'Uh-huh. Robert Swan. The musician.'
I got it then.
'You need a name to give to the press, Walter?' I said. 'And you
want Swan to take the blame for this. To protect the good name of the Secret Service.'
'Yes.'
Thing is, at the end of the day, it didn't much matter to me. Whoever Tubal Cain ended up being, it didn't matter in the large scale of things. He was a demented killer regardless. One that I'd put down like a rabid dog. And for that I was thankful. If Walter needed to spin the world a line of bullshit, then so be it.
I grunted, looked Walter dead in the eye. He stood there expressionless. Then I nodded. 'The musician? If you say so, Walter.'
Walter winked. 'I say so.'
I turned my back on him and clutching my chest I limped toward the exit door. The bullet graze on my calf hurt worse than the chest wound. It was still night out, but the sky was ablaze with searchlights from the helicopters coming and going. As I reached the stairs, Rink joined me. He placed a hand on my shoulder. I couldn't determine whether it was to support his weight or mine. It didn't matter. As always, we'd support each other.
'You going to be all right, Rink?'
'Fine and dandy,' he said, yet involuntarily his hand went to the dressings on his face and chin. 'He got me good, Hunter. Slashed my gut, but luckily for me he only got the muscle. He came close to getting my throat, too. If I hadn't been knocked cold when I banged my head, the son of a bitch might have really finished me off.'
'It was a close one,' I said. The cut on his chin wasn't lifethreatening, but if it had been an inch lower, my friend wouldn't be beside me now. Most likely I wouldn't have been alive, either.
'Too close,' Rink said.
With no sense of volition, I'd made it up the stairs and found myself standing ankle deep in the white sand. The cul-de-sac wasn't large enough to accommodate all the choppers and personnel brought in by Walter, but there were a fair number of men and women in jumpsuits and body armor. They stood around with their weapons cocked, as though Cain were still a threat.
Leaning on each other, Rink and I made our way to the cleft in the rocks. It was awkward walking through the gap shoulder to shoulder, but we made it.
Outside was as Rink had earlier described it—a three-ring circus. Helicopters dominated the sky. Hummers and SUVs prowled along the lip of the escarpment in the distance. Undoubtedly FBI and Secret Service, but this was now Walter's gig, and he was calling all the shots. Everyone else had to make do with prowling on the periphery. The only thing that concerned me was the presence of the air ambulance Walter had had the foresight to call in. And even as I confirmed its presence, paramedics rushed past us with John strapped to the gurney.
'Think he'll make it?' Rink asked.
I remembered the awful wounds on his back and couldn't see how.
'It's amazing what the doctors can do these days,' Rink said, his words sounding hollow. Even
'He'll pull through,' I said softly. 'He has to. Otherwise all of this will have been for nothing.'
'Not for nothing, my friend.' Rink slipped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me into an embrace. 'We've just stopped a monster. Me an' you, Hunter. Just like the old days.'
49
in the days that followed, walter attempted to explain the thinking behind it all. In his take on the Harvestman, Martin Maxwell hadn't gone off the rails. All right, he'd messed up his life when he'd gone playing with the governor's wife's lingerie, but that, it turned out, was his only transgression. Other than a sleazy penchant for women's underwear, he wasn't the fiend he was suspected of being.
Some would even argue that Maxwell was a decent enough fellow. After all, he'd sought out his less privileged brother. Taken him into the fold of his home. Given him the kind of life he'd been missing. But it appears that the man who would become Cain wasn't one for gratitude. His was a soul festering with jealousy, and with dark fantasies and desires he couldn't achieve as a no-name musician in a nation of musicians whose talents far outshone his. So Cain instead coveted something that could never be his. He stole the skills of his brother. Maybe Martin gave the knowledge willingly. He had to have taken the brother under his wing, for Cain's skill with weapons, particularly the knife, didn't come without many hours of practice. Or his understanding of tracking and surveillance. Or—and this was the most troubling aspect of Walter's take on Cain—how he could have known my name. But that was easy enough for Walter to explain: he simply left me out of the equation. As far as anyone would ever know, it was federal agents who'd taken Cain out.
In the end, I didn't bother thinking about it. Let Walter play his games. It was what he did, after all. What better way to cover up the depraved actions of a government employee than to deny that he was one? Plausible denial. That was what Walter thrived on. If he wanted the world to believe that Martin Maxwell wasn't their man, then so be it. He could feed them the bullshit about Robert Swan, but I knew the truth.
I had other, more important things on my mind.
John for one.
He was currently recuperating in a military hospital beyond the prying eyes of the media. As far as anyone was concerned, Cain had left no living victims. I was happy enough with the arrangement. It got Hendrickson's men off his back. Walter promised me that on his recovery John would be placed in the witness protection program. In effect, he would disappear. New name, new identity, the works. The only time he'd be drawn back into the limelight would be if charges were brought against Hendrickson and Sigmund Petoskey for their part in the counterfeiting ring. Then John would be returned to obscurity.
It meant never going home for him. But given that he'd been gone so long, that his time with Louise Blake was now behind him as well, maybe it was for the best that John start over.
My next concern was for Rink. My best friend. Who'd given so much for me. Who had suffered as much as I
