Don Winslow - Way Down on the High Lonely

Neal trotted into the cabin and got his binoculars. It took a moment for him to find the coyote again and another moment to focus the glasses, and then he saw what the coyote had in its mouth.

A human arm. Half a human arm, anyway, from the elbow joint down.

Neal struggled to hold the focus as his own hands shook and the coyote jumped and danced in triumph. He twisted the focusing dial again and then could make out the distinct shape of human fingers against the coyote’s white teeth.

Neal ducked back inside the cabin, grabbed the Marlin, jumped off the porch, and ran toward the coyote. The animal dropped down on its forelegs like a dog getting ready to play a good game of keep-away. He waited until Neal got within twenty yards and then sprang sideways, let Neal get within ten, and then juked the other way.

But the forearm was a heavier load than the coyote was used to managing, and it fell out of his mouth. He picked it back up as the man kept charging, then decided it was time to get out of there. He started straight away at a trot, dragging the arm, the elbow joint bouncing in the dirt.

Neal raised the rifle and fired.

The coyote jumped at the noise, gave Neal a look of betrayal, and scampered off at full speed.

Neal took a deep breath and walked over to where the arm lay in the sagebrush.

It was badly decomposed, a putrid gray-green. Neal could tell that the coyote had dug it up from the dirt that still clung to the rotting flesh. Neal forced himself to get down on his knees to examine the arm more closely, and that’s where he saw the stain of color showing up through the putrefaction. It was a tattoo: “Don’t tread on me.”

Neal turned away and vomited.

When he was finished, his eyes watering from his retching and the stench of the severed limb, he took off a shoe and a sock, put the shoe back on, and slipped the sock over his hand. He picked up the arm, fighting back another round of vomiting, and carried it back to the cabin. He wrapped the arm in one of his T-shirts, dug a deep hole on the slope in back of the cabin, and dropped the arm into it. He put some rocks in, filled the hole back up, and then put some more rocks on top.

Thus Neal Carey buried what was left of Harlcy McCall.

“Why do you think Hansen or his men were involved in the killing?” Ethan Kitteredge asked. “How do you know it was a homicide at all? McCall might have wandered off into the wild and met with some mishap.”

He was sitting in an enormous leather wing-back chair in his study at the family house on the east side of Providence, Rhode Island. Ed Levine sat uncomfortably in a matching chair. A fire of birch logs crackled in the fireplace.

One reason for Ed’s discomfiture was Kitteredge’s dress: pajamas, a maroon robe, and slippers. Levine had called him in the middle of the evening-as soon as he got Neal Carey’s call-and Kitteredge had sent a helicopter for him, insisting that he come right away. Ed had never been to Kitteredge’s home before and felt awkward from the moment Liz Kitteredge, the former Liz Chase, answered the door. She greeted him warmly, ushered him into the study, inquired if he preferred coffee, tea, or a brandy, and padded off to fetch Ethan.

Now Levine was sipping coffee, hoping not to spill any on the priceless Oriental rug at his feet and trying to brief his boss on the intricacies of a very complicated case.

“Neal thinks that Strekker was lying when he said that McCall had moved on. That, combined with the fact that Neal found the body just a couple of miles from the Hansen place,” Ed answered.

“But what would be the motive?” Kitteredge asked. “Wasn’t McCall one of these people?”

“Sir, we’re not talking about rational men here. We’re talking about a virulent combination of racism and religion. The picture that’s beginning to emerge here is that Carter’s church has combed the prisons and jails for violent men to match a violent creed and placed them in these ‘cells’ in remote parts of the West.”

Kitteredge raised his eyebrows. “The church militant.”

“Exactly,” Ed answered. “Right now we can only speculate as to how McCall fell afoul of these people, but there are some questions we need to address immediately.”

“Quite.”

“For one, do we alert the authorities?”

“We have found a body, here, Ed We do have certain responsibilities as citizens.”

“Absolutely. On the other hand, sir, do we really want local cops, state troopers, or the FBI to go plodding in there? That might get these nuts edgy enough to kill the boy.”

“Assuming he’s still alive.”

“And assuming they have him.”

Kitteredge looked into the fire. “But you think he’s dead, don’t you?”

Ed shifted in his chair. “Yes, sir,” he answered, “I’m afraid I do.”

“Tragic,” Kitteredge said.

Ed didn’t think that required an answer. He knew Kitteredge’s expression well enough to let the silence go on. He knew that Kitteredge was analyzing the information, sorting out fact from supposition, testing various possible actions against the duties and responsibilities Friends of the Family had to its clients.

Ed munched on a shortbread cookie while Ethan Kitteredge thought.

“You say that Neal Carey has penetrated this group?” Kitteredge asked.

“Yes and no,” Ed answered. “Neal likened it to circles within circles. He feels that he has penetrated the first circle but is nowhere near the center.”

“And you trust his analysis.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Scottish,” said Kitteredge.

“Sorry?”

“The cookie.”

“It’s very good.”

“Yes,” Kitteredge said. “Carey’s been undercover for a long time, hasn’t he?”

“Three months or so,” Ed admitted.

“Is it your evaluation that he is capable of sustaining this role for another extended period of time?”

Ed took another long sip of coffee and another bite of the cookie before answering. He had to be careful here, because he knew-and he knew that Kitteredge knew-that three months was a long undercover assignment, movies and television notwithstanding. And Carey had been out there alone with no handler to talk to-no human contact. An undercover operative tends to forget what’s real and what’s make believe. He gets lonely, insecure, and paranoid. But not Neal Carey.

“Neal Carey,” Ed said, “is the perfect undercover. He has no character.”d;

Kitteredge raised his eyebrows at the supposed insult.

“Neal has lots of personality,” Ed explained, although he felt that most of Neal’s personality was more or less hemorrhoidal, “but no character of his own. He was just a kid when he started with us. When other kids his age were building character, Neal was building cover stories. He’s a chameleon-he takes on the coloring of his surroundings. In that sense, sir, Neal is always undercover, whether he’s on assignment or not.”

“Is he capable of carrying out this assignment?”

“If anyone is.”

Kitteredge lapsed into silence.

When he started to speak, he put the tips of his fingers together in front of his lips in an unconsciously prayerful gesture. Ed knew that he had made his decision.

“Yes… ahhh… I despise these creatures, Mr. Levine. They are an offense to our flag, to our religion, and to our humanity.”

“Yes, sir,” Ed answered, ignoring the religious reference, or assuming it referred to a general Judeo-Christian tradition.

“Therefore I am authorizing your plan. Infiltrate them totally, ascertain the fate of Cody McCall, then destroy them.”

Ed felt a wave of relief sweep through him. Something else, too. Excitement.

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

“Do have another shortbread.”