Pocket-47 (A Nicholas Colt Thriller) (22 page)

“It’s not the room, it’s the guy in it.”

“Ah, Brother Simon. He can be a little moody sometimes, but I’m sure you’ll be okay once you get to know him.”

If I don’t kill him first.
“Can you work on finding something else for me?”

“I’ll work on it.”

I told him goodnight. I walked to the stairwell, climbed two flights, sat on a step until he had enough time to get settled back in his room. Then I quietly went back down the stairs and outside into the night.

I walked toward Reverend Strychar’s house. I stayed to the side of the road, in the shadows, close to the woods. I figured getting caught would be a death sentence. I could claim ignorance of the curfew, but then Sax Man would rat me out. He would get his privacy back, and I would get dead. Tagged as a spy. They would probably make my last minutes on the planet nice and painful, to make sure I wasn’t just the tip of some investigative iceberg.

I wanted to get my hands on The Holy Record. With the right evidence, I could go to the cops and have the whole place shut down. Thinking about it gave he a hard-on. Not only would Massengill finally get what he deserved, Strychar and his neo-Nazi cronies would go down as well.

The trees to my left cut a silhouette against the night sky, black on black. Small nocturnal woodland creatures scampered through the pine needles intermittently, and the occasional eighteen-wheeler burned a trail down SR 21 to the west. Otherwise, the Chain of Light ranch was as quiet as Christmas morning on the dark side of the moon.

That is, until I heard the screams.

I veered into the woods and hiked blindly toward the commotion. I had a penlight in my backpack, but didn’t want to use it for fear of being spotted. I only hoped I didn’t breeze through a black widow’s web or stumble into a nest of rattlesnakes.

The screams were unmistakably human, unmistakably female, and eerily familiar. Then, just as suddenly as they had started, they stopped. All was quiet again.

I kept walking in the same direction, and eventually reached the edge of a clearing. I saw a white van parked in front of a one-story lodge. The women’s dorm, I thought. It was a rustic-looking shack of a place, with cedar lap siding and a metal roof. It was about a hundred feet from where I stood. I crouched down, took out my binoculars.

I imagined the porch fixtures ordinarily provided adequate illumination for the building’s exterior, but they were off. The van’s headlights were off, too, but the parking lights shone redly on one of those creepy fuckers wearing black clothes and a black beret. He closed the back of the van, walked to the driver’s side, and opened the door. Just before he climbed in, I lost my balance and nearly toppled sideways. I caught myself with my left hand, but a twig snapped and made enough noise to get his attention.

I lay flat on my belly and took shallow breaths. A flashlight beam scanned the woods. I heard a pair of boots stomping my way and then a voice from behind them.

“Come on, Mike. It was probably just a fox or something. Let’s go.”

Mike didn’t say anything, but he must have concurred with his buddy’s assessment. He switched off the flashlight and walked back to the van.

The truck roared to life and sped away in a cloud of dust, springs squeaking and headlights drilling cones of brightness into the gloom. I thought about approaching the building and maybe trying to talk to one of the women inside. I was curious about the screams. Were the Black Berets some kind of rescuers, or some kind of terrorists? The latter was my guess, but blackness and silence engulfed the shack now, and I had far exceeded any boundaries where I might have been able to talk my way out of trouble. I retreated into the woods and found my way back to the road toward Strychar’s house.

It was close to midnight when I got there. Unlike the women’s dormitory, Strychar’s house was lit up like a football stadium. As far as I knew, he lived there alone. I didn’t see any guards now, and I hadn’t seen any earlier when I’d come with Brother Thad. He had security cameras everywhere, though, and I figured an alarm system had been wired into every door and window. It was a formidable fortress, but not impenetrable. Rule #8 in Nicholas Colt’s
Philosophy of Life:
There might be impenetrable people, but there’s no such thing as an impenetrable building.

All I needed was a few minutes alone with The Holy Record. I should have found a way earlier, when Strychar had the book out. Now I not only had to break into the house, but I had the safe to contend with as well. The only real hope I had was that Strychar had written the combination down somewhere. People write things down. Computer passwords, PIN numbers for debit cards, burglar alarm codes, you name it. They write things down because they’re afraid they’ll forget. It makes them feel better to write things down, until they realize they’ve forgotten where they put the piece of paper they wrote the things down on, or some clever thief breaks in and handily finds all their secret numbers tacked to the side of the refrigerator with a magnet. Then they don’t feel so good anymore. Then they feel like crap. I always advise people to memorize
the password to their e-mail account, keep it strictly secret, and then e-mail their other confidential info to themselves. People don’t listen, though. People write things down, and that’s what I was counting on with Strychar.

I stood in the dark at the edge of the woods, in the shadows, thinking about a way to invade Strychar’s residence without setting the alarm off. There really wasn’t a way, unless I went down the chimney like Santa Claus. I didn’t think that would work out, so I decided to wait until morning when Strychar and everyone else would be at the temple for the prayer meeting. The alarm would go off, but maybe I would have enough time to find the combination and open the safe before the Black Berets came running.

So that was my plan, to wait it out until morning. I sat on the ground and settled back against the trunk of a pine tree. I yawned. It was cold and lonely out there, and I kept thinking about Brittney Ryan and how I had ultimately failed her. I never should have driven off and left her alone in my camper that morning.

I rubbed my eyes. The air was still and heavy and I could smell my own sweat. I had a miniature radio and a tiny set of headphones in my backpack, so I listened to NPR for a while to pass the time. An economic expert discussed the president’s new tax plan. Big deal. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. I just wanted to get the information I needed and get out of Chain of Light alive. If I could manage that, everything else would be gravy. Go ahead and tax my ass off. See if I care.

They started playing some slow jazz. I turned the radio off and rubbed my eyes again. I needed some coffee. I needed it to be administered intravenously.

I thought I might be able to shut my eyes for a few minutes, but, of course, that was a mistake.

I woke up two hours later with an AK-47 pointed at my face.

“Get up,” the Black Beret behind the assault rifle said. “Hands behind your head.” His buddy, Black Beret Number Two, stood a few feet behind him and also held an AK-47.

I got up and assumed the position. Number One slapped a cuff
on my left wrist, pulled it behind my back and then did likewise with my right one.

“Easy,” Number Two said. “That’s Reverend Strychar’s new star guitar player.”

“I know who it is. He’ll be lucky to have hands at all when I get done with him.”

“I need to speak with Reverend Strychar,” I said.

They ignored me. Number One shoved me forward, and we walked single file toward the house with me in the middle. When we got to the door, Number One pulled out a cell phone and punched in some numbers. The deadbolt clicked open and we walked inside. I didn’t see a keypad for an alarm. I assumed the cell phone had disabled it remotely with the same code that popped the door lock.

“I need to speak with Reverend Strychar,” I said again.

“Shut up,” said Number One.

I wasn’t in much of a position to argue.

They led me through a maze of hallways, and we ended up in a conference room with a long table surrounded by a dozen or so chairs.

“Sit down,” Number One said.

I sat. I tried to remain calm, but I could feel my blood pressure in my eyeballs.

Number One propped his rifle against the wall and sat in the chair across from me. “What were you doing in the woods?”

“I need to speak with Reverend Strychar.”

Number Two stood by the door with his AK-47 trained on me.

Number One pounded his fist on the table. “We can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way. I’m going to ask you one more time. What were you doing in the woods?”

“You have
vays
of making me talk?” I said. It wasn’t the time to be a smartass, but I couldn’t resist.

“As a matter of fact, we do,” Number One said. “Again. What were you doing in the woods?”

“I need to speak with Reverend Strychar.”

Number One got up. “If he moves, shoot him,” he said to Number Two on his way out the door.

I didn’t move, and Number Two didn’t shoot me. Number One returned a few minutes later carrying a yellow dish towel, a small stainless steel bowl, and a couple of big thick books. He lifted one end of the conference table and slid the books under two of the legs, creating what I guessed to be about a thirty-degree slant. He left the room again briefly and came back lugging a plastic mop bucket filled with water.

They forced me to lie down with my back flat on the table. They had me tilted, as though I were going to be shot out of a cannon feet first. I stared at the ceiling. I knew what was coming.

“You’re not really going to do this, are you?” Number Two said.

“Is he giving me a choice?”

“We always have a choice. Let’s just wait till morning and let Reverend Strychar handle it.”

“Why don’t you go wake him up, and he can handle it right now?”

Number Two didn’t say anything. I got the impression Reverend Strychar didn’t care much for being aroused in the middle of the night.

Without further ado, Number One dipped the dish towel into the mop bucket and stuffed it into my mouth, leaving a tail draped over my nose and eyes.

The stainless steel bowl clanged metallically as he snatched it from the tile floor. I heard it plunge and emerge dripping. A slow steady stream then trickled over my face, saturating the towel and making it impossible to get enough oxygen. With my wrists and ankles shackled, I bucked and thrashed and gurgled wetly trying to shout. It was no practical joke this time. This fool was going to drown me, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

The world started to go purple. Number One yanked the rag out of my mouth before I lost consciousness. He waited until I was finished coughing and gagging and sucking in precious air, and then said, “What were you doing in the woods?”

“I need to speak with Reverend Strychar,” I tried to say. It came out more like
ah knee ah sneak ah never sniker.

“What’s your real name? Who do you work for?”

“Ah knee ah sneak ah never sniker, you song ah bench!”

He pushed the rag back into my mouth, deeper in my throat this time. He started pouring water on me again, and then an angry voice that wasn’t Number One or Number Two barked, “What is the meaning of this?”

The rag came out. I turned my head to the side and puked. Tears blurred my vision, but I was able to recognize Reverend Strychar standing in the doorway with a big shiny nickel-plated revolver at his side. He wore pajamas with a paisley print and a give-me-a-reason expression.

“We caught him in the woods, right outside the house,” Number One said.

“Get him up,” Strychar said.

Number One and Number Two helped me back into a chair. My face was dripping with water and tears and snot and vomit. Number Two wrung the dish towel out and wiped me off.

“What were you doing in the woods?” Strychar asked.

I acted indignant as hell: “The sax player in your band made it clear he doesn’t want me in his room. And he calls himself a
Christian?
He was hostile toward me, and I can’t live and work under those conditions. I was going to wait in the woods till morning and then be on my way. I just wanted to tell you in person I won’t be able to play for your band after all.”

“Why didn’t you just tell us that in the first place?” Black Beret Number One said.

“Quiet!” Strychar said, and then turned to me. “I apologize if Brother Simon was rude to you. I assure you he will be dealt with. I’ll arrange for alternate accommodations for you first thing in the morning, after the prayer meeting, if you’ll agree to stay. In the meantime, I would be honored for you to be a guest in my house tonight.”

“Well—”

“I insist. It’s settled then. You’ll stay here tonight, and I’ll find you a new roommate tomorrow. Do you happen to have a coin on you, Brother Matthew?”

“A coin?”

“Please.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out some change. I handed him a quarter. He flipped it in the air and let it fall to the floor. It bounced and spun and wobbled to a stop on tails.

Strychar turned, raised the revolver, and shot Black Beret Number Two in the heart. The AK-47 skittered away. Number Two didn’t grab his chest or say anything. He crumbled like a demolished building. His head hit the tile with a moist crack, the sound an egg dropped from a window makes.

“Brother John, take the shackles off Brother Matthew, and then clean up this mess,” Strychar said to Number One.

Number One, aka Brother John, took his key out and unlocked my cuffs with a shaky hand. He looked at me in a pleading sort of way. I didn’t say anything. I figured his time would come.

Strychar led me to a bedroom, a nicely furnished suite with a king-size bed and a sunken garden tub. My knees were weak. He gave me soap and towels and a fresh change of clothes. He told me to try to get some rest. He apologized again for Brother Simon, the sax player, and for the “reprehensible behavior” of the Black Berets. He told me goodnight and left the room.

Things certainly hadn’t gone as planned, but I was in. I was in the house. Now it was time to start looking for the combination to that safe.