The Redemption Man

by James Carver

  “How did you get all these…men in here?” asked Fox, looking over the row of bodies.

  “Oh, that wasn’t so hard. We selected them.”

  “Selected them?”

  “Yeah. We offer all our staff free checkups and medical treatment at the Halton Medical Center, including our undocumented migrant workers. We’re very generous like that. Course, that allows us to run deeper, more useful tests on some of our employees. We just take a swab and blood sample, and we get all sorts of exciting information.” Clay pointed to the men in the beds. “We built this group of specimens up over the course of a couple of months. Once we got an illegal worker that was a good match, that matched one of our orders, Packer would ask him to go out on a job with him. Then Packer would overpower him and chloroform him, and Dr. Lazard would arrive with his bag of treats. After we’d sedated the guy, we moved our new body in here. It became just like building up our own little collection.”

  Clay looked over at Reeves. “Reeves. Go and walk the perimeter with Campbell.”

  “Okay, boss.” Reeves dragged himself out of his chair, stretched his arms, yawned, and buzzed the door open with his finger. Clay looked back at Fox. “We got a long night ahead, Ms. Fox. We got a long night ahead.” Fox looked over at the four surgeons. Soon they’d start cutting into the bodies, right in front of her, butchering the young men while they slept.

  62

  Devlin and Brennan had driven into the base with Brennan guiding the way to a complex of buildings that backed onto a runway. They parked, and Brennan led Devlin to a large, brightly lit hangar. At the far end, the hangar door was wide open to the warm spring night. Devlin could see the illuminated runway outside and the lights of military planes standing ready beside it.

  This particular hangar had been set aside for supplies and rigging, and it felt like being home again for Devlin. He’d done hundreds of drops as a pararescue, and for a few years this world had been Devlin’s world. There was a line of wet chutes from a recent drop left hanging along a rope to dry out. The rope arced down from the roof and was secured onto the side of one of a line of yellow freight containers. Against the walls were rows of shelves and tables. The tables were piled up with chutes ready to be rigged and training bundles. The shelves held more chutes along with stacks of deployment bags and extraction chutes used for dropping cargo. Running along the center of the hangar was a varnished wooden bench, and midway along the bench lay a row of items that had been carefully prepared and set out.

  Brennan and Devlin stood by the bench surveying the equipment.

  “Everything like you wanted,” said Brennan. “The rigger and the loadmaster have both checked it over. There’s an MC-4 chute and Extreme Cold Weather clothing system with oxygen, just like you asked. And a Beretta M9, loaded with fifteen rounds and an extra fifty rounds. There’s a night training flight I got you onto scheduled to go out at twenty-two hundred hours, A C160. You got a few hours till then. They can take you over Halton Springs, but you’ll need to give them the exact GPS. They said they can give you a twenty-six-thousand-foot drop.”

  “Thanks, George. It’s everything just like I asked.”

  “Yep, it is. But the crew have asked questions. I just said it’s a joint exercise drill with Homeland and local law enforcement. Insurgent detection and capture.”

  “Did they buy it?”

  “They bought that it was an explanation. They don’t think it’s the actual honest-to-God truth, Gabe. Who would for Christ’s sake?”

  “As long as they think someone’s gone to the effort of making something almost believable up. Better than no explanation at all.”

  George looked at the kit on the bench. It was high-spec military equipment, serious stuff.

  “Gabe, it’s a long time since you were pararescue. You okay to do this? A high-altitude night jump?”

  “I’ll be fine, George. I kept my hand in at the Boston Skydive Center. Besides, I’m jumping into the middle of Ohio, not behind enemy lines in Afghanistan. Now that was difficult.”

  George accepted the answer, but there were others he wanted too.

  “So what’s going on at the Logan Ranch?”

  Devlin’s answer was short and frustrating. “Something big. What’s going on is as big as it could possibly be.” But that was all Devlin said. He would not say any more, so Brennan stood locked in a back-and-forth conversation that was happening all in his mind. He was thinking a hell of a lot but nothing that he could say. Caution and political savvy were holding him back. Devlin let him off the hook he was squirming on.

  “Let me answer the question you got going on in your head, George. No. I’m not going to tell you. Because if I do, you’ll have to do something about it, and that will give you the biggest headache of your lengthy and patiently built career. It’s so big that if you kept it to yourself and someone found out that you knew, you’d be humiliated and sacked. Career over. But if you try and take it somewhere, and it would have to be the Secretary of Homeland Security and up, whoever it is they’ll wish you’d kept it to yourself. And they wouldn’t thank you for it, but they’d remember you for it. You’re a career man, George. You’re ambitious and you’re good at being ambitious. So, because you’re my friend and my comrade, this is my advice to you: you never saw me, you never talked to me. Give me my rig and my ride, and read all about it in tomorrow’s papers. Goodbye, George.”

  Devlin extended a hand. Brennan hesitated, then shook.

  As Brennan got to the door, he swung around and added as an afterthought, “Oh, by the way, about that other matter you raised. The two PIs. I made a call. We have it in hand.”

  “Okay. Do I need to know anything else about that?”

  “No,” George said with the hint of a smile. “You just need to know we got it in hand.”

  63

  Devlin got suited up. He checked his altimeter, chest-mounted GPS, and compass were all in working order. He then rigged up the oxygen mask and sat on the bench with the mask fitted over his helmet and cupped against his mouth. For about forty minutes, he breathed only pure oxygen to prevent hypoxia occurring during the fall.

  Devlin had only just removed the mask from his face when he heard the clack of boots on concrete and looked up. A squarely built sergeant master in his forties with a gray buzz cut walked into the hangar.

  “You Devlin?”

  “Yep.”

  “You ready to go?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, hurry the fuck up, princess, your carriage awaits.”

  Devlin stood and picked up his backpack. His bulk and height were emphasized by the layers of camouflage uniform, Gore-Tex, the Mr. Puffy suit underneath, and Gore-Tex boots.

  “Let’s go,” he replied. Then they walked out shoulder to shoulder.

  “You gonna tell me what this is all about?” snapped the sergeant master.

  “I can only tell you the bullshit you’ve already been told.”

  “Fuck. Well, it had better be important. We’ve had to reroute and clear with commercial flights.”

  “It’s important.”

  As the Hercules taxied onto the runway, its huge twin engines rumbling, Devlin got the coordinates from his cell that he’d given to the crew and put them into his GPS unit. The occupants of the plane were the three flight crew up front in the cockpit, Devlin, who was sitting back in the fuselage, and the sergeant master, who sat opposite Devlin. Devlin wasn’t in any mood for talk. He wanted only to find Fox, save the young men before they were butchered like the cattle they were kept with, and kill anyone who tried to get in his way. He silently repeated the motto that he’d sworn by as a pararescue: “That Others May Live.”

  The Hercules took off with a deafening roar. There was a red light illuminating the inside of the aircraft so that Devlin’s eyes would be adjusted to see more clearly in the dark when he began the drop. He did one more check of his equipment to make sure everything was in order, and then he took his rosary from his pocket and began roll
ing each bead between his thumb and index fingers. The sergeant master noticed the beads and shouted over.

  “If you need God, you must be in a heap of shit!”

  “When you step out into the darkness, you need all the light you can get,” Devlin yelled back.

  The beast thundered and bellowed in the vast night, and Devlin hoped desperately and fervently that Fox was still unharmed as he sat in its belly preparing for the fall.

  64

  Campbell had done another walk around the front of the ranch, patrolling from the barns and trailers across the face of the house and down to the highway and back again. Then he stopped by the calving shed, rolled a cigarette, and leaned up against the shed entrance for a smoke. There had been no sign of the priest. Pity. Campbell was itching to be the one that came face-to-face with him. He had heard about what the priest did to Earl, how he had whipped Earl’s ass. Although he had never been an admirer of Earl, knowing some bum had come breezing into Halton and bested Earl in a fight still bruised his pride. He ached to get a chance to square things with this Devlin guy. Campbell, Reeves, and a few of the other men formed a core that was fiercely loyal to Packer and the Logans. Over the years, Packer had assembled an inner circle of a few hands who he could trust absolutely and who were not to be messed with. Men who were hardened and indifferent to the younger hands who came up to work. Men who, like Earl, felt they had earned some deference in their hometown and some special treatment from the local police.

  Campbell had been told to shoot the priest on sight. He had been told that if the priest were killed, the perpetrator would be protected. Legal consequences would be unimportant. Campbell knew Devlin had broken into the cattle plant and was suspected of homicide so had no personal qualms about killing him stone-cold. He took another drag and blew the smoke out of his nose, admiring the spare beauty of the Ohio nightscape. He hadn’t traveled much, but for Campbell the Logan Ranch was the one place where he felt safe and content. It was his corner of the world.

  The perfect peace was broken by a bang coming from back in the shed and the sound of a heifer snorting. Campbell threw his smoke down, heeled it into the dirt, and went to investigate. Halfway down he saw that a gate had come loose and a heifer had wandered out into the gangway. He calmed her down and guided her back into her jug. Then he secured the gate, took one last look to check the heifer had settled, and felt a dull crunch that propelled his head forward and back off the top bar of the metal gate. Blackout.

  His unconscious body collapsed back into the arms of Stevens.

  “Whoa, easy there. Sweet dreams, son.”

  Stevens threw Campbell over his back. He was long rather than stocky, so carrying him was awkward rather than straight out exhausting, which was lucky, because it was a good trudge up a slight incline to Stevens’s next stop, the generator. It was housed in a red metal hut and secured with a padlock like Devlin had said. Stevens dropped Campbell, took out a pair of pliers that had been wedged into his belt, and cut away the padlock hanging from the door. Then he dragged Campbell inside. The generator itself was in a large, orange metal casing with various tubes and wires running from valves along the side. At one end was a black metal structure that encased a fan. Stevens took his cuffs out and secured Campbell to one of the sturdy black metal bars that supported the fan.

  And then he waited.

  Devlin’s orders to Stevens had been clear: stay by the generator, follow Devlin’s instructions, and get out as fast and safely as he could. But already Stevens had a hankering to get a little bit more involved. He walked outside and stood looking at the outline of the lab sitting enigmatically in the middle of a large clearing, the last building before you were out into the pastures. And Stevens started to get curious.

  65

  Clay was dreaming and it was such a strange alien dream. He was sleeping with Marie. They lay on his bed in a glow of summer sun streaming through the windows. He had never felt anything for Marie, but in his dream he felt such tenderness, such vulnerability, that it made him cry. Real tears, tears that would not stop and which grew into a river and carried Marie off, leaving Clay alone. Abandoned. And he was scared. And his fear turned into a serpent that coiled around him, trapping him. The serpent’s scales began to sear Clay’s skin, to burn and fry his flesh, and Clay heard the serpent say, “For evils have encompassed me beyond number; my iniquities have overtaken me, and I cannot see; they are more than the hairs on my head; my heart fails me.”

  Clay screamed.

  He did not stop.

  He went on screaming and screaming until he was shaking. But the shaking was because someone was pulling him back and forth. It was Packer.

  “Clay!” Packer growled. “Clay!” Clay was shaken awake and saw that everybody in the lab was looking at him wide-eyed, including Fox. He rapidly set about pulling himself together. Hiding the state of shock he was in.

  “It’s okay. I’m tired is all. Take no notice. Carry on.”

  He could feel Fox’s eyes in particular staring at him, and he chose to ignore her. He took out his pill case and popped half a dozen tablets of propranolol. Now he felt Claude Lazard staring over at him. The doctor had seen how many tablets Clay had taken and was concerned.

  “Carry on, I said,” snapped Clay. Lazard looked away quickly and continued with the body he was working on.

  In fact, the four men were now working away with incredible intensity. You could feel the ferocious yet completely controlled concentration that they worked with. If it wasn’t so utterly abhorrent, Fox might actually have admired them. They had begun working on two men occupying the beds closest to Fox but were now solely focused on one of the men, Alvarez. Lazard was making an incision in the flesh which was also visible on a monitor. The other three were providing assistance, monitoring the anesthetic and handing Lazard surgical instruments to suck away excess blood from the site of surgery. Fox could only watch helplessly, knowing that with every minute that passed, Alvarez’s life was becoming less and less redeemable. His body was being stolen while he slept.

  “They’re good, aren’t they?” Clay had noticed Fox’s fascination and leaned over. “Hell, they’re better than good; they’re world-fuckin’-class. Claude has got it down to a work of art. In fact, he’s like an artist. It is breathtaking. Mind you, he comes with an astronomical fee. So does his brother, Jakob.” Clay pointed to the older man.

  “They’re murderers. You’re a murderer. Worse, this is systematic. You’re like Nazis. You’re as close to evil as I’ve ever seen.”

  “But we’re also saving lives—the lives of people that have contributed huge amounts to the world. People who have earned billions and paid vast amounts of taxes, employed armies of people, developed and innovated new technologies. People who have the ears of presidents. People who will pay heart-stopping amounts of money for the freshest human parts made to order. And trust me, they ain’t asking where we’re getting the organs from. It’s the deluxe end of medicine, baby. Look, if you examine someone’s worth, and in this world we do it all the time, these men lying here are odds-on never going to contribute anything to the progress of the human race. Zero. Let’s keep the entrepreneurs, the innovators alive. That’s what I say. Besides, this is recycling. By the time we’ve finished here, these boys will be nothing but bits of skeleton.”

  Fox looked at Clay in horror. “You’ve lost every drop of humanity you have.”

  “I just make the decisions other people are too afraid to make.”

  “I never thought I’d hear myself say it, but I wish you had died and Earl had lived.”

  “Ha! That boy died like a dog,” Clay scoffed. “You want to know how Earl died? Me and Packer followed him out to his favorite little spot in the woods and blew his brains out. Like taking the family dog into the backyard and putting him down. Y’know, we took one of the old mining shafts that runs out from the north pasture deep into Long Pine. I know! Astounding! We calmly strolled in under the noses of every police officer in Halton, S
helby, and Greene County. Best thing I ever did for that boy. He’s found more peace now than he ever had in Halton Springs. All of us at the ranch knew he was a faggot. Packer went looking for him the night he had the fight with the priest. Course, none of the cops on the night shift wanted to get involved. They knew from experience that Earl was bad news. They gave him a wide berth. So Packer found him up near Fairview stumbling about like a madman, dripping in blood, watched him throw himself on his boyfriend’s mercy. And that’s when we saw our opportunity. It meant blowing the Gypsy story out of the water, but by that time Earl was making himself such a pain in the fucking ass it was worth it. To make Earl the fall guy for the Long Pine killing and get rid of him for good. Get that little bastard out of our hair so we could do business without him bringing heat down on us. And it all worked out pretty nicely. Don’t you think, Miss Fox?”

  “You know Devlin will come back here?”