He shines a flashlight beam along all the old magazine and newspaper clippings, though he’s read them a thousand times. The light settles on one article in particular.
From People Magazine, the pages wilted by heat and time. An interview with his daddy.
The face meant nothing to him when he’d first seen it two months ago—he barely even recognized his old man. Cragged lines on weathered Irish skin.
Rudiger shines the light and stares into the face that stares back at him. Steel blue eyes. Flecks of gold.
He remembers him now. Not a lot, but enough. Flashes of a childhood. A time before the badness.
• • •
A trip to the beach, sandcastle eaten by waves. That fleshy Irish face looking down at him. A hand tousling his head. It’s okay, the man says. We’ll build another one.
But the waves will just keep coming, won’t they?
Yes, son, they will. They’ll always keep coming. That’s jes the nature of things.
Rudiger sees him clearly, thinks he can smell the spice of his aftershave mixed with the scent of the ocean. Waves crash behind them, filling the air with the static of sloshing water.
Let’s make this one different, he says. Different how?
Different special. Because you’re special, aren’t you, Rudy?
Special how?
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he grabs a waterlogged stick washed ashore and writes in the wet sand. The letters clean and neat.
RUDIGER
What do you see? he asks. I see my name.
What else?
He thinks for a moment. Ride rug, he says. The man nods. That’s right. Ride rug.
A wave comes in and licks away the letters. The man writes again.
OCEAN
Now what do you see?
The boys stares. Ocean, he says. And canoe.
Good, Rudy. Very good. The man leans down and kisses him on the forehead. You’re very smart.
Sometimes I don’t feel smart. The father smiles at his son. You’re smarter than me, he says.
Will you take me in the water, Daddy? I don’t want to go alone.
Yes, the man says. Of course I will. But you’re braver than me. You should be the one taking me into the water.
Don’t be silly.
They walk into the water, the salt stinging a recently skinned knee. The boy holds his father’s hand as the water comes up to his thighs, then waist. It is forceful and gentle, this water. It guides him and protects him, but it could kill if it wanted to. It chooses not to. The boy doesn’t really feel afraid. He doesn’t feel much of anything, like usual.
Here, the man says. He reaches and grabs both of the boy’s hands. Learn to float.
How?
Hold my hands and let the water do the rest of the work. The boy does as his father tells him. His feet leave the mushy sand and his legs come to the surface. His eyes are closed for a moment, but once his bare belly breaches the surface, they open. His daddy looks down at him, his smiling face blocking the sun.
That’s it, Rudy. That’s it.
The man moves a few inches and the full power of the sun bursts down upon the boy’s face. It’s brilliant. The boy must close his eyes, but does not want to. The light lifts him.
I am very pleased with you, my son.
The boy says nothing. His eyes closed once again, he feels his father’s hands let go, and on his own, the boy floats, the water lifting him and the tide pushing him, pulsating with the current, only inches at a time but oceans over a lifetime.
• • •
Rudiger reaches out and touches the glossy magazine page, touching the face of his father. Two months ago the memory came to him, and it is the one memory he needed, the one that solved the puzzle. Since then, there has been no need to search. To find clues. To kill.
There has only been the need to prepare.
“You were right,” Rudiger tells the wall. “I am special.” His thoughts are interrupted by a sound from behind him.
It’s the Ambassador. The first one to wake.
Rudiger is mildly surprised. Thought the fat one’d be out longer.
The Ambassador begins to scream.
48
JONAS WOKE up to screaming, but it all still felt like a dream. There was a dream, wasn’t there? A snake slithering up his legs, coiling around his body, squeezing the life from him, letting him exhale but not inhale.
He opened his eyes and first saw his knees, but just barely. There was some light, but just a few ghosts of it, not enough for him to understand anything at all.
The heat was stifling.
He was sitting in a chair, that much he understood. He tried to move his arms but couldn’t, and then his eyes adjusted enough to the dark to let him see the rope around his upper torso.
The screams continued.
Jonas turned his head and threw up, the vomit dribbling down his shoulder and onto the floor. His head throbbed.
The gas, he thought. He remembered that much. The van. The canister. The gas. Coughing and holding his sleeve against his nose, knowing it wouldn’t help.
But he wasn’t dead. Neither were the others. The gas was just to knock them out, make them easier to transport and contain. Nobody was dead. Not yet.
Another scream and then a gurgling sob.
Jonas moved his head again, this time slowly, and looked in the direction of the sound.
They were about thirty feet away. The room was large, whatever it was. Rudiger was standing over Bill Stages. Rudiger wore a headlamp, the light from which poured down over the corpulence of the Ambassador, who was naked save what looked like some kind of loincloth.
Rudiger was hitting him with something.
What is that?
No. He wasn’t hitting him, he was hitting a large spike. With a mallet. The spike was going right through the wrists of Bill Stages and into the wooden cross underneath him.
Jonas coughed and another wave of vomit spewed from him.
Rudiger stopped pounding and straightened. He turned in Jonas’s direction, the light filling the dark void between them. Jonas looked directly into the light but couldn’t see the face underneath it. Rudiger said nothing, and after a few seconds went back to work.
“God, no, please...no more...” Stages’s voice was weak. A crying child. He would die soon, Jonas knew. From shock if nothing else.
Where was the Senator?
Jonas looked around but couldn’t make out enough of the room to see if the Senator was even here.
He felt more awake now, the adrenaline rushing through him. He strained his arms against the rope again, to no effect. Too tight.
Goddamnit. He was the one who made them come here. He was the one who said everything would be okay. Nothing was okay. They were all going to die, and it was all his fault.
For all he knew, Anne was already dead. “Rudiger,” he said, soft at first. “Rudiger!”
Rudiger’s hammer did not cease. Nor did the screams. “Rudiger, goddamnit, stop! Just let me talk to you.”
The hammering stopped. So did the screams. Stages either died or passed out. Probably didn’t matter too much which one. The end would all be the same.
Jonas watched as Rudiger bent down and picked up another spike. He shifted over to Stages’s feet, placing one on top of the other.
He’s not going to talk until he’s all done, Jonas knew. “Rudiger, please, for Christ’s sake just stop. Just for a second.”
Jonas thought he heard a muffled laugh before the hammering resumed. The spike pinned Stages’s feet to the wood beneath, but the Ambassador didn’t make a sound. He was lost in his own black world of silent horror.
Jonas prayed the man was dead. If he wasn’t and he regained consciousness, the pain would be unbearable.
Rudiger dropped the hammer on the ground and then picked something else up. Jonas only saw a brief glint. A shimmer of steel.
Knife.
He watched as Rudiger bent over the Ambassador’s fa
ce and grabbed the side of the man’s head. Then Rudiger began to saw, back and forth, and Jonas realized he was removing the left ear of William Stages.
The Ambassador made no sound, which was almost the worst part of it all. Almost.
Jonas closed his eyes.
This isn’t happening. Please God, make it all stop.
Eyes opened once again, Jonas saw Rudiger drop the severed ear to the ground, as if giving a scrap of food to a patiently waiting dog.
Rudiger then picked up the base of the crucifix, heaving it a few feet to the left. He lowered it with precision so the base lined up with what looked like a small hole in the ground. Next he pulled on a piece of rope that dangled from the dark ceiling like a vine. He looped it around the top of the cross and cinched it tight. The other end of the rope floated a few feet away. Rudiger donned thick work gloves and pulled on the rope. Jonas could only see what Rudiger’s headlamp illuminated, but it was enough. He knew what was happening.
Rudiger grunted as the cross slowly began its ascent. The top of the crucifix angled upwards as the base slipped soundly into the hole in the ground. When the cross was almost fully upright, it slid the rest of the way into its base with a soft thunk, shuddered for a few seconds, then was still.
Rudiger yanked the rope, freeing it from the pulley, then walked over to the far corner of the room.
The light on his head went out.
Total darkness inside the room, save the few gaps near the taped doors and windows where sunlight managed to crawl in for a few feet before dying.
Then the brilliance of a spotlight. The light stunned
Jonas, almost forcing his gaze away.
But he couldn’t look away.
The light shot directly onto Stages, angling down at him from the ceiling, seeming to sear into his fleshy, naked form. The white hot light made his blood brown, and the smears of it across his chest, arms, face and thighs looked like mud.
His weight made him sag, tearing at the holes in his wrists and feet. Still he did not wake, but he was alive. His knees slumped and his chest strained against the force. His lungs screamed to breathe. The man was asphyxiating.
Jonas couldn’t look away. This was fucking real. He could see it. Smell it. What was happening to Stages would happen to Sidams. And then to Jonas.
“Rudiger!” Jonas screamed. He struggled again in his chair to no use. “Rudiger!”
Out of the darkness Rudiger appeared, just feet away, a ghost materializing. He wore only his underwear, grey-cotton briefs soaked through with sweat. Blood covered his hands and sprinkled his face. He used his right hand to push the sweat up to the top of his scalp, leaving behind a crimson stain, making him look like some kind of albino warrior.
He stared at Jonas for long time, but did not speak.
Jonas knew he could not beg for his life. There was no point.
“Tell me where she is,” he said. “At least tell me. Even if she’s going to die, tell me where she is.”
Rudiger said nothing.
Finally he disappeared back into the darkness.
Moments later, his headlamp burst once again to life. Rudiger walked over to the center of the room and picked up the hammer from the floor.
Then he walked to the far side of the room, which had been ensconced in darkness the whole time. The light from his head arrived at the destination first, and that’s when Jonas saw the Senator on the ground, tied to his own cross. The light pointed to the floor and Jonas saw the collection of spikes lined up next to the Senator’s leg.
“No!” Jonas yelled.
And then he heard Sidams speak.
“It’s all right, Jonas,” the Senator called out. Jonas heard the strain in his voice, but the words still seemed calm. Surely the Senator watched what had happened to Stages. But he didn’t beg for mercy. Instead, he said simply to his captor, “I can’t pretend to understand why you would want to do this, so I won’t. You just killed one of my dear friends, and now I suppose it’s time for me.” He coughed violently before continuing. “I guess if there’s anything I could do or say to make you stop, now’s the time.” He paused, and the room was silent. “All right, then,” he continued. “I just hope you keep your promise and let that young girl go. No reason she has to die.”
Rudiger spoke, his words grumbled and unintelligible to
Jonas.
There was more silence. Then Rudiger kneeled at the
Senator’s left arm and positioned the spike over his wrist.
“I’ll get help!” Jonas shouted. “I swear to God I will get help.”
Sidams’s voice shook. “You just take care of yourself, Jonas. And make sure you get your girlfriend out of this mess.”
“Yes, sir,” Jonas said. He didn’t want to watch, so he wouldn’t. But nothing he could do would keep him from hearing.
The Senator managed a few words.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; He makes me lie down in—”
The screaming started.
49
TWENTY MINUTES later the Senator took his place next to Stages. Upright and wrapped in a loincloth. Bleeding and illuminated. Drooling. His hair matted into sweaty clumps, stuck to his forehead. Left ear gone, also discarded to the floor. The Senator was still conscious, remarkably, though only enough to loll his head from side to side. Every millimeter of movement must be excruciating, Jonas thought. Every breath labored. Every hope diminished.
Jonas watched as Rudiger stood back and surveyed his work. Stages, most likely dead. Sidams, struggling against shock and blood loss. He was a tough man, Jonas thought. But he cannot possibly survive long in that state.
“Dismas and Gestas,” Rudiger said.
Jonas had tried to free himself while the Senator was being crucified. It had been of little use, though it kept Jonas from focusing all his energy on the pain being inflicted on his friend. Still, his chest had more room for movement than just twenty minutes ago.
“It’s just a coincidence,” Jonas said. “It’s just their names. Nothing more.”
“I do not believe in coincidences, Lieutenant,” Rudiger said.
“What do you believe in?”
Rudiger turned to Jonas, his headlamp shining directly into Jonas’s eyes.
“Would think it’d be pretty evident by now.”
The Senator coughed, wet, hacking. Blood oozed from his mouth and slid down his chin, hanging off him in a viscous rope, then dropping onto the floor.
Jonas closed his eyes, squeezing them shut for just a moment. Losing himself inside his head. Preparing himself.
“Dismas and Gestas,” Jonas said, opening his eyes. “What did they do?”
“They were thieves.”
“You think those men are thieves?”
“Don’t much matter what I think.”
“It does to me.”
“Why?”
“Because if I’m going to die, I want to understand it.” Rudiger walked out of the pools of light and again into the dark. Jonas, immobile, had the sense of a night swimmer in the ocean, a shark circling beneath. Seconds later a third spotlight burst into light, holding a tight circle next to Jonas. A third cross lay in the center of the light, its beams nicked and marked in a torrent of symbols and letters. Jonas had no idea what any of it meant.
Rudiger’s pale and bloodied form emerged into the light, the shark breaching the surface of the icy waters.
“Who said you’re gonna die?” he said.
Jonas exhaled and pushed the rope outward. Inhaling, he guessed the slack. Half an inch, maybe. Not enough. Not enough to do anything. Except whatever he wants me to do.
“I’m not holding out a lot of hope here.”
Rudiger bent down and picked up the mallet, its head chipped and scarred from use. “There’s always hope, Lieutenant. You should know that.”
“Is there?”
Rudiger smiled. “You survived the Mog. That was more hope than you gave yourself credit for.” He held the mallet
loosely, swinging it back and forth, a pendulum slowly making its rounds. “Almost had you again outside your apartment. Probably didn’t have too much hope then neither.”
“You didn’t want to kill me then.”
“No. No, sir, I surely did not. Don’t know exactly what I wanted, just knew you had something to do with it. I didn’t have the answers then.”
Jonas pulled his right arm and felt the rope loosen a fraction.
“You have the answers now?”
“I do. I most certainly do.”
“What’s the question?”
“Question of salvation.”
“You saving yourself?”
Rudiger bent forward and grinned. “Saving all of us.”
“Where’s Anne?”
“She’s dying.”
“Where is she? Is she close?”
“Close enough to save her. If you can follow instructions.”
“I can.”
He straightened. “Thought so. Knew I could count on you.”
“I can’t do much for her nailed to a cross.”
Jonas looked over at the Ambassador. In the garish light, he could see the man was already turning blue. His ankles swelled with blood.
The Senator let out a low, hollow moan.
Rudiger walked forward and knelt in front of Jonas. Jonas could smell him, the musk of work. Stench of death. Brutality. Purpose. He reached forward with long fingers, nails bitten to the core. Hand on Jonas’s shoulder.
“That cross ain’t for you.”
50
HORROR STRUCK Jonas, a twisted fist shoved deep inside, pulling and tearing.
“Don’t,” he said. “I’m begging you. Don’t do this to her.” He had to stop him. He could not watch him do to Anne what he just did to the Senator. Jonas could not watch her die. Not like that. Not in any way. “Goddamnit, you said you’d let her go!”
Rudiger stood and smiled, his lips twisted and tight. “You’re all sorts of panic, sir. All sorts. Hooah.”
Final Crossing: A Novel of Suspense Page 24