The Sword of God - John Milton #5 (John Milton Thrillers)

by Mark Dawson

  Lundquist stretched his arms. He hadn’t been out in the open like this for years. Hell, he couldn’t recall the last time. He remembered nights that he had spent with his old man, weekends that involved hauling their gear up and down the hills on the other side of the peninsula, days spent outside because the old bastard said he needed to be “toughened up” and this was the best way to do it.

  Lundquist came from an old military family. His father said he had been one of Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, that he had run guerrilla units in the Philippines during World War Two and that he had been promoted to lieutenant colonel at twenty-six, a full decade ahead of his army cohorts. “I killed Japs,” he bragged. “Plenty of them with a knife.”

  His father had been a hard, severe man, and Lundquist knew that some of that tough attitude had been passed down to him. That was the reason why he had always been hard on his own kids when they were growing up. It was inevitable, wasn’t it? Like father, like son. Michael had been brought up by the slut in Green Bay that he had knocked up on that drunken evening with Lester twenty-five years ago. He had no hand in the boy’s upbringing until he had come to his door, five years ago, a stupid expression on his face, his hand held out, saying, “Dad?”

  Lundquist remembered that day like it was yesterday.

  The sound of the dogs drew closer.

  His thoughts settled on the story that he would tell when the authorities came back into town. He knew that it would hold up. There was the record of John Milton’s arrest after the brawl with the out-of-towners in Johnny’s Bar. Witnesses, too, if he needed them. That was evidence of his violent disposition. Lester had written up how he had picked the man up on the outskirts of Truth and driven him to the other side with the instruction that he keep on walking. Milton had ignored him, evidence of his disregard for authority and, maybe, something else to add to his motive.

  Lundquist thought about it, laid the story out, and it all made perfect sense.

  What had happened next? Milton had come back to find Lester, shot him, and then fled as Lundquist and Olsen arrived just in time. They had gone in pursuit, and Olsen had found him and had been killed for it. George Pelham ran into him as they had given pursuit, and he had been killed, too. Three policemen dead. Shit, Lundquist would be able to bring the National Guard down on his head if he wanted to.

  He took out his tin of tobacco, rolled a cigarette, and lit it.

  “What’s the plan?” Michael asked him.

  “We let the dogs find his scent, and then chase him down.”

  “Now?”

  “No. We’ll wait until dawn. A couple hours. I want some light.”

  “But he could’ve kept going. He could be halfway to the lake by now.”

  Lundquist had a speck of tobacco in his mouth; he spat it out. “You see his arm? How he couldn’t carry it right? No way on earth he can keep going without stopping to get that seen to. Maybe he doesn’t know what he’s doing; maybe we find him bled out somewhere.”

  “He knows what he’s doing,” Michael said. “He’s tough.”

  Lundquist drew down on the cigarette. “‘But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.’ You know what that means, Michael?”

  “Patience.”

  “Patience. God willing, we’ll find him.”

  “Yes, Pops.”

  “He tell you anything that might tell us who he is?”

  “Nah.” Michael shook his head. “He’s pretty quiet. But he’s good with a gun, and he can handle himself. He took all four of us down, right?”

  “Says more about you than it does about him.”

  “I’ve apologised for that. Won’t happen again.”

  “Make sure it doesn’t.”

  Lundquist knew that he was riding him, but he knew that it was his responsibility to correct the flaws in his character. He thought of the words in Proverbs: “‘Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.’” That was a message that he would do well to heed. Michael needed discipline in his life. He was full of the foolishness and stupidity of youth, and Lundquist intended to see that it was all erased. Only when that was done would he feel comfortable in trusting the boy completely.

  THE NINE of them sat around the fire, waiting for dawn to break. Lundquist was anxious to start, but it wasn’t difficult to remember what Milton had already done to four of his soldiers. The man was dangerous. He would be even more dangerous in the dark.

  No, sir, he thought. This is better. Balance the disadvantage of giving him a little head start against the danger of getting yourself killed. That’s not a tough call to make.

  Michael had been chomping at the bit. He tried to persuade him again that they should get going, how they were giving him a chance to get away. He had been persistent, on and on at him for a full five minutes until it had started to look like he was questioning his orders, and Lundquist decided he had no choice but to shut him down. He had made a cruel jab at him about the mess up at the mine, embarrassed him in front of the others, but it had quietened him for the time being.

  Lundquist looked through the flames at him now, watched as he hugged his legs to his chest and stared into the fire with a baleful expression. He had the passion of the zealot mixed with the insecurities of a young man who was lost in the world.

  He needed guidance. He needed the succour of God’s word to help him see the righteous path. Lundquist would help him find that.

  He was reminded again of how Michael always tried so hard to impress him. He wasn’t a headshrinker, but all his time in the police meant that he had come to see plenty of human life, and he thought he could read people pretty well. Michael was easy to work out: Lundquist had abandoned him as a kid and, now that he had found him again, he was doing everything he could to impress him, show him that he was worthy of his love.

  Yeah, well.

  That had been useful to start with. Lundquist needed good young men, men who would be loyal and who he could trust, and his own flesh and blood was the perfect place to start. It had been easy enough for him to show the kid where the country was going wrong and who was to blame for it all. He was ready to be persuaded, like a bottle into which Lundquist could pour all of God’s teachings. Lundquist showed him what was happening to the country, how intrusive politicians were stripping away their rights, softening them up, getting ready to subjugate them. Fattening them up like hogs for the slaughter. Michael was a willing student. He had seen the truth in it.

  The boy had been working at the gas station on the edge of town. There was no profit in that for the militia, so Lundquist told him that he needed to sign up for the army. It would be useful training, he said. And wasn’t it kind of ironic, getting the federal government to train the soldiers that Lundquist would use to bring it down? And, he knew, it would be another chance for Michael to see what the politicians were doing to America. It would show him how the government was an evil entity, Satan’s puppet, perpetrating violence on its own people and on others abroad.

  It had worked.

  Michael had been a good soldier. He had served for three years, Iraq for the most part, his commanding officers commending him as the epitome of infantry, but when Lundquist felt his training was complete, he called him home. He had fallen in with the three other boys—Sellar, Sturgess, and Chandler—and recruited them, too, bringing them back to Truth with him. He had left for the war a believer, but he came back again a zealot. He was passionate and hot headed, but with the right direction he had demonstrated that he could be effective. He seemed to exert swing over the other boys in his crew, too. Lundquist had seen the way they all looked to follow his lead, and had seen the way his instinct to violence had kept them in line.

  The Sword of God needed money for armaments. Lundquist had been thinking about how easy it would be to hit the banks hereabouts for years. He could use his police crede
ntials to get information on their security set ups that would have been impossible otherwise. He had worked it all out. He would craft the plans, and Michael and the others could carry them out. He ironed out the risks that their inexperience might have created and turned them into a smooth and effective crew. He suggested that they use dirt bikes to get in and out of the towns, following routes that he had plotted in advance to make sure that it was practically impossible to chase them. He knew about the old mine up by the lake and suggested that they should hole up there for a week after each job, at least until the temperature had cooled down.

  Michael had not needed persuading to get involved, and he had delivered the others just like he said he would.

  The first four heists had been flawless.

  Houghton.

  Ironwood.

  Barksdale.

  Duluth.

  Then Marquette, and the dead guard.

  He should have called a halt to it then, but he had been greedy. Each time they had returned to the mine with sacks full of money.

  The money went a long way. Guns, ammunition, explosives. Everything that they needed.

  It was difficult to turn the flow off.

  So they had dropped down into Wisconsin instead.

  Wausau.

  Green Bay.

  No more problems.

  It had been going well.

  Until now, and the Stanton kids, the FBI.

  Until John Milton.

  But Lundquist was on top of it.

  All of it.

  He would get it straightened out.

  MICHAEL WAS tending to the fire, dropping a large branch across the middle of it, the sap spitting and hissing as the wood started to combust. The shadows around the camp were fading, the early dawn light spreading lazily up from the horizon. It would stay dim for another twenty minutes, and then the sun would rise, and the darkness would be pushed away.

  Lundquist looked into the depths of the forest. John Milton would be watching the same sunrise. Wherever it was that he had hidden overnight, it would feel a lot less secure with the darkness banished for the day.

  The dogs became agitated.

  He turned and saw Leland Mulligan approaching through the field. He had sent him back into town earlier to check that everything was in hand.

  “About time,” he said impatiently when the deputy had reached the fire.

  Leland spread his hands helplessly. He was another youngster who had been easy for Lundquist to recruit. His late parents had been God-fearing folk, and they had brought their son up the right way.

  “Well? How did it go?”

  “Good. The kids and the agent are locked up tighter than a duck’s ass. Magrethe and Morris will keep an eye on them. They ain’t going nowhere.”

  “The state police?”

  “Just like you said. The men they had available, they sent them out right away last night. They’re getting in position right now, stationed just like you said, boxed him right in. They’ve promised to double the men, gonna bring the late shift in early. He’s not going to find it easy to get through the line.”

  “Good.” Lundquist finished his roll-up and flicked it into the fire. “What about Olsen?”

  Leland winced. “That was one nasty crash, Lundquist. The fire department had to cut the car in half to get him out. Flipped over five, six times. I’m surprised Milton got out of it in one piece.”

  “George?”

  “Coming to bring his body back to the morgue. You ask me, that there was a broken neck. Whoever this dude is, he ain’t interested in love taps. I think he’s serious.”

  “That so?” Lundquist said sarcastically as he rolled another cigarette. “Leave the thinking to me, Leland, all right? It’s not what you’re good at. What else?”

  He indicated the hounds with a sullen shrug. “I found Milton’s pack like you said.” He held up a large plastic evidence bag into which clothes had been stuffed.

  Walker Price brought the dogs over. They strained hard on the leash, barking avidly.

  Lundquist took the bag and opened it, pulling out a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. Neither of them had been washed. He tossed them to Walker, who knelt down as his dogs bounded around him, nudging him with their muzzles, their tails wagging furiously. They buried their noses into the clothes, breathing in Milton’s scent, and then turned towards the woods. The lead dog was a bitch that Walker called Blue. She lifted her head, holding the point, her tail held out behind her.

  “She got it?”

  “She does,” Walker said. The other dogs picked up the trail, too, one of them starting to howl. “Look at them. They’re practically begging to be let off the leash. I don’t think this is going to be difficult, Morten.”

  Lundquist nodded his satisfaction.

  Leland took another large bag and opened it up. Inside were a dozen bacon rolls. The men took one each and ate hungrily. There were two flasks of coffee, too, and cups for them to share. Lundquist ate and drank, the nourishment giving him a jolt of energy.

  He looked around at the posse that they had assembled: him, Leland Mulligan, Walker Price, Michael, Thomas Chandler, Larry Maddocks, Harley Ward, Dylan Fox, Randy Watts, and Archie McClennan. Ten of them. That ought to be more than enough. If Milton was still in the forest, and he was sure that he was, there would be no easy way for him to get out. They would pick up his scent and track him down. And there would be no arrest. They would bring him back in a body bag. Milton was a cop killer, after all. They would come back into Truth as heroes.

  They would do God’s will.

  Lundquist felt a buzz of excitement.

  This was an old-fashioned manhunt.

  Milton was the prey, and he was the hunter.

  There was nowhere to hide.

  I’m coming for you, you son of a bitch. I’m coming for you, and I’m going to shoot you dead.

  Chapter 29

  MILTON WOKE. It was dark, he thought, and then he saw that it wasn’t, that light was edging in through the gaps in the thatched screen propped against the overhang, obscuring the sun. He closed his eyes for a moment, uncertain where he was and how he had come to be here, and tried to stitch together the fragments of memories that he could recall. The sound of water from the rushing river was audible, a steady musical tinkle, and it all came back to him in a rush. He surged upright, cracking his head against the rocky overhang. He lowered himself again, touching his scalp, blood staining his fingertips.

  Wonderful.

  The fire had worked its way through the logs and branches and had reduced them to a blackened pile of ash, just a few embers left. Milton swung his legs around and pressed up with his arm. The rush of pain was sudden and shocking, and he remembered the gunshot wound.

  He remembered. The crazy rush of last night, the flight in the RV, the train, hiding out in the crop as the police searched for him, the man whose neck he had snapped, the sprint into the woods.

  He crouched down next to the pit and blew on the embers to nurse them, gently sprinkling the rest of the tinder across them and then nurturing the flames that resulted, adding the rest of his store of dry vegetation and, when that was alight, the smaller twigs. He had thought that the thatch was thick enough to offer shelter, but he had either miscalculated or the wind had shifted overnight, because now the rocky wall was damp with moisture, and his clothes were wet again. He laid a thicker log onto the merry fire, nursed it alight, and then took off his jacket and trousers and draped them across the branch again to try to dry out the worst of the damp.

  He sat back down on his bed and gingerly raised his left arm so that he could look at the damage in the light. He carefully removed the dressings. The entry wound hadn’t become infected. The exit wound, though, was different. The jagged gash was unpleasant to look at, and it smelled bad, too. The flesh at the edges was black and rotting, most likely already dead. He would have to do something about it before it got too much worse.

  And then he remembered.

  El
lie.

  Mallory and Arthur.

  Shit, he thought. Shit.

  What had he blundered into?

  What should he do?

  His instincts told him to get going right now, to flee, to set his back to the sun and just head west. He had the benefit of a decent head start and a detailed training in just this sort of warfare. He would be able to live off the land until he was far enough away to find a town and work out, as discreetly as he could, what had happened back in Truth.

  But he couldn’t do that.

  He couldn’t leave them behind.

  It wasn’t difficult to put it all together. Lundquist had released the four men, for a reason Milton couldn’t yet discern, and then he had started to collect the people who knew the fugitives had been caught.

  Mallory, Arthur, Ellie, and him.

  Lester?

  There was a chance that the others were dead already.

  But he couldn’t leave without knowing.

  And he had given them his word.

  He would go back for them.

  Milton’s word meant something to him.

  He had made Lundquist a promise, too.

  He would kill him and the others who had allied themselves with him.

  ONCE HE was satisfied that the fire was properly alight again, he collected the pistol he had taken from the body of the dead cop, and checked the magazine. Empty. He had hoped that he had been dreaming that part, the part where he used his last bullet to start a fire, but clearly not. Practically unarmed, then. All he had was the kitchen knife.