Dead Men's Harvest Read online

  His first few steps were achieved bent almost double. The sand under his feet didn’t help, and it was only when he reached the hard-packed trail leading up to a lay-by on route 35, and he was able to grab handholds of the overhanging trees, that he straightened up.

  Patricia moved slowly ahead of him. She’d a nervous energy about her, and she twitched every other step, as though she needed to burn some of it off.

  Toby Callahan was waiting for them in the SUV. He was older than Jeff, and fifteen years older than Patricia, too. Patricia slid into the seat next to Toby, relegating Jeff to the back.

  ‘Are you all done looking?’ Toby’s hair was going grey, the short bristles above his ears catching the final rays of light.

  ‘It’s a beautiful lake,’ Jeff said. ‘I don’t think I could ever get enough of the place.’

  Toby wasn’t listening. His question hadn’t required an answer. It was more a reminder that he had better things to do than play chaperone.

  They drove north-west, skirting Bigfork and heading towards Jewel Ridge. The Mission Range loomed on their right, sweeping hillsides that dropped almost vertically from the heavens. The trees were on fire with autumnal colours as the day flared in a final goodbye and night was ushered in.

  The cabin nestled on a hillside overlooking a rocky valley. A stream chuckled between boulders as it sought egress to the nearby Swan River. There was a grey sedan parked in front of the wooden porch where Jeff often sat watching the night sky. Standing by the car was a man in a black windcheater jacket, blue jeans and Timberland boots. His balding head was disguised by a denim baseball cap. As Toby pulled adjacent to the sedan, the other man ground a cigarette under his boot heel.

  Toby wound down the window, and Brett Hanson leaned in. Jeff could smell his nicotine-laden breath. ‘Flights are all arranged,’ Brett said. He glanced into the back, catching Jeff’s eye. ‘We leave from Kalispell in ten hours. You’d better get your shit together, Jeff.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jeff said, resigned. His family had been telling him the same thing for years.

  The cabin in the woods had been his home for more than six months now. In some respects Jeff would be sad to leave, but in others he couldn’t wait. It was five hours since Brett Hanson had announced that they would be going. It felt like five days. Ten hours to go and he’d be out of there.

  He’d said earlier that he could never tire of looking at Flathead Lake, and yet he’d been lying to himself. He would be happy if he never saw the lake again if it meant he could go home. His real home. Wherever that was. He doubted he’d be welcomed with open arms at either place he’d once lived. Both the women he’d abandoned had moved on. They didn’t even know who Jeffrey-fucking-Taylor was, for Christ’s sake!

  Home would have to be a new place of his own making. This cabin certainly wasn’t home. It belonged to the US Marshals Service. Supposedly a safe house, it was as much a prison as any made of stone and steel bars. It defined him as a prisoner.

  Patricia Ward was beautiful. She’d been his companion through the last six months. She had walked with him, hand in hand along the lakeside. She’d strolled with him among the booths and stalls at the summer fair, sat in cafés and restaurants, laughed at his jokes. They’d even once engaged in tentative sex on a blanket under the spreading boughs of an oak tree. But she would never be his lover. She would always be his jailer. She was as much a part of the lie that was Jeffrey Taylor as everything else.

  The strolling, the laughing, the sex: all part of his cover story.

  Patricia was his bodyguard. She was there to see that he stayed alive for the day he was called to give evidence in the trial against the crime syndicate he’d once worked for. It was her duty to keep him alive, before delivering him into the hands of new jailers at an appointed time and place. Ward by name, warden by nature. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so fucking ironic.

  Toby Callahan and Brett Hanson were also US Marshals.

  It was their duty to look after Jeff, too. But they made no bones about their relationship. To them, he was a thief. He was a scumbag who’d turned against the scumbags he’d worked for, making him even more of a scumbag in their opinion.

  It was odd then, that Jeff preferred both men to the woman who only pretended to be fond of him.

  Chapter 10

  To look at him you wouldn’t believe that Walter was supposed to have been cut to ribbons by a deranged killer. In truth he looked better than he had for some years, with a little colour in his usually pallid features and some of the unhealthy weight gone from around his middle. Giving up on those cigars and junk food must have finally paid off for him. The only dead thing about him was the fish-eyed stare he shot my way as I stepped into his temporary living quarters on the eastern shore of Tupper Lake in the Adirondacks National Park.

  ‘I guess that I deserve the ass-kicking you’re about to give me,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s not go there, eh?’ The son of a bitch did deserve a mouthful of abuse, or worse. Actually, I could have wrung his fucking neck, but I didn’t have it in me. Right then I didn’t see him as the lying piece of crap he was, but an old man mourning the loss of his best friend. So, I wrapped an arm around his shoulder. ‘I’m just glad to see you’re OK.’

  The old man shivered in my embrace, then he pulled away and I let him go. He turned his back on me and I followed, allowing him the moment to gather himself. I made a silent bet that when he finally met my gaze there would be more moisture in his eyes.

  His temporary quarters were in a large lakeside house, an almost square block formed of beams and planks all painted a uniform red and a slightly pitched shingled roof that angled down towards the surface of the lake. A porch led to a jetty where there was a cabin cruiser moored in the shallow water. He led me through the house, along the planks of the jetty and on to the boat. Behind us, Hartlaub and Brigham waited on the decking.

  Walter ushered me into the cabin and sat in a plush leather chair. A bunk opposite him indicated that Walter had taken a nap, but judging by the twisted blankets it had been an uncomfortable forty winks. I sat down on the bed, fisted my hands on my thighs, waited for him to speak. He delved in a cooler box and came out with bottle of sour mash, No 7 brand.

  ‘JD?’ he asked.

  I declined and watched as he took a swig directly from the bottle. He wiped his lips with the back of a wrist and I zoned in on his fingers, which were trembling. The healthy flush in his cheeks must have come from this bottle. I had no desire to watch him get drunk, but he’d lost an old friend today, and even someone who’d been around death for most of his adult life wasn’t immune from its touch. Maybe the alcohol would help him steady himself, so I wasn’t about to get on my high horse about his drinking.

  ‘I’m sorry about Bryce,’ I offered.

  ‘Me too, son,’ he said. ‘But more than that, I’m sorry that you were lied to. It must have been a shock when you were told about my . . . my demise?’

  ‘It was. But I see now why you did that.’

  He blinked then finally looked up at me, his eyes now glassy. ‘You do?’

  ‘You wanted your survival to be a secret. When Hartlaub and Brigham came to find me, you feared that I’d tell Imogen the truth. That would’ve put her at risk. It was good of you to think of her.’

  There could have been a morsel of truth in my theory, but I guessed the genuine reason he wanted people to think he was dead was to rule out a second attempt on his life. He possibly read my face because he looked away. ‘I must have put you through hell, son.’

  ‘I’m all right. But I wish you’d told me what was going on instead of wasting so much time. You know that Rink’s missing?’

  ‘I heard. It spoils my plans somewhat.’ He lifted a consoling hand, knowing that his words offended me. ‘My intention was to bring you both in, ask you to help me stop the Harvestman before he could organise himself. But I see that by doing so, I’ve made a real error of judgement. Cain has moved much faster than I ever expected.’


  ‘What about John?’

  ‘John? Uh, he’s fine. He’s surrounded by a team of marshals and I’ve arranged for him to be moved to a place of safety.’

  ‘So my priority is to find Rink.’

  ‘No, Hunter. Your priority is stopping Tubal Cain.’

  I held my breath. There was nothing conscious about the act, simply a bodily response as I studied the face of my old friend. He took another chug at the neck of the Jack Daniels bottle. I let out the pent-up air, reached across and took the bottle from him. I placed it on the deck next to my feet. ‘You’ve some explaining to do – why you spared that evil bastard – but right now I’m not interested. It’s enough to know that he’s out there and up to his old tricks.’ An image of Bryce Lang being carved like a Christmas turkey came to mind and I had to slow blink to clear my mind. I jerked my head, an indistinct motion, but it conveyed my meaning as I indicated Walter’s colleagues outside. ‘You have your own resources to hunt down Cain. I’m going to find Rink.’

  He leaned down and placed his head in his hands. ‘Last time we spoke, you advised that I distance myself from Arrowsake. I did that . . . to the best of my abilities. But they wouldn’t let me go. Tubal Cain was their project, Hunter. It was they who briefed me at Jubal’s Hollow, who told me that I should contain him at all cost. You thought that you’d killed him, well, you almost did. When I realised he was still alive I had him transported to a medical facility where his life was saved. After that he was transferred to Fort Conchar to be held for . . .’ He paused, seeking the words.

  ‘Future use?’ I offered.

  He shook his head. ‘Further study.’

  I didn’t have time for a convoluted explanation, but now that Walter seemed poised to offer one curiosity won out. I looked at him questioningly.

  ‘You’ve heard of MKUltra?’ he asked.

  Of course I had. It was a CIA experiment conducted during the Cold War; one that had sought to turn out brainwashed assassins who could be used to target those deemed enemies of the USA. It had been fictionalised by Hollywood on more than one occasion, most famously in the movie The Manchurian Candidate. What I believed Walter was hinting at was that Arrowsake had recognised Tubal Cain as a potential future weapon. They had kept him alive in order to mobilise him when it became necessary.

  ‘Arrowsake again,’ I grunted. My old masters were fast becoming my nemesis.

  Walter shook his head, then finally lifted it from his cupped palms. ‘No, Hunter. They are responsible for keeping him alive, but they had no part in his escape. If they wanted him out to do their bidding, they would’ve simply had him moved to another facility, then released without the hullabaloo that surrounded his escape from Conchar.’

  ‘You’re saying that someone else helped him?’

  ‘He couldn’t have escaped without external aid. Everything was too easy for it to have been left to chance. Tubal Cain has the backing of someone with money and resources, that’s obvious.’

  ‘How long has he been out?’

  ‘Only a few days.’

  ‘He’s resourceful. He probably had a series of secure drops set in place before he was imprisoned. Documents, money, weapons, everything he needed to move around the country at his leisure.’

  ‘A likely assumption,’ Walter agreed. ‘He must’ve got his hands on fake identification and such, because it’s apparent that he’s flying here, there and everywhere. He couldn’t have been in the number of places he has been otherwise. But, still, he needed help from someone to set up his escape in the first place. He had a getaway vehicle waiting, and quite probably was picked up and transported out of the state by someone later on. I think the plane he’s using belongs to whoever is helping him.’

  ‘You have your suspicions?’

  ‘I do. I believe that Cain contacted his benefactor, offered his services, in exchange for assistance to get out of prison.’

  ‘Only one person I know who’d benefit from such a thing,’ I said. ‘You’re talking about Hendrickson.’

  Walter acknowledged my accurate assessment. ‘A month from now, Kurt Hendrickson, Sigmund Petoskey and other members of the Hendrickson organisation are facing judicial trial. As you well know, your brother John is our key witness in the case against them. It would suit the Hendrickson organisation if John doesn’t make it to trial.’

  ‘And it will suit them even more if John’s death can be blamed upon an escaped convict with a vendetta against him,’ I finished. ‘With John out of the way, the trial will collapse, they’d be exonerated, and free to continue where they left off.’

  ‘Of course it would be a simple matter to show their hand in this, but for one thing.’

  I snorted. I’d already seen it coming, but it still made me sick. ‘To implicate them, it would mean coming clean about Tubal Cain.’

  ‘The scandal the government wanted to avoid the first time around would be magnified tenfold.’

  ‘That’s why nothing has made the news about his escape? Cain is supposedly dead, so how could he be on the loose again? And that’s why you’ve brought me in . . .’

  ‘We have to do this quietly, son.’

  ‘I can’t guarantee that,’ I said.

  ‘You must. It’s imperative that Cain is silenced, without the government’s inclusion being a factor in any of the fallout. You will have our full backing, but only on our word. Nothing will be recorded anywhere, we will exercise full deniability. In the past I’ve influenced the decisions of the other agencies, I’ve had your actions covered up. On this occasion the consequences are way too big to do so again. If you don’t cover your own tracks this time, well, you might have to pay the consequences.’

  ‘So if things go wrong I’ll be vilified? Painted as the crazy vigilante I’m suspected of being? It’s some deal you’re offering me, Walter.’

  ‘It’s why you must do things quietly.’

  There was no question that I was going to become Walter’s bloodhound. That was a given. But I was certain he hadn’t realised the enormity of the beast he was letting loose. I hated Cain; he was a monster who shouldn’t be allowed to exist. But Walter had just aimed me at other enemies, too. The Hendrickson Organisation. If it proved that they were behind Cain’s escape, and were sponsoring him against my brother John, then they had nothing to worry about concerning an upcoming trial. If I had my way, none of them would be around to make their day in court.

  ‘For the time being Hartlaub and Brigham are at your disposal. I’ll have them take you anywhere you want to go, but then they will have to withdraw,’ Walter said.

  ‘They can take me to the nearest airplane. I’m going after Rink.’ Before Walter could argue, I added, ‘I’ve a feeling that when I find him, I’ll also find Cain. And God help anyone who gets between us.’

  ‘Just remember, son . . .’

  ‘I know, Walter. I have to do it quietly. You say John’s safe. You can guarantee that?’

  ‘He’s safely out the way.’

  ‘Keep things like that and I’ll do what you ask. But if anything happens to him all bets are off.’

  Chapter 11

  His trip to the Adirondacks had proven more a distraction than a step in the right direction. Tubal Cain had never seen the man responsible for saving his life that day in the cavern at Jubal’s Hollow, but he had heard his name whispered during frequent visits by doctors who conducted their studies upon him while he was confined at Fort Conchar. He didn’t feel that he owed Walter Hayes Conrad a thing: the man’s apparent magnanimity hadn’t been born from humanity. He had tracked the CIA man to his retreat in the woods, before news of Cain’s escape forced him into deep hiding. He’d ambushed the two goon-like bodyguards, shooting both of them before moving on to the older man. Give the old bastard his due, he’d held out even when Cain dismembered his bodyguards in front of him. Only when Cain turned his ministrations to the CIA man himself did he elicit any answers. Shame that he hadn’t mentioned sooner that he wasn’t the one Cain was
looking for. It would have earned the man a quicker death than the one that followed.

  Still, he wasn’t complaining. The distraction had proven quite enjoyable. Just like old times. Cain left the Adirondacks feeling rather nostalgic.

  With Conrad apparently aware of his escape, he would be untouchable for now, so Cain had moved on to another avenue that would lead him to his prey. He found Michael Birch easily enough.

  Birch thought he had made it when he’d landed the job with the Virginia State Attorney’s Office. He was only an underling to the state attorney himself, but so what? He was moving in the kind of circles he’d always aspired to. Securing the job, he’d expected a new lifestyle that included big money. As a top analyst in his field, he’d attained the rewards befitting his position, but had avoided the media interest that occasionally made the state attorney’s life unbearable. He rested easy in his obscurity, just took the remuneration and left the accolades to his boss. He’d thought himself safe from the men and women that his office prosecuted. Untouchable. But he hadn’t vectored the Harvestman into the equation.

  Cain – once an agent with the United States Secret Service – knew how the Federal Witness Security Programme worked. He also had insider knowledge of the creation of new identities for those placed into the safe keeping of the US Marshals Service.

  The idea was to create total anonymity for the witness, to help them relocate and blend into a new community. Jobs, housing, subsistence payments and identity documents were all laid on. In a country of over three hundred million people the witness should be untraceable. Since its inception in 1970, no person under the WITSEC programme, who’d followed the strict security guidelines, had come to harm. But there was always a first time.

  It was a system in which Cain saw too many flaws.

  For one, there was no such thing as a fresh start when it came to criminals. Notification of past transgressions was often passed to the local law enforcement community. A thief of John Telfer’s magnitude would be on someone’s database.