The Drifter (Peter Ash #1)(78)

The latch clicked as the door opened at his head. “Slide yourself out of the sleeping bag and onto the ground. Hands stay out and away.”

The man wasn’t going to be provoked. He was too cool, too experienced. So Peter did as he was told, scootching awkwardly out in his T-shirt and jeans to stand barefoot on the cold cracked asphalt amid skittering leaves. Peter could feel the man behind him, angling just out of reach.

A second man stood in front of him, a thoughtful five steps away, holding a gun, which took away any significant options an unarmed and barefoot man might have. Peter had never seen him before. He wore a black canvas barn coat that made him fade into the darkness of the early morning. The only parts of him that were truly visible were his face, weatherworn and empty as a crater, and a pale hand holding a long-barreled target pistol like it was machined for the task.

“Now what?” asked Peter.

A long arm flashed fast as a whip around his neck from behind and clamped tight over his windpipe. The static flared.

“Just relax, Peter. This won’t take long.”

Lipsky’s voice was warm in his ear as the tall detective pulled Peter close, the fist of the choking arm locked tight inside the crook of the opposing elbow. The old illegal police choke hold blocked the blood flow to the brain and would knock you out in as little as ten seconds. Two or three minutes and it could kill you.

Peter fought back, the white sparks arcing high. He stomped Lipsky’s foot hard, then thrashed to the side to get the other man off-balance. He twisted and kicked and bucked, but Lipsky was fit and well trained and stronger than he looked. The former Ranger had the hold locked in place.

Peter fought, but his time was running out. He fought until the white sparks rose up to fill him completely.

He fought until the world turned to black.





36





Peter


He woke sitting in a chair. He kept his eyes closed, trying to learn whatever else he could.

His wrists were bound tight to the chair’s arms, his ankles tied to the chair’s legs. His bare feet were cold on a hard, dusty floor. He had a headache and a nasty taste in his mouth, his neck and throat were sore as hell, and he was absurdly glad to be alive.

He smelled the deep chemical funk of the fuel oil and knew he was in the warehouse. He had to believe that Lewis was still out there, watching. The plan wouldn’t change for Lewis. The fail-safe would still be in place. That made it slightly easier to be tied to a chair.

He heard a man talking to himself in a singsong voice. “On behalf of the American people. We the people. We shall rise.” The voice was familiar.

Then the same voice, softer, tinny, and distant, maybe coming from a small speaker. “We the people are making a statement with our actions today. A statement that the American people are still the rulers of our own nation. Not the elites who would pervert our laws for their own ends.” He knew that voice.

Then a different voice. “I know you’re awake, Peter.” Lipsky.

Peter opened his eyes.

He was in the big warehouse room with the swept floors behind the locked security door. The big iron door to the veterans’ center was closed. Peter was relieved to see the bags of fertilizer still stacked on their pallets.

His chair sat behind the long folding banquet table. The table held a plastic bin with a jumble of electrical parts and long coils of flexible plastic electrical conduit joined to plastic electrical boxes, with pairs of wires showing at each end. Peter didn’t need to count them. He knew there were ten, one for each white plastic drum of oil. Lipsky stood on the far side of the table.

Beside Lipsky was a small portable video camera on a tripod staring at him with its dark unblinking lens.

The white static rose up abruptly then, his chest tight, all those brick walls closing in, wrists and ankles tied with yellow plastic cuffs that kept him trapped here, inside. Peter closed his eyes again and shoved down the static. He pulled in one shallow, ragged breath, let it out. Then another, and another, breathe in, breathe out, trying to keep his heart from climbing into his throat, the white static from rising up until his mind held only the frantic need to run, to escape, to stand free under the open sky.

“I thought you were tougher than this, Peter.” Lipsky’s voice was calm. “It was just a choke hold. And a little something from the police evidence locker to keep you out for a few hours.”

Breathe in. Breathe out. Push it down. Think about that Navy shrink who saw the automatic panic, who walked him out to that park bench. Who told him to develop a relationship with the static. This was his life. It was up to him how he would live it.

Make friends with the static. Breathe in, breathe out.

Hello, old friend. Hello. Now fuck off, would you? I have work to do.

Lipsky’s calm, kind voice, coming closer. “Maybe it’s the confined space? I could see it when you sat in the back of that police car, the day we met. Must be pretty rough.”

Breathe in, breathe out. Peter opened his eyes to see Lipsky standing beside him now. He thought again of Lewis, somewhere outside. Waiting.

“Does this mean I’m not getting the new glass for my truck?”

An explosion of pain to the ribs, Lipsky hitting him hard.

“Ow, shit,” said Peter, coughing.

“Where’s my C-4?” Lipsky’s voice still calm and kind.