by Brett Baker
“Mia, don’t you dare! I need those ropes. Don’t burn another rope. Mia! Mia!”
The second rope took much longer to burn through than the first rope, and smelled much more. When the last fibers burned, the rope separated with a loud snap, and Logan emitted a series of vulgarities unlike anything I’d ever heard before. I went back downstairs, dragged a Queen Anne chair from against the wall and sat down a few yards away from Logan’s dangling feet.
“I don’t know what else to do, Lloyd, to show you that I mean business. I tied four ropes to keep you from hanging, and your idiotic thick-headedness has forced me to burn two of those ropes. I’m rather competent at tying knots, but I have to tell you, I’d feel much more comfortable with four ropes holding me up than I would with two. Especially if I had a noose around my neck. So if I were you, I think I’d start telling me everything that I want to know. I’m not here to play games. I don’t like wasting time. And if this turns out to be a waste of time, then I’m going to kill you. Plain and simple.”
“You’ve snapped,” Logan said. “Too much time in Kazakhstan, I guess. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I know that place can do a number on people. I’ve known a handful of people who have cracked up after returning. Where did you go after you got back? Acclimating to our world after living in that world really fucks up some people.”
“Abner Chamberlain. Tell me what you know about him.”
“I already told you,” Logan started to say. I stood up from my chair and took three steps toward the stairs before he said, “Okay, wait. Stay right there. Let me think.”
“No bullshit, Lloyd. I know you don’t have to think about Abner Chamberlain.”
“Oh, that’s right! He’s the environmentalist, right? Chamberlain. I just read about him in the news. Sounded like a pretty big deal. Too bad he surprised those robbers though. So sad.”
“You’re still lying to me. I know about Mount. I know you hired Mount to kill Chamberlain.”
“What are you talking about, Mia? You’re throwing around names like I should know who these people are. I’m not even in the fucking country most of the year. I don’t know these people.”
“You don’t know who Mount is?”
“No.”
“And you didn’t have Mount kill Abner Chamberlain?”
“Who the fuck is Mount?”
“Did you hire Mount to kill Abner Chamberlain?” I screamed.
“No. No. God damn it. Who the fuck is Mount? What are you talking about?”
I walked up the stairs again and Logan became hysterical. He began flailing his body, moving about as best he could. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to break free, or if he thought he could pull himself up, or if he was just expressing his frustration. He looked like a dying fish flopping around on the sand. He called my name repeatedly, and when I didn’t answer, he resorted to threatening me. He’d kill me, he said, not bothering to explain how a man hanging by some rope could kill anyone.
When I lit the candle lighter he turned ultra polite. “Mia, darling, don’t do that. I’m sorry. I’ll tell you what you want to know. Just get me down from here and we’ll get this all sorted out. I’ll help you. Whatever you want. Just don’t burn those ropes. Come on, Mia. Remember Kazakhstan. We can build quite a partnership if we want to.”
I ignored everything he said. The flame made quick work of the third rope, and when it broke loose Logan let out an intense, guttural scream, as the remaining rope still supporting him had a few extra inches in length than the rope I burned, which let him fall before becoming taut again. The noose still hung around his neck, but a little more snug than before.
“Now, where were we?” I asked as I went back down the stairs. “Did you have something you wanted to say?”
Logan glared at me as I sat back down in the Queen Anne, and for the first time he seemed to understand that I knew everything.
“Before we go any further with this, there’s something I should tell you. Mount is tied to a tree in Utah right now. He’s not going anywhere, and unless we feel like prolonging his life, he’s going to die right there. But even better than that, he knows he’s going to die. He’s out there in the heat, without water, exposed to the elements. He’s no fool. Whatever toughness he had before has stripped away. He’s in self-preservation mode, and he knows the only chance he has is to tell us what we want to know. So he told us that you hired him to kill Chamberlain. You wanted to scare him away some other way, but when that didn’t work, you told Mount to kill him. You left fifty grand with the desk clerk at a hotel.”
Logan didn’t say anything. He raised his right eyebrow, and I thought I saw a small smirk come across his face, but he didn’t speak.
“Bruce Green. I wouldn’t trust that guy to do my laundry. He’s a shyster. He’s a complete opportunist and I’m sure he hasn’t lived a minute of his life without thinking about what’s best for him. So it’s not too surprising that he wasn’t much help. He denied knowing anything about me, even though I know he knows me. I’ve got a reliable source who explained that Green told her that I was the only person who could derail H.R. 3650. When I went to see Green he acted like he didn’t know me, yet the only reason I got in to see him was that I gave my name to his assistant. Didn’t tell her why I was there, or what I wanted or anything. She told me he couldn’t see me, then I told her my name, and when he heard my name, voila, all of a sudden he can see me.”
“Who’s Bruce Green? That name doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Fuck you, Lloyd. Stop trying to brush this off. I obviously know that you’re behind this. You’re working with Green to get H.R. 3650 passed, and when it passes you’re going to use in-situ leaching to extract your profit, and then get the hell out. The forests provide the exact cover you need, and the bill ensures that there will be enough other companies working in the same area that you can deflect the blame for the uranium contamination.”
“You’re crazy, Mia. You don’t even know what you’re talking about. We don’t do in-situ leaching any more. It’s too bad for the environment and people. The profits aren’t worth the consequences.”
“I don’t believe you for a second,” I said. “Do you even believe the bullshit you’re spewing?”
“I’m telling the truth. Believe it or not. It’s up to you.”
“Okay, Lloyd, let’s pretend for a minute that you suddenly grew a fucking conscience, and you decided that human life is more important than your profits. As far-fetched of an idea as that is, I’ll play along. So you won’t do in-situ leaching any more. Then why the fuck were you worried about me? Why did you tell Green that I was the only person who could stop this?”
“I never said anything like that to Green. I don’t even know the man.”
I ran to the stairs and started racing up them, skipping two at a time. Halfway up Logan became hysterical. He screamed out my name, he pleaded for me to come back down, he asked me not to burn the rope. As I reached the top of the steps his pleas became louder, as if the overbearing volume of his meltdown would convince me not to burn the rope. I walked to the catwalk and stopped right above him and leaned over the railing. I grabbed the lone remaining support rope in both hands and began swinging it back and forth. His body barely moved at first, but once I built up some momentum he looked like a pendulum.
“How does this feel, Lloyd? Just dangling from a rope. It might not be too bad now, but just wait until the only thing supporting you is that noose. All the weight of your body pulling down on that rope around your neck, and no air getting to your lungs. The burn of the rope must be agonizing, and what about the horror of kicking with your feet, thrashing about, trying to find anything that will relieve the pressure. I can’t even imagine. And, of course, that’s all assuming that the rope doesn’t snap your neck as soon as you fall. It might be instantaneous. That’s the best you can hope for. But then you also have to worry about decapitation. I think I made the noose right, but if I made it too long for your weight then you’ll fall a
nd that rope will snap your head clear off your body. Fuck, I really hope that doesn’t happen. I don’t want to see that. Nightmares.”
Logan became completely quiet for a few seconds, and then sobbed. His shoulders moved up and down, and the deep, resonant sound of his fearful wail shook my eardrums. I held the candle lighter in my hand, and pushed the button repeatedly as if I were trying to light it, but couldn’t get a flame. Logan’s cries drowned out the clicking noise of the button at first, but during a moment when he tried to catch his breath he heard the clicks and strained to look up at me. I smiled back at him and held the lighter up so he could see it. His eyes grew huge, and he cried, “Mia, stop it! Don’t do it. Mia, come down here, let’s talk. I’ll talk. I hired Mount. He killed Chamberlain. I tried to kill you. Don’t fucking burn that rope, Mia. Walk downstairs and I’ll tell you all about your parents.”
I froze.
The candle lighter in my hand, held away from my body, extended toward him. I stood on my tiptoes to reach further and looked at his face as he struggled to see me. I couldn’t move. Logan might as well have cast a spell on me. In the moments before, I was completely enmeshed in Logan’s fear, in convincing him to tell me what he knew. I’d entered a zone of entrenched focus on my mission, a quality The Summit had instilled in me from the beginning, which had saved my life numerous times. So when Logan mentioned my parents I was completely unprepared. Although I’d concentrated mentally and physically on the task at hand, I’d left myself open emotionally. Logan’s words felt like a hot iron to my soul.
“Stop this, Mia. Come down here and let’s talk.”
I didn’t move. I couldn’t move. I looked at Logan, but didn’t really see him. My mom called my name from behind me, which jarred me, but broke me loose. I looked to the left, but saw no one. Of course, she wasn’t there. I stood in place and turned completely around, searching in vain, knowing I’d find nothing.
“Let me down, Mia. I’ll explain the whole thing.”
I looked back down at Logan, but said nothing.
“Mia!” he screamed.
The firmness in his voice snapped me out of my reverie, and I pushed back from the railing and darted down the stairs. I stopped right beneath Logan, lit the candle lighter, and held the flame to the bottom of his bare feet. He kicked, and I grabbed his feet in my hand, held him tight, and burned his soles again. He cried out in agony.
“Shut your fucking mouth,” I said. “I don’t want to hear your cries. You better start talking. Any bullshit and I go to the fucking garage and find a gas can and douse your fucking body before I light your feet. You bring up my fucking parents, you asshole? I was going to let you die a quick death, snap your fucking neck with that rope, but now you get to burn.”
“Mia, be reasonable,” he said, holding his hands up in front of him as if telling me to hold on a moment.
“Fuck you. Start talking, asshole.”
“You’re right. I hired Mount to kill Chamberlain. I didn’t want those God damn environmentalists poking their nose in my business. But killing Chamberlain was just the backup plan. I hate that motherfucker, but we could have passed the bill even if we didn’t kill him. Those assholes are opposed to everything, so no one even listens to them any more. If they had their way we’d still be living in caves without electricity or running water. Shit, they’d probably get rid of the wheel and fire if they could. I’m glad to see him dead. We’re all better off for it.”
Mount looked off in the distance, out the back windows of his house, as if contemplating whether he should say what he was thinking. I’d given him no way out though. He knew he’d struck a chord when he mentioned my parents, and although he thought I planned to kill him before that, he knew that the situation had only grown more intense.
“You were the obstacle. Besides me, you’re the only person in the country who knows about our problems with the in-situ process. If you knew I was connected to the project you could go public with what you knew, and news organizations or Congress or environmental groups could go to Kazakhstan or Namibia and see exactly what’s happening. Not only would the bill have no chance of passing, but I’d be finished. No country on earth would approve a project with my name attached. So we had to get rid of you.”
“But don’t you remember Kazakhstan? You treated me like your sister. We could have formed quite a partnership.”
Logan recognized my sarcasm.
“I couldn’t take any chances, Mia. Maybe you should have accepted my advances in Kazakhstan and things would have turned out differently.”
“Watch it, Lloyd. I don’t think you’ll be very pleased with how things are going to turn out.”
“For Chamberlain, I mean. And your parents.”
“What about my parents?” I screamed. “Start talking right now or I’m going to cut your fucking balls off.”
“When Green introduced the bill he thought it could make it through Congress with little trouble. He anticipated the environmentalist opposition, but as I said, we weren’t worried about it. We started talking about our plans, and I spoke sort of conditionally, you know, ifs instead of whens. He asked why I was so worried and I told him that you were the only person who could ruin this. No one else had anything they could prove, but you could bring down the whole thing. He suggested paying you off, but I knew that wouldn’t work. Then he said that you probably wouldn’t even notice. No one pays attention to forestry bills. The thing would race through committee, get a vote, and pass rather easily.”
“Why didn’t you take his advice on that?” I asked. “If you never told him my name, he wouldn’t have told my source, and my source wouldn’t have told me. If you just kept your mouth shut I would have never known about it. You began your own downfall by not keeping quiet.”
“It’s all fucking hindsight now,” he said. “But it’s easy for him to say that I should just take my chances that you won’t find out. It’s not his company, his money, his profits, his future. If this all falls apart then he doesn’t lose anything. He’s on to the next bill, the next industry, the next payoff. He’ll get his somewhere. It doesn’t have to come from me. So it was all up to me.”
“And you decided to kill me.”
“You were an obstacle,” Logan said. “I gave you the chance to become more than an obstacle when we were in Kazakhstan, but you chose not to. If things had worked out differently there, things would have worked out differently here.” Logan shrugged his shoulders so matter-of-factly that I wanted to instantly kill him. It reminded me of the sort of I-don’t-care attitude so prevalent in most teenagers.
“Did Green offer to help take me out?” I asked.
“No. He knew your name, he knew that you could ruin the whole thing, but he didn’t know why, and he didn’t know what I planned to do about it. I told him I’d take care of it, and he believed me.”
“Yeah, you sure have taken care of it,” I said. “I guess hindsight tells him that he overestimated your ability to eliminate a problem, doesn’t it?”
“It’s not over yet,” Logan said.
I looked up at Logan, pushed his feet away from me so he began swinging on the rope again, and said, “It’s over Lloyd. The only question is how.”
“Don’t be so sure,” he said.
I nodded my head in mock agreement. “So you needed Green’s help in tracking me down. Is that the real reason you told him? Surely you’re smart enough to figure out that you should take me out as quietly as possible, and the last thing you wanted to do was to involve the congressman who’s trying to pass your bill in a murder scheme. But you needed his help to find me, didn’t you?”
“Don’t be so naïve, Mia. I didn’t need any help to find you. We knew where you were.”
“Why am I still here then?” I asked. “How come I’m not next to Chamberlain right now?”
“Incompetence,” Logan shouted. “Absolute fucking incompetence by a whole series of people who are not as skilled as Mount. I should have put him on you. Then you wo
uld be with Chamberlain. Although Mount’s a fucking idiot, too, apparently. Not many geniuses get themselves tied to a tree in the middle of the Utah desert.”
“So I have you to thank for Aviator Man?”
“Who the fuck is Aviator Man?”
“Chicago lakefront. He tried to plant a bullet in my head. I’m running down the path, surrounded by people, and this psycho opens fire. He barely missed me. Shot my bun, in fact. He’s lucky he didn’t hit anyone else.”
“Not too lucky since you killed him,” Logan said.
“How do you know I killed him?” I asked. If Logan sent Aviator Man to kill me, then it made sense that he’d know he had failed, and that he was killed in the process. But it’s not like I returned fire, or ran him down with my car or something. The average woman on the street doesn’t know how to kill someone by crushing a guy’s cricoid cartilage.
“I know you, Mia. You’re no secret. Not anymore.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. “I never claimed to be a secret.”
“That’s just it. You never claimed to be anything. You came up to me in an airport halfway around the world, began a conversation, wormed your way into my life, and not once did you mention why you were there. Volgograd isn’t exactly a tourist destination, and you can probably count the number of Americans who travel to Kazakhstan on one hand. You knew why I was there. Business. But you never said why you were there. I knew you helped with the uranium slave situation, and everything that came after, so I assumed you were CIA. You were helping me, so what the fuck do I care who you’re with? But then you left. So I tried to find you and I got nowhere. It’s like you didn’t exist. Every single record of you is scrubbed clean. You’re a ghost. And you remained that way until I went to South Africa. Platinum. Big money to be made in platinum. The South African government doesn’t like outsiders to mine their land though, so I needed help. Another foreigner there told me that he knew a woman who helped him deal with the government. She made things happen. Convinced people to think certain ways, do certain things. I hired her, and a month later everything was fine and I started operations over there. Once I got up and running she came looking for her cut of the action. And then when we started talking she mentioned that she finds people. ‘No one can hide from me,’ that’s what she said. I still had it bad for you, so I asked her to find you. Told her about us, explained the situation, gave her all the background on Volgograd and Kazakhstan. Everything. She was listening intently the whole time. Never took her eyes off of me. Seemed like she was looking into my soul. Sort of freaked me out. And then at the end she asked for your name, so I told her. All of a sudden, her expression changed. She was preoccupied. Completely checked out of our conversation. Her mind was a million miles away. I’m not an idiot, so I noticed this, and I asked her what the fucking problem was, and she said never mind, she can’t help. Bullshit, I said. Tell me what the fuck just happened. She told me to fuck off, she was leaving. She couldn’t help. Started walking out. But I knew she could help. The way her face changed, the way she broke, no doubt in my mind she recognized you. Since she was trying to shake me down, I figured she’s probably got a price for everything, so I told her you’re worth half a million to me. If she told me what she knew, I’d give her five hundred grand. She stopped in her tracks. Stood there for a minute, and then I just saw her shoulders fall. She knew I had her. Whatever she was holding back, it wasn’t more important to her than the five hundred grand. She didn’t want to tell me what she knew, but she knew she would. The money was too much.”