Dead Men's Dust (26 page)

ALONE, EITHER MAN WAS A FORMIDABLE ENEMY. TOGETHER,
Cain had no hope of defeating them. Not when he was armed only with his scaling knife while both of them had semiautomatic handguns. The only chance he had was to separate them; use their loyalty for each other against them. It was a weakness Cain immediately saw. Though they were fearless warriors, neither wanted to die or to lose his friend. Cain, on the other hand, had no such qualms. He was prepared to die to achieve his aims.

Both Joe Hunter and Jared Rington transcended the level of even the most hard-boiled soldier. Their training…no, their indoctrination…had seen to that. Maybe they were beyond the normal psychological and physiological responses to the death of a friend guaranteed to halt even the sturdiest warrior in his tracks. Perhaps, like Cain himself, they had reached that ultracognizant level where they could elevate themselves above the ken of mortal man, to float on the seas of chaos where the “natural” order of being meant that nothing was as it seemed. This was the realm in which Cain existed; what if these two had achieved the same level of consciousness? What if, after all
these years, he had found worthy protagonists, contenders for his title of Prince of Chaos?

He chuckled to himself. Careful that the sound didn’t betray his hiding place.

Not a chance
.

STANDING AT THE THRESHOLD TO CAIN’S DOMAIN, I BALKED
at entering without a full reconnaissance of the area. Yet at the same time I knew that time was of the utmost importance. John was in terrible danger, possibly with only seconds to live, and I was dithering at the entrance to his torture chamber. Still, that unnatural talent for spotting the viper in the grass was screaming at me and I had to heed it.

I had to choose between my own and John’s well-being, and at the end of the day I was left with very few choices. If I waited, he’d be dead. If I charged in, he could still end up dead. I had to act.

I stepped forward.

Rink was behind me. I knew that Cain couldn’t come on me from that direction. Rink, on the other hand, had me as a buffer if Cain chose to come at us from the rocks. I went slowly, gun out, eyes and ears scanning for any sign of life. Periodically I looked up.

The rocks towered over me. They were sheer enough that I didn’t believe Cain could scale them, but more than one soldier had lost his life by ignoring what was lurking above his field of vision. In Vietnam, many a jarhead was taken by surprise by a noose dropped around his
throat, or even by the constriction of an assassin’s legs dropping from an overhanging bough. The martial art named Viet Vo Dao is based upon that very premise.

I know I was crediting Cain with more tools than he perhaps possessed, but at that moment, before meeting him in combat, I had to credit him with everything possible. In my line of work, to underestimate an individual is to invite death.

The twin sentinels watched my progress. They were larger than those skeletons we’d already passed. More formidable to the eye, with their bison skulls and hulking forms of tattered rags and strips of leather. They looked like something out of a Tolkien novel; chimera-like demons guarding the door to the lower realms.

Beyond them, I came upon a well-beaten path that led to the center of the rock formation. The fissure in the rocks was natural, but here and there I detected evidence that Cain had helped widen the doorway by means of hammer and chisel. Also, he’d marked his progress with weird symbols and pictograms straight out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting. In retrospect, I believe the paintings on the rock surface were a history of his killings, but at the time, I couldn’t give his demented story much more notice.

Rink was disciplined enough that he didn’t immediately follow me into the passage. I was aware of him somewhere behind me. I could hear his breathing as he crouched at the entrance to the passageway, the strange acoustics amplifying his trepidation. But no words passed between us now. Talking would identify our position. We had to rely on stealth to get us through this thing unscathed. I walked on, mindful of not stepping on a loose pebble or piece of wind-blown brush that would alert Cain. Sweat moistened my brow, tickled between my shoulder blades. My vision was constricted to a narrow focus and my blood rushed in my ears. Not the ideal conditions for hunting. But they were was a response to the adrenaline racing through me and there was nothing I could do about it.

The passage widened out, opening into a cul-de-sac hemmed in on three sides by the towering rock formation. There was only one way in; the ideal location for a trap. Quickly I scanned the rocks above me, my gun at the point of my vision. Nothing stirred; there was nothing to indicate that an ambush would come from above. I stepped into the cul-de-sac, circling on my heels to cover all directions as best I could. Twenty feet in, I found the hole in the ground. Steps leading down into darkness. Breath caught in my throat.

I couldn’t make out anything beyond the first few steps. The night had fully descended, and though my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, the steps descended into a space I can only describe as being devoid of
anything
. It was beyond night, beyond black.

I couldn’t bring myself to step into the hole. I even looked back for moral support from Rink. If he could have seen me then, he would have seen the face of terror. I couldn’t allow that; I quickly stepped forward, tracing the first step with the toe of my boot. Then, before my desperate boldness fled, I descended the stairs as rapidly as I could.

When I reached the bottom, I could make out the faint outlines of a door before me. The reflection of a flame leaked out from beneath the door. Beyond the door a lamp burned. That knowledge gave me the courage to reach out and tug on the door handle. I did so sharply, then stepped into the room it revealed, my gun searching for targets.

The smell hit me first.

I gagged. That was bad enough.

Then my eyes began to make sense of what I was looking at, and for the first time in my life, I retreated with a cry of alarm.

OH, WHAT AN IDIOT. YOU’RE BARING YOUR NECK TO THE
headsman’s block. You deserve to die with ignominy, you stumbling, sightless fool! To think I credited you with respect when you’re as blind as all the rest. Die, cretin. Die, Jared Rington.

Rink was there, no more than an arm’s length from him. The big lummox’s nerves were strung taut, shredded, fraying under the pressure. His head swung from side to side. He didn’t know which way to look. Because of that, he didn’t look anywhere. He saw everything, but in doing so, he saw nothing. His mind was so full of stimuli that it was unable to process what was right before his eyes.

And that was all Cain required. He would use Rink’s blindness to his advantage. He timed the rhythm of Rink’s movements, watched and discerned the momentary gap where the eyes swung a fraction of an instant before the barrel of the gun followed. Into that fraction of space, Cain would insert himself. Before Rink could make any sense of his appearance, it would already be too late.

A-one and a-two and a-…now.

From within the shroud of blankets that was the body of the bison-skulled monstrosity to Rink’s left, Cain erupted. He made as little
sound as possible, and didn’t so much leap out as jut forward from his waist, arm streaking down at the juncture of Rink’s neck and shoulder. It was a guaranteed instant kill. The point of his blade jabbing down to puncture the heart from above. Rington would die instantly, drop like a slaughtered steer. No shout of warning to Joe Hunter.

Except Rink wasn’t as blind as he looked.

He detected the shifting shadows and he jerked away. The blade still slid into flesh, but instead of finding that pinpoint where the blade could be forced down into the heart, it found resistance in the form of his sturdy clavicle. The metal scoured bone, but it was deflected away from the vitals and into the pectoral muscle.

“Sumbitch!” Rink grunted, his gun coming around. He fired in an arc, not waiting for the target to present itself before jerking on the trigger. Three times he fired. Two bullets cut chips from the rocks, one snatched at the blanket swathing Cain’s form. Then Cain’s knee thumped against his forearm, halting the gun, and the knife once more cut a swathe through the night. Rink staggered back, blood from his sliced forehead invading his vision.

Move, move, move. A mantra for both men.

Even as Cain extricated himself from his hiding place, Rink was firing again. Blind, but with determination. One bullet scoured Cain’s left thigh, another plucked hair from his head. But then Cain was out of the line of fire and he cut again at Rink.

Sliced to the bone, Rink kicked back. His foot caught Cain in the gut, propelled him backward. Cain was too canny a fighter to be caught so easily. Instead of floundering for balance, Cain allowed his momentum to take him over in a roll that brought him back immediately to his feet. And in that instant he was already coming back at Rink. Rink was big, powerful beneath his clothing, trained to deal with dangerous foes, but unprepared for one as determined as Tubal Cain, Father of Cutting Instruments. The Harvestman.

Rink shot again. But the bullet passed through space that Cain
had occupied a second before. He was already two paces to the left. As Rink swung toward him, he arced his blade under the barrel of the gun. The pinching of Rink’s eyes showed Cain he’d cut him. Then Cain gained the space below Rink’s armpit, squirmed under and behind the big man, and looped his free arm around his throat. He jerked backward, sliced at the throat.

Rink grabbed at his knife, but Cain heard the telltale groan of someone in pain. Cain released him, kicked him away. Rink staggered and his head banged off the rock wall. Pivoting, he fell flat on his face. Blood mingled with the chalk-white sand.

Finally, Cain gave voice.

But all he had to say was “Ha!”

He stepped forward. Rink didn’t get up. Cain smiled. Leaned down and plucked the gun out of Rink’s grasp.

Distantly, he caught the sound of someone calling his name.

He turned quickly, heading into the narrow passage.

I SHOULD’VE EXPECTED SOMETHING LIKE THIS. CAIN’S HISTORY
should have prepared me. The photographs of his victims viewed on Harvey’s computer. The skeletons posed out there in the desert. The grotesque art daubed on the rocks outside. But nothing primed me for the chamber I now stood in.

The chamber wasn’t huge. But Cain had used the space economically.

There wasn’t a surface more than the width of my hand on walls or ceiling that wasn’t decorated with human skulls, scapulas, or pelvic bones. Femur, humorus, radius, and ulna bones formed strange mosaics. Spinal columns had been arranged as borders to separate one insane montage from another. Interspersed between the human remains were countless bones gleaned from road-killed wildlife. And equally disturbing in their own way, myriad patches of cloth snagged from unsuspecting bodies were woven between the bones. Human rib cages dominated the far end of the room like shields on coats of arms. And there, as the living embodiment of Cain’s insanity, was his centerpiece.

“Oh, my God. John?”

My voice came out as a wheeze and my arms reached out. My feet wouldn’t follow them.

“John?” I asked again.

He was displayed like all the other of Cain’s exhibits, attached to the walls of the cave by chains fixed to iron spikes hammered through the stone, his chest against the bedrock. Cords were looped around his throat, woven around his skull, and fixed to a hook in the ceiling. His head was forced back on his spine so that he peered upward. His arms were outstretched, the skin peeled from his back stretched taut beneath them like demonic wings. I could see what Cain was attempting to portray. He intended that John be seen as a supplicant, beseeching a higher spirit in the heavens above him. A fallen angel begging for God’s grace?

Walter said that FBI profilers had concluded that Cain might be attempting to make amends for slaughtering his own family. Perhaps John was representative of the demon that was Martin Maxwell, and in reality, it was he who begged grace from God. Maybe we’d never know the true meaning, and everything was simply the product of his depraved mind.

It wasn’t just the pose that shocked me. In itself it was terrible. The way in which Cain had stripped the flesh from John’s back, exposing the musculature, went way beyond awful. Yet that wasn’t the worst. What made me shrink inside was that John still shivered with life.

Caught in a snapshot moment again, eternity was measured by the thrum of one heartbeat.

Then I was moving forward with no sense of volition.

One moment I was standing at the threshold, the next I was cradling John’s head between my palms. My SIG was lying in the dust at my feet, forgotten in my urgency to help my brother. All that was in my head, my heart, my soul, was to give John a modicum of comfort. He wasn’t conscious; not in the real sense of the word. He stirred. I didn’t want to look at his wounds, but inexorably my eyes drifted down. My
eyes screwed tight, blocking the image, but I knew I’d see it for a long time to come.

“Oh, my God,” I moaned again. Beyond reason, the prayer was for my own mortal soul. I gently caressed John’s head, and this time he responded.

He shrieked.

He pulled away from me, shrieked again.

“John. It’s all right. It’s me. It’s Joe. Your
brother
.”

John squirmed away from my touch.

“John. John.” I couldn’t find words to comfort him. To let him know that he was going to be okay. I was there for him. I wouldn’t allow the beast to harm him further. I would save him. Find him medical care. I would do all those things. But I was useless. I averted my face and allowed my frustration to escape me in a ragged howl of fury and loathing. All the while, I hung on to John so that—if nothing else—he would know I was there.

I pressed my face to his shoulder, held him. I was talking to him, though I can’t recall my words. They were nothing more than low, gentle platitudes that issued between wrenching sobs.

Finally, I reached across and tested the iron nails that had been hammered into the wall. The nails were slick with John’s blood and I couldn’t get a grip on them. I couldn’t undo the chains without the key. So instead I started pulling free the cords that bound his head. Only distantly was I aware that the cords were the dried tendons and ligaments stripped from previous victims. I managed to pull them free, and John’s head lolled on his shoulder.

The resilience of human nature is outstanding, the terrific injuries bodies can endure before life finally flees. That John was not only alive but in charge of his faculties was truly remarkable.

“Joe?” he croaked.

“Yes, John.” I almost burst out crying again. “It’s Joe. I’m here to help you.”

And just as I said it, I heard the gunfire.

I spun from John, stooping for my SIG and lifting it toward the door. The gunfire was from somewhere outside.
Rink,
I thought. Killing Cain. Or being killed. I took three hurried steps before catching myself. I turned back to John.

“Everything’ll be okay, John,” I promised. “I’ll be back.”

“No,” John moaned. “Don’t leave me.”

I shook with indecision but my training took over. “I’ll be back. I promise.”

And I started for the steps leading out. I had to defend this place. If Cain had taken Rink out, then he only had to keep me penned inside with no recourse but to watch my brother perish. If there was any way possible that he’d survive his horrific injuries, John required immediate medical help.

Even as I reached the steps, I heard gunfire again. A second of nothing, then one last shot. Then silence. I quickened my pace up the steps. I took them in three bounds, then I was out. Searching for targets, finding none. Immediately I set off in the direction of the narrow cleft between the rocks.

I shouted one word: “Cain!”

The cleft was a dark slash between the towering boulders, but I thought I could see movement there. Instinctively I pulled the trigger. And as reactively, someone shot back. I felt the wind of its passing as the bullet punched through the air next to my head. In midstep I dropped and rolled, came back to one knee firing again. A return shot tugged loose cloth at my elbow. I didn’t let it stop me, kept on firing. Six shots in rapid succession, directly into the narrow passageway where I just had to get at least one killing shot into Cain’s body mass. I heard him curse and knew that I’d hit him.

I dropped to my belly, fired the remaining two rounds in my gun, snatched backward at my waistband for a fresh clip even as I ejected the spent one.

It was a practiced movement I could achieve in less than two seconds, but it’s surprising how much ground a determined man can cover in less than two seconds. Even as I pushed the clip into my SIG, Cain came charging at me out of the gloom.

Point.

Shoot.

The bullet caught him. It struck his left arm. But he didn’t recoil; he fired back. Kept on coming.

Bullets punched the earth in front of me, spraying me with salty dust. I felt fire sear my left calf. I grunted. Fired again. And this time Cain doubled over. Though it didn’t stop him. He launched himself at me.

Prone, I was at his mercy.

I had to move.

I twisted sideways, barely avoiding the elbow that Cain thrust at my skull. Then I twisted back toward him, firing at point-blank range. Only Cain had also twisted away and my bullet missed him. He slashed at my gun hand, and the stiffened edge of his hand struck the nerves on my forearm. The SIG fell from my lifeless fingers. Cain’s gun swung toward me. I kicked at his chest and his aim went wide. Then we’d thrown our bodies together, and even as I thrust at his throat with my left hand, Cain jabbed his knee into my groin. I head-butted him in the face, reached for his gun, and wrenched it from him. He chopped at my wrist and I allowed the gun to drop so that I could return the blow.

We rolled across the sand, and there was no reason behind the strikes we aimed at each other, only that they were vicious and aimed at vulnerable points. Delivered with evil intent. Neither had the advantage. We were both wounded. Both of us were insane with hatred. Both of us wanted only to kill. At any second one of us would get what we wanted. Then the earth gave way beneath us and we were falling into space.

Somewhere deep inside I knew that our battle had taken us to the lip of the stairs leading to Cain’s lair. We caromed against the steps, each taking the bone-jangling force as we somersaulted downward. Hitting the bottom we were forced apart, scattered on the floor.

I pulled myself to my knees, my teeth bared as I spat blood from my mouth. Cain was in a similar pose. There was a wound along his scalp that made his pale hair stick straight up. Another wound above his right hip leaked blood. His eyes were pinched; pinpricks of fury.

“I’m gonna rip your fucking head off,” I promised him as I pushed up from my crouch.

“Come on.” Cain beckoned. But even as I stepped forward, he spun on his heel and charged into the chamber. I half expected him to throw the door shut, and I primed myself to throw my shoulder against it. But Cain did nothing of the sort. He took half a dozen running steps into the chamber, then turned to face me. Almost languidly, he drew a knife from his waistband, held it up before his eyes, grinned at me. “Come on. If you think you’re up to the challenge.”

I stooped, drew my KA-BAR. Nodded. Stepped into the chamber. “Ding, ding. Round two.” Cain looked like he was enjoying himself.

I pointed the KA-BAR at him, a matador taunting a bull.

“Sanctimonious shithead,” I called him.

Cain’s lips pinched. “I can see where John gets his colorful language.”

I swung my head. “Let’s leave John out of this. It’s between you and me, Cain.”

He jerked forward. I feinted at his gut, and we both skipped back out of range. Cain prowled to my right. I turned with him. He hopped to the left. Ten feet separated us. Beyond him, John hung on the wall, an unwilling witness to our duel. I spared him only a glance. Cain also glanced John’s way.

“You see this, John? The great liberator has arrived. You really think he can help you? That it makes one iota of difference to your fate?”

“Leave him out of this,” I snapped. “Me and you, Cain. If you’ve got what it takes.”

Cain smiled as if he were hiding a great secret. “Oh, I’ve got what it takes. Believe me. But what about you? Up in Washington I heard your name whispered. Like you’re some sort of silent killing machine that even presidents are afraid of. Me, I think it was all hyperbole. I don’t think you’re anywhere near as good as they say you are. Me, on the other hand, well, just look around. I reckon the proof’s in the pudding. Just take a look at what I did to our mutual buddy John Telfer.”

John made a noise, a hiss of anguish. I lunged forward, cutting at Cain’s torso in a bottom-to-top oblique slash. Cain skipped away laughing. My knife edge had missed by a mile. But that was okay. I’d only cut to get Cain to move, allowing me to leap through the space he’d left and position myself before John. Realizing his mistake, Cain shook his head. Made a tut-tut noise.

Now it was my turn to be the facetious one. I wiggled the fingers of my left hand at him, beckoning him to me. “Come on, Cain.”

Cain did come on. He dropped low, thrusting at my abdomen. As I shifted to block his knife, he twisted to one side. He slashed in an S, bringing the blade perilously close to my throat, a centimeter shy of my carotid artery. Only I was also ducking and my return stab forced him back on his heels. I followed him, jabbing at his throat, at his groin, back to the throat. Cain shouted in forced humor. Slashed back at me. I struck at his knife blade with my KA-BAR and sparks danced.

I thrust my left foot into his gut. Cain absorbed most of the kick—but not all. He went into a wall, scattering bones across the floor. Immediately he spun, struck at me. It was all I could do to save my throat, at the expense of a deep cut across the back of my left hand. I flinched, and Cain saw that as a weakness. He came at me again. To
show him I was no weakling, I jabbed my blade into his thigh. I’d have preferred to rip out his femoral artery, but the meat was as good a reminder of my potency as anything was. Cain didn’t like it. He jumped back, slapping his free hand over the wound.

He stood there, breathing deeply through his nose as he slowly lifted the blood-smeared hand before us.

I nodded at him. There you go, you son of a bitch. I repositioned myself so that I guarded John from his blade. Inclined my head, inviting him in.

Cain postured. He did an adjustment with his feet reminiscent of a young Cassius Clay—a show of bravado to indicate that the wound wouldn’t slow him down any. I smiled knowingly. Bravado was the tool of a frightened man.

“What’s wrong, Cain? Not so sure of yourself anymore? It’s one thing cutting up helpless people. What’s it like to have your victim turn on you?”

“Fun.”

“I bet.” I took a slow step forward. “Bet it isn’t as much fun as when you murdered your wife and kids.”

Cain stiffened slightly.

“Or when you killed your brother, huh?”

“Leave
my
brother out of this,” Cain said.

I gained another half step on him. “What was it like, Cain? Murdering those that loved you? Was it a thrill? Some sort of sick fantasy come to life?”

Cain growled. My taunting was having the desired effect. For one, my words were angering him. An angry man doesn’t reason. And when reason goes, so does training. And my speaking was forcing him to consider the actual words. Even if his response was only to swear, his brain was engaged as he deliberated his answer. While he was measuring those words, he wasn’t capable of planning his next attack. It was a
lesson I learned many years ago. Ask a question of your enemy. As he answers, hit him.

“Did you watch them burn, Cain?”

“Yes,” he replied. “Watched them burn like torches.”

“Bit of a waste, though. Bet you wish you’d brought them here, eh? What a waste of good bones.”

Cain paused. I could see that there was regret behind the scowl. He opened his mouth. I didn’t wait for his response. I leaped at him.