Chain Guard
by Gary Clifton
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3 |
conclusion
“My headache just died.” He envisioned the two bodies slumped in the nearby SUV. “We’re gonna be intimate roommates, just as soon as we get back to my apartment to pack some stuff. And, Ritzy, I know how to find the fixins’ in the Yucatan Peninsula to make more margaritas than you can drink... If you can handle them without ice.”
“Dave, how do we get to where the hell ever?”
“Simple. We fly to Fort Bliss, as ordered, then borrow the airplane that Langley was going to use to fly us to Bolivia or where the hell ever. Except, if you can read a map, we’ll find paradise.”
“Me, read a map?”
“Relax, I know the way.” Now with a grip on his facilities, he had by long habit not told Ritzy his exact plan for evading Langley and its tentacles.
She leaned over the satchel of gold, passports, and weapons and held him in a wet lingering kiss. “What are you waiting on, Tarzan? Get going.”
“Ritzy, did they talk about ‘Flypaper’ in Genesis?”
“Not that I recall, but they talked about so much stuff, I can’t remember everything.”
“I’m not familiar with what they mean, myself.”
“Dave, what the hell.” Ahead of her, a major conflagration, complete with men in emergency vehicles, blocked the street.
The rain had slackened slightly. Dave swung under the covered roof of a closed service station a block down from Clyde’s. The station was the old style that sold gasoline.
Flashing lights meant the government had not “taken care of the situation” with local cops. Worse, several black SUVs, either slowly cruising past or parked on Clyde’s lot, meant his former teammates had been in on his meet with Voice.
They knew he had cancelled Sprocket and Voice. He was lucky to have walked away without being cancelled himself. Perhaps others disliked Voice as much as he did. Aware that Langley would attempt to kill him and, probably, Ritzy, he began to formulate a Plan B. “Ritzy, give me your panties.”
“Dave, if you get off on all these flashing red lights... I guess shouldn’t we park somewhere else?”
“If you’re wearing underwear, just slip off those shorts and give your panties to me.”
“Sorry, Tarzan, not wearing undies.”
He dug into the glove box and came out with a rag. From beneath the seat, he retrieved a piece of metal pipe. He stepped over to a darkened pump, dribbled the remnants from the hose, and lit it with a match. With the pipe, he smashed the housing where the hose connected at the pump’s top and poked the burning rag into the break.
The flames flared as he ran back to his pickup and peeled out. When he sped from beneath the rooftop, the heat from the blast was felt inside the pickup cab.
“Good God, Dave!”
“Just putting curtains on a satellite. Hold on, kid. They can see the explosion but not us.”
Several miles from the blast, he stopped, dug through the leather case and retrieved the silencer-equipped pistol from Voice’s satchel. Ritzy watched in the darkness while he dialed a lengthy number on his cellular. First the sound of an answer, probably AI.
Dave said softly, “Tail Gun, transit exit X-ray zero alpha, domicile J4323 Delta, requesting vehicle route to Paradise. Highway data needed in single entry.”
The machine replied with a lengthy audible series of turns and directions, which Dave recorded on his cellular.
“Gotta cross a river, Ritz. Airport standing by for us.”
“Dammit, Dave, I don’t think I’m gonna live to see morning. That thing about my underwear.”
“Any tool necessary in an emergency, kid. Nothing personal.” His cellular spat directions to a destination she didn’t recognize.
* * *
Dave whipped the pickup under a sign: Missouri Air National Guard. “Valet service straight ahead, Ritzy. Hope the tub they send us up in will fly all the way.”
“Who’s gonna drive the airplane, Dave? So far, you’ve killed everybody who’s come close to us.”
“You mean you can’t fly? Nobody that meets us is gonna be safe if you’re driving without a license.”
A young, tan-uniformed, female airman flashed her Jeep lights at them when they passed a barricaded gate. Dave stopped; she pulled in front of them, motioned for them to follow, and sped away.
“Damn, Dave, you kill girls, too?”
“Only if they ask too many dumb questions.”
Two burly young men, also in tan uniforms, stood beside an idling Lockheed U2 Dragon Lady Stealth aircraft. One of the men spoke to Dave: “Sergeant Winslow, sir. We received your priority red transit orders and will wait here with you until a pilot officer arrives.”
“This is her, Sarge, Middle East combat veteran Lieutenant Rosaline Smith, damn fine pilot.” He pointed his chin at Ritzy. Both uniformed airmen were primarily interested in Ritzy’s legs and didn’t appear to care if she could drive the aircraft to the end of the runway or not.
Quickly, they were in the cockpit. Dave told Ritzy she would be in the wrong seat even though the three Guard personnel still stood on the tarmac.
Ritzy protested, “Dave there isn’t room for two people in this cockpit.”
“There is. A tiny, totally non-private privy is just behind the seats.” At his direction and with maximum effort, he squeezed her into the right-hand seat.
“Damn, Dave, if we try to do it in this damn contraption, we’ll both suffer broken bones.”
Dave chuckled and took the controls, taxiing past several directional signs until he found the main runway. They were in the air in two minutes.
Ritzy said, “Are we sure this thing has enough gas to make it to El Paso? Dave, it’s dark as hell out there. Are you sure—?”
“Yep and yep. Ritz, just watch that screen there.” He pointed. “If you feel like we need to make a sharp turn or anything, just lemme know. This is a stepdaughter of the old U2 which the Russians captured with a CIA jockey spying on them with it many years ago.”
In a half-hour, Ritzy was sound asleep in the co-pilot’s seat. Dave found a small blanket in a pouch beneath his seat, which he unfolded and covered her.
After another half hour, the radio began trying to reach them. Somebody had figured out they had stolen a seventy-million-dollar aircraft. Dave had not yet told Ritzy or the government they weren’t going to Fort Bliss or anywhere else in Texas.
Although he had not found complete relief from his headaches, he had found some reduction in pain by humming the tune “A Bicycle Built for Two” as he glided the big aircraft south into their new life. That he unexpectedly knew so many secrets, he attributed to coming out of the fog of the Curtain Call injections.
* * *
Ritzy awakened when Dave made a sharp turn. It was daylight, and she saw nothing but open water beneath her. Then dense jungle appeared ahead. He was humming “A Bicycle Build for Two.”
“El Paso has lots of water, Dave. Are you practicing for a career in music?”
“Naw, I just feel that little tune relaxing. Good therapy for headaches. Welcome to the Yucatan Peninsula, Ritz.”
“What country—?”
“Mexico controls this part. Like I said, I got a contact who runs a gas station there. Got orders not to stop in Texas,” he lied.
“Dave, I gotta pee, and no way I can squeeze into that thing behind us,” she declared. He set the aircraft down onto a dirt runway, surrounded on each side by dense jungle.
“I doubt they got indoor plumbing here, Ritz; you’ll have to take whatever they got.”
As the plane approached a weather-beaten metal building, two young men in shorts, each with an M16 slung across a shoulder, appeared.
Dave taxied close to the structure, cut the engines and said, “Me, too, Ritz.” He motioned to her to follow through the constricted space and climbed out of the aircraft.
At Dave’s appearance, a bearded, fortyish man in shorts walked out of the building, grinning. “As I live and breathe, Freewheel, himself. Man, I got wind of somebody stealing one of their Dragon Ladies, but I sure as hell never expected it to show up down here. Dave, I thought you were dead.” He and Dave exchanged hugs.
Dave laughed and pointed at Ritzy. “She stole the airplane. Meet Ritzy, a new addition to Chain Guard, new version. Ritzy, meet Bear Rodriquez, the President of this little paradise.”
“Hey, Ritzy. Damn, you got some legs on you, girl.” He gestured for his armed guards to come closer.
“I gotta pee,” Ritzy replied. Bear pointed to a small building nearby. Dave relieved himself on a bush.
“Damn, Freewheel, she’s got some kinda ass on her,” he remarked. “Whata ya’ take for her?”
Both laughed.
* * *
A peasant woman prepared breakfast for Bear, his two security men, and Ritzy and Dave.
Bear was a Mexican National with a long history of co-operation with U.S. Intelligence projects. That would not keep him from selling to the highest bidder the U2 that Dave had flown in. The two security men were former military with participation in Chain Guard and other programs. Both would be trained pilots.
Bear agreed to allow Dave and Ritzy to remain in his compound until they could move forward with other plans. That would be, of course, contingent on one of Bear’s men flying the aircraft away from his compound. Bear looked at the sky. “That big baby is big enough to be spotted from the sky and needs to be moved outa here as soon as we can, Dave.”
Dave, having found some relief from his headaches, finished breakfast, then found a spot to try to get some well-needed sleep on a cot beneath a moist forest tree. He dozed fitfully, dreaming of Big Top, of murdering hundreds of men. He was, nonetheless, buried in problems.
Dave’s stress, his headaches and all his troubles ended when Ritzy walked over to where he was sleeping and, with an old, conventional .45 from her bag, shot him in the head.
Dave, the medical healer, skilled surgeon, killer of many men, capable of slaying powerful enemies with his hands, his mind destroyed in the fog of war and ingestion of powerful drugs, was defeated by a slender female on an outdoor cot in the middle of nowhere.
She turned to Bear, who was watching nearby. “Langley’s orders. Crank that aircraft and let’s get outa here.”
Bear nodded: “Okay, Ritz, are we clear with Langley? Does the safety of Chain Guard continue as usual under a different name?”
She smiled. “We’re lucky to be alive. Dave was a sharp cookie and highly skilled, but he didn’t grasp the concept of Flypaper: in for a dime, in for a dollar. We took an oath. He couldn’t function beyond being a surgeon who’d morphed into a homicidal maniac.”
“What is the new label... the project name?”
She smiled again. “Hey, Bear, stay in your lane there. Langley can brief you when they want to.” She gestured to Dave’s body. “Don’t cross them.”
Bear caught the look in her eye as she turned to walk away. His instant plan for survival became flying the U2 to a broker in Guatemala and burying Ritzy in the same grave with Dave this very night.
The trip required him and one of his men. The only room for Ritzy was in the cargo bin with Dave’s body. You should have stayed in your own lane, Ritz; margaritas were waiting for you. He glanced at her supple figure. Darn, what a waste.
Copyright © 2026 by Gary Clifton
