Three Minutes to Midnight

by A. J Tata

  When he returned home after confronting the American Taliban in Dare County, Mahegan had visited Frisco, then ridden the ferry to Cedar Island and hitched a ride to Raleigh from a state worker heading that way.

  He had said his name was Benny Cooper and that he was from the town of Kinston, North Carolina, which they passed on the way to Raleigh along Route 70. Predictably, the man had started talking about his job.

  “I tell the state how much land is worth before they buy it from property owners to build roads or whatever we’re going to build,” the man had said. Mahegan had looked at him in his white blend shirt and polyester tie. He had a balding head and had somehow gotten dandruff on his headrest and neck.

  “Everywhere I go,” he said, “I hear about two guys during the Great Recession who bought up all the land in North Carolina that might have natural gas underneath it.” Cooper said the term Great Recession as if he were a preacher in a tent on a humid North Carolina Sunday and was talking about the devil.

  “Then they sell us—the people who have lived and worked here all our lives—back our own land for twice the price. I was just down here in Carteret County, closing the deal right next to the port and railhead. The state is building a big-ass natural gas pipeline that allows us to export natural gas. Now, doesn’t that beat everything you’ve ever heard? We’ve got us energy independence if we’re exporting natural gas, don’t we, mister?”

  For a good chunk of his life Mahegan had been fighting wars that revolved around the lack of energy independence, so he wasn’t in total agreement with Benny Cooper.

  “That’s why I’m heading up to Raleigh. Gotta go brief the big guy. Throckmorton and Gunther seem to own everything we need for roads, fracking, construction. You name it, they have it. Word is that Throckmorton has all the senators and representatives in his pocket and that Gunther has first dibs on all the road projects in the state.”

  Mahegan adjusted himself in the marginally comfortable seat of the state car. “Interesting,” he said as they passed Goldsboro.

  “More than interesting,” Cooper said. “I go appraise this land and give a damned good assessment of its value. Then Throckmorton and Gunther hire their own guy, and his estimate is at least one third higher than mine, sometimes a full half. That makes me look incompetent, don’t it?”

  Mahegan said, “No. Makes them look like thieves.”

  Cooper slapped his thigh, causing the car to list toward the shoulder before he could correct his mistake. “That’s what I said! But nobody can touch these guys. Not even the attorney general. Everybody’s on the damn take, is what I say. I mean, look at this document right here.”

  Cooper handed Mahegan a folder, which he opened. Thumbing through the documents inside it, he saw the names Brand Throckmorton and James Gunther mentioned multiple times. Throckmorton’s address was listed as the address of record for both of the men.

  Mahegan memorized it.

  The man dropped him off by the state capitol, and Mahegan walked the short distance to Ridge Road on his first night in Raleigh. He scouted Throckmorton’s house from the expansive backyard, noticing no signs of life. He entered through the basement beneath the deck. The house was empty, and his only goal was to find a lead on Gunther, as he had some newfound time on his hands. Mahegan spent precious little time inside, but he discovered one pearl of intelligence.

  On the third story he found maps and graphs laid out across the floor and tables, mostly maps of land whose sale the state appraiser had bemoaned to Mahegan. There were two newspaper clippings that didn’t belong. The first was from Maxton, and it was a story from fifteen years before about the murder of his mother and about how Gunther had tried to save her. The article made Mahegan seethe, and it rekindled his determination to find Gunther sooner rather than later.

  The second newspaper clipping involved his father, whom he had not heard from since his mother’s murder. Mahegan read the article, and prepared to leave the clippings where he had found them when he came upon a photograph paper-clipped to the back of the newspaper story. He had stopped and lifted the photo from the paper clip. The image started the process of Mahegan losing control, his emotions racing forward like unbroken mustangs, but he heard the front door open two stories below. He pocketed the picture and stole away through the back deck of the master. On the way out he stopped to listen to the voices in the house, placing his hand upon the sliding glass door that led to the deck.

  He recognized Gunther’s voice booming through the hallway.

  Mahegan took a deep breath as he watched James Gunther trod through the detritus like a zombie in a dystopian world. Fire leapt around him, each flame like a trumpet signaling his arrival.

  Mahegan watched Gunther stop about ten yards away, Petrov’s dead body the only thing separating them. He momentarily wondered what had become of Papa Diablo and Manuela, and of Throckmorton, for that matter.

  Mahegan stepped from the truck, intentionally leaving his pistol in the vehicle. This was personal for both of them, and it would be a man-to-man fight.

  “Your mother was a good lay, Mahegan,” Gunther started. “But killing your daddy was even better.”

  “Where is he?” Mahegan asked. “In some borrow pit? One of your road projects?”

  “Something like that. Doesn’t matter, does it? He’s dead. She’s dead. You’re going to be dead in a few minutes. Can’t you see? I win against your kind. Your daddy killed my friend and tried to make it look like a meth lab explosion. Police couldn’t figure it out, but I sure did.”

  “I got two when I was fourteen, including your brother. My dad got one. And now here you are. Seems my kind is pretty good, don’t you think?”

  Mahegan scanned Gunther, who looked solid and strong. He remembered the man as being heavy, even though in a rage as a child Mahegan had once tossed him through a plate-glass window. Then he thought about his father’s last visit to him in the juvenile detention center, where the authorities had placed him.

  The picture he had found a few weeks ago in Throckmorton’s third-story library—that first time in Throckmorton’s Ridge Road home in Raleigh—was of his full-blooded Croatan Indian father tied naked to a tree, gutted and flayed. Gunther was in the picture, smiling and holding his father’s lifeless head up, as if he had just killed a trophy buck.

  “My mother put up more of a fight than your kid did when I killed him,” Mahegan said. “Guy was just a weakling when it got right down to it. And there is only the one son. Gunther and Sons may have been wishful thinking, but your seed is gone from the earth.”

  With all the thoughts racing through his mind, he didn’t need memories clogging his efficient fighter’s mind-set. He needed to assess what he was seeing and what he wasn’t seeing. What was present, and what wasn’t present?

  The state appraiser had mentioned Throckmorton and Gunther, as if the two were partners, like Bonnie and Clyde. Which left the question, where was Throckmorton? He hoped the watchers were still watching, as he got the sense that Gunther was stalling him, deceiving him into believing this was the ultimate showdown that he had been seeking.

  As if to emphasize his point, Gunther said, “Then this is what you wanted, isn’t it, boy? Come driving into our compound like you own the damn place. Dump Griffyn on the ground like he’s a sack of garbage. That was you, wasn’t it?”

  “You know it was.”

  His mind raced as he pulled in the thick, smoky air. Mahegan was an athlete, and he needed oxygen for this face-off. Like in a western gunfight, the two men were squared off thirty feet apart, with a dead body between them. What was missing? Where was Throckmorton?

  Then it came to him.

  “You attacked my mother with three other men. You and Throckmorton killed my father when he found you at a construction site. You never operate alone, do you?”

  Gunther was silent for a moment, and that was all it took for Mahegan to know that Throckmorton was somewhere on the ridge, most likely in finely stitched riding britches a
nd top-of-the-line hunting apparel.

  “Just you and me, boy.”

  “You know it isn’t. But you’re not the only one with backup,” Mahegan said.

  “Your Mexicans ain’t going to be much help, son. Sorry about them two.”

  Mahegan saw the phone in Gunther’s left breast shirt pocket. It was a rectangular bulge with a green light, indicating it was operational. He was talking to Throckmorton, or at least Throckmorton was listening to what he was saying. What was the cue to shoot? Mahegan wondered. How much time had Throckmorton needed to get into place? He guessed that Gunther had come along only after his partner had told him he was in position to shoot Mahegan. The watchers had most likely not seen Throckmorton.

  Which meant he had to make Throckmorton miss once. He felt confident that the watchers could find the muzzle flash.

  Gunther threw his hands up in the air, ostensibly as a gesture of exasperation, but Mahegan saw it as a signal.

  “I guess there’s nothing left to say,” Gunther said.

  Mahegan took that comment as the second half of the signal, like “Ready” and then “Aim.”

  The arms came down.

  Mahegan stepped forward.

  A rifle bellowed from the eastern ridge.

  A bullet snapped past Mahegan’s body at supersonic speed approximately three feet behind him. He felt the whoosh of the gun’s round as it zipped through the air and heard the crack as it broke the sound barrier. The valley echoed with the sound of the first bullet.

  “Missed,” Mahegan said.

  As he charged Gunther, he saw the man retrieve a knife from his belt. Mahegan still had his own knife on his shin. Two more thunderous booms rattled the valley. Two more bullets missed.

  As he closed on Gunther’s heavy frame, Mahegan heard the barely audible cough, cough, cough of his own silenced weapon. The watchers had his back.

  Gunther was larger than he remembered. The man had hands the size of baseball mitts. His forearms, which showed beneath his rolled-up shirtsleeves, were bulging. He was barrel-chested, with arms equally as long as Mahegan’s. The details of the memory of tossing him through the sliding glass door had evaporated like the fringes of a puddle in summer heat, leaving only the core behind. Now, those details came back to him with stunning clarity.

  Mahegan had been a man possessed and had functioned beyond his fourteen-year-old capabilities, the same way a mother was moved to lift a three-ton car that was crushing her child. He had experienced a superhuman rush of adrenaline then, and now he felt a similar surge—though this time more controlled—coursing through him.

  As he approached Gunther, Mahegan’s first goal was to reverse positions with the man. He needed to move him away from the burning trailers and toward the gaping hole fitted with concrete pipes that went down three thousand feet into the earth. There was a steaming metal plate a hundred yards below the surface, and it had just smothered the gas fire. Mahegan thought this would be a good final resting place for a demon like Gunther. He visualized Gunther roasting there, as if atop a frying pan heated by the flames of hell.

  But plans always changed, Mahegan knew, at first contact with the enemy. “Get inside your enemy’s decision cycle and stay there,” had been Mahegan’s motto.

  Gunther surprised him by pulling a pistol from his pocket as he closed the gap between them. Mahegan dove toward the arm lifting the gun and latched onto the massive forearm with two hands. The arm was as steady as a pull-up bar, unwavering beneath Mahegan’s initial block.

  The pistol fired two shots, which fractionally missed Mahegan’s midsection. He planted his left foot inside Gunther’s right foot, pushed Gunther’s arm across his body, keeping the weapon aimed away from him, and drove into him with his shoulder. Two more shots were fired from Gunther’s pistol, and they missed wildly.

  Gunther was sturdy, like concrete, the business in which he had dwelled his entire life. Mahegan performed an inside trip wrestling move, using Gunther’s weight against him. Gunther toppled over as Mahegan’s shoulder rammed hard into Gunther’s abdomen. Still, the man was in good physical condition and had perhaps gotten stronger over the past fifteen years. The two men landed on the ground, Mahegan on top of Gunther, who was now scrambling, having lost his preplanned advantages. Gunther’s plan clearly had to change on contact with Mahegan, also.

  Gunther’s knife hand came arcing down, and the blade caught Mahegan in his right triceps. The cut burned, but he was focused on the more lethal pistol, which had at least two shots, if not more, remaining. He rolled off Gunther and wrapped his legs in scissors fashion around the man’s neck as he flipped Gunther onto his stomach and ratcheted his pistol arm backward until two more shots were fired and the weapon dropped into the dirt.

  With good leverage, Mahegan went for Gunther’s knife-wielding hand, but Gunther managed a lucky stab into his thigh, which forced Mahegan to release the scissors lock on Gunther. Both men rolled away and stood, facing one another, but with their positions reversed.

  Exactly as Mahegan wanted.

  Mahegan took up a boxing stance and drove straight at Gunther, who raised his arms in brawler fashion. As Gunther tried to wheel to his left, Mahegan cut him off, forcing him back. He let Gunther get in a few jabs to his face, to make him think about hitting him instead of the fact that he was backing up toward the wellhead.

  Mahegan unleashed a flurry of left jabs and right crosses, most connecting with Gunther’s huge head. The target was certainly big enough, Mahegan thought. The issue was getting past those large hands and arms. Even with Mahegan’s wingspan, Gunther was able to parry and thrust better than most men Mahegan had fought.

  Two more jabs, though, and Mahegan was able to see the five-foot-wide wellhead hole. It needed to be that big initially for all the hoses, shape charges, drill lengths, and piping that the roughnecks had lowered into the well. Mahegan knew that it narrowed considerably beyond the one-hundred-yard shutdown valve, but he wasn’t worried about that.

  Gunther continued to back up, and it occurred to Mahegan that the man was not stupid. Gunther was a survivor. Perhaps he was planning to toss Mahegan into the pit of hell at the last second.

  Mahegan steadied himself, thinking, Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. No mistakes. This was the fight he had been seeking.

  Less than a yard from the hole, Gunther telegraphed his move. Mahegan’s years of wrestling and hand-to-hand combat had trained him to continuously monitor his opponent’s entire body, from head to feet. On a quick downward glance, Mahegan noticed Gunther put his right foot forward, when he had been leading with his left. The only reason for such a move would be to duck a jab from Mahegan and then spin around behind him and let Mahegan’s own weight carry him forward. Then he would need only a shove from Gunther to wind up in the abyss.

  So Mahegan countered Gunther’s step by treating him as a left-handed boxer and circling to his right, making Gunther punch awkwardly from his weak side. Mahegan fought through the big hands and the muscled forearms with his own might and began to pummel Gunther in the face, while avoiding getting inside his reach. It occurred to him that another strategy Gunther could employ would be to hug him and make Mahegan go down with him.

  Gunther’s heels were now at the concrete lip of the wellhead. Fire was raging all around them like an inferno. All the EB-5 trailers were burning. The heat was suffocating. The flames raged in a horseshoe around them as fracking equipment and vehicles burned and melted. The black smoke from rubber tires fouled the air with noxious fumes. Mahegan knew that Gunther had to be struggling to breathe, too.

  The huge hands clasped him, though, and pulled Mahegan toward Gunther.

  “Think you’re so smart, Indian? Why don’t we go into this hole together?”

  Mahegan’s weight leaned into Gunther, who had a smile frozen on his face. They were falling toward the hole, and Mahegan could see the hills where the watchers were hiding, the trees on the low ground, the graded lot, the gravel, and the hole. It all came rushing
up toward him as Gunther then spun him around in a move worthy of an Olympic wrestler. He felt his head hit the ground on the far side of the hole and his feet catch on the concrete lip on the near side. Mahegan’s arms were splayed on either side of the circular concrete prefab. There was nothing beneath two-thirds of his body except a frying pan, a sheet of metal, one hundred yards below.

  Gunther hovered above him, spit coming off his demonic face, as if he was doing a push-up. His hands were on either side of the hole, and he was propping himself up two feet above Mahegan’s precarious position.

  “Got your mama. Got your daddy. Now I got you. That ought to do it, don’t you think?”

  Gunther lifted his foot to push Mahegan into the hole, like a man stepping into a trash can to make room for more garbage. Mahegan managed to brace himself with his arms as Gunther raised himself up for his final kick. Then Mahegan used his left foot to crash into Gunther’s left knee, the joint that was bearing all of Gunther’s massive weight. He heard the cracking of bone, the tearing of ligament, and the howling of an injured man, who, without thinking, used both hands to grab at his knee.

  Mahegan spun to Gunther’s right as Gunther fell to his left.

  Gunther’s head hit the concrete pipe with a thud. Mahegan delivered another well-placed kick to the destroyed knee joint, causing Gunther’s body to buckle beneath its own weight. They had reversed positions.

  For the first time Mahegan saw fear in Gunther’s eyes. Throwing Gunther through the sliding glass door had been different. The man had been confused and perhaps a bit amused back then, even with the severe injuries he had suffered. But now Gunther’s eyes showed that he knew his fate would be soon at hand, and that it wasn’t going to be a happy ending. The man was hanging by the heels of his boots and the tips of his fingers as his inverted body hung like a V in the open pit.

  Mahegan avoided Gunther’s mistake of attempting to accelerate his fall into the abyss and instead let his adversary’s body slowly sag into the hole. While he could have simply crushed the man’s fingers as they clasped the lip of the wellhead, he chose to watch the man struggle.