by Jim Heskett
Beckett decided to keep it to himself, for now.
“I’m tired of your politicking, Jordan. You assured us it would be the best place to cook because of the thermal shielding the mountain would provide. Can you get it done or not?”
Beckett sucked in a breath. He had lost control of the conversation. “I can get it done. Maybe not in the way I first envisioned, but I’m going to adapt. I’m going to find a way.”
“You don’t sound confident. You sound like a man grasping at straws.”
The meth lab project in the East Mine hadn’t even gotten off the ground yet. They had power in the mine, carefully routed from Shotgun with no trail to link it back to anything. Free power, stolen from the town. But moving the cooking equipment into the mine had developed into the real problem. Not the actual placing of items inside the mine. That was a tricky affair, but not impossible, by using the ventilation shaft for most objects, and rigging a pulley system to move larger things in over the collapsed stairs area.
No, the difficulty had more to do with bringing it into town and up the mountain without attracting attention.
Two years ago, when Jordan Beckett had come to Shotgun to begin this project, he had made a choice: fly under the radar, or frighten the town to keep them in line? The former plan had a high likelihood of failure, and the latter plan would require a lot of muscle to manage.
He had decided on a hybrid approach. They would move trucks along the highway and back roads mostly at night, but they would also pay off or blackmail certain key members in town who either could be key allies, or were likely to cause trouble. The rest, Beckett figured, were blind enough that they would fade into the background. He’d gotten a job working for the mayor, which he thought would keep him at the center of any news.
But it hadn’t worked. The mayor didn’t have nearly the amount of pull in town he would’ve expected. Too many looky-loos knew things they shouldn’t, and too many people were talking. He had misjudged the effectiveness of the town’s gossip grapevine. Keeping the secret of the mine meth lab had turned into a full-time job.
It was only a matter of time before the Disciples bosses in Denver heard about it.
“I’m not grasping at straws. I’m managing a complication situation. With all these moving parts, there’s always a fire to put out. I haven’t been perfect so far, but I’m getting better at it. Every day, I’m making progress. Every day. I’m the right person for this job.”
Beckett waited for a reply as the first truck in the caravan turned into the Big Cat Sanctuary. His heart pounded as he realized that, in a few minutes, he could find himself in the middle of a gunfight. A gunfight he might not win this time.
“Sir?” he said as he looked over at the tactical vest and modified M4 carbine rifle sitting in the passenger seat. His men were already pouring out of the trucks, armed to the teeth.
“I will think about it and have an answer for you by lunch,” the boss said.
Beckett checked the rifle’s magazine and slammed it home. He swallowed hard, making his scratchy throat pulse with pain. “I understand.”
30
Layne and Molly Waffles sat in her car in the open space around the East Mine. With the sun overhead, the two of them sat and stared at the sloping entrance. The more dangerous one of the two Shotgun area mines.
Keegan had found out firsthand how dangerous this mine could be yesterday. He had been killed by the two men in a black SUV. The car should have been easy to find in this tiny town, because a bullet-riddled vehicle would stand out. But Layne had been unable to find anyone or anything connected to a vehicle like that.
“His body is probably gone already,” Layne said.
“Maybe so.”
“We should have come back last night.”
Molly cleared her throat. “We would all be dead right now.”
He sighed and popped in a nicotine lozenge. He’d wanted to return, but an ice storm in the evening had made it impossible. Molly said that if the ventilation shaft were icy, then there was no hope of using it to access the mine. She said they would slip all the way to the bottom. Only someone with the right gear and expertise would be able to enter the mine via that entrance until the ice had melted.
Someone like Keegan Swiney.
So now, they were back at the mine, to follow the cable they had discovered yesterday. The mine had power, so that meant he had been right to suspect this place all along. They were using it for something.
“Shit,” Molly said as she stared at her phone.
“What’s up?”
Her eyes scanned a lengthy text message. “Got this from my day manager. The vending machine guy broke the vending machine as he was refilling it. And, apparently, he’s the service guy, but he’s not the repair guy, so we have to get someone else to fix it.”
“Do you have to go?”
She shook her head. “This is more important. Nailing Keegan’s killers is more important.”
“I don’t want you to neglect your business, Molly. This is something I can do by myself. I remember it well enough from last time.”
She checked her phone again, frowned, and then slipped it back in her pocket. “If you’re sure…”
“I’m sure. I’ll be fine. Go handle what you need to handle.”
She said she would be back in an hour, and Layne agreed to the terms. He opened the passenger door and looked back at her for a second, and they both wore the same desperate confusion on their faces. Layne felt like he should say something, but he didn’t know what. Molly Waffles looked like she had something to say, but couldn’t put it into words.
“Keegan was a good man,” Molly said.
Layne nodded. “I keep thinking about how I lost touch with him over the years.”
“You couldn’t have done anything…”
“I could have not gone to see him three days ago. I could have stayed away from him, and maybe none of this would have touched him. Or, maybe it still would have, but I take your point. I just wish now I had that time back. I would’ve been a better friend to him.”
“He wasn’t an easy man to know these last few years. Keegan had a lot of demons. I lived about a mile from him, and I’ve barely seen him since we both moved home. All that water’s gone under the bridge now.”
“Yeah,” Layne said, “what we do from now on is what matters.” He gave her a dip of the head and shut the door. The truck pulverized packed snow under its tires as it drove away.
When she was gone, he crossed the dirt area toward the entrance. Layne checked all his lights and batteries as he entered the main opening and then stopped where it ended in a cliff due to the collapsed stairs. He noted ropes and metal and wood in the pile below that looked relatively new. Someone had set up a temporary pulley system here, or had attempted to do it in the recent past.
Layne crouched by the ventilation shaft and shined a light into it. It still seemed a little icy, but it looked like a lot had melted. He had crampons for the shoes and an ice climbing pick.
With the gear on, Layne descended the ventilation shaft. The progress came slowly, since he had to dig in his feet and ice pick with every step. After several minutes, he finally reached the second floor tunnel bypass.
Aching and sore, Layne killed his lights and stopped all movement. For five minutes, he sat in the dark with his SIG Sauers at the ready. Breaths in and out, eyes closed, honing his ears to focus on anything unnatural.
Eventually, he decided he was alone down here and began the real search.
He kept on the same path as before, and within a few minutes, he had found the place where Keegan had died. Of course, no body any longer. Layne guessed there would be no evidence to find at all, since the area smelled a lot like bleach.
“Damn it,” he muttered. Despite the danger, they should have returned last night, anyway. But Molly was probably right, and they would have slid to their deaths down that shaft. It’s not as if hauling Keegan’s dead body to the sheriff would make a signifi
cant and immediate difference, anyway.
But now, like the Disciple who left his car at the hardware store, Keegan would be another missing person.
“I’m going to make this right,” Layne said to the spot on the floor where his old friend had died. “These assholes aren’t going to get away with this forever.”
He found the cable again, a hundred feet down. It originated from a hole in the wall, and probably ran all the way into town, leeching off someone else’s power. Some little old lady in a cottage would get a nasty shock at the sight of her first thousand-dollar electric bill next month.
Using the cable as a guideline, Layne inched along the tunnel to the first end where he descended a rickety ladder to the next subterranean area. Before every turn, he paused and killed his lights. Not a hint of the presence of anyone else here.
Five minutes and two right turns later, Layne found himself in a room. It was a hollowed-out space, probably used by the former miners as a lunch room. He guessed as much from the coffee cans full of ancient cigarettes, the old-timey hourglass Coke bottles, the bits of junk here and there.
And the cable ended in this room, too. It disappeared into a wall with no obvious way to keep track of where it went next.
“Son of a bitch,” Layne grumbled as he tugged on it. Wherever this cable actually ended, he wouldn’t find the answer here.
But something else caught his eye. Amid a collection of broken glass and metal that looked like spent batteries and busted flashlight bulbs, Layne saw something definitely newer than the rest of the garbage here. A white box.
He kneeled and brushed away the junk to reveal the box, plain, no lock, a plastic thing with a flip lid. So, he flipped it open to find a series of metal tins, like sardine cans. Carefully, holding his shirt over his nose and his head back, he opened the first tin.
Inside was a powdery red material, dark. Phosphorous.
And all at once, Layne understood the plan. The little bits and pieces fell into place.
They weren’t making or housing explosives down here. They were making methamphetamine. Maybe they were planning to house a large cook operation in the mountain, using the natural walls to hide their business from prying eyes and satellites.
And it had to be a means to an end, right? The Disciples of the True America weren’t simply drug dealers. They had to be trying to sell drugs to build capital for something.
And it didn’t matter what that something was. If Layne could cut them off here, he could put a serious dent in their business.
31
Winnie Caldwell sat in her car outside of city hall. No one else was here, since everyone had gone home after the post-planning-meeting lunch.
Winnie hadn’t gone home, though. She’d gone to her car to take a few sips from her flask, and combined with the two frothy glasses of Lake Verna Stout she’d had at lunch, she was good and drunk. The kind of warm drunk that makes the snow feel less sinister. Gray skies felt blue, even if they didn’t look it.
There was one item she needed from her office, before she could complete her afternoon task.
But right now the world had a slight spin, and she was trying to breathe through it. Wouldn’t do much good if she tripped on the steps and cracked her head open.
She kept thinking of George Parrish coming to see her in the lobby yesterday. The panic on his face, the frustration at himself for not being able to speak properly via his stroke-addled body.
But what Winnie couldn’t remember were his words. He had been talking fast and strained, saying things about people named Disciples or Druids or Dividers, a rambling rant about his son and granddaughter, and a recap of decades of town history. But she hadn’t been able to make sense of it yesterday, and now the fine details had been drowned during lunch with lots of other brain cells.
After a few blinks and deep breaths, she left her car and made the arduous trek across the parking lot. Few eyes out on Main Street at the moment, and she felt grateful for that. She managed to make it up the stairs with no problem, even in her heels.
That reminded her: she needed two items from her office. She had a pair of flats in the closet, and she would require those for what she planned to do today. She also had her daily pill box containing the medications that supposedly balanced the chemicals in her brain, but she was done with those.
No more meds. She’d decided.
No more of the muted Winnie Caldwell. No more cowering in the proverbial corner of the room. Three days off her meds and she felt fantastic. Fan-fucking-tastic. If there were a way to hold on to this present moment, to freeze this feeling in time, then Winnie would never feel melancholy again.
She opened her office and stared at the dim light shining in via the curtains. A shaft sliced across her desk. With a sigh, she crossed the room and changed her shoes, glimpsing herself in the full-length mirror in the closet. Only a quick glance, then she averted her eyes. She looked like shit, and she knew it.
Jordan usually kept her looking presentable, but he had disappeared today. No call, no show, no work. He did take a few personal days here and there, but he’d never been incommunicado like this before. She’d called six times and left four messages, and she wanted to leave him another message, but she had stopped herself. If he didn’t get the first four messages, he wouldn’t get the fifth one.
And it didn’t matter. Somehow, she found the courage to look herself again in the eye, and she held her own gaze this time. Her skin was glowing, her eyes were marbles of intensity in their sockets. She alternated between feeling like an omnipotent deity and a helpless ant. Back and forth, sometimes both at once.
“Are you really going to do this?” she asked herself, but her reflection only shot the same question back to her. “They have to be taught a lesson, don’t they?”
Winnie thought of her fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Crabby. She had a real name, but Winnie couldn’t recall it. Mrs. Crabby had made Winnie write about chewing gum in class hundreds of times on the whiteboards. When she asked Mrs. Crabby why this punishment, the teacher had replied, “Because you must be forced to be taught a lesson, if you refuse to learn it willingly.”
The people at the cat sanctuary refused to learn a lesson willingly. And maybe Winnie Caldwell wasn’t the most qualified person to deliver the lesson, but no one else would. For as much as everyone in this town talked about freedom and preserving the town’s history and ensuring fairness, no one was willing to do shit about it. They were all talk. Sure, they would shake their heads and knit their brows as they complained about the declining state of the town, but who was willing to do something about it?
“It’s up to you,” she said to the mirror. The reflection frowned back at her. “You have to do something about it, before it gets too late.”
Winnie had one more object to retrieve from the room, which she found in her desk drawer. The five-shot .38 Special revolver, loaded and ready to go. It felt solid in her hands, cold and unforgiving. But she supposed that made sense. A gun shouldn’t have a carving of kittens and rainbows inlaid in the handle. This was an implement of death, and it should feel like one.
She slipped it into her purse and then retrieved her car to drive up toward the Big Cat Sanctuary. Maybe they would be a little more prone to negotiating with the town of Shotgun after she’d killed a couple of their lions and tigers.
Interlude #5
Oahu, Hawaii, United States | 9 Years ago
Layne wakes after what he hopes has been only seconds unconscious. For a moment, he can’t remember where he is or why, only that he’s trapped in a dark cave.
Suitcases. They toppled over on him when the bellhop had accidentally tripped him.
The target.
Layne shuffles the load of suitcases off himself, then bounds to his feet. A quick check of his surroundings pushes all his memories back to the forefront. He’s on Oahu, but not in his own resort. He’s at the resort next to his resort, looking for Elijah Brown.
The bellhop who accidentally c
lobbered Layne with a stack of heavy suitcases apologizes profusely, but Layne doesn’t look at him. His head is swiveling, checking for threats. A low current of buzz rumbles through his brain after taking a metal roller bag to the temple thirty seconds ago.
He doesn’t let the uncertainty and pain overwhelm him. Layne pulls in measured breaths as he narrows his eyes and focuses. The area is a swarm of people, some of whom had stopped to check out the bellhop-walker collision spilling out from the elevator. A large group of them are gathering in one spot in the lobby, probably awaiting a tour van for a sunset catamaran jaunt.
The bellhop is still apologizing. Layne fetches his stray baseball cap from the floor and puts it on, pulling the brim low to shield his face from these onlookers.
And he sees his target scurrying through the lobby, trailing a suitcase behind him. Elijah Brown, a man linked to the trafficking of women and children. A man who profits from suffering.
Layne will not abide this man to breathe any longer. But in a crowded lobby, he has to take care. If Elijah breaks out into a run, that will only turn more heads. The last thing Layne wants to do is to attract attention. He sees a scenario in his head: police arrive, arrest Layne, find the weapons on him. It’s always been Daphne’s position that, in such a case, she would have her operative released from jail later, and have the records scrubbed. But she would absolutely let him spend the night in jail first.
It won’t be a great look if Layne misses his rehearsal dinner this evening.
Elijah meets Layne’s eyes, and he seems to know exactly what’s going on. He quickens his pace. He’s headed for the door.
Now, Layne has a choice. Proceed with caution to deflect the civilians’ attention, or haul ass and damn the consequences.
Elijah must’ve seen the hesitance on Layne’s face, because he’s now jogging toward the front doors.