7- Bad Guys

7

Bad Guys

It just didn’t add up to Eliza.  Josephine’s questions just kept repeating in her head.  They were questions that made sense.  People who did this kind of stuff did not hall off and kill their sellers.  If they did, no one would sell to them.

“Hello!  Earth to Liz.”  She was reminded where she was as Barkley jibed her from the driver’s seat of their standard issue four door sedan.  “What size do you want?”

They were getting lunch at McDonald’s and taking a break from the infinite room search.  She hated this place.  It was too fattening and the mere taste of it sometimes caused her to gag.  Barkley loved it, however, and he was the supervising agent so it was his choice.

When I’m done with probation, I am never eating this shit again.  She thought to herself.  “Small.”

Barkley turned back to the drive thru speaker and finished telling the minimum wage employee on the other end the rest of their order.  They pulled up, paid and got their food before pulling into a parking spot and sorting out whose was whose.

This process also annoyed Liz.  After all, if they were going to eat it at the restaurant why not just go in, instead of sitting in the parking lot like rejects.  Barkley said it was because he liked to pick the music he listened to while he ate, but Liz still thought it was stupid.

“It doesn’t add up.”  She said, finally.  She could almost hear Barkley’s eyes roll.

“Seriously, you are letting that vacationer get in your head.”  Barkley said as he munched on greasy fries.

“Look, just because she is a tourist in the wrong place at the wrong time doesn’t mean she’s wrong.”  Liz persisted.  “What reason would the shooter have to kill the man?  Even if he refused to give it to them, they would want him alive so they could get it out of him later.”

Barkley frowned.  “I don’t know, I’m not a crazy spy.  Look, there could be any number of reasons that guy shot first and asked questions later.”

Liz was silent because she couldn’t think of one that made any sense whatsoever.  The whole thing was starting to bother her, especially the gigantic Russian computer programmers on the top floor.  Barkley was treating it like everything was done except the finding of the drive, but Liz felt there was more to this.

She unwrapped the cheeseburger, if you could call it that, and the imitation meat, cheese, and bread stared at her menacingly.  She frowned back and rewrapped it, instead taking a drink of the watered down Coke.

“Where did you get the intel about the list?”  She asked him finally after swallowing.

This question seemed to get Barkley’s attention.  “A reliable source.  Why do you ask?”

Something about his reaction seemed defensive to Liz.  She just shrugged back at him.  “I’m just wondering if it’s credible, is all.”

Barkley stopped eating and frowned.  “It was a credible lead.  Bill Lentz was a traitor and that got him killed.  Look, I was the one who brought this to the department.  It is good.  Got It?”

Liz raised her hand in surrender.  “Okay, alright.  I got it.”

Liz did not get it, though.  Something was not right.  She planned to find out what that something was.

****

The bag was yanked off of Leonard’s head and he blinked while his eyes adjusted.  He was in the back of a van sitting on a bench against the right side wall.  From the slight jostling, he could tell the van was moving.

Across from him sat a large angular faced man with a Mac-10 Oozie pointed at his face.  “Don’t move.”

The words were in broken English with a heavy Russian accent but Leo had no problem understanding. “Got it.”

“Do not move.”  Another Russian to his left standing hunched over in the van between the back and the cab was also holding a Mac-10 Oozie at his face.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”  Leo reaffirmed staring at the barrel of the gun.

“Ask him about the drive!”  Another man from the cab, probably the driver.

“The drive?” Leonard feigned ignorance.

“Pavel.” The one seated in front of Leonard spoke this one word.

Leonard was then struck hard with a closed fist from the man standing to his left, the force sent him to the bench howling in pain.  Slowly he shook off the punch and sat back up.  His captors were polite and waited for him to recover.

Leo turned toward the man who had struck him.  “You must be Pavel then?”

This time he was looking at him and still never saw the punch.  It hit him just under the jaw and rattled his teeth.  He actually fell off the bench to the van’s metal floor.

The sitting man turned toward Pavel angrily and barked something in Russian.  Pavel shrugged back and the interrogator bent over to help Leonard up to the bench.  “My apologies.  Pavel does not speak English so he thought you had insulted him.”

Leo shook his head and he pulled himself back to the bench.  “Now why would anyone in my position do that?!”

The interrogator shrugged.  “This happens more often than you would think in our line of work, but you seem to be very polite and I thank you for that.  As does Pavel.”

The interrogator looked to Pavel and said a couple of things in Russian and Pavel nodded.  Leonard had the strange feeling that he had somehow fallen into the twilight zone.  “Thanks.  Glad I could be of help.”

“Now, if you don’t mind, where is the flash drive?” The interrogator asked.

Leo frowned.  “I really don’t know what you are talking about.”

The interrogator looked at Pavel and nodded once.  Leo again saw stars, this blow connecting just over this left eye and again he crumpled to the floor.  “Oh my, you would think you would have been prepared that time.”

Leo spit blood on the steel of the van from a freshly cut lip.  “Why would I be prepared?  You just thanked me for being polite!”

Again the interrogator helped him back to a sitting position on the bench.  “My friend, you misunderstand.  That punch was not for lack of politeness, it was for lying to us.  You do understand what is happening here, correct?”

Leonard stared for a second then looked up at Pavel then back to his interrogator and spoke questioningly as if searching for the right answer.  “You are torturing me to find out where the flash drive is?”

The interrogator’s face brightened and he nodded.  “Yes.  Yes, you have it.”

The nod was completely misunderstood however and Pavel cracked Leonard again in the face.  “What the fuck?!”

The interrogator shook his head and again barked at Pavel in Russian.

Again Pavel shrugged despondently.

“Again, I am sorry.  This is less confusing in one language.”  The interrogator said as he pulled out a cell phone.  “I will expedite this process.”

He hit a button and waited while the phone on the other end rang.  Someone picked up and after a few words in Russian, the interrogator handed Leo the phone.

 Leo took it as if it was a bomb.  A feeling in his gut made him sure that this was going to be bad.  “Hello?”

“Leo don’t tell them-“ Josephine on the other end spoke desperately and then was cut off by the phone being hung up.

Leonard’s face dropped and the smiling almost chipper interrogator politely took the phone back.  “You see the stakes, yes?”

Leonard stared back.  It was over.  As if the world was punishing them for their good fortune, the Devereuxs where about to be killed by Russian terrorists after winning $50,000,000.

Karma was real, and it sucked.

“Da.” Leonard said, it was the only Russian word he knew and it meant yes.

“Ah, you are such a wonderful captive.”  The interrogator responded happily.  “Even meeting us half way on the language iss-“

It was at this point karma again decided to shift.

Pavel turned to tell the driver that Leo had given in and the driver turned.  In that moment he failed to avoid the large pothole in the road ahead.  He hit it going 40 MPH.  Any normal driver would have experienced an uncomfortable bump, maybe the tire would blow, but that would be the end of it.

This, of course, excludes people standing in the back of vans with hair trigger Oozies.  The bump toppled Pavel backwards, the surprise caught him off guard and he jerked as he fell, accidently depressing the trigger, spraying Leo’s interrogator with bullets into his chest and abdomen.

The interrogator slumped backward, his hand with his Oozie falling to the bench next to him, the impact depressing his finger on his Oozie’s trigger sending a three round burst of automatic weapon fire through the back of the driver’s seat and through the back of the driver.

They driver made a gurgling noise then slumped forward on the wheel.  The van took a hard right, too hard.  It tipped and rolled sending Pavel bouncing around the back of the van and snapping his neck on the final impact.

The van had stopped moving and was completely silent.  It laid in the street rocking back and forth after its long and deadly roll.  Inside, Leo had a small crisis of self.

He decided no one could have survived the roll.  This conclusion was supported by a lot of evidence. Three bodies of evidence.  Two of them were sprawled on top of him limply.  He was also covered in their blood, from the random gun misfires.  Added to this was the fact no one had been wearing any kind of safety harness or restraint and Leonard Devereux was dead by any mathematicians calculations.

He took a deep breath and realized that he was not dead.  Somehow during the crash all the bullets had missed him while he simultaneously crashed only into the bodies of his captors, cushioning the impact damage he would have taken slamming against the interior of the van.

It appeared he had come to the wrong conclusion about Karma after all.

He remembered Josephine, tied up in their hotel room.  The other Russians had her.  He grabbed one of the Oozies and kicked open the back doors.  “I’m coming Joe.  Just hold on!”

****

The air in the car had gotten stale in the wake of the agents argument.  The only sounds were that of them chewing their subpar meat products when Liz’s phone buzzed.  Thankful for the ice breaker, she answered.  “Agent Eliza Adams.”

Barkley watched as she listened to the voice on the other end then she hung up.  “What was that about?”

“That was police dispatch.”  She answered.  “They have just gotten unconfirmed reports of a man fleeing the scene of an accident covered in blood and holding an Oozie.  The reports are saying he was wearing a goofy tee shirt.”

Barkley sighed.  “Going to be a long day.”

TO BE CONTINUED.