“How could I explain that to the cops, honey?” he laughed easily, persuasively. He shook his head. “Just my dumb luck that some guy gets himself killed the same night.”
It had seemed like such a strange way to put it. But she had gone along. Gone along, because she believed him. No—because she believed in him. She always had, since they first met, since his passion and unshakable confidence in his convictions had won her heart.
But now … She sat in the truck, staring into the impenetrable shadows where he had disappeared to meet some secret Washington contact … sat there in the dark, trying vainly to suppress the unstated doubts, the unmentionable fears …
Rusty backed out of the entrance and drove to the parking area outside the little restroom building. He turned off the headlights, then cracked open his window for fresh air while he let the truck rumble and the heater run. He eased back into the bench seat and closed his eyes.
She couldn’t stand being alone with her fears.
“Rusty?”
“Mmmm.”
“Did he tell you … I mean, do you know who this ‘contact’ is? A man or a woman, even?”
“No idea.” He opened his eyes, gave her a brief look. “Me and Zak, we go back a long ways, and he never keeps secrets from me. But that one, he always has … So, he hasn’t even told you, either?”
She shook her head. “Do you have any clue what this is about?”
“Wish to hell I knew. Like he always says, he’ll tell us if and when we have a need to know.” He pulled down the brim of his baseball cap and closed his eyes again.
They sat like that for a couple of minutes in silence. Even though the heater was blasting, she felt cold, cold that cut deep, and she found herself starting to tremble.
A pair of headlights appeared in the distance ahead of them, growing slowly as they got nearer.
Rusty blinked and pushed up his cap. “Hope that’s the contact and not the Park police.”
Her mouth went dry. The car drew abreast of them, its lights dazzling them, then swept past. Blinded, she couldn’t make out what it looked like.
She twisted around to watch. It crossed the bridge behind them; then its tail lights flashed a brighter red.
“It’s stopping. That must be the dude,” Rusty said.
She watched the vehicle slowly turn left, rolling off the roadway right onto the grass. It proceeded across the frozen lawn, going around the metal barrier, then up onto the paved path behind it. In a few seconds, only the flickering of its lights could be seen as it moved behind the trees. Then nothing.
She was shaking now. This was too much.
She had to know. She had to be sure of him.
“I … I think I’m going to be sick,” she said.
“Oh hell! Not in my truck!”
She got out and, bent forward, stumbled to the far side of the building, where the women’s entrance was.
But she did not go inside. Unseen now, she straightened, pulled the laces of her jacket hood tighter around her face, then continued around the back of the building, and into the woods.
She had to know …
Zachariah Boggs raised a hand to shade his eyes from the glaring headlights. When the car got close, the driver killed the beams, leaving orange afterimages on his retinas. The vehicle rolled forward a few more feet. Stopped. The engine died.
Boggs took a step forward out of the trees, revealing himself to the occupant.
The driver’s door opened. A dark shape in a dark overcoat stepped out. Closed the door with a solid thump. Then approached, shoes crunching across unseen patches of ice. Stopped about ten feet away, hands in his coat pockets.
“I can’t believe you!” the man said. He turned around, scanning the surroundings. “Insisting on this cloak-and-dagger nonsense out here, in the middle of the night! And on this night! My God, Zak, are you trying to destroy everything we’ve been working for?”
Boggs was recovering his night vision. Even though he had seen him on TV, he hadn’t met with him in person for several years. Now, up close, he was shocked at the changes. The puffiness that almost hid his eyes. The fleshiness around his chin and cheeks. The twin vertical gashes at the corners of his mouth. And the additional bulk under an expensive dark cloth overcoat.
“Are you, Ash?” Boggs shouted back.
Ashton Conn stepped closer.
“Do you believe everything you read in the papers? Especially in that fascist rag—and by that reporter?”
“Are you telling me it isn’t true? That you are not investing in CarboNot?”
“I am not! Not knowingly, anyway. I’m a public official, and all my investments are managed by a blind trust, you know. I’m not permitted to know where—”
“Come on, Ash! That ‘blind trust’ is run by GreenSmart. When you hired them, you knew that you would be investing in solar panels and windmills, because that’s all they do. Yet all the while, you were assuring me that you hated those things, too, and wanted to ban them. So now I see that GreenSmart is really just a money-laundering operation for you and your Washington pals. Or a ‘greenwashing’ operation, if you prefer.”
“I tell you, Zak, I had no idea—”
“Bullshit! And I suppose you’re going to tell me that your wife is not a big investor in that other company—the one that’s gobbling up all that land in the Allegheny Forest. Land that is supposed to be held for the public interest—not for private greed. Land that really should be returned to its natural state—not sold off to money-grubbing developers!”
“Look, that’s Emmalee’s money. She doesn’t necessarily share my values, and I stay completely out of her business.”
“Oh really? I went online and read a bit tonight about your dear wife, Ash. She was a club dancer when you met her, not some rich bitch. She didn’t have two nickels to rub together. So where did she get all the money to invest in that company, if not from you?”
“She inherited money a couple of years ago. From her … family.” Conn’s eyes darted around, as if he were trying to think of what to say next. “As I say, it’s her business. I don’t tell her what to do, and she stays out of my business, too.”
Dawn stumbled through the woods, barely able to see where she was going, but staying parallel to the roadway. When she neared the creek, she held her breath, then darted out of the tree line to the bridge. She ran across it as fast as she could, praying that Rusty wasn’t looking in the mirror at that moment. Reaching the other side, she whipped around the railing and down into the trees and bushes lining the stream bank.
She made her way through the tangle of branches toward the sound of angry voices.
Rusty was worried. About Zak, and what might be going down. Now, about Dawn.
He wasn’t sure what to do. He was great at following instructions. You could always count on him to do that. But he was never good at making decisions. Which was one reason he looked up to Zak so much. Zak always knew what to do.
Well, Zak had left Dawn with him here. That meant she was his responsibility. Maybe he should check on her. See if she was okay.
Before he got out, he took an automatic peep into the rearview mirror. Then did a double take. He could have sworn he saw something moving along the edge of the bridge in the dark. Now it was gone.
He got an uneasy feeling. He jumped out of the truck and trotted along the length of the restroom structure to the women’s side. He stood outside the door and listened for a few seconds. Heard nothing.
“Dawn?”
No answer.
He went up to the door and knocked. Louder: “Dawn? Are you okay?”
No response.
“Are you in there?” he shouted.
Nothing.
He grabbed the door handle and went inside.
Then knew what he had seen on the bridge.
Shit! He rushed outside, back to the truck.
She tiptoed through the trees. The voices grew loud enough to be understood.
“… and sh
e stays out of my business, too.”
A man’s voice, not Zak’s.
“You’re lying, Ash! You’ve been lying to me for years.”
Zak’s voice … She stepped closer, cringing at every rustle and crunch underfoot, listening to Zak yelling …
“What happened to you? Where is the man I knew back in Cambridge? Where is the Harvard Law student I met on the speakers’ platform at that Earth Day rally? You were a poor kid on a scholarship, then, just like me. And you had ideals, then, too. That man really was dedicated to saving the planet.”
“I still am! Zak, I am the same man that I was then—the same man that I was when I hired you for your first job, at Nature Legal Advocacy. And everything I have done since—”
“Oh, spare me! I remember you then. You were lean and hungry and dedicated. But just look at you now, after all these years bathing in the Washington cesspool: fat, wearing fancy clothes, driving some extravagant gas-guzzler. What the hell is that thing, a Rolls?”
“No, it’s—”
“I don’t give a damn what it is! The point is: Look what’s happened to you. You’ve become exactly what we were fighting against.”
“Zak, let me speak, damn it! Can you shut up for a minute and just listen? … You’re dead wrong about me. I haven’t given up my ideals—our ideals—at all. Or our strategy. The long-term strategy that we devised way back then: You work the outside, I work the inside. You and your people take radical actions to push the envelope farther and farther; in response, I call what you’re doing ‘too extreme,’ and then I propose something more ‘moderate.’ But farther down the road. With each step, we move the country closer and closer toward our ideal … Wait, don’t interrupt; let me finish. Remember how we launched the plan, when I first got into Congress?”
Congress? The word shocked her.
“That year you organized WildJustice and began your direct actions, just as we planned. You started trashing logging companies and sawmills—destroying their equipment, to save wildlife habitats. Everyone condemned those actions as too extreme. But then I proposed tough new environmental restrictions on logging, which by then sounded moderate. And those bills passed! It worked, Zak! That was our strategy—good cop, bad cop. Together, we’ve implemented it beautifully over the years. Look what we achieved: I was able to ride the wave we generated right into the Senate …”
Her brain felt numb, now, unable to process what she was hearing. She inched forward toward the clearing ahead.
“Just listen to yourself, Ash! ‘I was able to ride the wave.’ I, I, I. It’s all about you, now, isn’t it?”
She moved behind a thick tree at the edge of the clearing. She could make out a car, a dark sedan gleaming in the pale moonlight.
In front of it, two figures, face to face.
“How can you say that?” the stranger shouted. “After all the things I’ve contributed to this cause in my career! And … look, I haven’t mentioned this very often. But I will say it again, now: After all the things I’ve done for you personally, Zak. Have you forgotten? Ten years ago, I saved your ass from a prison cell, by inventing an alibi for you, and helping you pin your Technobomber killings on that other kid.”
Dawn’s knees gave way. She grabbed the tree trunk to remain upright.
“I just knew you were going to bring that up again,” Zak sneered. “You’ve counted on my gratitude for that. And for years, you’ve exploited it to manipulate me—to do your dirty work against your enemies, things you didn’t have the balls to do yourself. But that old debt has been more than paid, Ash. You just said it yourself: I helped to generate the wave that carried you into the Senate.” His lips twisted in contempt. “But for what? You’ve proved yourself to be a fake! So don’t expect me to help install Senator Ashton Conn in the White House.”
Senator Ashton Conn … Zak—the Technobomber … Their images swam in her tears as she listened to the alien words of a man she thought she had known …
“It’s not just that I don’t know you anymore,” Zak continued. “It’s that you don’t even know yourself! You equate yourself with the cause: What’s good for Ashton Conn is good for the environment. I can only imagine how you rationalize your giant carbon footprint. Well, here’s a footprint for you!”
He stomped past Conn, raised his foot, and kicked the fender of the car.
“Stop it!” Conn shoved his shoulder. Zak stumbled back, then put his hands on his hips, threw back his head, and laughed scornfully.
“You like pushing people around, don’t you, Ash? It’s all a power trip to you, isn’t it? All these material trappings … just to impress and dazzle and lord it over people. Power is all you really want, now; environmentalism is just your rationalization.”
Through the fog in her brain, she was vaguely aware of another sound … the noise of an engine on the road, somewhere behind her …
“Shut up, you pathetic loser!” Conn shouted. He was breathing hard. “Sure, of course I want power! I want it for all the good I can do with it. All the good I have done with it. But I figured out something about you a long time ago, Zak. Back on that night ten years ago, when you crawled into my home, begging me to save you from the cops. You told me a lot about yourself that night—much more than you knew. Between the lines, you told me that you felt impotent in the world, and that you wanted power, too. Except that unlike me, you don’t feel empowered by doing anything constructive—anything productive or positive. Oh no, you get it the easy way: from destruction. By being a bomb-thrower. By destroying people and what they create!”
Even through the smear of tears Dawn could see the anger building in Zak. He clenched his fists at his sides; his skinny neck craned up, beard jutting out; his slight frame straightened inside the field jacket.
“You’re nothing but a nihilistic punk, Zak! A nobody who feels like somebody only when he’s playing God—only when he’s blowing things up and taking lives, like that Adair scientist!”
A hot, searing pain burned from her throat to her stomach. She clenched her teeth … and felt the pain begin to turn into a towering rage …
Conn wasn’t done. “Yes, I could see it, even then. But rather than stop you, which I could have done easily, I decided to use you, instead. To channel your warped impulses toward positive ends. You were a loose cannon; I turned you into a guided missile. I aimed you at the right targets. And it worked. Look what I’ve built from your sick obsession with destruction!”
“Destruction?” Zak yelled. “Well, I’ll destroy you, you bastard! I’ll let the whole world know about your part in all of this—even if I have to go down with you!”
It was Conn’s turn to put his hands on his hips and laugh.
“You? Who would believe you? You have no evidence. It’s just the word of a violent fanatic against the word of a United States senator. Everyone will see you for exactly what you are: a little man trying to build himself up by tearing down a greater one.”
Zak’s balled fists shook.
“Well, then, I’d better stick to my old methods. It might not be tomorrow, or next month, or even next year. But it will happen, Ash, that’s a promise—and you’ll never know when, and you’ll never see it coming!”
Conn didn’t speak for a moment. Then he nodded.
“I had hoped to come here tonight and settle you down. But sadly, I see that’s going to be impossible.”
He reached into his coat pocket. Dawn gasped when she saw his hand emerge with a gun in it.
“Frankly, Zak, I expected this, and came prepared. You’ve picked the perfect place to end your insanity, once and for all: out here in the middle of the woods.”
Zak took a step back and raised his hands. “Now, wait a minute!”
“I’m truly sorry for you, Zak. We’ve accomplished a great deal together, you and I. But I still have much more to achieve.” He raised the gun. “As for you—well, what do they say? ‘Live by the sword—’”
“Noooo!” she screamed, rushing out of the tre
es.
It had happened without thought, a simple reflex. A moment before, she hated Zak for his unspeakable crimes, for his cold manipulation and utter betrayal of her. But then he stepped back and raised his hands—and in the next instant she reacted as if he were still the man she had loved.
Both their heads snapped around to look in her direction. In the two seconds that Conn was distracted, Zak spun and began to run. Conn turned back and snapped off a shot to where he had been. Then he began shooting wildly at Boggs, who vanished into the thicket of trees.
Dawn skidded to a halt in the open. She remained frozen in place, staring at the man with the gun. He spun to her, eyes wild, mouth wide. They stood there like that, separated by a distance of about thirty feet, just looking at each other. He aimed the gun in her direction.
She was going to die. She felt nothing. She felt empty.
She held his eyes.
“Ahhhhhhhhh!”
Senator Ashton Conn snarled, turning away from her and stomping his feet like a child. Bent forward, he half-walked, half-staggered to his car, pawed at the door handle twice before his hand connected, and jerked it open. He collapsed into the seat, then slumped forward, his forehead falling against the steering wheel.
After a few seconds, he raised his head to look at her once again, the snarl still on his lips. Then slammed the door. Seconds later the engine roared to life, and the big sedan leaped into reverse. The car swept into a turn, then spun out across the lawn again, fishtailing on the frosty soil till it reached the road.
“Zak! Where are you?”
Rusty’s voice. Not far behind her in the trees.
“I’m over here! … Dawn! … Dawn—are you all right?”
I’ll never be all right … you son of a bitch …
She began to run—away from them, across the paved path, into the deeper woods on the other side.
Bursting from the trees, Rusty caught sight of the tail lights of the car speeding up the road—then spotted Dawn’s figure disappearing into the trees in the distance.
He heard thrashing sounds in the brush behind him.
BAD DEEDS: A Dylan Hunter Thriller (Dylan Hunter Thrillers) Page 26