Triple Threat

would’ve gotten
some
press if I’d confessed. But you know reporters—they’d get tired of the story after a couple days. Two hundred dead folk? Hell, we’ll be on CNN for weeks. You can’t
buy
publicity like that.”
    Dance pushed back from the table and, without a word, stepped outside.
    # # #
    Michael O’Neil sprinted past ghosts.
    The Monterey area is a place where apparitions from the past are ever present.
    The Ohlone Native Americans, the Spanish, the railroad barons, the commercial fisherman… all gone.
    And the soldiers, too, who’d inhabited Fort Ord and the other military facilities that once dotted the Monterey Peninsula and defined the economy and the culture.
    Gasping and sweating despite the chill and mist, O’Neil jogged past the remnants of barracks and classrooms and training facilities, some intact, some sagging, some collapsed.
    Past vehicle pool parking lots, supply huts, rifle ranges, parade grounds.
    Past signs that featured faded skulls and crossed bones and pink explosions.
    UXO…
    The suspect wove through the area desperately and the chase was exhausting. The land had been bulldozed flat in the 1930s and forties for the construction of the base but the dunes had reclaimed much of the landscape, rippled mounds of blond sand, some of them four stories high.
    The perp made his way through these valleys in a panicked run, falling often, as did O’Neil because of the dicey traction—and the fast turns and stop-and-go sprinting when what looked like a potential explosives stash loomed.
    O’Neil debated about parking a slug in the man’s leg, though that’s technically a no-no. Besides, O’Neil couldn’t afford to miss and kill him.
    The suspect chugged along, gasping, red-faced, the deadly backpack over his shoulder bouncing.
    Finally, O’Neil heard the thud thud thud of rotors moving in.
    He reflected that a chopper was the only smart way to pursue somebody through an area like this, even if it wasn’t technically a minefield. The birds wouldn’t trip the explosives, as long as they hovered.
    And what were the odds that he himself would detonate some ordnance, mangling his legs?
    What about the kids then?
    What about his possible life with Kathryn Dance?
    He decided that those questions were pointless. This was military ordnance. He’d end up not an amputee but a mass of red jelly.
    The chopper moved closer. God, they were loud. He’d forgotten that.
    The suspect stopped, glanced back and then turned right, disappearing fast behind a dune.
    Was it a trap? O’Neil started forward slowly. But he couldn’t see clearly. The chopper was raising a turbulent cloud of dust and sand. O’Neil waved it back. He pointed his weapon ahead of him and began to approach the valley down which the perp had disappeared.
    The helicopter hovered closer yet. The pilot apparently hadn’t seen O’Neil’s hand gestures. The sandstorm grew more fierce. Some completely indiscernible words rattled from a loudspeaker.
    “Back, back!” O’Neil called, uselessly.
    Then, in front of him, he noticed what seemed to be a person’s form, indistinct in the miasma of dust and sand. The figure was moving in.
    Blinking, trying to clear his eyes, he aimed his pistol. “Freeze!”
    Putting some pressure on the trigger. The gun was double-action now and it would take a bit of poundage to fire the first round.
    Shoot, he told himself.
    But there was too much dust to be sure this was in fact the perp. What if it was a hostage or a lost hiker?
    He crouched and staggered forward.
    Damn chopper! Grit clotted his mouth.
    Which was when a second silhouette, smaller, detached from the first and seemed to fly through the gauzy air toward him.
    What was—?
    The blue backpack struck him in the face. He fell backward, tumbling to the ground, the bag resting beside his legs. Choking on the sand, Michael O’Neil thought how ironic it was that he’d survived a UXO field only to be blown to pieces with a bomb the perp had brought with him.
    # # #
    The Bankers’ Association holiday party was underway. It had started, as they always did, a little early. Who wanted to deny loans or take care of the massive paperwork of approved ones when the joy of the season beckoned?
    Carol and Hal were greeting the CCCBA members at the door, showing them where to hang coats, giving them gift bags and making sure the bar and snacks were in good supply.
    The place did look magical. She’d opted to close the curtains—on a nice summer