Paul Johnston - Maps of Hell

In a reversal of the usual way, it was the girl who proved to be better at the sciences, while the boy excelled at the arts and, later, at business studies. By the time they left school-both in the top percentile of their year-they had decided what they wanted to do. Their father supported them in every possible way, taking them on trips to the universities they were considering, and even managing a week’s holiday that summer. The three of them spent it in Washington, D.C., visiting their adopted nation’s monuments and museums. Both twins were so enthused by the city that they vowed to set up home there someday.

In the meantime, they had their studies to pursue. The boy passed at the top of his classes in both literature and business, while his sister was declared to be one of the most promising neuroscientists to appear in years. Within a decade, the boy had established the company that was now one of the biggest media corporations in America, while the girl was a full professor at an Ivy League university.

And then the tragedy happened. They were driving home for Christmas after a weekend in the Catskills, the boy at the wheel of an Italian sports car, when he lost control on an icy mountain road. The vehicle broke through a barrier and fell over two hundred feet, before bursting into flames.

Their father took the news of the accident very badly. He buried his offspring in a cemetery in Washington, D.C., remembering how much they had loved the city. He also wanted to commemorate their lives in the capital of the nation he knew they would have brought great honor to. It was said that the twins’ badly burned bodies were found hand in hand, the bones fused by the intense heat.

The old man, already suffering from prostate cancer, passed away three months after his children. He was buried in the same plot. The gravestones did not bear the names that any of them had borne in the land of their birth.

As Mary Upson and I walked down the road to the troopers’ station, I felt her eyes on me.

“Is this some kind of uniform?” she asked, looking at the jacket round her shoulders.

I shrugged, unwilling to go into details with a stranger.

“All right,” she said, “try this one. Why are you toting that rifle? It looks kind of military.”

I glanced at her. “Hunting,” I said. “Just caught me a pair of Texan bushwhackers.”

Mary Upson smiled. “You English and your crazy humor,” she said. “Is there anything you’re serious about?”

The lights of the state troopers’ station were close now. I was about to get very serious indeed, but taking the rifle in with me probably wasn’t a great idea. I stopped and put it down behind a bush by the steps.

“Smart,” Mary said. “Ready?”

I nodded and went up to the door. The building was a standard wooden house that had been converted. There were bars on all the windows. I shivered, remembering the wire around the camp-and the ill-fated man who had helped me get over it.

We rang a bell and waited to be admitted. I looked up and mugged at a CCTV camera. Then the door opened.

“Evening, folks,” said a young man in uniform, a semiautomatic pistol holstered on his belt. “What can I do for you?” He took in Mary’s face and clothes. “Ms. Upson, what happened to you?”

“Hello, Stu,” she said. “I was hoping you’d be on tonight.”

The trooper’s eyes moved to me. They weren’t friendly.

“This is Matt. He helped me out.”

“Oh, right,” the trooper said. The badge on his chest proclaimed his name to be Stu Condon. He had fair hair in a crew cut and his upper arms were trying to break out of his pale yellow shirt. “Come and sit down. Tell me what happened.”

We followed him into what would have been the sitting-room. There was a scuffed leather sofa and matching armchair around a low coffee table. Mary and I took the sofa.

“I’ve just made a pot of coffee,” the young man said. “You want some?”

We both nodded. When he was out of the room, Mary drew the gray uniform jacket tighter and started to sob quietly.

“Hey,” I said, touching her hand. “It’s over. Those guys aren’t going anywhere. They certainly can’t hurt you now.”

She gradually got a hold of herself and calmed down. I looked around for the trooper, but he was still behind the security door that blocked us off from the station’s interior. There was a box of tissues on a shelf.

“Here,” I said, handing her one. “You’ll feel better when you get some coffee inside you.”

“Thanks, Matt,” she said, after she’d dried her eyes. “It’s just…it’s just, those men were so horrible. Like animals. And I’m kind of isolated up here. I don’t have any close friends.”

I thought about Billy Ray and Bobbie. They might have woken up by now. It would be a good idea if Trooper Condon picked them up before they started making a noise. But producing coffee for citizens in distress seemed to be exercising all of his talents.

In the station office, Stu Condon was examining the pages he had just printed out. He was keen about his career and he wouldn’t normally have kept people waiting outside. Before the bell had rung, he’d been going through the daily wanted notices. He always paid particular attention to those issued by the FBI, because he harbored ambitions of joining the Bureau once he had a few years’ experience. His eye had landed on the photo of Matthew John Wells. It wasn’t often that Englishmen appeared in the notices. But he hadn’t immediately realized that the man with Mary Upson was him, even when she’d introduced him as Matt. He was dirty and unshaven, his clothes scruffy. There was no doubt in his mind now, though. The question was, did he call for backup? Sergeant Johnson lived ten miles away, while Denny Morris would have swallowed the best part of a crate of beer by now. Anyway, this was exactly the kind of arrest that would get him noticed by the Bureau.

Stu was on his way to the door with a tray of coffee, when it struck him that he should call the number on the bottom of the wanted notice. He thought about it, but there was no instruction not to approach the man, as there was with escaped murderers and the like. Still, this guy was suspected of two seriously violent killings in Washington. He made up his mind. He could handle Mr. Matthew Wells no problem.

To be on the safe side, he unfastened the strap on his holster. If Mary hadn’t been there, he’d have gone in with his Glock in both hands. With any luck, there would be a chance to draw later on. His heart skipped a beat. Mary would definitely be impressed if he took in a man suspected of two murders. Mary. She was a real honey.

It was time for Stuart Bellingham Condon to show just how good a lawman he was.

The instant the trooper walked through the door, I knew he meant me no good. Although he busied himself with handing out mugs of coffee, there was something in his expression that hadn’t been there before, an almost breathless excitement. When I saw that the strap on his holster was undone, I knew my intuition was right. I took a sip of the brew-surprisingly good-then pushed my gut forward and feigned a pain in the small of my back. Slipping my right hand round, I got the fingers on the grip of the pistol. So far, I’d only attacked people who had been a threat to me or, as with Mary, had been behaving like animals. Taking on a representative of the law was a big step.

I listened as Mary told the young man about the attempted rape. He seemed to be paying attention, but his eyes were continually flicking toward me. Mary told him that I had rescued her, so he had no reason to be suspicious. Then I thought about the gray uniform. Could the people who ran the camp have some sort of pull with the local law? I wasn’t about to take a chance on that.