Hellbent--An Orphan X Novel Read online

  Then he got into his Impala and drove off. He took a final loop upslope, winding through thickening forest that coaxed a distant memory of the trees surrounding Jack’s farmhouse.

  He checked his RoamZone. Even after a long day, the high-power lithium-ion battery kept the phone’s charge nearly full. He wondered briefly what he would do if the next Nowhere Man case rang through—a real Nowhere Man case as opposed to the personal mission he was on now. After he helped his clients, he asked them to find one—and only one—person who needed his help and to pass on his untraceable number.

  He had a rule, encoded in the Seventh Commandment: One mission at a time.

  For Jack he was willing to make an exception.

  He pulled over to get a bottled water at a convenience store. As he headed back to the car, chugging down the water, he caught a chorus of singing voices on the breeze.

  Only when he turned and saw the open front door of the Baptist church across the parking lot did he realize that it was an actual choir. Drawn by the music, he walked over, climbed the stone steps, and entered. The pews sat empty, but the singers were in place in the choir stand, decked out in royal-blue gospel gowns. They were working on an a cappella hymn, practicing beneath a stark wooden cross flooded with light from behind. The choir conductor, an older man, directed from a podium. The voices rose pure and true.

  Evan’s form in the doorway cut the light, and the director half turned, his hands still keeping time for the singers. He gave a welcoming nod in the direction of the pews.

  Evan felt the habitual pull to withdraw, but there was a power in the joined voices that hit him in the spine, made it thrum like a guitar string. He took a seat in the last row and let the hymn wash over him.

  With the harmony came memories. Waking up in the dormer bedroom in Jack’s farmhouse that first sun-drenched morning. Walking behind Jack in the forest, filling those boot prints with his own small shoes. The cadence of Jack’s voice, how it never rose above a measured pitch during their nightly study sessions. Jack had taught him everything from Alexander the Great’s battle tactics to basic phrases in the Indo-Iranian languages to toasting etiquette for Scandinavian countries—nothing was too trivial. The smallest detail could save Evan’s life in the field.

  Or kill him.

  He thought about an Arab financier peering through raccoon eyes, wearing a half-moon laceration from Evan’s garrote like a necklace. A fat man, bald as a baby and clad only in a towel, staring back at him lifelessly through the steam of a bathhouse, blood drooling from a bullet hole over his left eye. A man slumped over a table in a drab Eastern European kitchen, his face in his soup, the back of his head missing.

  He thought about what he was going to do to Van Sciver and every one of his men he came across along the way.

  The choir finished. Before they could disperse, the director cleared his throat to good dramatic effect and said, “Now, when you get back out there with your car pools and your grocery shopping and your punching the clock, you take a little time to think about the works you do and the life you lead. When you’re back in this here church one day boxed up in a coffin, that’s gonna be all that’s left to speak for you.” With a crinkled hand, he waved them away. “Go on, now.”

  The singers filed out, joking and gossiping. A few glanced Evan’s way, and he nodded pleasantly. People forget anything that’s not a threat, and Evan had no intention of being remembered.

  He lifted his eyes to the glow behind the altar and wondered at the beliefs men held and what those beliefs drove them to do. In his brief time on the planet, he’d seen so many dead stares, so many visages touched with the gray pallor of death. But he’d never blinded himself to the humanity shining through the cracks of those broken guises. Jack had made sure of that. He’d lodged that paradox in Evan’s mind and in his heart. It had saved him, in a manner of speaking. But it came with a price.

  Evan started to rise when the director turned and caught his eye. The old man limped up the aisle toward him. “Our altos are flat and our tenors are sharp. You’d think it’d even us out some.”

  “It sounded perfect to me,” Evan said. “But I’ve got an untrained ear.”

  “You must.” The man sat heavily in the pew next to him, let out a sigh like air groaning through a bellows.

  “I’ll let you get on with your day, sir,” Evan said.

  “Minister.”

  “Minister. Thank you for letting me listen.”

  “A man doesn’t stumble into a church for no reason.”

  Out of deference Evan didn’t take issue with him.

  The minister sat back, crossed his arms, and gazed at the vaulted ceiling. Evan felt a familiar tug to leave but realized that for the moment he had nowhere to be. The minister scratched at his elbow, clearly in no rush.

  Evan considered the man’s words again. Decided to rise to the challenge.

  “Which matters more?” he asked.

  “Which what matters more?”

  “At the end. Which matters more? The works we’ve done or the life we lead?”

  “Say ‘I,’ son. First person. You’d be surprised at how powerful the change is.”

  Evan took a pause. “Which matters more? The works I’ve done or the life I lead?”

  The minister was right. The words felt different in Evan’s body and behind his face.

  “You assume they’re different,” the minister said. “One’s works and one’s life.”

  “In some cases.”

  “Like yours?”

  “That remains to be seen.”

  The minister gave a frown and nodded profoundly. It took a good measure of dignity to manage a profound nod, but he managed it just fine. “Do you follow the Commandments, son?”

  Evan nearly smiled. “Yes, Minister. Every last one.”

  “Then there’s your start.”

  Evan held a beat before switching tracks. “I’d imagine that few people are woven into this community as well as you are.”

  “I’d say you imagine right.”

  “Has there been any word about government folks coming through town, a helicopter, a fire?”

  The minister arched an eyebrow. “There has not.”

  “Suspicious flurry of activity down by the”—he hesitated slightly before naming his nemesis—“Peachoid?”

  “No.”

  “How about alien spaceships cutting crop circles?” Evan countenanced the man’s watery glare. “Kidding.”

  “What’s all this hokum about?”

  “I was supposed to meet a friend at the peach water tower.”

  “Why don’t you call him?”

  “Long-lost friend. We’d arranged a meet online.”

  “Hmm.” The minister mused a moment. “You sure you got the right one?”

  A jolt of anticipation straightened Evan up slightly in the pew. “The right friend?”

  “The right Peachoid. Same folks built a smaller one down in Clanton, Alabama.”

  Evan had not in fact been following all the Commandments. He’d overlooked the first one: Assume nothing.

  He rose. “Thank you, Minister. I can’t tell you how useful your guidance has been.”

  “I serve with gladness.”

  Evan shook the proffered sandpaper hand. “As do I.”

  9

  From Beyond the Grave

  Five hours and thirty-eight minutes later, Evan was standing on the side of I-65 between Birmingham and Wetumpka, gazing up at a five-hundred-gallon version of the same eyesore.

  Twenty-seven minutes after that, his headlights picked up Jack’s truck parked at the edge of a fire road running between two swaths of cotton that stretched into the darkness, maybe forever.

  He climbed out of the Impala, unholstered his slender ARES pistol for the first time, and approached the truck tentatively. It was cold enough out to be uncomfortable, but he didn’t have any interest in being uncomfortable. He shone a key-chain Maglite through the windows and took in the damage. Slashe
d seat cushions, scattered papers from the glove box, holes punched through the headliner. They’d searched as well as he’d expected they would. They’d have been looking for anything that might point them to Evan.

  His breath fogging the pane, Evan stared at the defaced interior and considered how many years Jack had polished this dashboard, vacuumed the seams, touched up the paint. Anger and sorrow threatened to escape the locked-down corner of his heart, and he took a moment to tamp it back into place.

  He walked around the truck, searched for booby traps. None were visible.

  The truck was unlocked. It was two decades old, but the hinges didn’t so much as creak when the door swung open. Jack’s hinges wouldn’t dare.

  Evan sat where Jack used to sit.

  Do you regret it? What I did to you?

  He put his hands on the steering wheel. The pebbled vinyl was worn smooth at the ten and two. The spots where Jack’s hands used to rest.

  I wanted to hear your voice.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Evan caught a gleam from the molded map pocket on the lower half of the door. He reached down and lifted Jack’s keys into the ambient light.

  Odd.

  Jack never left his keys in the truck.

  He was a creature of habit. The Second Commandment had always been his favorite: How you do anything is how you do everything. He had drilled it into Evan’s cells.

  There was a likelihood, of course, that Van Sciver’s men had taken Jack’s keys when they’d grabbed him so they could search his truck. But if that were the case, once they were done, wouldn’t they just have tossed the keys back on the seat or dropped them into the cup holder? Placing them in a map pocket low on the door took consideration and a bit of effort.

  It’s too late for me.

  Jack had known he was about to get grabbed.

  This is looking to be my ninth life, son. Dollars to doughnuts they’ve got ears on me right now.

  And Jack would’ve controlled the terms. Evan guessed he would’ve gotten out of the truck under his own power. Left it unlocked for the search. Placed the keys carefully for Evan to find.

  But why?

  Sometimes we miss what’s important for the fog. But maybe we should give it a go before, you know …

  Jack had known he was about to die.

  I guess … I guess I want to know that I’m forgiven.

  Evan looked through the dirty windshield. The night swallowed up the land all around. Sitting in the cab of Jack’s truck, Evan could just as well have been floating through the black infinity of outer space.

  “We didn’t have time,” he told the dashboard. “We didn’t have enough time.”

  I love you, son.

  “Copy that,” Evan said.

  He pondered the darkness, his breath wisping in the November chill.

  Before he died, Jack had wanted to set things right with Evan—he’d made that much clear. But maybe his words held a double meaning. What if there was something else he was looking to set right? He’d known that Van Sciver was listening. He would’ve spoken in code.

  Evan replayed the conversation in his head, snagged on something Jack had said: Sometimes we miss what’s important for the fog.

  The turn of phrase was decidedly un-Jack. Jack had a down-to-earth, articulate speaking style, the patter of a former station chief. He was not flowery, rarely poetic, and tended to make use of metaphors only when undercutting them.

  Evan looked down at the keys in his hand.

  miss what’s important for the fog

  The realization dropped into his belly, rippling out to his fingertips.

  He zippered the key into the ignition.

  The well-maintained engine turned over and purred.

  Evan sat.

  He leaned forward so that his mouth would be that much closer to the cooling windshield. And he breathed.

  A full minute passed. And then another.

  Fog started creeping in from the edges of the windows. He shifted in the seat, watched the driver’s window.

  As fog crept to the center of the pane, a few streaks remained stubbornly clear. They forged together as the condensation filled in around them, finally starting to resolve in the negative space as letters.

  In his final minutes, Jack had written a low-tech hidden message for Evan with the tip of his finger.

  Evan stared at the window, not daring to blink.

  At last the effect was complete, Evan’s orders standing out in stark relief on the clouded glass.

  GET PACKAGE

  3728 OAK TERRACE #202

  HILLSBORO, OR

  Jack had given him a final mission.

  10

  A Goodly Amount of Damage

  The apartment complex was so sturdy that it bordered on municipal. Ten-foot security gate, metal shutters, callbox with buzzer. Evan had approached the target slowly, winding in on the address block by block like a boa constricting its prey. Then he’d parked behind the building in the shade of a tree—Hillsboro was lousy with trees—and surveilled.

  The rented Toyota Corolla reeked eye-wateringly of faux new-car smell, courtesy of an overly exuberant car washer. Evan had been watching for three hours now, which was a lot of new-car smell for a man to take.

  Traffic ran past steadily. A Tesla Model S flashed by, and more Priuses than he could count. Buses creaked to a stop across the road at intervals approximating ten minutes and disgorged various domestic workers and floridly bearded young men. Evan used the reflection off the bus’s windows to observe the wide parking lot enfolded in the horseshoe of the three-story complex. People came and went, and they looked ordinary enough.

  Then again, so did Evan.

  The same HILLSBORO HOME THEATER INSTALLATION! van drove by two times, a half hour apart. A half hour was an eyebrow-raising interval, though it was plausible that the driver had bid a job or had completed a small repair and was returning to the shop.

  Evan didn’t like vans.

  He gave it another hour, but the van didn’t reappear. Besides, what idiot would put an exclamation mark on an undercover vehicle?

  He reapplied a thin layer of superglue to his fingertips. Superglue was less conspicuous than gloves and left him with full tactility. He pressed the fingers of his left hand to the window. They left five printless dots.

  A rickety old Cadillac coasted to the curb across the street from Evan at the rear of the complex. An elderly man emerged, the strains of a Beethoven piano concerto still drifting through the open windows. He began to unload from the trunk various canvases, which he propped against the wall of the building. They featured cubist takes on musical instruments—a deconstructed trumpet, a piano turned inside out. There was a flair to his artwork, an inner life. The canvases kept coming. They lined the base of the building, filled a blanket he spread on the sidewalk, peered from the jaw of the open trunk. The man sat creakily, adjusted his herringbone flat cap, and nodded to the music.

  Evan listened along with him. It was Concerto No. 3, one of Jack’s favorites. He remembered Jack’s saying that it owed something to Mozart, how all things should honor what preceded them and inspire what is to come.

  He wondered how he could best honor Jack.

  The question of inspiration was even thornier.

  He remembered Jack’s message scrawled on the foggy window. He wondered what the hell the package was and why Jack had hidden it all the way across the continent. Something essential. A long-buried secret from Jack’s past that would lead to Van Sciver? Maybe even a torpedo that would sink him.

  Evan checked his gun. Along with the skinny 1911, he’d smuggled one extra go-to-war magazine in the laptop. He’d validated the mag at a range, making sure it dropped clear. That gave him seventeen rounds, which was less than he was comfortable with. Then again, he could do a goodly amount of damage with seventeen rounds.

  He heard an echo of Jack’s voice: Just don’t put all the holes in the same place.

  He got out of the car. Scanni
ng the traffic, he walked around the east wing of the building, tucking quickly into the horseshoe. At the edge of the parking lot, the callbox sprouted from the metal mesh of the security gate. It was a serious gate with a serious double-keyed lock. Another metal gate guarded the stairwell, which was itself caged.

  Fire hazards to be sure, but this was a bad section of Hillsboro—whatever that meant—and the folks who lived here cared more about day-to-day safety than about the sliver percentage of a fire-induced stampede.

  Jack had chosen a good place to hide the package.

  On the directory, number 202 was blank. Evan scanned the other names. Given the security concerns of the residents, a button-pushing deliveryman ruse wouldn’t likely get him far.

  He’d bought a rake pick and a tension wrench at a hardware store and was about to get busy when a guy yammering into a Bluetooth headset clanged out of the stairwell gate. As the man strode up the corridor toward the front, Evan pretended to punch a code into the callbox’s keypad.

  “I heard this new ramen place is sick,” the guy told his interlocutor and anyone else in the vicinity who might have been interested. “They have, like, a hundred flavors of shōchū.”

  He shoved his way out the front gate, ignoring Evan and the rest of the world, and Evan slipped through. In case he had to beat a hasty retreat, he wedged a quarter between the latch and the frame so the gate wouldn’t autolock.

  At the stairwell he finally got to use his pick set. He engaged a second quarter to keep that gate from locking also.

  A fine fifty-cent investment.

  He crept up to the second floor and down the corridor. Apartment 202 had a peephole. He ducked beneath it, put his ear to the door. Heard nothing inside.

  Though the building was late-afternoon quiet, he couldn’t risk creeping around the corridor for long.

  The apartment lock was also double-keyed. With the rake and wrench, he jogged the pins into proper alignment and eased the door silently open.

  The place was dimly lit and smelled of carpet dust and greasy food. A brief foyer led to a single big studio room. No furniture.

  He made out a faint scraping sound.

  Pistol drawn, Evan eased through the foyer, heel to toe, minding the floorboards. More of the studio came into view. A bare mattress. A mound of fast-food wrappers. A geometric screen saver casting a striated glow from an open laptop. Then an overstuffed rucksack.