by A P Bateman
Stone popped the trunk of the Mustang. Gator had stored it in a neighbour’s Dutch barn and given Stone directions at the hotel. There was nobody at the homestead, which was a timber ranch-style three bedroom with two fenced corals or paddocks for ponies. It was situated at the end of the strip, adjacent to Dr Fallon’s surgery. Gator had shrugged when Big Dave had asked if he’d seen Stone collect the Mustang. He wouldn’t have told the others, but Big Dave had beaten him around the stomach and back until he’d been sick in his own yard. He had played innocent and was taken to the hotel where he remained under house arrest.
The tyres looked good. Gator had fuelled the car as well. Stone rummaged through the trunk, tried his dependable cell phone with all the network cards, but it was no use. The whole of Abandon and Aldridge Valley was a black spot. He doubted whether two-way radios would work out here either. Stone pulled out the spare wheel and retrieved a stainless steel briefcase. He worked the combination and opened it. Inside, cut into the foam was an FN Five-Seven pistol and five, twenty-round magazines. The weapon used its own developed 5.7x28mm ammunition. A tiny boat-tailed bullet in a necked cartridge, it travelled a flat trajectory making it extremely accurate at distances up to two-hundred metres. It not only had a tremendously accurate range, but created little recoil making it easy to fire sustained rapid bursts on target. Unlike many so-called powerful pistols, the tiny 5.7mm bullet tore through Kevlar bulletproof vests with ease. Stone had stacked the magazines with a phosphorus tracer round and a soft-nosed dum-dum bullet at regular intervals.
He took out a webbing and canvass belt holster rig with ammunition pouches and fastened it around his waist. The holster hung low and Stone made the weapon ready and slipped it into the holster and fastened it around his thigh with Velcro straps. He put the magazines in the pouches, and fastened the sheath knife he’d liberated on the mountain. He could have done with a sight for the rifle, but he figured there’d be a few weapons on the ground to take once the shooting started.
It took Stone forty minutes to get into position. He drove the steep mountain road quickly, took great care to park off the road, reversing in for a quick getaway and broke down some leafy saplings to cover over the bonnet and windshield. He took a flashlight out of the glovebox and checked his watch.
He could see vehicles ahead. Men were getting in, they carried shotguns and rifles. He counted a dozen men and three trucks. They drove out erratically. Stone was saddened, his stomach and chest ached, empty. It was another hour and ten minutes until he had told Beth they would burn down the Conrad’s businesses, and Claude’s men were moving out already. He knew she was desperate, but he had never expected her to betray him. Not the Beth he had known. Not the woman he had once loved.
He checked his watch again. He knew that Big Dave’s men would be moving also. After fifteen minutes of watching both Claude Conrad’s property and the ridge to the south, the orange glow confirmed it. Gator had led a group of volunteers to Big Dave’s yard. Armed with a variety of firearms and carrying several gallons of petrol, diesel and oil they planned to set fire to his vast piles of lumber which was curing and drying both in stacks outside and in the cavernous buildings. As soon as Big Dave and his men moved out, they would raze the place to the ground. The offices, accommodation huts and vehicles were all going to be set on fire as well. The colour of the night sky southwards was now getting brighter by the second.
Stone could not hear gunshots. He supposed that all of Big Dave’s men, including the man himself, had gone down to town. So far, so good. After setting the lumber concession on fire the same men would set up an ambush. Waiting for the men to return, they would have cover and the advantage of surprise. But they had more – they had no further options available to them. Stone knew that the men would fight with all they had.
Stone suspected Claude Conrad would remain. The man was older, stiffer. He had younger men around him to do his dirty work. He was a giver of orders, not a man to sully his own hands. Stone watched the house ahead of him. It was a large timber frame with an open fronted porch and three wooden steps leading up to it. The lights were off, which made him nervous. There was a slither of moon, and a clear sky. The starlight alone emitted enough light to see things in great detail, but along with the glowing orange across the ridge, as bright as a sunset, the darkness afforded no cover. From the darkness within the house, anybody lying in wait would have the advantage. They would see him approaching.
There was a slight hum beyond the house. A distant droning. Stone remained in the trees and made his way around the fringe of the property. The sound grew louder, more distinct. He crossed an access road made from compacted shingle. He could see the track would come out further up the road from where he had parked. A separate access bypassing Claude Conrad’s property. There was light coming from a large cave entrance ahead of him, hewn into the rock of the mountaintop. Ahead were several tipper trucks. Tonka style. They were parked up in a line.
Stone drew near to the trucks. There was an eruption of gunfire and sparks danced off the reinforced steel of the truck in front of him. He dropped to the ground and rolled towards the truck for cover. The sound of the bullets upon the metal was deafening, and he had still yet to mark the shooter’s position. A flash emitted from the trees near the access road. Stone returned fire with the M4, but with the sightless weapon and without tracer he had no way of knowing if he had got his rounds in close enough.
More gunfire, this time from the right, near the cave entrance. Two separate shooters. Stone fired back. He switched to single shots and tried to line up the barrel as best he could. The bullets sparked on the granite and it was about as on target as he could have hoped. Both weapons fired back and he ducked down under the truck and moved between the axle to take cover behind one of the wheels. There was a long pause. Stone didn’t check, he knew that to stop moving was to start dying and he backed out and rolled under the next truck. He changed over to another magazine, stashed the partially spent one in his jacket pocket. Ahead he saw a figure break cover and run towards the rock face. Stone took out the pistol and aimed, giving a two-foot lead. He fired once and the figure looked like it tripped and fell. When the person hit the ground, the silhouette was gone and Stone could not see them anymore. He knew how accurate the Five-Seven was and he was confident of a hit, even from close to one hundred metres distant. The 5.7x28mm was a nasty little bullet and would have tumbled upon loosing velocity. It would have tilted and turned and deformed and exited a long way off from where it had penetrated. One shot, one stop.
He could hear a hushed call, somebody trying to contact his buddy. Stone fired off a few rounds of the M4 in the general direction, breaking the chance of communication. He moved between the trucks, saw the gunman next to the cave entrance and fired. The man jumped as the bullets streamed into the rock beside him. Stone cursed, took another aim, but gunfire came back from his right. He ducked down. If he hadn’t hit the running figure, then he now had guns on three sides. It couldn’t get much worse, but it did. Gunshots sounded from behind, and he dropped to the ground and rolled under the next truck.
He was hit in the back. He felt the bullet strike,
a pain like nothing he’d felt before. He arched his back in a silent scream, but strangely, he was pulled up from the ground and cast high in the air. As he came back down, he landed on something hard, then dropped to the ground. He realised it had been upon somebody’s knee, but it couldn’t have been. He was still too high from the ground. He felt another strike on his back, realised that the first strike had not been a bullet, but somebody’s foot. Again he was thrown high into the air, cast upwards like a ragdoll. Again he landed on the upcoming knee and dropped a further four feet to the ground. He had dropped the rifle, and now he could feel the pistol ripped out of the holster – no, the whole belt rig had been ripped off him, the webbing strangling his gut before it had ripped and snapped the buckles. He rolled over, kicked by that giant foot which had all but shattered his spine. Stone loo
ked up through the haze, the beginnings of unconsciousness starting to envelop him. The man stared down at him. His face was so far away, that Stone thought his eyesight was ruined. The man bent down and caught Stone by the scruff of his jacket and pulled him up off the ground with one hand. Stone punched out, caught the man in the side of the jaw, but he didn’t so much as recoil. The fat and flesh simply absorbed his fist.
He smiled. “My name is Horse,” the giant rasped. “Boy, am I going to have fun with you…”
33
There were four men in all. Nine if you counted Horse by appearances alone. The other three men were of average height and by no means lightweights, but looked comically small as they stood beside the giant. Stone lay on his back where Horse had thrown him to the ground. They were in the entrance and Stone could see it was so much more than a cave.
The light came from fixed LED lights in the ceiling. The floor of the cave had been scraped, spread with shingle and compressed pneumatically. There were a series of partitioned rooms, built with stud-work and closed off by doors. An open doorway revealed a dining room or mess hall, another appeared to be a toilet and shower block.
Stone looked at his weapon belt and pistol. Along with the flashlight and the rifle it had been placed on a stainless steel table near the entrance. They had beaten him and kicked him, but they hadn’t searched him well and although they had taken the magazines for the M4 rifle, he could still feel the lock knife in one of the lower pockets of his cargo trousers, and he was sure he could still feel the lighter he’d taken from the man Beth had killed outside the sheriff offices. He fleetingly wondered how it was playing out for her.
He rolled onto his side and spat out a glob of blood and mucous. They had broken his nose and he knew that some ribs had been cracked. The men grinned, like they were enjoying the prospect of beating him some more. Stone rubbed his jaw. He could see a figure entering. His eyes were blurry, but the form of Claude Conrad came closer and the man stopped just short of Stone and smiled.
“I see you’ve met Horse,” he said. “Not so tough now, are you?”
“I’m taking a break before I kill him.”
Conrad laughed. “You are a joker, Mister Stone. Beth told me all about you. She’s a hell of a woman.”
“I’d be inclined to disagree.”
“You two were close.”
“Things change.”
“Don’t be too hard on her,” Conrad smiled. “She just loves her son more than she loves you. Incidentally, do you want to meet him?”
“I can’t be staying,” Stone winced. “I have dinner plans.”
Conrad smiled, then nodded to Horse, who stepped forwards and pulled Stone to his feet like he was a seven-year-old. He pushed him ahead of them towards a cavernous entrance in the rock. Stone shrugged and hobbled towards it. He glanced back. The other men followed confidently. Horse and Claude Conrad were not armed, not noticeably at least. The other three men carried assault rifles, two AR-15s and one Ruger Mini-14. The Ruger was a notoriously inaccurate weapon – good for taking down cougars or coyotes at a hundred metres, but not a match grade weapon capable of range bullseyes like the AR-15s. It was all irrelevant though, they were a matter of mere paces away. But Stone’s mind took in details, because details mattered. Like the fact his weapons had been left on the table. Like the fact the cave entrance was an open exit.
“You’ve caused me a great deal of trouble, Mister Stone,” Claude said, a mere two paces behind him. “You’ve killed, or ruined a great many of my men.”
“I guess you need better men.”
“Indeed.” The cavernous area broke into two separate tunnels. Each tunnel was large enough to drive one of the hauling trucks through. Stone hesitated. “The left tunnel, Mister Stone,” said Conrad.
Stone veered left. The tunnel started to run downhill. After fifty metres, more tunnels appeared, each one considerably narrower and lower. Stone glanced backwards and noticed Horse dip his head. The man stood seven and a half feet tall and Stone could only guess at his weight, but if Stone weighed one-ninety or two-hundred, Horse had to tip the scales at five-hundred at least, maybe a hundred more. No wonder they called him Horse. He thought of the man playing with Tom, the hardware guy, like the two were a cat and a mouse.
Stone slowed but was thrust forwards by Horse. He stumbled, but regained his footing. He thought all the time how best to take the big man down, but could not come up with anything. His old Secret Service combat instructor had a few rules.
Eyes – we all see the same. We all fear blindness.
Throat – we all need air.
Groin – we all hurt the same down there.
The instructor had never laid eyes on Horse though. Stone wasn’t sure how many pounds of fat hung below the man’s balls, but if that bulge of fat was a turkey it would feed fifty at Thanks Giving. And if he had a stepladder he may well gouge an eye or strike at the man’s throat, but he didn’t see any stepladders anywhere either. He thought of his trusty knife. The blade was a mere three inches in length and razor sharp, but Horse would have ten inches of flesh between the blade and any vital organ. If he used his knife he would have to be able to seem out the muscles like a butcher, start cutting and not stop. Not until he found the vital organs and arteries. He doubted Horse would let him do that though.
A series of metal doors lined the left hand wall. Each one had a sliding inspection flap. Conrad walked up to one and opened it. He stepped aside and smiled, beckoning Stone to look.
Stone stepped up hesitantly. He already knew what he would see, and felt voyeuristic as he peered inside. The room was fifteen feet wide and thirty feet deep. Metal bunk beds lined both walls, about sixteen bunks at a glance. Thirty-two people. Only they were empty. Conrad slid the next flap open and Stone walked over. This room was full. Faces turned in unison and looked toward the light. Stone shut the flap and stared at Conrad.
“Business, Mister Stone. Labour is the biggest drain on any business, and the bigger the business, the more labour that business needs.” Conrad walked to the next flap, and then the next. “Five rooms, between thirty and forty people per room. We operated sixteen hour shifts, seven days a week. Three-sixty-five. We ran for twenty-four hours a day, so for four hours we had a double shift overlap. You would be amazed how much work we got done.”
“So why are the cells full now?”
“We have suspended the silver mining operation. The silver streak ended. We discovered another opportunity. Easier, more sustainable.”
“Where are the people from the empty cell?”
“Committed to the new opportunity, so to speak.”
“Where are they all from?” Stone asked quietly.
“All over. Drifters, mainly. A lot of ex-servicemen. Lost causes, people nobody would miss. Alcoholics and drug addicts. We cleaned them up cold turkey. Then we started to run low and a few people were getting out of line in town, I couldn’t have them ruining my town so…”
“Ex-service men?” Stone interrupted. “And your brother Bart went along with that?”
Conrad smiled. “Bart gets some help now and then; he doesn’t know the full extent of my operation. I send some of my boys round to help him, but only the paid labour.” He almost spat out the last sentence. “Then there’s the troublemakers in town. You’d be amazed how quickly people step back in line knowing their loved ones are under my… care.”
“And for what? For silver?”
“At first. But there were many more facets to this… opportunity.” Conrad nodded to Horse and the giant pushed Stone forwards. Stone resisted this time, but it just hurt more. He stumbled and righted himself before he fell. Another hundred metres and the tunnel broke into two once more. “Right, Mister Stone. Or should I call you Agent Stone? Sheriff Maloney told me all about you.”
Stone said nothing. He stopped walking and looked at Conrad. “So a hundred and fifty to two hundred slaves makes you what?”
“A slave master.”
�
��I mean in money.”
“We had two production concessions here. The silver was a nice starter, made me a lot of money but it was soon obvious that we’d make more if we didn’t have to write pay checks.”
“You and Big Dave.” Stone stated, offhandedly. “I’m surprised the two of you could work that out.”
Conrad smiled. “We’re just simple country boys, but we catch on real quick. We’ve recently discovered another asset. Our second concession. I think, with some tweaking, we can dispense with the silver mining altogether. It’s expensive to test for further mineral streaks. They’re there, of course, somewhere. But we still need to operate machinery, which is expensive. The next streak could be a thousand feet deep. That’s a lot of rock.” He walked onwards, this time Stone followed. He could both feel and hear Horse breathing behind him. A raspy, breathy wheeze. Conrad stopped outside a doorway. “This leads to our infirmary. This may interest you.” He stepped aside and one of the men opened the door. “After you,” he said.
Stone stepped inside. There were gurneys with bodies on them, each covered by a white sheet. Beside them, stainless steel work tables. There were kidney dishes with bloody gauze and cotton swabs, trays with operating implements on them. There was blood on the floor. Stone felt a shiver run up his spine, a flutter inside his stomach. For a moment his legs felt heavy, leaden. He did his best to shake it off. He turned to Claude Conrad. “What the hell are you doing in here?”
Conrad whipped the sheet off a gurney to reveal one of the men Stone had knocked unconscious in the diner. The man was naked and was sliced wide open in a large cross taking up all of his torso. The edges of skin, the meaty flaps had been pulled open and stapled to stop them from closing.
“Your fault, Agent Stone. All down to you. He was no longer of any use to me sporting a broken arm. Not a nice clean break. He would have needed surgery to sort out that elbow. His buddy also, with his broken leg. A compound fracture. Very nasty. Consequences of your actions. They were good men, but you ruined them for me. You’re a vicious and resourceful man, Agent Stone. You could have just knocked them out, but you had to take them out of the game. Inflict time-constraining injuries upon them.” Conrad shrugged. “Organ harvesting. That’s our new opportunity. As long as we coordinate the airplane with the time of organ extraction, and make sure our donors are alive on the slab, we can make it work. Organ transplant waiting lists are appalling. My wife died needing transplant, I know how dreadful it is to be waiting for something that never seems to come. And then, for my wife and I, it was too late. There are doctors out there who are willing to help paying customers, and these doctors often have a place to do their work, but struggle with the fresh supply. I had the idea about five years ago, and it’s taken until the past few months to get it to fruition, but we’ve started harvesting the organs and quite successfully too. The internet, especially the dark web has made all sorts of things possible. I use a specialist programmer to navigate the web. He once helped me with my loan enterprise,” Conrad paused. “The internet is like an onion, you see. The layers of information hiding out there. Google and other search engines operate on the skin and the first layer. An expert will peel back a few more layers with specialist search algorithms and detailed questioning, but there is far more out there. Another ninety percent at least. That’s where people find assassins for hire, child pornography, fake banknotes to purchase, snuff movies or paedophile sex rings. And of course, our organ harvesting and donation business. We fly the doctors in and they do the work. We assist them in surgery, help package and put the organs on ice, then they fly out with their purchases. We have ten doctors lined up, and we’re going to be able to keep up supply for all of them. Big Dave’s truck drivers pick up hitch-hikers all the time while they’re delivering lumber. We advertise, carefully, for miners – Gold Rush TV wannabes – like dear old Deborah’s son. Now, with the silver mine closing down, we’ve got enough to keep up with supply and demand. Like a herd of cattle, we only have to have new stock trickle in to top up supply.” He smiled at Stone, noticing the younger man’s colour draining out of his cheeks. “We’ve had our fair share of people getting in our way. That PI Deborah hired for one, the investigative journalist was another. He was one of our first donors.” Stone looked at the gurneys. He felt physically sick, flushed with heat and cold all at once. “You seem shocked, Agent Stone. I thought you were a man of the world. A war veteran. This shocks you?”