Bill Pronzini - Acts of Mercy

He hated this place, The Hollows. He was city-bred and city-oriented, an urbanite in every respect; the so-called great outdoors had always given him an unsettled feeling of inefficacy, as though these sharp open spaces somehow abrogated both his worth and his ability to maintain complete control. A mild form of agoraphobia, he supposed; but there was nothing to be done about it.

He drew the collar of his overcoat tighter around his neck. The morning seemed hushed despite the faint chuffing of the locomotive and the murmur of voices from the crowd. Nothing moved anywhere except here on the platform. On the far slopes thin waterfalls of melting snow, cascading down to the hidden Yurok River which ran through The Hollows, seemed motionless in perspective-white veins in the green tracery of trees. Even those high patches of mist which had not already burned off clung to pines and redwoods like giant gray spiderwebs.

The edge of the world, Harper thought-and Augustine and Claire finally appeared and started down the metal steps from the train.

The crowd stirred to attention. Harper moved closer, saw that Augustine wore his public face like a mummer’s mask and that he appeared to be in relatively good command of himself. The stress lines were visible enough, but not so apparent as to alert the reporters. At his side, wearing a black alpaca coat and a stylish cossack hat over her blonde hair, Claire smiled and waved with a kind of detached reserve. Her face was pale and her eyes looked huge and dark. Harper wondered if Augustine had told her yet about Wexford. He wondered what her reaction had been or would be. He wondered again if he would ever know-not that it seemed to matter any longer-what her motivations and her feelings truly were.

As they started across the platform, Augustine saying to the reporters, “No questions right now, ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry,” Harper saw Justice come down the stairs, the last of the Secret Service agents to leave the train. No public face on him, nor any of his usual stoicism; he looked far more troubled and worried than he had in Augustine’s office. His eyes, fixed straight ahead, had a remote quality, as if he were not wholly aware of externals.

Augustine led the way swiftly through the station and out to where a phalanx of automobiles-The Hollows’ limousine, a pair of sleek Cadillacs, a mixture of security cars and station wagons-waited bumper-to-bumper in a long straight line, like an unintentional parody of the Presidential Special. He helped Claire into the rear of the limousine, slid in beside her without turning to face the reporters again. Framed in profile behind the window glass, his face to Harper had the look of a bust inexpertly chiseled from old gray stone.

Harper went to the second of the Cadillacs because the first had already been claimed by other aides. The reporters and photographers and television crewmen milled around in a frustrated way, radiating a faint aura of hostility at the President’s summary treatment of them. One of the reporters started toward Harper, who got quickly into the Cadillac and moved across to the opposite window. Justice followed him inside, as did Ed Dougherty; Elizabeth Miller already sat in the front seat, another Secret Serviceman beside her at the wheel. Outside, the reporter stood grimacing, hands on hips. Harper smiled out at him professionally, thinking: To hell with you, my friend; to hell with all of you.

Even before the other cars in the caravan were loaded, the President’s limousine pulled away from the station and onto the asphalt road. Both Cadillacs followed immediately. Harper glanced at Justice beside him: still looking straight ahead, hands flat on his knees. Miller and Dougherty also seemed disinclined to talk, which suited Harper. He tucked a hand under his chin and tried not to look out at the passing scenery.

It was a six-mile drive from the station to the ranch, and for most of that distance the road serpentined-more sharp edges-through dense forest. But near the crest of the ridge which separated the two valleys, the trees thinned out and there was a short stone bridge that spanned a limestone-andgranite gorge. The Yurok River, swollen with snow runoff, raced through the gorge two hundred feet below with such speed that its surface was coated with swirls of white foam. A thousand yards farther on, the road straightened briefly across the flat ridge crown, then began its descent. As they started down, following the first Cadillac and the limousine, the second valley and The Hollows appeared beyond the windshield.

The overview reminded Harper, as on previous visits and unpleasantly, of a huge open-air amphitheater. The valley floor was flat, and on all sides of the ranch complex, rolling green meadowland stretched away to the encircling slopes and ridges. The complex itself sat in the exact center of the valley, ringed widely by a high security fence which government architects had designed so that it blended into rather than detracted from the country-estate landscaping. In the exact center of the complex was the manor house, a huge sprawling single-story structure built of redwood and native stone. Behind it, to the east, was an arrangement of six private guest cottages; on its north side were tennis courts, a covered swimming pool, and a garden patio shaded by black oaks; on its south side were garage barns, accommodations for personal staff and security officers, stables and a paddock and corral for Augustine’s complement of horses. Outside the security fence, riding paths wound through the meadowland in three directions, leading up into various parts of the forest and beyond into the rangeland hills and shallow valleys that comprised the bulk of the thousand-acre ranch. But the only road into or out of the valley below was the one on which they were traveling.

Harper’s stomach began to feel queasy as the Cadillac started through a series of sharp, descending curves. I don’t want to be here, he thought. I don’t want to be trapped in all this goddamn wilderness. All I want The car jounced suddenly, skidded for an instant as the Secret Serviceman at the wheel took one of the curves with too much speed and was forced to brake in abrupt compensation. The bucking motion pitched Harper into Justice, jarring both of them. Dougherty said something in warning to the driver, who muttered a deferential apology and allowed their speed to decrease and the distance between the two Cadillacs to lengthen.

Harper pushed away from Justice again, leaned against the padded side panel and listened to the sour rumbling in his stomach. His mind seemed to have gone blank, as if the jarring had caused a minor short-circuit in his thought processes. He no longer knew what he wanted, or cared because it seemed evident enough that he was not going to get it.

Not now and not ever.

As we approach The Hollows we are troubled, far more troubled than we were on the Presidential Special because a new insight has come to us. We have executed two traitors, committed two acts of mercy-but how many other traitors are there still to be dealt with? How many more acts of mercy are necessary in order to end the conspiracy against the President? One, two, five, a dozen, a score?

Too many?

Perhaps, in our zeal, we have set ourself an impossible, an ultimately futile task. If there are too many of these turncoats, how can we continue to execute them with impunity? There can only be so many “accidents” before those who are our enemies, or those who are our friends but who do not understand the need for corporal punishment, realize the truth and take steps to nullify us.

And yet, we cannot-we must not-stop now. We are committed, we must go on, we must try to wipe out the conspiracy before it destroys Nicholas Augustine and all that he stands for. We must!