Firepower, John Cutter [best summer reads .txt] 📗

went back to work. Then…” She gave a dry chuckle. “…three years later — lung cancer. Bullets couldn’t kill him — but cigarettes did!”

“Chris mentioned that…”

“After Roy died, Bobby kind of lost his way. He’d been talking about going to a police academy, becoming a deputy like his dad. Only he had some problems. Pot smoking, drinking, a DUI. Then he got into oxycontin. Claimed he was going to clean up his act. Then Roy died and Chris was killed… They died within a year of one another!”

Vince grimaced. “Hard to process all that. The white nationalists have been stepping up their online recruitment of young men — they look for guys who are kind of lost, and angry. Looking for someone to blame.”

She gave him a vigorous nod. “That’s just what happened! Anyway, I lost touch with him for five months while he was with that man Gustafson — that’s their deep-pockets, their so-called visionary. Their little Hitler, really. Bobby said he was getting special training that would ‘save America’. Then he came over here one day and…” She shrugged. “…he said he was done. Said they were planning something. That a lot of innocent people would die. He wanted no part of it. He packed a bag, got on his motorcycle, went to the base one last time. That’s the last I heard of him.”

“You tell the feds about this… attack?”

“I thought about it for a whole week. Finally decided I had to tell them. So I told the FBI. An agent drove all the way up to the house and talked to me. I didn’t know any details. Just what I told you. He wanted me to keep it all quiet, said they were aware of the Brethren and would see what they could find out. That was months ago…”

Vince sipped a little of his whiskey and said, “The feds are more careful now. After the Waco thing.”

“Apparently these domestic terrorist cells are always making some ugly plan and usually nothing comes of it. That’s what Agent Chang said. So maybe the FBI’s not taking it all that seriously. But meanwhile — where’s Bobby?”

“Yeah. It’s… You’re probably on tenterhooks all the time.”

“I am.” She drank a little more, then put the glass on the floor. “I have to drive home; I’d better skip the rest of that drink. Vincent, what was it that Chris asked you to do for him?”

I’m going to have to tell her…

“When he was dying, I tied off his arm… and…” She didn’t need to know all the details. How Chris had picked up the severed hand and clutched it to him. “As I guess you know, he came home… his body came home… missing a hand.”

“Yes. I assumed it was lost or…”

“No. I wasn’t sure how to tell you about this, so I didn’t say anything. It was torn off in the explosion. He asked me to take the hand, preserve it, bring it here. Bury it under the porch of this cabin.”

Her mouth dropped open. “What? Really?”

“Really. We wrapped it up well as we could, but then PASI took it, said they’d preserve it, get it to the family. They would not release it to me. Friend of mine in PASI said they never turned it over to anyone. It’s taken me all this time to find out what happened to it. Just got hold of it about ten days ago. It was frozen. Their medic, a man named Charlie Ames, kept it in a freezer. It was kind of forgotten. Finally, he got in touch with me, and… it’s a long story. But I have it now, preserved in alcohol. Right here with me.”

She snapped to stare at his backpack. “My son’s hand… is in that backpack?”

Vince winced. Maybe he should have done the burial entirely on the Q.T. But… it didn’t seem right, her not knowing. This was her property. “Yes ma’am. It’s there. It was the last thing he asked me to do. I couldn’t… not do it. I thought I might get it done tonight. I didn’t actually think you’d be here. I thought we’d probably meet at your house tomorrow…”

“You told me you’d get here this evening.” She smiled wanly. “Didn’t mean to ambush you.”

“That’s alright. I understand.”

“Listen — I don’t want to see his hand. You go ahead and pry up the boards out there. There are some tools in that shed out back. Dig a hole and put it down in there, in its plastic bag, and say what you want. I just… can’t be here for that. But if that’s what he wanted…”

“Yes ma’am. I’ll take care of it.”

“You don’t have to yes-ma’am me, Vincent Bellator. There is something you can do for me, though. I don’t know who else to ask. And it’s kind of… a lot. Bobby said don’t trust the local cops. He said at least one of them is in with the Brethren. And I never heard from the feds again. I was thinking maybe you could… I don’t know…”

“Find out what’s become of Bobby?” Vince nodded. “I was going to suggest I might do just that. I’ll need to locate some Germanic Brethren away from their Fortress of Solitude or whatever the hell they call it. Maybe somewhere in town for a start…”

“Thank you for doing this, Vincent. Just see if you can get them to talk to you. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Getting hurt isn’t part of my plan.”

“Listen — there’s some fishing tackle in the bedroom closet. Maybe for in the morning. And out behind the cabin, under a tarp, you’ll find Chris’s motorcycle. It’s a Harley trail bike from the 1960s. Chris and Bobby rebuilt it together. Took ’em two years to get the parts. If it doesn’t start, call me, and I’ll pick you up.