I had to get it.
I fled my perch and found the walk on the other side of the building. I spotted an exit and quickly descended stairs similar to the ones I’d used to climb up. This was rapidly gestating into a huge mess, one that I was going to have a hard time explaining to Stephanie Nelle, especially after my rebellion in Stuart. I came to ground level and stepped into another service corridor. This one only went one way, deeper into the attraction, about fifty feet, one exit out on the right, another at the far end.
I reached for the handle of the nearest door and swung the metal panel inward. It led into another of the faux town scenes, this one complete with animatronic wenches being sold at auction. I entered behind the female figures and decided the thing to do, once I got the reel, was to hop into one of the boats and head for the exit, acting like one of the visitors. Hopefully, no one would rat me out, or at least not until I could slip away.
Oliver lay a few feet away.
I sidestepped the mechanical women and ran over, pretending to see if he was all right. People in the boats were watching. I faked a check for a pulse.
“Is he dead?” someone called out from the boats.
I ignored the question and stuck my hand into his pant pockets, finding the reel, which I pocketed.
Time to get the hell out of here.
“He’s dead,” I called out, readying myself to hop into the boat.
Something slammed hard into my right hip.
Chapter Fifty
I hit the concrete floor and realized that Jansen had returned from the dead. On the way down we’d taken out two of the skirted wenches, each tied to the other with a hemp rope. The robots broke from their underlying supports with a spray of electrical sparks, the two heavy figures tumbling toward the end of the dock and the water, taking down a mechanical goat along the way. We rolled across a couple of concrete risers. Jansen’s arms were wrapped around me and he maneuvered himself on top, releasing his grip and delivering a fist to my jaw.
Which hurt.
He’d apparently survived the earlier encounter and watched as Tom Oliver died from his fall. He must have crossed over the arched bridge that spanned the waterway. He was damn strong for a man past sixty. I flipped him off me and hopped to my feet. Jansen rebounded quickly. A gun appeared in his right hand. I kicked it away. The auctioneer kept droning on about the women for sale. A sign proclaimed take a wench for a bride.
Jansen lifted one of the barrels adorning the dock and hurled it my way. I dodged the projectile, which bounced off the concrete and collided with another animatronic figure. The gun lay to my left and I could see that he was searching for it, too. More boats passed, the waterway here narrow from one side of the hall to the other, the scenes connected by the arched bridge loaded with animals and characters, beneath which the boats passed into another building. Employees or security should be appearing any moment. I couldn’t be around when that happened. I had to deal with Coleen and her father. Jansen, too, surely did not want to be taken into custody.
“I’m going to kill you,” he spat at me.
And I believed him.
His face had gone white, teeth bared, eyebrows furrowed. We both crouched forward, circling, looking for chances. He kept his left fist cocked back like a southpaw. I landed a sharp jab to his cheek that sent him back on his heels. Before I could take advantage of the moment he attacked with that left, but I dodged the punch and thumped him with a hard right uppercut to his midbody.
He backed away.
I saw more boats with people passing in the water. He lunged forward and grazed my cheek with a fast left and a right to my ribs. I gave him a solid jab to the face, my knuckles tight. Sparks kept flying from where the two animatronic figures had been torn from their supports. You would think this stuff ran on low voltage, but apparently that was not the case. I told myself to be careful with the open wires, especially since Jansen kept nudging me in their direction.
I searched for the gun.
Which I spotted a few feet away.
“You’ll never get to it,” he told me.
He swung and missed with a right. I managed to grab his wrist and land a fist of my own into his left kidney. He broke away and darted toward one of the characters, this one brandishing a pitchfork.
Not a facsimile.
Someone had thought that an actual pitchfork would work just fine.
He thrust the blade my way.
I seized a moment and snapped his head back with a stiff jab to the right eye. He went into a rage and grasped the pitchfork with both hands, swinging it in a desperate attempt to make contact with me. I retreated, dodging the swishing metal tips, which were not dulled. He began to stumble, maybe stunned and hurt from the blows. Blood poured from one nostril. The first wave of visitors had to have made it to the end of the ride by now and alerted the staff about what was happening inside the attraction.
This had to end.
Now.
But Jansen suddenly looked restored.
“It’s over,” I told him.
“Because you say it is? You’re nothing.” His voice was rising. “Nothing at all. We gave our entire lives for this country.”
“You killed him,” I said.
“I did as I was told,” he yelled. “I did my job.”
He’d quickly transitioned from patriot to “loyal employee,” his conscience searching for anything to justify reality. For him this had gone from search-and-find to an outright suicide mission. Of course, Valdez had narrowed the options when he chose to gun down Nate Perry. Oliver was dead. Valdez was God knew where. Jansen was the last man standing.
I recalled my boot camp training in hand-to-hand.
Keep your mouth closed. Clench the neck and jaw. Protect the stomach. But careful with hitting the other guy’s face, especially the forehead. You can break a bone in your own hand.
But I’d never been one to follow the rules.
He stopped his flailing with the pitchfork.
I grabbed his upper right arm and sank an uppercut into his gut. Then I slammed my forehead into his.
We met with a crack.
Everything blinked in and out.
My brain spun.
I was near the end of the fake wharf at the water’s edge, fighting to regain my equilibrium. Jansen was having a problem with balance, too. He staggered backward, still holding the pitchfork, his arms flailing as he fought the vertigo. He tried to stay on his feet. More blood poured from his nose. Three barrels stood to my right. I shook off the fog in my brain and reached for one, hurling it toward Jansen. He raised the pitchfork to block the impact, but the barrel was solid wood and crashed into him, driving him farther back. He hit the pavement among the animatronic figures, finding the spot where the two skirted wenches had been torn away.
Sparks exploded.
He screamed.
I realized what was happening. The exposed electrical conduits had connected with his wet clothes, completing the circuit. The barrel lay atop him, pinning him down. His body shuddered, arms and legs extended outward. His screams rose, then faded as the life ebbed from him.
He lay still, in silence.
I stared over at him.
Another boat of people approached.
“You. Stop. Stay right there.”
I turned and saw three men dressed in security uniforms on the other side of the waterway, running my way. They were headed for the arched bridge, and it would only be a few moments before they were on me.
I grabbed the gun still lying on the concrete, then fled the wharf back into the fake buildings and found the metal door through which I’d entered. I headed left and saw that the corridor was long and straight. The guards could easily find me, so I headed back up the stairs to the service area. I ran across the catwalk to the other side, then down, careful at the bottom to make sure the coast was clear. Seeing no one, I turned right and hustled to the end, where a door opened into the attraction’s lighted, main entrance.