Maps of Hell

Nineteen

As Mary Upson and I walked down the road to the troopers’ station, I felt her eyes on me.

“Is this some kind of uniform?” she asked, looking at the jacket round her shoulders.

I shrugged, unwilling to go into details with a stranger.

“All right,” she said, “try this one. Why are you toting that rifle? It looks kind of military.”

I glanced at her. “Hunting,” I said. “Just caught me a pair of Texan bushwhackers.”

Mary Upson smiled. “You English and your crazy humor,” she said. “Is there anything you’re serious about?”

The lights of the state troopers’ station were close now. I was about to get very serious indeed, but taking the rifle in with me probably wasn’t a great idea. I stopped and put it down behind a bush by the steps.

“Smart,” Mary said. “Ready?”

I nodded and went up to the door. The building was a standard wooden house that had been converted. There were bars on all the windows. I shivered, remembering the wire around the camp-and the ill-fated man who had helped me get over it.

We rang a bell and waited to be admitted. I looked up and mugged at a CCTV camera. Then the door opened.

“Evening, folks,” said a young man in uniform, a semiautomatic pistol holstered on his belt. “What can I do for you?” He took in Mary’s face and clothes. “Ms. Upson, what happened to you?”

“Hello, Stu,” she said. “I was hoping you’d be on tonight.”

The trooper’s eyes moved to me. They weren’t friendly.

“This is Matt. He helped me out.”

“Oh, right,” the trooper said. The badge on his chest proclaimed his name to be Stu Condon. He had fair hair in a crew cut and his upper arms were trying to break out of his pale yellow shirt. “Come and sit down. Tell me what happened.”

We followed him into what would have been the sitting-room. There was a scuffed leather sofa and matching armchair around a low coffee table. Mary and I took the sofa.

“I’ve just made a pot of coffee,” the young man said. “You want some?”

We both nodded. When he was out of the room, Mary drew the gray uniform jacket tighter and started to sob quietly.

“Hey,” I said, touching her hand. “It’s over. Those guys aren’t going anywhere. They certainly can’t hurt you now.”

She gradually got a hold of herself and calmed down. I looked around for the trooper, but he was still behind the security door that blocked us off from the station’s interior. There was a box of tissues on a shelf.

“Here,” I said, handing her one. “You’ll feel better when you get some coffee inside you.”

“Thanks, Matt,” she said, after she’d dried her eyes. “It’s just…it’s just, those men were so horrible. Like animals. And I’m kind of isolated up here. I don’t have any close friends.”

I thought about Billy Ray and Bobbie. They might have woken up by now. It would be a good idea if Trooper Condon picked them up before they started making a noise. But producing coffee for citizens in distress seemed to be exercising all of his talents.

In the station office, Stu Condon was examining the pages he had just printed out. He was keen about his career and he wouldn’t normally have kept people waiting outside. Before the bell had rung, he’d been going through the daily wanted notices. He always paid particular attention to those issued by the FBI, because he harbored ambitions of joining the Bureau once he had a few years’ experience. His eye had landed on the photo of Matthew John Wells. It wasn’t often that Englishmen appeared in the notices. But he hadn’t immediately realized that the man with Mary Upson was him, even when she’d introduced him as Matt. He was dirty and unshaven, his clothes scruffy. There was no doubt in his mind now, though. The question was, did he call for backup? Sergeant Johnson lived ten miles away, while Denny Morris would have swallowed the best part of a crate of beer by now. Anyway, this was exactly the kind of arrest that would get him noticed by the Bureau.

Stu was on his way to the door with a tray of coffee, when it struck him that he should call the number on the bottom of the wanted notice. He thought about it, but there was no instruction not to approach the man, as there was with escaped murderers and the like. Still, this guy was suspected of two seriously violent killings in Washington. He made up his mind. He could handle Mr. Matthew Wells no problem.

To be on the safe side, he unfastened the strap on his holster. If Mary hadn’t been there, he’d have gone in with his Glock in both hands. With any luck, there would be a chance to draw later on. His heart skipped a beat. Mary would definitely be impressed if he took in a man suspected of two murders. Mary. She was a real honey.

It was time for Stuart Bellingham Condon to show just how good a lawman he was.

The instant the trooper walked through the door, I knew he meant me no good. Although he busied himself with handing out mugs of coffee, there was something in his expression that hadn’t been there before, an almost breathless excitement. When I saw that the strap on his holster was undone, I knew my intuition was right. I took a sip of the brew-surprisingly good-then pushed my gut forward and feigned a pain in the small of my back. Slipping my right hand round, I got the fingers on the grip of the pistol. So far, I’d only attacked people who had been a threat to me or, as with Mary, had been behaving like animals. Taking on a representative of the law was a big step.

I listened as Mary told the young man about the attempted rape. He seemed to be paying attention, but his eyes were continually flicking toward me. Mary told him that I had rescued her, so he had no reason to be suspicious. Then I thought about the gray uniform. Could the people who ran the camp have some sort of pull with the local law? I wasn’t about to take a chance on that.

Trooper Condon nodded at Mary and then turned to me.

“Care to give me your full name, sir?” he said, taking some folded papers from his breast pocket.

That was a tester. I said the first names that came to mind. “Em, Matthew James Page.”

“And where are you from, Mr…Page.”

That brief hesitation, and the glance directed at the papers he’d just unfolded, were enough to tell me that he knew more about my identity than I did. Was I a criminal? All the thoughts I’d had about my shooting and fighting abilities came back in a rush. My memory was so full of blanks that I could have assassinated the U.S. president and not been aware of it. But my survival instinct overrode all those suspicions. Whatever my previous actions, I hadn’t deserved what had been done to me in the camp-like the man at the fence hadn’t deserved execution.

Trooper Condon’s eyes opened wide as I brought the Glock to bear on him. I took a step forward and relieved him of his own weapon, sticking it in my pocket. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Mary Upson’s face. Her lips were apart, but otherwise she seemed surprisingly calm.

“Sir, I would caution you-”

“Forget it, Trooper.” I pulled the papers from his hand. There was a photo of me on the top one that stirred something in my memory. Compared with how I’d appeared in the mirror in the cabin, this image gave the impression of a well-fed, well-groomed, slightly arrogant type. The leather jacket I was wearing must have cost plenty.

“Sir-”

“I said forget it. Get hold of your cuffs.”

“What?” The trooper was either playing dumb or had been gripped by fear.

“Your handcuffs.” I moved the Glock nearer to his chest. “Slowly, Stu.”

“Right,” he said, moving one hand round his belt.

“Put one on.” I waited till he’d complied, then took his arm and pulled him across to the wall. There was a heating unit there. I hooked the other cuff around a pipe and closed it. Then I patted his pockets and removed his phone and a set of keys. “You want me to hit you?” I asked.

“Huh?”

I smiled. “So it doesn’t look so bad to your superiors.”

The look he gave me could have felled a buffalo. “You’re forgetting something, Mr. Wells,” he said slowly. “Mary here’s a witness.”

He was right. I hadn’t considered what to do about her. “Stay here,” I said to her. “Let me have as long as you think I deserve.” I knew that was a risk, but I had the feeling she’d give me a break-at least for the time it would take me to find some transport.

Mary Upson didn’t respond. She held her eyes on me, gaze unwavering. I couldn’t tell what she felt about me. It was a risk cutting her loose, but I didn’t want to make the evening even worse for her.

“Take care of yourself,” I said, smiling.

Then I turned and headed for the door.

I picked up the rifle outside and ran down the deserted street, discarding the Texans’ phones and other gear. There were cars and pickups outside the nearest houses, but I wanted to put some distance between myself and the station first-if Condon didn’t know which vehicle I’d taken, it would buy me some time. As I ran, I glanced down at the page with my photo. Beneath it was printed a name. Matthew John Wells. Wells. That was my surname. I still didn’t remember it, but it seemed to fit. Matt Wells. Yes, I was sure that was who I was. Then I saw the reason I was wanted-suspicion of a murder committed in Washington, D.C., on October 29, 2009. The notification had been issued by the violent-crime unit of the FBI. I slowed to a jog. Jesus. Assuming the date was recent, and it squared with the autumn climate and conditions, I was in the clear. Then again, the only people who could vouch for me wore gray uniforms and killed people. What the hell was going on?

Suddenly, in front and to my right, there came the roar of an engine and the shriek of tires. A dark green sedan shot out of a side road and slid to a halt. The passenger door swung open.

“Get in!” Mary Upson yelled.

Something whistled past my head, then I heard a loud boom. I looked back down the road and saw the trooper. He’d got free and armed himself with a rifle. Another shot whizzed past as I threw myself into the car.

“Bloody hell!” I gasped.

Mary had her foot to the floor. She laughed as she glanced in the mirror. “That what you English say when you’re under fire?”

I had my head as far down the seat as I could get, waiting for the rear windscreen to explode. To my relief, it didn’t. A few seconds later, the road went left and we were out of the town center.

“You can sit up now,” she said, a slack smile on her lips.

“How did the Lone Ranger get free?” I asked, stowing the rifle in front of the backseat.

“Search me. I left not long after you.”

I looked at her. “So you’re in the shit, as well.”

Mary Upson shrugged. “Never did like that scumbag Condon. He came on to me once in the bar and wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

I reckoned that was a pretty weak reason for helping a wanted man, but I didn’t have any alternative means of escape right now.

“What does it say in those papers he had?”

I told her about the murder in Washington.

Mary glanced at me quizzically. “When did it happen? Yesterday night? You get the early morning flight up here?”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t in Washington yesterday.”

“That’s a relief,” she said, grinning. “I’d hate to think I was on the road with a killer.”

I looked at her. “Why are you helping me, Mary?”

She met my gaze briefly. “Because you helped me.”

“Simple as that?”

“Sure. What you did wasn’t a small thing, Matt. Those Texan shitheads would have raped me, might have killed me. You saw the knife.”

I nodded. “Which is why we went to the state troopers.”

She shot me another glance. “Which is why I went to the troopers. Why did you go? And don’t say you-”

“Shit,” I interrupted. “The Texans are still tied up.”

“Like I give a flying fuck. Do you?”

For some reason, I did. Then I thought of all I had been through in the forest and let that concern go.

“You can let me out anywhere you like,” I said. “You can tell the trooper I threatened you.”

She laughed. “Yeah, he’ll buy that. I left the station on my own and I picked you up on my own. What kind of threat are you supposed to have made? Bring your car or I’ll shoot up the bar?”

I glanced at the pines lining the highway. “That would do. It rhymes, too.” I gave her a serious look. “Come on, Mary. Go back while you still can.”

“Ah, screw it,” she said with a wild laugh. “I could do with a vacation.” Then her expression got more serious. “Besides,” she said, catching my eye. “You’re no killer. You could have hurt those Texans much worse than you did. You could have shot Stu Condon, too. Plus, you wouldn’t have come with me to the station if you were on the run.” She laughed again, this time more softly. “Looks like I’ve got myself a genuine lost cause. Want to tell me what’s going on?”

I considered that and decided that, given the risk she was taking with her liberty, she deserved some kind of an explanation. Then again, what good would it do? In addition to the people from the camp, I had the FBI after me. I should surrender myself to the representatives of federal law, but no way was I going to do that. Someone was framing me and I intended to find out who. Then a thought struck me. What if my memory was playing games with me and I really had killed those people in Washington? What if I was a killer with no awareness of my actions?

Eventually I concentrated on telling Mary Upson my story, basically just the part about the cabin. I was still confused about the camp and was hoping I’d remember more details soon, so I avoided that subject. I also avoided mentioning my limited recall of my past, and that glimpses of memory came and went.

“What is that uniform, anyway?” Mary Upson asked.

I had been watching her face surreptitiously. So far there had been no indication that she was playing a part. Ever since she’d picked me up, I’d been wondering about her motivation. Could the people who ran the camp have people working for them as far away as Sparta? Could she be one of the bastards?

“I’m not sure,” I said. “Have you ever heard of the North American National Revival?” She was still wearing the jacket I’d given her. I touched her shoulder.

She shook her head. “What is that? Some kind of militia?”

“They’re certainly keen on bearing arms.”

Mary Upson glanced in the mirror and then took a right turn. Almost immediately we were deep in woodland.

“What’s going on?” I asked, my hand immediately on the grip of my pistol.

“Time for a change of vehicle.”

We came into a clearing, the moon shining through thin clouds. I could see a low building in the headlights. Mary pulled up in front of the house and opened her door. “Coming?” she said.

I got out, holding the pistol against my thigh.

Then a figure holding a shotgun appeared at the side of the house to my right. The weapon was at the person’s shoulder before I could do anything with mine.