Gundown

by Ray Rhamey

  Her smile was warm this time, but he nonetheless felt like a chicken being invited to step into a pot. “That would be great, but I need to get back. Call me when you go to Oregon. I want to be there to see the guy crumble.”

  On the ferry back to Mackinaw City, Mitch decided to be hopeful. This was going to work. Colonel Hanson was clearly a woman who knew how to carry out a mission. He was sorry it couldn’t be Hank, but they had Stone unbalanced right now, and they couldn’t wait to give him a shove.

  A Debt to Pay

  To Jewel it felt like coming home when Franklin pulled into his driveway after picking her up from work. She and Chloe slid out of the backseat, but he didn’t shut off the engine.

  Jewel leaned into the front passenger window and said, “You’re not stopping? I think there’s a cold beer with your name on it.”

  “Evening’s the best time for picking up fares—folks going out to dinner before theater and then going to the theater. I’ll grab a dinner break then and go back out when performances end.”

  Disappointed, she said, “Yeah, I know.” Franklin was starting to feel like family.

  He smiled. “I’ll be back for my break.” With a wave, he backed away.

  On the way into the house, Chloe asked, “Is Franklin my uncle like Uncle Timmy?”

  Jewel tried to ignore the tug on her heart. How would she ever tell Chloe what had happened to Timmy? She hid her thoughts behind a smile. “It’s not the same, honey, but close.”

  “I miss Uncle Timmy.”

  An image of Timmy’s smile before pink got him popped into Jewel’s mind. Her sweet boy. “I do, too, sugar, I do, too.” Had Juana been able to take care of his . . . last needs?

  While Chloe played with a Raggedy Ann doll Franklin had given her for an “unbirthday” present, Jewel took her cell phone from her purse. She’d kept it pretty much off since leaving Chicago, but Murphy was long gone now. Wandering onto the front porch, she punched in Juana’s number.

  Juana answered and said, “Jewel! How are you? How’s Chloe?”

  Jewel smiled. “I’m fine, she’s great. I wanted to ask how things went—”

  “A cop came. Right after you left. The officer—he had a hurt nose—he found Timmy.”

  Murphy. She’d gotten out just in time. Anger brewed in Jewel. “What’d he do?”

  “He came banging on my door. He was mucho angry, very scary. I say I don’ know nothing. Don’ know where you are. And then they took Timmy.”

  Oh, Lord.

  Juana sobbed. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t take care of him like you say.”

  “You couldn’t help it. That’s okay.”

  A silence, then Juana said, “I didn’t use the money you left for . . . you know.”

  Jewel knew how much she needed it. “That’s all right. I want you to have it.”

  Juana’s voice carried a grin. “Oh, gracias, mil gracias!”

  “Hey, I gotta go. You take care.”

  “Si. Give Chloe big kisses for me.”

  “I will.” She disconnected. That bastard Murphy. A black flower of pain opened in her gut. She doubled over, wrapping her arms around her middle. With a long o-o-o-o-o-h, the grief she’d held at bay finally took her. Sobs tore loose and spilled into the air.

  At nine o’clock that evening, after reading The Runaway Bunny to Chloe and tucking her in for the night, Jewel poured a glass of chardonnay and collapsed into a living room chair. She wanted to talk about her day at the Alliance, but with Franklin out cabbing, there was no ear to listen.

  Franklin was easy to talk to, so accepting. The people at work were nice enough, but something in her stopped her from connecting. At lunch, Benson Spencer had been talking about the trouble his neighbor was having keeping the Alliance promise. Hell, she couldn’t imagine herself even making the promise. It sounded good, but if you believed it you had to leave yourself wide open to being shafted. Like a sitting duck. And sitting ducks ended up being somebody’s dinner. But still . . . it felt like she was missing out.

  Enough of that. She turned on the television to search for something worth watching and came across Bruce Ball on Headline News. Next to an inset picture of picketers carrying signs that read “Free Hank Soldado,” Ball was saying, “. . . protesters today in Ashland, Oregon, picketed the headquarters of the Alliance, demanding freedom for convicted killer Hank Soldado.” Jewel had walked through the picketers to get to work. They’d been loud, but not violent.

  The picture cut to a woman about Jewel’s age. The woman said, “He saved the life of a great man. He should be getting a medal, not a prison sentence!”

  Bruce Ball returned. “Headline News tried to contact Noah Stone, the man whose life was spared when Hank Soldado gunned down an assassin. A representative told us that the Alliance leader was unavailable, but that he completely supports the Oregon system of justice. More on that from our legal correspondent, Kate Sellers, after this.” The picture dissolved into a commercial for a retirement home.

  Jewel clicked off the television. The Ashland Daily Tidings had been swamped with letters to the editor defending and condemning the verdict in about equal numbers. She wished the whole thing would go away—there was something about what had happened to Soldado that troubled her, but she’d been unwilling to dig it out.

  She picked up a mystery novel, but her eyes were tired from researching online all day, and her head throbbed.

  A check on Chloe found her tangled in her top sheet, deeply asleep. After straightening her out, Jewel let her weariness take over. Undressing and putting on an oversized T-shirt, she turned on the classical music radio station and stretched out on her bed. She drifted . . . drifted . . .

  The tall blond punk with a green stripe in his hair grabs her arm and whips her around. Behind him, Murphy watches, gloating.

  She spins away, but there is another, identical Green-Stripe facing her. And an identical Murphy behind him, complete with smirk. She turns in a circle—she’s surrounded by sets of Green-Stripes and Murphys, and more are arriving, all of them the same.

  The closest punk rips her blouse open.

  Behind her, a hand yanks it completely from her. She huddles, arms crossed over her breasts.

  The Green-Stripes unzip their pants and reach inside. She screams, but no sound comes out.

  Suddenly the head of the Green-Stripe in front of her explodes, showering her with blood. One by one, each of her attackers suffers the same fate, each collapsing to the sidewalk.

  Beyond them, Hank Soldado stands in a marksman’s stance, his pistol aimed her way. The Murphys run away.

  She steps over a body and walks toward Soldado to thank him. Jewel extends her hand for a shake. Suddenly her hand holds a pistol. She squeezes the trigger and Soldado’s head explodes.

  She cries out. “No!”

  “Mommy, Mommy . . .”

  Jewel jerked awake. Chloe stood beside her bed, tugging on Jewel’s T-shirt. Her daughter’s eyes were wide with fright.

  “Mommy, are you hurt?”

  Jewel shuddered and wrapped Chloe in her arms. “No, honey, it was just a bad dream.”

  “I was scared.”

  “It’s all right, baby. Hey, why don’t you climb in with me so neither one of us will be scared?”

  Chloe crawled under the sheet and snuggled close.

  Jewel tried to relax, but the dream rose into her thoughts. It had told the truth—she had killed Hank Soldado. The Keep was a death sentence, and she had stopped him from escaping. She had betrayed the man who had rescued her. And had saved Noah Stone’s life.

  And for what? For preventing the killing of an innocent man. Where was the justice in that?

  Sleep refused to come. After Chloe’s breathing eased into the easy rhythm of slumber, Jewel left the bed to sit in the living room and wrestle with the horror of her dream—and what she had done to Hank Soldado.

  As she struggled with what she might have done, should have done, she realized that Noah Stone was a part o
f it, too. The laws that had doomed Soldado came from Stone and his Alliance.

  Soldado had rescued Noah from Earl’s bullet, and in return Noah and his Alliance had tossed Hank Soldado into a deathtrap.

  Noah Stone, the guy who kept promising to help.

  So what was she gonna do about that?

  Confronting Evil

  Marion shook her head. Focus! Her thoughts had been so fractured since Suzanne— Focus! She took the top manila folder on the morning stack and removed the papers. Wishing they’d fix the air-conditioning in her office, Marion fanned herself with the folder.

  She called Tiffany Horowitz. “How are you doing on the so-called ‘inquiry’ that put Hank Soldado in prison?”

  “Appears legal. It can be appealed, but you know how long that takes. Ah, I reviewed that book you sent for, too.”

  “Book?”

  “Justice Through Truth and Advocacy. The one by Noah Stone and the chief justice? Their ideas about advocacy instead of adversity are starting to make sense to me.”

  It bothered Marion that they were starting to make sense to her, too. But she had a job to do and a Constitution to defend. “I’ve seen their ideas railroad a man into prison without a proper defense. It’s your job to find a way to stop them.” Yes, Hank Soldado was guilty, but he was entitled to a defense. The oh-so-agreeable process of the Alliance’s advocates had hardly been a rigorous defense.

  Wasn’t he entitled to that? Even if he was admittedly guilty?

  Even though she had seen them find the truth?

  Sounding as though she’d been scolded, Tiffany muttered, “Yes, ma’am.”

  Marion hung up, opened a desk drawer, and took out a bottle of scotch. She half-filled a coffee mug and sipped. Her gaze went to the chair where Suzanne had sat to talk so many times. The knot of grief that seemed permanently stuck in her throat threatened to swell and cause more tears. She numbed it with a swallow of scotch.

  She toggled her intercom. “No interruptions.”

  If she and Suzanne had lived in Oregon, the man who had killed Suzanne would be in the Keep because of his earlier crimes, and most likely dead. And even if he hadn’t been, Suzanne could have defended herself with a stopper. Her attacker would have known that and maybe not even tried.

  Anger rose. Where were Noah Stone’s grand ideas when Suzanne had needed them? He should have saved her!

  She shook her head. That was crazy; Noah Stone had nothing to do with Suzanne’s death. Her killer was on the street because of a broken-down legal system.

  Marion was the nation’s chief law officer.

  Wasn’t Suzanne’s death her fault?

  Her phone rang, the direct line. “Yes?”

  “This is Joe Donovan, ma’am.”

  Damn, she should have made sure to see him in Ashland. “Glad you called, Joe. I was going to call you and Sally—”

  “This is a courtesy call, Ms. Smith-Taylor. Our resignations are in the mail to you, but I thought it was only right to let you know that we’re going to work for Noah Stone.”

  “But why . . . Oh. Now that Soldado is gone, he’s scared.”

  “With good reason, ma’am. He’s been shot at twice.”

  She stood and paced to work off her anger. “He’s got a lot of nerve, stealing my agents.”

  “It was us who went to him. We like what he’s doing.”

  Okay, live with it. “I understand. Do me a favor and keep me informed?”

  “We owe you that much. Stone will be okay.”

  Why was she concerned? Stone was the guy ripping holes in the Constitution.

  But he was making things work better out there, wasn’t he?

  It was time she had a conversation with Noah Stone. He didn’t seem like a fanatic. Maybe she could get him to see how wrong it was to subvert the Constitution no matter how worthy his goals were. Maybe there was a way to work with him for change without destruction. She checked her schedule. She could be there in two days.

  After asking her new secretary to get her to Ashland, she took out a notepad and started organizing her arguments.

  An hour later, she realized that she was feeling like the defense on a losing case, not the prosecution of a successful one. Marion called for coffee and went back to work.

  Into the Belly of the Beast

  It was a few minutes before a clock on the wall reached nine o’clock in the morning when Arnie, flanked by two stopper-carrying guards, gave each prisoner a long look and said, “I urge you one last time to do the therapy.”

  Trying to sleep on a jail cot made Hank contrary. He’d have probably said no even if he’d wanted to do it. He yawned. Dalrymple didn’t take Arnie up on the offer, either.

  Arnie said, “As you wish.” He held out an arm, one hand decorated with a multicolored Alliance ring. “Now put one arm through the bars. If you’re right-handed, make it your left arm, left-handed, make it the right.”

  Hank did as told, and Dalrymple followed suit. A guard slipped a cold band of dull gray metal around his wrist and clicked it shut. It was a tight fit, and where the ends met there was only a hairline crack; no way he’d be prying it apart. There’d be no sliding it over his hand, either, unless every bone was pulverized.

  Arnie said, “Your wristband carries a transmitter that sends a signal unique to you. We have receivers located over a two-hundred-mile radius.

  “The band is titanium alloy, and nothing in the Keep can cut it—the hardest metal inside is the aluminum trays in mess kits. The bracelet also monitors your body temperature. If it falls low enough for long enough, we’ll know that you’re either dead or the band is no longer on you, which would mean that your hand has been cut off or crushed to a pulp. With no medical care in the Keep, that probably means you’re dead. It has happened.”

  Hank started to hate the band.

  “If you get past the fence and survive the climb to the desert floor, there are no public roads or other human habitations for a hundred miles in any direction. Or water, or shelter. There is, however, a population of rattlesnakes and scorpions. Even if you make it that far, helicopters will still track you down through the wristband.”

  Damn.

  The other guard put two neat stacks of supplies on a table outside the barred elevator area. Arnie pointed. “Blankets, another coverall, underwear, socks, a toothbrush and toothpaste, needle and thread, soap and towel. You have the pamphlet and the video.

  “The elevator takes you to the release room on the top of the butte, which looks like this . . .” He swiveled a monitor on his desk so they could see the picture. Hank made out a bare room with a metal door in the far wall. Arnie tapped the screen and said, “This door takes you into the exit chamber. Because of the air pressure needed to hold up the prisoner buildings, the chamber is an airlock with two doors.”

  The view cut to a smaller room with another door. Arnie tapped the screen and indicated a panel beside the door. “You push this button. Be sure you’re clear when the doors close—they’re powered by hydraulics at ten tons of pressure per square inch. When the first door is closed behind you, and only then, you can open the outer door into the Keep. If you’re lucky, nobody will be waiting.”

  Hank asked, “What if we don’t want to go out?”

  “I guess you won’t be eating. You’ll get pretty thirsty, too.”

  “What if somebody stays in the elevator?”

  Arnie shrugged. “It sits there until it’s empty; we’ve got the time.”

  “Outside the exit chamber?”

  “You’re on your own. You find a bed for yourself, get your own food, force somebody to get it for you, whatever—there’s plenty, all ready-to-eat. There are more clothing and sundries, tables, beds, and chairs.” He grinned. “All the necessities are provided to everyone, equally. Each building has toilet facilities and showers. You can stay in the building attached to the exit room or go to another. A conveyor delivers food to the supply area in the first building.”

  He tossed a set
of keys to the short, wide guard. “All right, Mannie, let’s start with Mr. Dalrymple.”

  The guard opened Dalrymple’s cell door. Dalrymple didn’t move. The guard reached in and hauled him out by an arm.

  Looking for any angle that could be turned into an escape, Hank said, “Let’s say I decide to do the therapy after I’m up there. How do I get back out?”

  Arnie grimaced. “Shit, I’m sorry, I left out the most important part.”

  Mannie and Dalrymple paused. Arnie walked to a Plexiglas plate in a metal frame affixed to the bars outside the elevator. “By the exit chamber door inside the Keep there’s a panel like this. Hold your wristband up to it; a detector reads your code and the door opens for fifteen seconds. Once you’re inside the room, we’ll talk. The door won’t open again for twenty-four hours unless I trigger it to let you back out.”

  The guard escorted Dalrymple to his supplies. Arnie pushed a button on his desk, the double-barred door opened, and Mannie guided Dalrymple into the elevator and then returned for Hank.

  The second guard stood with his stopper ready.

  Now was the time. Up in the Keep, there wouldn’t be a key to take the wristband off, and there was that fence and a hundred miles of nowhere. Down here, there was a nice helicopter that Hank knew how to fly.

  When Mannie reached for him, Hank grabbed his wrist and yanked. When the guard stumbled forward, Hank clubbed him on the side of the head with a fist. Mannie dropped, and Hank wrenched the stopper from his holster. He turned it on the other guard.

  Hank didn’t know which button did what, so he pressed the first and second. Nap beads shot out, followed by a liquid stream that hit the guard’s face. The guard twitched and staggered, his eyes clamped shut.

  As Hank swung his weapon toward Arnie, tangle from Arnie’s stopper pinned his gun hand to his side.

  Arnie smiled. “Drop it. Unless you’d like to go into the Keep napped.”

  Hank opened his hand as best he could. The stopper fell through a gap in the tangle web.

  Pressing a button on his desk, Arnie said, “I need help in here.”