Neal’s hands were cuffed to a ring bolted into the wall of the small bunker. They’d taken his watch, but he figured it was somewhere near morning. He sat shivering on the concrete floor, listening to joe Graham nag at him.
“You should have pulled the trigger, son,” Graham was saying. He also was chained to the wall.
“I know.”
“You should have gone through with it.”
“You’re right.”
“I’ve told you a million times, the job comes first.”
“Let me ask them,” Neal said through clenched teeth. “Maybe they’ll give me the gun back-loaded.”
They sat quietly for a few minutes. Then Neal asked, “Are you scared, Graham?”
“Out of my mind.”
Me too, thought Neal. But so far it just doesn’t seem real. They’ve thrown us into the old prison bunker, chained us to the wall, and just left us in here to freeze. And there’s nothing we can do about it.
“What are we going to do?” he asked Graham.
“Well, when they come in, and they will, they’re going to start working on us. They’ll probably start with one of us first and let the other watch. The guy watching sees what’s happening to his partner and starts thinking, Do I really want them doing that to me? Maybe I can make a deal. So that’s what we do.”
“Make a deal?” Neal asked.
“Sure. You give them the whole story, a little bit at a time, so they’re convinced they’re beating it out of you. You give it to them too early, they think it’s a lie. So take a few lumps and then start to tell them everything. A little bit at a time.”
Neal couldn’t believe he was hearing this. “If we tell them everything they’ll probably kill the boy.
“The boy is dead.”
“I don’t believe that.”
If Graham could have reached Neal he would have grabbed him and shook him. Instead he looked at him long and hard and said, “Son, the boy is dead. You have to face that. We didn’t get to him in time. Maybe there were things we did that we shouldn’t have, or things we didn’t do that we should have. I don’t know. But the boy is dead, Neal.”
“It’s nothing we did. It was me.”
“Who gives a shit?” Graham yelled. “Jesus, will you grow up? Cody McCall is dead, and we’re probably going to join him real soon. The only chance we have is to try to drag this out long enough for Levine to look up from his account books and realize he hasn’t heard from us in awhile and he’d better come looking. And when Ed comes, he’ll arrive with a bad attitude and an army. And I want to live long enough to see that. So drop the it’s-all-my-fault crybaby shit and start thinking about how you can make them torture you for as long as possible.”
You’re right, Dad. The only chance is to talk and drag it out. But you’re wrong about the boy, Graham. I just goddamn know that Cody is alive. And that should be reason enough to hang on.
The door opened and Randy came in carrying two sawhorses. Cal Strekker came in behind him. He had a sledgehammer.
“See, what we did with Harley,” Cal said, “was we laid him on his back on the floor, set one horse under his knees and the other under his ankles. Then we tied his ankles to the second sawhorse. That way Harley’s legs was stretched out nice and tight. Then I swung this hammer down and… whoo.”
Neal felt every nerve in his body jump out from his skin. It was Graham who had the balls to ask, “What did you have against Harley?”
“He wouldn’t give up his boy,” Cal answered. “That got the reverend questioning Harley’s commitment to the cause, which got the reverend praying, and old Yahweh must have told him that Harley was a race traitor. Carter came in here himself to ask Harley the questions. Harley confessed.”
“Before or after you broke his legs?” Graham asked.
Cal grinned. “Long time before that.”
Neal was trying to work up enough voice to ask about Cody, but Graham shut him off with a look and said, “But you kept at him anyway, didn’t you?”
“Yahweh said,” answered Cal. “Or Carter said Yahweh said, which amounted to the same thing. See, Harley had been bonded in blood, so Carter said he was the worse kind of traitor. Said the devil was in him and that we had to make the devil howl. And we did.”
Cal sat down on one of the sawhorses and told them all about it. He enjoyed telling the story, seeing the terror in their eyes, feeling them flinch and sicken, watching them as they came to the realization that the same things were going to happen to them.
So he told them how they’d left Harley chained in the bunker and gone out and got a billy goat and come back in and the reverend told Harley to have sex with Satan’s animal. And how Harley refused, so they brought the boy in, held a gun to his head, and asked Harley again, and this time Harley just couldn’t do it fast enough and Carter said that it proved he was in league with the devil. So they took the boy out, and then they wrapped a rope around the chain on Harley’s cuffs, and ran that through the pulley on the ceiling, and hoisted Harley up and took turns on him with a knotted rope till Harley passed out, so they left him hanging there and the cuffs rubbed his wrists raw and his hands got all swollen because there was no circulation.
Cal told them how they came back later that night and the first thing Harley croaked out of his throat was to ask about his boy, and Carter said that Yahweh would take care of the child and Harley started crying then, just blubbering-like to make you sick-and Carter told Harley to confess that ZOG had sent him and Harley did. They let him down then, cuffed him behind his back, and forced him on his knees, and Carter stuck a broom handle up him and then they left him there like that. And when they came back Harley was bleeding like you wouldn’t believe, and moaning, and Carter said he was talking to Satan but they needed to hear Satan howl. So they broke Harley’s fingers, then his arms. And that was when they did the trick with the sawhorses and the hammer and they thought he was going to die right there, and Randy here was such a pussy he said maybe they should just shoot him then. But Carter said that Satan would take him in his time and Carter went back to California. And Harley was a tough bird and just wouldn’t give up the ghost and he was groaning all the time and letting off such a stench, and that’s when they got to talking about how there really was more than one way to skin a cat. So Cal started taking a knife to him and peeling off big strips-you should have heard Satan howl then-but they didn’t get too far and Harley just finally died.
“But it took what, Randy?” Cal asked. “Couple of weeks?”
“More like three, I think, start to finish.”
“Whatever,” Cal said. He got off the sawhorse, squatted in front of Neal, smiled, and said, “And guess what, Neal buddy? The reverend just finished praying about you. Guess what old Yahweh told him?”
Neal didn’t answer. He wanted to ask about Cody. He tried to. But he was afraid to move as much as a muscle, he was so close to crying, or throwing up, or worse.
Cal saw it, and the psychotic gleam in his eyes flared more brighdy, and he answered his own question. “He said you and the one-armed bandit here was both sent by ZOG. That you’re both in league with Satan. That we need to make you howl.”
Neal felt himself shaking. He tried to control it but he couldn’t. His right leg just started jumping all on its own and he felt as if his head were drowning, and tears were just about to overflow from his eyes when he heard Joe Graham’s blessed, blessed voice.
“When you pick out my goat,” Graham said, “make sure you get a pretty one.”
The door opened again and the Reverend C. Wesley Carter walked in.
Neal closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Now it starts, he thought.
Cal turned to Graham and grinned. “You’re first, smart-ass.”
Graham knew that. It’s why he’d mouthed off.
Randy and Cal took the cuffs off Graham and stripped him. Then they laid him on his stomach across the sawhorses. They wrapped a heavy rope under his arms and tied it down. They did the same to his ankles so that Graham was stretched out across the sawhorses, his feet hanging off one side and his head off the other. They arranged it so that his face was a foot from Neal’s.
While they were doing this, Carter was tying knots into another rope, saying, “We have to find out who you are and why you’re here, and we have to find out quickly. I’m very puzzled that you helped us rob the armored car, and I’m concerned that the shipment of arms-in fact, our entire haven here-is in jeopardy.”
He finished with the rope, raised it over his head, and asked Graham, “Who sent you?”
Graham struggled for breath. His back already felt as if it might snap from the strain of holding his weight.
“Satan sent me,” he answered.
Neal made himself look at Graham as the rope came down on his back.
Graham sucked in some air. “Satan or Tom Landry, one of the two.”
The rope lashed down on his shoulders.
Two, three, four, five more times before Carter spoke again.
“Who sent you?”
“Harley McCall’s ex-wife. Alimony.”
The rope came down again.
Graham’s face was red with strain. Sweat dripped off his jaw. His back was already raw.
Neal tried to reach out and hold Graham’s head, but the chains were too short.
“You’re killing him!” Neal yelled.
“Shut up,” Graham snapped at him. Then he asked Carter, “Hey, what about my goat?”
Five, six, seven times Carter’s arm swung. Flecks of blood flew across the cell with each stroke.
Cal stepped around to the front of the sawhorses and lifted Graham’s chin.
“You got anything funny to say now, smart-ass?” he asked Graham.
Graham swung his head back and forth. Sweat poured from his face.
Neal kicked Cal in the back of the leg to get his attention. “I’ll kill you, you dirty bastard,” Neal said.
“You’re a hoot, Neal,” Cal answered.
You’re doing this for me, Dad, Neal thought. You’re buying time for me. You mouthed off to Cal to make him mad, to make him start with you instead of me.
Carter raised his arm to start again.
Neal shouted to Carter, “Hey, Rev! Is it true what I heard about Yahweh and little boys?”
Graham craned his neck and shook his head at Neal.
Neal ignored him. “For that matter, is it true what I heard about you and little boys?”
Carter dropped his arm and stared at Neal.
“Shut up, Neal,” Graham murmured.
“Yeah, Rev,” Neal said, forcing himself to smile, “I’m not sure I heard it right, because your wife’s mouth was full at the time, if you catch my drift, but I thought she said that you liked to-”
Carter stepped over Neal and raised the rope. “You piece of filth,” he said.
Come on, come on, do it. Start on me for a while.
“But your time will come,” Carter said. He turned back to Graham.
Sorry, Dad. I tried, I tried.
Graham lifted his real hand, smiled weakly, and slowly raised his middle finger at Neal.
“Did ZOG send you?” Carter asked.
“Zog who?” asked Graham.
Carter raised his arm and was about to bring the rope down again when the door opened and Bob Hansen walked in.
He looked worried and excited at the same time.
“The truck is here,” he said. “The arms have arrived.”
Carter dropped his arm. “We have to move quickly. These two can wait and tremble in the fear of Yahweh’s wrath.”
He dropped the rope and paced to the door. Carlisle and Strekker followed him.
“Untie him!” Neal yelled. “For God’s sake, at least cover him up!”
Strekker turned around. “I’ll be back,” he said and shut the door behind him.
Graham craned his neck up. His face was pale with pain. His hair was matted with sweat, and blood was dripping off his back.
“We’re winning,” he rasped.
Cal stepped out into the compound and saw a rented moving van parked outside. The truck was bright yellow with black stenciled letters that read TROJAN TRUCKING on the side.
“People think I’m carrying rubbers,” the driver said as he hopped down from the cab, “but actually I went to USC.”
That’s kind of funny, Cal thought. But neither Carter nor Hansen laughed, so he put on a scowl and gave the driver the cold eye.
The driver rubbed his hands together and blew on them. “It’s a little colder here than it was in LA,” he complained. He looked at the compound and asked, “You guys expecting company?”
“Would you be Mr. Mackinnon?” Carter asked him.
“I wouldn’t be if I had a choice, but I don’t, so I am.”
“I’m Reverend Carter, this is Bob Hansen.”
“Nice to put a face to the voice.”
“I’m surprised you came alone,” Carter said.
“I can take care of myself,” Mackinnon answered.
Cal heard this as both a comment and a threat.
The Mackinnon guy looked around at all of the boys and smiled. He sure enough looked like he could take care of himself. He had a body like a bear, and anyone looking hard could see the form of a large pistol holstered at his belt.
Hansen asked, “What have you brought us?”
“I’ve brought you enough stuff to send a whole battalion of kikes and niggers back to their maker,” Mackinnon said. “But unfortunately, I can’t give it away.”
“The money is in the safe,” Hansen said.
Mackinnon smiled. “That’s good enough for me. After all, we’re all on the same team, right?”
Cal stepped forward. “I want to take a close look at this stuff before we pay,” he said, trying to stare Mackinnon down.
Mackinnon didn’t stare down easily. “And who are you?” he asked.
Hansen stepped in. “This is Cal Strekker. He has ranger training. He’s our tactical instructor.”
“Well, Cal,” Mackinnon said, “I’m looking out here at all this flat ground and those hills back there and I’m thinking about what you’re going to need to defend your perimeter. I brought some mines that can be tripped off by contact or blown by switches from your watch-towers. I brought some rocket launchers same as the Afghanis have been using to shoot down Soviet helicopters. You’re familiar with them, I’m sure. Carry them right on your shoulder, pull the trigger, and whoosh. I brought five crates of M-16s, and they have the bugs worked out of them by now-they don’t jam the way they used to during the southeast Asian war games. I even brought a. 50 caliber air-cooled machine gun you can set right in that bunker over there and chop up any assault coming across that flat. And I even brought you some mortars, because that’s going to be a problem for you if your enemy has any mortars of his own sitting back in those hills. He could turn this into another Dien Bien Phu unless you have some arty of your own to dig him out.”
Cal was impressed but didn’t want to show it. He said, “Well, we plan on doing more than just defending ourselves.”
“Of course you do,” Mackinnon replied, “so I also have two very nice sniper rifles-Swiss-some infrared scopes, and three superb. 22 automatic pistols.”
“We ain’t plinkin’ cans here, mister,” Cal said.
“Of course, it takes a real professional to use one, but a well-placed. 22 in the brain will get the job done quickly, neatly, and quietly.”
“Silencers?” Cal asked.
Mackinnon spread his arms wide and said, “But of course.”
Cal grumped a little more then said, “Sounds okay, Mr. Hansen, but I think we better test a few of these things before we turn any money over.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Mackinnon answered. “I’ll need to show you how some of this stuff works, anyway.”
He stepped around to the back of the truck and started to lift the door. Cal followed him and looked inside at the crates. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and held it out to Mackinnon.
“No thanks,” Mackinnon said. “I’m trying to quit.” He hopped into the truck and said, “Cal, you want to send some of your men over here to unload this stuff?”
Cal waved the gang over and set them to work. He asked Hansen, “What about the prisoners?”
Carter stepped in. “I’ll deal with the prisoners.”
“Yes, sir.” That was fine with Cal. He was far more interested in the weapons Mackinnon had brought, and there was plenty of time to have some fun with that one-armed wise guy and that smart-ass Carey. With any luck they might break Harley’s three-week record. So let them wait.
“So far we’re winning,” Graham repeated to Neal. “We kept them talking for a half hour and now we’ve caught a break with this arms shipment arriving. With any luck they’ll be busy playing with their new toys for a while, which means more time for Ed to wake up and come get us out of here.”
“I wish he’d hurry,” Neal answered. He didn’t think Graham could survive much longer, not with the cold, the pain, and the shock. “You were great, Dad.”
“Hell with these guys,” answered Graham. “We’re not dead yet.” But we’re going to be, son, he thought. And the only thing I can do for you now is to try to keep the terror out of your mind. Stop you from imagining what the pain is going to be like. “Have you started working on your story yet?” Graham asked.
“Not really.”
“Get on it,” Graham snapped. “Think up layers on top of layers.”
“You got it.” I know what you’re trying to do, Dad, but I’ll play along. It gives us something to do, and I think we’re in for a long wait.
Then Carter and Randy came back in.
“Where’s Dad?” Shelly asked her mother.
They were standing at the kitchen counter. Karen sat at the table, peeling potatoes.
“On the roof,” Peggy answered.
“Again?” Shelly laughed. “Who does he think he is, Santa Claus?”
“Honey, your father has always thought he was Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and Peter Pan all rolled up into one. He’s still working on this big surprise of his.”
Karen asked, “When do we get to see it?”
“Tonight, he says.”
Shelly rolled her eyes dramatically and said, “It’s going to be a long afternoon.”
Up on the roof, Steve held the last of the wires down with one hand and pounded the U-nail down with the other. He wanted to finish up before the storm came in and made him stop.
He looked up to check out the clouds again. Yep, he thought, looks like we’re going to have a white Hanukkah.
Then he heard the far-off crackle of rifle fire coming from the Hansen place. Knock yourselves out, boys, he thought. Because I’m going to knock you out tonight.
Shoshoko heard the gunfire too. He looked up from the rabbit he was skinning and listened closely. The sound was coming from the valley, close to the base of the mountain. But what could they be shooting at, using so many bullets? Or was it just the white man’s silly habit of constantly testing his aim? A wasteful, childish game, Shoshoko thought.
Yet from his dream, he knew that the white men would be coming up the mountain and that the bullets would be for him. He went back to skinning the rabbit. They needed the meat, and it was not his fate to die in the daylight. The white men would not come until the night.
Cal could tell that the constant popping sound of the boys trying out the sample M-16s was annoying Mackinnon. The man didn’t like working with explosives anyway; his fingers looked numb with cold, and he was sweating profusely even though he was lying in the snow. But the arms dealer sure as hell knew what he was doing, Cal could tell that. He watched as Mackinnon finished arming the mine, then brushed some snow over the top of the metal disc that looked like a large dinner plate.
“Mark this down as ‘AV, RC 3,’” he told Cal, who stood above him making sketches in a notepad.
You don’t have to tell me, Cal thought. It was critical to record the location and type of the mines. This one was “antivehicle, radio-controlled number three,” the last of the mines they’d planted on the road. They’d put one right on the turnoff from the main road, another one about halfway down, and this last one right under the compound gate itself; if anything ever managed to ram the gate in, they would blow the hell out of it right there.
They’d laid a dozen ‘AP, CD’-antipersonnel, contact-detonated-mines in an irregular pattern around the outside of the compound. These were the sweet little puppies that exploded as you stepped off them, giving you the cheerful choice of standing perfectly still and getting shot or hitting the dirt with whatever was left of you after the mine blew up underneath you. They also planted twenty-four dummy mines. The only way you could tell they were duds was by stepping off them and seeing whether you were alive or a memory.
The idea was to force any attack into narrow unmined lanes that you had covered with presighted rifle fire. This would equalize the firepower of your small force against your enemy’s larger one. With discipline and training, one good man with an Ml 6 could take care of his own lane while a centrally located heavy machine gun could sweep the entire field of fire. Your best marksmen stayed up in the towers with their sniper rifles and picked off the enemy’s leaders. A good fire team could turn an enemy attack into a debacle in moments. It would take trust, of course. Every man was literally betting his life that every other man was doing his own job. And Cal was going to make goddamn sure that was the case.
“Let’s go up the tower and label the switches,” Mackinnon said. “Then let’s call it a day. I’m beat.”
They’d put in a full one. They’d unpacked the crates of rifles and test-fired half a dozen of them. Then Cal had set the men to assembling and cleaning the rest and they hiked down near the base of the mountain, set up some targets, and started sighting them in. Then Mackinnon took Cal and Randy and talked them through the intricacies of the Schmidt Rubin 31/55 sniper rifle, a Swiss beauty with a bipod stand, capable of delivering a 190-grain bullet with great accuracy at long range. Then he and Cal started the long, sweaty work of laying the mines.
Now they walked back into the compound. The late afternoon sky had turned a sullen, threatening gray.
“Why don’t we put the switch box in the southeast tower?” Cal asked. “That gives us the best view of the terrain.”
“We can put a box in each tower and one in the bunker, if you want. It’s a simple matter of override switches. That way you don’t have to worry about being in one particular place to detonate the mines.”
“Sounds good to me,” Cal said. He was impressed. Mackinnon had put some thought into this deal.
So Mackinnon charged four battery-run toggle-switch boxes and set the frequencies. They taped one into each guard tower and another one into the main bunker room. He showed Cal which switch detonated which mine. By the time he was finished it was dark out.
“Now you can blow the hell out of any ZOG bastard who tries to come in here,” Mackinnon said.
“That’s good,” Cal answered. “We might be needing to any time now.”
Mackinnon’s eyes went flat and cold. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Well, we have a couple of prisoners who…”
Cal saw Mackinnon’s jaw drop in disbelief and his face flush with anger.
“Prisoners?” Mackinnon hissed.
“Yeah. Couple of prisoners, I-”
“You assholes let me bring these arms into an insecure area?”
“It’s not insecure, it’s-”
“ZOG would put me away for life if they caught me with this shipment! Are these guys cops? FBI? Secret Service? Customs?”
Jesus, the guy is flipping out, Cal thought. He said, “I don’t know who they are. We haven’t really started questioning them yet.”
“Well, we’re goddamn well going to start now!”
Cal saw Bob Hansen walking over with that sour look he got on his face when he didn’t think things were going the way he wanted.
“What’s happening here? What’s the yelling about?”
“Where’s Carter?” Mackinnon yelled.
Cal almost smiled, because he’d never heard anyone yell at Hansen before.
“He’s back at my house, having a rest,” Hansen answered.
“His ass is in the sack and he’s got mine in a sling?”
Cal had to put his hand to his mouth and fake a cough.
“What’s the trouble?” Hansen asked. Cal could tell the boss was starting to get pissed off.
“The trouble is,” Mackinnon said with exaggerated patience, like he was talking to the slowest kid in the fifth grade, “that you guys have let me drive a truckload full of illegal arms into a place the law seems to have targeted. That’s what the trouble is.”
“We’re taking care of the-” Hansen started to say.
“You’re not taking care of shit!” Mackinnon yelled.
Cal saw Bob Hansen go positively pale.
“Where are they?” Mackinnon asked. He looked away, put his hands on his waist, and shook his head.
“They’re locked up,” Cal said. He pointed at the small bunker. “Right over there.”
Mackinnon said to Cal, “Let’s go.”
Hansen butted in. “Now wait just a minute. This is none of your concern. Reverend Carter-”
“You did search them for transmitters, didn’t you?” Mackinnon asked.
“We were about to do that when you came in,” Cal lied. He was some kind of embarrassed, especially because about half of the boys were standing a few feet away watching the whole scene.
He was grateful when Mackinnon turned his rage toward Hansen. “I want my money right now. Then I’m out of here.”
Hansen’s face looked like stone. “Come to the house with me. You’ll get every damn penny.”
“You’re damn right I’ll get every damn penny. But bring it here, to the truck. I’m not walking into any house with you. Half the National Guard might be hiding in there,” Mackinnon answered. He turned back to Cal. “You’re about the only half-competent guy around this place. Will you go with him to get my money?”
Cal looked to Hansen and the boss nodded curtly.
“I want to see these prisoners of yours,” Mackinnon said. “I’ve been dodging these ass wipes my whole life. I can probably look at them and tell you what agency, which office, and how they like their coffee.”
Cal yelled to the gaggle of men who were standing around pretending not to listen. “Jory! Dave! Take him to see the prisoners! Keep your eyes open!”
“I don’t believe this,” Mackinnon muttered as they walked over to the bunker. He reached under his coat, pulled his pistol, and laid it down in front of the bunker.
Dave and Jory stared at him.
“You don’t go into a cell with your weapon,” Mackinnon explained. “What if they grab you and take it from you?”
“They’re chained to the wall,” Dave said. “And Randy’s in there.”
“Then what do you need a gun for?” Mackinnon answered.
They laid their guns down and went inside. Randy closed the door behind them. He turned the light on and Mackinnon looked down at the one man shivering on the floor and the other one a bleeding lump stretched out over two sawhorses.
Then he lost his temper.
Ed’s spinning back kick slammed into Dave’s solar plexus and knocked all the air and most of the will to live right out of him. Dave crumpled to the floor gasping for air, his legs kicking spasmodically like a cockroach set on its back.
Randy pulled a combat knife from his belt and stabbed down at Ed’s neck. Ed shifted to the left, brought both arms up, and crossed them to form an X. He blocked the knife, held Randy’s wrist, turned around and under Randy’s trapped armed, then slammed Randy’s wrist down on his own collarbone. The knife dropped from Carlisle’s hand as his elbow snapped with a dry crack. Carlisle screamed as Ed spun the broken arm around behind his back, held his neck down, and pulled the shoulder out of its socket. Ed kicked Randy in the face, breaking his nose and one cheekbone, and then let him fall to the floor.
All of this took maybe five seconds, and Jory stood watching in shock before he organized his legs to head for the door. Ed lunged and grabbed him by the back of the belt, heaved backward, and threw him over the top of his shoulder. The boy landed hard on the floor, his head snapping back and smacking on the concrete. He was out.
Ed quickly untied Graham and cradled him in his arms.
“You’ve been working out,” Graham murmured to Ed.
Ed gently set Graham down. Then he took off his big coat and laid it out on the floor. A Velcro strap under the left arm held a large automatic pistol. Another strap fastened what looked like a small, flat black box. Ed set these things down, then wrapped Graham up in the coat. He looked at Graham’s swollen eyes, which were now more like slits. “Who did this to you?”
Graham pointed his chin at Randy. “He’s one of them, but I think you already broke every bone in his arm.”
Ed nodded, saw that Dave was struggling to make it to his hands and knees, pivoted on his right foot, and drove a side kick into the man’s jaw. Dave’s head banged into the wall and he slumped to the floor again.
“Neither of you smoke, huh?” Ed asked. “I need a cig.”
He bent over Dave’s unconscious body and found a pack of Marlboros and some matches in his top shirt pocket. He took a cigarette and lit it, then took a drag and exhaled with a contented sigh. “It’s been a long day,” he said.
“Uh, Ed?” Neal asked. “Maybe you could let me loose?”
“Sorry, I got carried away.”
He took the key ring off Randy, found the right keys, and unlocked the handcuffs.
Neal rubbed his wrists to work the circulation back into them. “It’s nice to see you, Ed,” he said.
“It’s nice to be seen,” Ed answered. His back to Graham, he mouthed the words can he walk?
Neal shook his head.
“You asshole,” Graham muttered. “Why didn’t you tell us what you were planning?”
Ed handcuffed Dave to the wall as he said, “What if you got captured, which you did… and tortured, which you did… and you broke? Which you didn’t, but it’s early. This way you had nothing to tell them.”
“Thanks a lot. So, you have an army out there?” Graham asked.
“I came alone,” Ed answered. He pointed at the bodies slumped on the floor. “I am an army.”
Which is a pisser, Ed thought. He had a hit squad standing by in Reno. This was supposed to have been a recon trip. Find out what the hell was going on with Carey and Graham and also set SOS up on a federal arms charge as well as the robbery rap. Not to mention get the Bank’s money back. He hadn’t planned to find Neal and Joe chained in a bunker. And when he’d seen Graham trussed up, bleeding and in pain, he knew there wasn’t going to be time to get to Reno and back. Not unless he just wanted to recover their bodies.
Jory was crawling over to the wall.
Ed gestured with the handcuffs, “Come here, kid.”
Jory stuck his hand out and Ed chained him to the wall.
“So do you also have a secret plan to get us out of here?” Graham asked.
Well, I did, Ed thought. “That depends on how many of us there are,” Ed answered. “Cody?”
“He’s dead,” Graham answered.
Neal started to say, “He isn’t-”
“Neal doesn’t think so,” Graham said.
Neal kicked Randy in the stomach. “What happened to the boy?” he asked.
“I dunno.”
The hell you don’t, Neal thought. He grabbed Randy by his broken arm and yanked him up.
Randy howled. “I don’t knooooow!”
Neal cranked the broken arm around in a complete circle. “You tell me, you little Nazi piece of shit,” Neal said. He threw Randy face-first into the wall, straightened the fractured arm out along the concrete, and slammed his hand into Randy’s broken elbow.
Randy pointed frantically with his good arm-pointed down at Jory. “He killed him, he killed him,” Randy panted. “Carter said the boy had to die… the seed of a traitor… none of us wanted to do it… he volunteered. Took him out into the rabbit brush and shot him.”
Neal let Randy go, looked down, and saw the guilt on Jory’s face. He grabbed the knife off the floor and slid to his knees in front of Jory. “You filthy…” Neal pressed the knife point against the soft part of Jory’s throat.
Neal felt the heavy whack of Graham’s artificial hand hit his wrist and knock the knife out of his hand. He grabbed his arm and looked to see Graham kneeling beside him.
“What?” Graham asked. “Did they turn you into one of them?”
Neal let go and sat staring at the floor. He couldn’t meet Graham’s eyes. I’ve just tortured a wounded man and tried to kill a sick boy, Neal thought. Maybe they have turned me into one of them.
Then he heard Jory whimper, “I didn’t kill Cody.”
What? “Who did?” asked Neal.
“Nobody. I was supposed to, but I didn’t. I took him away and hid him.”
“Where?” Neal demanded.
Jory’s eyes had a glassy stare. “To the Place of the Beginning and the End.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Jory smiled a shy, secretive smile. “I’ll take you there,” he offered. “I’ll take you to see the Son of God.”
Then Neal heard Strekker’s voice outside the door yell, “Mackinnon, we have the money!” The door opened and Cal stood at the top of the stairs.
Strekker was just too goddamn quick. He took in the scene, made his evaluation, and kicked the door shut.
Neal could hear him outside, yelling to the rest of the men. Then came the sounds of boots pounding in the snow, the clickity-clack of rifle bolts, and the clang of the compound gate swinging shut.
Great, Neal thought, we’re locked in the bunker, locked in the compound, and surrounded by a couple of dozen well-armed, well-trained fanatic killers.
“So,” Ed said, “you guys ready to blow this joint?”
Steve Mills adjusted the small cap on the back of his head and stood up at the end of the table.
He cleared his throat, looked at Peggy, Shelly, and Karen, and said, “As you know all too well, I’m not usually at a loss for words. But tonight, for the first time in my life, I’m celebrating a holiday in honor of my father and my grandparents. I never knew… never really cared… what made them give up their identities as Jews. I always supposed it was just to fit in a little easier in America. And I guess it worked, because I’ve always felt just a hundred percent at home in this country. But until recently I guess I never realized that there was a price to pay for that comfort, and that my grandfather and my father paid that price. That price was their heritage, and their identities, and I’m afraid some of their pride. And so tonight I’m honoring a holiday I don’t know much about to try to give a little back. Maybe to reclaim a piece of myself that got lost. And to give something back to you, Shelly, that you were cheated out of.”
He saw tears well up in his wife’s and daughter’s eyes and had to stop and clear his throat again.
“It wasn’t that we were ever ashamed of being Jewish… and we’re damn well not ashamed of it now. It just wasn’t something we thought a lot about, just like we don’t think a lot about being Christians too, I guess. It just wasn’t a big deal.
“But then I saw my daughter”-he paused to smile at Shelly- “being abused because her father is half Jewish, and it sure started being a big deal then. I figure my grandparents suffered for being Jews in Russia. That’s probably why they came here. And they had that fear in them, so they laid low about being Jews because they didn’t want their kids to suffer the way they did.
“And God bless them, but I think they got it wrong, because this country… if it means anything it means that you don’t have to hide who you are and you don’t have to bow down to idiots who hate you for it. And I love this country.
“Karen, thank you for being our honored guest tonight and sharing this new tradition with us. And Peggy, I hope all your Irish Catholic family forgives you for sitting in here…”
“I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” Peggy said.
“So, Shelly,” Steve said, “in honor of your grandparents and great-grandparents and the whole bunch of them who came before, would you light that candle now?”
As Steve watched and Peggy cried softly into her dinner napkin and Karen Hawley beamed, Shelly Mills in her white dress, her hair hanging long and straight and shining in the soft light, stood and lit the candles in the menorah.
When she finished, Steve poured the traditional wine into everyone’s glass and gave the traditional toast, “L’chaim-to life.”
“You know I’ll kill him!” Neal shouted out the firing slit. He had Jory in front of him, Ed’s pistol pointed at his head.
“I know!” Hansen shouted back.
“We’re coming out now!” Neal yelled back. “We’re getting in that truck and we’re driving to Austin! We’ll let him go when we get there! If I see, hear, or even smell anything I don’t like, I’ll blow the shit out of him! Do you understand me?”
“I understand!” Hansen yelled.
Neal turned to Ed, who had Graham over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. In his other hand he held the little black box.
“You ready?” Neal asked.
“Let’s do it.”
Neal took his hostage by the collar and pushed him to the door.
“Are you sure you can make this shot?” Hansen asked. He was worried. They’d done everything Neal had demanded. They’d unlocked the bunker door, opened the compound gate, and put the keys back in the truck’s ignition. They’d shut off the searchlights and taken the men out of the guard towers.
But a lot could go wrong, especially if Cal missed the shot.
“I’m sure,” Cal answered.
He was lying beside Hansen just inside the fence on the other side of the compound. Cal had the sniper rifle, its bipod planted in the snow, trained on the bunker door. The infrared scope gave him a perfect view in the darkness.
He had a man crouched in each tower and more men in the main bunker. Each one had his new M-16 locked, cocked, and ready to rock. One of Carter’s bodyguards was behind the machine gun in the main bunker, ready to sweep the forty yards of open ground that lay between the prisoners and their truck.
The gate was open now, but Cal had Craig lying out in the sagebrush ready to swing it shut just as soon as the firing started, just in case any of the intruders did make it into the truck.
But none of them are going to make it, Cal thought. Not carrying a wounded man. That’ll slow them all down, and Neal buddy will make an easy target, no matter how hard he tries to hide behind Jory. I’ll just have to shoot young Hansen first and then take out Neal.
And on the odd chance that the big son of a buck gets to the truck, we’ll just blow him to hell with the mines.
So come on out, boys. We’re ready for you.
“How many do you think are out there?” Ed asked.
“Twenty or so,” answered Neal. “Each of them with one of the rifles you brought them.”
“Life’s a bitch, isn’t it?”
“It’s about to be,” Neal answered.
He grabbed his hostage tighter and pushed the door open.
Cal watched through the night scope as Neal came out, holding his hostage in front of him. Ed followed, holding the one-armed little bastard over his shoulder like a grain sack.
“Is that Jory?” Hansen whispered. It was hard making him out in just the moonlight.
“Yep,” Cal answered. He recognized Jory’s cowboy hat. Too bad for Jory. He’d give it maybe another ten yards to try to get a clean shot at Neal’s head, but after that… well, so long Jory.
That bastard Carey was doing a good job staying covered. Five yards, six yards… Cal trained the cross hairs on Jory’s head.
“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot,” Hansen whispered.
Seven yards, eight… Cal started to put pressure on the trigger.
Okay, he thought, you have to get two shots off quick. First Jory, then Neal.
Nine yards… ten. At least it will be quick, Jory. Cal squeezed the trigger.
The bullet blew the cowboy hat off Randy’s head and splattered blood, bones, and brains over Neal. Neal let go and dashed for the truck. He heard the footsteps as Jory broke out from the bunker and came running behind him. The searchlights came on and bathed the compound in harsh white light.
Cal saw what was left of Randy’s face as his body spun and hit the ground. In the half second it took him to see his friend die, he lost Neal in the scope.
“Shit!” he yelled.
He stood up to signal Carter in the southeast watchtower.
The brownshirt bodyguard behind the machine gun waited until the lights came on, then aimed the gun a few feet ahead of the big man who was staggering forward, carrying the wounded man. He’d give him a little lead and then snake his fire backward. It was going to be almost too easy.
He got his aim and pressed the double trigger. His world exploded in an orange blaze as the gunpowder flashed up from the breach and seared his eyes.
The Reverend C. Wesley Carter heard the shot and then the scream, so he stood up in the watchtower. He put his hand to the detonator box and waited for the signal.
Cal could hear the screaming coming from the main bunker. “Don’t shoot any of the new guns!” Cal hollered. That son of a bitch Mackinnon had probably booby-trapped every one that he hadn’t demonstrated.
One of the men in the tower heard Cal yelling but couldn’t make out the words. He had a perfect bead on Neal, though. He pulled the trigger and the gun blew up in his hands.
“Hold your fire, everybody!” Cal yelled. “Get your own weapons out of the bunker!”
He looked to the gate and saw Vetter swing it shut.
“I’ve got you trapped, you son of a bitch!” he yelled at the truck. I hope I can still take you alive, he thought. I’ll take months to kill you.
Neal dove into the back of the truck, pulled Jory up behind him, and shut the doors. A window slid open at the front.
“You all right?” Ed shouted.
“We both made it! How’s Graham?”
“He’s okay, but the bastards closed the gate on us!”
Ed turned the ignition, hit the gas, and started for the gate.
Cal watched as the truck lurched forward. It was still all right. There was plenty of time to get the old weapons. That truck wasn’t going to ram through that gate.
Ed pointed his black box out the window and hit the button. The mine went off and the gate blew off its hinges. He hit the gas harder and rumbled down the road.
Carter watched the truck go through the gate. He was almost happy it had made it. Now, he thought, I will blow you back to hell. He checked the diagram Strekker had given him. He started to count down from five.
Cal picked himself up after the blast went off. It was chaos in the compound-the wounded were screaming, men were running all over hell and back looking for guns. What the hell happened with the mine? he wondered. Did Carter push the button early?
He looked up to the tower and could just make out Carter with his finger on the detonator box. So either Carter had panicked and pushed the wrong button or…
He started running toward the tower.
Carter saw the truck get near the mine hidden under the snow on the road. He also saw Cal running toward him. Not to worry, Mr. Strekker, I’m on the ball.
Cal waved his arms wildly and yelled, “Noooooo!”
Carter saw Cal give the signal. He flipped the toggle switch marked AP, RC 2. And that, he thought, will blow them back to the devil.
The first bomb went off in the ammunition bunker. It blew the wooden door off and, as Ed had planned, set off at least fifty secondary explosions as mortar shells, rockets, and bullets blew up in the fire. The next blast crumbled a watchtower. The next set off the tear gas Ed had placed in the detonator battery in the main bunker.
Cal hit the dirt and kept his head down as debris flew and the secondary explosions from ammunition belts, grenades, and mortar shells turned the compound into a junkyard. So the bombs were in the batteries of the detonator boxes. And now that lunatic preacher had the override switches and was clicking them oft one by one. Cal buried his head in his arm and waited it out.
Craig Vetter lay in the snow. He took aim at the truck’s rear tires, said a quick prayer that his weapon wasn’t one of the sabotaged ones, and shot.
Neal felt the truck sink on its flat tires. He grabbed Jory by the collar, opened the door, and rolled out. Bullets smacked into the truck above him.
Ed jumped out, crouched behind the front of the truck, and scrambled over to the passenger side. He pulled Graham out and slung him back over his shoulder.
“Neal! Get ready to move!” he yelled.
Carter watched the world turn into a whirling chaos. Flames were everywhere, sulphur burned his eyes and his nose, screams filled his ears as the truck full of devils drove away even though he was madly flipping the switches. Another watchtower buckled and crumpled to the ground. Yahweh’s haven was falling apart around him. He ripped the detonator box off the post and gripped it next to his chest. He shook it angrily.
Then he flipped the last switch.
A second later, all of the mines around the compound perimeter went off, sending up blasts of earth, snow, and smoke.
Craig dove for the ground and covered up.
Neal crawled over to Ed. “There’s a ranch two miles north of here. It’s the only house. I’ll meet you there.”
Ed nodded, hefted Graham, and started toward the main road at a trot. Neal crawled back to Jory.
“How can we get to this place?”
“I usually ride there.”
Neal thought about it for a second. The corral was a good hundred yards south. They could make it if they started now, while the explosions were still keeping heads down.
“Let s go!”
They sprang to their feet and sprinted toward the corral.
A few minutes later Cal Strekker got up and went to inspect what was left of the compound. There wasn’t much-three towers were down, the ammunition bunker was destroyed with its $200,000 of new weapons, the main bunker was intact but inundated with tear gas. His troops weren’t in such good shape either. Most of Carter’s brownshirt bodyguards were on their hands and knees, coughing, choking, or vomiting. He had two badly wounded-the machine gunner with his seared eyes and the man in the tower who was missing three ringers.
Worse yet, he knew he wasn’t going to get the time to rebuild the compound or the company. ZOG had infiltrated the organization and laid a heavy hit on it. Next would come the official police with warrants and all the legalities. And there were three men running around out there who could testify.
He yelled around the compound until he had his own men assembled. Carter could take care of those useless LA neo-Nazis by himself.
Hansen came up beside him.
“Have you seen my son?” he yelled. “Have you seen lory?”
Cal looked around the compound. He didn’t see the boy. He looked out across the sagebrush flats and saw a horse with two riders in the moonlight.
“I don’t know,” he said to Hansen. He pointed at the horse and riders galloping toward the mountains. “Is that him?”
Hansen peered into the night and recognized his son. But who the hell was with him?
Dave Bekke limped up to Hansen. “There’s something you ought to know, sir.”
“Right now I think there’s a whole lot I ought to know.”
“I heard Jory tell Neal that he didn’t kill that little boy,” Bekke said. “Now maybe he just said that because Neal had a knife to his throat, but…”
“But what?” Hansen yelled.
“Jory also said something about the boy being the Savior, the Son of God. Said that he took him and hid him in ‘the Place of the Beginning.’”
Carter pushed into the center of the circle and asked, “He used those words? The Place of the Beginning?”
“Yeah, he said he hid him in the Place of the Beginning and the End.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Hansen said. “How do you expect a two-year-old child to survive out in the wilderness on its own?”
“I don’t, sir. That’s just what Jory said.”
Cal said, “I’ll bet that’s where he’s headed and I’ll bet that’s Neal Carey with him.”
Vetter added, “Jory spends a lot of time around those caves up the mountain.”
“We have to find that child!” Carter commanded.
Hansen took over. “Cal, we’ll take some men with us and track Jory up to those caves. Dave, you take a squad and track down that Mackinnon, or whoever the hell he is. You might start by heading toward that Jew’s house. I wouldn’t be surprised if he set this whole thing up. Go on now, get moving!”
Carter pulled Hansen aside.
“This is very exciting, Robert,” he said.
Hansen shook his head. “It’s over here, Reverend. ZOG will be swarming all over this place by tomorrow. Our only chance is to find these people, kill them, and go into hiding ourselves.”
Hansen felt the full bitterness of his own words. His dreams for this valley, this haven, this white bastion were shattered.
“You don’t understand, Robert!” urged Carter. “This may be it! Maybe Jory was inspired to take the child! Maybe he has found the Place of the Beginning and the End, the sacred home of the lost tribe!”
“I don’t understand, Reverend.”
“I don’t think Jory took the boy, I think the boy took Jory. The boy led him to the sacred place. This may be the child. You remember Revelation 12:5: ‘And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up in God, and to his throne.’ But the dragon fought for the man child, Robert. And the man child was hidden while the battle raged. And the dragon was slain by the angels. ZOG is the dragon, we are the angels! The battle is on! It’s here, Robert! It’s here!”
Hansen looked around at the wreckage of his dream.
“What’s here?” he asked.
Carter’s eyes gleamed. “The End Time!”
Shoshoko crawled to the mouth of the cave when he heard the wind come up. Clouds rolled across the moon and suddenly it started to snow as the sky changed from shimmering black to dull gray to shining white.
Shoshoko knew that the snow had been sent to ease his spirit, to soften his walk to the other side. The child would go down from the mountain just as the snow came down from the sky.
He was sad to leave the earth, but all men did. He was sad to leave the boy, but that was their fate. He sat down at the edge of the cave and started to sing his death song.
It was the End Time.