The Furies (8 page)

“I'll crawl if I have to. Just stop the car.”

John had reached the part of the expressway where it crossed over the Schuylkill River. There was no shoulder on the side of the road here. He couldn't have stopped even if he'd wanted to. Instead he followed the signs to I-76 West. “All right, have it your way. I'll shut up and drive. Can I ask for directions at least?”

She gave him a smile. A very small, fleeting smile, but still lovely. “Stay on the interstate until you get to exit 328A. Then take Route 422 to Valley Forge. We need to pick up some supplies before we head for Michigan.”

“I don't have any cash left. I spent my last thirteen dollars on your herbs.”

“Don't worry. I know where to get some money.”

John wanted to ask her about this—she didn't have a wallet or a purse or a bank card, so how the hell could she get cash?—but he stopped himself. He had a more important question for her. “I just need to know one thing,” he said. “Why did you choose me?”

She didn't respond for several seconds, and John started to think she wasn't going to. But then Ariel leaned forward, moving as close as possible to him. “I chose you because of a news story I saw on the Internet. The story of what happened to you three years ago.”

John's throat tightened. He couldn't say a word. So they drove silently out of Philadelphia, toward the green hills of Chester County.

 

 

Ariel's directions led them to the entrance of Valley Forge National Historical Park. They passed a visitor's center and a couple of parking lots, but luckily the place didn't charge an entrance fee. John followed a road that looped through a wide field dotted with monuments. Along the side of the road he saw several wooden huts, which—according to the signs—were reconstructions of the shelters that General Washington's army used during the Revolutionary War. John had never visited this park before, and he had to admit it was a pretty interesting place. But he couldn't understand what they were doing here.

He looked at Ariel in the rearview mirror. “You said we were going to pick up supplies?”

She nodded. “We need cash, that's the most important thing. And a few other essentials.”

“Well, I don't see any banks or cash machines here, do you?”

“We can't go to a bank. Sullivan has spies who monitor the financial-transaction networks. He knows all my aliases and account numbers, so if I try to make a withdrawal he'll see where we are. And by this point he probably knows all of your information, too.”

Her voice was calm and matter-of-fact, but John was alarmed. “So what are we going to do?”

“We have other options. Our community has a long tradition of preparing for emergencies.” She pointed at the road up ahead. “Take the next right.”

John turned onto Valley Creek Road and left the wide field behind. Soon he drove across a covered bridge that spanned a swiftly running stream. The creek flowed between two tree-covered hills that rose about three hundred feet above the road.

“The hill on the right is Mount Joy,” Ariel pointed out. “And the one on the left is Mount Misery. Washington camped here because of the hills, they protected his flank. We're heading for Misery. Slow down, there's the trailhead.”

He pulled into a small parking area at the base of the hill. There were no other cars, but he saw a sign that said Mount Misery Trail. It was a narrow dirt path that climbed up the steep wooded hillside. John shut off the Kia's engine, then turned around to face Ariel. “Okay, what now?”

She opened her leather-bound notebook. “I'll get the directions.” After flipping through the yellowed pages for several seconds, she rested her index finger on a line of bewildering symbols. “Here it is. Walk up the trail about a quarter mile, till you see an oak tree with the name Mary carved into the trunk. Then turn toward the creek and go twenty paces down the slope. Then look for a large gray stone that's shaped like a teardrop. Lift the stone and start digging underneath.”

“What is this, a treasure hunt?”

Ariel smiled. “Yes, that's exactly what it is. You're going to dig up an iron box. The money will be inside. Plus, a few other items.”

“Did you put it there?”

“No, someone else in our family is in charge of this cache. There are dozens like it all over the country. Every twenty years we dig up the boxes and add new currency to them. Otherwise the cash would get outdated.”

John shook his head in disbelief. “Every twenty years? How long has your family been doing this?”

“A long time. That's why we put our caches in national parks. The land there will never be disturbed or developed. On private land, there's always a chance the owner will excavate the property to build a house or business.” She closed the notebook. “So you remember the directions?”

“Yeah, oak tree named Mary, then twenty paces toward the creek. Rock shaped like a teardrop.” He opened the driver-side door but paused before stepping out of the car. He was worried about leaving Ariel alone. “You gonna be okay by yourself?”

She rolled her eyes. “Go on, get the box. You'll have to dig with your fingers, but it won't be buried too deep.”

 

 

John was a city boy. Although there were lots of parks and hiking trails near Philadelphia, he never visited them. Walking through the woods wasn't fun or relaxing for him; it made him nervous. He stayed alert as he climbed the dirt trail up Mount Misery, his eyes flicking from tree to tree. He imagined soldiers hiding behind the tree trunks, taking aim at him with their carbines.

After about ten minutes he found the oak tree. It was tall and massive, with a gnarled trunk at least three feet wide. The name Mary was at eye level, written in old-fashioned letters, each four inches high. The person who'd carved it into the trunk had probably died a hundred years ago. John turned east and looked down at the creek, which was two hundred feet below him. The eastern slope of Mount Misery was so steep that the trees on the hillside were curved near the ground, their trunks bent like the letter J. Going twenty paces in that direction was going to be harder than he thought. If he wasn't careful, he'd tumble all the way down.

He left the trail and cautiously stepped down the slope, leaning backward to keep his balance. The ground was covered with dead leaves, which made the footing treacherous. He moved slowly and grabbed any handhold within reach—low branches, saplings, roots protruding from the dirt. Then his right foot slipped and he fell backward and his butt hit something hard. It was a smooth gray rock, about two feet across, shaped like a teardrop.

John crouched next to the rock and got a good grip on its rounded edge. With a grunt he flipped it over, exposing a bowl of dark dry soil. Fortunately, the dirt wasn't hard-packed; he could sink his fingers into it and scoop out big handfuls. The digging was so easy, in fact, that it made John suspicious. If no one had touched this cache in twenty years, the dirt under the rock wouldn't be so loose and powdery. He concluded that someone else had been digging here recently, maybe in the past few weeks. There was a good chance that the iron box was gone, already taken.

But no, it was there. After excavating about ten inches of soil, John felt the box's cold lid. He dug faster, widening the hole until he could slide his fingers around the box and lift it out of the earth. It was the size of a shoe box and weighed at least thirty pounds. The lid was decorated with the same symbols he'd seen in Ariel's notebook, the lightning bolts and teepees and backwards B's and P's and R's. There were two rusty latches securing the lid, and after a bit of effort John managed to unclasp one of them. He was working on the other when he heard someone above him yell,
“Hey!”

Startled, he looked up. A National Park Service ranger in a gray-and-green uniform stood at the edge of the dirt trail, peering down the slope. He was tall and thin and red-faced, with a long nose and big ears under the brim of his ranger hat. And he carried a semiautomatic pistol in his belt holster. “What are you doing?” he shouted. “Did you dig that up?”

John couldn't deny it. The hole was right there and the box was smeared with dirt. But he gave it a try anyway. “No, this is mine,” he said, putting a defensive tone in his voice.

“It's a federal crime to take artifacts from a national park.” The ranger's right hand hovered near the pistol in his holster. “Now put that thing on the ground and come up here.”

John glanced down the hillside. There was another trail at the bottom of the slope, running parallel to the creek. He could take that trail back to the Kia, assuming he could get down the hill in one piece.

“Sorry,” he said. “Gotta run.” Holding the box under his arm, he scrabbled down the slope, his shoes kicking up the dead leaves.

“Hey! Stop!”

John surrendered to gravity. He hurtled downhill, swerving between the trees and leaping over the stones. After a few seconds he heard crashing noises behind him. The park ranger was chasing him down the slope, but John had been chased by police officers many times before, so he knew the rules. The ranger wouldn't take a shot at him just for stealing an old box. And because the park was fairly big, it would take at least a couple of minutes for a backup unit to arrive. So simply running away was a pretty good option.

But twenty feet from the bottom of the slope, John lost his balance. He fell on his side and slid the rest of the way down. The box slipped out of his grasp and tumbled end over end, hitting the dirt trail next to the creek at the same time John did. The fall knocked the wind out of him, and for a couple of seconds he couldn't breathe. The woods whirled around him in a green blur.

Frantic, he drew in an aching breath. He looked up, expecting to see the park ranger standing over him, but instead he heard a cry from halfway up the slope. The ranger had fallen too, and it sounded like he was in pain. “Shit!” the guy moaned. “Shit, shit, shit!”

John checked himself for injuries. His back was sore but nothing seemed to be broken. Dizzy with relief, he struggled to his feet and found the box, which had landed a couple of yards away. The lid had popped open, spilling a pile of coins and bills across the trail. The coins were silver dollars, dull and dirty with age, and the bills were a collection of old and new currencies, wrinkled greenbacks mixed with stacks of crisp cash. Under the pile of money were a pair of Michigan license plates and a clean, new Glock semiautomatic. But the thing that caught John's eye was a small glass jar, cylindrical and stubby, like a jar for baby food. It was filled with a cloudy, yellowish liquid. He was surprised that the glass hadn't broken when the box tumbled down the hill. He looked a little closer and realized it was a specimen jar. Then he saw what was floating inside.

It made him so sick he almost fell down again. He stood there on the trail, trembling, while the wind blew through the trees and the water rushed down the creek and the park ranger yelled, “Fucking hell!” from the hillside. Then he picked up the jar and threw it as far as he could. It splashed in the creek about fifty yards away.

He couldn't think. All he could do was get out of there. Bending over, he swept up everything from the trail—the money, the gun, the license plates—and stuffed it all back into the box. Then he ran down the trail with the box under his arm, heading for the trailhead where he'd parked his Kia.

Ariel gaped at him from the backseat as soon as he approached the car. She clearly recognized that something was wrong, but she remained silent as John stormed into the Kia and threw the box on the passenger seat and took off down Yellow Springs Road. Within a minute they were out of the park and racing across the Pennsylvania countryside. John waited until they were a couple of miles away from Valley Forge before looking at her in the rearview mirror.

“Tell me what's going on,” he ordered. “If you don't, I'm taking you straight to the police.”

“John, what—”

“There was something else in the box. A specimen jar.”

Ariel's mouth opened. She took a deep breath. “That wasn't us. That was Sullivan. His men must be using that cache.”

“What the hell are they doing? What…”

His voice trailed off. He couldn't say the words, couldn't bring himself to describe the thing. But he could see it, in his mind's eye, almost as clearly as when it was in front of him: a brown spidery object floating in the yellowish liquid. The liquid, he realized now, was formaldehyde. The brown thing was a tiny, severed hand.

SIX

Life sucks.
That was the one thing Gabe Rodriguez knew for certain. It was the reason why he'd become a junkie. He just wanted to forget how shitty life was for a few fucking minutes.

He lifted his head from the couch cushion and looked around his shitty room. He stared at the shitty carpet and the shitty walls, the shitty bars on the shitty windows. He'd once been so proud of this house. He'd bought it for a song when he still worked at the hospital. At the time he thought he'd gotten the deal of the century. But there was an obvious reason why the price was so low:
because the house was in fucking Kensington.
It was surrounded by vacant lots and crack dens and gangbangers. Maybe other parts of the city were gentrifying, but this neighborhood was still a bad investment.

Gabe let his head fall back to the cushion. His mouth was dry and his stomach was empty, but he was too weak to get up from the couch. So he lay there and listened to his dogs barking. Maurice and Malaga were making a racket because the boys from the Somerset Street crew stood outside the fence, waiting for John Rogers to return. Gabe had told them that John would come back soon, although he knew damn well that the guy was gone for good. It was yet another fuckup, one more in a long line of them. He'd missed his chance to make some money and build some goodwill with his suppliers. And once the gangbangers realized they were waiting for nothing, they'd take it out on him. He didn't even want to think about what they were going to do.