The sheriff raised his arms. The father merely stood there, his upper lip curling into a snarl. Suddenly the boy sat up, staring at something outside, a figure moving slowly and steadily across the street toward the diner.
"All right," Lloyd said in a calm voice. His back was to the doors. "Where is Nick Murphy?"
The sheriff asked, "Who?"
Lloyd increased the pressure on the woman's throat. "Stop playing games, asshole. Where is he?"
The sheriff looked at the father. They both shrugged. In a moment, the father followed his son's stare, and he began to smile.
Lloyd hissed. "Is this whole town crazy? All of you? I am going to shoot this woman now. Do you hear? Right now unless I learn–"
The door opened and the bell rang.
"What seems to be the problem here?"
Lloyd spun, dragging his captive with him. The silver-haired newcomer was dressed all in black like a priest, or a Reverend. Lloyd kept one eye on the sheriff as he prepared to deal with this old man. "Who the hell are you?"
The Reverend blinked at Lloyd and raised his hands, which were concealed by spotless white gloves. Slowly, he began to peel away the one on his right hand. "I assure you," he said, "I am your salvation."
Lloyd couldn't fathom this at all. He felt like a hapless magician on stage in front of a packed crowd, and none of his usual tricks would work.
He cocked the hammer of the .38.
"Where is he?"
The glove came off. It dropped to the floor, flipping over twice as it drifted down, like a leaf blown off a branch.
The newcomer took a step closer. He began to unroll the other glove. A woman at the back of the restaurant stood up, holding her head. And the sheriff relaxed his hands, making no further move for his gun.
Lloyd narrowed his eyes at the approaching man. He realized he had to make an example of someone. Blowing the woman away would accomplish nothing. But this guy was asking for it. Maybe if he just gave him an exquisite gut-wound.
He pushed the woman to the floor and turned the gun on the Reverend just as he dropped the second glove and took another step.
Lloyd fired twice, at point-blank range, into the man's lower chest. The thunderous gunshots deafened everyone, and echoed with the screams of the women.
The impacts knocked the Reverend back to where he dropped the first glove. Two gaping holes were aligned side-by-side on his stomach; blood sputtered out for a moment, then became more viscous and tough, clinging to the wounds, and even appearing to draw back inside. Lloyd moved in, sighted, and fired again, a little higher. The bullet exited out the Reverend's spine and stuck in the wall.
He touched the latest wound, then brought three bloody fingers up to his face and stared at them with a half-hearted curiosity. Then his fingers spread and he looked between them at Lloyd. The Reverend took two quick, unimpeded steps, knocked the gun-hand aside, and pushed past Lloyd's clumsy, shocked attempt at defense. He gripped the hitman on either side of his head, thumbs on his forehead, fingers stretched behind his ears.
"What is this shit?" Lloyd screamed as he swung the .38 under the black-clad arms. He released three quick rounds into the Reverend's chest. Each slug jerked the man in the air a foot, but he never released his hold. After the third shot, Lloyd started to scream. He dropped the gun and clutched at the Reverend's wrists, trying to dislodge the hands that now started to burn with the intensity of a searing grease fire.
His fingers were scorched as soon as they touched the Reverend's exposed wrists. He tried to pull away, but his head and hands seemed to be on fire, suffering a scalding, agonizing blaze; his legs kicked, and his entire body convulsed like a puppet manipulated by a sadistic boy. Nick Murphy was forgotten. Everything in the immediate past was wiped away with a thought, and in its place rose something terrible and frightening, a collage of faces and names, connected by deeds that Lloyd had long since erased from his conscience after a lifetime of discipline and training.
Over thirty years of horrors swam through the bloody seas of his memory, struggling to be free, to exact revenge, drawn out by the hands on Lloyd's head that acted as midwife, easing these sins into the world, giving them power, giving them life.
Lloyd screamed as he never screamed before; his heart cracked open and was laid bare. The burning ceased, but the pressure remained around his head, and he was quickly and effortlessly lifted and hurled through the air. He struck the door and fell through the glass, onto the sidewalk in a hail of glass.
But he was up in a second, staring wild-eyed at the shambling things that came after him, stepping over the glass shards. The things that had huddled, discarded in his conscience, now reached for him in the night. Silenced for decades, they now had a voice, and their cries of vengeance overpowered Lloyd's screams of terror, even as he fled down the street and ducked into an alley.
He tripped on a garbage can and bashed his head against the asphalt.
He prayed for unconsciousness.
In the next few minutes Lloyd knew, if there was a God, he chose to ignore this mortal's desperate plea for aid. Or maybe He took a malign satisfaction from Lloyd's plunge into hell.
In the diner, the Reverend was putting his gloves back on. Dorothy Gillis knelt before him, clinging to his knees, incoherently muttering her thanks. The others stared at him in blind awe, their faces pale.
They had just witnessed a miracle. As if they needed proof... Even Rita sat there with her mouth open.
Timmy got up and gingerly walked to the Reverend. He reached out with one finger to touch the holes in his shirt – but Zachary's gloved hand caught Timmy's before it made it there, and he gently pushed the boy away. Zachary eased Mrs. Gillis up by her shoulder and returned her to her chair.
John Frakes ran up and grabbed his son, dragging him back against a wall where they promptly bowed their heads. Stan Michaels took off his hat and fidgeted for several moments, rubbing his arm.
Zachary stood to his full height and spread out his arms. "My good people," he said in a booming voice. "Do not fear. The Lord has given us a sign. He has shown us the evil that has come into our midst. We see now the cunning of the Deceiver."
"What can we do?" John Frakes asked in a timid voice.
The Reverend pointed to the shattered door. "We will demonstrate our worth before the Lord. We will show that we can be just as cunning and intelligent as the Evil One." He grinned until his teeth seemed they would rip free of the gums and stretch beyond his mouth. "We will use the Devil's own against him."
Across the street, next to the wood shop, where the shadows were the deepest, an old man leaned against the wall, watching both the diner and the alley. He wore a heavy wool shirt and a dark cap, but despite the humid night he still he shivered, trembling so greatly he wished he had remained in the warmth of the library's silent halls.
But he had already put one foot in this game. He couldn't sit on the fence any longer.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Hartford
Saturday night
Evelyn West sat with her back to O'Neil. He was on the phone closing an important deal with certain "friends" in Bolivia. The show went on, she thought. It didn't matter that hundreds of investigators were watching every move that went on in this estate, that a window couldn't be opened without the certainty that it was being observed by government agents somewhere. Nothing mattered to O'Neil.
Evelyn, on the other hand, had retreated into a world of paranoia. Her former life was in tatters, nothing safe or secure any longer.
She had lost a sister on Thursday, and she was now within hours of losing a nephew. She remembered growing up with Alice; she had been a good older sister, but the eight years between them had made a big difference. Alice went on to a life of commitment and security, something Evelyn fervently avoided, pursuing power as the only worthy end. Evelyn couldn't simply follow in her sister's footsteps, she had to do at least one better than Alice, had to show the world her true promise.
And here she
was, saving her own ass while her family burned. Evelyn reached for the bottle at the side of the couch and poured herself another Scotch – Glenfiditch, her favorite of late. It was her third such drink since Stielman's phone call. With Nick's death now a certainty, Evelyn found her previous animosity toward the boy distasteful, even repulsive. She balked at the thought of his murder, yet the alternative was no more satisfactory.
She took a long pull on the Scotch, then, lightheaded, she thought about her future. Obviously, she was finished in politics. Even O'Neil hadn't dodged that point. Every day the headlines splashed her name about like a dirty mop. Her partnership with O'Neil continued only because she was not yet out of office and still had some clout, and also because, like it or not, they were linked too tightly for either to disassociate from the other.
Evelyn would be taken care of financially, that much was for certain – provided they emerged from this prosecution unscathed. She could always leave the country and spend the rest of her days in luxury in the Caribbean.
–with no ties back in the states because you had them all killed.
The glass shattered in the Senator's hand. She screamed and hurled the fragments, some trickling with blood, at the liquor cabinet across the room. Spinning, she faced O'Neil who regarded her with an annoying frown as he closed his cell phone.
"What?" he blurted, hands in the air.
"Call off the attack."
O'Neil's expression darkened. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that."
Evelyn swooned onto the back of the chair. "Please. We can change him, turn him around... have him retract everything, just like that old guy in Godfather 2 when they brought him before the Senate."
O'Neil shook his head and coughed into his fist. "That only worked because Corleone found the man's brother from Sicily and brought him in for the hearing. Scare tactics. They work, except for one simple fact."
Evelyn punched the chair. "Which is?"
"Your nephew has no one he cares about left. If his wife hadn't run her car into a tree... yeah, we wouldn't have a problem here. Nick would still be ours. But that isn't the case. A man truly on his own can only be silenced in one way."
Evelyn turned her back to him. She walked over the broken glass and looked out the window, out over the leagues of darkness frothing over her estate. She knew this was a tense situation. O'Neil was watching her every action – thinking, probably guessing – she was on the edge, wavering in her convictions and unsure of her loyalties.
But what he didn't know was that, finally, she was no longer uncertain. She had just decided where she would stand. Now all that was left was to convince O'Neil of the reverse.
She faced him. "I'm sorry," she said. "Of course you're right. Too much to drink, I just got a little nuts."
O'Neil's face was unreadable. "It happens," he said finally. "I'm sorry about the kid. But this is business."
Lucky, Evelyn thought. His mind was still preoccupied in other matters, otherwise he should have been able to see right through her. After a deep breath she walked up to him and gave his hand a tight squeeze before making her way out of the room.
After the door had closed Evelyn hurried down the stairs and into the foyer where she called for Eric Bates. She detailed her plan and what she needed. Without a single question, Eric promised her everything could begin in ten minutes.
She went to pack a small suitcase. In five minutes she was downstairs again. She stepped outside, into the waiting limousine where the Bates twins sat in the front, wordlessly expressing their loyalty. They proceeded to speed to a private airport twenty miles away.
One hour after she left the house, a tall security man entered the conference room where O'Neil was busy reading through account files.
He looked up. "Well?"
"They went to her private airstrip and boarded a jet. It took off at ten-thirty five. I... wasn't able to determine their destination." He said the last in an apologetic tone, as if fearful of a violent rebuke.
O'Neil stood and carefully pushed in his chair. ""Don't worry. I know where she's gone."
O'Neil paused and stared at the broken glass on the carpet. "We're going to the airport, Charles." When he looked up again his eyes were smiling, blazing with enthusiasm. He had just hit on an idea to kill two songbirds with one stone. And, at the same time, maybe he could have a chance to relive his past and do what he enjoyed most.
"Book us a flight, Charles, and do it through secure channels. Use my look-alike to throw them off, and I'll take the supply truck to the airport."
"A flight to where, sir?
O'Neil smiled, tasting the excitement, the thrill of the hunt.
"Washington State. The closest airstrip to a little town called Silver Springs."
CHAPTER TWENTY
Silver Springs
In the speeding car, Audrey learned that Director Walker was in stable condition; he would be in a cast for almost a year; but his real anguish came in the form of defeat. He bitterly blamed himself for betraying the operation. His assistant was dead, and another agent was seriously wounded after he had decided to question the painters' orders.
They were roaring down the interstate at eighty-five, desperately trying to make up for lost time. Agent Gregory sat in the passenger seat with the cell phone to his ear; he was trying to make the call to Murphy again. In the back, agent Allen checked and loaded their weapons: two Berettas, a Smith & Wesson, Audrey's Browning, and one .32 gauge shotgun. Allen was thirty-four, a legacy in the FBI: his father had served forty-one years until his death at the hands of a serial killer in Missouri. The killer escaped a stakeout after shooting three agents and two hostages, but he was free only another twenty hours before an efficient system of roadblocks caught him trying to cross into Louisiana. Brian Allen was invited to watch the execution, and he smiled for the entire two minutes that the cyanide tablet sizzled and coughed its lethal gas into the chamber. That same smile reappeared now as he cocked the shotgun and slipped the shells inside both barrels.
Audrey glanced sideways at agent Paul Gregory, who had the phone to his ear, counting the rings. She had the immediate perception that he considered Murphy as bad as any criminal, and that he was only here to nail one of the mob's top hit men.
Come on Nick, for God's sake pick up the phone.
"Nothing," Gregory said and closed the phone.
Audrey shook her head. "You didn't give it enough time!" He had to be there. He was still hurting from last night's experience, and the water also had a languishing effect on him. Despite Grant's assurances about the water's benefits, Audrey was concerned for Nick, and thankful she drank only a Pepsi and some bottled cranberry juice.
Gregory looked at her and shrugged.
"Try again," Audrey snapped. "And don't hang up until we get to Silver Springs. We have to give him every chance–"
Allen passed a Beretta up to Gregory. The agent hefted the light weapon in his hand and fixed Audrey with a resolute stare. "We're going to get Stielman out of this little venture," he said, and glanced back at Allen for approval. "His testimony will be far more damning than this Murphy character's."
Audrey paled. "You two think you have a chance of bringing him in alive?"
Allen shut the shotgun with a sharp motion. "We'll get him; he might not be alive long," he said. "But he'll be alive long enough to talk."
Audrey felt her stomach constrict; the thought of going somewhere with the express purpose of murder chilled her. She was on a mission of rescue. They were out for blood.
The road ascended a steep hill, and Audrey was forced to slow down rather than risk being airborne for any length of time. As the headlights cleared the crest, Audrey noticed something glinting off the side of the road far ahead. She remembered the hanging grenade, tottering over her head, its shadow a flickering grin of death.
"Holy shit!" Gregory shouted and pointed ahead, to the embankment. Audrey quickly decelerated, pulling up alongside the police cruiser. Gregory rolled down his window and star
ed at the massacred hunk of bullet-riddled metal. Audrey caught sight of a body inside and saw the holes in the windshield; she stomped on the accelerator, throwing the other agents back in their seats as she peeled away from the wreck.
She gave them each a bitter look. "Are you ready to deal with that? Still think you can take him?"
They were both silent, staring ahead at the winding, bleak road. The darkness was pressing tight against the windows, trying to get inside.
"Make the call again," Audrey said to Gregory, who quickly fumbled for the receiver.
Nick sat up, stretched and reached for the remote control. He had been watching what was probably the cheesiest horror movie ever dreamed of in anyone's deranged mind. The title said it all: Night of the Frogs, about a plantation in the bayou overrun by hordes of malicious croaking amphibians. He gave the flick a full forty minutes before his brain finally protested; in time he began dwelling less on plot and character flaws than on reasons why anyone would willingly star in such a movie.
He laughed even though it sent dull shears of pain through his skull. Time for more Tylenol, he thought, and flicked the power switch on the remote.
Immediately his heart leapt at a new sound.
Upstairs, the phone was ringing.
Nick swore and jumped to his feet; he wore only thin pajama bottoms. In his bare feet he ran to the stairs.
Another ring. How many times had someone called while that damn TV was muffling the sound? Up the stairs. Ring. Around the corner. Ring. Into the bedroom.
Ring. He tripped on the door frame, stumbled, then righted himself and reached the phone.
Ri–
"Yeah. Audrey?"
Stunned silence.
Then: "Hang on a moment." A man's voice, then another. Nick was suddenly terrified: they'd found him, got his number. He imagined an Irish accent in that first voice, and thought he heard a sick coughing. He was about to hang up and reach for the shotgun under the bed.
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