The Devil Knocks

by Frank Rich

  "Wait a minute," she said, knitting her eyebrows. "I thought you said it was full of clerks and technicians."

  "That's right," I said softly, remembering. "It was strange — everybody was wearing suits and ties. Nobody even carried side arms. There were a couple security guards, you know, in cop uniforms with badges and revolvers. After we took them out, it was a turkey shoot."

  "But they weren't soldiers," Monique said. "They were clerks and techs, unarmed civilians!"

  "Our orders were to terminate everybody. It didn't matter if they were wearing uniforms or suits, everyone had to die. In modern warfare, a computer tech is much more potentially dangerous and valuable than a common infantryman."

  She stared at me in horror. "How could you kill innocent civilians?"

  "I'd already been on so many missions I didn't think about them as anything but enemy soldiers. After a while you don't even think of them as human anymore." I tried to smile. "On the other side of the barricades, nobody is innocent."

  She concentrated on the road, and I was about to change the subject when she whispered, "What did you feel while you were shooting them?"

  "It was war, there were no rules, nobody gets special treatment. Infantrymen or techs, what's the difference? They're all part of the same machine."

  "What did you feel!"

  I thought hard and tried to remember. "Recoil," I said.

  "Recoil?"

  "Yeah, the recoil of my rifle. That's what I felt."

  She stared at me with wide-eyed horror. "You're a monster," she whispered.

  "I know. But I'm a monster on the side of good. That's the clause that's going to keep me out of Hell. My saving grace."

  George started laughing in the back seat. "And that's not all the story. Tell her the rest. Tell her the real joke."

  I tipped the bottle and took a long, long pull. The gin toiled down my throat, and I focused on the burning in my belly, the warm fire of the abyss. There were so many ways to run away.

  "Well?" Monique asked.

  I didn't say anything. I didn't think anything. I didn't feel anything.

  "It was the wrong building." George laughed. "The defector was a plant." He laughed harder. "They wiped out a life insurance company. Ain't that a gas?"

  * * *

  I awoke with a start. "What's wrong?"

  Monique let go of my arm. "I think they want us to pull over."

  I looked around. There was a heavy combat bike on either side of the Caddy and three more to the rear. Allah's assassins. "How long have they been out there?" I asked.

  Monique shook her head fearfully. "I don't know. They just popped out of nowhere."

  "They want the bike," George said.

  "They can't have it," I said. "It's mine."

  "Why don't we pull over and let them have it?" Monique suggested. "It's just a motorcycle."

  I shook my head. "They'll want more than that."

  The bearded giant on Monique's side pounded on her window with his fist.

  "What should I do?" she screamed.

  I looked at the speedometer. The needle pointed at seventy miles per hour. "Accelerate," I said.

  "They'll get mad," she said. "I'm going to pull over!"

  "No," I said. "Open your window six inches. I'll talk with them."

  She powered down the window.

  "Can I help you?" I asked.

  "Pull the fuck over!" the biker yelled, his great beard whipping behind him like a scarf.

  "Let's see your badge, buddy," I yelled back.

  He swung an iron pipe over his head, and the roof of the Caddy boomed like a huge bass drum. Something rattled and fell to the asphalt.

  "I think he broke the chrome trim," George said.

  "That's it," I snarled, grabbing the wheel and swinging it hard to the left. Biker and bike crunched against the side of the Caddy, then ricocheted off the road. Monique screamed and I spun the wheel to the right. The other flanking biker swerved madly to get out of my way. He hit gravel and lost it, tumbling end over end at seventy miles per hour. Reaching a leg between Monique's, I stomped on the brake pedal, and the tires grabbed at the road with a shuddering scream. One of the tailgaters hurtled into the bumper, his head exploding against the rear window.

  The remaining two bikers rocketed past us and swept into the darkness ahead. I stepped on Monique's foot, and the Caddy lunged after them like a rottweiler chasing jackrabbits.

  Red taillights grew in size as we came up behind the slower of the two. He glanced back with terror, then leaned into the wind, wrenching at the throttle. The heavy old bike trembled and shook, but it was no match for the Caddy's turbine. I had just enough slack in the accelerator to touch his rear tire with the bumper. At one hundred and forty miles per hour, his machine disintegrated beneath him and both went under the grille. I heard something dragging below and swerved violently left and right until the sound stopped. Monique shrieked and put her hands over her face.

  "Just one more, baby," I whispered to her, searching the road ahead. The last biker had vanished.

  "Where'd he go?" George asked.

  "He must have killed his lights," I replied. "Which means he's running blind. As long as we keep the pressure on, he'll eventually hit a turn and lose it."

  We passed an exit, then another. We hurtled through the cold night air, the whining turbine pushed to its limits. Five minutes later there was still no sign of him.

  "Maybe he already went off the road," George said.

  "Maybe," I said. "Maybe he knew the road well enough to find one of those exits in the dark. Either way, we lost him." I braked and steered the car to the shoulder. I got out and helped Monique into the back. She appeared to be in shock. George took the wheel and steered back onto the superway.

  "Don't look so down," George said. "Four out of five ain't bad."

  "It only takes one mouth to tell a story," I said from the passenger seat.

  "He probably went off the road. I bet he's part of the scenery."

  I looked out the back window into darkness. "We can only hope."

  "What happens if he did get away?" Monique asked in a small voice.

  "We'll have to get more ruthless, that's all."

  "How much more ruthless can we get?"

  I looked at her. "A lot more, baby. A lot more."

  11

  Dawn showed on the horizon, and none of us had slept. We were too wound up to close our eyes. I could feel enemies behind us, evil forces coming together.

  The sun ate away the morning fog, revealing the wide flat plains of Kansas, a vast horizonless land broken up only by small patches of trees planted by the wind.

  "Take the next exit," I told George. "We need to recharge and think."

  He pulled off onto an overgrown side road and stopped in a depression beneath the branches of a lonely copse of cottonwoods. I judged we couldn't be seen from the superway and got out. George and Monique followed, stretching.

  "I suggest we all try and get some sleep," I said. I carried a blanket into the middle of the trees and spread it out on a bed of leaves. George sat on a stump and studied the packet. Monique spread a blanket beside me.

  "Gonna be a cold day," she said.

  I put my hands behind my head and stared at the overcast sky. "Yes, it is."

  "How old were you when you killed all those people? In the tower, I mean."

  "Seventeen, eighteen."

  "You learned to kill early."

  I closed my eyes. "No better time."

  I slept fitfully, haunted by ghosts whose faces I couldn't remember. When I awoke, the morning had turned to afternoon. Monique slept next to me. George hadn't strayed from packet or stump.

  I found the jar of moonshine under the seat and leaned against the Caddy. I held my breath and took a long pull. I almost gagged on the vapors as the fluid ran down my throat like hot mercury, settling in my belly to burn. It was akin to drinking turpentine, but I needed something strong; I could feel the Devil coming and I
wanted to be ready for him.

  I'd transferred half the jar to my bloodstream by the time Monique woke up. She picked up her blanket and walked over to join me. George trailed behind.

  "Drinking already," she said.

  "I have my reasons," I said, tipping the jar.

  "We are getting kinda close," George pointed out quietly. "Maybe we should start drying out."

  I gave him the kind of cross-eyed glare only drunks do well. "Don't tell me what to do."

  George looked away and we stood in uncomfortable silence. They sense something, I thought. I leaned back against the tail fin and ran fingers through my hair. The jar hung in my hand, ready. "I've something to tell you," I said.

  They looked at me, neither breathing a word. A plaintive wind rustled the dead leaves around my feet. I forced my head up and looked them in the eyes.

  "I'm not going to Denver tomorrow," I said.

  "When are we going, then?" George asked.

  "I'm not ever going."

  George laughed. "Why of course you are, Jake."

  "No, I'm not." I couldn't look at their faces anymore so I turned aside and took a pull from the jar. "When we get to the state line tomorrow I'm taking the bike and continuing west."

  George laughed again. "C'mon, Jake. What kind of joke is this?"

  "He's not joking," Monique said quietly. "He's not joking at all. I knew you were holding something back. You planned on running the whole time."

  I looked at the trees, at the afternoon sun. "I don't care what you think. I have my reasons."

  "You can't do this," George said. "What about the revolution, the masses, the…"

  "I don't give a damn about any revolution!" I snapped. "Can't you see that? I don't care who's exploiting who, it's all the same. None of it matters to me."

  "I can't believe this is happening," George said. "When did you lose faith, Jake?"

  "I never goddamn believed! When I took this job I never had any intention of going to Denver. All I wanted was a way out, out of the City, out of my life. All you were supposed to do was drive me. If you hadn't gotten so wrapped up in this stupid revolution crap, you'd understand." I got some more help from the jar.

  George looked at the ground and shook his head. "I still can't believe you're going to run out on us."

  "Run out on who?" I said. "You have nothing to do with the job. All you know is what you've read in that goddamn packetful of propaganda. You don't understand that it's all the same, it doesn't matter who's on top. The big power struggle is just an illusion we create so we can justify our places above or below the yoke. It's a huge, insane game for cretins, and I'm not going to play anymore."

  "You are so evil," Monique said.

  "No such thing!" I countered. I tipped the jar to my lips until it was empty, then threw it against a tree. Instead of shattering with a satisfying crash, it bounced undramatically off the bark and dropped into the leaves. "And I've nothing more to say about it."

  I climbed into the back seat, avoiding their ugly stares. I sat and let the alcohol envelop and insulate me with its thick blanket. I leaned my head out the door. "We'll never make Colorado standing around."

  They rode in the front seat, necks stiff, heads held straight forward. The tension was so thick that if I wasn't heavily sedated I probably would have suffocated. I shouldn't have told them, I thought. I should have waited until the next stop, then slipped away. Maybe it would have been easier for them to understand that way.

  I found a half bottle of red wine in the debris on the floor. I tilted it to my lips and drank. Compared to the moonshine it tasted like Kool-Aid. I laughed at their stiff necks and anger, causing them to wince and cast back quick mean glances.

  The sun tumbled headlong toward the horizon, and the plains of Kansas slid by with no more sound than the hum of tires on the asphalt. We passed a sign advertising a Gypsy flea market on the outskirts of Hays.

  "Let's stop here," I said.

  George pulled over without a word.

  "Need another bottle?" Monique snarled.

  I crawled out of the car, almost losing my balance. "I want to pick up some survival gear."

  George walked beside me through the huge field of stalls and booths, hawking every imaginable item in any quantity. One stall sold state-of-the-art weaponry, another stuffed animals, another sinister-looking S&M gear.

  "I still can't believe you're not going on with us," George said, his head hung low.

  "Who is this 'us'? You're just a chauffeur, and she's just a goddamn hitchhiker. You two have nothing to do with any revolution. And you'll get your money, if that's what you're worried about."

  He shot me an angry look. "I don't care about money," he said. "I just happen to think it's the responsibility of any moral soul possessing knowledge of oppression to do something about it."

  "Keep talking like that and I'm going to vomit."

  "C'mon, Jake." He tried on an old comradely smile. "It'll be just like old times, back at Tango, the good old days. Think about it."

  I stopped and confronted him. "I've thought a lot about it. It's the only thing I can think about. I've been planning this escape for a long time, for months. And nothing is going to stand in my way. If you want to live some idiot dream, go ahead, feel free, get yourself killed. I have one slim chance to save myself, and believe me, I'm going to take it."

  I walked off and George didn't follow.

  I bought my goods with a rude fury, chopping down prices with angry monosyllables, venting my fury on hapless vendors. I bought a small rucksack and filled it with a hunting knife, a water purification system, food tablets, a compass and other gimmicks that would allow me to survive outside the realm of men. At the last stall I purchased an AK-47 assault rifle and five hundred rounds of ammunition.

  Monique and George waited in the car. I put my goods in the trunk and took the back seat. George steered the car toward the growing mountains, and I passed out.

  I awoke with a cringing headache, as if a six-inch nail were being slowly pounded into my forehead. I sat up stiffly and looked out the window. The plains went by at a lethargic pace. I checked my watch. It was 11:40 p.m. "Why are we going so slow?" I asked.

  "No reason, man, it's just the way the black snake likes it," George said, rolling his words out one by one.

  I looked at the back of his head. A bright red circle glared from the side of his neck.

  "Christ! Where'd you get the squeeze, George?"

  He gave me a glazed look. "Ah, it doesn't matter, Jake. Nothing really matters."

  "Pull over."

  George began humming.

  "Pull the fuck over!"

  "Oh, what for?"

  I reached over the front seat, killed the engine and jerked the keys from the ignition. I wrenched the wheel to the right, and we coasted to a stop beside a sign that said Goodland, Kansas. Thirty-one Miles. I got out and slammed the door.

  "What's wrong?" Monique asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

  "What's wrong!" I threw my hands in the air. "That fucker is squeezed, that's what's wrong."

  George came out. He crawled onto the front of the car like a lizard on a cold day and faced the low sun. He had that idiot smile on his face.

  Monique got out and moved over to George. "Is it true, George?"

  "Ah, Mony," he said with a big smile, "it don't matter. It just don't matter."

  "He must have bought it at that fucking bazaar," I said. "I should have guessed this would happen. Once a junkie, always a junkie."

  Monique turned on me. "It wouldn't have happened if you hadn't sold out. You took away his reason for not being a junkie."

  "Don't give me that shit." I turned away from her accusing eyes. "That has nothing to do with it."

  "Bullshit. It has everything to do with it."

  "Look, everyone," George slurred, pointing at the sunset. "Look how elegantly the sun bows to the night. There is no spite between them, each realizes no amount of discontent and anger will
ever change their places."

  "That's nice, George," I snarled. "Real nice."

  "Look how beautiful the autumn trees are," George rambled on. "How sad that some things find beauty only in death, eh, Jake?"

  I drove as quickly as my hangover-dulled reflexes allowed, eager to put the forward horizon in the rearview mirror. Monique sat beside me, saying nothing. George sprawled in the back, staring out the window, engaged in a rambling monologue about napalm blossoms, drunken gods, the joyful chatter of rifles and the bass booms of grenades.

  "He's really starting to wig," I warned.

  "It's almost beautiful."

  I gave her a hard look. "His psyche is peeling off right in front of us, and you think it's beautiful?" I popped open a can of beer. "God, I hate junkies."

  "You're one to speak," Monique said. "You're a drunk."

  "It's a way of getting by."

  "Is this how you deal with guilt and self-hatred? By hiding in the bottle?"

  "I like it in the bottle." I laughed. George picked up the laugh from the back seat.

  "01' Jake. Crazy ol' Jake."

  "Yeah, that's me all right. Life ain't so bad, Monique. Don't take it so seriously. Everything's going to be fine, take my word for it."

  "Where you running to, anyway?" Monique asked.

  "On the other side of the Rockies there's a desert."

  "A desert? What you going to do in a stupid desert?"

  "Live," I said.

  "With who?"

  "Rabbits, coyotes, squirrels and sparrows."

  "What about humans?"

  "I don't like them."

  "What do you plan to eat?"

  "Rabbits, coyotes, squirrels and sparrows."

  "You'll still be killing. You'll be taking death with you."

  "They'll understand. They won't hate me because they know I'll be killing for a noble reason, not in obedience to some sick brand of morality. It's like a holy land, there's no conception of sin out there." I stared into the night. "Sin is man's tragic and sick creation."

  * * *

  I didn't remember pulling over but when I woke up it was late afternoon and the car wasn't moving. I got out and stretched on the roadside. Along the road a sign said Denver lay thirty miles distant. Foothills rose from the edge of the four-lane highway, and the sun crept toward huge mountains towering beyond them. The Rocky Mountains. The last barrier.