Mr. Thompson

Fuck. They were after him.

Griffin Thompson glanced quickly in the grime-streaked rear view mirror. He couldn't see the black sedan with the tinted windows through the cloud of dust his old pickup was kicking up, but he was sure it was there. He had thought turning off the main road would loose them. It always worked in the movies. But he had caught glimpses of black, glints of sunlight off the metal through the trees on the tight curves. Now he was being chased down some God-forsaken dirt road, snaking his way through the back woods towards heaven knows what end.

He had to keep it safe. He had to keep it out of their hands.

The thought was the one thing standing between his sanity and complete panic. He had avoided looking at the silver briefcase sitting beside him on the cracked vinyl seat of the pickup, but it had never been out of his mind. He sharpened his resolve and pressed down harder on the accelerator, watching the endless forest speed by him in the sticky summer air. Still nothing in the mirror, but he knew that they wouldn't give up that easily.

The weathered sign flashed up so quickly that he didn't have time to read it. There must have been some business around here years ago, but it looked like the forest had done its job reclaiming most of it. Straight ahead, it looked like the ground sloped away and there was a clearing. Griffin couldn't see where the road went, but it must be there. If he could find one of the old company buildings fast enough, maybe he could hide the case where no one would find it. He pushed the gas to the floor and burst into the clearing.

Griffin knew it was too late. Not five feet from the edge of the woods stood the gaping mouth of an abandoned quarry. The wheels of the old pickup left the earth before he could even get his foot off the gas. His first thought was how quiet it was. Nothing but the hiss of the hot breeze through the open window as the truck traced a lazy arc toward oblivion. As the solid wall of limestone rose up to meet Griffin Thompson, he knew that the case and its contents would never be used.

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The black sedan drove slowly to the precipice and stopped. Two men in black suits stepped out and strode to the edge. What they saw at the bottom of the quarry was unrecognizable as anything but a smoking mound of twisted metal and rubber. There was no chance of survival. The driver raised a radio to his mouth.

"This is two. The subject is dead, but the tracker shows the object to be intact. Send a recovery team immediately."

The two men turned sharply, got back in their car, and drove silently into the wood.