Stephen Cannell - The Devil_s Workshop

He also knew he couldn't live with himself as a coward. He would rather die than carry that around with him. His self-loathing was swamped by his cowardice. He had denied Michael at birth, and accepted him only at DNA gunpoint. Now he felt crushed by Mike's loss.

"There's a hospital a mile from here. Let's go get my blood checked," he said softly. "And then if you want, I'll go with you. We can use my private jet."

It was the first sentence he had uttered since they arrived that felt right. The taste of stale bread was no longer in his mouth.

It's a good thing I've got bank credit," Buddy Brazil muttered to himself, as he threw the Writers Guild credit arbitration finding aside. "If I had to depend on screen credit, I'd go broke." He'd put in for "written by" after doing a pencil revision on the last draft of a western he was producing called Trail of Tears, but the Arbitration Committee at the Writers Guild had denied it. He flipped the rest of the mail he'd brought with him onto the tray table and looked out the window of his Gulfstream III.

They were still climbing, just leaving the flight pattern at Van Nuys Airport, and he could see the San Gabriel Mountains falling away under the left wing. It was a typical smoggy L. A. day, and everything looked tiny and brown down there; a miniature town through a number six light filter. He turned away from the window. The tall man with the stitched-up head and the quarterback's name was sitting on the plush sofa. He was looking at the expensive seat controls in the Gulfstream, like an indigent trying to pick the right dinner fork at a five-star restaurant. Buddy loved the magnificent jet. The burlwood was varnished and glistening; there were three video screens, a full bar and galley, and a gorgeous uniformed stewardess named Carmen DeLuca, who was one of Heidi's ex-hookers. Carmen had hit the lockup for her third prostitution bust last May and had decided to retire from high-roller sport fucking. He'd given her a job on his new G-III, which he had just painted black, with the word "Outlaw" scripted on the tail.

Buddy got up and moved forward as Stacy Richardson came out of the forward bathroom and joined Cris Cunningham on the sofa. Even in his cowboy boots, Buddy could stand up in the plane without ducking his head. The Gulfstream had a six-foot-high cabin, so Cris Cunningham was too tall to accomplish that feat. It pissed Buddy off.

"Let me show you something," Buddy said. He took a gold key from his pocket and unlocked a cabinet forward of the galley, pulling out a Colt Python with a Tasco dot scope affixed to its three-inch barrel. He flipped the sight on and spun the pistol like a gunfighter in a bad western.

"Jesus, take it easy," Cris said. "Is it loaded?"

"Fucking A," Buddy said, still waving the gun around, sighting the dot on several things in the cabin. "This is an O. E. G. That stands for-"

"Occluded Eye Gunsight," Cris said. "Kick the thing open and drop the loads out, will you?" He was looking at the gun like a man who had been on the serious end of more than one firearm.

"Don't be alarmed, Cris. I know what I'm doing." Buddy was on familiar ground. He would often wave loaded guns around to scare the shit out of someone and establish his alpha-male superiority.

"If you knew what you were doing, Buddy, you wouldn't be handling a loaded gun like that," Cris said, feeling a familiar knot in his stomach.

"I can understand why you're a little nervous," Buddy said, holding the gun carelessly pointed at Cris, "but I'm a certified sharpshooter… an expert. You're in no immediate danger," and he pulled the hammer back.

Cris moved as fast as he could. He came up off the sofa, grabbed Buddy's wrist, and twisted it to the left, immediately pulling his finger off the trigger. Cris simultaneously pivoted in the jet's cabin, turning inside of Buddy's outstretched right arm, yanking it upward, and miraculously coming away with Buddy's Colt Python. It was a move he'd learned in Special Forces Recon. He used to be able to do it so fast you almost couldn't see it. Now, with his reflexes shot, the move felt clumsy and dangerous. If Buddy had been for real, or had known what he was doing, Cris would have been dead. He snapped the sight off, then kicked the round wheel open, dumping all six magnum loads in his hand.

"Full Metal Jackets," Cris said softly. "What're you hunting with these, rhinos?" He dropped the six FMJs into his pocket, then handed the empty revolver back to Buddy. Cris's legs were shaking. He was amazed that a combat move he'd once been so good at he could now only perform at half speed. What am I doing? he thought. I don't belong here. I'm going to get us all killed.

"Jesus Christ, how'd you do that? One second I had the fucking gun, next you did." Buddy was impressed by any macho feat that he couldn't duplicate. So, while Cris was cursing his sad performance, Buddy was putting him a few notches higher on the alpha-male testosterone chart.

"Cris was a Delta Ranger. He won the Silver Star," Stacy said.

Buddy looked over at her. "That's not hard to believe. I never saw anything on two feet move so fast," Buddy gushed, notching Cris up even higher. "Let me show you something else." Buddy returned to the unlocked cabinet and pulled out another loaded pistol. It was a customized Beretta. He handled this one more carefully as he showed it to Cris.

Stacy thought they looked like little boys comparing toys.

"Know what this is?" Buddy asked.

"A nine-by-nineteen NATO Beretta selective-fire 93^," Cris said. "You got the stock?"

"Sure do." Buddy grinned. "You really know your guns." He reached in and pulled out a hand-carved wood stock that could be attached to the piece, turning it into a nine-millimeter carbine.

Cris's stomach was turning sour. He desperately wanted a drink. Higher power, he thought. Serve vengeance. Get justice for what they did to Kennidi.

Buddy reached in the cabinet and pulled out a Heckler amp; Koch 5.56mm G3SG sniping rifle, with a Zeiss 1.5X6 telescopic sight and a twenty-round clip. He handed it over to Cris, who removed the clip and dechambered a round. "Didn't anybody ever tell you not to keep a stored weapon chambered, Mr. Brazil?"

"I like to be ready," Buddy said.

"This plane could hit a wind shear and one of these things could discharge. Put 'em back empty," he said, his hands visibly shaking again, wishing he hadn't decided to come.

Buddy did as he was told, and put the unloaded weapons back in the locked cabinet. In that instant, Cris had somehow placed himself in charge.

The plane headed southeast, across Arizona and New Mexico, then down to Texas. On the way, Stacy filled Buddy and Cris in on everything they didn't know about what had happened at Vanishing Lake and Fort Detrick, ending with Admiral Zoll's weird behavior at Company A, First SATCOM Battalion Headquarters. Then she showed Buddy the picture of the silver-haired man who had ambushed the soldiers on the baseball diamond and who Cris had seen murder two soldiers in cold blood on the high plain above the lake.

"Who do you think he is?" Buddy asked. Cris sat up straighter and explained about the legendary hobo priest and his army of F. T. R. A. murderers and religious fanatics, who had captured Dexter DeMille.

After two hours, they began their descent. Cris Cunningham had fallen asleep on the couch. Stacy and Buddy had played two competitive rubbers of gin rummy, at the end almost breaking even on points.

When they heard the wheels come down, they woke Cris, then landed in Texas, at the Waco Regional Airfield.

Buddy had already asked the pilots to call ahead for a four-wheel-drive vehichle, and a big Chevy Blazer was waiting for them at the Executive Jet Terminal.