The Viper

“You ask what’s my bottom line? Simple. This fucking Gurney is not what he seems to be. He’s no boy-scout detective. He’s a goddamn leech, trying to take what’s mine. So, I figure his time is up.”

Ten seconds of listening.

“Yeah, of course I can handle it.”

Another ten seconds of listening.

“I got no problem taking care of it personally. In fact, I insist on it. My finger on the trigger. No other fucking way.”

Five seconds of listening.

“What I was hoping was maybe, as a favor, you could help with the disposal.”

The phone conversation went on for several more minutes. Gurney gathered from Valdez’s side of it that the “disposal” was not only agreed to but that the arrangement would proceed that very night. Valdez would ensure that Gurney would be present at the lodge. Two cars would be sent, one to transport Gurney as a prisoner and one for Valdez.

At the end of the call, Valdez expressed his gratitude for the favor in the tone a humble priest might use to address the pope.

“I HOPE YOU didn’t overdo it,” Gurney said later as they sat by the fireplace, reviewing the situation and preparing for what was to come.

“Overdoing it is not a problem. He regards such behavior as a sign of fear and respect—acknowledgments of his power. He is God. We are his subjects.”

“As his son, you must be a bit more than that.”

“True. My special role is to be an extension of him. I am supposed to be his hand. The hand of God, with no will of my own. The greatest sin is to forget that he is God and that I am just his hand. Or perhaps just the finger on the trigger.”

“Listening to what you said on the phone, I got the impression you were insisting on being the one with the right to kill me.”

“It sounds like a contradiction, but I know how he hears things. He would hear what I said not as a challenge to his power but as an acceptance of my responsibility to deal with someone who has become a threat. My willingness to do what he would wish me to do. You must trust my perception of this.”

Gurney’s uneasiness was steadily rising—not only because of the increasing role of “trust” in the anticipated events, but because of the impression created by Valdez’s persona in the conversation with his father. The possibility that this was the real Valdez was frightening.

“I’m thinking,” said Gurney, “that it would make sense to arrange for some law-enforcement backup around his house in the event that we have to hit the bailout button.”

“It’s not a good idea. He has many police contacts who would inform him the instant any such request was made. It would abort our only chance to get near him. It would also motivate him to deal with you himself, which would put you at much greater risk. We have only one path forward.”

That led to a long silence and the most difficult decision Gurney had ever wrestled with—to back out now and hope that a better plan would occur to him, or to take a leap in the dark and trust this man on the basis of little more than Emma’s assurance that he was trustworthy.

The decisive moment arrived a little after ten o’clock that night, as two vehicles were making their way up the long driveway to the lodge.

“Okay,” said Gurney, taking a deep breath. “Let’s do it.”

73

AT 1:05 A.M., THE GARVILLE POLICE CAR—IN WHICH Gurney had been transported from the lodge with a hood over his head and his wrists in zip-tie restraints—slowed, made a turn into what he assumed was a driveway, and stopped. He heard the low rumble of a garage door opening. The car moved forward, then came to a stop again. He heard the garage door closing behind him.

The car door beside him opened. A rough voice said, “Last stop. Get out.”

The hood was yanked from his head, and he found himself in a dimly lit garage, not far from a glossy pearl-gray Range Rover. The man standing in front of him looked vaguely familiar. Back at the lodge, he hadn’t gotten a clear look at his face, but now he was sure he’d seen him somewhere before—the heavily muscled shoulders, the thick neck, the small eyes . . . and then he remembered. Gavin Horst. The shady cop who let him know he wasn’t welcome to park on the same street as Lanka’s Specialty Foods.

“Hello, Gavin. Any chance you could tell me what the hell this is all about?”

Horst appeared momentarily thrown by Gurney’s use of his name. “You asked that three times on the way here. You’ll find out soon enough.” He pointed to a door in the garage’s rear wall. “Walk!”

When they got to it, the door opened and a Horst look-alike holding an extended magazine Uzi stood aside to let them through.

“Straight ahead,” said Horst, prodding Gurney in the back with something that felt like the muzzle of a gun.

A concrete-walled corridor led to a recessed door with a keypad on the wall next to it. Horst entered a sequence of numbers and the door slid open, revealing a small elevator with bare metal walls. Horst shoved Gurney into it, stepped in after him, and tapped a button on the wall. With a small lurch, the elevator descended.