Last Man Standing

by Stephen Leather

  ‘Sure looks that way,’ said Withers. ‘Assuming that it’s Lipov’s prints and DNA inside the gloves.’

  ‘It will be,’ said Standing.

  He went into the hallway and called into the study. ‘We found it, guys!’ he called.

  ‘Are you serious?’ said Keenan. He came out into the hall.

  ‘In the kitchen, on top of the fridge,’ said Standing. ‘The silencer and the gloves.’

  ‘Awesome,’ said Keenan. He high-fived Standing. ‘Well done, Matt.’

  Dutch came out of the study, followed by Detective Reid.

  ‘So Bobby-Ray’s off the hook?’ asked Dutch.

  ‘Damn right he is,’ said Keenan. He grinned and as he did, Standing heard a pop behind him and Keenan’s face imploded into a red mass. Standing moved without thinking, throwing himself towards the study door. As he moved, there was a second loud pop and a bullet thwacked into the wall behind him.

  Keenan fell to the floor with a dull thud. Dutch’s eyes were open in terror but he was frozen to the spot.

  Reid’s right hand was moving towards the gun on his hip.

  There was a third pop but Standing was still moving and the round missed him by inches, passing so close that he felt the wind before it buried itself in the wall.

  Standing didn’t look over his shoulder. There was no point. He knew what was happening and seeing it happen wouldn’t help him out of the situation. The shots were coming from the kitchen door and the only person in the kitchen had been Withers. The popping sound meant that Withers was using a silencer, either the one they’d found on the fridge or one that the detective had brought with him.

  Reid had his hand on his gun and was about to draw it. A round smacked into the centre of Reid’s chest and his jaw dropped. Blood immediately spurted down Reid’s shirt and he staggered back, his arms flailing.

  Dutch had thrown up his hands as if they would protect him, but his feet stayed rooted to the floor.

  Standing went down, hit the floor with his shoulder and immediately went into a roll that took him past Reid.

  As he straightened up, Standing was facing the kitchen and saw Withers with his gun in his hand. Withers was aiming at Dutch and he pulled the trigger. The gun kicked in his hand and the round hit Dutch in the throat. Blood splattered across the floor and Dutch collapsed.

  Withers was already looking at Standing, his eyes widening. The gun began to move in Standing’s direction. The detective had fired five times. The gun was a Beretta Cougar which had eight .45 cartridges in the clip so Withers had three shots left.

  Reid’s hand was now hanging limply by his side. The strength was fading from his legs and he was starting to fall. Standing grabbed for Reid’s gun, still in its holster. He pulled it out, registering immediately that it was a Glock so there was no safety to be flicked. He dropped low to make himself a smaller target and held the weapon with both hands. It was an unfamiliar weapon, so he’d need all the stability he could get.

  Withers had the gun trained on Standing, but he was holding it with one hand and it was still moving, and when he pulled the trigger the shot missed Standing and hit Reid in the groin.

  Standing fired twice, the two shots so close together that they almost sounded like one, a perfect double tap to the centre of the detective’s chest. Withers was a big man and the Glock was a 9mm, so Standing fired a third shot to make sure, hitting him smack in the middle of the face. Withers fell back and his gun clattered to the floor.

  Standing straightened up. Reid fell to his knees and then keeled over.

  Dutch was dead, his eyes were wide and staring and blood was pooling around his neck.

  Keenan had died the instant that the round had burst through his skull and sprayed brain and bone and blood across the wall behind him.

  Reid was making a gurgling sound and Standing went over to him. The detective was lying on his side and blood was trickling from the chest wound onto the floor. Standing had seen enough chest wounds to know that there was nothing he could do. He sat down, taking care to avoid the blood on the floor. He held Reid’s hand. ‘Okay, just relax,’ he said. He realised he didn’t know the man’s first name.

  Reid tried to speak but all he could manage was a stifled grunt. Standing squeezed his hand gently. ‘I’m here, Buddy. I’m here with you.’

  There was a panicked look in Reid’s eyes, a look that Standing had seen many times before. Reid was scared. It wasn’t pain, the body’s natural painkillers had flooded into his bloodstream the moment he had been shot. Pain came later, after the initial shock had worn off, but from the state of Reid’s injuries, Standing knew that death was only seconds away. Standing squeezed his hand again. ‘Think of the people you love, and the people who love you. Fill your mind with thoughts of them. Let them be the last thing you think of.’

  Reid gave him the faintest of squeezes, then there was an almost imperceptible sigh followed by a shudder and stillness. Reid’s eyes remained open but the life had gone from them. Standing let go of the man’s hand and gently closed his eyelids. He stood up and looked around, getting his thoughts in order. From the moment Withers had started shooting, Standing had been operating on instinct, but now he had to think through what he was going to do.

  Withers was an LAPD detective, there was no question of that. But he had killed his colleague without hesitation, on top of murdering Keenan and Dutch. And if Standing had been a fraction of a second slower, he’d also be dead on the floor. But why? Why had Withers come out of the kitchen shooting?

  Standing went over to Withers and picked up the gun. The silencer looked tailor-made for the Beretta, which meant that the detective had probably brought it with him. That suspicion was confirmed when he found the evidence bag containing Lipov’s silencer and gloves in the pocket of the detective’s jacket. That meant that Withers had arrived at the house with at least the option of killing them. But why? The only reason that made sense was that he didn’t want anyone to know that Lipov had killed Koshkin and his bodyguards. But why would an LAPD detective want to protect a foreign bodyguard with links to the Russian mafia?

  He looked around the hallway. He was sure he hadn’t touched anything there, but he had touched the stool and the cabinet under the sink in the kitchen. He took the Glock with him into the kitchen and used a cloth to wipe the gun clean, then he took it back into the hall and put it in Reid’s hand. ‘Sorry, Buddy,’ he said. A cursory look at the crime scene would set investigators thinking that the two detectives had been shooting at each other.

  He went back to the kitchen and carefully wiped the stool and the cabinet. Then he put the cloth in his jacket pocket. He walked around, checking that he hadn’t left any footprints, then let himself out of the front door.

  As he walked up to the main gate he remembered that Withers had used a remote control to open them. If he climbed over the gates he’d leave fingerprints and DNA, so he went back to the rear garden and went over the wall where Bobby-Ray had disappeared the night that Koshkin was killed.

  He scaled the wall easily, dropping down into the neighbour’s garden. The house was smaller than the one behind him and there was no wall, but there were several signs warning that the property was protected by armed security. Standing skirted the edge of the property and reached the road. He started walking north with his hands in his pockets, trying to look as casual as possible. The problem was that Bel Air wasn’t the sort of place that people walked, certainly not at night. During the day there was the occasional jogger and people walking dogs, but any travelling was generally done in the air-conditioned comfort of an expensive vehicle. If a police car went by, there was every chance that he’d be stopped and questioned.

  He reached Sunset Boulevard and relaxed slightly because there were more pedestrians around, heading to and from the area’s many bars and restaurants. He walked east and by the time he was on the outskirts of West Hollywood he figured he was far enough away from the mansion to risk phoning Kaitlyn. He FaceTimed her and
showed her where he was. She said that she’d pick him up and he told her to meet him at Mel’s Drive-In on Sunset Boulevard, a Fifties-themed diner that was open twenty-four hours a day.

  29

  Standing was halfway through a mug of coffee when Kaitlyn arrived at Mel’s Drive-In. She had changed into jeans that were ripped at the knees and a red leather jacket over a tight white top. She ordered a Coke and then watched his lips intently as he ran through everything that had happened. He found himself speaking faster and faster and eventually she reached over to hold his hands and told him to slow down. He laughed and nodded. She was so good at lip-reading that often he just plain forgot that she was deaf. When he’d finished, he sat back and sipped his coffee. ‘And they were real cops?’ she asked.

  ‘The Withers guy was running the investigation into Koshkin’s death,’ said Standing. ‘That’s what Keenan said and I’ve no reason to doubt him. Whatever Withers was up to, his partner wasn’t part of it, because Withers shot him without any hesitation.’

  Kaitlyn shook her head in astonishment. ‘It’s no wonder that Bobby-Ray is hiding,’ she said. ‘He can’t trust anyone.’

  Standing nodded. ‘True,’ he said. ‘Withers had a silencer with him, which means he had it all planned. He went into that house knowing he was going to kill everybody.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘I wish I knew,’ he said. He took out the evidence bag containing Lipov’s gloves and the silencer, made sure that no one was paying them any attention, and showed it to her before putting it quickly back into his pocket. ‘That proves that Lipov was the killer and not Bobby-Ray. But if Withers had managed to dispose of it, no one would ever know. The big question is, who can we trust now? How can we be sure that anyone else we approach won’t be the same as Withers?’

  Kaitlyn sat back and didn’t say anything.

  ‘Do you want to eat?’ he asked.

  She shook her head. ‘My stomach is churning.’

  Standing patted her hand. ‘I’m sorry. I know how stressful this is for you.’

  ‘It’s got to be worse for Bobby-Ray,’ she said. She sighed. ‘I just wish I knew where he was.’

  ‘He has to be running out of cash now,’ said Standing. ‘He won’t be using credit cards or going anywhere near an ATM. Unless someone is helping him.’

  ‘If he needed money, he’d come to me,’ said Kaitlyn.

  ‘Not if he thinks they’re watching you. He’d be more likely to approach one of his SEAL pals. But then if he was doing that, surely he’d use them to get a message to me.’ Standing grimaced. ‘I think he’s staying away from everyone. Wherever he is, he’s not reaching out to anyone.’

  ‘But he told me he wanted your help.’

  ‘Sure. But then those two FBI agents turned up at his motel and tried to kill him. He has to be worried that if he contacts you or me, then our lives would be in danger.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘The problem is, we don’t know who we can trust either. We’re in exactly the same position as he is. We know we can’t trust the FBI because of what happened at Bobby-Ray’s motel. And tonight the lead investigator on the Koshkin killing shoots dead two men from Bobby-Ray’s company and a cop. So we can’t trust the LAPD. That doesn’t leave us with much choice, does it?’

  ‘But we’ve got the evidence that proves that Bobby-Ray is innocent. That’s got to count for something, surely?’

  ‘Not until we get it into the right hands,’ said Standing. ‘And that’s the problem. We can call the FBI but how do we know that we can trust whoever turns up? Same with the cops.’ He banged his hands down on the table. ‘This is so bloody frustrating.’

  Kaitlyn reached over and held his hands. ‘Big breaths,’ she said. ‘Square breathing, remember?’

  He laughed. ‘Yeah, I remember. Sorry. It’s just …’

  ‘Frustrating. I know. We want to help but we don’t know what to do. It’d be easier if we could just talk to Bobby-Ray.’

  ‘Is there anyone he would go to for help? What about your parents? Where are they?’

  ‘Redding,’ said Kaitlyn. ‘About eight hours’ drive north of here. Do you think Bobby-Ray might have gone to stay with them?’

  ‘If he wanted to protect you, he’d be just as keen to keep them out of it,’ said Standing. ‘So no, I think he’d stay away from them. What sort of place is Redding?’

  ‘It’s a small city, ninety thousand population or thereabouts. Mom and Dad were born there and never wanted to leave. Dad’s a dentist and Mom was his hygienist, then she gave up work to bring up me and Bobby-Ray. She started to get Alzheimer’s a few years ago and now Dad is her full-time caregiver, pretty much.’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ said Standing.

  ‘It’s early days,’ said Kaitlyn. ‘It’s like she’s forgetful. But she always recognises me when I go up to see them. She’ll seem fine and then suddenly she’ll leave the house naked or she’ll put the laundry in the oven. She has to be watched all the time but she’s still my mom.’

  ‘Do you go back often?’

  ‘Every few weeks. We used to go to our cabin in Trinity Alps for weekends but since Mom got sick we just stay at home now.’

  ‘Trinity Alps?’

  ‘It’s a wilderness area in the far north of the state. About two thousand square kilometres of mountains and forests. They’ve got a cabin in what they call the Green Trinities, a forested area in the western half of the wilderness. Most of the land is government owned but there’s still about two thousand acres in private hands. The cabin has been in Dad’s family since the early nineteen hundreds. The Wilderness Land Trust keeps trying to buy it and if he doesn’t sell they’ll probably take it off him eventually.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘The cabin. Why didn’t I think of it before?’

  ‘Do you think Bobby-Ray might be hiding out there?’

  ‘It’s the perfect place,’ she said. ‘The nearest neighbour is five miles away, there’s no phone, no Internet, no nothing. It doesn’t even have electricity.’

  ‘Bobby-Ray would be able to live off the land,’ said Standing. ‘What about water?’

  ‘There’s a stream running through the land that goes to a lake. Oh my God, I bet that’s where he is. The cabin.’

  ‘There’s an easy way to find out,’ said Standing.

  30

  Standing and Kaitlyn left for Redding not long after dawn. They drove first to LAX, where Kaitlyn parked the Polo in a long-term car park and they rented a Ford Escape using Standing’s credit card. It was then that Standing realised he still had the evidence bag containing Lipov’s gloves and the silencer. ‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea to be driving round with this,’ he said, showing the bag to Kaitlyn. ‘If we get stopped we’ll have a lot of explaining to do.’

  ‘There’s a 24/7 left-luggage locker place about ten minutes away,’ she said.

  ‘Will we have to show them what we’re leaving?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’ve used it a couple of times, it’s all automated. You use a credit card or ID to gain access and you choose your locker on a computer screen. You don’t even speak to a person unless there’s a problem.’

  The locker rental shop was in a small shopping centre, underneath an accountant’s and next to a hairdresser’s. As Kaitlyn had said, it was fully automated. Standing used a credit card to open the main door. Inside, the walls were lined with lockers of various sizes, most of them able to take cabin baggage or full-size suitcases. Standing used the same credit card to rent one of the smallest lockers and he put the evidence bag inside. It looked a secure enough system, he thought, certainly a safer option than driving it around the state.

  They headed for Redding, which the SatNav told them was an eight and a half hour drive. They stopped twice to refuel and eat, and it was mid-afternoon when they reached the outskirts of Redding. Standing was constantly checking for tails but it didn’t appear that anyone was following them.

  ‘Do you see your parents much when you
’re in England?’ Kaitlyn asked as she put away her phone.

  ‘My mother died when I was young,’ said Standing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That’s awful.’

  Standing shrugged. ‘It happened a long time ago.’

  ‘What about your father?’

  ‘He’s still alive, but I’m not in touch.’

  ‘Wow, that’s a pity. Bobby-Ray and I are still really close to our parents. I can’t imagine not being close to them.’

  ‘That’s one of the reasons I joined the army,’ said Standing. ‘It became my family.’

  ‘No brothers or sisters?’

  Standing was never comfortable answering questions about his family situation – or lack of it – but he didn’t want to be rude. ‘I had a sister,’ he said. ‘She died.’

  ‘Wow. I’m sorry. You’ve been really unlucky.’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose I have,’ said Standing. He concentrated on the road ahead. Kaitlyn must have realised he didn’t want to open up about his family, because she didn’t ask him any more questions.

  The Barnes place was a two-storey wooden house with a pitched roof surrounded by a white picket fence. At the end of the drive was a mailbox in the shape of a red barn on a white post. There was a blue Chevrolet parked in the driveway. They drove past twice, checking for any surveillance, but there were no cars parked in the street.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Kaitlyn after they had driven by the second time and parked up by the side of the road.

  ‘It doesn’t look as if they’re being watched,’ said Standing. ‘And to be honest, there’s no reason that anyone would expect him to go running to his parents.’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Maybe we should just go to the cabin.’

  ‘We can at least ask them if they’ve spoken to Bobby-Ray.’

  Standing frowned. ‘If they knew that your brother was in trouble, they’d have spoken to you about it, surely?’

  She nodded. ‘I suppose so. So that means the cops haven’t talked to Mom and Dad.’