by Afraid (lit)
Streng scowled. He hadn’t spoken to Wiley in over thirty years and felt it was still too soon. But this had to be done, and there was no one else to do it.
The sand road was in such a state of disuse that grass and weeds grew in the center section between the tire treads. Streng heard them scrape against his undercarriage, a soft sound punctuated by an occasional thump when he ran over a fallen tree branch. He hit the brakes when he saw a familiar shape lying in the brush.
The sheriff kept the Jeep running and stepped out to investigate, holding one of Bernie’s lighters. Olen Porrell, on his back, a gas mask on his face caked with vomit. Streng had no idea why his friend wore the gas mask, but it apparently wasn’t enough to protect him. He didn’t want to get too close, so he watched to see if Olen moved or breathed. Olen did neither. Streng took a shallow sniff of air, trying to sense any off odors. He smelled the woods and nothing else.
Wiley liked booby traps. He’d liked them as a kid and really learned to like them in Vietnam, picking up many ideas from the Cong. But gas in an open area dissipated too quickly. Streng decided that this wasn’t one of his brother’s devices. Olen must have been exposed elsewhere, which also accounted for the missing Honey Wagon.
Streng hopped back into his vehicle and motored up the road even more slowly, checking the sides and behind him as well as ahead. He spotted Olen’s truck around the next bend, where the road dead-ended, its headlights on. Streng took his Jeep off-road, burying it in the thicket. The brush was so dense Streng had to crawl over the back seat and exit through the rear hatch. He closed it softly, unholstered his Colt, and crept toward the Honey Wagon.
The truck was empty. Streng imagined the scenario. One of the commandos had gotten to Olen, who knew Wiley’s address because he cleaned out his septic tank. They poisoned him to get him to talk, and now they were creeping through the woods, looking for Wiley’s house.
Good luck finding it, Streng thought.
When Wiley moved back to Safe Haven, flush with ill-gotten gains, he spared no expense building his dream house. And Wiley’s idea of a dream house was very close to Batman’s. Hidden underground, with secret entrances and exits, away from the searching eyes of the law, the military, and the enemies he’d made in Vietnam.
The last time Streng visited had been during the day, and even then he hadn’t been able to find Wiley’s place. At night, with eyes that were thirty years older, he didn’t even know where to begin looking. A smarter tactic would be to hunt the people who were after Wiley. He could hunker down, cover himself with foliage, and wait for one of them to—
The blade appeared at Streng’s throat with incredible stealth and speed.
“Drop the gun and put those hands up, Sheriff. Don’t make me ask twice.”
Josh was grateful for the heavy rains this fall, which kept the lake level high and made it possible to navigate the tributaries leading from Little Lake McDonald to the Chippewa River.
He drove a bass boat that he borrowed from Doc Wainwright—a seventeen-foot Nitro with a top speed of forty-five miles per hour. Josh figured he could straighten out the grand larceny charges later. He was worried as hell about Fran and Duncan, and he had to get to Safe Haven and find Sheriff Streng.
Josh adjusted the trim when he entered the shallows so the prop didn’t hit bottom, shining the Maglite ahead to avoid the dead trees. The wind bit at his cheeks, making his face tingle. Woof stood beside him, his jowls flapping in the wind, obviously not minding the cold at all. The firefighter turned two wide circles in the murky waters until he found the inlet, and then he buzzed through that and into the Chippewa, heading downstream.
That’s when the motor died. A quick survey of the dash controls showed the boat had no gas. Doc Wainwright was probably getting ready to store the boat for the winter and hadn’t bothered to fill it.
Rather than waste time cursing his luck, Josh hurried to the front of the boat and swung out the electric trolling motor, locking it into place. He sat in the bow chair and used the foot pedal, navigating south at a speed that wasn’t much faster than the current.
Five excruciating minutes later Josh beached the boat along the riverbank, two blocks from the Water Department building. He picked up the pillowcase full of medical supplies and scooped up Woof. Then he climbed over the short decorative iron fence that lined the river’s edge and set the dog down on the street. Woof sniffed around, peed, and then fell into step alongside the jogging firefighter.
Town was dead. Dark and dead. Josh checked his watch, noted it was past two a.m. Even so, there should have been some kind of activity, someone driving somewhere. It was eerie. He tried his cell, got the recorded message about no service, and resisted the urge to throw it at the ground.
He got to the Water Department breathing heavy and coated with sweat. Josh noticed the parking lot was empty. The sheriff wasn’t in. He decided to head to the junior high and borrow Olen’s truck, but before he got three steps away he heard a scream coming from the building.
Bernie, Josh thought. Probably not happy about being locked up. Josh’s first impulse was to ignore him and press on. But maybe Bernie knew something. He sounded upset. Maybe that would make him more susceptible to talking.
Josh checked the front door, established that it was open, and followed the wailing inside.
Woof wanted to run on ahead and check it out, but Josh ordered the dog to heel. He set the pillowcase down by the door, adjusted the flashlight focus to the widest beam setting, and walked down the familiar hallway to the drunk tank. Bernie sat on the floor of the cell, hugging himself and whimpering. Bleeding and broken, the killer looked like someone had dropped him from a building.
Woof growled at Bernie, his hackles rising and his tail pointing straight up.
“Charge,” Bernie mumbled. “I need Charge.”
Josh dug into his pocket, removing the container of pills and the electronic gizmo he took from Ajax. At the sight of this, Bernie hopped onto one foot and stretched his hand through the bars.
“CHARGE! GIVE ME THE CHARGE!”
Surprised, Josh stepped backward. He raised the gizmo.
“Is this what you want?”
“NO! THE CHARGE!”
Josh held up the capsules, and Bernie nodded rapidly, blood and drool running down his fat lips.
“Where’s Fran and Duncan?” Josh asked.
“GIVE ME THE CHARGE! THE CHARGE!”
“Answer my questions, I’ll give you the pills. Where’s Fran and Duncan?”
“Don’t know.”
“Where’s Sheriff Streng?”
Bernie clenched the bars and shook them.
“DON’T KNOW DON’T KNOW DON’T KNOW!”
“Then you’re no help to me.”
Josh turned to leave.
“NOOOOOO!” Bernie cried. “Check the MMDSC!”
Josh paused. “What’s that?”
“The communicator! Check the communicator!”
Josh palmed the electronic thing, showing it to Bernie. “This?”
“YESSSSS!”
“How does it work?”
“Hold the bottom, hold the bottom, pull up on the sides to open the cover.”
Josh tried, but that accomplished nothing. He rubbed the large dent in the center and figured the cover might be jammed. He needed some tools.
While Bernie screamed after him, Josh returned to the hallway and went to the janitor’s closet. The last time he’d been to the Water Department he’d helped the mayor fix a leak in the sink. The toolbox sat on the closet shelf where he’d left it. He set the Maglite on its base and used two pairs of pliers to open the communicator cover.
It exposed a small green screen. Words began to flash across it.
Head bird acquired. Stand by for directions to the nest.
The message disappeared and was replaced by:
Is the doctor nearby? I noticed we just turned onto Old Mason Road.
He lives off of Old Mason, at the end of Duck Bill. Ar
e you familiar with the area?
Josh recognized the new messages as his exchange with Stubin in the car. How did that get on there? Had their car been bugged? Had Josh accidentally recorded it somehow?
Or did Stubin do it?
A few more lines scrolled by, then the monitor blinked and read:
Location 1.6 kilometers east on Deer Tick Road. Attempting to locate nest.
That must be where the sheriff’s brother lived. And probably where they took Fran and Duncan.
“CHARGE!” Bernie called from his cell.
Josh pocketed the device and picked up the Maglite, heading back to the drunk tank.
“YOU PROMISED ME, PROMISED!”
“I have more questions,” Josh told him. “Then you’ll get the Charge.”
“Can’t think … can’t think … need Charge …” Bernie banged his forehead against the bars in cadence to his words. “Can’t think … can’t think …”
“How many soldiers are in your Red-ops unit?”
“Need Charge … need Charge …”
Josh opened up the metal container, showing Bernie the Charge capsules.
“How many soldiers?”
Bernie twitched, then blinked several times. “Five. Five soldiers. There are five.”
“Name them.”
“Santiago, Taylor, Ajax, Logan, and Bernie.”
Josh took a shot. “Is Dr. Stubin the one who put the chip in your head? Is he the reason you’re here?”
“Yessssss,” Bernie hissed.
That asshole. Josh should have never left Fran and Duncan alone in the car with him.
“What is your mission?”
“Need Charge … need Charge …”
Josh removed a pill from the container and tossed it out of the room, into the darkness.
“NOOOOOOOOO!”
“What’s your mission?”
Bernie shook his head. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”
Josh threw another pill away.
“I DON’T KNOW! I NEED CHARGE! I CAN TELL YOU IF I HAVE CHARGE!”
Josh considered it, then tossed a capsule into the cell. Bernie hobbled after the pill, snatching it from the floor and holding it under his nose. He squeezed and sniffed.
Josh detected a cloying chemical odor. It took him a moment to place it. Freshman year at UW, he had a roommate named Carlos who was gay. Carlos used poppers—butyl nitrite that came in small bottles labeled “Room Deodorizer” and “Video Head Cleaner”—to enhance sex. From his paramedic classes, Josh knew butyl nitrite was a vasodilator, similar chemically to the amyl nitrite used to treat various heart conditions.
Bernie continued to sniff, and his demeanor went from Hyde to Jekyll. One moment frothing at the mouth, the next a picture of serenity.
“What’s your mission?” Josh asked again.
Bernie’s eyes became slits.
“Your sheriff shot me in the knee. It’s shattered. You can’t imagine the pain.”
“Tell me your mission and I’ll help you.”
“How?”
“I have lidocaine.”
“Show me.”
“Tell me first.”
Bernie cocked his head to the side, as if considering it. Then he said, “Our mission. Interrogate townspeople. Find Warren Streng.”
“Why do you want Warren Streng?”
Bernie smiled. His missing teeth made Josh wince.
“Let me have the lidocaine.”
Josh walked back into the hall, Woof at his heels. He picked up the pillowcase he’d left by the door and found the lidocaine vial. Back in the cell room, Josh filled a syringe with two milliliters of the fluid while Bernie stared. He slid the needle across the floor to Bernie, and it came to a stop outside the bars.
In his eagerness, Bernie went for it too fast and knocked it away. He stuck his hand through the cell bars and strained for the needle.
“Please …” Bernie whimpered. “The pain …”
Josh walked over and bent down, reaching for it.
Fast as a whip Bernie had him by the wrist and pulled him up against the bars.
Woof went crazy, jumping and growling and barking. Josh pulled with all he had, but Bernie had arms like anacondas, coiled muscle grabbing him everywhere at once. The killer finally settled on a choke hold, forcing Josh’s back against the bars, locking a forearm around his neck.
“Let me out of this cage,” he whispered in Josh’s ear.
Josh struggled to get a breath in.
“Don’t … have … key …” he managed.
“That’s a shame. Hehehe. Such a shame.” Bernie’s other hand appeared before Josh’s face, inches from his nose.
It held a lighter.
“Then you buuuuuurn.”
Bernie flicked on the flame.
• • •
Taylor’s MMDSC vibrated and he looked at the message from Logan, who was searching to the west.
Lat 45.9790993 long –91.8996811 … Negative.
Taylor frowned. They’d been stomping through the woods for half an hour and hadn’t found anything. Had that sewer jockey taken them for a ride? No. He’d been broken. So where was—
Taylor froze. He’d been about to take a step forward, but his augmented vision caught a shadow on the ground that shouldn’t have been there. He crouched and got a closer look.
A bear trap hidden in the leaves. Three feet long, rusty from years of exposure to the elements. The old chain attached to a concrete plug buried in the ground.
Taylor knelt down, touching the end of the trap. Interesting. The rust wasn’t rust at all, but a finish painted to look like rust. The trap also had fresh grease on the hinges. Taylor searched around for a fallen tree branch and found one the width of his wrist. He used that to set off the trap. It worked perfectly, snapping the wood in half with ease.
He stood, casting his eyes upward. In the V of a birch tree, under a bird’s nest, he found the video camera. The lens automatically focused on him as he got closer. Taylor used his Ka-Bar to pry the camera from its camouflaged housing. It was wireless. That meant batteries, which would have to be regularly replaced.
Warren was close. Very close.
Taylor resumed the hunt, paying extra attention to where he stepped.
• • •
Streng didn’t drop the gun, and he didn’t put his hands above his head. As much bad blood as there was between him and Wiley, he didn’t believe his brother would slit his throat.
“Scare you?” Wiley asked.
Streng turned around, letting the rage build. Wiley wore a ghillie suit, a uniform made of netting with various pieces of real and artificial foliage woven to it. Leaves were stitched across his chest and fake vines hung from his arms. Twigs jutted from the side of his headgear, altering his profile.
“People are looking for you,” Streng said in even tones.
“Two so far. Trained. Recon, searching for my house. Determined types.”
“They killed Olen Porrell.”
Wiley cleared his throat. “I know. Never should have used someone local for the septic service. Should have hired out of town. After hiding out for so long, I got lazy.”
Streng kept his voice even. “Other people have died, too.”
“Like I said. Determined types.”
Streng clenched a fist and leaned slightly forward. Wiley didn’t back away.
“Steady, Ace. I know we got unfinished business. But let’s get out of the line of fire first.”
Streng did a slow burn, then nodded.
“Step where I step,” Wiley said. “I’ve rigged the property.”
Streng followed Wiley through the woods, watching his foot placement. After twenty or so yards, his brother stopped at the carcass of a deer. Wiley twisted a hoof and a hatch in the ground opened up.
“It’s steep. Wait five seconds for me to get down.”
Wiley scooted onto his buttocks and slid down a dark ramp. Streng counted to five and did the same. He’d been down
here once before and braced his legs for the abrupt stop. He didn’t brace hard enough, and when he reached bottom his knees hit him in the chest, his shin splints flaming.
A mechanical sound from above, then the metallic click of the hatch closing. Black lights came on overhead, illuminating a garage-sized room with a concrete floor. Two motorbikes and a snowmobile were parked along the far wall, in front of a pegboard that held hundreds of hand tools. A fuel pump occupied the far corner. Against the opposite wall sat an electric generator, its exhaust attached to a pipe that snaked into the ceiling. Wiley approached the generator and flipped a switch. It came on, surprisingly quiet.
“The deer is new,” Streng said.
“About ten years old. I kept having trouble finding the entrance, so I needed to mark it.”
Wiley unsnapped his ghillie suit and hung it on a peg. Underneath he wore jeans and a black flannel shirt.
“What if someone passes through, sees it twice, wonders why it hasn’t rotted?”
“I change it every month. Bear. Badger. Dog. Coyote. There’s a taxidermist in Montreal, made a mint on me.”
Wiley walked to the only door in the room, opened it, and went through. Streng followed. No black lights here. This hallway was lined with fluorescents, so bright they stung Streng’s eyes. The walls were matte white, and the floor was a white laminate that didn’t quite match. Four doors lined the hall, and Streng remembered them to be the kitchen, the pantry, the washroom, and a storage area. The final door, where the hallway ended, opened up into what Wiley called the great room.
The room was appropriately named. Perfectly round, and large enough to park three buses side by side. Track lighting lined the fifteen-foot ceiling, an overstuffed leather couch and two loungers faced a large plasma TV, wraparound shelves held thousands of books, records, cassettes, CDs, VHS and Beta tapes, and DVDs, and a big wooden desk with a flat-screen monitor on top sat dead center.
Wiley had gotten many new toys since Streng had last visited, more than twenty years ago. He had come after hearing that his brother had moved back into town from one of the contractors hired to build this place. Wiley’d let him in. Streng could recall their short conversation verbatim.
