Guys, thank you for your reviews! When this story got no attention whatsoever I figured that it wasn't worth taking anywhere, but getting reviews, even two of them, has convinced me to continue the story.

Chapter 5

Pangaw was, for all intents and purposes, on lockdown.

Moriarty had sensed the change only an hour after they left the police station. Henri, the strange Frenchman who had welcomed them into the town, was patrolling the gate like a soldier. He carried what looked like a sword; like everything in the village, it was crudely made; it was a misshapen blade with a wooden hilt carved by someone who would not have made waves in the field of carpentry. If not for the clear, jagged sharpness of the blade, it would have been possible to confuse it for a child's toy. He was joined on the gate by another man, bigger, who carried a similar sword. The townspeople were nervous; virtually no one was on the streets despite the beautiful day, and the few people that ventured outside were looking incredibly scared. Everyone who had been outside the town walls, for whatever reason, was now making their way back inside. Henri was making a point of identifying everyone who came through in the course of the morning to ensure that no strangers were being admitted.

Van Kreike had joined his deputies by the car, and they were poring over every inch of it. Moriarty could see them from his room's window if he looked from the right angle. Fring had joined him in his room, and they were sitting on the bed, locked in thought.

"I say we make a break for it," said Moriarty, turning away from the window. "We get the hell out of dodge, right this second."

"Are you out of your mind?" Fring replied. His calm demeanour was shaken. "We don't have a car. We're…indirect suspects…to a murder we most definitely committed. That Boer sheriff is suspicious of us already, and if we leave town now we will jump to the rank of 'direct suspects'. He'll run us down in half an hour, tops."

"We can steal a car on the road, just like we stole this one," Moriarty replied. "Besides, if we leave and Van Kreike comes after us, we have a chance of getting away. If we stay here, and he finds something that proves we did it, there's no way for us to escape without us killing a lot of people, which will have to be with our bare hands again."

"You said yourself that they wouldn't have the techniques available to prove it was us," Fring replied, angrily. "It was how you sold this idiot plan to me. Van Kreike even confirmed it himself."

"He could have been lulling us into a false sense of security," said Moriarty, his own voice rising. "I've done it to loads of people. He's not stupid."

"Neither are we. I say we ride this out, and leave when we get our car back. No, scratch that, we leave the next morning to maintain appearances."

"And I say we leave right now," said Moriarty.

"No!" Fring snapped, and there was something truly unsettling about the man when he raised his voice. "You made the call not to bury the body and I went along. Now we're going to do things MY way! This is MY call!"

Moriarty stared him dead in the face. "Suppose I leave and you stay?"

"That would incriminate me and I couldn't allow that. If you committed to that course of action, you would never leave this room alive. Try me."

Moriarty continued to stare at him, and Fring stared straight back. It was another silent contest of wills, and the Chilean was absolutely unmovable. Physically, Moriarty was probably stronger, and could use the dynamics of this small room to get the best of him if necessary or escape before he even made a move. But something in Gus's manner told him that he was prepared to snap his neck like a twig at the first miniscule sign of dissenting action. He would do it, follow through to the killing shot in a fluid motion, then sit back down, utterly unperturbed. Faced with this certainty, Moriarty blinked.

"Okay, fine," he murmured. "We'll do it your way this time. Let's ride it out. But if they get the car back to us tonight, we leave first thing tomorrow morning."

"You're every bit as smart as your reputation suggests," said Fring. "I'm going to my room for a wash and then let's go downstairs and get a drink. It will calm our nerves."

They met around half an hour later, and were met in the bar by Vicky, who was pale-faced and nervous. Unsurprisingly, the rest of the place was empty.

"It just beggars belief," she said, then muttered it to herself as an echo. "Listen lads, don't judge this place based on this morning. I mean the country itself, and the world, not just Pangaw. It's not a violent place. There's a lot of bad people, just like earth, but there's a lodda good people as well. A few pieces of scum can't change the fact that this is a good place, a second chance for all of us. Trust him."

"Trust who?" asked Moriarty, as he took a sip of his drink.

"Him. The Protector. He's…he's kind of our god. We see him as the one who brought us from our old lives here. The one who keeps the cycle of humanity moving on after death, on all different worlds."

"You're saying you're Christians?"

"No," she replied, dismissively. "We all stopped believing in the Christian God ever since we got here, to be honest. Well, none a' this is mentioned in the bible, is it? The Christians reckoned we'd go to a white fluffy heaven with clouds and angels. An' as you can see, my loves, we ain't there."

"I suppose," said Moriarty. Fring, who was a Catholic, said nothing.

"We dumped all o' that atheism malarkey out of the window as well," Vicky said. "Well, we can't say there's nowt after death any more, can we? This cycle couldn't' have come from natural selection. It's obviously divine."

"No one here is an atheist?" asked Moriarty.

"Some are, but they're a minority."

"I don't know if this is strictly divine intervention," said Fring. "If it was, surely the 'good' and the 'bad' people would go to different worlds? Does it seem fair to have people like you and people like the Hessians in one world?"

"I'll take that as a compliment, like," said Vicky, beaming. "But there is no judgement with the Protector. He doesn't punish bad deeds or reward good ones. He's not interested in all that morality stuff. Or, he'd like to be, but it would be far too bureaucratic to enforce. Either way, this is how it works."

They idly chatted to Vicky then moved to their own table. It was close enough as not to appear unsociable but far enough so that she could not hear what they were saying. They opted for the same drinks as the night before. Moriarty did not normally believe in getting drunk, as it clouded his judgement. But there was an edge that needed to be taken off, and there was an unconscious plan between them to get slowly plastered across the length of the day.

"What do you think of this Protector?" Fring asked, conversationally.

"I don't buy it," Moriarty replied. "Not for a second. I'm a committed nonbeliever."

"You must admit it seems unlikely that this bizarre form of reincarnation happened as an extension of the laws of physics."

"Yeah, it seems unlikely. But think about it…what kind of benevolent entity would give people like Hitler, Stalin, Mao a second chance? Put them in a world where they could do all of the same things over and over again? I can extend to this being the work of some all-powerful entity. I just think that that entity, rather than being a saviour, is a rather sick fuck."

"Agreed," said Fring, and a smile crossed his lips briefly.

"Although saying that, I know for a fact that I'm a worse person than some dictators. Robert Mugabe is actually a fairly nice guy behind closed doors. I know…knew an arms dealer that served as his butler once and apparently he couldn't be more courteous." He grinned. "But what about Hitler? What's to say there isn't a Fourth, Fifth or even Sixth Reich somewhere out there in the universe? Or maybe even on this earth? I'm a truly warped individual but even I find that horrific."

"Pinochet remembered all of his lieutenant's birthdays," said Fring, absentmindedly. "Anyway, I'm done with theology. Let's talk business."

"Right," said Moriarty. He pulled out the map that Vicky had hand-drawn and put it down on the table. The paper, or papyrus, was delicate and was ripping at the sides. They glanced at it both like generals around the table making plans.

"What do you say we head towards Nuevo?" said Fring. "It's a basic principle of business that cities are the place to operate. We manipulate our way to the leadership of one of the larger gangs and use our mutual acumen to coordinate a protection racket. If East Cadaris is as decentralised as Vicky suggests, it will be very difficult for law enforcement to register a response. It will be like the United States, before J Edgar Hoover brought policing across state lines."

"I agree. We make ourselves big in Nuevo first, then once we have the power we use it to cross the border and set ourselves up in Pinnacle. We make all the money we can, and we become like gods. Like little Protectors of our own."

"I'm glad we're in agreement," said Fring.

They sat there, voicing arbitrary additions to the plan. It wasn't out of a sense of getting as much information as possible, rather just a compulsive need of two desperate men to pass the time. It was roughly three hours later when Jay, one of Van Kreike's cops, came into the tavern looking for them. He still wore his bullet proof vest as a tanktop, and he looked hot and bothered. He greeted the two with a casual wave.

"Hey, fellas," he said. "We've power-washed your car, and the sheriff says you're free to go."

"Thanks," said Moriarty, and they jumped up. Fring, who had some more of his drink to go, downed it in one. They headed out of the pub, waving a slight goodbye to Vicky, and walked to the car park. When they got there, Van Kreike and his deputies were waiting. The car's boot was open, it was soaking wet, but Moriarty had no doubt that they had washed every trace of corpse out of it.

"Good as new," said Van Kreike, taking off his aviators. "Only whiff you'll get off that beauty is new car smell."

"That's amazing," said Moriarty, with false enthusiasm. "Thank you so much! Do you think you'll be able to bring them to justice."

"It's our hope, mate," the sheriff replied. "It's our hope. But to be honest, I don't know."

"We won't be a burden to you any further," said Fring. "We may as well get on the road."

"I'd stay here one more night, if I were you," said Van Kreike, shaking his head. "It's late afternoon. The Hessians are probably laying low thanks to the murder, but they might still be patrolling the highways when it gets dark. You don't want to run into them. Least of all fucking now, yeah?"

"We do need to keep moving," said Moriarty. "We've both had a drink, but we're more or less sober now. We love this town," he said, feigning enthusiasm, "but we were both saying it would be good to hit the road. See a bit more of the place."

"You don't have to worry about the drink," said Van Kreike. "It's hardly illegal, unless you're gesuip. Even if it was, there's no one to enforce it. Me and McNulty, that's the sheriff of the next town over, organised a highway patrol once, but the Hessians ran us off the road in less than a month."

"What is the next town?" asked Moriarty.

"Milsbury," said Van Kreike. "It's a few miles south east of here, on the way to Nuevo. If you're travelling in that direction, stop in at Milsbury before sundown. They've got a hostel you can stay the night at. It's cheaper than what Vicky charges for a room, anyway."

"We're not heading straight for Nuevo," Fring lied, and Moriarty immediately realised he didn't want Van Kreike to know where they were going. "But we'll certainly check it out."

"Alright then. Safe journeys, lads." He extended a hand, and both men shook it. Fring and Moriarty got in the car. Moriarty drove, and after extending a final wave, they left the town.

The highway stretched ahead of them. The afternoon sun was still as hot as ever, and it gave the road a bright, hazy look. As Pangaw drifted out of sight along the road, Moriarty wondered if he would see the village again. He wasn't prone to sentimentality, being the remorseless sadist that he was, but he hadn't been entirely lying when he said that he loved the place. It was the first human settlement he'd seen in the new world, and he wasn't going to forget it overnight. He wondered what Fring thought on the matter, then realised that it didn't particularly matter.

"Do you want to stay in Milsbury?" Fring asked. "It might not be such a bad idea."

"Might as well," he agreed. "But then we get as far away as possible from this whole area, and that damn sheriff."

"I don't think we need to worry about Van Kreike," Fring said, carefully. "He may suspect us, but he's so backwoods that I strongly question any notion that he could track us down. We're clear, Jim. I'm the most cautious man you'll meet, and I believe that we're clear."

"A rock to the side of the head," said Van Kreike, looking over one of the pencil sketches that the deputies had made of the body. He was sitting in his office with Jay, the newer recruit. The force was out in the main office, having departed the car park. "Two strikes, maybe. You can tell by the wound. Pretty misshapen, and I was sure I felt some gravel fragments in there. Nasty, nasty way to go. What bothers me most is that it doesn't match the MO of the Hessians. They use swords and knives."

"They could have improvised, sir," said Jay.

"Maybe," Van Kreike replied. "Or maybe someone else did."

"You think it's those guys?"

"Maybe," he repeated. "Do me a favour, Jay. Run a letter to the post box." He took a paper envelope from his drawer and pushed it over the desk. The rookie picked it up and read the address.

"Lars Kessler, Department of Records. Who's that?"

"I'll explain when you get back. But the post will be going out soon, and I want to get this out as early as possible."