Greg Iles - The Devils Punchbowl
Jenny was just run off the road in Bath. Her car flipped.
I swallow hard as an image of my sister lying dead beside an English motorway flashes through my mind. Is she alive?
Yes. She called me from the hospital, and I spoke to her doctor. Shes in mild shock, but she could easily have been killed.
When did it happen?
About an hour ago. Shed dropped the kids with a friend and was on her way to the university.
A wave of heat rushes over my face as guilt suffuses me. Where are you?
On my way to the safe house. Kelly insisted that we have an empty house within ten miles of the operation to review any evidence we collected without having to go to a place Sands could know about. Caitlins with me, adds my father.
Doc? Kelly cuts in. I know youre upset, but go easy on the names, okay?
Fuck that, says my father. I've had it with these sons of bitches.
How soon will you reach the house? Kelly asks, his eyes moving right and left like those of a man thinking fast.
Twenty minutes. And I want you there. I want everybody there.
Kelly looks down at the corpse of the white dog. His left hand is balled into a fist, probably against pain, but I sense that hes weighing the possibility of progress against the immediate crises. His entire posture communicates frustration; he looks as though hes about to kick the dead dog.
Pave Low? he says into the Star Trek.
Here.
Come get us.
Ten-four. You want me to set down right where you are?
No. We cant be sure that buildings empty. Well find a sandbar downstream. A mile, maybe.
I'll be flying right over the water, coming upstream. Out.
I key my Star Trek again. Dad, were on the way.
I heard. Dont waste any time.
As I shove the walkie-talkie into my pocket, the sound of my father angrily carving a Sunday roast makes me turn. But its a trick of the mind. Kelly has the Bully Kuttas head wedged between his knees, and hes sawing through the lower part of its neck like a man being paid for piecework, not by the hour.
What are you
doing
?
Rabies, he grunts without looking up. The spinal column slows him down for a few seconds, but Kellys obviously field-dressed a lot of game in his time. I don't know if this fuckers had his shots or not. You gotta get the brainstem and everything for that test. When the head tears free, Kelly lifts it by its wrinkled face and stuffs it into his gear bag. Then he straps on his pack, heaves the dogs carcass over his right shoulder, and stands with a groan. What are you waiting for? Pick up the other one.
Where are we going?
To throw them in the river.
With a strange buzzing in my head, I kneel beside the black dog, lever my right arm under it, then wrestle it over my shoulder in an awkward firemans carry. The damn thing must weigh a hundred pounds, and it stinks. I'm winded before I cover twenty yards, but Kellys already far ahead.
This is one time I should have let him do the job alone.
When I reach the rivers edge, the white carcass is already spinning slowly downstream under the stars, and Kelly is stuffing the dogs head into the rear cargo hold of his kayak. With the last of my strength, I stagger downstream from the boats and heave my burden into the current. The Bully Kutta disappears with a splash, then bobs to the surface.
They actually went after my sister, I say with breathless disbelief. I haven't heard my dad sound that upset since Ruby died.
Kelly squats and rinses his wounded forearm with river water. I'll tell you what I think, he says softly, scrubbing the half-clotted blood from his skin.
What?
He looks up, his mild blue eyes like those of a choirboy. I think Jonathan Sands has become a one-bullet problem.
CHAPTER
34
A one-bullet problem? Caitlin asks, echoing Kellys repeated phrase. You mean you want to kill Sands? In cold blood?
Kelly looks around the circle of faces in the room. Along with Kelly and Caitlin, Carl Sims, my father, and I are seated in chairs in the den of a lake house owned by Chris Shepard, my fathers youngest partner. Because its after Labor Day, most of the houses used as second homes by Natchezians are empty now. As I drew the curtains over the broad glass doors on the far wall, I saw the narrow black line of Lake Concordia, the oxbow lake that carries the name of the parish, behind the house. I also saw James Ervin, whos guarding us from the lake side, while his brother Elvin guards the road entrance. Danny McDavitt is sitting in the chopper across the lake road, in the cotton field where we landed.
Actually, says Kelly, my blood is still pretty hot at this point.
Mine too, says my father. Gutless bastards.
While my father dressed Kellys wounded arm, we listened to his account of Jenny being attacked on the highway (not even the British police believe it was an accident), then brought Dad up to speed on the events on the river. While we talked, Carl tied the Bully Kuttas severed head in a trash bag, then stored it in the refrigerator, so that its brain can be examined by the path lab in the morning. Coming after the events beside the river tonight, this scene was so surreal that
I could scarcely separate thought from emotion. Kellys assertion that the time has come to kill Jonathan Sands seems perfectly natural to me, given the situation. I can tell by Caitlins hard-set face that she doesn't agree. She doesn't want to antagonize my father, but shes not going to be silent when the matter at hand is assassination.
Look, I want the guy to go down, she says. Hes scum, okay? No question. But you cant just kill him. I mean, if its all right for you to decide who lives and dies, the same goes for everyone else. Who empowered you? If youre free to do that, where does it end? Back in the cave, thats where.
Kelly listens patiently until she stops. Let me tell you a secret, Caitlin. Were still in the cave. Its just bigger, and we wear nicer clothes. We make alliances and try to be civil, we save the weak instead of leaving them out in the cold to die. But guys like Sands, Quinn, Po they play by the ancient rules. To them, life is a zero-sum game. You win or lose, live or die. And the most important rule of all is, you take everything you can, when you can, until somebody draws a line and says, No more.
Is that your view of life?
If it were, I wouldn't be offering to kill a man in front of witnesses. You probably studied existentialism in college, right? Survey of philosophy course? I'm not trying to patronize you, okay? But I
am
an existentialist. A soldier. Asleep or awake, in uniform or out. Theres war in Afghanistan, but theres war here too. When Sands threatened to kill Penns child, he opened hostilities and declared the rules of engagement. We know from Linda Churchs note that Sands probably murdered Ben Li, or else ordered it done. Its a miracle Linda isnt dead too
if
shes still alive, which we don't know for sure. I'm sure they're hunting for her as we speak.
Caitlin shivers at this thought.
Kelly nods with certainty. Given where things stand now, we have only one practical solution. Remove Sands from the equation.
Youre willing to do that? Dad asks. If we say here and now that thats what we want then Sands will die?
Kelly nods soberly. Quinn too, I think. Unavoidable.
Caitlin shakes her head in amazement. And youll go back to Afghanistan and never lose a nights sleep over it?
I'll sleep better.
What strikes me most about Kellys cool assertion is that a couple of hours ago, he was unwilling to put a dying dog out of its misery. But that mystery will have to wait. I look at my father, whos rubbing his white beard with arthritically curled hands.
Its tempting, Dad says. When I think of Jenny rolling over in that car, I could do it myself.
I'm sorry to be a drag here, guys, Caitlin says. But this is
way
over the line. What does killing Sands even accomplish? If Edward Po is the problem, whos to say he won't carry on the vendetta and send men here to kill Penn and every member of his family?
Shes got a point, Carl says. Youd be crazy not to consider that.
I've considered it, Kelly says. Edward Po is a businessman. Whatever hes up to here, he ultimately views it in terms of profit and loss. You cant go around murdering government officials in small-town America. It draws the wrong kind of attention. That's bad business. Sands is Pos cats-paw, his control mechanism for Golden Parachute. If Sands dies, Po will simply order Craig Weldon to put someone else in that job.
Yet youre arguing that Sands
will
murder government officials, Caitlin points out. Or their families.
I think hes proved that he will. I don't think Sands is motivated primarily by money.
You don't know that Po is either. Youre ignoring the question of face. If Po is a criminal, can he afford to let other criminals know that his lieutenants can be killed without reprisals?
I considered face, Kelly says patiently. Also
guanxi.
I think killing Sands is actually the most elegant solution to our problemand not just for us. If Sands is killed, I suspect Po will claim credit for the murderunofficially, of course. Competitors will assume that Po had Sands murdered for interfering with his niece, Jiao, whom Po vowed to protect from people like Sands.
Everyone is silent, not least because Kelly seems two steps ahead of us all.
We either kill him or we back off, Kelly concludes. Conventional methods are too slow. Theyre just going to get someone we care about killed.
Carl? Caitlin says pointedly. Would
you
kill Sands?
The sniper gives her a Why me? look, like a grade-school student being called on by his teacher. Kellys a free agent, he mumbles. The man makes his own decisions.
I'm asking about
you.
Depends on the situation. If somebody was going to die because I didn't, I would, yeah.
But would you shoot him sitting at his breakfast table?
Carl turns up his palms. I don't think so, but its complicated. I
have
shot somebody who was eating dinner, because the Marine Corps told me he needed to die. Now, I don't know Jonathan Sands from Jonathan Livingston Seagull. But if I knew he was going to kill my sister or my mother then Id vaporize him.
Caitlin turns to me, as though I'm the court of last resort. Youre an attorney, sworn to uphold the law. Youve sent people to death row for doing exactly what Kellys offering to do now. Are you really going to send him out of this house to commit murder?
The fact that I think Kelly is right surprises even me. I've been in similar situations before, with the power of life and death over someone almost as evil as Sands, and I chose to use the court system, even with the chance that they might escape punishment. But Sands is a special case. I wish Caitlin and I could have this discussion in private, because she tends to get more stirred up when shes in front of people. But theres no alternative now.
I have sent people to death row, I concede in a level voice. But not for doing something like this. This is a unique situation. Tim stumbled into something far bigger and more complicated than he knew. Blackhawks position and Peter Lutjenss warning prove that. We still don't really know what were dealing with. We only know that the government is involved in some way, and that Sands and Quinn are prepared to kill to prevent anyone from learning what they're doing. I also know that wherever they are, my mother and Annie are scared to death. Theyre holding their chins up, but they're terrified that theyll get a phone call saying that Dad or me is dead. And I believe thats a real possibility.
That sounded like a summation, not an answer, Caitlin says, her tone still challenging.
Caitlin this is like a stalking case. When I was a prosecutor, I saw a lot of women die needlessly because the police had no effec
tive way to intervene until after they were dead. A lot of the men who killed those women went to prison afterward. But the women were still dead.
This time I get no ricochet response.
In this case, there are four women who could die, I go on, all of whom I love. And one of them is you.
Dont do that, she says with startling intensity. Dont use me to justify killing someone.
Maybe we should take a vote, Kelly suggests.
No! snaps Caitlin. Were not taking any goddamn vote. No one here has the right to vote on murder. If you kill Sands, you've done it on your own.
What would you do if he went through with it? I ask. Would you report Kelly to the police?
She gets to her feet and turns to my father. Tom, youre not seriously condoning this?
Dad looks up at her with sad eyes. I understand your feelings, Kate. I believe in the rule of law. And Sands hasn't killed a member of my familyyet. But thats only thanks to chance. My daughter could easily have died two hours ago.
But she
didn't,
Tom. Shes going to be all right. We have time to take another path.
What path would that be?
We could go public. I can have this story on the front page of twenty-three papers tomorrow, and a lot more than that, if I bring my father into this. Id hate to do that, but if were to the point of assassinating someone, then I think its time to break the story nationwide.
If we go public, I point out, Edward Po won't set foot on U.S. soil for ten years, at least. Whatever hes doing here, he won't be nailed for it.
Caitlin looks at me like I'm an idiot. What do you think Po is going to do if you murder Sands? You lose Po that way too.
What exactly would you print? I ask. Unsubstantiated allegations?
Kelly leans forward and says, I know going public seems like a magic solution, throwing light onto people who live in the shadows. But men like Po don't see the world the way you do. Theyre not
politicians. While youre stirring up your media storm, they will be
acting.
To them, this is war. And if they take you out, or Annie or Peggy or Penn, none of us is going to feel comforted by the fact that you splashed Sandss and Pos names in the paper. Because that won't bring back the dead.
