ELEVEN

Somewhere west of the town of Randall, Oklahoma, a few miles south of the Kansas border, Wolgast decided to surrender.

They were parked inside a car wash, off a rural blacktop the number of which he’d long forgotten. It was almost dawn; Amy was fast asleep, curled like a cub on the backseat of the Tahoe. Three hours of driving hard and fast, Doyle calling out a route he quickly assembled off the GPS, a line of lights flashing in the distance behind them, sometimes fading when they made a turn but always reassembling, picking up their trail. It was just after two A.M. when Wolgast had seen the car wash. He took a chance and pulled in. They’d sat in the dark and listened to the cruisers fly past.

“How long do you think we should wait?” Doyle asked. All his bluster had left him.

“A while,” Wolgast said. “Let them put some distance between us.”

“That’ll just give them time to set up roadblocks at the state line. Or double back when they realize they’ve lost us.”

“You have a better idea I’d like to hear it,” Wolgast said.

Doyle thought a moment. The big scrub brushes hanging over the windshield made the space in the car seem closer. “Not really, no.”

So they’d sat. At any second Wolgast expected the car wash to blaze with light, to hear the amplified voice of a state cop telling them to come out with their hands up. But this hadn’t happened. They had a signal now, but it was analog and wouldn’t encrypt, so there was no way to tell anyone where they were.

“Listen,” Doyle said. “I’m sorry about what happened back there.”

Wolgast was too tired to engage. The fair seemed like days ago. “Forget about it.”

“You know, the thing is, I really liked my job. The Bureau, all of it. It’s all I ever wanted to do.” Doyle took a deep breath and fingered a bead of condensation on the passenger window. “What do you think’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know.”

Doyle frowned acidly. “Yeah you do. That guy, Richards. You were right about him.”

The windows of the car wash had begun to pale. Wolgast checked his watch; it was a little before six. They’d waited as long as they could. He turned the key to the Tahoe and backed out of the car wash.

Amy awoke then. She sat upright and rubbed her eyes, looking about. “I’m hungry,” she announced.

Wolgast turned to Doyle. “How about it?”

Doyle hesitated; Wolgast could see the idea taking shape in his mind. He knew what he was really saying: it’s over.

“Might as well.”

Wolgast turned the Tahoe around and headed back in the direction they’d come, into the town of Randall. The main thoroughfare didn’t amount to much, not more than a half dozen blocks long. An air of abandonment hung over the street; most of the windows were papered over or smeared with soap. Probably there was a Walmart not far away, Wolgast thought, or some other big store like that, the kind that wiped little towns like Randall right off the map. At the end of the block, a square of light spilled onto the sidewalk; a half dozen pickups were angled at the curb.

“Breakfast,” he declared.

The restaurant was a single, narrow room with a drop ceiling stained by years of cigarette smoke and airborne grease. A long counter stood to one side, facing a line of padded, high-backed booths. The air smelled of boiled coffee and fried butter. A few men in jeans and workshirts were seated at the counter, their broad backs hunched over plates of eggs and cups of coffee. The three of them took a booth in the back. The waitress, a middle-aged woman, broad across the middle and with clear gray eyes, brought over coffee and menus.

“What can I get for you gentlemen?”

Doyle said he wasn’t hungry and would stick to coffee. Wolgast looked up at the woman, who was wearing a name tag: LUANNE. “What’s good, Luanne?”

“It’s all good if you’re hungry.” She smiled noncommittally. “The grits aren’t bad.”

Wolgast nodded and passed his menu to her. “Sounds fine.”

The woman looked at Amy. “For the little one? Whatcha want, honey?”

Amy lifted her eyes from the menu. “Pancakes?”

“And a glass of milk,” Wolgast added.

“Coming right up,” the woman said. “You’ll like ’em, honey. Cook does them up special.”

Amy had brought her backpack into the restaurant. Wolgast walked her back to the ladies’ room to clean up. “You need me to come in with you?”

Amy shook her head.

“Wash your face and brush your teeth,” he said. “And comb your hair, too.”

“Are we still going to the doctor?”

“I don’t think so. We’ll see.”

Wolgast returned to the table. “Listen,” he said quietly to Doyle. “I don’t want to drive into a roadblock. Something could go wrong.”

Doyle nodded. The meaning was plain. All that firepower, anything could happen. Next thing you knew, the Tahoe was riddled with rounds and everyone was dead.

“What about the district office in Wichita?”

“Too far. I don’t see how we could get there. And at this point, I’m thinking no one’s going to say they ever heard of us. This is all off the books.”

Doyle gazed down into his coffee cup. His face was drawn, defeated, and Wolgast experienced a blast of sympathy for him. None of this was what he’d bargained for.

“She’s a good kid,” Doyle said. He sighed hard through his nose. “Fuck.”

“This will go better with the locals, I think. You decide what you want to do. I’ll give you the keys if you want. I’m going to tell them everything I know. It’s our best chance, I think.”

“Her best chance, you mean.” Doyle didn’t say this accusingly; he was merely stating a fact.

“Yes. Her best chance.”

Their food arrived as Amy returned from the restroom. The cook had done the pancakes up to look like a clown face, with whipped cream from a can and blueberries for the eyes and mouth. Amy poured syrup over all of it and dug in, alternating huge bites with gulps of milk. It was good to watch her eat.

Wolgast left the table when they were done and went back to the little hall off the restrooms. He didn’t want to use his handheld, and it was back in the Tahoe in any event; he’d seen a pay phone back there, a relic. He dialed Lila’s number in Denver, but the phone just rang and rang, and when it went to voice mail he couldn’t think of what to say and hung up. If David got the message, he’d just erase it anyway.

When he returned to the table, the waitress was clearing away their plates. He took the check and stepped to the register to pay. “Is there a police station anywhere around here?” he asked the woman as he handed her the money. “Sheriff’s office, something like that?”

“Three blocks down the way,” she said, sliding his money into the register. “But you don’t have to go that far.” She slammed the drawer with a ka-ching. “Kirk over there’s a sheriff’s deputy. Ain’t that right, Kirk?”

“Aw, leave off, Luanne. I’m eating.”

Wolgast looked down the length of the counter. The man, Kirk, was poised over a plate of French toast. He had a jowly face and thick, weather-beaten hands and was dressed as a civilian, in snug Wranglers wedged under his belly and a grease-stained Carhartt jacket the color of burnt toast. A little town like this, probably he worked about three different jobs.

Wolgast stepped over to him. “I need to report a kidnapping,” Wolgast said.

The man turned on his stool. He wiped his mouth on a napkin and looked at Wolgast incredulously. “What are you talking about?” His face was unshaven; his breath smelled of beer.

“See that girl over there? She’s the one everyone is looking for. I’m guessing you saw something about it on the wire.”

The man glanced over at Amy, then back at Wolgast. His eyes widened. “Shit. You’re kidding. The one from over in Homer?”

“He’s right,” Luanne said brightly. She was pointing at Amy. “I saw it on the news. That’s the girl. You’re the one, ain’t you, sweetheart?”

“I’ll be damned.” Kirk hoisted himself off his stool. The room had grown quiet; everyone was watching now. “Staties are looking for her all over. Where’d you find her?”

“We’re the ones who took her, actually,” Wolgast explained. “We’re the kidnappers. I’m Special Agent Wolgast, that’s Special Agent Doyle. Say hi, Phil.”

Doyle waved listlessly from the booth. “Howdy.”

“Special agents? You mean FBI?”

Wolgast withdrew his credentials and put them on the counter for Kirk to see. “It’s hard to explain.”

“And you took the girl.”

Wolgast said so again. “We’d like to surrender to you, Deputy. As long as you’re done with your breakfast.”

Somebody, one of the other men at the counter, snickered.

“Oh, I’m done all right,” Kirk said. He was still holding Wolgast’s credentials, studying them like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “I’ll be dipped. Holy goddamn.”

“Go on, Kirk,” the other man said, and laughed. “Arrest them if that’s what they want. You do remember how to do that, don’t you?”

“Just hold the phone, Frank. I’m thinking.” Kirk looked sheepishly at Wolgast. “Sorry, it’s been a while. I mostly dig wells. Not much goes on around here, except a little drunk and disorderly, and half the time that’s me. I don’t even have handcuffs or nothing.”

“That’s all right,” Wolgast said. “We can loan you some.”

Wolgast told him to impound the Tahoe, but Kirk said he’d have to come back for it later. They surrendered their weapons and all piled into the cab of Kirk’s pickup to drive the three blocks to town hall, a two-story brick building with a date, 1854, in large block letters set over the front door. The sun was up now, washing the town in a flat, muted light. As they stepped from the truck, Wolgast could hear birds singing from a stand of poplars that were just budding out. He felt a kind of airy happiness that he recognized as relief. On the drive over, pressed into the truck’s cab, he’d held Amy on his lap. He knelt by her now and put his hands on her shoulders.

“Whatever this man tells you to do, I want you to do it, all right? He’s going to put me in a cell, and probably I won’t see you for a while.”

“I want to stay with you,” she said.

He saw her eyes had filmed with tears, and Wolgast felt a lump lodge in his throat. But he knew he was doing the right thing. The Oklahoma state police would swarm down on the place pretty fast once Kirk called in the collar, and Amy would be safe.

“I know,” he said, and did his best to smile. “Everything’s going to be okay now. I promise.”

The sheriff’s office was located in the basement. Kirk hadn’t handcuffed them after all, seeing how cooperative they were being, and he walked them around the side of the building and led them down the steps into a low-ceilinged room with a couple of metal desks, a gun case full of shotguns, and banks of file cabinets pushed against the walls. The only illumination came from a couple of high windows, welled from the outside and clotted with old leaves. The office was empty; the woman who manned the phones didn’t come in until eight o’clock, Kirk explained, turning on the lights. As for the sheriff, who knew where he was. Probably out driving around someplace.

“To tell you the truth,” Kirk said, “I’m not even sure I’d book you right. I better try to get him on the radio.”

He asked Wolgast and Doyle if they’d mind waiting in a cell. They had only the one, and it was mostly full of cardboard boxes, but there was room enough for the two of them. Wolgast said that would be fine. Kirk took them back to the cell, unlocked the door, and Wolgast and Doyle stepped inside.

“I want to go into the cell too,” Amy said.

Kirk frowned in disbelief. “This is the strangest kidnapping I ever heard of.”

“It’s fine,” Wolgast said. “She can wait with me.”

Kirk considered this a moment. “Okay, I guess. At least until my brother-in-law gets here.”

“Who’s your brother-in-law?”

“John Price,” he said. “He’s the sheriff.”

Kirk got on the radio, and ten minutes later a man in a tight-fitting khaki uniform came striding through the door to the office and marched straight back to the cell. He was small, with a boy’s slenderly muscled frame, and he stood not more than five foot four, even on the heels of his cowboy boots, which looked to Wolgast like they were something fancy—lizard maybe, or ostrich. He probably wore the boots to give him a little extra height.

“Well, holy crap,” he said in a surprisingly deep voice. He was looking them over with his hands on his hips. There was a little bit of paper on his chin where he’d cut himself, shaving in a hurry. “You guys are feds?”

“That’s right.”

“Ain’t this a can of peas.” He turned to Kirk. “Whatcha got the girl in the cell for?”

“She said she wanted to.”

“Jesus, Kirk. You can’t put a little kid in there. Did you book the other two?”

“I wanted to wait for you to get here.”

Price sighed with exasperation. “You know,” he said, and rolled his eyes, “you really got to work on your confidence, Kirk. We’ve talked about this. You let Luanne and all them others bust on you too much.” When Kirk said nothing, he continued. “Well, might as well get on the horn. I know they’re looking all over hell and earth for this one.” He looked at Amy. “You okay, girl?”

Amy, who was sitting on the concrete bench next to Wolgast, gave a little nod.

“She said she wanted to,” Kirk repeated.

“I don’t care what she said.” Price took a key from a compartment on his belt and unlocked the cell. “Come on, girly,” he said, and extended a hand. “Jail cell’s no place for you. Let’s get you a pop or something. And Kirk, get Mavis on the phone, will you? Tell her we need her over here pronto.”

When they were alone again, Doyle, who was slouched on the concrete bench, tipped his head back, closing his eyes. “For Christsakes,” he moaned. “It’s like an episode of Green Acres.”

About half an hour passed; Wolgast could hear Kirk and Price talking in the other room, deciding what to do, whom to call first. The state police? The DA’s office? So far, they hadn’t even booked them yet. But it was all right; this would happen in due course. Wolgast heard the door open and then a woman’s voice, talking to Amy, telling her what a pretty girl she was and asking her what her rabbit’s name was, and would she maybe like an ice cream, the store around the corner was opening in just a few minutes, she’d be glad to go and get her one. All of it just as Wolgast had foreseen when, sitting in the Tahoe in the darkened car wash, he’d decided to turn himself in. He was glad he’d done it, so glad it surprised him, and the cell, which he guessed was the first of many in his life, didn’t seem so bad. He wondered if that was how Anthony Carter had felt, if he had said to himself, This is my life from now on.

Price stepped up to the cell, holding the key. “Staties on the way,” he said, rocking on his heels. “You all must have stirred up some real hornet’s nest from the sound of it.” He tossed a pair of cuffs through the bars. “I’m thinking you all know how to use these.”

Doyle and Wolgast cuffed themselves; Price opened the cell and led them back to the office. Amy was sitting in a folding metal chair by the reception desk, her backpack on her lap, eating an ice cream sandwich. A grandmotherly woman in a green pantsuit was sitting beside her, showing her a coloring book.

“He’s my daddy,” Amy told the woman.

“This one here?” the woman said, turning her head. She had dark, drawn-on eyebrows and a rigid helmet of raven-black hair—a wig. She looked at Wolgast quizzically, then back at Amy. “This man here’s your daddy?”

“It’s all right,” Wolgast said.

“That’s my daddy,” Amy repeated. Her voice was stern, correcting. “Daddy, we have to go right now.”

Price had taken out a fingerprinting kit; behind them, Kirk was setting up a screen and camera, to take their mug shots.

“What’s that about?” Price asked him.

“It’s a long story,” Wolgast managed.

“Daddy, now.”

Wolgast heard the door to the office open behind him. The woman lifted her face. “Help you?”

“Hey, good morning,” said a man’s voice. There was something familiar about it. Price was holding Wolgast’s right hand by the wrist, to roll his fingers in the ink. Then Wolgast saw the expression on Doyle’s face, and he knew.

“This the sheriff’s office?” Richards was saying. “Hey, everyone. Whoa, are those things real? That’s a lot of guns. Here, I’ve got something to show you.”

Wolgast swiveled in time to see Richards shoot the woman in the forehead. One shot, close range, muffled to a clap by the long bore of the suppressor. She rocked back in her chair, her eyes startled open, her wig askew on her head. A delicate frond of blood wet the floor behind her. Her arms lifted and then fell again, into stillness.

“Sorry,” Richards said, wincing a little. He stepped around the desk. The room was filled with the acrid odor of gunpowder smoke. Price and Kirk were frozen with fear where they stood, their jaws hanging open. Or perhaps it wasn’t fear they were feeling, but mute incomprehension. As if they’d stepped into a movie, a movie that made no sense.

“Hey,” Richards said, taking aim, “stand still. Just like that. Superduper.” And Richards shot them too.

No one moved. It had all happened with a curious, dreamlike slowness but was over in an instant. Wolgast looked at the woman, then at the two bodies on the floor, Kirk and Price. How surprising death was, how irrevocable and complete, how much itself. At the reception desk, Amy’s eyes were locked on the dead woman’s face. The girl had been sitting just a few feet away when Richards had shot her. Her mouth was open, as if she were about to speak; blood was running down her forehead, seeking out the deep creases of her face, fanning across it like a river delta. Clutched in Amy’s hand were the melting remains of her half-eaten ice cream sandwich; probably some of it was actually in her mouth at that moment, coating her tongue with its sweetness. A strange thing, but Wolgast thought it: for the rest of her life, the taste of ice cream would recall this image.

“What the fuck!” Doyle said. “You fucking shot them!”

Price had hit the floor face-down behind his desk. Richards knelt by his body and patted his pockets until he found the key to the handcuffs, which he tossed to Wolgast. He waved his gun listlessly at Doyle, who was eyeing the glass case of shotguns.

“I wouldn’t,” Richards cautioned, and Doyle sat down.

“You’re not going to shoot us,” Wolgast said, freeing his hands.

“Not just now,” Richards said.

Amy had begun to cry, her breath hiccuping in her chest. Wolgast gave the key to Doyle and picked her up and held her tightly to his chest. Her body went limp against his own. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” It was all he could think to say.

“This is very touching,” Richards said, handing Doyle the little backpack of Amy’s belongings, “but if we don’t leave now, I’m going to be shooting a lot more people, and I feel like I’ve had a very full morning already.”

Wolgast thought of the coffee shop. It was possible everybody there was dead too. Amy hiccuped against his chest; he could feel her tears soaking his shirt. “Goddamnit, she’s a kid.”

Richards frowned. “Why does everybody keep saying that?” He motioned with his weapon toward the door. “Let’s go.”

The Tahoe was waiting outside in the morning light, parked beside Price’s cruiser. Richards told Doyle to drive and sat in the backseat with Amy. Wolgast felt completely helpless; after all he’d done, the hundreds of decisions he’d made, there was nothing left to do but obey. Richards directed them out of town, to an open field where an unmarked helicopter with a lean black body was waiting. At their approach its wide blades began to turn. Wolgast heard the wail of sirens in the distance, coming closer.

“Let’s be quick now,” Richards said, motioning with his weapon.

They climbed into the helicopter and were airborne almost instantly. Wolgast held Amy tight. He felt as if he were in a trance, a dream—a terrible, unspeakable dream in which everything he’d ever wanted in his life was being taken away from him, while all he could do was watch. He’d had this dream before; it was a dream in which he wanted to die but couldn’t. The copter banked steeply, opening a view of the sodden field and beyond, at its edge, a line of police cars, moving fast. Wolgast counted nine. In the cockpit Richards pointed out the windshield and said something to the pilot that made him bank the other way, then guide the chopper into a hovering position. The cruisers were coming closer now, within just a few hundred yards of the Tahoe. Richards motioned for Wolgast to pick up a headset.

“Watch this,” he told him.

Before Wolgast could answer there was blinding flash of light, like a gigantic camera going off; a concussive thump rocked the chopper. Wolgast gripped Amy by the waist and held on. When he looked out the window again, all that remained of the Tahoe was a smoking hole in the earth, big enough to fit a house in. He heard Richards laughing through the headset. Then the helicopter banked once more, the force of its acceleration pressing them into their seats, and took them all away.