KnockOut ft-13

by Catherine Coulter

  When their eyes adjusted to the shadowed interior, they saw rotted hay bales stacked haphazardly, rusted tractor parts strewn over the rotted wooden floor planks, the parent of the parts, an ancient John Deere tractor, sitting off in a dim corner, missing two tires. The air smelled fetid and stale. At least it wasn’t as hot in here as it was outside. Ethan’s foot crushed down on an animal carcass.

  He realized then that all the display of rot, the rusted machine parts—it was all staged. This was what someone thought an abandoned barn should look like, down to the John Deere tractor.

  They watched Blessed push aside a couple of hay bales and two old car seats, the material covering them long rotted, and kick away straw from the floor, clearing about a four-foot space. He leaned down and pulled on a rusted old handle that was nearly flat against the wood, and a hole appeared in the floor. Blessed stepped back and smiled, waved his hand toward it. Joanna and Ethan looked down onto blackness.

  Blessed reached down into the darkness and pressed some buttons. There came three short beeps, and then light suddenly filled the dark hole, but there was still nothing to see except wooden stairs that led downward. Blessed nodded to them. “The two of you will climb care-fully down the stairs. When you get to the bottom, wait for Autumn and me. Don’t forget, I’ve got Autumn, so don’t try anything.”

  Joanna and Ethan climbed down the wooden stairs. They were solid pine, thirty of them; Ethan counted them.

  The stairs ended in a small square room with whitewashed walls and a clean wooden floor. There was a single table with a telephone sitting on it, and nothing else.

  They heard the trap door close above them, the low hum of air-conditioning. The air was cool. It had to take a good-sized generator, Ethan thought, to run this place.

  Blessed walked past them to the phone, picked it up, and said, “The Keeper is here.”

  Joanna arched an eyebrow at Ethan.

  At the end of the small room they watched a panel in the opposite wall slide silently open. Blessed nodded for them to go inside.

  Joanna went first, Ethan close behind her. More than a rotted old barn for the Children of Twilight, Ethan thought. They stopped and stared at the vast, empty white space, almost dizzying it was so white, no other color to break it. The room was maybe forty feet by forty feet, the wooden floor painted as white as the walls and ceiling. Another stage setting, Ethan thought, this one doubtless meant to represent purity and innocence, maybe a bit of heaven? Or more likely, this was another stage setting to prove to cult members this was a holy place.

  A young black man came through a white door set into one of the walls. He was wearing a white linen shirt and loose white pants, a thin rope tied around his waist. His feet were bare.

  “Hello, Kjell,” Blessed said. “I’ve got her.”

  57

  WINNETT, NORTH CAROLINA

  It was late afternoon when the black FBI Bell helicopter landed at the small airstrip two miles west of Winnett. The mountains were thick around them, and yet it was so hot and humid when Savich stepped out of the helicopter, he wished he could strip down and find a hose. He helped Sherlock out, and both of them stood there a moment, even the hot gush of air from the helicopter blades better than the still, dead air.

  Holding hands, they ducked down and ran toward a small tin building thirty feet away. They turned to see the helicopter lift off. The pilot, Curly Hames, waved to them. They veered off into the shade of the buildings to where a dark green Subaru sat next to a banged-up truck and a rotted-out SUV.

  The keys were in the ignition. Savich gave the interior a tolerant look and turned the key.

  Sherlock sniffed. “The car smells new; that’s big of the field office. Okay, we’re going to meet Cully at the Chevron gas station on Market Street, only about half a mile from Victor Nesser’s apartment on Pulitzer Prize Road. Then we’ll go to Victor’s apartment, meet up with Bernie Benton, and wait until Lissy and Victor show.” She grinned. “Weird name. Turns out that Winnett native Marvin Hemlick won a Pulitzer some forty years ago for writing about a nasty Ku Klux Klan chapter here. Anyway, when last I spoke to Cully, he said he and Bernie had Victor’s place covered, but nothing was happening, and time was moving slow as molasses in this heat and both he and Bernie were getting antsy.”

  She pulled out her cell and dialed Cully’s number. There was no answer, only voice mail. Sherlock frowned, dialed again, got voice mail again. “Why doesn’t he pick up? I told him I’d call the minute we were here. Cully’s known for being so type A, his shoes nearly walk by themselves. What could he be doing?”

  “Do you have Bernie’s cell phone number?” Savich asked as he negotiated a left turn onto Market Street.

  She shook her head. “Let’s get to the Chevron station, see if Cully’s there. Maybe his phone’s dead.” Like either of them believed that, Sherlock thought, and tightened her seat belt. Even the seat belt smelled new.

  “We’ll be there in a minute; hang on, sweetheart.”

  She noticed the countryside was quite pretty as they drove by— tree-covered hills rising slowly to higher hills, and finally they saw the mountains behind them. Pine and oak trees crammed the slopes, enough for a thousand houses, Sherlock thought, without making a dent.

  Savich slowed through Winnett’s small downtown. The three-block center was set squarely on flat land; the townspeople must have long ago taken a bulldozer to smooth it out. Red brick and wooden buildings crowded together along Market Street, and wherever there weren’t buildings, there were trees crowding in. It was quite lovely, really, but it was so hot even in the late afternoon, Savich imagined you could fry spit on the sidewalk.

  The downtown was quiet, dead, only a couple of teenagers milling around outside. Dinnertime, he thought, and escape from the oppressive heat, maybe some hoses going to cool off in the backyards.

  The Chevron sign appeared ahead on a right-hand corner. An old man stood in the doorway of the Quik Mart, arms folded over his chest, watching a young guy pump gas into a white Mustang convertible. There were a couple of cars waiting to be serviced, but there was no sign of Agent Cully Gwyn.

  Savich didn’t pause. “Let’s go over to Pulitzer Prize Road, take a look at Victor’s apartment building. Maybe they’re there, watching, forgot the time, whatever.”

  Sherlock didn’t say anything, but she didn’t like it. She was tense, on edge. She punched her cell phone’s GPS on, and a dulcet female voice told them to turn right in point-five miles. A minute later, they pulled onto Victor’s street in a neighborhood of the small ranch-style houses set back from the road on big yards with pine and oak trees cozied up to the houses. They were lucky it rained here a lot, or the town would never have survived forest fires for so long.

  Pulitzer Prize Road was unexpectedly long. Finally the houses began to peter out, and at the very end of the street, on the very edge of Winnett, stood Victor’s apartment building. It wasn’t much, a two-story brick building with maybe six apartments. But the yard was big and green, like all the other yards, and there was a red brick walkway that led up to the door. There was only one house beyond the apartment building, the grass overgrown, its windows boarded up, obviously vacant. Beyond that decrepit house stretched a narrow two lane road that disappeared into the thick oak and pine trees. Every-thing looked limp.

  “If the locals don’t take care,” Sherlock said, looking around, “the forest is going to consume the town. Nothing but oaks and pines everywhere. It looks like they swallow up the road.”

  “I wouldn’t mind sitting under an oak tree about now,” Savich said, looking up at the afternoon sun, hot and high in the cloudless sky, “what with the temperature hovering around a hundred, and the humidity at two thousand. Do you know what the problem is—the sun’s too big down here.”

  “We could join that golden retriever over there snoozing away under that pine tree. Everybody must be huddled around their air conditioners.”

  “If Cully and Bernie are watching the apartment
building from close by, they could be inside that empty house,” Savich said. “Do you see anyone? A car? Anything?”

  They looked around carefully, saw nothing but the sun beating down. The trees were utterly still, not a breath of moving air.

  Savich turned the car around and headed back toward town. He parked a couple of blocks from the apartment building, between a Toyota SUV and an F-l 50 truck. They walked back toward the building, their SIGs pressed against their sides to avoid any panic from passersby. They needn’t have bothered. Not a single soul appeared, not Cully or Bernie either. They could be well hidden, Savich thought, but surely they’d have recognized them, at least recognized Sherlock’s bright hair. This wasn’t good, Savich knew it.

  Savich would swear the air pulsed with heat. He saw the humidity was making Sherlock’s hair curlier. She turned to him. “Why don’t Cully and Bernie let us know where they are?”

  Savich said nothing; what was there to say? He opened the apartment-building front door and stepped into a tiny lobby that held one palm tree and six mailboxes, painted white. The temperature dropped at least thirty degrees.

  “It’s like I’ve died and gone to an ice locker,” she said. She flapped her arms, enjoying it.

  They looked at the mailboxes even though they knew Victor lived in apartment 403, but why was there a number like that in a two-story apartment building?

  “Let’s take the stairs,” he said. “Stay alert.”

  They didn’t meet anyone on the stairs. Savich imagined a lot of people were inside, eating dinner. They heard children arguing over whether to watch an old Star Trek episode or Batman, but no adult voices.

  The hallway was wide and dark, all the apartment doors painted different colors. Victor Nesser’s apartment was at the very end of the second-floor hall. His front door was painted bright green, with big brass numbers—403.

  Sherlock stepped forward, knocked on the door, and waited a moment, her SIG ready. “Mr. Nesser? It’s Clorie Smith, from the Winnett Herald Weekly. I’m here to offer you a full month’s free subscription, four free issues.”

  No answer.

  She knocked again. “Mr. Nesser?”

  No sound, nothing from inside the apartment.

  Savich pressed his ear to the door.

  He didn’t hear anything at first, pressed his ear closer. He heard a muffled sound—a person’s voice? He didn’t wait, motioned for Sherlock to step back, and he kicked the door in. It flew open, banging against the wall. They went in, fanning their SIGs, and found themselves in a small entry hall, a living room to the right connected to a small dining area and kitchen.

  Empty.

  A muffled voice yelled, “In here!”

  The voice was coming from the bedroom. Savich stepped toward it when the man shouted again, “No! Don’t come in! There’s a bomb and a trip wire!”

  58

  SAVICH FROZE, Sherlock behind him. He called out, “Okay, we’re not moving. Cully, is that you? What bomb?”

  “Just a second, got to get this duct tape off my mouth. Damn, it’s hard to talk without any lips. Okay, listen, the young guy—Victor Nesser—I saw him string a wire across the bedroom doorway, floor level. I guess he didn’t mind I saw him, figured I would see you coming and not be able to do a thing about it. Thank God I finally managed to get the tape off my mouth or we’d all be dead.”

  Savich knelt down and saw the wire, maybe a quarter inch off the floor, stretched taut. He called out, “We’re stepping over it. Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m okay, just humiliated. I’m here, on the other side of the bed. Like I said, I finally got the tape off my mouth, but I’m still tied up. Victor’s got me connected to a wire, too.”

  “Okay, don’t move,” Savich said and walked slowly over to the bed.

  Cully said, “I can see the bomb from here. It’s by the dresser.”

  “Got it,” Sherlock said. “You just don’t move, Cully. Dillon and I are going to check it out.”

  Cully said, “The girl—Lissy Smiley—she was laughing, really enjoying it, crowing that the instant some stupid fed tripped the wire the whole building would go boom—a hundred feet up, burn up the air, maybe all the way to heaven, she said. Then she hooted, doing a Madonna bump and grind, and said something about sending you, Savich, to heaven.” Cully sucked in a breath. “I usually don’t remember exactly what people say, but she was over the top.”

  Sherlock said, “Hey, we’re really glad you got the duct tape off your mouth. No heaven for any of us yet.”

  Cully Gwyn, amazingly, laughed. “I knew you guys would come here when you didn’t see me at the Chevron station and I didn’t answer my cell. Please tell me you’ve spoken to Bernie.”

  “No, we haven’t,” Savich said. “We don’t have his cell number. Okay, Cully, I won’t try to get you free until we see what’s going on with this bomb.”

  Sherlock dropped to her knees beside an ancient pine dresser, vintage Goodwill. “Okay, just eyeballing it first. What we’ve got is a large black metal box about the size and shape of a small suitcase. There’s a wire running from inside it across the floor over to the bedroom door and another to you, Cully, so don’t move a whisker.”

  Cully said, “There’s no bomb squad in Winnett, no surprise there. Please tell me you guys know about bombs.”

  Savich said, “Stop hyperventilating, Cully, it’ll be all right. Sherlock took a course at Quantico. She knows enough not to set the sucker off. How did Victor and Lissy get you?”

  “Bernie and I were close to the empty house just down the street, the one that’s been deserted for only a few months, we were told, but the grass looks ready to take up residence it grows so fast here. We were hunkered down in trees a bit beyond the house, close enough to keep an eye on Victor’s end apartment, but not too close to spook them if they showed up.” He sighed. “Bernie had to use the john, so he went into the house, through the back. I never looked away from the apartment building. I swear to you, I never heard a thing, not even a whisper of movement. One minute I was wondering why Bernie was taking so long and the next I felt a gun stuck in my ear, and a girl giggled, told me I was the easiest fed she’d ever got. I couldn’t believe it, Savich. I have no clue how she snuck up on me. I didn’t hear a thing.”

  Dillon said, “She and Victor were probably behind you, watching, for a good long time, waiting for their chance. When Bernie went into the house, you had no one covering your back.” Easy, Savich thought, so easy.

  Cully sighed again. “I tried for her, twisted around, sent my elbow at her face, but she jumped back, waved the gun at me, and told me if I tried anything again, she’d shoot me. Then Victor comes up and tells me we’re going to his apartment, he’s hungry, and he wants to see if the bologna in his fridge is still good.

  “First though, Lissy went into the house where Bernie was. I didn’t hear anything, not a yell from Bernie, nothing. When she comes out, she’s popping bubble gum. I asked her what she did with Bernie, but she just gives me a sneer and hits my ribs real hard with the butt of her gun. ‘That’s for trying to hit me in the face,’ she says.

  “There was no one around, and believe me, I looked hard. They marched me over here to the apartment building, then Victor ties me up here in the bedroom while she’s got the gun on me. I watched Victor hook up the bomb. I asked him where Bernie was, and Lissy just laughs again, tells me to shut up.”

  “You’re very lucky she didn’t just shoot you when you tried to take her down,” Sherlock said. “That’s what she does, Cully.”

  “Yeah, I know. Fortunately for me, I think she wanted a show; she was hoping you guys would come. She laughed and laughed, and wondered if they’d ever figure out what body part went with what fed,”

  “I recommend you forget that thought, Cully,” Savich said. “Okay, I can’t get you free until Sherlock disarms the bomb. Don’t move.”

  Savich went down on his knees next to Sherlock. She’d gotten the lid of the black box open
. “Okay, it’s definitely homemade, not sophisticated—thank you, God—nice and straightforward. Victor probably got this off the Internet, or out of a book, which is very good for us. Dillon, give me your Swiss Army Knife.”

  He handed it to her without a word.

  Sherlock looked down at a pair of wires, red and green twisted together, leading to a—timer. Why a tinier? The bomb was supposed to explode if someone hit the trip wire across the bedroom doorway, or if Cully pulled out his wire. Why a timer? Had they tried to rig the front door too?

  Sherlock cupped her hand around the small screen and read out 00:34 seconds. She sucked in her breath, forced herself to calm.

  “We’re on a timer here, guys, not much time left before the sucker explodes.”

  Savich looked at the timer over her shoulder.

  Thirty seconds, twenty-nine. He saw his son’s face clear as glass in his mind, bouncing a basketball, and then saw Sherlock leaning over him, tucking a sheet around his chest.

  Eighteen seconds, seventeen.

  He watched Sherlock untwist the wires, follow each one to its lead.

  Thirteen seconds, twelve.

  Time compressed itself into a moment, yet Savich felt each ticking second as a separate unit, each second a universe of time, yet each second somehow disappeared into the next. He couldn’t guess how many people were right now in the building, how many could die because of Victor and Lissy. He thought of the children they’d heard arguing. He heard Cully talking softly—maybe he was praying, but he wasn’t moving, and that was good since the wire connected to the duct tape around his ankles.

  Seven seconds, six.

  No more time.

  He wanted to tell Sherlock he loved her, and he opened his mouth—

  “Here we go,” Sherlock said, and he watched her slice cleanly through a yellow wire.

  His heart thudded, and his breath eased out of his mouth.