But I don’t own any Connie Francis.
Oh, you clever boy.
He already had one foot on the ground when the mercury tilt switch activated, and the car, and Bliss, were engulfed in flame.
“He survived,” Gabriel told Louis. “You should have found another way.”
“That way seemed appropriate. Are you sure he’s not dead?”
“There were no remains found in the car, but fragments of skin and clothing had adhered to the garage floor.”
“How much skin?”
“A great deal, apparently. He must have been in considerable pain. We traced him to a doctor’s surgery on Rokin. The doctor was dead when we found him, of course.”
“If Bliss lives, he’ll come back at us someday.”
“Perhaps. Then again, it may be that all that is left is a charred husk with the man we knew trapped inside.”
“I could find him again.”
“No, I don’t think so. He has money, and connections. This time, he’ll bury himself deep. I think we shall have to wait for him to come to us, if he comes at all. Patience, Louis, patience…”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
BLISS SAT IN THE dining room of Arthur Leehagen’s house, the table at his back and an empty Hardigg Storm case at his feet. He wore a raincoat, and he held a soft waterproof hat in his hands. In front of him was a window, but until a short time before he had been able to see nothing through the glass and had, instead, focused entirely on his own reflection. He was not weary. He had come so far, and the moment for which he had long wished was almost upon him.
He recalled those first hours, when he was convinced that all of the skin had been seared from his body, the agony as he had stumbled into the night, his mind clouded entirely by pain. It had taken a great effort of will to compartmentalize his suffering, to clear a tiny corner of his consciousness so that reason could take over from instinct. He had made it to a phone, and that had been enough. He had money, and with money you could buy anything, if you had enough of it: a hiding place, transport, treatment for one’s wounds, a new face, a new identity.
A chance to live.
But such pain. It had never gone away, not truly. It was said that one forgot the intensity of one’s former agonies as time went on, but that was not true for Bliss. The memory of the pain that he endured had been seared both in and on him, in his spirit and on his body, and even though the physical reality of it had faded, the memory of it remained sharp and clear. Its ghost was enough to evoke all that had once been, and he had used that capacity to relive it in order to bring him to this place.
He heard footsteps behind him. Michael Leehagen spoke, but Bliss did not turn around to acknowledge his presence.
“There’s been contact,” Leehagen said.
“Where?”
“The inner ring, close by the southern intersection.”
“Did your father’s men do as they were told?”
There was a pause before Michael answered. Bliss knew that the reminder of his father’s authority would rankle. It served no purpose other than to amuse Bliss. It was a reminder that Michael had overstepped his authority in ordering the attack on Gabriel. Bliss had not forgotten it. There would be a reckoning once the job was done. Benton, the man who had pulled the trigger, would be the sacrificial lamb on the altar of Bliss’s atonement for the shooting. It was for Bliss, and no other, to decide if Gabriel lived or died. Bliss understood that Gabriel could not have let his treachery go unpunished, and he bore him no animosity for the long hunt that had ensued. It was Louis that Bliss wanted. Louis had burned him. Louis had made it personal.
“They forced them back. They didn’t aim to kill.”
Bliss blew air through his nose, like an amused bull. “Even if they didn’t, they probably wouldn’t have hit anything, unless it was in error.”
“They’re good men.”
“No, they’re not. They’re local thugs. They’re farmboys and squirrel eaters.”
Michael didn’t dispute the accuracy of the description.
“There’s something else. We lost contact with two of our people, Willis and Harding, on the outer ring. A stranger came on their radio.”
“Then I suggest you deal with the problem.”
“We’re doing that now. I just thought you should know.”
Bliss stood, turning now for the first time but still ignoring the man who stood at the door. On the table behind him, resting on its Harris bipod, was a Chandler XM-3 sniper rifle with a titanium picatinny rail and recoil lug, and a Nightforce NXS day optic sight. The Hardigg case also contained a universal night sight, which Bliss had not fitted in the hope that there would be enough light for him to track his prey. He stared through the window at the spreading dawn, masked somewhat by the rain that had begun to fall. Day was coming in earnest.
Beside the Chandler was a second rifle, a Surgeon XL. Bliss had been torn between the two, although “torn” was an exaggeration of the relative equanimity with which he now made his choice. Unusually for a man in his particular line of work, Bliss had no excessive fondness for guns. He had encountered those for whom the tools of their trade exerted an almost sexual attraction, but he felt no kinship with them. On the contrary: he considered their sensual regard for their weapons as a form of weakness, a symptom of a deeper malaise. In Bliss’s experience, they were the kind of men who gave amusing names to their sexual organs, and who sought a release from killing similar to that which they found in the act of congress. Such beliefs were, for Bliss, the height of foolishness.
The XL was a.338 Lapua Magnum, with a Schmidt & Bender 5-25 x 56 scope mounted on its rail and a multiport jet muzzle brake to tame the recoil. The stock was Fiberglas, and altogether the gun weighed just slightly more than twenty pounds. He lifted the rifle, put his left arm through the sling, and let his left shoulder take the weight. He had always preferred his right, but since that day in Amsterdam he had learned to adapt in this matter as in so much else.
“You’re going now?”
“Yes.”
“How will you find them?”
“I’ll smell them.”
Leehagen’s son wondered if the strange, scarred man was joking, and decided he was not. He said nothing more as he watched Bliss leave the house and walk across the lawn in search of his prey.
IV
For some of these, it could not be the place
It is without blood.
These hunt, as they have done
But with claws and teeth grown perfect,
More deadly than they can believe.
– JAMES DICKEY (1923-97), “THE HEAVEN OF ANIMALS”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THEIR RETREAT FROM THE road was conducted in the same way as their approach to it had been: steady progress using the trees for cover, one moving while the other kept vigil, both constantly watching, listening. They waited for the hooded figures to advance upon them from the road, judging the distance so that any pursuers would be within range of the Steyrs, but they did not come.
The rain didn’t look like it would ease up anytime soon. Angel was shivering, and his back hurt. The pain of his old wounds tended to come and go, but exposure to cold or damp, or long periods spent walking or running, always exacerbated it. Now he could feel a tightness where the grafts had taken, as though his skin were being stretched too tightly across his back.
As for Louis, he kept returning to the standoff at the road. It was clear that Leehagen’s men wanted to keep them contained, and to kill them only as a last resort. Yet he couldn’t see a way that he and Angel would be allowed to leave here alive. They had been drawn north for a purpose, and that purpose was to wipe them from the face of the earth. The Endalls had been killed, and Louis could only assume that the other teams had also been targeted. They were all good at what they did, but they had not expected that their every move would be known in advance. Leehagen had second-guessed them at every turn. He had anticipated their coming, and the presence of Loret
ta Hoyle at the house suggested that her father had been involved in the betrayal.
But the task of finishing them off had not been assigned to the men on the road, or to others of their kind. It seemed to have been gifted to another; it remained to be seen who that might be, but Louis had his suspicions.
To the southwest lay the cattle pens, the barn containing their car, and Leehagen’s house. Was that where they were supposed to have died, taken unawares as they entered the property, believing their presence to be unknown to those sleeping within? If so, then their intended executioner had been waiting there for them, and would ultimately have to come after them if they did not go to him. Louis had almost abandoned any intention of trying to get to Leehagen. He would be protected, and the element of surprise had been lost, especially as it seemed that it had never been there to begin with. But now he had begun to reconsider. To move on Leehagen would be unexpected at least. They were being contained primarily to the east, where the main road lay, their captors anticipating that they would try to make a break for it and find a way out of the area. Louis didn’t know how realistic their chances were on that score. It was a lot of ground to cover on foot, and even if they found a car and tried to bust out of the cordon, they were looking at a well-armed and mobile pursuit, and a series of raised roads that could easily be blocked. Their best chance in terms of transport lay in taking out one of the truck teams and hoping communications weren’t so tight that any break in protocol or routine would be instantly noticed.
But if they went west, to Leehagen, they would be effectively trapping themselves between two lines: the men to the east, and whatever protection Leehagen had near the house, with the lake behind it cutting off any further retreat, unless they could steal a boat, assuming they could find their way through the rocks Leehagen had sown on the lake bed, and also assuming they could hold off Leehagen’s men, because they sure as hell weren’t going to be able to kill them all.
The farmhouse in the woods, recalled from Louis’s examination of the satellite images, presented another option. They could call for help, barricading themselves inside in the hope of holding off their pursuers until rescue came. There were favors owed: a chopper could be on the ground in less than an hour. It would be a hot landing, but the men upon whom Louis might call would be used to that.
They came to the house. It was an old two-story structure painted in red, although the color had faded over time to a washed-out brown, so that it looked as though the dwelling was made of iron that had begun to rust, like a fragment of a ship that had come apart from the main structure and been left to rot almost within sight of water. The property was accessed by a dirt trail that hadn’t been visible on the satellite photographs due to tree cover, although Louis had guessed that there had to be a road somewhere. There was no grass in the yard. Instead, it had been turned into a vegetable garden. To their right, chickens clucked invisibly in their hutches, surrounded by a wire pen to keep out predators. To their left stood an old woodshed, its door open and blocks already stacked and covered within in preparation for winter. Behind it, white smoke gusted from a green, wood-burning furnace.
There were lights inside the house, and more smoke rose from the chimney. An old truck was parked at the back door, its bed a wooden cage. It reeked of animals’ excrement.
“How do you want to do this?” asked Angel, but the question was answered for him. The back door opened and a woman appeared on the sheltered porch. She looked as if she might have been in her forties, but her clothes were those of someone much older and there was too much gray in her hair for her years. Her face spoke of hard living, of disappointments, of hopes and dreams that had crumbled to dust in her hands.
She looked at the two men, taking in their weapons, and spoke.
“What do you want here?” she asked.
“Shelter, ma’am,” said Louis. “The use of a telephone. Some help.”
“You always come asking for help with guns in your hands?”
“No, ma’am.”
“You could say we’re victims of circumstance,” said Angel.
“Well, I can’t aid you. Go on now, you’d best be on your way.”
Louis had to admire her courage. There weren’t many women who’d tell two armed men to be about their business.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “I just don’t think you understand what’s happening here.”
“We understand fine,” said a voice from behind him. Louis didn’t move. He knew what was coming. Seconds later, he felt the twin barrels nudge him from behind.
“You know what that was, son?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Good. Let your gun fall down now. Your friend can do the same.”
Louis did as he was told, allowing the Steyr to drop but letting his right hand drift toward the Glock at his waist. Small fingers appeared and snatched the Steyr away, then did the same with Angel’s weapon.
“Your hand moves another inch, son, and I guarantee that you won’t live to feel the next raindrop on your face.”
Louis’s hand froze. He was patted down hard, and the Glock was taken from him. The same voice asked Angel where his pistol was at, and Angel answered quickly and honestly. Glancing to his left, Louis saw a tall young man frisk Angel and take the gun from his waist. They were now completely unarmed.
He heard footsteps backing off behind him. Slowly, he turned. Angel was already looking at the two men who had emerged from behind the woodshed. One was probably in his sixties, wearing a wide-brimmed leather hat to protect him from the rain. The younger man, the one who had frisked them, was in his late twenties, and was bareheaded. His hair was close shaven, and the rainwater ran like tears down the cheeks of his intensely pale, blue-veined face. His left eye appeared to have no retina. It was entirely white, like his skin, as though something poisonous had seeped from the latter into the former, draining it of color. Both were armed, the older man with a shotgun, the younger with a varmint gun. Between them stood a little girl of no more than seven or eight who was dressed, incongruously, in a Minnie Mouse raincoat and bright red boots. The guns recently taken from Angel and Louis lay between her feet. She didn’t seem troubled by the guns, or by the fact that the two men with her were pointing weapons at the visitors.
“You ought to have stayed back in New York,” said the older man.
“How do you know we’re from New York?” said Angel.
“Rumors. They were waiting for you to come. It was just a matter of when.”
“‘They’?”
“Mr. Leehagen and his men.”
“You work for Leehagen?”
“Everyone around here works for Mr. Leehagen, one way or another. If he don’t pay you directly, then you live by what he pays others.” He looked down at the little girl. “Go to your grandma, honey.”
The little girl ran behind the legs of the younger man and danced her way to the shelter of the house, splashing through the puddles that were forming on the uneven ground. She climbed the steps to the porch and stood beside her grandmother, who put a protective hand around her granddaughter’s shoulders. The girl smiled up at the older woman, then clapped her hands once with pleasure and excitement. Angel wondered who her father was. It didn’t seem to be the younger of the two men, the pale creature with the washed-out eye. She was too pretty to be his, too vibrant. He looked like a corpse that hadn’t yet realized it was dead.
“Thomas,” said the woman at the door to the older man. There was a note of what might almost have been pleading in her voice. It struck Angel that she wasn’t intervening out of any great concern for the two men who had trespassed onto the property. She just didn’t want her husband to get into trouble by spilling blood.
“Just take her inside,” said Thomas. “We’ll deal with this.”
The woman grabbed the girl by the hand and pulled her into the house. The girl didn’t seem happy to miss the show, and it took an extra yank on her arm before she crossed the threshold and the door c
losed behind them. Even then, Angel could see her staring yearningly back at him, disappointment creasing her features.
“We don’t want any trouble,” said Angel.
“Really?” said the man named Thomas. He sounded skeptical, and tired. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”
“We just want to get out of here alive,” said Angel.
“I don’t doubt that, son. My guess is you’re going to have some problems on that score.”
“You could help us.”
“I could, that’s true. I could, but I won’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because then I’d die in your place, assuming you managed to get out of this mess you’re in, which I don’t think is going to happen. Mr. Leehagen places a high premium on loyalty.”
“Those men out there are going to kill us.”
“You reap what you sow. I’m sure that’s in the Bible, somewhere. My wife could tell you. She reads on it some, when the mood strikes her. Never spoke much to me.”
He shifted his grip on the shotgun, and Louis tensed. Angel could sense him getting ready to spring, and Thomas seemed to sense it, too. The twin mouths of the shotgun steadied themselves on Louis. The wind changed direction, bringing the stink of whatever animals Thomas had transported to their doom in his truck to Angel, the smell of their dying as they voided themselves in fear.
“No,” said Thomas, simply. “You do, and I’ll be feeding your body to the hogs before day’s end.”
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