Thomas Perry - Blood Money

She watched the fence posts going by, and then forced her eyes ahead. There it was. There was a road that ran from the highway all the way back to the cluster of barns and outbuildings. She took her foot off the gas pedal without touching the brake, so her taillights would not warn the chasers. She coasted as long as she could, then swung to the right onto the side road.

She drove for fifty yards, then wrenched the wheel to the left into the cornfield. She put her front wheels into two ruts and ran up the corn rows, watching the big stalks in front of the windshield looming, then falling in front of her. She drove for a full minute, then stopped the Explorer, got out, and slipped quietly into the vast, dark field of tall cornstalks.

36

Delfina sat in the front seat of the Suburban beside Cirro, moving his head from side to side to get a better view. “Where’d she go?”

Cirro craned his neck as he drove. “I can’t tell yet.” Then he said, “It looks like she must have turned off somewhere.”

Ahead of them, Delfina could see the other cars slowing down, then stopping at the side of the road. Cirro pulled up and stopped. Delfina saw Buccio running along the line of cars, shouting orders into their open windows. As Buccio approached the Suburban, Delfina said, “Now what?”

Buccio leaned in and said, “Frank, she must have turned off at this farm. There’s an open gate up here, and a road that leads to the farmhouse and stuff.”

“So what are you doing about it?” asked Delfina.

“Waiting to see what you think.”

Delfina’s eyes went cold. “What do I think?”

“You know. It’s a farm. There are sure to be a bunch of people around. It’s a big place.”

“Christ,” Delfina muttered. “Go in after her.”

Buccio ran for his car. In a moment, Delfina saw the car pull out onto the road, then turn onto the smaller road. The other three cars pulled out and followed. Delfina nodded to Cirro, who drove up the road to the entrance. He turned, then Delfina said, “Hold it here, Mike.”

The cars were stopped just two hundred feet up the road. Delfina climbed down from the Suburban and walked to the line of cars. Other men were getting out and standing on the road. Buccio saw Delfina, and pointed into the cornfield. “It looks like she drove right into the cornfield here.”

Delfina took Buccio by the arm and led him a few feet from the others. “Look, Carl. I’ve been trying to give you every opportunity I can to handle this. But here we are. There’s a woman with the key to billions of dollars that belongs to us in that cornfield someplace. I’ve committed myself now. There’s no way I can tell the other families I didn’t know where she was, or I was going to cut them in after I got her. Do you understand?”

“Sure, Frank.”

“No, I’m not sure you do, even now. When I say I want her, I mean if she isn’t going home with us, you won’t be going home with us.”

He watched Buccio’s face and waited while Buccio thought about that, then added, “And don’t think that if you lose her, your guys will pop me and say she did it. I already had quiet talks with a few of your crew, and you aren’t going to know which ones.”

Buccio stood silent for a moment, as though the hand that Delfina had laid lightly on his shoulder weighed hundreds of pounds. Finally, Delfina gave his shoulder a pat. “You’re still in charge. Do what you have to do.” He turned and walked back to the Suburban.

Buccio’s body filled with energy. He knew that Delfina never spoke until he had thoroughly considered his position from every angle. Buccio glanced at the glowing dial of his watch. It was nearly one A.M., and the sun would come up around five-thirty. He had found a kind of clarity that was rare and precious: it was as though his whole life had been compressed into four and a half hours. As long as the night was dark, he would have absolute power to do as he pleased. When the sun came up, he would either have the woman or die.

He took four steps up the dirt road toward his men, making a major decision at each step. By the time he reached them, he had his strategy. He said, “I want two men with rifles to cover the front gate and the north-south fence along the road. Don’t let her slip through and start hitchhiking. If anybody else drives in, kill him.”

He looked at the next two. “You two go down to cover the fences on the ends. Move out.” He waited for a few seconds while his first four men trotted off to take their positions. He turned to the others. “We have three cars. I want two men to each car. Don’t let your car out of your sight. She could be fifty feet away right now, waiting for a chance to sneak in and drive one off. The rest of you, come with me.”

“Where are you going?” asked one of the men.

“To secure the farmhouse.” He walked up the farm road, and four men followed.

Jane crouched among the cornstalks and watched the five men walk past her up the road. There were six still hanging around the cars, so there was no way to slip into one of them. She crawled closer and looked down the farm road toward the highway. The Suburban was still here, too, and it would be impossible to drive past it to the gate.

Her strategy would have to be dictated by what she couldn’t do. She rose to her feet and made her way between the tall cornstalks, following her own trail until she reached the Explorer. She had hoped the men would leave her some way of disabling their cars while they were hunting her on foot, but that was not possible. She had, however, gotten them out of their cars, and some of them had already moved off on foot. Her best strategy now was to try to outrun them.

She climbed into the Explorer, started the engine, and moved ahead. She kept her wheels in the ruts between the rows of corn, and mowed down the stalks as she drove. She couldn’t see far ahead, because the corn was too thick and she couldn’t turn on her headlights, but it didn’t matter. The ruts would keep her straight. She drove for a minute, then another minute, and another. Each time a stalk fell in front of her hood and went under the Explorer, she expected it to be the last. It had seemed to her that she would reach the end of the field by now, but it was much bigger than she had guessed.

She looked into the rearview mirror, and she could see that she had cut a swath through the field, but it only consisted of the two rows of stalks between her tires. The Explorer rode so high that even those stalks weren’t flattened, but tipped toward her at about a forty-degree angle. She could not see anyone following her yet, and she was beginning to be afraid that she wouldn’t be able to see them until they were right behind her.

She kept driving. Her best hope was to choose a course and follow it efficiently and deliberately, without the kind of haste that made noise and drew attention, but was quick enough to keep the men from thinking.

She thought she heard a dog barking in the distance. She rolled her window down, but either it had stopped or she had imagined it. She kept going, and now the swishing sound of the Explorer moving through the corn seemed loud. Suddenly she heard a loud metallic creaking, and the Explorer stopped moving and strained against an invisible resistance.

She got out and pushed her way through the cornstalks to the front of the Explorer. She had reached a fence. There were five thick wires stretched across the grille and bowed outward. She followed them with her eyes, and she could see the first fence post on her right. It was being tugged ahead by the five wires, already strained and tilted at an angle by the pressure. She stepped to it and pulled at the wires to see if she could disconnect them, but they were strung in continuous strands from pole to pole, held there by big staples hammered deep into the wood.