“Boys, y’all can remember that your brother and sister did their duty to the family. Want y’all to go on back up to the gate and tell anybody that thinks about coming in, that this is private property. Any those volunteer fire idiots show up, tell them our trailer and barn burned up and there ain’t crap to do about it but let the fire finish up. The woods are too wet to burn, and we Smoots handle our own troubles out here. Tell ’em if they try and come in, you’ll blow their damned heads off. Tell ’em if they don’t like it, to go screw a mule.”
“Walk all the way back there?” Burt said.
“You could have just left us there,” Curt added.
Peanut just glared.
As the twins turned away to go back to the gate, Peanut opened his cell phone and made a call to Max Randall. Max would want to know about this development. He’d wait until later to tell Mr. Laughlin, because the lawyer had taken his firm’s jet to Miami and wouldn’t get back until just before court on Monday.
“It’s a damn shame about the dogs,” Curt said as he took his shotgun out of the bed of the Dodge.
61
Clayton Able had his phone to his ear. Major Antonia Keen was pacing the floor in her suite, a phone to her ear as well.
“Yeah?” Clayton said. “You’re sure? Hold on.” He snapped his fingers. Holding the phone away from his mouth so he could read the screen, he saw who was trying to break in and said, “Keep me posted.” He brought the other caller up.
“Okay, shoot,” he said.
Antonia said, “I’ll get back to you when I know. You just be ready to scramble at a moment’s notice to where I need your team.” She closed her phone and turned to face Clayton.
Clayton listened to the second caller without interrupting. “Damn it,” he said. “Damnity, damn, damn it. Anything else Massey-related pops up on the radar, call me.”
“The team’s on standby,” Antonia told Clayton when he shut the cell phone. “What’s the deal on Massey?”
“A couple of things. His truck, with about a hundred bullet holes in it, has been found wrecked in a field about a half a mile from the building where he picked Click up. Cops reported an unidentified male belted inside his truck wearing a bathrobe. We can safely assume that was Mr. Ferny Ernest Smoot.”
“And Massey, too, right?”
“There were two additional unidentified corpses dressed in BDUs found just off the road, both head shots. There was no second vehicle.”
“Where’s Massey?”
“I presume he’s driving around somewhere in a Tahoe with a frightening amount of ordnance inside it.”
Antonia sat heavily on the bed and put her face in her open hands.
“I don’t have to tell you that Massey was your sister’s bright idea.”
“He nailed two of Randall’s team,” Antonia answered. “And stole their vehicle.”
“Three, if you count the one he ran over. He’s done this exact same thing before. Taken out professionals.”
“I thought his rep was exaggerated, he was overrated. . Maybe he’ll call Alexa.”
“I think we can safely assume Massey has three very good reasons not to contact your sister. Like maybe he’s suspicious because every time he starts off in a direction that looks promising, when he tells Alexa what he’s going to do, people try to kill him.”
Antonia nodded. “Been badly played.”
“I don’t think he fell asleep in the truck,” Clayton continued. “I expect he went to Laughlin’s, spotted the trap, and aborted. He told your sister he was coming back here after going by to check on Click, because he figured there was probably a bug in his truck and we’d know if he went somewhere other than where he told Alexa he was going.”
“Maybe he thinks somebody else bugged him and he’s not telling Alexa because he thinks their conversations are being picked up. He might come here,” Antonia Keen said, hopefully.
“That’s a long shot, but offers us a decent defense if he does show up with friends from high places. The more important question is, did Click tell him where the Dockerys are?”
Antonia shook her head. “Click didn’t know, remember? Randall said the only people in the Smoot crew who knew the location were on-site except for him and Peanut. Maybe Massey suspects Laughlin knows-we need to keep someone there in case Massey goes back. It’s the only avenue left to him and he doesn’t know Laughlin is out of town.”
The phone rang and Clayton pressed a button and put it to his ear. “Talk to me.”
Clayton listened and sat down on the bed, putting his other hand on his cheek and shaking his head. “Keep me posted.” He clicked the phone shut. “That was Randall. Peanut called him. Seems a few minutes ago the structure out in the country where the Dockerys were being held went up in flames.”
“A fire?”
“Peanut described it as an explosion that could be seen for miles. Seems the fire is still burning.”
“Massey,” Antonio murmured. “That goddamn Massey.”
“Major, Massey hasn’t had time to get there. The Smoot place is out in the middle of nowhere seventy miles into South Carolina.” He pointed to a box he’d drawn on a map and, after looking for a few seconds, marked the place where Winter had killed the team members.
“What about the Dockerys?”
“They were inside the structure, along with two of the Smoots.”
“He’s sure?”
“Smoot said a padlock was in place when the explosion happened. He’s sure nobody got out.”
“What exploded?”
“The place was also used to store combustibles,” Clayton said, lifting his pipe and sucking on it.
“Combustibles?”
“Gasoline. Blasting powder.”
“Call Randall,” Antonia said sharply. “Tell him to get out there now. We have to make sure Massey doesn’t get access to the place, or if he does, that he stays there permanently. I’ll get my team on the perimeter and we’ll shut down the area. National security alert or something intimidating. Nothing goes in or comes out. We sanitize everything to keep Fondren from getting wind of anything.”
“The county officials are bought and paid for by Peanut. The locals are handled. Just watch out for Feds.”
“We are the Feds. We need to know if Massey’s called anybody.”
“He hasn’t used our cell. Signal says it’s in the truck.”
“Check his cell phone.”
“I don’t have the number.”
Antonia picked up the phone and pressed a button. “Alexa. Massey’s in the wind. Took out three of Randall’s team and he has a loaded Tahoe. . I’ll go over it in a minute. Do you have Massey’s cell phone number?” She scribbled the number on a pad. “Get ready, Alexa, we’re taking a trip to clean things up.”
Antonia tossed the pad to Clayton. “She got it from his wife.”
Clayton typed the number into his computer.
“We’re going out to the location,” the Major told him. “You hold down the fort and keep me posted on anything and everything.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“But I do worry, Clayton,” she said. “I worry because my skinny black soon-to-be-wearing-a-general’s-star ass is on the line. And therefore so is your fat wants-to-retire-rich-but-might-spend-eternity-in-Leavenworth ass.”
62
Sean Massey used the GPS in her Lexus to find Judge Fondren’s house. Most of the downstairs windows were lit up, the porch light on. Sean didn’t see any cars on the street with people inside them. She had promised Hank she would make sure nobody was watching the judge’s house.
Sean parked in the driveway, strolled up to the porch, and rang the doorbell.
A thin, distinguished man with white hair and reading glasses perched on his nose opened the door and looked down at her.
“Judge Fondren?”
The man nodded reluctantly. “May I help you?”
“I hope so. I’m Sean Massey. Hank Trammel told me to use his name.�
�
“Hank Trammel?”
“U.S. marshal. Ran the office here.”
“Of course. Trammel. Do I know you?”
“No. My husband is Winter Massey. He was a U.S. deputy marshal.”
“Hell-comes-to-breakfast Massey?” The judge cracked a knowing smile.
“Is that his nickname?” she asked.
“Among others. I know your husband by reputation. What’s he up to these days?”
“At the present he’s been working with Special FBI Agent Alexa Keen to find your daughter and grandson.”
The smile vanished and Fondren’s pale blue eyes scanned the street. He stepped back and opened the door wide. “You’d better come inside, Mrs. Massey.”
He closed the door behind her.
“You didn’t know, did you?” Sean asked. “Alexa didn’t tell you about my husband?”
“Perhaps with his reputation, Agent Keen may have thought it best not to mention your husband was involved. She probably thought I’d think the chance of my family being caught in a cross-fire would cause me needless worry.”
“If she doesn’t have them safe by Monday, you’ll let Bryce walk?”
His eyebrows rose. He considered the question, then nodded slightly.
“But Alexa isn’t planning to get to them until after the sentencing,” Sean said. “And, sir, Lucy and Elijah will be dead and buried an hour after you let Hunter Bryce walk. Alexa Keen is part of a conspiracy to free Bryce. Clayton Able, Alexa, and her sister, Major Antonia Keen, are not at all what they purport to be.”
“And why should I believe that?”
“Because my husband said so.”
“I know Alexa Keen quite well. I don’t know you at all, and I don’t know your husband except to say hello.”
“Think about it: When did Alexa Keen last make contact with you before the abduction?”
“Two weeks ago Agent Keen was in town for a meeting. She called me up for lunch. I’ve known the woman for ten years.”
“And before that when did you last see her?”
“Maybe two, three years. How is this important?”
“And when she met you for lunch, did she say anything like, ‘If you ever need anything, call me first’? Or play up the fact that she has the number one solve rate for kidnappings? When you contacted her after Lucy and Elijah were abducted, did she suggest you not tell anybody else? Not to tell a single soul, because Bryce has friends in sensitive positions everywhere-even inside the FBI?”
Judge Fondren put his hand to his chin and rubbed the short whiskers.
“Winter knows who has your family, Your Honor, and he knows where. He is also pretty sure Alexa does, too.”
“I’ve known Alexa Keen for ten years,” the judge repeated.
“Winter has known her a lot longer and a lot better. And yet she’s betrayed him, and people who are in on this with her have tried to kill him three times. The kidnappers are a local bunch of thugs who are getting their orders from Bryce’s friends.”
“Exactly who are Bryce’s friends, Mrs. Massey?”
“A Russian crime group waiting for delivery of an arms shipment and members of our military intelligence who are involved in the smuggling operation. Major Antonia Keen is an Army intelligence officer. She’s the connection.”
“Say this is true. What do you expect me to do?”
“Winter’s on his way to get your family out. He’s all alone. He must have figured you’d know what to do. I was just supposed to get word to you.”
“Do you know where he’s going?”
Sean pulled a map of North and South Carolina out of her coat and opened it on the table. She picked up the judge’s pen and pointed to the circle Hank had drawn. “Right about here. Off of Clark Road.”
“I see.”
“Can you get him some backup?”
“All the help he needs,” the judge said, frowning. “Gentlemen, Mrs. Massey wants our help.”
Sean looked up from the map as two men dressed entirely in black filled the doorway. The machine guns in their hands had large silencers on them.
“Please, Judge Fondren, there’s no time-” Sean started.
He looked down at her. “I’m terribly sorry to have deceived you, Mrs. Massey. My name is Kelly Crisp. Judge Fondren is upstairs resting.”
Sean felt a sour burning in her stomach. “Exactly who are you?” she managed to ask.
“We’re government employees, Mrs. Massey.” Kelly Crisp’s smile could only be described as predatory.
63
The Tahoe SUV was full of fuel when Winter Massey stole it. He kept the speedometer around eighty, and stayed on the interstate until he was well into South Carolina. He couldn’t afford to be stopped by the highway patrol, muddy, badgeless, driving a vehicle he didn’t know who owned, with several ebony anvil cases in the back. He didn’t have time to look through the cases to see what equipment they contained, and didn’t want the cops to be the people who got first look inside them. There was also the spent brass littering the floorboard, console, and seats of the vehicle. There were discarded thirty-round H amp;K magazines on the passenger’s floorboard, and a half dozen loaded ones on the console.
Click had said that his father had been taking people that “needed” killing to the hunting property in South Carolina for twenty years. It was a safe place because it was in a forested area owned by the Smoots and they controlled the local authorities. Click had described the layout and given Winter directions to it-directions Winter had committed to memory.
Winter had called Hank’s private line from a pay phone, and had entrusted him to deliver a message to Judge Fondren, hoping he would get some firepower on the scene before it was too late.
He topped a hill to the sight of three patrol cars, blues flashing, pulled off on the shoulder. He slowed, joining the traffic that crept by so the drivers could rubberneck. A passenger van had been pulled over, its contents unloaded in the grass. Several luckless Mexican men stood in the rain in wet clothes looking like flood victims while cops in raingear casually tore their vehicle apart.
After passing over the next hill, Winter floored the SUV. All the cops in the area, he figured, had their hands full for the moment.
64
Because it was dark and Click Smoot hadn’t given Winter exact distances between turns, he had to read the signs at every crossroad and intersection he came to. Some of the road signs were impossible to read without slowing. After he spotted a blood-red glow on the horizon, Winter was sure he would find the place just by steering a general course for the flames. It could have just been a coincidental house or a barn fire, but his instincts told him that the source of the blaze was the Smoot place and that it had something to do with the Dockerys.
Perhaps, knowing Winter was on his way there, Clayton Able had called the Smoots to sanitize the scene-and few things destroyed evidence like nice big fires. If that was the case, it was all over and the consequences of his actions during the past several hours could be very unpleasant. It would be best for the Keens and Able if Winter never got a chance to present his side of the story. Winter could only hope that Hank had gotten his message to Judge Fondren, to explain what was really going on. He wasn’t at all sure that the jurist could do anything in time to make any difference. The Dockerys were probably dead.
One last right turn off of Clark Road onto State 332 and two miles down that gravel road and a left fork just past a country store and he’d be at his destination, a red gate. As he rounded a curve, he saw the unmistakable blue strobes of a police cruiser, and again he slowed. The rain had stopped, and he flipped off his wipers. Red lights behind him signaled an approaching fire truck.
A pair of sheriff’s department cruisers blocked a gravel road off Clark Road and deputies were turning away traffic. One of the deputies was having a discussion with the driver of a pickup truck with a flashing red light sitting on its dash. The fire truck flew around Winter’s Tahoe and stopped at the intersection be
hind the pickup, but the sheriff’s department cruisers remained in position, blocking the fire truck’s path.
Winter kept going, slow and steady, not flicking on his turn signal. He noted the firmness in the deputies’ rebuff of the firemen. Winter didn’t know if there was another way in, so he was going to have to hide the SUV and go in on foot.
A quarter mile farther down, he spotted a private road and, turning off his lights, pulled onto it. At the tree line a gate made up of strands of barbed wire stretched across the dirt road. He aimed for the No Trespassing sign that hung from the topmost strand, and snapped the wires as he roared through.
Only when the road made a sharp left turn did he stop the Tahoe. Climbing out, he went to the tailgate, lifted the rear door, and started undoing the casket hinges on the cases. He was looking at the tidbits every proper assassin needed to have close at hand.
Sometimes God smiles.
65
After Max Randall’s second heated phone call, Peanut leaned against his truck, thinking. Max was on his way, and the Russian, Sarnov, was tagging along. Peanut couldn’t see why they were wasting their gas. He figured he was going to be the only loser in this deal. One, he probably was going to have trouble collecting the kidnap-and-killing fee on the Dockerys that Bryce was supposed to pay Laughlin, even though the woman and kid had been kidnapped and killed successfully, which was the point and it shouldn’t matter so much-check the damn small print-how or when. And second, he had lost prime buildings and two Smoot-blood employees who would be a sight more difficult to replace than structures. Third thing was, none of this mess was his fault. The fire was obviously an act of God-an accident. Of course Sarnov would do his communist best to keep him from collecting one red cent. Peanut doubted Randall, who was pretty danged upset, would go to bat to get Peanut his money. And Peanut wasn’t getting points in the arms deals in the future, which didn’t sit right, considering that Laughlin was getting plenty.
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