The Reapers

To the west, a light appeared, and the Burning Man took his place by the water, his mouth forming words, speaking soundlessly to his son of rage and wrath.

North: the house. South: Louis. East: Deber. West: the Burning Man. Compass points.

But Louis was not the southern point. He heard footsteps behind him, and a hand gently brushed the back of his neck. He tried to turn, but he could not.

And his grandmother’s voice whispered: “These are not the only choices.”

It was the begi

The wound took a long time to heal. The bullet had penetrated his skull, but had not passed into his brain. His mother had always told him he had a hard head. Even after his survival was assured, he had trouble forming certain words and distinguishing colors, and his vision was blurred for months. He was tormented by phantom sounds, and by pains in his limbs. Gabriel was tempted to cut him loose, but Louis was special. He had been the youngest of Gabriel’s recruits, and he still had the potential to exceed all of Gabriel’s expectations. He responded quickly to therapy, in part because of his own natural strength, but also, Gabriel knew, out of a desire for revenge. Bliss had disappeared, but they would find him. They could not let what he had done go unpunished.

It took ten years to track him down. When he was found, Louis was sent to execute him.

He was living in Amsterdam as a Dutch national, under the name van Mierlo. Some surgery had been performed on him; not much, but just enough on the nose, eyes, and chin to ensure that if any of his old acquaintances crossed his path they would fail to recognize him immediately. It was all about buying time: hours, minutes, even seconds. Louis knew that Bliss would have spent the years since the Lowein incident preparing for the day when he might be found. He would be ready to run at any time. He would know his environment intimately, so that the slightest change in routine would alert him. He would always be armed. He would own a car, kept in a secure private parking garage not far from where he lived, but would rarely use it. It would be kept for emergencies, in case the airport or the trains were closed to him for any reason, or when alternative travel arrangements were denied him.

He stuck to taxis, catching them on the street instead of calling for them in advance, and never taking the first that came along, always waiting for the second, third, or even fourth. Once each month, he visited his lawyer in Rotterdam, taking the train from Centraal. He was renting a four-story building on Van Woustraat, but appeared to have done nothing to the first floor, living on the second and third. Louis guessed that both the first and fourth floors would be booby-trapped, and that a bolt hole of some kind existed in Bliss’s living quarters, providing access to one of the adjoining buildings.

Louis wondered if Bliss knew that he was still alive. Probably, he thought. In the event that he was found, Bliss would expect Louis himself to come. He would be anticipating a knife, a gun to the head, just as Deber had so many years before. Perhaps he even feared an attempt to capture him and return him to the United States for Gabriel to deal with as he saw fit. But Louis would be present; of that Bliss was certain, be- cause Bliss did not know Louis, not as Gabriel did and not, in his final, agonized days, as Deber had.

Louis left the Netherlands without Bliss ever catching sight of him, and another man took his place for the final days, but during Louis’s time there he tracked Bliss, using Gabriel’s assistance as well as his own initiative. They found bank accounts. The office of his lawyer was searched. Business interests, and properties owned, were identified. Even his car was found.

Then, during Louis’s final days in Amsterdam, relations between the Dutch government and the transport unions deteriorated. A series of strikes was anticipated. One week later, Bliss went to his garage to pick up his car in order to drive to Rotterdam. There was a cassette player in the dashboard. He turned on the stereo as he maneuvered out of his space, the nose of the car angling upward with the slope, but instead of the anticipated Rolling Stones he heard a woman’s voice. Co

But I don’t own any Co

Oh, you clever boy.

He already had one foot on the ground when the mercury tilt switch activated, and the car, and Bliss, were engulfed in flame.

“He survived,” Gabriel told Louis. “You should have found another way.”

“That way seemed appropriate. Are you sure he’s not dead?”

“There were no remains found in the car, but fragments of skin and clothing had adhered to the garage floor.”

“How much skin?”

“A great deal, apparently. He must have been in considerable pain. We traced him to a doctor’s surgery on Rokin. The doctor was dead when we found him, of course.”

“If Bliss lives, he’ll come back at us someday.”

“Perhaps. Then again, it may be that all that is left is a charred husk with the man we knew trapped inside.”

“I could find him again.”

“No, I don’t think so. He has money, and co

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

BLISS SAT IN THE dining room of Arthur Leehagen’s house, the table at his back and an empty Hardigg Storm case at his feet. He wore a raincoat, and he held a soft waterproof hat in his hands. In front of him was a window, but until a short time before he had been able to see nothing through the glass and had, instead, focused entirely on his own reflection. He was not weary. He had come so far, and the moment for which he had long wished was almost upon him.

He recalled those first hours, when he was convinced that all of the skin had been seared from his body, the agony as he had stumbled into the night, his mind clouded entirely by pain. It had taken a great effort of will to compartmentalize his suffering, to clear a tiny corner of his consciousness so that reason could take over from instinct. He had made it to a phone, and that had been enough. He had money, and with money you could buy anything, if you had enough of it: a hiding place, transport, treatment for one’s wounds, a new face, a new identity.

A chance to live.

But such pain. It had never gone away, not truly. It was said that one forgot the intensity of one’s former agonies as time went on, but that was not true for Bliss. The memory of the pain that he endured had been seared both in and on him, in his spirit and on his body, and even though the physical reality of it had faded, the memory of it remained sharp and clear. Its ghost was enough to evoke all that had once been, and he had used that capacity to relive it in order to bring him to this place.

He heard footsteps behind him. Michael Leehagen spoke, but Bliss did not turn around to acknowledge his presence.

“There’s been contact,” Leehagen said.

“Where?”

“The i

“Did your father’s men do as they were told?”

There was a pause before Michael answered. Bliss knew that the reminder of his father’s authority would rankle. It served no purpose other than to amuse Bliss. It was a reminder that Michael had overstepped his authority in ordering the attack on Gabriel. Bliss had not forgotten it. There would be a reckoning once the job was done. Benton, the man who had pulled the trigger, would be the sacrificial lamb on the altar of Bliss’s atonement for the shooting. It was for Bliss, and no other, to decide if Gabriel lived or died. Bliss understood that Gabriel could not have let his treachery go unpunished, and he bore him no animosity for the long hunt that had ensued. It was Louis that Bliss wanted. Louis had burned him. Louis had made it personal.