BAD DEEDS: A Dylan Hunter Thriller (Dylan Hunter Thrillers) (40 page)

“So the same ideals that first attracted him to the Agency are why he finally left it.” She lowered her voice and looked away. “And they’re also why he began doing … those other things last year.”

They were quiet for a while, cocooned in private thoughts. She resumed moving down the corridor, into and out of the spotlights, as he followed. She halted at one exhibit, finding herself riveted by the sight of a long combat knife.

She felt him stop behind her.

“I understand what you’re telling me,” she said softly. “But it doesn’t make it any easier for me to accept. Since Dylan is, as you say, a sheepdog by nature—”

“—yes. He’ll always run toward the howling of the wolves,” he finished. “No matter where he is in the future, no matter how peaceful the setting, a part of him is always going to be out there, patrolling the perimeter fences, ready to launch himself against threats to the flock.”

She couldn’t take her eyes off the knife. “Then how is a sheep like me supposed to live with someone like him?”

She felt his hand on her shoulder. “You’re wrong about that.”

She turned around and looked up into the weary, cast-iron-gray depths of his eyes. They and the rest of his features, always so flinty, revealed an unexpected hint of softness—not unlike what she often saw in the face of her own father.

“You’re not a sheep, Annie. I don’t hire sheep. You love him because you are a sheepdog, too.”

That made her laugh.

“Me? God, look at me, Grant. I’m a mess. I’m not like him—or you. I can’t depersonalize violence. I just can’t detach myself. It stays with me. And I can’t stop worrying about him whenever he goes off to do—what?—‘patrol the perimeter,’ as you put it. What he’s gotten himself involved in right now scares me to death. In just the past month, we’ve both been in fights and almost gotten blown up. I’ve tried to imagine years of that sort of thing. And I know I just couldn’t take it.”

“I don’t have any easy answers for you. I can only say that living with somebody like Dylan would be a lot like what thousands of wives of soldiers, cops, firemen, and our own officers have to face every day. Like those guys, Dylan is by nature a ‘first responder.’ Yet somehow, their women learn to live with it. They understand the nature of their men—which is exactly why they love them. They also know that what those men do is dangerous, but necessary—that it protects them and their kids and their country from harm … Look, I’m not saying that I approve of him operating outside the law. But really, would it be any different for you if society gave him a uniform, a badge, a gun, and its official benediction to do what he does?” A touch of amusement sparkled in his eyes. “Besides, can you really see yourself settling down with some guy who paints landscapes or sells used cars?”

She lowered her head. “To be honest, I’m not sure I can see myself with anyone.”

He clasped both her shoulders.

“Please don’t do anything hasty. You haven’t really given the counseling long enough to help you. Give yourself some time. Trust me, I’ve been—” He stopped. Then went on. “I’ve been exactly where he is right now. On the edge of losing someone important to me. For similar reasons … He needs you, Annie. But you also need him. More than either of you realize, I think.”

He released her shoulders. Looked at his watch.

“It’s after three, now. Why don’t you head home early. Maybe go see him tonight. Talk things over.”

He walked her back toward the entrance, then stopped, coughing some more.

“I’m going to go grab a smoke outside. I’ll leave you here to think over what I said.”

A hint of a smile—then he walked away, a gray wintry figure heading out into a gray wintry day.

Leaving her beside a glass case—beside the photo of a man without a face.

The rest of the drive to the Allegheny took them five hours, because they had to obey the speed limits, to avoid any possibility of getting pulled over. That, and he’d had to take a few breaks to stretch his legs and get coffee.

Rusty’s eyelids felt gritty and heavy as he drove up Route 62 past Tionesta, wishing that Zak could spell him behind the wheel. He asked him years ago why he’d never learned to drive. Zak said he didn’t like to talk about his past. But that evening, after a few beers, he opened up more than usual. Zak confided that he’d been too scared to take lessons when he was a teen, mainly because his parents always made him feel so inadequate. He said that his old man, a carpenter, would often sneer at him and say, “You might be smart with books, Zachariah, but you don’t know nothing practical.” He could tell from the look on Zak’s face that it still bothered him, after all these years.

Rusty told him that he could relate to what he was saying, because his own old man had been a drunk, a mean drunk who would smack him around a lot and laugh at him and call him a good-for-nothing. But Rusty got the last laugh one night when he was ten, and the old man, coming home loaded, fell asleep at the wheel and wrapped his Chevy pickup around a tree …

The lights of Tionesta vanished behind them, leaving them in the dark again. Rusty yawned and blinked, trying to get his blurry eyes to clear.

“Zak … mind if we talk a bit, so I can stay awake?”

“All right. What about?”

“I was just remembering stuff from when I was a kid. Like how things was after my old man died, and my old lady was trying to hold things together for me and my two sisters … Did I ever tell you about that?”

“I don’t remember. I don’t think so.”

“Yeah. Well, she couldn’t bring in much working as a K-Mart clerk there in Nashville. We didn’t have a pot to piss in. So I had to drop out at sixteen and go to work. First job was in a body shop, working for my cousin. I hated it. Like I hated my whole dead-end life … This biker dude worked there, too, and he was a lot of fun. I started hanging with him and his buddies. Doing dope and shit.” He hesitated. “That’s when I got hooked on speed.”

“You never mentioned that.”

He nodded. “Never wanted to. I didn’t know what you’d think about that. Because I’m not proud of them days. I don’t even know why I’m telling you now … Well, anyway, I needed lots of bread to support my habit. That’s when the burglaries started. The biker gang fenced the stuff I stole for them. Later, when I got more desperate, I started doing muggings and robberies, too.”

“You did tell me once that you had a criminal record when you were young.”

“Yeah, but not much of one. I still can’t believe I managed not to get arrested for four years. But finally they busted me for assault and robbery. I beat the crap out of the guy. But because they said I was a first-time offender, at least for the record, the judge gave me probation. I had to show up at this drug program and do weekly urine tests for my P.O. And pay restitution for the guy’s hospital bills. It was hell, but at least it got me off the uppers.” He squinted at a road sign. “I still craved the shit, though. And I would of gone back on it, for sure … ’Cept for Amy.”

“She was the old girlfriend you mentioned a few times—right?”

“Yeah. I met her in the program. She was in there for alcohol. Booze wrecked her marriage. Right then, we was both at rock bottom. But she didn’t act toward me like everybody else in my goddamned life up till then. Amy, she believed in me. She
believed
in me, Zak. And I believed in her, right back. So we managed to make it through the program together.”

He paused to take a sip of cold coffee from a Styrofoam cup next to his seat.

“After that, my P.O., he helped me get work as a roofer. Amy, she got a job in a dry cleaners. We rented this cheap apartment and moved in together. We started to sock away money to get our own place.” He moistened his lips. “We even talked about getting hitched.”

He felt Zak’s eyes on him in the dark. God, he hadn’t meant to talk about this shit. But somehow, things felt funny tonight. Like everything was coming to a head, or something. He felt he had to say these things—explain to Zak how he got here.

Or maybe explain it to himself …

“After a few years, I fell off a roof on the job. It laid me up for three months. Me and Amy, we burned right through our savings. It was real bad, because we had to start all over again. It took us three more years just to get back to the same place, money-wise … And then …”

He put down the coffee cup. He couldn’t go on.

“Then what, Rusty?” Zak’s voice was soft.

He swallowed hard. “Amy got breast cancer.”

He felt Zak’s hand on his shoulder.

“We were together ten years before that happened. By then I was, what? Thirty-one, thirty-two. I forget. But it was bad. She had to have an operation. Lose the breast. That was awful for her. For me, too—for us both. The money was gone again. And things between us, they weren’t ever the same. But I was loyal to her.”

“You’re the most loyal man I ever met, Rusty.”

He swallowed again. “Me and Amy, we stuck it out another three years. Then … then the cancer came back. This time, it spread to her bones.”

The grip on his shoulder tightened.

“We got her in this experimental chemo trial at Mass General in Boston. It worked for a while. But then it didn’t … She … It was horrible … I watched her waste away. Another year and a half before she finally died.”

“Rusty, I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.”

He wiped his eyes with his jacket sleeve.

“So here I was, in my late thirties, stuck in Boston, in this roach-filled Section 8 apartment, no job, living on food stamps. My whole life, back in the crapper again. I felt like it was all over.”

He glanced toward Zak. Saw his beard and glittery eyes in the faint glow of the dashboard. He faced back to where the headlights probed the onrushing pavement.

“A month after she’s gone, I’m going through all her stuff. And it’s too much. I have to get out of the apartment. It’s a nice day in May. So I start walking. Just walking. I find myself at Boston Common. And I hear this noise, loud voices and clapping. So I wander over and find this crowd there. And there you are, up in front of everybody, with this bullhorn. You’re talking about cancer-causing chemicals. And then it hits me. I figure, that’s what must of killed Amy: all them chemicals at the dry cleaners where she worked.”

“No doubt about it.”

“Yeah. And when the rally was breaking up, that’s when I came up and introduced myself.”

“I remember, Rusty. I remember because you looked really angry.”

“I was. I asked if your group had any work, remember? And you said, ‘Sure, there’s always stuff to be done.’”

“I recall asking you why you wanted to join us, Rusty. But you never told me.”

“I couldn’t talk about it. Not then.”

“Why not until now?”

He felt his jaw tighten. “My old man, he hated whiners. He slapped me hard whenever I complained about anything. So, I always figured, you know, I had to man up. Keep my problems to myself.” He forced a chuckle. “That day was, when? Dozen years ago?”

“That’s right. I was twenty-eight at the time. So you had to be thirty-seven.”

“And I been with you ever since.” He glanced toward Zak again. “Even though you didn’t know it, you saved my life that day, Zak. After Amy, you gave me something to live for again. You showed me how I could get back at all the corporations and rich bastards who took her from me.”

“So we have, my friend. So we have. Together, you and I have already executed nine corporate criminals. Tonight, we’re going to eliminate number ten. And with any luck, we’ll also take out one of his big media cheerleaders, too.”

Rusty felt his mood turn on a dime. The exhaustion vanished, replaced by a rush of eager anticipation. He let his right hand drop from the wheel. His fingers found the stock of the Remington 700 lying just across the floor behind them. It made him feel powerful again. Back in control.

“We’ll kill them bastards for Amy.”

Not far north from where 62 crossed Route 666, Rusty turned right, onto Higgins Hill Road. It began as a narrow lane hugged by dense trees. He had to drop into second gear as the slope grew steeper. About a half-mile in, at the crest, it opened up into a plateau. Half a dozen large homes and spacious yards pushed back the forest on either side of the road.

The first place on the left was Adair’s. It stood alone and proud on its own bluff up on the ridge, about a hundred feet above the road. Adair had cleared the nearest trees to give himself a grand view of the forested slope they’d just climbed. His long driveway rose in a switchback up the steep incline. A couple of cars sat in front of his garage.

Rusty didn’t like the sight of the cars. “Looks like he might have company.”

“It doesn’t matter. Any friend of his has to be an enemy of ours. Besides, with visitors here, he will have his alarm system off. That should make things easier for us.”

Zak told him a month ago that he figured things might come to this. Which is why they’d been out here a couple of weeks earlier, to scope out the place. The road ran along the southern edge of Adair’s land. To the west and north, forested slopes rolled right up to his yard. Out there in the trees they’d found all-terrain-vehicle tracks crisscrossing the area. “Toys for rich boys,” Zak smirked. “Look at these ruts! The ATVs are ruining whatever the frackers haven’t.”

To the east, another uncut stand of trees separated Adair’s property from his neighbor’s. A dirt track led back into that thicket—an access point for ATVs. Rusty turned in there, killed the lights, and moved the pickup in far enough to make it invisible from the road.

They sat in darkness and silence for a minute. The clock on the dash said eight thirty.

“Let’s do this,” Zak said.

For the time being, they left in the truck most of what they’d need later. Rusty took a shotgun; Zak carried a .38 Smith & Wesson revolver, plus a shoulder bag. They moved through the trees to the edge of the yard, then hugged the tree line and headed to the back of the property, where they wouldn’t be seen from the road. They found a secluded spot, and Zak swept the house with a pair of binoculars.

“People are moving around in that big room over to the right,” he said. “That must be their living room, or maybe a den … See that rear door over there, to the left? Remember from last time, we figured that it probably goes into his garage. It’s a good distance from that room where they are sitting, so I think we can get inside that door without being heard.”