Cape Disappointment (40 page)

“I saved her life.”

“You let ten other people fly off to their deaths.” I smacked him, but he rebounded almost immediately, after which I hit him again. My knuckles hurt. The violent activity had ripped the stitches in my side. I would be lying if I said I was proud of what I was doing, because I wasn't, though I felt helpless to stop myself.

I could feel blood running down the inside of my shirt. I knew if I continued, I was going to kill him and maybe myself. I didn't want to kill him. Hell, I didn't want to kill anybody. I knew from experience, unlike most types of personal pain that eventually fade away or get reasoned out of existence, the pain of killing a man never faded. There
was something else going on, too. Bert apparently was willing to take any amount of punishment. It was almost as if he wanted me to beat him to death. He had a certain amount of masochism built into his psyche, as did his brother. As boys they'd taken so much punishment from their father, they now prided themselves on their ability to withstand brutal treatment. It was one of the reasons Elmer had been such a standout on the rodeo circuit. Part of him liked getting hurt.

I could hear the stitching in his shirt rip as I began dragging him across the yard toward my car. “What are you going to do with me?”

“I don't know.”

“They wouldn't have listened. Even Kathy didn't listen. I started to tell her the plane was going to go down, and she looked at me like I was freaking out, so I gave her that bullshit about killing somebody and being wanted by the police.”

“How did you get to the airfield so fast that day? You had to have been in the area already. You were following us, weren't you?”

“I'm telling you, I was worried about Kathy's safety even before I knew she was going to take that flight. So what if I was following the two of you? It saved her life, didn't it?”

“You drugged her for ten days. What was the plan? Going to sell her on the black market?”

“Hell, no. I love …
like
Kathy too much to ever let anything happen to her. I was going to tell her everything, but when I went out there and let her get most of the stuff out of her system, she wouldn't buy it. You did, though. You were in the perfect mood to help me run down these bastards. I
was
going to tell you about Kathy.”

“When?”

“I don't know.” I hit him again. He shook it off and didn't lose his footing. “I have to warn you, if you kill me, my prisoner will end up dying, too.”

“Who?”

“My prisoner. He's going to die if I don't get back to him. You'll never find him without my help, either.”

“Your prisoner? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I'll show you. Afterward, if you still feel like taking me in, I'll go without a hassle.”

“Where is this prisoner?”

Bert started walking. Wary of trickery, I followed. I'd hurt him badly, so the chance of him pulling off any unexpected gymnastics was only fair to middling, but still, the possibility existed. He led me to the barn where I'd heard the music earlier, pulled open a large door that dragged against the dirt floor, and escorted me to the back, where there was a kerosene lantern hanging on a post. The space was largely empty, the sky showing through the roof in at least two spots, one wall canting inward to the point that the next moderate earthquake would likely bring the whole structure tumbling down. Bert turned the sound on the portable radio down but not off. In the rear of the barn, in what must have at one time been a horse stall, a chesty man sat on a rickety wooden chair, his arms bound behind his back, his legs duct-taped to the chair. A strip of duct tape had been pulled across his eyes in a way that was going to be painful to remove. His nose was flattened and bleeding. He looked as badly beaten as Bert did.

“Who is it?” I said.

“See for yourself,” Bert whispered. “But don't talk out loud. As long as he doesn't get a fix on our voices, he won't know who we are.”

“He doesn't know who you are?”

“I got him from behind, then got the tape on his face before he could recover. Even if he'd caught a glimpse, I was wearing a ski mask. He's clueless.”

It was one thing to postulate about bad guys running around the country doing evil; it was another to kidnap one of them and hold him hostage. At least I assumed the prisoner had something to do with the alleged Sheffield conspiracy. While I struggled with it, Bert stood to one side and crossed his arms, his bruised lips curled into a snarl.

By the time I figured out who the bloodied man was, Bert had sidled over to a cubbyhole in the dark and come out with what I was slow to recognize as a beanbag gun, a riot-control device that, at this range and given my condition, might well be lethal. For a gun lover, he certainly collected a lot of oddball weapons that weren't technically guns. The man on the chair was Timothy Hoagland, the lead investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board. Hoagland wore suit trousers, brown wingtip shoes, a patterned ochre tie, and an off-white shirt spattered with his own blood. His jacket was missing. “This is insane,” I said. “You can't keep him.”

“Is somebody there?” asked Hoagland, who could barely hear us over the music. “Who's there?”

Bert pivoted and fired the riot-control weapon. The beanbag struck me in the chest, knocking me onto the straw floor. I felt as if I'd been hit by a cannonball. I'd been warned by the doctors that until I was completely healed I wasn't to take any sharp blows: no motorcycle riding, boxing, mountain biking, skateboarding, or what have you. I'm sure the doctor would have included getting knocked down by a riot gun if he'd known there was a chance I might run into Bert Slezak.

BY THE TIME I GOT BACK
to my feet, Bert was in the stall smacking Hoagland. The pain I was feeling in my gut was as bad as the day of the bombing, maybe worse. I was pretty sure I was bleeding internally. Hoagland was beginning to feel pain, too, and wasn't shy about verbalizing his displeasure, though the radio was turned loud enough to muffle his screams.

Bert had retrieved the Taser from my jacket pocket while I was writhing in the straw, so I had no weapon now.

“Stop hitting him,” I said.

“Why? Because it's not nice? Look at this, pal.” He pushed his own face in my general direction.

“You deserved it.”

“Think he doesn't?”

“There's somebody else here, isn't there?” Hoagland was hearing bits of our conversation over the squalling radio, but because of the tape across his eyes, he couldn't see either of us.

“Of course there's somebody here, asshole.” Bert whacked him across the side of the face with an open palm.

“Stop it,” I said.

“Whoever you are, please, please get this brute—” Bert hit him so hard both man and chair capsized into the straw. I wouldn't have thought Bert had the capability to generate that much force. He
walked around and laboriously pulled the entire package upright. I wish I'd had the energy or presence of mind to rush him when he turned his back, for the opportunity wasn't likely to arise a second time, but I was still stunned and hurting badly from the beanbag gun.

“You've gone crackers,” I said.

“Don't you see? The report was written before he got to town. Everything he's been doing here is a sham.”

“You've got to let him go.”

“Like hell.” Addressing Hoagland, whose face was in shadows cast by the kerosene lantern, Bert yelled, “Tell my friend here what you told me.”

“I didn't tell you anything. You—”

Touching the Taser to his thigh, Bert zapped Hoagland, who hollered and jerked. The Taser explained how a small man like Bert had managed to get somebody of Hoagland's girth and weight off his feet, off the street, and into that chair. When Bert Tased him again, I moved forward to stop him, but before I could accomplish my objective, Bert casually swung around and shot me in the hip with the bean-bag gun. The blow spun me into the straw.

“Those are supposed to be used at a distance,” I moaned.

“Hurts, don't it?”

“You planning to kill us both?”

“You're not paying attention. You're on my team here.”

“Am I? Then give me that gun.”

As I struggled to my feet, Hoagland began talking. “Okay. It's all true. I worked for the CIA for eighteen years and then for shell organizations that contracted for the Company. I've done my share of misdeeds, but it was always for God and country. All I know about this plane crash is what I told you. It was explained to me that there might be some unpatriotic speculation concerning whether or not it was an accident, so I was to handle the press relations and write a report that clarified things.”

“You were told this before the plane went down?” Bert asked.

“After, of course.”

“You were told prior.”

“Have it your way.”

“So you knew a plane was going down with a senator on it a week before
it happened? What exactly were you told to clarify in this report?” Bert asked.

“That it was an accident.”

“Even if it wasn't?”

“Even if it wasn't. You realize you're in serious trouble. They're probably looking for me right now.”

“Maybe, but unless you got a locator shoved up your ass, they're not going to find you. Do you have a locator shoved up your ass?”

Hoagland didn't reply. I could see he was more frightened than he wanted to let on, because, while his face remained as impassive as it had the day I saw him at Boeing Field, his legs quivered. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that under torture, people say whatever it is they think their interrogators want to hear, so it didn't seem to me there was any quick way to verify Hoagland's confession. There was no guessing what clues Bert had given him before my arrival.

Bert said, “It wasn't an accident, was it?”

“No.”

I was standing now, moving closer while Bert stepped away from Hoagland. Though weary and beaten, I sensed that despite everything I knew about torture's ultimate ineffectiveness, Hoagland was telling the truth.

“Who told you to whitewash the investigation?” I whispered into Hoagland's ear, knowing it would be almost impossible later to identify a whisper.

“That's not how it works.”

“How
does
it work?”

“Somebody calls and tells me how it's going to be. They don't give names.”

“I know you have at least one name.”

“I don't.”

Bert looked at me and shook his head. Apparently he'd pursued this line of questioning earlier without success. It was weird. Bert and I had been antagonists moments earlier, and now, without even knowing how it had happened, I was assisting in the torture of a fellow human. “You ever get a call like that before?”

“A few times.”

“From whom?”

“Fuck you.”

“When?”

This he was reluctant to answer until Bert touched his back with the Taser. He didn't push the button, probably because I was close enough to punch him if he did, but nonetheless Hoagland replied. “Couple of crashes. You remember Jameson?”

“No.”

“Wellstone?”

“I remember. The question on the table is, who brought the Sheffield flight down?”

“I don't know. That's not my end of it.”

“Who do you think?”

“Could have been two or three different outfits. They do stuff in South America. Sometimes we bring them up here and let them work.”

“Who ordered it?”

“I don't know. I really don't.”

“Your end of it is to whitewash the investigation so everybody agrees it was an accident?” Hoagland hesitated. “Who else knew about this? Any local authorities?”

“God, no.”

“FBI?”

“Not all of them.”

“Which?”

“Winston Seagram. I'm not sure how many others.”

“But there
are
others?”

“There would have to be.”

“And as far as you know, Senator Sheffield was the target?”

“Obviously. Everybody else on that plane was riffraff.”

He was beginning to show some attitude. I had been suspicious of what he was saying before, but the attitude was more believable than anything else he'd conveyed. It was the attitude of a predator, not a victim. Even as a prisoner, he found it difficult to drop the arrogance that came with power the way spare buttons came with a suit. “Why assassinate a senator?”

“Why do you think? There's a key election coming up, or don't you read the papers?”

“Why kill eleven people to get one?” I whispered.

“Easier for the masses to believe it was an accident.”

“It's easier to put across a big lie than a little one?”

“Right. Can I have some water?”

Bert nodded at a pint bottle of water near the kerosene lantern. I uncapped it and tipped it to Hoagland's lips. “How was the plane brought down?”

“Look, I don't know who brought the plane down or even how. There are lots of methods. Lots of ways. Just like you boys are going to die. Oh, there won't be any arrests or handcuffs. You boys are simply going to disappear. They'll ask you questions, too. And you'll give answers. After they're finished, you'll vanish. If they don't get you today, they'll put teams on you and get you tomorrow.”