Passage Graves (25 page)

Chapter 61

SATURDAY 5:20 p.m.

Lothian, Scotland

Dettorio stared at Ian in the rearview mirror. The man’s coarse features made him look like a Neanderthal—a protruding forehead, a square, bony jaw, weedy eyebrows. Even his joints were misshapen, his knuckles like marbles. Probably from years of inflicting pain.

“Here we are,”
Javan said, an unnerving twinkle in his eye.

They pulled into the driveway of the Lothian Post.

Javan unbuttoned his suit coat, unclipped David’s handgun from his shoulder holster, and removed the cartridge. The chamber was full. Nine rounds. He reloaded the clip and offered the gun to Ian.

Ian didn’t move.

“Take it.” Javan forced the weapon into Ian’s hands.

The sidearm was heavy, volatile in his
hand. He could kill both of them, and this could be over.

Javan pushed Ian’s hand aside so the gun
was pointed at Dettorio instead of himself.

“There’s an elderly couple inside.” He nodded at t
he post office. “Learn where David has gone and then dispose of the witnesses.”

Ian’s mouth went d
ry. “You want me to kill them?”

“If you fail, my aid will tidy things up.”

Dettorio looked more than happy to oblige.

A vile taste
filled Ian’s mouth. There was a way around this. He could think of something.

Javan’s eyes lit up with pleasure. He pulled off his black leather gloves and handed the
m to Ian. “You’ll want these.”

****

The counter bell rang for the second time.

The
old man turned down his television set. “Sherry! Customer!”

Ian tapped the bell again.

The man cursed under his breath, rolled out of the lounge chair, and slowly hobbled over to the counter. He looked up at Ian, a priest in full cassock, bruised and bloody. He shook his head. “God Almighty, what a day. We’re closed, Father.”

Ian kept
the gun at his side. “I’m looking for my brother,” he said. “He might’ve been here recently?”

“Aye, a man was here not thirty minutes ago.”

Ian felt a weightless sensation from head to foot. “Do you know where went?”

“To visit
the nutters. The Lothian Asylum.” He pointed outside. “Do you need directions, Father?”

A gasp interrupted their conversation.

The men turned to see Sherry in the doorway. A box of glassware dropped from her hands and shattered on the linoleum.

She stared at
the pistol in Ian’s right hand.

****

A gunshot sounded from inside the post office.

Javan smoothed out each crease in a new pair of black leather gloves. The fit was snug over
his fingers.

He smiled as a second shot ra
ng out across the countryside.

Ian a
ppeared at the door. His body trembled as he stepped inside the limo. The gun nearly dropped to the floor as he handed it back. “David is up the coast at the asylum,” he managed.

Javan
’s eyes deadened.

It
was too simple: Ian’s cooperation.

Ian reached behind his neck and unfastened the collar of his cassock. He fo
lded the white band in his lap.

Javan signaled to
Dettorio. “You heard the man.”

The car pulled out of the driveway and headed north.

Chapter 62

SATURDAY, 6:04 p.m.

Eilean Donan Asylum

Near Dornie, Highlands, Scotland

M
en blockaded the hallway to the main entrance. Bullets swarmed like bees crowding a hive. There were a dozen terrible thumps followed by a crack as flesh and bone absorbed lead. The slugs tossed Asor’s fragile body up into the air and then slammed him to the floor. In a flash, it was over. The last man in the Polaroid was dead.

David crouched against the wall in shock
, protected by an old bookshelf. The bullets quickly chipped away at the wood but he couldn’t move. Why the hell was an entire uniformed force shooting at them?

The dead man
grabbed his foot.

David retracted in horror.

Asor pulled himself across the floor behind the recess of the bookshelf. Using the wall as a crutch, he managed to stand. There were holes in his flesh, but no bloodstains. His uniform jumpsuit was pierced and tattered. It was as if nothing had happened. He pointed at a window across the hall. Termite gunfire had already consumed half the shelf. They had to move fast. Reaching for a nearby chair, Asor tried to pick it up. He doubled over. The injuries had affected him. The chair fell into the hallway and ammunition pulverized the seat.

David shielded his eyes. He caught
another chair leg with his foot and tossed it out the window. Gunfire drowned the sound of shattering glass.

Asor dove across the hallway
first. He jumped out the broken window without a second thought. One moment he was agile and the next a hunchback with scoliosis. He perched outside on the ledge and waved for David to join him.

Ammuni
tion whizzed past David’s head.

This was insane.

His mouth was dry. At some point, he had lost the ability to swallow. Gripping what was left of the bookshelf, he tipped it sideways. The heavy shelf shook off balance and then crashed to the floor. As it toppled, David dove behind it and slid to the window. He paused to look over their escape route. His stomach reeled. Forty feet down was a stone courtyard.

Ahead
, Asor sprang from the windowsill and landed on the top of a narrow arch, a bridge that connected their building to another wing of the asylum. The stonework blended with the ground below, creating a dizzying illusion. The archway was almost invisible. David could only see it because Asor had just landed there.

Slugs ri
cocheted off the wall. The shooters were getting close.

David
climbed onto the windowsill. His legs wavered. Staring at a spot on the arch, he dropped. His feet hit the stone, and he tumbled to one side. He caught the ledge with his fingertips. Clinging to cracks in the masonry, he pulled his body back up onto the arch. He looked down again. Twenty feet below, metal spikes of a wrought iron fence reached toward the sky wanting to skewer his flesh.

Bullets deflected off
the arch. Security had reached the window.

David scrambled across the beam, as Asor kicked out
panes of glass from a window in the other wing. David jumped inside behind him, falling through the opening. He dropped onto the linoleum floor. Gulping air, he tried to catch his breath. His body twitched with adrenaline.

Asor led
him through a maze of corridors. The doors of the patients’ rooms had been left open. The drawers and beds were empty. This building had already been evacuated.

They turned down a hall
way and stopped at a dead end.

Asor’s gnarled fingers brushed over the stone
wall. He pressed against the masonry, searching for something. He found a small, loose brick at eye level. Pulling out the brick, he reached into a hole and twisted a rusted crankshaft.

T
he wall began to move.

Scraping the floor, the
hidden door slowly became visible. Mortar crumbled between the separating bricks, and the passage opened. Within seconds, the doorway had retracted enough for them to squeeze through sideways.

“Where are we goin
g?” David followed Asor inside.

The old man didn’t answer.

They moved quietly down the spiral staircase enveloped by the dark. The steps were rounded and crudely shaped, some wide and some narrow. They formed a corkscrew stairwell that twisted around and around, descending into perfect black. The air was chalky and stale. He could taste a tangible powder dust on his tongue. Asor’s shallow breaths echoed along the steep descent. He looked back at David for a moment, and a spectral glow exuded from the white matter surrounding his pupils.

A s
udden slit of daylight cut through the darkness.

David braced himself against the wall as Asor struggled
with the exit. It was much harder to find an invisible frame in the shadows. Crevices along the surface had reformed together, erasing the cracks that outlined their doorway. Asor clawed at the mortar, digging his fingernails into each rift and breaking apart the sandy particles that had resealed them.

“Let me try.” David
threw his entire weight into the wall. Debris dislodged around the frame, revealing the crank shaft.

Asor pulled out the brick and twisted the shaft. The door separated fr
om the wall, this time moving outward. The opening widened, and they slipped out onto the grass near the parking lot.

Special Forces vehicles were everywhere. Armored trucks surrounded David’s rental ca
r, trapping it.

Who
the hell were these people?

David
hid behind the curved parapet as a limousine drove across the bridge and stopped a short distance away.

Javan stepped out of the car.
In the middle of a cell phone conversation, he walked to the end of the parking lot and overlooked the sea.

David slid further behind the parapet
. What was Javan doing there?

As
or pointed at a minicar parked between the limo and a bus. Before David could find an alternative, Asor sprinted across the field and behind the grill of the Goggomobil.

David gritted his teeth.
You’ve got to be kidding
. They couldn’t outrun Scotland’s Special Forces in that thing. He rushed across the field and crouched beside the hood.

“This isn’t going to work,” he whispered, twisting his fingers through the grill to unlock the engine bonnet.

The engine roared to life.

David fell backwards o
nto the gravel.

Asor crawled over the side doo
r and rolled into the backseat just as Javan finished his conversation. His footsteps came back through the gravel. He stopped and scanned the parking lot, his back to David.

Davi
d’s heel caught the rocks. He squeezed his eyes as the stones crunched together. The noise was awful. Certainly, Javan had noticed.

David peaked over the hood.
Javan was halfway up the hill to the asylum entrance. Scrambling over the door, David plopped into the driver seat. He pushed in the clutch.

Ian stepped out of
the limo, his mouth open in surprise.

There was an
awkward pause.

Two minds racing.

Ian’s eyes squinted as he spotted the stone ring hanging from a chain around David’s neck.

Da
vid threw the car into reverse. The Goggomobil sped backwards, twisting wildly to the left and colliding with the limo. Shifting into first, he accelerated across the parking lot. Rubber skidded over loose rock, caught hold of the pavement along the bridge, and squealed onto the highway.

Gunshots rang out from behind.
Javan and his men were running to the parking lot.

The b
ullets climbed up the trunk, tearing the fiberglass shell. Shrapnel bounced over David’s shoulder and hit the windshield, puncturing the glass. He floored the gas, accelerating to 120 kph. The minicar disappeared between the sloping hills. David searched for another road. A turnoff, a byway—anything. Highway stretched on for miles. There was nowhere to go.

“Get off the road!” Asor yelled from the
backseat.

The microcar couldn’t navigate
over the choppy greensward. That was suicide.

The steering w
heel spun underneath his hands. David fought with the wheel, nearly flipping the car. The vehicle exploded off the embankment, clearing the ditch along the road. There was a terrible groan as the chassis hit the grass.

Asor shrank in
the seat.

The car slowed a
nd its navigation was restored. There was a flock of sheep gathered in the gulley.

David downshifted, forc
ing the car into the herd.

It was
genius.

“What are you
talking about?” Javan yelled into the radio. “There’s nowhere for them to go!”

A
man’s voice cut to static and then came over the radio again. “What are your orders, Chancellor?”

Javan slammed his fist against the car seat
. He searched the horizon through tinted glass. “They couldn’t have gone far.”

“Do we go back, sir?”

“No, dammit! Tell half the men to continue north, and the other half to go south. They’re on A896. There’s no other place for them to go!”

Javan sat back in his seat and tried to re
gain his composure. He rubbed his eyes, avoiding the open scar oozing along the side of his face. The wound had reopened during all the excitement.

His cell phone buzzed. He uncli
pped it from his belt. “What?”

He looked u
p at Ian with disappointment.

Sw
eat trickled down Ian’s neck.

“Take care of it.” Javan tossed the phone
to the floor. He reached into his pant pocket and pulled out a silk scarf. “You forget that I clean up your messes, Ian.”

Unfolding the fabric in the palm of his hand, he removed a small silver vial from his breast pocket and uns
crewed the lid. “What a shame, all your nobility has to be wasted.” He dowsed the handkerchief with a few drops of liquid from the vial. “They were hiding behind the counter when Dettorio found them. They thought you had saved them. They were praying for you.”

Ian clasped his hands together.
His fingers intertwined and whitened at the knuckles. On the floor mat was his discarded collar.

“
Does God hear their prayers?” Javan saturated the cloth. “Does He hear yours?”

Javan
sprang forward, thrusting the scarf over Ian’s mouth and nose.

Noxious fumes filled
Ian’s lungs. He struggled to free himself. He tried to hold his breath. The chemicals burned his sinuses. Every nerve ending was singed. Sputtering, he slumped against the car door. The poison spread to his lungs. Bubbles boiled in his throat, acidic and scalding. Blisters fizzed along his esophagus and tongue. Foam erupted from his mouth, scorching his lips and burning his chin. He could no longer breathe. He closed his eyes, succumbing to the pain, begging for grace to embrace him.

One final prayer—a
flickering act of resilience.

God save me.

He heard Javan laughing.

Memory eva
porated into immaculate miasma. This was chemical absolution.

His
world was lost in vapor.