by Jim Heskett
He leaves the cache behind, careful to note any eyes looking in his direction as he rejoins the main road. Rapid feet move him across the giant lawn in front of the resort. He dodges manicured shrubs and golf carts and tourists exploring the resort grounds.
Layne breezes past the front check-in area, into the hotel itself. With his sights set on the elevators, the spy dodges and pivots to keep his face away from the cameras in the corners of the room. He finds a bank of six elevators down a hall, with out-of-order signs in front of two of them.
Layne jabs a button and waits for ten seconds. Ten long seconds of glancing around behind him, keeping his body angled away from the surveillance cameras and the front desk staff. He desperately wishes he had more time to plan his assault, but there’s no drone to lift him to the 18th floor. No gear to scale the side of the building to make a clean entrance and exit. Nope, he has to take the elevator. And he has to do it fast.
But it’s still not coming. Foot tapping, waiting, every second out here another chance for him to be exposed. Thirty seconds pass, and now there are a few more people waiting for elevators.
Layne rounds the corner to a maintenance section, and he’s thrilled to see a cargo elevator. He jabs the button as the numbers above descend from 15. The closed elevator shaft in front of him whirs as the gears and pulleys spring to life.
A few seconds later, the elevator door opens, and Layne rushes inside.
He doesn’t make it all the way in.
One step inside, he realizes he’s standing opposite a bellhop with a dozen suitcases stacked on top of a luggage cart. The bellhop apparently also hasn’t seen the man standing before him. One hand on the cart, looking down.
“Hey,” Layne says as he tries to stop his forward momentum.
The bellhop looks up, but even before he did, he started to push the cart forward. It’s twelve inches away from Layne.
Layne makes a snap judgment and decides to dash inside the elevator and to the side. But it doesn’t work. The bellhop reacts to the impending collision by taking a sudden and unexpected step forward. He mixes his feet with Layne’s in the cramped space.
Now Layne can’t spin away from the cart, and when it shifts forward, it smacks him in the face, bringing heavy suitcases down on top of him.
The last one thumps Layne in the head, knocking him out.
25
Beckett checked his phone in the passenger seat while Roscoe drove, squinting against the afternoon light. After flashes of sun earlier in the day, the sky now looked poised to deliver more snow. Only a few weeks into the season, and Beckett had already tired of the flaky white stuff. When the plan was fully in motion and system in place, he would take a vacation somewhere sunny, with beaches. Maybe Bali.
They had an additional person in the car, but he was gagged in the back seat, so he didn’t have much to add to the conversation.
Beckett wasn’t feeling chatty, anyway. With everything going on, with his bosses threatening to pull the plug on the whole operation, he kept thinking about everything and nothing. His problems felt at once towering and insignificant. He saw failure and success as equal possibilities.
But he hadn’t slept well in days. He spent an inordinate number of his waking hours second-guessing his choices. Beckett had never had a command like this. After months spent quieting the inner critic who said you’re too young, too inexperienced, too volatile, too noncommittal, it had come back. With a vengeance.
And he seemed fixated on cats. The Big Cat Sanctuary, in particular. This morning, he had taken a few of his soldiers there, and it hadn’t gone well.
He hadn’t intended for the morning to escalate into a hail of bullets. He’d only wanted to test their strength, but Beckett couldn’t help but feel his men had lost respect for him as a result. They had been ordered to leave by the sanctuary’s guards, and they hadn’t fired a single shot.
His men wanted someone who could lead them without hesitation. Someone who could embody the hope they felt.
Not someone who punked out at the sight of a few men with guns.
With all the new arrivals to his crew, Beckett had the numbers. He had the guns. But he didn’t know if another confrontation would be the right move. The BCS could prove to be a serious problem, now and in the future. But eliminating the sanctuary might not be the best path, either.
“You okay, boss?” Roscoe asked.
“Fine, why?”
“You’re sighing.”
Beckett pursed his lips. He hadn’t realized it. “Don’t worry about me. There’s something we’re going to have to deal with soon, but not right this second.” He pivoted around to their guest in the back seat. “You’ve got a hundred percent of our attention right now. Does it make you feel special, Keegan?”
Layne Parrish’s friend lowered his head. Bound and gagged, he’d been a good little passenger so far. They’d taken him from his house earlier today with little fanfare. No Layne Parrish hunkered down on the couch to greet them when they picked the lock on Keegan’s door. No booby traps to alert the homeowner, who had been sleeping in his bed in only a pair of Spider-Man boxer shorts.
Beckett cleared his throat and removed Keegan’s gag. “Why do you think everyone in Shotgun is content to let the world pass them by?” When Keegan didn’t answer, Beckett continued with his rhetorical questioning. “Why does everyone here put their heads down—just like you’re doing right now—and pretend nothing is wrong? If I set off a dirty bomb in the barbershop, half of Shotgun would say it never happened.”
Keegan finally lifted his head. “You’re going to blow up the barbershop?”
“No, damn it. Why would I blow up the barbershop? It’s just an example.”
Keegan lowered his head again as the conversation fizzled out.
“We’re here,” Roscoe said as he parked the car. They spent a few seconds looking around, checking for civilians, but they seemed to be all alone on this turnout from the mountain pass road.
Beckett opened the door and then pulled Keegan out of the backseat. As soon as he saw where they had stopped, his eyes widened and his head shook violently. They were standing at the entrance to the East Mine, the “unusable” one. It was only unusable if you didn’t know where to go. If you could ask the skeletons rotting away down there, they would tell you the same.
“Don’t be so scared,” Beckett said as he escorted Keegan. With the duct tape around his ankles, he could barely move. Beckett held him upright and pushed him forward, down to the entrance. “How this goes is entirely up to you, my friend.”
They entered the mine and then cut left through the first hole, what appeared to be an angled ventilation shaft. It looked too small to fit through, but Beckett and his men knew it was the only safe way to navigate the upper parts of the mine. The main shafts had collapsed decades before, and the years since had done little to stabilize the insides. This angled ventilation shaft, while cramped and steep, bypassed the dangerous first tunnel of the mine.
Once they had all three slid down to the second level, they had a little more room to negotiate the passages. Roscoe and Beckett took a few seconds to catch their breath while Keegan said nothing. He kept his eyes closed at every opportunity. Good. If he had resigned himself to death, then maybe what came next down here would be less unpleasant for all three of them.
He and Roscoe had to carry Keegan, since he couldn’t walk with bound ankles and he also couldn’t crouch. Beckett tired of this quickly, so they stopped at the first open area they could find on the second level.
It was a small room to the side of the main tunnel, an area littered with rusty lunchboxes and coils of wire here and there. A splintered milk crate would have to do as a chair.
Roscoe sat Keegan down and removed his Walther Q4, then pointed it at Keegan’s head to keep him in place. Of course, Roscoe wouldn’t fire the gun on an impulse. Not in a death trap like this, where one ricochet off a wooden beam could collapse the whole thing and kill them all.
Beckett removed a nail file from his pocket, and Keegan frowned at this.
“No, I’m not giving you a manicure,” Beckett said. “I have something else in mind. My colleague is going to take off your gag, and then I’m going to ask you some questions. These questions are not optional, so if you keep on with this mute routine, it’s going to get ugly. Do you understand?”
Roscoe removed the gag and then scurried out of the way. Keegan let out a shuddering sigh, but still kept his mouth shut.
Beckett put his hands around Keegan’s throat and squeezed. The man’s face turned red in an instant, his eyes pleading. After a few seconds, Beckett let go. He figured he’d made his point. Also, his hands already ached from that brief amount of squeezing. He hadn’t expected that.
“Do you understand?” Beckett asked.
“Yes,” Keegan finally spat out, wheezing. “I understand.”
“Good. Also, if I don’t like your answers… well, you’ll see.”
Beckett kneeled behind Keegan and readied the nail file. It was metal, with a pointed end. He stuck the sharp end underneath Keegan’s right index finger.
“If everyone at the BCS suddenly disappeared, do you think anyone in town would even notice?”
Keegan looked confused, as if unsure about whether to answer the question.
“I’m serious,” Beckett.
Flustered, panting, Keegan shook his head. “I don’t know. Some people would probably have a party. The town and the sanctuary don’t get along.”
“I already know that.”
“If they decided to pick up and move, I don’t think you’d see too many people upset. We would lose some tourism money, sure, but if that meant the lawsuits ending, then I’ll bet it would be worth it.”
Beckett took a few seconds to process the information, replaying it in his head. It had been a surprisingly honest and succinct bit of insight.
“Where is Layne Parrish right now?”
“No idea,” Keegan said, now breathing at a less frantic pace.
Beckett pushed the nail file forward, shoving it between Keegan’s finger and fingernail. The man wailed and tried to jerk his hand away, but Beckett held firm. “Hurts a lot more than you’d expect, right? Where is Layne Parrish?”
“Hold on… wait,” Keegan said between labored breaths. “Just give me a second to think…”
Beckett jiggled the nail file again, making Keegan whimper in pain. He picked off his bloody nail and then shifted the file to the middle finger. He didn’t press yet, but he wanted to make sure Keegan could feel it.
Beckett had decided to take either Keegan’s index finger, or middle one. He only needed one for his collection, and he wasn’t yet sure which one to keep.
“When we’re done with your fingernails, we’ll do your toes. After that, it’ll get really ugly. Where is Layne Parrish?”
“Probably with Molly,” Keegan said, the words labored. “He was at the shooting range this morning.”
“Doing what?”
Keegan hesitated a second, and Beckett gave the file a little push, just enough to focus the man’s attention.
“Getting armed,” Keegan said, tears rolling down his cheeks. “He knows you’re plotting. He knows something big is coming.”
“Is he in contact with cops or feds?”
“No. He thinks his dad is involved, and Layne wants to protect him until he knows more.”
Beckett barked a laugh. “Perfect.”
“Layne’s running out of patience, though. He’s talked about contacting people he knows in the government, but I don’t think he’s done that yet.”
“That’s fine. The setup will be over in another day or two, and then to all outside appearances, we’ll be as clean as a whistle. Does Layne have any idea what we’re planning?”
Keegan shook his head. “What are you planning? Who are you people?”
“We’re Disciples of the True America. Once we have the resources we need, you won’t need to ask that question any longer. Everyone will know our name when we zap this country back into awareness. Everyone will thank the Disciples when we return America to its best form. It’s past time the rest of the country saw things the way we do. It’s time they saw the truth.”
Beckett didn’t feel great trotting out the company line. But, he had to admit, it was a nice shorthand for listing the things he wanted to accomplish.
“So, what? You’re going to blow something up?”
Beckett chuckled. “Come on. We’re not terrorists. We’re not just trying to get on the news.”
For a few seconds, they all remained silent. Water dripped somewhere, echoing down the rock walls.
"We’re running out of time,” Beckett said as he drew his knife and held it to Keegan’s throat. “What is Layne planning?”
For the first time, Keegan displayed life in his eyes. More than that; he was full of instant rage. “He’s planning to put a bullet between your eyes, you piece of shit.”
“Well, then, at least I won’t be lonely in the afterlife.”
26
Layne had spent a good chunk of the late morning and early afternoon in Molly Waffles’ office at the shooting range. Stationed at her desk, he’d been hunched over her keyboard. He had strained his eyes staring at schematics for both East Mine and West Mine.
They had explored West Mine yesterday quite thoroughly, from one end to the other. They hadn’t explored East Mine at all. Local rumor said the cave was too dangerous for humans to explore, but Layne was now low on options.
Maybe East wasn’t as bad as they said.
He’d also spent time researching the name “Shotgun Mine,” but hadn’t had much luck there, either. The more Layne looked into it, the more he considered that bit of news to be a dead end. Maybe even something the Disciples started themselves to throw Layne and others off the trail.
The door cracked, and he sat back as the sounds of the shooting range filtered in through the open door.
“How is it going in here?” she asked.
“One step forward, two back. Can I ask you a question?”
Molly held a stack of paper range targets in her hand. She shut the door behind her and leaned against it. Immediately, the muted pops and thumps of the range fire ceased.
“Sure.”
“What are the chances East Mine isn’t as inaccessible as people think?”
Molly sighed. “Since I moved back to town, I’ve seen four different attempts to explore that mine. One was a local, and he was drunk and knew better. The other three were tourists. One was even a big-deal national TV reporter who brought a camera crew and everything.”
“And?”
“And not one of those people has come back, except for the reporter guy. He decided not to pull the trigger once he saw the state of the mine. Trust me when I say we haven’t been exaggerating with our warnings. I don’t think it’s safe at all to go into East Mine, for any reason. The Disciples know that, too, and I doubt they have a teleportation machine.”
Layne rubbed his eyes and craned his neck left and right to pop it. “Then I’m not sure what to do next. Maybe we can grab Keegan and take a quick look at the outside? Maybe we camp out at the hill north of town? I’m at a loss for how to proceed.”
“We can poke around more, if you want. But, now that I think about it, I haven’t heard from Keegan all day.”
Layne frowned, and Molly Waffles seemed to read his mind. She whipped out her phone and tapped at the keyboard for a few seconds. “There we go,” she said. “Just sent a group text.”
“Thank you,” he said as a memory from yesterday jumped up in his head. Moments before he had thrown his body at the leopard to defend himself, Layne had heard a choppy whine coming from above. It hadn’t seemed relevant at the time, but now he understood the noise had been one or more drones.
The wheels turned in his head. “Does the BCS have drones?”
“They do, but the public never sees them. Each one has a dart gun mechanism built in,
with various sedatives, depending on the size of the cat. It’s the safest way to knock them out if they’re not being cooperative.” She held up her pincher arm. “I wish they would’ve had them back when I worked there. One day, a lion broke through a weak part of his enclosure’s fence. It took twelve of us to round him up and sedate him to get him home.”
“I think one of those drones was tracking the leopard I tussled with yesterday. Probably explains why it didn’t eat me when I was unconscious, if the whirring object in the sky scared it off.”
“Probably. They don’t advertise cats escaping on the brochure, but it happens from time to time.”
“Do you think the sanctuary people knew I was on that hilltop, and they left me there?”
Molly Waffles’ lips swished back and forth a few times. “I doubt it. The drone probably darted the cat somewhere else after the attack. I don’t have any love for the sanctuary, but I don’t think they’re monsters. If someone had seen you injured, they would’ve called Sheriff Bob.”
For a moment, he entertained the idea of hacking into the drones to use them as his own surveillance network. But there was little chance of it actually working, especially since Layne didn’t have all the time in the world. Harry would tell him the same, too.
“I’m not sure what’s going on, but it feels like something big is in the air, doesn’t it?”
Molly shrugged. “Maybe. I’m not as attuned to the forces of nature as you are.”
“It’s not magic,” Layne said. “It’s practice.”
“You always were good at a lot of things, Layne Parrish. When you wooed me in high school, I used to wonder if there was anything you couldn’t do.”
“There are plenty of things I can’t do.”
“It always amazed me how you could talk to people. People you’d never even met before. I was such a wallflower in those days, I envied you. How did you do that?”
Layne shrugged. “I listen fast early on in a conversation for details, then I use that to ask questions. Look someone in the eye and mirror their body language. It works every time.”