by Jon Land
“Wait a minute, there he is! There’s our downed man!”
“Where?” Rentz demanded. “Where?”
“Patrol Two, this is Central. We don’t show you on-screen. State your locale.”
Silence again.
“Patrol Two, this is Central. Do you copy?”
“Central, this is Rentz. Converge on and close off that area.”
“Roger th—”
“Central, are you there? Central, come in.”
Rentz felt something icy grip his insides. His legs felt heavy. The floor of the penthouse seemed to waver. Two Bears remained by the windows, peering outward.
“Get away from those fucking windows!” Rentz ordered them.
“Jesus fucking Christ …”
“What is it, Central? What do you see?”
“Bring up camera eighteen. Repeat, the view from camera eighteen!”
Rentz watched as his Bear behind the console complied. All three screens filled with a shot of a Jeep in flames against the security wall, two of his men still inside it, slumped toward the dashboard.
“That’s Patrol Two!” the monitor reported, his voice panic-stricken.
“Where’s Patrol One? Have you sealed off the area? … Central, goddamn it, is sector one sealed off? … Central, where the fuck are you?”
“They’re not responding, Mr. Rentz,” the Bear behind his console told him.
“I can fucking well hear that for myself. What’s going on?”
“Everybody’s talking to everybody else, sir. Could be the circuits are overloaded.”
“Bullshit!” Rentz jammed himself against the back of the Bear’s chair. “Bring up the main entrance again!”
A few clicks on the keyboard and it replaced the burning Jeep on screen, showing the shabbily dressed vagrants still in place.
“Patrol One got rid of them. That was the report. What happened?”
Rentz was still staring at the screen seconds later when one of the vagrants slumped against the other, not drunk but unconscious. The second vagrant didn’t respond at all, obviously unconscious too.
“Close in!” Rentz ordered the Bear behind the console.
The Bear worked the zoom command, and the faces of the two vagrants filled the screen.
They weren’t the same men he had glimpsed earlier! They were—
“Oh my God,” Rentz muttered. “Those are my men!”
“Patrol One,” said the Bear.
Rentz backed away from the console, straying as far as the cord of his headset allowed. “He’s inside the complex! McCracken’s inside the complex! Close the hurricane shutters,” he ordered the Bear nearest the control panel.
The man flicked a button, and the steel-colored slats unfolded downward from the ceiling, turning the room into a well-lit vault.
“Put me on-line,” he ordered the Bear behind the console. “I want to talk to everyone we’ve got down there.”
The Bear worked his keyboard, stopped, then tried again. “I can’t raise them, sir,” he said tentatively.
“What do you mean, you can’t raise them?”
“They’re gone.”
“All of them?”
“Or cut off. Like someone shut down the system.”
“Turn it back on.”
“I can’t, sir. It can only be changed from the operations center.”
“One of you has to head over there, then. That’s all.”
The Bears looked at each other.
“That wouldn’t be advisable, sir,” one of them said.
“It might be exactly what the intruder wants,” added another.
“What about the guards downstairs in this building?” Rentz raised.
The third Bear showed him a walkie-talkie clipped to his waist. “They’re the only ones on this channel.”
“We could send one of them out into the complex,” suggested the second. “Have him round up as many of the other guards as he can find.”
“What if there aren’t any others left?” Rentz shot back.
“Wait a minute,” said Bear Number One, eyeing the console. “One of our Jeeps just turned onto this street.”
“Christ, are those our guys inside?” another of his Bears wondered, as Rentz got close enough to study the screen.
Suddenly the Jeep picked up speed. It screeched forward, screaming toward the building lobby and crashing through the glass. The guards inside opened fire, riddling the Jeep’s frame with bullets, not a speck of glass left in its windows when they finally approached the vehicle.
Bear Number One tightened the camera angle on the inside of the cab, as the guards neared it warily. “Christ, I think those are our guys. I think they just shot our own people!”
A shape popped up from the ruined husk of the Jeep and opened fire through the shot-out windshield, mowing down the three guards who strayed into his path before turning his weapon on the camera. The scene on-screen died.
Rentz stared at each of the Three Bears in turn. “One of you take the elevator, another the stairs. The third stays with me.”
Bears Two and Three rushed to the door and keyed in the proper combo to activate the cobalt locks. They spun out into the hall and then rushed toward the end where the elevator and stairs were located. Rentz peered out briefly to watch them, then resealed the door. The final Bear stood protectively near him.
Seconds later, Rentz heard from one of the Bears through the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt. “The elevator’s coming up.”
Rentz snatched the walkie-talkie to his lips. “What about the stairs?”
“I’m right outside the door,” reported the final Bear. “All’s quiet.”
“The elevator’s stopping.”
“Christ,” Rentz muttered, and jammed the walkie-talkie against his face hard enough to make his ear sting.
“The door’s opening. If anyone’s in there, I’ll—”
A noose knotted around Rentz’s insides. “What is it? What’s going on?”
“The compartment’s empty.”
“What about the roof over it?”
“No signs of alteration,” the Bear reported. “Do you want me to check it?”
“No, just shut it down. What about the stairs?”
“Still nothing,” came the voice of the Bear posted there.
“Lock the door. I want both of you back here!”
Rentz moved to the monitor screen and followed their progress back down the hall. As soon as they had reached the door, he moved to the pad and keyed in the proper combo to release the inner cobalt seals. Rentz heard a hollow metallic snap and then the door clicked open.
As Rentz turned to watch the two Bears enter, the hurricane shutters blew inward. It was the loudest sound he had ever heard, the percussion enough to yank his legs out and send him crashing to the thick carpet. He clutched his ears as jagged holes appeared in the space-age titanium.
The two Bears, still holding their submachine guns, had gone down too, but still managed to open up with dual sprays at the chasms where the scorched and smoking metal had been peeled away. The bullets that didn’t find the chasms pinged off the steel; dull flashes spilled backwards. The night air flooded into the room, drenching the penthouse with a stiff breeze.
Ears still ringing, Rentz crawled across the debris-strewn carpet to a toppled desk for cover.
Pfffffft … pfffffft … pfffffft …
The soft spits were barely audible but still enough to make Rentz twist around. His two Bears, still grasping their submachine guns, lay on the carpet with blood already pooling beneath their heads. The third Bear, closest to him behind the desk, was sitting upright against the wall, eyes glazed over and seeming to stare at the jagged hole centered in his forehead.
“So much for the ultimate in high-security complexes.”
Rentz turned toward the speaker and saw the man he recognized only from a picture standing just inside the door he had neglected to seal, a still-smoking silenced pistol held dead on him. A muc
h larger shape loomed outside on the balcony, visible only in the splashes of light filtering through the jagged holes in the hurricane shutters.
“Nice to meet you finally, Max,” Blaine greeted, gazing down at him.
Rentz stumbled to his feet and backed up against the wall. He could barely breathe.
“I’ve got a question for you, Max. Ready?”
Rentz nodded.
“Do you want to live or die? Come on, the clock’s ticking … .”
“Live.”
“Very good. Now tell me what happened to Buck Torrey.”
Rentz regarded him quizzically.
“Liz Halprin’s father,” Blaine continued. “I believe he paid you a visit too.”
“He forced his way into my office, broke my assistant’s arm.”
“Then what?”
“He left.”
“Alive?”
“He warned me what would happen if I didn’t leave his daughter alone.”
“Obviously you didn’t listen.”
Rentz stiffened, clenched his jaw.
“And you know what? It’s all for nothing, because the gold’s not under that lake.”
Rentz’s mouth dropped. “That can’t be right. I spent tens of thousands of dollars following the trail. It’s got to be there, I tell you!”
“You tell that to Buck Torrey?”
“He didn’t care. He wanted to know about Stratton’s Folly, the entire legend, the route Stratton was taking when the blizzard hit.”
“Tell me what you told him,” Blaine ordered.
“There was a train waiting in a small town in western Pennsylvania. I’ve got a map of Stratton’s planned route through the center of the state—”
“Central Pennsylvania?” Blaine asked, something fluttering inside him. Something Hank Belgrade had said months before on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, minutes before Blaine’s life had changed forever at the Washington Monument.
Belgrade’s missing tanker of Devil’s Brew had been heading through central Pennsylvania too!
“From the farm that would have been the most direct route, but I’m telling you he never took it!” Rentz insisted. “He couldn’t have, because he never got to the station. I’ve got the records. The train never departed.”
“No,” Blaine said softly. “Because something else happened to Stratton along the way.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
“I ask you a question, Indian?” Blaine asked Johnny Wareagle after they had settled back into their car.
For Wareagle, that wasn’t always a simple task. Car interiors weren’t designed with men of seven-foot, three-hundred-pound proportions in mind. But amazingly Johnny never seemed to have to squeeze, as if he could enable his body to conform to whatever the specs allowed.
“Go ahead, Blainey.”
McCracken gazed down at the ring he hadn’t taken off since leaving Condor Key. “Dead Simple. You ever think about what it means?”
“Different things to different people.”
“Buck told me I had it wrong.”
“What did you tell him?”
“The obvious. I always took the words at face value.”
“How simple it was for us to kill …”
“Because it had to be.”
“A convenient explanation, because the times required it.”
“You saying the definition changed?”
“Not changed so much as evolved, Blainey. The words were what we needed them to be in the Hellfire. They became what we needed them to be after.” Johnny’s owl-like eyes bored into Blaine’s. “What you needed them to be recently.”
“Such as?”
“In the Hellfire, it was killing that had to be simple for us. Now it’s living we must make simple.”
“Living,” Blaine echoed, not exactly sure what Johnny meant.
“When did Buck Torrey give us the rings?”
“After our final tours were up.”
“After the slogan in its most basic meaning would have no further use …”
“Right.”
“And we were returning to a world against which we could not possibly measure the one we had left. The only way we could endure was to learn to live as simply as we had learned to kill. With the same detachment, patience, and skill. Trim all the fat aside and be left with only that which matters.”
Blaine sighed. “Doesn’t sound like either of us got that message.”
“At least not right away. My understanding came when I finally left the world for the woods.”
“And mine?”
“What did you go to Buck Torrey seeking?”
“Another chance.”
“Because your life had been trimmed to the bare bones, ready to be rebuilt, remade.”
“Starting from scratch—that’s what it felt like.”
“You went down there to face your greatest challenge: to overcome the one person who could destroy you.”
“Like the warrior you told me about in the hospital, who lost to his own reflection.”
“He didn’t lose, Blainey; he survived and became even stronger as a result and more ready to face battle.”
“You forget to tell me that part of the story?”
“I waited.”
Blaine felt his mind drifting a little. “This battle’s different for me.”
“They are all different.”
“This time I’ve got something to prove, Indian. Buck gave me this chance, and unless I find him I’ve wasted it.”
“Even the greatest hunter is lost without a trail, Blainey.”
“I think I’ve got one now.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
Three hours later, just after eight A.M., Blaine rose when Hank Belgrade wearily approached his stone bench set in the center of the FDR Memorial.
“You shouldn’t have,” Hank said, noticing the box of doughnuts waiting by Blaine’s feet.
“I brought coffee too, but it got cold. Not like you to be late.”
“I forgot you said FDR. Went to the Lincoln Memorial by mistake. Out of habit.”
“I figured it was time for a change.”
“For both of us.”
They sat down together on the bench. An elegant statue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt seemed to be studying them intently from his chair nestled comfortably in a wall formed of polished granite that matched the bench. Another granite wall directly ahead featured a fountain perpetually cascading water into a small pool. After walking up to the FDR Memorial by way of the Tidal Basin, Blaine had tossed a half-dozen pennies into the pool, but he had stopped short of making a wish. This was one of several individual displays composing the memorial, arranged chronologically, with each representing a different stage of FDR’s life and presidency.
“Seven months we don’t see each other, and that’s all you’ve got to say?”
Belgrade frowned, his jowls more bulbous than ever. “You wanna check my schedule, see where I can squeeze in more social calls, be my guest.”
“That what you think this is?”
“Word is you’re out.”
“Word also is I’m dead.”
Belgrade raised the box of doughnuts to his lap and opened the box to check the selection. “No jelly?”
“Not very forgiving on the suit.”
“I appreciate the consideration.” Belgrade crossed his legs. “I’m glad you asked to meet here. We left too many memories on the steps of the Lincoln. All the information you asked me to get for you, all the deliveries I made.”
“You sound nostalgic.”
“I know how bad it was for you, that’s all. Daily conference calls with your doctors. I sent specialists over there, don’t forget. Candy too.”
“Exactly why I want to return the favor. How’d you like your Devil’s Brew back?”
“Why, you got it?” Hank smiled.
“Not yet.”
Belgrade caught the look in Blaine’s eyes and nearly let the doughnuts spill from his lap. “Am I hearing y
ou right?”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea where to find it, Hank.”
“Reminds me of the good old days back at the Lincoln … .”
“You have a map of your rig’s planned route?”
Belgrade looked disappointed. “I got a hundred of them, complete with a detailed schema of every area we searched.”
“I only need one.”
“I’m telling you you’re wasting your time on that count, MacNuts.”
“You also told me the tanker fell off the face of the earth.”
“So it seemed at the time.”
“Because maybe that’s exactly what happened,” Blaine told him. “How much do you know about the Civil War, Hank?”
“The North won.”
“There’s more.”
“How we gonna get that tanker out of this mine, Othell?” Jack Tyrell asked.
They both looked over as Lem Trumble slammed the hood closed. “Smooth working order,” he said softly. “No damage from the fire.”
“Well, we can’t just drive it out of here,” said Othell Vance. “Not unless we want to spend a half day digging it out.”
The entrance they had found to the mine was concealed by brush and overhanging vegetation that almost totally camouflaged it. Only during a storm, with the brush and vines soaked and blowing, would the entrance be visible at all.
Based on the way the tanker’s tires had sunk into the ground inside the cavern, Tyrell figured the driver must have taken refuge in there during just such a storm. But why hadn’t he driven the tanker out again when the storm broke?
“What do we need?” Tyrell asked Vance.
“I don’t know. A crane, I guess.”
“Or a winch, maybe?”
“Yeah, that’ll do.”
Jack Tyrell smiled as he slid his hand down the length of the huge tanker. It was like a standard oil truck, but it had catwalks on either side and all kind of spigots and bleeder valves he couldn’t quite identify. Tapping it with a rock drew a dull clang instead of a metallic ping, evidence of a heavily armored shell that could withstand anything up to a full rocket attack. That explained why the brief fire had caused no damage whatsoever and why the Devil’s Brew within remained intact. The extra-wide tires, as near as he could tell, were solid rubber; no flats or blowouts to slow the rig down.