Spitting Image

by Patrick LeClerc

  He was wearing John’s jacket over a tee shirt and jeans. On closer examination, a very expensive tee shirt and jeans. His boots were pricey L.L. Bean hikers, but that didn’t mean anything. I have to work a sixty hour week to pay rent and I wear pricey L.L. Bean hikers. It doesn’t pay to buy cheap shoes. They wear out so fast you’ll have to buy four pair before you’d need to replace one pair of good boots. You’ll spend more money over time and your feet will hurt and get wet.

  He did have John’s shotgun, and it was John’s jacket. There may have been a bloodstain on it before I’d shot him, but it was impossible to tell now.

  The question was: was John still alive, and where was he?

  They had his stuff, and they’d gotten a good enough look at him to imitate him. Even the voice, so they’d talked to him. Not long enough to pick up his sense of humor, so chances are they didn’t have a man inside our little band, they’d just gotten to John and hoped to surprise me with a look alike.

  So was he dead or a prisoner or was he lying in the woods, bleeding to death? He’d stuck his neck out for me, so whatever it was, I couldn’t leave him. You don’t leave a man behind.

  You do get to swear about it for a minute.

  After I got that out of the way, I headed back the way my enemy had come. It wasn’t too tough to track his path. He’d broken and trampled enough stuff to give me the basic idea.

  I took it slow. Forced myself to. Maybe time was a factor in John’s survival, but stealth was a factor in mine, and I couldn’t help anybody if I blundered into an ambush. The guy I’d shot wasn’t exactly Daniel Boone, but he wasn’t the worst man in the field I’d ever faced, and if somebody captured John, they must know something.

  Probably pulled the fake identity trick on him. Maybe pretended to be me. They’d had somebody around me long enough to get my mannerisms down.

  After a while, I heard voices. John saying something then somebody hissing him to silence.

  OK, so he was alive.

  Unless they had another decoy.

  This was getting too complicated. I’d have to ask him something after I rescued him, before I gave him a gun. Something nobody would guess. Like how did Bob like his yolks? No right- thinking person would guess that.

  I crept toward the voices. Slow as the sunset, and quieter.

  The ground was uneven, rocky, and densely forested. I heard them long before I saw them. When I did catch sight of them, I squatted in the shadow of a black oak and studied the situation.

  John was on his knees, hands zip-tied behind him. He didn’t look too bad. They must have faked him out and got the drop on him. Next to him was...

  Me.

  Again.

  It’s an odd thing to look at yourself doing something repugnant, like smacking your friend. It’s also fairly disconcerting to look at yourself through the aperture of a gunsight.

  I’d have liked to grab this guy. See what he had to say. Get some information from him. But that didn’t seem too feasible. I’d have to try to circle wide around to get behind him, and he was actually surprisingly alert, scanning the forest waiting for his friend to return. This guy was a professional, not some bored conscript walking a safe post.

  I spent a few minutes watching to see if he had any more friends showing up, then I made my decision.

  He wasn’t far away. Maybe thirty yards. But he had an AR-15 held at the ready, and he was far too locked on for my liking. I was going to have to take him out quickly, and with the 9 mm MP 5, that meant a head shot.

  I settled into the best position I could find, on my belly behind a fallen tree, bracing my left arm against the trunk, leaning forward into the gun. I aimed my whole body, putting myself in line with the weapon so the recoil would push straight back against my mass, not at an angle where it might turn me and nudge the barrel out of line. I lined the front sight post in the center of the rear sight, then put his head in the middle, so it sat on the front sight like a pumpkin on a fencepost, and with a slow, steady pressure, squeezed the trigger.

  The man with my face jerked and dropped. Just collapsed in on himself, landing in a heap from which limbs spilled out. Like a puppet with its strings cut.

  Sometimes they do that when you shoot them in the head. Not often, but sometimes.

  John dropped to his side and rolled away when he heard the shot.

  I waited. Watching and listening for any more of them.

  When nothing happened after what was probably long enough, I emerged from my hide and stalked down to John. I paused, sweeping the area with my weapon, looking for any more enemies to present themselves.

  I reached into my pocket, took out my folding knife. “Let me see those zip ties.”

  He rolled over on his stomach and presented his bound wrists. “Before I cut you loose, just so I know you’re you, what job did I get in the Great North Woods?”

  “You probably worked as a cook for a spell,” he replied.

  “Gotta respect a man who knows the classics.” I cut him free. “What happened?”

  He rubbed his wrists, shrugged. “I thought it was you. Walked right up to him and he gestured to look over there then put the gun on me. It’s embarrassing, man. Like the ‘your shoe’s untied’ trick. Guy had you down pat.” He looked at the body. “Not anymore, though.”

  I followed his glance. The dead man looked a bit older than the other man I’d shot. Maybe mid thirties, still lean, fair and athletic. Could have been an older cousin or brother to the first man.

  “Death reveals the Skin-Walker’s true form,” said John.

  “I guess it does.” More legends. I wondered how many of those came from people like my enemies.

  And like me, I guess.

  “What now?” he asked. “Pretty sure we lost the element of surprise.”

  I thought for a minute.

  “Maybe not.” I stripped the jacket from the dead man. Picked up his rifle and checked it, worked the charging handle just to be sure it hadn’t jammed when he dropped it.

  “Turn around,” I told John, picking up the cut zip tie.

  “What’s the plan?”

  “Put your hands behind you,” I said. “I’ll put these on for show. Take your pistol and put it in your waistband in the small of your back. If this guy didn’t change back to his form when he captured you, we’ll just pretend I’m still him, still being me, and I’ll bring you in. We’ll pull a Trojan Horse on ‘em.”

  He smiled. “I knew you had the spirit of the coyote.”

  I sent a quick text to Bob, letting him know the broad strokes of the plan, in case he got a look at us through the scope of his ought-six and wasn’t sure just whom to shoot.

  “What’s the plan when we get close?” asked John.

  “Let’s blow that bridge when we come to it.”

  “Ah.”

  “We’re here to get as much info as possible. Play the prisoner as long as they buy it. If things get dangerous, pull your gun. I’d like to grab one of them alive if we can. If not, let’s just get inside the house and see if we can find any info. Computers, ledgers, anything. If we get close and there are too many of them, we back off.”

  We made our way through the woods toward the big house. As we approached, we saw the stables, then some outbuildings, a carriage house and the gabled roof of the main house rising through the trees, the whole scene carried the smell of horses and privilege.

  The main house was fieldstone with a slate roof, arched overhang in front of the door so that a driver could pull up out of the rain and let his passengers off. Blood on their hands was one thing, but rain might ruin their hair, I guess.

  I expected the place to be guarded, but I was hoping my un-disguise would get me close, if not inside, before anyone got too rough. I was surprised when I made it unchallenged to the front porch.

  The door was unlocked. I pushed it open and motioned John inside. The foyer was decorated opulently with old but expensive taste. Dark wood paneling, hunting and shooting prints, a fir
eplace with a wide carved wooden mantle.

  I heard footsteps and paused. A woman came through a doorway, stopped, and looked at us with relief.

  She was beautiful by any objective standard. Tall and leanly muscular, with long blonde hair pulled back into a braid, high Nordic cheekbones and clear, ice blue eyes. A Valkyrie brought to life.

  I didn’t know how much of it was natural and how much was artifice, but she did bear a resemblance to the men I’d shot. She could be a sister or cousin. She wore a spotless white blouse, tight riding breeches and high leather boots.

  She also had a compact automatic pistol in her right hand.

  “Ah, Chip,” she said. “Thank God it’s you. You got one of them.”

  I nodded. I didn’t know Chip’s mannerisms, when he wasn’t being me, anyway, so I figured the less I said, the better.

  “Where’s Ellis?”

  “Not sure,” I said.

  She began to look toward the door, then did a double take and stared at me. Her mouth opened to shout and she started to bring up her right hand when, with an economic blur of motion, John grabbed her wrists, kicked her legs from under her and threw her onto a couch.

  He twisted the gun from her hand. I had already trained my captured rifle at her and put a finger to my lips. She froze.

  “Is there anyone else in the house?” I asked, my voice low.

  She shook her head.

  “See?” said John, displaying the pistol he’d taken from her. “A Walther. A proper coyote weapon.”

  I shrugged.

  “I guess she’s just embraced her spirit animal,” he said, smiling coldly at her.

  The woman was silent. She looked frightened, but kept her composure. I knew my enemies were good actors, and she had probably had a lot of practice keeping cool and talking her way out of a bad situation.

  John stood off to one side, the pistol aimed at the woman. I let the muzzle of my rifle wander over her body. Paused when it pointed at a knee.

  “What exactly is it that you people wanted from me?” I asked, conversationally. Not angrily. Just as though I was idly wondering.

  I hoped she’d talk. I really didn’t want to hurt her. Oh, she had earned it. She was probably as guilty as the men I’d killed in the woods. But there’s a difference between shooting an armed man and deliberately putting a bullet in the kneecap of an unarmed prisoner. I like to think that the lines we won’t cross are what keep us human.

  I don’t like causing pain, but she didn’t need to know that. I let the anger I felt at what they had done to Sarah show on my face. Maybe I could scare this woman into talking. Maybe she was the kind of person who could shatter a kneecap to get what she wanted, and believing others would do the same wouldn’t be a stretch.

  “Just the gifts of your bloodline,” she replied. “We never intended to hurt you.”

  “Your boy took a shot at me in the woods just now.”

  She shrugged. “You heal fast. He might have figured he needed to disable you. And things have...escalated.”

  “So, once I objected to your kidnapping my girlfriend, the Rubicon was crossed?”

  Her face fell. I saw something familiar in the expression when the comment caught her off guard. Something I’d seen in a different face. Recently. On the ambulance.

  “Samantha?” I asked.

  She nodded, gave a little shrug.

  “I had to get close enough to observe you.”

  That explained why she was such a bad EMT, but so comfortable in crisis.

  “If it makes you feel any better, I was going to try to seduce you as an EMT, never bring your girlfriend into it, but it was obvious you weren’t going to cheat on her. It speaks well of you.”

  “Thanks, I guess. So you kidnapped her and took her place? Thoughtful of you.”

  “We never harmed her. She was kept safe. In a few days, we’d have had her memory erased, let her go, and nobody would have been the wiser.”

  “Whose idea was this? How’d you find out about me?”

  She shook her head. “That’s family business”

  I let my eyes shift to the rifle then back to her.

  “That’s not enough,” she said. “My punishment for selling out the family would be worse than a bullet.”

  She did look scared, but not terrified. And I wasn’t going to beat her up or start breaking fingers. I didn’t know if I could even fake that intent with enough sincerity. I did know I couldn’t shoot her, sitting on the couch like she was. If things had been different, and she’d pointed that pistol at me, I could have, but not while she was unarmed, talking pleasantly.

  She probably knew that. She’d studied me, talked to me in intimate moments. And in her line of work, she was probably good at reading people.

  That was inconvenient. I won’t say it was too bad, because most days I’m proud of my scruples about breaking fingers or executing captives, but right now it did make my job tougher.

  “I understand you felt threatened,” she said. “Especially after what happened last year with Doors. I understand why you reacted with force. Why you felt you had to. But our original intention wasn’t violent. Deceptive, perhaps, but we never intended you or your friends any harm.”

  She put on an earnest, reasonable expression. “There’s no reason we can’t make an accommodation. There’s no blood shed on your side, and we have to judge your actions as reasonable, so we’d accept our losses. Much better for all of us. You’re a dangerous man. More so that we expected. I’d like to live, and I’m sure you’d like to be able to trust that your friends are really your friends. Perhaps we could even do business.”

  She took a moment to smile, let her eyes go dreamy and her voice husky, “Admit it. It wasn’t all bad.”

  I know she was trying for seductive, but I thought of what that had done to the first real relationship I had had in a dozen lifetimes, and for one wild moment I felt the mad urge to pull the trigger.

  “I have to ask,” she said. “How did you know? What gave us away?”

  “It wasn’t all that good,” I replied.

  Her face fell. For a second the mask slipped. But underneath, it wasn’t the rage of a woman scorned, it looked like genuine surprise. I’m sure she wasn’t used to being dismissed like that.

  “Here’s the deal,” I said. “For now, I’ll agree to live and let live. But if anything happens to Sarah Deyermond, anything at all, I won’t be so forgiving. I got to you this time. I can do it again. Next time it won’t be to talk.”

  She nodded.

  “And I’m keeping your gun. My friend says it suits me better.” I turned to John. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Right behind you, Kemo Sabe.”

  We made a dignified but hasty withdrawal. I took the precaution of taking her phone and car keys and cutting the land line, then paused at the doorway to scan the front yard before we headed for the woods.

  We didn’t speak until we were well away, deep in the woods.

  “What does ‘Kemo Sabe’ really mean, anyway?”

  “In this case, it means ‘it’s your funeral, Paleface,’” he replied. “Why’d you just leave her?”

  “I couldn’t just shoot her, and she wasn’t going to tell us much. I have three cell phones we can dig through and look at contacts. We’ll learn as much there as we would have with her, and I don’t have to pull out fingernails.”

  “You might be too soft. She’s still a threat.”

  “The whole family’s a threat. And I don’t think they’d be less of a threat if I killed her. I know that would just make me more angry if I were them.”

  “You did kill two of them. You think a third body would make that big a difference?”

  “Fortunes of war.” Maybe it wasn’t different to everybody, but it was different to me. “They can get to me. But they’ve always been able to get to me. Now they know I’m on guard, and they know I can get to them. They know I have friends they didn’t know about. Maybe that will make them think t
wice. Give them an incentive to play nice.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “But I wouldn’t count on it.”

  “No. But they’ll be more afraid of me today than they were yesterday.”

  “Fear can make a person unpredictable.”

  He was right. But there wasn’t much more to be gained here. Shooting or kidnapping the woman back at the house wouldn’t end the struggle, just escalate it. And while it might come down to all out war, that wouldn’t help anybody.

  I hoped they’d see that.

  If they did, then maybe I could work out a truce without anybody else needing to die. Especially anybody I liked. If not, if they think I crossed a line back there...

  I did kinda kill two of them. But one had been shooting at me, and the other had an assault rifle and was holding my friend prisoner. That’s usually considered fair game. And I didn’t shoot the woman. Didn’t even hurt her. That should count for something.

  It was a lot simpler when you just shot the guys wearing the wrong uniform.

  “Why’d you hang onto the gun?” John asked. “You’re not gonna toss it in case she reports it stolen?”

  “I have a friend at the PD. I’ll have him run it, see if it’s registered, and if so, what name it’s registered under. I’ll wipe it down because we both handled it, but maybe he can pull some prints off the magazine or the bullets. I don’t know if they bother to change their prints when they impersonate somebody. That would be good to know. For now, I’ll just have to not get caught with one more illegal gun than I had yesterday.”

  “Ok, so you got a few leads to run down. But was that worth it?”

  “A couple leads and a new question that changes the whole picture,” I said. “She was shocked I found out about the whole plan. They should have been able to pull this off and leave no trace. They probably could have done it without any bloodshed, except I was tipped off. So now we need to figure out why my informant did that.”

  “Power struggle?”

  “Be my guess.”