Caller unknown, p.38
Caller Unknown, page 38
And now it was David’s boot that caught on the threshold of the hatch and, for a second, he stood suspended there, his hands windmilling in the air, but the center of his balance was too far gone and he began—slowly, so slowly, it seemed—to fall back into the whirling gray cloud.
One of his hands ceased its windmilling and shot out toward Ed’s jacket, grabbing the collar. Ed stumbled forward from the force of the tug and grabbed the hatch frame. David fell backward, his grip broken. The headset detached and was left dangling out of the hatch. David’s free hand grabbed at the helicopter skid and for a second it looked like he might take a grip on it, but then his blood-slicked fingers slipped off it one by one and he fell.
David’s eyes never left Ed’s as he plummeted to the gray-green canopy of the woods. And though by now he was some thousand feet down, it seemed that David’s lips cracked into a smile as he looked back up. Ten seconds later, his body was abruptly swallowed by the forest.
The helicopter yawed again. Ed was nearly pitched out of the open hatch. He twisted around. Fallows was staring at him from behind his aviator glasses, then he yanked the cyclic again. The deck tilted and Ed’s boots skidded over the metal rivets on the deck. He grabbed the seat back and hauled himself up the steeply sloping cabin. Fallows gave up trying to pitch Ed out. His free hand grabbed at the Glock in the holster on his belt. The restraint popped and he pulled the gun out, but before he could do anything else, Ed’s hand clamped on his wrist. They wrestled for a moment. The struggle threw Fallows to one side and the cyclic with it, so the chopper now yawed in the opposite direction. Fallows’ head impacted heavily with the Perspex canopy. Warning lights began flashing on the instrument panel and the chopper suddenly dropped. The gun fell clear as Fallows desperately grabbed the cyclic with both hands and tried to bring the chopper’s nose up. Ed fell back onto the bench seat behind, the Glock skittering to a halt against one of his boots. He picked it up and racked the slide. The spinning descent eased.
Fallows seemed to have regained control. Ed stood and pressed the barrel of the gun to Fallows’ right ear. The noise of the rotor and the wind on the open hatch was still too loud for conversation. The headset was swinging in the hatch door and he grabbed it as it came toward him, clamping it over his ears with his free hand. He keyed the mic.
“OK, listen, Fallows. If you do exactly what I say, you may come out of this alive,” he said.
Fallows dry-swallowed and nodded.
“You know where my wife is?”
Fallows nodded again.
“Take me there.”
“What then?” Fallows asked.
“You’re free to go.”
“You think I’m going to believe that?”
“Remember, I’m not one of you fuckers, Fallows. I broke free.”
“I’ve been in this game for decades, Constance. No one gets free.”
“Spare me your philosophy. This is the deal. When we get to the landing site, you hover a few feet off the ground. I’ll jump out and you can fly off to Area 51 or wherever the fuck you came from.”
“OK, if that’s what you want, you got it,” Fallows said.
Fallows turned the nose of the chopper to the northwest again. Below, Ed saw the twenty-mile-long outline of Chesuncook Lake, where he had camped out with Jim ten years ago.
On they flew, now over Eagle Lake. The engines in the deserted clearing were invisible. But Ed knew they were there. Rust-red Cyclopes waiting out the end of time.
The Huey flew over the course of the Allagash down which he had fled all those years before, and then swooped over the giant blackened pit where Eriksson’s Lot had once stood. Memories cascaded.
The Huey began losing altitude as they approached the Texaco station.
Fallows pointed to a straight stretch of Realty Road ahead. A forest fire had cleared the trees to blackened stumps on either side.
“That’s the landing site,” he said over the headphones. “Too many trees around the gas station.” He eased back, and the chopper came to a hover and gradually started to descend toward the gravel road surface.
“Take me down to ten feet,” Ed said, then took off the headset. Still pointing the Glock at Fallows’ head, he backed his way to the hatch and glanced down. The road surface was getting close. Thirty feet, twenty… He slid out and put two feet on the skid, still pointing the gun at the pilot.
Perhaps Fallows knew there was no returning to Typhon after what had happened. Just as Ed was about to jump, he ducked and yanked back on the stick and the Huey reared back up. The Glock kicked in Ed’s hand. It was close range and only the top of Fallows’ head was visible over the pilot’s seat, but the Perspex canopy behind him splattered red and gray.
Then Ed was falling backward, the Glock flying out of his hand. He waited for the shattering impact of the road surface. Instead, there was a cold shock and his mouth filled with freezing water. He bucked back to the surface, choking. He had been pitched into a drainage ditch by the roadside. The freezing water came to his waist. Five feet either side and he would have had hit the road surface hard.
The Huey was still rising about a quarter of a mile away, but in a westward arc, the banking becoming more and more pronounced until it reached the apex of its upward curve and began to fall first on its side, then upside down. It disappeared into the treeline beyond the burned area of forest and then there was a massive fireball of orange and black flames.
Ed climbed out of the ditch and got to his feet. He checked himself. Nothing broken, but there were plenty of bruises to come. His teeth began to chatter in the cold. There was one benefit of the numbness; the injuries to his shoulder and head were aching a little less. Something glinted in the middle of Realty Road and he saw it was the fallen Glock. He picked it up and struck out east, toward the station, to Armageddon.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
It was now a little after noon, but the sun as it neared its zenith was only just over the fir and spruce trees lining Realty Road. It would be getting dark at four. He walked in the shadows.
After twenty minutes, he could see the tip of the Texaco star jutting up above the treetops ahead. He slowed his pace and hunkered down. Whoever was waiting could hardly have failed to hear the chopper crash in the winter silence of the north, far less fail to notice the column of smoke rising from the crash site.
The camber of the road would provide cover. He crept along to the place where the unpaved section gave way to the blacktop. The asphalt ahead was cracked and warped and clumps of sere ragweed grew from the cracks; cones and small branches lay in a thin covering on the road surface.
It was eerily quiet, unlike his last two visits in ’70 and ’79, when the cicadas and white-throated sparrows had been deafening. In the ten years since he was last here, nature had asserted herself a little more. The canopy over the four pumps had sagged and grayed with time, and the pumps, once a fire-truck red, had now faded to a light pink. The office behind, as it had been then, was weatherboarded, but was now spray-painted with graffiti. There were still no panels over the front doors; it was just an open, black mouth.
But there were two additions to the scene. A dusty Corolla with Canadian plates sat in the back lot in the same place the yellow bus had parked all those years before. Presumably it was the car David had mentioned; the one Ed was meant to drive to Colorado.
The second was two tailors’ dummies that stood either side of the office entrance. One mannequin was dressed in a flowing white bridal gown, the other in a bridegroom’s tuxedo. Both outfits were familiar: he’d last seen them lying on the beach outside the Fontainebleau on the night of his wedding two years before. The sight took his breath away: even in this, Typhon had had complete foresight; had anticipated this day, this scene. It was just another nail in the mental torture, but it nearly brought Ed to his knees.
He forced himself forward. Inside the office he could see the metal display stands lying in a jumble on the floor and the dim outline of the cashier’s desk toward the back.
The silence and stillness were puzzling. He had expected a big reception committee, but there was no one in sight. And Sarah was meant to be here somewhere. That was, if the helicopter crash hadn’t spooked whoever was holding her and they had gone. He couldn’t admit to that possibility… yet.
He stopped by the broken office doors. Curiously for a gas station that had not pumped gas for more than three decades, there was a strong smell of it in the air. Briefly, he felt high. Old gas. Ethanol separation. Alcohol entering his lungs. His shoes splashed something. A puddle of liquid pooled in the doorway. In the winter sun he saw its oily rainbow sheen: spilt gas. A lake of it disappearing into the dark office. The place had been primed.
Perhaps there was a hint of movement back there in the darkness. He moved forward, over the threshold, splashing through the inch-high gas lake. His leg made contact with what felt like fishing line at mid-shin. There was a brief resistance. Then nothing. Trip wire.
He froze, heart in mouth. Why the trip wire? A warning device, to let whoever was out there know he was here?
He listened. There was now a faintly discernible dripping.
Then there was a moan from the darkness.
He instinctively knew it was her. “Sarah,” he called. His voice was loud. Too loud; he hadn’t spoken since the chopper. His ears still rung with the rotor noise. “It’s me, Ed.”
She answered. “Ed? Is that really you?” Her speech was thick; perhaps she had been beaten or drugged.
“Yes, it’s me.” His own voice sounded stronger than he felt inside.
“Ed, don’t come in. Go!” she hissed.
“It’s OK,” he said.
“No! It’s a trap,” she answered.
He splashed forward a few more steps. His eyes were adjusting to the darkness. There on the cinder-block wall at the back of the office was splayed a pale form, like a ghost, face framed by dark hair, scared, roving eyes, white in the dark.
She was in an X-form crucifixion: wrists and ankles pinned to the back wall between two rusty steel supports. There was a bloodied rag around her left hand where they had taken her finger. She wore just a soiled bra and underwear. Her pregnant belly was showing a bit, straining at the filthy elastic of her underwear. Her skin was blue with the cold. There were white wires lo0ped around her body and packs of what looked like gray modeling clay attached to the inner surface of the support columns.
She was looking straight at him. “I didn’t want you to see me like this, Ed.”
“It’s OK,” he said.
She shook her head. “Just go, Ed.”
Before he could answer, another voice came. Tinny and artificial. He started and looked up. There was a PA speaker in the shadows of the corner eaves over the cashier’s desk, the sort that once might have piped music and staff messages when the station was open.
Apart from the mechanical distortion, he knew the voice. He had heard it every day of his childhood.
It was Mrs. Frome.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
“Hello, Edward. So, you’ve finally come. I’m a little surprised that David isn’t with you.”
Where was she? Could she see him, and, if he spoke, could she hear him? He turned from the speaker and looked around. There were no cameras, just the speaker, but on the desk there was an old-fashioned mic on a stand, pointing in his direction. It might be live.
“David’s dead,” he said, “Fallows too, along with your other four goons. And your helicopter crashed. I guess you’re trapped. The cops will be here soon.”
There was a touch of amusement in Mrs. Frome’s reply. “Oh, the cops are always coming, Edward. The thing is, they never seem to quite catch up, do they? I think you know why.”
“Enough games,” Ed answered. “I have a gun here. I’m going to take Sarah and I’ll shoot anyone who tries to stop me.”
“All very admirable, Edward,” Mrs. Frome answered. “I’d expect nothing less. Always the spunky one, protecting the girls. Shannon, now Sarah… Thing is, you’re not in a bargaining position. You’ll have noticed your darling wife is a bit… strung up, shall we say. There’s a trigger strapped to her. If you try to help her, she’ll blow. Mr. Frome tells me there’s enough Semtex there to bring down the Empire State, let alone a tiny little gas station in the middle of nowhere. In addition, he’s had fun pumping out that old gas. Bit of overkill, you might say, but you know how he is. He likes an explosion and a cremation.”
Ed looked from the speaker to Sarah. “Can she see us?” he whispered.
She shook her head. “I—I don’t know. Maybe. Just get out, Ed. Go.”
He ignored her and addressed the mic again. “OK, what do you want me to do?”
Mrs. Frome answered, “What you were meant to do ten years ago. Just follow the instructions. Go up to Armageddon with Mr. Frome and collect the package waiting for you. Then on with the mission.”
“Just like that, eh?” Ed answered.
“Just like that. Really, we should have put you down, Edward, years ago. Any day in Miami we could have taken you. Even on the beach after your wedding. We didn’t expect you to go skinny-dipping, I have to say. But it gave us a chance to collect mementos of the day, as it were. I hope you liked the personal touch outside? Anyway, despite the obvious irritations, I persuaded Vermeulen to give you one last chance. If you knew him, you’d know how surprising it was that he agreed: he’s quite ruthless. Now, when you do what you have to do, you’ll be conscious, unlike Catrine and Shannon. That’s going to make your end particularly bitter, Edward. That was the reason for all that Beast and One business, you know. Anesthetizes the brain. Makes things easier for you. I’m sure Catrine and Shannon felt the benefit. You won’t have that. It’ll be eyes open for you. And I guess you already know what your legacy will be. Identity thief, commie, drug addict, terrorist, rapist, mass murderer. The North End Cannibal—who would have thought it? Such a pity about that nice girl in the hotel. I’m sorry to say it in front of your wife, but the bite marks on that woman’s body were like a wild animal’s. The police think you’re some kind of monster, Edward. I’m sure they’d take great pleasure in shooting you on sight. But you’re not going to let that happen, are you? You have to get to the Hoover Dam, no interruptions. You have to think of your wife and the baby.”
“Fuck you,” said Ed.
“Tskk. I taught you better than that, Edward. But, enough chitchat. First things first: throw the gun out of the door.”
Ed looked at the Glock, then at Sarah. It hadn’t worked out as he’d hoped. He had broken free of Typhon, for what? It’d been an illusion. Everything since City Point had been improvised. One desperate decision after another. Even his planning before the blackout had been pointless. Even if Jim had done as he’d asked, he was sure they’d anticipated that as well.
He reversed the gun, took hold of its barrel and tossed it over the fallen shelving into the pool of gas at the entrance. It skidded through the liquid and came to rest on the threshold.
A large figure appeared in the doorway, almost filling it. Six foot four, 280 pounds, a giant red and black mackinaw jacket, and a peaked cap. Frome’s beard was now salt and pepper and filled almost all his face. Red lips broke the beard in the parody of a smile. The shrike-like eyes were dead. That hadn’t changed.
Frome had a pump-action shotgun aimed at Ed.
“Hey, buddy,” he said, that yellow grin splitting his beard just as it had always done. He took his left hand off the barrel of the shotgun, bent and picked up the Glock, checked the safety, then rammed it into the belt ringing his capacious gut. He returned the hand to the barrel and jerked it from Ed to Sarah.
“We got to get going,” he said. “But fair’s fair, why don’t you check out your lovely wife? See she’s OK. I ain’t fooled around with her… Well, you know, not too much.” He gave Ed that shit-eating grin again. “There’s a canteen and a bucket of water. Give her a drink, hose her down a bit, if you like. She’s a bit high.”
Ed went quickly to Sarah. There was a canteen on the floor and he picked it up, unscrewed the top and held it to her lips.
She pulled her head away. “You don’t have to do this, Ed,” she said.
He kept his voice quiet, hoping Frome couldn’t hear him. “I’ll get you out of here, I promise,” he whispered.
“How?” she said.
He glanced behind at Frome, then back at her. “I’ll think of something.”
He hated the final desperation in his voice.
There was a toilet roll next to the waste bucket. He ripped off a length, upended the bottle onto it and wiped her face. Then he shucked off his camo jacket. It was still damp from his fall into the drainage ditch, but it was better than nothing. He carefully wrapped it around her shoulders, keeping his hands well away from the wires.
“I’ll be back soon, OK?” he said.
He turned. There were now two people at the door. Mrs. Frome had arrived. She had aged too. Gray hair, beady blue eyes behind her glasses, full makeup even for the Maine backwoods; the only gesture to utilitarianism was her light blue parka, slacks, and flat shoes. She was pointing a gun at him with her right hand. A Beretta. It looked tiny compared to Frome’s shotgun but was no doubt equally deadly at such close range. She was holding something else in her left hand.
“OK, Edward, come here,” she said.
Ed glanced once at Sarah, then went forward.
She held the object up so he could see it. “This is a state-of-the-art wireless detonator, courtesy of the US Army. They tell me it has a range of a couple of miles. It’s kind of untested, so be very careful when you take it. To be honest, it may just detonate anyway. It’s set up to trigger that Semtex around your lovely wife.”
Ed inspected it. The thing looked like a grenade wrapped in duct tape. Wires hung from it like sinister antennae and, just like on a grenade, there was a lever trigger that Mrs. Frome was pressing into the side of the device.
Mrs. Frome gestured. “OK, Edward. Take it, very delicately. Once you have it, keep squeezing the handle, and, if you try anything on the way to the dump, rest assured Mr. Frome will shoot you and you will let go of the handle and that will be end of your wife, capisce?”
