Where the Summer Ends - By Karl Edward Wagner Page 0,69
FBI agent reminded her of a too-scrubbed Bible salesman. She resented the high-handed way he and the others had appropriated Brandon’s belongings.
“That’s the thing about these sociopathic types; they seem perfectly normal human beings, but it’s only a mask.” He went on: “We’ll run ballistics on this and see if it matches with anything on file. Probably not. This guy was good. Real good. What we have on him now is purely circumstantial, and if we turn him up, I’m not sure we can nail him on anything more serious than firearms violations. But putting together all the things we know and that won’t stand up in court, your tenant is one of the top hit men in the business.”
“Brandon—a hit man!” scoffed Dell Warner.
“Brandon’s not his real name,” the agent went on, ticking off his information. “He’s setup other identities too, probably. We ran his prints; took some looking, but we finally identified him. His name was Ricky Brennan when he was turned over to a New York state foster home as a small child. Father unknown; mother one Laurie Brennan, deceased. Records say his mother was from around here originally, by the way—maybe that’s why he came back. Got into a bit of trouble in his early teens; had a fight with some other boys in the home. One died from a broken neck as a result, but since the others had jumped Brennan, no charges were placed. But out of that, we did get his prints on record—thanks to an institutional blunder when they neglected to expunge his juvenile record. They moved him to another facility, where they could handle his type; shortly after that, Brennan ran away, and there the official record ends.”
“Then how can you say that Eric is a hired killer!” Ginger demanded. “You haven’t any proof! You’ve said so yourself.”
“No proof that’ll stand up in court, I said,” the agent admitted.
“But we’ve known for some time of a high-priced hit man who likes to use a high-powered rifle. One like this.”
He hefted Brandon’s rifle. “This is a Winchester Model 70, chambered for the .220 Swift. That’s the fastest commercially loaded cartridge ever made. Factory load will move a 49-grain bullet out at a velocity of over 4100 feet per second on a trajectory flat as a stretched string. Our man has killed with head shots from distances that must have been near three hundred yards, in reconstructing some of his hits. The bullet virtually explodes on impact, so there’s nothing left for ballistics to work on.
“But it’s a rare gun for a hit man to use, and that’s where Brandon begins to figure. It demands a top marksman, as well as a shooter who can handle this much gun. You see, the .220 Swift has just too much power. It burned out the old nickel steel barrels when the cartridge was first introduced, and it’s said that the bullet itself will disintegrate if it hits a patch of turbulent air. The .220 Swift may have fantastic velocity, but it also has a tendency to self-destruct.”
“Eric used that as a varmint rifle,” Dell argued. “It’s a popular cartridge for varmint shooters, along with a lot of other small-calibre high-velocity cartridges. And as for that silenced Colt, Eric isn’t the first person I’ve heard of who owned a gun that’s considered illegal.”
“As I said, we don’t have a case—yet. Just pieces of a puzzle, but more pieces start to fall into place once you make a start. There’s more than just what I’ve told you, you can be sure. And we’ll find out a lot more once we find Brandon. At a guess, he killed Kenlaw—who may have found out something about him—then panicked and fled.”
“Sounds pretty clumsy for a professional killer,” Dell commented. The agent frowned, then was all official politeness once more. These hillbillies were never known for their cooperation with Federal agents. “We’ll find out what happened when we find Brandon.”
“If you find him.”
•VIII•
Brandon seemed to be swirling through pain-fogged delirium—an endless vertigo in which he clutched at fragments of dream as a man caught in a maelstrom is flung against flotsam of his broken ship. In rare moments his consciousness surfaced enough for him to wonder whether portions of the dreams might be reality.
Most often, Brandon dreamed of limitless caverns beneath the mountains, caverns through which he was borne along by partially glimpsed dwarfish figures. Sometimes Kenlaw was with him in this maze of tunnels—crawling after him, his face a flayed