Dead Men's Harvest Read Online Free PDF Page B

to punishment, or even plain hatred. Whoever had dismembered these bodies had delighted in the task and there was only one man I’d ever come across who could conceive of such barbarity. The problem was: the Harvestman was as dead as Walter was now.
    In a cavern beneath the Mojave Desert I’d rammed a human bone through his throat and watched him bleed to death. I’d watched the light go out of his crazed eyes. Martin Maxwell, once a Secret Service agent, had been buried and the government had covered the shame of one of their own being responsible for his crimes. His headstone bore a different name. As far as the general public knew, it wasn’t Maxwell but his stepbrother Robert Swan who’d masqueraded under the name of Tubal Cain. Outside of the establishment I was one of the few people who knew otherwise.
    So had I been misled as much as everyone else? On more than one occasion I’d challenged Walter on the explanation for Cain being whisked away on a gurney. That first time, when I’d wanted to ensure the bastard was dead, Walter, in his usual enigmatic style had come back with the rejoinder; ‘We don’t bury the living.’
    But that was exactly what he’d done.
    ‘OK, Hartlaub. The charade’s over. Take me to Walter.’
    ‘Charade?’ Hartlaub had made a career from lying, could come over as plausible even under the closest of scrutiny. But we weren’t enemies and he allowed the corner of his mouth to turn up. ‘Walter is dead, Hunter.’
    ‘And so is Martin Maxwell, right? The son of a bitch . . .’
    I wasn’t sure who my final words were aimed at, whether Cain or Walter. I suppose that they were for Walter because they’d have been much stronger fired at the man who’d savagely tortured my younger brother, John. Walter had lied to me, sworn that Cain was dead and buried, and now he was adding to the lie by faking his own death.
    ‘Where is he, Hartlaub? I don’t want any more bullshit. Walter escaped this, didn’t he?’
    ‘OK, keep it down, Hunter. There are guys within earshot who are under the impression that Walter died alongside his guards.’
    Taking in the splashes of gore, I counted where men had fallen. ‘Looks like three men did die here. Walt’s guys were killed, but who was the other unlucky bastard?’
    ‘You know him, I’m told.’
    I had an idea where this was leading. I did know a guy, a friend and fellow fisherman who often accompanied Walter to the cabin.
    ‘You’re talking about Bryce Lang?’
    ‘Yes. Poor fucker must’ve been mistaken for Walt.’
    I could see how that could have happened. Bryce had also been CIA. He was of an age with Walter, had the same air of the spook about him. Unlike Hartlaub and Brigham, who were active in the field, both of my older friends were the type who directed covert operations from offices at Langley and other institutions. They had the grey pallor and equally grey demeanour of men who spent their days cooped up in hidden places. Someone coming here with the intention of finding Walter Hayes Conrad could have assumed that Bryce was their man. Supposing that they had never met Walter face to face, that is.
    If, and I was beginning to believe that I was right, it was Tubal Cain who was responsible for this carnage, he hadn’t seen Walter when we were standing over him in the cavern at Jubal’s Hollow. At the time Cain was so close to death that he must have been searing his optic nerves on the blazing flames of hell. But, if Walter had saved the man for some unknown reason, then there was the possibility that he’d visited with him since. And that begged further questions: what the hell had happened here? Why had Bryce been cut to ribbons? What had his killer been after?
    Cain was looking for something.
    My brother John.
    ‘Walter is playing at being dead, that’s it? He wants Cain to believe that he’s dead. And he sent you to bring me in. There’s only one reason I can think why he’d do that.’
    ‘You’ve had experience