No Man's Land by G. M. Ford Read Free Book Online Page A

Corso.”
    Something in her tone caught his attention.
    “Everything okay?” he inquired.
    “I’m fine,” Melanie replied. “Only thing could be better
was if we had something the networks didn’t . . . some angle of our
own.”
    “At home?” Martin pressed. “Everything okay with you and
Brian?”
    Melanie rose to her feet. “You spend as much time finding us an
angle as you seem to want to spend inquiring about my private life
and we’ll be back on top of the ratings in a heartbeat.”
    Martin held up a hand of surrender, then brought it down and
checked his watch. “ ’Bout eight minutes,” he said. “State
cop said Corso is on the way. Didn’t think he’d make it in time
to save this one though.”
    “It’s like the Roman circus,” Melanie said. “Kind of makes
you wonder if we’re as civilized as we like to think we are.”
    “Civilized my ass,” Martin said. “We’re not civilized. We
just created this little Disneyland of a world where we’re on top
of the food chain. We’ve taken the law of fang and claw and
arranged it so the killing takes place offstage. All nice and neat
so’s we don’t have to look at it. Dead cows come shrink-wrapped.
Headless chickens were happy free-range fowl. Salmon are caught with
hooks instead of being scooped up in nasty old nets. It’s all a
bunch of bullshit designed to make us feel better about ourselves.”
    Melanie walked forward, opened the cabinet beneath the built-in TV
and pulled out a bottle of Dalwhinnie scotch. She read Martin’s
expression. “I’m just a little chilled,” she said, pouring
herself three fingers. “Trying to get a little blood flowing.”
    Martin Wells kept his face as blank as blank and as open as
concrete. He pushed open the door and stepped out onto the first
riser. “Come on. Bring it with you,” he said.
    “You’ll excuse me if I skip the Christians and the lions
today.”
    “Come on,” Martin coaxed.
    Melanie crossed to the refrigerator, found a handful of ice cubes
and dropped them into her drink. “Close the door,” she said.
“You’re letting all the heat out.”
    Martin gave a look and a shrug and disappeared into the night. She
waited a long moment, making sure he was gone, then brought the glass
to her lips and took a substantial pull of the scotch, shuddering
slightly as the liquor wound its way down her throat and came to rest
as a warm puddle in her innards. The effect was sufficiently pleasant
to encourage her to repeat the process.
    With her free hand, Melanie, slid back the door in front of the TV
and grabbed the remote control, before returning to her seat. She sat
for a few moments sipping the scotch and looking out the window into
the darkness. She aimed the remote at the TV, then changed her mind,
pulling her cell phone from her jacket pocket instead, pushing the
button for memory one . . . home . . . the phone rang eight times
before her own voice came on the line and invited the caller to leave
a message. She sighed and dropped the phone back into her pocket.
Picked up the remote and turned on the TV. Moved up to forty-four,
CNN. She took another sip of her drink and turned up the volume. Dateline . . . Musket, Arizona.
8

    The helicopter pilot checked his watch. “You can usually see it
by now. They must have turned the lights out.”
    “What time is it?” Corso asked.
    “Four minutes to midnight.”
    Corso craned his neck and looked upward, out through the plastic
roof at the glimmering carpet of stars overhead. The pilot, whose
monogrammed jacked proclaimed him to be Arnie, pointed with his free
hand. “Bingo,” he said. “That’s gotta be it right there.”
    Corso squinted out into the darkness. All he could make out was a
dull line of oddly spaced lights in the distance. “You sure?”
    The pilot checked his GPS. “Gotta be,” he said after a second.
    “Ain’t nothin’ else out here but jackrabbits and that damn
prison.”
    Corso had his nose pressed to the plastic when, as