the Second Horseman (2006)

by Kyle Mills

  "Sounds pretty stupid when you say it out loud, but it feels like the right general direction. On a long, twisting road, though."

  "Well, I admire outside-the-box thinking, Steve. I really do. But you may be a little far outside the box with that one. Keep after it, though. See where it takes you."

  "Oh, I imagine I won't have a chance."

  "Why not?"

  "I'm guessing you'll be onto my boss by the time my feet hit your lawn. And by mid-morning tomorrow I'll be sitting in a basement somewhere working on car theft statistics."

  The funny thing was that this kid and Brandon had a lot in common. Ahrens had come here essentially to stare him down in his own house -- to say, "I may not be able to do anything about it right now, but don't think you're smarter than me." That took balls.

  "Do you like being an FBI agent, Steve?"

  "Sure. Sometimes it's a little boring and bureaucratic, but then something like this pops up."

  Scanlon stood and offered his hand, indicating that the interrogation was over. "Well, if you ever get too bored, come and talk to me."

  "Are you offering me a job, Richard?"

  Scanlon laughed. "It's not a bribe -- the job wouldn't be all that good. It's just damn near impossible to find talented people these days. You can't imagine the lengths I have to go to."

  Ahrens gripped his hand firmly, holding it a little longer than he had to. "Oh, you'd be surprised at what I can imagine."

  Chapter THIRTY-SEVEN

  Brandon had his arm linked through Pyotr's and, surprisingly, was having to fight the urge to tighten his grip. Normally, it wasn't his policy to cling so energetically to murderous sociopaths, but this cave was slowly sucking the life out of him. The longer he stayed in it, the smaller, deeper, and colder it seemed to get. One false step and he was sure he'd find himself hopelessly lost, with nothing to do but stare into the darkness while the walls closed in and hunger slowly killed him.

  He shook his head violently and tried to refocus on the here and now -- the unintelligible babble flowing from his guide, the not-all-that-comforting ring of light emanating from his flashlight.

  "Catherine?" Brandon said. "Are we going to see Catherine?"

  "Yes, of course." Pyotr's tone was less than authoritative.

  "Did you fly here on a polka-dot spaceship?"

  "Yes, yes."

  Brandon fell silent again, stooping to get through a low passage running with water.

  He'd been too preoccupied with the constricting passageways to even notice when he and Catherine were separated and for some reason he felt deeply guilty about that. One moment they'd all been together -- Pyotr, him, Catherine, their pilot, Grigori -- and the next, he'd glanced back and seen only darkness.

  Where was she? What were they doing with her? There were grimy military guys everywhere in this godforsaken place. It was worse than prison, and he remembered what the guys in prison were like. It didn't take much more than a quick flash of Kathy Bates on television to drive them into a sexual frenzy.

  "It will work, yes? Good plan. Good plan."

  Brandon glanced over at Pyotr and nodded. "Good plan."

  They'd spent the last few hours going over artistic, but undetailed diagrams of a museum somewhere outside of St. Petersburg. It was apparently Pyotr's intention to relieve it of some of its more valuable treasures and he'd developed a complex scheme that seemed to be based almost entirely on old episodes of Mission Impossible.

  After an elaborate and mostly pantomimed presentation, he'd asked Brandon's opinion, putting him in a rather delicate position. The truth -- that it was perhaps the stupidest thing he'd ever seen -- probably wouldn't make him any friends. On the other hand, saying it was perfect didn't seem credible.

  The fact that he was still alive suggested that he'd lucked into the right balance of gushing enthusiasm and constructive criticism.

  They took a hard left and Brandon thought he could see a dim glow encroaching on Pyotr's flashlight. It grew in intensity and a few moments later, he was squeezing through a narrow slot into a chamber lit by a single bulb and furnished only with an old cot. Their pilot had taken up a position on the cot, and Catherine was sitting on the ground, leaning against the back wall. She jumped to her feet and took a few quick steps toward him, but then stopped herself. "What's going on, Brandon?"

  He'd wondered if they were going to ever see each other again and, if they did, whether there would be suspicion in her voice at his extended absence. There wasn't.

  "I have no idea. Are you all right?" "Cold."

  Pyotr waved to them, smiling widely. Or maybe that was just his scar mutating in the bad light. "Come!"

  Catherine moved up next to Brandon and tried to slip a hand in his, but he shook his head. Their pilot -- whose name he still didn't know -- stayed a few feet behind.

  "It's been hours," Catherine whispered. "Where have you bee--" She fell silent and sniffed the air. "Have you been drinking?"

  "Just a few," he said quietly. "I didn't want to be rude."

  She smirked, but still no hint of suspicion.

  "What do you think's happening?"

  He shrugged numb shoulders. "They've been unloading the plane -- counting the money and making sure it isn't counterfeit. By now they have a pretty good idea that we've come through on our end."

  "So now they're going to give us the warheads?"

  He didn't answer.

  "Brandon?"

  "I don't know."

  They came out into another cathedral of a chamber, this one echoing with splashing water and the hum of generators. Pyotr swept a hand dramatically toward two wooden wagons, each hitched to a team of four horses. Brandon squinted past the spotlight aimed at them and examined the hay overflowing the edges of the carts.

  "Uh, okay. What?"

  Pyotr seemed a bit deflated at his reaction.

  "What my brother is trying to tell you is that we've confirmed your payment and your merchandise is there."

  Brandon and Catherine both spun in time to watch Grigori separate himself from the shadows. He had a crowbar in his hand, which he held out. "I assume you'd like to examine one?"

  Catherine accepted the crowbar and then proceeded hesitantly toward the wagons. Brandon was about to follow, but stopped when Grigori spoke again.

  "I'm surprised to see you here."

  "Me?" Brandon said. "What do you mean?"

  "Terrorists? Nuclear weapons? You've had a most impressive career, but it's been one of less . . . What is the word I am searching for? Dangerous. Less dangerous crimes."

  Brandon heard the crunching of Pyotr's boots as he took up a position a few feet behind. His second interview in as many weeks, and another serious penalty for blowing it.

  "You know that diamond heist I went in for?" Brandon said, forcing the image of Pyotr's knife from his mind.

  Grigori nodded.

  "Well, I didn't do it. Fucking government framed me, and they were going to make damn sure I never saw the light of day again. These guys offered to get me out and set me up with a new identity and enough cash to live on for the rest of my life. Sounded like a good deal to me." "Did it?"

  "Hey, I don't owe anybody anything."

  Grigori pointed toward Catherine, who had the top off a crate and was digging hay out of it. "And your companion? She has a similar story?"

  Brandon had anticipated questions about her and decided that she was one of those subjects that demanded a completely over the top lie to be credible.

  "Catherine's a freak. She'd kill you, me, and half her family for fifty bucks. I don't know if she was born that way or if something happened to --"

  "And yet you work with her."

  "It makes her . . . predictable. And I like predictable."

  Another few seconds of silence passed before Grigori spoke again. "It's a very valuable and very rare quality in the profession we have chosen."

  Brandon felt a hand clamp down on his injured shoulder and winced, but it was clear that t
he grip was a friendly one. He'd passed.

  Pyotr led him toward the carts where Catherine was leaning into one of the crates, screwdriver in hand. When they got to within a few feet, she looked down at him with an impressively dead expression. "They're what they told us they were."

  It occurred to Brandon what a strange image it was. The end of the world in the back of an old hay cart. He extended a hand toward Pyotr. "Pleasure doing business with you, my man. Now let's load 'em up and we'll be on our way. The faster we can get in the air, the better it is for everyone."

  Pyotr looked a bit perplexed. He slapped one of the horses on its swayback, creating a cloud of dust that hung in the bright lights. "Good. Strong."

  Brandon blinked a few times and shrugged. To him, they looked like they should be wearing hats and giving kids rides at a state fair, but then what did he know about horses?

  "Yeah, they're nice. Now, where's the truck? Let's load 'em up."

  Pyotr's confusion deepened and he used a stalagmite for support as he put all his energy into trying to understand.

  "No truck, Brindoon. Horses. Yes?"

  Chapter THIRTY-EIGHT

  The doorbell sounded a second time and Richard Scanlon squinted at his alarm clock. Three A. M.

  He rolled onto his back and threw off the sheets, letting out a long, frustrated breath. Steve Ahrens had taken up a rather obvious position in front of his house, sitting in classic stakeout mode along the curb across the street. And while Scanlon didn't begrudge him his shot at intimidation, it was three in the goddamn morning. Time to clarify the ground rules a bit.

  He swung his legs off the bed and stood, grabbing the pants and shirt draped across the back of a chair. By the time he'd dressed and made it to the stairs, his irritation had faded a bit. When he'd been a young agent, he'd have done the same thing -- woken the old guy up and hit him with a zinger question while he was still groggy. He was a smart kid and that was smart police work.

  When his feet hit the tile of the entry, he was already mentally rehearsing answers to worst-case-scenario questions. Ahrens would undoubtedly not disappoint.

  "Mr. Scanlon?"

  He spun in the direction of the voice fast enough that he nearly lost his balance, saving himself from falling only by sticking a hand against the closed front door.

  "I'm sorry," the man said, stepping forward and allowing himself to be illuminated by the glow of the streetlights outside the window. "I didn't mean to startle you."

  He had a short, military haircut complemented by a respectable, but hardly elegant suit and tie. Certainly not your typical burglar.

  "Who the fuck are you and what are you doing in my house?"

  In his peripheral vision, Scanlon saw a similarly dressed man appear in the hallway leading to the kitchen.

  "Mr. Hamdi sent us. He needs to see you."

  "Jesus Christ," Scanlon said in a harsh whisper. "Do you realize that there's a goddamn FBI agent watching the house? He ---.

  "Yes, sir. We're aware of that."

  Scanlon fell silent as the man pulled the front door open. His colleague moved up from behind.

  "I need to get a pair of shoes and --"

  "There's no time, sir. I'm going to have to ask you to come with us now."

  To emphasize the point, they each took an arm and ushered him through the door.

  "What the hell's going on?" he asked, but immediately regretted it. They wouldn't know. Had something gone wrong with the warheads? Had something happened to Catherine and Brandon?

  The grass was wet beneath his feet as they moved toward a black SUV parked by the curb. Across the street, he could see that Ahrens's car was still there. A streetlight reflected off the windshield, its glare lessening as they continued relentlessly forward.

  One of the men broke into a jog and opened the back door of the SUV, though Scanlon wasn't really paying attention. He continued to concentrate on the car across the street, watching the shadow behind the wheel begin to take shape -- turning from a vaguely organic form to a man slumped motionless against the steering wheel.

  "No," he said as he was shoved into the back seat. The door slammed behind him and he twisted around as they pulled away, unable to take his eyes off Steve Ahrens's body.

  Chapter THIRTY-NINE

  "I can't believe they stole our plane!" Catherine shouted, more giddy than angry. Her expression was impossible to see in the dim light, shadowed by the enormous fur-trimmed hood of her jacket. Brandon could make out the dull white of her smile, though.

  "You just can't trust some people," he said, too quietly to be heard over the roar of the engines.

  After being sent off by Pyotr with a slap on the back and a hand-drawn map, they'd spent seven hours coaxing those stupid horses over what amounted to miles of muddy goat path. They'd assumed that they were headed back to their plane, but when they finally arrived at the spot marked X, they found a cargo plane that looked like it had seen service in World War II.

  As disconcerting as the patched bullet holes in the side were, the wires and singed insulation hanging from the inside of the fuselage were worse. And then there was the cockpit, where their pilot was sitting on a folding chair, using a penlight to see the instruments. He'd gotten the thing in the air, though, something Brandon would have bet good money against. The question now was whether they'd be able to stay there.

  "Come on, Brandon, this is a good day!" she said drumming her hands wildly on a poorly secured crate full of hay and thermonuclear weapons.

  "I'd appreciate it if you'd stop doing that."

  "What? This?"

  She pounded out another rhythm, this time loud enough to be heard over the drone and rattle created by the slow disintegration of the plane.

  "Look what you've done, Brandon! You're a hero! Are you just going to sit there looking glum? Is it the money? You wanted the money?"

  "No. It's not the money."

  "Wait! Don't tell me! You still think we're going to kill you. That I'm going to throw you out the door of the plane."

  "Come on! We're going to land this plane on a little uninhabited island in the middle of the ocean, Richard is going to call the cavalry, and next thing you know we're going to be sipping champagne on an aircraft carrier. We have saved the day!"

  "Yeah, right," Brandon said. "Until the government classifies all this because they don't want to be embarrassed and it kills me to keep me quiet. They'll probably give the credit to a couple of cops and they'll say, 'Oh, we thought he had a gun.' "

  She came around the crate and sat next to him. "Richard's a big fan of yours, Brandon. I know you don't believe that, but he is. He was really impressed with what you did in Vegas, but the fact that you agreed to do this . . . Trust me. You don't have anything to worry about. If someone comes after you, it's going to be over his dead body."

  Brandon pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them. "Then it wouldn't be a problem for you to drop me off in Bhutan with some cash?"

  She didn't answer, instead just leaning forward and kissing him. Not on the cheek, either. Full on the mouth.

  When she pulled away he just stared at her, frozen. "What . . . What was that for?" He sounded a little panicked, even to himself, and cursed himself for not coming up with something more suave.

  She kissed him again, this time longer and harder. Once he got over his surprise, he kissed back, running a hand gently down her back, ninety percent because he'd wanted to ever since they'd met and ten percent to confirm she didn't have a knife she was going to whip out the second his guard was down. He felt bad about being so suspicious -- she'd say paranoid -- but with everything that was happening, it was hard to give in completely to trust.

  The sound of the motors deepened, and he felt a tingle in his stomach that didn't have anything to do with Catherine. They both pulled back and looked at each other, then at the now closed cockpit door.

  "Why are we going down?" Brandon said. "Are we there already?"

  She shook her head. "It
's probably just weather or something. Relax. It's over. We did it."

  He shrugged and lay back on the floor, pulling her down on top of him. She propped her elbows on either side of his head, bringing her face to within a few inches of his. "I have to admit, I had my doubts."

  "About what?"

  "You. When Richard told me we were going to break you out of jail, I thought he'd lost his mind. And when he told me I was the one that was going to be responsible for you . . ."

  "Yeah?"

  "I was so nervous when we met. And then when you jumped out of the car in Las Vegas . . ."

  "Sorry about that. I know it made you and . . ." His voice trailed off. It was still so hard to say the name.

  "It's forgotten. And I think Daniel would say the same thing."

  The angle of the plane's descent steepened and Catherine had to throw a hand out to keep from collapsing on top of him. They both looked at the cockpit door again and Brandon began chewing his lower lip nervously.

  "I know you think I'm nuts, Catherine. But does this feel right to you? We've been going down for a long time."

  "Like I said, it's probably just weather or something." She pushed herself to her knees and then stood awkwardly. "I'll check."

  He wasn't really surprised when the cockpit door turned out to be locked. More like vaguely disappointed.

  He propped himself against one of the crates, watching Catherine pound on the door with her fist. Wouldn't you know it was the only solid thing in the entire goddamn plane?

  Strangely, he still felt pretty good about everything. Not ecstatic or anything, but it could have been worse. He believed that Catherine sincerely didn't know what was going on. It would have really hurt if she was the one who betrayed him. And Scanlon? He wasn't completely sure, but he had decided to give his old boss the benefit of the doubt and lay the blame for what was going to happen to him at the feet of that creepy bastard who'd had him dragged out of bed in Vegas.