of the two men. At six foot two he felt dwarfed by what could only be described as a pair of mountain men, dressed in tatty dungarees without shirts. They looked like a pair of professional tag-wrestlers.

“You a tax man?” asked Fuz suspiciously. His huge hands formed into fists as he spoke.

“Hell no! My name’s Matt Lilburn, I’m an agent with Homeland Security.” The brothers’ faces remained suspicious. Lilburn thought this might be a good time to introduce Evangeline. “Doctor, would you mind coming to the doorway?”

Lilburn took a step sideways, making sure he didn’t move too fast. Evangeline appeared by his side. The brothers visibly mellowed when they saw her obvious distress.

“Darn, Chugga, it’s Miz October!”

Chugga gave his brother a swift clout to the stomach. “Excuse my brother, ma’am, we don’t often sees a lady here.” Chugga moved to the doorway and held out a hand to Lilburn in greeting. Lilburn gripped hard in self-defense, to avoid having his own hand crushed, and was half-pulled into the shack by the huge man. Chugga brushed past him and extended a hand, palm up, to Evangeline to help her up the step. Fuz, taking the lead from his brother, also greeted Lilburn with a bone-rattling handshake and a quick “Hi there, ma’am” to Evangeline.

“My name’s Chugga, this is Fuz, he two years younger’n me. I guess you ain’t here to buy rock.”

“That’s right, Chugga, but I wouldn’t mind using your phone.”

The younger brother rubbed the three-day stubble on his chin. “We don’t rightly have no phone… well, we does but we don’t, if ya get ma drift.”

“Hell, Chugga, you talkin’ riddles agin. These strangers dun know what yer on about. What ma brother means, mister, is the phone ain’t workin’ but the fax is. See yonder.” He pointed over to the office desk.

On top of it were two blue plastic milk crates, cut in half; scotch-taped to each was a rectangular piece of paper with the words
In Trey
and
Out Trey
. A dust-covered array of invoices, paper and a once white-colored fax machine completed the picture.

“I would really appreciate it if I could sent an urgent fax.”

“No problem. Paper an’ a pen right there,” said Fuz. “Ma’am, would you like somethin’ to drink?”

“That would be marvelous,” replied Evangeline.

The puzzlement on Fuz’s face was obvious. He fiddled with the twirl in his bead. His mind could almost be heard ticking over. “Say, what? You not from around here, are ya?”

“No.” In most other circumstances, Evangeline would have been delighted to have entered into a relaxed conversation with this polite giant of a man, but now wasn’t the time. Besides, she was exhausted.

Fuz went to a sink and poured a glass of water from the tap and offered it to his guest. Evangeline gulped down the water, despite the dubious-looking glass.

Lilburn started writing a note addressing it attention to Director Allan Hall but stopped partway through. “Do you boys have a phone book?” The brothers shook their heads. “Don’t suppose you have a computer?” Unsurprisingly the answer was the same. Lilburn didn’t have a fax number. Placing both his hands on the desk he lowered his head and closed his eyes deep in concentration. Then he remembered.

In his wallet was a business card he had been given by Inspector Lance Gibbons, not long after landing at One Police Plaza in New York. Pulling his wallet out, he found the card with the man’s contact numbers. Taking a fresh piece of paper, he wrote a new note, addressed to Gibbons, explaining the situation, including agent down, and asked him to urgently pass the information to Hall directly. Getting the address of the quarry from the brothers, he added it in the note and asked for immediate pick up. The completed note was then placed in the fax and the
Send
button pressed.

“You got your sel’s lost?” Fuz handed Lilburn a glass of water.

“Thanks. Yeah, we ran into trouble just up the road a bit.” Lilburn decided to explain what had happened. The news someone was murdered just up the road would travel around the local community like wildfire. “Me and another agent were taking this lady to JFK where she has a plane to catch back to London.”

“You English, right? I figured you weren’t from around here. I wuz right, wasn’t I, Chugga?”

“You a real bright spark, Fuz, now shuddup and let the man talk. Sorry ’bout my brother. Aw heck, where’s our manners? Ma’am, you sit yourself down over here in this chair.” Chugga brushed off the seat of a wooden chair and placed it next to Evangeline, who accepted the offer graciously. “Trouble, you say, mister? Shootin’ kind of trouble?”

Lilburn moved to the doorway and leaned against the frame looking out towards the main road partially visible in the distance. He nodded. “Two cars turned up as we were sorting out some vehicle trouble. They opened fire and killed our driver.” Lilburn drained the last of the water from the glass and moved towards the sink. “So we escaped and made our way here.”

“Hell, ya hear that, Chugga — a man wuz killed just over yonder! An official agent! Oh, there’ll be some trouble coz of that!”

“I hear ya, Fuz. Ain’t no one been killed in here in a while.”

“Least ways no bodies been dumped here lately. Not like in Daddy’s day — I cain’t wait till the old man hears about this!”

The brothers were totally enthralled by the notion, but also disturbingly unfazed, and Lilburn realized they were crushing rocks for a very good reason. It was about all they could do. Eventually one of the huge men suggested they better get back to feeding the crusher, and Lilburn asked if he and Evangeline could rest in the shack until help arrived. The brothers were only too happy to accommodate their visitors and left to return to work. Lilburn watched as the men headed off, still chattering excitedly about the killing and speculating on whether anyone had found the body yet.

Evangeline hadn’t moved from the chair. “I can’t believe Suzanna would do this to us. I can’t even comprehend any grounds for the Takfir to kill us now — it’s more like an act of revenge, while their deploying the virus into America was an act of war. We’re way too trivial to be of any significance.”

“I agree. Did you see the gunmen? They weren’t typical Takfir operatives. The two I saw were both Caucasian, more like paid thugs.” He moved across the room and sat in the chair by the upturned wooden box with the deck of cards on top. Picking up the cards he turned the deck over. On the back of each card was a photo of scantily clad woman — twenty years ago the pictures would have been considered erotic — now they just looked well fed and enthusiastic. “Somehow I doubt you’ll be making JFK today.” He knew Evangeline was right — there was no logical reason for Mac’s death. It irked him. He let the cards fall to the box and looked at his watch. Just after midday. He would wait another twenty minutes.

The fax machine spat out a single page to the floor.

Attention: Matt Lilburn

Matt, I have tried to inform Director Hall of your predicament but he left his office early this morning. Your people will make contact with him and advise situation. In meantime, helicopter and support expected to be dispatched to you ASAP. If I can be of assistance please inform.

Lance Gibbons.

“We should be getting picked up soon.”

Evangeline nodded, looking exhausted. The front-end loader started up outside. Lilburn watched through a window as the large machine drove towards the crusher plant. One of the brothers was driving; the other cadged a lift in the bucket. “They’re a couple of characters — quite sweet really.” Evangeline rested her head on his shoulder. “Do you think someone would have seen poor Mac by now?” She hung onto his arm, gripping him as she would a security blanket.

“My guess is those bastards would have cleaned the area and driven the car over the bank. I think Mac… Well, let’s just wait and see.”

“Is that what you would have done?”

“It’s a crappy game we’re in; Allan Hall pointed that out. To fight the enemy, sometimes you’ve got to think like them.”

Eventually the cramped hut began to feel oppressive, and they moved outside. Lilburn looked out towards the main road about a half mile away — every so often a vehicle could be seen passing before disappearing behind the trees.

When the crusher started up, it sounded like a tank driving over loose gravel, a mixture of clunking, belts squeaking and rocks pulverizing. The cabless front-end loader with its large rubber wheels and a full bucket of rocks pushed up a ramp made of gravel, black smoke billowing from its exhaust in belching puffs with each depression of the accelerator. At the top of the ramp it raised and tilted the bucket filling the crusher with raw material. Rocks tumbled down, hitting the metal sides of the hopper before being crushed and sorted. Two large conveyor belts spat the gravel out into two separate piles. Very big piles.

“I think those two have been doing this work for some time now,” Lilburn observed.

Evangeline nudged him. “Matt, over there.”

Lilburn looked down and followed her gaze. Two dark cars slowly edged forward on the entrance track to the quarry from a road somewhere out of sight behind the building. The cars stopped one behind the other, a stone’s throw away. Lilburn could see the front passenger windows were lowered. He didn’t recognize the passenger in the front vehicle but he recognized the driver of the one behind. The man wore a blue and white baseball cap, back to front.

“Don’t move a muscle.” Lilburn’s mind worked like a chessmaster — fast and calculating. Retreat into the shack was out of the question, they would be boxed in. The tree line was too far to reach over open ground. A tall gravel pile was thirty feet away, achievable but only by passing close to the assailants. That left only one option.

The passenger in the front car was the first to spot them. He swiftly shoved a handgun out his window and pulled the trigger. At the first sign of movement Lilburn spun Evangeline around, grabbed her hand and ran. The bullet raised dust as it furrowed a path in the hard gravel pad. A few paces more and Lilburn hauled Evangeline out of view beside the shack.

Scurrying from immediate view was just the first stage. Lilburn could hear the cars spinning their wheels on gravel; they would be gunning it to the shack. A graveyard with an old rusting bulldozer and the skeleton of a flat-bed truck along with years of metal waste lay twenty yards away, potential cover. “This way.” The pair dashed for the scrap metal, barely making safety as bullets pinged into steel. This time Evangeline didn’t need to be pushed to the ground. Behind the hulk of the dozer, Lilburn sat with his back to the heavy push-frame attached to an immense blade. The Sig 9 mm rested comfortably in the palm of his hand.

The cars had come to a skidding halt outside the shack and three men leapt out. One rushed inside, his handgun covering out. The other two stood their ground by the side of the shack, legs bent and braced sending off a crescendo of automatic fire into their hiding place.

Lilburn flattened himself on his stomach behind the iron barrier and squirmed to find somewhere to return fire. The advantage was with the gunmen and he was acutely aware that one or more of them could outflank his position and cut them down. Where one of the tracks met the ground, a narrow line of sight presented itself. The Sig let loose two rounds in quick succession, which caused the gunmen to think twice and seek cover.

Lilburn looked to his rear for a possible escape route. The tree line was at least fifty yards away; even if he could provide covering fire for Evangeline, he doubted their chances. A lull in the incoming fire presented another opportunity. He rose up to a kneeling position. One man was running off to the right in the outflanking maneuver. The Sig followed his path, then pushed ahead of the man. Lilburn let the hammer fall. The man took the bullet in his chest, falling face first into the hard gravel.

Another sound reverberated around the immediate vicinity; the sound of a large machine under full throttle. The front-end loader blew continuous black smoke as it bore down on the shack. Fuz Cooney aimed directly at the two men to the side of his shack. One of the cars was in between. Even for an old machine the pace was quick, the compacted flat ground no hindrance to keeping up the revs. With an expertise gained over years of practise, Fuz lowered the bucket until it traveled only a foot above ground. The remaining shooters hadn’t expected this — unnerved, they fired wildly at the oncoming machine, its driver open and exposed.