CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LOUIS TURNED SOUTH SOME five miles west of Massena. After a further six miles, they passed a series of U-shaped pools filled with still water, and old mining works falling into decay, the only remnants of the Leehagen talc mine. Farther back, now slowly being reclaimed by nature, were the ruins of Winslow. They could not see them in the gloom, but Louis knew that they were there. He had seen them on Hoyle’s photographs, and had memorized their position down to the nearest fraction of a mile, just as he knew the position of the two unmarked roads that curved southwest across the Roubaud Stream and into Leehagen’s land. They came to the first intersection after sixteen miles had appeared on the clock. It was marked
“Private Property,” and led to the first bridge over the Roubaud. Louis slowed. To their right, a flashlight blinked once from the trees: Lynott and Marsh, making their presence known. Louis and Angel followed the road for another three miles until they came to the second bridge. Again, they were signaled from somewhere deep among the trees: Blake and Weis. The Endalls, meanwhile, had entered Leehagen’s property under cover of darkness shortly after midnight and had traveled, on foot, to the ruins of the old cattle pens, there to keep watch on Leehagen’s house and await the arrival of Angel and Louis. As with the three main pairs, there was no way to communicate with them now that the operation was under way. It did not matter. Everybody knew what had to be done. Phones would have helped, but they were not an option, not here.
The only ones who were not yet in place were Hara and Harada. They were still in Massena, and would leave only at a prearranged time once Angel and Louis had entered Leehagen’s property, in order to avoid the possibility that a miniconvoy of cars might draw attention to what was about to occur.
Once Louis was satisfied that the bridge teams were in place, he crossed the southern bridge onto Leehagen’s land. They saw no lights, passed no other cars, nor detected any signs of life on the road. Mostly, the land around them was forest, so they were hemmed in on both sides by trees, but on two occasions they came to man-made breaks in the tree line, hundreds of feet wide: Leehagen’s grazing acres. After two miles, they took a dirt road north again, the forest beginning to thin here, until they came to an old barn, pinpointed on one of their maps, that stood beside an abandoned farm, and there they left the car. They were less than half a mile from Leehagen’s house, and to drive any farther would be to risk alerting its residents, for it was quiet here. They armed themselves with Glocks and a pair of Steyr TMP 9mm submachine guns fitted with suppressors and carried on slings, leaving the rest of their mobile armory in the trunk. This was to be a killing raid, fast and brutal, and they did not anticipate the need for longer-range weapons. The Steyrs were simple and effective: easily controllable despite an effective range of up to twenty-five meters; light, with an empty weight of just under three pounds; limited recoil; and a cyclic rate of nine hundred rounds per minute. They each added a spare thirty-round magazine for the Steyrs, and a spare clip for the Glocks.
Ahead of them lay the cattle pens, twin wooden single-story structures painted white. Nearby, a modern blue grain elevator towered over the lower buildings. Angel could smell the lingering odor of excrement and cow urine, and when he looked inside the first of the pens he could see that they had not been cleaned since the animals had been slaughtered. Louis checked the pens to the right, and once they were sure that both were empty, they moved on, using the buildings for cover until they came to the bottom of a small hill that overlooked the Leehagen house about a quarter of a mile to the west.
Louis had never had any intention of taking Leehagen with a long-range shot, even if the old man had been more mobile than he was. It was not one of his particular skills, even less so since the damage suffered to his left hand while they were in Louisiana with Parker some years before. Had such a shot been available to him, there was no way of knowing if Leehagen might actually have been fit enough to take the air that particular morning, and then there was always the weather to consider. After all, a sick man was hardly going to be wheeled around his property in the cold, and the forecast was for heavy rain. But there was also the son to be dealt with. Louis wanted him as well. If he killed the father and left the son alive, then the vendetta would continue. Both had to be taken out at the same time. That meant killing them in the house, with Louis and Angel entering while the Endalls provided cover. It would be done as quietly as possible with silenced weapons to limit the possibility of gunfire drawing unwanted attention to what was being done, but Louis knew that such hopes might well prove optimistic. He didn’t believe that they could get in and out entirely unnoticed, and he recognized that they might well end up fighting their way off Leehagen’s land. At least they would not have to do so alone, and Leehagen’s men would be no match for their ten guns.
“Where are they?” whispered Angel.
Louis stared back at the empty pens. This was where they were supposed to rendezvous, but there was still no sign of the Endalls.
“Shit,” hissed Louis. He considered their options. “Let’s take a look at the house, see if there’s any sign of movement.”
“What?” asked Angel. “You’re not going ahead without them?”
“I’m not doing anything yet. I just want to see the house.”
Now it was Angel’s turn to swear, but he followed Louis to the brow of the hill. The house lay before them, surrounded by a white picket fence. A lamp burned dimly in one of the upstairs windows, but otherwise all was quiet. Behind the house, the lake was a deeper patch of darkness extending toward unseen hills. Louis put a pair of binoculars to his eyes and scanned the property. Beside him, Angel did the same, although his attention was less on the house than on the deserted buildings behind him, so even as he looked to the north he was listening for the sounds of approach from the south.
They kept watch on the house for five minutes, and still the Endalls had not appeared. Angel was growing nervous.
“We need to—” began Angel, when Louis hushed him with a raised hand.
“That lit window,” he said.
Angel put the binoculars to his eyes once more, and barely caught sight of what had alerted Louis before the white drapes fell back into place again: a woman at the window, and then a man pulling her away. The woman had blond hair, and Angel had clearly seen her face, if only for a second.
It was Loretta Hoyle, Nicholas Hoyle’s deceased daughter, now apparently back from the dead.
“The last time we saw her, she was being eaten by hogs, right?” said Angel.
“That’s right.”
“She’s looking good on it.”
But already Louis was on his feet.
“We’ve been set up,” he said. “We’re out of here.”
Lynott and Marsh were sitting in their Tahoe. It turned out that they had certain shared tastes in music, among other things. Marsh had brought his iPod, and the stereo had an MP3 socket, so they were now listening to Stan Getz’s Voices. It was a little too close to the middle of the road for Lynott and did not, he felt, represent Getz at his best, but it was restful and suited his mood. From where they sat, just off a woodcutter’s trail, they could see any cars that might pass before them, and part of the bridge on the other side of the road, but they remained invisible among the trees. Only someone approaching from the west on foot would have a chance of seeing them, and then only if he got up close. In the event of that happening, the person in question would have reason to regret his proximity.
On the backseat of the Tahoe were eleven pint bottles of water, a large flask of coffee, four prepacked sandwiches, and some muffins and candy bars. Again, this was Marsh’s doing. Lynott had to give him credit for thinking ahead, even if he was starting to regret having some of the coffee and one of the bottles of water from the twelve-pack.
“I need to take a leak,” he said. “You want me to do it in the empty bottle?”
Marsh looked at Lynott as if he had just asked if Marsh would like it if he took a leak on him.
“Now why would I want you to do that? You think I get off on seeing men urinate in bottles? I don’t even get off on women doing that.”
“Just thought I’d ask,” said Lynott. “Some guys are sticklers for staying with the vehicle.”
“Not when it comes to anything below the waist I’m not. Go find yourself a little privacy.”
Lynott did as he was told. It was good to stretch his legs, and the air was cool and smelled of green leaves and clear water. He walked slowly into the woods, moving perpendicular to the gradient, taking care not to slip on the wet ground and fallen leaves. He found a suitable tree, then took a look over his shoulder to make sure that he still had the Tahoe in sight before turning his back and unzipping his fly. The only sound in the forest was the none-too-gentle trickle of liquid upon wood, and Lynott’s accompanying sigh of relief and contentment. Suddenly, a third sound was added to the mix: the shattering of glass, and a noise that was somewhere between a sigh and a cough. Lynott identified it immediately, and his gun was in his right hand even as he used his left to tuck his member back into his pants, ignoring the unwelcome trickle that accompanied the move. He took two steps before something impacted on the back of his skull, and then he was dead before he even realized that he was dying.
Angel resisted telling Louis that he’d told him so.
They moved along opposite sides of the cattle pens, their guns always moving, sighting down the barrels on the empty doorways, the dark windows, alert for even the slightest sign of movement. They reached the barn unchallenged. It seemed unchanged from when they had left it, its doors closed to hide the car within. They paused and listened intently, but heard nothing. Louis signaled to Angel to open the left door, counting down from three. Angel’s mouth was dry, and there was an ache in his belly. He licked some perspiration from his upper lip as Louis’s fingers silently made the count then, as the final finger fell, he yanked the door open.
“It’s clear,” said Louis, then added, “but it’s not good.”
The car was resting too low to the ground on one side, like a lopsided smile. The tires on the right had both been slashed. The driver’s-side window had been broken, and the hood had been raised and then allowed to fall back down without locking. Louis remained at the door, keeping watch, while Angel moved inside. He could detect no movement. An empty field stretched from the back of the barn toward the forest, but he could make out little in the distance apart from the shapes of the trees.
Angel squatted in front of the car and carefully raised the hood a fraction. He took a tiny Maglite from his pocket, switched it on, and held it between his teeth before picking up a piece of wood from the ground and slowly running it along the gap between the body of the car and the hood. There were no wires that he could find. He raised the hood a little farther with his left hand and, with the flashlight in his right, examined the engine. He could see no springs, no pads, no devices that might be activated by the raising of the hood. Nevertheless, he drew a deep breath before he lifted the hood fully. It took him only a moment to figure out what had been done. He could smell it before he saw it.
“They blew the fuse panel,” he said. “This baby isn’t going anywhere.”
“Guess we walk.”
“Kids?”
“You see the local gangbangers while we was passing through?”
“No, but this is, like, rural. Maybe they were hiding.”
“Yeah, ’cause they was so scared of the big city boys.”
Louis took one last look around, then stepped into the garage and headed straight for the trunk of the car. He put his finger upon the release button, then paused before pushing it and glanced at Angel.
“There was nothing up front,” said Angel.
“That’s reassuring. Maybe you want to take a couple of steps away, just in case.”
“Hey, if you go, I go, too.”
“Maybe I don’t want you to go, too.”
“You want someone to mourn for you later?”
“No, I just don’t want you with me for eternity. Now step the fuck back.”
Angel moved away. Louis hit the button, flinching only slightly as he did so. The trunk popped open, and Louis swore. Angel joined him.
Together, they stared into the trunk.
Weis and Blake had no music in their car, and they had long ago exhausted their store of mutual acquaintances. It did not trouble either of them. They were men who valued silence. Although, true to form, neither had said it aloud, each admired the other’s essential stillness. The inability to remain quiet and unmoving for long was one of the reasons Weis detested Lynott. Their paths had last crossed in Chad, where they had nominally been fighting on the same side, but Weis considered Lynott to be unprofessional, a thief, and a man of low morals. But then, Weis was a man who hated easily, and already he had begun to notice Blake’s breathing, which, stillness or no stillness, he felt was uncomfortably loud. There was nothing to be done about it, he supposed, short of suffocating him, and that seemed like an overreaction, even to Weis. Curiously, Blake was thinking exactly the same thing about Weis but, unlike him, he was not a man who felt compelled to simmer quietly. He turned to Weis.
“Hey—” he said, and then the passenger-side window exploded beside Weis’s head, the roar of the shotgun almost deafening Blake in his left ear, and suddenly Weis had a head no longer. A warm redness descended on Blake as Weis’s torso toppled toward him, but by then Blake was already below window level, yanking the door handle and tumbling to the ground, his gun in his hand as he fired blindly, his vision clouded by Weis’s blood, knowing that the noise and the fear of a stray round hitting its target might be enough to buy him crucial seconds. He must have been lucky, he realized, for as he blinked the blood away he saw a man in a green and brown camouflage poncho fall to the dirt, but Blake didn’t stop to take in what he had done. All that mattered was to keep moving. If he stopped, he would die. He felt pain in his head and shoulder, and knew that some of the pellets must have hit him, but a combination of Weis and his good fortune in being seated a little farther forward than his late companion had saved him from the worst of the blast.
Shots impacted around him as he ran, and one passed so close to his left cheek that he felt the heat of its passage and thought that he could almost see the bullet as it flew, a spinning mass of gray tearing the air apart. Then the trees were growing thicker around him, and another shotgun blast shredded a branch not far from his head, but he kept moving, veering from left to right and back again as he went, using the trees for cover, giving them no clear shot at him. He heard the sounds of their pursuit, but he did not look back. To do that, he would have to stop, and if he stopped they would have him.
He took a deep breath into his lungs, preparing for a burst of speed that might buy him more vital time, and then his face collided with a hard object, and his nose broke and his teeth shattered, and for a moment he was blinded once again, this time by white light, not blood. He fell backward, but even as he did so his instinct for survival remained sharp, for he held on to the gun as he hit the ground and fired in the direction of the collision. He heard someone grunt, and then a body fell upon him, pinning him to the ground. The white light was fading now, and there was fresh pain in its place. The man was spasming against him, blood pouring from his mouth. Blake pushed him off, twisting his lower body to use both his own weight and the dying man’s to free himself of the burden. He staggered to his feet, still dizzy from the force of the blow that he had received, and the first shot took him in the upper back, spinning him and sending him to the ground again. He tried to raise the gun but his arm wouldn’t support the weight, and he could only lift it a couple of inches. Somehow he found the strength to fire, but the force of the recoil caused him to scream in agony and, involuntarily, he released his grip on the gun. He tried to lean over and reach for it with his left, but another bullet struck him, passing through his left arm and into his chest. He fell back upon the leaves and stared at the trees and the dark skies above. A man’s head appeared before him, his face obscured by a black ski mask. Two blue eyes blinked curiously at him. Then a third eye appeared, black and without emotion, and this one did not blink, not even as its pupil became a bullet and brought Blake’s pain to an end.
Two bodies had been crammed into the trunk of Louis’s car. The last of the season’s flies had already found them. Abigail Endall had been blasted in the chest. There was a lot of damage, the peppering at the edges of the wound and the shredding of her shirt suggesting the shot had been fired from a short distance away, enough to allow the pellets to spread but not enough to dissipate the force of the blast. Her husband had been killed at close range with a single pistol shot to the head, the gun held so close to his forehead that there were blistering and powder burns around the wound. Abigail’s eyes were half closed, as though she were trapped between waking and sleeping.
“Help me get them out,” said Louis.
He leaned into the trunk, but Angel stopped him with the palm of his hand.
“Shit,” said Louis.
Once again, Angel took the Maglite and the stick and used it to check beneath the bodies as best he could. When he was satisfied that the corpses were not booby-trapped in any way, they first removed Abigail, who was lying on top of her husband, then Philip. The matting beneath the bodies had been pulled back, and a series of hidden clips had been activated in the base of the trunk, releasing the panels in the base and sides. The weapons stored there, and all of their ammunition, were gone. The spare tire had also been slashed, as a further precaution. Angel looked at Louis, and said: “What now?”
Hara and Harada didn’t make it much farther than Massena, and in that they were both unlucky and lucky: unlucky in the sense that they were now unable to participate any further in Louis’s operation, and unluckier still when a routine search of their vehicle revealed their cache of weapons. The cops declined to give them the benefit of the doubt, and they ended up in a cell in the Massena police department on Main Street while the chief figured out what to do with them, and thus their lives were saved.
Slowly, Angel and Louis approached the barn doors.
“One hundred feet,” said Louis.
“What is?”
“Distance between here and the forest to the east.”
“If they’re waiting for us, they’ll take us as soon as we leave.”
“You want them to take us here instead?”
Angel shook his head.
“You go left, I go right,” said Louis. “You run, and you don’t stop, no matter what. We clear?”
“Yeah, we’re clear.”
Louis nodded. “See you on the other side,” he said.
And they ran.
III
Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, ROMEO AND JULIET , III, V