by Blake Banner
I nodded. “Yes, he must have known.”
“Why didn’t he tell you?”
“I don’t know. It’s one of several questions I have unanswered.”
Cyndi sighed. “The other is, where is he now?”
There was a tap at the door and Kenny came in with a tray of coffee and biscuits. After he’d left, Marni poured. It came naturally to her and she didn’t seem to question it. She had grown up in that house. I pushed the thought from my mind.
“I just got off the phone with the Malibu and Lost Hills Sheriff’s Department. They are adamant there is no fourth body. I know the Feds were involved in the investigation, but they tell me they were just observers and they had no jurisdiction.”
Marni handed Cyndi a cup. “I’ve watched three interviews so far with celebrities who were at the party. They all claim that after the prostitutes arrived, everybody else left.”
Cyndi narrowed her eyes at me. “That was a cruel stroke, Lacklan. Why did you do it?”
I took my cup from Marni and sat back to think for a moment.
“I had a couple of reasons. My first, and most important, was that I did not want Fenninger to become a martyr. I wanted him discredited in the public’s eyes, and in the eyes of his wife and children too.” I paused. “But there was something else which is harder to explain. He was part of a great machine that was manufacturing an ideal which is totally unobtainable. The word that kept being used was ‘role model’. It’s like Julius Caesar’s bread and circus, only much more sinister than that. Because this circus is a trap. It’s a circus that makes you aspire to the dreams it creates, so that in the end you are living in a world of unreal aspirations, trying to escape from reality and live in that dream. That is a big part of the way they manipulate people’s minds. I wanted to show the world that those dreams are not real. What better way than exposing Fenninger as a fraud?”
She made a face that was doubtful and also skeptical, but she said, “Well, it seems to have worked. His name is being dragged through the mire. I’m not sure it’s a kindness to his wife and kids.”
I looked at her hard. “The truth isn’t always nice, Cyndi. Sometimes it sucks, big time. But it is always better than a lie. I think all of us in this room know that.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Point taken.”
“So what happened with Ben?”
I shook my head and took a deep breath. “I shot him twice in the chest and I watched him die. I can only think that Omega personnel went to the scene and intercepted the body. We can only guess at the chaos that is going on inside Omega now. With any luck it will mean the end of that organization. Omega One and Omega Alpha are both defunct.” I shook my head. “And Ben’s body has either been cremated or buried in an unmarked grave somewhere.”
Marni asked, “So what about Omega now?” But she addressed the question to Cyndi.
Cyndi turned and looked at me. “You killed all of Omega One, that’s the branch that dealt with the English speaking world. Omega Two controls the EU, Three controls Latin America, Four has control of Africa and the Middle East—and the oil. And Four is what used to be the Communist Block Russia, China, the Far East. Each one of those is very powerful in its own right, and there is very little that we can do to influence them. The most we can do is try to avoid them taking root here again.”
I gave a small laugh. “That’s not an easy task.”
She nodded. “I agree, and as far as I am concerned our best bet is coming clean with the public about what lies ahead.”
We were quiet for a moment. Marni set down her cup. “The coming drought will help, if that’s the right word. It will give people like you and me, and Philip, the chance to talk about the changes that are coming.”
Cyndi was nodding again. “The issue of population is central…”
I raised a hand. “Before we get onto the topic of politics, you both need to talk to Jim Redbeard.” I smiled at Marni. “He is everything you wanted me to be.”
Her cheeks went red. “Don’t say that.”
I ignored her and went on, “He is a warrior. He understands the importance and the value of violence, but he is intelligent enough to be a political player. And where Gibbons has all the right instincts to create a new Omega, Redbeard has all the right instincts to destroy it. He will be a good ally for you.”
They both stared at me for a long moment. Then Cyndi asked the question. “Do I take it that you are, definitely, withdrawing from the fight this time?”
I gave a single nod. “There is no fight anymore, Cyndi. If you guys play your cards right, Omega should die quietly in the night. Bits of it may survive here and there, but the big, global monster has been decapitated. My work is done. Now it is up to you.”
We talked a little more about this and that, and after a while Cyndi glanced at Marni and smiled. To me she said, “Abi has promised to show me the orchard, and I gather you guys have stuff to talk about. I’ll catch you at lunch.”
She got up and left.
Marni and I sat in silence for a moment. Then I stood and opened the French windows onto the lawn. She followed me out and we made our way across the grass and into the woods. We didn’t talk. We followed a path we had followed a thousand times as kids. It led, wending this way and that, down to Sudbury Road, and from there to the church where my father was buried.
We made our way through the church grounds until we came to the graveyard, and there we found my family’s plot, and his grave. Our plot was next to the Gilberts’ plot, and her own father was buried less than thirty yards away.
We stood in silence, in the late morning sun, under the New England sky, among the oaks, the yews, the holly and the pine trees, listening to the endless chatter and babble of the birds, the quiet, desultory buzz of a bee, the distant murmur of conversation between the pastor and a small group who stood chatting to him in the sun.
Marni said suddenly, “He killed my father in order to save me.”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“And I killed him, because he killed my father; because he represented to me everything that my father despised and fought against.”
I looked at her but said nothing.
After a moment she went on, “But my father loved him as a friend.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand, Lacklan. I don’t understand any of it.”
I shrugged. “They were just people. They were fallible. They met, they liked each other and over the years they became good friends. Your father followed a path of learning at the university. My father became a power broker. Before he knew it he had sold himself to Omega. When they told him to kill your father, he did the only thing he could.”
She looked at me. “He told him.”
“Yes, and like good friends they did it together, to save not just you, but your mother and me and my mother.”
She put her hand gently on my arm. “I’m sorry.”
“What about?”
“That…” She took a deep breath, then started again. “I was going to say that it didn’t work out, but that would be dishonest, and you deserve honesty. I’m sorry I failed you. I should have stood by you and believed in you. Abi is a better woman than me in that sense. A better person. I’m glad you have her.”
I didn’t know how to answer. In the end I said, “We had our moment. It got very complicated.”
Across the graveyard, not far from our plot, I noticed a man digging a fresh grave. I wondered, absently, who in the neighborhood had died. We turned and started walking back toward the house. I said to Marni, “How well did you know Ben?”
She gave a small shrug. “Nobody knew him very well. He kept very much to himself. I think your father was the only man who really knew him. They were very close. Why?”
We stopped at the verge of the road. A hearse was approaching. There were no mourners, just the car, and the small group of two men and a woman, in a pale blue suit, talking to the priest. They had stopped talking now and were watc
hing the hearse as it pulled in and stopped.
I frowned. “It was very strange, Marni. Ben had many opportunities to kill me, but he never even tried. Whenever he was able, in fact, he tried to spare me. You too. In L.A., he didn’t need to go to Fenninger’s house, but he did, and he took Beta and Gamma with him. He knew I was going to kill them. He knew I was going to kill him. I asked him.” I turned to face her. “I asked him why. But he wouldn’t tell me.”
“What did he say?”
I shrugged again. “I asked him why he had come, and he just said, ‘You knew I would.’ He felt…” I shook my head, screwed up my face, trying to understand. “He felt that I had betrayed him.”
Something drew me across the road. Marni followed me and we approached the hearse as the undertakers pulled the coffin from the back. They hoisted it on their shoulders and began the slow, steady walk toward the open grave that gaped, waiting, under an ancient yew tree. They lowered him in, threw in the ropes and the pastor began, “Dust to dust, ashes to ashes…”
We stayed and listened. I studied the two men and the woman, wondering who they were. I didn’t recognize them. They looked unremarkable. When the pastor had finished they shook his hand and left, driving away in a dark saloon. The reverend approached us, smiling. “Marni, Lacklan, how lovely to see you. It’s been a very long time. How are you both?”
I made noncommittal noises and Marni told him she now lived and worked in Oxford. We fell into step, walking toward the church. I pointed back at the grave, where the gravedigger was shoveling the earth over the cask.
“Who was that, Reverend? I didn’t recognize any of those people, and I noticed you didn’t mention a name.”
He stopped and frowned at me. “Well, Lacklan, I believe he was a relative of yours. His plot actually falls within your family’s plot, but it was added by your father, a few years back.”
I went cold. “My father extended the family plot, to include a space for this person?”
“Indeed. I didn’t mention a name because apparently in his will, he asked for his name to be omitted as he claimed to be a, and I quote, nameless soul. But he did, of course, have a name.”
I tried to suppress my impatience and smiled. “What was it?”
“Benjamin. Benjamin Walker.”
The world seemed to rock. The reverend frowned at me and Marni took my arm. I told him I was OK and Marni walked me slowly back down the road toward my house. We walked in silence until we had cleared the woods and emerged into the broad lawns that swept down from the French windows outside my study. Then I stopped and turned to face her.
She shook her head. “You don’t know, Lacklan. Don’t jump to any conclusions.”
“It’s the only explanation. It explains everything.”
“You don’t know. It could be a coincidence. He was Ben Smith, not Walker. Benjamin is not such an unusual name. It could be just a coincidence, Lacklan.
I shook my head. “No. It’s what he was trying to tell me. It explains why he refused to kill me. It explains why he looked out for me. For you. For us both.”
“Lacklan…”
“My father exacted the same promise from him that he demanded from me.”
“Lacklan, stop.”
“When he was dying he made me promise that I would look out for you and keep you safe. When Ben came to see me in Wyoming he told me my father was dying. He loved my father. My father had told him he had cancer, but he hadn’t. It was a lie, but he knew somehow that his time was running out. He knew that he was going to die. One of us, you or me, one of us would kill him and he knew it. He probably thought it would be me.”
“Lacklan you don’t know any of this.”
I nodded. “I know this much, he had decided to betray Omega. That alone meant his life was at risk. When he knew his time was running out, he told Ben to look out for you and me, and protect us.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Lacklan! How could he do that? Why would Ben agree to such a thing? It’s crazy!”
I gripped her arms, looking deep into her eyes, “Marni, don’t you see it? My father asked him because you were like a daughter to him, he promised your father to care for you as though you were his own. I was his son and despite the fact that I hated him, he loved me. Family was everything to my father, but you and I detested everything that Omega stood for….”
“What are you saying?”
“He took Ben in, saw his potential, coached him and guided him, reared him as an heir apparent to become Alpha. But my father always had sway over him. That was why he remained as my father’s supposed assistant, because my father was his father. Ben was my brother, Marni, and I killed him.”
“No…”
“He looked out for us both, he stood between us and what Omega wanted to do to us. His overriding desire was always that we join Omega and try to change it from within. He gave us every opportunity to do that. And I betrayed him at every step. Just as I betrayed you and my father. And now I have killed him, my own brother.”
Across the vibrant, green lawn Abi, Cyndi, Primrose and Sean came strolling, talking and laughing around the side of the house. Abi saw us and waved. I stared at her. A terrible knot twisted in my belly and I felt a single hot tear touch the corner of my mouth.
Marni touched my arm. “Lacklan,” she said. “You have them. They are now. You are strong and good. Honor the dead by being strong and good for the living.”
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ALSO BY BLAKE BANNER
Up to date books can be found on my website: www.blakebanner.com
DEAD COLD MYSTERY SERIES
An Ace and a Pair (Book 1)
Two Bare Arms (Book 2)
Garden of the Damned (Book 3)
Let Us Prey (Book 4)
The Sins of the Father (Book 5)
Strange and Sinister Path (Book 6)
The Heart to Kill (Book 7)
Unnatural Murder (Book 8)
Fire from Heaven (Book 9)
To Kill Upon A Kiss (Book 10)
THE OMEGA SERIES
Dawn of the Hunter (Book 1)
Double Edged Blade (Book 2)
The Storm (Book 3)
The Hand of War (Book 4)
A Harvest of Blood (Book 5)
To Rule in Hell (Book 6)
Kill: One (Book 7)
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[1] See Dawn of the Hunter and To Rule in Hell
[2] See The Hand of War
[3] See The Hand of War
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