Butcher (24 page)

“So,
nu
?"

“When we were getting Special Covert Action printouts over the Newton Secure/Comsec System I saw the operation in southeast Missouri. So I phoned the gentleman at Justice and confirmed the status of that particular situation,” Dr. Norman explained. The scrambled land-line was silent for a moment.

“They want this old Nazi sanctioned?” the old man asked, using the passé jargon for an execution.

“That's correct. It seems he's built a new identity and become such a pillar of the community that Justice is afraid they might not be able to get him through channels. They might not make a sufficiently tight case against him. The gentleman also said if such a person was tried and the thing backfired, like the Ivan the Terrible case did, it could have a chilling effect on future sightings. They want him brought down in a public way. Messy ... I'm quoting,” Norman said.

“What?"

“Messy was the word he used,” Dr. Norman said again. “I don't care how messy your man makes it."

“So how was this left?"

“I told him I had a man there. Once I found out all the details of the Nazi's past history, I knew I could motivate him easily ... and to get his operatives out of the way. That we'd handle it."

“You sure this is prudent considering your man's, uh, instability?"

“Well, sir, I think it's perfect for us. If it works, and he accomplishes the mission, it proves our case. We redeem ourselves in the sense that we have proof such an individual can be manipulated to perform jobs of this type. It ratifies and validates everything we've done: the brain implant of the locator, the technology, the efficacy of my drug Alpha Group II, the concept itself. If it doesn't, then our man at large has outlived his usefulness and we'll take steps to dispose of both the matters."

There was another pause while the scrambled linkage sizzled across time zones.

“All right,” the old man said.

Norman thanked him, promised progress bulletins, and disconnected.

He was mildly annoyed by one aspect of the new plan. He'd have liked to allow his pet subject more rest and relaxation time after the automobile accident he'd had, but Dr. Norman was familiar enough with Daniel's Herculean recuperative powers to know he'd bounce back sufficiently for this simple task. It would be a form of R & R for him.

The doctor had known what he had to do the second he'd first learned of a Justice op within a few miles of Daniel's current turf. He had to make the most of what might become an unfortunate coincidence. In Dr. Norman's opinion, Daniel's protection superseded all other considerations. He couldn't take a chance on his treasured human experiment running around in someone else's kill zone. Bad enough if it had just been Justice, but
this
group? No way would he permit it to happen.

Too bad about Shtolz, in a way. He'd been familiar with the man's dossier for years and, frankly, admired his accomplishments. He'd done some brilliant work on brain-host discorporation. Pity the two of them would never be able to discuss such things.

Everything was dovetailing beautifully. Norman's job was suddenly so much easier. He could instantly imagine Daniel's reaction to photos of the doctor's early experiments. Norman had, in his own collection, quite a stack of grisly mutilation shots. The clinical torture murders of babies and animals would send his big friend up the nearest wall. There was one in particular where they'd had their brains removed while they were still alive and the three host subjects were wide eyed, as if living, but with the tops of the little skulls sawn open and empty, that would evoke an interesting rage. Nor would his man at large be at all amused by the image of the puppy with the top of its head cut off.

On paper, it appeared to be a by-the-numbers mission. Potentially, at least. Send a team in, create a diversion, and inject Daniel by dart gun, or whatever means. While the Alpha Group II was taking hold, show him the old Nazi's experiments on children and animals, and simply point him in the right direction. At that juncture one only had to get out of the line of fire, which is why Norman had phoned the old man.

It was one thing to pull Justice off a covert op, but quite another to interdict a serious running mission by the Israelis, who were sure to have assets in place. If we knew, one could be certain they knew, and it would take a personal call from the old man to stop the otherwise unstoppable Mossad.

Bayou Ridge

T
hey were in Meara's farmhouse when Ray's phone rang. It was Jimmie Randall. Could Meara stop in to the office this afternoon? Afternoon in Bayou City could mean anything from 12:01 P.M. to anytime it wasn't too dark to farm without headlights. Sharon had things to do and they said their good-byes, with Meara following her back to town.

A lot of rain was coming. You could tell from the air and from the sky. It stunk of fish and worms and stagnant ponds; a funky, festering rankness that fumed up out of the turgid road ditches to meet the humid, malodorous promise of the descending rain clouds.

Only a few hours later, but hours of a day that had been so long and eventful that it already seemed like the next day, Ray was pulling up in front of the motel. Sharon heard his now familiar truck motor outside the door and was peering out around the curtains when he knocked.

“Come in,” she said.

He dripped in out of the wetness. “Hi."

“Urn, hello,” she said, as he kissed her.

“Thought I'd stop by on the way home. Guess who I talked to today?"

“FBI."

“You got it. They'd just finished with you. There they were in the Bayou City police chief's office. Asked me a lotta’ questions about
you
, girl."

“That's nice. You told them I was an okay person?” He moved over close and leaned down for another kiss.

“I told them you were very okay,” he said, breathing in the fragrance of the woman who was all he thought about now.

It was a long, soulful kiss, but it wasn't quite the same as earlier in the barn, and then in the house. Some of the heat had cooled.

Sharon reached up and touched his face and smiled, and moved over to the window, seemingly preoccupied, pushing the curtains aside and looking at the sky. In between the buildings across the road you could glimpse the horizon. The flatlands were all cottony looking with a misty look to the blue tree line, and where Sol was beginning to set there were slashes of blood and flesh-tone pink across the bruised black and blue cloud banks.

“Thinking about your dad?"

“Mm.” She nodded.

He put his hands on her shoulders very gently, coming up behind her, and she tightened a little. “S'matter?"

“Nothing."

“Sure?"

“Just tired."

“I wish I could say something—you know—optimistic. Promising. Give you an encouraging word."

“Thanks.” She smiled. You could hear the television laugh track on the speaker in the next room.

“I just thought I'd stick my head in the door on the way home. Tell you I was thinking about you."

“You're a nice guy. Very sweet.” She smiled again but her mind was blank. She knew she should invite him in or something, but it was the “or something” she wasn't in the mood for. “Don't mind me, Ray. Women are too strange."

“Tell me about it. I never could figure them out."

“Now hold on a second, we're strange but not impenetrable."

“'Zat so?"

“All we want is perdurable love from a caring person. That's not so hard to figure out."

“It is if you don't know what the per-thing is,” he said.

“Perdurable,” she smiled prettily, “my dear, means permanent. Lasting. Very durable. A love that won't pale over time, one that won't wear out through all the female mood swings."

“Fine, Sharon. Very durable. Why not say that in the first place?"

“Because we think in words,” she said, too pooped to realize he'd been teasing her.

“That's a heavy concept."

“Come on. Perdurable. Good word. Expand your mental horizons. How many words can you name that begin with the p-e-r prefix? Perform. Performance. Pertinent. Perky. Perfect. Come on."

“Person ... purple.” They laughed. “I'm going home,” he said and started out.

“Keep going,” she said, softly. “Percolate. Permanent. Pertain."

“I got one,” he said, putting his big hands on her shoulders. She looked exquisitely beautiful framed there in the doorway. Tired or not, she was so spectacular.

“Perdurable,” he said, in a hoarse whisper.

“No way,” she said. “You can't use my word.” She looked about seventeen at that second, and he leaned over and kissed her right below the ear on the throat and held her like that, then kissed her again, gently as he could, on the nape of the neck and whispered, “Perfume."

At one of the stop signs on his way home, a car full of boys, so Bayou City bored they could only booze ‘n’ cruise, jumped the stop and nearly rammed him. He watched them roar away, remembering what it was like to wait for thunder so you could spring into your ride and chase the night lightning. His first truck had Riders On The Storm painted on it.

Face it, killer, he told himself, you've finally found something worthwhile. He realized he was grinning idiotically.

A
ccording to TV, the investigations into the “4 Corners Murder” of Brother Beauton, who ran the 4 Corners Gas Station, and the murder of Jerry Rice, had so far “yielded no leads.” The day didn't look too promising either. Meara, an early riser, had taken to leaving all his news sources blasting through the small farmhouse, and as he walked from bathroom to kitchen to living room, the scanner, big radio, and television fed news and weather snippets.

“—Bayou City schools are also closed—"

“—flash flooding, swelling rivers and overflowing drainage ditches, have become serious hazards for motorists. Many homes and businesses are finding themselves in deep trouble—"

“In deep shit,” Meara said back to the radio.

“Road banks are overflowing along the highways into Sikeston, Dexter, East Prairie, Bayou City, and many of the surrounding communities. A female reporter was doing a locally televised stand-up. “Captain Dave Vineyard of the Public Safety Department says it looks bad."

A uniformed man spoke. “It's the worst I remember it in fifteen years on the job. This is the only time I can recall when old Highway 61 was completely under water. If this keeps up, we'll start evacuating Sikeston in the morning."

Meara cursed and stomped out of the house.

The river stages looked bad. They were talking about how it was going to crest in twenty-four hours, but that was the standard meteorological line of bullshit. They'd predict a crest, then revise it upward, then predict another crest. They didn't know jack-o-logical shit about the river.

Water was already above the flood stage at Cairo and pushing in fast. A few more inches and the back way would be closed, and it would be a mess. Nobody could go in or out past Big Oak, even in a flatbed, yet it'd be too shallow to put a boat in.

The water was no longer just a silver gray ribbon along the far horizon. You could took way down in the fields to the south of the Meara ground and see that big silvery-blue-gray mass of water pushing in. That far away it looked as still as a sheet of glass, but up close it was powerful and always moving, the river currents making it slither like a million serpents, filling the low spots, coursing through the trees and over the ditch banks, all of it aiming at Raymond.

The stoutest bailing wire he had on the place was about the consistency of a steel rod. But he had a big loop of that new, triple-thick barbed wire, and he got down under the house and started working. He'd be damned if he'd let that river have the house.

It took him all day to sink four railroad ties wired to the foundation. Four of those big, creosoted crossties, each wound in three strands of triple-thick, the wire going up under the foundation and twisting around back under the ties, which he sank as far down as he could get.

It was rough work, with no room to use the posthole digger or get full movement of the shovel. He had to angle it and it took its toll in scratched hands and barked knuckles. Then there was the barbed wire. It was like razor wire, it slashed anything it touched, and when Meara crawled out from under the house he'd ruined the knees of his Levis, his shirt, and both new leather work gloves. On top of that, when he was pulling his tools and what was left of the wire out from underneath, he raised up too soon and drove a rusty nail about an eighth of an inch into his skull.

For about five minutes he didn't know whether to cry, cuss, shit, or go blind, he was in so much pain. He ended up sitting on the old wooden porch feeling his sore head and wondering if he should go in and get a tetanus shot, because the way the day was going, the way his luck was running, he'd have lockjaw by morning.

When he went inside, the telephone was ringing and he actually had a few seconds of fleeting hope. It seemed he had entered one of those sweepstakes and—no, there was no catch—he was being phoned long distance from somewhere in Arizona to be informed that he, Ray Meara, had just won a seventeen-foot fiberglass Chimera Jon boat, with seventy-five horse motor, and a new Superglide Trailer. No, he was told, he didn't have to buy a thing.

“As soon as you check in here at Rancho Hacienda we'll be validating your eligibility prize number and you're guaranteed that as soon as you take the tour—” To his credit he neither cursed nor broke the phone into tiny pieces.

It rang immediately, even as he was hanging up, and he picked up the receiver thinking the line had not been disconnected.

“I am not interested,” he said.

“Raymond Meara?” The woman's voice was muddied, the connection so bad he could scarcely hear her.

“What?"

“Raymond, this is Marsha at the bank?"

“Oh! I can't hear you too well, Marsha."

“You cashed a check recently for two hundred dollars. It was written by Doug Seifer? That check just came back. It's marked insufficient funds and we need you to take care of the discrepancy please."