Read Online The Disciple by Steven Dunne - Free Book Online Page B

terrainto allow the US Forest Service to do its work in the thick woodland.
    He ejected the tape, turned off the engine and stepped out of the car. He left the door open and allowed the light to illuminate his work as well as the thousands of excited insects heading for its unexpected balm. He produced a flashlight from a small rucksack and tucked it into his black boiler suit. Other items had already been carefully packed but the man extracted one and examined it. The 9mm M9 semiautomatic pistol was not his tool of choice – brutish and unsubtle things, guns – but when spur of the moment work raised its head, he would have to put it to use. He’d bought it from a pawn shop in LA last year but had never intended to fire it. Now that it was to be pressed into service, the man had to be sure he knew how to use it. He checked the safety lever again as the pawn shop owner had shown him and made sure that a bullet from its 15-round magazine was in the chamber.
    When he was ready, he placed the gun back in the rucksack and pulled the bag over his shoulder. He reached back into the car to pick up the drink from the cup holder and closed the door quickly to extinguish the light.
    In the dark he gazed at the cloudless heavens. All unnatural illumination now extinguished, the man marvelled at the
son et lumière
around him – the stars blinking like traffic lights and the Milky Way cradling all these celestial bodies in its opaque arms.
    When he could bear to close his eyes to the majesty above him, his ears were invaded by nature’s symphony. Insects, crickets and cicadas set the rhythm, accompanied by the birds who hunted them. The hoot of owls was familiar, watching for the scurry of rodents. Other calls, cries, warnings and death rattles he didn’t recognise but the performance filled him with awe nonetheless – thecacophony of the forest as it lived and died. And all the time the damp smell of the timber filled his lungs, with an aroma unsurpassed by the sweetest perfumes as the ageless woodland exhaled all around him.
    He wasn’t sure how long he stood there in the night, composing himself for the task ahead, but it was difficult to pull away.
    Eventually he flicked on his flashlight and started his walk to the forest at the edge of the tarmac. He could have driven onto the dirt track that wound its way through the trees but he couldn’t chance being heard. And if the ground was soft he would have run the risk of leaving an impression of his tyres. As usual he’d thought of everything.
    As he set off, a pair of eyes shone back at him, but the animal wasn’t curious enough to stare for long and skittered away through the undergrowth. The distinctive three-note whistle of the Mountain Chickadee sounded nearby as it prepared to dip and dive for flying insects, but the man was now oblivious to all but the work in hand.
    He walked steadily with the flashlight in one hand, drink in the other. It wasn’t the city terrain he was accustomed to and he found it hard going at first until he hit his stride. Twenty minutes of steady progress along the track brought the man to a clearing at the top of a small rise from which he could see a building next to the highway, bathed in moonlight below. He doused his light. The track he stood on wound back into the forest and took a leisurely and sinuous course that would eventually bring it out behind the main road. Before that though, the man could see a light from a house set back from the road – this was his destination.
    Having recovered his breath, he made for the light. A few yards further on, however, he stopped. Another track, overgrown and near undetectable, wound its way off into the trees and would have been of no interest had the mannot spotted a dark patch a few yards further along it. He edged closer and bent over the stain, flicked his flashlight on and touched it with his fingers. It was oil. He peered down the track as best he could. As his eyes adjusted to the