CHAPTER 27

ON THE RIM OF Dead Horse Gulch, Jan and Monster heard the chopper as it flew north along the Big Horn River toward the compound.  They heard it for five minutes before they saw it.  The afternoon heat had subsided and the sun was beginning its descent into the main chain of the Rockies in the west.

Monster shuffled his feet in the dirt, his hand resting on the Redhawk 44 in its holster on his hip.  He looked across the scrub prairie to the Big Horn River three miles to the west.  On the banks above the river the outline of Basin lay quietly in the gloaming.  The workers at the grain and bean elevators had already made their way home to cold beers and suppers on tree-shaded patios.

Monster flicked his Pall Mall into the wash thirty feet below.  Dead Horse Gulch had been carved out of the badlands, centuries or millennia before  A channel for the badlands’ runoff into the Big Horn.  Now it was as dry as the bones of whatever dead horses had given it its name.

“Better key-up, boy,” he said to Jan.

Jan nodded.  They jumped in the county pickup, drove to the bottom of the gulch, and parked.

Jan picked up a microphone from its cradle on the transmitter in the back of Monster’s truck.

“Hansen!” he said into the mike.

***

In the cockpit of the Sikorsky, Hoyt Akers turned to the Prophet.

“I have a radio transmission addressed to you, President.”

“What?  How can that be?”

“I don’t know, sir, let me put it on the speaker.”

“Hansen!” the voice said.  “Hansen, this is Jan Kucera.  Pick up a mike.  Make it snappy.  Your seat is wired with twenty pounds of C4.”

Hansen looked at Akers.  “What is this?”

Akers shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.  Hansen glared at him for a moment.  He reached under the seat and felt the package.  Looking again suspiciously at Akers he reached up and pulled a microphone from over the windshield.  He put it up to his mouth and said, “Kucera?  What’s going on?  Somebody told me you died in a fire.”

Hansen instinctively opened his briefcase and took out his cellular phone and punched in the number to arm the compound.  He turned fully toward Akers.

The voice coming in over the noisy cockpit answered, “Hansen, this is Kucera.  Yeah, you missed—again!  But, you need to be concerned for your own life.  As I said, you’re wired and I’m holding a transmitter.  If I punch the red button, all that will be left of you and your chopper wouldn’t wrap a piece of gum.”

Hansen again looked at Akers.  “Hoyt, if you are betraying me you will deeply regret it.”

“President, I swear, I have no idea what is going on!”

“Hansen, respond,” the voice over the speaker said.

“Yeah, yeah.  OK, Kucera, get on with your foolishness.  I’m already losing patience.”

“Don’t get impatient, Ronald, that could be disastrous.  I want to talk to you one-on-one.  Fly that thing over to Dead Horse.  You will see the sheriff’s truck in the gulch.  Land in the wash, we’ll join you there.  If you don’t follow these instructions, the box under your seat will be detonated.  I hope you believe me.”

Hansen struggled to get his body into position so he could look under the seat.  He saw the box with wires leading to a plastic package of explosives.  He sat up, looked at Akers and nodded.  The chopper rolled right and headed toward Dead Horse Gulch.

Instructions continued to issue from the overhead speaker.

“OK, Hansen, good move.  Now, when you land in the channel, step out and approach us.  No one else is to exit the chopper.  We see any guns and you’re dead.”

Hansen keyed the mike.  “Yeah, and what are my options?  You gonna kill me if I exit the chopper?”

“Not unless I have to,” Jan said.  “I hope I can talk some sense into you.”

Hansen laughed—with the mike keyed. “Your arrogance knows no bounds, Kucera.”

“Probably.  Anyway, Ronnie, ‘Give Peace a Chance.’”

Hansen laughed—with the mike keyed.  “Well, you really do have a way with words.”

“Yeah,” Jan said, “I should have been a writer.”

“You certainly wrote plenty of lies about me.”

“Save it, Hansen, we’ll chat when you get down here.  Out!”

***

The chopper stirred the dirt in the wash into a storm.  As the blades slowed and the air cleared, Jan could see Hansen exiting.  Akers sat motionless in the cockpit.

When Hansen approached within ten yards, Jan ordered him to stop.

“What’s that in your hand?” Monster called out.

“A cell phone.”

“Planning to call Mommy?” Monster said and barked a short laugh.

Hansen smiled.

Jan said, “Ronald, the jig is up.  We have enough information to put you away, hopefully for the rest of your life.  You know about the microwave tap, of course.”

“Of course.  But you’re too optimistic.  Your information is extremely tainted.  I’m certain the tap wasn’t authorized.  You probably won’t be able to get your information introduced in court.  I’ll doubtless skate.  Won’t that upset you?”

“Well, Ronald, that’s why I want to talk to you.  I think we both have something to gain through negotiation.  Maybe we can work something out.  I believe we can take you to trial and get a conviction.  And, as of this moment, you are our prisoner.  So I think you had better listen up.”

“Don’t become overconfident in your apparent position of superiority here,” the Prophet said.  “You may not hold the upper hand at all.”  He flipped the cell phone lightly in his palm.

“Well, of course I know you are extremely devious, Ronnie; but anyway just listen for a moment, will you?  I know it isn’t what you do best.”

A dark look crossed the Prophet’s face.  “Proceed,” he said crisply.

“I’m willing to offer you a way out.  I have to tell you that it has taken all my persuasive powers to convince the sheriff and the other officers involved to make this deal with you.”

“By ‘the other officers’ you mean, of course, George Olson,” Hansen said.  He sounded bored.

“Anyway,” Jan continued, “I want to offer you the chance to live in relative freedom.”

“Relative?  I doubt that will interest me at all.”

“We want your cooperation. In exchange, we have something to offer you.”

“Again, I doubt you do.  But, it suits me to hear you out.  What is it you expect from me, in order to be the beneficial recipient of your offer?  In other words, in exchange for what?”

“We want you to shut down your operation.”

Hansen snorted.  “You arrogant fools.  I’m tiring.  Make your offer so I can leave.”

Jan drew a breath.  “We have a friendly emirate, where you can be given sanctuary for ten years.  You will have everything you need except contact with the outside world.  At the end of ten years you will be free to do whatever you want to do.”

“And my family?”

“They are not part of the deal.”

“So I am to be deprived of all contact with my family and imprisoned in a foreign land for ten years?”  Hansen shook his head and smiled.  “That is, of course, out of the question.”

Jan cleared his throat.  “The alternative…”

“The alternative is imprisonment in the United States?  No, you’re wrong.  The alternative is death.  The only question is whose death, or, rather, whose deaths.”

“You do cryptic well,” Monster said.

“You fools.  Do you think I fear death?  And of course you, Kucera, could not pull that off.  That is why you have your large, coarse friend here to do your dirty work.”

Monster smiled.  “I’m here to serve.”

“At any rate,” Hansen continued, “as I mentioned, you have—as one would expect—overestimated your position.  I don’t think you have the power over me you think you do.  Take a look over my shoulder.  Above the lip of this gulch you see the Big Horns rising in the distance, fourteen miles from this very spot.”

Hansen held up the cell phone.

“My finger is touching the redial button on this phone.  Try to guess what happens if I push it.  Be creative, now.”  He smiled.

Jan stared at him for a full minute.  Then he said, “The compound!”

Hansen smiled again.  “Now imagine an immense dust cloud arising on the horizon, shooting skyward like Devil’s Tower, reminiscent of the pillar of cloud and fire in the Desert of Sinai.

“You are as much of the Devil as I will ever see, Hansen.”

Hansen cocked his head.  “Let’s see,” he said  “It will take about a minute and a half for the sound of the explosion to reach our ears.  By that time hundreds of my people will be standing on the banks of whatever heaven their faithfulness has earned them.

“You’re getting an education today, Kucera.  It will serve you well in the future if you survive this day.”  Hansen paused.  “I will allow you this one concession—a futile concession, I’m sure, but…”  His voice trailed off.  “The reason I am willing to sacrifice my flock rather than go into exile is that they would never survive without me, no matter what you think.  They depend on me.  I am not going to turn them over as lambs to be devoured by the degraded nation you boys are so proud of.  Wallowing in this social cesspool is not life.  The Kuceras and Broadbecks of the world are the walking dead.”  Hansen paused.  “Now I guess it’s time for me to give you my ultimatum.  You ready?”

Monster and Jan were silent.

“No answer?  Fine.  Let me tell you how it is.  First, I am going to return to my helicopter.  You stupid imbeciles are going to leave me alone.  Oh, I don’t care if you proceed with your attempts to nail me in the courts.  They will fail.  At any rate I am nearly ready to become an expatriate.  You know, of course, that I am moving to South America.  And I am taking everyone with me.”

He smiled and corrected himself, “Well, not everyone.”

While Hansen was speaking, Jan observed, out of the corner of his eye, movement in the chopper.  Akers exited the cockpit and, keeping the chopper between him and the negotiators, moved to the wall of the gulch and began to climb up the side.

Hansen continued.  “Now, let me tell you what is going to happen here.  You, Kucera, are going to hand me the detonator and I am going to return to the helicopter. I do hope you don’t try anything foolish.”

He looked at Monster.  “For example, if you move your hand toward that ostentatious firearm you use to intimidate the populace, I will push my button and you will see a sight and hear a sound that even a dullard such as yourself will remember the rest of your life, which I think will be a short one in any event.  However, I’ll give you this.  You know something about human nature.  And I know there is not a fiber of your being that thinks am bluffing.  Even though you have no moral compass to speak of, I’m certain you cannot picture yourself explaining to your electorate how you allowed a significant part of the county to be blown to high heaven.”  Hansen smiled again.  “Wow, how appropriate that phrase is.

And, of course, Kucera here, with his overdeveloped sense of moral righteousness, could never live with the idea that you forced my hand so that I blew up hundreds people.”  Hansen smiled at Jan.  “I guess you are on the horns of a dilemma.”  His eyes narrowed and he said, “So hand over the detonator.”

Jan hesitated and looked at Monster who glared at Hansen.  Jan stepped forward and passed the device to the Prophet.

Hansen pushed open the battery cover and flicked the battery onto the floor of the ancient riverbed.  He pocketed the detonator, held up his cell phone for Monster and Jan in a mock salute, and backed toward the chopper.  Then he stopped.  “One more thing.  I have failed in my attempt to put an end to your misery, Kucera, but write it down.  I certainly will get both you and your stupid friend, the sheriff.  Both of you must realize that I have people who will visit you when you least expect it, when you are completely off-guard.  By the way, Kucera, I compliment you on your fantastic luck in staying alive.  It won’t last, I promise.  And, I really am sorry about your wife.  If you had cooperated with the first attempt on your life she would still be alive.  I hoped to wed and bed her.  She moved so gracefully.”

Jan swore under his breath.

Monster said cryptically, “All’s well that ends well, amigo.”

Jan turned toward the sheriff, quizzical as Hansen walked away.

Monster said, “Jan, did I ever tell you about the time the Brinkerhoff boys got the drop on me and were taking me to Shell Canyon to shove me off the overlook at Shell Falls?  No?  Anyway, they disarmed me, but didn’t realize I had a Smith and Wesson Tactical in my boot.  You know that sidearm?  It was a Compactor.”

“John!  What the heck are you talking about?”  Jan was watching Hansen walk toward the chopper.

“My point is, amigo, I learned a long time ago to always have a backup plan.  Anyway, I have another detonator in my pocket.  And the chopper actually is wired to explode.”

“What!  Where’s Akers?”

“He has left the building,” Monster said.  “In a moment Hansen is going to figure that out—when he reaches the chopper.  So, we really do need to detonate it.  Question is: will you do it or will I do it?”

“You told me you wouldn’t use real explosives!”  Then realization dawning, Jan said, “You and Akers planned it this way from the beginning.”

Monster sighed.  “The man has gotta go, Jan.”

Jan was silent.  He watched Hansen walking, as if in slow motion, yet taking giant strides, toward the chopper.  He thought of Emma.  He thought of the ammonium nitrate at the compound.  He thought of all those Hansen had killed or caused to be killed.  And yet, to execute him in cold blood…

Alternatives filled his mind.  Could they entrap Hansen again?  No.  And if they did—what then?  Hansen had placed the entire compound on the line.  There was no doubt that Hansen would kill his own followers—al la Jim Jones—rather than be captured.  And he had hinted that when he left for South America, some of his followers would die as he destroyed the compound.  But could Jan kill him in cold blood?  In cold blood!  Cut him down like a frothy-mouthed dog?  But wasn’t that what Hansen was?

Jan looked at Monster.  “John?”

Monster shook his head.  “Your move, buddy.”

As Hansen backed into the body of the chopper he called over his shoulder, “Hoyt!”  Hearing no response he turned and looked into the cockpit.  “Hoyt?”  He climbed into the chopper.

Jan accepted the backup detonator from Monster.  “Can he fly that thing, John?”

“Oh,” Monster said, “I’m sure he can.  A man like Hansen always has his own backup plans.  And he can’t keep his fingers out of any pie.  Very interesting guy.  Actually, I sort of admire him.”

Jan let the last comment go.  Monster was goading him.  But his decision could not be made at that level.  He wished he had five minutes to think.  To think.  But there was no time to think.  From nowhere words flooded into his mind—the words from the prayer of general confession.  We have erred and strayed like lost sheep.  We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.  We have offended against thy holy laws.  We have left undone those things which we ought to have done…

The blades of the chopper began to rotate.  The pitch of the sound increased with the speed of the blades.  Jan felt a dusty breeze start at his knees and work its way up his body.  We have left undone those things which we ought to have done…

The chopper slowly lifted ten feet into the air, wavered, then straightened. Then, oddly, instead of banking left and rising out of the gulch, the chopper pivoted until it was facing directly at Monster and Jan.  Suddenly the nose cowl of the chopper exploded and Jan heard the pocka-pocka sound of the chopper’s Heckler & Koch 50-caliber machine gun.  Slugs ripped into the earth at Jan’s feet and the pickup windshield exploded.  

We have left undone those things which we ought to have done…  

Monster was screaming something at Jan.  Jan closed his eyes.

***

When the chopper exploded it sent a fireball hundreds of feet in the air.  The secondary explosion of the fuel tanks showered debris down upon Jan and Monster.  Monster was struck by a piece of metal and knocked to the ground.

Jan got up and bent over Monster, examining him.  The left side of his shirt was bloody.

“I’m OK,” Monster said, struggling to his feet, grimacing in pain.  Nodding toward the truck he said, “Couple broken ribs is all.  I got some duct tape in there.  Let’s get ‘em taped.”

Jan looked at the smoldering wreckage.  He had a vision of Hansen’s spirit lifting out of his body and sailing—where?  He heard the sound of fire consuming chopper fuel.  Pops and cracks sounded from the wreckage.  The hulk of the machine shuddered in its death throes.

Jan shook his head.  Then he sprang into action.  In the truck he found the duct tape and wound it around the sheriff’s huge chest.  A 50-caliber slug had grazed the sheriff’s shoulder and it was bleeding lightly.  As Jan wrapped the tape, Monster sucked air.  When Jan finished taping him, the sheriff slumped against the pickup.

Finally Jan spoke.  “We gotta get you out of here.  Get you to the hospital.”

“That’ll keep for a few minutes.  If you listen close, you will hear sirens.  If I am not mistaken, my ace deputy, Harold, will arrive here momentarily.  No offense, but I’d rather have him transport me, than you in your present shaky condition.”

“What about Akers?”

“Yeah, well, he climbed the wall of the gulch while we were engaging Hansen.  He had a vehicle parked over there on the ridge.”

“And you and he had it planned all along?”

“Jan,” Monster sighed.  “Look, compadre, life is complicated for you.  It’s just simpler for me that’s all.  For your sake, I wish I could have done it myself, but this is the way it was supposed to be.”

“Yeah, maybe so.”

Monster pulled a pack of Pall Malls out of his shirt pocket and a lighter out of his pants pocket.  He looked at Jan.

“You ever smoke cigarettes?” he asked.

“Just today,” Jan said, reaching for the pack.

“Welcome to the killer’s club, amigo.”

“John, once you told me, ‘You dance with the devil, you get burned.’”

“Yep.  You’re a killer now.  I wish I could have prevented that.”

“You actually could have.”

“No, I couldn’t.”

“But,” Jan said, “obviously you could have detonated the chopper.  You didn’t have to let me do it.  I’m not saying that’s what you should have done.  I’m just saying you could have.”

“No, not really.”

“Why?”

“Well, Jan.  I’m not God.  You were convinced you were on the higher moral ground.  I’m not insulting you.  You thought you were standing up for decency and order by refusing to kill Hansen—using your words—‘in cold blood.’  You had made a date with destiny and I didn’t have the right to interfere with it.  Besides, honestly, if I had done it, you would have been released, in a way, from your responsibility—your culpability.  By intervening I would have helped you fail at what you had convinced yourself was your job.  Maybe it wasn’t your job, but you made it your job.  Once you did that, I had to let you finish if I could.  You can’t save a man from himself, partner.  I’m sorry for you—that you have become a member of that fraternity of men who have taken other men’s lives—but some things are harder on a man than taking a life.  Failing to do so when it is the clearly righteous thing to do is one of those worse things.”

“And what if I had failed, John?”

“If you had failed, I would be driving your failed hulk to Basin, back to a life of regret.  Not that you won’t regret this.  Look, partner, if it helps, you just saved a significant part of the population of Big Horn County.  Of course the ones you saved are all weird cultists, but, what the heck…and you prevented the biggest fertilizer explosion since Oklahoma City.  And, of course, with 50-caliber slugs fired at you by a madman, a judge would have said you acted in self-defense.  And that is true.  But you are still a killer now, and that means you are different than you were before.”

Jan shrugged.  “Well, when you force an aircraft from the skies with the intent of kidnapping a passenger, you are committing a felony.  And when someone is killed in the commission of a felony, courts tend to look upon it as murder.  So, was it murder or was it saving my life and the lives of all those Hansen would eventually kill?  Did I fall from that higher moral position in the process?”

“Who can answer that?  Do I look like a guru with cosmic knowledge of the mystical strings that hold life and death in balance?  Hey, I can’t even say for certain that Hansen wasn’t the good guy in all of this.  Maybe he is right.  Maybe we are the ones wallowing in—what did he say—‘a cesspool of degraded civilization?’  Who knows who should live or die?  Maybe the world would be better off if he blew up the compound and everybody in it.  Who knows?  I sure don’t.  But when I was in ‘Nam, I learned one thing.  I learned that a man has to go with his instincts.  No guarantee his instincts are right, or if they will save him or get him killed.  No guarantees at all.  But we deal the hand we are played, or we let people shoot the cards out of our hands.  I gave up, long ago, on trying to figure anything out.  I just act and react, act and react.”

Monster sucked in a big hit from his Pall Mall.  “Frankly, I get tired of thinking.  That’s all.  When I see a spider in my house I just step on it.  In my book, Hansen needed killing, and I wouldn’t have lost any sleep over doing it. Just my reaction to a bug.  But, the spider was in your house.  And you felt you had to kill it.  Time will tell if you did right—maybe.  But, buddy, one thing I know for absolute sure…”

“What’s that?”

“No matter what the movies and popular novels lead you to believe, when a man kills someone, it is an event that stays with him forever.  Hansen is bound to you with a short rope now, boy.  A man like you, if you live thirty more years, a day won’t pass that you won’t ask yourself if you did right or wrong.

“For better or worse, you’re a killer now.  And you can’t undo that.”

***

The sound of the sirens grew louder, signaling a response from Basin to the explosion.  Harold slid to a stop and unfolded his tall, skinny frame from the cruiser.  Jumping out, he surveyed the scene as he walked up to Jan and Monster.  His eyes narrowed and he methodically scanned the smoldering chopper, the sheriff’s bullet-riddled pickup and, finally, Harold saw Monster’s torn and bloody shirt.

“Bet that hurts,” he said.

“My, yes,” Monster said.

“What should I do, Sheriff?”

“Not much to do, Harold.  Seems like Hansen’s committed suicide by blowing up his chopper.”

“What about the pilot?” Harold asked.

“Well, I believe we will discover that Hansen was alone.  I sort of think it will play out this way.  Hansen probably picked up some C4 explosive in Jackson, dropped Akers off outside of town, then flew to Dead Horse Gulch and blew himself up.  Akers will probably confirm that Hansen was acting real strange.”

Harold hesitated.

“Then, Harold, I think George Olson will investigate the scene and report that the wreckage confirms Akers’ story.  The FAA will doubtless conclude this was a suicide.”

“Yeah, but Sheriff, how are you going to explain your presence here?”

“Well, Harold, only you know I was here.”

Harold smiled faintly, looked at the sheriff and shook his head.  Then he said, “Gotcha, Sheriff.  But what about your wound?”

“I haven’t decided yet how I got that.”

The chopper continued to burn.  It muttered and popped as its contents and structure erupted and collapsed in the heat.  Other than that, the canyon was deathly quiet.  Jan supposed Dead Horse Gulch would soon forget this event as it doubtless had forgotten other strange occurrences over the centuries or millennia of its existence.  The three men stood silently.

After a moment Harold spoke.  “John?”

Monster turned to him and waited.

Harold looked at the ground for a few seconds.  Then he looked up and caught the sheriff squarely in the eyes.  “Got some bad news for you, John.”

“Must be bad, indeed, Harold.  You never call me John.”  Monster paused, drew a deep drag, exhaled through his nose.

“I suppose it’s Melissa,” Monster said.