Excerpt
No Other OptionPART 11.1Jonny Maxwell fled north through the Kansas night, his hands steady on the wheel of his second stolen car, following the undulant ribbon of 1-35 over the gentle hills and past the dark farmhouses settled among the even rows of corn. Only the lone headlights of an infrequent passing car broke the midnight darkness.He shook a cigarette from the Marlboro hard pack the car's owner had left on the dashboard. He noticed how his fingertips trembled, and he willed them still. Only when the tremor subsided did he light his cigarette.Jonny's reflection shone on the inner curve of the windshield, the long hard lines of his face lit by the dim-green dashboard lights and the cigarette lighter's red coil. He was pleased with how little exultation or fear he saw on his face.This wasn't like Beirut or Bosnia or Syria or Guatemala or any of the other dirty little hellholes he'd fought in. There'd been others with him then--men he'd thought of as his brothers--ready to call down the high-tech wrath of the Stealth bombers and their precision munitions, or to pull on their balaclavas and take up their weapons to come to his aid.Or to avenge him if he fell.But he'd fallen alone this time, and there was to be no help for him.The chemicals of fatigue and stress flowed through him like drugs and, for a moment, the reflection of his face blurred before hiseyes. He skinned his lips back in a fierce grimace and exhaled sharply, twice, through his nostrils to clear his head. He needed a break.Up ahead, where the road seemed to rise into the night sky, a brightly lit roadside rest stop gleamed between the highway and the dark cornfields. Jonny turned the Cavalier into the parking area and idled slowly forward while he looked the rest stop over. On the far side of the concrete shelter over the rest rooms and vending machines was a parking area for the big interstate trucks. Three semitrailers, their lights off, were parked there. On the passenger car side of the stop there were only two cars besides Jonny's. Parked well away from the lights was a beat up Camry, a man slouched in the tipped-back seat, his head lolling against the window in the abandon of deep sleep. In front of the rest rooms was a black Toyota 4Runner. The driver, smoking a cigarette, sat on the hood and stared up at the night sky.Jonny pulled in next to the 4Runner and shut off his engine. Jonny got out, stretched, and nodded to the other driver.He was a college kid, early twenties, blade thin in black Levi's and a black T-shirt, with a scraggly goatee that barely concealed his weak chin. He nodded back to Jonny and said, "Look at this sky, will you? It's beautiful out here."Jonny regarded him in silence for a moment, long enough to make the boy shift and pluck at the knee of his pants, then looked up at the stars."That it is," Jonny said.He went into the rest room and urinated for a long time. He lingered over the sink and thoroughly washed his hands. When he came back out, the college kid was still there, staring up at the sky. The parking lot was still except for the steady click of cicadas. The boy looked at him and nodded again, avoiding Jonny's steady gaze.Jonny moved close and pointed at the 4Runner's license plates. "You from Minnesota?""I go to school there, St. Thomas. In St. Paul.""I know the area. Nice place. You grow up around there?""No, my family's in Cedar Rapids.""Didn't want to go to the U of I in Iowa City?"The boy rushed to laugh. "No. Too close to home.""Yeah, I remember thinking the same thing.""You go to U of I?""No." Jonny smiled and looked around the parking lot. The Camry driver was still lolled back asleep in his seat, the car halfobscured by shadows. There was no sound or movement from the trucker's side of the rest stop. "I went to UCLA.""How'd you like Los Angeles?""Never been.""I thought you said ...""It was the Tegucigalpa campus of UCLA. In Honduras. You know what that means, UCLA? Unilaterally Controlled Latin Assets."Jonny interrupted the boy's puzzled look when he pointed at the 4Runner's side panel. "Somebody really keyed your door here. Messed your paint job all up.""What?" The boy slid off the hood and stepped between the two cars. "Where?"Jonny pointed low on the rear passenger door. "Right there.""I don't see anything ..."When the boy bent low to examine the side panel, Jonny clamped the boy's head, one hand over his mouth and the other at the back of his head. He snapped the boy's head back and then sharply over, twisting the struggling student around faceup. The boy's legs buckled and the whole weight of his body centered at the base of his neck when Jonny levered the thin neck into the crook of his arm. Jonny jerked sharply upward, once, and heard the dull wet pop of the neck breaking. He turned the limp head and extended it twice to ensure the neck was broken and the spinal cord hyperextended. The boy flopped, twitched, and was done. The black jeans darkened with urine as the bladder let go. Jonny eased the body down between the two cars. He looked over the roof of the 4Runner and slowly scanned the rest stop. The sleeping man in the Camry still slept. There was no one out on the trucker's side and no one in the rest rooms.He opened the 4Runner's rear door and wedged the limp body into the backseat. There was a faded green cotton sleeping bag wadded on the floor, and he pulled it over the body up to the neck, as though the boy were sleeping. Jonny pursed his lips, then reached out and palmed shut the boy's eyes. Then he got into the driver's seat, turned the keys hanging in the ignition, and drove slowly out of the rest stop.Copyright © 2001 by Marcus Wynne