Gundown

by Ray Rhamey

  Hank lifted a foot and rattled his chains. “Could you do something about this?”

  “Probably.”

  “Probably?”

  “But I won’t.” He went to the window and gazed at the mountains. Turning back to Hank, he said, “Violent crime here has dropped significantly since two things went into operation—an effective move against lethal firearms, and arming citizens with defensive weapons. And more criminals are off the streets now that trials get to the truth. I won’t do anything to corrupt the strength of what we’ve accomplished.” He gazed at Hank. “I think you understand that.”

  Hank nodded. “I’d do the same. So I guess that’s it, then.”

  “No, it’s not. Take the therapy.”

  Just the thought of strangers poking around in his mind unsettled Hank. “That I can’t do.”

  Noah’s gaze bored in on him. “I sense a connection between us, Hank. You’re a good man, a strong man, and you could be a force with the Alliance.”

  Hank smiled. “I can’t believe you want to recruit me.”

  “Since I met you, I’ve seen possibilities in what I could do that weren’t there before, a chance to do my work with someone who can be a true partner.” He pleaded with his eyes. “Haven’t you felt something?”

  Hank thought about it. Yeah, he guessed he had, but even though there were good things about what Noah was doing, he could never help take guns away from Americans. He shrugged.

  Disappointment registered in Noah’s expression. “All right. For your own sake, please take the therapy. The Keep will kill you.”

  Hank smiled. “If you knew how many have tried to do that, you wouldn’t think so.” On the way out, he paused in the doorway to look back at Noah. Noah again gazed out at the valley, his expression sad.

  Had Hank been wrong about this guy?

  After a brief trip in a police van out Route 66 to the tiny Ashland Municipal Airport, Hank, Donovan, and a shackled big man named Dalrymple boarded a police helicopter. The other prisoner also wore an orange jumpsuit.

  Dalrymple was thick through the chest and had shoulders like a swimmer, and even thicker through the waist like a swimmer gone soft. The man swaggered, his expression smug. After locking leg shackles to steel floor rings, Donovan buckled into a seat beside Hank.

  Hank nodded toward Dalrymple. “What’s he in for?”

  “Rape. A twelve-year-old.”

  The chopper took off for a place where, if all Hank had heard was correct, he was likely to finish his life.

  Hank was dozing when Donovan shook him and gestured toward a window. Hank peered out; it was time to start working on his escape. Dalrymple stared out a window of his own.

  Below spread arid, flat emptiness speckled with sagebrush and occasionally gouged by a ravine or pimpled by a rock outcropping. Miles away, mountains defined the distance. If there ever was a middle of nowhere, this was it.

  A flat-topped butte came into view, isolated in barren desert. Sheer rock walls rose for hundreds of feet.

  Donovan took up a microphone and spoke on the PA system. “This is your new home.”

  A white structure dominated the butte’s top. Its shape reminded Hank of a three-bladed propeller from an old-fashioned airplane, with a round center connecting long extensions. The helicopter dropped.

  The “blades” of the propeller became huge, rounded structures that looked like giant white medicine capsules lying on their sides, half buried in the desert. Hank estimated the buildings at eighty feet high. Indentations crisscrossed their surfaces, giving them a quilted look.

  Attached to the end of the “capsule” that reached the butte’s edge was a featureless, one-story concrete building, maybe twenty feet square. From it, a windowless shaft dropped down the side of the butte, like an exterior elevator shaft on a fancy hotel. Some hotel. The shaft ended at a similar building at the butte’s base. There, greenery surrounded a cluster of houses and a two-story building.

  Donovan said, “The square building at the top is where you’ll be inserted into the Keep.”

  Dalrymple said, “What the hell are those big white things?”

  “Air structures. Teflon-coated fabric is held up by air pressure and down by steel cables. They’re usually used for indoor sports like tennis. There’s even a small golf course inside one back East.”

  Hank spotted two human figures lying prone on a mound fifty yards outside one building. Black lumps moved around them. As the chopper passed over, the lumps turned into buzzards that flapped up and away. The human figures didn’t move.

  Hank looked to Donovan, who said, “We call that Bone Hill. The inmates don’t have shovels.”

  “Harsh.”

  “Hey, they had a choice. Just like you.”

  The chopper flew over a tall fence that outlined the rim. Donovan said into the microphone, “Note the fence, gents. It is twenty feet tall, angles inward at thirty degrees, and is covered with more razor-sharp spikes than a hedgehog from hell.”

  Hank studied the fence. There was no way in hell he could climb it. Maybe he could go under it.

  Every fifty yards along the fence were forty-foot poles. “On top of those poles are video cameras, motion detectors, and infrared cameras. Pretty sensitive, too—they’ve spotted snakes going under the fence.”

  Okay, scratch the tunnel. The helicopter banked away from the top of the butte and dropped so fast that Hank’s stomach complained.

  Three uniformed men armed with stoppers greeted the helicopter when it settled onto a landing pad at the base of the butte. On another pad, cardboard cartons were unloaded from a cargo chopper and moved on a conveyor belt into the small building at the bottom of the shaft that ran up to the Keep. Two guards aimed stoppers at the opening into the building.

  Donovan gathered two fat manila envelopes and stood. “It’s home sweet home, gentlemen.”

  Hank said, “What’re those?”

  “Your personal effects, in case you’re released.”

  Standing, Hank said, “I’d like to have something from mine.”

  “Against the rules.” Then he gazed at Hank. “What?”

  “Little necklace. Was my . . . my daughter’s.”

  Donovan opened an envelope, pawed through the contents, then came up with Amy’s necklace. “This?”

  Hank watched it dangle. The last of a life once worth living. He couldn’t leave it behind. “Yeah.” He reached out, palm up. “Can I . . . ?”

  Donovan shrugged. “Can’t see any harm in it. It sure as hell isn’t a weapon.” He handed the necklace over, and Hank stuffed it into a pants pocket.

  Dalrymple stood. “Hey, I had some pictures I want.”

  “We burned that filth.” Donovan gestured. “Let’s go.”

  He led his prisoners down a sidewalk through a lush lawn. A half dozen cottages clustered around a central plaza, complete with a fountain. A park provided picnic tables, a tennis court, a basketball court, and a small swimming pool. A hard-fought four-on-four basketball game thumped on the court.

  Donovan said, “Medical and security staff are quartered here. They say it’s pretty boring duty, but easy.”

  He herded them past a white two-story structure with barred windows. “This’s the Repair Shop. If you decide to do therapy, you go here instead of up to the Keep.”

  Hank concentrated on the small windowless building at the base of the shaft. When they reached it, a guard entered a code in a keypad beside a steel door. The door slid sideways.

  Inside, a middle-aged man rose from a computer workstation in the center of the room. He was steady-eyed and looked Asian.

  Donovan said, “Got some new fish for the pond, Arnie.”

  Arnie nodded. “We’ll send ’em up.” He shook hands with Donovan. “Been a while.”

  “Business is slow.”

  “The slower, the better.”

  Hank eyed a row of barred holding cells along one wall—five feet wide and seven long, with a cot and a toilet in each. They loo
ked secure. Well, if he couldn’t find a physical weakness, there was sure to be a human one. Steel shelves along another wall were piled with blankets, clothing, DVD players, books, and other sundries.

  On the butte side of the room, a double wall of bars formed a cell around elevator doors. A chair and a verifier headset sat next to the elevator.

  Hank gave no resistance when a guard put him in a cell, removed his shackles, and locked him in. Arnie rattled doors as if to make sure they were secure, and then addressed them. “You’ll go into the Keep in the morning. I suggest you get as much rest as possible. I’ll bring food later, water now if you need it.”

  He crossed to the shelves. “Before you go in, I’ll give you supplies.” He took two sets of thick pamphlets and DVD players. “You get these now. They’re the only reading or viewing material allowed inside the Keep, and they concern therapy. I suggest you look through them—you may want to change your mind about going to the Repair Shop. It’s never too late.”

  He handed each man a pamphlet and a DVD player. Dalrymple dropped his on the floor. Hank held on to his.

  Donovan stuck his hand through Hank’s bars. “Good luck.”

  Warmed by the gesture, Hank shook hands. “Same to you.”

  After Donovan and the guards left, Hank settled on his bunk and checked out the video. It portrayed what some Alliance PR hack viewed as a prosperous life by showing a picnic on the Applegate River, day trips to Crater Lake and the Oregon Caves, a stroll on a Pacific beach at Bandon-by-the-Sea, the ballet in Eugene, and a gathering at an Alliance center.

  He examined the pamphlet. The title was “Your Door to Freedom.” His bullshit detector went to high alert.

  The first section offered case histories of three men who had chosen therapy. They happened to be a murderer, a man caught with a lethal firearm, and a rapist.

  The pamphlet reported that after therapy, the rapist ended up happily married and a good father to three little girls. The weapons charge went to work for the Alliance—that had to be Benson Spencer. The murderer became a police chief in a suburb of Portland. The text said that with deep therapy, you were certifiably better adjusted than ninety-nine percent of the population, which was just fine with prospective employers.

  That was crap. They liked ’em because people with lobotomies didn’t cause trouble.

  The second section explained the treatment at the Deep Therapy Center. It jibed with what Benson had said. But what weren’t they telling?

  No, he was better off figuring out a way to get out of the Keep.

  With his mind intact.

  A Most Deadly Woman

  As the ferry closed in on the dock at Mackinac Island, Mitch was a little surprised to realize that his palms were sweaty. Nerves about meeting Colonel Martha Hanson? He’d researched her, and there’d been a rape in her history with a gruesome outcome. A burglar had attacked her in her home when she was in high school. Afterward, she’d grabbed a pistol from her daddy’s gun cabinet, shot the rapist in the kneecaps, tied him spread-eagle on her bed, and castrated him. The prosecutor had not pressed charges against her.

  Okay, so she was tough and violent. More than that, though, she was outside his understanding. Oh, he understood being a patriot, but to believe that your little militia was key to saving the United States from a dreaded government takeover didn’t seem quite rational to him. Nonetheless, he hoped she could be useful.

  It was too cold to walk, but with cars not allowed on the island, there were no regular cabs. He hailed a horse-drawn buggy to the colonel’s two-story Victorian house, pink, complete with white gingerbread and a wraparound porch that overlooked the harbor.

  When she opened the door, the visceral appeal of her beauty was far greater than he’d anticipated. He’d seen photos and knew that she was a looker, but he hadn’t counted on dark lashes rimming hazel eyes that commanded his attention. She was smaller than he’d anticipated, too, no more than five curvy feet tall, her figure still drawing his eye even though she wore a flannel shirt and khaki pants. Her black hair waved out from her head and over her shoulders. It was hard for him to believe that she was a hard-line military leader.

  Martha Hanson said, “Hello, Mr. Parsons. Please come in.”

  When he stepped inside the foyer, a tiny little dog yapped up at him. She scooped it up and kissed the top of its head. “Now, Sparky, be nice to our visitor. He’s come a long way to see us.”

  “You are a little out of the way here. Don’t you feel isolated?”

  “It’s easier to defend an island. Except maybe in the winter, when you can walk to Michigan, although a snowmobile across the ice is a lot faster.” She gave the dog another kiss and baby-talked. “Isn’t it, Sparky?” She led Mitch into a parlor.

  When he had seen the pink house, he’d wondered if the warrior talk on her website was fiction, but the AR-15 mounted over the fireplace mantel, flanked by American flags, showed how wrong he’d been. Not only was the weapon very real, but the wear on the stock said it had seen plenty of use.

  He turned to her. “I appreciate your letting me visit, Colonel.”

  “Please, make it ‘Martha.’” She sat in a leather chair and nodded at a love seat on the other side of a coffee table. “Sit.”

  The love seat looked antique, and he took care when he lowered himself onto it. The room could have been a lady’s parlor from the 1800s, with lace doilies on the lamp tables and chair backs—except there were also guns displayed on every wall, plus a bow and a crossbow. A mounted elk head stared at him from above her chair. He pointed and said, “Did you—”

  “Crossbow.” Settling her little dog into her lap, she said, “But you didn’t come here to admire my hunting prowess.”

  “Maybe I did. You’ve been going after Noah Stone.”

  She scowled. “That bastard. I wouldn’t mind having him in my sights.”

  “Maybe you should. I’d like for you to.” Her eyes widened, and he realized how she might interpret his words. “I don’t mean literally . . . Well, in a way I do, but not like your elk friend.”

  She set the little dog on the floor and stood. “Cappuccino? It sounds like this could take a while.”

  As she worked on the coffee in the kitchen, he studied photos that decorated the fireplace mantel along with a plaque displaying a bronze star—just like his grandfather’s. The name on the plaque was Martha Summers Hanson. Most of the photos were of military men, and one grainy photo looked like it could be from World War I. “All these soldiers family?”

  She called from the kitchen, “My family has been fighting for freedom since the revolution.” The hiss of an espresso machine frothing milk came from the kitchen, and then she appeared with two cups. “I did a turn in the army, then got Purple-Hearted out.”

  He’d found that, too: she’d been injured while rescuing a fellow soldier from enemy fire. The bronze star was for that action. Whatever else she was, she had courage.

  She brought him his cup, and he sipped. Despite the addition of steamed milk, the cappuccino was strong enough to climb out of the cup if he wasn’t careful.

  She said, “What do you mean, getting Noah Stone in my sights?”

  “You’ve already had him there once—the shooting in Chicago? That was one of your militia, right?”

  “I issued no orders for any kind of shooting.”

  “But your website incites—”

  She stopped him with a raised hand. “You can take it that way if you want to, but nothing on my site advocates violence. Believe me, I know the games the government plays to take out people like me, and I’m very careful.”

  “How about that photo of a bullet with Noah Stone’s name on it?”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “Just a picture, free speech and perfectly legal.”

  “Well, Stone has seen it, and it scares the shit out of him. I have good information that he’s on the edge of quitting.” He told her about Stone’s confrontation with the gun owner in Ashland and how he’d said he wanted to
run.

  Martha smiled. Her face would have been lovely and bright except there was no warmth in her eyes. “And you think I can push him over?”

  “I was thinking that maybe if we added fear of you to his fear of being shot, he’d quit.”

  She gazed at him. “You want me to attack him?”

  “Not for real. He gives a lot of speeches. If you were to show up and aim a gun at him . . .”

  She went to a gun cabinet and took out an automatic pistol. “You mean something like this?” She racked the slide and aimed between his eyes.

  With her stony eyes behind the pistol, he wanted to put his hands up in self-defense. He had no doubt about the effect it would have on Noah Stone. “Yeah. Exactly like that.”

  She stepped closer, keeping the gun aimed at his forehead. Her eyes widened. And they glittered. “You think just scaring the guy will work?”

  It was sure working on him. “Oh, yeah.” He stood and was glad when she lowered the gun. “So you’ll do it?”

  She touched one of the U.S. flags on the mantel. “He needs to be stopped.” She turned to him. “I’ll need a donation.”

  “Agreed.”

  “When? Where?”

  He’d had time to think about this on the ferry ride. “It has to be public. I think the impact would be greater, and it will weaken his influence.”

  She paced, twice dry-firing at the elk head. She stopped. “Got it. I know Rick Hatch in the Rogue Militia, and he’ll know what’s going on there, and when.”

  “I know Rick. A good man. He’ll have the gun you need, too. It has to look real.”

  Her smile made him think of a timber rattlesnake he’d shot back home. She said, “Oh, it’ll be real enough to take Noah Stone down a bunch of notches.” She put the pistol back in the gun case, took something out, and turned to him. “Think I should send him this, put a little extra pressure on?” She handed him a rifle cartridge.

  It was the one with Stone’s name on it. It was disturbing, but he wanted Stone out of action. “Do it.”

  She took the bullet back and then said, “You want to stay for supper?”