by Mark Dawson
Milton was close enough now to make out the driver.
Lundquist.
The engine growled again as Lundquist fed it more power. The truck was old and in bad shape. It rumbled away, passing the car with Arty inside and heading southeast.
Milton worked his way around the boundary of the property until he had enough cover between himself and the buildings to make an approach without being detected. This stretch of the fence was old and in need of repair, and Milton was able to duck down and slip between the top and bottom rails. He stayed low, sliding through long grass, moving quickly to a grove of black gum trees with a tangle of young buttonbush beneath their boughs.
He was halfway to the barns. The figure he had seen earlier was still there. It was a man, but he was facing away from him. His silhouette was slender. There was a line of chokeberry and cinquefoil ahead, and he was about to make out for it when another person emerged from the farmhouse. A woman. She was carrying a double-barrelled shotgun, the action open. The first man turned as she approached, and the light from the porch fell onto him.
Michael Callow.
Milton felt the jolt of adrenaline and felt his lips as they pressed tight against his teeth.
Milton heard the sound of a door creaking on rusty hinges. Callow and the woman turned to one of the barns. Two people emerged.
Mallory.
Ellie.
A third person followed them outside.
A man he hadn’t seen before. Big, obese.
Ellie’s wrists were cuffed.
He waited for them to turn away from him, but, before they could, he heard the sound of someone approaching from behind him. He turned his head back towards the car and saw Arthur Stanton’s large figure, moving low and quickly, headed towards the yard.
There was nothing he could do. Arty hadn’t seen Milton or, if he had, he was deliberately avoiding him because he knew what he would say. He was thirty feet away to the right, heading towards another clump of buttonbush. He couldn’t call out or Callow and the others would hear him. But if he stayed silent, what would Arty do?
Milton knew. It would be bad.
He clenched his teeth. Helpless.
Callow stepped in front of Ellie and said something to her, his harsh laugh sounding like a bark as it rang around the yard.
He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her down onto her knees.
The man standing behind Mallory did the same to her.
The woman closed the shotgun.
Milton couldn’t wait.
If he left cover, if they saw him… a spread from the shotgun, medium range, it would pepper him.
But if he didn’t…
Chapter 45
ELLIE TRIED the cuffs for the thousandth time, and they still held firm. Her knees and legs were inches deep in a thick slop of mud. She looked across to Magrethe Olsen’s boots, smothered with the same mud, and then followed her legs up until she was looking into the barrels of the shotgun aimed straight at her. She had imagined dying in service, like her father before her, but it had always been an abstract idea. The kind of thing that happened to other people. Now, though, it was horribly, awfully real.
She was going out, kneeling in mud and pig shit in some backwater hick farm. She found herself thinking of Orville. If she ever got out of it, ever told him what had happened, she knew that he would find it hilarious.
But she wasn’t getting out of it.
“I’m a federal agent,” she said, again, knowing that it wasn’t going to help them here.
“You know what’s going to happen tonight?”
“Why don’t you tell me.”
“That truck, that’s the biggest bomb this country’s ever seen. It’s going to make Oklahoma City look like powderpuff.”
“So why don’t you tell me where it’s headed?”
She laughed. “Don’t think so. All you need to know, when that bomb goes off, it’s going to start the war to end all wars. All the Jews and the niggers and the wetbacks, the liberal intelligentsia, the sickness in the federal government, they’re all going to get swept away. All of it. The Messiah is on his way. The Second Coming. Tonight is the start of it.”
Ellie saw, in the corner of her eyes, that Mallory had closed her hand around a large stone.
Callow was just behind her. “Just get on with it.”
Magrethe raised the stock and pressed it into her shoulder.
Ellie started to close her eyes.
There was a sudden blur of motion.
She looked up.
Arthur Stanton.
He came running out of the undergrowth. He moved with a clumsy gait, but he was big and strong and he bellowed with fury. Morris Finch was between him and Magrethe. Arty drew back his fist and pummelled the man in the side of the head with enough impact to spin him around on his standing leg, flipping him so that when he landed it was face first, out cold even before he splashed down into the mud.
Arty headed right for Magrethe.
There was ten feet between them.
Too far.
He roared at the top of his lungs.
She swivelled quickly, too quickly, the barrel swerving away from her and at him.
Her aim was quick, inaccurate, but the shotgun was loaded with buckshot.
She pulled the trigger and fired a spread.
Arty screamed, his legs collapsing beneath him as he slammed down to the earth.
Mallory shrieked.
“Arty!”
MALLORY SCREAMED.
Milton crashed out of the chokeberry, put his head down, and pounded the ground. There were twenty feet that separated him and the woman with the smoking shotgun, and she was facing Arty, a quarter turn away from him.
She hadn’t seen him.
He sprinted, his muscles burning and adrenaline surging through his veins.
Callow saw him and shouted a warning.
The woman started to turn, her attention straying away from Ellie and Mallory for a moment.
Long enough.
Mallory bounded to her feet. She had a rock in her hand.
Callow made a move on Milton, trying to block him.
The woman turned back, too late, and saw Mallory.
Milton lowered his shoulder and barrelled into Callow, wrapping his arms around his waist and picking him up, driving him backwards, slamming him into the barn wall.
Mallory swung her arm, the stone clasped in her fist, the impact thumping into the woman’s temple, dropping her backwards.
Callow grabbed Milton’s shoulder, trying to draw him down onto the ground with him, trying to hold him there. The young man was strong.
The woman dropped the shotgun. It landed at Mallory’s feet.
Milton raked Callow’s eyes. The younger man gasped with pain, but held on. Milton butted him, then prised his fingers open. He leaned away just far enough to strike down with his right hand, putting his shoulder into it, trying to punch straight through his head into the muck beneath him. Callow groaned, and his eyes rolled back into his head.
Mallory stooped to collect the shotgun.
Milton scrambled up, his fist tingling.
The woman was on her hands and knees. Blood was running freely down her temple.
Mallory aimed the shotgun at her.
“No, Mallory,” Milton said. “Give it to me.”
Mallory shook her head.
The gun looked too big for her, almost too big for her to hold the fore-end with her left hand at the same time as the index finger of her right hand was up against the trigger.
“Mallory.”
Milton saw the emotion in her eyes: fear and anger. He recognised it. Knew how powerful it could be. He had tapped the same combination many times before.
“Mallory, please. You don’t have to do that.”
She shook her head. “I do.”
“It won’t make you feel any better.”
“Ellie,” Mallory said, “is Arty all right?”
Ellie
hurried across to where the boy was thrashing on the ground, his hand pressed against his thigh.
The woman moaned, put her hand to her temple, drew it back, and looked at her bloody fingers.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Ellie said. “Flesh wound.”
“Look at me,” Mallory said to the woman. Her voice was cool and drawn.
“Mallory.” Milton took a step closer to her and extended his hand, palm out, ready to take the gun from her. “You’ll hate yourself forever. Trust me.”
“Listen to your friend,” the woman said. Her voice was dazed, but there was scorn in it.
“I don’t think so.”
“You ain’t gonna shoot me.”
“No?”
“What’s her name?” Milton said.
“Magrethe Olsen,” Ellie said.
“That’s right, and you killed my son. You are going to burn in eternal hellfire for what you’ve done.”
Milton really couldn’t disagree with that. “You need to shut your mouth.”
She cackled. “Eternal damnation, that’s what you’ve got coming to you.”
Mallory took a step back so that she could cover her properly with the spread.
Magrethe shook her head, ridding herself of the cobwebs. “I knew your daddy, girl. You know that?”
Mallory did not reply. She bit the corner of her lip instead.
“That’s right. I did. Before he went off the rails. He was a good man. I’d say he got dealt a shitty hand in life, I’m thinking about your mother and your brother being born the way he was, retarded and all—”
“Don’t say that,” she cut across her.
She carried on, “But all things considered, your old man was a stand-up fellow. I was older than he was, a few years, who’s counting, but we knew each other like everyone knows everyone else in this town. And I’ll tell you something, Mallory, he’d be proud of how you’ve turned out.”
Magrethe struggled up onto unsteady feet. “I’ll tell you something else, Mallory.”
“Mallory,” Milton said, “give it to me.”
“He would’ve been proud of how you’ve looked after your brother. A retard, I mean, that’s not—”
Mallory’s eyes opened wide at that, and she said, in a voice that should not have been misunderstood, “I told you, don’t call him that.”
“What? A retard?”
“Say that word again.”
“And what? You’ll shoot an unarmed woman? No. You won’t do that, Mallory. Now, enough of this nonsense.”
“I’m warning you.”
“Don’t be so foolish. It’s just a word. You call him special; everyone else calls him a ret—”
The boom was deafening. Magrethe caught the blast at close range, and it tore her to shreds, flinging her backwards, her face and scalp gouged by the buckshot into a raw, pulpy mess.
Mallory looked at what she had done. She stood there for a long moment, stock-still, and then she carefully placed the shotgun on the ground and went over to her brother and Ellie.
Chapter 46
THE BODY of Magrethe Olsen lay face up on the ground, shot to pieces. Ellie looked down at her and felt nothing.
Mallory hurried across to her brother, took his hand, and hugged him close.
Milton put out a hand and steadied himself against the side of the barn.
“You all right?”
“I’ll be honest. I’ve been better.”
“What happened?”
“I went back into the hills. They sent a posse after me.”
“And?”
“And I’m here and they’re not.”
“What does that mean?”
“They’re dead, Ellie.”
“How many?”
“I stopped counting at five.”
He said it without emotion or inflection. Like it was business. “Are you hurt?”
“Took one in my arm. Lucky shot. I’ve cleaned it out. It’ll need to be treated, but it’s fine for now.”
The rain kept coming down, but Ellie thought that she could hear something else. “We have to stop Lundquist.”
“I saw him, in the truck. Where’s he going?”
“I don’t know. They do, but they won’t say.”
“They’ll say,” he said grimly. “You know what’s in the trailer?”
“It’s a bomb, Milton. They had it parked outside. I watched them load it. Barrels of fertiliser, fuel, explosives, too, I think. They’re planning to blow something up. You get the registration?”
“It’s a white Freightliner. BDH 5578.”
“My partner,” she said, “when he hears this…”
The noise in the rain came again, clearer now. They both swung around and stared into the darkness, but they couldn’t see it yet. Ellie knew what it was: a helicopter, the distinctive whup whup whup of the blades, the bird coming in low and fast from the north.
“Ellie,” Milton said, “you have to listen to me. It’s the National Guard.”
“So they’ll help us.”
“No, they won’t. All they know is what Lundquist told them. They think I’m a murderer.” He gestured down at the shot-up woman. “They’ll see her body and shoot me on sight.”
“I won’t let them. I’ll explain—”
“You got any ID?”
“No. They took it away.”
He shook his head. “Then we don’t have time. Lundquist is already on the move, and I need to get after him. We need to get Callow into the house.”
Mallory helped Arty to his feet and supported his bad leg, helping him hobble across to the farmhouse.
Milton took Callow beneath the shoulders and dragged him, face down, after them.
The Black Hawk swooped over the tree line and roared over the roof, the rotor wash sending up a cloud of spray and terrifying a coop of chickens. They ducked their heads in the sudden storm of debris and the clattering, terrible noise.
Inside. The door led into a hallway with three doors. There was a large French dresser that held a collection of plates and other crockery. Milton ushered them all inside and then went back to the dresser. He heaved it around, plates toppling off it and smashing against the floor. He dragged it until it was flush against the door, blocking the way inside.
“You sure that you know what you’re doing?” Ellie said.
“If we let the Guard take over here, we’ll lose any chance we have of getting to Lundquist.”
“They’ll contact the bureau.”
“Yes, and they should, but we’ll have to wait for them to realise that’s what they need to do. We don’t have time to wait. The bureau has no idea what’s happening. They don’t even know what happened to you. How long would it take your partner to get out here?”
“Hours.”
“And it’ll be too late by then. Lundquist could have driven to Green Bay, Detroit, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Chicago… He could’ve driven anywhere. If you’re right, if it is like Oklahoma, think what he could do with that truck.”
“I know. It’s all I can think about.” She frowned. “It’s not going to be easy to mobilise. The storm’s taken out the local phone lines and cell towers. Everything north of Wausau. It would be a nightmare to try to organise the response.”
“So we don’t have any choice, do we? We have to do this ourselves. It’s on us.”
He was right; she knew it. “So what do you need?”
“I’ve got to interrogate Callow.”
“You want to tell me what that means? Interrogate?”
“You really want to know?”
Ellie bit the inside of her lip. She knew exactly what he meant and, despite everything that the militia had done to them and everything they might go on to do, the prospect still sat uncomfortably with her.
“We don’t have the time to be pleasant, Ellie. I need to know everything he knows.”
“You’ll… you’ll kill him?”
“It’s tempting, but no. I’ll leave that to the government.
”
“What do I have to do?”
He nodded, his face a blank and inscrutable mask. “Keep the Guards off my back. I need five minutes with him and then as much of a head start as you can manage.”
“How am I going to do that? I don’t have my ID.”
“I don’t care how you do it. Be persuasive. Five minutes, that’s all.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Stop Lundquist.”
MICHAEL CALLOW woke up to the sensation of his feet scraping along the floor. He felt strong arms looped around his chest, hands clasped over his sternum. His head felt unbelievably sore, as if he had been hit with a jackhammer just behind his ear. He felt dizzy and nauseous, and, as he opened his eyes he saw the ceiling of a room he partly recognised above him. He remembered what had happened in the yard outside and felt the first explosive eruption of vomit launch from his gullet, up his throat and out of his mouth. It ran over his chin and into his nostrils, and splattered all over his shirt.
Callow felt as if his head was full of smoke.
They were in the kitchen of Seth and Magrethe Olsen’s farmhouse. He recognised the beadboard on the walls, the soapstone counters, the tin splashbacks, the ceiling panels painted light blue, the big iron range. He saw the baking station. The eighteenth-century mustard-painted Quebecois bar. The antique dining table where they all had pledged their allegiance to the Sword of God, swearing it over his father’s Bible.
John Milton walked over to him and looked down. It all came back to him in a terrifying flood of images and sounds, the chaos that this man had wrought. He tried to tell his legs to move, to get him away from him, to get him anywhere but here, but his brain was fuzzy and his legs weren’t listening.