Nailgun Messiah (Micah Reed Book 1)

by Jim Heskett

  But this would have to do. He’d have to drive her. There was no other way. He visualized himself doing this, making it happen. Visualized everything working out, despite how slim that chance seemed.

  All systems go.

  Magda was now alone, organizing a display of those same Walt’s Hardware buckets, stacking them in a pyramid. Micah wrapped his finger around the trigger and pulled within ten feet of her. He raised the gun a few inches, but he had to keep it low enough that when he tripped it would seem like an accident. He decided to cross his feet when he was within arm’s length, which should still give him enough time to raise the gun.

  Her left hand was wrapped around the rim of a bucket. That’s the one he would hit. Right in the center of the back of her hand, a three inch by three inch target.

  Micah took a deep breath and pulled within five feet. He lifted his right leg and planted it too far to the left, then he was about to raise his left leg—

  “Micah?”

  He froze. Turned to find his boss Walter at the end of the aisle, his head tilted and a quizzical look on his face.

  Micah tried to speak but his words came out in a choking sound, since his throat would barely open. His eyes felt like they were bugging out of his skull.

  “What are you doing? Why is Kamal over in the tools aisle? He’s supposed to be in Electrical, and there are customers waiting for him.”

  Behind Micah, a bucket dropped, and he took a step away from Magda. He couldn’t turn and look at her. If she saw his face, she would know, so he had to shield himself from her.

  Someone else walked into the aisle behind him, and Micah could hear the tapping footfalls of dress shoes on the painted concrete. This time, he did turn, because he had a sneaking suspicion of who it was.

  And he was right. Eagle stood in the aisle in his cop uniform, handcuffs on one side and a holstered pistol on the other. In one hand, he was holding a broom with the plastic wrap still covering the bristles.

  Eagle rested the broom on his shoulder. “Everything okay here, gentlemen?”

  Micah held his breath as Eagle crossed the distance between them and put a hand on Micah’s nailgun. He lifted it, turned it over in his hands, running his fingers along the rack of nails loaded into the chamber.

  “Excellent. I’ll take two of these.”

  ***

  Micah sat on the front steps of 1623 Caribou Road, slumped over with his elbow on his knees. He’d left his jacket in his car, but he barely noticed the cold. His pulse still hadn’t returned to a normal rate.

  He had failed, and now he was out of options. Any minute now, something terrible was going to happen. Either the ATF was going to come storming over that hill, arresting and/or killing everyone here, or Lilah was going to take Magda’s proposed suggestion and kick him out. And Eagle would probably be the one to do it. He’d force Micah off the property, maybe with his service weapon drawn and pointed at Micah.

  Cops had a license to kill, and Eagle didn’t need much of a reason, if Lilah gave him the okay.

  And what had happened to Frank? Micah had never known Frank to stand him up before, for anything. Micah couldn’t help but picture Frank in his house, crumpled on the floor after a heart attack or a stroke. He hadn’t had another chance to call him, since Walter watched Micah carefully for the rest of the day after that incident.

  A car rumbled along the path toward the house, and Micah watched Rodney pull into a spot next to his car and sit for a moment, eyeing Micah from inside the car. Locked in a stare-down.

  Micah didn’t often believe in signs from above, but Rodney showing up at the exact moment that Micah came to accept that he was finally out of options had to be something close to that.

  He had to do it. Give in and ask for help. Time to admit defeat, however painful that would feel.

  Rodney stepped out of his car, still eyeing Micah.

  He waved Rodney over. “Can we talk? Somewhere private?”

  Rodney scanned the surroundings. “Sure, but I don’t know how private we can get. Is anyone home?”

  “Garrett’s upstairs sleeping, and Lilah is around here somewhere. I think she went into the basement.”

  Rodney tilted his head back to his car, and Micah followed him. They got in, and Rodney turned on the car to start the heater. The radio blared some dissonant jazz for a few seconds until Rodney fumbled for the button to hush it down to whispers.

  “Okay,” Micah said. A chill ran up his back, making him shudder.

  “Okay what?”

  “I’ll help you. I’ll help you find the evidence you’re looking for. I’ve tried everything I can think of to get Magda to leave with me, but if getting arrested in a raid is the only way to actually remove her from this place, then that’s the way it has to be.”

  Rodney chewed on this for a second. “You’ll be arrested, too. You haven’t done anything illegal, but they won’t know it during the raid. I mean, you’ll have to be processed with everyone else, but I don’t see why they would put any charges on you. I can make sure that doesn’t happen after the fact.”

  “Thank you.”

  “When it goes down, no matter what anyone else does, you lace your hands over your head and drop to your knees. Don’t look up or talk to anybody unless the agents give you specific instructions. Do that, and you’ll be fine.”

  Micah thought about the ATF bursting through the front door, shouting and waving guns. If he dropped to his knees to protect himself but Magda did something stupid, she’d catch a bullet, and he’d be unable to reach her before it happened. But if they came in and Micah rushed to Magda’s side to protect her, they might both take bullets. In the chaos of a raid, anything could happen. Everyone tense, tempers flaring, the feds with their automatic weapons looking to protect themselves as much as catch the bad guys.

  Then, he considered what it would be like to be processed again, to have his fingerprints taken and to be chained to a metal bench for hours. To wait endlessly for someone in a uniform to uncuff him and take him to the next room to wait in limbo for a while longer.

  “Can you keep our names away from the public? At least out of the news?”

  “I think so,” Rodney said. “Unless it goes to trial, then I can’t promise anything.”

  Micah sucked on his teeth. Having his name out in public put him at risk, but he barely cared about that right now. His sister’s name, though, would make her a target for cartel bounty hunters who would try to use her for leverage. Maybe being in prison was actually the safest place for her, if they found something to charge her with.

  “Can Magda get protective custody if she ends up catching charges for any of this?”

  Rodney raised an eyebrow. “Why would she need that?”

  That was a good question, and Micah didn’t have a story handy that would help him avoid telling Rodney the truth. No way to hide his past.

  Micah sucked in a shuddering breath. He’d come this far, now he needed to spill everything to get Rodney’s protection. “My name wasn’t always Micah Reed. It was Michael McBriar. I was a witness for the prosecution against Luis Velasquez.”

  Rodney tilted his head and squinted at the car’s dome light above them, his face screwed up in concentration. “Velasquez… oh, wait. That’s the guy they called El Lobo. I remember reading about that. The Sinaloa cartel trial, right?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “You were the man on the inside, were you?”

  “Something like that. I was in WitSec until last year, hiding in Denver. If people find out I’m alive and then Magda’s name goes public…”

  Rodney nodded. “They might come after her. I understand, and I’ll do everything I can.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  Rodney looked back at the house. “We have reason to believe that Lilah and others, at least Eagle, have been dealing illegal firearms. It’s how they were paying for Cyrus’ appeals.”

  A thought occurred to Micah. “Let me borrow your sat phone.�
��

  “I don’t think so,” Rodney said.

  Micah held out his hand. “Come on. Just for a minute.”

  With a sigh, Rodney handed it over, and Micah reclined the seat until he couldn’t be seen from the house. He dialed the number.

  “Frank, it’s me.”

  “Hot damn, kid, you are not going to believe what happened to me when I was trying to meet you earlier. Sorry about that, by the way. I got in a car accident and had to get towed back to Boulder.”

  Micah stopped short. “You okay?”

  “Aww, hell, I’m fine. Neck’s a little sore, but forget about that. What’s up with your sister?”

  Micah glanced up at Rodney, who was already looking impatient. “I’ll tell you later. Something is in the works. I gotta go, but I’ll be in touch soon.”

  “Roger that,” Frank said, and Micah hung up. At least that was one worry off his mind.

  As Rodney took the phone and slipped it under the steering column, Micah asked, “what do you want me to do?”

  “I can’t have you directly involved in anything covert, or it will taint the case. So, mostly, you’ll act as a lookout. We’ve been unable to find a way to monitor her communication, so I need to install a keylogger on her computer.”

  “Can’t you get her phone records or intercept her internet traffic or something?”

  Rodney shook his head. “We tried the phone route. She never talks business on it, and she’s got her internet bounced through so many proxies that it’s impossible to find her. We’re going to have to go old school. Keylogger and surveillance camera in her bedroom.”

  “Seriously? You’re going to install a spy camera?”

  Rodney shrugged. “I get it. Seems low-tech. I don’t have time to go into the details of my team’s budget right now, but you’ll have to trust me when I say this is the best we can do. We’re not dealing with high-profile public enemy number one here.”

  “I get it,” Micah said.

  “Once we get that up and running, then we’ll look at getting into the basement they’re always so secretive about. The weapons cache has to be down there. I have a feeling there are booby traps on that door, so we need to be careful.”

  “Okay.”

  Rodney leaned in. “You need to listen up. This is serious business. We’re going to be executing a multi-level cloak and dagger mission, and the only reason you’re included is because you’re already on the inside. I need to know if you can handle the pressure and not let it go FUBAR on us.”

  Micah lowered the visor to check his reddened eyes in the mirror. “Rodney, I used to run with a Mexican drug cartel. I think I’ll be just fine.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  2 DAYS UNTIL

  Lilah spent most of the pre-dawn hours creating all of the online profiles necessary to appear to be a dozen different people. Then it took her several more hours to post messages on various church forums and religious criticism sites as those profiles, each one becoming more and more specific about what had happened. A trail of breadcrumbs that someone should start eating soon, given the subject matter.

  And then, halfway through the morning, she noticed a couple of blogs had taken an interest and picked up the story. One blog post read:

  Small town priest may have escaped Idaho to hide from his accusers

  The content of the post went on to describe a Catholic priest from a Boise-area suburb who had been accused of molesting as many as six of his altar boys and a half dozen others from a summer camp he’d run for Catholic children. While no charges had ever been officially filed, some sources had suspected the priest left Idaho before a formal inquiry could begin, and now he had settled in the sleepy mountain community of Nederland, Colorado, thinking he would be free to harm more children there.

  The post had a clear point of view and tone that was impossible to miss.

  Lilah sat back and watched the comments stack up on the post. Angry, frothing people, using all caps and scores of exclamation points. Babylon’s pitchforks came out faster than Egyptians trying to cross the Red Sea as it swelled around them.

  If only the True Manna website would have taken off so quickly and with such passion. Maybe with this priest out of the way, they could finally get the notoriety they deserved. Whatever bad word about the True Manna he had spread would fade away, along with his career.

  “You’ll slide into darkness with the rest of them, Thomas Benedict,” she said to the glow of her laptop screen. Saying that out loud was supposed to fill her with hope, or with a sense of justice, but it did little for her. She still felt empty.

  Her hands were especially dirty today, and no amount of washing could remove that layer of film that seemed to be coating her fingers like an ultra-thin pair of gloves. Or the dried remnants of super glue coating the grooves along her skin.

  Seeping into her pores.

  Lilah’s eyes drifted to the picture taped to the wall next to the desk. Her and Cyrus sitting on the front porch of the old house in Castle Rock, the sunset painting their skin a luscious yellow glow. She remembered that evening with a vivid kind of recall that made it seem as fresh as watching it on video. She’d made a vegetarian lasagna for dinner. Eagle had taken that picture, then he surprised everyone else living at the house by taking them all out on a hike so Lilah and Cyrus could be alone. Their one year anniversary. He played guitar for her on that porch, cycling through some classic rock and country, then they made fierce love in their bed until they both collapsed, sweaty and spent.

  Nights like that from the past intermingled with her dreams in the present. So long ago. So far away.

  Only two more days until he came home. A few years or even a few months ago, she would have been ecstatic beyond belief at the thought of sleeping next to him, of hearing him pluck out those country songs on his beat-up guitar, of listening to him conduct Bible study instead of being the one forced to do it. But now, after running his house for eight years and becoming comfortable with taking charge, the idea of him returning home seemed more like a culture shock than a long awaited day. Would Cyrus want to go back to the old ways of forbidding anyone to speak on the Sabbath? Would he take Hannah and Magda to his bed, as he had done with the other women before he went away?

  An image of Magda on top of Cyrus filled Lilah’s mind. The both of them slick with sweat, grinding, panting, and becoming one person in the way only physical contact could create.

  Magda sleeping with Cyrus would break her heart, but how could she stop it? She had no right to tell Cyrus who he could and couldn’t take as a wife.

  Shekinah, he would say, if I don’t know sin, how can I preach forgiveness?

  Lilah shut the laptop so hard she almost snapped the lid off, and then dropped it into her desk drawer.

  She had to escape this room, because she couldn’t think of anything right now except for the sounds of Magda and her man in deep pleasure. The imagined sounds of their ecstasy clouded her head and sent bugs all over her skin.

  Would Magda moan, would she grunt, would she scream his name? Would Lilah hear it through the walls?

  The ceaseless questions forced her to get up and pace. But that wasn’t good enough. She couldn’t be in this room any longer, so close to his letters and pictures. She left the room and as she passed by the kitchen, she found Micah at the table, scribbling in a notebook. She stopped in her tracks and waited until he noticed her.

  He had fear in his eyes. Impossible to miss.

  “Micah, can I ask you a question?”

  He dropped his pencil on top of the notebook. “Of course.”

  “Magda came to me and asked me if I would order you to leave the house, but she wouldn’t tell me why.”

  Micah swallowed but said nothing. His left eyelid twitched, barely enough to notice.

  “Do you know why she would do such a thing?”

  He shook his head. “Magda has been mad at me for years. Since we don’t speak, we haven’t had much chance to clear up all our baggage.
”

  Lilah swept into the kitchen and sat opposite him. This close proximity made him sit up straight. She narrowed her eyes. “Why are you here?”

  “I traded shifts at work today, so I don’t start until eleven.”

  In the three weeks Micah had lived in this house, he’d been a good student of the Bible. He’d obeyed the rules and had caused no trouble, although Eagle had often voiced lingering doubts about him. Lilah’s hope that Micah’s presence would invigorate Magda had not turned out to be the case. Cyrus hadn’t trusted him, either.

  Maybe he should go, after all.

  “That’s not what I meant,” she said, “but it doesn’t matter. Tell me this: Magda’s last name is McBriar, but your last name is Reed. Why is that?”

  Without missing a beat, he said, “Our parents divorced. Magda took our mother’s maiden name. She was always closer to Mom, anyway.”

  Lilah resisted the urge to raise her eyebrows, because this was obviously a lie. Magda herself had said their parents were still married, and she’d claimed that only a few months ago.

  So Micah was hiding something.

  “I see,” she said. “I didn’t know that.”

  He had no response to that, and his eyes darted to the clock on the wall, only for a split second.

  “Then tell me this,” she said. “Magda says you should leave. But you haven’t done anything to deserve being kicked out, as far as I can see. I’ve always thought family was important. What should I do?”

  He picked up the pencil and twirled it in his fingers. Stuck Lilah as trying to seem relaxed, but she didn’t buy it.

  “Pray, and then do what God tells you. If God doesn’t want me here, then I will be happy to go. I’ll find another way to serve the Truth.”

  He was so slippery, and had a habit of knowing the right things to say. Had Micah been duping her this entire time, spitting nothing but lies like any of the other sheep out there in the world?