The Reapers

“How many men does he have?”

“A dozen or so close to him, I’d guess. They stay in touch on the land through a dedicated, secure high-frequency network. Some have served time, but the rest are little more than local thugs.”

“You guess?” said Angel.

“Leehagen is a recluse, just as I am. His disease has made him one. The little that I do know about his current circumstances was dearly bought.” He moved on. “Then there’s his son and heir, Michael.” Hoyle found another photograph, this time of a man in his forties with something of Leehagen Senior in his eyes, but who weighed considerably less. He was wearing jeans and a checked shirt and cradled a hunting rifle in his arms. An eight-point buck lay at his feet, the animal’s head resting on a log so that it faced the camera. Louis recalled the man whom he had killed in San Antonio, Jo

“This one is quite recent,” said Hoyle. “Michael looks after most of his father’s business affairs, legal and otherwise. He’s the family’s link to the outside world. Compared to his father, he’s quite the bon viveur, but by any normal standards he is almost as reclusive. He ventures out a couple of times a year, but usually people come to him.”

“Including your daughter,” said Louis.

“Yes,” said Hoyle. “I want Michael killed as well. I’ll pay extra for him.”

Louis sat back. Beside him, Angel was silent.

“I never pretended that this was going to be easy,” said Hoyle. “If I could have dealt with this matter without the involvement of those outside my own circle, then I would have. But it seemed to me that we had a shared interest in putting an end to Leehagen, and that you might succeed where others had failed.”

“And this is all you have?” asked Louis.

“All that might prove useful, yes.”

“You still haven’t told us how your beef with Leehagen began,” said Angel.

“He stole my wife,” said Hoyle. “Or the woman who might have been my wife. He stole her, and she died because of it. She worked at the mine, helping with paperwork. Leehagen believed that it would be good for her to earn her keep.”

“This is over a woman?” said Angel.

“We’re rivals in many matters, Leehagen and I. I bested him repeatedly. In the process, I alienated the woman I loved. She went to Leehagen as a means of getting back at me. He was, I should add, not always so repellent in appearance. He has been ill for many years, even before the cancer took hold. His medication affected his weight.”

“So your woman went to Leehagen-”

“And she died,” finished Hoyle. “In retaliation, I stepped up my efforts to ruin him. I fed information about him to business rivals, to criminals. He came back at me. I retaliated again. Now we are where we are, each of us sealed away in our respective fortresses, each nursing a deep hatred of the other. I want this thing ended. Even weak and ill, I begrudge him his existence. So here is my offer: if you kill him, I will pay you $500,000, with a $250,000 bonus if his son dies alongside him. As a gesture of good faith, I will pay you $250,000 of the bounty on the father in advance, and $100,000 on that of the son. The balance will be placed in escrow, to be paid over on completion of the job.”

He replaced the photographs and maps in the file, closed it, and eased it gently toward Louis. After only a moment’s hesitation, Louis took it.

The call woke Michael Leehagen from a stupor. He staggered to the phone in his dressing gown, his eyes bleary and his voice hoarse.

“Yes?”

“What have you done?”

Michael recognized the voice instantly. It dispelled the last vestiges of sleep from him as surely as if he had stood in the face of a raging, icy gale.

“What do you mean?”

“The old man. Who gave you the authority to target him?” There was a calmness to Bliss’s voice that made Michael’s bladder tighten.

“Authority? I gave myself the authority. We got his name from Ballantine. He set my brother up, and he was meeting with Louis. He’ll make the co

“Yes,” said Bliss. “Yes, it will. But it’s not how these things are done.” He sounded distracted, as though this was not a development that he had anticipated or desired. It made no sense to Michael. “You should have spoken to me first.”

“With respect, you’re not the most contactable of men.”

“Then you should have waited until I called you!” This time, the anger in Bliss’s voice was clear.

“I’m sorry,” said Michael. “I didn’t think there would be a problem.”

“No.” Michael heard him breathe in deeply, calming himself. “You couldn’t have known. You may have to prepare for reprisals if the attack is co

Michael had no idea what Bliss was talking about. His father wanted everyone involved in Jo

“Call your men back from the city,” said Bliss, and now he sounded weary. “All of them. Do you understand?”

“They’re already on their way.”

“Good. Who fired the shots?”

“I don’t think that-”

“I asked you a question.”

“Benton. Benton fired the shots.”

“Benton,” said Bliss, seemingly committing the name to memory, and Michael wondered if he had somehow condemned Benton by naming him.

“When are you coming up here?”

“Soon,” said Bliss, “soon…”

CHAPTER TWELVE

LOUIS STARED DOWN AT the man on the bed. Gabriel looked even smaller and more ancient than before, so old that he was nearly unrecognizable to Louis. Even in the space of a day, he seemed to have lost too much weight. His skin was gray, marked with a deep yellow in places where a salve had been applied to it. His eyes were sunken in blue-black pools, so that they seemed bruised, like those of a fighter who has spent too long trapped against the ropes, pummeled into unconsciousness by his opponent. His breathing was shallow, hardly there at all. The gunshot wounds, covered by a layer of dressings, had allowed some of his critical, and already dwindling, life force to dissipate, as though, had he been a witness to the shooting, Louis might have perceived it emerging from the exit holes, a pale cloud amid the blood. It would never return. It was lost, and an elemental part of Gabriel had been lost with it. If he survived, he would not be the same. Like all men, he had always been fighting death, the pace of the struggle increasing as the years drew on, but now death had the upper hand and would not relinquish it.

He had expected a police presence near the old man, but there was none. It troubled him, until he realized that others would be keeping vigil over Gabriel now. There was a small camera fixed to the upper-right-hand corner of the room, but he could not tell if it was a recent addition to the decor. He assumed that they were watching him. He waited for them to show themselves, but they did not come. Still, the fact that he had been allowed to get so close to Gabriel meant they knew who he was. It did not concern him. They had always known where to find him, if they chose.

He touched Gabriel’s hand, black on white. There was a tenderness to the gesture, and a sense of regret, but something else played across Louis’s face: a kind of hatred.

You created me, thought Louis. Without you, what would I have become?

The door behind him opened. He had seen the nurse approaching, her shape reflected in the polished wall behind Gabriel’s bed.

“Sir, you’ll have to leave now,” she said.

He acknowledged her with a slight inclination of his head, then leaned down and kissed Gabriel gently on the cheek, like Judas consigning his Savior to death. He was both a man without a father, and a man with many fathers. Gabriel was one of them, and Louis had yet to find a way to forgive him for all that he had done.