by Ed Markham
Ganther grew pensive again. Then he went on, “I listened to him, and then I sent him away. I thought about him all the time—about what he’d done. But my wife was still alive, and I still hoped my son would learn to love the real me. When all of that fell apart, I had no reason to hold back anymore.
“After Jess was gone, I visited my father and I had him tell me again about what he’d done. And I saw myself in him. It was so clear to me then. He had all my weakness and my anger—my inability to cope or to fit in. And for the first time in my life I felt like I had a real parent—someone I could identify with and emulate. And I saw in his method the perfect opportunity to be myself, who I am inside.
“While I was planning everything I saw a picture of a missing boy in the paper—a boy named Joshua Grow—and he looked just like what I wanted to become. So I became him. I decided I would try to make friends, and if the boys I tried to befriend would accept me as Josh, I would never have hurt them.” Ian’s small smile grew bitter, turning up at the corners to reveal his teeth. “But they didn’t accept me. It was just as it had been when I was younger—just like my own son. They rejected me. And I punished them for it. And they deserved it.”
David turned away from the one-way mirror and shook his head at his boss, Section Chief Carl Wainbridge, who’d helicoptered up from D.C. to witness the interrogation.
“Seen enough?” Carl asked.
“More than enough.”
Carl nodded. “Go back to your father’s house, David. We’ll take it from here.”
He extended his left hand, and David shook it. Carl held on for a few seconds longer than was customary, and in that handshake David felt all of the gratitude and approbation his boss couldn’t have put into words.
As he turned to leave, Carl said to him, “And David? Give your father my sincere thanks. I’ll look forward to seeing him when he’s back on his feet.”
Chapter 72
“DON’T LOOK SO damn grim, son. I wasn’t much to look at before this happened.”
Lying in his bed, Martin’s head was partially covered by a flesh-colored medical wrap. The bulky bandages concealed layers of gauze and the roughly thirty stitches doctors had used to close the torn section of scalp running across Martin’s forehead and temple. His right eye had swollen nearly closed, and the skin around it was varying shades of yellow and blue.
The doctors had told David nerve damage might cost Martin some movement on the right side of his face, and the scar would always be visible, though corrective surgery would have him looking pretty much like his old self within a year. They’d also told him if the angle of the shot had been a degree or two more acute, his father would be dead.
David had stopped when he entered Martin’s room, and had steadied himself against the doorway. The thought of how close he’d come to losing his father was enough to buckle his knees. Seeing him this way, David had to resist the urge to turn around, drive back to the holding facility, and beat Ian Ganther through the wall of the interrogation room. The feeling reminded him of that other great act of vengeance in his past—his murder of the man who’d killed his first love—and these thoughts turned his stomach.
“Besides,” Martin went on, “now I have this beautiful nurse tending to my every need.”
He gestured to his right, where Lauren was sitting in jeans and a T-shirt, a thick book resting in her lap.
She raised the book so its binding was pointed at David. “He’s forcing me to read him this biography on Lyndon Johnson. Scintillating stuff.”
Just back from her weapons training, Lauren had helicoptered up to Philadelphia the previous evening with Carl Wainbridge. After rushing to the hospital to sit with David while the doctors worked on his father, she’d returned to Martin’s house and prepared it for his convalescence—buying enough food and George Dickel whisky to last the elder Yerxa for a year.
David smiled at her now as he walked to his father’s bedside. “Nurse Butch?” he said, raising an eyebrow.
“Don’t get any ideas,” she said. “I’ll play the candy striper role for your dad, but I only do that for the wounded.”
David pointed to his shoulder sling, and she smiled. She said, “I’ll think about it.”
“So what did Ganther have to say?” Martin asked.
David took a seat on the edge of his father’s bed and told him about Ian Ganther’s admission. When he’d finished, Martin nodded as though there was nothing very surprising about any of it. Then he was quiet for a time. Finally he said, “ ‘You don’t have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds.’ That’s Goethe.”
“Too bad,” Lauren said. “That would make our job a lot easier.”
Martin asked his son, “How’s the boy doing? Carson?”
“From what I hear from his parents, just fine. Shaken up, and he’s going to need plenty of counseling. But kids that age are resilient.”
“Glad to hear that.”
The three sat talking about the investigation and about Lauren’s time in Georgia. After a few minutes, Martin seemed to tire, and Lauren volunteered to read a bit more of the Johnson biography.
David said to her, “I think I’d like to take over reading duties if it’s all right with you.”
She smiled. “Sure. You two hang out in here and I’ll make us lunch.” She stood and handed him the book. As she did, she put a hand on his cheek and kissed him. Before leaving, she squeezed Martin’s hand.
Sitting at his father’s side, David opened the book and began to read out loud. He kept on reading long after Martin had fallen asleep.
Author’s Note
Thanks for reading Son of a Gun. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.
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All my thanks,
Ed Markham
Preview of Ghosts in the Machine, the third book in the Yerxa series
SUNDAY, MAY 2
Chapter 1
Garrison Pool squinted into the mist, trying to make out a figure among the dark tree trunks and surrounding foliage.
“Yes, all right,” he said, attempting and failing to keep the annoyance out of his voice. “Here I am, as bidden. Would you please tell me what I’m doing here?”
Morning was just breaking along the Northern California coastline, rousting the birds and insects from their hiding places. Thick, ancient redwoods dimmed the morning light, and there was scant breeze to break up the fog.
Pool stood quietly for a moment, trying to be patient.
When articles about Garrison Pool appeared in the national media, it was always pointed out that he was a devoted practitioner of transcendental meditation. In truth, his practice habits were sporadic at best. And so now—when he needed it most—he couldn’t summon a state of calm.
The fact that he had been suffering from some kind of flu didn’t help ease his agitation. For going on forty-eight hours, his head and throat had ached and his stomach had grown increasingly tender following his frequent, rushed trips to the bathroom.
When he still heard no reply, his annoyance forced itself to the surface. “All right, this is ridiculous,” he half-shouted. “I’m going to leave if—”
“You broke my rule,” a man’s voice interrupted f
rom somewhere in the fog.
“What?” Pool said quickly. “I broke your rule? What rule? What does that—”
“Walt, this is Garrison Pool,” the voice recited. “The gentleman we were just speaking about Thursday evening has contacted me and asked that I meet him tomorrow at five-thirty a.m. at a location inside Waddell Creek State Park . . .”
“How did you get that?” Pool asked, stunned to hear his private telephone conversation being read back to him. He wasn’t sure of the exact amount of money he spent each year to secure his digital identity and communications, but he knew it easily exceeded six figures. The idea that someone could be listening in on a call he made on his personal cell phone was stupefying.
“How the hell did you get that?” he asked again, his voice grown meek with confusion and disbelief.
When there was no reply, he took a few seconds to absorb this turn of events—to reassess the fragility of his position. Finally he poked his patrician chin up into the morning air and scratched at his freshly shaved throat. He nodded quickly and said, “All right, I admit it. I notified the head of my security team about our meeting this morning. But Jesus, can you blame me? You know as well as I do that Ketchner’s disappearance has us all on edge. There aren’t a lot of men in this world worth $20 billion, and the few who are don’t just disappear.”
He knew he was rambling now—that he sounded desperate. But he was not a man accustomed to feeling uncomfortable. He went on in the same rushed tone, “A sudden summons to the middle of nowhere with the precondition that I tell no one—not even my wife—is unnerving, considering.”
He waited. When no answer came, he felt his indignation return. “Listen, this is absurd. If you’re not going to come out here and speak with me, I’m leaving. I came here out of respect for you—”
“You came out of concern for your reputation. Respect had nothing to do with it.”
Pool took a step forward, staring hard into the curtain of fog from which the voice seemed to be emanating. He thought now that he could make out a figure; the person seemed to be squatting at the base of a tree twenty yards away.
“Fine, I’ll admit that too,” he said, moving toward the squatting figure. “But tell me what all of this is about—”
He stopped abruptly as the figure by the tree came into focus.
It was Ketchner. The missing Ketchner. Brad Ketchner of Kaskade Enterprises and Ketchy, the ubiquitous internet behemoth that had gotten its start in search before eventually extending its tentacles into data analysis and aggregation, social media, and dozens of other web-based enterprises.
Pool took a step closer and realized Ketchner wasn’t squatting; he was sitting with his feet propped against a large root and his knees pulled up toward his chest. His arms lay slack at his sides. He wore sweat pants, a stained long-sleeved shirt, and a blank, hollow-cheeked expression that sagged unnaturally below his two unblinking eyes.
Pool felt his bowels constrict, and his heart begin to race even before his mind had taken hold of the fact that he was looking at a $20-billion corpse.
“Oh my god,” he said, his mouth falling open.
He turned to flee, but before he could take a step he felt the Taser’s electrodes slam into his abdomen.
He fell to the forest floor, and the world went dark.
To keep reading Ghosts in the Machine, please click here.
