Never Far Away

by Michael Koryta

  “Get in the back,” he told Dax, and Leah laughed.

  “Funny?” Bleak said, looking at her as Dax slid by, crawling to the stern.

  “Yes,” Leah said, the taste of her own blood in her mouth. “It is. You’ve got to ask for permission first, don’t you? Not quite sure who you can kill.”

  “Don’t need permission,” Bleak said. “Not now, not tomorrow, not yesterday. Keep laughing.”

  “I will,” she said, and she felt a high, dizzy giddiness. Why not laugh? Whistle through the graveyard, as they say. She was on her last breaths. Why not enjoy them?

  But Bleak had already lost interest in her. He had maneuvered so he was facing Leah and Dax, but his attention was on the satellite phone. He pressed buttons and then put the phone to his ear. Pause. Then: “I have her,” he said. No preamble, no exchange of greetings.

  Leah imagined Lowery on the other end of the call. Saw his snow-white hair and his deep tan and his crisp clothes and perfect posture. Saw his reptilian eyes. The eyes wouldn’t change when he heard this news from Bleak. He might smile, he might scowl, but the expressions never affected his eyes.

  “Allagash River in northern Maine,” Bleak said. “There were casualties, and there were witnesses. Time is an issue. I have a plane and a pilot, though. I also have a passenger.”

  Pause.

  “Someone she hired. He wants Pollard’s share.”

  Pause.

  “Dead.”

  Pause.

  “Says his name is Dax Blackwell.”

  Dax’s mouth twitched with a hint of a smile. He leaned on the outboard, seemingly having no reaction to the conversation other than mild amusement. Leah thought that he’d be smiling when he died.

  “Tell him I left a bill in Montana,” Dax Blackwell said.

  Bleak ignored that and said, “He told me he was hired by Lambkin to protect her. He wants a bigger payday now. Pollard’s share.”

  “Not a bigger payday,” Dax said, as if talking to himself. “There was interest due, that’s all. It’s a matter of common courtesy.”

  Bleak said, “He’s right here. Right now.”

  Going to shoot him, Leah thought. Right here and right now, Bleak is going to—

  There was the sound of ripping tape and Leah and Bleak looked toward the stern at the same time and saw that Dax Blackwell had a gun. It was a Glock nine-millimeter, child’s firepower compared to Bleak’s, but it was pointed at Bleak’s forehead. A tendril of black electrician’s tape fluttered from the butt of the Glock, and Leah realized that Dax must have taped it to the transom long before the first shots had been fired. Long before he’d even known that any shots would be fired.

  The muzzle of Bleak’s AR-15 was adrift somewhere between Leah and Dax and the pilot, the trio of threats he’d been trying to keep in check while also handling the phone and balancing on the water. He could try for a shot easily. It was fraction-of-a-second stuff, and yet he was smart enough not to try. He’d have lost.

  There was a frozen moment and then Dax spoke softly.

  “Put yours down and tell him we’re in good shape. Because we are.”

  Bleak didn’t move. Still weighing the odds. Gauging the steadiness in Dax’s gun hand. The muzzle of his own rifle was only two inches from being centered on Dax.

  The water rose and rocked them and still Dax’s gun hand didn’t waver.

  Bleak lowered the rifle. Put it down on the bottom of the boat, resting near his boot. His eyes never left Dax’s.

  “Finish the call,” Dax said. “We need to get out of here.”

  “No,” Bleak said into the phone. “All good here. It’s just…you might want a look at him, is all I’m thinking. He’s no trouble for me.”

  Making excuses for the killing he now could not perform even if ordered to.

  Leah looked back at Dax. All of his attention was on Bleak, and no humor was on his face now. That shield of glibness was gone.

  “Shoot him,” she whispered. “Please. Trust me. He will not—”

  “Shut up,” Dax Blackwell said quietly.

  For money. All of this, for money.

  Bleak was still talking into the phone.

  “You deal with him when you see him, then,” Bleak said. “Sounds good.” Pause. “Helicopter. I’ll send coordinates. You give me an ETA.”

  Pause.

  “Copy that,” he said, and he disconnected the call. Looked at Dax. Said, “Cute trick.”

  “Could’ve been a dumb one. Once you saw the pilot was alive, I wasn’t sure you’d leave me time.”

  Bleak nodded. Said, “Ten years inside. Wouldn’t have made that mistake otherwise.”

  “Sure. It’s all muscle memory. Comes back to you fast. Don’t force it.”

  Leah said, “Kill him. Please. Just—”

  “I’ll take the rifle,” Dax Blackwell said. “You know how.”

  Bleak picked it up by the muzzle and held it out. Dax moved the Glock to the back of Leah’s head, then leaned past her and took the AR.

  “Let’s not let things get personal,” Dax told Bleak. “It’s a job, and money. That’s it, and that’s all. No egos need apply.”

  Bleak didn’t respond.

  “Where we headed?” Dax asked.

  For a long time, Leah thought Bleak would refuse to answer. Finally, he said, “You know Three Cross Lake?”

  Dax called out, “Yo, Andy! Time to shine. Where’s Three Cross Lake?”

  The wild-eyed pilot who was tied up in the cramped hold of his own plane looked petrified. He didn’t say anything.

  “Canada,” Leah said for him. “New Brunswick. Middle of nowhere.”

  Everyone considered her.

  “Sounds right,” Dax said. “How long?”

  “An hour, maybe.”

  “Terrific. I was hoping for a short trip. Been a long damn day.” Dax took the gun away from her head and said, “Go untie Andy. He’ll fly, you’ll navigate. You and me in the back, the fellas up front. I’d like to keep Bleak in front of me.”

  Bleak was studying the clouds now, indifferent as an old man on his front porch.

  Leah rose and walked past him, resisting the urge to repay him double for that slap that had left the crust of dried blood below her nose. Save that energy, channel that rage. Lowery waited ahead.

  She climbed into the cargo hold and untied the pilot.

  52

  Matt Bouchard remained on the plane for a long time after Bleak was gone. He was still holding on to the strut. He’d never been afraid of the water, but this river was different. He’d seen the water foam red with blood here.

  What finally prodded him into motion was the loud barking of the dog. He couldn’t see the dog because the plane blocked his view. He let go of the strut and immediately felt a surge of vertigo, but he willed his aching hands to stay down. He had good balance, and he would not fall. If he did end up in the river, he would swim. It wasn’t so hard. He was alone and he was free.

  The reality of that overwhelmed him. He sank trembling to his hands and knees on the float and took gasping breaths. He was alive, and the awful men were gone. One of them was dead. The other one, Bleak…

  He won’t die.

  But neither had Matt Bouchard. Neither had Matt, damn it.

  The dog barked and barked. Matt wiped his face with his hand and began to crawl from one side of the plane to the other. He thought that he could make it without getting wet if his sore hands could grip the struts. He stopped himself then. Said, “Come on, brain,” which was what his dad always said when he did something dumb. There was no need to crawl to the other side of the plane.

  He could just go through it.

  He climbed up and into the empty cockpit. Looked in the back seat. Bleak had taken a small backpack and left several guns. Matt reached down and picked up a handgun. Touching it filled him with an electric fear, but the fear turned to empowerment when he turned and threw it into the river. It sank fast. One killing tool gone.

  He
threw a rifle in. Then another. Then a shotgun. Working quickly. Only when the last of them was under the water did it occur to him that if Bleak returned, Matt would want a gun.

  He didn’t think Bleak was going to return, though.

  The pitch of the dog’s bark changed, went higher, a sound of nervous delight. Matt crawled through the cockpit and opened the passenger door and then climbed down to the float on the opposite side.

  The plane had drifted very close to the shore and grounded. He could see the bottom. Knee-high, thigh-high at most. He could walk out.

  He looked up the bank and saw Ed Levenseller, the pilot. Ed was sitting up now, his back against a tree. Still alive. The dog was barking behind him. It looked like Ed was trying to talk to someone in the woods.

  Matt sat down on the float so his feet were hanging off the edge and then pushed off. The water rose above his knees, but his feet found the bottom. He didn’t mind the cold. All he wanted was to get away from the plane.

  He waded toward the bank, surprised by the strength of the current. It felt like the water wanted to rush him right back into Bleak’s arms. He stumbled on, though, and the shallower it got, the less strength the current had. He was almost out when someone shouted his name.

  “Matt! Matt!”

  He looked up and saw Hailey standing beside Ed. Nick was with her, and the dog, Tessa, weaved a frantic circuit between all three.

  Matt splashed over to them, running now, his legs finding strength. He hadn’t believed he would ever run again, let alone toward a friendly face.

  When he arrived, breathless, he saw that there was blood in the dirt below Ed Levenseller, and the pine needles were matted with it. Ed had taken off his belt and cinched it around his thigh just above the knee. Ed said, “It’s not bad. Really. I’m okay. We are okay.”

  Matt sank down into the pine needles. They all looked at one another. Hailey broke the silence first.

  “Where are they taking her?” she said.

  “Another plane. Then they’re going to go see someone. The man who wants to kill her.” The words felt strange; Matt had never imagined saying things like this. “His name is Lowery. All of them knew who he was.”

  For a moment, there was no sound but Tessa’s whine. Then Hailey said, “She told us to bring you the backpack.” She was speaking to Ed.

  Ed tore the zipper back and rummaged inside, breathing heavily, the exertion clearly hurting him, sweat blooming on his brow. He came out with a first-aid kit in his hand.

  The wind picked up and Matt shivered and brought his arms tight against his chest. When he did, he felt the item zipped into his chest pocket. He unzipped the pocket, removed the sunglasses, and held them out to Hailey. “I brought these,” he said, and it felt like the dumbest thing in the world right then, after all that had happened to them.

  Hailey rushed toward him, took the sunglasses in a trembling hand, dropped down to her knees, and started to cry.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. She cried harder, though. Matt knelt down and touched her arm. She leaned against him, her body shuddering, and he hugged her. Nick scrambled over to her side, and Matt moved his arm to let Nick slip in close. The three of them sat there and held one another and Ed Levenseller said, “We are fine, guys. We are fine.”

  He was speaking around a plastic tube that he held in his teeth, something he’d removed from the first-aid kit. Matt realized it was the cap of a syringe. Ed had the needle pressed close to his wound, and his eyes were closed.

  “She is my mom,” Hailey whispered, her face pressed into Matt’s shoulder. “My mom.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “One of you is going to need to get back on that plane,” Ed Levenseller whispered. “And use the radio.”

  “I can,” Matt and Hailey said at once. She looked at him.

  “We can,” she said.

  “Okay. I’ll talk you through it.” Ed’s words were coming with difficulty, but his breathing was steady, and he did not sound afraid. “We’ll get help. All is well. All is well.”

  A sound in the sky then. An engine. They looked toward it. For a while, there was nothing to see, but then a plane appeared just over the trees. Matt thought, Help got here fast.

  But then he understood.

  The plane was heading away from them, not toward them.

  They all watched it go, not knowing where it was headed, but knowing exactly who was on it.

  Nobody said a word.

  53

  They flew in silence through the deepening cloud cover, and Dax was grateful for the quiet. He wanted to watch Bleak and only Bleak, but he also had to be aware of the other two. Leah Trenton was in kamikaze mode, which meant her decisions would be very hard to anticipate, and while Andy West piloted his plane without evident distress, he’d had a long day tied up in his own cargo hold.

  Beneath them, the land was as desolate as any he’d ever seen. No towns, no roads. Forests and rivers and lakes, the undulating low hills turning it all into a dark quilt tossed haphazardly over a rumpled bed.

  Andy West broke the silence to say that he was crossing international airspace and needed to use the radio. Bleak answered before Dax could: “No radio.”

  That simple.

  They were in a small plane flying over an isolated wilderness. Dax didn’t fear Canadian fighter jets scrambling in pursuit. He was sure the border patrol had concerns with small planes flying silently, but he’d take his chances today.

  Leah Trenton seemed to be studying the plane, familiarizing herself with the controls. Dax observed that with interest. She might yet maintain some hope of survival and escape. Noble, albeit misguided.

  Bleak was harder to read. He sat motionless and expressionless and if not for the steady rise and fall of his breaths—he was a deep breather, oxygenating blood and tissue for the next time he’d need it to respond—he could have been a corpse.

  He couldn’t be in a good mood, though. He had lost his gun and he had lost control. He intended to reacquire both.

  Dax watched Bleak and matched his breathing. It was both prudent—a calming mechanism—and intimate. He wanted to feel as close to the man as possible for the inevitable moment of conflict. Bleak breathed. Dax breathed. Together, they waited.

  They had been flying for nearly an hour and he was beginning to wonder about the possibility of planes being sent from the Maine Warden Service or the Mounties or whoever the hell would draw the job in Canada. Surely by now the children had found a way to get help. Just as his concern rose, though, the plane angled down.

  “Approaching Three Cross Lake,” Andy West intoned. His voice cracked on the last word.

  “Where do we put it down, Bleak?” Dax asked.

  Bleak breathed and waited. Dax sighed and leaned forward, bringing the Glock in behind Bleak’s ear.

  “Where?” Dax repeated.

  “Northern shore. There’s a clearing for a helicopter nearby.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s owned by a timber company,” Leah Trenton said tiredly. “They blocked it to fishing a couple of years back. It’s all private now.”

  “Owned by him,” Bleak said.

  Leah stiffened. “By Lowery?”

  Bleak nodded once. Dax watched Leah take this in. She gave a short, strangled laugh.

  “I’ve been there,” she said. “I’ve fished on his fucking lake.”

  They came out of the clouds and the lake rose ahead of them with a metallic sheen that seemed designed to warn you that it was harder than expected. Dax spotted the clearing near the shore. It was maybe an acre, no more, the only break in the woods for miles, and a black helicopter sat in the center. It was easy to miss unless you were looking for it.

  “He’s already there,” Dax said. “Short flight at chopper speeds. So where was he?”

  Bleak didn’t answer.

  “I suppose I don’t need to know,” Dax agreed, and he sat back in his seat. Leah Trenton was staring at him, and when their eyes met he saw
the imploring look. She wanted him to help.

  She understood so little of the world, he thought. It was sad, really. He looked away, studied the water. “There’s a discharge to the east,” he said. “What’s that?”

  Leah said, “The river.”

  He nodded. “It’s all connected in these parts, isn’t it? One massive system.”

  She ignored him.

  Andy West put the plane down smoothly and safely for the second time that day. Dax couldn’t complain about that. Nor did he mind the long taxi; it was time to think.

  Lowery wouldn’t have come alone. There would be a pilot, of course, and there would be a guard or guards. How many of them? Time would tell, but the only certainty was that Dax would be outmanned and outgunned again.

  He was tired of that.

  “Leah walks with me,” he said. “Bleak goes ten paces ahead. No more, no less. Andy, I hope you don’t mind staying with the plane.”

  No one responded.

  “There will be guards,” Dax said. “Don’t encourage them to shoot early. Remember, we haven’t gone through all of this just so Mr. Lowery can watch Leah die at someone else’s hand.”

  When Bleak spoke, it surprised them all.

  “No guards. Just the pilot. He’ll be armed.”

  “Why would I believe that?” Dax said.

  “Because I’m the one bringing her,” Bleak said.

  It made some sense. If Lowery believed Bleak was in charge, he wouldn’t need reinforcements. Dax also suspected that Lowery would want any killing he did to be as private as possible.

  Andy West banked the plane on the northern shore and killed the engine. The prop wound down like a tired clock.

  Dax nudged Leah with the gun. “There’s cord and tape on the floor. Please secure Andy for us, and make sure his mouth is closed. If he objects, remind him that it’s more comfortable in the pilot’s seat than down in the cargo hold.”

  Andy West sat back in the seat without a word of objection. Those hours in the cargo hold had probably been very long indeed.

  Leah Trenton tore a piece of tape off and passed it to him. “Do it yourself,” she said.

  “Thanks,” Andy said, and he sealed his own lips with the tape. Leah wrapped the cord around him quickly, binding him to the seat, his arms at his sides. She tried to make it look tight while leaving some stretch, but Dax sighed and cinched it tighter, then tossed the slack end forward.