36
Near Washington Circle, District of Columbia
USA
JON SMITH TWISTED AROUND and scooped a handful of CDs from the filthy backseat. “How long are you keeping the car?” he said flipping through them and recognizing precisely none. The dull whistle of wind coming through the gaps in the windows was probably preferable to whoever Psycho Charger was.
“The owner gets back on Thursday,” Randi said.
She didn’t much care for technology, but there was no questioning her grudging mastery of it. She’d undoubtedly strolled through the Dulles long-term parking lot running plates against TSA and airline databases to determine the travel plans of each vehicle’s owner.
“Marty’s house is probably only another fifteen minutes unless we hit traffic,” she added. “Don’t you think you should call him?”
Smith sighed quietly. He had been a friend with Martin Zellerbach since high school, but it was an incredibly exhausting relationship. While Marty was a stunning genius when it came to all things digital, he was the victim of a long list of mental illnesses that combined to make him about as easy to deal with as a bored toddler on a sugar high.
Eighty percent of the fistfights Smith had been in as a kid—and one hundred percent of the high school suspensions—were the result of either protecting Marty from someone he’d insulted or trying to cover up some bizarre prank he’d pulled. His old friend never intended to harm anyone, but it was impossible not to sympathize with the anger he could inspire in others.
Smith grudgingly retrieved his phone and dialed, taking a deep breath and trying to reach the necessary Zen-like state of patience.
“What do you want?”
Marty’s greeting wasn’t intended to be impolite—it was simply the obvious question in light of the fact that Smith didn’t make a lot of purely social calls to him.
“For you to take a look at something.”
“What?” he said, the curiosity audible in his voice. The problems that Smith brought him in the past had nearly gotten him killed on a few occasions, but there was no denying that they were interesting.
“Maybe we could talk in person? We’re on our way.”
“We?”
“Randi’s with me.”
“Randi? She’s with you right now? And you’re coming to my house?”
“She insisted. Been dying to see you.”
Randi took her eyes off the road long enough to give him the same withering stare her sister used to, but he ignored it.
“She said that?” There was a pause that seemed long even for him. “How long until you’re here?”
“Less than fifteen.”
Another silence.
“So Jon. Are you wearing old clothes by any chance?”
It was an odd question, but Smith was used to odd questions from his old friend. “Muddy running clothes. She’s in jeans and a sweatshirt.”
“Are the jeans tight?”
“Focus, Marty.”
“Do you have guns?”
“What?”
“It’s a simple question.”
“Are you taking your meds?”
“Yes.”
Smith looked over at Randi. “Do we have guns? Mine’s still in the glove box of the Triumph.”
The roll of her eyes suggested it was a stupid question.
“Yes.”
“Extra clips?”
“I have no doubt.”
“Bring them.”
“You’re sure you’re okay?”
“Fine. I just need your help with something. Call it the cost of my inestimable services.”
“Can’t I just pay your fee?”
“No.”
The line went dead.
* * *
PARK HERE,” SMITH SAID. “Let’s not get too close.”
Randi pulled to the curb of the quiet street and they continued on foot, quickly covering the remaining two hundred meters to a gate protecting Zellerbach’s driveway. Out of habit, neither stood in front of it, instead ducking behind a sign that read, “Private property—keep out. No trespassing. No soliciting. No collectors. Go Away.”
“Marty, it’s us,” Smith said, holding down the intercom button. “Open the gate.”
No response.
“Marty! Open the damn gate.”
Nothing.
“Shit,” Smith muttered.
What the hell was going on? The intercom wasn’t broken—Marty was physically unable to tolerate electronics that weren’t state of the art and in perfect operating condition.
“Do you think there’s a problem?” Randi said. “Is this why he told us to bring guns?”
Smith shrugged and then let out a long breath—something he did a lot when Marty was involved. “We’re going to have to go in.”
“I have a better idea. Let’s call the police and let them do it.”
Her reluctance was understandable. Marty cherished his privacy enough to spend a fair amount of time and money on a custom security measures that included air horns, stink bombs, and the dreaded fish catapult. It was the latter that had finally caused UPS, FedEx, and the post office to stop serving his address.
Smith just shook his head miserably and began climbing over the tall hedge that acted as a surprisingly effective fence. He dropped into an untended flower bed on the other side and waited a disconcertingly long time before Randi landed gracefully next to him.
Pulling the Glock she’d lent him, he examined the expansive yard and confirmed that it was exactly as he remembered: half dead and half overgrown into a jungle-like mess. Apparently Marty hadn’t been able to coerce his gardeners to come back either.
“House looks fine,” Randi observed. “No broken windows. No damage to the door that I can see from here.”
Smith nodded. “You go left. I’ll go straight.”
He’d made it less than four meters when a mechanical whirring became audible just in front of him. His heart sank when he saw a potted plant start to flip backward on a hinge. If it was the catapult, Marty was going to wish he’d never been born.
It wasn’t. Instead of rubber tubing and out-of-date seafood, the mechanism in front of him had two serious-looking barrels sticking through heavy steel armor.
“Jesus!” he shouted and hit the ground just as one of them opened up.
He rolled immediately to his feet and sprinted left, seeing Randi firing uselessly at the mechanical bunker that was, thank God, just a little too slow to track him.
It quickly lost interest in him and targeted Randi, who broke into a run only to be hit with a fire hose that took her feet out from under her. She was obviously dazed and just lay there in the mud as Smith angled toward her, diving when he was still a meter and a half away. He landed harder on top of her than he’d planned, but his momentum was enough to roll them both behind a tree. The staccato bark of the gun when silent as it lost line of sight on its targets.
“Are you okay?”
She choked and a stream of water flowed from her mouth. “I…I told you we should let the police handle this.”
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on or who the hell installed real weapons, but we need to find out without getting any cops killed.”
She gestured toward a large concrete planter halfway between them and the front door. “If you can keep the bunker busy, maybe I could make it to there.”
The planter looked new and a little out of place. “Too obvious.”
“Drawing us in?”
He nodded. “I think I can outrun the gun. I’m going to go back the way I came and when I do, you go for the east side of the house. See if you can get in though one of the windows.”
“On three,” she agreed.
They burst from cover in unison, the crunch of their footsteps immediately drowned out by the gun opening up again. Smith was right about being able to outrun it, but only barely and only at a full sprint. He passed behind a small stand of trees and came to a section of the yard that looked suspiciously healthy and well laid out.
When he tried to stop he discovered that his suspicion was well founded. The plants were fake, resting on a slick sheet of plastic hidden beneath a thin layer of mulch. He landed on his back and slid uncontrollably toward a dense bush that almost certainly contained something unpleasant.
The knife Randi had insisted on giving him was sheathed on his forearm and he rolled onto his stomach, slamming it through the plastic with enough force to bring him to a stop next to a tiered fountain full of green sludge.
With no other option, he took cover behind it, tensing as he waited for it to blow up, tip over on him, or fly away. When none of those things happened, he risked a quick peek around its edge at Randi, who was still trying to get to the edge of the house.
She had what looked like an open line and her hesitant pace suggested that he wasn’t the only one who thought it was too easy. It looked like she was going to make it right up to the moment when she suddenly disappeared into the earth.
“Randi!”
No answer.
Smith grabbed a faded lawn gnome and threw it into the open. When the machine gun started tracking it, he slipped around the fountain and leapt over a rusting wheelbarrow in an effort to get to her.
He was less than halfway there when a familiar mechanical whirring started at his two o’clock. This time, there was nowhere to hide. The roar of the second gun filled his ears just before an impact sent him headlong into the dirt.
He reached for his chest and his hand came away bright red. Dead center of mass. He closed his eyes and the breath escaped him.
He’d always known that one day Marty would be the death of him.
Randi Russell stood on the mattresses stacked at the bottom of the concrete-lined pit and looked at the steel doors that had closed above her. She’d heard a second machine gun come online a few seconds after she’d fallen but now everything was silent.
“Jon!” she shouted. “Jon! Can you hear me?”
It wasn’t Smith who answered, though. Instead, a section of wall next to her slid aside, exposing a computer monitor with Marty’s Zellerbach’s disembodied face centered in it.
“Randi! How could you possibly still look so hot after all that? Is there no limit to your sexiness?”
“Marty?”
“I should have known I couldn’t sucker you with the planter. You wouldn’t believe the thing I built back there. It’s based on an orb spider’s—”
She rushed the screen and slammed her hands on both sides, trying to ignore the half-drowned, mud-splattered reflection in the glass. “I’m going to kill you, Marty. And that’s not a figure of speech. I am actually going to murder you and then hide your body somewhere no one will ever find it.”
“What?” he said, sounding genuinely surprised by her anger. “You do this for a living. Would I get mad if you asked me to fix your router?”
“Where’s Jon? Is he okay?”
“Oh, he’s just lying there milking it…Wait. No, he’s up now. Hmmm. He looks a little pissed, too.”
“You were shooting at him with a machine gun, Marty!”
“Don’t be so melodramatic. The right barrel had blanks in it and the left one’s a paintball gun. Man, you guys are pretty quick. I’m going to have to replace the turret motors with something more powerful. Or maybe it’s just the rain we’ve been having. Some rust could have gotten in there and—”
“Marty…” she said, trying to sound calm through clenched teeth.
“What exactly was it that you didn’t like about the planter, Randi? What if I made it a statue? Maybe me on a horse. That would be—”
“Shut up, Marty! Shut up, shut up! And get me the hell out of here!”