The Echelon Vendetta

by David Stone

  “I’m Bo Cutler,” said the trooper—a captain, by his silver bars. The biting dust seemed to have no effect on him. “Nice to meet you. I got your call from D.C. You boys are with the Federales?”

  Dalton shook his head.

  “No sir. Not the FBI. We’re with another agency.”

  Cutler’s eyes narrowed and he showed them broad yellow teeth under his massive mustache. “That’s what I thought. Mr. Churriga’s

  274 | david stone

  medical insurance and his pension checks were sort of a clue. Okay. Let’s get this done.”

  They both nodded. Cutler led them through the doors and into a broad lobby with a floor of limestone blocks. A cluster of nurses stood together in one end of the lobby, under a huge oil painting of a buffalo herd flowing over the plains under a lowering veil of thunderclouds. Cutler nodded to the nurses, whose faces all wore the same shattered, shell-shocked look, and led the way down a long hallway that smelled of iodine and stale piss toward a set of stainless-steel doors at the far end. Two young troopers stood on either side of the doors. When Cutler got to within some sort of critical distance known only to the troopers, they braced up and snapped out a pair of salutes, palms flat, faces set and blank. The doors were marked CCU.

  Cutler bulled through the doors and turned left into a darkened room. Another trooper was sitting in a chair beside a hospital bed. He got to his feet and saluted as Cutler came into the room.

  The bed was inside a large clear plastic tent. In the bed, under a crisp pink sheet, lay a skeletal figure, bony chest rising and falling. A rack of monitors beeped and whirred behind the trooper, and a tall IV drip stood beside the tent. Tubes ran into the man’s arm and another snaked out from under the sheet, dripping into a receptacle under the bed. The room smelled of ozone and blood and antiseptic.

  Fremont came forward and looked at the man in the bed. The man’s face looked like a heap of raw meat. The lower part was a horror, a gaping red maw with a few pink molars showing. Fremont stood looking down at the man for a long time while Dalton and Cutler waited in silence. Finally Fremont turned away and looked at Cutler. “What happened to him?”

  Cutler sighed deeply, making his gun belt creak. “Like we told

  the echelon vendetta | 275

  you on the phone. Looks like the attacker peeled his face off. Skinned it, from the hairline to what was left of his jaw. The docs had already taken off a large section of Churriga’s lower jaw and some of the cheekbone, as you can see there. But the rest was pretty intact. Cancer was... aggressive. Rapid spread, so the docs say. But the cutter was— I guess he’d done it before. Worked fast but good.”

  “No one ...heard?” asked Fremont.

  “Nobody to hear,” said Cutler. “Only two nurses on the ward at the time. Both of them were dead. Throats cut. Mutilated.”

  “Before or after?” asked Dalton.

  “The guy spent some time with them before he cut their throats.”

  “Enjoying himself,” said Dalton, not as a question.

  Cutler nodded, his face grim.

  “This is about as bad a business as we’ve had in Butte for years, Mr. Dalton. Whole town is in a state. Anything you can tell us?”

  Dalton looked at Fremont, whose face was rock-hard and set. “I don’t know. What do you have right now?”

  “Lone man. Came down from up there near Elk Pass, from the boot trail. Big man, cowboy boots, left one with a worn-down heel. Figure the guy has a limp, pronates the heel a bit. He came in through the window of Mr. Churriga’s room. Patient was alone in the ward, heavily sedated. On a self-monitored morphine drip. His mind was... somewhere else. The cutter buzzed for a nurse, took her as soon as she walked into the room. Went to work on her. Finished up. Buzzed in the other one. Did her out in the hallway. Party time, you follow?”

  They followed.

  “Then he did something to Mr. Churriga’s IV drip and that brought Churriga up out of it. We figure he spent maybe an hour with Churriga. Cutter had no fear of being caught.”

  “Any cameras?” asked Dalton.

  Cutler shook his head. “No. It’s a hospice, not a bank.”

  “What about the drugs?”

  276 | david stone

  “Yeah, there’s drugs. But no one’s ever made a run at them before. Our Lady of the Rockies has a big facility and of course they have all kinds of security. This is a private clinic, not real well known.”

  “He’s breathing,” said Fremont. “Is he awake?”

  Cutler shifted in his stance, his face closing. “No. How you can tell? He’s not screaming. The nurses can’t handle that, not anymore, considering. I know you want to bring him up, see what he can say, but we’ve already done that, and to be honest I don’t think any of us has the heart to do it again. All the muscles of his face are sliced off, eyes gouged out, flesh and skin all gone. That’s living bone you’re looking at there. But if you want to, we’ll do it.”

  He stopped for a moment, breathing deeply. Then he looked hard at them, from one to the other and back, his pale-blue eyes glittering. “But . . . it’s not right,” he said finally.

  “Was he able to speak?” asked Fremont.

  Cutler shook his head. “How could he? No lips. No tongue. Jaw all hacked off.”

  “But he gave you something?” said Dalton.

  “Yeah. We brought him up far as he could stand it. He’s a brave man. Tougher than I am. One of the nurses held his hand. We asked him questions and he squeezed her hand. Once for yes. Twice for no. Took about an hour and then the nurse had to leave the room because the pain was getting pretty bad and the noises he was making...”

  “What did you get?”

  “Cutter was male. Big. Not a stranger.”

  “Crucio knew him?” said Fremont.

  “We think so. We asked him, was it someone from his past, somebody from his work. He indicated yes. We tried to spell it out, you know, start with ‘a’ and work through, but he kept going in and out. We got a few letters, we think. Definitely a ‘g’ and an ‘s.’ That mean anything to you boys?”

  the echelon vendetta | 277

  Fremont glanced at Dalton and then away. “No,” said Dalton. “Were you able to establish a perimeter?” “For what?” asked Cutler. “By the time the nurses came in for

  midnight, the guy was long gone. In and out. Gone. The cutter was here sometime around dusk Friday. We didn’t even try asking Mr. Churriga for a description until late Saturday afternoon. You heard what we got.”

  “Did the cutter leave... anything?” Cutler gave Dalton a sharp searching look. “Semen on the nurse

  in the hallway. Prints too.” “A lot of tissue was taken from Churriga’s face, it looks like.” Cutler’s expression twisted into a grimace. “Yeah. Several ounces,

  according to the ME.” “Where did it go?” Cutler looked down at his boots and then back up. “You know

  what ‘anthropophagi’ means?” Dalton and Fremont looked at the cop for a time. “Jesus Christ,” said Fremont. “The guy ate it? What the fuck

  makes you think that?”

  “Not all of the tissue taken from Churriga’s face was sliced off. Some of it was torn off. There are teeth marks. On Alice’s body, there’s also some bite marks. Same radius. Same dental pattern. Tissue taken there too. In chunks. Some of it we found elsewhere on the body. Showed signs of being— The docs called it ‘mastication.’ ”

  “Mother of God,” said Fremont, his face bone-white. “Yeah,” said Cutler. “Me too.” The image stunned Dalton and Fremont into silence. Cutler let

  them work it out for a time, and then said, “He left something else.” “I thought he might have,” said Dalton. Cutler gave him a sharp searching look. “You want to see it?” “Yes.” “Then come with me.”

  278 | david stone

  He turned to leave the room. Fremont reached out and stopped him, holding his arm. “What about Crucio? What happens to him?” “You kin to him, by any chance?” Fremont shook
his head, his eyes red and moist. “Then he stays where he is until he either dies or a relative shows

  up and gives us permission to ease him on through. Sorry.” “Can I stay with him a while?” asked Fremont. Cutler looked at him steadily, his face softening. “Sure. Alone?” “Would that be all right?” Cutler nodded to the trooper, who picked up his Stetson and left

  the room. When he was gone, Cutler looked at Fremont for a time.

  “He was a good friend? Mr. Churriga?” “Yes,” said Fremont, straightening his spine. “You ever in the service, Mr. Fremont?” “He was,” said Dalton. “Guess I won’t ask which branch,” said Cutler, smiling briefly at

  Dalton before he looked back at Fremont. “I can give you fifteen minutes,” he said. “No more. You follow?” “I follow,” said Fremont. Cutler turned away and led Dalton out of the room and down

  the corridor into a dead-end section sealed off with crime scene tape. He lifted the tape and held it while Dalton slipped under it.

  “It’s the room at the end there,” said Cutler, leading the way. The door to the ward was closed and sealed with a sticker carrying the crest of the Montana Highway Patrol. Cutler pushed the door open and walked into the ward room. Four stripped beds stood in the center of the room. The room smelled of Lysol and Dustbane.

  “It’s in the corner, where his bed was.” Dalton walked around the beds and over to an open space beside

  the echelon vendetta | 279

  a wide window, through which he could see a broad slope of stone mountain rising up six thousand feet. Halfway up the slope was a tall white statue of the Virgin Mary. He turned away and looked at the thing on the wall above the place where Churriga’s bed had been.

  Cutler was standing close behind him now. The man smelled of gun leather, raw anger, and stale cigarette smoke.

  “This mean anything to you?” he asked, after a silence.

  “Yes,” said Dalton. “You?”

  “It looks like sign,” said Cutler. “Indian sign.”

  “Indian? What kind of Indian?”

  “What kind of Indian?” said Cutler, in a snarl, his barely suppressed rage, his deep resentment of Dalton’s evasive answers, his soul sickness at the horror that had visited his town and left it forever scarred: all of this boiled up in a rush.

  “What kind? The twisted motherfucker psycho cannibal kind, I guess. You knew this thing was gonna be here. You’ve seen it before. You got anything useful to say to me, Mr. Dalton? You fucking well better. You better be ready to put me within arm’s reach of this

  280 | david stone

  cocksucker so I can rip his own fucking face off and feed it to my dogs. I got two dead girls and a lot of very upset people here. This town will never be the same. Hell, I’ll never be the same.”

  Dalton turned away from the scrawl and faced the cop. “You’re right. I think I know who the cutter is.” Cutler nodded, as if Dalton’s words had only confirmed his in

  stinct. “I figured you did. And now you’re gonna tell me.” “No. I can’t.” Cutler’s face seemed to freeze over. “You do not leave this room. I will take you apart, mister.” “Anything I tried to do for you would get shut down by Langley.” “You’re not in Langley, Bucky. You’re right here in front of me.” “I can give you something,” said Dalton. “What?” “My word.” “Your word?” “Yes. My word that your cutter will be dead in a week.” Cutler’s rocky face did not change. Threat, violence rose up

  around the two men like smoke from a fire. Dalton held his look. Finally, the trooper sighed. “This guy? He’s on a tear?” “Yes. So far we think he’s killed a man in Mountain Home, three

  more victims in London, another man in Italy. Now Mr. Churriga. And he’s getting . . . crazier. This eating thing . . . he’s losing himself. Coming apart.”

  “And you’re on him? I mean, solid leads? You’re... close?” “Yes. Real close.” “I don’t know you, Dalton. I don’t know how good you are.” “I’m good enough to take this man out.” Cutler’s look was searching, as if he was trying to see into Dal-

  ton’s soul. After a while his features altered. “I’ll want proof. Courthouse proof. DNA. The knife he used. Something I can show the families. There will be no... ambiguities.”

  the echelon vendetta | 281

  “You’ll get it.”

  “DNA, Dalton! Tissue. Blood. Take-it-to-the-hangman proof!”

  “One week.”

  “Seven days.”

  “At the longest.”

  Cutler turned and walked to the window, stared out over the mountain slopes for a while. He spoke after a time, still looking out the window, but seeing only what was burned into his memory forever. “Something you should know about me, Mr. Dalton. One of those young nurses this cutter mangled up was a girl named Alice Foley. My daughter Ellen grew up with Alice Foley. Alice was in our house every day. Like a second daughter. Her mother and I were close once. Long ago, when we were both young. Close. You understand me?”

  Dalton nodded, said nothing, and waited.

  “I don’t forget much, Mr. Dalton. You fade on me, you break this word to me, I will find you. And that will be a bad day for both of us, but not as bad for me as for you. You follow?”

  “I follow,” said Dalton.

  DALTON AND FREMONT WERE fifty miles west of Billings, running down a steep, winding grade with the twelve-thousand-foot peaks of the Absaroke-Beartooth Range rising up in the southwest, the rolling grasslands of eastern Montana opening up before them, and the yellow cloud of refinery smog that always hovers over Billings barely discernible on the eastern horizon.

  A long, haunted silence had gathered the two men up in separate solitudes since they left Butte, and now they were listening to a piercingly sad Rachmaninoff concerto. It came to an end.

  Fremont sighed and looked over at Dalton.

  “What did you do?” asked Dalton.

  “I took his hand. I put the morphine controller into it. He tight

  282 | david stone

  ened his fingers down on it. I pressed the feed button and I held his hand tight around it. After a few minutes his breathing got real slow. The monitor alarm started to beep so I turned the volume down. This nurse came to see what was going on. I shoved her out and closed the door on her. Locked it. Crucio flatlined a couple minutes later. I pulled the sheet up over him and walked out. The nurse and the trooper were standing there. She started to say something but the trooper put his hand on her shoulder and nodded to me. I walked out to car, waited for you.”

  Dalton looked at Fremont briefly. Since there was nothing to say, they agreed to say nothing, and they both went back to pretending to concentrate on the road ahead.

  Ten miles farther down the line and the clamor of the cell phone made him jump.

  It was Sally.

  She had the faxes.

  “This Gibson guy gets around. He used his ATM all over the Northwest in the last two months. He’s averaging two hundred a day. Must be paying cash for everything, because there are no debit-card payments. Just these cash withdrawals. In the months of August and September he went from Cody, Wyoming, to Mountain Home, Idaho, then to Missoula, and then to Coeur d’Alene.”

  “When was he in Mountain Home?”

  “Ahh . . . let’s see. He took out five hundred dollars from a First Idaho Credit Union ATM on Two Moons Way on Thursday, August thirty. At four in the morning.”

  “Can we get video of the withdrawal?”

  “From the ATM? Probably not, not after all this time. They usually loop the tape. And even if they still had it, we’d have to ask the FBI to do it, which Jack will never go for.”

  “Okay. What’s this tell us?”

  “It tells me the highest amount of cash activity was in the final

  the echelon vendetta | 283

  days of September and the first two days of October. He drew out four thousand dollars, at five hundred bucks a pop, going from Helena to Butte to Livingstone, back up to Bozeman, then Bi
llings, Hardin, Sheridan, the last at some place called Shell, Wyoming.”

  “Four thousand? How much money did he have in the account?” “Close to fifteen thousand.” “I thought he went bankrupt.” “Yeah. He was. I got the record of it, then I called this Pound-

  maker guy back. He pranced around the issue for a while but I got the impression that Gibson had used the ATM card to deposit over twenty thousand dollars cash in the middle of August.”

  “Did he say where Gibson got this twenty thousand?” “I didn’t have the time to push him. You want me to?” “Yes, if you can, after we hang up.” “May I get biblical on him?” “Please.” “Now I do have something here that connects to him to Porter.

  There’s every reason to believe that Gibson was, at the very least, in

  England around the time that Porter’s family got killed.” “I knew it. Thank you, Sally. Thank you.” “Well, let me lay it out for you. I checked his passport records

  and he flew United coach from Denver to Gatwick and was entry-stamped there by the Brits on October second. From there he passes out of mortal ken until he resurfaces back in Greybull, Wyoming, on October eleventh. Four days ago,” she added, helpfully.

  “Anything since then?” “He withdrew a thousand over two days in Greybull. That’s the

  end of the records. I pulled his file from Personnel.” “Any contact with Porter?” “None on the records. Most of the stuff in it is all about his beef

  with the IRS. He wrote fifty-six letters over a two-year period, starting in oh three. They went out to various honchos at the NSA,

  284 | david stone

  State, even wrote a few congressmen and the junior senator from Wyoming. The last one was written about three months ago, and it’s mostly scrawled gibberish. Across the top he’s written ‘culebra’ and ‘purgatoire,’ on the bottom he’s written ‘atone,’ references to something hidden, to a struggle—‘die born’—what looks like a

  U.S. flag with a skull—‘snake eater’—all of this in block capitals—the word ‘messenger,’ and it’s all clustered around this weird drawing...”