Chris Mooney - World Without End

The Bronco was running. The driver was waiting for someone.

The skydiving school was broken up into three small units, all attached: on the left, the registration office, followed by the bunker containing walls full of parachuting equipment, and on the right, the final building, call it the video room, where he and Dixon had watched the skydiving video, talked to the instructors about how the jump would take place, and then signed the waivers freeing the school of any liability in case either he or Dix were injured or killed.

Part of the bunker and video building's roof was covered by the shade of the trees. Without the harsh sun beating down on the roof, the satellite could pick up heat signatures nicely. Conway moved the controls and checked both areas. Clean, nobody inside.

The registration office was trickier. With no shade and the sun beating down on the roof for hours now, the shingles had absorbed the heat. The registration office was a glowing blob of color. The satellite only offered an aerial view; Conway had no way to tell if anyone was inside. He stared at the blob, looking for movement, an outline or a shadow. Shit. If he only had a pair of handheld thermal binoculars, he could from this position scan each floor and check to see where the driver's partner was A screen door banged against its frame.

Conway looked up. He couldn't see anyone, not from this distance. On the screen, right outside the registration office door, stood the glowing red and yellow and orange figure of a man.

"Switch off thermal."

On the screen the world stopped glowing. Using the stylus, Con-way zoomed in on a man and saw the blond hair had to be Chris Evans. He was fitting what had to be a handgun into the back waistband of his pants. Evans ran down the length of deck that separated the office from the bunker and across the dirt lot. With one hand he reached down and scooped up the pillowcase. The Bronco's passenger's side door opened and Evans got in. The Bronco skidded out of the lot, kicking up clouds of dust, hit the highway with a squeal of rubber and disappeared down the road on its way back to Austin. To Praxis. Conway doubted they were taking Dix to the bank, where the compact disc was waiting.

Angel Eyes wouldn't have gone through all this elaborate planning to retrieve a CD.

Conway looked up from the screen. White plastic patio furniture was scattered across the concrete deck in front of the bunker. To the left of the bunker was the set of stairs that led up to a weathered deck, and then the final three steps that led up to the registration office, all of its windows open.

He was close enough to see part of the office's white walls and a shadow.

The shadow moved.

Someone was in there.

Conway removed his phone and tried calling one more time, hoping.

Nothing but static. Someone must be jamming my signal.

You've got to get inside the registration office and call Pasha, now, before Angel Eyes's men get to Praxis, before they kill Dixon and this mess of an operation turns FUBAR.

To get to the office, he would have to step out of the woods and run across the wide open field, exposed. No more cover from the trees, no Hazard Team coming to his rescue, no last minute miracle. One shot and he would be down.

Time to roll the dice.

Conway bolted toward the building.

Conway ran past the white patio furniture, shot into the bunker and pressed his back against the wall, next to the door that led into the video room. One hand on the doorknob, ready to make an exit.

No gunshots.

No shouting.

No rush of footsteps running down the stairs after him nothing except the sound of his blood pounding in his ears.

He pulled out his Palm Pilot. Drops of sweat as big as marbles splashed against the color screen. Staring at the Palm's screen, waiting for a man to appear… nothing. All quiet.

Conway moved out of the bunker and stepped back into the harsh Texas sun. A quick but careful jog across the concrete and then he skulked up the first set of stairs, blood pounding in a steady thump-thump sound in his ears. He cleared the first set of steps and stood on the landing. Still quiet. His eyes pinned on the window screen, his ears straining as they listened for sound, Conway crawled up the final set of steps, staying under the two windows. The screen door was less than a foot away and the only way to know if someone was inside was to stand up and look. Big risk.

They had to have left someone behind. They wouldn't leave knowing you're alive.

Then why the hell was it so damn quiet?

If someone's in there, you duck and get down the stairs and jump over the i-frilitia and hnok it into the woods. If not, get inside and get to the phone.

Conway wished he had his Clock. It was in a lock box under the car seat. So close.

Taking a deep breath, hold it… now.

Conway stood up and saw… (Armand pulling the gun out from the bag and then, boom!) an empty office. The figure he had seen earlier was the shadow of a tree branch against the white wall. No one inside here, just a tree branch. The office was clear.

Conway was alone.

His heart slowed a little.

He was sure he had seen someone inside the office.

The kid's starting to lose it, a voice said, one that sounded a lot like Gil Santos, the Boston sports radio announcer for the New England Patriots. Conway's made a bad call. The other team's got him running around in circles and the kid's wasting precious time.

Conway opened the screen door and stepped inside the office with flooring made of the same scuffed gray linoleum as the bathroom. Boxes stuffed with old computer equipment, sneakers, and boxes of cheap white T-shirts lettered with the words PROFESSIONAL TEXAS SKYDIVER were stacked on the floor and on flimsy tables cluttered with knickknacks and pictures and reams of paper. Conway shut the door softly behind him. The cordless phone was mounted on the wall, behind the front desk. Above the phone was a sky-diving certificate with Chris Evans's name. Conway grabbed the phone, dialed the number, and pressed the receiver against his sweaty ear.

No dial tone.

Conway tried dialing again. Nothing.

They must have cut the lines.

Conway tried his own phone again. The call still wouldn't go through.

He wanted to slam the phone You're wasting valuable time. Solve the problem.

The closest sign of life was about a half hour down the road, a Mobil or an Exxon, he wasn't sure; it was the last thing he had seen before being swallowed by this expanse of flat green fields. The station would have a phone, but by the time he got there, Pasha would be Something wet hit the back of his neck.

Conway reached up, touched his neck, and then examined his hand.

Blood. His eyes moved up.

Mounted in the ceiling was a set of pull-down attic stairs, the wood painted white like the ceiling so it didn't stand out. A small red pool no bigger than a quarter had formed in one of the corner seams.

Another drop formed and splashed against the floor.

Conway positioned himself so that when he pulled down the stairs he wouldn't get soaked with blood. He reached up and grabbed the pull-string and with a hard yank pulled down the stairs.

Warm tongues of blood slid off the wood steps and splattered against the chair and desk and floor. He moved off to the side and looked through the windows, half expecting to see someone coming for him.

Nobody did. Back inside the office bright red pools gleamed in the sunlight and continued to drip from the ceiling and splash against the floor like spilled paint.

No way to step around the blood. He reached up and unfolded the wooden steps that would lead him up to the attic. He could see the rafters, the trapped hot air above filled with a distinct buzzing sound.

Conway's mind flashed with the image from moments ago: Chris Evans standing outside the registration office as he fitted the gun into his back waistband.