Inherent Chaos by Rogue Phoenix Press

Author:Rogue Phoenix Press
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rogue Phoenix Press

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A Real Blast

Treading through thigh-high cord and wire grass while utilizing the sporadically spaced Palmetto for bracing, Drake struggled to remain within reaching distance with his subordinate, whose gait varied from graceful and steady to clumsily lumbering while blazing a weaving path down the slope.

They spotted the light blue Chevy van from the top of the hill, pointed north on a narrow gravel path just a stone’s toss away. While Deke insisted they circle to the right, in order to better utilize a thick growth of arrowwood viburnum at the bottom of the slope and just off to the back right side of the van, Drake argued the shortage of time.

Crouching less than thirty yards from the van, its dark tinted windows giving no clue to the passenger’s position or possible visual in regard to theirs, Deke’s breathing was a moist rasp, like an overheating radiator spewing steam from a loosened cap. His chalky flesh gleaming from fresh sweat, he clutched the detonator in his left hand and the revolver in his right, the constant kneeling slowly opening the wound at his chest until Drake feared he might soon eviscerate himself with the next squat. A quick glance of his watch, at least his tenth such peek since they’d departed the station, gave them three minutes and eight seconds.

“Just…cover me, boss, if the lead starts…to fly. If I…can’t access…the back door…I’m planning on crawling…underneath.”

Momentarily balancing the revolver atop his bent knee, Deke Carpenter offered a pale, shaking hand. Drake took it, squeezing it ever-so-gently, his squinted eyes gleaming with fresh moisture. In that moment, he wished like hell he’d known the man longer and better.

“You can bet your ass everyone will know what you did here today.”

Deke, his bushy mustache as warped as the smile creasing his thin face, winked playfully.

“Long as…my ex knows. Lydia always claimed…my coldness and…selfishness would be…my undoing. She…mistook my…aloofness as…uncaring. Well, if only…she could see me now.”

With exactly two-minutes and twenty-one seconds remaining until time ran out on proving his ex-spouse wrong, Deke Carpenter sprouted invisible wings and practically flew down that hill.

At exactly the one-minute point, about the same time the Fab Four’s lengthy chorus of ‘na na-na-na-na…Hey Jude’ led to the song’s conclusion, Drake watched Deke break from the overgrowth of shrubbery and fast-walk toward the back of the van in a slight crouch, the Smith & Wesson’s blue-steel barrel aimed ahead of outstretched arms.

A sharp crack, at first unidentifiable as a gunshot, was followed two seconds later by another, each sounding strangely distant, as if originating miles away. It was in the aftermath of the second that Drake noticed the dramatic change in Deke’s gait, his left leg being dragged along as if suddenly paralyzed. A third retort and Deke, stumbling forward with less than ten yards between himself and the van, began to fire back with one, two, three shots in rapid succession.

Either crouched or standing upright, Drake was unable to spot a shooter due to the levitated angle and took off in a shambling sprint just as the sound of tires spitting gravel drowned out all else.

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