Douglas Bunger's Blaze Of Glory

Chapter 25



 
 
 
    Brad wanted to put a few miles between him and the stadium before calling Asher, half due to Baker's statements, and half due to his own concern for getting caught. Perhaps Baker was correct in assuming that the authorities would realize Fletcher was the wrong man, but what did they have to connect him to the investigation? Brad was confident in his belief that before they could move against him, they would need some solid evidence.
    Somewhere, the little voice in the back of Brad's head pointed out that Fletcher said he'd been setup.
    Even if it had been a frame, Brad had covered his tracks. He had left fake names with everyone but Melanie, and he hadn't told anyone about her. They couldn't go to Wheeler for information without letting on to the existence of the aliens. Wheeler might have been acting like an butthead, but if he suspected for a moment that Brad had lit a fire under the government's ass he'd have every reporter on the street trying to find out why.
    Fletcher had no idea what Brad was working on, so there was no way he could point an accusing finger. The only way the Air Force could find Brad, was if Mrs. Gatewood gave them a description. Perhaps with a rough idea of his looks, Fletcher might be able to associate the use of his name to Brad. If he had been in a better frame of mind, Brad might have remembered that the Air Police had seen his car on the bomb range, and that he had told Mrs. Gatewood she could find him by looking for a blue Firebird.
    Brad took his exit off the expressway, stopped at a gas station to call Asher, and tell him the good news. He was alarmed when the voice that answered was not the voice he remembered. After what had happened when he called Mrs. Gatewood, Brad considered throwing the phone down and running for cover. When the other voice said 'hello' a second time, Brad swallowed hard, and answered.
    "I want to talk to Asher," he explained.
    "Yeah. He isn't here, but if you've got business with him I can take a message."
    "Tell him I've got the money."
    "You got a phone number?"
    Brad remembered Baker's concern for wire taps. "Tell him to meet me at the bar tomorrow morning at nine o'clock, and I'll be ready to go."
    "No problem, Dude."
    The other person hung-up, leaving Brad to wonder if 'dude' was his way of saying good-bye. For years, he had always thought of it in the same context as the term 'man,' but the word had mutated into a catch-all phrase such as the Hawaiian word 'aloha.' It was the kind of thought that could have kept a linguist busy for years, but only made Brad hungry.
    He returned to his car and gave some quick thought to food. What you must understand is that there's something about having five thousand dollars in your coat pocket that makes you want to eat out. That was Brad's motivation for going to a restaurant that evening instead of returning home. He figured surely Asher wouldn't miss just one twenty.
    As he had eaten pizza three days ago, Italian on a date last weekend, and Chinese the week before, the only other possibility was Mexican. Of course with Mexican food, one must have cerveza, which Brad did. Though he was not drunk, he was light headed. Few will argue that the last thing alcohol does is heighten a person's awareness, but on that particular evening its effect on Brad's mind probably kept him from going to jail. Even though alcohol slows the reflexes and impairs judgment, it heightens one mental facet vital to covert action: paranoia.
    The last remnants of twilight were slipping into darkness when the Firebird made the last turn for home. Since Brad had been drinking, he was paying especially close attention to the way he was driving. He watched every car, every bump, every gutter to guarantee he had the necessary clearance to avoid an accident. Baker had said not to make the enemys job any easier-- Brad was not about to let them get him for drunk driving.
    His apartment building was in sight, a few hundred yards down the road, when out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a car. The car was singled out in his mind for two reasons. First, were the two short radio antennas mounted on the trunk. If they had been antennas for a cellular phone, Brad might not have paid them any attention, because many people thought it was cool to put two fake antennas on their cars. The car was usually a pre-eighties Cadillac that sported a TV antennae, curb feelers, and mudflaps and was driven by someone that didn't even have a phone in their home.
    These antenna were not cellular, however, as they were not curled at the base, like a pig's tail. The second suspicious aspect of the car were its tires: large, wide, and black. The two factors, coupled with the fact that the car was blue, could only mean one thing. It had to have been an unmarked police car.
    Brad fought the churning feeling in his gut with the statement that it must have been coincidence. They wouldn't be waiting for him at his own house, would they? But why not? They'd gotten Fletcher at home. The churning turned to a cold sweat as he noticed a second car parked on the opposite side of the street.
    For a split second, Brad thought that if the police or FBI were truly after him, there'd be cops around. Squad cars... The SWAT team... Something other than two seemingly harmless cars parked a block away. Maybe they were after someone else on the street. Maybe they were staking out a different apartment.
    Then again, maybe not.
    Rather than find out the hard way, Brad stomped on the car's accelerator and sped down the street. He kept one eye on the road in front of him, and one eye on the rearview mirror, but did not see either of the unmarked cars chasing him. He took several unnecessary turns as he zig-zaged his way toward the nearest interstate ramp. Occasionally, he would check his mirrors in hopes of detecting anyone who might be following, but he seemed to be safe.
    He set the cruise control on precisely fifty-five and tried to calm himself from the near panic he had allowed to creep over him. How could Baker have been right? He had said not to go home, and the police had been waiting for him when he did. That meant they knew who he was!
    What was he going to do?
    What could he do?
    His options were limited. If he turned himself in, the government would certainly kill him-- he knew too much. That's what they did to Kennedy and Hoffa. They would probably do the same thing to Gatewood and his family: snuff 'em out.
    His second option was to forget the story, take Baker's money, and get lost. Maybe he could get a fake ID, move to another city, and start a new life. It would mean letting the government get away with the cover-up, and continue the lie they'd been telling the people, but at least Brad would be free. Free of prison, that is-- he'd never be free of his conscience. If he let the government get away with the cover-up he'd never be able to live with himself.
    That only left one choice: avoid getting caught at all costs, until he could carry out the rescue. He had to stay out of the government's hands long enough to meet Asher. He had to get the aliens out. If he could manage that, he'd be home free. After all, when the American people heard what Brad had done, they would insist he be granted complete amnesty.
    A moment later, Brad spied a motel at the next exit. He turned off and checked in for the night. The motel was far from the first class, but it was inexpensive and clean. The room was small, held one double bed, and had cable television.
    Brad's first move, since he had no luggage to deal with, was to decipher the telephone instructions and call Asher. The voice that answered was the same man he'd spoken to the first time. "Yo, Dude," responded Brad to the other man's salutation. "You get my message to Asher?"
    "Yeah, he'll be there."
    "Change in plans. I had to check into a hotel; can you tell him to meet me here?"
    "Oh, wow... You being tailed?"
    "I think I lost them."
    "No way, Jose. Like, Asher would be highly pissed if you got him busted. We'd all be really bummed-out. No, you got a plan-- you need to stick with it. Call down right now, I mean when we get off the phone with me, and tell the desk, I mean like the person working the desk, that you want to stay another night, then stay in the room, okay? Don't go out for anything, and when you leave there tomorrow, make like really, really, sure that nobody follows you by making left turns in front of traffic and driving down residential streets and stuff."
    "Why should I tell them I want to stay. I don't have any clothes. I don't even have clean underwear."
    "Wow, that's rough, Dude. No, see, if you tell them you're gonna stay another night, and like the Fed's check the register, they won't worry about you leaving town. Ya know what I mean? And like I'll tell Asher the deal" Brad acknowledged the Dude's orders, and hoped like hell that Asher's message guy had his head on straight. It was obvious that the man had something rattling around in his brain, Brad could only hope it wasn't a loose screw.
    After calling the desk to extend his stay, Brad turned on the television and scanned the channels for a couple hours. He finally settled for one of the movie channels, even though he'd seen the film before. He stripped, crawled into bed, and within ten minutes was asleep.
    Brad slept fitfully, waking every time he heard the whine of a distant siren, and didn't feel rested when his biological clock woke him at six. He showered, wished he could brush his teeth and shave, then dressed in yesterday's clothes. As he was nornally very conscious of his appearance, he had to will himself to step out of the room. He'd always heard the joke about wearing clean underwear; it had something to do with an accident and the hospital. He wondered if the same was true about going to jail.
    Maybe, if the FBI tried to arrest him, and he told them he had dirty underwear on, they'd let him go. Who knows?
    He drove for about an hour, taking precautions the way Dude had told him. He would stop at a red light, wait for it to turn green, and pull across the oncoming traffic. When he would drive down residential streets, he would keep an eye on the rearview mirror, and occasionally turn around in a driveway. He finally made it to The Perro Negro at fifteen after nine. Asher was waiting in an old, green, Ford LTD.
    "Look who made it," he called when Brad stepped out of the car. "I hope you weren't followed."
    "Me too." Brad knew that wasn't the answer Asher wanted to hear.
    "What happened to your car?"
    "Long story," sighed Brad, hoping he wouldn't have to go into it again.
    "Were you able to get the money?" Brad handed Asher the package, and the man examined its contents. "Good, used bills, just the way I like them. You have a map of the area I need to recon?"
    "No. I thought you'd supply that kind of stuff."
    "I need to know where to start, son."
    "I'll show you."
    "How are you going to show me without a map?"
    "Whoa! You don't think I'm going to let you do this alone, do you?"
    Asher looked surprised. "You think you're going on a recon with me?"
    "If I don't, you might take my money and run off."
    "I've never stiffed a client," Asher stated, as if insulted. "There is a certain trust between a mercenary and employer. It stems from the belief that if I take your money, you may hire another mercenary to find me and kill me. By the same token, if you shaft me, I'll kill you. Its worked quite nicely for thousands of years."
    "I'm going anyway," stated Brad emphatically.
    "You think you can keep up? Ten thousand dollars doesn't count baby-sitting."
    "Old man, I can keep up with you any day of the week."
    Asher laughed. "Okay. I guess I've got to baby-sit you anyway. If I left you in that hotel, the FBI'd have you within twenty-four hours. You tell them you were going to stay tonight?"
    "Yeah."
    "Good. You lead back to the hotel. We'll drop your car off and take mine-- I bet half the cops in California are looking for a wrecked blue Firebird."
    "If I leave it there, they might find it. Don't you have a garage you can put it in?"
    Asher shook his head. "Listen, kid. I'm banking on the fact that they'll find it. That's why we had you tell them you'd be there another night. You might as well book the room through the end of the week. If the Fed's think you're in the room, they won't bother looking for you somewhere else."
    "But if they find it, they'll impound it. I can't afford to charge too many nights on my credit card."
    "Listen to me carefully: If the police are after you, then you've already committed some crime. Even if you haven't, you committed the heinous crime of conspiracy to commit a felony by paying me to break your friend out of prison. Add to that the fact that it's a military prison you're conspiring to break in to, and you can see real quick that you're not one of the good guys anymore. Now, as long as you're breaking all these federal laws, why worry about a few local ones like reneging on your car note or credit card?"
    Brad accepted Asher's logic, though he knew full well that he was one of the good guys-- it was the corrupt, mindless, law enforcement community and U.S. Government who were the bad guys.
    Asher called to him before he left. "Hey, stop at a hardware store before we get to the hotel." Brad nodded, drove off, and wondered what Asher was up to.


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