Т Паркер - The Room of White Fire

Silence again from the living. I looked from face to face, their expressions so varied and strong.

Clay emptied.

Paige stunned.

Rex in grim shame.

Patricia in disbelief.

Sequoia in dull acceptance.

Lindsey nodding sadly, as if she’d somehow foreseen all of this.

Wesley still shooting video, and the two security men staring stoically at the screen.

Gradually, in that wrenching and frozen silence, I heard the distinct but distant chop of a helicopter. From the edge of the canopy I watched it descend from the western sky. Easy to identify because I’d seen it before — Briggs Spencer’s bright copper Sikorsky 434 coming at some speed toward us. I got my binoculars, stepped outside the palapa, and watched it approach. It wasn’t long before I could make out the rough outline of Briggs Spencer in the pilot’s seat, aviator sunglasses on, headphones clamped over his bushy gray hair. Next to him, the unmistakable dome of Joe Bodart’s shaven head. And behind them, in one of the backseats, a third man, obscured by sunglasses and a ball cap.

An arc of bitter regret jumped through me: the hour of time I had tried to steal was now cut in half. I’d bet everything on that hour. Bet that I could control dangerous men. DeMaris and Tice had taken the bait but Spencer and Bodart had smelled out the truth. Who would pay the price?

Spencer continued flying toward us, then banked away and lowered the chopper a quarter mile beyond the pond. Through the binoculars I watched the helo settle to the ground. Bodart and the Backseat Man climbed out. Another quarter mile to the south, dust rose in a faint cloud. A black SUV came into view, picking its way deliberately along the narrow road, heading toward the idling helo.

With my guts in an angry knot, I pieced it together: Dick was made by DeMaris, who called Spencer, who scooped up Bodart in the Sikorsky and headed here. Bodart hadn’t fallen for my trick at all. He and his men had never set sail across the desert. He had let DeMaris take that risky bet, but DeMaris had made it pay. I raised the glasses again to confirm: two of Bodart’s Harbor Palms Motel men in the SUV.

Spencer took the copper Sikorsky up fast, climbing back north. The machine was bright and somehow privileged in the sky, like something flown by gods or conquerors. It came straight toward us.

“Spencer,” said Paige. “What is he doing?”

“Get under the tables, all of you. Take the computers and camera. Now!”

The Hickman security men scrambled off the patio and dropped into shooting stances on the embankment, pistols out but pointed down. I stood just under the palapa canopy, between the incoming helicopter and the tables. Through the growing noise of the rotor blades I could hear the ruckus behind me, table legs rasping on concrete.

Suddenly Clay ran past me and down the embankment toward the water, cursing. Paige ran after him. Spencer was half across the pond by then, lowering then hovering for a good look at them. I remembered the gun port and the pistol. Paige screamed, her words scattered in the rotor storm. The pond water whipped and Clay waded in to his knees, shaking one fist and yelling into the sharp clatter of the blades. Through the slop of whitecaps and rising mist Paige tried to pull him to shore. Through the glasses I saw Spencer with one hand on the stick, looking down at them with what looked like amusement. Then at me.

Like a cat losing interest in its mouse, he sidled the chopper my way, closer to the palapa, rotors whapping sharply, palapa fronds shivering as Clay’s distant words blew across the water. Paige pulling, Clay not budging. Blade wind in my face and eyes, Spencer studying me, rising and lowering, forward then back. Suddenly the Sikorsky roared and rose, belly to my face, a suck of rotor wind as it reared up and backed away. Then leveled, and swooped down on Clay and Paige.

Chaos next, and the free fall of my heart.

Wesley and Lindsey slid down the embankment, leaning back for balance, sidestepping until they hit shore, then crashed into the water. The Hickman bodyguards followed them to the shoreline and raised their weapons. Slap of rotors on water, sunlight bouncing off the copper finish.

The helo lowered over Clay and Paige like a huge steel hen settling on her eggs. I saw the barrel of Spencer’s coyote-killing pistol appear through the gun port and swivel down. Astonished at what he was about to do, I knelt and raised my pistol. Spencer’s gun boomed. Clay and Paige both fell into the choppy water. I cut loose four rounds and heard the rapid cracks of the guns to my left. Bullets hit the Sikorsky in dull metallic thunks, hardly audible. Sparks jumped and the little craft shuddered. Then another blast from Spencer’s gun.

Paige grabbed Clay by his shirt and they trudged — waist-deep and in agonizing slow motion — toward shore. Suddenly Clay wheeled and raised his fist, brandishing it at Spencer as if he could reach him with it. Across that distance, across the years. Spencer fired again and a plume of water jumped between them. Paige cried out and latched on to Clay again, pulling. Rotors whapping and the security men shooting methodically. I pictured Spencer behind the smoked-black fuselage and fired twice more. Burt Short appeared near my side, unleashing two thunderous rounds from an assault shotgun he must have kept in his casita.

The helo skittered weirdly, still sparking. A round from Spencer smacked into the palapa pole behind me and I felt the chips hit my neck. The Sikorsky belched a puff of black smoke as it banked high and fast over the pond and accelerated away to the west. Clay and Paige, clutching each other, clambered closer to shore with Wesley, Lindsey, and the two security men closing in around them. Paige’s white blouse was a flag of watery blood and she moved with clumsy determination. Rex and Patricia waded out past the shoreline and helped pull Clay and Paige through the mud onto dry land. The muck had taken Patricia’s shoes. Beside me, Burt was reloading without looking at his weapon, his eyes trained on the chopper.

“Call 911, Burt. Now. ”

The Sikorsky wove through the sky like a big smoking snake, carving wider and wider until the tail swung around in frantic counterbalance. A slow nosedive. Through the glasses I saw Spencer fighting to land the helo, both hands wrenching the stick, jamming himself back against the seat for leverage as the craft whirled around and around. He got it back under control. Black smoke billowed, but the Sikorsky was stable again as it descended. Half a mile beyond the pond Spencer coaxed the wounded machine to the ground. Where it exploded.

Through the binoculars I watched him flail from the cockpit, covered in flames. Dragging one leg, he thrashed his arms wildly against the fire, then threw himself to the ground and rolled downhill through the dry brush. But the fuel that had drenched him burned viciously, and with each roll the dampened flames jumped to life on him again. Spencer finally came to a stop at the bottom of the small hillock, fought to his feet, spread his arms and raised his face to the sky. Hair broiling and mouth agape, he crumpled into a heap of joyous fire.

The black SUV approached from the far south. I could make out Bodart at the wheel and Backseat Man now in the front passenger seat, and the two Harbor Palms company men in back. They seemed to be arguing. The SUV hunched to a stop on a small hillock, and through my binoculars I could see Bodart jump out with his own field glass. He looked toward the smoking helo in the distance, and Briggs Spencer, who lay unmoving in his bed of flames. Bodart snapped something to the other men and climbed back into the vehicle. Which lurched off toward Spencer. I gauged that, after getting there and seeing they could do nothing for Spencer, it would take them less than ten minutes to descend on us.