The FBI Thrillers Collection(271)

Suddenly the room began to spin, faces blurred into one another, the very air of the room turned dark and darker still, and then the great main doors burst open and three men slammed into the room. They were carrying guns, assault guns like Russian AK47s. They were shooting, people were screaming, blood was spewing everywhere. He saw the man’s face tighten with horror and fury. He saw the man suddenly leap over the railing that had separated him from the rest of that roomful of people, his black robe swirling. His leg was up, he was turning, striking out, his motion so fast it was hard to see it clearly. Someone screamed loudly.

He was right behind the man now, heard him breathe, could feel the controlled rage in him, the vicious tension and determination, and wondered.

Suddenly, the man whirled about again, turning this time to face him. He stared at himself, looked deeply into the eyes of a man who had just killed and would kill again. He felt the spit pool in his mouth, the coiled muscles, and felt his arm fly out, striking a man’s throat.

He jerked up, flailing at the single sheet that was wound tightly around him like a mummy’s shroud, a yell dying on his lips. He was soaked with sweat, his hair plastered to his head. His heart was pounding so fast and hard he thought he’d explode. Again, he thought, that bloody dream yet again. He didn’t think he could stand it.

An hour later, he let himself out of his house, carefully locking the door behind him. He was on the way to his car when a man jumped out of the bushes and blinded him with a good half dozen photo flashes. It was too much.

He grabbed the photographer, hauled him up by his shirtfront, and yelled right in his face, “You’ve gone over the line, you little bastard.” He grabbed his camera, pulled the film out, and threw him aside. He tossed the camera to the man, who was lying on his back, gaping at him.

“You can’t do that!”

“I just did. Get off my property.”

The man scrambled to his feet, holding his camera to his chest. “I’ll sue you! The public has a right to know!”

He wanted to beat the guy senseless. The urge was so strong he was shaking with it. It was then he knew he had to leave. Otherwise it might not stop before he went nuts and really hurt one of the jerks. Or he simply just went nuts.





1


ROCKY MOUNTAINS

SPRING


HE STOOD AT the edge of the mountain that sheered down a good two hundred feet before smoothing out into tree-covered ledges and gentle wildflower-covered slopes and sharp gaping ridges. He breathed in the thin air that was so fresh it burned his lungs, but, truth be told, it burned less today than it had yesterday. Soon, the frigid clean air at nearly six thousand feet would become natural to him. It had been only yesterday that he’d realized he hadn’t thought all day about a telephone, a TV, a radio, a fax machine, the sound of other voices coming at him from all sides, about people grabbing at him, shouting questions six inches from his face. And those blinding explosions of white from the ever-present flashbulbs. Now, he figured, at last he was beginning to let go, to forget for stretches of time what had happened.

He looked across the valley at the massive, raw mountains that stretched mile upon mile like unevenly spaced jagged teeth. Mr. Goudge, the owner of the union   76 gas station down in Dillinger, had told him that many of the locals, lots of them Trekkies, called the whole mess of knuckle-shaped mountains the Ferengi Range. The highest peak rose to twelve thousand feet, bent slightly to the south, and looked like a misshapen phallus. He wasn’t about to climb a mountain with so unsubtle a shape. The folks down in Dillinger joked about that peak, saying it was a sight with snow dropping off it in the summer.

He was aware again as he was so often of being utterly alone. At his elevation there were thick forests of conifers, mainly birch, fir, and more ponderosa pine than anyone could begin to count. He’d seen lots of quaking aspen too. No logging companies had ever devoured this land. On the higher-elevation peaks across the valley, there were no trees, no flowers as there were here in his alpine meadow, just snow and ruggedness, so much savage beauty, untouched by humans.

He looked toward the small town of Dillinger at the far end of the valley that stretched from east to west below. It claimed fifteen hundred and three souls. Silver mines had made it a boomtown in the 1880s, nearly bursting the valley open with more than thirty thousand people—miners, prostitutes, store owners, crooks, an occasional sheriff and preacher, and very few families. That was a long time ago. The descendants of those few locals who had stuck it out after the silver mines had closed down now catered to a trickle of summer tourists. There were cattle in the valley, but they were a scruffy lot. He’d seen bighorn sheep and mountain goats coming down the slopes really close to the cattle, pronghorn antelope grazing at the lower elevations, and prowling coyotes.