by Jim Heskett
Anders felt a tightness in his chest. It had to come to this. “I do have a plan B, but I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
“No?”
“No,” Anders said as he reached into his waistband and drew the pistol. He pulled the trigger as the realization spread over LaVey’s face.
Click. The gun didn’t fire.
LaVey jumped off the hood of the car and dashed toward the other side of the parking garage.
Anders raised the pistol and squeezed the trigger. Another misfire.
He closed one eye and looked down the sight, trying to will his unsteady hand to stop shaking. Held his breath and squeezed again. This time, the gun fired with a bang loud enough to knock him back a step.
The bullet tore a hole in LaVey’s back only a few steps away from the emergency stairs at the corner of the lot. The force of the blast knocked LaVey forward, and he staggered, still on his feet.
He neared the edge of the parking garage, then slumped onto the concrete divider that separated the garage from thin air. Moaning and grunting, he tried to grasp at the rail of the stairway.
Anders sprinted across the concrete to LaVey, who was now scrambling to stem the tide of blood rushing out of the hole in his stomach. He placed his hands over the hole, but it didn’t matter. Blood flowed freely, turning his shirt a deep shade of burgundy.
LaVey looked up at him, tried to speak, and only a hiss of air came out.
“All you had to do was listen to me,” Anders said, “and everything would have been fine! I could have fixed this, you impatient piece of shit. All that work I did grooming you, getting you ready for this, and you want to leave me at the eleventh hour? Fuck you! You selfish prick.”
Anders dropped the gun and grabbed LaVey by the arms, then yanked until he was on top of the barrier. LaVey tried to fight back, but was little more than a limp doll in Anders’ arms. Anders threw all his weight into lifting LaVey’s legs over the edge.
With one more shove, the former senator and his friend of more than two decades tumbled over the side of the garage, smacking his head on the next level down before splatting on the ground several dozen feet below.
Anders felt adrenaline surge through his body, making the world swim and coloring it full of tiny black dots. When he could see again, he noticed the entirety of the group doing weapons drills on the tarmac had their faces pointed up toward him. The collective confusion on their faces sent a spike of rage through him like nothing he’d ever felt before.
He dropped to his knee to pick up the gun, then fired two shots into the air.
“Get the fuck back to work,” he screamed. “Do your god damned jobs!”
13
The truck Coyle had stolen from the weird burned people in Kansas had come with a half tank of gas, and the empty light flicked on as they reached the outskirts of Denver. Snow capped the tips of the mountains to the west, but the city was still warm, at least during the day.
Driving along I-70 into town, Logan pointed at the mountains. “Back there, there’s a tiny town called Nederland. It’s where the commune is. I heard they blocked off the road going up there with dynamite, so you can only go on foot. It’s protected by the mountains, like a little Sweden.”
“You mean Switzerland,” Coyle said.
“Right, exactly. They grow their own food and have their own government and nobody messes with them.”
“Sounds like a pipe dream,” Coyle said as he followed an exit toward downtown. “I don’t know if that kind of safety exists anymore.”
The truck ran out of gas as the massive Denver Union Station train depot appeared at the corner of Coyle’s eye. He still had the gasoline in the briefcase but decided instead to let the truck coast down Speer Street as far as the inertia would take them.
Denver’s LoDo district, which Coyle knew well since he’d lived here for a good chunk of his twenties, was a wasteland. Most of the fancy condo buildings had been obliterated when missiles from New Mexico struck not long after the president’s death. At least, that’s where Coyle heard the missiles came from. No one knew for sure.
The truck finally sputtered and quit about a mile from the station. “I guess this is where we split,” Coyle said. “How far back into the mountains is your commune?”
“About twenty miles past Boulder.”
“Find a car, if you can. Motorcycle would be better. You’re looking at a week or more if you go on foot. I’ll give you what we got left of the gasoline, if you want.”
Logan fiddled with his hands in his lap for a few seconds, not getting out of his seat. “Do you think you can get LaVey?”
“I’m going to do everything I can.”
“Maybe I’ll stick with you, for a little bit longer.”
Coyle shrugged. “Whatever, let’s get on with it, then.”
“Just be careful with this Soothsayer guy. He’s loose in the head.”
They got out of the car and trudged the last bit to Union Station. For a city this size, they encountered a strikingly small number of people out on the streets. A few hustlers selling wares, a few women selling their bodies, but nothing Coyle considered threatening.
“Is Hector Castillo on your list of people you’re looking for?” Logan said as they rounded a street corner.
“He is.”
“I knew his daughter Alma.”
Coyle stopped walking. “You what?”
“I didn’t know who she was. I mean, I knew who she was, but I didn’t really know who her father was. I knew he was some kind of bad guy, but nobody knew anything back then, right?”
“I suppose,” Coyle said as they resumed walking.
“I was young and stupid. She needed help, and I got her into Canada. Then I headed for Chicago after all the shit went down. Live and learn, I guess.”
Coyle said nothing. It didn’t matter now what anyone had done before.
As they neared their destination, Logan stopped. “Something’s not right here.”
Coyle looked all around the exterior of Union Station but didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary. “Like what?”
Logan paused, then relaxed his shoulders. “It’s probably nothing. What do we do now?”
A shadow darkened the ground in front of them, and Coyle whipped out the machine gun.
“Who are you?” said a voice from above.
Perched on a green ledge on the second floor of Union Station stood a man pointing a shotgun at them. He wore a dark cloak with the hood up, and the shotgun obscured his face.
“We’re friends,” Coyle said, but he didn’t lower his gun.
“How am I supposed to believe that?” said the man.
“We came from DC,” Logan said. “This man here is a CIA agent, and I was with Dave and Isabelle Carter. We came out here to find you and ask for your help. Are you the Soothsayer?”
The man lowered the shotgun a little. “Dave Carter, the one from the Air Force Academy bombing?”
“Yeah,” Logan said, “but he didn’t do it.”
“I know,” the man said. “Wait right there and please lower your weapons.”
He disappeared into a window and the two travelers stood for a couple of minutes waiting for him. Coyle eyed the surrounding street, which was flanked by tall buildings on all sides.
When the man appeared out of the front entrance, he’d slung the shotgun over his back. He walked with a limp, but he wore a kind expression on his face. “You can call me Kellen. Are you really CIA?”
“I was,” Coyle said. “A long time ago. I’m not anything now, just trying to find Peter Anders and Edward LaVey. A contact of mine told me you could help.”
“Agent Williams, I assume. I got his message to stay here, so I’ve made myself a camp. It’s not bad at all, actually. A little hard to defend because it’s so open, but I haven’t had any trouble with that yet. Good thing, too, because I’ve been waiting weeks for you guys to show up.”
“Travel was slow,” Logan said, and as he opened
his mouth to say more, his chest exploded with a bang as a spray of blood misted both Kellen and Coyle.
Coyle grabbed Kellen by the arm and dragged him around the side of the building as two more bullets as loud as rockets blew holes in the ground at their feet. The next bullet hit the corner of the building, so Coyle knew he had at least correctly guessed the location of the shooter. To the south, probably in one of those brick buildings that butted against Wynkoop Street.
“Does anyone know you’re here?” Kellen said.
Coyle leaned around the corner and spied Logan. The kid was dead, splayed out on the ground with limbs in all directions. Another bullet blasted the stone above Coyle’s head, and he jerked back out of view.
“Someone’s been following me since DC,” Coyle said.
“And you didn’t think that was important information to share? What is wrong with you?”
The guy was right, not that it mattered. “If we live, you can tell me all about how wrong I was. How do we get out of here?”
“Back entrance by the train tracks.”
They shuffled along the side of the building to the back and entered via a large set of doors. Kellen rushed up a marble staircase to the second floor and waved to a bay of windows, most of them blown out.
Coyle leaned around the edge of the frame as a figure moved in the third story window, repositioning. He couldn’t make out a face, but he knew the scraggly black beard on sight. “Son of a bitch.”
“What?”
“I think that’s Hector Castillo.”
Kellen took an unsteady breath and pumped his shotgun. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m going out there.”
“No,” Coyle said as he put a hand on top of the shotgun. “I can handle this, but I need your help. You stay here and fire a shell every thirty seconds or so, and I’ll round the building to catch him off guard. Just don’t shoot me.”
Kellen didn’t seem pleased, but he didn’t raise any further argument.
Coyle went low as Kellen took up position next to the window. He fired off his first round and Coyle waited for Castillo’s return volley before making his way back down the stairs. He exited the building from the back and went north all the way to the next block, then hustled back down the street, staying quiet and moving from one abandoned car to the next. When he was close enough to see, he waited for Castillo to fire his next shot so he could figure his position.
The blast came, lighting up the side of the building as the sound echoed up and down the street. Red brick, fourth floor, the third window from the left.
Coyle hugged the buildings on that side and skulked from stoop to stoop, making sure he was out of view of the window the shots had come from. His lungs burned and he wanted to cough, but he forced himself to breathe normally.
Into the red brick building, then up the stairs. He held his weapon out, ready for Castillo’s backup soldiers. But he never saw any. On the fourth floor, he stopped to catch his breath and think of his next move.
He waited until he heard the next shot to open the door, and then stepped into the hallway. As soon as he did, he knew he’d made a mistake.
Something smacked him on the head, and as he fell onto the carpet, Castillo stepped out from his hiding spot behind the door.
Coyle kicked out blindly, hoping to connect with Castillo’s shin, and heard something snap as Castillo dropped his sniper rifle. The bearded one cried out and fell into the wall, so Coyle sat up and drove a fist into his crotch.
Castillo recovered quickly, snatching at a .45 in a side holster.
Coyle slipped the knife out of his boot and thrust it into Castillo’s chest before Castillo could unholster the weapon. He slumped to the floor, alive but bleeding.
“Why were you following me?” Coyle said as he scooted back and raised the nose of his submachine gun. “How do you even know who I am?”
Castillo coughed and put a hand on the knife sticking out of his chest. “Destiny is… not always a straight line. I went to DC for your friend, Williams. Then I wanted to see where you were going.”
“You followed me all the way across the country to see where I was going?”
“I followed you into the subway, and you led me to the truck driver and his girlfriend, two people I had not seen in a long time.” Castillo dabbed a finger into the blood leaking from the gash in his chest, then held it up to the light spilling in through a nearby window. “I was curious where else you’d lead me, and you brought me right back home. Imagine that.”
“That kid you shot, he was a good person. He was worth a hundred of you.”
Castillo didn’t respond. He gurgled, grunted, then closed his eyes.
Coyle staggered to his feet and he coughed until his throat felt raw. Running at this altitude made his bones feel hollow and weak, and he needed rest or he was going to shut down. But rest would have to come later.
He waited until Castillo’s chest stopped moving, then made his way back to the ground and poked his head out of the window. “Kellen! Don’t shoot. I’m coming out.”
A muffled reply came from Union Station, so Coyle walked out of the building and crossed the street. Logan’s body lay crooked across the pavement. Coyle felt for the kid, who’d never get to venture to find his hippie commune in the mountains. Maybe it was better this way, saving himself the disappointment of journeying into the mountains to find a group of people who’d shoot him on sight, or to find the remains of a commune burned to the ground. Or worse.
At least, he deserved a Christian burial, but he wouldn’t get one. That was how things were. Coyle said a quick prayer for him, then leaned over the body and brushed a hand over his face to close his eyes.
Inside the train station, Coyle hefted his aching body up the stairs to Kellen, who was eating dry ramen noodles out of a package.
Kellen offered Coyle a chunk, which he accepted, then chewed up and swallowed without thinking too much about it. Salty enough to make his mouth pucker, but he hadn’t eaten in two days, so he was glad to have it.
“Was it him?” Kellen said.
Coyle nodded.
“Son of a bitch. I’ll bet I can get a week’s worth of food for his head at the trading post tomorrow. Castillo and his Eighteeners have been raiding Denver since before I got here. People are going to love this.”
“You’re welcome to it. In return, you can tell me what you know about where to find Edward LaVey.”
Kellen finished the last of his ramen and waved Coyle to follow him. They went down the stairs and into an office on the ground floor, which looked like makeshift living quarters. Sleeping bag on the floor, set of pots and pans, a clean suit wrapped in plastic hung up on the wall, and not much else. The suit puzzled Coyle, because why would a man care about that? He shrugged it off.
“You’ve come to the right person,” Kellen said. He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a set of papers, then spread them out over the floor. They contained a series of hand-drawn maps, schematics, and detailed notes of some kind of massive building structure.
“What am I looking at?” Coyle said.
“Denver International Airport. It’s where LaVey and Anders have been holed up the last few years, and where they now have their army.”
“Army?”
“Most of their original armies fled or were killed off by Beth Fortner’s Infinity cult not long after the president’s death. They rebuilt here in Denver with just the Eighteeners, who were loyal to Castillo. But ever since the problems with Chalmers and her Chicago people, they’ve been fortifying, adding to their ranks. They’re preparing for war.”
“Yeah,” Coyle said, coughing. “I got that impression when I was in Chicago.”
“What did you see?”
“Troop buildup. Chalmers is dead, though, because someone else took care of her before we got there. Some kind of personal grudge.”
Kellen frowned. “Then you’re going to want to hurry. If Boss Chalmers is dead, her people will assume it’s an act of war and mo
ve on Denver right away. Last thing you want is to get caught in the middle of all that mess.”
“You’re not coming along to help, then?”
Kellen shook his head. “George Grant, one of LaVey’s people, gave me this. I beat him to death with a baseball bat.” He lifted up the leg of his pants to reveal a grisly scar around his ankle. “I came out here to Denver to find the rest of them, and I tried to sneak into the airport once. When I did that, they gave me this.” He pulled up his shirt and showed off a bullet wound at the bottom of his armpit. “I almost died from this one.”
“So you’d rather hide than get the people who did this to you?”
Kellen sighed and chewed on his lower lip for a few seconds. “I have a real life here in Denver now, as good as it can be, I guess. I have enough to trade to keep me fed for a while, and I’ve been seeing someone. Someone who makes me happy. I’m not willing to give that up for anything anymore.”
Coyle couldn’t blame him, but he sure could have used the help. “Logan said you were nutty as a fruitcake. Choosing that over a suicide mission seems pretty healthy to me.”
Kellen smiled. “Normal is a relative term.” He limped back over to the desk and pulled out a small footlocker, which he slid across the floor to Coyle.
Coyle cracked the lid to find all kinds of goodies inside: a collection of hand grenades, a couple land mines, a 9mm silencer, and boxes of ammunition.
“This is my contribution,” Kellen said. “I even have a car you can use if you promise to hide it when you get there.”
“Thank you.”
“Whatever you do, make sure they suffer, okay? What they did to this country… they all need to die a thousand times.”
14
Anders didn’t waste any time grieving for LaVey. The fool had made his own choice when he’d tried to leave. What had he thought would happen? That America would welcome him back with open arms after listening to a couple heartfelt speeches, make him their leader, and hand him the keys to Washington?
