April Smith: Judas Horse

“When I was on the Los Angeles bank robbery squad, we ambushed a gang of bandits in an alley. The guy driving the getaway car — it was a convertible — took a hundred thirty-two hits. He was hamburger. Those were the good old days, am I right? I’ll make them suffer a thousand times worse. A hundred thousand. I should have followed the very first rule: Never negotiate with terrorists. It’s the Bureau I’m talkin’ about.” “We know exactly what you’re talkin’ about.” Toby lays trembling fingers on his friend’s arm.

“But, no,” says Stone, squeezing his face up. “I talked to them, and she walks into an assassination.” I stare at the thick bed of mulch under my feet. I am thinking how many papery layers of brown oak leaves have been laid down over how many centuries and with what patience, and about the beetles gnawing dumbly through the fertile dregs.

“Make no mistake,” says Mr. Terminate, his growl downshifting to first. “She was a good lady.” Stone smokes some more.

“Anything I can do?” the biker asks.

“I have some thoughts.”

Mr. Terminate nods. A switchblade appears like the tongue of a snake from his hand.

“Then we split the turquoise. Three ways.”

Stone sighs. “There is no turquoise. It’s just a rumor, John. A story I made up to mess with their minds.” “I knew it.” Toby slaps his own leg.

Mr. Terminate is not convinced. “Why are you carrying a shovel?”

“To cover up…whatever.” He jerks his head toward me.

Whatever’s left.

Mr. Terminate considers. He gets up from the log. Yeah, okay. He walks toward me, the knife held low.

“It’s cash,” I say.

“Come again?”

“Dick calls it ‘the turquoise,’ but that’s a cover, so he can cheat his best friends. He stole a hundred and fifty thousand dollars from the FBI, and it’s buried right there.” Mr. Terminate squints at Stone. “You wouldn’t cheat me.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake!” cries Stone, fed up and totally frustrated. “This is the turquoise!” And he pulls the PalmPilot from his pocket. In the sage forest light, the plastic cover sparkles like sea green semi-precious gems.

“O-kay,” says Mr. Terminate slowly.

Toby blinks. “It’s blue.”

“You dumb fucks. This is my manifesto. This is the truth. This will sink the FBI. Names, records, and documents going back to the seventies, when they fucked Megan and they fucked me, and who was in charge of the undercover operation? My own boss. Peter Abbott. I’ve got his signature on memos that approved the whole damn bag of dirty tricks. But that’s nothing. That’s just the warm-up. I’ve got the drop on his fucking corrupt father, too.” Mr. Terminate has planted his feet like a gunslinger.

“I stood by you. All these years, I delivered the goods.”

“I’ll get you the money,” Dick Stone says impatiently. “After we take care of business.” Mr. Terminate isn’t stupid. “You didn’t have to bring her all this way to do the deed.” “I came to collect some papers I’ve got stashed. Buried in a metal box. I’ll show you.” “Papers?”

“Travel documents.”

“ Cash! He’s lying to you, John. He’s a psycho liar.” “I’ll bet it’s over here,” says cocky Mr. Terminate as he heads for a boulder veined with rose quartz. The rock is standing in a growth of chokecherry. The distinctive glassy pink markings make it look as if it had been rolled there to mark the spot. And he’s right. A trip wire — thin as a spider’s web — glints in the underbrush. It is the same kind of setup Steve Crawford must have walked into when he was looking to rip off a stolen fortune.

Stone yells, “Don’t!” as Mr. Terminate lumbers toward it.

The shock wave of the explosion pummels my body, arms wind-milling backward, then slams me up short against a granite outcrop, loose earth like burning sparks raining in my hair. The force of it crunches my left shoulder at a bad angle against the rock and I feel that sickening snap, when you know something has dislodged somewhere important.

As I stumble forward, a big inhale of chemical smoke causes me to choke and cry. Mr. Terminate’s disarticulated body parts have been launched in a radius fifty feet wide. Coming to rest within my view is a facial fragment containing a partial set of bloody teeth, and a hand still wearing the silver rings. Above the blasted ridge of rock, a rhododendron bush has silently caught fire. Everything is silent because my eardrums have gone numb.

A tall, thin figure stumbles across the orange backdrop of burning trees and kneels beside Dick Stone, who was knocked down flat on his back.

“Doc!” I’m hearing as if underwater. “It’s Toby, brother.”

Thick wine-dark blood has pooled beneath Stone’s body. Toby kneels and cradles his head.

“He’s got a skull fracture. Small hole you can just stick your finger through.” Toby wipes brain matter on his jeans.

“For God’s sake, don’t touch it!”

Dick Stone’s face is pale and shocky, but he’s still breathing. He opens dull and searching eyes.

“Get me up.”

The fire is dancing across the highest canopy of branches. Black smoke boils and intense heat presses against our skin. In moments we will be trapped inside an inferno.

Stone’s lips say, “Water.”

Toby has a bottle in the pocket of his vest. Carefully supporting Stone’s wounded head, he maneuvers on his knees to wet his mouth.

“What are you up to now, you crazy coot? Is this the famous Big One?”

“It’s happening,” Dick Stone murmurs. “The salmon are running.”

I’m trying to lift Stone’s shoulder over mine. “Let’s get out of here.” The choice is get him up or let him burn to death. We lift, but then Stone’s heavy legs give out and he ends up sitting. His bloody head lolls forward. My heart contracts with dread.

Toby shakes him. “Stay awake. Help us out.”

Dick Stone relaxes back toward the ground. A mischievous smile plays around his lips. To the last, I don’t know what he’s playing.

“Dying’s no big deal,” he says quite clearly. “People who get upset about it haven’t lived their lives the way they wanted to.” “Medics!” Toby yells. “Code blue! Abort!”

He looks around, but nothing happens.

“Where are you?” he shouts.

I think that he’s gone nuts, flashing back to a burning jungle in Vietnam, but then SWAT advances from the forest like surreal toy soldiers in Nomex battle gear, with automatic weapons drawn.

Stone is whispering and motioning for me to hear. I bend close to his bloodless lips. He gropes for my shirt. Although our faces are almost touching, Stone’s roaming eyes cannot find me.

“He has taken advantage of all I stand for.” Dick Stone must have realized with his dying thought that beneath the tidy hiking gear, Toby Himes is wearing a bulletproof vest. And a wire.

“But you…” His voice trails off. He presses something into my hand. It is the PalmPilot. “Take this.” Angelo and Donnato, festooned with earphones, ID tags, and gun belts, wearing bright blue FBI windbreakers, emerge from the blur, shouting questions.

I find that I am holding Dick Stone’s hand, and I place it gently on his chest while slipping the device into my pocket. There is nothing more to be learned from the half-open eyes of the dead.

I get to my feet. A malevolent presence fills the sky. The sun looks distorted through an atmosphere of brown, an orange-red alien disk. Black smoke billows toward the north, but ash is falling like the frozen drops of hail that tapped against our parkas on a turbulent day last spring as we waited in the lee of a volcanic plain to save the last free wild horses in the West.