Double Helix Ch. 11

Still, I followed the direction that the footprint pointed in, toward a large barn well away from the house. I stopped some distance from the door, trying to decide whether to approach or go around. I frowned in puzzlement at the row of metal tanks lined up outside, each one printed with a bright green square and the words "Anhydrous Ammonia".

I had just made up my mind to move closer when a woman's shout startled me. "Hold it right there, buddy. Put your hands behind your head and turn around real slow."

She had apparently been shadowing me in the cover of the trees, because she stood just inside the fence, off to my left. She was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt with "Oregon Institute of Technology" in faded block letters. She held a rifle up to her shoulder, sighted on my chest. I guessed her to be in her forties or early fifties, from her hair that was going gray at the temples and the wrinkle lines around her eyes and lips.

My Colt was at the back of my hip, as always, but she had two distinct advantages over me. One was that I simply wasn't that fast. She could shoot me dead before my gun ever cleared the holster. The second was that she was about thirty yards away. At that distance, armed with a pistol, I was just as likely to miss as not unless I took the time to get my stance and aim. Unless she were a complete amateur, there was a good chance that she wouldn't miss, not with a rifle. I belatedly added a third reason, which was that I wasn't altogether sure I was capable of killing a person again.

The woman kept the rifle pointed unerringly at my chest as she spoke. "My husband saw you on the edge of our land yesterday, and told me to keep an eye out. I saw you pass by the north fence a bit ago and figured I'd see if you came back. Now, you want to tell me what you're doing on our land?"

"I, uh . . ." I started, trying to work out a convincing lie.

"Right, I didn't think so. You law enforcement or just stupid?"

"No," I said, shaking my head. "I'm no cop."

"Bullshit," she said. "I saw a county sheriff car parked out by the bridge two nights ago."

My heart leaped right into my throat and I forgot to be careful. "Out by the bridge, you say?"

"Yeah, why?" she said, suspiciously. "You a snitch for them?"

"A what?"

She scoffed. "An informer. Just tell me why you're here. What do you want with us?"

"No, I—look, this is a mistake. I'm not here to bother you." She seemed awfully concerned about law enforcement, which worried me. "I'm just looking for something."

"Right," she said. "Sure. Boy, you really are stupid, aren't you? God dammit. You keep those hands up and start walking towards the house. And don't think for a second I won't shoot you if you try to run."

I heard her move in behind me as I began walking, and she closed the distance until she was just a few steps back. "Is that your truck parked out by the road?" she asked.

I didn't see the point in lying. "Yes, that's mine. There's nothing in it but a little food and water."

"Well, we'll see about that. Who else is with you?"

"No one."

"And who knows you're out here?"

"Nobody else."

"Well that would be something, wouldn't it? Coming out here alone with no one to know something's wrong if you don't come back. I don't really think you are that stupid."

We walked in silence across the empty expanse of dirt, the air rippling as the sun baked it. I stopped when I reached the front door of the house.

"Go on, open it," she said. "Do it slow."

The door was unlocked and it creaked a bit as it opened inward. "Go on in," she said.

The house had the rustic, unfinished look of a cabin, but was spacious and appointed with modern conveniences like automation sensors for the lights. It smelled of pine and lemon cleaners.

"You got any guns on you?" the woman asked.

I shook my head. "No."

"Okay, then. Turn around and grab your shirt at the sides. Lift it slowly upward."

I knew she had me. I did as she asked, exposing my concealed holster.

She clucked her tongue. "Naughty boy. Now reach back and pinch the grip in your thumb and forefinger. Squat and set it carefully on the floor, then lift up your pant legs one at a time. Grab them up by the knee."

I did as she said, my face burning at the humiliation of having her see right through me.

"That's good," she said, when she saw that I didn't have an ankle holster. "Now go sit on the sofa."

I did as she commanded, hearing the clatter of metal across wood as she picked up my gun.

"Mom!" I heard a voice call from elsewhere in the house, followed by the sound of running feet.

The woman's gaze flicked to a spot above my left shoulder and I turned my head to look. It was a boy, maybe eight or nine, and he looked right at me with wide, fearful eyes.

"Go play in your room," she told the boy. "You lock the door and keep it locked until I come get you, okay?"

The boy nodded, his gaze still locked on me. His voice shook when he spoke. "S-sure, mom." He quickly disappeared back down the hall.

"Lordy, what a day," the woman muttered, sighing. She took the chair opposite from the sofa and lay the rifle over her knees.

"Cute kid," I remarked.

She barked a laugh. "Oh, don't even try to be ingratiating. That won't work with me."

I shrugged. "So, what are you going to do with me?"

"That remains to be seen. My husband should be back any time. Then we'll decide."

"Look," I said, leaning forward, "I don't know what it is you're trying to hide, and I don't care. I'm not here because of you."

"Why, then?"

"I can't . . ." I sighed. "I can't tell you that."

She shrugged. "Well, that kind of puts a damper on this whole trust-building exercise, doesn't it? Besides, even if you're telling the truth, if I let you go now, you'll just turn me into the police for assault."

"I won't go to the police," I said. "Trust me, they're the last people I would ever speak to."

She looked at me sharply. "What's that supposed to mean? Are you trying to tell me you're a criminal?"

I almost told her about the cop I had shot in Seattle, but a warning jolt of fear stopped me. Telling her that could have an unpredictable outcome. Knowing that I had murdered someone might make it that much easier for her to decide to kill me. And even if she didn't, I wasn't prepared to reveal that I was sheltering with genemods.

"I just don't like cops," I said. Well, that was true enough, especially after what had happened in Seattle.

"Well, I'm afraid that's just not good enough. You'd tell me anything if you thought it would get me to turn you loose."

I couldn't really argue with that. I leaned back into the sofa's cushions, enjoying the cool air on my sunburned skin. "You have electricity," I said, waving vaguely around in acknowledgement of the air-conditioning.

"Yeah. Solar panels, and batteries in the garage. There's a rainwater collection system that we supplement with a well. We're totally off the grid."

"Must be nice," I said dryly.

"'Nice' has nothing to do with it. This is just the way things are. At least until you showed up."

"So I take it I'm the first person you've had to point a gun at in a while?" I was coming down off my initial fear and found myself getting angry at the situation in spite of the danger I knew I was still in.

She scowled. "You talk too much. What's your name?"

"You must really think I am stupid," I said. "Why would I tell you that?"

She picked up the gun and held it casually. "It's actually not important. I'd just like to call you something other than 'you'."

"Mark," I said, using my old alias. "Call me Mark. So, does that mean you'll tell me your name?"

She smirked. "Well, 'you' will suit me just fine, thank you." She glanced at the clock and nodded to herself almost imperceptibly. Sighing, she opened a drawer on the end table next to her and pulled out a pencil and book of crossword puzzles. I had a fleeting impulse to leap up and charge her, but if she was at all quick with that gun, I would never make it in time.

Twenty minutes or so of silence went by and I heard the rumble of an engine outside. A minute later, the front door opened and a man walked in. He made a little stumble-step on seeing me, but regained his composure and made his way to the woman's side. He was tall, with dark but graying hair and eyes that were a brilliant light blue.

"Is this him?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said. "Found him wandering around up near the north fence. He claims he's not a cop, and I believe him, but he won't say why he's here. Mark is his name, or so he says."

"I told you," I said. "I don't know anything about you. I didn't realize anyone lives here."

"Quiet," the man said, lifting a hand without looking at me. "Did he try anything? Pull that gun on you?"

She patted my Colt, sitting on the end table next to her. "No, he gave it up quietly. Don't think he has a death wish."

"Good work," he said, and stroked the side of her face with the back of his fingers.

He turned to me. "Take your pants off," he said, "and toss them on the floor."

"What?" I asked, shocked and confused by the order.

"Just do it," he said, in a calm but determined voice.

"Keep your hands where I can see them," the woman warned, holding the rifle at the ready.

I complied, unnerved at the strangeness of it more than anything. The reason quickly became clear as the man picked my pants up and rifled through the pockets, coming out with my phone, wallet, and truck keys. "These are for the truck parked out at the road," he said, not in the tone of a question. He picked through my wallet and came out with my fake Washington driver's license. "It says his name is 'Mark Winston' and it has a Seattle address." He turned it over a few times. "If it's fake, it's good work. What are you doing in northwest Oregon, Mark?"

I shrugged and he snorted. "Right." He switched on my phone. "What's the code?"

I knew that there wasn't much to see there, so I gave it to him. He punched a few buttons. "Only one number dialed," he said, "Portland area code and days ago. Probably a new phone or a burner." He turned it off and slipped it into his pocket, then tossed me my pants back. "So you didn't try to contact anyone on arriving here." He pursed his lips. "Now that is odd. I almost think you might be telling the truth about not knowing about us."

"So what do we do with him?" the woman asked.

The man sighed loudly and shook his head. "There are no good options here. Let him go free and he'll go to the police. Kill him, and someone's probably going to wonder what happened to him eventually. No, we need some time to think. Let's put him in the guest bedroom." He gestured. "This way."

The guest bedroom had a full-size bed flanked by windows. Surely they weren't going to lock me in here? Then I heard the distinctive sound of duct tape being peeled off of a roll and turned sharply. The man gestured with the hand holding the end of the tape. "Have a seat there," he said.

The only chair in the room was an oak antique. A dozen different thoughts went through my head as I sat. Fantasies of disabling this man and somehow overpowering his wife and taking her gun, but I knew that they wouldn't work. Instead, I sat obediently and put my hands on the chair arms as instructed. He taped my feet to the chair, then my hands, finishing by running the tape several times around my chest and the back of the chair, then over my thighs and under the seat. He made sure it was all secure and left the room for a moment, coming back with a small camera that he placed on a dresser, facing me, and plugged it into a wall.

"Behave yourself," he said. "I'll be watching."

I spent the first half hour or so alternating between struggling and cursing. I spent the next one thinking, and actually figured out a few things. For example, I was now pretty certain that Tilly had not come this way. My showing up on their land had spooked the couple, and it seemed like, with all of the questions they had asked, they might have mentioned that a young woman had come through before me.

Presently, the door opened and the man entered. "We've decided not to shoot you yet," he said and gave me a wry grin. "That should make you happy."

"Oh, that's great news," I said. "Now I can live out my dream of being taped to a chair while awaiting execution."

He shook his head and sighed. "Listen, we're not bad people. If you hadn't wandered onto our property, we would have left you alone. The problem is, you can't seem to give me a straight answer about why you're here, and that's a real problem for us."

"You know," I said, in a tone that made him quirk an eyebrow at me. "I've been doing some thinking. Now, I didn't get a look at the rest of the house, but I didn't see a greenhouse out here, and I'm pretty sure that the three of you aren't getting your food from FEMA."

"Get to the point, Mark," he deadpanned.

"Drugs," I said, and allowed myself a smirk when his eyes narrowed. "I noticed some compressed gas tanks out by the barn. Then I remembered that anhydrous ammonia is used in meth production. That's also why your wife waited until I moved toward the barn before showing herself."

"You . . . just figured that out, then?" he asked.

It was as good as an admission of guilt. "Do you know what that stuff does to people?" I seethed, despite my powerlessness.

"Euphoria," he said dryly, "increased attention, respiration, heartbeat. Hallucinations, mood disturbances, hair loss, skin problems, tooth decay, memory loss, paranoia, psychosis. You think I don't know all that?"

"And what about your little boy?" I asked. "Does he know what you're doing in the barn? Do you ever wonder about what all those chemicals might be doing to him? Does it ever bother you to know you're pois—"

He cut me off with an open-handed slap, hard enough to make the side of my face go numb. I tasted blood where I had bitten my tongue. "Why don't you get off your moral high horse?" he said, shaking his hand from the blow. "You don't know anything about what we've had to go through to survive. And if we weren't supplying the market, someone else would."

"Maybe," I said, working my jaw against the hot sting now working its way across my skin. "Or maybe if all of you lowlifes grew a conscience, there wouldn't be a market."

"The world's gone to shit," he said. "It's a seller's market and our product helps people forget that for a while. Why do you care so much, anyway?"

I hesitated, but only for a moment. "My sister."

He nodded silently for a moment. "Yeah. I could see that." He knelt in front of me. "Is that what this is about? Did she OD on meth and you want revenge or something?"

"She's not dead," I said. My anger was fading, and I felt suddenly tired. "And no, that's not why I'm here." I decided to take a gamble. "Okay, forget about my sister. I was looking for someone else. A friend. She disappeared near here."

"And you thought you would find this person in our barn?"

I shrugged. "I've been searching for two days. It seemed as good a place to look as any other."

He regarded me with narrowed eyes. "That actually makes more sense than anything else you've said. So what happened? Who is this person?"

I wondered if these two were really as reasonable as they seemed to be, despite what they did in their barn. I thought of the others waiting back at the farm and how vulnerable they were without me there. "She's just a friend."

The man knelt in front of me. "You said you don't like cops. I think you're on the run. You're criminals. Aren't you?"

"Not drug dealers like you," I said, but I had little fight left to put behind the comment. I was a criminal, and not only because I had protected people from those in power who would persecute them.

"No, not at all like us," he said. He stood and brushed his hands together. "Supper will be ready in a few hours. We'll see if you have any more to tell us then."