The Redemption Man

by James Carver

  Devlin dropped his face into his hands. He didn’t surface for minutes. Then, slowly, he pulled his head out of his palms and gripped the steering wheel.

  “No,” he said out loud. “The devil cannot win. I will not allow it.”

  He clenched his jaw and thought through his options. There weren’t many, but there was one way. One way he could get back a chance of getting into the lab and rescuing Fox and stopping Clay. It had been a long time, but he was certain it was achievable.

  His cell buzzed again. This time it was Stevens calling.

  “Greg? Where the hell were you?”

  Stevens gabbled his reply quickly, tripping over his words. “I’m so sorry, Gabe. Packer saw me and came after me. Then I slipped down an old mine shaft. It was an incredible piece of luck—it got me away from Packer, but it took time to make sure the coast was clear and scramble back up. And I didn’t have any damn signal to call and warn you that they were on the way back. But the thing is, it made me realize if Earl was murdered, then it doesn’t have to be Walker or Miller who did it. Gabe, there are thousands of acres of forest on old mining land. Someone could have got through to Earl using an obsolete shaft.”

  As Devlin listened to Stevens’s words, it dawned on him that his discovery threw the doors wide open again on who might have murdered Earl.

  “Are you and Fox okay?” asked Stevens.

  “No. No, we’re not. Fox is still in the ranch. She got caught.”

  “Shit!”

  “But we managed to get into the lab. Greg, it’s much worse than we thought. They’ve got twelve illegals doped up in there, ready to strip and ship against their will.”

  “Twelve? Jesus…”

  “And Clay wants to meet me.”

  “What? No way, Gabe. He’ll have you killed.”

  “No. I don’t think he will. He wants to meet in a public place. I have to go. He’s got Fox. And I want to go. I want to finally meet the real Clay Logan and look him in the eye. Greg, this town is a death trap now for both of us. There’s nobody we can trust and a cop out to kill you. I want you to head out to Fox’s cabin until I contact you.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll be fine. I think I’ve got a plan.”

  Stevens rang off. Devlin took out his rosary and thumbed and rolled it patiently. Then he dialed a number on his cell, and the person at the other end picked up.

  “George, it’s Gabe. I need to talk…I got a favor to ask.”

  “Tell me what it is you need, Gabe.”

  59

  Devlin sat at an outside table at the place Clay had chosen, sipping a black coffee. He had his back to the wall and faced the busy sidewalk. It was late afternoon in Halton Springs and full of people. Schoolkids were making their way back home, and brilliant sunshine had brought the office crowd out in force. Devlin felt confident that his position there was secure.

  A black Range Rover with darkened windows pulled up opposite. The driver’s-seat window wound down to reveal Packer scowling out at Devlin. The rear door opened and Clay Logan got out of the back seat wearing sunglasses and a suit, and he sauntered over to join Devlin. He folded his elegant frame into the chair by Devlin and crossed his long legs. A waitress recognized him and greeted him by name. He responded warmly and asked for an espresso. Then he turned to Devlin, removed his sunglasses, and all humanity and charm emptied from his face, a transformation as sudden as it was unnerving. At close quarters, Devlin noticed a vacancy about Clay’s eyes. It was as if he were utterly removed from the human race. It wasn’t so much an abundance of evil, more a complete absence of good.

  “So, priest. I have your girl,” said Clay.

  “Is she harmed in any way?”

  “No. But she will be if you don’t do exactly as I say. You have thirty minutes from the moment I leave this table to get out of Halton Springs and never come back. I’d prefer to kill you, but I don’t have that option open to me right now. But I will kill the girl.”

  “I’ve been to your cattle plant. I know what you’re doing. I know the truth—that you’re engaged in mass murder for profit. Why won’t I go to the FBI?”

  “Because I’ll kill the girl. And because I also happen to know something about you. I know about Felix Lemus.”

  A chill went through Devlin. “What about him? He murdered my wife.”

  “And you murdered him. We got the information out of your colleague, Father Hector Hermes.”

  Every fiber of Devlin’s body screamed to get up and break Clay’s head open. But he remained perfectly still. He would not betray himself, his inner thoughts.

  “He’s fine by the way,” said Clay. “A few broken fingers is all. He held out well…for an old man. We also have CCTV of you entering Felix Lemus’s apartment on the night of his death. It was the two private detectives that got us this information. The ones you covered in gasoline in DC. You really shouldn’t have pissed them off so badly. They’ve done an outstanding job. Well, I don’t need to tell you that, an ex-special investigations agent. I gather they’re going to be making a call to Chief Walker, handing over all the information we’ve gathered on your secret little trip up to Baltimore. So, priest, I suggest that when you leave our beautiful town you keep going, and after that you keep on going. Because the law won’t be far behind you. And if you’re seen in Halton again, I’ll let Packer loose on the girl.”

  “You’ll kill her anyway.”

  “Maybe. We both know though that there are many ways to die. A whole menu of options. Let’s just say, you get to choose how…peacefully that happens.”

  Devlin now knew why Clay had been so relaxed about coming here, to a public place, to meet Devlin. He held all the cards.

  Clay looked up and down the busy street and said, “It’s a beautiful town, isn’t it? Look at all these well-to-do, comfortable-looking, healthy people. They all have jobs, homes, cars, health insurance, and pensions. I like to think of them as innocent, well-fed children.” He looked back at Devlin and smiled a blank, cold smile. Then he asked, “Have you read The Time Machine by H. G. Wells?”

  Devlin didn’t answer, and Clay didn’t wait for a reply.

  “When the time traveler goes into the far future, he discovers two distinct races, the Eloi and the Morlocks. I like to think of the people of Halton Springs as the Eloi, so pretty in their innocence, while we, you and I, are the Morlocks who toil in the dark and know that the true cost of innocence is blood. We know that bad things happen to everyone, eventually. It’s just a matter of time.” Again, Devlin didn’t answer. Again, Clay wasn’t really waiting for one.

  “I’m going to leave,” said Clay. “You have a good day, and remember, thirty minutes is all you have. Take a step back into Halton and I will rain all hell down upon you and the girl.” Then Clay finished his espresso and took a look at Devlin. “You really thought you’d ride into town, my fucking town, like John fucking Wayne and save the day?” There was a moment of silence as Clay triumphantly grinned his winning grin. Then, unexpectedly, Devlin laughed, a long, deep, relaxed, easy laugh.

  “Oh, wait,” said Devlin. “John Wayne? No, Clay, that’s not how it is. You think I’m the good guy? No, no. That’s not the roles we’ve been given here. See, I’ve got a theory about you and your brother. Earl was born into the world wrapped in sin; it covered him like a net. The harder he pushed, the tighter it became, like a curse. But I also believe that in the last days of his life, he might have found relief. Absolution. He knew he had sinned, but he also knew there was a power greater than him. A power he could offer that sin up to. But you, you poor bastard, you were born into the world without sin, without even the knowledge of sin. But here’s the thing: I’m not an agent of God. God wants nothing to do with either of us. We’re both damned. No. I’m the serpent. I’m the agent of your awakening conscience.”

  It was Clay’s turn to laugh. “What are you? Some sort of fucking witch doctor? Are you kidding me? Is that the best you got, preacher? You should be on TBN;
you’d be a rich man. You fucking fraud.” Clay moved to leave, but Devlin grasped his wrist. Clay felt the iron grip, the promise of great strength, and knew he would not be able to wrangle free from it.

  “You are at the beginning of your last journey,” whispered Devlin. “It is the moment that you wake up to your guilt, to understanding what hell is, Clay Logan. ‘Your evils have encompassed you beyond number; they are more than the hairs on your head.’” As the words left Devlin’s mouth, Clay was overtaken by a sudden and startling rush of energy. Just as heat moves from hot to cold, as high pressure moves to low, so Clay’s emptiness, his void, was an invitation to Devlin’s excess of spirit. A life force surged from one man to the other, running along the million tributaries into Clay’s heart and, where they met, filling him for the first time with the world outside. Among a crowd of voices in the street and with pin-sharp clarity, Clay heard a woman laugh and a child cry, and it touched him. He was now connected to humanity. The virus was free in him. Devlin dropped Clay’s wrist and Clay instinctively moved away, out of his chair, staggering backward into a couple walking past. He nearly fell and they steadied him, recognizing Halton’s own statesman. He hurriedly attempted to recover, pulled his jacket straight, thanked the couple, and turned back to Devlin, who had seen everything that had happened and was as alarmed as Clay at this inexplicable transaction.

  “You have thirty minutes to get out of town, you piece of shit,” Logan snarled. He put on his sunglasses and tried to shake off Devlin’s spell. But as he left the coffee shop, he felt a burning sense of keen discomfort deep within him. A sensation unpleasant and new. A sensation called shame.

  Devlin sat still for a minute or two, shaken and breathing fast. Something had just happened, and Devlin had no idea what it was. It made him feel like a frightened, uncomprehending child. It made him afraid for his own sanity. Then he looked across the road and realized that Packer and Clay were waiting for him to leave, that at any minute a patrol car could come by, pull over, and take him in. He stood, threw twenty dollars onto the table, and headed for his car.

  60

  Clay and Packer waited for Devlin to get into his Ford and watched him head off. But within minutes of leaving Charley’s, Devlin knew he was being tailed by another vehicle. There was a jeep a few cars back that stuck out like a sore thumb. Whoever it was, they sucked at tailing. But it served Devlin’s purposes. He wanted to make it look exactly as if he were leaving Halton. So he continued on, driving out of Halton and south, his heart still thumping from his encounter with Clay.

  Devlin carried on straight until eventually he ended up in Fairborn, cruising on for a while longer until he suddenly hit the gas and took the interchange back onto the state highway going south. As he got off the ramp, Devlin saw the highway going the other way was pretty light on traffic. He took a sudden, sharp left over the grass meridian and sped onto the highway going north. His tires squealed in protest as he swerved and veered, cutting in front of two other cars that had to break to avoid him and slammed on their horns.

  A minute later the driver of the tailing car joined the highway heading south and, seeing no sign of Devlin’s Ford, picked up speed trying to catch him up. Devlin, now tail-free and heading in the opposite direction, drove on a few hundred meters and took another sharp turn over the meridian back onto the highway going south. Then he found the exit ramp a little way down and got back on the road to the Fairborn.

  It was a fifteen-minute drive through Fairborn onto state route 444. Devlin remembered the route well and knew where to take the turnoff he needed. He took a right and passed the entrance sign for Wright Patterson airbase. A figure in a raincoat with his hands in his pockets stood waiting at the side of the road. Devlin pulled over.

  “About time. Room for one more?” said Brennan.

  “It’s open, George,” Devlin replied.

  Brennan got into the passenger’s seat. Devlin turned to him and asked, “You got me my favor?”

  “Sure, Gabe, I got it. Hell of a favor. There’s a Hercules leaving tonight for Youngstown Warren. You got your lift.”

  “You’re a gent, George.”

  61

  The high walls of the lab flickered with blue light and flashes of red as the equipment kept a record of the sedated men’s conditions. Fox sat in a chair up against a row of oxygen canisters near to the entrance. She was gagged and bound. Reeves sat a few feet away holding the Glock and looking her up and down every so often, not even bothering to disguise his interest. It sickened Fox, but it would not demean her. She looked elsewhere, and when she did catch his eye, she gave him the impression of complete disinterest. Not fear, certainly not, nor anger, nor indignation, just utter indifference. After a while, it wore him down, and the interested, salacious looks became one of contempt. The hate he had for Fox became manifest.

  Fox watched the four men who had evidently been tasked with stripping the twelve bodies. Lazard, the reptilian-looking guy whom she recognized from the hospital, the older, bald man with a stouter figure but similarly blank eyes, and the two young Asian men. They all had gowns on and were preparing for surgery. At the back of the lab along the wall was a long, silver wash basin which the four men stood in front of. Each hit their foot pump and the faucets came on. Although Fox could mostly only see their backs, she still could make out the various stages of the scrubbing in process. She could see them wet their scrub brushes and soap up their hands to the wrists, paying meticulous attention to the areas between their fingers. She watched them pick their fingernails under the sink before scrubbing them. Then they scrubbed each finger in turn after which they moved down to their palms, the back of their hands and along their forearms to their elbows. Lastly, they rinsed the lather off and held their dripping hands over the sink waiting for the excess water to fall away. The men carried out this preparation with the deepest seriousness. It was almost ritualistic. A piece of theater. The bald man, although generally more expressive than Lazard, had now adopted the same unmoved expression, as if there were nothing in the world that could possibly impress or delight him. Watching him, Fox had the dreadful feeling that this was work that he was extremely familiar with.

  The two older surgeons led the two younger ones. They moved in among the living bodies but smelled of death, of stillness and uniformity. The bald man, Fox noticed, had the same sallow skin color as Lazard, and his fingers were also stained dark brown with nicotine. The two younger surgeons were equally impassive. But for all their reserve, the four were impressively coordinated and deft in laying their groundwork. They gave the impression of absolute competence and of a lightning-quick understanding and shorthand between them. They bustled around each body making sure they were all perfectly prepared for the ordeal ahead.

  The victims’ hospital gowns were peeled back, exposing their young bodies. Once this had been done, it became stunningly obvious why these men had been chosen. They were at the peak of physical condition, the best examples of their peers.

  The two older men had begun using black pens on the men’s skin. Starting with the body on the far right, they drew a mass of dotted and solid outlines together with shading and letters and numbers so that by the end the skin was tattooed from face to toes with labels and instructions. All the while there was low-level talk and discussion between the four men over the continuous whir of fans and the chorus of digital pips.

  The door buzzed and Packer entered with Clay. Fox grew anxious. She felt utterly afraid of them. Who of the two she was more afraid of she couldn’t say. Packer was a brute, but Clay was cold. Empty. He looked over at her and smiled. Then he called over to Reeves. Reeves hadn’t heard; he was busy sneering at Fox.

  “Reeves,” Clay called again. “Take the gag off.” Reeves walked over and roughly untied it. The moment the gag came free, Fox yelled as loudly and for as long as her lungs would allow her. It went on for nearly a minute. She knew it was futile, but it was a howl of outrage and defiance more than anything else, a howl of protest from h
er very soul at the barbarism she was witnessing. The four surgeons turned to see what was happening, quietly furious at Fox’s incredibly thoughtless disturbance. Finally, she stopped, exhausted. Packer, Clay, and Reeves looked at each other and began to laugh.

  “Darling, there isn’t anybody going to hear you scream in here,” mocked Clay. “Why do you think we put the lab out here in the first place? Look over there.” He gestured to the bodies on the beds. “Plenty of people have had more cause than you to scream in here. Oh, yeah. Screaming never got anyone here anywhere.”

  “Perhaps she was trying to wake these guys up,” joked Reeves. Clay and Packer laughed.

  “I hope not,” replied Clay. “Best these boys don’t wake up. It happened once before, and it didn’t end prettily for anyone.”

  “What do you mean, it happened once before?” asked Fox. Clay looked at Packer, and Packer looked back in an amused and conspiratorial fashion.

  Clay walked over and set up a chair by Fox. “I think you know, Ms. Fox.”

  “Just call me Fox.”

  “I think you know, Ms. Fox.” Clay almost stopped there and said no more. He studied Fox, ran his eyes over her pretty face and lean body, leisurely appraising her figure and finding it very satisfactory. In the company of this attractive woman, his ego began to surge to the fore, demanding to be fed. He desperately wanted to tell this fine-looking, intelligent woman who he had captive before him, what he had done, and if it didn’t impress her, it would outrage and even torture her. And that would be just as enjoyable. Clay leaned back and smiled. His blue eyes crinkled, and he began to speak, delighting in his own voice.

  “I’m talking about the first murder up at Long Pine. Somebody—and there’s still some dispute as to who—got careless with the anesthetic and one of our boys escaped. It was almost curtains for us. Took us a while to track him down. He got out of the ranch and through half of Long Pine. Jesus, he almost made it as far as the highway. But we stopped him just in time. Shot the bastard in the head. Well, actually, we didn’t. That was the work of a law enforcement officer.” Clay, Packer and Reeves laughed again. “Fine work by Halton’s finest. We couldn’t drag the body eight miles uphill to the ranch in the pissing-down rain. So we cut the fucker’s head, hands, and feet off. I tell you, that was a sorry night. We lost tens of millions of dollars. We had to cut our losses. Literally.” Clay laughed and slapped his thigh, even more tickled by Fox’s appalled reaction to his joke. “We hoped they’d think someone was trying to hide the victim’s identity. Truth was, we just wanted people thinking and guessing and making up the identity. ’Cause he was an illegal, he didn’t have one. It was a solid gold bonus when the Gypsy story started doing the rounds.”