Into The Fire jb-4

by David Wiltse

  "I'm sure Dr. Gold has done his research well," Withers said noncommittally. "There are always some inconsistencies in anyone's confession. That's just human nature. All I did was point out a few in Cooper's case.

  That doesn't necessarily mean anything."

  "Oh, good, then there's nothing to worry about," Becker said.

  Hatcher improved the crease in his pant leg.

  "Actually, John, I must agree with you. There really is nothing to worry about-we have the killer in custody, no question in my mind about that.

  But there are always naysayers. There are always those who would ruthlessly manipulate the legal system to their own ends. Naturally, in the interest of justice, we would like to squelch those voices before they begin. We must have the appearance of justice as well as justice itself. In order to assure that appearance in this case, we feel that it is best to have this man Swann in custody as well."

  "Don't you have him in custody now?"

  "Actually, he has been released from prison."

  "What asshole did that?"

  "It was considered the best way to assure his cooperation."

  "What stupid son of a bitch gave the order to release Swann?"

  "There's really no point in fixing blame in such cases, John. An error seems to have been made; we need to correct it."

  "Sure, but what kind of a head-up-his-ass dufuss would let that little shit go in the first place?"

  Hatcher adjusted the crease in the other pant leg. The others in the room watched, transfixed, to see if he would avoid the knife poised to take its pound of flesh.

  "Decisions of this kind are complicated, but ultimately I must take responsibility for all the actions of my people.

  It would be cowardly to do otherwise."

  Becker was not yet satisfied.

  "You're the asshole, then?"

  Hatcher lifted his head and forced a smile as wintry as a February night.

  "Yes, John, if you want to think of it that way. I am the asshole."

  Hatcher looked at no one but Becker and his voice had the regulated tone of a metronome.

  "I suspected you were," Becker said. He heard Karen's angry exhalation of breath. "But it's nice to hear you confirm it.

  He smiled broadly. Withers thought it was the first genuine expression of any kind that he had seen since his arrival. Becker looked, briefly, like a happy man.

  "I'm glad you are pleased," said Hatcher. "Now, John, the Bureau needs you to do something. Swann has disappeared completely. We have been unable to get any trace at all on his movements since he left prison.

  Inasmuch as you have had a rather lengthy interview with the man, and given your great expertise in these matters, and since although you failed to detect the nature of his deception during that interview you did most likely gain some insight into his character, the Bureau hopes-most ardently hopes-that you will assist us in finding him."

  Becker had known it was coming from the moment that he heard that Swann had escaped. There seemed no way to avoid the final confrontation that Swann had provoked in the first place by sending his letters to Becker.

  Having fooled Becker during the interview had only pushed the ultimate outcome to the point of inevitability.

  "I will need a few things," Becker said.

  Hatcher was surprised at the ease of victory. He had expected much more resistance.

  "Of course we will give you whatever you need."

  "I want this to be the end of it," Becker said. "I never want to work for you again. I don't want you to forward mail to me, I don't want you to call me, or speak of me, or think of me. I want to be taken off indefinite medical extension and dropped from the Bureau roster as if I were dead. This is the end of it-forever."

  Hatcher did not hesitate. He knew he could always renege later. Becker was far too valuable an asset to relinquish forever. Hatcher had built his career in part on Becker's triumphs and had no intention of stopping now, although another triumph in the Beggs case might well put him beyond the need of Becker's heroics. In any event, it was a contingency to deal with in the future. For now, the only thing that mattered was Becker's cooperation.

  "As you say, John. It will be as you say."

  "You mustn't think I trust you," Becker said.

  Hatcher raised his eyebrows and tried to look as if his feelings were hurt. The form had to be observed in these matters.

  "I want the tape you made of my interview with Swann," Becker continued.

  Hatcher raised a finger towards Withers, who made a note.

  "When I narrow him to an area, I want to be able to pick and choose from the local agents myself."

  Hatcher nodded, again motioning with a finger towards Withers.

  "And full cooperation from the national information net, of course."

  "Certainly."

  "And if I smell you anywhere near me, if I so much as sense your interference, no, hell, even so much as your observation of the case, I'll quit."

  Hatcher sat stock-still.

  "I have my responsibilities, John."

  "My conditions, yes or no. You've fucked up every operation of mine you've ever gotten close to… Yes or no?"

  Hatcher waited as long as dignity required before finally lifting his finger a fraction. Withers began to write.

  Aural spent the night as if in her coffin. He had put her in the leather golf sack for warmth and zipped it up so that only her face was uncovered. She was still shackled hands to ankles, and he had taken the additional precaution of securing the sack with the length of rope, tying the other end around his leg so that if she moved too far in the night, he would know it. Later, when she was weaker, he could relax his vigilance, but he knew that she still had some resistance left.

  Eventually she would welcome the end as much as he did, but he wanted to postpone that time as long as possible. When they gave up and lost the will to remain, they slipped away from him much too quickly. Life was a curious thing, Swann thought, capable of withstanding injuries and insults of the worst sort as long as the fiber of the will was intact to hold it together. But if the heat of despair got too high, the will would melt irreversibly, like gelatin oozing between his fingers. He tried to make his girls last longer; he urged them to withstand him and to hold on; but when they decided to go, he could not restrain them.

  Sometimes they went so quickly that he almost missed the passing, which would have been a terrible waste. He wanted to celebrate the moment, to exult in it, to sanctify it with his great joy and release. It would be an awful thing for them to have suffered so much and then to have slipped away unnoticed, uncelebrated. If he knew that their time had come, he would try to speed them along by intensifying his pleasure, because it was important that he should send them, that he should be the cause. He would work on them all night, if necessary, never leaving their side when the time had come, ignoring his own need for sleep or food, denying himself comfort for the greater cause. He thought of it as a sacrifice he made for his girls, just as they had made their own for him. It was the least he could do for them; he owed them that much when they had given so much to him.

  When their time came he forgave them their spitefulness, he overlooked the horror of their appearance, their mutilated, untouchable bodies, the tears and mucus and excrement with which they soiled themselves. At the end they were all his angels and he in turn was the ministering angel for them, the last sight they saw on this earth, the last human touch they would ever feel. They took him with them into Jesus' embrace and Swann knew that Jesus thanked him for sending them to him. And they thanked him too, or they surely would once they reached the other side.

  He could detect the light of love in their fading eyes as they eased away. At the end, they understood, he was certain of that. They knew that no hospital emergency team could have tried harder to prolong their life, and that no minister in the world could have given them a more joyful, jubilant valedictory when the inevitable arrived at last.

  When he grew wea
ry, when he could take no more pleasure for that day, he had trussed up Aural in her sack and then crept into his sleeping bag with the contentment that came from exhaustion. He turned off the lantern and the insistent hiss died with the light, leaving them in silence except for the sounds of the girl. She moaned when she moved, but he knew that after a few days that would stop. Something happened to them after a few days, and they slept peacefully at night. They still screamed for him when he made them, but they stopped moaning. And this one wasn't a crier, he was glad of that. Sometimes they cried all night long and destroyed his rest, which only made him angry. He regretted that because this was not a business to be done in anger. It had to be done carefully, slowly, with love. If he was angry, he went too fast and hurt them for the wrong reasons. He hadn't gone to all this trouble and taken such risks just to hurt them to punish them. He was ashamed of himself when he allowed his anger to get the better of him and always regretted it later. This girl was not going to anger him, however. She was going to fight him, she was going to hang on as long as she possibly could-and she was not going to cry. She was wonderful and Swann drifted into sleep thinking that he truly loved her already.

  Aural was astounded to realize that she had slept. She awoke with a start, not from a nightmare, but to it as the realization of what had happened, was happening, flooded back to her consciousness. She heard a noise beside her and realized that he had awakened her with a shout. She could sense him in the dark, twisting about in his sleeping bag, groaning.

  "Sweet Jesus," he cried, his voice filled with pain.

  "Oh, Christ, Jesus."

  "What the fuck are you doing?" she asked.

  He continued to groan, and although she couldn't see him, Aural could imagine him clasping his head with his hand as he had earlier when he seemed to faint.

  "Jesus," he muttered again, then, "Goddamn it."

  "I'm trying to sleep over here," she said.

  He stopped shouting then, but she could hear him whimpering and rocking back and forth. The noises came rhythmically after a time, as if he were receiving the pain in pulses. She hoped it came like machine gun fire; she hoped it ripped his head off.

  "What's the matter?" she asked after several minutes, trying to sound sympathetic.

  He did not respond.

  "Do you need anything?"

  He was silent and she realized that he had stopped rocking. If he continued to whimper, it was so quietly that she couldn't hear it over her own breathing.

  Because of the rope tied around the sack, she could not roll over and her back was aching fiercely. Amazingly, the cramped muscles hurt more than the burns, which, at the time they were administered, seared so painfully that she thought they might kill her. She knew now that they wouldn't kill her-at least the pain wouldn't kill her.

  What effect it would have if he kept at it, if he burned all of her… she tried not to think about it.

  She had been freed once from the contorted fetal position. She had told him she had to go to the bathroom, and to her amazement he had unhooked her hands from her ankles and allowed her to stand. He tied the rope to her handcuffs and secured her wrists in front of her body.

  He had been strangely courtly throughout the proceedings.

  "You will want privacy," he said. He gave her a lighted candle and pointed the direction she should go.

  "Keep on until the rope is taut," he said. "You'll find the appropriate spot there." He even handed her a roll of toilet tissue and made a display of turning his back although she felt his eyes on her every step of the way.

  Aural hoped to get closer to the wave formations on the wall; she thought there might be potential hiding places there if she could ever get to them; but as she veered in that direction, he called out sharply.

  "Not that way," he said. "Straight ahead."

  "Well, how'm I supposed to know where I'm going?" she demanded.

  "Oh, you'll know it when you get there," he said, his voice suddenly amused. "It's well marked."

  He was full of these little jokes to himself, giggling at things only he thought were funny. Aural not only — hated the bastard in a general, all-encompassing way, but she couldn't find much to like about him, either. He'd be a creep even if his hobby was collecting stamps instead of torturing women.

  She walked forward into the wavering candlelight, then stopped and gasped.

  He giggled, "Find it?"

  A human skeleton lay a few feet from her. The flesh was gone, but long dark hair still curled in a mat under the bony skull. The hands had been crossed over the chest in a mockery of subterranean burial, and the lower torso was covered in patches of cloth that had once been a skirt.

  The victim's shoes were placed neatly at her feet and her ankles had been crossed, but the bones of the feet had dropped away from each other and lay where they had fallen on the rocky floor.

  Aural could not guess how long the girl had been dead, but the shoes looked like new.

  She turned away from the skeleton and stepped in the opposite direction.

  The rope pulled snugly at her waist.

  "Anywhere in there will do," Swann called to her. His voice beat back on itself, overlapping the giggle that followed.

  Aural moved several steps to the side and squatted. The bones of another skeleton shone dully in the flickering light. This one had been "buried" like the first, her arms crossed over her chest. The ligaments of the hands had disintegrated and the finger bones had fallen in among the ribs.

  When she was in control of herself, Aural called, "You been busy, ain't you? You been a real little beaver."

  "Oh, you haven't seen them all, " he said proudly.

  "These are very early works. I did them years ago."

  "Well, they say that idle hands are the devil's tool," Aural said, walking back towards him. If there were other bones, she did not want to see them. "It's good to know you've been active so you can't get up to any mischief"

  As she approached him she realized she could have grabbed one of the bones, a leg bone, a thighbone, and used it to club him to death. If she had had the presence of mind. If she could have brought herself to pick up the bone in the first place. She cursed herself for another opportunity missed. How many more would she have before she joined the boneyard? Girl, you've got to get in control of yourself, she thought.

  You've got to take your chance when you get it.

  Now, as she lay wide awake, she could hear his steady breathing. The bastard was beginning to snore. He was resting while she was consuming her precious energy in useless rage and anxiety. Damn it, girl, she thought, don't let him sleep. Keep him as bad off as you can, keep him sleepless, get him punchy and careless, force him into making a mistake.

  "Hey, shitstick!" she called. "Wake up. Time to be up and doing, we got some business to take care of."

  He came awake noisily, spluttering, alarmed.

  "What? What is it?"

  "Come on, stick, get your ass up. You got things to do. And in the meantime, how about some breakfast? You wasn't planning to starve me to death, too, was you?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "It's morning. Get your ugly ass up. Feed me, then we'll think of something fun to do."

  "It's morning?" he asked, puzzled. "How do you know?"

  "Let's get at it, slick. Start opening some of them cans.

  What have we got for breakfast, beans or peaches?"

  She heard him fumbling about, then his lighter flared into flame. Aural saw him looking at his wristwatch, trying to figure out what was going on. Baffled by what his timepiece told him, Swann turned to look at her, holding the lighter in front of him like a lantern.

  "What are you up to?" he asked.

  Swann studied her for a moment in the insufficient glow of the cigarette lighter. He cocked his head to one side, trying to interpret what he saw. Aural's head peeked out from the golf sack, and she was grinning at him.

  "Up and at 'em, chief," she said. "Time's awasting."
/>   Swann clicked the lighter shut and the cavern returned to darkness.

  Aural saw red ghosts dance on her retina while Swann moved out of his sleeping bag. She heard him fumble about for a moment, then the lighter snapped on again and he lit a candle. He walked the few feet to her side and peered down at her for a moment before bending and tugging at the rope that bound the sack to his leg. Satisfied that the rope was still secure around her body, he unzipped the sack far enough to see that her wrists and ankles were still manacled.

  He zipped the sack up to her chin once more.

  "What are you playing at?" He leaned close to her, peering into her eyes. Aural could smell his breath and feel the heat of the candle.

  "Just a little s and m. I'm pretending you've got me tied up and are trying to torture me."

  "You'd better be careful," he said. "You'd better be very, very careful.

  So far I like you."

  "I thought you did. I don't know… a girl can tell."

  "But I know how to be mean," he said, ignoring her.

  He moved the candle until it was directly in front of her face, six inches away from her skin. His own face was behind the flame, the features dancing in the flickering light like a jack-o-lantern. So slowly that it took Aural a moment to realize what was happening, he moved the flame towards her eyes. She watched with fascinated horror as the flame inched closer and closer.

  "Tell me when you're sorry that you woke me up at two in the morning," he said softly. Aural did not look at him; she could see only the bright orange flame creeping ever nearer. The fire filled her field of vision, blocking out anything else, and she fought a scream that wanted to tear loose from her chest. Not my eyes, she thought, terrified.

  When the warmth of the candle turned to heat, she blew it out.

  Swann emitted a grunt of anger, then the cigarette lighter snapped into flame again. He relit the candle and set it on the ground, too far away for her to blow it out again.

  He sat with his arms on his knees, studying her as if she were an enigma that he had just stumbled across.

  "What am I going to do with you?" he asked at last.