David Morrell - The naked edge

"Drug smugglers?" Now Ferguson was really interested.

"Sure. The spy business is based on 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours,' the same as any other business. The spies had been working with the drug smugglers, getting tactical information from them, using them for cover, giving the spies an excuse to go in and out of various countries via secret airstrips. If you're a drug smuggler, nobody questions why you're so secretive. But if people think you're a spy, you're in trouble. So when it came time to get rid of the airstrip, it made sense to sell it to the smugglers, who were already using it. But eventually, the smugglers decided to switch locations, too, and the place was rotting until we bought it."

"Yeah," Ferguson said. "Rotting. Step on it, would you?"

"Can't."

Carl drove slower.

"What are you doing?"

"Stopping to take a leak."

"Man, can't you hold it till we get to town?"

"You want me to hold it for an hour?" Carl gave him a "get real" look and steered to the side of the road. He stepped out and went down a slope to the edge of the swamp. Under deceptively attractive Spanish moss-it was always bug infested-he undid his fly and urinated into the algae-covered water.

Ferguson banged the truck door open, stepped sullenly to the spongy earth, and walked to the water, fumbling at his fly.

Carl finished relieving himself, shook lingering drops from his penis, pulled up his zipper, and asked Ferguson, "You want to make a bet?"

Three shots roared. Crimson blossomed on Ferguson's shirt. Blood erupted from his face. He dropped on his back, thrashing.

The shots echoed across the water.

Carl turned toward where Raoul, on cue, had shot from the back of the truck. Under Carl's loose shirt, he had a Colt Commander.45. If Raoul had delayed, Carl would have drawn his pistol in a continuation of zipping up his fly, shooting both of them.

Raoul looked pale. The darks of his eyes were huge. Obviously, despite all his bravado, he had never killed anyone before.

Better distract him, Carl thought. "Very good, Mr. Ramirez. Two shots to the body and one to the head. Why were you taught that pattern?"

Raoul had to switch to a different section of his thoughts. "Uh…" He looked confused. His need to seek approval became greater than the shock of his emotions. "Uh… The target might be wearing a Kevlar vest, so I also shot him in the head."

"Your instructor explained that?"

"No." Raoul continued to look confused. "I just figured that was the reason."

"It is the reason. Your intuition is excellent. Did you do what I told you and sit with your head against the back window?"

"Yes."

"You heard what I said about the CIA?"

"Yes."

"Then you understand the necessity for what I ordered you to do. There are serious issues at stake that I'm not allowed to reveal to you. Not yet. But the target's lack of discipline would have made him talk about our camp. He would have destroyed us."

Using his shoe, Carl shoved the body into the scummy water. Immediately, an alligator erupted, snapping at the head, jerking the body under the surface. A second alligator fought for the corpse's right leg. Blood swirled amid the green scum.

"When I set up the camp," Carl explained, "I drove here once a day, urinated into the water, then threw raw steaks in. After a while, the alligators learned to identify food with the sound of the truck, my footsteps, and urine streaming into the water. Now those signals bring them here for dinner."

The turmoil in the water subsided. After the frantic splashing of jaws and tails, birds again sang.

Pleasing Carl, Raoul picked up his empty cartridges.

"Get rid of his duffel bag," Carl said.

Raoul took a chain from the back of the truck, shoved it into the bag, and hurled it into the water.

"Quick. Sharp. Obedient," Carl said.

Raoul's eyes brightened.

"I'm going to pull you from the group," Carl decided.

"No. What did I do wrong?"

"The reverse. You and a select few are coming with me."

"To do what?"

"Hunt an old friend."

Waking slowly, Cavanaugh felt as exhausted as when he'd gone to sleep with Jamie next to him. He reached to put his arm around her, discovered that she wasn't there, and opened his eyes, focusing on where she sat at the cigarette-burned table in their seedy motel room's corner. She wore a T-shirt and boxer shorts, her brunette hair hanging over her shoulders. She didn't notice that he'd wakened, too preoccupied re-reading the documents Rutherford had given them.

"You talked in your sleep," she said.

So I'm wrong, he thought. She did notice I was awake.

"Oh? What did I say?"

"'How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?'"

"Well, that's a relief. For a second, I was afraid I said another woman's name."

"You did mumble something about 'Ramona'."

"My third-grade math teacher." Cavanaugh pointed toward the documents. "Have you learned anything?"

"Didn't you tell me Carl's father died from alcoholism? Liver disease?"

"That's what Carl said in a phone call to me when I was still living at home."

"According to this police report, his father stumbled while he was drunk, fell on a knife in the kitchen, and bled to death in the middle of the night."

Numbed, Cavanaugh didn't react for a moment. He got out of bed, ignored the cold air on his bare legs, and went over to her. She indicated the bottom of a page.

Cavanaugh read the passage and felt colder. "The police report says Carl found the body in the morning. Since he knew for certain how his father died, why did he tell me it was liver failure?"

Jamie looked up. "You think Carl finally got tired of his father picking on him? He might have told you the cause of death was liver disease because that was an easy explanation. But bleeding to death from a knife wound… Knowing Carl's obsession with knives, you might have started wondering. How old were you when he made that phone call?"

"I was still in high school. My senior year."

"Young to start to be a killer."

"If his father was his first," Cavanaugh said.

The room became silent.

"What do you mean?"

"Thinking about those days, I suddenly remember things. But I'm seeing them in an entirely different way."

"What things?"

"Our neighbor had an Irish setter named Toby. My stepfather was too buttoned down to allow a pet in the house, but the neighbor didn't mind if I played with Toby, so I sort of had a dog. The summer before my senior year, the dog ran away. The neighbor phoned the pet shelter. No sign of the dog. Nobody ever found him. A couple of neighborhood cats ran away that summer, also."

"Didn't anybody think there might be a pattern?"

"If anybody did, I never heard about it. Anyway, there was a lot going on that summer. Carl's dad was fired. In August, the family needed to move. Meanwhile, I was excited about beginning my senior year at West High, and to tell the truth, Carl demanded I spend so much time with him that I was relieved to see him go."

"So he practiced killing animals before he graduated to killing his father?"

"Or maybe…"

"What are you thinking?" Jamie asked.

"Do you suppose Carl killed other people before he mustered enough rage to go after his father?"

"Nashville, Tennessee?" Rutherford asked.

"That's where Carl's father took the family after losing his stock broker's job in Iowa City," Cavanaugh explained. "Can you arrange for someone to investigate a rash of missing animals or stabbings while Carl was there?"

They sat at a corner table at a truck stop near Alexandria, Virginia. Cavanaugh and Rutherford drank coffee while Jamie dug into a cheese-and-ham omelet with hash browns.