Takedown, page 29
“Looking for someone in particular?” said a voice next to him.
Gavin startled, snapping his gaze to the right. A man with a shaved head and small dark sunglasses stood with a crowbar in his right hand. He looked different than in his pictures… older, stronger, more ragged. He’d also grown a scruffy goatee and picked up a scar on his cheekbone. But he didn’t look different enough for Gavin not to recognize him.
“You should consider a new barber,” Gavin said, trying to keep his composure, thinking about the emergency alert.
Hess smiled eerily and pointed the crowbar at him. “You saw through my disguise,” he said, then tossed aside the sunglasses.
Gavin exhaled quietly. The man’s eyes had changed, too. Deeper, grabbing, like Dengler, like the tortoise, like Hoban. “On vacation from ‘The Chosen’? Have they taught you any new tricks?”
“As usual, you’re full of surprises, Detective. But if you knew me better, you would know that I teach the lessons.”
Gavin felt a surge of courage that reminded him of when he went into the ring. “I know you better than I want to, Krogan. Has your new toy asked for your autograph yet?”
“Very good, Pierce. As a matter of fact, he has. But as you might imagine, I’m pressed for time.”
“Time? I would think someone that’s been around as long as you wouldn’t be in such a rush. How old are you anyway?”
The eerie smile returned. “Years have no meaning to me, Detective. But I do have a few minutes to pick up on our last conversation. Only this time, I don’t see any of your friends around to help you. What a pity.”
“My friends?” Gavin said, poking himself in the chest and activating the emergency alert necklace. “You mean the ones who ended your wrestling career? Have you ever considered a job placement agency?”
“Enough talk,” Krogan said, suddenly irritated. “You have caused me far more trouble than you’re worth… which will be nothing after I return this tool you so carelessly left lying around.”
“You forgot one thing, Krogan.”
“I’ve forgotten nothing, especially you.”
“Oh, that’s right—you guys don’t forget things… not needing to rely on human memories and all that. But that didn’t seem to help you remember that I’m a cop.”
“You’re going to give me a ticket?”
Gavin ignored the comment. “You made the mistake of letting me get to know you. You were so busy enjoying your revenge thing that you didn’t bother to consider how predictable you were becoming to me. I was in your dressing room… and your apartment. Your being too arrogant to clean up after yourself leaves clues that anyone but a blind man could find. And I’m not blind. Not anymore that is. You see, I knew you would be here, and I even knew who you would be this time. And if you don’t think I’m ready for you… guess again.”
Krogan started looking around him.
“For the last month I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about you, Krogan, and you might be flattered to know that you’ve been a topic of conversation with a friend of mine whom I think you know.”
Krogan’s eyes were like flames. “Enough!” he roared as he wielded back and swung the crowbar at Gavin’s head.
“Cease! Be still,” demanded a voice from the walkway on the other side of the drainage hole.
The crowbar came to a halt just inches away from Gavin’s flinching face.
Gavin opened his eyes. “I love the way you say that.”
The shock in Krogan’s eyes made Gavin wish he had a camera.
Buck, who had been more than willing to spend the last three weeks convalescing with Gavin, Amy, and Violet, had been looking healthier every day. For this occasion, he had apparently decided to leave the cane in the house. “Deal quickly with him, Gavin. He is not to be toyed with.”
“Since you’re right here… why don’t you just…”
Buck shook his head. “Remember what we talked about. He’s come to see you, and he must understand what a mistake that was. Let him see what you’ve been given. He must learn the cost of coming to you.”
Gavin nodded. He understood the principle well enough; it was just the application that was foreign to him. He turned to Krogan, who was as still as a statue. Deal with him quickly, he thought. That would normally mean grabbing the crowbar, using the tool to break a bone or something that would require his total attention, and then punching, flipping, or tripping him into the twenty-foot hole that had been waiting for him for almost a month now. But that would be exactly what Krogan would want, and there was something about giving him what he wanted and expected that steeled Gavin’s decision to lay down his usual arsenal for a weapon designed specifically for the likes of this dangerous beast. A weapon that, ironically, Krogan had helped to form in him. A weapon of the heart, an organ that in this business surpasses the mind. A weapon of surrender and trust. The weapon of faith.
“Into the hole, Krogan,” Gavin ordered. He heard cars racing down the street but wouldn’t turn.
Krogan laughed and, struggling, raised the crowbar slowly. For an invisible force, this spiritual warfare, as the pastors called it, sure had enough visual evidence. “Do you think I am a common spirit, that can be ordered about with your common faith?”
Gavin glanced at Buck, not interested in this being a training session.
“Drop your weapon, Krogan,” Buck said.
“Yeah, now,” Gavin quickly added, hoping to add whatever he could.
The crowbar dropped from Krogan’s fingers. Gavin felt like picking it up and whacking him in the back with it, but he didn’t and resisted even the thought of it. A car screeched to a stop and then another and another. Footsteps running. More cars screeching.
“You lose again,” Krogan said through a locked jaw.
“Shut up,” Gavin ordered. Not quite the way Buck would speak, he thought, but the result seemed be the same, as Krogan didn’t say another word.
“Freeze!” someone yelled. Gavin turned to see police and Feds two and three deep with guns drawn. Buck’s glare was on Krogan, and Gavin wondered if that was why the demon was still motionless. His faith was slipping again. He could feel it.
“Gavin,” called Chris as he ran up.
“Stop… everyone,” Gavin ordered. “Someone give me their cuffs. And don’t come near him with a weapon.”
“Take mine,” Chris said, tossing them.
Gavin caught them with a clink and walked around Krogan. “Hands behind your back… now.”
The arms moved slowly but they came. Gavin cuffed him and then asked for shackles to be tossed over. A few moments later, chained like the Frankenstein monster, Krogan was dragged away with suicide-watch instructions. A half hour later, everyone was gone but Buck, who was sitting patiently at the patio table. Gavin took a seat next to him.
“Will we ever have to deal with Krogan again?” Gavin thought aloud.
“It’s in God’s hands, Gavin. Someday he’ll be out again. Time is on his side, for now. I’ve learned that you’re never too old to look over your shoulder.”
Gavin nodded, staring into space.
“What else, Gavin? You seem troubled.”
“Ahh, I don’t know. There’s so much that just doesn’t make sense. I mean, I know there’s a God and I know there are demons and angels and that there’s this war going on.”
“But you’re confused about all the pain and suffering?”
“Well, there’s that. But…”
“Concerned that you don’t measure up to God’s standards?”
Gavin looked him in the eye. “I’ve heard about the mercy and the grace and I’m all for it. And I figure there’s a lot more to life than correcting my faults, no matter who’s doing it.”
“But there’s something else.”
Gavin nodded.
“What then?”
“I couldn’t get him in the hole,” Gavin said somberly.
Buck looked at the hole for a long moment before answering. “It doesn’t matter.”
“But I told him to go in and he didn’t. He should have. According to everything you and the Salt guys told me… he should have. But he didn’t.”
Buck smiled and patted Gavin’s folded hands on the table. “The end result is the same. God’s will was done, and that’s what we are to work toward.”
“He said I lose.”
“He lied. He lied to you and to himself. He lost before time began. Don’t let his lies darken your life, Gavin. You dug a hole, had it all prepared, looked at it every day for the last month. Now it’s time to put a lid on it, and in the end you’ll have a dryer basement. There are many such holes in life. Sometimes you just have to be satisfied not knowing the answer. Hess is another hole: Hess thought he was serving God, but just because he and others like him are wrong doesn’t mean there is no true way or true God.”
Gavin looked at the hole. Buck made it sound so simple. Why did he have to think so much?
“You’ve come a long way and have been given much. More dark times will come—they always do—but never doubt in the darkness what God has given you in the light.”
Gavin nodded and understood. He wished Buck could stay longer, but he knew the old man would be leaving now. He left Buck and went to the house, where he knew Amy and Violet would be waiting for him. Suddenly that was the only thought in his head. He smiled.
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM WARNER BOOKS
DRIVEN
by W. G. Griffiths
Gavin Pierce is a Long Island detective who loses his grandfather in a horrific drunk driving accident. As he probes the case, he discovers it’s only one in a string of bizarre vehicular homicides in which the “drunk” in question always disappears… even though he leaves the same sinister calling cards in his wake. As Gavin desperately searches for the one piece of evidence never left behind—a living eyewitness—what he does find chills his soul to the bone.
“Subtly creepy… read this with the lights on and the doors locked!”
—Nelson DeMille
THE CHRIST CLONE TRILOGY: IN HIS IMAGE
by James BeauSeigneur
Appearing in a world that faces plagues and nuclear war, Christopher Goodman is a boy with miraculous powers and visions who was cloned from the cells of Jesus Christ. Who is this youth and is he truly the Messiah? Can an impure being arise from the sacred living flesh of Jesus? All that’s clear is that mankind is staggering toward a final apocalyptic conflict, and humanity’s salvation or damnation may depend on the Christ Clone. Combining the visionary power of Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins with the global suspense of Michael Crichton and Tom Clancy, James BeauSeigneur presents a brilliantly researched and vividly imagined epic that explores the astonishing future of Man… and the true nature of God.
“Powerful… an engrossing and ingenious story… a fine mix of scientific, political, and religious knowledge.”
—Charles Sheffield, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author
“Intelligent, well-researched, and flawlessly executed.… By far the most exciting, true-to-life portrayal of End Time events I’ve ever read.”
—John Terry, PropheZine
W. G. Griffiths, Takedown
