Runaway Model (28 page)

He knew something Roman Nigel didn't know. He remembered something key.

Bryce Auburn was in play.

Bryce and his private army.

"You think you can take Stoney's team? You're one man, Roman. It's suicide."
Reverse psychology
, Kyle thought. Let Nigel argue himself into walking right into the trap.

"I know I can take them. I could have taken them in Des Moines but I chose not to continue our interaction because of the crowd." Nigel put the end of the gun in Kyle's right ear and twisted it ever so slowly. "We won't have that problem this time. They won't make a fucking move to stop us."

Bryce
, Kyle thought.
Bryce sent his army for me. I have to believe that.

Better focus on the road. Get this car there in one piece.

Bryce would have a plan to stop Nigel.

The creep lowered the gun to check his phone again. Kyle wondered if he could use that somehow. A movie hero could have. But the truth was that he was barely in control of the car as it was.

"Fuck yes," Nigel said.

"Fuck yes what?"

"It's them for sure. I should have checked the tracker earlier but I was driving. Yes, yes, yes, fuck YES."

Kyle didn't particularly enjoy the sounds of Nigel celebrating victory. "Yes what, mate? Why don't you tell everybody so we can all share in the fun?"

"I put a tracker in Stoney Rockland's mobile. Stupid cunt. I knew he wouldn't think to chuck it."

"And? Where is he?"

"It's him. At the airfield. He must have flown in for you. I have to hand it to him. I didn't really think he'd fucking bother. And I didn't think he'd figure out where to go. But it's confirmed. He's the incoming."

Kyle kept bouncing from one pothole to another. Maybe it was Stoney, and maybe it was just Stoney's phone leading Nigel into a trap.

This fight isn't over yet. There are a few surprises left in store for you, mate.

The glitter in Nigel's eyes was more than the reflections of the stars. Maybe he'd tried some of the drug himself. Kyle just hoped he'd used his own needle.

"I've won already," Nigel was saying. "You're going to love your secret apartment. It's a private museum. I already have several other important pieces of art there. And the walls are lined with ermine."

The drug sang in his veins, but Kyle felt sick again. He hoped the important pieces of art were paintings. Nigel had been in America for weeks now. Months. If they were other boys, they were dead.

D
awn. Pale pink behind black trees. Birds singing. Just a few. It was December after all. White frost on the tips of all the weeds.

"I need a cigarette," Stoney said.

"You need a fucking shower," Bryce said. Stoney's aura of spoiled whiskey, stale smoke, and dried piss brought back disturbing memories from Bryce's childhood.

Stoney's mobile sang the snippet from "Turn Down For What." Unknown caller.

"Fuck is it?" Stoney said. He tapped speaker. Bryce leaned in closer.

"Where are you?" Nigel. "Don't bother to lie. My tracker puts your alcoholic arse on my airfield."

"What do you want me to say, mate? I want the boy. You're not keeping him. Did you really think I'd let you get away with that?"

"You want to fucking fight with me? You have the nerve to engage with me?"

Roman Nigel had no idea of what he was really up against.

It's game time.

"You leave me no choice, mate," Stoney said. "Give me the boy, and we'll call it even. I don't want the police involved if the boy's OK. Nobody wants that kind of publicity. You can still walk away from this."

"I'm not walking away, mate. You know that. The boy belongs to me."

Stoney looked at the other men standing around outside the jet. Bryce was afraid to speak. He didn't know if Roman Nigel might recognize his voice. He wasn't wildly famous but you never knew.

Johnston stepped up to the plate. "It's over, Mr. Nigel. We have your vehicle in our sights now. Pull over and step out of the car with your hands over your head. That way nobody gets hurt."

A black Toyota Camry swerved into view. Evasive maneuvers or just shit driving?

Roberto raised his binoculars. "The boy's the driver."

"I can shoot out the tires when they get a little closer," Wilton said. "Force the issue." He didn't whisper. Let Nigel hear. He wanted him afraid.

But Roberto did whisper—just loud enough to be heard by the men around him. "He's got a handgun against the boy's neck."

"Fuck," Wilton said.

"What's it going to be, Mr. Nigel?" Johnston held his voice steady. "You have ten seconds before we start firing."

"I'm going to pull over, but you're not going to fire." Roman Nigel's voice was steady too. Probably not a good sign. "You're going to be very, very nice to me." He was confident. Too confident.

"And why is that, sir?"

"I have a gun pointed at Kyle Marchane's third cervical vertebra. He's dead from the neck down with one shot. A living death."

Stoney: "Jesus. You wouldn't. You couldn't."

"Better than watching him turn into another waster like you."

"God, no. Please." The rocker was weeping. Bryce could see that he was genuinely upset.

"Where's my pilot?" Nigel asked. "I need to talk to him."

Bryce couldn't stay out of this. Not any more. "I'm afraid that won't be possible." He struggled to maintain a matter-of-fact tone.

"Who the fuck are you?"

It would take too long to explain because Bryce himself really didn't know who the fuck he was in all this. "I'm the one who put together Kyle's extraction team. I'm the one who guarantees that you go down hard if you hurt one hair on this boy's head."

"A private extraction team? So you're not police but you killed my pilot?"

Bryce had to make it up on the fly. "He left us no choice. He came out of his plane with an AR-7 aimed at our jet."

Nigel thought about it for a minute. "OK. Fine. Here's what we're going to do. I can see your jet. Very nice. I assume you have a pilot if I don't. I'm taking the jet, the pilot, and Kyle Marchane. You're going to sit back and let me. That works for me. That works for you. Nobody gets hurt, and you can get a new jet from your insurance company."

"You won't get away with this, Mr. Nigel."

"The fuck I won't."

The Camry pulled up at the other end of the airstrip. It wasn't going that fast but Kyle found a way to squeal the brakes anyway.

***

N
igel threw open the passenger side door with his right hand while holding the gun at Kyle's neck with his left. That's the problem with fucking magicians. They had a lot of practice being ambidextrous. Kyle couldn't assume Nigel would miss a left-handed shot, especially not at this range.

"Slide over and come out on this side," Nigel said.

Kyle couldn't try anything funny. He obeyed. His knees were still a little shaky when he tried to stand up. Nigel had switched the gun to his right hand and was already wrapping his left arm around Kyle's waist to hold him close.

Should he try to resist? It was death or paralysis if he did, innit?

Kyle had to try something else. An idea had been spinning in his mind ever since he woke up with the nasty taste of stale vomit and dehydration in his mouth.

So he twined his arms around and around Roman Nigel's waist. He didn't have to fake the slight stumble against the man's hips. Give the fucker a cheap thrill if he must. But he guessed it wouldn't smell as sweet as the perv's fantasies.

They could see the soldiers outside Bryce's jet. Three of them. US Army men, Kyle thought. Snipers. In theory they could get off a kill shot at this range. But he knew they wouldn't try it. He wasn't blocking their move.

They couldn't—they wouldn't—fire with Nigel's gun at his neck.

They all knew that.

It was Kyle's move. But Nigel thought it was his. He hesitated a moment as he pondered what to do next.

"Is this what you wanted, mate?" Kyle asked. "Is this where you were taking me all along?"

"Be quiet. I'm trying to think. We're going to get out of this just fine." Nigel jabbed his neck with the gun again.

You're getting under his skin. Don't stop now. Keep him wrong-footed.

"Fuck you, mate, I'm not going to be fucking quiet. Look at those shooters over there. Look at you with a gun stuck in me fucking neck. All your fine talk of wanting to protect me, and that's where it leads."

"I'm warning you, Kyle. Stop it."

"Stop it or what? You're going to kill me right now? It's time to die?" Kyle squeezed even closer. "Well, now we're here. You've got to where you were always going. Kill me then. Do it. I'm ready. You're going to bathe in me blood. It's going to explode all over you when you shoot me. You'll never wash it all out of your hair. You'll never clean it all out from beneath your nails." 

"Stop it, Kyle. Stop it. You're not like that. Don't try to pretend you're like that. Don't try to make this into something ugly."

"It were always something ugly, mate."

***

B
ryce stood in the open door leading to the cockpit. He'd just finished explaining Roman Nigel's demands to his pilot.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Auburn. I didn't sign on for this," Carter said. "I've colored as far outside the lines as I'm willing to go. I'm not flying an armed maniac to an unknown destination. I'm not giving him two hostages."

"He says he'll kill or cripple the boy if you don't."

"He'll kill or cripple me if I do, won't he? You really think I'm ever coming back? It's a one-way mission. You don't pay me enough for this shit. I have a family."

"I'll fly the jet," Bryce said. "Tell me what I need to know."

"It's a suicide mission. I can't let you do that. Let's not make the situation any worse than it already is." 

Arnold came up from behind. Bryce stepped into the cockpit and turned a little so that he could look from the pilot's face to the hacker's.

"It wouldn't work, Bryce," Arnold said. "We don't know how deep Roman Nigel's surveillance on Kyle goes. But we have to figure there's a decent chance he knows who you are. It all blows up if he already knows you're not the pilot."

How could a man with 500 million dollars feel so helpless? How had he worked so hard just to get to here?

There was a little silence. Then Arnold said, "Look, I'll do it. I'll volunteer. I'll fly the fucking jet."

"No," Carter said. "That man is not stepping foot on my jet. No way. No fucking how. That's fucking final."

More silence.

Arnold cracked open a can of Red Bull®. Considered those famous wings it supposedly gave you. "How about this? I'll fly the Cessna Citation."

"No," the pilot said. "Fuck me, no. I wash my hands of this. You men need to find another way."

"No," Bryce said. "I need you, Arnold. I can't lose both of you."

Arnold chugged the whole can and crushed it in his meaty fist. Then he continued on as if the other two hadn't even spoken.

"So here's the counter offer for our good friend Roman Nigel. He can have a pilot. He can have the Cessna Citation. But he can't have Kyle. That's the deal."

"No," Bryce said.

"You have a better plan? How does this end for Kyle, Bryce? He's eighteen. He's got his whole life ahead of him."

"I'm not sending my best friend to a certain death."

"Don't be so melodramatic, Bryce. I'm not going to fucking die. Once we make the switch and you've got the boy back safe, it's all over but the shouting. This perv has some kind of deep background, and he knows exactly what he can get away with. He's not going to kill me just to prove a fucking point."

Maybe Arnold was right. But Bryce wouldn't gamble on that theory with Kyle's life. Why would he gamble on it with Arnold's? "I need you. I need you alive."

"Look. You asked me what good it does to make a psychological profile on the guy. Now I'm telling you. I'll never have to fly the plane. It'll never get that far."

The pilot was shaking his head no. He tried to hold Bryce's eyes. But Bryce couldn't stop staring at the way Arnold gestured with his big hands.

"This will work, Bryce. I know it will. All I have to do is fake it long enough to make the exchange. Maybe I have to get the propellers spinning. But I'm never going to have to take off. Once he's strapped in, I can break it to him that I have no fucking clue how to fly. You really believe he's stupid enough to blow me away in the face of overwhelming force? That's just asking to have our entire army rain fire on him. He'll surrender like a little lamb. I promise you."

The faster he talked, the more hypnotic he seemed. Arnold had obviously already convinced himself. And Arnold wasn't a stupid man, so it was easy to be persuaded that he must be right.

"But you're not trained for this," Bryce said. "Wilton—"

"I'm not asking Wilton," Arnold said. "It's my plan. If anything goes wrong, it's my ass. Anyway, we only have three shooters. We need all of them with weapons in their hands ready to go. When he finds out I can't fly, he might try to take off himself. No matter what happens, Roman Nigel is not leaving this airstrip as a free man. That's guaranteed. He's going down. Let's end this. Let's end this now."

***

"N
o, lad. I won't accept that. I can't accept that."

"You think I'm so pretty?" Kyle pressed his mouth against Nigel's mouth. Used his tongue to thrust between his chapped lips. He hoped Nigel could taste the old vomit. And of course the drug cocktail hadn't exactly done anything to freshen his breath. "Kiss me if you think I'm so fucking pretty."

The end of the gun barrel began to tremble at Kyle's neck. "Don't," Nigel said. "Don't make it ugly. Don't make yourself ugly."

"Why? Does me stinking breath interfere with your sweet delusion?"

"You're beautiful. You're meant to stay beautiful. Forever."

"I'm a real man, Roman. I'm not your fucking shiny toy to keep on a shelf."

"Do you want to die? Do you really want to die?"

"Better than life in a temperature-controlled fur-lined cage, innit? I have blood in me veins, mate."