by Bryan Devore
But now Michael couldn’t believe things were finally coming to an end. It felt like a dream, winging through the night in a government jet as Glazier proposed an unlimited future for him in the high bureaucracy of the Treasury. He stared into the distance, trying to discern where the black bowl of sky met the dark land. Somewhere there between the void of heaven and the shadows of earth lay a home in Kansas where he hoped to return soon.
Michael walked into B-52’s. He had spent too many quiet nights in his apartment, and now he was jonesing for a little excitement in his social life. Most of the friends he had kept in touch with from high school and college were now married and scattered about the country. Many had started families during the years he had spent undercover. Now that everything was over, he tried to slough off the depressing awareness of lost years with a promise to himself that he would start making up for them now.
He slid through the crowd to the bar and ordered an amber ale, then, drink in hand, roamed toward the middle of the main room. After spending a minute or two watching an imaginative Japanese animated film on a giant television screen on the far wall, he went upstairs to the second floor, in search of an open table. But when he crossed the dance floor to sit at an empty table, the grin faded. At a table not a dozen steps away, sitting with friends, there she was. Without breaking his gaze, he raised his beer and took a long drink. He couldn’t believe she was here. Watching Alaska talk and laugh, he wanted to feel only emptiness toward her. He waited impatiently for the effects of the alcohol to distract him. Unable to turn away, he thought back on their mysterious meeting at the Church two months ago. How easily he had become infatuated with her, how easily seduced.
He pulled his eyes away, thinking of the giddy lost days that may have been a fiction all along. She had only been playing a part, being an actress. Alaska was more beautiful and alluring than any woman he had ever known. She was a talented though struggling artist, with a contagious passion that he loved. And her powerful devotion to her father reminded him of his own family’s loyal strength during difficult times. She had been the woman he hadn’t realized he was searching for, until he had found her. But where had that left him? Had he loved her, or only the idea of her? He wasn’t sure anymore. Just another lie in his life, though this one hadn’t been his choice.
He took another drink of his beer and turned his eyes back toward Alaska, only to find that she was now staring directly at him. He froze when he met her eyes. Their stares lingered, a sad recollection in their eyes. He wanted to forgive her, for them to be together again as if nothing bad had ever happened. But he just couldn’t get himself to forget what she had done.
Suddenly realizing he should go, he got up from the table and pushed his way through the crowd without looking back. Outside, he walked down the steps to the sidewalk when he heard his name called out behind him. He cringed. Turning around, he saw Alaska at the top of the stairs.
“Please don’t leave,” she said.
He just shook his head.
“Look,” she said, “I know what I did was wrong, but I didn’t know you were trying to form a case against them in some government investigation. I didn’t know the twins were involved in those crimes. I just knew you were auditing their company and they wanted to know everything you were looking at. I’ve read the articles about you in the Post. I had no idea this was something so serious.”
“That’s not the point,” Michael said. “Damn it, Alaska, do you have any idea what I’ve been through?” In his voice was a trace of the pain he had tried to suppress. “I think part of me thought I was entitled to have something really good happen in my life because of the work I’ve done these past few years. Then I met you and I couldn’t believe I’d actually found you. My life felt so energized whenever I was with you. I thought about you all the time, even with everything else that was going on. I think I even thought we could have a future together—as stupid as that sounds now.”
“Michael . . .”
“And then I find out you did this thing . . . that the whole time, you were pretending to be someone else.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“You were living a lie when we were together. And what really creeps me out is how good you were at it.”
“You were pretty good at living a lie too,” Alaska said.
“That’s not the same thing, and you know it,” he snapped.
“Why?” she snapped back. “Because you were lying to help the government and I was lying to help my father?”
“At least I was working for the good guys. You helped out the twins and that could have cost me everything. Jesus, you aren’t even sorry about what you did.”
“We can’t all be as righteous as you, Michael. Some people have real problems, where the only solutions are ugly ones. I am sorry. Sorry that I had to do it. And I’m sorry you got hurt.”
Michael shook his head in disgust. “Some apology.” He turned and took a few steps away from her before stopping to look back one last time. “How’s your father doing?”
“He’s doing a lot better now,” she answered.
He saw her lips tremble. He could tell she was hurting inside, just as he was hurting. He wondered if they could heal each other. As much as he wanted to forgive her and be with her again, his pride just couldn’t find a way past her betrayal.
Perhaps they could heal, if only they had more time.
“There are a lot of things I’m sorry about, too, Alaska,” he finally said. “I’m glad your father is better now. I really mean that.” He tried to think of what else he wanted to say. He felt the pressure of the moment on him, as if the whole world were watching them and time were slipping away. Then the moment passed. Perhaps on another night he could have forgiven her, but not tonight. “Good night, Alaska,” he finally said. And turning away, he walked on, down the sidewalk, leaving her standing somewhere behind him in the night. After a few blocks, he took a cab back toward his apartment.
Getting out at his apartment building, he paid the cabbie and paused a moment to look up at his balcony, sixteen floors up. Above, a full moon glowed brightly in the clear skies. But as he gazed upward, his ears picked up footfalls coming toward him. Capitol Hill could be a tough neighborhood for the unwary. He didn’t want any trouble, so he moved quickly to the front door of his building. Pulling the key ring from his pocket, he jammed the front door key into the keyhole, but before he could turn the knob, his head was pushed hard against the door’s barred window at the same time a fist slammed into his kidney. Collapsing to the brick walkway, he twisted in pain.
“Get up,” the man said. A nickel-plated semiautomatic pistol glimmered under the entrance light.
“Who are you?” Michael managed to ask.
“I said up—now!”
He struggled to stand, but the moment he was back on his feet, the stranger grabbed him by the arm and shoved him toward the street.
“On the other side. Black Mustang. Get in the driver’s side and slide over to the passenger’s seat. Move it!”
He got in the car and slid to the passenger side. The stranger, still pointing the gun at him, got in and closed the door. “Loop these around the inside grab bar and put ’em on,” he said, tossing handcuffs onto Michael’s lap. With his captive secured, the stranger frisked Michael’s pockets and pitched the cell phone out the window. Then he started the Mustang, driving with his right hand on the wheel while his left hand, across his chest, kept the gun trained on Michael.
72
“UNCUFF YOURSELF AND slowly get out of the car,” the man said to Michael, handing him a small key. Opening the driver’s-side door, he stepped into the snow.
Michael removed the handcuffs and slowly got out. As he did so, the stranger rose with him and held the gun on him over the top of the Mustang. The man had taken him up a winding road to a snowy parking area at the top of Lookout Mountain. Besides a brown SUV with tinted windows next to them, there was no one else around.
“Ste
p over there,” his abductor said.
Michael felt an odd tingle of anticipation. He felt the fear, too, of course, but it was not the brain-locking, gut-punch-paralyzing kind. For beneath that fear and somehow suffused with it was the awareness that he would deal with whatever he was about to face.
He turned in the direction the man had pointed to: a small opening in the trees, leading out toward a rock outcropping. Beyond it, a sharp drop-off fell twenty feet to a sloping apron of snow, which disappeared into an abyss of dark trees. In a valley beyond the trees, the full moon cast a silvery glow across the open snow. He moved toward the opening and stood vulnerably in the snow, facing away from the two vehicles and out toward a world of moonlight and shadows. Michael’s hands hung at his sides with his palms facing back at the stranger.
He heard the door to the SUV open.
“I searched him, Mr. Seaton,” the stranger said. “Took his cell phone. Had no gun or other weapon. He’s clean.”
“Thank you,” said a familiar voice. “I can take it from here.”
Michael heard the stranger get back in the Mustang and start the engine. Within seconds, it had pulled away and was roaring back down the mountain road.
“Turn around.”
Michael turned to find Lance Seaton pointing a pistol at him from beside the SUV. Shaking his head, he stared at the surviving twin. “You probably should have run while you had the chance,” Michael said.
“I can be on a beach on the other side of the world anytime I want,” Lance replied. “But you should have known I wouldn’t leave without saying good-bye.”
“You’re such a fool. You had everything. Why? Why would you want to destroy everything your father built?”
“Don’t even pretend to know anything about me!” Lance snarled. “You don’t! You think you could ever understand? Huh! You think you know my life? You think Lucas and I were just trying to get back at Daddy? You think we were doing this for money or power? There are no answers I can give you that you’ll ever understand. You want to know why we did it? I’ll tell you: because we enjoyed it. It was a thrill. And that’s something that you, in your pathetic little life, could never understand.”
“I’ll tell you what I do understand,” Michael said as he stood tall near the edge of the drop-off. “I understand that your friend with the Mustang will never make it off this mountain. I understand that right now the cops have barricaded every road exiting Lookout Mountain. Federal agents are already making their way up that road. Your friend will soon be in custody. And so will you.”
“Bullshit.”
Michael moved his hands slowly to the collar of his shirt and pulled out a string necklace revealing a small medallion. “This is a GPS transponder,” he said. “We thought you might try to come after me. A security team of federal agents has been living in the apartment across the hall from me for the past two weeks. We thought you might try to hit me there. This was to signal the team if I saw you. They can track its location. I managed to activate the signal the moment I saw we were nearing the top of this mountain road.”
“And you want me to believe they’re on their way here?”
Michael raised his head as if smelling something in the air. “No, Lance. They’re not coming—they’re already here.” The low whop-whop of a rotor grew louder as a helicopter approached with a spotlight beam stretching earthward. “It’s over, Lance. Put the gun down.”
But the cold glare said otherwise. Lance showed not the slightest sign of panic or despair. Instead, he seemed to revel in the knowledge that the world was crashing down on him. And at that moment, Michael realized that he had no intention of lowering the gun. He was not about to let the man he blamed for his brother’s death walk away alive.
Suddenly there was another sound: two car engines roaring up the mountain road. Lance turned his head to see the flashing lights bouncing off trees behind him, the cars not yet in sight. As soon as Lance turned his head, Michael bolted in a desperate sprint toward the outcrop’s edge. Lance heard the crunching snow and whipped back around toward his captive. Steadying the gun, he fired several shots. Michael leaped over the ledge, arms and legs flailing away as if he were still running, when he heard the shots. His left arm suddenly felt as if it had been hit with a baseball bat; the next instant, something stabbed him in the back. Then he hit the snowy slope below, and he was sliding. He slid for what felt like an eternity before finally slamming into a snow mound, which kept him from pitchpoling down to the clearing below.
He kicked at the snow, trying to understand the breathtaking pain that seemed to take over his entire body. He could hear Lance’s footsteps moving on the ledge above, but the trees blocked his view. He forced himself to sit up, to focus his eyes on the surroundings. It was then that he realized he couldn’t move his left arm. A bullet had struck him just above the elbow. The second bullet had hit him in the side. Tears blurred his vision as he tried to stand up.
A crunching sound came from above the ledge, as he looked up in time to see Lance leap from the ledge and fall where Michael had first landed. But he didn’t slide down the slope as Michael had—landing feet first, he had postholed waist-deep into the snow. The gun slipped out of his hand and skittered on the crust, stopping just out of his reach.
As Lance fought to get free and snatch the pistol, Michael fought just as desperately to get to his feet before his attacker could get a clean shot. He got his feet under him and pushed against the snow mound, all but delirious from the shrieking pain in his body. He saw Lance’s hand grope outward and just miss grabbing the gun. He’s getting close. Stand up. Hurry! With a yelp of pain, Michael pushed harder with his legs, fighting to find the strength to stand. Fight it, he told himself, just as he had countless times as a collegian wrestler trying to grapple his way to another victory on the mat. Stay focused. Fight the pain. If there was one thing he had learned from his wrestling days, it was that no matter how tired or weak he felt, a burst of reserve energy, summoned at just the right moment, could make all the difference in winning a match. It was a lesson he had carried with him throughout his life, a personal credo now embedded in his very cells. The harder the struggle, the harder he always fought. With his back against the snow mound and his knees quaking violently, he stood up enough that he could topple over the mound. And just as he had found his stance, he looked back in time to see Lance pull himself far enough out of the snow to grab the gun. Michael turned sideways and leaned toward the abyss below, falling away from the snow mound and over the slope just as two bullets slammed into the snow where he had stood the second before.
He slid farther down the slope until it leveled out in a clearing. The pain had now receded as a worrisome numbness took its place. Blinking the tears away, he fought to his feet again and plunge-stepped across the open clearing a hundred feet below the first drop-off. He looked back briefly to search for the flashing lights of the police cars, but he had fallen and slid too far from the road. He was alone and could not expect them to find him in time to help.
As he moved through the open snowfield, his right hand pressed his side where the second bullet had gone through, while his paralyzed left arm hung loosely against his body. Knowing that to black out was to die, he concentrated to fight off the darkness collapsing his peripheral vision. He knew that if the darkness came all the way into the center of his vision, he would lose consciousness. A scraping sound behind him let him know that Lance was sliding down the slope in pursuit.
He could hear the low rumbling of the approaching helicopter, still too far in the distance to help him. The stinging cold was attacking his body without mercy. The warmth, along with his blood, was leaving his body. He was too weak to keep pressure on the wound. The bleeding from his side increased, dripping occasional drops of blood into the ground, where they were absorbed by the snow. He took a few more steps before falling to his knees in the center of the clearing. His gaze fell on a patch of snow directly in front of him, then became lost in a sea of sparkling c
rystals of reflected moonlight. Gravity seemed to be stronger now, pulling him earthward with a force he could no longer fight. Falling back into the snow, he lay unable to move as his eyes stared in wonder at the night sky. All the winter constellations his father had taught him as a boy were now hovering above him in the cosmos. Their familiar images brought back childhood memories of his father and him watching a meteor shower from the roof of their house. Dad, I’m in real trouble. I don’t want to die just yet . . . He was reminded of the full life he had lived. Orion, Canis Major, and the other familiar shapes had been with him his entire life, and now, strangely, they made him feel that he was not alone as he lay dying in the open field.
Then the silence was broken. Footsteps crunched through the snow, growing louder with each step, stopping when they reached him.
“You look just like Kurt did before he died,” Lance said, stepping over him and placing a foot on his chest. Then he raised the gun and fired a shot into Michael’s right arm. Screaming as the bullet tore through muscle and nerve, Michael now lay motionless in the snow with two paralyzed arms.
“I hear you used to be a star wrestler in college—wouldn’t want to give you a chance to try anything before I finish this.” As Lance said this, he sat astride Michael’s chest, one knee in the snow on either side of him.
