Absolution, p.7
Absolution, page 7
part #3 of Joe Logan Series
By eight p.m. Martin had identified the Nissan and its current female owner. A contact in the motor vehicle division of the Arizona Department of Transportation had taken less than a minute to check the plate number and furnish him with details. The car belonged to a woman by the name of Andrea Corby, a twenty-nine year old woman with blond hair. Her address was an apartment in Ajo.
Martin smiled. It wouldn’t surprise him to find that Logan was at the apartment with her. This could all be taken care of within a couple hours. He decided that Logan and Andrea Corby would make fine company for Wayne, out at Barton Gap, at the bottom of the deep, narrow chasm.
They parked on the next street and walked in. Martin, Gary Foley and Strother Perkins had no difficulty entering the eight unit apartment block. The entrance door was not locked, and at the side of it was a panel with names on strips covered by translucent acetate next to bell pushes. A. Corby lived in number five on the second floor. The street door opened onto a small lobby that had mailboxes bolted to one wall. There was no elevator.
Martin led the way up the stairs and stopped outside the door of number five. Leaned forward and put his ear to the door, but could hear nothing. Perhaps the couple was out, or had gone to bed to do what comes naturally.
Martin nodded to Strother, who picked the cheap lock in less than twenty seconds and silently turned the ball-shaped metal handle to open the door six inches. The room was in darkness.
They searched the apartment, but found nothing that gave any intimation of where the woman might be. Martin went across to the wall-mounted phone in the kitchen, plucked the receiver from its cradle and hit redial for the last number called. Got a voicemail at a local pizza parlor and hung up.
As they left the apartment and went back down to the lobby, an elderly woman was just walking in off the street. Martin held the door for her.
“My, you’re as tall as Town Hall,” Emily Harmon said, smiling up at Martin.
Martin returned the smile. Introduced himself as John Thompson, and asked the old woman if she knew where Andrea might be. Said he was her cousin, and that he couldn’t reach her by cell phone, and that he had been out of touch for several years.
“I saw her leave in a hurry last night, or maybe it was the evening before. I lose track of time these days,” Emily said. “She had a suitcase and a large bag, so maybe she was going on vacation, or to visit her sister.”
“Is her sister still living in Phoenix?” Martin said to keep the conversation going.
“No, John. Fran moved to Pisinimo after her last divorce.”
“Do you have her address?”
Emily shook her head. “I’m not what you would call a really close friend of Andrea’s, but she always takes the time to say hello and ask how I am.”
“Okay, thanks,” Martin said as he led the other two outside.
“Now what?” Gary said.
“Get on the phone and find the address of the bitch’s sister in Pisinimo,” Martin said. “Looks like we have three to take care of now.”
It was almost midnight when the two vehicles pulled off the road and parked a few hundred yards from the secluded house.
There were no lights on. They flanked the clapboard property and moved in slowly. The undulating land was a black and white mosaic of pearly moonlight and shadows as dark as tar.
Martin had brought Foley, Perkins and Al Gorman out to Pisinimo. He carried a Glock 17. The other three men were armed with Heckler & Koch 9mm MP5 submachine guns.
Fran had leant the pump-action shotgun against the wall within easy reach before dousing the lamp and shortly thereafter going to sleep.
They went in at the front and rear simultaneously, kicking the doors open and checking the rooms one by one. Opening a bedroom door, Gary aimed his MP5 at the bed, but it was empty. Within sixty seconds they had searched the house and were confidant that no one was inside it.
“The broad’s Nissan is out back,” Al said to Martin after he and Gary had checked the small barn.
“So they took off in another vehicle,” Martin said as he picked up the phone and hit redial. “They could be driving her sister’s, probably with a false plate.”
The last call had been made to Tucson International airport. “Shit!” Martin said. “They may be out of reach. Unless Logan made a call to the airport to throw us off the scent.” He thought about it. He didn’t know Logan, but his actions so far had been those of a guy that knew what he was doing and didn’t back down. It was feasible to think that he may have put the two women on a plane to keep them out of harm’s way, but that he was still somewhere in the area, planning to do something stupid.
“What do you want us to do?” Strother said.
Martin thought about it and said, “Burn the house down.”
As they got back to the cars, flames licked at the windows of the first floor rooms. Strother had walked through the timber-built house emptying a two-gallon can of gas, before backing away from the front door to light a cigarette, take a drag from it and then flick it inside as he turned and jogged away.
Martin started the engine of the Suburban, but waited for another minute to relish the sight of the fire raging bright orange in the night. The house would be reduced to charred timbers and ash, with just the scorched brick chimney stack left standing.
As he put the shift into drive, Martin felt the offside front tire burst. He gripped the steering wheel hard and cursed to himself. They had needed to quit the area before some passing motorist saw the blaze and phoned the emergency services. He turned to Gary and said, “Get one of the others to help and change the fuckin’ wheel.”
The rear tire on the same side exploded as Gary climbed out of the Suburban. Martin put it together. They were under attack. He drew his gun as he dropped down sideways across the passenger seat and said to Gary, “We’re under fire. Tell the others, and get away from the vehicles. It must be Logan, so find him and kill him.”
Gary crouched low and ran back to the Dodge Charger that Strother and Al were in. “Somebody’s shooting at us,” he shouted. “Get away from the car. We need to spot him and take him out.”
Logan had only stayed at the cabin for an hour. He had decided that Slater had the resources to quickly ID Andy and then, when his men found that she was not at her apartment in Ajo, do a background check and discover that Fran was her sister. A lot could be learned in a very short period of time in this technological age. There was every chance that they would show up at the house in Pisinimo, and so he decided to drive back there and wait under cover of darkness to see if his reasoning held water.
He was in place at eleven p.m. Waited, and saw the two vehicles arrive and park a couple hundred yards from the house. Watched as the four armed men split into twos and advanced towards the property. He was tempted to move fast and immobilize the vehicles while they were preoccupied, but decided to wait and see what they did next.
When the house started to burn and the men returned to their transport, he determined to let them know that he was there.
The ground rose up to form a low natural embankment that ran for more than a hundred yards to Logan’s left. He was less than ten yards away from the two vehicles, but had only brought one of the silenced Glocks that he had confiscated from Miller and Foley. The silencer would cut down on accuracy and so he unscrewed it and put it in the side pocket of his windbreaker, before taking careful aim and shooting at a front and then rear tire of the idling SUV.
As the men vacated the vehicles and crouched in the shadows of creosote bushes, Logan bent low and ran fifty yards up what was a shallow gorge, to stop and look over the top of it and make ready. The seconds ticked by, and it was perhaps three minutes later when two men broke cover; one heading towards his original position, the other unwittingly running almost directly towards where he was lying out of sight, his head and hands indistinguishable on the uneven rim that was topped with scrubby patches of straw-colored, dry grass that had been scorched by the sun.
He fired twice. The first shot missed, but the second hit the man in the thigh and he pitched forward, spraying bullets into the ground as he pulled the trigger of the submachine gun.
Gary heard the shots, dropped to one knee and searched for a target. He could see nothing moving against the backdrop of the burning house. And Strother was nowhere to be seen. He was shaking, and his mouth was tinder dry. He knew that Logan was dangerous from his and Wayne’s encounter with him at the motel. He felt like a sitting duck, and he was.
The bullet hit him in the left side, and he was blown over onto his back, to lie on the grass and groan as the pain blossomed. He thought that he was probably dying, and began to cry.
Al Gorman saw Gary go down, so stayed under cover. Being armed with an MP5 was of no use to him if he couldn’t see a target to shoot at.
Martin kept low in the Suburban, opened the door and crawled out, slipping to the ground like a gator entering the water from a riverbank. “Is that you, Logan?” he shouted, to be heard over the roar of the burning house, as timbers collapsed and windows blew out.
Logan did not reply. Just fired a half dozen rounds at the SUV, then ducked back out of sight and made his way south along the depression to where he had concealed the Mazda off-road and hidden from view.
Martin waited for approximately two minutes, and then heard the sound of an engine start up and a vehicle accelerating away at speed. He moved out into the open, to be met by Al, and they made their way to where Strother was limping towards them. The slug from Logan’s gun had passed through his meaty thigh without hitting bone or severing an artery.
“Go back to the Dodge and get in the rear seat,” Martin said to Strother, before he and Al walked over to where Gary was curled up, clutching his stomach and groaning.
Martin knelt next to Gary, pulled the wounded man’s shirt out of his pants and examined the wound. The bullet had entered his side, quite high, but there was no exit wound. It could have hit a rib and glanced off into his chest or stomach. Martin adjudged that he was beyond saving, so made a decision, raised his gun and aimed it at Gary’s head.
“For fuck’s sake, no, please, don’t do it,” Gary pleaded.
Martin saw the blood in Gary’s spittle as he spat out the words. The slug had probably punctured a lung. He put the muzzle of the Glock against Gary’s forehead and pulled the trigger. The body shuddered and then became still.
Martin holstered his pistol. “Get hold of his arms,” he said to Al. “We’ll take him over to the house and throw him in the fire.”
A corpse really is a dead weight. They ventured as near to the conflagration as possible, swung what had been Gary Foley backwards and forwards three times, then let go and watched as the body hit the burning frame of the front door, to tumble through it and be immediately engulfed by hungry flames.
Ten minutes after the firefight with Logan they were ready to go. With two flat tires the Suburban was redundant. Al removed the plate and torched it, then climbed in the Dodge. Martin drove around the burning SUV and headed for the road. The trip out to Pisinimo had been a disaster, and Martin knew that Zack would be furious.
Logan drove fast for three miles when he reached the blacktop that he knew the shooters would at some stage use to head back to Ajo. He was positive that he had hit two of the four men, and guessed that whoever had shouted out to him was their leader. This was now war. They had driven to Fran’s to find him and the women, and kill them. He had engaged with them and quit the scene. But he was not finished yet.
Driving past an abandoned diner that looked as though it had gone out of business decades ago and was slowly being reclaimed by nature, Logan braked hard and reversed back to enter the weed-riddled lot and park at the side of the building. He got out and made his way to a point near the road and kneeled down behind a large boulder. He guessed that they would be along within a few minutes, so just waited.
Maybe twenty minutes elapsed before Logan saw the distant high beams appear round a curve and approach at speed. Holding the Glock two-handed and steadying his wrists on top of the boulder, he waited until it drew near enough to identify it by the light of the moon.
That Logan would stop and ambush them had not even crossed Martin’s mind. He stamped on the brake pedal as the windshield exploded in front of his face, and pulled to the side of the highway, knowing immediately that they were once more under attack.
Strother was thrown forward off the rear seat, and as he instinctively put his hands up to cushion the impact with the back of the driver’s seat, he was punched backwards again as a second bullet missed Martin by a hairsbreadth and plowed into his neck.
Not even knowing what had happened, Strother slumped on to his side and bled out as his ruptured left carotid artery spurted a pulsating stream of blood over the window and upholstery.
Quitting the car, Martin and Al crouched behind a thicket of bushes.
“What now?” Al said, holding his MP5 in a white-knuckled grip.
“Skirt round and get behind him,” Martin said. “He only has a handgun, and I doubt he’s got a spare mag, so he hasn’t got our firepower.”
Logan had hoped that he would hit the driver, and that the vehicle would crash. When it stopped at the side of the road and he saw two figures climb out and vanish into thick shrubbery, he had a choice; drive away or continue his assault on them. He checked the Glock’s magazine. He had five rounds left. It seemed hardly enough to go up against two well-armed men. Commonsense dictated that he beat a hasty retreat, but a belief in his ability to deal with the situation won out. He ran back past the Mazda, along the side of the vacant diner and up a short track at the rear, to hunker down behind the crumbling remains of a small brick-built building that he supposed may well have been used as a store or garage.
He waited, listening for any noise of the two men approaching. The sound of night insects seemed loud in his ears, and the sudden shriek of an owl startled him.
It was five minutes later when he saw the silhouette of a man stealthily making his way to the rear of the diner. He narrowed his eyes in the gloom, searching for the other man, but couldn’t spot him.
Martin had gone to higher ground. He crept down to a point directly behind the roofless, half-demolished outbuilding. Decided to use it for cover and wait to see if Al flushed Logan out. He approached a gap that had once been a doorway, careful to watch where he walked, intent on being silent in case Logan was hidden nearby, waiting and listening.
CHAPTER TEN
Fran sat bolt upright in the bed and reached for the shotgun. Her hair was damp with sweat, even though the stale air in the bedroom was chilly. She caught hold of the edge of the dream that had woken her: realized that it had been a nightmare and that in it she had been in danger from faceless strangers that had soundlessly entered her house in Pisinimo and hurt her as they questioned her over Andy and Logan. They were going to kill her, and it was when one of them aimed a gun at her head and pulled the trigger that she had escaped into sudden and full consciousness.
Hugging herself, Fran was shaking with cold and irrational fear. Thank God she had changed her mind and decided to come to the cabin. Logan had convinced her that she was at real risk. Said that the people involved were organized and ruthless, and that if she stayed they would find her, force her to give up the cabin’s location, and then kill her.
Putting on a toweling robe, Fran went through to the living room. Andy was sitting in an old easy chair next to the stove, dozing.
Fran tiptoed across the large and ancient Navajo rug that covered much of the timbered floor, but the creak of a board underfoot woke Andy up.
“What’s wrong, Sis, can’t you sleep?” Andy said.
“I had a bad dream. It woke me up. I need a drink.”
“Coffee?”
“No, something a lot stronger. I packed a bottle of bourbon with the foodstuff we brought. Do you want one?”
Andy nodded.
“You think Logan will be okay?” Fran said as she opened the bottle of Jim Beam and poured large measures into two tumblers, after first blowing into them to dispel the dust, and wiping them with a dish towel that she found in a drawer.
“I hope so,” Andy said. “I asked him not to go back to your place, but he said it was necessary.”
“Why is he involved?” Fran said. “Do you know?”
Andy shook her head. “I don’t really know anything about him. Only that he’s an ex-cop, and that I think he decided to protect me after the two men broke into his motel room and I showed up.”
“There’s something special about him,” Fran said.
“He’s brutal,” Andy said.
“I would imagine only with those that give him good reason to be.”
Andy frowned. “He’s dangerous. He does what he wants with no regard to whether it’s legal or not.”
“Isn’t that what you were planning on doing? He does what needs to be done. And without him you could have got yourself killed going after Zack Slater’s men.”
Andy took a sip of the bourbon and swallowed hard as it made her eyes water, before a spreading warmth reached her stomach. As a rule she drank wine. “So now we’ve got ourselves a bodyguard; a protector of two damsels in distress,” she said. “But can one man – however big and hard he is – deal with the type of people that murdered Sam?”
“I think so,” Fran said. “He seems comfortable with adversity. In fact I think he’s the type of guy that thrives on it.”
“We don’t even know him,” Andy said. “He just appeared out of nowhere and assumed responsibility for me, and then you.”
“Could just be a good Samaritan who can’t walk away from someone in trouble.”
“He’s a loner, Fran. I don’t understand why someone who chooses to avoid commitment gets involved with strangers’ problems. Maybe it’s because he was a cop, and to a degree his past dictates how he acts, or reacts in given circumstances. Logan may view people as being perpetrators or victims, and has some inbuilt need to be drawn in and deal with certain situations.”
