by James Carver
As they worked under Fox’s watch, Devlin walked over to Clay’s butchered body, his cranium and most of its contents sprayed out across the floor. Just below Clay’s outstretched hand, Devlin’s eye was caught by a silver tube with a yellow label. The silver had dulled and tarnished. The top of the tube had come free, and small white pills had spilled out. Devlin picked up a pill, but it was blank. No name, no company. Then he picked up the tube and examined it. It had a design engraved on the tube, a design Devlin recognized, of a tree and a serpent wrapped around the trunk. Devlin placed the pills back in the container and slipped it into his pocket.
Then he walked through the cattle lab out into the morning sun. Early light had arrived. Devlin looked out beyond the ranch for signs of George and his team’s arrival. He took out his last cigar and was about to have the smoke he had been yearning for since he’d left Wright Patterson when the peace was ruined by the sound of blades. Coming in from the horizon was the Logan helicopter. As it got nearer, Devlin could make out a figure in the cockpit aiming a gun on him, waiting for a shot. Just a little closer, thought Devlin. He dropped his cigar, readied his Beretta, stood square on, and bided his time. Just a little closer yet. For a moment Devlin wavered between the tail and the cockpit. Which to go for? Then he made his decision and stuck to it. As the chopper loomed over the lab roof, shots kicked up the turf by Devlin’s feet. But Devlin didn’t flinch and let off all his fifteen rounds into the cockpit. The pilot was hit and the helicopter started to spiral out of control, spinning faster and faster and whipping into the beautiful, flawless Kansas brickwork of the Logan Ranch. The fuel tank blew, and flames spewed from the embedded wreck, traveling with unnatural speed until the entire building was burning like the fire itself had a score to settle.
In the distance, a line of black vehicles filled the highway and began to turn up the dirt track into the ranch.
Devlin bent down to pick up his smoke. Finally, he had his cigar.
71
Fox and Devlin stood a way back in the dusty clearing among the vehicles from Homeland, the Bureau of Crime Investigation, and the emergency services. They had given detailed accounts of night’s events and the last few days to George Brennan and his senior agents. Paramedics had given them both the once-over and treated Devlin’s wounds. They gave him something for the pain, then bound his hand and put it in a sling.
Devlin and Fox stood watching the firefighters trying desperately to contain the inferno that had engulfed the ranch house. But it looked fairly certain that everything worth saving had gone. Beyond the fire, the entrance to the lab had been screened off, and teams dressed in white coveralls were coming and going, like worker bees flying in and out of a hive. Inside they were operating feverishly on Alvarez and examining and stabilizing the other eleven men. The bodies of Packer, Reeves, and Clay had been bagged, and Campbell had been treated for his amputated finger and given a police escort to the hospital.
Stevens was stretchered out to a waiting ambulance. He was critical but stable. Devlin and Fox stood by as he was wheeled up and into the patient compartment. Without raising his head, Stevens whispered to his attending medic, who looked back at Devlin and beckoned him over. Devlin stepped up into the back of the ambulance, and the medic cleared some space for him to get in by Stevens. Devlin stooped to hear Stevens’s breathless and weak voice. He spoke in short, halting sentences.
“I need to say thank you,” said Stevens.
“What the hell for?” asked Devlin.
“I didn’t tell you… The doctor at Miami Valley…he told me my cancer…is in remission…”
“Greg, that’s astonishing. I thought it was untreatable?”
“It was. I know how it happened… It was you, Gabe…you did it. You changed something…fundamental in me. Something I hadn’t had the strength to do all my life… You arrived and the strength was there…”
Devlin was resolute and unwavering in his reply. “No. It was never me. I don’t have that power. I would never want that power in a million years.”
“That’s because…” Stevens was really struggling now, and the medic looked ready to intervene. But he made one last effort to explain. “That’s because you’re an unwilling servant of God, Gabe…and the unwilling ones…well, they’re the only ones worth trusting… The willing ones are all madmen.”
Then Stevens was packed up and the doors to the ambulance slammed shut. The siren screamed and dust flew up in its wake as it sped off under the stone archway. And Stevens was gone. Devlin stood in the settling sand looking troubled.
Fox appeared by Devlin’s shoulder. “I got a ride back to Halton with a couple of the BCI guys.”
“Okay. I need to hang around and clear up some stuff with George. The stuff that happened in Baltimore.”
“Lemus?”
“Yeah. Lemus.”
Fox nodded. She had a puzzled look like something was bothering her.
“What the hell happened in there with Logan? When Clay was screaming? He said that you’d done something to him? He looked like he was having some kind of attack.”
Devlin hesitated. “I’m not sure.”
Fox studied Devlin’s face. She wasn’t convinced. “You think it’s the same thing you talked to me about at the motel, don’t you?”
Devlin looked at Fox, paused, and replied truthfully. “Yeah, I think it’s the same thing. Me and Clay met while you were being held at the ranch. And while we were talking, something happened, same as what happened between me and Earl. Something moved between us. Something that sent Clay over the edge.”
“I don’t want to get all reasonable on your ass, but it might all not be so scary, y’know. There could just be a conventional explanation.”
“You’re right. There could be. I could say stuff like what happened to Clay was a long time coming. That Clay Logan was a man on a precipice. A man in full-tilt denial. I made him hear the right words at the right time. That’s all. Sometimes maybe that’s all that’s needed to cause a man’s conscience to begin to unravel. He did the rest for himself. It was nothing to do with me. I guess you never know when you’ll have your conversion on the road to Damascus. I could say that…but it’d be flat-out bullshit.”
There was another pause. Fox chewed her lip and, unusually for her, looked a little anxious.
“You’re not gonna stay in Halton, are you?”
“No. No. I’m not.”
“Where are you going to go?”
“I have no idea. But I have to go. I have to find out what’s going on, why all this stuff is happening to me and being asked of me, and that’s not going to happen in Halton Springs. Like you said, I haven’t submitted to man’s law, so I’ll have to submit to God’s law. I’m sorry, Fox. I’m sorry I can’t stay here and give you more. Give you everything I should do. Want to. I’m sorry for you, and I’m sorry for me.”
“Don’t be sorry for me, you son of a bitch. Never be sorry for me. It’s your fucking fault anyhow for giving a girl ideas.”
A car horn sounded, and one of George’s guys yelled over at Fox.
Then there was a silence, and they both watched it happen—the moment that could have been. Him leaning in and taking Fox’s face in his hands and she, eyes closed and up on tiptoes, her mouth seeking out his. Then the locking of soft lips. He would hold her waist close to him while they fully embraced. And at that moment, Devlin saw how it might be. Saw himself throwing it all away, letting his vows and his beliefs go hang for a moment in a woman’s arms and a way back to a normal life. He imagined the nights and the mornings to come. Never waking alone again. Imagined how life would taste living it the way everybody else did, drop by normal drop, his life marked out by the seasons and love given and loved returned. The life that had been stolen from him. But as he witnessed this alternative life flash before him, he also knew with absolute certainty that it was not his path.
A horn sounded again and the moment that never was evaporated. Devlin let it go. Fox walked off to her
waiting car, her hair tangled and her face covered in scratches and dirt but still looking beautiful in the pure May morning sun. And Katy Fox was gone.
Brennan was talking to a couple of guys from the med team, so Devlin waited patiently until he was able to break off. Then Brennan flashed him a smile.
“Good news, Gabe. Alvarez is okay. He can be moved to a real hospital, and guess what? It ain’t gonna be Dayton fucking Freedom. The other eleven are gonna need a long time to recover physically and emotionally from the sheer volume of sedatives and anesthetics they’ve been pumped full of. They won’t know which way is up, poor bastards. And a team of our guys just arrested Marie Vallory at her office. We got enough on her now to put her away for life. Well done, Gabe. Well done. You want the glory? We could make sure what you did here gets to the all the right ears.”
“No. Thanks but no thanks, George.”
“No. I figured not. You always found that stuff kind of painful.”
And indeed Devlin did look uncharacteristically awkward, vulnerable even. Something was clearly troubling him. As he spoke he almost stuttered.
“George, did you sort out the other…problem?”
Brennan sensed his unease and didn’t play on it. He gave Devlin the release he needed. “Yeah. Yeah, Gabe. It’s sorted. There was no CCTV. Never was any. It was a bullshit bluff. There’s no evidence linking you to that…incident.” Brennan paused. He could tell Devlin how Otterman and Bradley were at that moment being held at a black site in Poland. How by the time Brennan’s team had finished with them and finally given them back their liberty, they would never want to even think about Felix Lemus or Father Gabriel Devlin for the rest of their lives. But instead, he said, “And those two clowns that call themselves PIs. We intercepted them at Dulles Airport. Long story short, you never have to worry about them again. You have my word.”
“I want them to see the inside of a court for what they did to Hector.”
“I’ll make that happen.”
“Thanks, George.” Devlin extended a hand, and Brennan shook it warmly.
“Believe me, it’s small fish compared to the job you’ve done here.”
“It was good to see you again, George.”
“Likewise, Gabe. Likewise. Listen, one of my boys will give you a lift back to town… I mean, Jesus, it’s the very least I can do.” Brennan pointed to a black Subaru sitting in the clearing. “I’ll go tell him he’s got a passenger. A regular VIP.”
Brennan chuckled and walked over to the waiting car. He tapped on the driver’s window, and it whirred down.
The agent at the wheel greeted Brennan. “Sir.”
“Hey. I got someone that needs a ride to back into Halton.”
“No problem, sir. Who is it?”
“The guy over there.” Brennan turned to point out Devlin. But Devlin wasn’t there.
“Which guy, sir?”
“Where the hell’s he gone? Dammit. Hold on.” Brennan marched back to the spot where he’d been talking to Devlin a moment earlier and scanned the ranch. Then he asked anyone in the vicinity if they’d seen a big guy with dark hair and an arm in a sling. But no one had. It seemed like the priest had vanished off the face of the earth.
Epilogue
The truck pulled out of a stop a few miles east of the town of Anna, Ohio. Refueled and refreshed, the driver was ready for a nine-hour haul eastward. Just as he turned onto the highway and began to pick up speed, he spotted a shambling figure a little farther up walking along the shoulder. As he passed, he noticed the man had his arm in a sling and his clothes were stained and ripped. The truck driver had never stopped to pick up anyone in his entire time on the road. He was never in need of any other company than the radio and was no passing Samaritan. But this time, for some inexplicable reason, he felt a pang of guilt, and in a split second he decided to pull over. The sixteen-wheeler groaned to a stop, and the rig hissed and complained and settled. Then he pushed the cab door open. After a few moments, the man in the ripped clothes appeared by the side of the road and looked up at the truck driver. The driver saw that he was a tall, broad man with a kind of battered nobility.
“Hey, fella. You need a ride?”
“Yeah. Yeah. As matter of fact, I do. Where you headed?”
“East Hampton.”
“How about that. Me too.”
“Okay. Get up here, my friend.”
The passenger climbed up into the cab and slammed the door shut, and the truck began its slow acceleration again. Devlin got his aching body and limbs comfortable in the wide cabin seat and glanced down at the silver tube he had in his good hand. He lifted it up and inspected the letters inscribed into the bottom of Clay Logan’s pillbox. “Montauk Jewelers. East Hampton.”
How about that, thought Devlin. Looks like I’m being shown a path.
As the truck ran through its gears and hit cruising speed, Devlin stared out at the flat Ohio landscape.
And then the word came back to him, the word that had told him what he was. His punishment and destination.
“Azazel.” The fallen. The banished. Wilderness.
A note from the author
You’ve finished the first Gabe Devlin thriller but there’s more to come…!
If you’ve enjoyed The Redemption Man so much that you’re curious for more please click below and subscribe…
http://eepurl.com/gdVyyX
Or visit my homepage for more info…
https://www.jamescarverauthor.com/
The second Gabe Devlin thriller ‘Fallen Beasts’ is coming soon!