Mortal Fear m-1

by Greg Iles

  He looks past me to Drewe’s inert body. “Sheriff told me something about a basement? Someplace we didn’t search?”

  “It’s a bomb shelter. From the fifties. I think the killer could be hiding down there.”

  “State police say the guy got away in a plane.”

  “Then why the hell is Buckner still searching, Billy? They found tracks on an airstrip, that’s all. That could be hunters spotlighting deer. The FBI thinks there’s a group of people involved in these killings.”

  His eyes move quickly from side to side, like mechanical thought indicators. “A bomb shelter, huh? No shit. Old Pete Williams has one of those. Like a little underground trailer. Has a poker night down there sometimes.”

  “This one’s bigger,” I say impatiently. “There are tunnels running to it. One from the house, the other from outside.”

  “Where in the house?”

  “Pantry closet in the kitchen. There’s a trapdoor in the floor.”

  “Outside?”

  “There’s a weather-sealed door like a cellar entrance about seventy feet on a straight line from the back door of the house. In the cotton. It’s covered with dirt most of the time, but-”

  I stop too late. Billy’s eyes flash with animal cleverness. “Turner used it to sneak past us last week, right?”

  I don’t answer, but he sees the truth.

  “Goddamn. Okay, wait here a second.”

  I grab his meaty forearm and hold him. “Where you going?”

  “Tell Jimmy what’s up.”

  I don’t like the look in Billy’s eyes. “What did the sheriff tell you to do?”

  “Make sure you and your wife were safe till he got here.”

  “Don’t you think you should stay here, then?”

  He pulls his arm away. “Harp, they’re combing the whole county for the sumbitch that killed Erin. And he could be squatting under this house right now, maybe wounded. You think I’m gonna wait till he skips out that back tunnel? He coulda heard me hollering for you. I’m gonna put Jimmy out there to cover the back entrance.”

  I hate to admit it, but Billy’s plan makes sense.

  “You’ll be okay,” he says, pointing at my Magnum. “That’s a goddamn cannon you got there. I’ll knock twice when I get back.”

  Again I cover the closed door with manic concentration. When the two taps finally come and the door starts to open, I have to restrain myself from pulling the trigger. Billy’s sweating even more than before, and he’s exchanged his pistol for a pump shotgun.

  “You okay, Harp?”

  “Scared shitless.”

  “Don’t worry. Jimmy’s covering the back entrance.”

  “How can he find it in the dark?”

  Billy grins. “He’s a hunter, boy. Somebody pops up in that field, he’ll take ‘em down sure as shit.”

  This is nuts, I say silently.

  “You hang tough another minute, okay?” Billy backs toward the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  His eyes are hard and bright. “We got this sumbitch cornered, Harp. Like a fox. And I’m gonna nail his ass.”

  “What?”

  His smile disappears. “Don’t give me no shit now. I’m gonna work my way through the tunnel with the Remington while Jimmy covers the back door.”

  “Billy, don’t do it! Wait for Buckner.”

  He shakes his head. “You got lights down there?”

  “There’s a switch low on the right side of the pantry wall.” I can’t believe I’m telling him this, but I also can’t let him go down into that hole in pitch darkness, which he seems fully prepared to do.

  Billy slaps his open hand on the shotgun. “You just sit tight and cover your old lady. I got a tear-gas round, a gas mask, and the odds on my side.”

  My mind searches wildly for another solution, but alternate plans aren’t the problem. Getting Billy Jackson to abandon this one is. And nothing short of a presidential directive would do it.

  “Listen,” he says earnestly. “You want to see this asshole go to trial? Sit there in court with your crying wife and in-laws while a dozen lawyers scream objections and get this fungus sent to a mental hospital? Maybe even get him off? This way’s clean, Harp. Won’t be nobody down there but me and him. Boom-boom, it’s over. Case closed. You’ll never have to waste another thought on the guy.”

  The persuasive power of Billy’s scenario surprises me. He’s no scholar, but he’s got a firm grasp of hard realities.

  He squints at his watch in the shadows. “If I’m not back by the time Buckner gets here, tell him to give me five minutes and then gas the tunnel with CS. Got that?”

  “CS.”

  “Right. Then come in blasting.”

  “Jesus, Billy.”

  “And if you hear anybody coming out of that trapdoor that ain’t yelling ‘Billy Jackson,’ you blow ’em to hell and gone.”

  “I will.”

  “Semper fi, buddy.”

  Shit.

  CHAPTER 40

  There is no more threatening sound than silence. It is the symphony of the snake that waits for its prey to step within striking range, of the tiger that stalks the deer. It begins as mere absence of sound, but unrelieved, it can build steadily into a roar that blurs perception to the point of sense blindness. I know that blindness now, sitting with both hands gripping the butt of the Magnum as though it could transport Drewe and me to another dimension, far from this dangerous place.

  I count the seconds as rivulets of sweat across my face, as breaths entering and leaving the lungs of my sleeping wife. How long will it take Buckner and his men to get here? Even if they were at the north end of the county, it shouldn’t take more than twenty-five minutes. How many have passed? Five? Ten? Or two? Keep still, I tell myself. No way he’s down there. Kali is dead and Brahma limped out to his plane and got the hell out of here for good. He saw his lover die and -

  Two explosions close together smash the silence, rattling the foundation of the house. I jump to my feet, trigger finger quivering, heartbeat loosed from its rhythm.

  “Harper?”

  I whirl, bringing the gun around with me. Drewe is up on one elbow, her eyes barely open.

  “What’s happening?”

  “We’re in our bedroom. Lie down. We may be in trouble. We-”

  A third explosion shudders through the floorboards.

  Drewe’s eyes snap open. “What-?”

  An agonized wail like a cat in heat rolls out of the kitchen.

  “What was that?” she asks, her voice ragged.

  “Two deputies went down into the bomb shelter. Brahma may be down there.”

  Her fingers grip my wrist like channel-lock pliers.

  “Do you still have that pistol you used to use when I was out of town?” I ask.

  She nods. “In my dresser drawer.”

  “Which one?” I ask, pulling open the top one.

  “That’s it. God, I feel sick. Am I drunk?”

  Drewe’s pistol is a tiny Charter Arms.25 automatic Bob gave her when she went to medical school in New Orleans. An oddly inefficient weapon coming from a man like Bob, but I suppose he wanted her to be able to conceal it easily.

  “Whiiiite birrrd!” screams a voice that could have come from the pit of hell.

  “White bird? What…?”

  “He’s calling you,” says Drewe. “He’s saying Harper. Who went down there?”

  “Billy Jackson. Jimmy somebody.”

  “Harrrper! Heelll meeeee!”

  “The sheriff’s on his way,” I tell her, my tone strangely defensive.

  She nods quickly. “You can’t go down there.”

  This time the wail drags out much longer than before. “I’m bleeeedinn!”

  “I told him not to go down there. Damn!”

  As Drewe stares at me, willing me to deafness, I realize I’m in a position I’ve seen a hundred times in movies. Seen, and then screamed silently at the hero not to go into the woods or up the a
ttic stairs or wherever any half-intelligent person would know the monster or murderer was waiting. But sitting here now, in the awful silence following those screams, one fact is inescapable: I brought those men here. If I don’t help them, I will carry their lives on my conscience forever. And I’m already carrying too much.

  “Aaaaaaaaagghhh!”

  “Harper, you can’t do anything for them.”

  “I know,” I say softly. My right hand is clenched around the butt of the Magnum with painful force. The sheriff will be here before long. But Billy and his partner could be dead by then, and Brahma vanished into the summer night. Another prolonged shriek of pain reaches the bedroom, fainter this time.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “What?” Drewe asks. “No, you don’t! Why do you have to go?”

  “I just do.” Because this way it’s over one way or the other. If I kill Brahma-or even if he kills me-I’ll have done the only thing that could possibly expiate my guilt. I start to hand her the.25, then switch and give her the.357. Whatever else I do, I will not walk out of here leaving my wife no more protection than a crappy Saturday night special.

  Drewe takes the huge pistol with a kind of narcotized equanimity. I drop the extra shells on the bed. “I want you to get down behind the bed and aim the pistol at the door.”

  She rolls over without a word and kneels behind the bed.

  “If anyone comes through but me, you start shooting and don’t stop until the gun is empty. You understand?”

  She nods soberly. She knows I mean to go, and though she doesn’t want me to, she won’t waste time trying to talk me out of it. The barrel of the.357 comes level with the bed, then rises until its line of fire intersects my chest.

  “I’m okay,” she says. “Go.”

  Two words echo in my head as I stare through the open pantry at the black hole of the bomb shelter’s open trapdoor. Tunnel rat. Echoing down from years ago, when a one-armed tractor driver told me about his job in Vietnam. First man down every hole. Darkness, damp, stink. Crawling on your belly with a Colt.45 held in front of your face like a crucifix and a prayer on your lips.

  The lights in the tunnel should be on, but they’re not. Too late I realize I should have switched off the kitchen lights before opening the trapdoor. I creep close enough to peer over the edge. A pool of light on the concrete floor six feet below tells me there’s a dim column shining down from the kitchen. I want to call out to Billy, but that would be idiocy. Instead, I snatch a flashlight from the top pantry shelf and cut the kitchen lights. That’s almost as obvious as yelling, but climbing down a ladder through a column of light would be suicide.

  To get to the floor of the tunnel, I must descend six ladder steps with my left side facing the open tunnel. That’s the normal method, anyhow. Not tonight. Like a kid edging toward the lip of a high roof, I slide my legs through the dark, toward the place where I know the hole is. A tin can of something falls over the edge, caroms off the ladder, and thuds on the cement below.

  I stop, waiting.

  When the next howl of pain reverberates up the tunnel, I drop down the hole like a sack, my legs crumpling against the cool concrete, the flashlight buckling under my weight.

  Forcing myself to breathe quietly, I lie prone on the tunnel floor and stare into the blackness. The.25 feels like a toy in my hand. It might stop a surprised mugger or rapist, but a psychotic killer could take five bullets from this thing and keep coming.

  Move, I tell myself. You’re asking for it.

  Brahma could be sitting ten feet up the tunnel right now. I have only one advantage. Home ground. This passage runs thirty feet away from the house, with shelves lining both walls, and ends in a heavy lead door. That door opens onto the main shelter room, which is about fifteen-by-fifteen. A second tunnel runs thirty feet out into the field, to the rear exit. It too is lined with storage shelves and also contains a chemical toilet room. That’s where my gold is stored. Sliding as far as I can under the metal shelving on the left side of the tunnel, I shout: “BILLY! IT’S HARPER! WHERE ARE YOU?”

  At first I hear nothing. Then a slow creak of hinges.

  “Harper?” A weak Southern drawl.

  “Yeah!”

  “I’m hit, man! Bad! I need help!”

  “Where’s Jimmy?”

  A long pause. “Gone for a flashlight!”

  Jesus.“Anybody else in here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What happened to the lights?”

  “Don’t know. I heard something and shot and they went out.” Another groan of pain. “I need help, man!”

  Damn damn damn. “Billy?”

  “What?”

  “What year did you graduate high school?”

  “Nineteen-fucking-seventy-eight! Come on, man!”

  I aim the.25 straight at the sound of the voice, where paramecia-like blobs of color swirl in a black sea. “Where are you hit?”

  “My leg! I’m bleeding bad!”

  “Are you in the main room? Square room?”

  “I think so.”

  “Close the door! So that it’s between you and me!”

  While Billy mulls over this instruction, I slither to the center of the tunnel floor and rise into a crouch, the.25 in my right hand. The ceiling has exactly six feet of clearance-my grandfather was five-eleven-so if I stay down I’ll have plenty of room. And I mean to stay down.

  “I got you!” Billy yells finally. “Bring it on!”

  The metallic screech comes and fades so fast it barely registers before the lead door slams shut. I explode forward like a nose tackle coming out of his stance, my thighs pumping, charging toward the main room and firing as I run. In the closed tunnel the little.25 booms and flashes like a howitzer, deafening me to everything but the high zing of ricochets. I sweep my arm across the tunnel as I fire, trying to maximize the odds of hitting anything between me and the lead door. With my eighth step, I dive forward, scraping my elbows in a second-base slide and jamming my wrist as the empty pistol impacts the lead door.

  “OPEN UP!” I yell, hammering the butt of the.25 against the door. If Brahma’s inside, Billy is dead by now, but somehow I don’t think so. Billy’s enough of a redneck that he would die trying to save his honor-and me-before he’d let himself be used to lure me to my death.

  When the heavy door finally swings inward, I heave myself over the frame onto some part of Billy Jackson, who screams at the top of his lungs. I shut the door and roll off, still in darkness.

  “You okay, Billy?”

  “I don’t know.” His groans sound like manly attempts to cover whimpering. “This leg was pumping blood. I tied my belt just above the hole… tight as shit. Where’s that fuckin’ Jimmy?”

  I feel Billy’s thigh with my right hand, and what I feel is blood. Lots of it. “We’ve got to get you out.”

  “Need a stretcher,” he says, grunting against the pain. “Aaaagh, that fuckin’ Jimmy. He shot me!”

  “ What?You sure?”

  “Hell no, I ain’t sure. Hey… that was pretty smart what you did with the gun. Think you hit anything?”

  “No.”

  “Haaaaay!”

  I jump so badly that Billy feels compelled to steady me with one hand.

  “Don’t shoot, okay?” yells the new voice. “It’s Jimmy!”

  “About fuckin’ time, you asshole!”Billy bellows back.

  “Sheriff’s on his way!” says Jimmy, coming through the opposite door with a hooded flashlight. “Saw his lights. Must be ten cruisers coming up the highway!”

  “Great,” Billy says. “Shine that thing on my leg.”

  “Judas Priest,” Jimmy gasps as his light illuminates a ragged red hole in Billy’s blood-soaked trousers. “Jeez, I’m sorry, Bill.”

  “I think he’s okay,” I say. “If the bullet hit an artery, his thigh would be as big as a propane bottle. Just keep putting pressure on it.”

  Billy doesn’t look relieved, but as soon as I realize he’s out o
f danger, the real threat hits me. If Brahma’s not in the tunnels, where is he?

  “I’ve got to get back upstairs! Any more rounds in that shotgun?”

  “Ain’t no plug in this baby,” says Billy, handing me the Remington. “Three more rounds ready to go.”

  I pump in a round, kick open the lead door, and fire the moment the barrel is clear. Before the echo fades I am over the lip and charging back up the tunnel, homing on a barely visible column of light that must mark the opening of the trapdoor above. With every step I feel a knife blade whooshing out of the darkness to plunge into my groin or rip open my back. I fire again for intimidation, then dive for the ladder, saving the final round for the house.

  I come up out of the hole like a coal miner from a collapsed shaft, pushing the gun in front and yelling for Drewe as I enter the hall. When she answers through the bedroom door, I pause.

  “It’s all right!” she shouts again. “Come in!”

  I stand to the side and turn the knob slowly, then kick open the door and jump back in case she’s being forced to speak. She is just where I left her, kneeling behind the bed with the big-barreled Magnum propped in front of her like a mortar.

  “What happened?” she asks.

  “Billy’s hit. He’ll make it, though. No sign of Brahma.”

  The Magnum drops hard onto the bedcovers. “Harper,” she says in an exhausted voice, “does Mama know about Erin?”

  “Your father does. I told him. He chartered a plane in Memphis. He’s home by now, and I’m sure he’s told your mother.”

  Drewe is crying again. “I’ve got to be there,” she chokes out. “They need me.”

  “Throw some clothes in a bag. You’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  While she wipes away the tears and goes to her closet, I stand watch with the shotgun.

  “Have you packed already?” she asks.

  I don’t meet her eyes. “Do you really think I’d be welcome there tonight?”

  When I look up, she is staring at me with her mouth open. “You know it was Brahma that was here tonight, don’t you?”

  I nod. “It had to be.”

  “And it wasn’t an accident, was it? It wasn’t random.”

  “No. Drewe-”

  “Don’t tell me,” she says, shaking her head. “I can’t think about that now. Oh God.”