15
Freddy Hagerman lurched in his seat, praying that the rusty undercarriage of his 1989 Subaru didn’t fall out on the rutted dirt road. It would make for one hell of a long walk back to the highway. But the old girl hadn’t let him down yet. It was why he had nicknamed her The African Queen, after the boat in one of his favorite old Bogart movies.
In an odd way, he felt like Bogey right now, lurching along this rough New Mexico dirt road as the sun sank toward the western horizon. He hadn’t seen any rattlesnakes yet, but surely they were out there waiting for him, coiled under bushes and rocks, every bit as menacing as the leeches that had awaited Bogey in that African river. His sense of isolation was heightened because Freddy hadn’t seen a house, car, or person since he had left the county road an hour ago. And Freddy didn’t even have a bossy Katherine Hepburn to keep him company.
The thought of bossy women reminded him of his ex-wives. Maybe solitude wasn’t that bad after all.
He glanced over at his satchel, sitting on the passenger seat beside him. Inside it, along with his Nikon camera, rolls of film, and his tape recorder, was the letter that had sent him scurrying to New Mexico as fast as the old car could carry him. Two days of hard driving had brought him to Taos. From there, it had taken a number of stops at courthouses to find the exact location of the spot he was looking for. Even with the GPS device, his one surrender to modern digital technology, it had taken most of the rest of the day to find the right set of barbed wire gates to get this far.
The letter had come via overnight mail. In all the years he had known the retired New York City medical examiner, Freddy had never gotten anything from Benny Marucci that wasn’t sent at the cheapest postal rate possible. Yet there it was: an overnight, registered letter, with its Little Italy postmark.
Benny was one of the few old Italians left in what had once been the heart of Italian New York City. Now, for all intents and purposes, it was a part of Chinatown. Most of the Italian families had long since departed, including Benny’s. But not Benny Marucci.
His father had been a mob boss. His three brothers had risen through the ranks of the family business from low-level enforcers to high-ranking crime figures. Two of them had died under a hail of bullets in Morris Park and the other died in prison. But somehow Benny had served thirty years as a New York City M.E. while eating Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners with the mob. Having survived numerous investigations by Internal Affairs and a couple of hit attempts, Benny had just kept on working until he hit the mandatory retirement age.
Benny Marucci was a bulldog of a man, even now, late into his seventies.
The letter had confirmed that the fingers strung onto the necklace had been cut from the female victims while they were still alive with a guillotine-style cigar cutter. The fingers were from five different women, each of whom had been reported missing in northern New Mexico in the last year. Benny had included pictures and short bios of each. All of them were in their twenties, beautiful, and rich.
But it was the contents of the microscope slide specimen that had caused Benny to send the response with such urgency.
It was a razor-thin slice of human heart tissue. By calling in a few old debts, Benny had gained access to the DNA record of one Carlton “Priest” Williams and had verified that the sample was, in fact, his. The man’s records after joining the military were only partially available, indicative of a highly classified position. His discharge under other than honorable conditions in 2002 did not elaborate on the reasons.
What made the sliver of heart pressed between the glass slides so astounding was the blood. It was infested by something that Benny could not identify, other than to say that it contained a high concentration of microscopic machines of unknown manufacture and purpose. Benny had never seen anything like it and didn’t seem to think anyone else had either.
The letter had ended with just three words. “Be careful, paesano.”
Unfortunately, careful wouldn’t get it done for Freddy. These last few years had been filled with a growing sense that he was buried under circumstances beyond his control, doomed to a life of mediocrity in Hicksville, USA. Now he had been handed a chance to dig himself out, and he wasn’t going to give that up in the name of caution.
As the Subaru crested a steep rise, he saw it: an odd little ranch house nestled in a draw, so run-down its rusty tin roof drooped like the brim of a wet cowboy hat. Several wooden outbuildings sat off to one side, the barn so poorly maintained that the back third had fallen down. The entire compound was surrounded by a barbed wire fence, the gate of which lay open, its supporting post having rotted off near the ground.
As Freddy pulled up in front of the house and killed the engine, the sun finished sinking behind the western hills, painting the sky with scarlet. An old windmill stood silhouetted against the red skyline, several of its blades missing. Freddy was fairly sure that blades was not the correct term for them, but what the hell. Windmills, or any of this farmer shit, weren't exactly his specialty. Still, something about the sight of the tall structure with its missing appendages, backdropped by the red sky, sent a shiver down his back.
Freddy reached across the seat, grabbed his camera and an old metal flashlight, and slammed the car door. He started to lock it, then stopped. If someone came by and stole the old clunker, all the way out in this godforsaken spot, he just wasn't meant to have the damn thing.
Turning toward the old house, Freddy flipped on the flashlight. At first, it failed to respond, but after a couple of thumps, the batteries engaged the contacts, bathing the ground in front of him in a yellowish beam. The twilight sky still held enough light that he didn't really need the extra light, but the shadows from the overhanging porch made him skittish.
Three concrete steps led up onto the porch. It wasn't much, just a dozen feet of poured cement under a six-foot overhang. A rocker that looked nearly as old as the house sat to the left of the front door. It probably gave an excellent view of the broken windmill and crumbling barn. All that was missing was some mangy old mutt humping his leg and he'd be in redneck heaven.
The screen door didn't squeak when he opened it. Odd. A quick examination of the hinges showed the first sign of recent maintenance that he’d seen in a dozen miles. They were brass and had been recently installed, so someone had been living here. Somehow, Freddy doubted that someone was old man Graves.
From what he had been able to discover of the old hermit, Delbert Graves hardly ever came to town, a fact that didn't break too many hearts. He was reputed to be an old survivalist, mean as a snake and stupid as a fence post. The man didn't like anyone, and they returned the favor. His taxes were paid up for two years in advance so nobody bothered him.
From the look of the place, Delbert didn't seem like the type who would have bothered putting new hinges on the screen door. But the squeaking had bothered someone enough to do it.
Freddy expected the front door to be locked, but it wasn't. The door swung inward into the kitchen. On impulse, Freddy reached over and flipped the light switch. Nothing. The whole house probably ran on generator power, and he wasn't about to go around looking for that. Shit, he probably wouldn't know how to start the thing if he found it.
Sweeping the yellow beam around the small room, Freddy stepped all the way inside, closing the door behind him. A small rectangular table with a single chair sat against the window. An old wood-burning stove stood beside the sink. The only electrical appliance was the refrigerator. He opened it just long enough to confirm that the generator had been off for quite some time. What may have been food several weeks ago had been reduced to a foul-smelling mess.
A narrow opening led out of the kitchen into the living room. Lovely. One overstuffed chair in front of the fireplace. If it had faced the window, someone could sit there and watch the weeds grow.
Freddy moved across to the bedroom and its adjoining bathroom, the last of the rooms in the small house. Here he paused, letting the flashlight play across the walls and furniture. The darkness inside was nearly complete. Considering the tiny dimensions of the rest of the house, the bedroom appeared disproportionately large. A king-size bed, complete with log headboard, occupied the far wall, while a dresser and a small closet took up most of the wall to Freddy's right. A single nightstand occupied a spot next to the right side of the bed. Other than the ceiling light, currently useless, there were no other lamps. Evidently, neither Delbert nor the house's more recent occupant was a big reader.
Just as Freddy was about to move toward the bathroom, he spotted the rug. It was a six-by-eight-foot rectangle of Indian design and looked out of place in the otherwise undecorated house. Freddy moved closer, bending down to examine the stitching. It was handwoven, obviously authentic and expensive.
Freddy had always had a reporter's nose. That, along with his annoying habit of putting it into everyone else's business, was what had made him one of the best. Something about this rug just smelled wrong.
A soft creaking sound caused him to swing the flashlight back toward the doorway. Just as he was about to lay it off to his imagination, he heard it again. It sounded like a loose board moving under weight.
Freddy straightened and moved back to the door into the living room. There was no use sneaking. If someone was there and hadn’t seen his flashlight, they were blind. The living room was empty, as was the kitchen beyond that. Once again, Freddy paused to listen. There it was again, along with another sound: the wind.
Freddy shook his head. It was only the wind picking up as the temperature dropped that was causing the old structure to shift and complain. Jesus H. Christ. He was getting jumpy as an old woman. But then again, Benny Marucci had never before warned him to be careful.
Freddy moved back into the bedroom and resumed his examination of the Indian rug. Why was it here?
Un-slinging the Nikon and checking the flash, Freddy began snapping pictures in rapid sequence and from a variety of angles. Sometimes just looking at the film as it developed in his darkroom revealed some little detail he missed while on location. Although this room appeared benign enough, something about that rug gave him the creeps.
Satisfied that he had captured everything, Freddy knelt down and gently pulled the rug to one side. No attempt had been made to conceal the trapdoor beneath it, except for the rug covering, which stood out like a sign along an empty highway. A simple handle with a sliding dead bolt secured the thing. There was no lock.
The dead bolt opened easily, another unusually well-maintained piece of this run-down property. Well, the people he’d talked to at the courthouse had said that Delbert Graves was a survivalist. You’d expect some sort of underground bunker on his place. How else would he survive the nuclear war?
Somehow, Freddy doubted that fear of impending nuclear attack was behind the well-oiled latch. Well, he wasn’t going to find any answers just staring at the closed trapdoor. Inhaling deeply, Freddy lifted it open.
He played the beam around the opening, leaning forward to look down into the hole. Iron rungs had been set into the concrete wall about a foot apart. The narrow opening continued downward for a few feet before opening into a room further down. Beyond that, the flashlight’s yellow beam was too dim to provide detail.
“Anyone down there?” The echo of his voice startled him, making Freddy feel even stupider than when he yelled out the question.
Looping the camera strap back over his shoulder, he swung his legs into the dark opening, gently lowering himself until his foot found a rung. It seemed solid. With the flashlight angled downward, he began climbing down, almost immediately enveloped by a coolness common to poorly insulated underground spaces. The place probably felt great in the heat of a New Mexico summer day, even at this high altitude. But with the arrival of night and the rapidly dropping temperature, he had become chilled.
Hell. That was probably why his hands were shaking.
At the bottom of the ladder, Freddy paused, shining the flashlight around the room. It was about ten feet across and of a similar width and constructed of unpainted concrete blocks. The ceiling was a dozen feet above his head. As he shined the flashlight around the room, Freddy wondered if the beam was getting dimmer. It was probably just his imagination. He was pretty sure he’d changed out the D cell batteries not long ago.
A steel door in the far wall was closed with yet another dead bolt. To his left, a large metal closet jutted outward into the room. Beside it, a long workbench contained an odd-looking assortment of tools and equipment. It took Freddy a couple of moments to realize what he was looking at. It was an ammunition-reloading workbench, complete with gunpowder scale, reloading dies, and other unfamiliar tools.
He opened the metal closet doors.
Holy shit. The bastard had been preparing for World War III. At least a dozen rifles and handguns hung in mounts along the back wall of the gun closet, although several of the racks were now empty.
Freddy moved to the closed steel door in the far wall. As he got close, he saw that the dead bolt had not been engaged and that the door was open a crack. As he touched the handle, he paused, listening. Nothing. Down here in the concrete underground bunker, the silence was nearly perfect. Even the roar of the wind outside and the creaking of the old house had been completely damped out.
He tugged. Damn the door was heavy, a blast door. God, it must have been a bitch getting the damn thing down here. It must have been lowered before the ceiling had been constructed.
Freddy edged inside, directing the flashlight beam at the ground before his feet. The cement floor looked cold, and indeed the chill in this room was worse than in the adjacent one. As it swept the room, the yellow beam of the flashlight revealed walls lined with red candles, a sink, a toilet, and a double bed. There was no other exit and only a six-inch airshaft in the ceiling provided ventilation.
Ahead, the sink looked filthy. As Freddy moved closer, the reason for the mess became clear. It and the floor around it were splattered with dried blood—lots of it.
Freddy swung the flashlight toward the bed. The blankets and sheets lay wadded at the end of the stained mattress. A set of chains and cuffs dangled from the steel frame. But it was the sight of the pillow and its pink pillowcase that brought moisture to his eyes. The pillowcase was covered with faint tearstains.
He moved back over to the sink, looking closely at the splatter pattern on the wall and on the floor. Strange that the blood trail did not extend more than a few feet from this spot. There was no sign that the sick bastard who had done this had bothered to clean it up.
Once again, Freddy began snapping pictures, pointing the camera by instinct as the bright flashing torched his night vision. Except for his own labored breathing, the only other sound to break the cellar’s stillness was the whine of the Nikon’s auto winder.
He changed film rolls twice. Then, deciding that he had recorded the scene from every angle, Freddy exited the room. As he readied his camera to capture the details of the weapons room, he froze.
There on the workbench beside the reloading press lay a journal, the corner of the book jutting out beyond the edge of the bench. Freddy knew he had been a bit distracted, but he was a reporter, a damn good one too. There was no doubt in his mind. That fucking book had not been there ten minutes ago.