The Target

by David Baldacci

  you’re over there.”

  “Guess so. Don’t want you to shit on me like you been doing on yourself.”

  Junior grinned. “Know me something, old man.”

  Earl returned the smile. “What’s that? How to count to ten?”

  “You know what I’m talking ’bout. The doc. And that load’a bullshit you laying on her.”

  “Don’t know what you talking ’bout, boy.”

  “Your daughter, huh? Bet you ain’t got no daughter.”

  “Sure I do, son. Sure I do.”

  “I’m thinking you got something up and I need to talk to somebody.”

  Earl sat up. “Is that right? You gonna talk to somebody? What you gonna say?”

  Junior absently scratched his chin. “Now, I been thinkin’ on that. Been thinkin’ what could Earl Fontaine and his fat ass be up to?”

  “And what your little pea brain say back to you, huh?”

  “It says to me that Earl Fontaine got some scam going. He wants to get somebody down here to see him for some reason ain’t nobody but him knows about.”

  “Damn, son, you good. You real good.”

  “Yes, I am,” said Junior firmly.

  “But who you gonna tell who’ll believe your ass? They killing you pretty damn soon. You nothing to them but some statistic. One more asshole with a number they making leave this here world. So long, Alabama.”

  “I say my piece with the doc. Women? I can be pretty damn convincing.”

  “I bet you can.” Earl rubbed his chin and looked thoughtful. “Yessir, I bet you damn sure can. Sure, I can see that. Hell, you like that movie star, what’s his name? Brad Pitt? Gals throw their underwear at that boy.”

  “So soon as I see her again, she gonna hear from me.”

  “But you going back to death row before she comes back.”

  “So’s I tell me somebody else. Or I tell her come see me in there.”

  “I believe you would. I do indeed.”

  Earl looked over and saw a man enter the ward. He gazed back at Junior. “Mebbe we can make some kinda deal, Junior.”

  “Mebbe you can go to hell, Earl.”

  “Is that your final word, son?”

  “No. Go to hell twice.”

  “Damn, son, what’s that under your sheet?”

  “What?”

  “Under your sheet, boy. What’s that thing I see there?”

  Junior put his hand under his sheet and his fingers closed around it. He slowly withdrew it, looking stunned.

  “He got a knife,” screamed Earl. “He gonna kill somebody. Knife. Knife!”

  Others in the ward looked over and started yelling. A nurse overturned her tray. Another patient started yelling. Someone hit an alarm.

  Junior said, “Wait. I ain’t know where this—”

  He looked up into the immense face of Albert the guard.

  “Wait!” screamed Junior as he started to drop the knife.

  Albert clamped his hand over Junior’s, keeping the knife right where it was. He seemed to be struggling with Junior for the weapon. Then Albert’s baton came down once, twice, and then a third time on Junior’s head.

  Each impact sounded like a melon being hit with a hammer.

  The first blow knocked Junior out.

  The second blow clearly killed him.

  The third blow was just because Albert wanted to.

  Albert let go and the knife clattered to the floor.

  Junior slid halfway off his bed. His body was held there by the chain bolted to the wall. Albert took a step back and looked at the blood, hair, and brain matter on his baton. He used Junior’s sheet to wipe it off.

  He looked around and said, “It’s okay. He’s not going to hurt nobody no more.” He looked back at Junior. “Dumb sonofabitch.”

  “Holy Lord, Albert, you done saved us all,” said Earl. “No telling what that crazy man was gonna do with that there blade.”

  “All he’s gonna do now is nothing,” said Albert with finality. He looked over at Earl and a glimmer of a smile crossed his lips. To everyone, he said, “I’ll report this here incident. Everybody saw what happened, right?”

  Earl nodded vigorously. “I sure as hell did. Maniac was trying to kill us with that there knife. Saw it clear as day. He knows his ass is gonna get lethal-injected. Probably wanted to take as many of us with him as he could. Bastard ain’t got nothing to lose. Can’t execute him twice, right?”

  “Right,” said Albert. He surveyed the room again. “Right?”

  Everyone in the room, from the prisoners to the staff, nodded back.

  Albert smiled and looked satisfied. “We good then. I’ll get the boys come get this pile’a trash. Least now we don’t have to spend the money to execute his sorry ass.”

  He turned and walked off.

  Earl settled back against his pillow, trying hard to hide his smile as he stared over at the dead Junior. The same male nurse who had chastised him for wanting to smoke while hooked to oxygen came over to him.

  “Damn,” said the nurse. “Where the hell did Junior get that knife?”

  Earl slowly shook his head. “No telling. You better count your scalpels and all that stuff. Sonofabitch probably took it from one of you.”

  “But he’s chained to a wall. And what was he going to do with it?”

  “Wait till somebody got close and take ’em hostage, I betcha,” said Earl. “They gonna kill his ass. He wants outta here. Last chance, right?”

  “Damn, talk about your evil scum.”

  “That’s right,” said Earl as he puffed up his pillow and lay back, still watching Junior’s blood drip down the sheets. “Talk about your evil scum. Trying to beat the hangman, that sumbitch. After all the shit he done pulled in his sorry-ass life. Good riddance, I say.”

  “What is the world coming to?” said the nurse.

  It’s coming, thought Earl. It’s coming all right. It’s coming right to me.

  An investigation crew came in and took some pictures and did some forensic analysis, but everyone in the ward could tell their hearts were hardly in it. A man who had committed vile murders and was scheduled to be executed for these crimes had tried to kill people with a stolen knife. Then he’d had his brains bashed in by a heroic prison guard for his troubles.

  They couldn’t have cared less.

  Later, Earl watched as a prison crew came in and took Junior away and then cleaned up the area.

  Earl kept his gaze on the black body bag until it disappeared out the door.

  Then he closed his eyes and grinned.

  Under his breath he said, “Nighty-night, Junior.”

  Chapter

  28

  THE DAWN WAS BREAKING COOL and clear when they landed at a private airstrip outside of Avignon in France. Clearing customs was not a problem; they simply bypassed it. When you arrived on clandestine wings on soil governed by an ally, conveniences like that tended to occur.

  Robie and Reel carried duffels off the jet and dumped them in a truck waiting for them on the tarmac. Reel took the wheel while Robie rode shotgun.

  After their meeting with Evan Tucker they had geared up and game-planned, as much as was possible in the few hours they had to do so. They had spent the flight time going over various scenarios.

  As they drove along Reel rolled down her window and let the breeze wash over her face. Neither had slept the entire trip except for a forty-five-minute catnap right before landing.

  “So,” she said, breaking the silence.

  Robie turned on the radio on the off chance that there was a bug somewhere in their vehicle.

  “General Pak,” said Robie.

  “Tucker screwed up big-time somewhere. I could see it in his sweat, the chickenshit.”

  “North Korean general goes down in France. I wonder who the original target was?”

  She glanced at him. “We both know that, don’t we?”

  Robie looked out the window. The countryside in the south of France was beautifu
l much of the year. While the lavender wasn’t as vibrant right now as it was in the summer, it was still something to look at. But for Robie, it might as well have been dead cacti.

  He said, “Blue Man thought it was a head of state, and Blue Man is almost always right.”

  “So for North Korea that means the Supreme Leader, Kim Jong Un.”

  “But he’s no longer the target.”

  “And General Pak is,” she noted. “So what changed?”

  “General Pak is the second in command over there. You think he was behind a coup orchestrated by us?”

  She nodded, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel as she did so. “It certainly happens. Military wants to take over. We work with them and turn an enemy into an ally.”

  “Coups work when they’re a surprise. My take is something happened to blow the surprise.”

  Reel said, “You think the president signed off on the hit on Pak?”

  Robie nodded. “Not even Evan Tucker has the balls to authorize this alone.”

  She said, “Mission got screwed, blowback could be a tsunami, and all thanks to Evan Tucker and his megalomaniac plans. And we get called in to clean up his mess. And he walks in to meet us with a smile on his face like he didn’t try to drown a confession out of us and we’re suddenly best friends. I knew the guy was an asshole. This just confirms it.”

  Robie slipped the gun from his holster and examined it. The pistol was his old reliable. He’d used it in dozens of missions. It was lightweight, compact, had perfectly aligned iron sights, and fit his hand precisely. It was a beautiful piece of customized engineering.

  With a ton of blood symbolically coated on its metal-and-polymer skin.

  Reel glanced at him again. “Having second thoughts?”

  He looked at her. “And you’re not?”

  Reel didn’t respond to this. She just stared down the road and kept driving.

  Robie and Reel spent the day preparing for the targeted hit, including a reconnaissance visit to the cottage Pak was renting. They ate a late lunch in their hotel room overlooking a valley steeped in the colors of fall. Reel went to the window with her cup of coffee and looked out. Robie remained at the table going over the details one more time.

  He said, “You got it down?”

  “Every millimeter and microsecond,” she replied. Reel added, “You ever think of living in a place like this when all is said and done?”

  He rose and joined her at the window, following her gaze.

  She turned to him. “Have you?”

  “I told you once before, I don’t look that far down the road.”

  “And I told you once before, you should start.”

  He glanced over her shoulder. “Peaceful. Pretty.”

  “Go to the market with your basket and get your food fresh for that day. Take walks. Ride bicycles. Sit outside at a café and just…do…nothing.”

  “You sound like an ad for a travel magazine,” he said, smiling.

  “Why shouldn’t I have something like that?”

  “No reason in the world,” he said, turning serious at her response. “You can have it.”

  She looked wistfully out the window for a few seconds more and then turned to him with a resigned smile. “The hell I can. Let’s get back to work.”

  Night came. And then the deepest dark of night arrived hours later.

  They set out from their hotel and made a circuitous journey to their final destination.

  It was a cottage on the outskirts of a cliff-hugging village about twenty miles south of Avignon. The property was wooded and isolated. There was no car in front when Robie and Reel reached the edge of the tree line and peered at the structure through their night optics.

  “You think this is a setup?” he said.

  “I’ve been thinking that ever since we went wheels up stateside.”

  “Me too.”

  He went to the rear. She started toward the front. During their earlier recon of the target site they had left behind motion-triggered cameras on all sides of the property and also pointed at the front and rear of the house.

  They had checked all these images on their tablet on the drive over. The cameras had captured nothing other than the occasional squirrel and bird. No humans. No movement from anyone into or out of the cottage.

  Robie cleared the back door at the same time Reel cleared the front window. He wasn’t guessing about this. They were commed and kept each other informed of their movements and locations. The last thing they wanted was to kill each other by mistake.

  They cleared the few rooms of the cottage and met in the back hall. There was only one room left to go. Probably a bedroom.

  They both could hear movement, slight movement, in that room.

  They raised their guns, fingers slipped to triggers.

  Reel touched Robie. “I’ll do the kill shot,” she whispered.

  “Why?” he whispered back.

  “Because I’m the only reason you’re in this mess,” she replied.

  They silently made their way to the door. Robie covered her while Reel nudged it open with her foot.

  The light inside the room came on. They were ready for this. Their optics automatically adjusted to the increased level of illumination.

  The old man sat in his undershorts and white T-shirt on the edge of the bed. His feet were in slippers with white socks on them. His hair was perfectly combed and his manner calm.

  His uniform with the stars was neatly draped over the arm of a chair next to the bed. His cap was on the seat of the chair.

  These observations were quickly forgotten.

  Both Robie’s and Reel’s attention was drawn to the gun in his hand.

  They both took aim.

  But firing became unnecessary.

  He said in clearly articulated English, “Don’t let them hurt my family. And tell your president to go to hell.”

  Then the old man stuffed the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

  Chapter

  29

  ROBIE SIPPED ON A CUP of lukewarm coffee and studied the other people in the small room. They were in a CIA safe house twelve miles outside of Paris.

  Reel was there, leaning against a wall and staring at nothing.

  DD Amanda Marks was reading something on her phone.

  Andrew Viola sat in a chair, his gaze on the floor.

  Evan Tucker was in another chair and staring at the ceiling.

  Marks finished with her phone and looked at Robie and Reel.

  “Anything to add to your debrief?”

  Robie shook his head and Reel said, “No. He obviously knew we were coming and he shot himself before we could. He said not to let them hurt his family and he told the president to go to hell.”

  Evan Tucker seemed to shudder with every word she spoke. Reel looked at him with disgust but said nothing.