The Adamas Blueprint

CHAPTER 8

As he heard Barnett and Kaplan, or whoever they were, leave the bedroom, Kevin felt the air rush from his lungs. He hadn’t even realized he had been holding his breath. Now he was breathing in huge gulps. His hiding place under the pile of laundry in the bedroom closet was tenuous at best. They would be back as soon as they realized he wasn’t anywhere in the apartment complex. He needed to move.

His hands were shaking as he eased open the closet door. These guys were impersonating police officers and spoke about killing him as if it were nothing more than an inconvenience. Once the lawnmower had stopped, he’d been able to hear everything they said in the bathroom.

When Detective Robley said that he had never heard of Barnett and Kaplan, Kevin had put the phone down without another word, knowing he’d never be able to convince Robley of his situation before the two impostors got suspicious. He also turned off the ringer, so the other line with Erica wouldn’t suddenly start ringing the phone. But in his hurry he’d forgotten about the answering machine. Now Erica might be in just as much danger.

The conversation with Robley made everything suddenly click. There was the misplaced remote control and the incorrectly filed folders. At first glance, those inconsistencies were nothing more than a curiosity. Given what just happened, though, the conclusion was obvious. Someone had been in his apartment last night. They had been very careful, but not perfect.

But the real clincher was Kaplan’s off-hand question about NV117. Kevin had never mentioned to Barnett and Kaplan that the experiment involved superconductivity. He was sure of it. Meaning the phone was tapped and they had heard him talking about it on the phone with Erica. That’s why they had come now. The phone call to the police. They had heard it and were afraid he’d tell them about the message from Ward. And because the phone was tapped, they almost certainly knew who Erica was and where she lived.

When Kevin realized Barnett and Kaplan’s deception, his choices became limited. Overpowering them was out of the question, not when one of them looked liked a linebacker for the Cowboys. And if they had guns, which Kevin was almost sure of, running wouldn’t have done much good either. That’s why he had opened the bathroom window, pushed the button locking the bathroom door, and closed it before hiding in the closet. Sneaking out was the only way. Luckily, the trick seemed to have worked. For now.

Kevin crept out of the closet. The apartment was quiet. He kept his steps soft as he moved into the living room.

As Barnett had ordered, Kaplan had taken Kevin’s wallet and keys. Kevin opened the right desk drawer and flipped through the files he kept in there. Even though he was meticulous with his research files, his personal files were a mess. He didn’t even label all of them. His stomach dropped when he didn’t find what he was looking for on the first pass. As he more carefully went through the files a second time, his hands shook, and several times he glanced at the door. Finally, he found it in the tenth file and breathed a sigh of relief. The valet key he had gotten with the car, but never used.

He snatched the key from the file and ran to the door. He poked his head through. No one was in sight. There was no choice. He had to go for it.

Kevin sprinted to the Mustang, all the while expecting a bullet in the back. He crammed the key into the door, his head swiveling as he quietly opened it. Still no sign of them. He got in and kept his head down as he eased the door shut.

He jammed the key into the ignition and turned it. The Mustang wheezed and coughed, struggling to turn over. It cranked and cranked, but the engine wouldn’t catch. Shit! He let go and tried again. Same result.

“Not now,” he muttered to himself, glancing in the rearview mirror. He opened the window to let out some of the stifling heat. “Come on. Come on.”

He turned the key again.

To the left of the apartment complex entrance, Lobec saw no sign of Hamilton. It was unlikely their target had scaled one of the ten-foot high fences encircling the apartment property. The chain link was topped with razor wire to keep out intruders. That left the front gate as the only route out of the complex.

Lobec returned to the gate, where Bern was waiting.

“I assume there was no sign of him,” Lobec said.

“No. But there’s no way we wouldn’t have seen him. The street’s clear, and there’s nowhere to hide.”

“It’s the same on my side. He must still be in the complex.”

“You want me to wait here in case he tries to get out?” Bern said.

“No, we need to find him immediately. He might try to call someone. We’ll make one pass through the complex. If we can’t find him, we must assume that he found refuge with a neighbor.”

Lobec and Bern skirted the edges of the complex, each taking a side looking under bushes, behind cars, and inside shadowed alcoves. Both of the pool areas were crowded with sun-worshippers. Lobec kept his distance, not wanting to present a face that residents might remember should he have to shoot Hamilton. No sign of their target. As he finished at the last courtyard, the one directly outside Hamilton’s apartment, Bern came towards him.

“No luck. I’ve searched every inch of this place between here and the entrance. If he’s here, I don’t…”

Lobec raised his hand, cutting Bern off. Somewhere nearby an engine was turning over, struggling to start. It sounded like the rumble of a V8 engine. It seemed to catch and roar to life, but then abruptly died. He ran toward the end of the building and Bern followed.

As he rounded the corner, he saw the Mustang at the far end of the lot. Someone was inside. Lobec started running toward it.

He motioned for Bern to get the car and pulled the SIG Sauer from his jacket.

Kevin nervously searched the parking lot as he let the engine pause before trying again. He was just about to reach for the key when he caught motion out of the corner of his eye. To his right he saw a man sprinting from the opposite side of the parking lot. His hand fumbled for the ignition. The engine had almost started the last time, and it looked like he’d only get one more chance. He frantically turned the key.

The engine caught on the first crank. Kevin mashed his foot on the accelerator, but he was now surging with adrenaline and was almost unaware of how fast he released the clutch. The car lurched forward, coughed, and then roared back to life, the needle on the tachometer leaping toward the redline. The rear wheels emitted an ear-piercing screech, and Kevin could smell the tires burning on the hot cement.

He twirled the steering wheel to the left, the Mustang gyrating wildly on the spinning wheel. Kevin tried to get it headed in the direction of the apartment complex exit. As he completed the 180 degree turn, he quickly glanced out of the window.

The man, who he now recognized as the fake officer calling himself Barnett, stopped only fifty yards away and raised his arm, pointing it at Kevin. Kevin realized what was happening almost too late and ducked down as the passenger’s window disintegrated. He yelled “Shit!” and raised his arm to shield himself from the bits of glass ricocheting around the car’s interior. He heard another bullet smash the driver’s side mirror and others pepper the door. The tires finally gripped the pavement, and the Mustang shot past the end of the building and out of Barnett’s sight.

Kevin saw the front gate growing quickly and only then remembered he would need to stop and wait for its sensor to detect the car’s weight before opening. As the Mustang skidded to a halt within inches of the gate, he looked in the mirror. Barnett came to a stop 200 yards back and a large Pontiac rounded the corner. It stopped barely long enough to let Barnett yank the door open and jump in. The car leapt towards him and would close the distance in seconds.

Kevin gunned the engine as the gate crawled along its track, still only three-quarters open. It had always seemed slow, but now the wait was agonizing. He looked in the mirror again. His pursuers were now only 100 yards back. He couldn’t wait.

The engine roared as the Mustang sprang forward, and Kevin winced as he heard the tearing of metal from the passenger side, the mirror ripped from its mounting. For a second the car seemed to be hung up on something, as if a piece of metal was caught on the gate, but then whatever it was tore loose and he was free. Turning right onto Gulfton, Kevin floored it.

As he rocketed past a puttering Honda, he suddenly realized that he had no idea where he was going. He knew he had to get to the police, but until this moment, it had never crossed his mind that he didn’t actually know the location of a police station. The only contact he’d had with the police was a few tickets, but he’d always paid them through the mail. His only hope was to get caught in a speed trap. He’d cheerfully accept another citation if they would stop him.

He was coming up on Chimney Rock. The Pontiac was lagging behind, but not as much as Kevin had hoped. Apparently, it had almost as much power as the Mustang’s V8, and the driver was putting it to good use.

Kevin was about to randomly pick a direction when a sign caught his eye. It advertised the wholesome atmosphere at Houston Baptist University. Suddenly Kevin realized that he did know the location of a police station. The campus police station at South Texas University. At the rate he was going, he could be there in ten minutes. And the quickest way was to get on the Southwest Freeway. Which meant turning left onto Chimney Rock.

He bothered to slow long enough to time his entrance into the heavy cross traffic. Then he saw an opening and punched the accelerator. The Mustang blasted through the stop sign and swerved sickeningly, missing the front of a pickup by inches. He proceeded to weave past cars, honking the horn whenever someone blocked the way.

The Pontiac tried the same maneuver, but it sideswiped a UPS truck, which knocked the battered car into the median. Kevin was elated until he saw the Pontiac rebound off the median and continue in his direction.

Luckily, there were no lights until the freeway feeder road, and Kevin was able to maintain the separation between him and the Pontiac. Then he saw the freeway rising ahead, and a sign saying “US 59” flashed by. Once he was on the freeway, he’d be able to open it up and maybe even lose the Pontiac.

During Kevin’s race to school on the same route the day before, the adrenaline had flowed, but now it was a tidal wave pounding through his system. He had always wanted to go to one of those driving schools, the ones where you learn how to slide through a controlled skid or accelerate out of decreasing radius turns without plastering the car on whatever unfortunate objects were around you. He’d even fantasized about being in a car chase just like this one, thinking it would be a blast to tear through the streets at eighty miles an hour with another car hot on his trail. But the reality was nothing like his fantasy; all he felt now was sheer terror.

His fear inched up a notch when he saw the traffic backed up at the feeder road stoplight. He’d be stopped for thirty seconds, easily long enough for the thugs following him to run up and drag him from the car, probably flashing badges all the way.

There was an entrance into a strip mall on his right. It was a new Wal-Mart, and Kevin was sure it had an outlet onto the feeder road. He wrenched the wheel to the right and flew into and over the steeply inclined parking lot entrance, mashing the nose of the Mustang in the process.

After speeding down the side of the Wal-Mart, he rounded the corner and almost ran down an employee wheeling an empty shopping cart toward the store front. The startled employee jumped back, pushing the cart directly into the Mustang’s path. The car’s nose hit it low, tossing the cart into the right half of the Mustang’s windshield, creating a maze of cracks in the safety glass.

Kevin turned left and bypassed the crowded store entrance, racing across the empty fringes of the lot and struggling to see through the crazed windshield. He wiped sweat from his forehead, wishing he could use the air conditioner but not wanting to sap any power from the engine. Not that the air conditioner would do much good with the shattered passenger side window.

He took another look in his one remaining mirror. The Pontiac was still there, now a mere seventy-five yards behind. Kevin aimed at the closest exit.

Then Kevin saw the freeway entrance ramp he had taken yesterday. It was a hundred yards to his left. The only problem was the feeder road was one way, with two lanes of dense traffic coming towards him. To get on the freeway on this entrance, he’d have to head into the oncoming traffic and make a 180 degree turn to get onto the ramp. With the cars racing along the feeder at 60 miles an hour, he’d never make it without crashing into another car. He’d just have to make it to the next freeway entrance.

He took the feeder road toward the Loop, the beltway encircling Houston. To his horror, he saw orange cones diverting traffic away from the freeway onto a temporary asphalt macadam. Houston’s ubiquitous construction strikes again, he thought. The macadam led to an intersection which merged into Westpark. The makeshift light was green, and Kevin made a tight left to keep heading in the direction of downtown Houston.

He thought about staying on Westpark the whole way and decided against it. Too many lights. He went under the Loop and saw that the feeder road was blocked here as well. He’d have to go up to Newcastle, which was the first road that would lead back to the freeway. He’d been on it just three days before and hoped it was still open.

Kevin looked in the rear view mirror. The Pontiac was now only fifty yards behind him. The traffic was thinning out. Kevin floored it and accelerated up an overpass rising above several railroad tracks. By the time he reached the top, the distance between the two cars had opened to 100 yards.

As he crested the hill, the Mustang coughed. Kevin ignored the old car’s wheeze. From his vantage point on the overpass, he could see Newcastle a quarter mile ahead. Fifteen feet to the right of the Newcastle-Westpark intersection was a railroad crossing which cut across Newcastle. The signal began to flash, but the gates were still up. Below and to the right of the overpass, he could see a train slowly moving in the same direction, parallel to Westpark, its engine a few hundred yards from the crossing. To the left, Newcastle headed toward the freeway. Just as he thought, it was clear. In thirty seconds he’d be on the Southwest Freeway and might be able to put some distance between him and the Pontiac.

The Mustang coughed again. Kevin looked at the hood. No steam or smoke. It coughed again. In seconds the Mustang was sputtering, as if trying to catch its breath, the power falling off. Kevin glanced at the instrument cluster to see if the engine had overheated in the hot summer air. He gasped when he saw the gauges.

The trip odometer read 295 miles. The sputtering made sense now. The fuel tank was empty.

In his desperation to escape, he had forgotten that he’d driven home without filling up. Now he’d be lucky to make it to the freeway before the car lurched to a stop. He needed to get something between him and the Pontiac.

A ear-ringing blast startled Kevin. The train, which was 100 yards behind the Mustang, blew its air horn twice more as it approached the crossing. Kevin suddenly realized what he had to do and thought for a moment that he was crazy for deciding to do it so quickly.

The gates on the right were lowering. The barriers were long, long enough to stretch across the two lanes on either side of the road, but they left a hole about fifteen feet wide. If a car was angled correctly, it could make it through.

The Mustang continued to sputter. Luckily, the light ahead was green, letting the traffic on Westpark through. There were no cars between Kevin and the intersection. He didn’t want to tip his hand until the last possible second, so he drove as though he were going past Newcastle. Behind him, he could see the Pontiac closing the gap. The train was only a fifty yards behind him. He couldn’t be sure, but the distance looked long enough for what he planned. It didn’t really matter. He had no other options.

Just before he reached the intersection, Kevin hit the brakes and wrenched the wheel to the right. The Mustang went into a four-wheel drift with its nose pointed at the crossing. For a moment, he could see the surprised expressions on Kaplan and Barnett’s faces as the Pontiac steered to avoid hitting him. Kevin floored it, praying that there was enough gas left to get him across the tracks.

The sputtering got more violent, but the car responded, squirting through the gap in the barriers. The looming train filled the windshield, and the blast of the air horn was deafening.

Heading at an angle across the tracks instead of perpendicular to them, the Mustang careered toward the right hand curb and glanced off. Kevin was thrown against the seatbelt with the impact. Now hobbled, the Mustang limped forward, still scraping the curb. Kevin coaxed it a hundred more feet before the engine died. It took Kevin a second to realize he hadn’t been broadsided by the locomotive.

He didn’t spend time celebrating. He turned the key, hoping there were a few drops of fuel left. It was no use.

Kevin scrambled out of the car and quickly surveyed his surroundings, pausing for only a second to appraise the damage to his faithful car. It was pitiful. The broken mirrors, the crazed windshield, the bullet holes, the wheel skewed from the impact with the curb. He didn’t want to know what the passenger side looked like. He quickly put it into perspective though. Better it than me, he thought and then searched the street for a hiding place.

Kevin wasn’t heartened by what he saw. On both sides of the street, a high chain-link fence with barbed wire stretched as far as he could see before the end of the road curved out of sight a quarter mile ahead. On the left, the fence protected a electrical transformer station. On the right, construction equipment lay dormant. A sign on the fence said “Stratford Pointe — An apartment community for the future.”

He looked down the track in the direction the train was coming from. A caboose was visible in the distance. It would be there in less than a minute. They’d catch him before he could run to the next street.

Kevin looked at the low-slung train cars piled high with lumber. Through the gaps he could see his pursuers searching for him. Then he saw something which caught his attention. It looked like his best chance. He began running away from the crossing, and angled across the street, using the traffic waiting at the signal to stay out of sight of the other side. When he was sure Barnett and Kaplan could no longer see him, he headed back toward the tracks.

In front of the crossing, at the back of the line of waiting traffic, a pearl black pickup with tinted windows was stopped. Its back window and bumper were festooned with stickers with the familiar maroon and white colors of Texas A&M. Many of them said “Texas A&M Aggies” or “Gig ‘em Aggies.” Kevin had seen bumper stickers that said, “My daughter and my money go to Texas A&M,” but he’d never seen the one on the truck’s bumper that said, “I did your daughter and spent your money at Texas A&M.”

He ran up to passenger’s door, hoping that it might be less threatening in this era of carjackings, and knocked on the window. The electric window lowered to reveal a man around his age in a tank top and jeans. A gun rack was mounted on the back window, but it held only an umbrella.

“You got a problem, bud?” the man said.

“My damn car broke down,” Kevin said between gulps of air, “and I was wondering if you could give a fellow Ag some help.” He wiggled his class ring toward the man.

The man looked at the ring and a smile broke across his face. “I’ll always help another Ag in trouble. And today’s your lucky day. My dad owns a garage. Maybe I can take a look at it and see if we can’t get it fixed. Name’s Bob Tinan.” Bob leaned over to extend his hand through the window, and Kevin took it.

“Kevin Hamilton.” Through the windshield, he could see the approaching caboose thirty seconds away. “Thanks, Bob, but I know what’s wrong with it. It’s the head gasket.” Kevin jerked his thumb toward the Mustang. “It was bound to happen sometime. The only way it’s going to move now is behind a tow truck.”

Bob looked at the heavily damaged car 100 yards behind them and turned back to Kevin. “Hell, you’re probably right. No sense messin’ it up more than it already is. Come on in. There’s a gas station a couple blocks from here.

As Kevin climbed in and closed the door, the caboose passed, and he could see the Pontiac shoot under the opening gates.

“He’s in a hell of a hurry,” Bob said. Kevin bent over, pretending to tie his shoes.

“What year did you graduate, Bob?”

Bob told him and drove toward the intersection. Kevin looked back towards his car. Barnett and Kaplan were already out of the Pontiac and slowly approached the immobile vehicle, their guns discreetly held at their sides. As the pickup turned right onto Westpark and out of sight, they still didn’t realize that Kevin was gone.