David Kent - The Triangle Conspiracy

Sanborn’s car pulled away from the curb.

“No you don’t, you bastard,” Sean said.

“Why are you chasing him?” Britt blurted. “He just tried…I mean, the Coalition. You didn’t…he-”

“Britt, that’s enough,” Daryn said, turning to face Britt with blood in her eyes. “Don’t get into things you don’t know about.”

“But he called the FBI. You didn’t…you didn’t go through with it.” Britt’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t understand.”

“Shut up!” Daryn screamed. “Shut up, shut up, goddammit, Britt!” She pressed her hands to her head as if she were trying to keep it from cracking in two. “Just leave it alone!”

Sanborn’s car shot into the intersection and into E.K. Gaylord Boulevard, which marked the eastern edge of downtown and the beginning of the Bricktown entertainment district. It was a wider, large thoroughfare, and Sanborn went through against the light.

Sean, three car lengths behind, watched as a burgundy-colored four-door twisted to get out of Sanborn’s way. The driver was almost successful, and wound up just clipping Sanborn’s bumper. Sanborn fishtailed, but he righted the car and made it through the intersection.

The burgundy car’s driver stopped, like any normal citizen involved in a fender bender, and started to get out. Sean whipped around the car and followed Sanborn across the boulevard, under a railroad bridge, and into Bricktown. Main was at the north edge of the former warehouse district that had come to redefine Oklahoma City’s cultural life.

Just past the bridge, Sean blinked at what had to be an apparition: to the left, in a vacant area, dozens of buffalo. Sculptures-ceramic, papier-mâché, he had no idea, but they were all standing in a field, as if in a real buffalo herd, and all were painted with brightly colored designs.

He squeezed his eyes closed. Had to be the booze, playing tricks on his mind. He opened his eyes. The buffalo stood there serenely.

“I’m losing it,” he muttered.

“Look,” Daryn said.

There were brick buildings lining either side of Main, but it only ran two blocks before dead-ending at a high wire fence and several pieces of heavy construction equipment.

“No way out,” Sean said.

He braked the Jeep, and it came to rest in the middle of the street. Ahead, Sanborn saw the dead end too late. He tried to turn, but the car fishtailed again, the passenger side slamming into the fence.

Sean reached over the seat of the Jeep and retrieved his duffel bag from near Britt’s feet. He felt in it, but his gun wasn’t there.

“Goddammit!” Now he remembered-he’d taken it out of the duffel and put it in the little nightstand beside the bed, back in the Mulhall house.

He flung open the door of the Jeep, then crouched behind it.

“Sanborn!” he shouted. “They’ll be coming for you, any minute now. You son of a bitch, you have no idea what you’ve just done! You’ve done more harm to your own movement than you could possibly imagine!”

To his surprise, Sean heard laughter, low and controlled. Sanborn stepped out of the black car. A tiny trickle of blood bloomed from his hairline, running down his left cheek. Behind him, in the car, Don Wheaton was slumped against the passenger door, unmoving. “You’re the one who doesn’t know what’s going on here,” he said. He took a few steps forward. Sean spotted the gun in his hand, pointed downward. “Agent Sean Kelly,” Sanborn added.

Sean jerked again.

Behind him, Daryn got slowly out of the Jeep.

Sanborn made a tsk-tsk sound. “All that trouble with the bottle, Agent Kelly. It could make a man desperate to salvage his career. It could convince him to take a job hunting down the wayward, politically extreme daughter of a United States senator. One of the rulers himself.”

“Franklin, don’t,” Daryn said, but she was staring at Sean.

“Don’t? Don’t, my dear?” Sanborn raised the gun. “I knew someone would betray the Coalition. I didn’t know it would be you, but I knew someone would. Betrayals run rampant in the world of revolutionaries. You called the authorities, and they’ve taken CJ and Jeannie and the others. I knew it would happen. That’s why I had to be ready to strike at a second target. I’m very disappointed.”

Daryn walked slowly into the middle of the street, closing the distance between them. “Franklin, let’s stop while we can salvage the Coalition.”

“But what about your friend?” Sanborn said, pointing at Sean with the gun. “Your little sex toy there represents the ruling classes. He came to get you, Daryn. He came to bring you back to your daddy.”

Daryn stopped, closer to Sanborn now than to Sean and Britt. She turned and looked at Sean.

“This isn’t what you wanted, Daryn,” Sean said. It was the first time he’d called her by her real name. “All your commitment to social justice. This isn’t social justice. This is terrorist bullshit, all his nonsense about getting people’s attention. Terrorism doesn’t work. ‘Attention getters’ don’t work. It cuts off your message and then no one hears it.”

Daryn walked a few steps farther toward Sanborn. “Franklin-”

“Daryn?” Britt said, in a small voice. “What about me?”

Daryn stopped again. She turned to look at Britt, and in a lightning move, Sanborn closed the distance between them. In one motion he had his arm around Daryn’s neck, the gun at her temple.

Sean flexed his hands. Suddenly he felt nauseous, just like he did most mornings. “You don’t want to do that, Sanborn. Right now you might still be able to get out of this, but anything else and you’re a dead man.”

“And what about you?” Sanborn said. “Anything I’ve done, you’ve done too. It’s called conspiracy. Little more than you bargained for, isn’t it, Agent Kelly?” He moved then gun from Daryn’s temple and shoved it under her chin.

The driver of the burgundy car, a middle-aged, well-dressed black woman, was running toward them, but stopped short when she saw the gun. She turned and began to run back toward the street.

“The cops will be all over this street in a minute or two,” Sean said. “That woman’s pulling out her cell phone and calling them now.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Sanborn said. “There’s just been an act of terrorism at the Chase Tower. See that smoke? That means a lot more right now than some strange little altercation on a dead-end street.” He twisted the gun under Daryn’s chin. “I could just fix this right now, Daryn. One shot, a blinding split-second of pain, and then no more pain at all, of any kind, ever again. But no, maybe I won’t do that after all. You’d like that too much, wouldn’t you?”

Sean stared at him, not understanding.

Sanborn raised his voice. “Britt! Come here, girl.”

Britt didn’t move.

“Now, girl. Come to me or Daryn dies right here, right now.”

Britt walked slowly to him.

“Now you, Mr. Kelly. You’re going to step away from your car, over to the curb. Should have kept your weapon with you, shouldn’t you? But then, I suppose whiskey and sex have your mind a bit rattled these days, yes?”

Sean very slowly moved away from the open door of the Jeep, toward the last building on the block, which was vacant. A faded sign on the building read Billy’s Candy & Nectar Co.

He moved to the curb, holding his hands out away from his body, trying to think. But his brain felt encased in some kind of gel, something that surrounded him and wouldn’t let him go, wouldn’t let him think.

“Traitor,” Sanborn hissed, lowered the gun and shoved her hard. She tumbled to the ground and he kicked her in the ribs. “We’ll regroup in Mulhall. The Coalition isn’t dead, young Miss McDermott. We’re just getting started. The rulers will know that we’ve spoken, and one of them will be your father.”