John Hart - Iron House

“Don’t go anywhere.”

He stepped where she could see him.

“Michael’s coming.”

A killer’s calm descended on Michael, and he knew the feeling like an old friend. The way time slowed, the clarity of his perceptions. His thoughts ordered themselves, as muscles loosened and possibility stretched out like lines on a graph.

“There it is.”

Light swelled where the drive emptied from the forest. Trees fell off and the land opened. Michael saw an old house at the edge of uncut fields. He saw vehicles. And he saw the barn.

“So many cars.” Abigail hunched forward, her hands white on the bag of money. “He’s not alone.”

Michael checked windows in the house, saw blackness behind empty glass. He considered the tree line, the high, brown scrub. There was deep shadow and lots of cover. Anyone with a decent rifle could take them out. He stopped the car. Everything around them was perfectly still.

“Jesus, Michael. We’re sitting ducks.”

“He wants his money. We control it. Try to remember that.”

“Okay.” She nodded, swallowed. “Where are we going?”

“There.”

The barn was like any barn, rough and angular on a patch of dirt and weed. The wood was weathered and unpainted, the roof rusted metal. On its peak, a fox-shaped weathervane leaned at a drunken angle. There was an opening in the loft, but other than that, it looked as if Jimmy was right.

One way in.

One way out.

“Don’t do anything unless I say.” Michael opened his door. “Understand?” She reached for the door handle, fumbled it. “Abigail?”

“I can take care of myself.”

And then they were out, in the yard, with the barn tall above them. Michael had a gun in the front of his belt, and one at the back. Rounds chambered. Safeties off. He looked once more at the empty clearing, then lifted the book from the dash and walked for the barn door. Three feet from the place it gapped, he called out. “Jimmy. It’s Michael.” He waited, but got no answer. “Abigail Vane is with me. We’re coming in.”

He put a foot through the gap and nudged the door, which scraped on dirt and old straw. He went in, hands first, Abigail close on his back.

“Slowly.”

That was Jimmy, deep and to the left. Out of sight.

“Slowly,” Michael said.

He eased around the door, came five feet into the barn and stopped, Abigail hard against him. The place was brighter than he expected, well lit by at least a dozen lanterns. He heard Abigail take in a shocked breath, but felt his own calm flow as he catalogued the barn in a few clear, brutal seconds. He saw Stevan first, but wasted no time breaking down the extent of his injuries. He was dead or not. No matter. He glimpsed Elena, but forced himself to move away from that, come back later. He located Jimmy in a shadowed place, partially concealed by a heavy post. One arm was out, gun in hand.

That was not the hand that Michael feared…

“Can I assume we understand each other?”

Jimmy’s voice sounded surprisingly deep in the high, vast space. Michael watched the hand that held a small, wooden dowel that was maybe ten inches long. The dowel was tied to a length of baling twine. The twine ran through an eyehook embedded in the post, then to another hook in a second post, then to a third, and then to…

Elena.

She was wired to the barn’s central support structure, a thirty-inch beam that soared to the roofline. The wires that held her were twisted razor tight, so they cut into her forehead, her neck and limbs. Her arms were pulled back so fiercely that her shoulder bones jutted. Blood from her throat made a sharp V at the collar of her shirt. She stood on one foot, and Michael saw lacerations and several toes bent sideways. The other leg was broken at the ankle, bent at the knee and wired high on the post so the foot dangled at a tortured angle. Michael had no idea how long she’d been forced to stand like that, but he’d suffered enough broken bones to imagine the hurt. Yet, the pain was nothing compared to the fear he saw in her eyes. They nailed him where he stood; they begged and said so many things.

“It’s okay, baby.”

But it wasn’t.

A double-barreled shotgun wedged her jaw open; it was jammed deep in her mouth and secured with bright, silver tape that twisted thickly around the barrel, her head and jaw. Michael saw teeth smeared red, a glimpse of crushed lips. She was sucking hard through her nostrils: panicked, in shock. Her skin had blued out. Tears gathered in her lashes.

The shotgun hung from nylon straps.

Twine ran from the trigger to the dowel in Jimmy’s hand.

“Are we clear on the stakes?” Jimmy said.

Michael took his eyes off Elena; felt his cold center expand. What was the trigger pull on a Remington twelve gauge? Three and half pounds? Less? He looked at Stevan, spread on the tractor. Most of his face was gone, fingers clipped off and lying in the dirt. Hours of work, there. Lots of screaming, lots of noise. Jimmy had hung a mirror so that Stevan could watch the work on his face. That meant Jimmy had felt free to take his time, enjoy himself. Michael guessed that whoever else had come south with Stevan was dead now, too. Jimmy wouldn’t run the risk, not with Stevan alive. “I think we understand each other.”

“Weapons on the ground, please.” Michael removed both guns, placed them on the ground. “Kick them away.” Michael did as he was told. “Lift the shirt.” Michael did it. “Pant legs.” Michael did that, too. “What’s with the book?”

Michael lifted it. “It’s Otto’s.” Jimmy hesitated, hand tight on the dowel. “The numbers you want are inside.”

“All of them? Accounts. Passwords. Routing numbers?”

“Everything you need.”

Michael watched Jimmy’s mind churn. He wanted to hold the book, check the numbers, but his hands were literally full. He gestured with the gun. “If the woman would step out where I can see her better…”

“It’s okay,” Michael said. “Just do as he asks. Nice and slow.”

Abigail stepped sideways, duffel bag at her side.

Jimmy cocked his head. “That doesn’t look like ten million dollars.”

“It’s just a start,” she said. “I can get the rest.”

“How fast?”

“I just need a computer.”

“Bring it closer.”

Abigail glanced at Michael, who nodded. She walked closer, and when Jimmy told her to stop, she did.

“Drop it there.”

The bag landed in soft, dry dirt.

Jimmy took his hand off the dowel and stepped out of the shadows. His shirt was bloodstained under the left armpit, his nose swollen and split. Other than that, his eyes had the same cold, crazy light Michael had seen so many times. The man was a narcissist and a psychopath, an unpredictable, deadly son of a bitch. He pulled a second pistol from his belt, kept one trained on Michael and pointed the other at Abigail’s face. “Open it.”

She looked scared, uncertain.

“Get on your knees and open it.”

Abigail felt the lump of steel at her waist. Something sharp dug into her skin, but all she cared about was the gun in her face. It had a giant, black muzzle, a circle with a silver sheen on its edge and a center that was dark and deep and smelled of burned powder. It moved, and her eyes followed it as they would a snake. Left and right, small circles. She felt the same vibration at the back of her skull. Headache. Dizziness.

“Open it!”

Jimmy thumbed back the hammer, leaned in so the muzzle was inches from her right eye. Abigail stared into it. She swayed once, then told her knees to bend. They were stiff; they fought. But once they bent, they broke fast. Her legs failed, and she hit the dirt, hard.