The nameless dead

Twenty-Eight

Sara kept us about a mile behind Abaddon’s vehicle. There were signs to Waco on the left and Dallas on the right, but we stayed on back roads. It was difficult to make out what kind of country we were going through. All I saw were the lights of small settlements and deserted gas stations.

‘Any idea where he’s headed?’ I asked.

The Soul Collector drew a forearm across her forehead. ‘Nope. He seems to be avoiding large population centers, probably because of the weapons he’s carrying.’

‘You’re not aware of any connection he has with this neck of the woods?’

She glanced at me. ‘Killers aren’t like authors, Matt. We don’t have pages on Facebook or websites that advertise where we come from and where we like to spend our holidays.’

‘So where do you live?’ I told myself I was gathering material that could prove useful down the line, but I was actually interested in the life of the woman I had once loved. I knew she’d need some encouragement to talk. ‘Let me guess. Somewhere central so you can get to both coasts quickly.’ I stuck a pin in my mental map of the U.S. ‘Kansas City?’

‘What?’ She laughed. ‘Have you ever been there?’

‘I have, actually. There are some good blues bars.’

‘Yeah, right. Anyway, it’s not great for flights. St. Louis would be better.’ She paused, her brow furrowed. ‘Now I come to think of it, there was talk that Abaddon was based there.’

‘Maybe that’s where her brother’s going.’

She thought about that and then tapped buttons on the tracking device. ‘Dallas to St. Louis is 621 miles, ten and a half hours. Bit of a long haul in that heap.’

‘True. Then again, if he wants to keep his weapons to hand, he’s hardly going to fly.’

‘Mmm.’ She seemed distracted.

‘You haven’t told me.’

‘What?’

‘Where you live.’

‘What makes you think I even have a fixed abode?’

‘Come on, Sara. I know you. Even when we were together, you kept on your own place.’ I remembered the plants and wall hangings she filled the rented flat with. ‘You need somewhere to shut out the world.’

‘Give me one reason why I should tell you.’

‘If you don’t make it, who’s going to water your plants?’

That off-the-cuff remark seemed to get to her. She blinked and kept her eyes on the road.

‘I tell you what,’ she said. ‘If it looks like I’m on the way out, I’ll give you my address.’ She gave an abrupt laugh. ‘Watch out for the booby-traps.’

I could tell she wouldn’t be talking anymore. I went back to moving my wrists surreptitiously; there didn’t seem to be any slack developing. Eventually another part of my body hit the panic button.

‘Em, sorry about this, but I need to pee.’

Sara looked at me as if I were a small boy interrupting the teacher.

‘What? We’re not all superhumans with steel bladders.’

‘Evidently,’ she muttered, pulling off to the side. ‘Come on, then.’ She went round to my door and hauled me out. There was a pistol in her other hand.

I walked into the long grass. ‘You have to help me.’

She registered that I couldn’t use my hands. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ She came over and put the muzzle of her weapon against my belly, then unzipped my fly and stepped back. ‘I’m not holding it.’

Overcome with relief, I smiled. ‘Wouldn’t exactly be the first time.’

The first shot whistled past my head and Sara shoved me to the ground. Several more rang out. I heard the bullets thud into the earth beyond us. I rolled farther into the grass, hands over my exposed dick. By the time I looked back, Sara had blasted off a clip in reply. An engine revved and a car accelerated past us. I got a clear view of the driver and the gunman.

‘Are you all right?’ Sara called, from the side of the pickup.

‘Just about. Fortunately I’d finished peeing. You?’

‘Yeah. Get over here.’

I did as I was told, keeping my head down even though our assailants were long gone.

‘Did you see them?’ I asked.

‘A man and a woman. She was driving.’

‘That’s right. Any idea who they were?’

‘Never seen them before. You?’

I decided there was no advantage in sharing that information with her. It might give me an advantage later. ‘No. Presumably members of Rothmann’s or Apollyon’s cult.’

We got back into the pickup and set off again. Apollyon was still showing on the monitor and we soon caught up. There was no further sign of the car, but that didn’t mean the occupants hadn’t stopped and waited for us to pass. Sara was aware of that and kept looking in the mirror. I considered asking her to cut my bonds, but knew that would be a waste of breath. I needed to gain her trust before there was any chance of that.

In the meantime, I thought about the shooter. Had Gordy Lister been firing at me or at the Soul Collector? He had a look on his face that was very different from anything I’d seen before-determined, vicious, even enraged. I was pretty sure I hadn’t done anything to put him in that zone. Had Sara? Or was he just so pissed off at what had happened during the annual rite that he wanted rid of us both? I thought about how he’d been before the ceremony and couldn’t figure that-he wasn’t a conditioned zombie or a committed devil-worshipper. Then again, maybe he’d completely fooled me and was both.

I didn’t think his driver was either of those, but she could have duped me, too. Or perhaps Mary Upson had been so traumatized by the time she had spent upside down on the cross with her head in a sack that she had completely flipped. Seeing her mother’s body in the coffin under the central cross would have aided that process. Then again, I had led her on when she had helped me escape from Maine and that had ended badly. I already knew the damage she could do. If she had inherited Nora Jacobsen’s tendency for extreme behavior, we were in seriously deep shit.

‘What is it?’ Sara asked.

‘Nothing. So, not Kansas City. Where do you live then? Omaha, Nebraska?’

She shook her head, but a smile played on her lips. Maybe I could get through her defenses after all.

Rudi Crane was on his knees in the hotel room in Washington when his cell phone rang. He ignored it and went on giving thanks to the Good Lord. Today had been a red-letter day. Both sets of meetings had ended in success. Hercules Solutions would be providing army and police training for a small but hugely wealthy Gulf oil state-the emir had himself signed the contract before lunch. The company would also be responsible for all security work for one of the world’s largest oil companies. Its CEO had flown in especially to supervise the final negotiations that afternoon. The contract would be signed in London next month. Truly, the Lord was a bountiful and benevolent God.

The Reverend Crane also offered up thanks for the favorable terms he had managed to negotiate with an Israeli arms company. They guaranteed the supply of high-quality weaponry at a price that would not put undue strain on Hercules. In six months, the company would be better equipped than most nations’ armies, and able to play a major role in the unrest that would soon engulf the world. It had not yet been revealed whether this would be the Armageddon that Rudi Crane had been waiting for all his sentient life but, even if it wasn’t, the Second Coming of the Lord was not far off. Of course, Crane himself would be taken up to Heaven in the Rapture before the conflict started, but leaving a fully armed force to fight the Antichrist was a good legacy he could offer.

And everything had started on a small farm in West Virginia, he reflected. It was a classic American tale of greatness from small beginnings, one that Abraham Lincoln himself would be proud of. Young Rudi’s parents had been dirt poor, his father a dedicated worker on the land, who had been forced to go down the coal mines to provide for his family. His mother was a saintly woman, who had been drawn to the Baptist faith despite her family’s devotion to Bavarian Catholicism. Between them, they ensured that Rudi got a decent education, enabling him to win a scholarship to Bible college and start his preaching career. They had also instilled in him a deep understanding of money, in their careful management of the land and the income earned from it and the mines-his mother had taken in laundry and sewn clothes to supplement that. Investing the profits from his books and TV programs had come naturally to Rudi, and soon he was spending more time on business than preaching. He did not regret that. Clearly it was the will of the Lord.

Crane’s reflections had the clarity of real life, so painstakingly had he constructed his backstory. In fact, his father had been a drunken animal, who beat his wife and young Rudi. His death, down a dry well with a sealed cover, had never been satisfactorily explained, though the local sheriff was unlikely to reopen inquiries, considering the money he had been paid. As for his mother, she had also beaten Rudi and forced him to watch her have sex with any man who could pay. After her death in a mental asylum, her records disappeared and the Director built himself a luxurious cabin in the Allegheny Mountains.

The preacher man looked at his cell phone. The call he’d missed was from Martin Mallinson, one of the D.C. lawyers he used. He couldn’t begin to imagine what that slick operator would be wanting of him.

‘He’s stopped,’ Sara said, taking her foot off the gas pedal and looking at the monitor.

I had been half-asleep. The clock in front of me showed 2:41. ‘Where are we?’

The vehicle came to a halt.

‘We just passed somewhere called Hutchense, sixty miles southwest of Dallas. There isn’t much ahead. The next town is in ten miles. Hold on, he’s moving again.’

We watched as the marker moved westward. There were no roads or settlements showing on the monitor.

‘And he’s stopped again.’ Sara sat back and stretched her back.

‘Are you all right?’

She screwed her eyes up. ‘Too long in the driving seat.’

‘I could have spelled you.’

‘Yeah, that would have been a great idea.’

Despite the sarcasm, I went for broke. ‘I don’t suppose you fancy loosening these ropes?’

She just glared at me. ‘Sure. Oh, wait, I saw what you did to my half sister.’

And then it hit me again-Christ, Quincy. She had killed him without compunction, just as she’d killed Dave. What was I doing cozying up to her? Then I remembered Rothmann. The bastard responsible for Karen’s death and that of our son had priority. If Sara could get me near him, I’d nail him and then take my chances with her.

Sara waited for half an hour and then drove on. ‘Let’s see what happening. Maybe Apollyon’s stopped at a motel.’

The area didn’t seem to have many of those. Besides, I couldn’t see the assassin checking in with his captive. Then again, maybe he’d already killed Rothmann. Though I suspected he wanted to dispatch the so-called heretic slowly and in some grotesque Antichurch ritual rather than in the back of a pickup.

There were very few houses on the road. This seemed to be a deserted part of Texas, even though it wasn’t so far from Fort Worth and Dallas. It was easy to forget how huge the state was. Over twenty million people were swallowed up by its vastness-which made finding just two potentially very challenging.

Sara stopped by the edge of the road. There weren’t many trees around here, just open country rolling away into the darkness.

‘According to the monitor, the vehicle is three hundred yards to our left,’ she said, opening her door.

I managed to hit the handle on mine and stumble out. There were no lights at all to the left, and only a dirt track leading away from the road we were on. The wind blew into my face, bringing the smell of grass cut with cow dung into my nostrils.

‘Maybe Apollyon’s gone to have a rest out of sight of the road,’ I suggested.

‘Maybe.’ Sara was checking her semiautomatic and machine-pistol. ‘There’s only one way to find out.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

She gave me a tight smile. ‘You’ll come with me, all right. But I don’t trust you, Matt.’ She came quickly toward me and wrapped a handkerchief round my mouth. ‘No noise, capisce?’

I glared at her. I was trussed up like a Christmas turkey and about as vulnerable. She knew that and pushed me ahead of her. The words human and shield flashed up in my mind. So much for gaining her confidence.

I stumbled down the rough track in the darkness.

Ruts in the land were deep and well worn. Had Apollyon prepared a hideout nearby? I sincerely hoped we weren’t anywhere near where the Texas Chainsaw Massacre was filmed.

‘Hang on,’ Sara whispered, putting a hand on my shoulder.

I turned and watched her look ahead. It was pitch-dark and there was no moon. I could see only a few faint stars. She nodded and I started walking again, my breath making the gag round my mouth damp. We must have gone at least a couple of hundred yards. Where had Apollyon gone?

Then my foot hit something hard. There was a loud click and we were blinded by a spotlight. I couldn’t raise my hands, so I had to lower my head.

‘Don’t move!’ came a harsh male voice.

‘Do as he says,’ Sara whispered from behind me. ‘I’ll deal with them when they come closer.’

‘You at the rear! Drop your weapons!’

‘Screw you,’ Sara muttered.

‘Final warning!’

Jesus, what was going to happen? I was sure Sara wouldn’t disarm herself.

‘All right,’ said the voice, ‘let him go!’

Let him go? Who? There was a crash of metal and I heard padding paws and a slavering noise. Narrowing my eyes, I looked ahead and saw a large canine coming straight toward us.

I did the only thing I could. I dropped my shoulder and waited for the impact.