Michael Marshall - The Straw Men

'Shit,' I said.

Bobby frowned. 'But how'd he get your cell phone number?'

'If he's tied in with The Straw Men, that's not going to tax them. They have a serial victim supply chain. They're blowing up things left, right and centre. A cell trace is child's play.'

'Okay — so why call? Why get you out before the cops got there?'

'There's no predicting why he'd do anything. But it wasn't just me he was thinking of. He knew I wasn't alone.'

'Davids told them who was in his house,' I said. 'He turned us in.' I was so bitterly furious that I could barely speak. 'And kind of funny, don't you think, that The Straw Men caught up with my parents two days before they were set to disappear? They planned everything out, had it all in place, and then just before they sidestepped out of danger suddenly there's McGregor setting up the accident that killed them.'

'Davids tipped them off? Why?'

'He knew what The Halls was about right from the start. Then Dad finds out about them, thinks he's got a business opportunity, but finds that's not what it is. Puts Davids in a very difficult position. Say these are the same people, or the same kind of people, that they went up against thirty years ago. Davids said that only the leader was killed outright. The rest presumably survived, could have told someone what happened. The bunch who created The Halls could have found out that Davids was one of the raiding

party — could even be why they contracted him as an attorney in the first place.'

'They're that well-connected, why use Davids? They could have hired anyone.'

'Right. But big-shot lawyers are also well-connected. Some of them even have delusions of honesty. The Straw Men can drop Davids off a cliff whenever they choose, and he knows it. 'Work for us or it becomes known what you did one night in a forest. Or frankly, we just fucking kill you.' What's he going to do? He's old, and afraid, and has everything to lose. He's also good. He's perfect for them.'

'Then your father gets too close, and Davids knows he's in deep trouble if he doesn't let The Straw Men know. So he tells them the Hopkinses are about to fly.'

There was silence in the car for a moment.

'He got them killed,' Nina said, quietly. 'The one man they thought they could really trust.'

'He's a dead man walking,' I said. 'There's no question about that.'

By the time we reached the mountains it had started to rain, cold silver lines against the darkness outside the windows. The river by the side of the road was a torrent. There was no other traffic.

'There's only four of us,' Nina said.

I glanced at her. 'So call for backup.'

'They're not going to scramble choppers on my say so. Most we'd get would be a couple of bored agents in a car in two hours, whose main goal would be proving I was a fuckup.' She looked out of the window for a moment. 'Does anyone here have a cigarette? I thought I might start smoking.'

I reached into my pocket, pulled out the battered pack and put it on the dash.

'I can't advise it,' I said. She returned my smile wanly, but let the cigarettes be.

Fifty minutes after leaving Davids's house, we swept round a long, gradual bend. I'd dropped our

speed by now and Bobby was sitting up so he could look at the walls of the hills as they sloped up from the road.

'We're nearly there,' I said.

I saw Nina watching as Bobby and Zandt loaded their guns, then reluctantly check her own weapon. Her fingers were unsteady. Neither man looked the way she probably felt, but I could have told her it was impossible to tell what went on in boy's heads. There isn't a man of our generation who can't quote the 'Well, to tell you the truth, in all the excitement I lost count myself speech from Dirty Harry. We all feel we should be capable of asking punks whether they felt lucky, of being our own portable Clint. And we all believe that someone, somewhere, will look down on us if we don't measure up.

Then Zandt happened to glance at her. He winked, and I saw her realize that it wasn't that after all. The movies might tell you how to behave, but the feeling ran far deeper, went back to the days when nobody wore clothes and everyone had their role and some tended fires and others ran with prey. The only differences lies in how big a group we feel a part of, the distance of our relationship to the people we'd defend to the death. Zandt was as nervous as she was. And so was I.

I pulled the car over onto the hard shoulder. 'That's it,' I said. About fifty yards ahead was the small gate.

'Nobody there,' Bobby said. 'Tell me again how the approach works.'

'You go through the gate, drive on grass. Swing round to the left and there's a hidden road, obscured by the trees. It winds up toward the high plain.'

'So there could be someone in the trees, or anywhere up the approach.'

'Pretty much.'

'Let's do it fast, then.'

I nodded. 'Everybody ready?'

'As we'll ever be,' Zandt said. I stepped on the pedal.

The car leaped forward, wheels spinning on the wet road. I sped down the remaining distance and then angled straight at the gate.

'Heads down,' Bobby said. Nina and Zandt complied. Bobby braced himself against the back of the seat and the car door, gun in his hand. A second later the car smashed through the gate, broken slats

smacking up off the windshield and sending a spiderweb across Nina's side. The car ploughed into the long grass, started to skid. I struggled with it, brought it round.

I backed off the pedal until I had it again, and then headed for the band of trees, picking up speed. I ran over a hump and saw Nina lift into the air for a moment. She'd barely landed before she was bounced up again. There was a grunt from the back as Zandt suffered the same fate. Bobby seemed to have been clamped to his seat.

There was a lower, harder bump and then suddenly the ground was flat underneath the wheels.

I sped past the trees, wincing. 'You see anyone?'

'No,' Bobby said. 'But don't slow down.'

After a hundred yards the road banked sharply to the right, and then we were heading up the gradient. Bobby was glancing from side to side as I yanked the car round bend after bend, but no shots came. But when he saw Zandt slowly bring his head up, he still reached out a hand to shove it back down. I saw him wince, but his shoulder didn't seem to be a big problem. For the time being.

'So where are they?' I asked.

'Probably all at the top, standing in a line.'

'You're a cheerful fuck. But I'm glad you're here.'

'Some kind of friendship thing, I guess,' Bobby said. 'Though this goes down badly, I'm going to

come back and haunt you.'

'You already are,' I said. 'Been trying to get rid of you for years.'

We slid round the last bend, and then the vast gate of The Halls was looming above us up the rise.

'Still no one,' I said, slowing the car down.

'What now?'

'Other side of the gate the road pans left. Couple of large buildings. Entrance stuff, and what looked

like storage. There's a high fence all the way across the pasture. The houses are on the other side.'

The other two cautiously raised their heads. 'So?'

'Front gate,' Bobby said. 'No way we're getting over that fence.'

'Entrance is where they're going to be waiting for us.'

'Got no choice.'

The car swept under the stone archway and down toward the clump of wooden buildings. A big light on one of them turned the parking lot a moonish and sickly white. Soon as it was all in vision, I pulled my foot off the pedal again. The car rolled into the centre of the lot and stopped. The lot was completely empty. I turned off the engine, left the keys in the ignition.

'What?' Nina asked.

'No cars. When I was here before it was full of cars.'