Perpetual Motion (22 page)

With the deck reshuffled, no one knew where
anyone else was anymore. Even when Cynical detected the slightest
sound, he couldn’t be sure who had made it. And the last thing he
wanted to do was shoot a Fed.

Dropping low, Cynical managed to move closer
to Karen. Reaching out, he found her small hand and felt where her
wrists had been tied down with a hard plastic cord. Pulling out his
pocket knife, he went to work as quietly as he could before the
snap of the plastic made him freeze. Had anyone else heard
that?

“Got you,” he heard Amanda whisper from
behind him.

A gun fired within inches of his right ear,
setting off another domino of gunfire around the tank, not that
Cynical heard any of it. As guns cracked and bullets flew, he lay
flat on the ground, hands over his ringing ear.

Even after the shooting stopped, echoes
continued to bounce around the metallic chamber. When the sounds of
gun blasts finally subsided, no one said a word for fear of giving
his or her position away. The only noise was a body hitting the
floor.

It was impossible to know who had gone down
and Cynical, along with everyone else, remained as quiet as
possible, not wanting to be the next to fall. Getting back into a
crouch, he used the pause in the battle to saw through the cord on
Karen’s other wrist.

As soon as he broke through, Karen reached
out with her free hands and wiped away the wires that had been
attached to her head. The sounds they were making were faint, but
enough to draw attention. Hearing someone moving close by, Cynical
began to lead Karen away from the electric chair.

Having crawled for only a few feet, he heard
a slight sound directly in front of him. It was a tiny “crunch,”
almost nothing at all. Still, an image flashed in his head: a high
heel biting into the concrete floor. Going on a hunch, he swiped
his arm and hooked a sheer leg. In one movement, he lifted upward,
bringing the leg with him.

As he rose upward, a gun went off sending a
sharp stinging sensation biting into his shoulder. While it was
only a glancing shot, it was enough to momentarily shock his system
and cause him to recoil. Releasing the leg with a hard shove, a
body crashed several feet away, followed by a guttural curse from a
barely feminine voice.

Another gunshot came from a completely
different direction. The shot missed and Cynical wasted no time in
reaching back; his hand flaying around in search of Karen. Like a
blind man, he touched; then grabbed her small hand.

The next shot came from Amanda; sheering into
the back of Cynical thigh. He tried to muffle a cry as his leg let
out a scream heard throughout his body. No longer willing to take
the slow, careful route, he grabbed Karen up in his arms. The leg
hurt like hell, but it seemed to support him as he bull-rushed in
the general direction of the exit.

Another shot came from Amanda’s direction,
which Cynical felt whiz by his other pants leg. Adrenalin mixed
with fear gave him the fuel to run despite the leaking hole in his
leg. Unfortunately, he blindly ran into a metal wall with full
force.

Falling to his knees, he dropped Karen.
Hunching over her crumpled body, the pain and desperation
threatened to overtake him. He couldn’t save himself, much less the
girl who had foolishly put her faith in him.

Another gunshot and, instantly, a bullet
pinged off the wall in front of them, missing his face by inches.
That’s when something snapped deep inside of him. In one motion, he
pulled out his gun and turned into the darkness. Half-crazed, he
fired four shots in the direction he thought Amanda was taking her
potshots.

For a moment, the room was quiet.

“Over here,” he heard from his side.

Cynical whipped his gun toward the voice,
finger on the trigger.

“Come on,” he heard McCobb whisper again,
barely above a breath.

Grabbing hold of Karen, Cynical moved toward
the voice. They stumbled along for a few feet before McCobb pushed
them through the door and into the hall.

The hallway was still dark, although not as
pitch black as the cavern they had just endured. McCobb turned back
to the door, looking for a way to lock it from behind.

“What about O’Riley?” Cynical asked,
panting.

McCobb merely shook his head as he twisted a
latch on the side of the handle. As soon as the lock snapped into
place, the FBI agent turned to hurry down the hallway.

Anxious to get out of the torture chamber,
Karen was already sprinting ahead of both of them. Hearing a grunt,
she turned to see Cynical limping along behind.

“You can make it,” she pleaded, falling back
to help him along.

The x-detective pushed through the hall as
warm blood trickled down his leg and a cold sweat broke out on his
forehead. Behind him, he could hear their enemies at the door,
pounding and trying to get it open like a pack of wolves.

Keep moving,
Cynical told himself.

Within five feet of the exit, the front door
seemed to magically swing open and a body stepped into the
frame.

“I zapped the generator!” Desmond said
proudly, holding up his trusty stun gun like the Olympic torch.
“Did it cut the electricity?”

“Yeah – and the lights,” Cynical said,
brushing by him. “They’re right behind us.”

They all hurried from the front entrance as a
gunshot sounded from inside the tank. The metallic reverberation
told them they were shooting the lock.

Everyone knew they only had a few seconds
lead, so the shot acted like a starting pistol, speeding up their
escape. With Desmond trying to help Karen and Cynical leaning on
McCobb, they looked like two pairs in a frantic three-legged
race.

As they rounded the corner of the building,
Cynical took the car keys from his pocket and yelled, “Here!” as he
tossed them to Desmond.

Karen jumped into the front passenger seat,
while McCobb opened the back door and let Cynical fall inside. With
his gun drawn and ready to take down anyone who came around the
corner, the FBI agent went around the back of the car and slid into
the other side of the backseat.

Starting the car, Desmond slammed it in
reverse and smashed the gas. The Impala backed up; then laid rubber
as it went forward through the parking lot. Fishtailing through the
open gate, none of the occupants saw Amanda as she ran outside.
Reloading her pistol, she looked after the get-away car, a gleam in
her smoky eyes.

Desmond nervously checked his rearview mirror
for headlights, feeling a wave of relief when he only saw darkness
behind him.

Karen was turned all the way around in the
front seat, keeping a concerned eye on Cynical and his red, seeping
thigh. “Put pressure on it.”

Leaning up against the back door, Cynical
kept his hand flat on the wound.

“Let me see that,” McCobb ordered. “Raise
your leg.”

Cynical obeyed and turned toward the back
seat, while McCobb maneuvered around so he could get an angle on
the entry point.

“Oh my God,” Karen cried, seeing the
red-tinged rip in his jacket. “You’re bleeding from your shoulder
too.”

“Just a graze,” Cynical grunted; then
grimaced as McCobb probed the hole in his pants leg. “Hey, watch
it.”

“Well, they didn’t hit a major artery,”
McCobb pronounced. “You’d be bleeding a lot more. You’ll probably
live.”

Cynical sat up a little straighter, the
examination apparently over.

“I can’t believe you came for me,” Karen
announced, her voice overflowing with gratitude. She looked at
Cynical with tears in her eyes. “Thank you.”

“I short-circuited the generator,” Desmond
reminded her.

“Thank you,” Karen said with genuine
affection as she looked around the car to include everyone. “Thank
you all for coming.”

“Don’t forget to thank my partner,” McCobb
said gruffly.

“I’m sorry,” Karen said so softy she could
hardly be heard.

“Where am I going?” Desmond asked, stomping
into the moment of silence.

Cynical looked up and realized they were
moving so fast they were almost back to the on-ramp. “Just get back
on 14 for now – toward Palmdale.”

They all sat in silence as the Impala slowed
down a bit to take the ramp; then speeded up to gallop down the
highway by itself.

It was McCobb who spoke up again. “So, who
was that we ran into back there?”

“The woman told me her name was Amanda
Wilkerson,” Cynical said. “Amanda might be right, but I’m beginning
to doubt she works for an insurance company.” He caught Karen’s eye
and knew he couldn’t hide his mistake from her. “Whoever she is,
she used me to get to you.”

Karen shook her head slightly, not
understanding. “What do you mean?”

“She got to know me a few days ago. I thought
she was just a woman I met on the plane, and… I invited her over to
my place.” Karen and McCobb were both staring at him as he trudged
on. “That’s when she must have bugged my phone. That’s how they
knew exactly when you called me.”

Cynical braced for the anger to come flooding
out of Karen. Not only did he deserve every bit of it, he almost
welcomed it. But it didn’t come. If anything, Karen just looked
disappointed, which somehow hurt him all the more.

“You don’t have any idea who these people are
working for?” McCobb asked as he rolled down the window.

Cynical shook his head. “I thought they might
be working for the government.”

Desmond was keeping his eyes on the road,
apparently not ready or willing to share everything he knew with
the rest of the car.

The x-detective turned back to the agent who
was taking a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of his suit coat.
“Could they be connected with your investigation?” Cynical
asked.

“No,” was McCobb’s emphatic answer, but the
question seemed to unsettle him. He lit the cigarette. Blowing
smoke and discretion out the window, he added, “Honestly, I’m not
sure. I don’t know how far up this thing goes. Our orders were to
find Dexter and bring him into protective custody and, you were
right, our
superiors
didn’t tell us very much.”

After taking another slow drag, McCobb went
on, “We got called in after their factory was firebombed. All we
knew was that Michael had invented something,” he said, then
generously added, “along with Desmond. No one told us what.”

“We picked up Michael’s cell phone signal in
Vegas, but before we got out there, the signal had gone dead.”

Once again, he had the image of Michael’s
cell phone/laser tracking device disappearing in the volcano at the
Mirage. “So, we put Desmond under surveillance because he was the
only one we could find.” Glancing over at Cynical, the agent said,
“That’s when you came into the picture. When you showed up at his
apartment, we put a tracker on your car – and you led us to
Fernando the next day.”

“Glad I could help,” Cynical said.

The agent nodded as he continued to hold the
cigarette up to the cracked window, letting the smoke get sucked
into the night air. “So, are you finally going to tell me who
you’re working for?”

McCobb had kept his end of the deal and then
some. If nothing else, Cynical Jones was a man of his word,
although his client might disagree. “Alfred Mancuso.”

“Mancuso?” McCobb repeated, rolling the name
around. “That name sounds familiar.”

“He invested in O-Motors,” Desmond said. “He
believed in us when no one else did.”

“Well, you boys sure got a lot of peoples’
attention now,” McCobb commented.

“It will change the world,” Desmond said,
once again glancing in the rearview mirror to keep an eye on the
road behind them. “At least, it would have.”

“So, what are you going to do now?” McCobb
asked the private detective in the backseat. “Try to get Dexter
before those mercenaries do?”

Cynical’s look told him he’d answered his own
question.

Shaking his head in disapproval, McCobb let
the cigarette fly out of the window; then leaned forward to address
the kids in the front seat. “No offense to Mr. Jones here, but the
FBI can protect you a lot better than one private eye with a hole
in his leg.”

“No, you’re right about that,” the one-legged
x-detective admitted. “But you said it yourself; you don’t know how
far up this thing goes. You could be doing the legwork for the same
people Amanda and her crew are working for.”

Once again, the car fell silent.

Sensing a decision had been made, McCobb
nodded, his prominent lower jaw sticking out. “All right, if you
all want to go on a suicide mission looking for Dexter, I’m not
going to stop you, at least not right now. But, I can’t be a part
of it either.” The agent peered into the darkness ahead of them.
“Let me out at the next exit.”

The all-night truck stop outside of Palmdale
was impossible to miss, even as the sunrise washed out its neon
sign and ultra-bright canopy lights. Desmond pulled off the highway
and into the giant fueling station as a semi was rolling out.

Putting the Impala in park, everyone got out
of the car, except the incapacitated PI. Karen headed toward the
store, Desmond to the pump, and McCobb took a leisurely stretch,
before looking back down into the backseat.

“You know, whatever this guy, Mancuso, is
paying you, it’s not enough.”

Cynical wondered if McCobb knew the fee, if
he would still think it wasn’t enough. Considering what had just
gone down in the last few hours; probably.

Disregarding the comment, Cynical asked,
“Have you got a ride?”

“I’ll be fine,” the agent said assuredly. “My
first stop is going to be back over to that oil refinery.”