At all costs

by John Gilstrap

  The view from the top took his breath away. The world here had changed; an entirely different place than what he knew Arkansas to look like. Everything was monochrome, like an ancient daguerreotype photo.

  “Holy Mother of God,” he muttered to himself. He heard more yelling, again sounding like a child, but it was from somewhere off to his left. He moved to head in that direction, welcoming the opportunity to break his gaze from the desolation before him, but movement in the doorway to the magazine itself made him freeze. As he watched, a man dressed in one of the green suits with which he’d become so familiar, courtesy of media obsessiveness, slowly crossed the threshold, carrying a bag in his arms. He transported the bag with care, as if there was something fragile inside. The spaceman look-alike moved carefully but deliberately as he walked to the perimeter of the dead vegetation and placed the bag on the ground. Then out of the grass he lifted another body bag-this one having a fluorescent orange color, which contrasted sharply with the olive drab of the first-and proceeded to flap it open. That done, he placed the green bag inside the orange one, then zipped it up.

  Sherman’s mind reeled at the impossibility of what he was watching. When the spaceman stood and headed back inside, Sherman knew it was time for him to act. He stood among the bushes that lined the crest of the mound and assumed a shooter’s stance.

  “Police officer!” he yelled. “Don’t move!” But the man didn’t even slow his deliberate gait.

  Shit. He can’t hear me.

  He tried it again. “Police officer! Don’t move!” Still no response. The man just kept striding back inside to continue whatever his mission was.

  That really left Sherman with no choice. He took aim and pulled the trigger.

  Five minutes earlier Nick had suddenly realized that he was alone inside the magazine. One second the three of them were inspecting the bones they’d found, and the next, Jake and Carolyn had dropped their hand lights and disappeared, leaving him there by himself. He figured one of the two had developed a problem and that they’d headed out together. He was a bit miffed-it was their butts, after all, that he was helping pull out of the fire-but that part of himself that was task-oriented swung into gear and he focused on what needed to be done.

  As he loaded the skeletal remains into the green body bag, he marveled at how small the bones were and at what kind of madman it would take to kill such a small child in the first place, only to wreak all of this destruction to cover it up. One fragment in particular grabbed his attention, and for a moment, he wasn’t even sure it was a bone. He spent a moment examining it, then tossed it in with the others. Better safe than sorry.

  He desperately hoped that Jake’s hunch was right-that by identifying the remains, they might have a shot at bringing the real perpetrators to justice. If ever there was a person who needed to suffer the wrath of the law, it was the monster who did this.

  After he’d picked up every bone he could find and placed them inside the bag, he found the zipper in the dark and pulled it closed. The feather lightness of the package made his eyes moist as he carried it toward the door, and as he stepped over the remains of one of his colleagues from so many years ago, he realized that in another two minutes or so, he’d be done with the announced reason for reentering the magazine.

  Then it would be time to pursue his own agenda.

  The second body bag in the grass outside was Nick’s addition to the plan. He’d anticipated the acute dust hazard inside the magazine and the enormously high levels of contamination the bodies were likely to carry. By bagging the bag, as it were, the hazard posed by their package to whoever was going to do the pathology work would be greatly reduced. When the doctor finally opened the package, he’d need to practice the same precautions as he would if he were dealing with the victim of a viral infection.

  The absence of plant life spooked Nick. He’d hoped that enough time had passed for Mother Nature to begin to mitigate damages in her own way. Not that there weren’t a few hopeful signs. He noticed, for example, the absence of dead animals. If the dirt and the vegetation were toxic, then any creature who walked in here should become incapacitated and die. Such was not the case. In fact, as he donned his protective clothing, he’d noticed several squirrels scampering about, busily preparing themselves for the fast-approaching winter.

  As he neared the blast doors again, he thought he heard something. Shouting maybe? He glanced around the horizon quickly, then dismissed whatever it was as something he didn’t need to worry about. Probably Jake and Carolyn.

  When a chunk of concrete exploded out of the doorjamb, however, and he felt the concussion of a gunshot through the rubberized fabric of his suit, he jumped a foot and whirled around in a crouch. There at the perimeter of the exclusion zone, maybe twenty yards away, he saw a man in a cop’s uniform aiming a gun straight at him. He saw the cop’s mouth moving, but he couldn’t hear any of the words. Not that words were important. The business end of a firearm came as close to universally understood communication as anything he could think of.

  Nick froze where he stood, and slowly raised his hands.

  Jake reacted instinctively to the sound of the gunshot, ripping the mask off his face with one hand while drawing the Glock with the other, bringing it to bear as he dropped to one knee. In the same motion, he threw a forearm into Travis’s chest, knocking him to the ground and out of harm’s way. Even as he hit him, he knew he’d done it too hard, driving a blast of air out of the boy’s mouth. No time to worry about that now.

  “Ow, Dad!” Travis gasped, bringing an angry glare from his father.

  “Quiet!” Jake commanded. “Here.” He fished through his pockets again for his knife, then tossed it to the boy. “Help your mother out of her suit.”

  “But my clothes-”

  “Screw your clothes,” Jake hissed. “Just do what I told you.”

  Jake’s eyes had taken on that same look that Travis had seen in the school and in the car when they were stopped. It scared him. He remembered again that his father could be a very dangerous man when he was threatened. Dangerous to everyone.

  While Travis struggled with the folding blade, Jake wriggled out of his air pack harness and started inching his way up the incline, back toward the source of the shot. Maybe sixty yards separated him from the action, and it looked bad. He watched as a clearly agitated cop shouted commands to Nick, who just stood there, his hands in the air, doubtless unable to hear a thing the cop said to him.

  “Shit!” Jake hissed. What do we do now? If push came to shove, he was a good enough shot to drop the cop at this distance, but that didn’t seem like much of an option. Killing a police officer would render the rest of this exercise moot. If he murdered a cop, no one would give a damn that he hadn’t killed the others.

  By all appearances, the encounter had played itself to a standoff, as each player tried to figure out how to communicate with the other. For a shamefully long moment, Jake considered just leaving Nick there.

  Family first, everything else second.

  If Jake just guided Carolyn and Travis around the near side of the mound closest to them, they’d be able to make it all the way back to the Cadillac without the cop seeing or hearing a thing. Once at the car, they’d have a decent shot at getting out alive.

  And forever after, he’d have to live with the burden of having sold out a friend. Suddenly, this had all become too complicated. He pushed himself up from the ground and moved to circle around the mound when the characteristic sound of ripping fabric momentarily diverted his attention back toward the creek bed. Carolyn was cutting herself out of her suit, with Travis’s able, if somewhat hesitant, assistance. The boy was having a hard time getting much done with one hand covering his genitalia.

  Jake had work to do. He darted out of sight as quietly as possible, hoping to double back and come in behind the cop. “Just don’t shoot yet,” he mumbled, an indirect prayer for Nick’s safety.

  Once around to the front of the magazine opposite the excl
usion zone, Jake ran full speed down the road to get to the other side of the mound. Last time he saw the cop, he was halfway down the other side of the berm, carefully avoiding the line where life stopped and contamination began. Jake’s best approach, then, would be directly over the top. Judging from the displaced leaves and broken branches, it was the same route the cop had followed just moments before.

  Jake scaled the hill easily, holstering the Glock until his footing was secure. Once near the top, he drew the weapon again and peeked over the crest, trying his best to stay hidden in the undergrowth. As he rose up to look, he realized with a rush that this was the exact spot where the sniper had made his perch fourteen years before. For the millionth time since that awful day, Jake’s mind replayed the image of the man in camouflage, blasting at them randomly as they struggled to get out of the way of the giant smoke plume.

  Without standing all the way up and exposing himself fully, all he could see of the cop at this angle was the back of the deputy’s head and his shoulders. An easy kill shot, but he still didn’t want to go there.

  Honest, Judge, I had to blast him while he wasn’t looking. Not likely.

  If he tried to rush the cop, he’d no doubt hear the approach, and even though they were separated by only twenty feet, that was plenty of time for the cop to turn and fire. Similarly, if Jake just yelled for him to drop his weapon, he’d probably turn and draw down anyway, sparking a lethal exchange of gunfire, which, under the circumstances, Jake would probably win, but the result would once again be a dead cop. Back to square one.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Then he got an idea.

  “Federal officers!” Jake yelled, invoking the words and tone he’d heard in the body shop just three days before. “Don’t move!”

  The cop jumped at the sound of the voice and started to turn.

  Jake fired a shot in the air. “I said don’t move, goddammit! Now, drop your weapon!”

  “But I’m a cop!” Sherman protested, once again starting to turn.

  “And I’m the fucking tooth fairy!” Jake screamed. “Now, drop that weapon or I’ll blow your head off!”

  “But I’m-”

  “Now!!”

  Sherman’s shoulders sagged, and he shook his head as he opened his hand and let the pistol fall to the ground.

  “That’s a good boy,” Jake coaxed, hoping he wasn’t laying it on too thick. “Okay, now put your hands behind your head and interlace your fingers.”

  Sherman complied but bitched like an old rooster. “I’m a cop, goddammit! The bad guy’s down there-”

  “Shut up and listen,” Jake interrupted. “I want you to step away from the weapon, back up the hill toward me.” Again, the cop did as he was told, at which point, Jake was lost. He had no idea what he was going to do next. He truly didn’t want to hurt the guy, but he didn’t know what else…

  “I’ve got him, Jake. You go ahead and cuff him.” Carolyn’s voice came from behind him and to his left, and she had her. 380 in her trembling hand.

  Sherman cocked his head at the sound of the new voice. “Jake?” he gasped. His shoulders sagged even further. “Jesus Christ.”

  Jake smiled as he holstered the Glock and moved cautiously toward the neutralized threat. “I’m afraid so, Deputy,” he said. “You’ve been had. Now, the good news is, you’re alive. Do what I tell you, and you’ll remain that way. Just don’t screw with me, okay?” The cop had no way of knowing that Carolyn could no more shoot a man than she could flap her arms and fly.

  Sherman was a beaten man. He followed directions, but with his head bowed in shame. “How could I be so stupid?” he chided himself.

  Jake didn’t say anything as he pulled the handcuffs out of their holster in Sherman’s belt. Gripping the cop’s interlaced fingers tightly in his own hand, Jake led his prisoner backward to a sturdy young sapling and instructed him to sit down. Fifteen seconds later Sherman’s hands were cuffed behind his back, the sapling preventing him from going anywhere.

  “You’ll never know how much I wanted to nail you, Donovan,” Sherman growled, his fear masked by anger and embarrassment.

  Jake said nothing. Instead, he took the cop’s portable radio out of his belt and smashed it against a larger tree, thus putting the finishing touch on the worst crime of his life. Thank you, God.

  “Come on up here, Jake,” Carolyn urged. Her voice sounded a little shaky. “It’s dangerous down there.”

  “I’m okay,” Jake replied. She was right, of course; at least in absolute terms. The inverse square rule applied here-halving the distance quadrupled the hazard. In relative terms, though, Jake didn’t think he was in too much trouble. He needed to tell Nick that everything was okay, but when he turned to wave the all-clear, the other man was gone.

  “Where’d Nick go?” Jake asked, glancing back to Carolyn over his shoulder.

  “No idea,” she said. “But come on up here. I don’t want you down that close.”

  “I’ll be there in a second.” He stooped down to speak man-to-man with the cop.

  “There he is!” Carolyn announced.

  Jake looked up to see Nick dragging the remains of one of their old coworkers outside. “What’s he doing?” Jake wondered aloud, watching as Nick went back inside again.

  “The right thing,” Carolyn answered. Her tone was one of total approval. “They’ll have to bury them now. With the bodies visible to the news choppers, they’ll have no choice.”

  Jake watched for a moment, then turned back to his captive, kneeling until they were eye-to-eye. “Look, Deputy, uh…” He glanced at the name tag. “Quill. My name is Jake Donovan. You know the name, I gather?”

  Sherman glared and said nothing.

  Jake smiled. “Look, I want you to deliver a message for me when whoever sent you comes to find you.”

  “I’m not delivering anything.”

  Jake sighed. This wasn’t going to be easy. “Okay, fine, Deputy. Don’t deliver anything. Remember something, then. I could have killed you this afternoon, and you never would have known a thing. But I didn’t, did I?”

  “Only because I-”

  Jake cut him off. “Look, I don’t want to argue with you here. Fact is, I didn’t kill you. My motivations can be whatever you’d like, but I’m telling you that you’re alive because I don’t kill people. Never have, hopefully never will. People don’t want to believe that, but there you go.”

  Sherman broke eye contact and looked at the sky. By all appearances, if he could have stuck his fingers in his ears to keep from listening, he’d have done just that.

  “When you write your report-and I’m sure you’ll be writing a lot of them in the next couple of days-I want you to remember this: we’re here to prove that we never did any of the things they accuse us of doing.”

  “Yeah, right,” Sherman snorted.

  Jake felt himself flush with anger and fought the urge to strike out at the man. He wanted to explain everything in detail; to tell Deputy Quill about the bodies on the inside and about just how miserable their lives had been. But he didn’t. This cop was just a cop. At the end of the day, his opinion wouldn’t mean a thing, anyway.

  Jake stood again, intentionally towering over his prisoner, who now, finally, was beginning to look frightened. “Okay, Deputy,” he said at last. “Don’t believe anything. Just be sure to report it accurately, because what I’m about to give you is evidence: We didn’t kill those people back in 1983. We didn’t blow anything up. In fact, we damn near got blown up ourselves. Now, when your bosses ask you what we had to say for ourselves, you tell them that we didn’t do a damn thing wrong. And we mean to prove it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Travis felt the first stab of pain about an hour into their drive back toward Little Rock. It wasn’t much, really; just a slight pinprick in his chest, deep down. He’d felt twinges of it earlier, back when he was wrapping himself up in that policeman’s pants, but he didn’t say anything. He wasn’t speaking to either of his pare
nts. He was too pissed off about being stripped naked and nearly drowned. He’d saved their lives, dammit, and that was the thanks he got! As it was, he felt thoroughly humiliated. The pants might as well have been a dress, they were so huge, and he didn’t even have a shirt. With the cop tied to the tree, there was no way to get his off of him, and he’d refused his father’s offer to give him his own shirt, just on principle. As for the work of the day, Travis had retired. He didn’t even lift a finger to help as his parents and Nick loaded stuff into the trunk of the Cadillac. His resolve to stay sullen and disinterested nearly broke when they built the bonfire to burn their protective clothing and equipment-everything that might carry a fingerprint-but in the end, he remained silent.

  So he just sat there, pressed up against the back door, sulking and feeling stupid. And pretending not to feel the pain delivered by every breath. If his parents hadn’t been asking him every five seconds how he felt, maybe he’d have spoken up and told them something, but right now he didn’t want to hear the lecture again about how stupid he was to go in there and to save their sorry butts.

  He’d be okay. He was sure of it.

  Ow!

  That breath really hurt, and on both sides, too, making him want to cough. But as he drew in his breath to do just that, the pinpricks grew to razor blades, and the air made a rumbling sound deep down inside of him. When he finally coughed, it felt like it was in slow motion, as if something were blocking the air from escaping.

  He looked over to his mom, just as she looked over to him from the other end of the backseat, and the look that twisted her face scared him more than the pain in his chest ever could.

  “Travis!” she yelled. “Oh, my God, Jake. Travis!”

  Jake whirled around to look at him from the front passenger seat and showed a look that terrified Travis even more. He said, “Oh, no,” then scrambled over the seat back to join them in the rear.