The Searcher

by Simon Toyne

  Tío stared at his dead son. Mouth open.

  “Put the gun down, Papa,” Ramon said. “I think we need to talk.”

  73

  CASSIDY WATCHED THE TRUCK PULL UP BY THE CHURCH AND THE SOLDIERS get out.

  He was standing by his study window, the lights switched off, the shutter open enough for him to see outside but not enough for people to see in. He didn’t want anyone to know he was there. He told himself this was sensible, given the situation, but in some deep-down part of himself where he buried the things he didn’t like to look at he knew the real truth. And the truth was, he was scared.

  He had thought that with the arrival of the DEA task force he would have felt secure, that this would have drawn a line under his fears for the town. Morgan certainly seemed happier. He could see him out of his window now, talking to one of the soldiers and pointing at the church. More soldiers appeared next to him and began unloading things from the back of the van, big black boxes that took two men to lift. They carried them down the path, shuffling toward the church with straight backs and bent knees, and started stacking them by the door.

  Cassidy considered heading out and offering to help, partly because he wanted to be more instrumental in the defense of his town but also so he could find out what was in the crates. Morgan glanced over in his direction and Cassidy froze. He didn’t want to give away with a movement the fact that he was there. He didn’t know why he felt this but he did, and he indulged it. Morgan studied the house for a few minutes then looked away again.

  Cassidy let out a breath and realized he had been holding it. He watched Morgan walk away, following the shuffling pairs of black-clad soldiers as they carried the crates toward the church. Morgan reached the door and opened it for them using a key only a few people in town had in their possession. Pete Tucker had been one. Jim Coronado too, briefly. It suddenly struck Cassidy that he was the only one of the three sheriffs left. Again, it put him in mind of the old-time westerns where some lone marshal played by Gary Cooper or John Wayne stood up to the outlaws for the sake of his town, though he didn’t feel much like either of them at the moment. He felt more like the coward who hid in the barn until the shooting was over.

  He watched the soldiers carrying the crates into the church and glanced over at the paneled door by the fireplace that led down to the tunnel connecting the house to the church. It had been built by Jack Cassidy in his later years when his fame had become a burden to him. The tunnel meant he could leave the sanctity of the residence library, appear like an apparition among the townsfolk to preach his weekly sermon, then be gone again before the prayers had ended.

  Cassidy looked up at the portrait hanging above the fireplace. It had been painted in Jack’s later years when success and money had softened the edges of him a little. His eyes had never softened though, and they seemed to be staring straight at him now, challenging him to stand up and be brave.

  Cassidy took a deep breath then walked over to the paneled door and felt inside the edge for the hidden catch. The door sprung open and he listened for a moment, trying to hear any sound that might have been communicated down the tunnel from the church. He heard nothing, not even distant voices.

  He started down the stone steps, careful not to make a sound, and headed down into the earth and onward to the church.

  74

  TíO KEPT HIS GUN POINTING AT HIS SON, HIS NATURALLY SUSPICIOUS mind convinced that this must be a trick. It couldn’t be Ramon, it couldn’t. He studied the lines of his face for something out of place but found nothing, stole a glance at the photograph of the fire-blackened skull, the metal plate exactly where it should be.

  “I staged that,” Ramon said. “Paid some motorbike freak of a meth head who’d had his head all smashed up in a crash to take a short plane flight and deliver a package. It was a bomb, but he didn’t know that.” He nodded at Mulcahy. “Nobody knew, not even the people I trusted.” He looked at the photograph, rubbing at the spot on his head where his scar was. “I guess we all look the same under the skin. You know, it was real nice watching you just then, seeing how cut up you were about me being dead and hearing all those nice things you were saying about me. You never said anything like that when I was still alive.”

  Tío opened his mouth to speak but Ramon held his hand up to stop him. “It’s okay, Papa, I guess I deserved some of it, the things I did, the trouble I caused.” He continued rubbing at the scar on his head as if it was hurting now. “I knew you were never going to bring me in on the business.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Shhhh. Let’s be honest now. No lies. I figured I had to work out some way of showing you that I was up to the job. You’d have to hand it all over to someone eventually. No one lives forever. Only I don’t think you ever figured that person would be me. Nobody else did either, but people hate uncertainty, so I offered them continuity. So what do you think, you proud of me now? You think I’m enough of your son to be a worthy successor?”

  Tío shook his head, still trying to process the fact that his son was still alive. “I always wanted you to take over,” he said. “But I never figured you were ready.”

  Ramon opened his arms wide and smiled. “Put the gun down, Papa.”

  Tío lowered his gun, opened his arms, and embraced his son. He closed his eyes and felt as if his heart had just started beating again, like he had broken to the surface after a long swim in the dark.

  His son was alive. His son was alive.

  He held him tight, like he hadn’t done since he was small, and felt the warmth of his own flesh hugging him back.

  “You never gave me any credit, Pop,” Ramon whispered softly. “How was I ever supposed to become king with you sitting on the throne and never, ever leaving your mountaintop fortress? I had to figure a way around that too.” He hugged him tighter. “And here you are.”

  The pain was sudden and intense.

  Tío gasped and stumbled back, reaching behind him for whatever had caused it. Wet warmth pulsed over his hands and down his back and he could feel a coldness creeping into his core. Wetness pattered on the floor behind him and when he turned, Mulcahy stepped away from the spray. He had a knife in his hand, different from the one he had held before, thin as a needle and wet with blood—his blood. Tío tried to raise his gun but it felt too heavy.

  “I’m sorry, Tío,” Mulcahy said as Tío’s knees buckled and he fell forward onto the ground. “You didn’t give me any choice.”

  Tío was kneeling on the ground now, his head drooping forward, his eyes staring down at the concrete floor where his blood was pooling around him. He felt cold, so cold, a deep cold he had not felt since childhood when he had hidden in the poppy fields and the fever from his buckshot wounds had started coming on.

  He turned his head, searching for Ramon, and saw him looking down on him with the light of triumph in his eyes. “I’m proud of you,” Tío said, clutching at his chest where his heart felt like it was splitting in two. “I never knew you had it in you.”

  Then the coldness squeezed the last warmth from him and he slumped forward onto a floor wet with his blood and as red as the poppies from his childhood.

  75

  HOLLY GASPED WHEN TíO’S FACE HIT THE CONCRETE. SOLOMON TURNED to her.

  Her eyes were staring down at the body and she had gone almost as white as Solomon was. He realized she had probably never before seen someone killed right in front of her and she was probably going into shock, her mind shutting down rather than trying to deal with what it was witnessing. None of it had bothered him at all. Seeing a man stabbed through the heart and bleeding to death did not seem exotic to his strange mind.

  “The king is dead,” he said, loud enough so everyone would hear. “Long live the king—but for how long, I wonder?”

  Ramon turned to him. “What’s that you say?”

  Solomon stared into his flat, bottomless eyes. “King killers rarely last long. Perhaps it’s because their reigns always begin with such a clea
r demonstration of how easy it is to end it again.”

  Ramon stepped up to him, so close he could feel his breath on his face. “You know you’re still tied up, so the smart move would be to show me some respect here? Lucky for you, you did me a favor, turning up when you did and drawing so much attention. You were like a fat little maggot wriggling on the hook I’d set for my papa.” He looked down at the body on the floor, blood spreading out from it in a steadily widening pool. “But now I landed the fish, I guess I don’t need the maggot anymore.”

  He turned to Mulcahy and pointed at Holly. “Cut her down and put her in the car. You’re both coming with me.” He pointed at Andrews. “You—burn this place down and everything in it.” He looked back at Solomon. “And I mean everything. He dies as hard as it gets, understand? I don’t want to be hearing no gunfire while I’m driving away, no mercy shots. Meet us back at the church when you’re done.” He glanced down at his father’s body. “Least a son can do is respect the last wishes of his father.”

  Then he turned and walked away, heading into the black square of night framed by the hangar door.

  76

  CASSIDY FELT HIS WAY ALONG THE TUNNEL. HE DIDN’T WANT TO TURN A light on and alert anyone in the church that someone was coming, and he’d walked it enough times in the light to be able to do it in the dark. He could hear voices now, echoing down from the church, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  Cassidy reached the stone steps leading to the vestry and walked up them steadily, taking one at a time and placing both feet on each step before proceeding to the next so he could better maintain his balance and avoid making any sound.

  He made it to the top of the stairs and pressed his ear to the door, trying to work out how close they were. From the scuffing of shoes and dragging of furniture it sounded like they were right in the heart of the church, over by the altar.

  Very carefully he opened the door and peered into the church. The vestry area was curtained, so he couldn’t see much. He listened for a few moments, only moving forward when he was sure no one was close. He pressed his head flat against the partition wall and peered through the narrow gap where the curtain didn’t quite meet it.

  Four black crates were lined up along the central aisle and one of the soldiers was crouched in the middle of them, doing something on the floor that Cassidy couldn’t see from where he was. He stayed hunkered down for a moment then stood and walked away, his footsteps echoing until the bang of the closing door silenced them entirely. Cassidy heard the key twist in the lock. Waited a minute in case anyone came back, then broke cover and moved across the flagstones to the aisle.

  He lifted the lid on the first crate and saw four five-gallon cans lined up inside. He unscrewed the cap from one, glancing nervously at the door while he did so, still terrified someone might come back. The cap came loose and he smelled the chemical fumes. It was gasoline. Eighty gallons of it lined up inside his church.

  He moved to the center of the aisle where the soldier had been crouching and saw a smaller box with a keypad, a display screen, and a slot for a key. The screen was blank, which suggested it wasn’t live yet. Cassidy wasn’t exactly sure what it was but the thought of what it might be made him go cold.

  He looked back at the door and fished his phone from his pocket, thinking about who he could call. Everyone he might once have called was now dead—Stella, Pete Tucker, Jim Coronado. Morgan was the only one left, but he had helped transport this giant Molotov cocktail into the church. Hell, he’d even used his key to let them in. He racked his brain for someone else he could trust and started going through the contacts menu on his phone. Who would stand up against a bunch of armed soldiers? Then it struck him. The soldiers, or whatever they were, must all be fake too. Morgan had never called the DEA and told them what was happening here. Which meant Cassidy still could.

  He moved quickly over to the window where the signal would be better and dialed the number of someone he knew in the sheriff’s department over in Globe—someone he trusted. If he could tell them what was happening here, they could send over some real agents, or get a helicopter airborne to offer air support and chase these people away from his town before they had a chance to arm this bomb and do some real damage.

  The beeps of the dialing phone sounded much too loud in the quiet of the church and Cassidy pressed it against his jacket to muffle it and raised it to his ear only when it had stopped. He glanced back at the door, waiting for the ring tone to sound. Instead it beeped twice and a “Call Failed” message flashed up on his screen.

  He checked the signal. Saw he had no service. Moved back to the vestry where he usually had stronger reception and found he had no service there either. Maybe they were jamming the cell-phone signal.

  He hurried back over to the vestry and down the steps, heading through the dark to his office and the phone on his desk. He listened at the door again before opening it, paranoid that someone might be there, waiting for him. He heard nothing and burst into his study, grabbing the phone from its cradle and raising it to his ear.

  It was dead.

  They’d cut the landlines.

  He was on his own.

  77

  SOLOMON WATCHED ANDREWS POUR THE CONTENTS OF A GAS CAN OVER Tío’s body, making sure it was nice and soaked. The liquid was straw colored—aviation fuel. He poured the rest on the ground around where Solomon was standing. His mind was humming, sucking in every detail, measuring distances, fixing on the details of how he could get out of here. He could see his shirt and jacket, folded on a bench by the exit door. He pictured himself putting them back on and walking out of the door. He willed it to happen.

  Andrews splashed more fuel up the walls and over the workbench opposite. He watched it drip down the faces of Papa Tío’s dead daughters and soak into the picture of the skull, the skull that wasn’t Ramon. Solomon thought of Ramon now with Holly. His interest in her was the only thing keeping her alive, but it wouldn’t last. He needed to get free and find them before Ramon tired of her. But first he had to stay alive.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he said.

  Andrews ignored him. He unscrewed the cap from another can and kicked it over, the fuel spilling over the floor toward Solomon’s feet, the fumes choking the air.

  “How much are they paying you?”

  Andrews found some oily work rags and dipped them in the fuel on the floor, stepping back to keep his boots dry. He picked the rags up and let them drip a little then pulled a lighter from his pocket and struck a flame.

  “It’s not so much the money,” he said, staring at the flame, not at Solomon. “It’s more what they will do to my family if I don’t work with them.” He turned the soaked rags, teasing the flame around them until it was almost curling up to his hand. “It’s nothing personal. I’m sorry.”

  Then he dropped the burning rag in the puddle of fuel, turned, and walked away.

  78

  THE SOUND OF THE LOCK OPENING ECHOED IN THE EMPTY CHURCH, THEN Ramon pushed the door open and walked in, sniffing the air like it smelled bad. “Fuckin’ hate churches,” he said. “Give me the creeps.” He studied the exhibits by the door, the mannequin standing by the covered wagon, the Long Tom sluice box still working away, refining nothing out of nothing. “What is all this shit?”

  Morgan appeared behind him, an M6 assault rifle slung across his shoulder. He hadn’t held a weapon like this since Iraq and he liked the feel of it, like he was doing proper work. “It’s for the tourists,” he said, “to get them to come over here and visit the church.”

  Ramon nodded. “Guess you gotta try something. So where’s the mayor?”

  “We haven’t found him yet,” Morgan said. “We’ve searched his residence, but it’s empty. There’s a tunnel over there leading to it. Thought he might be hiding in there.”

  “They got bedrooms in this residence?”

  “Yes—it has bedrooms.”

  Ramon turned and stared at Holly, standing in the door
way, handcuffed between two guards. “Then let’s go check out this tunnel.”

  He moved down the aisle, past the crates of gasoline and the detonator box, heading to where Morgan had pointed. Morgan went in front and led him over to the vestry. The guards followed with Holly.

  Morgan pulled the curtain aside and stopped. He’d been wondering when the best time to broach this subject might be and figured now was as good a time as any. “The church . . .” he said, turning back to face Ramon.

  “What about it?”

  “Do we have to burn it?”

  Ramon looked puzzled, as though Morgan had just suggested the sun might like to rise in the west for a change.

  “I mean, I know why your father wanted to burn it down, as some sort of symbolic gesture of revenge because he thought the town had betrayed you and caused your death. Only we didn’t betray you. We helped you. And you’re not dead. So, I was thinking maybe we didn’t need to torch the church now either.”

  Ramon smiled. “You like this church?”

  Morgan nodded.

  “Then find me the mayor and we’ll talk about it. Can’t have any loose ends here, not if you want to keep doing business.” He stepped past him and stopped by a wooden door set into the wall. “This where you think he might be hiding out?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Then you go first,” Ramon said, stepping aside. “You’re the one holding the fuckin’ M6.”

  79

  THE MOMENT ANDREWS TURNED AWAY SOLOMON GRABBED THE ROPE WITH his hands and flipped his legs up, turning himself upside down. Pain lanced through his shoulder where the skin had been peeled away, but he used it to help him focus. Feeling pain meant he was alive, so he welcomed it.