A Desperate Place for Dying

by Scott William Carter

  "Can I ask a question?" Sparrow asked.

  "Just one?" Gage said.

  "I was just curious how it felt."

  "Excuse me?"

  "I know, from what you said, that you didn't mean to burn the camp to the ground," Sparrow said. "I know that many of the cult members are still on the run. I also know that it's just one sect in a fairly loose domestic terrorist organization, one that may just reconstitute itself elsewhere . . . But nonetheless, it was quite a blow to them. Quite symbolic. I know how I would have felt, doing that. I'm used to the accolades that I got tonight, and I can't say that they don't feel good. Sometimes they feel quite good. But I still imagine that what you did, and how it felt, makes every applause I've ever received seem somehow . . . trivial in comparison."

  Gage took a big drink from his bourbon. It was the strong stuff. He enjoyed how it burned in his throat and made his eyes water. Sparrow was still watching him.

  "What was your question again?" Gage asked.

  "How it felt," Sparrow said.

  "Right.. I didn't feel anything."

  "Nothing? No sense of satisfaction at all? I find that hard to believe."

  "I find it hard to believe that Angela's really dead," Gage said.

  He'd wanted to keep the accusatory tone out of his voice, but it still slipped in there. There was just too much guilt and anger to keep it all contained. Sparrow's eyes dimmed slightly, then he turned and headed for one of the mirrors. A fresh white dress shirt hung from a hook. His jacket was draped over the chair.

  "I hope you don't mind if I continue getting ready," Sparrow said. "I need to do some autographs upstairs in a few minutes."

  "By all means," Gage said. "Your legions of fans must not be kept waiting."

  Sparrow slipped on his shirt and buttoned it, studying Gage in the mirror. Although they had their backs to one another, they could see each other in the various mirrors on either side of the room.

  "Why did you say you were in Los Angeles again?" Sparrow asked.

  "I've always wanted to take in one of your shows," Gage said. "I wanted to make sure I caught one before I missed my chance."

  Sparrow chuckled. "I'm sure I'll be on the road quite a while longer. I'm in more demand than ever. I've doubled my speaking fees and still they keep calling."

  "I don't doubt your popularity," Gage said.

  "And I'm thoroughly enjoying myself. I feel I'm finally turning the tide, making a difference. The scourge on humanity that is religion and dogma may yet be beat back."

  Gage downed the rest of his bourbon in one swig, took his time, let the warmth spread from his stomach to his toes. "It would certainly be a shame to have to quit now."

  "I have no intention of quitting."

  "Does the name Wesley Robbins mean anything to you?"

  Gage had said the name nonchalantly, as if the man might just be a passing acquaintance, but he carefully observed Sparrow's reaction. There may have been something about the mirror, the way it gave the false impression that nobody was looking at his face, but Sparrow let his guard drop for just a second. His hands froze on their buttons. There was no doubt, based on his eyes alone, that Sparrow knew who Robbins was. That wasn't the question, of course, and Sparrow would have been a fool to deny it. The real question was if Sparrow knew what Robbins had been up to lately—and if Gage had any doubt before he'd entered the room, he had none now. Sparrow knew.

  "It sounds familiar," Sparrow said, resuming buttoning his shirt. He sounded cool, collected. Professor Sparrow out in full force. "I think—yes, right, he was an assistant of mine a while back. Of course, I always called him Wes. Why do you ask?"

  "When was the last time you talked to him?"

  "Oh, heavens, it must have been years ago. He was—he was the assistant I had before Angela. We had a bit of a falling out."

  "Over what?"

  "Oh, money, I guess. He wanted more. I probably should have paid him, but I just didn't think he was worth it at the time."

  Still watching Sparrow, Gage placed his empty glass on the carpet. He picked up his cane and stood, a little wobbly on his feet. Probably shouldn't have had the drink. Things were going to get ugly and he could have used a clear head. Of course, things getting ugly was the reason to drink in the first place. Sparrow was fidgeting with his bowtie.

  "I have another question," Gage said.

  "I'm sorry?"

  "How much did you pay Wesley Robbins before he committed murder?"

  This time the pause was long and profound. Sparrow did not freeze, but his motions slowed and continued to slow, until his hands, as he reached for his jacket, moved as if he was pushing aside mountains of sand. With decreasing speed, he slipped on his jacket, checked himself dutifully in the mirror, and finally turned to look Gage squarely in the face.

  "I'm sorry," he said, "you'll have to ask your question again. I'm sure I misheard—"

  "How much did you pay Wesley Robbins before he committed murder?" Gage said. "That was it, word for word."

  "Is this some kind of joke?"

  "Are you laughing?"

  "Let me understand this," Sparrow said, in a tone so righteous and indignant it was almost too much to be believed. "You're accusing me of committing murder?"

  "No, I'm saying you paid him a lot of money and then he committed murder. Technically speaking, that is."

  "And who, pray tell, would Wes have murdered?"

  "Oh," Gage said, "he may have murdered dozens by now, there's no telling; but I'm reasonably sure the first one he killed was John Ettel."

  Sparrow's eyebrows raised. "John Ettel? The private investigator I hired back in Boston? He was working to protect me! He was the one I hired when the God's Wrath people were blackmailing me. Why would I have wanted to kill him?"

  "Oh, I don't think you did."

  "What? Then why would I have—"

  "I think good old Wes did that one all on his own."

  Sparrow shook his head. "Then what exactly is my alleged crime here? You've truly lost me."

  "No doubt. I've also lost myself. Let me try to spell it out for both of us." Gage took a few steps toward Sparrow, and noted, with pleasure, the subtle way Sparrow retreated—not so much with his body, but with his eyes and face, as if he was slipping into a shell. "About five years ago," Gage continued, "I think you'd grown frustrated that your anti-religion message hadn't caught on with the public in as big a way as you'd hoped. The God's Wrath group was just starting to make some noise. You saw that it was going to grow. You and your assistant at the time, Wes Robbins, concocted a plan to have him infiltrate the group. You hoped Wes could have the cult target you and your lectures, which would give you extra publicity and elevate your message to a greater audience."

  "Absurd," Sparrow said. "I had no idea you trucked in such foolish conspiracy theories. Are you going to tell me that 9/11 didn't happen next? Or that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States?"

  "Only if you get me drinking."

  "I am a respected man! A leader of intellectual thought! I would never engage in such nefarious behavior!"

  "Nefarious," Gage said. "Now there's a ten-dollar word you don't hear much these days. A real shame. But listen, you haven't heard the best part. It seemed to be going pretty well at first. You got some YouTube moments. Your book sales took off. Your profile got raised on the lecture circuit. But something truly unexpected happened."

  Sparrow snorted. "The Martians landed?"

  "That would make for a good movie, but no. Your prized pupil, your trusted assistant—he turned on you. Or rather, he didn't turn just on you. He became a true believer. A convert to that cause. Oh, how that must have burned!"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "I'm talking about a doey-eyed kid who went from worshipping his atheist hero to become a fundamentalist Christian hell bent—excuse the pun—on stamping out the very thing he used to believe in. Free rational thought."

  "Wes? Impossible!"

  "No?" Gage s
aid. "Then why did I see him at the camp in Idaho?"

  Sparrow hesitated. "He was there? Why hasn't it come out in the news yet?"

  "Because he got away. Because I'm the only one who saw him."

  "You must be mistaken. How would you even know what he—"

  "I saw his picture in The Beautiful Godless Universe, standing beside you at a cocktail party. It took me a while to remember it, but there was no mistake when I went back and checked. He was the same guy."

  "Well . . . Well . . ." Sparrow groped for words that seemed to elude him. "Well, if that's true, if it is—"

  "It is."

  "Then that's very disappointing. Honestly, I lost touch with Wes. I always wondered why he never answered my emails."

  "Oh, he answered your emails," Gage said. "He answered plenty of them. Rom118@gmail.com?"

  "What?"

  "It's a nice touch, really. Did you come up with it or did he?"

  "This is really—"

  "Romans 1:18-19? For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness," Gage said. "You see, I couldn't find any reference in the media to the cult as God's Wrath until Wes infiltrated them, so I have to think you guys have naming rights. A real feather in your cap."

  "All right," Sparrow said, with an exaggerated sigh, "this little fantasy of yours has been quite entertaining, but I have people waiting—"

  "What must have really galled you was when Wes started demanding more money," Gage said. "A lot more. And unlike before, you knew that this money would be working against you. Wes had to be stopped. So you contacted John Ettel, a fan of yours whom you trusted to be discreet. You wanted to find Wes and extract him from the situation. But Wes got to him first—or at least the God's Wrath people did. I assume Wes was involved."

  "I'm done here," Sparrow said.

  "Personally, I think you're done altogether."

  "Garbage!" Sparrow said. "You would assail my reputation with garbage! I have no idea if Wes joined those whackos or not, and if he did, I'm truly sorry. But I had nothing to do with it. I hope they catch him! If he was involved with Angela's death, I will never forgive him. Now good day sir! I'm not going to listen to any more of this nonsense."

  He started for the door. Gage decided now was the time to play his trump card.

  "I have Wes's diary," he said.

  Sparrow turned and stared at Gage with boiling hot rage. It was a look that could have melted butter. Gage was glad he wasn't butter.

  "What?" Sparrow said.

  "Or more of a journal or sorts. Random observations. Notes. I found it in the hidden room at the camp. It was one of the things I took with me. I haven't given it to the FBI yet. I wanted to talk to you first."

  "What nonsense is this?"

  "You're mentioned quite a bit, Loren. It's very damning. It's why I'm here, see. I just—I couldn't believe somebody like you would really do all this. I just had to talk to you first before I handed it over to the FBI."

  There was a long stretch of silence, Sparrow glaring, Gage waiting. In a poker game, this would have been the make-or-break moment. He was all-in. There was no journal, of course, but only Gage knew this. He heard someone talking in the hall. Their voices seemed far away, in another world. In here, it was just the two of them engaged in their own private mental war. Finally, Loren swallowed—quite visibly, quite nervously.

  "What do you want?" he asked softly.

  "Excuse me?"

  "I mean, what is it you want? Money?"

  "You think I'm trying to blackmail you?" Gage asked.

  "Aren't you?"

  Gage had to suppress a smile. Now they were getting somewhere.

  "I just wanted to know why, Loren. That's all. It just seemed like a . . . I don't know, a dirty play. Giving money to what amounts to a terrorist organization. Why? To sell a few books?"

  Sparrow's face reddened. "No! It wasn't about money!"

  "People died. Was that what it was about?"

  "I did not pay Wes Robbins to commit murder."

  "But you paid him. And that money went to the cult."

  "I didn't do anything wrong!"

  "No? You kept on paying him long after he started turning against you. You paid him after he did more than goad his fellow cult members into protesting at your events. The violence, the murders—you knew exactly what was going on. You could have gone to the FBI. You could have stopped it. It was only when they killed John Ettel that you began to realize how in over your head you were. And even then you didn't go to the FBI. Even when Angela was killed—"

  "Her death is not my fault!" Sparrow insisted.

  "Then whose fault is it?"

  "The crazies who killed her!"

  Gage shook his head. "But you gave them money. Don't you feel any guilt about that at all? That's what I'm trying to understand. I'm trying to understand if you have any kind of conscience . . . or if at some point during all those standing ovations you lost the ability to tell right from wrong."

  Sparrow looked like he was about to explode—his cheeks turning a deep shade of crimson, his whole body trembling. Gage thought maybe he'd gone too far, that it was going to devolve into a physical confrontation, but then as quickly as the storm clouds had gathered, they dispersed. Sparrow, deflating, shuffled past Gage to the couch, where he eased onto the cushions with all the slowness of a sleep walker.

  "I couldn't let them win," he said softly. "The small-minded idiots of the world—I couldn't let them win. I could feel us slipping into a new dark age. I could feel it happening. Something had to be done."

  Gage moved closer. "Funding them was your solution?"

  "Sometimes," Sparrow said, his voice still soft, his tone measured as if he was merely arguing some obscure academic point in his office with a graduate student, "you need to shine a light on evil before you can stamp it out. Yes, I gave them money. Yes, I knew what they were doing. What they represented. But in the game of chess, sometimes a few pawns must be sacrificed to win the game." He looked up at Gage. "You want to know if I have a conscience? I felt terrible about what they were doing, you must believe that. And I did try to stop it eventually. That's why I hired John Ettel—"

  "It was a pretty feeble attempt. It sounds to me like you were just worried about your reputation."

  "But if I went public, then everything would have been for nothing. All the progress I'd made pushing back the darkness—gone. The pawns would have been sacrificed for nothing. Would that have been better?"

  "Was Angela a pawn?"

  "No!"

  "Didn't her life mean anything to you?"

  "It meant everything! I loved her!" His eyes misted, and his voice became hoarse and strained. "You must believe me, Gage. If I had known they'd targeted her, if I had known . . . I would have gone to the FBI. I would have done anything in my power to stop them. But once they killed her, what would it gain if my reputation was ruined? Her death would be for nothing as well. And that—that would have been the last thing she would have wanted."

  Gage knew what he wanted. He wanted to punch Sparrow in the face. In other circumstances, he probably would have. But giving into his own rage, however much satisfaction it would give him in the present, would only cause him more grief down the road. So instead he merely bowed his head.

  "I think we've learned everything we need to know," Gage said.

  "Listen, Gage, I'll make this right," Sparrow pleaded. "You're a man of reason. I can tell. You don't want the lunatics to win. Don't throw away my life's work. What will be gained? Don't go to the police. I beg of you."

  "Too late," Gage said.

  As if on cue, the door burst open and a dozen FBI agents swarmed into the room—Pantelli and Wilde among them, guns drawn, faces stern. There was lots of yelling and commotion. The flak jackets and SWAT Team response for a mild-mannered man of science seemed a bit over the top, but Gage willingly stepped aside while they grabbed Sparrow and hoisted him to his fe
et, cuffing his arms behind his back. Stunned by the turn of events, Sparrow looked at Gage with both accusation and rage.

  To answer the question before Sparrow asked it, Gage opened his jacket to show him the wireless mic Pantelli's crew had given him.

  "You—you tricked me," Sparrow stammered.

  "Yes," Gage said. "Turnabout's fair play, I guess. You tricked everyone."

  "The diary—"

  "Could have existed," Gage said. "Who knows? It would have burned up in the fire."

  Karen Pantelli, her eyes dark and penetrating as always, gave Gage a look that could have been admiration—or it could have been irritation. It was hard to tell with her. Then she returned her attention to the man in handcuffs before her. "Loren Sparrow, you're under arrest," she said. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do or say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to—"

  "I didn't do anything wrong!" Sparrow shouted.

  Pantelli ignored this and finished reciting his Miranda rights, while all the while Sparrow fumed. When she was finally finished, and he replied that yes, he understood his rights, she told Wilde to take him from the room.

  "Wait a minute!" Sparrow said, resisting. "What's the charge? I didn't kill anyone!"

  "Have you heard of a little law known as the Patriot Act?" Pantelli asked.

  "What?"

  "You provided material support to terrorists," she said. "Since 9/11, this country really frowns upon treason."

  Of all the words that could have wounded Sparrow, Gage never would have suspected that the word "treason" would be the one that cut the deepest. But there was no mistaking Sparrow's reaction. He winced visibly, shrinking before them, shoulders slumping as all the fight went out of him. All that bravado and confidence was gone. How little had propped this man up. How little had kept his ego from collapsing on itself.

  When he was dragged away, Sparrow did not struggle. Far from the arrest giving Gage any satisfaction, in the end, Sparrow's total capitulation robbed Gage of the closure he'd been seeking. There was something sad and pathetic about it, and instead of feeling proud of what he'd done, Gage felt strangely ashamed. He had the vague sense that Angela may not have approved, which made it even worse.