Gundown (24 page)

Teach Your Children Well

Mitch turned away from the Smith & Wesson order he needed to get shipped. He couldn’t focus. Hank Soldado’s report of Noah Stone’s fear of guns kept popping into his mind—maybe there was a way to use it to scare Stone off, especially now that Hank was out of the game. Mitch couldn’t blame Stone for how he felt after the shooting at the Chicago rally. Speaking of scary, there was Hank’s report on the Mackinac Militia website. Yeah, Colonel Hanson was one spooky woman. He got on the Internet, Googled the militia, and went to the site.

Jesus, there really was a photo of a bullet with Noah Stone’s name on it. If only— No, better be careful what you wish for. Don’t go there.

Still, Hank had said Stone looked primed to break. Too bad he had ended up convicted of murder. Mitch didn’t know what he should do now.

His daughter appeared in the workshop doorway. Carrie said, “Is it time, Daddy?”

That brought a smile to his face, and he happily shut the computer down. They had a date to introduce her to the new Cricket .22 rifle he’d gotten her for her ninth birthday. He figured she was smart enough and responsible enough to have her own gun—as long as she was properly trained, of course, and that was why they were going to the shooting range.

Mitch beamed with pride as he escorted Carrie to the shooting range in the basement of NRA headquarters. He held her new rifle cradled in one arm, and a big grin stretched her face. He took her to a firing station and laid the rifle on the counter. She reached for it, but he stopped her with a hand over hers. “What’s our first rule about guns?”

“Never point one at a person.”

He gave her his serious look. “What if it’s not loaded? Is it okay then?”

She shook her head and then said, “Never assume a gun isn’t loaded.” Her smile said she knew she’d nailed it.

He grinned and patted her on the head. “Good girl. Now, I know this gun isn’t loaded, but you shouldn’t take my word for it, check it yourself. Once you do that, it’s okay for you to handle it here. Get used to it, practice aiming down there where that old target is while I go get a fresh one.”

When he picked up a new target in the storage room, he noticed a flash of red from a crumpled target on the floor. Wishing people would clean up their messes, he picked it up. There was something familiar about the shiny red paper taped to its front—he smoothed it out and found the
Time
magazine cover of Noah Stone, riddled with bullet holes.

It gave him a shudder and made him a little embarrassed that he’d had thoughts about putting holes in Stone’s face, even though it was just a finger doing the shooting. Creepy. He wadded the thing up and tossed it into a wastebasket.

After rigging Carrie’s target and sending it out a short distance, he took his time introducing her to her Cricket rifle, a scaled-down version of an adult weapon. Although it was just a .22 caliber, it could kill, and he intended to drill her on safety. He ignored her sighs of impatience as he took her through the rules. At last he let her load the gun and take aim at the target.

He stepped back and said, “Remember, pull it in tight to your shoulder and squeeze the trigger, don’t jerk it.” Although a .22 didn’t make much noise, he insisted she put on her earmuffs before shooting.

His cell phone rang. It was Hank Soldado. “Hey, Hank, how are things going?” He’d seen the story on the Internet of Hank’s failed kidnapping of that woman.

Carrie looked back at him. He stepped away and gestured for her to keep going, keeping an eye on how she handled the rifle.

Hank said, “Well, my day in court didn’t work out too well.”

Mitch said, “I saw. I know you weren’t guilty. I’m sorry you couldn’t get away.”

He heard a smile in Hank’s voice when he said, “I just chose the wrong person for a hostage.” Strange.

Carrie squeezed off a shot and hit the ring next to the bull’s-eye. She looked back at him and he gave her a thumbs-up. He said to Hank, “You saved Stone’s life when you shot that guy. Why’d you do it?”

“I don’t know. Just reacted, I guess.”

A considerable pause came along. Then Mitch said, “Maybe I wish you hadn’t.”

“You want him dead?”

He pictured the bullet holes in the
Time
cover. “Oh, no! It’s just the problem would be gone. I don’t know what to do now.”

Hank said, “How about getting an appeal going for me?”

“Yeah! I know a couple good lawyers.” Mitch laughed. “Well, except they haven’t been having much luck in Oregon courts. But I’ll do what I can.”

“Thanks. I’ll keep you informed. What’ll you do about Stone?”

He’d been stewing over that. “I don’t know. I just don’t. But I feel the pressure building. We need to do something, and soon, while Stone is shaky.”

“Luck.” Hank ended the call.

Yeah, luck. He could use some of that. He stepped on a loose cartridge case as he moved closer to the shooting station. It was from a hunting rifle.

A hunting rifle. A bullet like the one Colonel Martha Hanson had on her website. The one that scared Noah Stone.

The Keep

Now outfitted in an orange jumpsuit, Hank was stretching after breakfast when the gimpy guard banged the cellblock door open and Joe Donovan and Sally Arnold entered. Donovan lifted a set of shackles and said, “Time to go.”

Sally said, “Guess we ought to thank you for taking Emerson out the way you did. The Alliance offered us your job, and now we’re looking after Noah Stone.”

Relief popped into Hank’s mind. Well, he did like the guy.

She said to Hank, “The Ashland police deputized us to get you to the Keep.” She aimed her stopper at him as Donovan opened the door. “You got away from them a little too easily.”

Donovan said, “Grab some bars and spread.”

Hank gripped two bars up high with both hands and spread his feet. Donovan entered, slipped the shackles onto Hank’s ankles, then handcuffed his hands in front of him. “Sorry about this, Soldado.”

Hank straightened, angered by the cuffs. “How do you feel about what they’re doing to me, Donovan?”

“I think you’re getting screwed, in a way, but I also think you screwed up. Around here, they like to make sure screw-ups have consequences. The bad guys, and I’m not saying you’re one, don’t get away with much.”

Hank glanced at Sally’s stopper. “You think I could have stopped Emerson with one of those toys?”

“Hell, they’ve stopped you a couple of times, haven’t they?”

He couldn’t deny the truth of that.

Sally said, “Tell him about the kidnapping charges.”

Donovan grinned. “Yeah. You should know that Noah talked the cops out of nailing you for kidnapping Jewel Washington, and she went along with it.”

Sally swung the cell door open. “You’d have gone from being in deep shit to completely flushed.”

“I wish I could thank him.”

“You’ll get your chance.” Sally led the way out, and Donovan followed Hank. Outside the cellblock, she passed an open door and halted at the far side. Donovan stopped Hank with a tug on his sleeve. “In there.”

Noah Stone waited inside, his arm in a sling. He frowned at the shackles, then gazed into Hank’s eyes. “Hank.”

“Noah.” Hank nodded at the sling. “How’s the arm?”

“It’ll be okay. Since I do most of my work with my mouth, it doesn’t slow me down much.” His eyes twinkled with irrepressible humor. “Hey, the doctor said the physical therapy might even improve my backhand.”

Dutifully, Hank smiled. A silence settled between them. Hank broke it. “I hear you quashed a kidnapping charge.”

“I was sure you never meant any harm, and Jewel confirmed it.” He gazed into Hank’s eyes, and emotion thickened his voice. “I owe you my life again.”

Hank lifted a foot and rattled his chains. “Could you do something about this?”

“Probably.”

“Probably?”

“But I won’t.” He went to the window and gazed at the mountains. Turning back to Hank, he said, “Violent crime here has dropped significantly since two things went into operation—an effective move against lethal firearms, and arming citizens with defensive weapons. And more criminals are off the streets now that trials get to the truth. I won’t do anything to corrupt the strength of what we’ve accomplished.” He gazed at Hank. “I think you understand that.”

Hank nodded. “I’d do the same. So I guess that’s it, then.”

“No, it’s not. Take the therapy.”

Just the thought of strangers poking around in his mind unsettled Hank. “That I can’t do.”

Noah’s gaze bored in on him. “I sense a connection between us, Hank. You’re a good man, a strong man, and you could be a force with the Alliance.”

Hank smiled. “I can’t believe you want to recruit me.”

“Since I met you, I’ve seen possibilities in what I could do that weren’t there before, a chance to do my work with someone who can be a true partner.” He pleaded with his eyes. “Haven’t you felt something?”

Hank thought about it. Yeah, he guessed he had, but even though there were good things about what Noah was doing, he could never help take guns away from Americans. He shrugged.

Disappointment registered in Noah’s expression. “All right. For your own sake, please take the therapy. The Keep will kill you.”

Hank smiled. “If you knew how many have tried to do that, you wouldn’t think so.” On the way out, he paused in the doorway to look back at Noah. Noah again gazed out at the valley, his expression sad.

Had Hank been wrong about this guy?

After a brief trip in a police van out Route 66 to the tiny Ashland Municipal Airport, Hank, Donovan, and a shackled big man named Dalrymple boarded a police helicopter. The other prisoner also wore an orange jumpsuit.

Dalrymple was thick through the chest and had shoulders like a swimmer, and even thicker through the waist like a swimmer gone soft. The man swaggered, his expression smug. After locking leg shackles to steel floor rings, Donovan buckled into a seat beside Hank.

Hank nodded toward Dalrymple. “What’s he in for?”

“Rape. A twelve-year-old.”

The chopper took off for a place where, if all Hank had heard was correct, he was likely to finish his life.

Hank was dozing when Donovan shook him and gestured toward a window. Hank peered out; it was time to start working on his escape. Dalrymple stared out a window of his own.

Below spread arid, flat emptiness speckled with sagebrush and occasionally gouged by a ravine or pimpled by a rock outcropping. Miles away, mountains defined the distance. If there ever was a middle of nowhere, this was it.

A flat-topped butte came into view, isolated in barren desert. Sheer rock walls rose for hundreds of feet.

Donovan took up a microphone and spoke on the PA system. “This is your new home.”

A white structure dominated the butte’s top. Its shape reminded Hank of a three-bladed propeller from an old-fashioned airplane, with a round center connecting long extensions. The helicopter dropped.

The “blades” of the propeller became huge, rounded structures that looked like giant white medicine capsules lying on their sides, half buried in the desert. Hank estimated the buildings at eighty feet high. Indentations crisscrossed their surfaces, giving them a quilted look.

Attached to the end of the “capsule” that reached the butte’s edge was a featureless, one-story concrete building, maybe twenty feet square. From it, a windowless shaft dropped down the side of the butte, like an exterior elevator shaft on a fancy hotel. Some hotel. The shaft ended at a similar building at the butte’s base. There, greenery surrounded a cluster of houses and a two-story building.

Donovan said, “The square building at the top is where you’ll be inserted into the Keep.”

Dalrymple said, “What the hell are those big white things?”

“Air structures. Teflon-coated fabric is held up by air pressure and down by steel cables. They’re usually used for indoor sports like tennis. There’s even a small golf course inside one back East.”

Hank spotted two human figures lying prone on a mound fifty yards outside one building. Black lumps moved around them. As the chopper passed over, the lumps turned into buzzards that flapped up and away. The human figures didn’t move.

Hank looked to Donovan, who said, “We call that Bone Hill. The inmates don’t have shovels.”

“Harsh.”

“Hey, they had a choice. Just like you.”

The chopper flew over a tall fence that outlined the rim. Donovan said into the microphone, “Note the fence, gents. It is twenty feet tall, angles inward at thirty degrees, and is covered with more razor-sharp spikes than a hedgehog from hell.”

Hank studied the fence. There was no way in hell he could climb it. Maybe he could go under it.

Every fifty yards along the fence were forty-foot poles. “On top of those poles are video cameras, motion detectors, and infrared cameras. Pretty sensitive, too—they’ve spotted snakes going under the fence.”

Okay, scratch the tunnel. The helicopter banked away from the top of the butte and dropped so fast that Hank’s stomach complained.

Three uniformed men armed with stoppers greeted the helicopter when it settled onto a landing pad at the base of the butte. On another pad, cardboard cartons were unloaded from a cargo chopper and moved on a conveyor belt into the small building at the bottom of the shaft that ran up to the Keep. Two guards aimed stoppers at the opening into the building.