Necessary Sin

by Brian W Casey

  August pulled the jeep farther into the field to avoid any passing cars. He didn’t want to be found today. While he was pouring coffee from the thermos, he didn’t notice in his rear-view mirror, the line of SUV’s that passed on the road on their way out to the main highway.

  Chapter 86

  Saine pulled a chair up to Michelle’s kitchen table and helped himself to a cup of coffee. Dressed in the same clothes he wore last night, he sat back and started to thumb through the morning’s paper making himself at home. He could hear the shower running and pictured the shapely figure of Michelle in the shower.

  No time for that now.

  He gave himself the liberty of checking the caller ID on her home phone. She’d made several calls already this morning. Three calls to the Sheriff and most likely they were about him. Content with that information he waited for Michelle to finish her shower.

  Chapter 87

  Angelina walked around her plane giving it a careful preflight inspection. The morning was starting to warm up quickly and there was little wind to contend with. She checked the windsock on the barn and it hung limp and she smiled. Everything was falling into place as it should. By the end of the day she would be either successful in her mission or dead. Either way, she will have confronted the man who tried to destroy her family and made her a freak. He will know what it is like to see those he cares about tortured and killed.

  Angelina checked the payload to make sure it would function as promised. Satisfied that it was what she wanted, she walked back to the barn to complete the final details of today’s mission.

  Chapter 88

  Susan made it back to her office with only a few people noticing her exit from the hotel. She called Anna earlier to come into work to run errands for her and to provide some cover for her.

  The Courthouse was quiet as most people were not at work yet.

  “Good morning Aunt Susan, I mean Madam Mayor. How are you this morning?

  You look very nice. Is that what you are wearing to Fr. Steve’s funeral?”

  Susan was a little taken back by the question. It was phrased more as an opinion on what she was wearing rather than a question.

  Susan immediately came back with,

  “No, I was dressed for an early morning meeting and I will be changing before the funeral. Go across the street and get me some coffee. When you come back, make sure you knock before you come in. I need to make an important call.”

  Once Susan was sure that Anna was out of the office, she sat down at her desk and pulled Fr. Steve’s phone out from her locked desk. Something had been bugging her about Steve’s phone and she realized what it was this morning.

  There was one number on the phone that she recognized. Comparing it with her own call record her suspicion was confirmed, it was the same number she used to try and retrieve information from the FBI.

  Why would Steve be calling the FBI the day he died?

  There was another number that she knew well. It was Bill’s over at the diner, but it was Bill calling Fr. Steve. Those two had nothing in common that she could figure out.

  What was going on in her town?

  Another number was very strange. It had an exchange that Susan didn’t recognize at all.

  She figured what the heck she pressed the return. She waited through four or five rings and was just about to hang up when it went to voice mail. A woman’s voice heavy with an accent was on the recording.

  Susan clicked the phone off. Now even more puzzled. She didn’t like this.

  Once the funeral was over, she and August were going to get this settled.

  Susan placed it back in her drawer and locked it just as Anna knocked on the door with the coffee.

  Susan met her at the door, grabbed the coffee out of her hands with not even a thank you and walked out of the office.

  Chapter 89

  Michelle stopped dead as she walked down the hall from the bathroom. Saine jumped up from his chair. Michelle went to scream, not for help but at him. She felt somewhat familiar with him, but her instincts immediately told her his visit would lead to no good. Knowing what was going to happen, Saine reached her in only a few steps and had his hand over her mouth but not in an aggressive manner, more like trying to quiet someone who was about to spoil a surprise party.

  Michelle slowly dropped her guard.

  “Michelle, don’t scream. I am not going to hurt you. But you need to listen carefully to me and don’t try to make sense of what I am going to tell you.

  You can’t leave this apartment today.”

  Saine’s first mistake was trying to tell Michelle what to do.

  “Who are you to order me? I am going to Fr. Steve’s funeral, you know that from our time with Susan last night.”

  “Michelle, you are not listening to me. You will not leave this apartment. If you have any feelings for the Sheriff, and I know you do, you will not leave here.”

  “I don’t understand. Who are you really?”

  “I can’t share that with you right now. There are things I need to do that hopefully will protect your community and those you are fond of. That is all I can tell you.

  Stay here.

  Give me your word.”

  Saine gave Michelle a story that seemed so impossible. She had every reason to doubt him.

  “Because you saved my life I am supposed to believe you. Give me a good reason why I should.”

  “Because I might be the one that determines if August lives or dies today, it’s that simple.

  Don’t bother to look for your car keys, I have them, along with your gun.

  All you need to know is that I am doing this for you, August and mostly for myself.

  Do not leave.”

  With that, Saine walked out the door. Once on street level, he flattened the tires on Michelle’s car and pitched the keys into the nearby bushes.

  Chapter 90

  August sat in the jeep fighting off the occasional grasshoppers and bees coming through the open windows. The coffee was gone and the sun was starting to make it unbearable to stay in the jeep. All he needed to do was stay out here another hour and it would be too late to attend the funeral. He would have an excuse which no one could argue with. The pastor from the next parish over, who often worked with Fr. Steve, would be resourceful enough to fill in.

  August stepped out of the jeep and walked to the front to piss out some of the coffee.

  He heard the drone of an airplane engine warming up and props cutting through the now thick morning air. There was no reason for a plane to be in the next field. August was familiar with every crop dusting service in the area and the closest one was miles away.

  He climbed back in the jeep, flicked a grasshopper off the steering wheel and backed around in the field and headed out to the main road.

  Making a left on the gravel road he trolled cautiously up the road as if he was moving up the river in his boat on one of his duck hunting trips. The gravel creaked under the weight of the tires as they moved over the rocks. A blast of July air blew into the window and August thought he could detect a hint of rain in the wind. When he reached a clearing in the cornfield he caught site of the noise maker and a barn to his right with a windsock hanging from a pole at the highest peak. The twin prop plane, larger than most dusters in the area appeared to be rigged for a day of dusting. August decided to introduce himself to what was obviously a new business that opened without his knowledge.

  This visit would give him the real excuse he was looking for to avoid town.

  As August drove through the field to the barn the plane made its final run down the makeshift runway and lifted into the wind. Not a problem, he would go ahead into the barn. Surely there would be someone around, these operations rarely worked without a ground crew. August parked the jeep alongside the barn. Before turning it off he watched the plane bank over the field and wished he was up there with whoever it was piloting the duster.

  August pulled the latch up on the barn door and pulle
d the door towards him. The morning sun was hot on his back as the cool air still trapped in the barn rushed to get past him. His figure cast a shadow into the barn as the sun acted like a theater spotlight following him. Dust drifted through the sun beams turning to flecks of gold as they passed through.

  What the sun targeted he was not prepared for.

  Chapter 91

  August figured he would find some oily mechanic working on airplane parts, instead he found a full-size piece of plywood sitting on two sawhorses. Rising from the makeshift table was a scale model of Watercreek. Each building of the downtown was recreated in perfect detail as if it was someone’s model railroad display. The Courthouse was in the center with all the buildings up and down Main Street each one spaced perfectly to scale.

  Tacked to the wall behind the table was a map of Watercreek. Satellite views as well as tradition topographical maps. The Courthouse, the bank across the street as well as each business closest to the Courthouse on main street were marked with what looked like some type of barcodes like you would find on a product for sale. Next to the maps were pictures of August, Michelle, Susan, Bill from the diner and many other individuals who worked in the downtown region. Many looked as if they were taken with cameras at eye level obviously without the subject’s knowledge. There were also pictures of Fr. Steve, the girl who was with Steve and Dan Faraday.

  Those three, had X’s through them.

  August was picking up the smell of something that was familiar to him from many years ago. The aroma of coffee that could only come from the jungles of his mission days. It was also the same coffee that Hector would drink when he was “entertaining” in the village.

  Another even more disturbing smell. The rank cigar and body odor followed by the sulfur smell of rotten eggs.

  August was locked in place.

  Whispering,

  “He’s here.”

  August reached for the reassurance of his Glock .45 and pulled it out. Stepping back outside, he walked to where he originally saw the plane preparing for take-off.

  Laying on the ground just beyond the tire tracks of the plane was a cell phone.

  Still active August picked it up and pulled up the call history.

  Five minutes ago, a call from Fr. Steve’s number was recorded.

  August went cold in the July heat.

  Chapter 92

  Once August recovered from the shock he turned around saw what was originally hidden by the plane was now clear, barrels of diesel fuel and oil, the makings of homemade napalm.

  They were all empty.

  August knew this was the start of a day he had always feared. It was all coming together the events of the week; the insistence on Steve’s part to get Angelina the disappearance of Dan and the visit in the hospital by Angelina.

  August chest tightened. He dropped to his knees wincing through the pain.

  “Just give me one more day. This is my fight to finish not yours.”

  Chapter 93

  August, breathing like a marathoner after a run stumbled to the jeep. He crawled into the seat and threw the handgun on the passenger seat. Spinning the jeep around cutting ruts into the grass, he headed toward town and drove as fast as the gravel road would allow. Turning on the main highway, he activated the siren and lights and at the same time called Michelle’s number.

  Michelle’s number rang three times and then went to voice mail. August disconnected and pitched it on the seat beside him.

  By the time August reached Watercreek, it was almost 10:00 and the bells of the church were ringing calling for the start of Fr. Steve’s funeral Mass. Everything seemed normal as he made his way down the main street. The old guys were at their post in the shade of the big maple tree on the lawn. While he was stopped at the light, he could see George speaking more with his hands. Probably embroiled in some political dissertation.

  Bill was unwinding the awning over the diner to protect the windows from the sun. The farmers were pulling away from the main street and heading back out on the main highway to their farms. August thought the town was too quiet. So quiet he felt as if he was driving around in the model he just left.

  Quiet was hanging like a foreboding thunderstorm.

  August parked and ran into his office. Pulling up his radio, he called the main dispatch of the state police. Then August heard the drone of a plane. The sound was too low for a plane over this part of town. Running out of the office he looked to the sound and saw the same plane he witnessed earlier now flying low over town heading south. The plane made a steep bank as it neared the end of the highway stretch and came back around flying lower than the first pass. August could see the guys on the Courthouse lawn stand to find the plane in the sky.

  Bill stepped out from under the awning and shielded his eyes while he looked to the sky.

  As the plane came closer to downtown, August could see a liquid trailing from it dropping down over the town. The fluid sparkled like rain. Rainbows appeared in the wake as the sun cut through. As the plane passed over, the fluid drenched every person, building and creature in its path. The smell of diesel fuel filled the air and people reacted in disgust at what was an apparent misdirected dump of fuel by the plane.

  As soon as the plane made its pass, charges were launched from the roof tops of the buildings August saw marked on the maps. Canisters of flames dropped to the streets igniting everything and everybody that was touched by the liquid. A launch from the top of the bank building next to Bill’s diner landed on top of a car parked in front of the Courthouse. Immediately the car burst into flames. In rapid succession cars began to explode as flames from one reached out to another like a violent game of tag. People ran, becoming human torches trying to escape the flames that chased them faster. No one could get close to another without bursting into flames themselves. Buildings began to ignite and burn. Within seconds, the entire downtown was rolling flames and black smoke. Glass was shattering as store windows popped from the heat.

  The heat hit August with the force of fire seeking air and more fuel. The roar was more intense than any tornado winds. Screams for help started to rise above the roar. The men on the lawn laid across one another dead but still displaying a desperate attempt to save each other. Bill had retreated to his diner but was now trapped inside by a car which exploded and landed at the only exit. August could see the diner sucking the flames in and spitting them out the top windows.

  August could only see one way out of the furnace and that was to run through the flames to the other side of the highway which seemed untouched by the spray and flames. Grabbing a shotgun from the locker in his office, checking for shells in the chamber, August ran from the Courthouse, through the flames which were starting to burn off on the sidewalk and made it to the other side. What wasn’t on fire was black from the charring. August chest tightened bending him in half as he reached the other side of the highway.

  The bells continued to ring at St. Mary’s.

  No one there was aware of what was happening to their town.

  Turning to find a clear spot in the carnage, August heard the plane on a return loop. This time it made a direct line toward the church. August knew exactly what was happening, an attack on the church would hit all the leading members of the community including his closest friends.

  He was supposed to be there.

  In sudden clarity Demetrius’s words came back to him. He was called to be a priest, not for what he had done, but for what he was expected to do. He didn’t fire on Hector when he had the chance. That was his failure.

  Now, he could not fail again to protect the people he was placed to guard. He knew what he had to do and who was here to face him. He had escaped this devil for years.

  “It is my necessary sin.”

  Today, he and the devil would both either walk into hell together, or he would be free to live the life he was called to.

  Fire sirens began wailing over the city as volunteers raced to the two stations in town.

  S
creams and shouts muffled by the winds and firestorm created a horrific symphony of sounds.

  August turned in the direction of the church and saw a plume of smoke rise over the trees. It was evident the church was suffering the same fate as the center of town.

  August could only be in one place. Again, he was torn between duty and desire. Michelle was surely in the church, but his role was here with what was in front of him.

  Michelle would be one more suffering the fate of knowing him.

  Chapter 94

  Michelle sat at her table. She didn’t know how to process all the information from Saine. All she was sure of was that she needed to reach August before any of Saine’s predictions came true.

  Michelle heard a plane very low followed by muffled explosions. She looked out her north window towards downtown. Heavy smoke was billowing up. The smoke, a mixture of black and white from the fires that were being hit by water and gray from the burning of the old wood and other building materials. She knew she was too late to warn August, he was either dead, or in the thick of all she saw.

  Before leaving, Saine barricaded the door with a free-standing chest in the hall of the apartment. With several good tries, Michelle pushed it away from the door enough to let her small frame out. She figured Saine knew she would get out. He was only trying to slow her down. This small gesture on his part is what helped her to believe what he shared. He could have killed her or tied her to something in the apartment. Racing through the halls of the apartment building she started rerunning the new information from Saine.

  It was hard to believe what Saine told her about being an undercover marshal investigating numerous breeches of the witness protection program. To do this, he had to assume a new identity and operate completely outside the marshal division. Saine was tasked with finding the leak that had exposed so many and that would ultimately lead to a confrontation in Watercreek.