American Lease (A Dylan Cold Novel Book 1) (11 page)

The orchard was silent as Dylan’s mind raced.
Were the two men who assaulted him in the gas station parking lot also FBI agents? Was the National Security mandate so broad that they were allowed to beat, almost to death, two old women?

Maybe the two men weren’t with Agent Smith. If he had heard the 9-1-1 call on a scanner or the local police had passed it on to him, it would make sense that he was here. It would also make sense for him to think Dylan was harassing Ms. Holt. Yet again, things with Dylan weren’t as they appeared. 

When Dylan finally spoke the words came out in a rush. “There are two guys with guns a couple of rows over. I think they are after Ms. Holt.”

Agent Smith looked to the right before squatting to look under the thick canopy of leaves. His actions were slow and confident.

“What did they look like?” he finally asked Dylan.

“Black suits, white shirts, black ties. Not exactly apple-picking attire.”

Abbey supported Dylan’s story: “He’s telling the truth. I saw the men, and the guns.”

The agent seemed lost.

“Unless they’re with you, we should get out of here. Two on one isn’t my idea of good odds.” Dylan was hoping the agent would escort them out of the orchard and off to safety.

Dylan heard a click that sounded exactly like a gun being cocked.

“You boys can go off wherever you’d like. The young lady is going to stay here and have a nice old chat.” One of the suits emerged from the trees behind Agent Smith, his gun aimed squarely at Smith’s back. The voice that spoke was behind Dylan; he assumed another gun was trained on his back.

Dylan glanced over at Abbey, her face washed with terror. It was reasonable to believe that this was the first time she had ever had a gun pointed at her. He hoped that it was not something she would have to get used to.

The agent did not speak or move. Dylan hoped that he would take charge and respond. Surely a federal agent had been trained or at least read about the best way to deal with a potential hostage situation.

“Go on,” the voice behind him said again with an edge of annoyance.

Still, the agent did not react.

“People may not care about some druggie carpenter or a hick farmer, but this is an FBI agent. You’ll have the whole country hunting you if you kill him.” Dylan hoped he hadn’t ruined anything the agent was planning, but he felt like he needed to say something.

“Don’t care if he’s the fucking president. We want to talk to the girl, alone,” the voice answered coolly.

Agent Smith finally spoke: “You won’t find it, even with her help.”

“Then why not back off and let us talk to her?” the Brit said.

“How can I be sure that she’ll walk out of here if I let you have her?”

“Hey! I’m standing right here, and I am not going to sit and chat with some asshole who’s pointing a gun at me,” Abbey replied indignantly.

“Quiet, honey. The men will sort this out and you’ll do as your told,” the British thug snickered.

Abbey began to turn and face the man when the blare of a police siren shattered the quiet of the orchard.

The man behind the FBI agent turned in the direction of the noise, his gun straying from its target.

In slow motion, Agent Smith’s own weapon raised and aimed just past Dylan’s head. A shot rang out as Dylan jumped to his right and out of the line of fire.

Hoping that the man behind him was taken care of, Dylan stepped past the agent and brought his right foot up into the crotch of the second man. Muffled howls filled the air and a second gunshot rang out.

Looking behind him, Dylan saw that both the FBI agent and the second suit were on the ground. Abbey stood partially hidden by an apple tree with her hands and arms covering her head. She was screaming, but he did not see any signs of an injury.

Grabbing her arm, Dylan pushed himself through the space between two trees and pulled her along. The branches slapped and scraped him and he heard Abbey’s scream change from terror to pain.

Dylan pushed through three more rows of trees before turning to look behind him. Abbey’s face had small streaks of blood that he assumed were from the branches they had just come through. She was no longer screaming, but her eyes conveyed the fear that her lungs could no longer express.

“We need to get to that police car,” Dylan said. He spoke far louder than normal, but could barely hear himself over the ringing in his ears.

“What?! I can’t hear you!” Abbey screamed back at him as tears pooled in her eyes and streaked dirt down her cheeks.

Dylan pointed toward the entrance to the orchard and mouthed “Police car.”

She gave a shaky nod and Dylan set off toward the center row of the orchard, never letting go of her arm. As they got closer to the entrance, Dylan noticed that his hearing was slowly returning but that it was still drowned out by the beating of his heart and the pounding of his feet.

Stopping abruptly, Dylan dropped to a knee and scanned underneath the trees. If the suits were alive, they could be coming back to their car. He had no doubt they were prepared to shoot their way past the local police and he wanted to stay clear of any crossfire.

After several seconds, Dylan nervously checked behind him. His hearing loss would have made it easy for someone to sneak up on them. The orchard was still, but Abbey was breathing heavily and her eyes were glossing over.

Looking back to the center row Dylan watched as the police cruiser pulled in and skidded to a halt. They had overshot his row by one and he pulled Abbey along as he scrambled under the branches to get a better view of the car.

After another nervous check behind them revealed nothing, Dylan helped Abbey to a full standing position.

When the officer exited his car and stood, Abbey called out, “Kevin!”

The officer looked directly at them and disappeared around the front of the car. A moment later he was in their row, jogging toward them with his gun drawn.

“Abbey, are you okay?” the officer asked when he finally arrived at the pair.

“I can’t hear!” Abbey yelled and started crying again.

“What happened?” The cop was now looking at Dylan.

“Two guys tried to attack her or something. Agent Smith shot at them. We were close, so it’s hard to hear right now.” Dylan did his best to regulate the volume of his voice but suspected it was still too loud.

“Where?” the cop asked, looking suspiciously at Dylan.

“The back corner of the orchard.” Dylan pointed to where they had come from.

The officer nodded and took a step down the aisle.

Abbey grabbed his arm. “Don’t leave me,” she pleaded with him.

The young cop was clearly torn. The need to investigate and understand what had just happened pulled him away, deeper into the orchard. His friend who was scared, who needed protection and reassurance pulled at him to stay.

“I got her,” Dylan assured the man in uniform.

His look said he didn’t trust Dylan, but his body leaned away, indicating that he wanted to explore.

The officer looked to the back of the orchard as if he could see or sense something through the trees.

“Kevin?” Abbey was no longer holding him back; she was pulling him down to her.

He holstered his weapon and kneeled next to his friend.

“It’s okay, Abbey, I won’t leave you. Let me call this in though; we’re going to need some more help.”

He leaned his head and spoke into the radio mounted to his shoulder. With his mouth directed away and obscured by the microphone, Dylan could not hear what was being said.

The cop’s head snapped up and Dylan spun around to follow his stare. The faint sounds of an engine running and gravel spraying against a car made it through Dylan’s fog.

Light glinted off a window and Dylan watched as a car shot past the parked police cruiser, toward the main road. He didn’t know if it was one or both of the suits, but someone had gotten away.

The cop spoke into his radio again before looking back to Dylan and Abbey.

“The ambulance will be here in a couple of minutes. Everything is going to be okay.” He smiled and squeezed his friend’s hand.

Dylan was in a weirdly good mood. After more than an hour of answering questions from an overzealous rookie EMT who tried to diagnose everything from a concussion to PTSD, he had gone home. Montana was waiting patiently in the cab of the truck and wagged his tail when their eyes met.

Both owner and dog enjoyed a long drink of water before heading off into the woods to meander. Dylan didn’t want to walk on the roads with his hearing still not fully restored, but he couldn’t sit at home with all the adrenaline coursing through his body.

When the walk was done, he drove toward the city and stopped at a pizza place to get a sub. He wasn’t sure why he was so hungry, but he could have sworn it was the best steak and cheese he had ever had. It was gone by the time they got back to the apartment, and he barely made it in the door before crashing with exhaustion.

This morning he woke early and continued to test his hearing. It wasn’t fully restored and may never come back all the way, but it was manageable and he was confident that with time he wouldn’t even notice anything.

He was no longer thinking of running, and the allure of the drugs in his kitchen drawer was nonexistent. After the recent occurrences of having guns pointed at him and escaping with his life after being involved in a shoot-out, it felt like a turning point. The whole situation had to have peaked, and life would be on it’s way back to normal.

The sound of the tractor on the road outside made him smile. Back to normal indeed. He turned to isolate one ear on the road and gauge the volume, then repeated the process with the other ear.

He was so occupied with his thoughts about hearing that he didn’t notice when the engine slowed to an idle and stopped moving.

A knock on the door startled him and he called out. Maybe he wasn’t as relaxed and happy as he thought.

“Dylan, right?” Abbey Holt greeted him when he opened the door.

“Yeah. Everything okay?” he answered.

“I think so… The first two times we met were a little weird. I’m sorry and I thought I should introduce myself and say thank you or something.” She smiled.

Her sandy blonde hair peeked out from underneath a trucker hat. Freckles dotted her cheeks so thickly Dylan thought of the eye black he used to wear. The t-shirt she wore was tucked into her jeans and clung to a body that was toned and firm but had probably never seen the inside of a gym.

“You’re welcome. I think I owe you an apology, too. I didn’t know you were an expert on the American Lease and never would have intentionally gotten you involved.” He almost forgot that his tip to the press had been anonymous and hoped that he was vague enough to avoid being linked to that.

“That’s what’s so confusing for me. I don’t really do the lease any more. I’m not sure what they would have done, seeing how I don’t really know anything.” She cocked her head to the side and looked up at Dylan.

“I don’t think these guys are too worried about leaving some wreckage in their wake. If they think you have something they want, there aren’t too many things they wouldn’t do to get it.” Dylan was surprised at how relaxed she was.

“Yeah, Kevin parked the cruiser outside my house last night and I’m not sure my friend Jim slept at all. For what it’s worth, you’re all wasting your time.” She was now looking at the floor.

“Could you give me the sane, not article-looking-to-go-viral, idea of what this thing is supposed to be?” Dylan didn’t have to be obsessed to be interested.

“Hmm. It’s a little bit of a crazy story but when you think about it, not that crazy. Some people think it’s a myth or an urban legend. It ranks somewhere lower than the Legend of Oak Island, though it actually has a lot more credibility,” Abbey began. Her gaze had moved from the floor to Dylan’s chest.

“Sorry, Oak Island doesn’t register with me. Anything else you could compare it to?“ A police cruiser pulled into the driveway, distracting Dylan.

“Okay, how about Ponce de Leon and the Fountain of Youth? Imagine something that people think is less likely to exist.” Abbey broke her stare and looked behind her, like she knew the cops were coming.

“So you mean something like Sasquatch or Big Foot?” Dylan fixed his gaze on her face.

“That’s about right for likelihood of reality, but way too high for the number of people interested. Say there are a thousand history majors pursuing a Ph.D. every year. They all need a unique topic for their thesis, but in the last twenty years only three have even considered doing the American Lease. And the one who actually went ahead with it didn’t finish the paper.” Abbey looked Dylan square in the eyes.

“So if you believe this lease thing exists, you’re crazy, but there is a real possibility that it exists and hasn’t been found because no one was really looking for it.” He didn’t like his chances of being the one to find it.

“Something like that. I’m confident that it existed, but two hundred and fifty years is a long time for a piece of parchment to stay intact. Even if it was still in one piece, the clues have all been wiped out. Maybe Amelia Earhart had it on her plane.” Abbey giggled at her own joke.

“Well, someone thinks it’s real. They had a stack of papers and were willing to kill a cop to keep their search quiet,” Dylan said.

A flash of excitement raced through the young woman’s eyes. She searched somewhere other than where they were for a question or suitable reaction. Dylan struggled to stop looking at her, but knew he needed to acknowledge the officer that had just approached.

“Abbey, I almost drove right past. You didn’t tell me you were stopping here.” The officer who had met them in the orchard had more concern than anger in his voice.

“It’s okay, Kevin. I just wanted to say thank you to Dylan.” She looked at Dylan and not back at the officer.

“Well, it’s okay, because I wanted to clarify something with both of you.” The young cop puffed his chest slightly.

“Anything,” Dylan offered.

“Abbey said something about an FBI agent in the orchard yesterday. Do you know anything about that?”

“Yeah, it was the same agent that questioned me at the county court house and then assaulted me in the street,” Dylan said. “Didn’t he give a statement? I would have thought he had to file a report if he discharged his weapon.”

“Besides the car that drove off, we didn’t see anyone other than the two of you in the orchard.”

“You think he was with them?”

“If things went the way you say they did, it doesn’t seem likely. Why shoot at each other? Chief says there may an undercover thing going on, but I wanted to make sure you were really saying it was an FBI agent,” the young officer said.

“It’s the third time I’ve met him and the third time I’m worse off for it. Sounds like a government official to me,” Dylan replied.

The officer took out a card and scribbled on the back before handing it to Dylan. It read “Officer Kevin Glover,” with a phone number beneath. Another number was written on the back.

“This is my personal cell. If you see the agent again, call me. Undercover or not, I don’t want him running around town shooting at people,” Officer Glover said.

“You bet.”

Dylan thought the local cop was likable enough. He had a little of the false bravado that comes with being a cop in the small town where you grew up, but it seemed like this week may have opened his eyes. Hopefully now that he had helped Abbey, the benefit of the doubt would go his way if Agent Smith showed up and punches started to fly.

Abbey took the card from Dylan and the pen from the cop. She scribbled quickly and handed it back to Dylan.

“There’s my cell, too. I talked with Mark this morning, and he said you did good work and were always reliable. I have some stuff that needs doing around the barn, so if you need work, let me know,” she said.

She flashed a smile and left, the police officer close behind.