He stayed low, his side against the tram, and studied the shards on the ground. Another patch had been disturbed to the right of the first. Hardly at all. Another farther to the right. A pair of footprints.
The headlights stared blankly into the tunnel. The twin beams diffused into a pale amber glow.
He walked slowly in that direction, outside the direct light. Surely Kane hadn’t stuck around to kill him, or he’d likely be dead already. Maybe he was more badly injured than Mason originally thought. If he’d decided to make a break for it, however, he’d already opened up a huge lead and it was growing larger by the second.
Time was of the essence.
Mason glanced down. Another droplet of blood. A teardrop shape with the tail pointing back toward the tram. It had struck the ground with forward momentum. Kane had definitely gone in this direction.
Five more steps and another droplet glistened in the headlights.
He took off at a sprint. Ran as far as he could, as fast as he could. A hundred feet. Two hundred. Three. He stopped and knelt on the ground against the wall. Breathed through his mouth to minimize the noise.
Listened.
The tram was a single point of light behind him. Ahead lay only darkness. He heard an almost imperceptible clanging sound. Then another. Another.
Mason started running again. He knew that sound. Knew exactly what it meant.
A trace current of cool, fresh air on his face.
He was too late.
Mason pushed himself harder than he ever had before. Felt for the movement of air, which was already beginning to stagnate and fade. He ran with his shoulder against the wall so there was no possible way he could miss the ladder—
A sudden blow to his upper arm. Like someone had struck him with a lead pipe. A dead sensation in his hand, followed by the onslaught of pins and needles.
He shoved the Sigma down the front of his pants, grabbed a rung, and started climbing. Ten feet. Twenty. The walls constricted around him. Thirty feet. He was nearly to the top before his hand decided to make itself useful again. He spun the wheel of the hatch. Shoved it open. Ducked back down.
No bullets sang past his head or ricocheted from the mouth of the chute.
He went up fast. Turned in a full circle with his pistol raised. Hauled himself out into the small, dark chamber. There was a sliver of light around the seam of the tiny door. He felt the crisp air on his bare skin. Turned the knob. Just far enough to disengage the latch. Scooted back. Kicked open the door. Threw himself backward.
Again, no shots.
He shoved the door through the accumulation of snow. The frigid wind cut right through him. It whipped the snowflakes up from the ground and hurled them at him.
Footprints led away from him to the south. Toward a line of trees that vanished back into the storm the moment he saw them. The wind was already beginning to erase the tracks.
Mason charged through the knee-deep snow, kicking up clouds as he went. Searing pain in his side. The bullet must have more than grazed him. The base of his skull throbbed from the impact with the control panel.
He tried to triangulate his location by his surroundings. He was somewhere between the AgrAmerica complex and the northern edge of Greeley. If there were access hatches every two miles, he was probably right about the four-mile mark. The highway was somewhere to his left. An eternity of grasslands, ranches, and marshlands stretched off to his right.
Droplets of blood stood out from the snow like neon beacons. Every ten feet or so. A soft tissue injury. Probably his shoulder, and the bullet had likely just grazed him.
Mason slowed when he neared the trees. Stopped twenty-five feet away. At this range, he couldn’t possibly miss.
He watched the barren aspens and cottonwoods. Their naked branches glittered with ice, rattled on the breeze.
The tracks disappeared between two enormous cottonwood trunks, beyond which he could see only shadows and snow. Kane could be hiding behind either one of them, just waiting for his opportunity, or he could be heading in any number of directions toward a vehicle or cache of weapons he’d stashed for just this contingency.
Mason advanced slowly. Swept his sight line from left to right and back again. Tried to use the same footprints to maintain his balance.
The wind shifted directions with a scream and whipped his breath back over his left shoulder. Battered him with snowflakes. It was all he could do to keep his eyes open while he passed between the trunks.
No one lurking on either side.
Willow saplings and cattails formed a veritable maze leading through the snow. The majority had been flattened by the wind and buried under the accumulation, but sporadic sections still grew in chest-high clumps.
The tracks led straight through them, past them, and toward a smooth, uninterrupted sheet of white.
A dark shape materialized from the blowing snow at the very edge of sight. He barely caught a glimpse of the silhouette before the figure disappeared again.
Kane.
74
The cattails crunched beneath his weight. The thin ice underneath them popped and crackled. Mason used the footprints as a guide, and twenty feet later he stepped out into the open. The frozen lake was slick beneath the windswept snow. The ice was obviously strong enough to hold his former partner, but there was no way of knowing how long it would be able to support their combined weight.
Kane was maybe fifty feet away and heading in the opposite direction. His left arm hung awkwardly at his side. He held it high up near his shoulder with his right hand.
Mason aimed his pistol squarely between his mentor’s shoulder blades.
“Kane!” he shouted.
The other man stood still for several seconds before finally turning around. The snow had begun to accumulate on his hair. He’d obviously lost a lot of blood. His face had paled and taken on a bluish cast. There’d been a time when Mason could read even his subtlest expression, but he’d never seen this one before.
He kept his Sigma leveled at center mass as he crept closer. He could see both of Kane’s hands, but not his weapon.
The wind rose again and momentarily formed a screen of snowflakes between them.
Mason wasn’t surprised to see Kane hadn’t tried to use the cover to make a break for it. He’d known exactly where he was going when he walked out onto the frozen lake. He was nothing if not a good soldier to the end.
A cracking sound, from the ice between them.
Mason continued to close the gap.
Kane lowered his hand from his injured shoulder. Opened his palms at his sides. Both were covered with blood.
“Why did you do it, Kane?”
He said nothing. Just stood there and watched Mason inch closer through the blowing snow.
“Talk to me, damn it! You owe me that much!”
“I’ve already said everything there is to say.”
“All you’ve done is spew a lot of bullshit. Tell me why you led us into that stone quarry to be slaughtered. And don’t give me any more of that ideological crap. We both know why you sold us out. How much were our lives worth? What was the price of your loyalty? How much did they pay you to turn traitor?” A twitch at the corner of Kane’s mouth. “You deceived the people who depended upon you. Compromised the Bureau. Betrayed your country!”
“Everything I’ve done has been for my country!”
“How much, Kane? How much was your soul worth?”
“Money has nothing to do with this!” His shout echoed across the lake. “This is about survival. We’re fighting a war, whether you choose to admit it or not. A war we’re already losing. Our entire species is poised on the brink of extinction. We need to act decisively before it’s too late.”
“Any species that would eradicate its own population to survive has no business doing so.”
“Tell me you don’t see it, Mason. Our country is collapsing under its own weight. We have more than fifty million people on welfare. Eleven million illegals floodi
ng our streets with violence and drugs. Two million criminals in prison and another five million on probation or parole. Thirty-three thousand gangs. A tenth of the population can’t read. And that’s America, the most civilized nation on the planet. The rest of the world is even worse. It’s overrun by the impoverished and uneducated, by people who live like animals. Should we have to compete for food and water with these people who contribute nothing to society outside of their growing numbers? We cater to the lowest common denominator. We reward laziness and stupidity. These people aren’t just a drain on the global economy, they’re exhausting our natural resources at an astronomical rate.”
“And killing them is the answer? Murdering billions of innocent people? All so you can control those natural resources? What gives you the right to determine who lives and who dies?”
“Maybe we were wrong about you from the start. You’re nothing like your great-grandfather. Your grandfather. Your father. Men who had the strength to make the hard decisions. To do what needed to be done. You’ve let a lot of people down. Including me. I believed in you. I invested everything I had in you.”
“This ends here, Kane.”
“If you really believe that, then you deserve everything coming your way. I’m just a cog in the bigger machine. A machine that will continue to roll, with or without me. And there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“I guess we will.”
“Two fingers, Kane. You know the drill. Pull out your gun by the butt and toss it into the snow.”
“You might not be able to see it now, Mason, but you will. I promise you. This is only the beginning.”
“But it’s definitely the end for you.”
Kane smiled and turned his gaze to the west, toward the Rocky Mountains.
“Your weapon,” Mason said. “Don’t make me ask you again.”
Kane made no indication that he’d even heard.
“Now!” Mason shouted. “Pull out your pistol and drop it in the snow!”
He moved even closer to his former partner. The ice made a rapid-fire series of popping and snapping sounds. He stood his ground.
When Kane finally spoke, it was in a voice so soft, Mason could barely hear it over the wind.
“You know Wild Bill Hickok’s buried not too far from here.”
“That’s not how you want this to go down.”
“Not even willing to give your old partner a sporting chance?”
“You and I both know I can put three bullets in you from this distance before you even raise your gun.”
“Then why haven’t you done so already?”
He lifted his shirt and showed Mason the butt of his .40-caliber Walther P99QA. The blood on the back of his hand smeared across his abdomen. He continued to stare off into space.
“Nice and slow, Kane.”
“They say Wild Bill was the first person to kill a man in a quick-draw duel. Davis Tutt. Shot him straight through the heart.”
“This isn’t the Wild West anymore. Back then, the bad guys didn’t hide behind their money.”
“It never stopped being the Wild West,” Kane said. “We just ran out of people like Wild Bill to stand up to the injustice. People gave up. Figured if they locked their doors and closed their eyes, the world would go back to the way it used to be when they opened them again.”
He closed his right hand into a fist. One finger at a time. Pinkie to thumb. Opened it again. One finger at a time. Same order.
“It doesn’t have to end like this, Kane.”
“There was never any other way it could.”
“You’re wrong. We wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t killed my wife.”
“We all have to come around on our own, Mason. Even you. And, believe me, you will. Sooner or later.”
Kane faced him again. Tucked his shirt behind the butt of his pistol.
“It’s not fair if you already have your gun in your hand,” he said.
“You can’t win.”
“What are we now? Twenty feet apart? Not quite ten paces, but I’m sure it’ll still work just fine.”
“I’ve already beaten you. I spoiled your endgame.”
“You think ours was the only game in town?” The wind threw a sheet of snow between them. “If you don’t holster that gun, you’ll have to live with the fact that you cheated. You’ll spend the rest of your life wondering if you would actually have been able to beat me fair and square.”
Mason opened his jacket and lifted his shirt. Stared long and hard at the man who had trained him. Tucked the Sigma under his waistband.
Kane smiled and inclined his face to the sky. Drew a deep breath. Rolled his head in a circle, first one way, then the other. Lowered his gaze. Looked his protégé dead in the eyes.
“You couldn’t pull the trigger before. What makes you think you’ll be able to do so now?”
Mason heard voices shouting from a great distance before the wind rose once more and drowned them out.
“Last time, I was worried I might inadvertently cause a friend’s death. This time, I’m kind of rooting for it.”
He visualized exactly what he was going to do. Where he was going to shoot.
Two bullets left. He hoped not to have to use them both.
Mason narrowed his eyes. Licked his lips.
Watched for Kane’s tell. Anything to betray his inevitable move.
A twitch at the corner of his mouth.
He dipped his right shoulder and suddenly the world was a blur.
Mason drew his gun. Aimed. Fired.
One fluid motion.
A wash of crimson spattered the snow behind Kane. He jerked backward. Half-turned. Stumbled. Toppled onto his side.
The report echoed across the plains.
Mason advanced with a two-handed grip on his pistol.
The ice snapped louder with every step.
Voices again. Far away.
He pushed them out of his mind. Focused only on Kane. As much as he wanted to kill him, he wanted answers more. Then his former partner would be free to die, but on Mason’s terms, not his.
Kane started to laugh. It was a horrible sound.
He pushed himself up to a seated position with his left arm. Looked at his ruined right. He’d been shot straight through the shoulder girdle. As much as he was to Mason, that arm was dead to him.
“You want to try to take me in?” he shouted, again with that awful laugh. “Have you learned nothing?”
His Walther had fallen into the snow near his right foot. He glanced at it, then up at Mason.
“Don’t even think about it.”
Kane smiled. His lone functional hand moved in a blur.
Mason shot him in the left shoulder. Again. Only right through the joint this time. Knocked him flat on his back in the red slush.
The crack of gunfire rolled like thunder.
Mason continued forward, pointing his gun directly at Kane so he wouldn’t be able to see the slide standing open from the empty chamber.
Kane’s laughter was a repulsive, mocking sound. He rolled to his side. Worked his way up to his knees. Somehow managed to close his right hand around the grip of his pistol.
Voices. Closer now.
He struggled to his feet and faced Mason. Both arms hung limply at his sides. Blood dripped from his fingertips. From the barrel of his Walther.
“It’s over,” Mason said. “Drop your weapon.”
“No, it’s not. Like I said, this is only the beginning.”
Kane pulled the trigger and vanished. Here one second, gone the next. He dropped straight down through the ice.
“No!”
Cracking and snapping from everywhere at once.
Mason felt it happening. The ice breaking apart. Separating. He couldn’t let Kane get off that easily.
He lowered himself to all fours to distribute his weight more evenly. Crawled toward the hole in the ice as fast as he dared.
His name echo
ed from somewhere behind him. A woman’s voice. Alejandra.
He brushed the snow aside so he could see the ice. It was opaque. Crusted with frost. Far thinner than he’d thought. Amazing that it had been able to bear their weight at all.
He swept faster. Lost the feeling in his hands. Watched cracks form and race through the ice.
A thump from below him. Ahead and to his right.
Mason scurried toward the source of the sound. Cleared the snow. There was a dark shape beneath the ice. Vague at first. It resolved into a human form and pressed its hand against the ice from the other side.
He clearly saw the outline of a head. Now closer.
Kane’s eyes were open. His cheeks bulged with air. Blood eddied through the water. He smiled and small bubbles leaked from between his teeth. Then he opened his mouth. Bigger bubbles floated up against the ice, expanded, spread out. Trapped. He struggled, but only for a moment. His eyes lost focus. The current dragged him along the underside of the ice. His body slowly sank into the deep water and out of sight.
Mason rocked back on his haunches and bellowed up into the storm.
EPILOGUE
Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as “internationalists” and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.
—David Rockefeller, Memoirs (2002)
NOVEMBER 26
Denver, Colorado
“Are you sure you’re going to be all right?”
“Yeah, Dad. The bullet barely hit me. I won’t be modeling swimsuits anytime soon, though.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Mason and his father sat on the front steps of what used to be his house. It still was, technically. At least until the title and deed were transferred, but the Realtor didn’t need him for that. He’d just closed the door behind him for the last time. He hadn’t wanted to go back in there. He’d made his peace with it and the life he’d lived within its walls when he left the first time, but he was grateful his father had practically forced him to do so at gunpoint. Sometimes he forgot that the senator understood what he was going through. It was hard to think of the mother he’d lost as the woman his father had loved. The elder Mason had found a way to come out on the other side a stronger man, so Mason figured it couldn’t hurt to listen to him for a change. And despite all of their differences, he could think of a whole lot of fates worse than ending up like his old man.
The Extinction Agenda Page 39
