Three A.M. (35 page)

I bent double to step under the metal door as it continued to slowly rise and straightened up on the other side. I took a few steps before glancing to one side. I stopped walking.

“What the hell are you doing here, Hank?” Verlassen was leaning against a blue plastic drum, hands tucked into his pockets. He wore the same soiled workman’s clothing as the day before. Same rip above the right knee. Same oil stains all over his shirt. But there was something new. His head was turned slightly to the right and lowered, his chin pressed against his chest and eyes looking askance at me. I took a slow step toward him. He averted his eyes and turned his head farther away. As my eyes adjusted to the harsh fluorescent light of the room, I could see the blood in his beard.

“I, uh … He told me to stay right here,” Verlassen muttered, his voice a quiet rasp.

“Who did?” I drew nearer to him, and he finally raised his head and looked right at me. The right side of his face was bruised and gashed. Dried blood matted the coarse white hairs of his beard and stained the side of his neck and his collar. He shifted his weight and groaned, pulling one hand from a pocket to clutch his ribs. The skin of his knuckles was flayed.

“Who did this?” Again he lowered his eyes and let out a long sigh, his shoulders sagging. With a trembling hand, Verlassen pointed past me. He suddenly flinched, and I wheeled to follow his gesture just as a torrent of pain crashed through my head. I felt the ground rushing up at me and then I was a crumpled heap on the floor. Throbbing agony and the taste of blood. I could see nothing but flashes of black and red. I heard heels click on the concrete floor and felt the strap of my rifle rub against my neck as the weapon was pulled away from me. I wrapped my arms around my head and struggled to get my knees under my body. Slowly my vision came back, but I could hardly think through the pain.

“Take your time.” His voice was low, calm—almost friendly. Familiar. I finally managed to roll over onto my side and rise up on one elbow. A pair of polished black loafers stood inches from my nose. I slid away until I could get a clear look up. The gash on Watley’s cheek had turned a sickly crimson. That much brought me pleasure through the pain. He looked down at me with a faint smile on his lips. His eyes were hard, though. He wore a light gray, neatly pressed suit over an open white shirt. There was even a handkerchief peeking out of his breast pocket. He had a pistol in his left hand—likely the source of my headache.

“So, how’s Ms. Ayers?”

“I should … ask you the same thing.”

“But you know the answer, and I don’t. You think I don’t recognize that truck? I’ve driven that goddamn truck before, Vale.”

I pulled my legs under me to sit nearly upright. “Ah, fuck you, John.”

“Aren’t you brave? Aren’t you one tough bastard?” He leaned in toward me. “The road ends here. It can be abrupt or protracted. Where is she? Still at home like she was last night? You think we weren’t watching? I know you know where she went, so we can move on from that game to this one.” He pressed the barrel of the pistol against my right foot. I reflexively drew it back. His lips curled into a cold, ruthless sneer as he straightened up and aimed vaguely at my heart.

“Don’t like that game? It’s one of my favorites.”

“I’m more of a solitaire player myself.”

“Oh, believe me, I know. I know you are. I know all about you, Vale. So much more, even, than you think.” He straightened up. “Since the first day you stuck your fucking nose into my business at Vessel’s warehouse, I’ve known all about you. All I wanted was just to soften a few memories, take the sting out of the past. To look forward, Tom! But you had to fuck things up. See, I know it all.”

He looked over at the old man. “Don’t I, Hank? Don’t I know all sorts of things about him? About his mother and dead friend and all?”

Verlassen looked away and shivered involuntarily. Watley walked over to him and stood looking down at the quavering old-timer. “You two don’t know a goddamn thing, though. Between the two of you miserable pissants, you haven’t got half a clue.”

He turned to look at me again, shaking his head in disapproval. “What did you think, Vale? Did you really think you’d come here and put a stop to it? You think you can change any of it? You’re a pawn. He’s a pawn.” He pointed to Hank. “I’m the one playing chess, not you. We move the pieces.” Hitching up his slacks, he crouched, his face near mine. “She’s back at the house, isn’t she? I thought you’d bring her along for the ride, but I guess she’s all alone again. Probably clutching daddy’s shirt to her cheek and weeping. Is that where she is? Just tell me and save us both time, Thomas. We’re going to check there again, of course. I have men fanning out all over. The house. Your campsite. Just save me time. Save yourself pain. It’s almost over now, you see. Your little race is run. Nice try, but we win. With Sam’s truck out there, it means she’s near home or near here—doesn’t take a scientist to guess that. I figured you for the type to return to the scene of the crime, anyway.”

“It wasn’t my crime.”

“Semantics to be lost on the ages. Besides, one of the last few people who knows that will be dead soon enough.”

“Then get on with it, you bastard.”

“Careful what you ask for. See, I don’t need you anymore. At all.” Watley straightened up and trained the pistol on my stomach and held it there for a moment, seeming to weigh his options.

“So Fallon missed, huh? Shame.”

“The shame is that he didn’t just drop the gun. I was hoping that bullet would end up in you. Not so long ago, I felt almost like a second father to that young man, you know.”

He walked away a few feet and began pacing in a loose figure-eight pattern, thinking. Hank had slid down to the floor and sat Indian-style, his face in his battered hands. Watley added: “Not anymore, though.”

“He’s dead?”

“Coma. Four shots in the chest. No one’s holding their breath.” He stopped pacing and glanced over at Verlassen, shivering on the floor. “As much as it may shock you, Mr. Vale, I actually don’t like it when people get hurt. I don’t like death.” He looked over his shoulder at me, holding my gaze for just a second. “Anthony Kirk was a friend of mine. Sam Ayers too, once. You’re not.”

“Well,” I muttered, “with friends like you, huh?”

“People change. Facts don’t.”

“Now, you of all people know that’s not true. Not the second part, at least.”

I rose unsteadily to my feet. He stopped pacing and faced me. Our eyes were locked together for the better part of a minute. Saliva welled up in my mouth, and when I was good and ready, I spit directly at Watley’s face. He stumbled backwards reflexively, clawing at the spit on his nose and cheeks. Then his hand was rising and the pistol was on me and I spun away as he fired.

The report echoed throughout the mighty hall despite the clatter of machines and the din of rushing water. I felt only a dull pain at first, as if I had stumbled into the edge of a table. Then heat spread through the right side of my lower body. I stumbled backwards, frightened to look down, and crashed roughly against the cement wall, barely keeping my feet. I pressed one hand to my right thigh as the heat turned to searing agony. My fingers came away dripping with crimson. Finally I looked down to see a dark stain spreading over my right leg from just below my waistline.

I slid sideways to the floor, hands already beginning to tremble slightly. He hadn’t hit my artery. I was sure of that. Bones seemed intact. But I also figured this was it. No way to fight. Nowhere to run. He smiled coldly at me.

“The next one can be fatal or not. Your choice. I say again, I take no pleasure in violence. Not for its own sake, anyway. I just relish order and control. You tried to damage those things I love.”

“You…” I coughed and stuttered at the pain. “You could have stopped me a long time ago.…”

“And I would have, had things not grown so complicated. It’s not my fault you roped your friend into your miserable little life. Not my fault you went back for Rebecca. No matter. Now we’ve moved on to the mopping-up stage.”

He turned suddenly to face Verlassen. “That reminds me.” Watley walked over to the seated old man. Hank raised frightened eyes set into a gnarled, beaten face. “Shame you got mixed up in Vale’s mess. I sincerely hate to do this.”

“No!” I shouted as Watley fired three bullets into Verlassen’s chest. The old man’s hands flew to his neck as he fell sideways. He struggled to suck in a breath but could only gurgle and wheeze through his ruined lungs. Blood bubbled from his mouth and flowed from his chest, and his arms slumped to the floor. Hank’s eyes locked on to mine as the life faded from them. One more ragged sigh drifted past his white beard, and he was gone.

“Fuck you, John. He was an innocent old man.”

“You brought this all about, Vale. Not us.”

“Me! Me? You motherfucker! I didn’t kill thousands of people! I didn’t keep those people trapped in the goddamn fog, wondering if everything and everyone out there was dead and gone. Wondering why the fuck we get up every morning! I just tried to have enough to eat and a place to sleep, you miserable piece of shit! I didn’t bring on a fucking thing!” My shoulders heaved with each breath I drew. Rage blocked the pain from my leg. I struggled to rise, almost getting to my feet before Watley took two quick steps toward me and jammed the gun barrel into my ribs. He pressed hard against me, and I slumped back down.

I coughed, then lamely swatted the weapon away. “What were you going to show me? The video back there in Research.”

“Ah, yes!” he said with what seemed like genuine pleasure. The patrician crispness returned to his voice as he spoke. “We were going to sit and watch a newsreel. A little something from the archives. The clip I thought you’d most enjoy was from fifteen years go, in fact. I thought it may interest you to see what the whole rest of the world thought had happened here. And how thoroughly they’d forgotten about you all.”

“And I’m sure they’re putting you on a stamp, you miserable prick.”

“This will be where the next shot goes.” He dug the tip of his shoe into my stomach. “Then you’ll beg for death. I’m no stranger to pain, Thomas. Cancer. Twice. Lots of people have gotten it. Not surprising at all, of course, but still—it’s a miserable experience. I disconnected my IV to blow air bubbles into it and end myself once, the pain got so bad. I passed out before I could do it. Which I suppose was for the better. That was the first bout. When it came back, I thought I would be ready to handle it—to fight it heroically. But before long, all my thoughts were of death. Release. For you—” He leaned closer to me and I shrank away, lying flat on my back on the hard cement floor. “—it can end remarkably fast. And why not? Maybe you deserve that much, after everything. So just tell me if she came with you, and if she knew your stupid little plan.”

His eyes blazed as he spoke, standing over me. I flopped onto my side and turned my head away, feeling the cool concrete on one cheek. Hank’s lifeless face lay not six feet from my own. The old man was already pale. The crimson pool of blood around his neck had stopped spreading. All he ever wanted was a new book to read. Institutionalized sociopaths.

My body ached. I wasn’t sure if I could muster the strength even to sit up and die properly. Watley stood up to his full height and looked down at me. His gaze traveled with mine to Verlassen’s corpse. He snorted and shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. That was all I got; it was all I needed. With strength born of abject desperation, I sprang to my feet and swung at him. I put all I had left into it. My hand connected squarely with the side of his head. He stumbled backwards, hand clutching his cheek but never even lost his feet. Recovering quickly, Watley planted a solid kick in my gut. I was thrown backwards against the wall and then crumpled to the ground, my right elbow cracking roughly down on the cement. He was on me in a second, fingers tightening around my neck. I tried in vain to push him away, but my injured right arm was near useless, my left pinned beneath his perfectly shined shoe.

“You’re not long for this world, Vale. You should have stayed back in the other one and not asked questions.”

“You should have blown those bubbles into your IV.” My fingers slid into my jacket pocket.

“No. Wrong. They need me. They all need me. Ayers hated it. Kirk tolerated it. I love it. It’s a perfect world, Vale. It’s contained and sustainable. We should all be so lucky.”

“You created a monster, and now you don’t know how to stop it.” I winced as he pressed the pistol barrel against my temple. My right hand was sliding out of the pocket.

“We created utopia. We just need a few more memories to fade. And even if you were right, you can’t just stop a monster.… You have to kill it. Maybe that’s the answer.”

“Truer words I’ve never heard, Watley,” I coughed out as I jammed the syringe of cyanide into his thigh. His eyes went wide as he looked down and saw the needle, its plunger all the way depressed, sticking out of his suit pants. First fear flashed across his face, replaced immediately by rage. Already his eyes were growing glassy. The pistol trembled near my face. He was swearing, muttering. Spittle collected at one corner of his mouth as his legs began to fail him.

“Just let go,” I coughed out. “Let it go.”

He bared his teeth at me. I used what little strength I had left to push him aside just as he collapsed, firing a single shot past my head. The blast deafened me, and I was momentarily blind. In a haze, I rolled his dying body off me and struggled to my knees, crawling away from him. Through blurred vision, I saw his legs spasm twice, and then he was still. I sat there gasping for breath, aching and bleeding. My hands had begun to tremble. I managed to light a cigarette and take a few drags.

*   *   *

It took me seven or eight tight turns, reverses, and retries to get the truck maneuvered before the penstock’s access tunnel. I clambered out of the cab and limped over to the heavy steel doors, pulling one open, pausing and then throwing the second wide as well. I peered into the gloom, barely able to make out the bottom of the passageway some fifty feet below. I wasn’t sure if the propane tank would clear the doorframe. Only one way to find out. And probably not a surplus of time. I had lost a lot of blood. My vision swam, the brightly colored machines swirling together, voices seeming to whisper beneath their mechanical droning.