Т Паркер - The Fallen

“Send them.”

“We can go code-eleven SWAT,” said Captain Villas. “We’ll use Secondary Response and the Snipers.”

“Get them ready,” I said. “Tell them she might be in the trunk.”

“Got it. Talk to ABLE on the Mobile Data Terminal, and Van Flyke can’t intercept on his radio.”

The Saturday-morning traffic was light. We picked up the 8 east and I hit ninety all the way to State 79. ABLE kept long-distance visual contact and they messaged us every few minutes on the MDT. Van Flyke was coming up on the little mountain town of Julian. He was holding a steady sixty miles an hour and he hadn’t stopped yet. If he’d spotted the chopper he wasn’t letting on.

He didn’t stop in Julian. Instead he picked up Julian Road, bound west for the tiny village of Clear Creek.

“Clear Creek burned in ’03,” said McKenzie. “I don’t think there’s much left of it.”

I remembered the newspaper photographs of tiny Clear Creek, known locally for its wineries, a cafe specializing in apple pies, and an old hotel once allegedly favored by Gable and Garbo. Several vineyards were reduced to rows of stumps and ash. The adobe Clear Creek Hotel had been gutted but remained standing and vacant. It was built to look like an old California mission, around a central courtyard. In the newspapers it had looked ruined, but somehow noble, too, the burst windows staring out from the blackened inside like the eyes of a blind man.

We tore north on 79, up through the greenery of the hills, then into the black expanse left by the fire. I glanced out at the skeletons of the trees and the rocks burned black. It looked like a charred moonscape. There were shoots of green grasses, though, and the beginnings of regrowth down low in the center of the burned trees, so you could see that life was going to win. It would just take time. I wondered if Stella’s life would win out, too. We charged past Cuyamaca Reservoir and the little lake cabins that had been so mercilessly razed, climbing in elevation as we neared Julian.

The MDT screen jumped to life with a message from one of the ABLE choppers:

“Delta Eight, white four-door has stopped in Clear Creek. Looks like the old hotel. We’ve got him in our glasses. He just exited the car and he’s looking up at us.”

“We’re less than five miles out,” I said to McKenzie. She tapped the message onto the keyboard.

We slowed through the quaint mountain town of Julian. Gray clouds hung low over the mountains, snagging on the jagged pines. We picked up Julian Road east and I gunned it for Clear Creek.

Again we entered a world blackened by the 2003 fire. Although there was green grass and some regrowth, most of the tree trunks were just lifeless spires reaching for the gray sky. The verdant grass and brush had burned back to reveal rocks and boulders, and I wondered how long it must have taken all this life to flourish, only to be scorched to death in a few short minutes of fire.

The MDT screen blipped to life again:

“Delta Eight, he’s got the trunk open now and he’s lifting out a body. Confirm, a woman’s body. He’s got it up over his shoulders now and he’s going toward the hotel.”

“Is she alive, you dumb-ass?” asked McKenzie, as she typed.

A moment later the answer was on our screen:

“Dead or unconscious. SWAT is still twenty minutes out. Paramedics are about two miles behind you right now.”

A smoke-blackened sign for the Clear Creek Hotel flashed by on my right. I swung the Chevy into the turn and started down the narrow asphalt road toward the hotel. The forest was dark and close, and the soft gray sky hung down like the belly of a cat.

“Why did he bring her here?” asked McKenzie.

“He must have run out of ideas,” I said.

“Or gas. There’s the building.”

I pulled off the road and stopped.

“We can wait for SWAT,” she said. “This is what they do best.”

“Stella’s up there.”

“She could be dead, Robbie.”

“I’m going in.”

“Then I’m going in with you.”

“Follow me. Stay in the trees.”

We got out and began picking our way through the forest of black trunks. Sometimes I could see the three-story adobe hotel ahead of us, sometimes it was blotted out by the scorched trees. The world smelled of ash, and the branches left sooty streaks on our clothes and hands and faces.

Ahead I could see a clearing on one side of the hotel. Beyond the hotel was the remains of a vineyard. The vines were just stumps, and the uprights formed diminishing rows of black crosses all the way up a gentle hillside.

“Stay here and watch me,” I said. “If I wave you off, use the MDT to get ABLE out of here. Then work your way back the way we came, cross the road past the car, and go into the hotel from the front. I’m going to try to talk him out of there. If he starts shooting or something, just call in the troops and stay down.”

“Got it. Robbie, goddamn, be careful.”

I moved through the trees toward the hotel. Above me a jay squawked and jeered, jumping from one charred branch to another. I made no attempt to be quiet, but I did try to keep at least one large tree trunk between me and the hotel windows. I stopped just short of the clearing. From behind a tree I looked up at the burned-out windows while I drew my grandfather’s old Colt.

“John!” I called. “Robbie Brownlaw here!”

Nothing. So I yelled again.

A moment later Van Flyke’s face appeared in the lower-right corner of a tall third-floor window. It looked small and white within the black cavern of the building. He was about a hundred feet away. It would be hard to hit him with my .45, and easy to miss.

“You’re worse than a tick, Brownlaw.”

His voice carried well in the silence, as if the great ashen aftermath were starved for sound.

“Is Stella alive?”

“Where’s your partner?”

“Jackson, Wyoming. Is Stella alive?”

“Doing what?”

“Skiing with Hollis Harris. Is Stella alive or did you kill her?”

“Oh, of course she’s alive. Very relaxed. Filled with morphine, breathing nice and deep.”

“We’ve got SWAT and paramedics and backup on the way. Come on down and make things easy on yourself.”

“No. I’ll hang on to her as long as I can.”

“Damn, John, don’t you think you’ve put her through enough?”

“After Cramer called I knew I only had a few hours.”

“Whose blood is that on the bed at Garrett’s?”

“Stella stabbed me with a nail file.”

I pulled back behind the tree and waved off McKenzie. I watched her turn and begin picking her way through the stinking remains of the burned forest. Then I leaned back around to see Van Flyke, my weapon still in hand.

“What’s the deal, John?” I asked. “What are you trying to accomplish here?”

“I didn’t get to plan this part. I ran out of time.”

“What happened to you? What made you do all of this?”

His face disappeared from the window. I tried to see McKenzie through the forest but couldn’t. Then Van Flyke was back in the lower-right corner of the window again.

“The first time I saw Stella,” he said, “it changed me, instantly. Everything went upside down and backward. It got worse and worse. I never should have come to the Fourth of July party. I never should have interviewed for the Ethics job. If I’d just stayed in Miami, I might have been all right.”

“What really happened to Samantha?”

Van Flyke’s face remained in the window but he didn’t say anything. It was hard to see his expressions clearly but I thought I saw a kind of puzzlement on his face. Beyond the old hotel the black vineyard crosses marched up the hill amid the scorched vines.