“Confessions” Serial, Tech Wars 25
Andy looked at Oscar in disbelief. He had thrown the knife and saved both him and Sally from almost certain death. But what was in it for him?
Before Andy could articulate anything, Oscar let out a long breath. “My God, what have I done?”
Andy found his voice. “Well, for a start, you’ve saved our lives and killed a seriously bad man!”
Oscar nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess so … you see I’ve always had a hobby of making throwing knives … and throwing them at targets, never at people.”
Andy frowned. “I get that but why should you use your knife on one of your own?”
Oscar looked at Andy astounded. “Oh, I get it. You think I’m part of this gang?”
Sally spoke for the first time. Her voice was a little unsteady. “It sure crossed our minds.”
“No, no, I’ve been taken for a ride. I thought they were bringing me to a genuine investment opportunity. When they broke into the safe, I suddenly realized that this whole deal wasn’t kosher – which is why I certainly wasn’t going to let them kill you.”
Andy shrugged. “OK, time for a postmortem later. Let’s get back to the SWAT guys. They’ll look into what happened here and they’ll want to question you.”
Oscar nodded. “Of course. I’ve never been involved in anything like this before. I’m still a bit shaky from having killed a guy, even if he was a crook.”
Andy painfully dragged himself off the ground. “Understood …” He turned to Sally, “How’re you doing, Sal?”
She grimaced. “I’ll be fine. Just need to get my arm cleaned up. A couple of stiff Bourbons wouldn’t hurt either.
The three of them made their way back towards the ranch house. Some of the police were already looking for the two men that had escaped from their clutches, and they quickly encountered the trio. The first cop raised his gun and pointed it at Andy. The big man clearly posed a greater threat than the older guy and the woman.
“Face down on the ground. Hands behind your backs.”
Andy glanced at the other two and nodded. They all dropped to the ground as ordered, putting their arms behind their backs as two other cops stepped forward and cuffed them. Andy looked up at them. “Just want to tell you that the lady and I were in the car that followed your team here. We set this whole thing up in order to break this cabal. This guy …” he nodded towards Oscar, “was with them but claims that he was an innocent potential buyer of the property. In fact, he saved us.”
The lead cop with the gun looked puzzled. “How come?”
“There’s a body lying up there. He would probably have killed us but he took him out with a knife. You guys’ll need to sort that out.”
Oscar spoke up. “Officer, I was the person that was grabbed by one of the baddies and hustled out of the ranch house. I’m happy to tell you anything I know about these people. Can you take these cuffs off us?”
The cop shook his head. “Let’s get you back to the captain in charge. He can sort out who’s who around here.”
The trio were helped to their feet and escorted back to the ranch house where the rest of the gangsters were already cuffed and being placed in the van ready for transportation back to the nearest police station.
The captain in charge of the SWAT team had briefly met Sally and Andy before setting off for the ranch house. They were quickly uncuffed, but Oscar was kept shackled until he could be interrogated.
As Sally and Andy prepared to return to their car, Sally stepped up to Oscar. “I’d just like to thank you for saving us and I hope that the police quickly sort things out with you.”
Oscar smiled. “Glad I was there to stop him. Least I could do after being conned into this fiasco.”
Sally and Andy left for their vehicle. They had only gone a couple yards before Andy looked at her dismayed. “Jeez, I forgot your arm. We must go back; they’ll probably have a paramedic with them.”
Sally shook her head vehemently. “No, I’m fine, really. The shot only grazed my arm. I’ll get it cleaned up when we get back to civilization.”
“You sure?”
“Sure.”
Arm in arm, they continued on the path to their car.
• • •
Once back in Los Cruces, Jauncey made up for his disappointment (at being left out of the team waiting at the ranch house for the baddies to arrive) by looking for the best Mexican food in town. Enquiries led him to La Nueva Casita Cafe, a small and intimate family restaurant. After a magnificent meal of chile con queso starters, fajita tacos with borracho beans and excellent tortillas as a main, rounded off with a traditional dessert of sopaipillas, all washed down by a good California wine, Jauncey felt less aggrieved. The police had been reluctant to allow any civilians to be part of the trap but had agreed to Sally and Andy remaining in the background because of their work in setting up the sting.
As Jauncey rounded off his meal with coffee and a honey-anise liqueur called Xtabentún from Yucatan, his cell phone rang. It was Andy. “Hey man, we’re back in town. Where are you?”
Jauncey gave him directions. Ten minutes later the couple appeared and pronounced themselves starving. Jauncey, whose knowledge of many different cuisines, including Mexican, was encyclopedic, led them through a magnificent meal. In between mouthfuls they recounted their adventures of the day. Sally held up her arm which had now been bandaged in a local clinic. “Just to show that we were really in the thick of things.”
Jauncey shook his head in despair. “I thought you guys were meant to be in the background, not fighting it out with the Internet mafia?”
Andy chuckled. “Long story. We kinda bumped into them.”
As they spoke, a waiter arrived with their main course. Both Andy and Sally were still hungry and immediately dug into their food. Jauncey looked on amused. “Anyway, seems like you both worked up an appetite.”
“Nothing like having a gun point at you for stimulating the taste buds,” Sally commented. “I just hope that we’ve broken the back of the cabal … just wish we could’ve captured the boss man.”
“Hmmm,” Andy said between mouthfuls. “I’m not convinced about that Oscar guy. I think we need to do a little more digging in that direction.”
“Surely he wouldn’t kill his own man?”
Andy shrugged. If you’re the Mister Big of the group and about to be captured, one of his men could be … expendable!”
Jauncey chuckled. “Sounds like you’ve got quite a story to tell me.”
An ExoTech Ltd shareholder, Chris is currently authoring two of the four books to be published the day ExoBrain launches and has helped to create ExoBrain’s introductory video to the Confidential Technical Briefing. Chris has spent his working life in the film and television industry, starting with BBC Television in London, then ATV in Birmingham becoming, at the time, the youngest Studio Manager in Britain.
Later, in South Africa, he wrote and directed film and TV commercials, having four South African entries at the Cannes Advertising Festival. After a number of years of writing and directing or producing documentaries (eight international awards) and corporate videos, he concentrated on writing feature film screenplays (five screened) and television series (seven screened). He has a novel, ”Pursuit of Treachery,” with a literary agent and is currently obtaining finance for an action adventure feature film he has written and is co-producing. He is a published poet and has given many readings.