You can’t take a vacation while this Tower creeps behind the scenes.
“Yeah, but I have to expose him first.” Even as she said this, images of fresh razor blades filled her vision. Drinking the seepage from her own self-inflicted wounds was something she rarely did, but, on more than one desperate occasion the urge to do so had taken firm hold and she had succumbed to this depraved act. If I let Dorl succeed in whatever he’s up to, what God-awful inhuman thing will I do to myself for it?
She popped two Excedrin and made a quick couple of turkey and mayo sandwiches. The dossier lay in the truck, so all she needed was the agents’ ID and a picture of his hand. She unlocked the door and stiffened.
The room was empty.
Before she could even blink Lexi found herself on the bed with a two-hundred and twenty pound man straddling her.
“Why did you knock me out and lock me in here?” his good hand encasing her throat.
“I didn’t knock you out,” she managed. “You had some kind of attack, so I took you home. I locked you up for my own safety. You said it yourself, ‘I can’t trust anyone.’”
He released her and startled her with his next question. “Do you have acetaminophen?”
The agent clutched his head and wobbled as she led him to the kitchen. When she absent mindedly twirled her fingers through her hair, the agent leant down and sniffed her raven strands. Lexi stepped back. “Don’t even think about it, mister. I’ll scream.”
“You showered.” He looked around. “How long have I been out? What time is it?”
“Who cares? Look I—”
He grabbed her shoulders. “Get ready to run.”
She gawked as he ran to the garage, headed straight for the spot where the winter tires lingered under layers of dust. He rustled around, found a jack and set about the task of swapping tires. She almost laughed to see such a mundane act performed by this strange agent. When he finished he ran inside, looked around. Nodding at the animal carrier, he said, “If you wanted to take the cat, get it and let’s go.” He then began a search of the drawers. “Hurry!”
Despite hating this man for barging into her life, Lexi felt inclined to obey. Satan hissed as she tossed him inside the carrier. Lexi shoved his bag of Iams inside as well and toted it all out to the truck bed. She then wrapped the carrier with two blankets. Letting poor little Satan freeze to death was the last thing she needed on her conscience.
Simon’s cruiser pulled up across the street.
“Going somewhere?” he asked as he jumped out of the car and jogged towards her.
“Visiting a cousin in Pittsburg,” she lied smoothly. Simon sauntered up with body language and eyes that said, ‘This is no time for games.’
“Funny, I thought Gramps was your last relative. Where are you going, Lexi?”
She watched as he scanned the tires and the large footprints around the truck. When she turned to enter the house, Simon followed. Silence enveloping them as they walked. There was no sign of the agent inside.
“Who’s with you?”
“What? No one, what makes you—”
“Don’t lie to me! I know you detest dirt and grime. You never change tires. Who—is—with—you?”
A whisper of a whistle fluttered past her. Lexi jumped behind a column near the living room. Simon let out a frustrated yelp and yanked the brown-handled knife out of his thigh. Lexi stifled a scream as he crouched and drew his gun.
All was silent for two minutes as Simon limped from room to room, dribbling blood and mouthing curses. Lexi grabbed the keys from the shelf and headed for the door. Three sharp raps from the back of the house, followed by a jolting slam of a door and someone grunting. A burst of gunfire cracked the air. Lexi ran for the Dakota. Slipped, fumbled with the keys and saw a man barreling through the front door.
How much more of this could she take? Bum sore and no doubt bruising, Lexi climbed into the truck. The agent opened the passenger door and jumped in just as Lexi slid the key into the ignition. She threw the Dakota into reverse.
What am I doing, running from Simon now?
They bounced like bobble-head dolls as the bumper slammed into the door of Simon’s police car. Peeling out, they left a black smear of paint and a metallic crater in his cruiser. Studded tires gripped slushy pavement with ease.
“Oh my God oh my God oh my God! What happened back there?” she slapped the wheel and pounded on her leg as the agent watched and caught his breath.
“I set fire to the contents of the chests. It was the only way I knew he wouldn’t follow.”
“How could you do that? I thought the FBI wanted those articles.”
“Yeah, but you already have them digitally recorded.” He smiled as she stared. “I’m trained to notice things Miss Montaigne. While I was changing the tires I searched the truck. Found the memory card. I put that together with the logic that you wouldn’t have put me in a room with those articles unless you had already digitized them and intended to leave without them.”
He smacked his fedora against the dashboard to knock the snow off. “You were going to my man in Ashford Hollow, weren’t you? You were entering the room to take my ID to use it to lure him out.”
She sneered and wound down her window despite the chill air. “You reek. Don’t suppose you have some cologne on you? What’s your name anyway?”
“Aubrey Lewis Jr.” He winced, massaging his right hand.
Lexi offered a nervous smirk, hands still shaking. “That’s a girl’s name.”
A scowl. “It is obviously also a man’s name. It was my father’s name and he was a legend in the Bureau.” He tried to cross his arms but grimaced.
“I’ll bet they mocked you for it all through school and when you got older you always introduced yourself as Lewis.” Her breathing slowed as her psychoanalyst side took over. “I’ll bet you a million bucks some of the other agents even think Lewis is your first name. Right? And stop breathing, your breath is worse than your body odor. God!”
Lewis took a series of long slow breaths. Scowling at him, Lexi observed the pewter fabric of the seat morphing into deep red. “Jeez. Were you shot? Should we go to the hospital?”
“No! No hospitals. Just go to Wal-Mart or something.”
He withdrew a pen and pad and jotted something down as Lexi sighed. Taking the the left turn onto Veterans Memorial Drive, she headed into Wal-Mart. When they parked he handed her the pad. “Small needle-nosed pliers, gauze, duct tape, ethyl alcohol. You’re going to pull the bullet out yourself?”
“Only if you hurry. Otherwise I’ll bleed to death and won’t need to remove it.”
Twenty minutes later, in a barn along the 219, Lexi watched Lewis dribble alcohol on the wound and insert the pliers. His face crunched as he swallowed back pain. She watched, absorbed, as he raked the pliers around, painting the straw floor red with blood.
A victorious breath as he withdrew the pliers, a tiny brass knot of metal in its teeth. “You’re not like most women,” he whispered as he wrapped the wound.
“What do you mean?”
“You were watching intently and your pulse remained steady. One might even say this calmed you.” He leaned on her as he stood. She turned her head and gagged.
“There’s mouthwash, deodorant and cologne in the bag, too. Feel free.”
“So that’s what took you so long.” A pause and a grunt. “You know, if you’re worrying about your cop boyfriend, don’t. He’s not a good man.”
They were on the road again, heading southwest for Ashford Hollow. “What did you mean back there, about Simon? Why should I trust you over him?”
His words muffled by the fedora covering his face, Lewis said, “You remember what happened to Linnux.” Snores pursued his mysterious words and that was all she wrote.
Two hours later Lewis woke as though from a shotgun blast, whisking away Lexi’s cell as she was scrolling for news of the fire. “Hey! What the hell—”
“Really? An I-phone?” Lewis snarl
ed. “Don’t you watch movies? Some of that bullshit is actually true. They’ll find you with this. And believe me, they are looking.” He removed the battery and dismantled the phone by wedging it between two of the mechanical fingers and using his left hand. He tossed the pieces out the window, inviting a blast of frigid air.
Lexi offered her best sour look, but was sure it came off as childish. “Why should I fear the FBI? Linnux said they were gathering intelligence on the Tower.”
“Yeah, that’s when the Director sent Agent Colson in to fix the issue.” He downed a few aspirin before nestling under his fedora again. Lexi flicked it off, demanding an explanation. “Look, my man in the Hollow will explain. I need sleep.” His voice was flat. Lexi noticed his words jumbled together as though he were drunk, or high.
She slapped him when he refused to respond. He wasn’t just sleeping; he was unconscious.
“Damn it all.”
Another hour of driving. They reached Ashford Hollow and Lexi pulled over by the side of a towering but narrow stone church. From outside the truck, trying not to inhale the stench, she searched Lewis’s pockets. His license was in his wallet, but there was no FBI badge. “I guess you wouldn’t carry an ‘I’m an FBI Agent’ business card, would you?” After a few minutes of shivering and looking around uselessly, she climbed back into the cab, doused Lewis with cologne and took the keys.
The little village seemed frozen in uncomfortable stillness. Sunbeams fell in columns through clouds too thin and lazy to be of use, casting the village in yellow and white patches of light. After investigating Main Street and failing to find a phone booth, she gave up and entered one of the quaint stores.
“Yes, I need a phone book.”
“Sure,” the man behind the counter squeaked. “But it might be faster if you tell me who you’re looking for. I’m the unofficial Mayor round here, dear, I know just about anyone worth knowing in the Hollow.” He tittered as he handed her a six year old phone book.
“Thanks, but I doubt you know the man I’m looking for.” She thumbed the pages, looking for ‘Lewis’ based on the assumption that Aubrey Lewis’s mentor was his father.
“You must be looking for Leslie, the old spook out on Bart Road.”
“Leslie?”
The unofficial Mayor leaned forward and whispered, “They say he was in some kind of secret organization. But I don’t believe a word of it. He’s prolly just some old eccentric. Why else would he spend his days in the abandoned King Cole Bean factory?”
Lexi got the directions effortlessly out of the unofficial Mayor and returned to the truck. Lewis was still out cold when she slid inside. “Why do all you FBI guys have girl’s names?”
Ten minutes later studded tires rolled into the snow-flecked stone lot in front of King Cole Bean factory. There were no cars, no trees; no signs of life, not even vermin. Lexi killed the engine and got out.
Silence attacked. As always it was a prelude to ringing ears.
When a door creaked open and a man materialized from the shadows within, Lexi jerked back, that blood-curdling chill stopping her dead cold.
“Hurry up damn you, pull that heap inside! They have eyes in the sky and they’re looking for you.” The man hoisted an overhead door, revealing the insides of a sprawling warehouse. Lexi slowly drove into this new old place, trying not to notice the painted black windows and the eerie silence of the space.
Chapter 19
“You look like fried shit,” Leslie informed Lewis, who was trying to look important by leaning against the Dakota with the fedora perched precariously atop his bald dome. “Did you run into World War Three on your way over here?”
Lexi covered a smirk as she listened to the FBI—or former FBI—guys and looked around. There was almost nothing within the cavernous space but a small wooden workbench and a couple of red tool chests. It seemed more like a warehouse than a former factory. Leslie finished reaming Lewis and turned to her.
“It’s an honor to meet you, Miss Montaigne,” he managed to seem both earnest and disingenuous. It made him a hard read, like that Jeffries fellow.
“Why is it an honor, sir?” noting that his eyes never wavered from her own.
“Leslie was a lifer,” Lewis explained. “He worked directly under J. Edgar from the late sixties until he passed in seventy-two. The Man kept a file on your grandfather.”
“Stand down, Lewis,” Leslie barked. “The lady and I were speaking.” He turned back to Lexi, his expression melting from indignation to humility. “Your father was a legend for his datum on the Tower. A civilian who had worked for and amassed that level of intelligence on the Tower was impressive, to say the least.”
Leslie helped Lewis over to a chair by a wall of windows where he cut Lewis’s jeans and set about dressing the seeping wound. A dozen questions plagued Lexi as she watched. “Why does everyone call him the Tower?”
Leslie tore off the cloth around the wound, making Lewis wince. “Take the pain.” Then his face, dark for the grease that seemed a part of him, softened. “He likes to change his name—Dorl, Rold, Mr. Lord—whenever he surfaces, so the Agency took to using the codename Tower. All the important crap gets codenames.”
“Ach!” Lewis yelled, then convulsed before passing out.
“Son of a bitch. It wasn’t that bad. Has he conked out like this before?”
Lexi nodded.
“Damn it all. The Tower musta dosed him. That’s going to make this a real pisser, to be sure.”
“You’ve seen this before?” Lexi pointed at Lewis. The man nodded, so she added, “He mentioned something about a Lot 111? Is that what this is?” Leslie nodded. “And it’s happened before?”
“Too many times.” The old man turned to a small radio that was last hip circa 1990, and flicked it on to a jazz station. Some saxophone ditty rang out, sounding tinny in the cavernous factory. As he sewed the bullet hole, Leslie said, “The Tower has a chemical, a specialized drug he uses whenever anyone gets too close to exposing him. Its effects include a mild form of epilepsy, blackouts, and of course, my favorite, memory loss. What’s truly remarkable is that only the memories concerning the Tower are affected. Well, mostly.”
“That’s what happened to me, I think.” Lexi said. In her excitement she had raised her voice and it echoed through the space. “Only I haven’t passed out. And I think I have forgotten some things other than Mr. Dorl. It’s like . . . my memory is being filtered.”
“Hmm. He probably used a concentrated version of Lot 111 on you, considering your long knowledge of the Tower.” Leslie hummed in time with the saxophone piece. Lexi looked on and for once felt at ease in the company of a man. There was something about Leslie.
Or maybe it’s just easier trusting an old kook than a man who can stab you in the back after screwing you.
Lexi helped him settle Lewis onto a mattress just off the main floor. Then she showed him the check for Gramps. “Have you ever heard of this company, HHC?”
“Of course,” his eyes glazed over. “Howard Hughes Corporation. They have no affiliation with the Tower, but once upon a time, when Hughes was still alive, he funded various extralegal activities. Your gramps was one. At least, that was the rumor. You never really know.”
“But why is his company still sending checks?”
He dropped his head and Lexi could tell he considered it a stupid question. “These things are often automated, especially for a conglomerate like HHC.”
He left her then, with the nugget of important knowledge that the restroom was outside in the woods wherever she pleased, “Only don’t step in the mud mounted by flies. That spot’s taken,” and that there was a refrigerator and couch in the upstairs office. She watched him stroke his greasy beard as he circled her Dakota.
She ascended the steps, each one creaking in complaint, almost loud enough to shake off the dust blanketing their backs. The catwalk too was choking on dust, bisected only by a footpath leading to the office.
Dying light gave way to Sep
tember dusk. In violent contrast to the old, dull space of the factory floor, the office was filled with electronic equipment. Computers too new to have been purchased in sleepy Ashford Hollow sat perched on the desk flanked by plasma screens attached to gleaming metal stands. Their screensavers displayed Stephen Kings’ Dark Tower with a single rose in the foreground.
“This is how I’ve been tracking him,” Leslie said, appearing behind her.
“God! Don’t do that.”
He held up his hands. “Sorry. G-men never really retire, I guess.” He walked past and plopped into the aluminum desk chair.
“So I see. Tell me why I’m here. Tell me about this place. I want to know everything.”
“You’ve seen his latest factory in Orchard Park,” Leslie murmured. “But there is evidence the Tower is using the facility as a diversion. Best guess? Some dirt-bag table-turner in the Pentagon has been aiding him. Maybe an entire division.”
Lexi dropped the book she had been absently flipping through; something about code breaking. “You mean the FBI is helping Mr. Dorl . . . the Tower? Why?”
“The FBI or the CIA or the SCIA. Who knows? You should get some sleep, Missy,” Leslie grabbed a coke from the fridge and moved for the door. “The agents who were dosed by Dorl were sometimes able to recall some of their memories during sleep. There’s a pad there, if you wake from a memory dream, even if it seems more of a fantasy, write it down right quick. Goodnight.” He went downstairs without instigating a single squeak from the steps.
A thousand images of chaos and punishment raced through her dreamscapes. Like a Michael Bay film, there was no reason to the madness, no order to the disparate images, and when a scraping sound penetrated REM sleep, the visions grew still more confusing.
Lexi woke bathed in cold sweat, gasping for breath. She didn’t remember falling asleep, or what it was she had seen while under, but that sound, that constant scraping was still there. It had breached her dreams and now crept into her waking life. She looked down and found the pad in her lap, a pen in her left hand with a sprinkling of words in its wake. Lexi tried to read the scribbles, but they looked Greek. She tossed the pad back onto the desk and left the office. The scraping sound grew louder. What the hell was it?
The Fifth Descent of Lexi Montaigne Page 11
