Ted Kosmatka - Prophet of Bones

“I’m not here for that. I’m just here to talk to you. To reason with you.”

“What do they plan to do?”

“That’s up to you.”

“I get to decide? Okay, then I vote they leave me alone.”

“Well, it’s not that simple.”

“It never is. What do they want from me?”

“Cooperation,” Gavin said. “Just cooperation.”

“What kind?”

“You know too much about things nobody is supposed to know about. That makes you a liability. People like Martial don’t like liabilities.”

“Martial?”

“The owner of Axiom.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“You wouldn’t have.”

“You work for him?”

“We all do. You included. Half of certain universities. Various politicians. Though the politicians might think it’s the other way around.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re not supposed to. Who do you think owns Westing?”

“What? Axiom?”

“Through an umbrella corporation. How do you think I got your employer to cooperate so easily to release you to go to Flores?”

“If you work for him, and you’re here, then this is a trap.” Paul studied Gavin’s face for a reaction.

“What I said on the phone was real. I can help you.”

It wasn’t a denial, exactly. “How?”

“By bringing you in.”

Paul laughed. “You must be joking.”

“No.”

“In where, exactly?”

“ In in. Inside. Into the fold. The things you’ve seen are nothing compared to what’s on the other side of the pay wall. Things beyond your wildest dreams. Things not exactly ethical. Things that can’t be risked.”

“You sound like a true believer.”

“No,” Gavin said. “Never confuse me with that.”

“Then what are you?”

“The Inquisition created many a convert, make no mistake.”

“And if I say no?”

“You can’t say no.”

“That’s not much of an offer then.”

“It’s the best you’ll get from the old man. I had to argue your case to make it happen. This could have gone the other way. You have no idea how lucky you are.”

“It did go the other way. You know about Charles?”

“I’ve never heard that name. I don’t know anything about him. Regardless of what’s happened, there’s still a chance to take this in another direction. For you, at least.”

At that moment, the food came. It seemed obscene to eat. Paul’s stomach was clenched into a tight ball. He pushed his fries around the plate but couldn’t bring himself to take a bite. Gavin pulled out his wallet and put a fifty on the table.

“Not hungry?”

“No.”

“Come on then,” Gavin said, tapping the cash on the table. “There’s someone you have to meet.”

Paul followed him out the door.

Gavin drove them to a river. A place behind chain-link gates. They’d ridden in silence, Paul’s apprehension growing as they left the main road. Dusk had stripped away the colors, rendering everything in charcoal—the trees, the winding asphalt path, the rusting metal railing. The place might have been a boat launch once, but now it was just a crumbling concrete ramp, overgrown with weeds. Even the river seemed used up and old. A dark flow of brown water maybe thirty feet wide, winding its way inexorably toward Lake Michigan, still some miles distant. Gavin pulled the car to the side of the ramp and stepped out.

A woman stood facing out at the water.

Paul and Gavin approached, and the woman turned around.

“Hello, Paul.” It was Margaret.

Paul was careful to control his emotions. He didn’t let his face change.

“Margaret,” he said. “So you made it out of Flores after all.”

“It’s good to see you, too.” She smiled. Her hair was tied back tightly. Dark business suit. She looked like a different person.

Paul looked her in the face and said the only word he had to say to her: “James.”

Her smile faltered for the slightest millisecond before rising up again. “It wasn’t an easy choice I made, Paul.”

“When you left the hotel room, where did you go?”

“To the people in charge.”

“Why?”

“It was the smart thing to do.”

“Is that what you tell yourself?”

“It’s just a simple fact.”

“So you made the decision for all of us.”

“Somebody had to. And don’t get high and mighty with me. You didn’t even know who we were working for.”

“But you knew, didn’t you?”

“Of course I knew.” She laughed. “You misjudge me, Paul. You think I’m an archaeology student who became an Axiom asset? You’ve got it backward.”

“They killed him, you know. James.”

“He killed himself by staying.”

“Didn’t look like suicide to me. I was there.”

“It was unfortunate.”

“Unfortunate?”

“It’s what happens when you fight the system. You lose.”

“He was our friend. You worked side by side with him for months. How do you sleep at night?”

“I sleep just fine.”

“I can’t believe I fucked you.”

This time her smile grew. She pulled out a gun and pointed it at Paul’s face. “Careful now. That’s no way to talk to a lady.”

Paul looked around at the trees and the empty river, and he realized this had all been planned. The isolated location. Margaret and her gun. The whole thing had been a trap after all.

“Margaret,” Gavin said. He spoke softly, almost in a whisper. During the course of the conversation, Gavin had stepped away from Paul, so that he was standing off to the side.

When Paul glanced over, he saw that Gavin had a gun, a small silver pistol, pointed directly at Margaret’s head.

Margaret didn’t move. “What are you doing?” Her voice was flat and emotionless.

“It’s not supposed to happen like this,” Gavin said.

“This is the way it happens,” Margaret said. “You’re not going to shoot me.”

“We’re supposed to give him a choice.”

“You’re right. What do you choose, Paul?”

“With a gun to my head?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“I still can’t believe I fucked you.”

“Wrong answer. Sorry, Paul.”

Her finger began to flex on the trigger, and two shots rang out. She slumped to the ground, dead. A pool of blood spread out from her body while Gavin’s gun smoked in the dim light.

“Fuck,” Gavin said.

Gavin kicked her body into the river, and they watched it drift away, bobbing in the current. They climbed back up the ramp to the car and drove off. Paul guided Gavin to the hotel where Lillivati waited. There was no reason not to.

Gavin shifted into park and turned the car off. The yellow sign from the Days Inn shone through the windshield. They sat for a moment in the semidarkness, neither of them moving.

“Why’d you do that?” Paul asked.

“It had to be done. She would have killed you.”

“Why stop her?”

“It was the right thing to do.”

Behind them, semi trucks rolled by on the highway. The car windows vibrated with the rattle of their air brakes.

Eventually, softly, Gavin spoke again: “I knew your father. I should have told you.”

Paul turned to look at him but his face was hidden in the shadows. “It was a long time ago,” Gavin continued. “Just after you were born, in fact.”

“How did you know him?”

“We worked on related projects. We were colleagues, of a sort. We were friends.”

“Friends.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t remember you from the funeral.”

“No, by then your father had gone his own way. I hadn’t seen him for years by that point, though I heard about what happened. He deserved better than that.”