The Man Who Walks Away
Page 7
“Put down your weapon,” she said.
The man laughed and his voice changed to a higher pitch. “Ooh, she’s a tough one! This is totally turning me on.”
The man’s voice changed again.
“Tell us where Zotz is and you won’t be harmed, I’ll see to it.”
Pauling studied the man. Us? She knew he was probably trying to distract her, use the empty threat that there were more people inside the house than just him.
“I’m not going to tell you again,” she said. “Put it down. That’s your last warning.”
A deep baritone emerged from the man’s mouth. “Bitch please,” it said.
And then it changed again.
“Now, Dawkins!” the man in front of her said. He charged at her and Pauling fired the pistol.
A .44 Magnum is a huge round and the sound was like a cannon going off in the kitchen. The gun kicked so hard Pauling almost thought she’d lost control of the gun. It was like firing a hunting rifle one-handed.
The muzzle went straight up but Pauling used all of her hand strength to bring it back down because even though the first round had knocked the man backwards, he was somehow still on his feet and he hadn’t dropped the rifle.
She fired again and the second round lifted him off his feet and he landed on his back.
Pauling whirled around, half expecting to see someone behind her.
There was no one.
She crossed the room to the dead man and picked up his rifle, then put her fingers against his throat.
He was dead.
The two rounds had made a mess of the man’s chest, blowing huge holes through and through. Blood gushed on Tallon’s kitchen floor.
Pauling made her way through the rest of the house but there was no one. The man had either been bluffing or was completely unhinged as evidenced by the odd shift in voices.
She found her cell phone and called 9-1-1, telling them there’d been a shooting and to tell Sheriff Bordeau immediately.
When she hung up, she went back into the kitchen.
She went to the dead man and looked through his pockets. There was a wallet with an ID stating the dead man’s name was Burton Nash.
Pauling had never heard of the man.
A quick search on her computer might help her find the right info–
The cold steel of a gun barrel placed against the back of her neck made her go cold.
“Drop the gun,” a voice said.
Pauling set down the big revolver as well as Nash’s ID. She slowly turned and saw a thin man with black hair, pale, pockmarked skin and a face full of deep lines.
He was only a few feet away and he was smiling at her with teeth that were sharp and pointy.
Feral.
“You got the three for the price of one,” he said.
38
“Where’s Tallon?” the man asked.
“Who are you?”
“My name’s Larkin, not that it matters. Who the hell are you?”
“Pauling, not that it matters.”
Larkin pointed at the dead man.
“Where’s Tallon?” he repeated.
“Jail.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
The man glanced behind Pauling at the dead man on the floor. “Jeez, what’d you shoot him with, a cannon?”
She didn’t answer, instead, she asked, “What did you mean when you said it was three for the price of one?”
“Ah, one of those Alaskan revolvers,” the man replied, seeing the big handgun next to the dead body. “What is that, a .44 Mag? Impressive. Powerful enough to kill a grizzly bear or three people at once,” he said again, laughing.
Pauling wondered what he meant and he must have seen the confusion in her eyes.
“Your new friend there had multiple personalities,” Larkin said. “Another one of those brilliant ideas by some lunatic back at the Pentagon. A super soldier with the brain of three men.” He glanced down again at the dead man. “Yeah, didn’t seem to work out too well.”
Now she understood, and saw how this had landed on Tallon’s doorstep.
“It looks like the easy cleanup I’d been promised ain’t gonna happen,” Larkin said. “At least not as far as Tallon is concerned. I’m going to have to walk away from this one for a bit. I’ve always said any operation is a good one, if you can walk away afterward.”
The pistol in his hand was a small caliber automatic, with a compact but sturdy sound suppressor at the end of it.
He began to raise it when a voice from behind him called out.
“Drop the gun!”
Larkin smiled. He didn’t drop the gun but instead, slowly turned to face the voice he seemed to recognize, keeping Pauling in his line of vision.
“Ah, Sheriff Bordeau to the rescue,” he said. “Look, this is above your pay grade, you’re going to need to–”
A shot rang out and Larkin took a step back. He seemed shocked that the young woman had fired.
He tried to raise his weapon as another round was fired. It crashed into the ceiling above Larkin’s head as Pauling dove for her revolver.
Pauling knew the young sheriff had panicked, shot too soon, and was now firing blindly.
Pauling came up with the big revolver as Larkin was staggering to the side, trying to raise his automatic.
To her right, Pauling saw that Bordeau was frozen, and the gun in her hand was shaking.
Pauling brought the big revolver in line and shot the dark-haired man in the temple, the huge bullet crashing into his skull and spraying brain, blood and bone all over Tallon’s kitchen cabinets.
He crashed sideways into the wall and slid down to the floor, leaving a blood smear marking his descent.
Pauling carefully set down the revolver and faced Sheriff Bordeau. The last thing she wanted was to get shot now by a nervous cop.
“How’d you get here so fast?” Pauling asked her. “And please, lower your gun.”
Sheriff Bordeau holstered her weapon. Her pretty face was pale and she was out of breath, no doubt shocked she had just shot a man and probably unnerved by a second dead man behind Pauling.
“I was already on my way when you called 9-1-1,” Bordeau answered, her voice shaky.
“Why?”
“I think I know how that evidence against Tallon was planted.”
Pauling nodded. She looked around at the carnage in the kitchen.
Some guest I am, she thought. My second day here and look at what a mess I’ve made.
39
Lucas roused Dr. Aldrich from his sleep.
“Emergency, Dr. You’re needed in DC as soon as possible.”
Aldrich sat up in his bed. He had been assigned a private room, separate from the enlisted barracks. The room had a single bed, a desk and a dresser.
“You’re kidding me,” he said. “What about Nash?”
“Nash has been taken care of and the project has been reassigned to DC, which is why you’re being put on the first flight out.”
Dr. Aldrich got to his feet. “What do you mean Nash has been taken care of? If he’s not alive, I’m going to have you and your boss Crawford reassigned to Siberia.”
“Not sure we have a base in Siberia, but I appreciate the thought,” Lucas replied evenly. “I’ll meet you out front in five minutes.”
Aldrich began to dress. “At least I’ll finally get out of this desert hellhole.”
Five minutes later, the doctor was climbing into the back seat of an army truck with a single, small travel bag. Two uniformed soldiers were in the front of the vehicle.
Lucas waved goodbye as they drove and then he turned to his commanding officer, Crawford. The grizzled face showed no sign of relief or humor. He was all business as usual.
He turned to Lucas. “It’s only a matter of time before the Feds show up. I hope you gave specific instructions on where the doctor should be relocated.”
Lucas nodded.
“I told them that when they thought the grave was
deep enough, dig down another twenty feet.”
40
Bordeau found her father where she knew she would; seated in front of the big fireplace. A roaring fire was going and he had a glass of whiskey in his big, meaty paw.
Somewhere in the kitchen, her mother was making dinner.
Bordeau wouldn’t be staying for the meal.
“I hope you’ve got yourself a good lawyer,” she told her father.
“What are you talking about?” he glowered at her.
“You’ve got four murders in the first killing, two in the second, plus a bartender near the army base, and now two more dead people.”
“I wasn’t near any of ‘em. Had nothing to do with it.”
The big man sipped his whiskey and stared into the fire. A log popped and a shower of sparks briefly lit up the old man’s face.
Bordeau stood in front of her father, her feet spread wide, refusing to be ignored or discounted.
“When I got to the station and found the evidence file,” she said, “there was a fingerprint from Tallon supposedly found at the crime scene. But the original evidence for the crime lab showed no such thing. I only discovered it because Tallon’s friend Pauling said she had seen the original file. I’m assuming whoever planted the print in the file was planning on adding it to the original, digital report but things moved too quickly. But I had to ask myself, how did that print end up in my file first?”
“No idea what you’re talking about, girl,” he said. He looked past her, over her shoulder to the kitchen and called out to his wife. “Jenny, when is that chili going to be done?” he shouted. “I’m hungry.”
“This was a military operation, through and through,” Bordeau said. “You’ve always been on great terms with the boys out at that base. Your buddies, even. A bunch of good ol’ boys, right? If they needed someone locally to steer the investigation a certain way, you’d be the perfect candidate. In fact, I saw your truck at the station the same day I got the doctored evidence file.”
“Coincidence,” he said, draining the last of the whiskey from his glass.
Bordeau gave him a patronizing smile.
“You’d better hope so. Because Tallon’s girlfriend is a former FBI agent and she’s got them involved now. They’ll be going out to the army base and probably arresting some folks, who will eventually spill their guts to avoid military prison. It’d sure be a shame if your retirement home was a federal slammer, Daddy.”
He looked at her for the first time, anger flashing in his eyes.
“Anything else you got to say on your way out?”
“Yeah,” she countered. “Between now and your sentencing, don’t ever set foot in my police station again.”
Bordeau slammed the door shut behind her.
41
“What was that you were saying about how boring it was out here?” Pauling asked Tallon.
He’d been back home now for less than twenty-four hours but they’d already made love twice. They were still in bed and Pauling was basking in the heat from Tallon’s body.
“Post-prison sex is awesome,” he said. “All that time in the joint really gets a man wound up, if you now what I mean.”
“You weren’t even in jail that long,” Pauling said.
“Long enough, believe me.”
The crime scene technicians had already hauled the bodies away and Pauling had arranged for a crew specializing in hazardous cleanup to take care of the rest.
“Now what?” she asked him.
He sighed, ran his hand along her firm, naked hip. He loved the sound of her raspy voice.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m in no hurry to see what sunup brings. Kinda happy to just be where I am right now.”
Pauling wrapped her arms and legs around him.
“Me too,” she said.
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Also by Dan Ames
The JACK REACHER Cases #1 (A Hard Man To Forget)
The JACK REACHER Cases #2 (The Right Man For Revenge)
The JACK REACHER Cases #3 (A Man Made For Killing)
The JACK REACHER Cases #4 (The Last Man To Murder)
The JACK REACHER Cases #5 (The Man With No Mercy)
The JACK REACHER Cases #6 (A Man Out For Blood)
The Jack Reacher Cases #7 (A Man Beyond The Law)
The JACK REACHER Cases #8 (The Man Who Walks Away)
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HARD ROCK (John Rockne Mystery #2)
COLD JADE (John Rockne Mystery #3)
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EASY PREY (John Rockne Mystery #5)
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MURDER WITH SARCASTIC INTENT (Mary Cooper Mystery #2)
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STANDALONE THRILLERS:
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SHORT STORIES:
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About the Author
Dan Ames is a USA TODAY Bestselling Author, Amazon Kindle #1 bestseller and winner of the Independent Book Award for Crime Fiction.
www.authordanames.com
dan@authordanames.com