AftershocksSix: Neo-ClassicalBy the time the car finally came to a stop, MacGyver’s headache had begun to ebb slightly. But when the trunk lid was thrown open, the white-hot beam of a heavy-duty flashlight stabbed directly into his eyes, and the shock of the glare brought back the pounding. He didn’t have to fake the flinch and the yelp of pain.
“He’s awake.”
“No sh*t. C’mon, buddy. Close your eyes and the nasty light will go away. Close ‘em nice and tight.”
Mac had already squeezed his eyes shut in reaction; he could see nothing of the men outside the car anyway, other than dim silhouettes. The red haze beyond his closed eyelids grew brighter – they were shining the flashlight directly at his eyes, forcing him to keep them closed. Then the red glow was blotted out by a blindfold. Rough hands grabbed him by the jacket and hauled him out of the car. With his hands still held behind his back by the handcuffs, he was an awkward dead weight between them.
Dexter staggered and whined. “What’s going on? Who are you guys? Where am I? I didn’t do anything!”
Harsh laughter, and the unmistakable pressure of a cold gun muzzle against his back. “Shut up! Move it.”
The air around them had a cold bite to it, and a sharp scent of pine; beyond the sound of rough voices and feet in heavy boots lay a deep stillness, an absence of city sounds. In place of the buzz of traffic, there was the murmur of wind in pine boughs – similar, but not the same – and an occasional distant whisper of a car or truck a long way off.
Wonder how long I was out . . . we must be up in the mountains. That last stretch of driving wasn’t even on pavement. Mac could feel the extra set of bumps and bruises he’d collected from when the car had bounced and swayed on the rougher road surface.
If I get the chance to get away, I can probably lose ‘em, depending on how deep we are into the woods. Be a long walk home, though.Creaking hinges of a door; a wash of warmer air, and the mud and gravel underfoot gave way to wooden boards. A new set of smells – cigarette smoke, woodsmoke, bacon grease and sweat, machine oil and kerosene, unwashed wool and dog. And the sound of a dog: the warning bark and the low growl to greet an unfamiliar intruder into established territory. Dexter shrank back from the growling.
“Is that a dog?” Sneeze. “Keep it away from me! I’m allergic!”
More laughter, mocking and mean-spirited. “Hey, buddy, no sudden moves, now. I don’t think Rocco likes you.”
“It’s mutual! I don’t like dogs!”
“Yeah? Well, I bet Rocco here will keep you outta trouble till Hunter gets back.” The growling deepened. Mac felt himself shoved into a hard wooden chair. “Rocco. See this guy? Watch him. He moves, take a piece outta him.”
Mac let his voice rise to a terrified pitch. “What are you doing? Don’t leave me here!”
Bre’r Fox, don’t throw me into the briar patch.Booted feet retreating across the room; a second voice speaking softly at the doorway.
“You sure that’s a good idea?”
“He’ll be okay ‘long as he don’t give no trouble. If he does, we’ll hear it.”
A click as the door closed, and the rasp of a bolt being thrown. The footsteps faded away down a hall.
Once he was sure they were gone, MacGyver sat up from the slouch he affected as Dexter, and rolled his shoulders to ease the cramp of having his arms pinned behind him for so long. He heard the dog give a warning growl, turned his head in the direction of the sound and spoke in a calm, cheerful, steady voice. “Hey, Rocco. You there? You okay?”
Moving slowly and gently, Mac slipped his right hand free of the handcuff. Once he’d finally gotten the lock open, he’d wedged it with part of a plastic bottle-cap that he’d found in the trunk so that it wouldn’t latch; since then, he’d been keeping hold of his right wrist with his left hand, making sure the cuffs stayed in place. He heard Rocco growl again, but he continued to move as before – slowly, smoothly, confidently, lifting a hand to his face to slip the blindfold off and look around, blinking at the light. His eyes swam briefly, but the headache was easing off.
As he’d guessed, the building was some kind of cabin: rough-hewn wood and heavy furniture. The room was an office or den, with a large desk at one end: a single small file cabinet, no phone, no computer, and the bulky black typewriter looked like an old manual model. There was a fireplace with a trophy deer’s head over it, and a well-stocked gun rack on the wall. The room had a single electric light, but there was also a hurricane lantern on the desk and another on the mantle. Built-in shelves held files and pamphlets, boxes of ammunition, miscellaneous gear and tools, but the only book he saw in the room was a massive copy of the Bible sitting on the desk.
To the left of the mantle, a large Confederate flag hung on the wall; to the right, the scarlet and black of a Nazi flag, like a great crimson bloodstain.
Mac suppressed a shudder and leaned back casually in the chair, studying the dog in front of him, careful not to look it directly in the eyes.
German Shepherd mix – and whatever you were mixed with, it sure didn’t make you any smaller.“Hey there, buddy. They treatin’ you right?” Mac kept his tone of voice light and confident, and Rocco’s ears laid back, then pricked up. “ ’Course they are. You’re a good dog. I can see that.” He carefully eased himself from the chair onto the floor, talking smoothly as he did so. “And I hear you’re Rocco. Well, I’m Mac. How ya doin’?”
What did Harry used to say? A lot depends on where the tough guy stops and the wannabe starts. You belong to this Hunter, but you obeyed those guys too. And I bet you haven’t had actual Schutzhund training – I bet you’ve just had ordinary training.MacGyver didn’t want to think too hard about just how much depended on that bet. If the dog had been formally trained to attack . . .
He sat on the floor and shifted around until he was facing away from Rocco, still talking. “You look pretty tough. Bet they like that in a dog. But you look real well cared for – they’re feeding you right and your coat’s nice and shiny.” That was important: he wasn’t dealing with a dog that had been traumatised into vicious or psychotic behaviour.
The owners, on the other hand . . . He put one hand out to the side, reaching in the dog’s direction, but not too far. After several very long moments, Rocco drew closer, sniffed at Mac carefully, and leaned against him.
Mac ran a slow, easy hand along the dog’s back and petted him gently, still keeping up the flow of light, cheerful talk. “Hey, you’re a good dog. You’re the best. Sit, Rocco!” Rocco sat, and Mac hid the wave of lightheaded relief that washed over him.
Dang. It worked! He petted Rocco and praised him again. Finally, Mac rose from the floor, slowly and smoothly. “C’mon, Rocco. Keep an eye on me.” He walked over to the desk, Rocco following, and began to examine the papers that littered its scarred wood surface.
It was some time before MacGyver heard the scrape of returning bootsteps approaching the door. He had moved the chair back so that his shoulders were pressed against the built-in shelves along the near wall, as if Dexter, in his fear and agitation, had backed the chair up until he hit a solid obstacle and couldn’t retreat any further. Mac had settled himself back in the chair, replaced the blindfold, and – with deep reluctance – removed and pocketed the wedge he’d used on the lock of the handcuffs, and snapped the cuff closed again on his own wrist. But first he’d made sure the improvised lockpick was in the back pocket of his jeans, where he could reach it if he needed it again.
Near him, Rocco lay peacefully on the floor where he’d settled after Mac had finished casing the room.
Sorry, buddy. It’s been nice. As he heard the bolt click back on the door, MacGyver bumped his shoulder against the hacksaw that he’d carefully placed on the edge of the shelf behind him. The saw knocked into a long-handled screwdriver, which rolled off the shelf and clattered noisily to the floor right next to where Rocco lay. The startled dog bounded to its feet, barking loudly and snarling at the unidentified threat.
When the door was opened, the men who entered saw Rocco barking and growling at the helpless man who cringed in the chair, obviously terrified of the unseen animal.
“Please! Call that thing off! He’s gonna kill me! I didn’t do anything, honest!”
Mac heard one man laugh with contempt, but the other did not. “Rocco. Down, boy. Git over here.” The voice had a Southern drawl to it, and a firm edge. Rocco obeyed.
“Travis, you and Buck take Rocco and y’all keep him quiet. I’ll just have a little talk with our guest here. He won’t be no trouble at all, I can see that.”
Click of the latch as the door closed again; footsteps that crossed the room towards where MacGyver sat. Heavy feet – Hunter must be a big man, without Pete’s knack of stepping lightly. A moment’s pause, and the blindfold was pulled off, not ungently. Mac winced at the light and blinked myopically up at Hunter.
“So you are Dexter Fillmore, I reckon.”
“Yeah . . . who’re you?”
“My name’s Hunter. Here, let me get those off’n you.” He produced the key and unlocked the cuffs. “Sorry you came in for such rough handlin’ – I reckon my men might just have been a tad over-enthusiastic.” The drawling voice was mild, a soft tone hiding the steel edge; Mac tried to place the accent more precisely.
Arkansas? No, not quite – Mississippi.“Is that what you call it? You guys are crazy! You kidnapped me!”
“Now, let’s not git too riled up.”
Mac flexed his fingers and rubbed his wrists, hoping Hunter wouldn’t notice – or know – that the bruising was nowhere near what it should have been if he’d actually been handcuffed for that long. “Why’d you bring me here? How’d you know my name?”
“I got cause for a special interest in you, my friend. You and me need to have a talk, but I promise we’ll git you home nice and safe afterwards.”
‘My friend’? So Hunter’s gonna play the good cop now. “Safe? What about Cody and Jake? Why’d you guys kill Cody?”
“So you’re loyal. I admire loyalty. Cody and Jake – their loyalties are . . . just a tad confused. ‘Go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and provoke me not to anger with the works of your hands; and I will do you no hurt.’ Don’t you go worritin’ your head about Cody. He’s fine. Trust me, he’s got nothin’ worse than a sore head.” Hunter had walked over to the desk; now he returned and held out Dexter’s glasses and billfold. MacGyver had found both when he’d searched the desk, but had left them where they were.
Gotta thank Willis for insisting that we put together the billfold with the fake ID.Hope I get a chance to.Mac put the glasses on and blinked at Hunter, then looked around the room as if finally able to see it clearly. He gawked at the fireplace and the flags.
Hunter watched him keenly. “I hear you are a very smart young man. Now why, I ask myself, why is a fine young man like you, from a fine old family like yours must be, mixed up with an outfit like the Phoenix Foundation?” The last two words were almost spat out, the sudden contempt in sharp contrast to the mild tone.
“Uh, it beat going to jail again. They caught me tryin’ to hack their systems.” Dexter studied his feet. “I made like I was real sorry, and they bought it. I
was sorry. I was sorry I got caught.” He smirked.
“And did you, in fact, succeed in gittin’ into their computers?”
“Well, yeah, but they don’t know that.” He sniggered. “Those goody-two-shoes think I wanna be a reformed character, and they were all happy to help me out with a job and stuff. They don’t hardly pay me nothin’, though.”
“ ‘Goody-two-shoes’? So you reckon the folks at the Phoenix Foundation are good? Decent, well-meanin’, God-fearin’ people?”
“Well, yeah. They do all that stuff with the environment, and education, and poor people and stuff.”
“My friend, you have been grossly deceived. That ain’t no surprise: our enemies are of the very seed of the Father of Lies. ‘Their tongues deviseth mischiefs, like a sharp razor, working deceitfully.’ ” Hunter’s eyes blazed with a fanatical light. “The iniquitous folks at Phoenix are a clandestine arm of the Zionist Occupational Government, and they are hard at work, night and day, destroyin’ everything that makes this country great. ‘Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.’ ”
For once, Dexter’s habitual slack-jawed gape was unfaked.
“And I reckon you been told the vile myth that the coloured races are our equals. But you’re a very smart young man. Have you ever met a coloured man who was as smart as you are?”
Mac made a face, one of Dexter’s arrogant sneers. “I never met
anyone who’s as smart as me.”
“That’s it! That’s just it. That’s how we know that your blood is pure.” Hunter rested a fatherly hand on Mac’s shoulder. Mac repressed the urge to strike out at the man and knock the hand away; leaving it there felt like agreement. “You don’t feel like you fit in at Phoenix, do you? I reckon they treat you like an outsider – don’t they?” Mac nodded. “That’s because they know that you are superior. They have to work hard to keep you down. ‘Mine enemies would daily swallow me up; for they be many that fight against me, O thou most High.’ They are always working at keeping us down. Their master plan is our complete racial annihilation.”
Mac stared as Hunter paced the room, declaiming.
“The fine state of California is crawlin’ with homosexuals, communists, perverts, and members of the lower races. We have been betrayed by the race-mixers; our birthright has been sold to the Jews. ‘Every day they wrest my words; all their thoughts are against me for evil. They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, they mark my steps, when they wait for my soul.’ Even as we speak here, in Moscow and Tel Aviv they are plotting our destruction. Young man, World War Three has already started; even though the shooting has not yet begun.”
He’s sincere. He really believes all that . . . and I thought the alien abduction groupies were nuts.“But they shall not prevail; our forces are mighty in the sight of the Lord . . . ”
It was the opening Mac had been waiting for. “Forces? You mean you guys are with that old lady they busted back in November?”
Hunter hadn’t been expecting an interruption; he checked and looked at Dexter with a disapproving frown.
“It was in the papers. That crazy old lady – they made out like she was some kind of Nazi, a
real one. The head of some big conspiracy.”
Mac had hoped for a reaction – and any break in the deluge of dogma could only be a relief – but he hadn’t expected near-apoplexy. Hunter’s face went almost purple.
“Don’t you –
ever – mention that damned b*tch to me again!”
Dexter shrank back, yammering, as Hunter stamped over to the chair and leaned into his face, roaring.
“That uppity, unnatural b*tch and her iniquitous vanity – ‘more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets’ – she damn near ruint
everythin’! That treacherous Delilah
betrayed us to our enemies! ‘Tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.’ ” Hunter pulled himself together and spoke more quietly, but his eyes were still wild. “But with the will of God, and the wisdom of His holy word, I have seen beyond the treachery. Even as we have been betrayed, so have we been given a mighty weapon with which to confound our enemies.” Hunter placed both hands on MacGyver’s shoulders and murmured as if sharing a special confidence. “The Lord has spoken to me, my friend. I heard His mighty voice in my ear, saying, ‘I shall place in your hand a sword of righteousness, that ye may do My will.’ ”
The man’s voice rose again to a boom. Mac felt battered by the sound as much as by the words. “We will bring terror to the terrorists . . . they will learn that no walls are high enough to hide their evil, no hole deep enough to shield them from His almighty wrath. ‘The rock cried out, no hiding place!’ God has seen their perfidy. He has chosen the tools of His bloody vengeance, the weapons in His mighty hands.”
MacGyver looked at the fanatical light in Hunter’s face and felt his skin crawl.
