Dead Men's Harvest

by Matt Hilton

  Second, and most important, although witnesses were given new names, they were encouraged to keep their first names, or select a new name with the same initials. There couldn’t be too many JTs on the Marshal Service’s books.

  Then there was the reason why Cain had sought out Michael Birch. Although a secretive process, there was always a trail back to some lowest denominator. The attorney general made final determination based on the recommendation of the state attorney assigned to the federal case, but it was always the lackeys of said attorney who wrote up the accompanying reports. Birch was one such lackey.

  Birch wasn’t a brave man.

  Not when Cain was standing over him with a knife in his hand.

  He soon gave up the codes to enter the database on his laptop computer. As well as the fingers Cain took as a memento of their meeting.

  Cain would have liked to have spent a little more time with Birch but he had to get from Virginia to Montana fast.

  He worked best alone, but wasn’t averse to a little assistance on occasion. He touched down at Glacier Park International Airport north of Kalispell and alighted from Kurt Hendrickson’s Challenger 604 private jet only a few hours later. The jet was of the type employed for executive travel and could carry up to nineteen passengers, a flight crew and steward. It had a full galley with the capacity for gourmet catering, stereo DVD, satellite phones, the business. It was sheer indulgence for one man. But Cain would have it no other way.

  A rented Ford Explorer was waiting for him.

  Cain was extensively travelled, but he’d never been to Montana. He’d formed the impression that the state’s topography was primarily grassland, but in this north-western corner near the Canadian border he was surrounded by towering, snow-capped mountains. He had his own take on the veneer of reality that surrounded him, but even he could appreciate the beauty of the mountains. The tree covered slopes offered plenty of opportunities for the concealment of corpses.

  Tapping coordinates into the sat-nav, he picked up the route south towards Somers at the head of Flathead Lake, before turning east towards Bigfork – the aptly named ‘village by the bay’. On the drive down he made a point of studying the vehicles passing in the other direction. Jeffrey Taylor could be in any of them.

  Michael Birch’s laptop had offered up three names with the initials JT. Joanne Theriault was a no-brainer, and it didn’t take much digging to find that Jonah Thexton was a fifty-eight-year-old African-American. Jeffrey Taylor and John Telfer had to be one and the same.

  Something else that Birch’s computer had given up: Telfer was due to be moved within the next few hours. Cain could have waited for him at the airport, but there was also an Amtrak depot in the nearby Glacier National Park, where he could board a train to Seattle or Chicago. If Cain missed him, he might never get another chance at finishing what he’d begun at Jubal’s Hollow. So too, at remote Jewel Ridge, the likelihood of taking Telfer away from his protectors would be greater than at either an airport or rail terminal. There was less chance of outside intervention.

  WITSEC normally leave their charges pretty much to their own devices. They don’t offer a round-the-clock bodyguard service, not until the witness is being returned to give evidence at trial. Still, Cain knew that Telfer would have been afforded more than the norm. Not only was he the key witness in the trial of the Hendrickson/Petoskey counterfeit currency ring, but he also knew the secret of the Harvestman.

  Official records said that the Harvestman was Robert Swan, Martin Maxwell’s estranged half-brother. The government said that Swan had murdered Maxwell, along with his wife and children, before going on his four-year killing spree. Cain found that most insulting. Swan, a hopeless musician, could barely pick a tune out of a guitar, never mind pick the bones from a body. Nevertheless, the story served the government well, considering they did not want a scandal erupting that one of their own was a psychopath. John Telfer knew otherwise, so the CIA, Secret Service and others would want to ensure that he kept that knowledge to himself. Likely he’d have twenty-four/seven chaperones so that he didn’t get too loose in the lips.

  Cain and Telfer shared a common bond.

  Both were living dead men.

  According to the government records Telfer had been the Harvestman’s final victim and, like Cain, he hadn’t survived Jubal’s Hollow. It was time to put a final exclamation mark on that statement.

  Chapter 12

  ‘I’m glad I caught you, Harve. Florida’s probably a dead end. There’s been a change of plan. I’m going to come to Little Rock and reacquaint myself with an old friend.’

  Hartlaub and Brigham had dropped me back at the airstrip where the small plane that had brought us from Maine awaited my return. I was predictable in that sense, so it was no surprise to find that the plane had been prepped to take me on to another location. The pilot was your typical ‘ask no questions’ type employed by the CIA and our sole interaction was him telling me to strap in, then he took us west towards Arkansas. Hartlaub and Brigham watched us swoop into a sky the colour of ashes; neither man felt the need to wave goodbye.

  As soon as we were in the air, I called Harvey on my phone, after first checking that Rink hadn’t left a reply at the voicemail box I’d used earlier.

  ‘You’re talking about Sigmund Petoskey?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, recalling the last time I’d seen the sanctimonious piece of shit. Sometimes I regretted not putting a bullet through his skull, but I didn’t have the proof that he had anything to do with the danger John was mixed up in until much later. Occasionally I’d thought about a return trip to Little Rock with the intention of righting that wrong, only I’d been busy with other more urgent tasks in the past year or so. I told Harvey about Walter’s suspicion that the Hendrickson organisation was behind Tubal Cain’s escape and, more than likely, Rink’s sudden disappearance. Sigmund Petoskey was Hendrickson’s man out in Arkansas. ‘I think that Siggy is a good starting point.’

  ‘I’ll get on it and see if I can locate him. His old haunts have been shut down, and now that he has an impending court case he’s playing at being lily-white for the media. Chances are he’s laying low somewhere the cameras can’t see the sweat on his brow.’

  ‘That suits me fine.’

  When I first met Harvey, he’d been reluctant to help. Siggy Petoskey was the local gangster in his neighbourhood and he’d worried that he’d feel the man’s wrath after Rink and I left town. As it happened, something had thrust him directly into the middle of the war we’d waged against the Hendrickson gang. It culminated in Harvey shooting dead a hit man who was chasing my brother John. The fact that the hit man chose to beat up Louise Blake, my brother’s ex, had snapped something in Harvey and he’d forgotten all about his fear. Since then, Harvey had kind of joined my club. I knew that I could rely on him to back me up all the way.

  ‘How is Louise?’ I asked.

  Having saved her life, Harvey had taken it upon himself to look after Louise. She’d welcomed his company, but in the interim I sensed that they’d drifted apart. Harvey hadn’t mentioned her in the last few months. Their relationship, in part, wasn’t so unlike mine and Imogen’s.

  ‘You think that she could be in danger?’ Harvey asked.

  ‘With Cain out and Hendrickson behind him, I don’t want to take the chance. They might get the wrong impression that she’s a direct line to John again.’

  ‘Soon as you hang up I’ll call her, get her somewhere safe.’

  ‘You two aren’t an item any more?’

  ‘No, Hunter. It was a short-lived thing. Louise moved on, has herself a new man, a new job and a new home. Not sure how she’ll react when she hears me on the other end of the phone.’

  ‘There’s only one way to find out. Speak to you later, Harve.’

  I hung up, letting him get on with the job.

  Then I settled down to catch a nap while we crossed the country. Sleepless nights were a factor in my life, but like many soldiers I’d developed the
skill of catching a few minutes at every opportunity. In my game you didn’t know when next you’d eat, sleep or shit, so you did so whenever you could. Only on this occasion the sleep wouldn’t come. Too many things were playing through my mind, a parade of horrors that wouldn’t let me rest.

  Bryce Lang’s face appeared, and I conjured the fear he’d been in when he thought that Luke Rickard was after him. It would have been nothing compared to coming face to face with Tubal Cain. That segued into an image of my brother strung from a wall in Cain’s ossuary in the Mojave, the flesh stripped from his back as Cain had tried to whittle the living bones from his ribcage. I watched in detached horror as John turned his face to mine and let out a bleat of terror, except this time it wasn’t John but Rink who was squirming under the maniac’s ministrations. The sight of my best friend chewing his lips in agony forced my eyes open and I blinked around the cabin of the plane. Beyond the windows the clouds pressed close, huge towers of cumulus as steel-grey as the phantom blade that had dug into Rink’s body.

  Maybe I’d let out a moan because the pilot was staring at me over his shoulder. I nodded him back to the controls. As verbose as a brick, he offered a grimace then returned to guiding the plane. I closed my eyes again, scrunched down in the seat and tried to get comfortable. That wasn’t going to happen, of course. My heart was hammering in my chest and the distinctive flutter of an adrenalin spike caused my extremities to shiver.

  Growing up on the streets of Manchester in the north of England, I recall nothing remarkable about my early days. My father, Joseph, died when I was young, and shortly after that, my mother, Anita, remarried. Bob Telfer wasn’t the man my dad was, and maybe that was why we never seemed to gel. He was a good enough person, but he wasn’t the ambitious type and was happy as long as there was food on the table and a tin of lager in the fridge. He didn’t deem spending time with a boy a worthwhile pursuit. That was OK by me; I just roamed the streets, or immersed myself in comic books or pulp fiction novels, dreaming of being like the heroes on those dog-eared pages. When my little brother was born I was shoved even further away. I wasn’t jealous of John, but it seemed that he could do no wrong in Bob’s eyes. I distanced myself even more, becoming involved in the skinhead scene that was rife at the time; as a result I ended up in scrapes with other groups. Arrested twice for fighting, I almost got myself a criminal record, but there was one cop who took me to one side and put me straight on a thing or two. He was an old-school copper, the type who’d take you down an alley and smack some sense into you, but on this occasion he only gave me some good advice. You think you’re some sort of tough guy, huh? Well, why don’t you prove it? Go join the army, lad. They’re always looking for tough guys.

  His words stayed with me, and as soon as I was old enough I enlisted. To prove something to the cop, I tried for the elite Parachute Regiment and made it through the rigorous selection process, and I stayed with 1 PARA until I was drafted into the specialised unit codenamed Arrowsake. It was round about then that I realised I wasn’t as tough as I thought. The training was hellish, but I thrived on it and came through the other end alive and more or less intact. I’d found direction, and a sense of unity that I’d never known with my own family. Walter Hayes Conrad became a surrogate father figure, but my greatest gain was someone who I truly felt was a brother. Jared Rington.

  We were an unlikely pairing, I suppose. I was a northern English grunt, he was a half-Japanese, half-Scottish Canadian raised in the Midwest of the USA, but our differences were outweighed by what we had in common. We formed a bond that was unshakeable, and that bond had only strengthened over the years. I could always rely on Rink to be there to watch my back, as I would always be there to watch his.

  That was what was bothering me most. When Rink needed me there, I’d been up in Maine with Imogen. OK, so I deserved a life of my own, but I felt that my selfishness had helped place Rink in mortal danger. Christ, Rink would laugh at that. He was no shrinking violet, in fact he was one of the toughest warriors I’d ever known and not the type to need a chaperone. But still, I couldn’t help feeling that this was my problem and it shouldn’t be Rink who was going through hell . . . again.

  From the front my taciturn pilot made a noise I took to mean that we were going down. Then the plane was buffeted and jostled as he banked it through the clouds. It was dawn over the Midwest, and the storms that were hammering the Eastern Seaboard had been left hundreds of miles behind, so as we broke from the cloud cover the rooftops of Little Rock twinkled back at us under the breaking sun. The Arkansas River snaked through the city, a ribbon of fire, and the pilot followed its course before banking again out towards Adams Field, Little Rock’s airport.

  I checked to see if anything looked familiar, tried to pinpoint the area where last I’d assaulted Sigmund Petoskey’s lair, but couldn’t. I didn’t care; he wasn’t going to be in a dilapidated building this time. It wouldn’t matter where, I would find him and make him tell me where Rink was.

  Walter had guaranteed John’s safety. It was time for me to look after my other brother.

  Chapter 13

  Much further to the north-west day hadn’t yet broken. Jewel Ridge was in darkness but there were lights on behind the cabin’s shutters. They were too bright to be a single night light, so it was likely that the occupants were up and about. Maybe the people inside were going through their early-morning ablutions, or perhaps cooking up a calorie-laden breakfast in anticipation of the long day ahead. They’d be moving in slow motion, their bodies not yet revved up to full throttle. It was a good time to surprise them, Cain decided.

  Minds that should be sharp and alert would still be foggy from the lingering effect of sleep. These were the least industrious hours on the clock and it didn’t look like anyone had been out the cabin yet. The vehicles parked outside hadn’t been loaded. Morning dew had begun collecting on the windscreens, pine needles blown from the nearby trees had gathered on the hoods.

  Cain had parked his own vehicle a mile away. He’d jogged in, arriving at the cabin fully awake, his body energised for what would follow. He paused, studying the cabin, allowing his beating heart to calm. When he went in it would be cool-headed and loose-limbed.

  He checked his weapons. Both the H&K and the Beretta would be brought into service, but it was the Recon Tanto knife with its epoxy-coated blade he’d prefer to use. Sticking someone with a knife was far more personal – and satisfying – than blowing them away at a distance. Cain enjoyed the proximity of death when delivered with a blade; it allowed him to see his victims’ initial shock, the cold realisation that their life was his to take, the final dimming of their eyes.

  But he wasn’t going to be impetuous.

  He had no way of knowing how many protectors were inside the cabin. This wasn’t a mission simply to kill with abandon. At any other time he’d relish walking into that cabin, taking the odds as they came, and, if he didn’t happen to kill them all, well, such was the chaotic nature of life. In the here and now, though, there was a precise target and he couldn’t allow his personal desires to get in the way of a successful result. John Telfer had to die. But to get to Telfer, he had first to take out those who would try to stop him.

  Cain was dressed for the occasion. He wore dark clothing and high-top boots, a cap pulled down low over his fair hair. He felt like he was back in the game again. With the tree-lined hillside as cover, he approached the cabin. Using the shadows to his advantage, he moved to the parked SUV. Holstering the Beretta, he pulled the Tanto out of its sheath. A quick jab of the blade split the tyre and the SUV sank at one corner. Not totally disabled. He jabbed the next tyre. Now it would be difficult to drive.

  He quickly slashed the tyres of the sedan, then, happy that the occupants of the cabin would have no means of a quick getaway, he moved towards the porch. Putting away the knife, he drew the Beretta, advancing with a gun in each hand like some fabled Two Gun Tex.

  The planks on the porch looked reasonably sound, but he couldn’t
take the chance that they’d creak under his weight, giving away his position. Whether or not the people inside were at a low ebb, hearing furtive movement on the porch would galvanise them into action. Cain didn’t want that. He had to maintain the element of surprise. Get Telfer: that was all that mattered.

  From within the cabin he could hear muffled conversation. Two voices, those of a man and a woman. But were there more?

  He made his way around the side of the cabin. There was a window at that end, too, which like all the others had shutters. Moving up close, he found he could peer through a narrow niche between two slats. The cabin was open plan at this end. The living quarters were kept to a minimum, with a couch, a TV, and table and chairs. There was a kitchen area at the back of the building with a wood-burning stove that doubled as a cooking range. Stairs led up to a mezzanine-type gallery where a bed occupied most of the space. Beneath the gallery were two doors. Likely one was to a bathroom, the other to another bedroom.

  Through the chink in the shutter, Cain watched a slim woman wander across the room. She pushed hands through her cropped hair. She had a gun holstered on her hip. She said something, a low murmur. A man answered her from the bed on the raised gallery. He sat up. He was fully clothed, appeared to have been merely killing time.

  Under the gallery, the door on the left opened and a stocky man with a greying brush cut came out, rubbing his face with a towel. The woman lifted a mug off the range in the kitchen, handing it to the man, before taking her turn in the bathroom.

  Cain frowned. Neither man was John Telfer.

  Swinging off the bed, the man clumped down the stairs, hitching his jeans to a more comfortable position. He had a shoulder rig, but it was empty. Cain glanced around and saw the man’s sidearm lying on the table. Now that the woman was in the bathroom, only the guy with the brush cut was armed. He had an impressive-looking Desert Eagle strapped to his waist.