“Best step back a bit, buddy,” Lisa said calmly. “Long way down.”
Ben complied with obvious reluctance. “Come see, Mom,” he said. Marie stepped to him and looked cautiously over. The water roared and hissed and tumbled through the air until it smashed against the stone a hundred feet below, exploding into a cloud of mist before continuing its journey down to the valley below.
“Isn’t it cool?!” Ben said.
“It’s gorgeous,” Marie said truthfully.
“Can we stay, Mom?” Ben said.
“I hope so,” Marie said. “But you’ve got to promise never to come here without a grown-up. You might fall.”
“I won’t fall,” Ben said.
“Promise,” Marie insisted.
“Okay, okay,” Ben said. He brightened. “I can get Lisa to bring me. Right, Lisa? Right?”
Lisa laughed. “Sure, kiddo,” she said. “Any time.”
***
Holley squinted into the late-afternoon sun. The day’s hangover had subsided somewhat, but the sun’s rays still made his head hurt. He reached over and fumbled the glove compartment open. The road climbing into the mountains had grown more winding, so it was an exercise in divided concentration to locate the last hashish-laced joint. Finally, his fingers encountered the softness of the stuffed rolling paper. He smiled. He put the joint between his lips and popped the cigarette lighter. Last one, he told himself. Then it’s show time.
The miles passed more quickly in the haze of the black Afghan hash. It began to get dark. He almost missed the turn to the town where DeGroot had told them to meet. He found that hilarious. He was laughing as he got back on the right road. Finally, after a timeless interval, he saw the lighted sign of the small motel where DeGroot had said to meet. He pulled into the parking lot. A Toyota 4 × 4 and a red Corvette were the only vehicles parked in front of the units. Holley stashed the last remains of the joint and got out of his car.
The crunch of his combat boots on gravel sounded unnaturally loud in his ears as he walked into the office, blinking against the bright fluorescent lights. “Room for the night, dude,” he told the elderly man behind the desk. He was dark-skinned, with a full beard. A dark-red turban was wrapped around his head. The man’s lips pursed in disapproval as Holley filled out the register.
“Markey D?” the man said. “What kind of a name is that?”
“It’s my stage name, dude,” Holley said. “Like Ice-T. 50 Cent. You know the drill.”
“I need your full name,” the man said irritably.
Holley briefly toyed with the idea of fetching his pistol from the car and teaching the little fuck some manners, but put the pleasant idea aside for another time. The old man slapped a key down on the counter. Holley picked it up and squinted at it. The number made no sense to him. Jesus, he thought, I am ripped straight to the tits.
“Can’t you read?” the old man said. “Number thirteen.”
“Lucky number thirteen,” Holley grinned. “Thanks, dude.”
As he walked down the row of units, a door opened. Danny Patrick stepped out. “Danny Boy!” Holley said happily. He began to sing. “Danny Boyyy…” he crooned in an unmelodious voice, “the fuck-ing pipes are callllling…”
“Jesus,” Patrick said. “Are you wasted?”
“Good to see you, too, brudda,” Holley said. “Where’s our friend?”
“He’s in his room,” Patrick said. “Come on.” He led Holley down the row of units. He knocked at a door. Holley could see a thin sliver of light across Patrick’s face as the door was opened a crack. Then the door swung wide. Holley followed Patrick into the room. DeGroot was seating himself on the bed. He held a 9mm automatic in his right hand.
“Howzit, bru?” DeGroot asked.
“Aiight,” Holley replied. “What’s with the iron?” He gestured toward the gun.
“Can’t be too careful, hey?” DeGroot said easily.
“Can you drive?” Patrick asked him.
“I drove here, didn’t I?”
“Good,” Patrick said. “Come on.” He tossed Holley a set of keys. He turned to DeGroot. “We’ll be back,” he said.
“Where are we going?” Holley said as he deftly plucked the keys out of the air. He followed Patrick out the door.
Patrick pointed at the Toyota. “We’ve got to ditch this somewhere,” he said. “It’s gonna be reported stolen pretty soon. DeGroot’ll be happy he doesn’t have to drive. He doesn’t want to get out any more than he has to.”
“What’s going on?” Holley said. “Is our old buddy bringing down the heat?”
“Yeah,” Patrick said. “But if we do this right, it’ll be okay. And the payoff…” He stopped.
“The payoff?” Holley said helpfully.
“Millions, Markey,” Patrick said. “Fuckin’ millions.”
***
The cabin was small, two bedrooms and a tiny front room that served as a parlor and work space. There was no kitchen; apparently all meals were supposed to be prepared communally. Ben’s nose wrinkled at the musty smell of a building left unoccupied for too long.
“It smells weird in here,” he said.
“It just needs airing out,” Keller said. He put down the propane lamp he’d been carrying. Its intense white light burned like a tiny star, almost too bright to look at directly.
It made Keller’s shadow seem enormous as he walked over and opened a window. The old wood of the window frame screamed in protest at the unaccustomed movement. Marie put down her own lamp and opened another. The cool night air rushed in, fragrant with the smell of the surrounding forest. “See?” Keller said. “Better already.” They checked the bedrooms. The bedsteads were wooden and appeared handmade. Worn mattresses were rolled up against the headboards. Dust puffed up from them as Keller unrolled them.
“No linens,” Marie said.
Keller opened a cabinet. He pulled out a pair of rough Army blankets. “We’ve got these,” he said.
“Just like basic, huh?” Marie said.
“Yeah.”
“You think he’ll let us stay?” Marie said.
Keller tossed a blanket to Ben. “Go get set up in the other room, buddy,” he told Ben. “Take one of the lamps.”
Ben struggled for a moment, trying to arrange the blanket, the lamp, and the ever-present stuffed frog. As he walked out, Keller told Marie, “He’ll let you stay. I’ll make sure of it.”
“What if he says no?” Marie said.
Keller shook his head. “He won’t say no,” he said. “I’ll talk to him.”
“Jack,” Marie said, “I don’t want you to do anything…I don’t want you to hurt them. Either of them. Or threaten them. These are good people.”
He looked at her. “So are you and Ben. And you two are my responsibility.”
She shook her head. “No, Jack. I’m my own responsibility. And Ben is my responsibility. I’m a grown-up. I get some say in this. And I’m telling you, I don’t want any violence against these people. I don’t want that on my conscience. And I don’t think you do, either.”
Keller tensed for a moment, but the reply he was getting ready to make died in his throat. He took her in his arms. “Sometimes,” he said, “you’re the only thing that keeps me from going completely off the rails.”
“I know,” she said. “It worries me.”
“Yeah,” he said, “Me, too.” He kissed her.
“Eeuuuw,” Ben said as he came back in. “Get a room.”
Keller broke the kiss and laughed. “We’ve got a room, smart guy,” he said. “And you’ve got yours, and it’s time for bed.”
Ben ignored him. “Mom,” he said, “there’s something wrong with this frog.” He turned the creature over. There was a tear in the plush green fabric, along one of the bottom seams.
Marie took the frog from him and sat on the bed. “Hmmm,” she said. “Looks like it should be easy to fix. I’ll check in the morning and see if they have a needle and thread.” She poked lightly at the re
nt in the fabric. Her brow furrowed. There was something buried in the stuffing, something hard. She dug inside with her fingers.
“Mom,” Ben said with alarm.
Marie drew out a small silver cylinder. She looked up at Keller. “Jack,” she said.
“Is that…” he began.
She grasped one end of the cylinder and pulled. It came apart easily. There was a flat plug in one end, clearly designed to slide into some sort of socket. Keller reached out and took it from her. “He hid it in his kid’s stuffed frog.”
“What do we do now?” she said.
He walked to the door. “We talk to Powell and Riggio.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Bad craziness,” Holley said.
The Toyota was still crashing and bouncing through the undergrowth, down the cliff face he and Patrick had just pushed it over. As they watched, enough of the thick brush pushed aside by the truck’s passage sprang back to cover all but the most obvious gouges made by the truck as it fell. It was like throwing the vehicle into a green sea.
“Come on, man,” Patrick said. “We need to haul ass.”
“What if somebody finds it?”
“They’ll have a hell of a time getting it back up here,” Patrick said. “Come on, Markey, before any more cars come.”
“What the fuck is going on here, anyway?” Holley asked as they got back into Patrick’s Vette.
“Well,” Patrick said, “some old partners of DeGroot’s took something from him. Something worth a boatload of money. And he wants it back. So he got some new partners, namely us. That’s all I know right now. He’ll tell us more when the others get here.”
“Who else is coming?”
“Caldwell. And Phillips.”
“Be good to see old Bern again,” Holley said. “He always has some cool shit to play with. But Phillips—”
He gave an involuntary shiver. “Man, that dude gives me the creeps sometimes.”
“Right,” said Patrick, “and DeGroot doesn’t?”
“Oh, I know DeGroot’s a bastard,” Holley said cheerfully. “But he, like, admits it. Phillips, though. I can never figure out what he’s thinking.”
“You don’t need to know,” Patrick told him. “All you need to know is, he’s on our side.”
“You sure about that?” Holley said. Patrick didn’t answer. Holley looked out the window into the darkness.
“Bad craziness,” he muttered again.
***
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Powell said.
The cabin assigned to Powell and Riggio was bigger than Keller and Marie’s, but the inside was even starker. It had clearly been designed as quarters for the unmarried men or women. Rows of bunk beds with rolled-up mattresses lined the walls. A long table, a smaller version of the one in the mess hall, ran down the center of the room. The computer flash drive lay in the center of the table.
“So what do we do now?” Riggio asked.
“Now that you know where the key is,” Keller said, “maybe we have something to bargain with.”
“Bargain?” Powell snorted, “with who? DeGroot? You can’t bargain with that sonofabitch, Keller. He’ll catch you and then he’ll take you apart.”
“All he wants is the drive,” Keller argued. “Give him that—”
“And he kills us anyway, to keep us from telling anyone else,” Powell snapped. “No. No way.”
Keller thought for a moment, then sighed. “Yeah,” he said. “You’re right.”
“Only thing to do,” Riggio said, “is hole up. Hope the FBI finds DeGroot. Then maybe we can make a deal with our people to come in.”
Keller stood up. “That means,” he said, “that I need to talk to Harland.”
Keller found Lisa outside the mess hall. She carried her shotgun unslung. Before he could ask, she gestured with the barrel of the weapon, toward the door of the hall.
“He’s in his office,” she said. “Go to the back, then up the stairs. He’s waiting.”
Keller moved carefully through the darkened mess hall, waiting for his eyes to become accustomed to the darkness. He could sense rather than see Lisa’s slim form blocking the entrance door. He could barely make out the reflected flicker of a lamp at the other end of the building. He found the stairs and began to climb. They were noisy, he suspected deliberately so. It would be nearly impossible to come up those stairs undetected.
The stairs came up directly into the office. The room was large; it seemed to take up nearly a quarter of the top floor. Bookshelves lined the walls. Harland had chosen the older-style kerosene lamps rather than the brighter propane ones for this room; the light was dimmer and redder. It flickered, making the shadows seem to move even when the person behind them was still. The only other light in the room was the soft electronic glow of what looked like a bank of radios that crowded a table on one side of the room, next to Harland’s desk.
Harland sat behind the desk. It, like all the other furniture in the camp, was handmade and rough-hewn. A pistol lay on the desk in front of Harland. It was within easy reach of his hand.
“You won’t need that,” Keller said. “Besides, I’m not armed.”
Harland didn’t speak for a moment. He regarded Keller with grave eyes that seemed to have sunk slightly into his craggy face. Finally, he spoke.
“What weapon has the lion,” he said, “but himself?”
“What?” Keller said. Then, “Uh…thanks. I guess.”
Harland didn’t move. “Don’t thank me, Mr. Keller,” he said. “You’re a violent man. You can mask it in front of others, but I know. I spent much of my life in the company of violent men. I know the signs. I see it. It comes off you like steam.” He picked up the gun, but gently. He looked at it and turned it over and over in his hands. “What we call civilization,” he said, “is a thin veneer. It’s like a beautiful, delicate vase. It sits on the mantel and everyone admires it, saying how fine it is. Oh, there are flaws in the finish, but we can fix them. No need to do it right now, because isn’t the vase pretty? The flaws, we tell ourselves, even add to the beauty. But the vase is full of corruption, Keller. It’s brimming up to its lid with pus and blood and maggots. And the flaws in the finish are turning into cracks. Soon it will shatter completely, and the world will drown. Drown in its own corruption.” He put the gun down and looked at Keller.
Crazy as a goddamn loon, Keller thought. “Seems to me you’ve been saying that for a while,” he said.
Harland turned to him. “My only mistake,” he said, “was that I hadn’t any sense of the timescale involved. I’m an American, after all. We think in terms of years. Maybe de cades, if we’re particularly visionary. I didn’t realize how long it would take. But it’s an accelerating process. I was only off by a few years.”
“I need to talk to you,” Keller said, “about—”
“You know, Keller,” Harland interrupted. “You know what I’m talking about. You’ve been there. You’ve seen what men can do to each other. You’ve seen the fire from the sky.”
Keller shook his head. Suddenly, in his mind’s eye, he saw the white flash out of the desert night, felt the heat of the impact wash over him.
Burning, they’re burning…
Keller shook his head savagely, to clear it. He looked up and saw Harland looking at him. “Yes,” he said. “The fire. You’ve seen men pull fire down from the sky. On other men. On women. On children.”
“Yeah,” Keller said. “What about it?”
Harland picked up the gun again. “I’ve seen it, too. I’ve seen the fire come down. I called it with my own voice.” His eyes went far away. “The planes screamed like enraged angels as the fire fell. Afterward, I walked on the blackened earth. Everything was black. The ground, the trees, the children…” He stopped and shook his head. “We should never have been given that power, Keller. We’re killer apes that can bring the heat of the sun to touch the earth. In the end, we’ll bring the fire down. We can’t help ourselves.” He paused and stoo
d up. “Do you read Yeats, Keller?”
Keller shrugged. “I remember the name from high school.”
Harland walked over to the bookshelf, ran a finger over the spines of the books. “ ‘Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,’ ” he quoted. “ ‘The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere, the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.’ ” He turned back to Keller. “Are you paying attention at all? Can you deny that’s what’s happening now?”
Keller stood up and dusted off his hands on his pants. “Look,” he said, “are you going to let us stay or not?”
Harlan’s smile was a spear of ice. “It’s that simple to you?”
“Right now, yeah,” Keller said. “There was a time I might have eaten this stuff up, Colonel. The world’s a shithole. Fine. I know it. You know it. Maybe soon it’ll finally implode and take us all with it. But right now, I’ve got people I care about. People who depend on me.”
Harland’s cold smile didn’t change. “It won’t change the final outcome. Nothing will.”
Keller shrugged. “Maybe. But I’m just fighting each battle as it comes.”
“And that’s the problem for me, Keller. Your battle isn’t mine. And I don’t want my home turned into a battlefield.”
“You won’t have to. I’m going after DeGroot. You just look after the woman and the boy. That’s all I ask.”
Harland sat back down. “I’ll give you my decision in the morning.” The dismissal was obvious. Keller stood watching him for a moment. Finally, he walked out.
As he exited the building, he stopped and took a deep breath of the cool, moist night air. He shook his head to clear it. Harland’s words had shaken him more than he had thought originally. Or maybe it was Harland himself.
Like Harland, Keller had seen horrible things. He had taken other men’s lives. It had changed him in ways he sometimes hated to think about. He wondered if after a few more years of this, he’d be as batshit crazy as Harland. He looked across the parade ground at the cabin he shared with Marie and Ben. He saw the light of the lantern flickering in the window. He walked toward it.
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