Gun Games - Faye Kellerman [146]
Opening the trunk, he rooted around and lugged out the spare along with the tool kit. Then he bent down and examined the damage. The hubcap on the front passenger tire almost touched the road. He squinted in the sun as he regarded the tools—the jack, the crowbar, the lug nuts. He was studying the situation with such intensity that he hadn’t even heard the bike pull up until it was almost on top of him.
Dylan looked up as the man gave the kickstand a whack. He was wearing a full helmet with goggles, a leather jacket, and thin black gloves.
“Need help?”
The voice was deep. “Yeah, man. Thanks a lot.” The man bent down, stared at the tire, but said nothing. Dylan said, “I think I had a blowout.”
“Looks like it. No biggie.” The man’s eyes wandered from the offending tire to the boy’s back, specifically to a two-inch space of exposed skin between the waistband of the kid’s shorts and hem of his T-shirt—a nice bare patch of sun-kissed tissue at the lumbar region.
The perfect setup.
The entire operation took about thirty seconds.
The man slid a razor-sharp shiv into Dylan’s back, expertly driving it between the boy’s vertebrae, slicing the tendons, pushing it deeper into the backbone. Several strong and deft strokes back and forth, and within moments, the boy’s spinal cord was cut. Severing nerve tissue, especially the spinal cord, wasn’t easy: the root was thick and strong and fibrous. It took muscle and elbow grease to slice it in half. The teen was lucky that the man had the strength and skill to sever it quickly and cleanly. It was done before Dylan could process what had gone down. With wide eyes and an open mouth, Dylan fell down onto the ground and moaned out some kind of guttural sound.
If the paramedics got to him soon enough, the kid would have a chance to live. But his legs would be useless appendages, a sickening reminder of what he lost.
Even more important, his dick would be just as useless.
The injury was high up enough that Dylan would lose all sensation as well as motor function in the lower half of his body. And that’s exactly what Donatti wanted.
Wordlessly, he took Dylan’s wallet and voided it of any bills. In this part of the country, robbery was always the main motive for crime.
He left the kid slumped on the ground, got on the bike, and peeled out, his destination not far from where it happened. A few miles down, he abruptly shifted directions until he was riding on the open desert. He could have found the spot without navigation, but GPS made it just that much simpler.
The twin-engine Cessna was waiting.
He got off the bike and worked at top speed to take off the wheels and handlebars from the frame. After that, he took off his jacket, gloves, and helmet. He placed everything inside the baggage compartment of the plane.
Fifteen minutes later, he was airborne.
The plane was slow, but it easily slipped below radar as he followed his carefully mapped-out route. With two practice runs under his belt, he felt confident. When he landed the plane on a private strip three hours later, he finally felt his breath come back into his lungs. The touchdown wasn’t an easy one—a flat table of grass within the crags of the Sierras—and it was positively the hardest part of the entire procedure. He had bought 250 acres of forest five years ago, specifically because it contained a nice flat stretch for his unregistered plane. For business, Donatti flew either first-class commercial or on a time-shared jet. The plane was strictly for his flying pleasure or for when he did business off the radar.
And this one was definitely off the radar.
He took the motorcycle out of the hold and reassembled it, checking his time.
Two hours before the meeting.
No sweat.
He put on his jacket, helmet, and gloves; mounted the beast; and roared off until he hit the main highway. Talia, his faithful secretary and lover, was there to meet him at the secluded, designated spot a half hour later. She handed