Brian Freeman - Spilled Blood

‘That’s not what happened,’ Chris insisted.

‘Fair enough. We both have faith. I hope we’re both right.’

Chris said nothing more. He glanced up as he saw a nurse hovering in the doorway of the lounge. She was obviously reluctant to interrupt them, but her eyes flicked around the empty room with concern. She backed out without saying anything, but Chris got up to stop her.

‘Is something wrong?’ he asked.

The nurse looked at Glenn Magnus nervously. ‘I was hoping your son was in here with you.’

Magnus stood up, too. He was immediately concerned. ‘Johan’s not in his room?’

‘No. I’ve searched the floor. I can’t find him.’ She added, ‘I’m sure he’s here somewhere, though.’

The minister marched toward the hallway, brushing past the nurse. Chris followed. It was still early, and the hospital floor was deserted. Johan’s room was at the end of the hall, the last room before the EXIT sign over the stairway. The door was open. Magnus pushed past the curtain, calling his son’s name softly as he entered. Chris heard the minister inhale sharply. The bed was unmade, but it was empty.

‘He may be with Olivia,’ Chris suggested. ‘Let’s not panic.’

‘I’ll check,’ the nurse replied.

She hurried up the corridor toward Olivia’s room, but Magnus threw open the door of the small closet, where empty hangers dangled on the wooden rod. ‘No, his clothes are gone.’

‘You think he left?’ Chris asked.

‘He must have gone down the back stairs.’

The minister retreated to the window near the stairwell and examined the dark parking lot below them. There were only a handful of cars there in the early morning hours. He pointed at a section of the lot bathed under the glow of a street light. ‘My car is gone. I parked next to that light. He took it.’

‘Did he say anything to you?’ Chris asked.

Magnus shook his head. ‘The last thing I did was tell him about Ashlynn and the baby. He was stricken. I never should have told him.’ He murmured to himself, as if praying, ‘Johan, what do you think you’re doing, son? Don’t be a fool.’

31

Kirk Watson deposited Lenny at the Indian monument half an hour before the scheduled drop.

The eastern horizon was pink. A cardinal sang from the bare trees and flew past Lenny in a flash of red. He hiked up the cracked gravel road from the highway with binoculars slung around his neck. The road led to a park on the shallow hillside, dominated by an obelisk of rough gray stone. Huge trees dotted the open lawn surrounding the monument. Once, when he was really bored, he’d read the historical marker. The monument honored a pioneer victory in a long-ago frontier war, when Dakota Indians surrendered to a Minnesota colonel and released hundreds of farmers they’d held captive. If Lenny had been an Indian, he would have warned them: They’ll kill you anyway, guys.

He sat down on a park bench to watch the highway traffic going in and out of Barron. Two sets of headlights stared from the predawn gloom in the east. The bass growl of the engine told him the first vehicle was a semi. He raised his binoculars and focused, watching the truck draw closer. As it roared past the entrance road to the monument, he could make out its distinguishing characteristics. The trailer was white, mostly unmarked, with numbers painted on the side like a code. Kirk had told him once that a lot of the unmarked trucks were military, carrying secret payloads. The truck headed west, doing at least seventy, and he wondered what was inside.

Behind the truck, the other set of headlights didn’t move. A vehicle was parked on the shoulder a mile away. Lenny couldn’t identify the car, and he couldn’t remember whether it had been waiting there as he hiked from the highway. He wondered whether someone could have followed them. The headlights watched him like unblinking eyes, and as two or three minutes passed, his fears grew. He was getting ready to warn his brother when the headlights winked out, and he saw the red flicker of tail lights as the car reversed direction. It disappeared, turning south on one of the long farm driveways. He breathed easier.

His phone rang. It was Kirk.

‘You’ve got a semi heading west,’ Lenny said. ‘Nothing funky.’

‘Soon as you see our guy, you call me, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Then you tell me when you spot him heading east again. I want to make sure he’s not playing games with us.’

‘I know, I know. Don’t worry.’

‘You see anything that smells like a cop, you call me.’

Lenny thought about the car parked on the highway, but it was long gone. ‘Got it.’

‘Keep your eyes open, Leno, and don’t fucking fall asleep.’

‘I won’t.’

He hung up. It annoyed him that Kirk didn’t trust him, no matter how many times they had done drops in different parts of the state. He knew what he was doing. Even so, Kirk was right. When you assumed you were safe, when you stopped looking for a trap, that was when the steel jaws clamped shut.

Fifteen minutes passed slowly as he sat on the bench with his chin cradled in his hands and the binoculars swinging below his neck. Traffic in the early morning was light. He didn’t spot many cars in either direction. The cardinal kept him company, flitting between the lower branches of the trees. In the long gaps when the highway was deserted, he stared at the obelisk, which reminded him of the arrowheads you could dig up in the fields around here. Every now and then, he heard noises in the trees behind him, and he looked around nervously, as if the Indians were massing for an attack.

He was alone.

Five minutes before seven o’clock, he spotted the mark. He knew the vehicle; he’d tracked it before. The customer was right on time, like always.

He punched the speed-dial button for his brother’s phone.

‘Yeah?’

‘He’s coming.’

Lenny hung up. He had nothing to do but wait. It would take five minutes for the customer to get to the drop zone. He’d check his mirrors, make sure he was alone, and pull onto the shoulder. He’d open his driver’s door and toss the bag over the hood into the north-side fields. It would be over in seconds; he wouldn’t stay any longer than necessary. He wouldn’t wait to see who showed up, because curiosity could kill you. No, he’d do a U-turn and head back, probably going even faster, because he’d want to pretend like the drop had never happened.

It would be ten minutes before the truck passed the monument again, heading back toward Barron. Lenny needed to know the mark was gone before Kirk went for the cash. They’d never had a customer go rogue, but it could happen. They’d never had the police run a sting, but it could happen.

Lenny kept his eyes on the highway. Three minutes passed with no traffic. There was no sign that the car was being tracked by the cops. Everything was going smoothly.

He dialed Kirk again. ‘Nobody on his tail.’

‘Keep watching.’

Lenny slapped the phone shut. He lifted his binoculars and zoomed in on the empty road.

In the next instant, he was airborne.

Two hands grabbed him under his shoulder blades and yanked him bodily off the bench. He flew backward, seeing the crowns of trees over his head. He fell hard in the wet grass. Someone landed on his chest, punching the air from his lungs, and he wheezed, unable to catch a breath. He blinked in terror, recognizing Johan Magnus on top of him. He struggled, but the strong football player kept him pinned like a squashed bug. Johan grabbed the leather strap of the binoculars and tightened it. Lenny choked and clawed to get free, but he couldn’t squeeze his fingers between the strap and the skin of his neck.

‘Was it Kirk?’ Johan hissed into his ear.