Richard Doetsch - The 13th Hour

2009

YOU ARE NOT MISTAKEN as you turn to the next page and find .

The chapters of this book are in reverse order and are to be read that way for reasons that will become evident upon your journey.

JULY 28,

9:22 P.M.

THE DARK-HAIRED MAN SLID the exotic, custom-made Peacemaker across the table. With a frame of polished bronze with gold accents, its ivory grip inlaid with precious stones, it was unlike any other weapon produced in the nineteenth century, a six-shooter crafted in 1872 that had been lost to time, forgotten by history, spoken of in collectors circles as myth.

As with many of the finest pistols of the day, intricate etchings appeared along the stock and seven-and-a-half-inch barrel. But these etchings were unique-religious texts drawn from the Bible, the Koran, and the Torah, expertly rendered in an elegant calligraphy: The gate that leads to damnation is wide-To hell you shall be gathered together-Yet ye bring wrath-Darkness which may be felt-Whoever offers violence to you, offer you the like violence to him. The sayings were rendered in English, Latin, and Arabic, as if the gun were a weapon of God designed to strike down the sinner.

Crafted for Murad V, the thirty-seventh sultan of the Ottoman Empire, it had supposedly disappeared from existence in August 1876 when he was deposed for insanity after only ninety-three days of rule.

Dual action, the man said as he picked up the weapon in his gloved hand. You dont see many like this. In fact, I would dare to say this is one of a kind.

Ethan Dance handled the gun with reverence, as if it were a newborn baby. His sleepy, bloodshot eyes scanned the intricacies of the weapon, his latex-encased finger running about the gunmetal and gold in appreciation of the Colt pistols craftsmanship. He finally laid it down and reached into the pocket of his wrinkled blue blazer.

Looks like the same religious fervor was scratched into the ammunition. Dance laid a bullet on the table, silver, forty-five caliber. It, too, was etched, the casing wrapped in a flowing Arabic script. There were five left in the cylinder. Theyre silver, you know, not sure why, its not like there were werewolves running around Istanbul in 1876. Then again, the pistol was designed for a madman.

Nicholas Quinn sat across from Dance, silently looking at the weapon. He could smell the fresh oil on its workings, a hint of sulfur residue in its chamber.

What does something like this cost? Fifty, one hundred thousand? Dance picked it up again, rolled out the cylinder, spinning it like a western lawman. This gun was just a rumor, no record of ownership for 130 years. Where do you find something like this? On the antique market, black market, the hush-hush just-between-us market?

Nick sat there in silence, his mind spinning.

The door opened, and a gray-haired man in a blue suit poked his head in. Need you for a second, Dance.

Dance threw up his hands. Kind of got some stuff going on.

Well, life sucks out loud. With the plane crash, its the two of us, Shannon, and Manz for the whole place. So unless you want to get back down to that field and start sorting through mangled bodies of women and children, youll get your ass out here.

Dance slammed the cylinder back up into the gun, spun it once for effect, and held it up, looking down the barrel as if he were aiming at an imaginary target.

He laid the gun back in front of Nick and looked at him a moment before grabbing the lone silver bullet.

Dont go away, Dance said as he walked out, closing the steel door behind him.

Nicholas Quinn finally inhaled, as if he were taking his first breath in three hours. He did everything he could to hold back his emotions, tucking the news in the farthest corner of his mind, knowing that if he let it run about it would eat him from the inside out.

He was dressed in the muted blue and gray Zegna sport jacket Julia had given him two weeks earlier for his thirty-second birthday, freshly pressed, looking as if it had just come from the tailor. He wore it over a light green polo shirt with his jeans, pretty much his uniform for casual Friday. Nicks dark blond hair was on the long side, in need of a cut, one that he had been promising Julia he would get for the last three weeks. His strong face was handsome and unreadable, a trait that had proven invaluable in business and poker. No one could see through his eyes to the truth in his heart, except for Julia, who could always read his thoughts from just the curve of his lip.

Nick looked around the small, confined room, a space clearly designed for the purpose of creating anxiety. There was the single metal table, the ornate, bejeweled gun upon its lime-green Formica surface; four extremely uncomfortable thick metal chairs, his ass already numb after fifteen minutes; a white wire-caged clock hung by the door, the time approaching 9:30. The walls were bare but for a giant white board on the near wall, three colored markers hanging from a tattered shoelace off a corner. On the opposite side of the room sat a two-way mirror, which not only allowed observation by whoever stood on the other side but also created a feeling of paranoia for whoever sat in this room wondering how many people were watching, assessing, convicting you before a plea had even been entered.

An intense agony began to strangle Nicks heart. Everything in his world had stopped. His emotions had been wrung dry over the two hours before he got here. A swirl of questions and confusion dominated his thoughts.

For the briefest of seconds, he thought he could smell her, Julias essence, as if it somehow lingered upon his soul.

NICK HAD GOTTEN home at three this morning after a four-day whirlwind business trip around the Southwest, so exhausted he didnt even remember getting into bed. But he did remember waking up.

As he had drifted into consciousness, he looked directly into Julias blue eyes, which were filled with love. She had been gently kissing him, drawing him up from whatever dream held him tight, coaxing him back into the world.

She wore nothing but an Eric Clapton T-shirt, which remained on for only three more seconds, tossed to the floor to reveal a perfect body. She was nearly as fit at thirty-one as she had been at sixteen, her breasts firm, her belly tight with just a hint of a six-pack. Her forever long legs were tan and lithe. She was of Spanish, Irish, and Scottish descent, and there was a classic beauty to her face, her high cheekbones and full lips turning the heads of most men when she walked into a room. Her large blue eyes always grew more alluring during the summer when her skin tanned to a light golden hue, with a hint of freckles rising up on her nose.

Julia straddled Nick, leaning down to lightly kiss his lips awake. Becoming lost in her tangle of long blond hair, the smell of lavender and her natural essence filling his mind, Nicks dream of moments earlier was coming to life.

They made love with the heat and excitement of first love, lost in each others arms, hands roaming each others bodies, kisses and warm breaths trailing skin. Their passion had rarely waned, even after sixteen years. And it was never merely sex, despite the preternatural lust they felt for each other, there was always the selfless abandonment, each delaying fulfillment in deference to the other, each concerned with the others pleasure above his or her own, it was always making love.