Atropos (32 page)

“Murphy,” Trotter said. “What are you doing here?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing. What’s the matter with you, you look like hell.”

“Murphy, I’ve got no time for this. What are you doing here, some kind of story?”

“Might be. Though I actually came to meet Regina. Babington’s party has moved to his campaign headquarters suite, and Senator Van Horn isn’t there. I thought it might interest our readers to know where he is. Especially if he’s shacked up with a bimbo.”

“He’s not,” Trotter said. “You got any aspirin?”

“In my car. You sound like you know where Van Horn is.”

“When was the last time you spoke to Regina?”

“Right after we got here. We had jobs to do, you know. She’s doing hers. A guy from the local paper saw her go off in a car with Mark Van Horn about fifteen minutes ago. I wonder why she didn’t wait for me.”

“Son of a
bitch!”
Trotter said.

Murphy smiled at him. “What’s the matter? Jealous?”

“Where’s your car?”

“What do you mean, where’s my car?”

Trotter’s left hand grabbed a handful of Murphy’s shirt. “I mean, where’s your goddam car? Because we’re going there
right now.”

“Okay, okay,” Murphy said. The reporter cursed himself. Trotter looked at least two-thirds dead, and Murphy was
still
scared shitless of him.

“I’m sorry,” Trotter told him. “Really.”

“It’s all right.” Murphy certainly
hoped
it was all right. “Is this about Regina?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m going to need your help. And I’m really going to need that aspirin.”

A
ND THE NEXT THING THAT
happens, Sean Murphy told himself, is that a big tornado comes along and blows me to Oz.

Unless, of course, I’m already there.

Murphy sat in the front seat of the Acura Legend he had borrowed from the publisher of the local paper, wondering what Trotter’s blood would do to the custom interior. Trotter had spent the whole trip out here to SkyGrain, Inc., talking, eating aspirins like M&Ms, and bleeding on the publisher’s leather upholstery.

If Murphy looked really hard into the rearview mirror, he might convince himself he could still see Trotter making his slow, agonizing way toward the silver-gray building known as Silo 16. Trotter had avoided the access road, but there was enough moon to light his way.

Murphy was looking in the rearview mirror because Trotter had given him instructions—he’d given him
tons
of instructions, the last of which was “turn the horses for home”—in other words, have the car pointing in the right direction so as not to waste a second if he had to get the hell out of there in a hurry.

Murphy had a gun in his hand—a .25 automatic, according to Trotter. Trotter had insisted that he take it.

“I know nothing about guns,” Murphy had protested.

“Nothing to it,” Trotter had said, in the dreamy voice he had spoken in for their entire trip out there. “Are you right-handed?”

“Yes.”

“Good. This gun was made for you. Point. Press this lever with your thumb. Pull the trigger. Bang. If you don’t press the lever, the trigger won’t pull. If anybody gives you any shit trying to get out of there, shoot him.”

“You shoot him. You’re the professional.”

“My right arm doesn’t work. Can’t use this gun lefty. Give me your lighter.”

“My what?”

“That goddam Zippo you’re always waving around. You’ve lit three cigarettes with it since we got on the road.”

Murphy had taken his eyes off the road to look at Trotter. A mistake. The man looked like a corpse, except corpses don’t ooze blood through their clothes. “Why do you want my lighter? I’ve had this thing through two wars.”

“Because I
can
use it lefty. Come on, Murphy. Lives are at stake here. I need your lighter, and I’m too weak to take it from you.”

Murphy handed it over. Trotter began to tell him a story about international politics and espionage, about cowardice and betrayal, about sex and murder and the future of the world.

Murphy refused to believe it. “You’re bullshitting me to keep yourself awake.”

“Murphy, I have probably told you fewer lies than anybody I ever met in my life. Lies I expected to be believed, anyway. I’m not lying now.”

Murphy saw Trotter close his eyes and swallow. He looked like a man who’d stayed awake since the beginning of time to record all of human folly. Murphy didn’t doubt anymore.

“Why did you tell me this?” Murphy asked.

“If Regina or I or a black guy named Joe Albright doesn’t join you within twenty minutes of the time I leave the car, I want you to haul ass to the nearest typewriter, write this up, and print it.”

“Print it? All this secret stuff?”

“Print it. I’ll be past giving a damn, and the novelty of it alone should make it effective. We’ve tried every other goddam thing; let’s try the truth.”

“What if you do come back?”

“We’ll talk about it.”

“That sounds more like you.”

Trotter chuckled, then groaned. “Don’t make me laugh,” he said. “It hurts.”

Then they were at SkyGrain’s main gate. When, following Trotter’s instructions, Murphy flashed the car’s headlights three times, the guard at the gate waved them right through.

“The little bastard told the truth about that much, at least,” Trotter muttered.

They’d followed signs on the access road for about five minutes when Trotter told him to stop. He’d given final instructions, then said, “I still like you, Murphy.”

Murphy said, “Just get her out safe, okay?”

Trotter’s face twisted into something that was probably supposed to be a grin, and he slunk off into the night. Murphy watched in the mirror, every so often managing to believe he saw Trotter making his way to the silo Mark Van Horn had said contained Joe Albright. Trotter was sure he’d brought Regina there too, because Mark had to finish off Albright before he did anything else.

Murphy hoped Trotter was right. He hoped they weren’t too late.

And he wondered why he, sound and healthy in every limb, was sitting in a bloodstained car seat shitting bricks, while a badly wounded man went off to try to rescue the woman they both loved, armed only with a cigarette lighter.

Because Trotter was a professional and he wasn’t. That’s all. Murphy just wished he could get that swallowed and keep it down.

He looked in the mirror again. A small rectangle of light appeared at the base of Silo 16, then disappeared.

Trotter had made it. He was inside.

Now there was nothing to do but wait.

R
EGINA WAS SITTING WITH
Joe Albright, listening to Mark trying to convince the two big blond men to kill them both.

“It’s got to be done, right away,” Mark insisted.

“Not in here,” the one called Jeff said. “Especially not with a gun. How many times do I have to tell you, we’re walking around inside a bomb in here. Will be for another day and a half.”

“We’re not going to be here for another day and a half,” Mark said. “And you don’t have to do it here. In fact, I’d rather do it somewhere else. Let’s just please get going.”

“Should have taken his damn gun away from him the way we took the belt and shoes from the nigger,” Ed said. He was distinguishable from Jeff only in that he had a mustache.

“Anyway,” Jeff went on. “We don’t work for you, we work for Mr. Pickett.”

“And Mr. Pickett told you to follow my orders, didn’t he?”

“He said find out what the nigger knows. He didn’t say anything about killing anybody. Neither did you, till you walked through the door with this girl I never heard of and want her killed, too. Do you think it comes cheaper in job lots or something?”

Ed laughed. So did Regina.

Mark looked at her, and Regina laughed harder. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s you. You’ve got all sorts of plans to run the country, run the world, and it turns out you can’t even run two thugs.” Her laugh turned into a cough. They were all coughing. It’s probably very unhealthy to be here, she thought, and that started her laughing again.

Mark told her, angrily, to shut up.

“I’ll shut up when you kill me, Mark. And even then, you’ll know I died laughing at you.”

“You tell him, Bash,” Joe Albright said. His voice was weak, but he was grinning. They had hurt him badly—his brown skin was purple-black where they had beaten him. Trying to get him to talk, God knows about what.

This was Allan’s world. Had been, she reminded herself. Allan was dead. He’d tried to compromise between his world and hers (so had she) and now they were both going to die.

Mark was getting impatient. “Look, I’ll get them out of here if you don’t have balls enough to do it. Are you going to help me, or not?”

A voice said, “Not.” Allan’s voice.

Trotter closed the small door behind him, then raised his left hand to show them Murphy’s lighter. Two bruisers, who had to be Jeff and Ed, stopped in their tracks.

“How nice to see everybody here,” he said. “Thanks especially to you, Mark. Now I know what it takes to make a Van Horn honest—scare him to death.”

Mark was still goggling at him.

“You’ve led too lucky a life, Mark. You take it for granted. The Van Horn luck would dictate that Ainley killed me, so that was the way it had to be. You didn’t even feel my pulse. Not smart.”

A fat drop of blood rolled off the tips of the fingers of Trotter’s right hand and splattered on the floor of the silo.

One of the muscle, the one with a mustache, spoke for the first time. “You may not be dead, mister, but you’re in a bad way.”

Trotter winced, and grinned at him. “You’re right,” he said. “Absolutely right.” Trotter backed up to the wall just to the side of the door he’d entered by. He put his back against the wall, and slid slowly to the floor. With his thumb, he flipped back the top of the zippo.

“Absolutely right,” he said again. “I’ve lost some blood, and I feel a little sick and light-headed and weak. But all I need is enough strength to light this lighter. Not even. To spin the wheel and make a spark. Do I need to explain to you gentlemen the explosive properties of recently emptied grain-storage facilities?”

“Christ, no,” said Ed reverently. “We’ve been trying to tell him.”

“Regina,” Trotter said.

“Yes, Allan.”

“Good to hear your voice, Bash.”

“Yours too.”

“Joe, can you walk?”

“I haven’t tried for a long time. I could probably stagger. How bad are you hurt?”

“We’ll have a contest later. Regina, get Joe out of here.”

“But Allan—”

“Move! There’s a car waiting about a hundred yards down the road. Get in it and get moving. If you see a cop, stop one. If you don’t, get to the nearest phone and get reinforcements. I’ll make sure our company stays here.”

“Nobody leaves,” Mark said. “What kind of bullshit is this?”

“Mark,” Trotter said, “we are three people with nothing to lose. Jeff and Ed, too, unless they haven’t figured out you plan to kill them. You can’t afford to leave anybody behind who knows what you’ve been up to, can you?”

“Shut up.”

“Get moving,” Trotter told Regina. He could see from her face she didn’t like it, but she helped Joe to his feet and brought him toward the door.

“Allan,” she said.

“Everything will be fine. Go as fast as you can. Joe, you know what to do, right?”

Albright met his eyes. “I know what to do,” he said.

“Stop!” Mark said.

Regina didn’t even hesitate. Trotter loved her more than ever.

“Close the door behind you,” he said as she left. “I love you, Bash.”

Joe Albright was shaky on his feet, but they moved steadily along the access road. About ten yards down the road, Albright stopped. He put his face close to hers. He looked terrible—one eye was swollen closed, and he seemed to be having trouble focusing the other one.

“Joe, are you all right?”

“So far,” he said. “Make me a promise. If I tell you to, you promise me you’ll drop me like a bad habit and run like hell for the car.”

“No.
No!
It’s bad enough I have to leave Allan.”

“He knows what he’s doing. He—what was I saying—” They were walking again, now, and Joe seemed to have trouble concentrating. “Right. He knows what he’s doing. He had to stay because I’m concussed; I keep drifting in and out, the way I just did. If something happens, if I slow you down so none of us gets away, it will all be wasted.”

Regina said nothing.

“Promise me,” Joe said.

“All right, I promise. Are you happy? Now shut up and save your strength.”

It took maybe three minutes to reach the car. It seemed like lifetimes, generations of lifetimes, all of them filled with terror. Regina felt a vast surge of relief when Sean Murphy popped out of the car and practically carried Joe Albright the rest of the way to the vehicle. Joe passed out as soon as they got him inside the car, kneeling over sideways like a cowboy shot from the saddle. Regina got in the back seat with him and held him up. Sean started the engine and floored it.

“That’s it,” Trotter said when Regina and Albright had left. “Now we wait for the cops.”

“You ain’t never gonna stay conscious long enough for any cops to get here, mister,” the one with the mustache said.

Trotter felt a dopey little smile form on his face. “Maybe not. But I can stay awake long enough to make sure my friends get away. And I can blow us all to ground round if I feel myself start to drift off.”

Mark Van Horn made a sound somewhere between a scream and a growl.

Trotter’s grin broadened. “Yes, here I am again, Mark, kicking you in the nuts. You’re through. The KGB plan is through. The Van Horns are through fucking around with the United States of America like it was their own private plantation.”

Mark sniffed. “The Van Horns
made
this country.”

“Made it
what,
Mark?” Trotter heard his own voice and realized to his shock that he knew what he was doing. Mark Van Horn must never be seen again by human eyes—the situation was too confused, too delicate for this precocious little grabber to be allowed to live. A Mark Van Horn who came through this alive and able to lie—to anybody—would be too dangerous to be tolerated. He had been ready—even determined—to hand the country over to the Russians. Only Mark’s own stupidity had prevented it from happening. With a new Van Horn martyr behind him, Mark would be, in the eyes of many, even less capable of doing wrong than the late Hank had been.