So maybe they were just waiting for him. Maybe Tony wasn’t a part of it.
“Let’s just get this done. I can’t sit here all night.” Eric climbed out of his Ford and locked the doors before heading into the diner. He walked slowly, despite his own admonitions. Fear can do that to a person.
The three tables were joined in a larger block, a chunk of the room that dwarfed everything else. When Eric sat down the total number of people became an even dozen. He didn’t nod or do anything but sit. Cullie was next to him, his eyes blackened and his nose swollen to the point where he barely looked like himself.
The strangers at the table were, as a whole, quiet, giving off a calm that was unsettling under the circumstances.
One of the strangers, a large man who had his longish hair pulled back into an efficient ponytail, tossed a menu toward Eric. Eric took it.
“Order something to eat. You’ll need your strength.” Eric recognized the voice from the phone.
“Do you want to tell me what the hell is going in here?” He’d been as calm as he could, but the time for patiently waiting was done with.
The man nodded and gestured for the waitress. The woman wore her nametag and blouse over jeans that looked almost painted on, but she wasn’t even remotely attractive to Eric. She could have been dancing around naked and she wouldn’t have even caught his eye for more than a second.
“He’ll have a steak dinner, make it rare, and a large coffee.” The woman nodded and turned away. “You looked awfully cold out there, Captain.”
The man cleared his throat. “Now then, you’re all here for a reason. You’re here to deal with a matter of bloodshed and how it will be paid for.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” It was Scott that spoke up, confused. He was, as always, the most naïve among them.
The leader of the group around them shook his head and stared at Scott. Scott, the go-getter salesman, dressed in his jeans and his thick preppy sweater and his perfect hair, facing off against a man who looked like he would probably be at home leading a Viking raid on another village. Oh to be sure the clothes were modern, but the man still looked like a savage trying to hide among civilized people.
There was something about all of the strangers that felt the same way. It wasn’t the style of clothing they wore — which spoke more of rural common sense than fashion — it wasn’t that they were unclean or bore a thousand tattoos, but there was something about them, about the way that they carried themselves that drew the soldier’s eye in Eric. They were, for lack of a better way to put it, seasoned warriors. He had no doubt in his mind they had fought together before and maybe even killed together.
“Not this last November, gentlemen, but the year before that, you were out hunting together, do you remember that?”
Eric and the others nodded their assent to the question.
“While you were hunting, you did what almost everyone does. You camped out, you had a good time, and you maybe drank a few too many beers. Nothing out of the ordinary there.” The man took his time and fixed each and every one of them with his stare.
“Except on your last night.” Eric saw it, and felt his stomach drop. Scott didn’t flinch when the Viking talked about the last night, but Cullie, George and Mark all did. Eric flinched too, but for different reasons. He hadn’t been with them. He didn’t know all of the details, but he knew that something had happened that night, after they’d packed up and headed their separate ways.
Scott shook his head, puzzled, and proved again that in his way he was the most naïve, or just maybe the most innocent of them. “I still don’t know what you’re-”
The Viking lifted his hand. “I’m getting to that.” He shot a look to his friends around the table, and without a word between them they communicated something vital. Eric didn’t know what they’d said but they were definitely talking.
“On the last night, after you broke camp, you left in three cars. One of those cars took off with Anthony Ridgemont behind the wheel and went south. The other two vehicles moved to the north and east, heading in this direction. Do you remember that, gentlemen?”
Once again they all nodded their heads. “Excellent. Mr Ridgemont is no longer a part of the story. The closest he came to doing something wrong was failing to put out the fire as well as he should have, and that was fixed easily enough.”
“But the rest of you? Well, now, that’s where things get interesting. I’m an excellent tracker, and I had a little help along the way, but it was rough weather, there was rain, and there was even a little sleet. It’s understandable that one of the gentlemen driving lost his way a bit and managed to slide into a ditch.”
Of course they all remembered. Eric and Scott had turned around after getting a call from Cullie’s cell phone almost an hour and a half after they’d left. The car had gone off the road and run into a tree. Because Scott was smart enough to rent a well-equipped Jeep Wrangler, they’d managed to pull it back up to the road. No big deal, just a few hours of lost time before they all got home.
At least, that was what Eric had thought at first. It was later, when he asked why the others had taken so long to call that he suspected something else might have been up.
“Which three of you were in that vehicle?” The Viking looked at each of the men, and none of them was willing to raise a hand. “Let’s try this again. Which of you were in that vehicle, gentlemen? The other two are free to go.”
“What about our families?” That was Mark. His voice cracked when he spoke, dried and dusty, his eyes shining feverishly.
“The men who weren’t in the car can collect their families and leave, but only after this is all resolved.”
Eric spoke softly, his voice as controlled as he could manage. “What happened in that car?”
The Viking looked at him. “I was hoping you weren’t involved, Captain. I meant what I said. I respect what you’re doing for this country.”
Eric ignored him and looked at Mark. His old friend couldn’t look him in the face.
“What happened in that car, Mark?”
Mark shook his head.
It was George who finally spoke up. “I was in the car. So was Mark. So was Cullie. Eric and Scott didn’t have anything to do with it.”
The Viking nodded and stood. “That was about the way I remembered it, but I couldn’t be sure.”
He was about to speak again when the waitress came back and set down Eric’s meal. Eric nodded his thanks and she went on her way.
“Eat up, Captain.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Take it to go; you and Mr Lassiter are free to leave. Your families are being taken care of and you’ll have them back when this is done.” The man’s eyes barely even looked in his direction. Now that his part had been played, Eric ceased to be important.
Hell with that. “What happened in the fucking car?” His voice was rising and a few of the diners at nearby tables looked in their direction, but quickly looked away when they saw the strangers surrounding the table. All of the men with the Viking had stood.
“That doesn’t concern you any more, Captain. Leave it like that. I’ll call you when everything is finished.”
Scott shook his head. “No way. I want to see my wife. Now.
“Mr Lancaster, I know you’re missing your wife. I appreciate that. But it just isn’t going to work out that way for a while. I have business to take care of with your friends. That’s all you need to know.”
Scott opened his mouth to speak. “That’s not going to work for me! My wife’s condition is delicate!”
Eric shook his head and responded at the same time: “This is nonsense. Whatever happened, you can take care of it in a court of law.”
George stood at the same time, shaking his head, red faced. “I didn’t have any part in it, I tried to stop them. I didn’t kill anyone.”