Revolution No. 9 Read Free Page B

said.
    â€œMarguerite. Hi.”
    He left it at that.
    When they reached the road, the canopy of foliage overhead parted, revealing a streak of sky. But clouds had thickened into a solid cover during the afternoon, obscuring the little daylight that was left.
    â€œIt’s down that way,” Marguerite said, pointing to the right. They walked in that direction, Monks searching with theflashlight’s beam until it glimmered off the chrome bumper of a vehicle that was pulled into a turnout.
    He almost groaned. It was one of those huge, bloated SUVs, a Yukon or Expedition or something on that order, and brand new. He had unconsciously pictured her driving something small and sassy. But this monster, as his friend Emil Zukich was fond of saying, was as heavy as a dead preacher. That was going to make it tricky and maybe dangerous to jack up, working off the soft and uneven dirt surface of the turnout—assuming he could even figure out how to operate the jack and find the proper lifting point. For all he knew, the system might be computer-operated. He had a heavy-duty bumper jack in his Bronco, but he wasn’t at all sure that bumpers on the newer vehicles were designed to handle that kind of weight.
    â€œHow about taking a look in the glove box,” he told her. “If there’s an owner’s manual, that might be where it is.”
    She walked to the front passenger door. Monks flashed the light beam on the tires. The two that he could see, on the driver’s side, looked fine. The flat must be on the other side, although the SUV didn’t look like it was listing.
    He started to walk around it. The flashlight’s traveling beam caught something pale and round inside—a face. Monks was surprised again. He had assumed that she was alone.
    Then he realized that she had disappeared.
    A second later, what his eyes had told him caught up to his brain. He flicked the flashlight beam back to the face inside the SUV. It was a young man’s, pale and tense, staring at him.
    Monks stared back, not believing what he thought he saw:
    His son, Glenn, gone from Monks’s life for almost five years.
    Glenn reached to the window and rapped on it sharply with his knuckles.
    Something hard and blunt rammed into Monks’s lower back, forcing an unhhh of breath from him and shoving him forward a step.
    â€œTurn off the light and drop it,” a man’s voice said behind him.
    Monks did. A second man stepped into view on the left. He was big, squarely built and cleancut, wearing a business suit complete with necktie. But he was aiming the kind of short-barreled shotgun used by SWAT teams—a 12-gauge with a five-round magazine, capable of cutting a human being in half.
    â€œWalk into the woods,” the voice behind him ordered.
    Monks did that, too, for ten or fifteen yards, until he was hidden from the road. He couldn’t see what was prodding him along, but he had no doubt that it was the barrel of another gun. The thought of running flitted through his mind, but the way the men were positioned, he could not possibly escape their fire.
    â€œLay down on your belly. Hands behind you.”
    He got facedown in the scratchy redwood duff. The musty scent of damp earth filled his lungs.
    The big man strode forward and put the shotgun barrel to the side of Monks’s face, just in front of his left ear. The other man knelt on his back and pulled his wrists roughly together. Monks felt restraints tighten around them, and heard the ratcheting clicks of handcuffs. It started to filter in that they probably would not bother to cuff him if they intended to kill him—at least, right then and there. But the fact that they had let him see faces was not a good sign.
    â€œTaxman! Car!” Marguerite’s voice hissed from the road. Monks felt the man who was kneeling on his back jerk in response. Then he felt cold steel laid against his cheek—a knife blade. It turned so that the edge