by Jason Frost
Christ, what had he done back there? Slapped her. She'd never forgive him for that. Never. What had come over him? He'd never hit a woman before, never even came close. But she'd gotten him so angry, ordering him around, flirting with that bastard Ravensmith. He had no choice now. The only way he could redeem himself with her was to find her father or the papers and get them safely back to the shuttle. It was his only hope.
He moved through the woods using the fox walk, just as they'd taught him. His sergeant's Bronx accent rang in his ears now: "Don't none of yous get out dere and walk like yous usually do. Clomp, clomp wit yer heads down and big strides. In da woods you'd scare da animals, sos if da VC ain't hoid ya before, dey hoid yous now. Walk like da fox, short, smooth strides, rolling yer foot from da outside to da inside. Body and head erect, like yer dicks is most of da time."
Steve was pleased as he tramped silently using the fox walk. He'd pause every few hundred yards to listen, but he didn't hear or see any movement. Fallows and his men must be further behind than Ravensmith thought. But just to be safe, he'd start circling soon, covering his tracks. Once Fallows was past him, he could move much faster.
Something came to his mind as he fox walked through the dark forest. A line of poetry of all things. Paige was always trying to get him to read poems and sometimes he'd picked up one of her books just to make her think he actually enjoyed it. He didn't. Still, that line suddenly popped in his head. "The woods are lovely, dark and deep." He didn't remember who wrote it, or what came next. Just one of those things. Maybe when this was all over he'd ask Paige.
Enough backtracking, he thought, and started to veer off into a wide arc. He'd walked less than ten feet from the tracks Eric had left so plainly for Fallows to follow when he heard a rustling in the tree above him. He swiveled the SPAS shotgun up and looked for a target. A man was aiming an M-16 at him. Steve pulled the trigger and the twelve-gauge blew a mushy hole through the man's chest. He dropped from the tree, smacking three or four branches on the way down.
Suddenly, Steve watched the ground open around him as two men who'd been buried in shallow holes and covered with leaves and dead branches popped up with their guns aimed at his head.
One of the men went over to the dead man, prodded him with his boot. Shook his head at his partner.
"Well, well," the partner said, more annoyed than angry. "Get his stuff."
The first gunman stripped the weapons from the dead man.
"What are you going to do?" Steve asked, his voice quivering despite himself.
"That ain't the question, sonny." The second gunman chuckled. "It's what you're gonna do that counts."
"What do you mean?"
"He wants to know what I mean," the first gunman said.
The second gunman grinned. "Let's surprise him."
15.
Col. Dirk Fallows ran his thick calloused hand over his short white hair. The stiff bristles flexed back like the plastic teeth of a comb. "Well, boys, any ideas?"
Cyrus Phelps said, "I think we oughta soak some rawhide in water, see, then tie it real tight around his balls. Then when the sun comes out and dries the rawhide, see, it tightens and crushes his nuts. I read that in a book, I think."
Fallows shook his head. "It's the middle of the night, Phelps. We don't have time to wait for the damned sun to come out."
Phelps shrugged. Hell, he'd tried.
Fallows gazed at Steve Connors, sitting against that big pine tree with his knees huddled against his chest, trying not to look scared and failing miserably. Good, Fallows thought, he's got plenty to be scared about. Listening to a few more lunatic ideas ought to put him in just the right mood. "Anybody else?"
"I don't know, maybe." Dean Leyson stepped forward. He'd served with Fallows in 'Nam. "Remember the time on the Delta, you stripped that guy, some dumb-fuck farmer, and strapped his head to a jigsaw. Then you attached that plastic garbage bag to his butt and dick so that if he had to go to the bathroom, it would go in the bag. Only thing is, you rigged it so any weight in that bag would flip the switch and start the saw. Man, funniest thing I'd ever seen. Thought that gook was gonna explode. Too bad we had to leave early. What do you think happened to him, Colonel?"
Fallows grinned. "What do you think?"
"Yeah." Leyson grinned back. "Yeah."
Someone else, Driscol, said, "We don't got no saw, Leyson, and no electricity. Christ, Colonel, let's just start chopping bits of him off and he'll talk soon enough."
"Right to the point, eh, Driscol?" Fallows said.
"Hell, every minute we fart around here they're getting further away." Suddenly fearing he may have said too much, he quickly added, "Sir."
Fallows reached over, snared Tim around the shoulders, and pulled him forward. "What do you think, Tim? What should we do to make this man talk?"
Tim looked around. Dozens of hard, cruel eyes stared at him, waiting. And then the sad eyes of that man by the tree. "I don't know."
"Come on, Tim. This man knows where your father is. Now that we're sure he's alive, don't you want to know where he is?"
Tim shrugged. "No."
"I see you're still not cured. Still not convinced of where your loyalties belong."
"If what you've told me is correct," Tim said, "and my father has abandoned me, then why would I want to find him?"
"Vengeance, son. It's what makes the world go 'round."
"I see no profit in that. All it can get us is more dead men. For what?"
Fallows smiled. The son of a bitch was learning fast. Fallows didn't dare look at his men because he knew what they were thinking. That the kid was right. Where's the profit? Was what they were going after worth risking their lives? These men needed a carrot dangling before they'd get up in the morning. If someone dared take a vote right now for leader, Fallows suspected the kid might just be a candidate. Too much of his father in him, even at thirteen.
"You're absolutely right, Tim. Vengeance doesn't feed a hungry stomach. What was it Brecht said? 'First eat, and then tell right from wrong.' "
"No," Tim said. "It goes, 'First feed the face, and then tell right from wrong.' From The Threepenny Opera."
A couple of men chuckled and Fallows whipped around to look at them. The chuckling stopped. He glared at Tim with such intensity that the boy looked like he wanted to back away. But he didn't. He stared into Fallows's pale eyes without flinching. His father's son, all right. Fallows composed himself, forced a smile. "Well, it's nice to know Eric taught you something. Meantime, we need to find out why your father hooked up with this bozo, and what it has to do with that plane we saw. That's when we discover the profit." He turned to Steve Connors. "I need to know three things from you." He counted off on his fingers. "One, where's Ravensmith? Two, where's the plane? And three, what's your mission?"
Steve Connors peered over his knees at the men surrounding him. Especially at Fallows. Even in the dark, Fallows's eyes were so pale it almost looked like he had no pupils, just white slits like some movie alien.
Steve hugged his knees to keep warm. He knew he was dead meat. No way was this bunch going to let him walk. The only question he had now was how would he act. Would he spill everything and beg for mercy? Would he bawl like a baby, snot running down his nose, blabbering incoherently? Or would he have the guts to spit in their faces and take what they dished out without talking? It was the topic of many heated debates with other pilots, what they would do if they were shot down and captured. Some admitted they'd talk right away. Some said they wouldn't talk no matter what. Steve Connors had never been sure.
Fallows nodded at the two men next to Connors. They each reached down, grabbed an arm, and yanked him roughly to his feet, bouncing him against the tree. Steve smelled fresh pine sap. It reminded him of Paige's disinfected bathrooms. He smiled at the thought.
Fallows shot a hand forward and clamped his fingers on Steve's throat. "You killed one of my men just now, you stupid son of a bitch." Fallows looked around. "Hey, where's Jackson's body?"
&n
bsp; "Still out there," Phelps said.
"Well get out there and bury it, damn it. We don't want every stray wolf and wild dog in the area coming around here tonight. Use your heads."
Phelps slapped Leyson on the arm and the two of them jogged off into the woods after Jackson's body.
Fallows returned his gaze to Steve. "Well, asshole?"
Steve felt his knees shaking. They really do shake when you're scared, he thought. So what are you going to do, Steve Connors, ace pilot?
Fallows's fingers dug around the jugular as if it were faulty wiring he was about to rip out. "I'm listening. Three questions, three answers."
"Ravensmith," Steve croaked.
Fallows smiled, released the grip.
Steve swallowed. The saliva seemed to take forever to slide down his sore throat. He looked at Tim. "Your father swore he'd free you, son. Told me to tell you to just hang on a little-"
Fallows's fist sank into Steve's stomach. "Cuff him," Fallows said.
Steve was still doubled over when he felt his hands being jerked behind him, wrapped around the tree trunk. Metal handcuffs were slapped onto his wrists. He sagged forward trying to catch his breath, the cuffs holding him upright. He'd been hit in the stomach before, but not like that.
"OK, hero, you've had your moment of glory. Now get ready to pay the price." Fallows slowly pulled his knife from its sheath. In the dark, the blade looked black, evil. He tapped it against the side of Steve's neck. "Where's Ravensmith?"
Steve was silent.
Fallows pressed the point into the neck and twisted, gouging out a small hunk of flesh. Steve winced, pulling away. Fallows slipped the blade under Steve's right ear. His voice was quiet, almost a whisper. "Where's Ravensmith?"
Steve's lips quivered, actually ached to speak, but he clamped them shut.
Fallows flicked his wrist and lopped off Steve's ear lobe. The lobe flew a few feet and struck one of Fallows's men in the chest.
"Hey," the man said, brushing the blot of blood on his shirt.
"Sorry, Randall," Fallows said. He laid the cool blade under Steve's other ear. "Ravensmith."
A rustling behind them? Phelps and Leyson jogging back into camp.
"He's gone," Phelps panted.
"What?"
"Jackson's gone," Leyson echoed. "Looked all over, but he's just gone."
"All of him?" Fallows asked.
"Clothes and everything."
Fallows frowned. "Probably got dragged away by some wild dogs. Tell the guards to keep an eye out for animals prowling near the camp."
"Right," Phelps said, hurrying off.
Fallows stepped closer to Steve, his face barely two inches from the other man's. "I don't have time to fuck with you anymore. You talk or you suffer. I mean suffer."
Steve's voice trembled. He wanted to say more, but all he could manage was, "No talk."
Fallows sighed. "I don't have time for this." Suddenly he thrust his thumb into Steve's left eye, digging deep with the nail, forcing it harder as the thumb slipped under the eyeball. He pried his thumb upward, crushing the pulp of the eye against the hard bone of the socket.
Steve Connors screamed, twisting and bucking against the cuffs as they scraped the skin from his wrists. His smashed eye burned and even though it was medically impossible for him to see with it he swore he saw flames, red flames leaping from the socket. Then with a great sob of agony he sagged into unconsciousness.
Fallows looked around at his men, pleased at the fear in their faces. He pointed his bloody thumb at Leyson. "Throw some water in his face and bring him around. He'll talk now."
Fallows awoke the next day feeling pretty happy. He glanced over at Tim, still cuffed in the sleeping bag next to his. The kid had gotten used to sleeping with his hands behind his back. Giving him a gun and a bullet to hold during the day was one thing, but night was something else.
Capt. Steve Copnors had finally talked. Fallows had never met a man who wouldn't under the right circumstances. Finding the right circumstances, that was the trick. With some it was pain, mutilation. With most men it was fear of losing their balls or penis. With women, it was facial disfigurement. Children were the toughest. When they wanted to be stubborn, they could withstand more pain than even the toughest men. Yeah, with kids you had to work on their minds. Confuse them.
The sun had lit the Long Beach Halo like a giant orange fuse. Beautiful day, Fallows thought, checking the clip in his Walther as he did every night before going to sleep and every morning when waking up. He'd thought about everything Connors had told him last night. About the Columbia. About Dr. Paige Lyons and her father's work. About where the cabin was. Where Ravensmith was heading.
He couldn't help but smile. It was such an easy plan. Grab the father or the papers, whichever they could find, kill Ravensmith, and force the survivors to fly him back to the mainland. With Tim. With the papers as ransom, the government wasn't about to do anything to him. He'd promised his men that they would all go back, but of course that wouldn't do. He'd have to get rid of them after they captured the craft. But that shouldn't be too hard. Send them out on a phony mission. Or kill them. Whatever.
Meantime, they had to get moving. Now that they knew exactly where Eric and the woman were heading, it wouldn't be long before they caught up.
The men were stirring, scratching, coughing, hacking, spitting. Morning sounds.
"Jesus!" Eli Palmer shouted across the camp. Palmer had been a cop with the LAPD for eight years and wasn't given to sudden exclamations.
"What's the matter, Eli?" someone growled in annoyance.
But Fallows recognized the tone of horror in Eli's voice and was scrambling to his feet with his Walther ready.
Palmer stumbled with uncharacteristic clumsiness toward Fallows. He was pointing backwards in the direction of the tree where they'd left Connors cuffed. Fallows hadn't killed him on the chance the pilot might have more to say this morning.
"Gone," Eli Palmer said, holding up his unbuttoned pants with one hand. "I went over there to take a dump. Son of a bitch is gone."
"Who?" Fallows asked.
"That pilot. Connors."
Fallows was incredulous. "He escaped?"
"No, sir, not exactly."
"What are you saying? Did he spring the cuffs? Did someone saw through them? What?"
Eli Palmer shook his head.
Fallows brushed him aside and marched through the camp. His men fell in behind him as they headed outside camp toward the tree.
When they reached the tree, everyone just stared for a minute. Even Fallows.
Steve Connors was gone. But the cuffs were lying on the ground, still locked. And next to the cuffs were Steve Connors's severed hands, the fingers clenched against great pain.
"Weren't no wild animal," Palmer said, shaking his head. "Them hands were cut off."
16.
Paige pointed to the battered Chevy pickup truck parked in the ditch on the side of the road. The front left tire was flat. A spare was lying next to the flat, the jack lying on top of the spare. The spare was also flat. The bed of the pickup was clean except for some empty cardboard boxes and scraps of cloth. Paige said, "My father's truck."
"Been there awhile," Eric said, indicating some fresh grass that had grown in the skid ruts in the dirt.
They approached the truck cautiously.
Paige peeked through the driver's window as she pulled open the door. She gasped, though there was nothing inside. "Christ," she sighed, shaking her head.
Eric hopped down from the truck bed. "What'd you expect to find?"
"I dunno. A body, I guess, like in those spooky movies. Somebody's always opening a door and a body's always falling out on them."
"Any sign of your father?"
"Like what? A coded note addressed to me pinned to the dash?"
"Take it easy, Doctor."
"Yeah, right," Paige said, climbing into the truck. "And quit calling me Doctor. You don't know what it's like to be called
Doctor all the time. Even your friends introduce you as Doctor so-and-so, and everyone goes ohhh, like they expect you to solve their problems. I mean, people still ask me for medical advice. I tell them my doctorate's in physics and they say that's all right, do your best. Shit, you don't know."
"Sure I do," Eric said. "Meet Dr. Ravensmith, Ph.D., history. Also frequent dispenser of medical advice. Everything from cold sores to hemorrhoids. Mrs. Dietrich down the street stopped talking to me when I refused to prescribe Valium for her."
Paige looked directly at him. "History, huh?" She looked away quickly, a little embarrassed. During the past few hours traveling with Ravensmith, she'd been figuring him out, categorizing him. He didn't talk much, but when he did, he knew what he was talking about. He also knew how to move them quickly through the back roads and underbrush. They hadn't run into any other people, which meant that the flyers had worked in scaring off most of the area's inhabitants. But not Ravensmith. She stole another glance at him as he crouched down to look under the truck. He was handsome all right, even with that weird scar along his jaw and neck. He had a prime cut body, too. Not beefy like Steve's, a leaner, wilder musculature. Steve's looked like his had been developed in a gym; Ravensmith's looked like he'd gotten his chasing down coyotes. Still, she'd managed to dismiss him as just another ex-military type, cocky and bullying. Except for his single-minded drive to recover his son. That touched her. Now she finds he's got a goddamn history doctorate. Bastard wasn't easy to pigeonhole.
"History, huh?" she repeated.
"Yeah."
"Professor?"
"Assistant professor." He smiled. "But with tenure."
She stared into his eyes, noticing for the first time how penetrating they were. Even when he was smiling at you, he was searching, probing.
"So, Dr. Lyons," he said. "What shall I call you?"
"Try Lyons."
"How about Paige?"
She shrugged, flipped open the glove compartment. "Sure, OK. Whatever."
"Move over." Eric nudged her.
She gave him an annoyed look but scooted across the dirty seat while pawing through the mess of papers and used tissues that stuffed the glove compartment. "Dad hasn't changed. Still a slob."