“We all have our challenges, Mr. Buchanan. I want it done in the morning, anyway-once the crew is onsite. They know you. No one will be suspicious to see you there. I am confident you will find a way to be successful. It is, after all, your future at stake.”
Alan dropped his gaze to his cup. Tomorrow or the next day, this would all be over. He would be a free man. He’d go somewhere they could never find him. Mexico, maybe. He’d never be their puppet again. He raised his coffee cup to Amir.
“Here’s to my freedom.”
Amir nodded and lifted his cup. “To your freedom, of course.”
* * *
Rocco was the last to come in for supper that night. After a long afternoon working the fence line in the upper pastures, he’d needed a quick shower. By the time he had dressed and rejoined the group, they had all settled at the table, leaving only one empty seat between Mandy and Kit.
The smell of grilled meat hit him hard. The windows were open, drawing smoke from the grill back into the house. He took his seat, sending a look around the table. Maybe having so many men around Mandy made him feel off-kilter. She gave him a tentative smile as she poured him some tea. The ice cracked and clinked as the liquid filled his glass.
Kit brought in a tray of hamburgers and hotdogs. Another blast of grill smoke followed him inside. Rocco felt queasy. A clammy chill spread across his skin from the draft of the ceiling fan. He drew a deep, slow breath, trying to calm himself. The silence was coming-he could feel it stalking him. He didn’t want it. He wanted to hear, to participate, to be a human among humans, not a ghost stuck between two worlds.
Mandy passed the platter of meat toward him. The hotdogs were blackened and blistered in places. He shook his head, staring at the platter. It’s only hotdogs, he told himself. Grilled fucking hotdogs. He was breathing too fast. He knew it, but he couldn’t stop. He was trying to get some air that didn’t smell like singed flesh. And dust. He shut his eyes and saw the stuff of nightmares.
Everything was strangely silent. Women wailed, but he couldn’t hear them. Men shouted and fired guns in anguished retribution, but the gunfire was silent. The village was a remote outpost. There was no one nearby to come to their assistance or witness the devastation. The world neither knew nor cared about the village’s collapse. Ashes fell like snow to the ground. Fire burned the wood supports the explosion had exposed.
“Rocco? You okay?” The voice of an angel.
Mandy.
He opened his eyes. Her hand was on his arm. His fingers held the edge of the table in a claw-like grip. He yanked free of her hold, looking for the pieces of burned flesh on him. Nothing was there. He couldn’t see it yet, but he could feel it. She’d said he could trust her eyes, but obviously she couldn’t see the flesh when it was just forming, and by the time it covered his arms, it was too late. It would cover anyone who was touching him, like flames spreading from body to body.
Overhead the fan moved in a slow, nauseating circle, its blades cutting loudly through the air.
Wh-oo-oosh. Wh-oo-oosh. Wh-oo-oosh.
“Rocco, it’s all good. You’re cool. It’s all cool,” Kit told him, a hand resting heavily on his shoulder, another on his arm, as if to anchor him. Rocco looked down again, seeing the drying blood and burned flakes of flesh that covered his chest, his shoulders, his arms. He swiped it off, but for every bit he removed, more settled on him.
“No! No!” He didn’t know if he spoke aloud, or even which language he used. Bile rose in his throat as his nose filled with the stench of rotting bodies. The black flesh was alive, it moved down his arms and onto Kit.
Rocco ripped his arm away from Kit’s hold and jumped to his feet, his chair flying back across the wood floor. Every face at the table stared at him. He felt the weight of their eyes.
He wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t. He was just a man who lived in two realities, one of which they couldn’t see. He spun away and stumbled across the room, escaping through the front door.
Silence magnified the echo the screen door made as it banged shut behind Rocco. Mandy looked at her plate, saw it waver in front of her eyes. Her mind replayed the fear she’d seen in his eyes. What the heck had just happened? She looked around the table, trying to see what Rocco might have seen, but nothing looked out of the ordinary.
“Shit,” Kit growled. He shoved a hand through his hair. “How often does that happen, Em?”
“It’s happened a few times since he got here. I don’t know what set him off this time.”
Kit picked up Rocco’s chair and sat in it next to Mandy. Reaching an arm around her, he pulled her close. “Don’t worry, sis. It’s not something you did. His brain is haywire right now. He’s been to hell and back, more than once. He needs time to heal.”
“I told you that. He’s not ready for this. I’ll go talk to him.” Mandy swiped the tears from her face and set her napkin on the table.
“No. I will,” Ty said. “Stay put. And eat up. Don’t waste this food, but it would be best if it weren’t here when he comes back. I’ll get him something else to eat after he calms down.”
“You think the food triggered this?” Mandy asked, frowning.
“Kit burned the hotdogs.” Ty threaded his fingers together over his head. “You know what he looked like when we found him,” he said to Kit. “Somebody had friggin’ exploded all over him.”
Mandy lurched to her feet and ran to her room.
“Well fucking done, my man,” Kit complained as he stood up.
“He’s not going for the phone tonight,” Owen said.
“Oh, he’s going. We need his head back in the game. The only way that’ll happen is to give him work to focus on.” Kit met Owen’s implacable stare.
“There’s too much at stake in this operation to use it as a therapy session. I don’t want to endanger a valuable operative by using him when he isn’t at full capacity.”
“I know my boy, Owen. I know how to pull him through his hell. I’ve done it for seven years.”
Owen leaned back in his chair and studied Kit through narrowed eyes. “You burned the dogs on purpose.”
Kit sat down and filled a roll with a burned hotdog. He slathered it with mustard and ketchup, then took a bite. “Like I said, I know my boy.”
Ty shook his head and went out after Rocco. He paused at the top step of Mandy’s front porch, trying to get a read on which direction Rocco might have taken. He wasn’t down in the construction area or outside the bunkhouse. Ty walked across the drive so that he could see the ridge behind the house-that’s where he would have gone for some alone time. No one stood silhouetted there.
He checked inside the toolshed, then the bunkhouse. Nada. He walked out behind the collapsing barn, wondering if Rocco was making a tour of the back trails, and found him sitting in the dirt at Kitano’s corral. He was leaning back against a support beam, his legs bent, arms propped on his knees. He held a long blade of grass that he was dismembering, inch by inch.
Ty eased himself down next to Rocco, his wounded thigh protesting the movement.
“You pull the short straw?” Rocco asked.
“I volunteered.”
“Lucky you.”
Ty made a dismissive gesture. “Whatever. I didn’t come to talk about your little freak show. We need to talk about me. I went home today.”
“I know.”
“I goddamn hate that place. I think I’m going to burn it down.”
Rocco looked over at him. “You’re an idiot.”
Ty shrugged. “I don’t want it. I won’t ever live there. And I’d love to send my father a message in hell that he can’t fail to interpret correctly.”
Rocco lowered his legs and leaned back. “So sell below market value. Hell, give it to Kit. If you believe that the spirits of the deceased watch us, seeing you give the house to the town’s most hated kid will have your father spinning in his grave.”
“I like that.” Ty slowly smiled. “I like it a lot. Kit won’t take it as a gift, but
I could sell it to him for half the going price. Then he’d have a home here near his sister.” He considered that a moment. “What about you? You want it?”
Rocco looked off to where the trails began. “Honestly, I don’t know that I’m going to make it back. I prefer knowing Kit would settle near Mandy, eventually-if you do finally decide the house isn’t for you.” He looked at his friend. “When I go back, you’ll go with me?”
Ty met Rocco’s eyes. “Count on it.” He extended his fist and Rocco bumped it with his. Silence settled between them, filled only by crickets and birds noisily chattering as they settled for the night. “What happened tonight?” Ty asked.
Rocco sighed. “I lost my fucking mind.”
“Yeah, that part I got. But why? What kicked it off?”
“I don’t know. The smoke. The burned dogs.”
“I told Kit not to over-cook them,” Blade interrupted.
“It was like a worm hole right back to the explosion.”
“Did you see anything new while you were checked out?”
Rocco leaned his head back against the post behind him. He shut his eyes. Drawing a deep, slow breath to fight off the panic, he opened his mind to the memories triggered at supper.
“Kadisha was handing Zavi to me. She was going back in the compound for her mother. I grabbed her, tried to stop her. She said that I had done this, that I had killed them. She ran back inside, and the whole thing blew.”
He looked at Blade. “Did I do it? Was there an order to level the compound? Did I have you or Kit call for an airstrike?”
“No. We got the kill order to take out her father, but without you, we didn’t know where he’d holed up. And there were too many civilians living there for the whole village to be a target. It wasn’t our side that blew the compound.”
“Kadisha was pregnant with our second kid.”
“Christ.” Blade drew a long breath and slowly released it. “I’m sorry, bro. I didn’t know.”
“I would have loved that baby. I would have brought Kadisha and the kids here. And though we wouldn’t have stayed married, I would have taken care of them, all of them.”
“I know you would have, my friend. Wouldn’t have expected anything less from you.” He massaged his thigh. They sat in silence for a little while, listening to the sounds of birds settling in for the evening.
“So for the real reason I came down to talk to you-Kit brought back some interesting security footage from the diner. We noticed Mandy’s plumber had an extreme reaction to the team when they stopped for supper. He texted someone, only it wasn’t via his cell phone account-he used some other online account.” He looked at Rocco. “Didn’t you say he was in the diner the day you felt an enemy there?”
“He was there.”
“Kit wants you and Kelan to go to his house tonight and retrieve his phone so that we can see who the hell he messaged and how.”
Rocco looked at him and slowly grinned, feeling he was getting back in the game. “Sure, I’ll go get it.”
* * *
Alan made his routine circuit around the house, checking the lock in the front shop, locking the door between his apartment and the shop, then locking the back door. The whole action was preposterous, as if a locked door could keep him safe. It was an illusion of safety, nothing more.
And yet, house-by-house, his neighbors did the same safety checks he’d just completed, locking all the doors, shutting off the lights, slipping into their comfortable beds-ignorant of the fact that he had enough C-4 in his van to blow half the block.
He retrieved a bottle of whiskey and went into his room. Glasses littered his nightstand. One from the night before still had a little amber liquid in it. He tossed that back, then refilled it to wash down two prescription sleeping pills. He slumped down on his rumpled bed in the clothes he’d worn during the day, and waited for the pills to take effect.
When sleep didn’t immediately quiet his mind, he splashed more whiskey into his glass to top it off and lit a cigarette. He caught sight of the amber vial of pills. His life hadn’t turned out the way he’d expected it to when he was a kid. When he’d entered the plumbing business right after high school, he was proud of having selected a career in a field that would never be without customers-in good times or lean. But he’d been careless with his money and lost most of it gambling and drinking. He’d wanted more, always more. Nothing was ever enough.
One day, in his mid-forties, he realized he was broke, getting older and failing in every way that mattered. It had been easy to take the money he’d embezzled from the large plumbing franchise that employed him. So easy. And just as easy to lose it in gambling hells. He thought he’d win it back, but he only lost more. He’d sold his soul for that money. And then he had to run, hide, become less than he was. Become nothing.
It was at that low point that Amir had found him, offering sweet solace with that silky voice of his, assuring him his life would be better if Alan joined their cause. He could barely even remember what Amir had said their cause was. It didn’t matter. They gave him a new identity. Found him a woman to marry, and cleared the way to this job. It was everything he’d ever wanted, and he took it. In exchange, he’d only been asked to make the drive down to Denver every few weeks in anticipation of an unknown assignment to be handed out sometime in the future.
He sipped his whiskey, remembering the vow he’d made when his wife had died; he’d decided to be different, to be what she had seen in him. She’d been a good woman, his Mary. Kind and honest. Married as strangers, he’d strived to be worthy of her. He’d stayed put in Wolf Creek Bend, and he’d honored his commitment to put her daughter through college-so far. But now that he’d made such a mess of things, Mary’s girl would be better off without him. He looked at the pills again. He could check out. For good.
But if he did, he had no doubt that Amir’s people would hunt Fee down. She was the only good thing left in his life. He’d tried to protect her from Amir by pretending indifference but doubted he’d fooled the bastard.
The only chance he had of getting them out of this situation was to blow Mandy’s therapeutic riding center all to hell. Amir wanted it done while the construction crew was there. Alan couldn’t stomach that. He’d blow the damn place at night when no one was there. He’d do it soon. As soon as he could bring himself to do it. Amir be damned. He’d do it when he was good and ready. Then he’d take Fee and hit the road. Again.
* * *
Kelan parked in front of the plumber’s shop. Mandy had told them he lived in an apartment in the back of his store. It was approaching 1:00 a.m. The entire street was quiet and dark.
Kelan looked over at Rocco. “You okay to do this?”
“I’m fine.”
“Then let’s move. You take the shop, I’ll take the apartment.”
Only a double bolt lock protected the shop, which Kelan picked in a few seconds. There was no alarm system for them to disarm. Rocco began looking around the papers on the counter while Kelan slipped through the door between the shop and the residential area.
It was a seedy little space that would have looked shoddy even in its prime thirty years earlier. The current suite of worn and mismatched chairs and the odd collection of TV tray tables did little to improve things. The living room was open to the kitchen. Four doors led to other areas.
Kelan stood still for a moment, listening for a dog or a bird or anything that would give his presence away. Nothing stirred.
He walked through the open space, looking for Alan’s cell phone. Not seeing it in the living room, he entered the first door to his left. A man was asleep in a bed. Clothes were scattered around the floor, over a radiator. Drawers were open in two different dressers. The room had the gamey smell of unwashed human. The man’s phone was on his nightstand, next to a full ashtray and several glasses. Kelan took it, plug and all, then returned to his exploration of the rest of the apartment.
One door opened to a bathroom, one a closet. The last was another
bedroom, as threadbare as the rest of the apartment, but unlike the other areas, it was very tidy. There were no toys to indicate it was a child’s room. The bed was rumpled, as if someone had been sleeping in it. Kelan had a bad feeling as he looked around the room. An unmade bed in a room this neat meant someone had just left it. He looked under the bed and around the other side of it, but didn’t find anyone. A suitcase sat on the floor in front of a dresser. He knelt down beside it and lifted the top flap, curious about who was visiting the plumber. Inside were neatly folded jeans, a stack of tiny T-shirts, and a cluster of stringy panties and bras.
Kelan jack-knifed to his feet. This was a woman’s room. The closet was the only other space someone could hide. He stood to the side as he opened one panel. He spanned the space with his flashlight, but found it empty of anything other than clothes and boxes. He pushed the other panel open and flashed the light in that half, catching a pair of big eyes and an enormous Colt revolver. The girl cocked the gun as she lurched forward out of the closet. Kelan backed a step away, his hands held in front of him.
“Easy now, kid. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“What are you doing in my home?”
“I didn’t know you lived here.”
“That’s not the answer I was looking for.” She pushed him back through room, the gun pointing straight at his heart. Her grip was incredibly steady. She wore only a skimpy pair of knit shorts and one of those tiny, strappy tees he’d seen in her suitcase. Her hair was a mop of little curls-it was hard to tell the color in the dim light, but it appeared to be blond. And she was half his size. He had at least a foot in height on her, which would have made her about five foot three.
“Now, hold on there. We’re the good guys.”
“Show me some ID.”
“I don’t have any.”
Her gaze darted to the dresser. Kelan saw her cell phone sitting there. He grabbed it and shoved it in his pocket.
The Edge Of Courage Page 18