Hunting Season (55 page)

And if you won’t clear the building, I’m going to leave.”

“Bulls’!” the sergeant said. The other guards still had their weapons drawn; they spread out a little, looking to their sergeant for instructions.

“Sarge, Sarge!” the black guard said urgently, pointing to his radio.

“Lab says there’s an explosive vapor in the building. They recommend an immediate evacuation.”

“You going to pop a cap in here, Sergeant?” Kreiss asked.

“Make a little flame?”

He turned to leave. Some of the guards went into shooting stance, but Kroner waved them down. The sergeant started to protest, but Kroner ordered him to be quiet and get him a microphone patch into the building’s PA system.

“Mr. Kreiss,” he called, as Kreiss neared the doors. He stopped and turned around.

“Thanks for the warning,” Kroner said.

“But we will see you later. That’s a promise.”

“If any of you are still alive,” Kreiss said, which shut everyone up for the moment.

Kreiss nodded at him and stepped through the door. See me later? Not

if I can help it, he thought. It was all he could do not to run like hell.

Behind him, he heard Kroner’s voice identifying himself on the building’s PA system and ordering an immediate evacuation of the building, instructing people to walk to the nearest stairs and to do nothing—repeat, nothing—that might generate a spark. Kreiss hurried back into the parking garage to retrieve his van. When he reached the street level, the turbaned attendant was out on the sidewalk, trying to figure out what was happening next door. Kreiss told him there was a bomb in the aTF building.

The attendant looked at Kreiss, back at the aTF building, and then took off smartly down the street. Kreiss swore, opened his door, and reached into the attendant’s booth to trip the gate.

It took him ten minutes in morning traffic to get three blocks away from the aTF building, at which time he heard the first sirens. Three Metro cop cars with their blue lights flashing came racing past him into Massachusetts Avenue to block off the side streets. He pulled over toward the curb to let them go by. Pedestrians on the sidewalk paused to stare at all the cop cars, wondering if the president was coming.

Fucking McGarand, Kreiss thought as he tried to pull back out into traffic, but now everything was stopped. He had damn near pulled it off, and had done so even after Carter had sent in a very specific warning.

What the hell was it about Washington bureaucrats that made them think they knew everything, that no one could tell them a single goddamn thing?

He felt somebody or something bang hard on the back windows of the van, and he looked in the mirror to see if a vehicle had rear-ended his van.

Instead, he saw an enormous orange fireball rising with a shuddering roar into the sky over the buildings behind him. The glare was strong enough to be seen through the windows of office buildings that were between him and the blast. Looking a lot like an atomic cloud, the fireball turned to a boiling red color and then was enveloped by a bolus of oily black smoke pulsing up into the early-morning sky over downtown. He heard a woman on the sidewalk scream right beside the van, and moments later, debris began to rain down on the sidewalks and the streets. He put the van in gear and pulled onto the sidewalk as people ran for cover into nearby buildings. Ignoring the sudden hail of metal and concrete bits rattling on the roof of the van, he drove down the sidewalk until he reached the next corner, then pulled past the huddled pedestrians and accelerated down toward the river.

Correction, correction, he thought. Not damn near. Score one for the

clan McGarand. And he knew that as soon as the dust settled, there would be a host of feds hunting one Edwin Kreiss. A regular fugitive hat trick, he thought. He would now have the aTF, FBI, and the fucking Agency on his trail. Good job, Kreiss.

He turned right when he got to Constitution and headed toward the Memorial Bridge and northern Virginia. He would have to stay off the interstates once he got clear of the Washington area. He probably had twenty, thirty minutes to get out of town, and then someone would remember the speeding van on the sidewalk. The bigger problem would come when he got close to Blacksburg, because there were only so many ways into the foothills west of the town. He thanked God that Micah had Lynn, because Misty would undoubtedly take another shot, and very soon.

Behind him, the big black cloud had tipped over in the morning air, casting a pall over the entire downtown area and blocking out the rising sun.

Browne McGarand felt a wave of deep satisfaction when he heard the monstrous thump and turned to see the black cloud erupting over the federal district. He had walked down Massachusetts Avenue after starting the hydrogen flow, trying to remain inconspicuous until he was able to cross Constitution Avenue and walk out onto the Mall, the wide expanse of trees and lawns fronting the Capitol grounds. Even at that hour of the morning, there was a surprising number of people out and about: joggers, power-walkers, and a tai chi exercise group of elderly people striking exotic attitudes out on the damp grass. He had rested on a park bench for a while, thinking back to 1993 and the similarly dramatic scenes created by the government’s immolation of David Koresh and Browne’s son, William, at Waco. Both the aTF and the FBI had conspired to cover up the truth of what had happened there, just as they had at Ruby Ridge.

Murder will out, he thought, and the government had flat out murdered those deluded people. Then they lied about it, falsified testimony, concealed evidence, and otherwise acted more like Hitler’s SS than agents of a democracy. Goddamned people burned babies for the crime of being different and delusional, while the president of the United States perjured himself with impunity and released bomb-throwing foreign terrorists for his wife’s political advantage.

Watching the mushroom cloud, he wished he could have managed two bombs, because the FBI had blood on its hands from Waco, too. But it had been the aTF who set the stage for the ultimate carnage with their pigheaded

assault. He didn’t hate the agents who had bled and died on the roof of the compound. He blamed the coldhearted bastards here in Washington who had ordered it, and then pretended that they hadn’t. Well, that black cloud rising above the federal office buildings would bring the message home right here to those same people: If the government won’t hold agencies accountable, then, by God, an avenger will come out of the hills and teach the lesson. When the moral standards disappeared, it was time for the Old Testament rules: eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, fire for fire.

He watched the smoke cloud collapse into itself as the rumble of the explosion died away over the Virginia hills. A wail of sirens and the astonished cries of the people out on the Mall followed. He got up and resumed walking, heading casually but purposefully down the Mall, past the Reflecting Pool, toward the Lincoln Memorial and the Memorial Bridge. His goal was to cross the river and walk to the Arlington Cemetery Metro station. From there, he would take the subway over to Reagan National Airport. He had enough cash to rent a car, and he didn’t see any problem with using his own driver’s license—all that would prove was that he had been in Washington. Then he was going to drive like hell back down to the Ramsey Arsenal, where he had everything prepositioned for his imminent disappearance. He rubbed his bare face. He had shaved off his beard in the motel and his face felt naked. He averted his face as he passed by Lincoln’s somber statue. He searched his soul for a sign of remorse and found nothing of the kind.

Janet and Lynn were huddled in a tiny wooden hut that had been built into the entrance passage, fifty feet back from the actual entrance. The hut consisted of a single room, containing two bunks, a tiny table, two straight-backed chairs, and a rack where six kerosene lanterns hung on one wall. Micah returned in the early afternoon, calling softly from the tunnel as he approached. He brought some sandwiches and a thermos of hot soup. Lynn was sitting up by now and feeling much better. She said her back and ribs hurt, but Janet was able to report that, thankfully, no infection was showing. Janet had slept like a log on one of the cots for three hours. They were both very grateful for the food.

“They’s a ton of revenuers out there along the road,” Micah announced as they ate. There was a single railroad-style kerosene lamp on the table, and the light in the tiny wooden room made his skin look like parchment.

Janet wondered how old he was.

“Had a passel of ‘em come up to the cabin, asking’ what we’d seen or heard.”

“Which was nothing at all, right?” Lynn said.

Micah smiled.

“Maybe heard some shootin’ last night, heard some veehicles rammin’ around on the county road. Buncha kids out a West Virginia, playin’ thunder road, most like. But otherwise …”

“They search your place?”

“I reckon they will, soon’s they git them a warrant,” Micah said.

“The boss man asked if they could look around. I told ‘im no. Told ‘im four of my fightin’ pit bulls was holed up somewhere’s in all that junk. Wouldn’t be safe for no strangers to be pokin’ around. Boss man said fightin’ dogs was illegal; I told ‘im they could tell them dogs that, they wanted to go take their chances.”

“They’ll find my vehicle,” Janet said.

“No, ma’am, I don’t b’lieve they will,” Micah said solemnly. Janet just nodded.

“Was there a woman with them?” she asked.

“No, ma’am, no women, just a mess a revenuers we’ve never seen before. They surely ain’t from around here, way they talkin’.”

Janet nodded again. Micah probably called any kind of federal law enforcement a revenuer. These people had probably been aTF, with maybe some FBI and possibly even some of that horrible woman’s crew sprinkled in.

“They been to your daddy’s cabin,” Micah said to Lynn.

“Had one a my boys watching the place from the ridge. Buncha vehicles people goin’ every which a way. They had some dogs with ‘em, too, so they may do some trackin’. If ‘n they do, they might could find the entrance to this here cave.”

“Is there another way out?”

Micah smiled.

“Three ways, one sorta easy, two real hard. Meantime, I got one a the boys paintin’ some bear fat on that log near the entrance y’all used. Ain’t no city dog gonna like that. But if there’s a ruckus, that’ll be the sign for y’all to move back into the mountain. Whatever y’all do, don’t come out the way we come in. We gonna lay down a little trap in that passage. Now, this here’s a map.”

He unrolled a piece of brown paper cut out of a grocery bag and showed Janet where the hut was. The map showed three passages that led from the hut to various other chambers and passages back into the mountain, and, eventually, to the woods on the west slope. He pointed out the lanterns on the back wall and showed her where extra lanterns were cached along the passages. The way out of the hut was through a concealed door in the back wall. Each of the passages on the map was marked by a number.

“Number one here, it’s the easiest goin’,” he said. “

“Bout a mile all told, maybe mile and a half. Goes down maybe a hundred feet before climbin’ back up and out. Comes out by a dirt road, through a flat door like we came in. You come out that away you pile on a buncha rocks on that door once you out if someone’s behind you.”

“And the others?”

“Two and three are longer and deeper, and they’s some tight-assed narrow-downs.

Three’s got a lake. You gotta hand-over-hand along a ledge over on the left side to make it across. That there ledge is ‘bout six, eight inches underwater. You don’t even want to fall in, ‘cause it’s deep and cold as hell.”

“But if they bring dogs into the cave?”

“Then three’s the one you want. Be careful when you git to Dawson’s Pit.”

“Why is it called that?” Lynn asked.

‘“Cause Dawson’s still in it. They’s a long, real narrow passage just before the lake; you women will have to be sideways to git through it. A man’s gotta hold his breath and grease his ass and his belly to git through it. But you could kill a dog easy, he comes after you in that crack. Here. I brought your wheel gun.”

“I’m afraid I ran it out of ammo, out there on the road.”

Micah grinned.

“Got you a refill. Ammo’s something’ we keep aplenty of up here. But looka here: Take one a them hickory sticks over there in the corner . Don’t shoot the gun less’n you have to, ‘cause you never know what the cave’ll do. You follow?”

“You mean, as in cave-in?”

“Somethin’ like that. Specially around that lake. It don’t got a bottom, best as we can find out, and the ceiling in the lake cave is way up there.

Lots a them stone icicles up there, I reckon. Lantern won’t light it. Use the sticks on any dogs; that’s why they got points.”

Janet took a deep breath and thanked him.

“Let’s pray for no dogs,” she said.

“Tell me: When her father comes back, will he contact you?”

“I reckon,” Micah said.

“Them ain’t no friends a his at his cabin just now. But we got ways.”

Janet took the .38 and put it on the table. It didn’t seem like much, compared to some of the weapons she had seen in the past twenty-four hours.

“You’ve saved our skins a couple of times, Mr. Wall,” she said.

“I

surely appreciate it. I don’t even know who half the people chasing us are anymore.”

Micah looked over at Lynn and nodded in the yellow light.

“Ed Kreiss, he did me a real big favor, back when he first moved up here on the mountain. Didn’t even know me or none of my kin, and he saved one a my boys. His name’s Ben. He’s a big’ un but Ben, he’s a mite simple.

Three old boys from the Craggit bunch over on Moultrie Mountain took it into their rock heads to whup Ben’s ass. They caught up with him out on the county road and was fixin’ to flat bust his head with some tire irons. Don’t rightly know why. Old Ed, he come up on it. Said Ben was rolled up in a ball under his truck, and them bast ids was yankin’ on him.

Old Ed said they was fixin’ to kill him, most like. Old Ed, he went after them bast ids with his truck, knocked two of ‘em clean off the road and down into Hangman’s Creek. Third one run off. Then he brung Ben home.”