Way Down on the High Lonely

by Don Winslow

  “We’re taking care of the—” Hansen started to say.

  “You’re not taking care of shit!” Mackinnon yelled.

  Cal saw Bob Hansen go positively pale.

  “Where are they?” Mackinnon asked. He looked away, put his hands on his waist, and shook his head.

  “They’re locked up,” Cal said. He pointed at the small bunker. “Right over there.”

  Mackinnon said to Cal, “Let’s go.”

  Hansen butted in. “Now wait just a minute. This is none of your concern. Reverend Carter—”

  “You did search them for transmitters, didn’t you?” Mackinnon asked.

  “We were about to do that when you came in,” Cal lied. He was some kind of embarrassed, especially because about half of the boys were standing a few feet away watching the whole scene.

  He was grateful when Mackinnon turned his rage toward Hansen. “I want my money right now. Then I’m out of here.”

  Hansen’s face looked like stone. “Come to the house with me. You’ll get every damn penny.”

  “You’re damn right I’ll get every damn penny. But bring it here, to the truck. I’m not walking into any house with you. Half the National Guard might be hiding in there,” Mackinnon answered. He turned back to Cal. “You’re about the only half-competent guy around this place. Will you go with him to get my money?”

  Cal looked to Hansen and the boss nodded curtly.

  “I want to see these prisoners of yours,” Mackinnon said. “I’ve been dodging these ass wipes my whole life. I can probably look at them and tell you what agency, which office, and how they like their coffee.”

  Cal yelled to the gaggle of men who were standing around pretending not to listen. “Jory! Dave! Take him to see the prisoners! Keep your eyes open!”

  “I don’t believe this,” Mackinnon muttered as they walked over to the bunker. He reached under his coat, pulled his pistol, and laid it down in front of the bunker.

  Dave and Jory stared at him.

  “You don’t go into a cell with your weapon,” Mackinnon explained. “What if they grab you and take it from you?”

  “They’re chained to the wall,” Dave said. “And Randy’s in there.”

  “Then what do you need a gun for?” Mackinnon answered.

  They laid their guns down and went inside. Randy closed the door behind them. He turned the light on and Mackinnon looked down at the one man shivering on the floor and the other one a bleeding lump stretched out over two sawhorses.

  Then he lost his temper.

  Ed’s spinning back kick slammed into Dave’s solar plexus and knocked all the air and most of the will to live right out of him. Dave crumpled to the floor gasping for air, his legs kicking spasmodically like a cockroach set on its back.

  Randy pulled a combat knife from his belt and stabbed down at Ed’s neck. Ed shifted to the left, brought both arms up, and crossed them to form an X. He blocked the knife, held Randy’s wrist, turned around and under Randy’s trapped armed, then slammed Randy’s wrist down on his own collarbone. The knife dropped from Carlisle’s hand as his elbow snapped with a dry crack. Carlisle screamed as Ed spun the broken arm around behind his back, held his neck down, and pulled the shoulder out of its socket. Ed kicked Randy in the face, breaking his nose and one cheekbone, and then let him fall to the floor.

  All of this took maybe five seconds, and Jory stood watching in shock before he organized his legs to head for the door. Ed lunged and grabbed him by the back of the belt, heaved backward, and threw him over the top of his shoulder. The boy landed hard on the floor, his head snapping back and smacking on the concrete. He was out.

  Ed quickly untied Graham and cradled him in his arms.

  “You’ve been working out,” Graham murmured to Ed.

  Ed gently set Graham down. Then he took off his big coat and laid it out on the floor. A Velcro strap under the left arm held a large automatic pistol. Another strap fastened what looked like a small, flat black box. Ed set these things down, then wrapped Graham up in the coat. He looked at Graham’s swollen eyes, which were now more like slits. “Who did this to you?”

  Graham pointed his chin at Randy. “He’s one of them, but I think you already broke every bone in his arm.”

  Ed nodded, saw that Dave was struggling to make it to his hands and knees, pivoted on his right foot, and drove a side kick into the man’s jaw. Dave’s head banged into the wall and he slumped to the floor again.

  “Neither of you smoke, huh?” Ed asked. “I need a cig.”

  He bent over Dave’s unconscious body and found a pack of Marlboros and some matches in his top shirt pocket. He took a cigarette and lit it, then took a drag and exhaled with a contented sigh. “It’s been a long day,” he said.

  “Uh, Ed?” Neal asked. “Maybe you could let me loose?”

  “Sorry, I got carried away.”

  He took the key ring off Randy, found the right keys, and unlocked the handcuffs.

  Neal rubbed his wrists to work the circulation back into them. “It’s nice to see you, Ed,” he said.

  “It’s nice to be seen,” Ed answered. His back to Graham, he mouthed the words can he walk?

  Neal shook his head.

  “You asshole,” Graham muttered. “Why didn’t you tell us what you were planning?”

  Ed handcuffed Dave to the wall as he said, “What if you got captured, which you did … and tortured, which you did … and you broke? Which you didn’t, but it’s early. This way you had nothing to tell them.”

  “Thanks a lot. So, you have an army out there?” Graham asked.

  “I came alone,” Ed answered. He pointed at the bodies slumped on the floor. “I am an army.”

  Which is a pisser, Ed thought. He had a hit squad standing by in Reno. This was supposed to have been a recon trip. Find out what the hell was going on with Carey and Graham and also set SOS up on a federal arms charge as well as the robbery rap. Not to mention get the Bank’s money back. He hadn’t planned to find Neal and Joe chained in a bunker. And when he’d seen Graham trussed up, bleeding and in pain, he knew there wasn’t going to be time to get to Reno and back. Not unless he just wanted to recover their bodies.

  Jory was crawling over to the wall.

  Ed gestured with the handcuffs, “Come here, kid.”

  Jory stuck his hand out and Ed chained him to the wall.

  “So do you also have a secret plan to get us out of here?” Graham asked.

  Well, I did, Ed thought. “That depends on how many of us there are,” Ed answered. “Cody?”

  “He’s dead,” Graham answered.

  Neal started to say, “He isn’t—”

  “Neal doesn’t think so,” Graham said.

  Neal kicked Randy in the stomach. “What happened to the boy?” he asked.

  “I dunno.”

  The hell you don’t, Neal thought. He grabbed Randy by his broken arm and yanked him up.

  Randy howled. “I don’t knooooow!”

  Neal cranked the broken arm around in a complete circle. “You tell me, you little Nazi piece of shit,” Neal said. He threw Randy face-first into the wall, straightened the fractured arm out along the concrete, and slammed his hand into Randy’s broken elbow.

  Randy pointed frantically with his good arm—pointed down at Jory. “He killed him, he killed him,” Randy panted. “Carter said the boy had to die … the seed of a traitor … none of us wanted to do it … he volunteered. Took him out into the rabbit brush and shot him.”

  Neal let Randy go, looked down, and saw the guilt on Jory’s face. He grabbed the knife off the floor and slid to his knees in front of Jory. “You filthy …” Neal pressed the knife point against the soft part of Jory’s throat.

  Neal felt the heavy whack of Graham’s artificial hand hit his wrist and knock the knife out of his hand. He grabbed his arm and looked to see Graham kneeling beside him.

  “What?” Graham asked. “Did they turn you into one of them?”

  Neal let g
o and sat staring at the floor. He couldn’t meet Graham’s eyes. I’ve just tortured a wounded man and tried to kill a sick boy, Neal thought. Maybe they have turned me into one of them.

  Then he heard Jory whimper, “I didn’t kill Cody.”

  What? “Who did?” asked Neal.

  “Nobody. I was supposed to, but I didn’t. I took him away and hid him.”

  “Where?” Neal demanded.

  Jory’s eyes had a glassy stare. “To the Place of the Beginning and the End.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Jory smiled a shy, secretive smile. “I’ll take you there,” he offered. “I’ll take you to see the Son of God.”

  Then Neal heard Strekker’s voice outside the door yell, “Mackinnon, we have the money!” The door opened and Cal stood at the top of the stairs.

  Strekker was just too goddamn quick. He took in the scene, made his evaluation, and kicked the door shut.

  Neal could hear him outside, yelling to the rest of the men. Then came the sounds of boots pounding in the snow, the clickity-clack of rifle bolts, and the clang of the compound gate swinging shut.

  Great, Neal thought, we’re locked in the bunker, locked in the compound, and surrounded by a couple of dozen well-armed, well-trained fanatic killers.

  “So,” Ed said, “you guys ready to blow this joint?”

  Steve Mills adjusted the small cap on the back of his head and stood up at the end of the table.

  He cleared his throat, looked at Peggy, Shelly, and Karen, and said, “As you know all too well, I’m not usually at a loss for words. But tonight, for the first time in my life, I’m celebrating a holiday in honor of my father and my grandparents. I never knew … never really cared … what made them give up their identities as Jews. I always supposed it was just to fit in a little easier in America. And I guess it worked, because I’ve always felt just a hundred percent at home in this country. But until recently I guess I never realized that there was a price to pay for that comfort, and that my grandfather and my father paid that price. That price was their heritage, and their identities, and I’m afraid some of their pride. And so tonight I’m honoring a holiday I don’t know much about to try to give a little back. Maybe to reclaim a piece of myself that got lost. And to give something back to you, Shelly, that you were cheated out of.”

  He saw tears well up in his wife’s and daughter’s eyes and had to stop and clear his throat again.

  “It wasn’t that we were ever ashamed of being Jewish … and we’re damn well not ashamed of it now. It just wasn’t something we thought a lot about, just like we don’t think a lot about being Christians too, I guess. It just wasn’t a big deal.

  “But then I saw my daughter”—he paused to smile at Shelly— “being abused because her father is half Jewish, and it sure started being a big deal then. I figure my grandparents suffered for being Jews in Russia. That’s probably why they came here. And they had that fear in them, so they laid low about being Jews because they didn’t want their kids to suffer the way they did.

  “And God bless them, but I think they got it wrong, because this country … if it means anything it means that you don’t have to hide who you are and you don’t have to bow down to idiots who hate you for it. And I love this country.

  “Karen, thank you for being our honored guest tonight and sharing this new tradition with us. And Peggy, I hope all your Irish Catholic family forgives you for sitting in here …”

  “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” Peggy said.

  “So, Shelly,” Steve said, “in honor of your grandparents and great-grandparents and the whole bunch of them who came before, would you light that candle now?”

  As Steve watched and Peggy cried softly into her dinner napkin and Karen Hawley beamed, Shelly Mills in her white dress, her hair hanging long and straight and shining in the soft light, stood and lit the candles in the menorah.

  When she finished, Steve poured the traditional wine into everyone’s glass and gave the traditional toast, “L’chaim—to life.”

  “You know I’ll kill him!” Neal shouted out the firing slit. He had Jory in front of him, Ed’s pistol pointed at his head.

  “I know!” Hansen shouted back.

  “We’re coming out now!” Neal yelled back. “We’re getting in that truck and we’re driving to Austin! We’ll let him go when we get there! If I see, hear, or even smell anything I don’t like, I’ll blow the shit out of him! Do you understand me?”

  “I understand!” Hansen yelled.

  Neal turned to Ed, who had Graham over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. In his other hand he held the little black box.

  “You ready?” Neal asked.

  “Let’s do it.”

  Neal took his hostage by the collar and pushed him to the door.

  “Are you sure you can make this shot?” Hansen asked. He was worried. They’d done everything Neal had demanded. They’d unlocked the bunker door, opened the compound gate, and put the keys back in the truck’s ignition. They’d shut off the searchlights and taken the men out of the guard towers.

  But a lot could go wrong, especially if Cal missed the shot.

  “I’m sure,” Cal answered.

  He was lying beside Hansen just inside the fence on the other side of the compound. Cal had the sniper rifle, its bipod planted in the snow, trained on the bunker door. The infrared scope gave him a perfect view in the darkness.

  He had a man crouched in each tower and more men in the main bunker. Each one had his new M-16 locked, cocked, and ready to rock. One of Carter’s bodyguards was behind the machine gun in the main bunker, ready to sweep the forty yards of open ground that lay between the prisoners and their truck.

  The gate was open now, but Cal had Craig lying out in the sagebrush ready to swing it shut just as soon as the firing started, just in case any of the intruders did make it into the truck.

  But none of them are going to make it, Cal thought. Not carrying a wounded man. That’ll slow them all down, and Neal buddy will make an easy target, no matter how hard he tries to hide behind Jory. I’ll just have to shoot young Hansen first and then take out Neal.

  And on the odd chance that the big son of a buck gets to the truck, we’ll just blow him to hell with the mines.

  So come on out, boys. We’re ready for you.

  “How many do you think are out there?” Ed asked.

  “Twenty or so,” answered Neal. “Each of them with one of the rifles you brought them.”

  “Life’s a bitch, isn’t it?”

  “It’s about to be,” Neal answered.

  He grabbed his hostage tighter and pushed the door open.

  Cal watched through the night scope as Neal came out, holding his hostage in front of him. Ed followed, holding the one-armed little bastard over his shoulder like a grain sack.

  “Is that Jory?” Hansen whispered. It was hard making him out in just the moonlight.

  “Yep,” Cal answered. He recognized Jory’s cowboy hat. Too bad for Jory. He’d give it maybe another ten yards to try to get a clean shot at Neal’s head, but after that … well, so long Jory.

  That bastard Carey was doing a good job staying covered. Five yards, six yards … Cal trained the cross hairs on Jory’s head.

  “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot,” Hansen whispered.

  Seven yards, eight … Cal started to put pressure on the trigger.

  Okay, he thought, you have to get two shots off quick. First Jory, then Neal.

  Nine yards … ten. At least it will be quick, Jory. Cal squeezed the trigger.

  The bullet blew the cowboy hat off Randy’s head and splattered blood, bones, and brains over Neal. Neal let go and dashed for the truck. He heard the footsteps as Jory broke out from the bunker and came running behind him. The searchlights came on and bathed the compound in harsh white light.

  Cal saw what was left of Randy’s face as his body spun and hit the ground. In the half second it took him to see his frie
nd die, he lost Neal in the scope.

  “Shit!” he yelled.

  He stood up to signal Carter in the southeast watchtower.

  The brownshirt bodyguard behind the machine gun waited until the lights came on, then aimed the gun a few feet ahead of the big man who was staggering forward, carrying the wounded man. He’d give him a little lead and then snake his fire backward. It was going to be almost too easy.

  He got his aim and pressed the double trigger. His world exploded in an orange blaze as the gunpowder flashed up from the breach and seared his eyes.

  The Reverend C. Wesley Carter heard the shot and then the scream, so he stood up in the watchtower. He put his hand to the detonator box and waited for the signal.

  Cal could hear the screaming coming from the main bunker. “Don’t shoot any of the new guns!” Cal hollered. That son of a bitch Mackinnon had probably booby-trapped every one that he hadn’t demonstrated.

  One of the men in the tower heard Cal yelling but couldn’t make out the words. He had a perfect bead on Neal, though. He pulled the trigger and the gun blew up in his hands.

  “Hold your fire, everybody!” Cal yelled. “Get your own weapons out of the bunker!”

  He looked to the gate and saw Vetter swing it shut.

  “I’ve got you trapped, you son of a bitch!” he yelled at the truck. I hope I can still take you alive, he thought. I’ll take months to kill you.

  Neal dove into the back of the truck, pulled Jory up behind him, and shut the doors. A window slid open at the front.

  “You all right?” Ed shouted.

  “We both made it! How’s Graham?”

  “He’s okay, but the bastards closed the gate on us!”

  Ed turned the ignition, hit the gas, and started for the gate.

  Cal watched as the truck lurched forward. It was still all right. There was plenty of time to get the old weapons. That truck wasn’t going to ram through that gate.

  Ed pointed his black box out the window and hit the button. The mine went off and the gate blew off its hinges. He hit the gas harder and rumbled down the road.