Snow Rising (The Great North Woods Pack Book 4)

by Shawn Underhill

  They sometimes said they wished to know. But really, he knew they did not.

  Jason escorted the family from the house. Merrill heard the car. After a minute, Jason returned alone.

  “By tomorrow at this time,” Merrill thought aloud, “I could very well be worth more dead than alive.”

  “No, sir.”

  “As it is, my own family has little respect for me. What will it be like when the money dries up, when this lifestyle is no longer sustainable? My serious research will be over. My peers will look at me with suspicion, whispering about my sister, wondering what we’d done to draw such an attack. I’ll be reduced to working with food additives and sunblock formulas.” He scowled. “Perhaps I can help develop a smoother, more addictive strain of tobacco.”

  “Sir …”

  Merrill steadied himself with a deep breath. “Forgive me, Jason.”

  “We should get on the road.”

  “Yes,” Merrill agreed, slowly rising to his feet. “Thank you for keeping your head in all of this. I suppose one of us must.”

  10

  In Joseph Snow’s study, he and his daughter also watched the Boston news coverage.

  The images of the scorched building left a feeling in him nothing like satisfaction. He had not wished to stoop to acts of terror to get his point across. Far from it. But even so, he felt quite certain that, under the circumstances, it had to be done. In all his years, he had not discovered another way in which to deal with such stubborn and ambitious humans.

  “We’re sure that was Raymond Merrill’s lab?” Janie said.

  “Positive,” her father confirmed.

  “I wonder if he’s getting any sleep tonight.”

  “Depends on his personal character. And that, unfortunately, is something we cannot glean from the information at hand.”

  “At least the uncertainty keeps us motivated,” Janie remarked, trying to stay positive.

  “Yes. And I’d like to be finished with the phone as soon as possible. He’s already sent several text messages, trying to contact her. Once he hears about the fire, he should have no doubt as to what’s happening.”

  “Will you destroy her phone when we’re done?”

  “No, I’ll have somebody plant it at the resort. Hopefully someone there will find it, turn it on, and try to determine its owner. Then, it’s simply a lost phone and nothing to do with us. If Rowan has been reported missing by then, police will likely get in touch with the hotel and go from there.”

  “If he reports her missing.”

  “Yes.”

  “Not that there are many towers to ping off up here.”

  “Still … I want it off my property.”

  Now he was looking at one particular wireless number from the list he had compiled. It was the number associated with the text message Rowan Merrill had been unable to send from the airstrip. Unlike all of the other numbers on her contacts list, this one was unnamed—just a number with a Maryland area code.

  “What’s your guess?” Janie asked after a long silence, seeing her father deep in thought.

  “Nothing rosy,” he muttered. “I’d like to talk to the mercenary about it.”

  “Call him. What else has he got to do?”

  “Let him sleep for now. I’ll have him up here in the morning, anyway. I want Rowan Merrill to take a good look at him in the light of day. See if she recognizes him.”

  “What if we—” Janie began to say.

  “I don’t like it,” her father said.

  “You didn’t let me finish.”

  “You’re thinking we should have Lars call this number. Yes, I’ve considered that option.”

  Janie said, “Even if he doesn’t know the owner personally, he might recognize the voice as the one who sent him up here on behalf of Merrill.”

  “I’m quite certain that he would,” Joseph said. “I’m also quite certain that the owner is male, between forty and sixty years of age, likely retired military with impressive ranking. At the very least, he’s someone with enough clout and authority to command the respect of former soldiers. If we have Lars call, we will get our confirmation, but we’ll be broadcasting the fact that Lars is still alive, and will also be showing our hand in the process. I’d much rather have this person believe—or at least hope—that we are ignorant of his existence and reach. As long as we appear to be the mice in this cat and mouse game, the conflicts might be kept to a minimum.”

  “The loss to the Wilson household isn’t minimum,” Janie said.

  “No, it’s not,” he agreed. “But I’m not ready to provoke someone I know so little about, while he, presumably, has at least some knowledge of us.”

  “Maybe Raymond Merrill will contact the same man to inquire about his sister.”

  “I’m hoping he will. And perhaps when he does, said man will have heard about the Boston fire and will warn Raymond to quit this game, cut his losses … before things really get ugly.”

  “That sounds way too simple.”

  “Because it probably is.”

  11

  Crossing into southern Maine, Raymond Merrill stared into the night from the passenger seat of his S-class Mercedes. With Jason at the wheel, he was free to let his mind search every angle of his personal and private dilemmas.

  “Do you know what just occurred to me?” he said some time later.

  “What’s that?”

  “She actually brought her prized little machine with her to Ludlow. Whether she’s dead or alive, they now have possession of an extremely valuable device.”

  Jason said nothing. He did not enjoy discussing them.

  “Have you any idea what the world’s intelligence agencies would pay for the ability to tap directly into the thoughts of their prisoners?”

  “No clue.”

  Merrill sighed. “If only it could have been perfected. All it takes is money and time. And patience, of course. Something she had little of.”

  They were silent again as they drove on up the Maine Turnpike, moving well in excess of the speed limit. But for a few truckers they had the road largely to themselves.

  When the lights of Portland became visible in the distance, Merrill felt butterflies in his stomach. He instructed Jason to go to Rowan’s home before proceeding to her lab near the coast.

  “Stay here,” he said as he opened his door before the house. “This shouldn’t take long.”

  “You’re sure?”

  He confirmed as he stood up, then walked up to the house and keyed 1913—the year of his father’s birth—into the alarm panel. The red light turned to green, and with a gloved hand he opened the door.

  Once inside, he moved from the foyer to the kitchen and turned on a light. By that light he moved to the office, where he turned on the desk lamp and began searching the room for flash drives. All together he found four drives, plus a laptop computer, which he placed in a briefcase.

  Upstairs, he checked the master bedroom quickly, finding no more drives. He did, however, find a year-old smart phone in a drawer by the bed, which he added to the briefcase.

  In all this he felt mildly nauseated while prowling through his sister’s home. Not because it was an intrusion but because, by average family standards, it would be completely unnecessary to remove potentially incriminating—or valuable—information from the residence of a loved one.

  Stepping back outside into the cool night, he drew the fresh air in through his nose to help combat the nausea. He saw Jason with the driver’s side window down, watching him with the utmost intensity.

  “All set,” he said, forcing a smile as he descended the walkway.

  Jason nodded and started the car.

  He placed the briefcase in the back seat and climbed into the front. “I’m dreading the lab,” he sighed.

  “I can do it,” Jason said. “You should wait in the car.”

  “I feel like I should at least be present when my father finally passes.” Under his breath he resumed, “I’m disgusted with m
yself for ever letting it go this far.”

  ***

  They drove along a narrow road near the seashore. The road was lined with docks and fishing boats on one side, old warehouses and some newer ones on the other. They stopped beside the entrance to a shipping container storage yard.

  “I’ll go with you,” Merrill said.

  “It’s your choice,” Jason said. “But let me do the hard work.”

  Passing through a chain-link fence after entering the 1913 code, they walked between rows of storage containers to a building that appeared very old, its shingles darkened by the salty, wind-driven rain.

  At the door Merrill entered 1953, his sister’s birth year, and they proceeded inside. Down a dim corridor of dull white cinder blocks they walked to the elevator, where they went up to the third floor. The doors opened and they were faced with a heavy steel door. Merrill entered 1124816, and after a soft clicking sound, the heavy latch turned easily in his hand.

  They stepped into a lofty room comprising all of the third floor. It smelled strongly of chemicals and had that unappealing glare of many fluorescent bulbs suspended from the ceiling. The walls were lined with various pieces of monitoring equipment, pipes and valves, rows of metal cryogenic containers containing specimens, computer monitors, glass rectangles containing the brains of humans and various animals. And in one corner, the huge, murky tank which contained his father’s body. Dr. Frankenstein himself would be both proud and envious of such a conglomeration.

  The night watch doctor—Dr. Larch—seemed quite surprised to see someone enter.

  “Raymond …”

  “I trust that you are well,” Merrill said.

  “I am,” returned Larch, appearing confused. “Is something wrong?”

  “I’m afraid my sister has suffered an unfortunate accident,” Merrill stated.

  “Accident,” the doctor repeated. “What—”

  “Everything must be terminated immediately,” Merrill said over him. “Regretfully, the circumstances have left me with no other options.”

  “B—but you can’t!” Larch blurted. He stuttered several more words, his face growing paler by the second.

  “I can,” Merrill said. “I’m so sorry, but I absolutely must.”

  The doctor turned his head to watch Merrill as he stepped toward the large tank.

  Jason, standing silent and still, took a Glock 17 from under his coat. He raised his arm, sighted the doctor’s ear with calm precision, and fired two hollow points into his brain.

  Merrill flinched, though he’d been waiting to hear the shots, and without looking over at the doctor, his body crumpling and slumping awkwardly to the floor, he continued to the murky tank. He had long given up thinking that the suspended corpse—only alive in the barest technical sense—had anything to do with the actual person he had once been. But still, he felt the need to utter a few quiet words of respect.

  Jason watched his master from a distance. When the troubled man turned away from the tank, nodding slightly, he opened the valves on two gas burners, then followed Merrill back to the elevator.

  “You’re sure this will be effective?” he asked as the elevator doors closed.

  “If anything, it will be overkill,” Jason answered. “With all the gas building up in that sealed space—not to mention the other combustible chemicals—once the flames finally reach this floor, the explosion will be massive.”

  “The local news anchors will have plenty to discuss, won’t they?”

  “Don’t trouble yourself,” Jason said.

  “What else can I do?”

  “Keep calm. Don’t trouble yourself.”

  “A pretty idea,” Merrill replied.

  “You have no choice.”

  Merrill fell silent. Jason was right. He was thinking clearly, free of all emotional attachments and burdens. He needed to listen to him.

  Back on the first floor, they stepped from the elevator and moved to the rear of the building. Entering the utility room, Jason walked to the massive oil drum. It stood a few paces from the industrial furnace which heated the large building. It was roughly four times the size of one commonly found in oil burning households. The gauge atop the drum indicated it to be three quarters full. Over three thousand gallons of fuel.

  Kneeling, Jason closed the valve on the line entering the furnace, stopping the oil flow. Then he opened the system drain.

  Oil began pooling beneath the tank with a crude, muddy odor.

  “You really should wait in the car, Raymond,” he said, standing. “This will take a little time.”

  “I feel like an absolute gutter rat,” Merrill returned sullenly.

  “Don’t. This is necessary,” Jason told him. “Remember your family. You are ensuring their future as well as your own.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Please, wait in the car,” Jason urged him. “For me this is nothing. I have nothing but hatred for this place and my memories of it. But for you there is value here and a family tie. It’s like cutting off one’s own fingers to preserve the rest of the body. Painful but necessary.”

  “To hell with my fingers,” Merrill grumbled. “Now I’m wondering about the other two doctors.”

  “Fear will keep their mouths closed,” Jason said. “As long as you are alive, you have proof of their confidentiality contracts … all of their personal information.”

  “Fear might keep them quiet temporarily. But what about two years from now? Five? Ten?”

  “We will visit them if necessary. You can urge them to remain faithful to their contracts. If they refuse, I will deal with them on your behalf.”

  “How strange,” Merrill mused, staring at the large man. “In a dream I couldn’t hope for my own children to care for me half as much as you do.”

  “No.”

  “It’s true.”

  “They’re still young. Give them time.”

  “Nonsense. Devotion such as yours is unheard of. You just killed a man for my benefit.”

  “And to spare him from the smoke and flames.”

  “You did it so that I wouldn’t have to.”

  “If not for you,” Jason said, “I would still be contained on the third floor. I’d have no purpose, no name. There is no one else to devote myself to.”

  “My children would have no life at all, if not for me,” Merrill pointed out. “Yet they regard me as an irritation.”

  “They have no clue how life can be for some. They only know Rowan as the aunt who spoils them. I know her true nature, her cruelty, and her lies.”

  “Well,” Merrill sighed, “you’ll have the last word, won’t you?”

  “I will feel satisfaction in seeing her work burn,” Jason admitted. “But for your sake I will not say a word. I will not permit myself as much as a smile.”

  “Damn her anyway for getting us into this mess.”

  “Sir,” Jason pleaded. “This isn’t good for you.”

  Merrill stood for a moment before turning away. “I’ll meet you at the car.”

  Now Jason watched the pool of oil spreading across the floor and, looking up, saw the wooded beams of the old structure intermingling with the supportive concrete blocks. The fire would burn extremely hot, gradually weakening the structure. The heat would be enormous and the ducting which carried hot and cold air to the third floor would warp and soften in the heat. Then at last the seals would fail, allowing flames from the second floor to meet the gas trapped in the upper level.

  He dipped a mop in the oil. After shutting disabling the sprinkler system, he carried the mop to the front of the building. Standing near the exit, he watched the oil spreading out from the utility room, seeping into other rooms, crawling slowly down the corridor.

  An ugly scar ran the length of Jason’s skull. He touched it now, through his long hair. It was numb like most all scars and he felt glad that he could not fully recall the procedures he’d endured. Like Frankenstein’s monster, he longed to be simply human, average. And likewise, he under
stood the impossibility of that hope.

  Only fragmented memories endured of his life before being rescued by Raymond Merrill. They came to him mostly in his sleep, never reaching beyond the random haze of dreams. Though he knew vaguely that he had been recruited by Rowan personally, he could not clearly recall the incident or the rewards that had been promised for his willing submission to testing. Whatever those rewards were, he felt sure that Rowan had reneged.

  Standing there, watching the lab flood with heating oil, he felt an odd peace. The act of arson he was about to commit felt like warranted retribution. If he could not destroy Rowan personally, as he’d often imagined, to destroy her beloved work was a very close second.

  The oil was approaching the exit now. With a lighter taken from Merrill’s car, Jason lit the oily mop head. He watched the flames crackle, acrid smoke swirling in the sea breeze. He back peddled a few yards, tossed the mop toward the door, saw the flames rise up, and turned away.

  The light of the fire danced on the big shipping containers as Jason walked back to the street. He looked back over his shoulder as he got into the car. Already some of the exterior cedar shingles were burning around the doorway. He imagined the old beams at the core of the building were already burning likewise.

  “Let’s not linger,” Merrill said nervously.

  Jason said nothing as he put the car in gear and drove off.

  Up the street they turned a corner and climbed a small hill. The road leveled out and Jason stopped the car at an intersection overlooking the yard of freight containers. From that safe distance they watched the disguised lab burning brightly in the dark. They watched it burning until the top floor suddenly burst like fireworks. The entire upper rear corner seemed to disintegrate. Black smoke blotted out the sky above.