Devil's Advocate (The X-Files: Origins #2)(94)
“Don’t be a smart-ass about this,” said the deputy behind the wheel. “We’re earning this.”
“Sure,” said Gerlach.
The cops both peered into the envelope, and the second deputy used his thumb to riffle the sheaf of fifty-dollar bills. There were a lot of them. They nodded to each other, and the deputy riding shotgun put the envelope of money in the glove compartment. They both got out. The second deputy drew his service revolver while his partner jerked up the handle to open the back door. He reached in and yanked the prisoner out. Sunlight fell heavily to the ground, groaning in pain. His face was smeared with blood, his eyes puffed shut, one ear nearly torn off. He rolled up onto his knees and spat blood into the dirt. There were small fragments of tooth in that mess. His hands were securely cuffed behind his back.
“He looks like crap,” said Danny, who was the driver of the black sedan.
“Guess he messed with the wrong little girl,” laughed one deputy.
“I guess so,” agreed Gerlach. They were all laughing when Malcolm Gerlach drew his automatic and shot both deputies. Twice in the body and once in the head. Six quick, precise, efficient shots.
His driver looked away briefly, took a breath, nodded to himself, and pulled Sunlight to his feet. The killer stood there, swaying, only half-conscious.
Gerlach walked around to the passenger side of the patrol car, leaned in, thumbed open the glove box, and removed the envelope of money. He peeled off one fifty and squatted down, then tucked it partly under the leg of one of the cops. He let two others blow into the bushes, then walked over and pushed them more securely into the branches of some roadside brush.
“Why’d you do that?” asked his partner.
“It’ll confuse things,” said Gerlach. “The bills are from a bank job in Reno four years ago. No arrests were made. They’ll drive themselves nuts trying to connect that to this.”
Sunlight watched all this, his puffy eyes shrewd, his body tensed for whatever was going to happen next.
“So, what’s your plan for me?” he asked, his voice thick with pain and missing teeth. “Will they find me on the road, killed while trying to escape?”
Gerlach and Danny exchanged a look, and then they cracked up laughing. It was a short laugh. Brutal. Then Gerlach fished a handcuff key out of his pocket and unlocked Sunlight’s cuffs.
“People have invested a lot of money in you, sport,” said Gerlach. “Just ’cause you screwed this up doesn’t mean you’re done working for the Man. The project has to go on.”
“I want—”
“No,” said Gerlach. “This isn’t a conversation. Get in the car. There’s a plane waiting.”
Sunlight studied Gerlach for a long time. Then he gave a single nod, turned, and walked toward the waiting sedan. Danny stood with Gerlach in the gap between the two dead sheriff’s deputies. The road was on a hill, and far below they could see the small lights of Craiger with the towering clouds rising above it. The humid air distorted the image so that the whole town seemed to tremble in awful anticipation.
“So what’s our next move?” asked Danny. “Do we try to find a new angle with the Scully girl?”
“No. Dana Scully’s a dead end,” said Gerlach.
“Her dad’ll be happy.”
The red-haired agent chewed his gum for a moment before answering. “We’re not in the business of making Bill Scully happy, kid. He does what he’s told because he knows what will happen if he doesn’t.”
Danny nodded. “What do we do about Sunlight’s painting at the church? Some creative arson or…?”
“Nah. Those two drivers who keep calling in sick? Put them on it. Scrape the walls, dispose of all the evidence. Wipe it all down.”
“With all that blood and stuff? They’ll hate it.”
“Kind of the point.”
Danny grinned and nodded again. They looked at the lights of the little town.
“Okay,” he asked. “So what do we do now?”
“Now,” said Gerlach, “we go to Plan B.”
?2?
Scully Residence
April 16, 2:26 A.M.
It had been ten days since the fight at Beyond Beyond. The doctor at the hospital had called to say that Angelo Luz was out of danger.
Dana fell asleep a little past two in the morning. Mom and Dad had said that she could stay home from school for as long as she wanted. That was good, because all she wanted to do was sleep.
And she did sleep.
Soundly, deeply, and for the first time since the Scullys had moved to Craiger, without dreams.
No dreams, no visions, no nightmares.
She smiled as she slept.
?3?
FBI Headquarters
Washington, DC
April 16, 11:48 P.M.
Special Agent Delbert Albritton looked up as his office door opened. People rarely came down to this remote corner of the building, and usually only because they had lost their way or had bad directions. He couldn’t remember the last time someone came to see him. And never this late. It was why Albritton preferred to burn the midnight oil.
The man who entered his office was tall and wore a plain gray suit and quiet tie. He wore no name badge, but Albritton knew who he was. He’d heard stories about this man, and some of those stories scared him more than the cases Albritton investigated in his underfunded, one-man division.