computerized."
"How can this be then?"
He shook his head. "I don't know. We have someone who was on the list who wasn't on the flight and who was murdered by someone else and not our perps. Something here isn't right. I've been blind. I thought victims can't teach us much but maybe I was wrong. I need to talk to a couple more."
I let out a sigh. "Look, the key is not here, not in yet another murder scene. The key is in Crete, in the Labyrinth of Messara." I pointed to where I thought east lay. "That's what they're trying to protect. That's why they're killing all these people."
"Don't discount proper investigation methodology. Motive is only a part of this. I want to learn about their M.O., about why they make mistakes. Why they put people on the list who were not on the flight. There's something strange going on here, stranger even than it seemed when we first started."
"I'm not coming with you," I said defiantly. "I don't learn anything from this, I only pity these people we talk to and it reminds me of the danger I'm in myself." His expression did not change. I did not want to be disrespectful; there was something about Doc Minus Two that discouraged that. I changed my tone and tried to sound reasonable. "Look, I'm an archeologist. If I can be of any help at all, it would be with the labyrinth. I'm just a burden to you when we go to investigate murder scenes and interview family members. I know you agree with me on this."
He nodded slowly. I did not know if this was to signal his agreement or to indicate that he had despaired of me. He reached an arm to the back of the Jeep and grabbed a small bag and put it on his lap and took out a small envelope. He handed it to me. I opened the envelope carefully. Inside was a passport with a picture that looked a lot like me but was not mine. The name on the passport was Ben Durand. I gave him a quizzical look. "A fake passport?"
"A real passport of someone who looks like you."
"I appreciate the effort, but what if this gentleman himself decides to travel and then they'd realize he has two passports?"
"There's only the one, and he isn't likely to travel any time soon. He's in a mental institution. This is also why he doesn't have a driver's license. You can get one with this passport, though, if you feel like taking a road and written test."
"I don't need a driver's license. A passport is good enough. Why do you give me this?"
"You can't use your own ID and are too much of a wuss to be a real drifter. You'll need this."
"Who gave it to you?"
He sighed. "What difference does it make? I have connections. I asked them to get something like this for me, and send it to a motel in Tampa care of my name. Then I picked it up and now I'm giving it to you. Satisfied?"
"Thank you," I said. I put the passport in my pocket. Now, at least, I could go back to sleeping in hotels like a human being. The thought made me happy. He was right: I was not cut out for the kind of life he and Nat were living. Those two did not need a form of identification because they barely had any identity within the modern state at all.
"Thank me by handing me fifteen hundred dollars. It wasn't free. And I need another payment from you, for last week."
My shoulders drooped. "I have to take out more money."
"That's fine, you can go into a bank, so long as this is your final stop in this state. Just promise me you'll go straight to Tennessee from here. Go to Nat; I'll come get you when I'm done. It'll take me two or three days at the most."
I withdrew fifteen thousand dollars more. This time the money had to come out of my 401K. There was not much there but I did not have a choice. Besides, if Doc succeeded, I would have many years to close the gap in my retirement plan. If he failed, I would not need a retirement plan. I paid him what I owed him and he dropped me off at a train station. Four trains and three days later, I was again with Nat and Makwa. But now, with the passport, I knew I could go to the Labyrinth Cave any time I wanted. I knew also that I would not be able to resist the temptation for long.
XI.
I was more confident now than I had been when I first arrived in Tennessee, but also restless. I spent the next morning going with Nat on one of his treasure hunts. It was not a great success. We came back with a plastic water canteen and a box of condoms. Nat tried to offer me half the loot. I politely declined.
I wanted to check my e-mail, but with Doc Minus Two away I did not have access to the internet. I decided to risk it and went to the public library in Knoxville. They had workstations I could use, and I logged in to my account from one of them. There was no e-mail from K. Back in Tampa I had made up my mind to tell her about the Labyrinth and the new a-corridor, and now I followed through on it. I told her everything, from the way my son found the envelope to Doc's theories.
I sent the e-mail and then there was nothing more to do. I sat in the library and pondered my next steps. I wanted to know where Doc Minus Two was and how the investigation was coming along, but he never gave me a phone number or an e-mail address to contact him. There was nothing to do but wait, and I hated waiting when my life was hanging in the balance. Maybe it was a mistake to leave him alone. What if instead of the three days he promised he would take two weeks to complete his investigations? I would rot.
I had one consolation. With the false passport he had given me, I did not need to spend the nights in a cave with a black bear anymore. I could walk into any hotel I liked and check in. I did just that, choosing a picturesque Gatlinburg motel. I felt almost as if I had gotten my life back, which was ironic as it was someone else's ID that had made it possible. I took Ben Durand's passport out of my pocket and studied it closely while lying on the bed in my clean motel room. I thought again about travelling internationally. Even if they went through the name of every passenger to Crete, a Mr. Ben Durand would not attract much attention. I could go today if I wished to. But I wanted to wait for Doc Minus Two to come back first; give him a chance to come with me.
The next morning I had a good breakfast, and also the time to finish it slowly, like a human being. Not having Doc around had many advantages. I savored the toasted bagel with cream cheese and the hushpuppy and the three cups of coffee I downed. It was a long hour before I got up from the table. Then I rested in my room for a while, watching TV. Comfort made it easy to delude myself into feeling I had no care in the world. Around six in the afternoon I decided to take a taxi and check on Doc Minus Two's cabin to see if he was already back.
The old cabin looked exactly as it did when I left it over a week ago, with one exception: the front door was ajar. I felt a sense of alarm. Doc would never leave his door this way. Something did not feel right. I did not enter, and instead went around the side to the back of the cabin. The backyard was dirty and filled with junk from the fifties and sixties. There were old washing machines lying there and tires and even an entire Chevy Impala. All of it was rusty. The first window that overlooked the backyard — one of two — was more of a showcase for smudges and dust than a functional window. It was nearly impossible to peer inside through it, but I managed to find a dirt-free spot. The room I was looking into was dark and empty. It was not one of the rooms I've been to when I first visited Doc Minus Two in this house. Possibly a bedroom. I moved along the wall cautiously and then tried the second window. That was the other bedroom. All it had was a desk, yellow wallpaper, and a simple queen bed without a mattress. I listened in but could not hear anyone. Cautiously I returned to the front of the cabin and looked in from there at the living room. It seemed empty. I stepped inside the cabin slowly. The living room — if a living room it could be called — was not the same as when I was last there. The wooden table was lying on the floor upside down. The kitchenette behind it was in disarray, with pots and pans all over the place, mixed in with shards from broken plates. Sheets of paper from the shelf next to the table were strewn about the floor. I continued silently to the back of the house. The bedrooms also showed signs of someone having been through them. Then I remembered th
e cat. He was gone. The cabin did not feel safe. I went back to the door and walked out. I kept on walking until I was inside the wood, and then started running and kept at it for the better part of an hour. Exhausted and out of breath, I fell to the ground and remained there until evening.
All the confidence I had built up in the past few days evaporated. The killers had become an academic concept over that period, almost unreal. I was interested in who they were and what they were looking for in that cave, but no longer felt any real existential fear. That was Doc Minus Two's power, to make you feel safe. Now all of that was out the window, and I was more shaken than I had been the first time I came to see him.
I went back to the main road. It took me a while to find it in the dark. I followed it until I reached a strip mall and there I called a taxicab and had the driver bring me to the woods, near Nat's cave. I went to see if Nat was there. He wasn't. Makwa lifted her heavy head and glanced at me and then went back to sleep. I rolled open a sleeping bag and got in. I did not sleep well that night, no more than ten minutes at a time. In the morning, as expected, Nat was there, standing over me, holding on to his silent-rolling seeder. But there was a look of worry in his eyes. He sat down beside me. "Thank God you're alive," he said.
I sat up quickly. "What happened? Did they get him?"
He shook his head in a gesture that could have meant, 'I don't know,' or 'things are bad.'
"What happened, Nat? What happened in his cabin?"
"Someone was there who wasn't suppose' ta."
"I figured that part out for myself. I was there last evening. I saw the door open and walked in."
His eyes were scolding me. "That was a stupid thing to do. If they was still there you be dead."
"I thought so too. I don't know what got into me. Maybe I was hoping it was nothing serious." I got up and shook the sleeping bag off my feet.
He tilted his head to one side as if expecting something to drop out of his ear. "It's my fault anyway. I should of warned you but couldn’t find you. You done took off."
"Warn me about what?"
Now he tilted his head to the other side, and I realized that he was trying to ease a stiff neck. "I got a text message from him when you went into town. It said, DON'T GO NEAR MY HOUSE. "
"Doc texted that? Is he alright?"
"I ain't heard nothin' from him afterwards."
"Do you know if he's been back to the cabin at any point?"
"No idea."
"Do you have his phone number?"
"'course I do. He trusts me. But he ain't answering his phone."
I sensed a dark feeling descending on me, like a sponge that is slowly soaked in acid. I was terrified. "Did he ever do this before, disappear like that without returning phone calls?"
"No."
I tossed a pebble at a nearby tree. "How did they find him?"
"I don't know but if they found someone like Minus Two, they'd be finding you. You better be on your way."
"No. There were no signs of a struggle in the cabin. If they had broken in he'd have shot them."
"Maybe they waited for him in the bushes and jumped him when he was fixin' to open the door to get in. I would."
I tossed another pebble and then another and then some pinecones. It was not out of anger but to fight the sudden dizziness that came over me. Nat never knew when to shut up. He continued. "Maybe they questioning him on where you at. Maybe he done told 'em you're coming back to Tennessee."
"Then they'd have been here already, and they're not. So either they didn't get him or he didn't talk. And if they jumped him, he wouldn't have had the time to text you, now would he?"
"Unless he suspected somptin' before he ever entered the cabin."
"I don't believe it."
Nat shook his head. "No, neither do I. Just thinking out loud. Minus Two ain't no dummy. He wouldn't of walked into a trap like this. And if he did, Doc, he'll be keeping his mouth shut."
That did not encourage me. I wished he would make up his mind. "I've got to find him," I said.
"I wouldn't do that if I was you. Don't get me wrong: I love the man. I owe him a lot. But you can't help him now. If you try to find him you be finding them. Right now they don't know where you at, so it's safe. If they knowed where to reach you they'd of tried to get you to come and save him. That's why he didn't wanna give you no phone, get it? He didn't want there to be a way for them to reach you if they ever caught him."
I stopped hurling pebbles and pinecones and turned to him. "I can’t take a chance. If they have him, they might find out about this place sooner or later. It isn't safe for me here."
"You hit it on the head. You shouldn't be here. No siree. That's also why I never showed you any of my other hiding places. I got some even Minus Two ain't ever knowed."
"Let's not give up on him though. He might still be alive and well."
Nat shook his phone. "I'll keep calling."
I thought of something then. "Wait a minute. Where's his Jeep? If they surprised him at the cabin his Jeep would still be there."
Nat rubbed his beard. "That's a fair question. Maybe they took it with 'em."
"Then it would have left tracks. There's a dirt road connecting the cabin to the main road. I got to go back there and see if there are any fresh tracks."
"That's dangerous."
"I'll wear a disguise. I got to know. If there are no tracks, it means he hasn't made it back home."
He sighed. "I'll go, then."
"I won't ask that of you."
"They ain't after me. Besides, he's my friend. I need to know what happened to him."
I waited for him to come back. Meanwhile, I took the revolver out of the metal box and tried to clean it up with a torn shirt I had found. I wiped the rounds, too, and hoped they were still good. Then I tucked the revolver under my belt and sat in the back of the cave looking out.
Nat returned three hours later, pushing his seeder. He walked a little slower than he did when he left. Already from afar he began to shake his head. "Ain't nothin' there," he said when he came closer. "No fresh tracks."
"That's some kind of a relief I suppose. Maybe he's still on his way back."
"Then why ain't he answering his phone? Or send out more text messages?"
"Maybe his phone died."
"This is Minus Two we talking about here. He gots plenty of other devices he can call from. It ain't no coincidence that just when he texts me that warning, someone done broke into his home, searched for somptin' and didn't steal nothin'. Nah, somptin' fishy here. I don't know what it is but somptin' ain't right."
We decided to wait another day. I stayed at the motel until the next morning, passing the time reading newspapers and watching TV. In the morning I played a few rounds of mini golf at the course next door. At ten I called Nat from the motel room. He still did not hear back from Doc Minus Two. It was getting more serious by the minute. If not captured, Doc should have made contact by now. He was either dead or unconscious or imprisoned. "Something's gone wrong," I said. "And this time I'm not going to wait it out. I'm tired of being a shadow of a man."
"What do you reckon you should do?"
"I thought about it last night. Whether they caught him or not, they must go back to the cabin. This is the only place they know that I may come back to in the next few days. I'm surprised they weren't there already when I arrived yesterday. Maybe they still believed I was somewhere else. But they'll be back there soon. No doubt about it."
Nat nodded in agreement. "This is why we should be staying the hell away from that place."
"No. This is why I want to be there. For once I want to surprise them. For once it would be me hiding in wait for them to come back."
Nat reached a calming hand. "Now, wait a minute. Whoever they are, they be pros. Also, they got orders to kill you on sight. No disrespect, but you ain't no match for 'em."
"No. But I have the element of surprise on my side. Doc's cabin is at the edge of the wood. They would
expect me to arrive from the road. I would take the long way home and emerge from inside the wood. I'll hide in the trees and watch over the cabin until I see someone."
"Then what?" Nat seemed amused by my plan, and now he picked up a twig and put it in his mouth and chewed on it as he listened to me.
I pulled out the revolver from under my shirt. Nat's expression was unchanged. He was not angry that I was planning to use his gun, and perhaps had forgotten that he ever owned it. He just said, "That thing's about as useful to you as a trap door on a canoe."
"Why?"
"First, if you miss or just wound 'em, you better believe they turn'll around and shoot you. That means you have to make sure they be dead on your first shot. And what good are dead people to you? They don't talk much."
"At least I'd be rid of them."
"You’d be ridding yourself of one hit man. There's lots more where he comes from. No, you need to interrogate 'em, son, and for that they need to be in some sort of good health, and for that you can't be using your rusty toy." He pointed at the gun now. "Believe me, I used guns on lots of people in the war and none of 'em ever talked to me after that."
I tucked the gun under my shirt and sat down. "What would you do if you were me? You have some experience in the such."
"I most certainly do," he said proudly. He spat the twig out of his mouth. "Your plan of sneaking round through the wood ain't bad — if you have decent camouflage. But when you get to an observation point near the cabin, your next step must be smart, not violent. You got to trap 'em, get it?"
"How?"
"Hunting people is the same as hunting ducks. You make the right kind of noise, and they'll be coming to you. In this case, your duck whistle is gonna be your mouth. Does that suit you?"
I jumped to my feet. "Yes. I'll do it. I'll say something like, Come and get me."
He shook his finger at me. "No, then they'll suspect somptin'. You need to lower their defenses. 'Help me, I'm stuck in a fucking bear trap,' is a much better opener. With that, you both get 'em curious and make 'em think they got nothin' to fear from you."
"And how do you catch them?"
"The best way is with a covered hole, but of course digging somptin' like that is gonna be noisy and take time. The next best thing is a spring-net trap."
He seemed serious. I said, "Is that what you used in Nam?"
He shook his head almost with contempt. "No, Charlie, he done used booby traps that could impale you or blow you up. There was no point in letting you rest comfortably inside a net. Your buddies would of set you loose." Then he looked at me as if revealing a secret he knew he should be keeping under his hat. "They still hope to get me that way. But I done spent so many years in the jungle that there is no trap made by man that I could not smell from a mile away. Seeing your friends get blowed up into a thousand little pieces in front of your eyes can do this to a man." Then he refocused and went back to business. "The trap