The Twelve Stones (14 page)

“
What are you doing?” Cowboy Hat asked as Geoffrey’s face fell
. The bald man
wav
ed
his hands fruitlessly to keep his redneck employee quiet.

Alex knew the jig was up. Hoping to retain any bit of surprise he had left,
he
leapt into the room
,
diving to the side with both guns firing at the two men. Unfortunately, the quick movement and lack of preparation made his shots go wild
,
and Alex managed to miss both
.
Geoffrey
,
having better aim, fired several times into Alex’s chest, arm and legs.

Ignoring the blood flowing from his new wounds, Alex rolled onto his back and took careful aim at the large man that had helped kill his father. Aiming down the barrel of his pistol, he pulled the trigger
.
T
hree
shots in the
man’s chest
,
and he was a problem no more. Geoffrey’s body dropped, falling backwards from the force of Alex’s bullets. The slide on his pistol popped open
, expelling his last bullet.

Cowboy Hat used
Alex’s few moments of distraction
to get in close. He rushed Alex from the side in a blind spot, and held his shotgun up to Alex’s gut.

Alex watched helplessly as Cowboy Hat pulled the trigger. The discharge, loud and violent, blasted Alex in the stomach
,
sending his body flying through the air from the force of the nearly point
-
blank shot.

Cowboy Hat looked around, adrenaline pumping furiously through his veins. The large quantities of meth and cocaine he had ingested over his lifetime had left his nervous system slightly fried and confused.
He
gave a victory yelp.

“
Hell yeah!” he shouted to no one in particular. He hadn’t felt this alive in a long time. A no
-
kidding gun battle for your life was the ultimate high, Cowboy Hat decided. Unfortunately for him, the victory did not last long.

With some groaning, Alex got up, the last bands of muscle and skin reknotting together. The blue glow from the stone was bright, and lit up the entire station. Cowboy Hat covered his eyes with his hands as he gaped at the glowing blue man in front of him. His face dropped as he watched the seemingly reanimated corpse stand up.

“
Zombie!” Cowboy Hat screamed. “Zombies coming to life! J
esus, Mary, and Joseph, it’s the a
pocalypse!”

Screaming, he pumped his shotgun, reloading it once again. He pulled the trigger again and again, each shot hitting his target, and each time, the buckshot had no effect. Finally, the hammer fell onto the empty chamber with a
hollow, futile
click
. Stumbling a bit after the last shot, Alex looked at the ex-convict and smirked a bit.

“
I know, it’s pretty cool
,
huh?” Without waiting for an answer, Alex quickly shot him twice in the kneecap and Cowboy Hat fell to the floor, howling in pain.

Alex stretched his arms and chest as the last of his skin knotted back together. He walked over to Cowboy Hat and pointed the gun at his head, cocking the pistol back.

Cowboy Hat cried and muttered
something about not wanting to die
.
Alex just shook his head
,
and
used the back of his weapon to knock Cowboy Hat out. The blow to the head knocked his ridiculous hat to the floor. Looking around, Alex grabbed the cowboy hat and placed it onto the yokel’s face as if he were simply taking a siesta in the unlikely scene of a destroyed police station.

“
You’re welcome.” Alex said to the unmoving cowboy.

Alex grabbed a pair of nearby handcuffs and cuffed him to the counter.
He
figured someone in charge would come around soon enough. Alex turned to the other man in the room, and he shook his head.

“
No reason to waste any energy on you,” Alex said savagely, “I doubt anyone’s gonna miss you.”

But strangely, instead of being satisfied by killing one of his father’s murderers, he felt empty and hollow, as if none of it mattered anyway. He shook his head. The group therapy would have to come later, during a more convenient time when he wasn’t fleeing for his life. Until then, Alex had bigger fish to fry; and he needed a new pan.

The police station was a mess. Papers, blood
,
and glass were scattered everywhere. Alex looked back to the main room and saw Deputy Rogers
’
body for the first time. He rushed over to him
,
hoping he wasn’t too late. Alex touched the man’s wounds
,
expecting the now
-
familiar glow to descend from his hands onto the man’s body.

Nothing happened.

“
Come on dammit,” Alex pleaded to the stone hanging around h
is neck. “The guy saved my life;
least I can do is save his!”

Unfortunately, it seemed that his stone had limits. Alex struggled with the large man for a few moments
,
urging his body and spirit to return from the great beyond.
But t
he man had been dead too long for the healing powers of Alex’s stone.

Alex stood and stared at the deputy for a moment.
A good man died today.
Alex thought to himself.
Then,
Lots of good men die every
day. No reason why you have to be one of ‘em.

Moving quickly, Alex grabbed whatever guns and ammo he could carry
,
in a few trips from both the police station and the men who had tried to kill him.
He
loaded his bounty into the rear of the Suburban he had driven to the station.

On one of his trips
,
he noticed a tracking device
clutched in the hand of one of the men he had shot
, displaying their current location.

“
Well how about that
?
They’ve got the truck Lojacked
,
” Alex
muttered to himself
. “That’s how they did it
,
all right.”

Alex ran the device over his new Suburban. Finding the Lojack GPS wasn’t easy
,
as the tracker turned out to be the size of a small button. Removing the troublesome piece of technology from underneath the bumper, he dropped it onto the ground and stomped it hard, smashing the delicate electronics into a thousand pieces. No one would be able to follow this truck now. He turned around and looked at the building
,
which hadn’t been exactly livable originally,
but
now lay in ruin. Joshua Tree was goi
ng to need a new
S
heriff station.

Suddenly
,
a noise sounded off in the distance
.
Alex whirled, holding
out a
.45 pistol. He stared into the nighttime desert, unable to see much, the flames from the helicopter crash having long ago faded into smoky ruin.

Alex hopped back into his Suburban, putting it into gear. Even in a remote area like this, people with badges would be coming soon
,
with questions that he couldn’t possibly answer.

From the shadows, a coyote emerged from the desert and stared at the man getting into the black Suburban. Not wasting time, the coyote scampered close to the truck.

As the coyote got closer to the idling SUV, the stone in its ear began to glow
.
T
he coyote shrank
to
the size of a small lizard, comically adorned with a festive jewel in its right ear.
C
limbing quickly and efficiently up the rear wheel well of the truck
, the animal
burrowed itself
within, undetected by Alex.

Alex began forming a new plan in his mind.
Strange things were afoot at the Circle K
,
as Scott might have said, quoting two of their favorite philosophers. Alex smiled
,
thinking of his friend, and turned onto the main road. At the very least, the plan he had in mind would likely be entertaining.

Chapter Eleven

The three most important rules for a professional bodyguard were somewhat similar to the rules
for
a blind date.

One
:
always know your exits
.

T
wo
:
always know where your target is
.

T
hree, and most important
ly:
always wear protection.

Geoffrey coughed violently as he came to. Rising from the ground, he glanced at his watch and determined he’d been out for a good twenty minutes at least.

He groaned, stripp
ed
the bulletproof vest off his chest
,
and asses
sed
the damage.

Geoffrey gingerly felt the three angry red and purple bruises now
rising
on his skin. Three round
s
, dead center mass. Whoever that kid was, he was good with a gun. That worried Geoffrey, and there was very little that Geoffrey worried about.

With a new respect for his enemy, Geoffrey turned and looked at the unconscious Cowboy Hat
cuffed
to the counter across the room. Grimacing, he turned and looked outside the broken and jagged
S
heriff station windows at the remains of the two Suburbans and
h
elicopter
outside. The poorly trained locals had all been killed. Geoffrey sighed
.
T
his
had not been a good night.

First off
, he had evidence to dispose of. The fire from the helicopter crash had helped somewhat, but to truly get away, the destruction would have to spread. The men they found would be locals with few connections to Kline’s world. With the explosion Geoffrey had planned, there would be little left for any investigators to identify. Secrecy of the dig was paramount above all else. Kline had been especially clear on that point.

His second, more difficult priority was finding some sort of evidence from the man in the desert. Geoffrey looked around the lobby of the station and smiled as he spotted a camera aimed at the front door and main lobby office.

Geoffrey walked with a purpose, following the cable from the camera down and to one of the computers located in the back
room.

Geoffrey entered, withdrawing a small black PDA from his pocket. Typing on the screen, he began holding
the PDA
close to the
s
heriff station
’s
computer, downloading everything off the hard drive. The screen below came to life as it began copying the
drive’s
last three video surveillance files.

Withdrawing a small card from his PDA, he placed it in his pocket, aiming his pistol at the machine in front of him
and p
ulling the trigger several times
.
T
he
computer
blew
apart as several
.45-
caliber rounds pierced through the case and through the hard drives contained within. The video and data would likely be unrecoverable.

A groan emerged from across the room. Geoffrey looked over lazily to see the stirring figure of the ridiculous Cowboy Hat. Geoffrey ignored him
and
stepped over Cowboy Hat on his way out the building.

Retreating towards the rear of the building, Geoffrey found a large generator, with several barrels of diesel fuel sitting next to it. Grabbing the handcart that lay next to the generator, Tate whistled while he worked, moving the large barrels of fuel into
s
heriff’s station lobby.

Finishing his work, Geoffrey hummed a noiseless tune as he opened up his jacket and removed several grenades.
As the bald man
placed
three
of them
carefully on the top of the fuel drum, Cowboy Hat began to stir. Geoffrey looked down at him without saying a word. Pulling the pin out of the last grenade in his hand, he sat down next to the yokel and held the trigger tightly.

“
Sorry it’s gotta end like this,” Geoffrey apologized to the young man. “But, you knew what you were getting yourself into, so I really don’t know what to tell ya.”

Cowboy Hat looked up, confused and terrified all at the same time.