Mortal Fear

by Greg Iles

  “You son of a bitch!”

  “I’m sorry, Harper. I had to know. And that’s the answer. Brahma became obsessed with ‘Erin’ because she had this semi-incestuous angle to her past. And because you played her so convincingly. Erin had a child by her sister’s husband. She ignored the rules for the sake of love, just like Catherine. She’s a combination of Brahma’s mother and the sister he never had. Or at least that’s what Brahma started to think under the stress of his other problems.”

  “We’re done talking, Miles.”

  “Wait! Can’t you see I’m only doing this to stop this motherfucker?”

  “I don’t think anybody can stop him.”

  “I can. The question is, what will Brahma do now? When he got to your place and found he’d been fooled, he must have flipped out. But why kill Erin? She was the girl in the JPEG, after all. Why not kidnap her? Did he take her pineal gland?”

  “No. But he took something. Probably her ovaries.”

  Miles’s mouth falls open.

  “She had a surgical incision down there.”

  “Christ. You see? With his pineal work going down the tubes, Brahma fixated on extending his gene line through children. It’s that simple. Wait . . . Erin killed Kali, you said. That means Erin fought like a banshee, right?”

  I close my eyes, remembering Kali’s mutilated corpse. “Brahma had to kill Erin,” Miles concludes. “She left him no choice. Just like Karin Wheat. So he tried to salvage what he could. He probably carries some special transport container for the pineals. He just loaded up her ovaries instead.”

  “Stop, Miles! I don’t even want to hear that shit. There’s got to be something else on that hard drive to give you an idea who or where he might be.”

  He looks at me in silence for several moments. Then he says, “Two things. There’s a WordPerfect file called ‘Clarus.’ It’s not set up like the murder letters. It’s more of a memo-to-myself kind of thing, like something he typed out while talking on the phone. It looks like specs for some type of new medical instrument. Clarus is the name of the company that makes it.”

  “What kind of instrument?”

  “The kind Drewe thought didn’t exist. And until recently, it didn’t. It’s called a neuroendoscope. It’s a long, thin, flexible tube called a cannula that you can pass instruments through. It’s made to operate on the brain. There’s a fiber-optic camera attached, and a bright light source. You can visualize the interior of the patient’s brain by running the scope’s camera signal to a TV or a video camera with a built-in screen. Harper, the cannula is only four-point-five millimeters wide.”

  “My God. Are there any names in the file? People from the company that Brahma might have talked to?”

  “No.”

  “What’s the second thing?”

  “I’ve got a serial number off a Microsoft program that might be traceable. It’s a beta version. Microsoft handed them out like popcorn in ninety-two, but I’ve got some friends in Redmond who might be able to track it down.”

  “Good. Do it. And fax everything you have to Baxter at Quantico. Right now.”

  “Harper—”

  “Do it, goddamn it!”

  He nods assent. “Don’t you think Baxter is probably on his way to you by now?”

  This hasn’t occurred to me. “I don’t know. It looks like Brahma’s already clear. He used a private plane. They found fresh tire tracks on the same strip you used.”

  “Harper, I am so sorry about Erin. How’s Drewe holding up?”

  “I sedated her.”

  “Oh.”

  “You just fax that stuff to Baxter.”

  “I will.” He pauses. “Maybe you should split for a while, you know?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Brahma, for one thing. He knows where you live. And if Erin killed Kali . . . do I have to draw you a picture?”

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Dr. Anderson isn’t exactly Mr. Understanding either, as I recall. If he thinks it’s your fault his daughter is dead—”

  “It is my fault.”

  “Only to the extent that you trusted me.”

  “Look at it this way, Miles. Next time Lenz asks us what the worst thing we’ve ever done is, we won’t have to think very hard to find the answer.”

  Before he can respond, I click the mouse on TERMINATE VIDEO LINK and sink lower into the chair.

  After a minute, Nefertiti reappears, turning slowly. The muscles in my neck are knotted from scrubbing, and my backbone feels like it could splinter through the skin. I should get up and check on Drewe, but I can’t summon the energy. Miles’s warning about Drewe’s father replays endlessly in my head. Bob must be home by now. He could show up here any time.

  I need caffeine. I force myself up out of the chair and walk to the minifridge, but it’s empty. As I head for the kitchen, my eyes follow the floorboards, checking for bloodstains I might have missed. I see none.

  There are no Tabs in the kitchen refrigerator, but there is a six-pack of Diet Coke. I pop the top on one and lean back against the counter, swallowing the burning fluid and letting the cold from the open refrigerator wash over me. When that drink is empty, I open another and let the door swing closed. The kitchen is so narrow here, it looks like a monk’s sleeping quarters.

  You’re punch-drunk, I tell myself. You can make it to the bedroom.

  Glancing through the laundry room to the back door, I realize that the last cop through it probably didn’t think about locking up. I set down the Diet Coke and walk past the closed pantry door to the laundry room to shoot the bolt and—

  Freeze.

  At least twenty cops have trooped through this house in the past two hours, but I’m positive that not one of them knew of, much less searched, the bomb shelter. Leaving the bolt unshot and the Diet Coke on the stove, I back through the kitchen into the hallway, my heart hammering, my fear for Drewe overcoming all else.

  Should I try to get her out of the house? No. We’d be totally vulnerable as I carried her to the truck. My .38 is out there too. I’ve got to have a gun. I dart into an offshoot of our main hall, toward the neglected bedroom we use for storage.

  The door creaks as I push it open, but I follow through and leave it ajar behind me. In the far corner of the bedroom, standing like an upended deep freeze amid the sentimental flotsam of five generations of Coles, is my father’s gun safe. Inside it is a motley collection of antique pistols and flintlock muskets, many dating back to the War between the States, some even to the Revolution. The combination lock is easy to open, the numbers those of my father’s birthday: 10-6-32.

  The hard tang of gun oil and good steel hits me in a reassuring wave. Shoving apart the muskets to reach the back shelf, I set aside a can of Elephant brand black powder and grab the suede zip case containing the single modern weapon in the safe, my father’s Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum. There’s a box of shells on a thin metal shelf in back. I quickly unzip the case and load the pistol, putting the remainder of the rounds in my pocket. The cartridges are old, but with luck they will still cook off if I actually have to fire the thing. The big checked wooden grip feels unfamiliar in my hand. Sighting once down the six-inch barrel, I move back into the hallway and hurry into the bedroom.

  Drewe hasn’t moved. Facing the closed door, I back around the bed to the telephone and dial Sheriff Buckner’s office with my left hand. I keep my right on the Magnum, taking my eyes off the door only long enough to see the numbers.

  “Sheriff’s Department.” A woman’s voice, more a question than a statement.

  “I need to talk to the sheriff. Now.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Harper Cole. Get him!”

  “He’s not here.”

  “Who’s in charge?”

  “Just a second.”

  The next voice is male, young. “Deputy Jones. What can I do for you?”

  I answer in language calculated to scare the living hell out of Deputy Jones, tell
ing him about the tunnel and making it plain that people might die if Buckner and some deputies don’t get back to my house ASAP. Then I hang up and sit down between Drewe and the door, the .357 pointed at its upper panel. The gun has a sobering weight. My arms are soon shaking with fatigue, but I’m afraid to sneak a look at my watch. It’s been over a year since I opened the gun safe, the last time I felt sentimental about my father and found myself cleaning his guns to remember him. No, squeeze the trigger, son. Be careful now, Harp, this thing’ll put a bullet through a car door—

  A bump from somewhere inside the house steels my flagging arms. No way could Buckner’s men be here yet. Not from Yazoo City. I listen in a way I have not since my grandfather took me on my first and last deer hunt. Shooting Bambi seemed cruel and unnecessary to me then. Now blowing off a man’s head seems entirely justifiable.

  There is definitely someone in the house. I don’t know how I know, but I do. And that someone is moving.

  “Harper Cole!”

  My finger pulls against the Magnum’s trigger, stopping at the last pound of pressure. Does Brahma know my name? Of course he does.

  “Where you at, man? It’s Billy Jackson!”

  I’m on my feet instantly, pulling open the door and motioning the heavyset deputy into the room. His forehead and cheeks are beaded with sweat, his eyes alight with excitement.

  “Who’s with you, Billy?”

  “Jimmy Hayes, on the porch,” he says breathlessly, thumbing the hammer of the nine-millimeter automatic in his hand. “We were watching the house, like that New Orleans cop said to.”

  “Just you two?”

  “Sheriff’s on his way, but it could be twenty or twenty-five minutes. Your wife okay?”

  “She’s sleeping.”

  He looks past me to Drewe’s inert body. “Sheriff told me something about a basement? Someplace we didn’t search?”

  “It’s a bomb shelter. From the fifties. I think the killer could be hiding down there.”

  “State police say the guy got away in a plane.”

  “Then why the hell is Buckner still searching, Billy? They found tracks on an airstrip, that’s all. That could be hunters spotlighting deer. The FBI thinks there’s a group of people involved in these killings.”

  His eyes move quickly from side to side, like mechanical thought indicators. “A bomb shelter, huh? No shit. Old Pete Williams has one of those. Like a little underground trailer. Has a poker night down there sometimes.”

  “This one’s bigger,” I say impatiently. “There are tunnels running to it. One from the house, the other from outside.”

  “Where in the house?”

  “Pantry closet in the kitchen. There’s a trapdoor in the floor.”

  “Outside?”

  “There’s a weather-sealed door like a cellar entrance about seventy feet on a straight line from the back door of the house. In the cotton. It’s covered with dirt most of the time, but—”

  I stop too late. Billy’s eyes flash with animal cleverness. “Turner used it to sneak past us last week, right?”

  I don’t answer, but he sees the truth.

  “Goddamn. Okay, wait here a second.”

  I grab his meaty forearm and hold him. “Where you going?”

  “Tell Jimmy what’s up.”

  I don’t like the look in Billy’s eyes. “What did the sheriff tell you to do?”

  “Make sure you and your wife were safe till he got here.”

  “Don’t you think you should stay here, then?”

  He pulls his arm away. “Harp, they’re combing the whole county for the sumbitch that killed Erin. And he could be squatting under this house right now, maybe wounded. You think I’m gonna wait till he skips out that back tunnel? He coulda heard me hollering for you. I’m gonna put Jimmy out there to cover the back entrance.”

  I hate to admit it, but Billy’s plan makes sense. “You’ll be okay,” he says, pointing at my Magnum.

  “That’s a goddamn cannon you got there. I’ll knock twice when I get back.”

  Again I cover the closed door with manic concentration. When the two taps finally come and the door starts to open, I have to restrain myself from pulling the trigger. Billy’s sweating even more than before, and he’s exchanged his pistol for a pump shotgun.

  “You okay, Harp?”

  “Scared shitless.”

  “Don’t worry. Jimmy’s covering the back entrance.”

  “How can he find it in the dark?”

  Billy grins. “He’s a hunter, boy. Somebody pops up in that field, he’ll take ’em down sure as shit.”

  This is nuts, I say silently.

  “You hang tough another minute, okay?” Billy backs toward the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  His eyes are hard and bright. “We got this sumbitch cornered, Harp. Like a fox. And I’m gonna nail his ass.”

  “What?”

  His smile disappears. “Don’t give me no shit now. I’m gonna work my way through the tunnel with the Remington while Jimmy covers the back door.”

  “Billy, don’t do it! Wait for Buckner.”

  He shakes his head. “You got lights down there?”

  “There’s a switch low on the right side of the pantry wall.” I can’t believe I’m telling him this, but I also can’t let him go down into that hole in pitch darkness, which he seems fully prepared to do.

  Billy slaps his open hand on the shotgun. “You just sit tight and cover your old lady. I got a tear-gas round, a gas mask, and the odds on my side.”

  My mind searches wildly for another solution, but alternate plans aren’t the problem. Getting Billy Jackson to abandon this one is. And nothing short of a presidential directive would do it.

  “Listen,” he says earnestly. “You want to see this asshole go to trial? Sit there in court with your crying wife and in-laws while a dozen lawyers scream objections and get this fungus sent to a mental hospital? Maybe even get him off? This way’s clean, Harp. Won’t be nobody down there but me and him. Boom-boom, it’s over. Case closed. You’ll never have to waste another thought on the guy.”

  The persuasive power of Billy’s scenario surprises me. He’s no scholar, but he’s got a firm grasp of hard realities.

  He squints at his watch in the shadows. “If I’m not back by the time Buckner gets here, tell him to give me five minutes and then gas the tunnel with CS. Got that?”

  “CS.”

  “Right. Then come in blasting.”

  “Jesus, Billy.”

  “And if you hear anybody coming out of that trapdoor that ain’t yelling ‘Billy Jackson,’ you blow ’em to hell and gone.”

  “I will.”

  “Semper fi, buddy.”

  Shit.

  Chapter 40

  There is no more threatening sound than silence. It is the symphony of the snake that waits for its prey to step within striking range, of the tiger that stalks the deer. It begins as mere absence of sound, but unrelieved, it can build steadily into a roar that blurs perception to the point of sense blindness. I know that blindness now, sitting with both hands gripping the butt of the Magnum as though it could transport Drewe and me to another dimension, far from this dangerous place.

  I count the seconds as rivulets of sweat across my face, as breaths entering and leaving the lungs of my sleeping wife. How long will it take Buckner and his men to get here? Even if they were at the north end of the county, it shouldn’t take more than twenty-five minutes. How many have passed? Five? Ten? Or two? Keep still, I tell myself. No way he’s down there. Kali is dead and Brahma limped out to his plane and got the hell out of here for good. He saw his lover die and—

  Two explosions close together smash the silence, rattling the foundation of the house. I jump to my feet, trigger finger quivering, heartbeat loosed from its rhythm.

  “Harper?”

  I whirl, bringing the gun around with me. Drewe is up on one elbow, her eyes barely open.

  “What’s happenin
g?”

  “We’re in our bedroom. Lie down. We may be in trouble. We—”

  A third explosion shudders through the floorboards.

  Drewe’s eyes snap open. “What—?”

  An agonized wail like a cat in heat rolls out of the kitchen.

  “What was that?” she asks, her voice ragged.

  “Two deputies went down into the bomb shelter. Brahma may be down there.”

  Her fingers grip my wrist like channel-lock pliers.

  “Do you still have that pistol you used to use when I was out of town?” I ask.

  She nods. “In my dresser drawer.”

  “Which one?” I ask, pulling open the top one.

  “That’s it. God, I feel sick. Am I drunk?”

  Drewe’s pistol is a tiny Charter Arms .25 automatic Bob gave her when she went to medical school in New Orleans. An oddly inefficient weapon coming from a man like Bob, but I suppose he wanted her to be able to conceal it easily.

  “Whiiiite birrrd!” screams a voice that could have come from the pit of hell.

  “White bird? What . . . ?”

  “He’s calling you,” says Drewe. “He’s saying Harper. Who went down there?”

  “Billy Jackson. Jimmy somebody.”

  “Harrrper! Heelll meeeee!”

  “The sheriff’s on his way,” I tell her, my tone strangely defensive.

  She nods quickly. “You can’t go down there.”

  This time the wail drags out much longer than before. “I’m bleeeedinn!”

  “I told him not to go down there. Damn!”

  As Drewe stares at me, willing me to deafness, I realize I’m in a position I’ve seen a hundred times in movies. Seen, and then screamed silently at the hero not to go into the woods or up the attic stairs or wherever any half-intelligent person would know the monster or murderer was waiting. But sitting here now, in the awful silence following those screams, one fact is inescapable: I brought those men here. If I don’t help them, I will carry their lives on my conscience forever. And I’m already carrying too much.

  “Aaaaaaaaagghhh!”

  “Harper, you can’t do anything for them.”

  “I know,” I say softly. My right hand is clenched around the butt of the Magnum with painful force. The sheriff will be here before long. But Billy and his partner could be dead by then, and Brahma vanished into the summer night. Another prolonged shriek of pain reaches the bedroom, fainter this time.