Forty-three
John Hartman had spent a year cultivating the most
formidable thorn bushes to be found in the wilderness during construction
of the cabin. He had planted a row to grow a physical barrier to the
cabin and to hide its otherwise visible face from the shore of the nearby
lake, and he had pounded food stakes into their roots to keep them thriving
each spring.
He reached the cabin in the early hours of the
morning with David cradled in his arms and encountered a formidable
barrier of six-foot bushes. With the Doberman bounding along the shore of
the lake in the gray light of morning, he set David down in a soft patch
of grass to search for a passage through the thorns.
Enlarging a corridor between bushes with his one good
hand, the cabin's face finally appeared to view. The nostalgia of the
moment was sheer torment. He had dug the cabin into the rocky hillside
and built its face of logs in eighteenth-century tradition, adding two
modern glass windows in steel frames, steel shutters, and a security door
set in a steel frame. He had feared the cabin would be discovered,
sacked, and used by the teenagers of the Ridge as a hang-out. But the key
to the door was still tucked away and hidden from sight by a wad of
hardened clay.
Rusted hinges creaked as the door opened for the
first time in years. Stale and musky air escaped, stirring dust from
thick cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. John filled two kerosene lamps
from sealed plastic containers. He lit the wicks with a wax-coated match
and used a broom to clear away the cob webs. He then tore the plastic
sheeting from a mattress and a blanket and sheet set and made a bed for
David.
He went back for David. David stirred to partial
consciousness in his arms. John tucked him into bed fully dressed and put
his hand across his forehead. The fever wasn't that bad, but his color
wasn't good. He'd had to get the boy to Dr. Varley even if it meant
turning himself over to the state police.
The temperature outside had dipped into the low
fifties overnight. He broke out the kerosene heater, filled and lit it.
The orange glow slowly filled the cabin with gentle warmth. The Doberman
scratched at the door and inspected the interior of the cabin in a frenzy
of excess energy. He muzzled David, whined, and then left the cabin to
complete his exploration of the great outdoors.
John had left a store of water with the supplies, but
he emptied a five gallon container and went down to the lake for a fresh
supply. He followed the shore to a small creek, then walked up the creek
to where it gushed from a wall of rock. He had sent a sample of the well
water in for analysis five years ago. Aside from a harmless level of
sulfur and mineral content, it had tested potable.
Marlene appeared at his side on the way back up to
the cabin. "Wait another day," she said.
"David goes to Dr. Varley this morning. I'm giving
myself up to Gene."
"Dr. Varley can't help David. Gene can't protect
you. One more day, John. Please."
John refused to look at her. "What good will it do?"
"Please trust me."
But he didn't. "Whatever scheme you're cooking up
won't work. I'm in deep enough as it is. I'm not risking David's life."
The dog began barking stridently from somewhere above
the cabin. John set the water container down and reached for his
sidearm. Chances were in his favor that the dog had cornered nothing but
a small animal to play with. He started up the trail to investigate.
From further up the trail, Gene Packerson emerged
from the gloom of the trees with the black sphere tucked beneath one arm.
His right hand rested on the butt of his service revolver, and he warily
kept an eye on the dog bounding in circles around him and barking
furiously.
"Kahl's security sucks, don't you think?" Gene called
down to him. "Even his dogs won't bite." Gene tossed the sphere to the
ground at John's feet. "What the hell is that thing?"
John watched it roll into the underbrush. "Leave
it. Come on down to the cabin."
"Do you know what it is?"
John gave a reluctant nod. "Yeah. It's not safe to
handle. Just leave it."
"Would you mind explaining?"
"It won't help. Trust me on that."
"I found Ben and Jim's clothes, John. Shoes were
still tied. Do you hear what I'm saying? Zippers still zipped. Buttons
buttoned."
John stared at the sphere, assembling the words in
his head that would make an unbelievable story believable. He couldn't
quite manage the feat.
"Tell me about the girl you killed and we'll call it
even," Gene said. "Here and now. The rest can wait."
John felt himself cave in on the inside. It had
finally caught up with him. Even if it proceeded to destroy him, there
was nothing more he could do to hide, or defend himself. He sidestepped
and sat on an outcropping of bare rock.
"How much of Kahl's story is true, John?"
"All of it," John said. "It's just not the whole
story."
"Tell me the whole story."
He didn't know if he could go through it even one
more time. He had to try.
"There were six of us," he said. "Me, Blackburn,
Chambers, two Frenchman, and an Arab double agent. Someone had identified
and located a terrorist who had killed a people in a series of bus
bombings in Israel. The job paid well and the man needed to be dealt
with.
"It was in Algiers. We went in past midnight. One
of the Frenchmen killed him in cold blood, one silenced shot to the
heart. Blackburn, Chambers, and I confirmed the kill and the identity of
the body. We were ordered to stand guard and watch for a chopper due
in to pick us up."
John paused to catch his breath. Talking about it
evoked deep but vivid memories. All the old horror and terrible despair
bubbled back up to the surface.
"I need to hear it," Gene said.
"We had specific instructions," John said. "We
carried out our mission to the letter. But the two Frenchmen and the Arab
had something of a personal vendetta to settle, or maybe orders I didn't
know about. We heard terrible screams from inside the house. Blackburn
and Chambers didn't want to get involved, but I had to stop it. It wasn't
in our contract to kill the man's wife and daughter. It sure as hell
wasn't in our contract to rape and torture."
Gene waited in silence. John had suffered
panic-attacks for several years after the incident. He was on the ragged
edge of another. "I went inside. They were all in the basement. Gene, I
don't want to tell you what they were doing. I can't talk about that."
"I don't need to hear that part of it."
"I drew my gun on them and told them to stop," John
said. "They calmed me down and convinced me they'd quit. I trusted
them. They jumped and disarmed me the moment I let my guard down."
Gene turned away and gazed into the forest, giving
him as much privacy with his pain as possible.
"They went back to work on the women," John said.
"They took bets as to which of the two would hold out the longest. Gene,
I completely lost it. I almost got the best of them barehanded.
Afterward, they figured I might cause trouble later, so they threatened to
kill me if I didn't finish what they had started. They wanted my hands
dirtied so that they could say I participated. The mother died while we
were fighting. The girl was still alive. Christ, Gene, she was still
conscious."
"Then you killed her after all."
John went cold inside. "She had green eyes, Gene.
She was a beautiful young kid. She didn't want to die. But she could
never have made it. She was hurt too bad. And they weren't done with her
yet. I didn't do it because of them, or myself. I did it for her. I had
to. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself leaving her that way."
"You don't have to say any more," Gene said. "I've
heard all I need to hear."
John tried to wipe the tears from his face with his
right hand. It felt like wood against his face. Pain shot up his arm.
He clutched it protectively to his chest, grimly thankful for the
diversion. "I waited until they let down their guard again. I used the
knife they gave me for the girl and I killed them, all three of them."
Gene took a deep, ragged breath.
"I had no quarrel with Blackburn and Chambers. We
split up and made a run for it. Our employers figured we had been bought
out by the Iranians. They put a contract out on our heads. They started out
at fifty thousand each. It was a quarter million by the time I managed to
get back to the states. I never knew whether Blackburn and Chambers made
it back alive until I heard that Kahl had contacted them."
"They're still looking for you after all these
years?"
"Neil and Lucas aren't here for revenge. I’m
guessing can get out from beneath the mark on their own heads if they take
me out. I’m the one everyone wants dead.”
"Kahl was looking for dirt," Gene said. "It looks
like he found more than he bargained for."
"More than he damned well can handle." John turned
to face his old friend. "So now you know." He felt strangely empty
having told the story. "I've never wanted to keep it a secret. I wish I
could have told both you and Marlene years ago. I had no right to burden
either one of you. It wouldn't have served any useful purpose."
Gene paced in circles, looking thoroughly
uncomfortable. He glanced back toward the black sphere lying on the
ground. "Are you and David in any danger?"
"David's got a fever. I think he's in a coma. I've
got to get him to the hospital. I want to be with him."
Gene shook his head regretfully. "John, I can't
guarantee your safety. Kahl brought in extra men for his security force.
We've got the state investigating the missing persons. The feds got Kahl
under a microscope."
"David's my only priority."
Gene gave a reluctant nod of agreement. "Okay, but
I’ll need an hour to gather a team I can trust. I want to at least get
you to the courthouse alive." He unclipped the radio at his belt,
selected an unused channel, and handed it to John. “I’ll give you a call
on this when we’re ready.”
"Go for it."
Gene gave a distracted nod, then moved into the trees
and out of sight.
John returned to the cabin. Marlene stood on the
shore of the lake staring out over the dark water, a silhouette against
the glare of a swath of reflected sunlight. He ignored her and went back
inside the cabin long enough to perk a pot of coffee. Only after the
caffeine kicked in did he feel up to the challenge of facing her again.
He had to know if she would try to stop him.
He went back down to the beach and stopped fifteen or
twenty feet short of her dark silhouette.
"Marlene?"
Shock jangled his nerves. Not Marlene.
Someone else. She wore a red silk dress slit up one leg, Kiki, the Asian
girl from Kahl’s mansion. He caught the subtle aroma of perfume. She
trembled and wove unsteadily from side to side.
She turned to him. The shadow cast by the morning
sunlight rippled over the ground. Marlene cast no shadow. She drew
closer with the fluid motion of a lean body. She was barefoot, he
noticed. Mud covered her feet and legs. She left footprints in her wake.
John took an unconscious step back, paralyzed with
fright. He could hear her ragged, shuddering breath. Her breasts heaved
beneath the thin fabric of her dress.
"It's just a trick," she said in a gasping voice, not
Marlene's voice at all. "Everything I do is a trick, isn't it?"
Step by step, she backed him away from the water's
edge.
"I'm doing well considering that I've been dead,
don't you think? I had forgotten how to breathe, John. I've had to learn
to stand and to walk all over again. I'm not entirely certain I'm glad to
be back. We don't think of life as a burden, or flesh as parasitic and
our brief lives as slaves to its blind hungers. I've known pleasure and
joy and happiness and thought of them as the purpose to our lives, but
pleasure and pain are just tools. They steer the course of our lives. We
struggle to survive only to the extent that we enjoy it, and fear death.
Don't you find it ironic that your own little world is as deceitful as any
strange machine brought to you from the stars?"
John couldn't figure out what was happening, or why
it was happening.
Tears flowed down dirt-smeared cheeks. "David's
green light is coming back to conclude the mission, John. I have so much
I have to do before it arrives. I don't know if I have time enough to
accomplish it all. I don't know if it's going to work."
He remembered the way she had steered him around the
land mine beneath the access road to Kahl's mansion. If she could take
control of a part of his body, she could take control of any body.
Kiki’s body.
"John, I can't do this alone. I need you and David
to help me."
He away backed in horror. She had gone too far. He
would wait for Gene's call and take David back up to the Ridge. For
David's sake, he had been willing to risk everything, his life, his
sanity. There was nothing left but to place David in Dr. Varley's care.
His role in David's life was ended, his place in the world, forfeit.
It was over.
