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The men selected bottles of Moosehead beer and ranged themselves on plush leather chairs while Grosevoir busied himself in the bedroom. An overhead projector was set up on a cut-glass coffee table.

“What do you think that’s for?” Crosshairs whispered to Zippo.

Zippo jabbed him in the ribs and said, “Who am I, Uri Geller?”

Grosevoir exited the bedroom with a roll of transparencies.

“May I dim the lights?” A deferential bow to Oddy. “I promise there are no guerilla troops hidden in the closets.”

Grosevoir smiled. Every tooth was a dead, nerveless gray. Oddy’s hackles rose, short hairs on the nape of his neck stiffening like hog bristles.

Grosevoir switched on the projector and centered a transparency on the glass plate. A topographical map of the Northwest Territories was projected onto the wall.

“This,” he pointed to a spot near Great Bear Lake, “is the location of the Saugeen Valley Penitentiary. Of course, I’m sure none of you have ever experienced incarceration.” Another smile touched his mulberry-colored lips, exposing a cobalt slit of teeth. “But this institution is the first Canadian ‘Super-Max’ facility, an idea conceived by and borrowed from their neighbors to the south.”

Crosshairs recalled an article in
Newsweek
about the Red Onion State Prison in Virginia, the original Super-Max. The brainchild of Governor Edward “Lee” Barnett, Super-Max prisons were designed to break inmates down to the level of infants in order to rebuild them as functional members of society. Conditions resembled a gulag: prisoners spent twenty-three hours a day in solitary, their lone hour of recreation taking place in a sunless twelve-by-twelve concrete chamber. Even the shower stalls had bars.

“It was built to house the worst of the worst,” Grosevoir continued. “Serial killers and rapists, degenerates and recidivist felons; the scum of the scum. It is Hell on earth, and such prisoners deserve no less.”

Tripwire was bemused: Canada, a country populated by infuriatingly polite bumpkins, required a Super-Max? He couldn’t quite grasp the concept of a Canadian serial killer. How would he approach a potential victim: “Pardon me, eh, but I was thinking a-
boot
cutting your head off and skewering it on a pike. Okay by you?” Perhaps the victims were unusually accommodating: “Alright, eh. Just don’t go making lampshades out of my skin, you hoser.”

“The Penitentiary is supposedly water-tight,” Grosevoir continued. “The theory goes that, even if someone managed to escape, the surrounding wilderness and sub-zero temperatures would make short work of even the most rugged escapee.” His face, illuminated by the funneled light cast by the projector, bore an expression of wry amusement. “But it seems that humankind has been put on this planet to show how any theory, no matter how vigorously asserted, can be disproved.”

Grosevoir removed the map and centered another transparency. His hands moved with swift assurance, out of all context with the rest of his body: it was like watching a baboon play a concerto.

“This man,” he indicated the projected mugshot, “is the proverbial exception to the rule. Marcus Overton was the leader of a group of drug-addicts-turned-murderers who massacred twelve people during the summer of 1981. Self-styled champions of the underprivileged, their twisted
modus operandi
was the slaughter of upper-class families, the idea being anyone who had attained wealth had attained it at the expense of the working-class. Their eldest victim was Muriel Conway, an eighty-three-year-old grandmother; the youngest Elliot Conway, her six-year-old great-grandson.”

Zippo was, unsurprisingly, something of a serial killer buff. He’d recently read
Buried Dreams: The John Wayne Gacy Case
, and
Unnatural Acts: The Ted Bundy Story
. For this reason he was more than a little surprised to have never heard of Marcus Overton: twelve stiffs, by serial killer standards, was a gold medal performance. Manson & Co. had secured an immortal legacy with less than ten—which was far fewer than Zippo himself had dispatched on the job, the fact of which swelled his chest with professional pride.

“Overton and the surviving members of his gang were sentenced to forty consecutive life sentences and remanded to the Saugeen Valley Penitentiary in the fall of 1982. Two weeks ago, Overton and three of his disciples escaped. From what’s been pieced together in the aftermath, the break was planned over several years. Since the men rarely had personal contact, they communicated via a code-system tapped out on the walls of their adjoining cells. Neither the prison guards nor the warden believed them capable of such cunning.” A rueful smile. “Obviously they were mistaken.”

The men appraised Marcus Overton’s mugshot. But they did not see the same image. Overton’s facial features varied wildly according to each man:

To Tripwire, Overton’s hooked nose, angular bone structure, and ice-pick eyes reminded him, jarringly, of his father.

To Crosshairs, Overton’s switchblade sneer, sunkissed skin, and ironically-cocked eyebrow made him a dead ringer for Len the card-shark.

To Oddy, Overton appeared as a black man whose features were a fusion of his father and Dade, men he loved and hated in equal measure.

To Zippo, Overton’s ghostly-pale skin, immaculately-coiffed hair, and pouty, come-hither expression made him the ultimate GLAAD poster boy.
Fucking gift-giving ass bandit
, he seethed inwardly.
Shitstains like you give serial killers a bad name!

Only Answer saw the mugshot as it truly appeared: a grainy, out-of-focus photograph of a man who resembled, and quite possibly was, ex-president Richard M. Nixon. Answer kept this to himself.

“After stabbing a guard to death with a sharpened toothbrush, Overton successfully freed five of his fellow inmates. They caught the control room guards unawares and massacred them all, losing two of their own in the process. The remaining three, led by Overton, stole weapons and winter clothing before clearing the prison’s perimeter. They are currently at large somewhere in the four-thousand square miles of forest ringing the penitentiary.”

Grosevoir switched off the projector and sat on the edge of the coffee table. With knees drawn up and fists balled at his hips he resembled a gargoyle perched on the ledge of a crumbling gothic manor. “My request is a simple one,” he said. “Locate Overton. Kill him.”

The pendulum on an ivory wall clock produced a steady tick-tock, the only noise to impinge on an otherwise pervasive silence. Crosshairs crossed his legs and sipped his beer nervously, thinking,
I need money—but do I need it that bad?

“Why?” Oddy said.

“Why what?” Grosevoir said.

“Why us, for starters? The youngest of us is, how old are you Answer, late thirties? Me, I’m mid-forties. It’s been years since any of us went out on recon.”

“None of you are old, all of you are seasoned, some of you,” Grosevoir nodded at Answer, Zippo, Oddy, “work in fields that will be helpful on this assignment. I have no need for youthful bravado; I’m seeking competence and an ability to execute.”

Zippo hated the way Grosevoir looked at him: the man’s gaze felt like cockroaches scuttling up his neckline. “Why go through the trouble?” he said. “Tracking us down, firing off letters, no guarantee we’re going to show? Hell, I know crews—professional, ruthless mercs—who’d’ve taken the contract for less than you’re paying us for a meeting. These guys aren’t advertising in
Soldier of Fortune
, but they don’t take much legwork to track down. Besides, we haven’t worked together in twenty-odd years. One of us,” pointing at Tripwire, “looks like he stepped out of the potato patch at a kibbutz, and our sniper is missing half his fucking face, in case you didn’t notice. No offence, guys.”

Crosshairs flicked a bottle cap at him. “None taken, shitbird.”

“I’m a neophyte in the business of hiring contract killers,” Grosevoir said. “I have a connection in the U.S. Armed Forces who told me your unit was the most highly-decorated in the Vietnam conflict.”

Something tightened inside Tripwire like a wet rag being wrung out by hand: an image of them all receiving the combat infantry badge for slaughtering a boatload of children.

Grosevoir continued, “This friend of mine was able to secure your most recent mailing addresses. All I did was send the letters.”

“I still don’t get why you need us,” Crosshairs said. “I mean, the woods have got to be crawling with task forces, Mounties or whatever tracking Overton down—”

“And besides,” Tripwire added, “wouldn’t those woods be full of animals—wolves and bears, maybe…badgers?”

“Yeah,” Zippo snorted. “Gotta watch out for those rabid badgers.”

“Oh, yes, there are some terribly vicious creatures in those woods,” Grosevoir said. “But, as I said, the escapees are armed and cunning. I have no doubt they’re alive. Excusing the cliché, I feel it in my bones.”

Crosshairs was highly dubious of Grosevoir feeling
anything
, be it in his bones, his heart, his soul, or elsewhere.

“As for the Mounties,” Grosevoir continued, “I’m sure they’ll eventually track Overton down. Then what? Another trial, more media exposure, another book deal inked, panties and marriage proposals from adoring fans? Back to prison with nothing to lose, the opportunity to kill again? No. I can’t have it. I want the Mounties to find bodies—stiff, lifeless, headless bodies.”

Tripwire was reminded of a movie he’d shot in southern California. An homage of sorts to Disney’s
The Apple Dumpling Gang
, he’d titled it:
The Grapple Humping Gangbang
. The plot, such as it was, involved a gang of female desperadoes, led by Charity Chest as “Bitch Chas-titty,” escaping jail on the day they were to be hanged for wanton promiscuity. The sheriff, a young Johnny Wadd, assembled a posse of sexual lawmen—including two full-blooded Navajos skilled in ancient “Grapple Humping” techniques—and eventually shanghaied the lasses frolicking, stark naked, in a babbling brook. The posse, unhinged by lust, descended upon the helpless nymphs. A massive gangbang ensued.

Tripwire doubted the assignment Grosevoir had tabled would end so agreeably.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Oddy said. “Why do you want this guy dead? Don’t play it off as some kind of samaritanism, ’cause I’m not buying it.”

Grosevoir gave Oddy a look. It was the look a top-rank boxer might give his sparring partner after being tagged with a hard shot: a look of stunned surprise. Perhaps Grosevoir assumed he’d known these men, their financial difficulties and moral shortcomings, and hadn’t expected this level of questioning. He applied to his face an expression of soul-wrenching sadness and removed a picture from his pocket.

“This was my family,” he said quietly. “June and Allison Grosevoir. Do I need to tell you who slaughtered them?”

The photo was passed around. As had been the case with Overton’s picture, no two men saw the same image. Each of them saw two women who resembled, in some way, their mothers, or sisters, or girlfriends loved and lost. Again, only Answer saw the photo for what it truly was: a stock picture frame insert featuring a towheaded boy and a golden retriever, with the frame size—
8 in. x 10 in.
—stamped prominently in the left-hand corner. He looked up from the photo to see Grosevoir eyeing him impassively.

“So that’s what this is?” Crosshairs asked. “A mission of revenge?”

“Revenge” Grosevoir challenged, “or social obligation? When a vicious animal escapes its cage, what’s a responsible human being to do?” A weary shrug suggested the answer was too self-evident to bother vocalizing. “Overton should be dead already. If he’d committed his crimes in Texas, he and his sadistic cronies would be ashes. But bleeding-heart Canadians outlawed capital punishment, so he lives. And the thought of that monster drawing breath while my wife and daughter lie entombed, the thought he might outlive
me
…no, it’s intolerable. Plain and simple, I want them dead.”

“You want him iced, fine. He offed your family; must eat at your guts. I can sympathize.” Zippo ran his tongue across his teeth. “But the question remains: how
badly
do you want him dead?”

“Down to brass tacks, are we?” Grosevoir rubbed his hands together. “As you’ve no doubt surmised, I am a wealthy man. I leave my net worth to my accountants, but the simple fact is I have more money than I could possibly spend should I live to be a thousand years old.” The little man chuckled, as if the thought of such longevity was amusing. “I’ve never put a price on my peace of mind before, but in this case I’d say my peace of mind is worth exactly one million dollars…for each of you.”