The Redemption Man

by James Carver

  “No, he won’t. Even if he did, he isn’t going to get very far. We got men out front and around the back. We got a chopper out covering the ranch for any sign of him. Anyone who sees him has been told he’s a suspected murderer trespassing on private property and is to be shot on sight. He doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of getting in here. And if by some miracle he does, he knows that right after we kill him we’d kill you. So, forget Devlin. That ship has sailed.”

  It was about as bleak as it could get. Fox’s wrists burned with the tightness of the duct tape that bound her. She rolled to get as comfortable as she could and felt a small hard object in her back pocket. At first, she couldn’t place what it might be until she realized it must be Devlin’s lighter, the one he’d given her back when they first met. With her hands bound behind her, she slipped two fingers into her pocket and tweezered out the lighter with her index and middle finger. She lay it on the chair and picked it up in her palm and flicked it. She felt the flame burn her hand and almost dropped it. Okay, she thought, now it’s about how and when I play this card.

  66

  Devlin took a breath and sat up straight. His lungs were begging for the reassuring warmth of a Corona, but he had to put any luxury like that out of his mind. He had sensed activity up at the front so guessed they must be nearing the drop zone. The sergeant master had comms mounted in his helmet and looked like he was listening intently to flight information from the crew. He barked over at Devlin.

  “Wind speed ten miles an hour, ground temperature sixty-three degrees with light rain.”

  He operated the release lever and immediately the hydraulics kicked in. There was a dull whine and the top rear cargo door opened, then the lower door, revealing the great, dark, formless void. Swirling, chaotic winds raged around the Hercules. The sergeant master walked over by the opening, and Devlin watched him intently as he held up two fingers signaling two minutes to the drop. Devlin walked to the end of the ramp with eyes locked on his instructor. Finally, the ready signal, a thumb up to the ceiling followed a moment later by the signal to jump, the sergeant master pointing to the door. And that was it. Here it was, always the same—the moment, against every sensible thought in Devlin’s head, against every instinct he had telling him to stay inside the plane, that he made his body do the final step onto the precipice and fly backward out into thin air, the wind instantly hitting his chest.

  Time to meet the angels.

  Devlin was hit by a sudden massive surge of adrenaline, a feeling in the pit of his stomach like plummeting down a roller coaster, his body shuddering against the wind. At the same time there was a sudden quiet and peacefulness. He was surrounded by so many stars. They were overwhelming.. The Milky Way really lived up to its name up here.

  Devlin reached terminal velocity, 125 mph, at around ten seconds. He was in free fall and knew that at this height, it would last a couple of minutes during which there would be nothing to tell him how fast and how far he was going. All he could feel was the air pressing against him and rushing into his helmet and the sound of his own breathing into the oxygen mask. The light switch was on by the altimeter on his wrist, illuminating the reading. There were only thirteen thousand miles on the dial, so it would whizz around nearly twice before he had to deploy. It read 4,000 feet, so Devlin knew he was at 17,000 feet. It was all he had to guide him up this far. Night was always the hardest time to jump mentally because you were in limbo, halfway between heaven and earth and nothing to tell you where you’d come from or where you were heading. But it was the best time if you wanted to be invisible.

  Then Devlin hit the cloud deck. The internal pressure of cloud threw him momentarily, and he was soaked through as the pressure of the water particles leaked into his supposedly waterproof suit. He strained to see signs of the ground ahead. And then he was out, as quickly as he’d entered the clouds, back into the night air. Devlin checked his compass and looked at the landscape. Below him, he could see the lights along the highway coming east out of town. Up ahead he could see the lights from what he was pretty sure was the Logan house. Just like that first night he rode by, it was lit up like Christmas and stood out from all the other smaller, isolated buildings scattered around.

  He checked the GPS on his chest using a chemlight he’d strapped to his arm, which confirmed he was tracking in in the right direction. Then he checked his altimeter: 6,000 feet. From here until 5,000 feet, he hardly took his eyes off it, and when the dial read 5,000, Devlin began the pull sequence. Even though he was jumping alone, he still checked over his shoulder to make sure everything was clear, an old habit from all the group drops he’d done as a PJ. He pulled on the D ring like he was slugging someone with a punch from the shoulder, and there was a massive jolt as he was jerked roughly back up into the sky and then began the descent in.

  Devlin checked his compass again and took a left ninety-degree bearing into a heading of seventy degrees magnetic, which took him over the edge of Long Pine and closing in on the ranch. He could now see the cattle lab lights at ten o’clock behind the main house about four klicks away. He had eyes on the target. Devlin was able to maneuver into the wind so he stood a good chance of a safe, braked landing. And he’d need to because it was a tough target. Devlin was aiming for the roof of the lab.

  When the roof finally came, it came rushing in toward him and was shiny with light reflecting off it from the ranch house. What the hell was the roof made of? thought Devlin. It couldn’t be glass panes; Devlin wouldn’t have missed a glass roof on the lab when he was in there. Then it clicked. Solar panels. Worse. Wet solar panels. Shit. The moment his feet hit the roof, his legs went from under him and he slid at speed down the ramped paneling. He was going to fly off the roof and plunge thirty feet to the ground.

  He reached out and caught his arm around the top of a yellow steel ladder attached to the side wall, bringing him to a hard, painful and juddering stop. He was finally motionless. Thank God. He’d almost hit the roof and bounced right back off. His right arm and right side aching and bruised, he snaked back up into the center of the roof and began to collect in his chute. A chopper flew by about a mile away, one of Logan’s no doubt. It turned and headed back out to where the forest met the ranch. It was skirting the boundaries, looking for Devlin. Well, thought Devlin, it had failed.

  67

  Light rain had turned into a downpour, drumming fast on the aluminum and glass skin of the lab. Inside the lab, in amongst the rattle of the downpour, Packer thought he heard something. On most nights he would have paid it no attention, but tonight was not most nights. Clay, also in a hypervigilant mode, noted his concern.

  “What is it, Packer?”

  “I thought I heard a sound outside. Probably nothing,” Packer said and gestured to Reeves. “Reeves, go and do a walk-around again.”

  Devlin had only just removed his helmet and goggles and gathered and yanked his chute in when he heard the bang of a door somewhere below. He flattened his body down on the paneled roof. It was incredibly slippery; a wrong move could send Devlin sliding down and off the side of the building. He chanced a look up over the edge of the roof and glimpsed a figure walking out ten feet or so from the lab and scouting around it, making sure it was clear. Devlin lay perfectly still and prayed for whoever it was below to just go away. He clutched his chute close to him, listening intently for footsteps to detect which way they might be heading. But in the increasingly heavy rain, it wasn’t so easy to hear that kind of noise from where Devlin was. He lifted his head up to peek over the edge of the roof again and heard the click of safety catch. Someone was behind him.

  “Very slowly now. Just turn around and get up with your hands where I can see them.” Devlin looked back over his shoulder. Reeves was at the top of the metal ladder with a gun trained on Devlin. He had one leg on a rung and one planted on a solar panel.

  “You can throw that gun you got on you over to me too,” said Reeves.

  Devlin turned and sat up and complied reluctant
ly.

  “You gave me one hell of sore jaw, you son of a bitch. Never mind. We’ll soon be even. From now on they’ll call me Reeves the Priest Killer.”

  Reeves lifted the gun, aiming at Devlin’s head, and stepped off the ladder, planting both feet onto the wet, glassy surface of the roof. Devlin frantically searched for options. As Reeves’s trigger finger tightened, Devlin twisted sharply and slung his chute around toward Reeves. The nylon material spread and billowed on the air between them, stifling Reeves’s attempt to get a shot off. In the seconds it took Reeves to thrust the chute down and away from him, Devlin had pushed himself off, skidding low along the rain-covered, near-frictionless solar-paneled slope. He collided into Reeves’s legs, knocking him off balance and sending him stumbling and slipping backward off the edge of the roof, his arms windmilling frenziedly as he plummeted to the ground. Devlin’s body hit the top of the ladder and took a bump, sending him rolling over the top rung, which he managed to grasp with his left hand. He hung from the ladder with his legs dancing around for a foothold and looking down at Reeves, who was lying prone and still on the sodden ground, his legs and neck bent unnaturally.

  Once Devlin had got a foothold, he scrambled down the ladder to search Reeves’s lifeless body and took his knife from the leather sheath on his belt. Then he paused and studied Reeves’s face, feeling a stab of guilt. He genuflected over the dead man and quickly ascended the ladder back up to the roof. He crouched by a solar panel on the back right-hand corner of the lab, calculating it to be the farthest point away from the beds and the lab entrance and hoping it was the least visible way in, especially in such a large space. Using Reeves’s knife, he stripped back the rubber seal around the panel. The rain streamed down his face, and Devlin had to keep wiping the water from his eyes while he worked away in the dark. Finally, he managed to loosen strips along three sides of the panel, which let him lift it a couple of inches and get a very narrow view in.

  Beneath the panel, through the metal roof supports of the lab, he could glimpse Fox sitting by Clay and about half of the beds, but he couldn’t see Packer or Lazard. Devlin took out his cell and opened the video app, then pressed the record button and slipped it through the gap he’d opened up. He pointed it hopefully in the direction of the line of beds and moved it from side to side. Then he pulled his cell back up and looked at the grainy, low-res footage. He could make out a hulking figure that had to be Packer, who was over by the monitoring station. There were four other figures—Lazard maybe and three other guys who were already operating on one of the bodies. He pocketed his cell so he could examine the solar panel’s attachments. They were screwed into a roof truss on either side. He twisted the knife into the screw heads and wound them loose. Now the panel could be lifted up like a flap. It left a gap of about five and a half by three and a half feet, possible to get through even for Devlin.

  It was a good thirty feet to the lab floor, so Devlin needed to work out a way of getting down. He retrieved his canopy from the edge of the roof. It was a standard stealth rig, three hundred and seventy square feet of material with a nearly thirty-foot span. Devlin knotted the chute hard around his waist and reached in and tied the other end around the roof truss. Then he took a deep breath. He pulled out his cell and opened the text app. He typed one word—“now”—sent it to Stevens, and waited around thirty seconds for the response.

  In the lab, Lazard had his scalpel poised, ready to sever Alvarez’s ureter tubes when they were suddenly cast into darkness. The only illumination came from the pinpoint light of the LEDs on the medical equipment and the monitor screens. Lazard squealed in an even thicker accent than usual.

  “Turn the fucking lights on! Turn the fucking lights on!”

  Clay was on his feet. “Don’t panic, Lazard. The generator’s shut down. We can run the lights from the main grid like the equipment.”

  Packer had already run to the side wall and lifted up a metal panel. He turned on his flashlight and searched furiously for the fuse switch on the right circuit.

  In the dark Devlin had flipped open the solar panel completely, climbed in through the square gap, and sat on a metal rafter. Then he lowered himself so his legs were wrapped around the chute and descended hand over hand, the night rain falling in around him. He was about six feet from the ground when he lost his grip on the wet material and jerked around uncontrollably in the dark. Desperately he tried to free himself from the knot he’d tied so hard. The knot then gave with an unexpected suddenness and he dropped the remaining two meters on to the floor. The noise was loud and obvious. Everyone in the lab, including the four surgeons, stopped still.

  “Packer!” cried Clay. “There’s someone in here!” The lights started up, and Packer swung around to see the hanging chute material and took great strides through the beds over to the far corner. Devlin saw him coming and scrambled away, pulling out his Beretta.

  There was a sudden animal scream. “Don’t shoot!” Packer and Devlin froze and looked over at Clay, who had Fox at gunpoint.

  Fox yelled out, “Just kill him, Devlin!”

  Clay racked a round into the chamber and placed his barrel against Fox’s temple. “Just give me a fucking reason, priest… Throw down the gun.”

  Devlin couldn’t see any way out that spared Fox’s life. So he dropped his Beretta. Great, he thought, I threw away my whole entrance. I got nothing left.

  At that moment, the lab door clicked open and Stevens appeared, holding a gun.

  “Let Fox go, Clay,” he ordered. For a moment Clay was stunned and just looked at Stevens, his eyes wide with surprise. Then the momentary lull was shattered by a sudden boom—the sound of a gunshot. At first no one knew where it had come from, or who had fired. But after a moment of confusion, all looked over toward Stevens, who in turn was looking at his stomach. A red circle was growing on his shirt, indicating massive blood loss. Stevens slumped to his knees, revealing Officer Gray behind him holding a smoking gun that shook a little from being gripped too hard.

  There was a silence. Then Clay laughed. He laughed almost uncontrollably until it petered out into a crooked smile. “Look who it is. It’s Officer Gray. Our secret weapon and our trump card.”

  Stevens looked up at Gray and gasped. “Gray? Jesus, it’s you. Why…?”

  Gray didn’t answer and instead, Clay interrupted with a blunt order. “Just kill them. Just take them outside and kill them. And when you’ve killed the priest, Packer, come back for this little bitch.”

  Packer took the Beretta and Reeves’s knife off Devlin and marched him out of the lab past Stevens’s semiconscious body, through the cattle lab, and out into the night. Gray grabbed Stevens’s upper arms and followed, dragging his limp body along the floor.

  Clay threw Fox back into her chair and screamed, “Come on, Lazard! Keep going! We got hundreds of millions riding on tonight’s work!”

  The four men were under crippling stress and took a moment to clear their minds and try and summon back the immense focus they needed.

  Clay stood, watching them, his concern growing. And then he had what he could only describe as an attack. Without warning, from deep within him, a volcano of scalding grief erupted. He saw again with paralyzing clarity the moment Packer put the rifle up to Earl’s head and blotted out his life. He saw the blond waves of hair on his brother’s head the moment before Packer pulled the trigger. It was the same head of hair he’d often seen walking ahead of him to school. The same head of hair his mother used to tousle and play with as they both sat on the sofa watching TV. Tears and shame threatened to overwhelm him. Clay was stricken, as if his soul was in mortal terror. He stumbled back into his chair, pulled his pillbox out of his jacket pocket, and swallowed down a fistful of propranolol. Then he waited for the merciful release of the pills.

  The brothers were far too busy now to notice Clay’s difficulties, but Fox wasn’t. She was using every moment she could take to heat the oxygen cylinder behind her with Devlin’s lighter. She’d seen enough. She’d
blow both her and Clay into eternity if she had to.

  68

  Gray shut the lab doors and lifted Stevens so he was propped up by an empty steel cage. They were huddled in the front part of the lab, the cattle lab part. As she stood back and drew her still-warm gun, he began to come to. She held the gun in both hands and focused. She should do it now. It would never be easier. She had to do it before he came around. Pull the trigger now, she thought. For Christ’s sakes, do it. Do it like you did it up at Long Pine.

  “Come on, Gray,” she ordered herself. “Pull the trigger, you dumb bitch.” But nothing happened. This was different from Long Pine. It was the second time, and the terrible nightmares since the first murder gave her pause. The same pause that had gotten in the way of her killing Stevens the first time around at his house.

  And this was Stevens she was shooting at point-blank range. She knew Stevens. He was a good man. She knew his wife and his kids. Jesus, it was so much harder this time around. She did everything she could to will herself to the act, but it was already too late. Stevens was staring up at Gray.

  For a moment he just stared. Not out of fear—out of pity.

  “You were the one that deleted the shift reports, weren’t you? That tried to kill me in my home? Why, Gray? Why?”

  “Shut up, Stevens. You should never have grown a pair of balls. You were just an ordinary cop who got ideas above himself. It’s your fault it’s come to this. And don’t look so fucking surprised.”

  “I never had you down as a cop that could be bought. That’s all. If it were Miller or Walker? Hell, it wouldn’t have surprised me so much. But you? I thought you had ethics.”