Chapter 49
Peter
The Bronco’s engine labored in low gear as the struts fought the steep and rutted road. In the cargo bay, wrapped in the tarp and dealing with the static, Peter barely noticed it. He kept his focus on his breathing, and the mental picture of Ellie.
Finally the Bronco leveled out and came to a stop. He heard both doors close, then felt a blast of cold air as hands grabbed the taped ends of the tarp. They dragged him out of the cargo bay and let him fall to the ground with a hard thump.
“Hold on, hold on,” a man’s voice said. Someone pulled at the ends and the tarp loosened slightly. Then someone took hold of the loose edge of the canvas and gave a great yank, unrolling the burrito until Peter sprawled out cold, naked, and handcuffed in the freezing mud.
He was in an open gravelly area where pickups and SUVs were parked at haphazard angles, lit by the yellow glow of two sodium pole lights.
A wet snow fell softly, just beginning to stick to the evergreens ringing the space.
Through the trees, he saw the faint silver mesh of a chain link fence topped with razor wire.
Nickels and another man, bearded and very large, stared down at him. The large man was holding the muddy tarp bunched in his fist. “He don’t look like much to me, Nickels.”
“He killed my brother, Vance. He stole our shit. So I’m gonna do him some damage.” Nickels wound up and kicked Peter hard in the stomach.
Peter saw it coming and managed to tense his abdominals, but it still hurt like hell, especially after the full-body clench caused by the Taser.
Better than getting kicked in the head, though that was likely on the menu.
He might have made it to his feet and taken Nickels down, even with his hands taped behind his back.
But the large man, Vance, was another story.
For him, Peter would need both hands and a baseball bat.
Or an elephant gun. Plus, fighting back right now wouldn’t help anyone.
So he simply looked at Nickels and said, “Where’s Ellie? Where’s Carlotta?”
Boxall, the Bronco’s driver, still wearing full camo, looked eagerly over Nickels’s shoulder. “Can I get in on this?”
Durant walked up in his cowboy hat and black slicker. “Fuck off, all of you. Except you, Vance. Get him up. The Messenger’s coming.”
Vance bent and grabbed Peter’s arm roughly and jerked him upright. “You better behave.”
Peter’s bare feet were ice cubes in the mud. The Bronco’s cargo area hadn’t been heated, and now he was fully exposed and trembling with the cold. “Durant, where are Ellie and Carlotta? We had a deal. Let them go.”
Durant nodded at Vance, who casually backhanded Peter in the face, almost knocking him to his knees. “No talking,” the big man growled.
Behind them, a familiar warm voice said, “Stand aside, men. There is no need for this violence.”
The others shuffled back and Garrison Bevel stepped into view, his face older but familiar from the brochure photo.
His thick shock of hair had turned white and stuck up in all directions as if he’d jammed a knife into an electrical socket.
His long face was canyoned like a desert landscape marked by eons of erosion.
In person, his eyes were large and luminous, and he stared at Peter as though he could see something deep inside him, something essential and unique.
Even bound, naked, and seriously pissed, Peter could feel the magnetic force of the man.
Nickels spoke up. “Sir, this man killed my brother. I want justice.”
“Rightly so, my friend. And you shall have it. But not like this.” The Messenger didn’t take his eyes off Peter. He had the same rich and sonorous voice as in the recordings, at once theatrical and utterly natural. Behind him, more people had begun to gather.
“You all signed the Protocols,” he said, playing to the small but growing crowd. “We have a method of justice, do we not? You will have a chance to express your grievance, all of you, when he is taken to the punishment wall.”
“I brought the black-tip ammo,” Peter said. “Release my friends.”
The Messenger smiled. “I have changed my mind. They will stay here. When the Dark Time comes, they’ll be safer with us.”
“Is that how you lead this movement?” Peter asked. “With lies and broken promises? What other promises have you made to these people that you will choose not to fulfill?”
The Messenger’s smile stayed in place, but something hardened in his eyes.
“You are mistaken, friend. I am simply thinking of what would be best for young Eleanor and Miss Carlotta. But you are correct in that we had an agreement. So tomorrow, when the Dark Time comes and the Undoing begins, I will give them a choice.” He gestured at the stunted evergreens and the falling snow.
“To be out there in the darkness, in the chaos and hunger and violence, or to remain here, in the light, where they will have food and shelter and safety. A community.”
The group murmured its agreement. They were young and old, men and women, Black and white and shades of brown, but they shared a weather-beaten quality, their cheeks hollowed and their shoulders bent under invisible weights laid there by a hard, uncaring world.
Peter could see it in their faces, the need to believe in something. To believe that they mattered.
Peter felt the pull himself. He had his own share of sorrows from his time at war. Good friends dead for reasons that no longer made sense to him. He often felt it had all been for nothing.
How easy it would be to fall under the Messenger’s spell, he thought. To take your hands off the wheel and allow someone else to steer your life. Rather than wrestle with your own doubts and fears, the uncertainties of fate and the relentless economic and social changes that came faster every year.
No matter that the Messenger was driving them off a cliff. Before gravity took over, they would have a brief sensation of flying.
The Messenger watched Peter closely, as if he could hear the thoughts flickering through the naked captive’s mind.
His eyes grew soft and kind. “My goodness, you must be freezing. Let’s get some clothes on you.
” His voice rose to reach the crowd. “Can anyone spare a garment for our friend Peter? Pants, shoes, a warm coat?”
Behind him, another man appeared, thin under a black hardshell jacket and watchful as a coyote on a bombing range. “Here, sir.” He held out an old Army coat, a pair of cargo pants, and Army surplus boots without laces. “I took the liberty of checking out a few things from inventory.”
The Messenger smiled. “Ah, Hollis. As always, you anticipate every need. Vance, please free our friend’s arms and help him dress. Then we can show him to his accommodations.”
“Hollis.” Peter looked at him as if over iron gunsights. “Or do you prefer Circuit Rider? It’s so good to put a face to the name.”
Hollis didn’t speak, just returned the stare with studied indifference. Whatever awful shit the Messenger had planned, Peter was confident that Hollis was the one to make sure it happened.
When the killing started, Peter would do his best to include Hollis among the dead.