Divine Justice

"Maybe he had his reasons. Regular reports, usual cha

That's reassuring. The right hand tells me to charge ahead while the left hand uses a knife to slit my throat.

Macklin pressed a button on the armrest of his seat and Knox felt the plane begin a tight bank to the right. Apparently, the flight and discussion were over.

To bolster that deduction Macklin rose without a word and made his way down the aisle to a door at the back of the plane. It clicked shut behind him.

Knox watched the clouds pass by as the plane began its descent through the Virginia sky. A half hour later he was tearing east on Interstate 66 in his Rover.

He would begin with Alex Ford and work his way through the usual suspects. But from what Hayes was both saying and leaving unarticulated, it seemed that all roads might lead right to a man named Oliver Stone.

If Stone had been a Triple Six and was good enough to take out both Simpson and Gray all these years later, Knox wasn't sure he wanted to run into the gent. Yet those sorts of encounters just came with the territory. And Knox was still standing.

But so, apparently, was Oliver Stone.

Dangerous times indeed.

Retirement was looking better and better. If only he could survive that long.

CHAPTER 11

GREYHOUND DIDN'T TRAVEL to the vicinity of Divine, Virginia. Yet a rusting bus on wobbly wheels with the name "Larry's Tours " crudely hand-stenciled on the side did. Stone and Da

They were finally let out at what Stone could only describe as the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. It made the one-horse stop Amtrak had dropped them at resemble a glittery metropolis on full throttle.

"Now what?" said Stone, shouldering his duffel while Da

"Now we walk and thumb. Maybe we get lucky, maybe we don't."

Though it was not yet two in the morning they did get lucky and rode into Divine in the back of a pickup truck, with what the driver told them was a prizewi

In the distance Stone saw the silhouette of some massive facility. Narrow towers and three-story buildings rose into the dark sky. In the weak moonlight something glinted along the perimeter of the place.

"What's that?" he said, pointing.

"Some place you never want to end up. Dead Rock. Supermax prison."

"Why do they call it Dead Rock?"

"It's built on the site of an old coal mine where about thirty years ago twenty-eight miners lost their lives in a cave-in. Their bodies are still in there somewhere 'cause they could never get to them. So they just sealed it up. They send the scum of the scum to Dead Rock. Least that's the official story. Hell on earth."

"You know somebody in that place?"

Da

Stone continued to stare at the complex until they rounded a curve and it disappeared from his view. He realized that the glint he'd seen must've come from the moonlight bouncing off the slash-your-ass wire that surrounded the place.

After the truck dropped them off their transportation became their own feet. Divine was still mostly dark at this hour, but Stone could see lights here and there as they trudged down the street. A truck passed them going east. And then another followed. And then another. Stone saw eight in all. Through the dirty truck windows Stone spied lean silhouettes of the drivers as they hunched over their steering wheels, cigarettes dangling between fingers, the windows cracked to let the white cancer-causing vapor escape into the frosty air. All around him he could sense the shadows of the nearby mountains, darker even than the night.

He checked his watch. It was barely two a.m. "Folks get an early start here?" Stone asked, nodding at the mini-caravan of dirty Fords and Chevys.

"They're miners."

"Going to work?"

"Nope. Next shift starts at seven. Those boys are heading to the clinic to get their methadone pop for thirteen bucks. Then they go to work."

"Methadone?"

"Some folks have cereal for breakfast, miners have methadone mixed with OJ in a cup. Just the way it is around here. Lot cheaper than snorting oxy up your nose or banging it into your feet. And that way you don't get dinged for dirty urine and lose your miner's license." Da

"That's my mom's place."

Stone eyed the sign. "Rita's Restaurant and Bar. So your mom's name is Rita?"

Da

Da

"Does your mother live here?"

"Nope, but there's an apartment above the restaurant. You can crash there for what's left of tonight."

"What about you?"

"I got things to do, people to see. Get myself patched up." He touched his face and his leg.

"A doctor at this hour?"

"Don't need no doctor. Hell, just feels like Friday night after a football game. Can't let it screw up your life. I got the quick fix all right."

"You sure it's okay that I stay here for the night?"

"Oh, yeah. I'll be back about the time Mom opens up for breakfast. Get it all straight with her."

Stone looked around the interior of the place. A long, polished mahogany bar with stools in front that was set at one end, with a deuce of pool tables and a 1950s-era jukebox anchoring the other end. In between were tables with checkered tablecloths and wheel-back chairs. The place didn't smell like a bar; it smelled like lemons and fresh air. From the looks of things Abigail Riker kept her place of business orderly and clean.

"Da

"I'll see what I can do."

Da

A few hours later he woke up when he felt something hard touch his cheek.

It got his full attention.

Twelve-gauge shotgun muzzles usually did.