Cutting edge s--1

by Robert W. Walker

  “Really?”

  “From a certain precinct house,” continued Bullock. “In fact, from your office, Dr. Sanger.”

  She knew this to be a lie, that Randy had not used the office computer to obtain the list. “Someone broke into my office some time back,” she offered, “Lucas, you remember when it occurred.”

  Lucas nodded assertedly. “It must be related.”

  Price added, “When Mad Matisak came into prominence, there was some interest, but no one really wanted to be associated with the Vampire Files, as they were called. Then, as Tim said, people started getting bumped off, and the FBI's main concern was that the victims were on a list created by the FBI. If it got out… well, what with Waco, the Ruby Ridge thing, and all the other garbage leveled at the FBI of late… well, you can imagine how concerned our superiors are.” Price twirled a swizzle stick between his decidedly thick fingers.

  The clatter of dishware in the hotel dining room grew with their silent response.

  “One more thing we found that almost all, but not quite all, of the people on the list had in common,” added Bullock.

  “What's that?”

  “They were all into computers, modems, using the Net, and as young people they all played computer games.”

  “Games? Like Doom?”

  “Doom, Cutthroat, the darker the better.”

  “Helsinger's Pit,” Meredyth muttered. 'That, too, and don't think for a moment we haven't seen the parallels to these murders. We just didn't know until your input how far back the killings went.”

  'Then whoever's doing this, they're ostensibly doing it for the same object as the game?” asked Lucas. “To rid the world of devil worshippers?”

  “Particularly devil worshippers with money, obviously,” added Meredyth. Bullock gave a shrug, saying, “Root of all evil, right, Dr. Sanger?”

  “And the killers have become their own cult,” she countered. “Thanks to the luxury and efficiency of the computer and Internet,” added Price.

  “Every computer has the potential of becoming a New Age pulpit,” finished Lucas. Isn 't that what Randy Oglesby said? he thought.

  “So, what's your next move, Stonecoat, Dr. Sanger?” asked Bullock.

  “I'm not sure. Return to Texas, start looking for tracks there, maybe computer tracks?” she offered noncommittally.

  “Sounds a logical step, no pun intended.” Bullock stood, and the others followed suit.

  Price said, “Well, good night and happy hunting. We do hope you two will keep us informed.”

  “And vice versa,” replied Meredyth.

  “Of course, of course…”

  They all parted at the dinner table, each of them knowing it was a game of who got the answers first. Lucas shook hands with the government men, and Meredyth smiled, and all was congenial. Lucas and Meredyth were stopped, however, when Tim Bullock said, “And by the way, in case you hadn't heard, your friend Covey?”

  “Covey?” asked Meredyth.

  “John Covey.”

  “Jack,” added Price.

  “What about him?” asked Lucas.

  “He's dead.”

  “Dead? How?”

  Meredyth's face fell.

  “Usual prison whodunit. Still under investigation.”

  “Damn,” muttered Lucas, taking Meredyth by the arm.

  “If we're so transparent to the FBI,” she whispered to him, “what must we be to the killers?”

  Bullock, hearing this, also whispered for their ears, saying, “Have you considered the distinct possibility that the Shirley killings were simply to get you out of Houston?”

  Lucas stared at Bullock, incredulous. “What? That's just crazy.”

  “You two got Covey killed. We never went near him.”

  Meredyth gritted her teeth. “You can't believe that these people would just randomly select two innocent people for execution for the sole purpose of… of…”

  “Of keeping their dirty operations secret? Yes, we can believe that.” Price's voice was sympathetic.

  Meredyth was sickened by the thought that the Shirleys had possibly had nothing whatever to do with this.

  “Neither of the Shirleys was ever on the Vampire List,” added Bullock.

  “What are we to conclude from that?” asked Price. 'That you'd best watch your backs here, because the murdered couple were setups, dummies, just to lure you two here for a possible ambush?”

  Lucas put his arm protectively around Meredyth and walked her out to the valet stand, where they picked up their rental and headed for the Prairie Wind. It was near midnight.

  “Pretty damned cooperative for the feds, wouldn't you say?” he asked her as they drove off.

  “I wouldn't know. I've never worked with the feds before. Have you?”

  “On occasion. They're typically tight-lipped, unless… unless they need something from you. Then they're willing to bargain.”

  'Then I'd say we came away with more than they did. Randy tried to tell us about the killing games on computer, the cyberspace conspiracy, the Vampire List, but we weren't buying it. Now this.”

  “Don't get any false ideas from those clowns back there, Meredyth. We didn't cause Covey's death or the deaths of the Shirleys.”

  “But suppose it's true? That we were lured here for a purpose?”

  “Then we'd better tread lightly.”

  She replied coldly, her eyes like broken glass, “We got the order to be here from Captain Lawrence.”

  “You can't seriously suspect that Lawrence would be a party to such callous murder?”

  “Lately… I don't know what to believe or who to trust. Do you?”

  “Well, darling, that goes double for our FBI friends as well. I'd like to think we had friends in high places, but I'm not so sure about those two chumps.”

  “I'm beginning to feel that creeping paranoia you always associate with psychosis,” she replied.

  “Is that feeling anything like being inside a rattle and all the beans are popping and swapping noise, until you don't know which one to listen to?”

  She nodded. “That's it. That's the feeling…”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  “God, I need a shower,” Meredyth moaned just outside her door as they stood together in the lodge hallway.

  They had let the military jet fly back without them, booking a flight on a commercial airliner for 7:40 A.M.

  “How about a nightcap? We can raid your wet bar,” he suggested.

  “Whenever do you sleep?” she asked. “No, we've got an early flight tomorrow, remember?”

  He heaved a heavy sigh, frowned, and nodded, going for his own room. Surprisingly, Lucas found himself very mellow and sleepy-eyed when he pulled back the covers and lay down on the bed. He snatched away his shirt and pants, leaving just his shorts, enjoying the stillness of the night. He had opened a window to the cool South Dakota evening.

  He didn't think he'd have trouble sleeping tonight. Something about working as a detective again had helped him in so many ways, he could not begin to thank Meredyth enough. He made a mental note to do so as he drifted off to sleep.

  Lucas had been hopeful that he and Meredyth might find a common sexual interest in one another, and to that end, he had changed his room at the front desk. His room had been opposite hers, across the hall, but now it was adjacent, a mere pair of doors between them, which he had toyed with on entering, trying to get up the nerve to knock, but hadn't. Now he heard a rattle, a snake rattle… no, the rattle of keys, perhaps, just outside in the hallway, and the second shook him from slumber. At first he thought it might be her, knocking at the adjoining door, but no, this was a set of keys and a turning lock. Other guests, he assumed.

  Still, curious, Stonecoat slipped from bed to investigate the noise. He heard muted voices. “No one there,” he heard.

  Stonecoat grabbed his gun and the empty ice bucket, tore his door wide while concealing the gun behind the bucket, and saw that it was one of the young Indian sons of the prop
rietor, snooping in his old room. Their eyes met.

  The jet-black eyes quivered, and the boy with the copper skin said, “I knocked, but no answer.”

  “Were you looking for me?” asked Lucas.

  “Yes. They told me to locate you.”

  “They?”

  He looked nervously past Lucas, his eyes darting. “FBI.”

  “Oh, those clowns.” Stonecoat followed the boy's eyes, only to see shadowy figures and some sort of glinting metal in the dark vestibule. He suddenly recognized it as the business end of a crossbow pointed at him-he guessed- from the end of the hall. “Hit the floor!” he shouted and dove at once, springing the gun from the bucket and firing to his left twice, his right once. Two arrows whizzed by, their whirring noise ending with two jarring thuds and an outcry from the boy.

  The shadowy assassins had dematerialized with the gunshots. “Meredyth!” he shouted, got to his feet and lunged through her door as she opened it, having been awakened by the noise.

  He grabbed her, and using his gun as a ram, knocked over the single lamp she'd turned on, then cushioned her fall as he pushed her down, all in one fluid motion. At the same instant a window was shattered, and over Meredyth's ear, she heard the singing, snakelike hiss of another arrow whipping by.

  “Are you all right?” Lucas asked as they lay together in the darkness, their hearts beating a dangerous anthem.

  “Why are these guys such poor shots?” she asked.

  “We had some warning. None of their other victims had the slightest idea they were targets.”

  Stonecoat made his way to her window, cutting his feet on broken glass but not making a sound, his Browning automatic clutched in his massive hand. He stared out on a moonlit mesa filled with stunted trees, each one looking like an assassin. The South Dakota night did what it was meant to do. There were shadows and deep black holes everywhere he looked, any one of which could conceal assassins with crossbows. He searched for any sign of movement anywhere, but there was only a deafening silence and stillness mocking him. He wanted to climb out the window, go in search of the men who had done this, but he feared leaving Meredyth alone.

  “No one out there. Fled like crows in the night,” he whispered.

  “Bastards,” she growled. “Gutless cowards.”

  They heard groaning and tearful crying from the hallway. The boy, remembered Lucas, rushing to the door, past the steel shaft in the wall. Meredyth quickly followed and lost her breath, seeing the young Indian boy impaled by the neck against the door.

  “Damn! Don't move! Stay perfectly still,” Lucas was saying to the boy as his family came running out.

  There was bedlam and panic from the boy's parents, but Lucas shouted everyone down. “You want the boy to live through this? Do as I say! You, Jake,” he said to the big brother, “get on the phone and call 911. Seth,” he shouted to the boy's stunned father, “get a pair of metal cutters, no, bolt cutters, you got that, Seth? You got that? Hurry!”

  The father ran off after the cutters. Lucas shouted to the mother to be ready with a blanket to keep her son warm, and he told the sister to get a clean sheet to cut and clot the blood with. “And some plastic.”

  “Plastic?” she asked.

  “Like a bag, Baggies. Clean ones.”

  The arrow had gone clear through, the arrowhead sticking out the other side of the door, the feathers tickling the boy's throat. “Don't struggle against the arrow, son,” he now told the boy, whose eyes beseeched him to do something.

  “We'll get you to the hospital. You'll be all right. I can see from the amount of blood that no vital blood vessel was hit. You were, believe it or not, very lucky.”

  He didn't look lucky, Meredyth thought. Rather, he looked as if he had been suddenly turned into one of those helpless butterflies pinned to a box.

  The father returned with a pair of large bolt cutters to snip off the arrowhead so the shaft could be pulled through the boy's neck with one quick yank, but rather than turn the cutters over to Lucas, he said, “This is for me to do. Your enemies, whoever they are, are still lurking outside. I heard them. Go.”

  Lucas nodded and started away. Meredyth shouted, “Wait a minute, Stonecoat. You're not going out there alone.”

  “Stay with these people. They may need your protection. And wrap the wound in plastic and bandages. It'll stanch the blood flow.”

  “And who's going to protect you from yourself?” she shouted as he disappeared out the back door.

  Lucas had viciously attacked the back door, kicking at the bar lock running across it, throwing it open, and leaping like a pronghorn sheep out into the darkness, going into a tumble, ignoring his limitations, knowing he'd be sore in the morning. He now scrambled to a boulder jammed between two white pines. The darkness painted everything black now, the moon having found refuge behind scudding clouds. In the distance, the howl of a lone wolf tugged achingly at the heart, while a tickling breeze played its fingers over Lucas's perspiring brow.

  His heart was beating like a running buffalo's, but he felt alive and strong and at ease with himself.

  The door behind him jack-hammered open again, and he saw Meredyth racing toward him. “Get down!” he shouted, as a steel-shafted arrow suddenly twanged into the tree beside his head, inches from his temple.

  Lucas had to fire blindly in the direction from which the arrow had come, spitting as it had like a coal from hell, but his true attention was drawn by Meredyth, whom he pulled down beside him. “Damn it, I told you to stay put.”

  “I'm not leaving you alone to fight these madmen!”

  'Then at least be quiet.”

  “Do you hear something?” she asked.

  “Over you, you mean?”

  “Sounds like someone moaning.”

  “A wolf,” he suggested.

  “No, definitely human.

  “Maybe I got dumb shit lucky.” He cocked an ear to his left, the direction from which the arrow had come whizzing at him. Someone was groaning. “Maybe I hit the bastard,” Lucas again suggested.

  In the distance, they heard the approach of an ambulance siren, help coming for the kid. But it also appeared to send the rats scurrying. Shadows were suddenly moving everywhere, two, three, then four, as the moon slowly revealed itself and the purple landscape all around them.

  “Fire at will!” shouted Lucas, who raised his weapon and began firing alongside Meredyth, who was also frantically firing, when suddenly Lucas went down with a thud, as if hit.

  Meredyth grabbed him up in her arms, certain that he'd been hit, but there was no arrow and there was no blood from a gunshot wound. She called his name several times before he opened his eyes.

  Lucas grimaced and jerked awake, not knowing at first where he was but smelling Meredyth's sweet fragrance all around him. He pulled himself up, shook off the blackout.

  “What happened, Lucas?”

  “I must've gotten hit by a fragment of stone or something.”

  “I saw no return fire.”

  “It was a ricochet,” he lied.

  She remained unconvinced, but glad that he was again conscious. The ambulance screeched its way to a stop around front. “Maybe you'd better go to the hospital, too,” she suggested.

  “No, no way… no more hospitals for Lucas Stonecoat.”

  “Stubborn.”

  “It's part of my charm. Did you hit anything? You fired your whole clip.”

  “No, I don't think so. It was just too dark. Like shooting at phantoms.”

  “I saw one go down. Think I got him in the leg. They sure ran like jackrabbits. Thought they were going to come back, finish us off.” He smiled with abundant pleasure and pride.

  “You realize we've become targets of these crazed assassins.”

  “We're onto them and they know it. And if it was Pardee and Amelford in Houston who jumped me, and if they were talking about Helsinger's Pit like Randy theorized?”

  “Then we're talking a major conspiracy within the department.”


  “That sounds so… so… so crazy…”

  “People everywhere are sick of the justice system's inability to deal with growing crime,” he suggested.

  She had to agree. “Juveniles with thirty or forty previous counts of robbery, rape, assault being put into the revolving-door system, only to step back out to murder someone.”

  “Plenty of angry, frustrated people who might feel it necessary to take the law into their own hands, and cops are people, too, after all… myself notwithstanding.”

  “But a conspiracy within the Houston Police Department to take vigilante justice against men like Mootry, Little… It's like… like a Dirty Harry movie or a really, really bad suspense novel.”

  “But if it's true… if it's only partially true, and we don't have all the pieces by any means…”

  “Then who? Who's involved? I mean, God knows who such a conspiracy might involve.”

  “Lawrence?”

  “You instinctively disliked him from day one, didn't you? I know I have from the day I met the man.”

  “Well, yeah… but… maybe it's just my dislike for authority and white men in control of my life.”

  “He stood in your way, didn't he?” She hammered her point home. “And he's stood in my way since the first moment I showed concern over the Mootry case. Maybe his thick headedness has a cause I was never supposed to uncover.”

  “You're jumping to conclusions,” he said, trying to caution Meredyth.

  “And who else knew we were coming to South Dakota? We were set up, pure and simple.”

  “The FBI obviously knew about us, and from what Price and Bullock said, almost anyone could track us cybernetically. Damn… damn, but you're right about one thing.”

  “What's that?”

  “Someone set us up for murder, and I should go after them, track them,” he told her now.

  “No, there's too many of them, and obviously they've planned their escape route, know exactly where they're going. You'll just be wasting your time. Besides, you get out there alone… have another blackout, and you could be… killed.”

  “It wasn't a blackout.”

  “I'll keep your secrets, Lucas, but don't lie to me.”