Carlton Flynn was in the midst of giving his wrap-up statement directly to the camera and his millions of faithful viewers.
“. . . up to each of you to consider the sentiments expressed here tonight by Dr. Maynard Biggs and to compare them with the positions laid out by Dell Beckert. In my opinion, it boils down to one question: Do we keep extending, again and again, the respect that Biggs claims will solve all our problems, or do we draw the line and say, loud and clear, enough is enough! How many times are we supposed to turn the other cheek before we admit it isn’t working? My personal belief—and this is just me, folks—my belief is that peace is a two-way street. I’m Carlton Flynn, and that’s how I see it. I’ll be back after these important messages.”
As Gurney was closing the RAM-TV website, his phone was ringing. It was Torres.
“Gurney here.”
“You asked how to get to the gun club? And how to identify Beckert’s cabin?”
“Right.”
“The most direct access is from Clapp Hollow, which you get to off County Route Twenty, also called Tillis Road. About three miles into Clapp Hollow there’s a bridge over a stream, and right after that there are two trailheads across from each other. The one on the right leads up to the old quarries. The one on the left leads to the gun club preserve. I just emailed you a marked-up satellite map showing the route to the preserve, along with the GPS coordinates of the cabin.”
“You think my Outback can get through those trails?”
“It would depend on how much mud there is. And whether any trees are down.”
“You said one of the trails leads up to the old quarries—is that the area where the Gorts are holed up?”
“Yes. But it’s not just old stone quarries up there. There are interconnecting caves and abandoned mining tunnels that don’t appear on any maps. It’s a wild area. Dense forest and thorn bushes and no roads. The Gorts were born and raised in those hills. They could hide up there forever.”
“An interesting situation.”
As he was ending the call, Gurney heard the bing of an email arriving on his computer. It was the satellite trail map Torres had mentioned. As he adjusted the laptop screen for a closer look, his phone rang again.
It was Cory Payne, his voice sharp with excitement.
“Did you watch it?”
“I did.”
“What did you think?”
“Biggs seems to be a decent man. More decent than most politicians.”
“He understands the problem. He’s the only one who does.”
“The problem of disrespect?”
“Disrespect is another word for belittling. The literal belittling of the black man by the white man. The belittling of the powerless by the powerful. The belittling of the weak by the control freaks who want everything their own way. They beat their victims into the ground, into the dirt. Every so often those beatings—that endless belittling provokes rage. The control freaks call that rage the breakdown of civilization. You know what it really is?
“Tell me.”
“It’s the natural human reaction to unbearable disrespect. The assault on the heart, on the soul. Disrespect that makes me less than you. Before the Nazis killed the Jews, they made them less than equal, less than citizens, less than human. You see the horror in those words? The horror of making one man less than another?”
“Is that what your father does?”
Payne’s voice was pure acid. “You’ve been in the same room with him? You’ve watched him? You’ve listened to him? You’ve seen him on TV in a lovefest with that thug Flynn? You’ve heard him call his own son a murderer? What kind of man do you think he is?”
“That’s too big a question for me to answer.”
“I’ll make it simple. Do you think he’s a good man or a bad man?”
“That’s not a simple question at all. But I have a simple one for you—about that cabin where you helped him with those cartridges.”
“What about it?”
“Is it locked?”
“Yes. But you can get in if you know where the spare key is.” Curiosity seemed to be diluting the acid. “You think something there will tell you what you want to know?”
“Possibly. Where’s that key?”
“You’ll need to use the compass app on your phone. Stand at the northeast corner of his cabin. Walk due east, maybe thirty or forty feet, until you come to a small square piece of bluestone in the grass. The key is under it. Or at least it was the day he took me out there.”
“Do you know if any other club members use the property this time of year?”
“It’s only used in the hunting season. Do you know what you’re looking for?”
“I’ll know it when I see it.”
“Watch your back. If he thinks you’re a danger to him, he’ll have Turlock kill you. Then he’ll frame someone for it. Probably me.”
42
After ending the call, Gurney remained in his chair by the fireplace, musing over Payne’s comments and the intensity with which he’d embraced Maynard Biggs’s analysis of the problem.
As for the actual interview, Gurney couldn’t help feeling a visceral revulsion to Carlton Flynn—as it occurred to him once again that a sure sign of a man’s dishonesty was his characterization of himself as a truth teller. Self-described “straight talk” usually amounted to nothing but mean-spirited self-righteousness.
Gurney turned his attention back to his computer and the satellite map Torres had emailed him showing the trail route from Clapp Hollow to the gun club. The two-mile route he’d highlighted passed through a succession of three forks, taking right turns at the first and second and a left at the third before arriving at a series of linked clearings next to a long, narrow lake. The image of the cabin in the first of those clearings had been labeled with GPS coordinates.
Gurney memorized the coordinates as well as the approximate distances from Clapp Hollow to each of the trail forks. It seemed simple enough, assuming the trails were passable.
His thoughts were interrupted by the shrill beep of the house smoke alarms, indicating a power outage. The only light he’d turned on in the room, the lamp next to his armchair, went out.
At first he did nothing. Momentary electrical interruptions had become common as the local utility company cut back on routine maintenance operations. After several minutes had passed with no restoration of power, however, he called the company’s emergency number. The automated answering system informed him that there was no known outage in his area but his report would be forwarded to the service division and that a representative would be responding shortly. Rather than wait in the dark for the power to come back on, or to discover what “shortly” might mean, he decided to get his generator going—a gas-powered unit that sat out on the tiny back porch and was wired into the circuit panel in the basement.
He went out the side door and around to the back of the house. It was a couple of minutes past nine. Dusk had become night, but a full moon made a flashlight unnecessary.
The generator had a pull-cord starter. He grasped the handle and gave it a few energetic yanks. When the engine didn’t start, he bent over to be sure that the choke and gas-line levers were in their proper positions. Then he took hold again of the cord handle.
As he was adjusting his stance for the best leverage, he caught just at the edge of his vision a moving speck of light. He glanced up and spotted it on the corner post of the porch, just above his head. It was tiny, round, and bright red. He dived off the porch step into a patch of unmowed grass. He heard, almost simultaneously, the thwack of the bullet hitting the post and the sharper crack of the gunshot from somewhere at the top of the high pasture.