THE BANDIT QUEEN - Chapter 23

CHAPTER 23

Walt stared out the windshield of the rental car and watched the traffic in front of them. This far north the days grew dark in late afternoon and the flash of oncoming headlights tired his eyes. He finally closed them and leaned his head back against the headrest. Harris drove at a steady pace along the highway south from Seattle toward the border with Oregon. They had already passed through Tacoma when Walt’s phone had rung. He jerked it out of his pocket and answered it brusquely. Harris caught the eyes of his partner in the rearview mirror and shook his head slightly. Neither of them was very happy with their situation and wished themselves anywhere but here. In the back seat, Sven shook his head in resignation and leaned back into the darkness of the back seat.
Walt listened in grim silence to the voice of Tom Adams telling him to abandon his quest and head back to the main office. Without a word, he flipped his phone closed and stuffed it in his pocket. After a few seconds, he pulled it back out and clicked off the ringer. No desk jockey was going to pull him off a job before it was finished. He’d just refuse to quit. Sven and Harris didn’t have to know either. Walt crossed his arms and dropped his chin. Harris glanced at him several times before he got up the nerve to ask him about the phone call.
“Have they spotted that rental car yet? Do we know whether we’re going in the right direction or not?”
Walt tipped his head to the side and said, “I’ll call in and check about that right now.”
This time when Walt flipped his phone shut, he spoke curtly to his subordinates. “No word yet on the car. How much father to Portland?”
“Maybe an hour and a half, maybe a little more.”
“Just get us there as soon as you can. We’ll find a place to stay the night and head out again in the morning.”
On that note, he leaned against the door and closed his eyes to prevent further questions. Harris was rather perplexed about the situation. He drove on through the gathering darkness with a head full of questions.

The next morning found them threading their way out of Portland during the morning rush hour. This time Sven drove them south along I5. About halfway to Salem, Walt received a call about the car. It had been spotted at a motel in Salem. The police had lost it but were checking all the roads out of town. As they neared the city, they found out the car had left Salem heading west toward the coast. Sven skirted the edge of Salem and took the same road west. Heavy traffic spread out in front of them for miles. Walt pulled out the binoculars and scanned each car they passed. The traffic thinned out but they still didn’t find the car Martin had rented. Walt tossed the map into the back seat and growled at Harris.
“Did you see anywhere they could have turned off? Check out that map. We must have missed them somewhere along the road.”
Harris ran his finger along the map and tried to remember what he had seen. Finally, his finger stopped and he said, excitedly,
“State park, back along this road. It’ll be on our left. Unless they stopped in one of these little bitty towns or at some private house, that’s the only thing I see.”
Sven pulled into the parking lot of the park and drove slowly along the line of parked cars. There, big as life, sat the car. Walt jumped out and felt the hood of the car.
“It’s still warm. They can’t be very far ahead of us. Harris, check out the office. Find out where they went. You know, a map of the park trails, that sort of thing.”
Harris plodded over to the small building and conferred with the inhabitants. He returned shortly with a handful of simple black and white maps. Walt grabbed one out of his hand and took in the map with one glance.
“Sven, I want you to take that path around the rock and come up the path on the other side of the rock. Harris and I will take this other one and climb up the front of the rock. We’ll wait ten minutes when we get to the base of the rock. That should give you time to get into position. I want all three of us to hit the top about the same time.”
Sven nodded and jogged off down his chosen path. Harris followed Walt along the main trail to the rock. Off to their right, Walt caught a glimpse of red. He stopped short and trained his binoculars on the bright color. A small woman moved into focus as she walked slowly through the bushes at the base of the rock. Walt gestured silently to Harris and the two of them ran toward the woman.
Mala turned a frightened face toward the advancing men and tried to run away from them. She slipped on an open stretch of smooth pebbles and fell. Walt and Harris hurried up to the motionless form on the ground. Harris dropped to one knee and placed his fingers on her neck. He was reassured by the strong pulse beating on her throat. He carefully turned her over and brushed the dirt from her face. A darkening bruise showed on her left temple. Her breathing was quiet but even. Walt pulled on his arm and dragged him back to the trail.
“I just saw a couple of kids sitting on a ledge up there. It could be the ‘Deakin’ boy and his girlfriend. Maybe they’re all meeting up there. We have to get to the top right now. She’ll be okay for now. Follow me up the path.”
The two men hurried up the trail. Even though they were in good physical shape, the steepness of the path and the altitude forced them to stop and rest halfway up. They both dropped to the ground and took deep breaths, letting their heart rate drop back closer to normal. Harris tried to talk, but Walt cut him off abruptly. The sound of voices drifted down from the top of the rock. The two men listened intently but neither one of them could make out any words. As soon as they could, they clambered back to their feet and continued to the top.
Walt led the charge over the edge and swept his gun in a circle. Harris followed him up on top and moved immediately to the side. He followed the sound of voices around the top of the rock until he caught a glimpse of color through the branches of a bush. He moved carefully around yet another pile of rocks in order to get a better view of the bush. Nothing. Whoever had hidden behind the bush had moved on. He ducked behind another large rock and listened intently. Walt’s voice drifted across the open area on top of the rock, calling for the kids to come out of hiding. A small slither of rocks pulled his attention to the left but he was too late. All he saw was the shadow of the man who whacked him on the head with a heavy stick. Harris slipped to the ground in a daze. Martin quickly felt his pulse to make sure he’d only knocked him out and then pulled him into the shadow of a large rock. The sound of a stealthy footstep sent Martin scrabbling for cover.
The bush shielding Deakin and Martin shook as the men changed position. The gunman in front of Eden homed in on the movement and slid into the shelter of his own bush. Eden swung the tire iron at the side of his head and he immediately dropped to the ground in a heap. She carefully peeled his fingers from the butt of his gun and slid on the safety. Then she slid the gun into her waistband and searched her pockets for something to tie his hands with. In one pocket she found a scrunchy to tie up her hair but she rejected it for the purpose at hand. A glint of metal below her sent her searching through the man’s pockets. The first thing she found was a leather wallet with a badge and identification card in it. Her eyes widened as she realized who’d been chasing them. The F.B.I. is not the adversary of choice for most ordinary people. She slid the badge back into his jacket pocket and knocked her knuckles against a pair of handcuffs. With a satisfied smile, she slid them around the man’s wrists and moved him into the shadow left by a stunted tree. She mouthed a silent apology to the man on the ground and ran her fingers softly across the knot on his head. She let out a sigh of relief when he moaned slightly and twitched. Eden peered around the bush at the action in front of her. With a bright red scrunchy holding her hair out of her face and a tire iron in her hand, Eden was definitely a force to be reckoned with.
Two men had climbed onto the top of the rock from the main path. The older man held his gun in front of him and scanned the area. The younger man moved to the side and slid around a waist-high pile of rocks. Eden ducked down and headed for the last place she’d seen Deakin. When she reached the bush, she found no one but she did hear someone crunching across the rocks to her left. A quiet hiss jerked her head around. Deakin grabbed her wrist to keep her from swinging the tire iron at his head. Then he pulled her behind a rock and whispered in her ear,
“Martin has gone to the left, around that outcropping, to come up behind that man over there. He said that guy right there, the tough looking one, is the leader. Martin said there should be at least three of them.”
Eden nodded her head vigorously. “I knocked out the third guy and left him back over there.” She slid her hand under her sweatshirt to pull out the gun when an unwary step sent a slither of pebbles over the edge. Deakin shoved her behind him into the shadows and faced the direction of the sounds.
It was too late to give the gun to Deakin so she wiped her hand down the side of her jeans and gripped her tire iron tightly. She turned her back to Deakin and guarded the rear. Stealthy steps sounded all around her but she didn’t know who was making the sounds. Good guys or bad guys? Were the F.B.I. guys really the bad guys or did they wear gray hats? Was her own hat a white one or was it gray also? Just what could happen to her for knocking that agent on the head and leaving him tied up? Did she really want to be around when he woke up? Decisions, decisions. Her attention wandered and she listened as the breeze rustled the leaves of the tree behind her. A small brown bird landed on the highest branch and surveyed his kingdom. A stealthy arm reached through the branches and grabbed Eden’s left arm. She screeched and tried to pull her arm away. When that didn’t work, she raised her tire iron and slammed it down on the man’s wrist. He howled and floundered around in the branches of the small tree. Deakin pulled Eden away from the man and around the top of the rock. Eden looked over her shoulder as Deakin dragged her away and stumbled over a foot-sized rock. She fell to her knees and closed her lips tightly against a howl of pain. Deakin turned to help her but never made it that far. A harsh, lined face appeared over Deakin’s left shoulder and a strong arm slipped around Deakin’s throat. The man held his gun to the side of Deakin’s face and smiled crookedly at the girl sprawled on the ground. Eden stood slowly up, keeping her eyes on the man holding Deakin. She left her tire iron on the ground next to her right foot. She held her hands up in the air and waited for the man’s next move.
“Well, well, what have we here? Does this mean I’ve found the famous Deakin and his trusty sidekick? Did you two think you could get away from me? That I wouldn’t ever find you? Boy, were you ever wrong? I think it’s about time the three of us had a little discussion. You, girl, move over there and sit your little butt on that rock. Now!”
The cruel, gloating voice echoed in her ears but it was the sight of the gun jammed against Deakin’s head that pushed Eden to sit on the rock. She listened desperately for Martin but heard only the panting of the man in front of her.
“Harris, Sven, over here. I’ve got them.” Walt turned his head slightly to listen and then said, “Goddamnit, where are those two idiots? At least I have the keys to the car.” He tightened his arm across Deakin’s throat and pulled him to the side away from Eden.
Deakin’s foot slid on the smooth rock and he leaned against Walt to catch his balance. He felt Walt wobble a little before he regained his balance too. Deakin flicked his eyes to his right away from the edge of the rock over and over until Eden got the message. Then he dropped his entire weight down and cannoned back into the gunman behind him. Walt’s left arm left Deakin’s neck and windmilled behind him in a desperate attempt to keep on his feet. Deakin jabbed a sharp elbow into the man’s stomach and dropped to the ground away from the gun. Eden lunged for her tire iron but missed it in her haste. She scrabbled through the pebbles and finally got a grip on the smooth piece of metal. She jumped back to her feet with the tire iron raised above her head to strike the gunman. She watched in amazement as the man stumbled backwards away from her. He raised his gun and tried to shoot her but his aim was hopeless. The first shot ricocheted off the rocks to her right. The second one grazed Deakin’s leg as he tried to crawl toward the man. The other two or three shots, Eden was never sure how many there were, fired harmlessly into the air as the man tripped over a root and fell backwards. He hadn’t realized how close to the edge of the rock he was. He landed on his back halfway over the edge and made a serious mistake. Instead of trying to halt his slide over the edge, he took one last shot at the two kids on the ground and missed them both.
Walt screamed all the way down to the ground below. The branch of a tree flipped him upside down and broke his back ten feet from the ground. He was dead when he landed in the shade of the tree. Eden spared no thought for the man. Blood stained Deakin’s jeans and dripped out onto the rocks below him. Eden pulled off her sweatshirt and wrapped it around Deakin’s upper leg. She tied the arms of the sweatshirt tightly over the wound. Eden paid no attention to anything that happened until a ranger found them and called for an ambulance. He wrapped Eden in his jacket and carefully lifted the gun from her waistband. The deep shock in her eyes let him know it was useless to question her right now.
Actually, he was in shock too. Nothing like this had ever happened in his park. There was a dead man down in the trees along with an unconscious woman. Two more men with head wounds and F.B.I. badges littered the top of the rock. One of them was probably going to be pretty happy his gun had been found. The ranger dropped to the ground next to Eden and watched her and the boy until help arrived.