Never Far Away

by Michael Koryta

  “Can you fly that plane?” Dax asked Leah.

  For a moment, he didn’t think Leah was going to answer. At last she said, “I can fly it, but he won’t let me.”

  “Why? He knows you’re a pilot.”

  Her voice was almost emotionless when she said, “Yes. But he also knows that if it is just us, I will crash it, and I will kill us both.”

  Dax raised an eyebrow. “Excellent point. I’ll confess I hadn’t even thought of that possibility.”

  Leah sat rigidly in the bow seat, refusing to look back at him. She was, he thought, pretty damn tough. She was, in fact, more like her daughter than perhaps either of them had had time to realize. A shame, but he thought Hailey might recognize it eventually. When she had a proper chance to reflect on the days she’d enjoyed with her mother, Hailey might extract more lessons than she could possibly imagine right now.

  He piloted the Zodiac directly to the open door on the pilot’s side. It should have swung closed in the wind, so Bleak must have used something to wedge it open. A smart choice. As they came closer, Dax could smell fuel in the air.

  “Good thing I have another plane,” he said. “I think you shot this one up pretty well.”

  Leah said nothing. Her posture, straight-backed and defiant, was just like her daughter’s.

  He brought them in alongside the pontoon where the boy hostage waited. The boy held tight to the strut and watched them with a mixture of fear and hope. Dax slowed the motor but didn’t cut it, so he could push back against the current and hold position. They were in front of the open door now and he could see the black barrel of a rifle pointed at them. Beyond that, he saw the man himself—the famous Bleak.

  “Delivery,” Dax called. “Just as promised. Same-day shipping, too.”

  Bleak said, “Tie up the boat.”

  Dax shook his head. “That would be a poor choice on my part. And if you shoot me now, the boat sweeps downriver, you’re going to have to get wet getting it back, and then you’ll still need to find another plane. The problem is how you’re getting out of here.”

  “I’ll find an exit strategy, thanks.”

  “No doubt. I’m just thinking about the fastest one for you. It’s a conundrum.”

  Bleak laughed. It was soft but audible. Dax liked the sound.

  “Here’s my idea,” Dax said. “You get in the boat. I take us to the plane. If you want to kill Leah at any point along the way, that’s fine, but I could make an argument for keeping her alive because she can fly the plane.” He raised a finger. “Full disclosure, though: She has already spoken of trying to crash the plane. I don’t know about you, but that’s not the attitude I like to hear from a pilot after the boarding doors are closed.”

  “Who are you, bro?”

  “We can talk about that when we’re out of here,” Dax said. “You got any problem with my plan?”

  “Yeah. What do you want out of it? This is crazy, what you’re doing. You should’ve cut and run once you were behind the rocks. Instead, you’re down here waiting to get shot.”

  “Incorrect,” Dax said. “I’m waiting to get paid.”

  “Get paid?” The man’s voice rose in volume for the first time. “You think I’m paying you? I could lay your ass in that river right now, six shots in you before you blink.”

  “Absolutely,” Dax agreed, “but you still wouldn’t have a plane and a pilot. I think you want those. I also don’t think you care if I take some of Lowery’s money. He was going to pay the two of you, right? You and your partner whose body is at the bottom of the river now.”

  He watched Bleak very carefully while he said that.

  “You’re a crazy man,” Bleak said. “Type of man gets killed for no reason.”

  “Your partner was going to be paid,” Dax said, “and all I’m asking for is his share. It’s a reasonable request. I’m not even utilizing my leverage here. Just being reasonable.”

  “Leverage? Shit!” Bleak said, and he shook his head, incredulous. It was the most emotion he’d shown. Dax was pleased that he’d been able to provoke it.

  “Tell me that’s not reasonable,” Dax said.

  “Leverage,” Bleak said and shook his head again. “You really talkin’ about leverage.”

  Dax shrugged. “I’m not asking you to negotiate. I’ll ask Lowery. It’s not your burden.”

  “No wonder you’re so damn young. There’s no way a man who acts like you do gets old.”

  “Mind if I make one guess about your circumstances on this river?” Dax asked.

  “You never stop talking, do you?”

  “Here’s my guess: Lowery doesn’t want you to kill her. If he did, she’d already be dead. And the kids, the pilot, the dog. This would have been a zero-sum afternoon if you’d been given that option. Everyone would’ve been dead but you and me.”

  That low chuckle again. “But you?”

  Dax nodded. “Correct. We’d have indulged ourselves in a little showdown, maybe, some pissing contest, but eventually we’d have assessed the situation and realized it wasn’t worth it. The rest of them would be dead. He’s waiting on her, and he wants her alive. Am I wrong?”

  A long beat. “Put down your weapon.”

  Dax put down his weapon. He had come this far on his curiosity, might as well proceed a bit further. He was dealing with a pragmatist here, a man of unique confidence, which meant a man who would let the situation play out much longer than most. Bleak wasn’t worried about losing the upper hand. Wasn’t worried about losing, period.

  Dax hadn’t seen such confidence since his father was alive.

  But Dax was confident too. Bleak would have filled the river with the dead and vanished into the woods long ago if that were an acceptable outcome. He was supposed to deliver Leah alive. It was the only thing that made sense.

  Bleak slid out onto the edge of the plane and sat with his feet dangling, like a soldier about to jump out of a helicopter. He wore boots and jeans and a white T-shirt. Dax noted that the T-shirt wasn’t stained by so much as a drop of sweat. Impressive. The man had a shaved head and dark, observant eyes and was all lean muscle, no body fat, as if he bench-pressed any incoming carbohydrate before he ate it.

  He looked at Dax, studying him in similar fashion, and Dax would’ve loved to hear what he thought he saw. When he was done assessing Dax, he looked at Leah Trenton.

  “Nina.” No trace of emotion.

  “Marvin,” she said, and Dax thought there might have been a tiny twitch in the man’s face at that, as if he didn’t like his given name. In fairness, he did not look like a Marvin. He looked like a Bleak. You couldn’t blame a mother for trying, but the world had corrected her mistake most appropriately.

  Bleak lifted the rifle, a modified AR-15 with an extended magazine and an infrared scope, put the red dot on Leah Trenton’s forehead, and said, “Pow.”

  Leah said, “Feel better?”

  “I will soon.”

  She shrugged.

  “Ten fucking years,” he said. “You out here, me inside. All over now, though.”

  She shrugged again. She wasn’t going to give him a damn thing. Dax liked her despite himself.

  “You really got a plane and a pilot?” Bleak asked, looking at Dax again, moving the red dot from Leah’s forehead to his. Dax didn’t react.

  “Yes. The pilot will be a little sore, but he can fly.”

  “How far from here?”

  “Twenty minutes.”

  Bleak nodded and dropped into the boat beside Leah in a move so sudden and graceful that it was as if he’d always been there. She recoiled, scrambled backward into the center seat. He reached into the plane, dragged a camo backpack down, dropped it into the boat.

  “Shotgun,” Bleak said to Dax. “Pass it forward. You know how.”

  Dax knew how. He picked the shotgun up by the barrel, keeping his hands in plain view and nowhere near the trigger, and passed it forward. Bleak took it and tossed it into the river.

  “Shirt,”
Bleak said.

  Leah Trenton looked confused, but Dax understood. He lifted his shirt so Bleak could see his waistband. He twisted without being told, showing that there was no weapon in a spine holster, either.

  “I’m clean,” he said.

  “Ankles,” Bleak said.

  Dax smiled and nodded. Bent at the waist and rolled up the pants on the left leg first—clean. As he rolled them back down, he said, “You won’t like the next one as much. I’ll go slow.”

  Bleak didn’t speak. Dax rolled the pants up over his right boot, moving carefully as the ankle holster was exposed. A snub-nosed revolver waited there.

  “Into the water,” Bleak said. “If that muzzle comes toward me, you die.”

  “Copy that.” Dax removed his backup piece from the ankle holster, holding it by the grip with just two fingers, and dropped it over the side of the boat.

  “Clip knife in my pocket,” he said. “I’d like to keep that, if you don’t mind. It has sentimental—”

  “Shut up and dump it.”

  Dax sighed, removed the Benchmade knife that had traveled so many roads with him, and dropped it into the river.

  “That’s it,” he said, and it was. He was unarmed now. Not the best feeling, admittedly, but he was comforted by the reminder that a Blackwell was never truly unarmed. His mind was still sharp and his body was still sound and his creativity was peerless.

  Nevertheless, he would miss the knife.

  “Take us to your plane,” he said.

  Dax was ready to, but Leah said, “Untie Matt.”

  “Huh?”

  “The kid.” She pointed at the trembling boy on the seaplane’s float. “You untie him or I will.”

  “Nobody will.”

  “Yes, I will. Because what he just said was the truth: Corson wants to see me. You’re not killing me until then. So untie him.”

  Bleak spoke to Dax. “Get moving.”

  Leah Trenton stood up and moved to the front of the boat. Bleak rose swiftly and slapped her once, a seemingly casual effort but one that knocked her back on her ass and rocked the boat. Blood rushed from her nose. She licked it off her lips, got up, and stepped forward again.

  “Just untie him,” Dax said. “What are we gaining here? Nothing. And we’re losing time.”

  Bleak and Leah stood eye to eye, one bleeding and unarmed, the other uninjured and with a rifle in hand, and yet they seemed evenly matched in ferocity.

  Bleak spun, his hand flashed, and the cord binding Matt Bouchard’s throat to wherever it was tied off in the plane’s cockpit parted and fell in draped ends. Bleak stepped out of the boat and onto the plane’s float, knife in one hand, gun in the other, moving sideways, never offering his back to Dax, which was wise even though Dax had no intention of killing him.

  Bleak flashed that knife hand again, and the plastic ties binding the boy’s wrists fell away. Without a word, Bleak abandoned his hostage and dropped back into the Zodiac.

  “Move,” he said.

  Dax moved. Leah fell heavily back in the boat as the prop whirled, and Dax brought them around in a circle and headed downriver. He saw Leah staring backward and followed her gaze. Past the plane where the child waited on the float, there was motion in the trees along the bank. Hailey and Nick were creeping through the woods to the place where Ed Levenseller waited with the dog. They were trying to move stealthily, but they were still exposed to gunfire.

  Bleak was watching them. He didn’t move to lift his rifle, though. Dax realized he didn’t view any of them as threats, not even the pilot. They’d all seen him. They could all testify against him. Bleak had no concerns about a courtroom, not in his current situation, already a fugitive. He intended to become a ghost.

  That was easier to do when you had ample resources. Bleak’s resources required Lowery’s satisfaction. Thus, Leah Trenton lived for another hour. Maybe two.

  As Dax piloted them toward Roman Island and the awaiting plane, they passed Randall Pollard’s corpse, hung up on a bone-white limb that had snagged his shirt. There was a crater in his gut from Leah’s bullet and another in his eye socket from Dax’s. His body twisted in the current, as if trying to pull free and sail on. Or sink. Already, the flies had found his wounds.

  Dax watched Bleak’s face closely as they went by the corpse.

  There was no hint of emotion.

  They passed the dead man and went on down the river.

  51

  Leah rode in numb silence, pinned between the two killers, one she’d known for years, and one she’d apparently hired. Each as empty as the other. She’d felt little surprise listening to the one named Dax negotiate with Bleak. She’d reached into the darkness in search of salvation, and who could be surprised that she withdrew only more darkness?

  Hailey and Nick were alive. Ed was…still living, at least. So was the neighbor’s boy, Matt. Even Tessa.

  The innocent ones live on, she thought as she swayed with the boat, pines flying by, the water gray-black beneath gathering clouds. If the innocent ones made it through this day alive, it had gone well enough. She was not ready to die, but she was fine with the choice she had made.

  She hoped her kids would remember her like this. Would remember that when she’d had to kill for them, she had, and when she’d had to lay down her own life for them, she had.

  Like a mother.

  She closed her eyes. So much pain, so much suffering, and always by those who deserved it the least. What world allowed that?

  The world didn’t answer her, but the wind did, blowing fresh and cold into her face, and she knew without having to open her eyes that they’d rounded the point and come out into the wide stretches of Roman Island Lake.

  She wanted to see Lowery before she died. It was the last thing she wished for: a chance to see him face-to-face. What she would do with the chance, she wasn’t sure. Spit in his eye, claw at his skin, shout blood oaths? None of it would matter. And yet she wanted it. She wanted that one last thing. The chance to hurt any part of him, however briefly.

  She opened her eyes and saw Bleak staring at her, expressionless, his body moving in natural, easy motion with the boat. He should have been cold in the wind and on the water with nothing but that T-shirt, but he seemed as unaffected as if he were resting in the Florida sun.

  She turned her head so that she didn’t have to look at him.

  They were coming up on the west side of Roman Island, and she saw smoke rising from the stovepipe of one of the isolated camps there. Thought about shouting for help but knew better. If she shouted, someone might actually run down to try to help. Then there would be more innocent blood.

  Past the island and on out to the expanse of open water on the north side, gray flecked with whitecaps in the freshening wind. Something rested in the water across the way, floating near the cliffs that rimmed a small cove. She squinted.

  It was a plane. Dax Blackwell hadn’t lied. She hadn’t expected that he had, though. He was here for a payday and willing to sell her to the highest bidder. Her own defense, her hired hand. She wondered if Doc Lambkin was dead. All those unanswered phone calls. Yes, he was probably dead. Dead because he’d answered her call. Leah was an infection spreading from coast to coast, a trail of death in her wake.

  Kill the source and let it end.

  Just let me have a chance to take Lowery with me. He is the ultimate source.

  They fought the wind northwest toward the cove, no one speaking, the Zodiac spanking across the chop, and then Dax Blackwell brought the boat around in a shallow arc and came to an idling stop beside the plane.

  “Mind tying us off?” he said. “I’ve got to go free the pilot. Unless you want to.”

  Bleak gestured at Leah with the rifle.

  “You,” he said. Just the one word.

  Leah moved past him, climbed onto the float, took the line from the bow of the Zodiac, looped it around a strut, tied a hitch. She climbed back down into the boat as Dax Blackwell killed the motor and the world fell
silent around them.

  “May I go get the pilot without being shot in the back?” he asked. “It would be nice.”

  Bleak’s only response was to lower his rifle by about three inches. Dax Blackwell nodded as if this were a fine display of cooperation, and then he climbed out of the Zodiac, nimbly made his way to the cargo-hold door, and opened it.

  A slim, pale man with unkempt hair and wide, terrified eyes above a strip of tape that covered his mouth looked out of the dimness and directly at Leah.

  “It’s Andy!” Dax Blackwell said, as if greeting an old friend. “Andy, we’re going to need you to do some flying now. You game for that, old buddy?”

  Dax ripped the tape off his mouth. Thin furrows of blood formed on the pilot’s lips. He licked the blood away and looked at Dax.

  “Where?” he said.

  “Good question,” Dax Blackwell answered. “You’re improving with that.” He turned to face Bleak. “Where?”

  Bleak opened the camo backpack he’d taken from the plane. He used only one hand, keeping the rifle in the other. He withdrew a satellite phone. Leah looked at it and thought numbly of the plan that had seemed so plausible just hours ago. The call to Mrs. Wilson in Louisville to arrange for her children’s exodus, then finding Lowery on her own terms, fighting him, killing him. How quickly the plan had fallen apart. On Lowery’s terms, again.

  Always on his terms.

  “I think we have to wait for that answer,” Dax told the pilot, and he dropped back down into the boat, rocking it and stumbling toward Bleak. Bleak lifted the rifle and popped the muzzle off Dax Blackwell’s forehead hard enough that Leah heard the click of his teeth snapping together.

  “Sorry,” Dax said. “I don’t have sea legs like you.”

  Bleak’s finger traced the trigger. He now had the plane and the pilot and thus no more need for Dax, Leah realized, and she waited for the shot.

  Bleak removed his finger from the trigger.