The Eighth Trumpet (The Jared Kimberlain Novels) (48 page)

Kimberlain’s stare told her she was right.

“Well, it’s okay, Jared. You don’t have to tell me anything, because I’ve been doing some thinking too. It can’t work, not now anyway. You see, you don’t fit into my world any more than I fit into yours. I’ve got a life and a business back in Atlanta, and that’s where I belong. Now. Today. And it
is
for my own good—and yours, too. I think maybe I love you and maybe even you love me. But there are things both of us love more, and we’d be fooling ourselves if we think that’s going to change anytime soon.”

Kimberlain was still looking at her. Her words seemed formed of his very thoughts, but hearing her speak them brought sadness as much as relief.

“There’s a long time that follows ‘anytime soon,’ ” he said softly.

“There might be,” came her reply.

Lisa had pressed him about the battle between Peet and Quail that had raged atop the Empire State Building, and Kimberlain reiterated that the body that had plunged more than eighty stories was identifiable only from the elf’s costume that clothed it. He professed to know nothing else and in reality he didn’t, though he could have added that Peet must by now have achieved the peace he was after. He didn’t actually know where the giant had gone, but he had an idea.

And when he heard the voice of John Wayne coming from inside his Vermont cabin as he approached, he smiled and stepped inside to find Winston Peet firmly entrenched between the holographic figures of the Duke ready to shoot it out with the film’s villain. Seeing Kimberlain enter, he flipped the machine off and the cabin’s interior returned to normal. Peet rose, dressed in a tank top and work pants. Blood had soaked through one thigh of the pants, and when the giant advanced toward him, Kimberlain noticed the limp.

“Man’s need for heroes fascinates me,” Peet said.

“Makes our shortcomings easier to stomach,” Kimberlain said. “We transpose their values over our own for scale. It gives us something to strive for.”

“And yet so many times these heroes live their lives alone, in solitude, prisoners of their own standards. But to judge is the same thing as being unjust. We run from such truths for fear of the consequences of accepting them.” Peet stopped. “You knew I’d come here.”

“I knew.”

“And you came hoping to see me, preferring my company to that of the woman you had me guard from the Dutchman.”

“How did you know …” Kimberlain stopped the question in mid-sentence. Clearly there was no reason to pose it.

“You prefer to face me, Ferryman, because I remind you of everything you are. The woman reminds you of that which you can never have.”

“Nietzsche again?”

“Merely Peet, Ferryman.” And he smiled. “My work is done. I am at peace. I told you if I succeeded you could return me to The Locks. I’m here to book passage.”

“The Ferryman only ferries the dead, Peet.” He sighed. “I won’t take you back there. I can’t because I know you’re not the same man who got sentenced three years ago. You’ve earned your freedom. Besides, you’re right about the size of the jails we make for ourselves. It really doesn’t matter where the cell is, because we’re all our own jailers and each of us is the only one with the key.”

“You’re granting me my freedom?”

“No, because you’re already free. You finished Quail and saved my life in the process. I’d say that did the trick.”

Peet looked confused.

“I’ve got this cabin in Maine,” Kimberlain continued. “I think you know it. Built it myself and haven’t used it in years. Thought you might be interested in taking out a lease. Only neighbors you’ll have are squirrels.”

Peet nodded. “And fine neighbors they’ll be. And what of you, Ferryman? What of your prison?”

“I’ve got the key all right. I just can’t always find the door, and as you said, I’m not really sure I want to. I haven’t been nearly as good at slaying my demons as you have. With each payback I get one, but another’s always waiting to rise. I thought after all this I might be able to finally walk away. Now I doubt it.”

“And what if they ask you to take up the search for me?”

“There is no search. You’ve been declared officially dead. You don’t exist.”

The prospect of that brought a gleam to Peet’s face. “How fortunate. How very fortunate indeed.”

“Let’s go,” Kimberlain told him, car keys in hand. “It’s a long trip.”

“Yes, Ferryman. I suppose it is.”

A Biography of Jon Land

Since his first book was published in 1983, Jon Land has written twenty-nine novels, seventeen of which have appeared on national bestseller lists. He began writing technothrillers before Tom Clancy put them in vogue, and his strong prose, easy characterization, and commitment to technical accuracy have made him a pillar of the genre.

Land spent his college years at Brown University, where he convinced the faculty to let him attempt writing a thriller as his senior honors thesis. Four years later, his first novel,
The Doomsday Spiral
, appeared in print. In the last years of the Cold War, he found a place writing chilling portrayals of threats to the United States, and of the men and women who operated undercover and outside the law to maintain US security. His most successful of those novels were the nine starring Blaine McCracken, a rogue CIA agent and former Green Beret with the skills of James Bond but none of the Englishman’s tact.

In 1998 Land published the first novel in his Ben and Danielle series, comprised of fast-paced thrillers whose heroes, a Detroit cop and an Israeli detective, work together to protect the Holy Land, falling in love in the process. He has written seven of these so far. The most recent,
The Last Prophecy
, was released in 2004.

RT Book Reviews
honored Land with a special prize for pioneering genre fiction, and his short story “Killing Time” was shortlisted for the 2010 Dagger Award for best short fiction and included in 2010’s
The Best American Mystery Stories
. He is also the author of the Caitlin Strong series, starring the eponymous Texas Ranger, a female character in a genre that Land has said has too few. The second book in the Caitlin Strong series,
Strong Justice
(2010), was named a Top Thriller of the Year by
Library Journal
and runner-up for Best Novel of the Year by the New England Book Festival. His first nonfiction book,
Betrayal
, written with Robert Fitzpatrick, tells the behind-the-scenes story of a deputy FBI chief attempting to bring down Boston crime lord Whitey Bulger, and was published to acclaim in 2011. The Blaine McCracken novel
Pandora’s Temple
won the 2013 International Book Award for Best Thriller/Adventure, and was nominated for a 2013 Thriller Award for Best E-Book Original Novel.

Land currently lives in Providence, not far from his alma mater.

Land (left) interviewing then–teen idol Leif Garrett (center) in April of 1978 at the dawn of Land’s writing career.

Land (second from left) at Maine’s Ogunquit Beach during the summer of 1984, while he was a counselor at Camp Samoset II. He spent a total of twenty-six summers at the camp.

Land with street kids in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which he visited in 1987 as part of his research for
The Omicron Legion
(1991).

Land on the beach in Matunuck, Rhode Island, in 2003.

In front of the “process trailer” on the set of
Dirty Deeds
, the first movie that he scripted, which was released in 2005. The film starred Milo Ventimiglia and Lacey Chabert.

Land pictured in 2007 with Fabrizio Boccardi, the Italian investor and entrepreneur who was the inspiration for his book
The Seven Sins
, which was published in 2008.