Storm Surge (21 page)

***

More trees
were down in the road.
Bohler
had had to clamber over
half a dozen trunks and fallen limbs to reach the crossroads. Now he huddled,
wet and miserable, in the V that had once been near the top of a massive live
oak. Hundreds of years of growth had been uprooted and dashed to the ground by
the wind that whipped around him now, buffeting and pushing and prodding
relentlessly until he wanted to flail wildly back at it to get it away from
him, get it off him for just a second. His broken nose felt like a hot balloon
of pain in the middle of his face. He jumped as a sudden concussion thudded in
the air. Then without warning, Mercer was beside him. It was as if the man had
conjured himself out of the dark and rain.

“What the hell
was that?”
Bohler
said through chattering teeth.

“Sounded like
something at the clubhouse,” Mercer said. “Propane tank, maybe.” He reached for
the machine gun. “Give that here.”

“I’ll hang on
to it for the moment, thanks,”
Bohler
said.

Mercer looked
irritated. “Look,” he said, we’re going to have to…” He looked down at his
feet.
“Uh-oh.”

Bolher
felt it too. He looked down. Water
was swirling around their ankles and it was rising, even as they watched.

“We’ve got to
move,” Mercer said. “Follow me.”

“Where are…”
Bolher
cursed inwardly as he had to struggle to remember
their names. “Sharon Brennan?
And her daughter?”

“Safe.
As long as they’re smart enough to get on a higher floor.”
He smiled a little. “And I don’t have much doubt about that.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Sharon grabbed
up the shotgun as she heard the door crash open downstairs.

Glory sat
upright in the bed where she’d been sleeping. “What? What is it?” They had
found a Coleman propane lantern in a closet downstairs, and Sharon reached over
to turn it up. The dull white glow flared to a sharp white flame that it hurt
to look directly at.

Mercer’s voice
came from below. “Sharon? Sharon, it’s me.”

“Ms. Brennan?”
Another voice.
Strangely familiar.
Sharon’s hands tightened around the shotgun anyway.

“Who’s that?”
Glory whispered.

“
Shhh
.”

“I’m coming up
the stairs,” Mercer said. “
It’s
okay, The guy with me
is a cop. He got stuck here, too.” Mercer appeared in the doorway His clothes
were soaking wet and plastered to him. He had what looked like a pair of
headphones draped around his neck.
Behind him stood a man in
a mud covered flight suit.
The other man looked awful. His nose was
grotesquely swollen, and blood was crusted on his upper lip. His eyes looked
swollen too, as if he was getting ready to have a shiner. He was carrying a
machine gun awkwardly cradled in his arms.

Sharon put the
gun on the bed and stood up. “Kyle,” she said. “Are you okay?”

He stepped
into the room. “I’m fine.”

“Ma’am,” the
man in the flight suit said. “Are you and your daughter all right?”

“Yes, we’re
fine,” she said, a little puzzled at his tone.

“Good,” the
man said. “Mr. Mercer, step to the other side of the room, please.”

Mercer turned.
The man in the flight suit had the gun raised and pointed at the center of
Mercer’s chest. Mercer didn’t speak, just stared into the man’s face.

“Kyle Mercer,
I’m placing you under arrest.”

“What!?”
Sharon said.

Mercer looked
amused.
“For what, exactly?”

The man in the
flight suit ignored the question and spoke to Sharon. “I’m Deputy Len
Bohler
, ma’am,” he said. “I came to get you. And this man
is wanted for questioning by the FBI.”

“You have got
to be fucking kidding me,” Mercer said.

“I said Step
BACK, sir!”
Bohler
snapped. “And take the pistol out
of your waistband.” Mercer raised his hands and stepped back slightly. He was
still smiling.
Bohler
went on. “I also just witnessed
him killing a man.
In cold blood.”

“This would be
the guy,” Mercer said, “who used to be the owner of that weapon you’re
holding.”

“You may have
a plea of self-defense there, sir,”
Bohler
said. “I
can’t give you legal advice. Now reach down, one hand, two fingers. And take
that gun out.” Still smiling, Mercer did as he was told, withdrawing the pistol
from the waistband of his jeans.

“Now throw it
here.”

Mercer gently
tossed the weapon, underhand, a few inches from
Bohler’s
feet. His eyes never left the deputy’s face.
Bohler
started to bend over, as if to pick the pistol up,
then
stopped himself. “Nice try,” he said. “You have the right to remain silent….”

“Deputy,”
Sharon said, “I think you may be misunderstanding…”

Bolher
raised his voice and overrode her.
“Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…”

Sharon stepped
toward him. “Deputy…”

“Step back,
ma’am!”
Bohler
was trying to sound commanding, but
his voice nearly cracked with strain.

“PUT THE GUN
DOWN!” Glory shouted.

Sharon turned.
Glory had snatched the shotgun up off the bed. She was kneeling up on the
mattress, pointing the weapon at
Bohler
. Her hands
were shaking.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

“Glory!”
Sharon screamed.

“Kid,” Mercer
said calmly, “Put the gun down. Don’t be stupid.”

“You leave him
alone!’” Glory screamed at
Bohler
. There were tears
on her cheeks. “He hasn’t done anything wrong!”

Bohler
was looking stupefied. The gun
wavered back and forth between Mercer and Glory.

“Don’t do it,
Bohler
,” Mercer still had that same deadly calm in his voice.
“The shotgun’s not even loaded. She’s bluffing. Keep the gun on me. Keep
looking at me.”
Bolher’s
aim continued to oscillate
back and forth. He looked sick.

“I’ll do it,”
Glory sobbed. “I’ll shoot you. I swear it.” She raised the gun.
Bohler’s
aim tracked more decisively towards her.

“Oh,
god, NO!”
Sharon
screamed, and tried to put herself in front of the gun barrel.

Mercer moved
with the quickness of a striking cat. Before Sharon had even registered that he
was moving, he was across the room, almost on top of
Bohler
,
with his left hand pushing the machine gun barrel the rest of the way through
its arc, past Glory, past Sharon. At the same time, he brought his right
forearm up hard, smashing it across the bridge of
Bohler’s
swollen nose. The deputy screamed in agony and his grip on the gun loosened.
Mercer stripped the weapon away from him with a smooth practiced motion.
Bohler
sank to his knees, his hands over his face.
Bohler
kicked him in the stomach, hard.
Bohler
curled in agony on the floor. Mercer raised the gun and took aim.

“Kyle, NO!”
Sharon cried.

Mercer
hesitated. “Motherfucker pulled a gun on me, Sharon,” he said.
“And Glory.”

“He made a
mistake,” Sharon said. “He didn’t know. Kyle. Kyle, listen to me.”

“He was going
to shoot Glory. Or you.”

“No, Kyle, no
he wasn’t. He was just confused. And Glory was being stupid. Glory, put the gun
down.” She could hear Glory weeping with fear behind her, but she didn’t dare
take her eyes off Mercer.

“Better do
what your mom says, kiddo,” Mercer said. Glory’s sobbing redoubled, but Sharon
heard the soft impact of the gun landing on the mattress. Sharon kept her eyes
focused on Mercer. “Kyle, look at me.”

“Best not,”
Mercer said. “Our friend here’s full of surprises.”

“Then listen
to me,” she said. “Hear my voice. Kyle,
he doesn’t need killing.
”

He did turn to
look at her then. His eyes were cold, arctic blue. She almost stepped back from
the menace in them, but she forced herself to stay steady. She couldn’t stop,
however, from flinching ever so slightly. Subtle as it was, he caught it, and
she was startled again to see his eyes change. There was determination there,
but in his eyes she saw a terrible grief. Slowly, he lowered the gun.

“Thank you,”
she said softly. He didn’t answer, but walked over to the bed and picked up the
shotgun. He had to brush by her to do it. She touched his shoulder and turned
him to look at her. “Thank you,” she said again.

“Don’t mention
it,” he
said,
his voice almost inaudible. He turned
away from her and strode towards the door.
Bohler
was
up onto his knees now, and he awkwardly moved out of Mercer’s way. Mercer
stopped and looked down at him. “You’re one lucky
sumbitch
,”
he said. That country twang was back, the one that surfaced only rarely. Sharon
wondered if that was his real voice.
Bohler
didn’t
answer, just looked up at Mercer with anger in his eyes. Mercer gave Sharon a
last look,
then
walked out.

“What was that
all about?”
Bohler
said,
his
voice muffled and nasal.

Sharon didn’t
speak. She turned to where Glory was still kneeling up on the bed crying.

“What in
hell
were you thinking!?” she demanded.

“He was
gonna
hurt Kyle,” she sniffled.

Tears were
running down Sharon’s face as well. “So you thought you’d get yourself killed
instead? Have you lost your mind?”

Glory started
crying again. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Sharon wanted
to scream with the tension and fear and the bone-weariness that dragged at her.
Instead she sat on the bed and took her daughter in her arms.
Bohler
had gotten to his feet. “Ma’am, has he done
anything…”

“Deputy,”
Sharon interrupted. “He hasn’t done anything but keep us alive these past few
hours. And he’s not going to do anything to hurt either of us. It’s kind of a
rule with him. No,” she corrected herself. “It’s more like an obsession.”

“He’s a
dangerous man, ma’am.”

“Yeah,” she
agreed. “He is.
But not to me or Glory.
You, one the
other hand, are probably on pretty thin ice.” She looked at
Bohler
.
“Considering who’s out there, don’t you think it would be a better idea for the
two of you to work together?”

“I had to try
and take him in,”
Bohler
insisted.
“For
your protection.
The man’s a killer.”

“That’s true,”
Sharon said, looking out the door where Mercer had just exited. “But it’s not
all he is.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Mercer had
found a pack of cigarettes in a cupboard downstairs. They had obviously
belonged to Kathy-with-a-K, but Virginia Slims, he guessed, were better than no
tobacco at all. He sat on the bottom step and watched the water coming into the
house, spreading slowly across the hardwood floor. The flooding had gotten
worse. The water was rising, slowly, but fast enough that he knew to try and
move again would be suicide. They’d have to ride it out here, and hope the
place held together.

He should have
killed the deputy. He knew it. The man had drawn a weapon on him, and there was
only one possible response to that. And then Sharon had asked him not to, and
that was that.

He doesn’t
need killing
, she had
said. Who was she to decide that? That had always been his call. Why in God’s
name did he let her stop him? And there was only one possible answer to that,
as well. He cared how she saw him. And that, he knew, was the most dangerous
thing of all. In Mercer’s world, men who let women get to them got stupid. They
started stupid fights or took stupid chances. Mercer had always been able to
profit from that stupidity.

As he sat and
thought and watched the water coming toward him, he thought he heard someone
whisper his name. He turned and looked back up the stairs. No one was there,
but the whispering continued. He looked around the room.
Nothing.
He realized then that the sound was coming from the headphones he had slung
around his neck. He took them off, looked at them for a second. Then he put
them on.

“Mercer,” a
voice was saying. “I know you have Montrose’s headset. And I know you’re on the
air. I know I would be. There’s a button on the right earphone. Touch it and
that activates the mike. It’s built in. You don’t even need to speak. I’ll hear
the click and know you’re listening.” There was a pause. Mercer did nothing.
“Okay,” the voice said. “Maybe I am just talking to myself. But I don’t think
so. I know you’re out there, Mercer. I bet you’re wondering how I know your
name. Your Deputy friend gave you up. He told us everything. I hear the FBI
wants to talk to you. It may surprise you, Mercer, but I know some people that
might be able to fix that. Touch the earphone and key your mike if that’s something
you might be interested in.”