Side by Side wm-3

by John Ramsey Miller

  “Our people have the judge’s incoming calls blocked. Anybody dials his number, we’ll have their location inside five minutes.”

  “You think this U.S. marshal is headed here?”

  Randall shrugged. “If Click didn’t know, Massey doesn’t know either. If he does, it would save us the trouble of tracking him down.”

  “He’s got some of your toys that he could use to make a big problem.”

  Max frowned. “He’s competent.”

  “Competent?” Serge laughed. “Yes, he seems to be somewhat competent. It’s too bad Peanut’s little family hasn’t been.”

  “I should have handled it. But Laughlin was insistent on letting them do it.”

  “We’ll deal with Peanut tonight.”

  “The Major wants her sister the agent calling the shots on the Dockery deal. It has to be done a certain way.”

  “And you agree?”

  “Without the Major, we don’t have the connections into the Pentagon. She’s setting up the agent’s future, and I think having the agent’s credibility and insights is worth allowing her to clean up the kidnapping. That’s the sister’s expertise. She can make this into a kidnapping based on financial gain, not Bryce’s trial.”

  “Needlessly complicated if you ask me,” Serge remarked, eyes on the wet road ahead of them. “Especially now with this Massey running amok. It seems a pointless bit of drama now.”

  “Mine is not to question why,” Max said.

  Sarnov was going to enjoy working with Max Randall.

  Randall’s cell phone rang and he opened it. “Okay,” he said. “Directions?”

  Serge watched as Max listened, his eyes on the windshield.

  “We’re ten minutes out.”

  Max snapped the phone closed.

  “The Dockerys are in a store up the road from the Smoot place,” he said. “Time to wake up, boys.”

  “They’re sure?”

  “Smoot found her tracks.”

  Max’s phone trilled again. “Yeah, Major. We’re on it.” He listened. “That’s confirmation on what Mr. P. told me ten seconds ago.” He closed the phone. “Somebody just placed a call to the judge’s phone from the store’s pay phone. The Dockerys are definitely at the store.”

  Serge smiled. Behind him there were metallic clicks as the two men double-checked their weapons.

  “It’s turned into a beautiful evening for a hunt,” Serge said.

  70

  Alexa Keen concentrated on the road ahead, the traffic. Antonia had been giving her driving instructions since they left the Westin thirty minutes earlier. There had been only silence between the sisters since they had gotten on the I-77 going south, only Antonia knew where.

  “That ga-damned Massey,” Antonia said, sighing. “You swore to me that you could keep him in check. You’ve made me look like shit, Lex. You know what’s at stake here.”

  “Precious, why do you talk like that?” Alexa blurted. “It’s. . it’s unbecoming an officer.”

  Antonia burst into laughter. “Christ on a cross, Lex. How in God’s name you can give me crap about what comes out of my mouth given the present circumstances is something only you could do.”

  “I don’t like foul language. You know that.”

  “We’re about to murder two people, no, make it five people in the next little while-six, if we’re lucky and find your old pal. And you’re offended by my language?”

  “I am not murdering anybody,” Alexa insisted. “I’m just cleaning up a mess. And doing my best not to let it get any bigger. I can fix it unless your people get sloppier.”

  “For which you’re being paid more money for cleaning up than any maid in history. That’s for sure.”

  Alexa frowned. “This isn’t just about the money, Precious.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “The money’s nice. But I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t being pushed aside at the Bureau.”

  “Put out to pasture before your time. Now you’ll retire rich and you’ll stay that way, working for people who write very large checks for a consultant who knows how things really work.”

  “I was leaving a real mark, a legacy. But those boy-club bastards are giving me the bum’s rush because they’re jealous of me. My abilities. I was the best. I am the best. JERKS!”

  “Men,” Antonia said bitterly. “If they didn’t have erections, they’d be useless.”

  Alexa laughed despite herself. “Like Max Randall.”

  “Max,” the Major said, laughing. “That man fu. . screws you and you have been very well nailed, believe me.”

  “You cuss like a man,” Alexa said. “Worse than a man.”

  “Massey never cared about you beyond getting in your pants.”

  “He never got in my pants,” Alexa said.

  “He got in your head. He stole your girlfriend and married her.”

  “Eleanor was not my girlfriend. She was just my roommate.”

  “Yeah, right. This is me, Alexa. I know how you felt about her. I know how bad her dying screwed you up.”

  “You don’t know squat.”

  Antonia reached over and wiped the tear from Alexa’s cheek.

  “You don’t cry for plain roommates,” she said.

  “You don’t cry for anybody,” Alexa shot back.

  “We’re going to kill Massey for you, big sister. We’re going to even things out once and for all.”

  “I don’t like talking about it,” Alexa said. “He’s not going to be in the way now.”

  “He’s too unpredictable. He has friends and he can make big problems.”

  Alexa nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe. But he isn’t easy to kill.”

  “But you agree he has to go?”

  “What is necessary is inevitable. I agree he has to go.”

  “Can you get him to come to you, so Max can make sure he goes down for good?”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “How?”

  “He will come anywhere to save his wife.”

  “Okay. Admit one thing. He isn’t as washed up as you said he was.”

  “Second wind.”

  “Second wind. You hear that, Clayton? Massey’s just caught a second wind.”

  Alexa turned to her sister, her face reflecting both disbelief and indignation. “You have my car bugged?”

  “No. Clayton does. Your cell phone and Massey’s had GPS and transmitters in them. This car, Massey’s truck.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “Nothing personal, Lex. Trust is in very short supply when so much is on the line for so many people. We had to make sure you stayed on task.”

  “You think I could betray you?”

  “Of course not. If I did, you wouldn’t have been brought in.”

  Alexa understood that Antonia had been talking about Alexa’s involvement not only in the kidnapping but in the killings coming up. She had Clayton recording their conversation for leverage, for an edge. Antonia was always playing an angle, grabbing power any way she could, power over everybody; even taking out insurance against her own sister. Alexa had to smile. Antonia Keen was some nasty piece of work. And they shared blood.

  “How long have you, Randall, and Clayton known where the Smoots are holding the Dockerys?”

  “I know everything, Lex. Having the intelligence is how I stay in control. And we both know how important control is. Don’t we? Didn’t you teach me control is the most important thing there is?”

  “Yes,” Alexa said sadly. “That’s true. I guess that’s all I taught you.” She sighed. “I’m not interested in opening any more of my life up to Mr. Able. So let’s just drive without talking. Able gives me the creeps.”

  “Close your wax-encrusted, hairy-assed ears, Clayton!” Antonia yelled. “That’s an order, you sheep-diddling schmuck!”

  Antonia’s rich baritone laughter filled the car. Alexa couldn’t help but join in.

  71

  Edna Utz watched as Lucy fed Elijah his cereal and talked t
o him. “That’s a good little man,” the old woman said.

  “Guuud,” Elijah agreed, grinning.

  “Thank you,” Lucy told her. “I don’t know what we’d do without your help.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Edna replied. “We’re happy to help.” She waited until Lucy had put another spoonful of cereal in Elijah’s mouth before adding, “But it would be best if you didn’t tell anybody we helped you, dear.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’d be burned out, dear. It isn’t much of a store, but it’s all ours, Ed’s and mine. We’re a bit too old to start over.”

  Ed came back into the apartment from the store, closing the door behind him, then bolting it. “I called the number,” he told Lucy. “I got one of those ‘All circuits are busy please try your call again later’ messages.”

  “That happens sometimes,” Edna said.

  Ed shrugged. “I’d best drive these kids home,” he told his wife. “Her daddy must be worried sick.”

  But Edna was thinking. “It’s funny,” she said. “Well, not as funny as it is odd. Ed called the fire department number over an hour ago when it started. You’d think they’d have been here by now.”

  Lucy felt a growing unease. “How far is the fire station from here?”

  “Six or seven miles,” Ed said. “But some fire out in the woods when it’s this wet might not have got their total attention, especially if there was a house burning somewhere else.”

  Lucy caught the nervousness in Edna’s eyes.

  “It’s a volunteer department,” Ed explained. “But they get the job done.”

  “Call them again,” Edna told her husband. “Ask them what the heck’s holding them up.”

  Ed lifted the receiver and put it to his ear. He pressed the button down several times, then replaced it in the cradle.

  “Somebody on it?” Edna asked.

  “Of course,” Ed said.

  There was an explosion outside and the lights went out.

  Elijah started to wail. In the sudden darkness, Lucy put her arms around him.

  A vehicle roared around the building and bright headlights blazed in the windows, filtering through the closed blinds.

  A loud voice hollered out, “Utz, sounds like you got a baby in there!”

  Ed yelled out, “That you, Smoot?”

  “You know it is. Send out the gal and her baby and we’ll get out of your hair.”

  “Well, Smoot. Why don’t you just come in here and get ’em?” Lucy saw Ed move, and knew he was reaching for his shotgun.

  “Hell, Utz. Senile as you are, you might shoot me.”

  “I might.”

  “My boys are out here with me,” Peanut yelled. “One out front and the other right here. Make this easy on yourself. This ain’t about you. That gal murdered my Buck and Dixie in cold blood.”

  “He’ll kill you both,” Lucy whispered to Edna.

  “Well, he’d have to do that anyhow since we know.” She patted Lucy’s leg reassuringly. “You just let my Ed handle this. He was in Korea.”

  Ed taunted, “You won’t be the first murdering heathen I’ve sent to hell in my life, Smoot. You don’t scare me.”

  “No hurry,” Peanut yelled back. “We’ve got plenty of time to nee-go-see-ate. Plenty of it.”

  “I’m a patient man myself, Smoot. Lead don’t rust.”

  “Terrible people,” Edna whispered to Lucy. “Just awful.”

  Lucy clutched Elijah to her and prayed.

  “Goodness, I should get out another gun or two.” Edna said it as if she’d forgotten to bring salad forks to the dinner table.

  72

  From the equipment cases in the rear of the Tahoe, Winter Massey took what he thought he might need and put those few items into a black nylon knapsack. He took off his coat and holster rig, put on a ballistic vest, and put his figure-eight rig and camouflage coat back on. Using face paint he found, he blacked his face and put on black gloves. Selecting an H amp;K Tactical twelve-gauge with a high-intensity flashlight mounted under the barrel, he loaded it with alternating 00 buckshot and Hydroshock slugs. He put on a pair of night-vision goggles, slung on the backpack, grabbed the shotgun, and jogged off into an eerie world of vibrant green.

  He set an angle for himself that should intersect the gravel road well behind the roadblock. The carpet of wet leaves gave him a surface almost as silent as wool, the only sound the occasional snapping of a twig. The goggles allowed him to run as fast as the undulating terrain permitted. He ran along a ridge for a long while, spooking three deer and a fox before he came to the road.

  He slowed, took a bottle of water from his pocket, and sipped a few ounces. He wasn’t hungry, but knowing he needed to feed his muscles, he opened a packet of jerky and chewed the stiff dried meat as he ran. When he arrived where he was going, he wanted to have his full mental and physical faculties to call upon.

  Reaching the gravel state road, he decided to run on it to save time, planning to veer off into the woods if vehicles came along. He knew from Able’s file that Peanut drove a black Dodge truck, and what the other siblings drove. If he saw any of those automobiles, he would have no choice but to stop them just in case the Dockerys were being transported in it. The roadblock was keeping everybody out; that had Winter convinced that dead or alive, the Dockerys must be ahead of him, and if they were, so were the Smoots.

  Winter saw headlights before he heard the approaching vehicle, and leapt off the road to get behind a tree. He raised his goggles so he wouldn’t be temporarily blinded. The SUV that roared past was identical to the one he had stolen. Winter couldn’t make out how many people were inside, but he hoped Max Randall was in there. If he was, he was probably accompanied by whatever backup he could call upon. More could be coming along.

  Before Winter had made another hundred yards, he had to leave the road again. This time he recognized the car that passed by, and he knew instantly who the two people he glimpsed inside it were. Alexa Keen and her sister the Major. Now Winter was even more certain that the Dockerys were ahead of him.

  Winter felt energized. He didn’t wait until the taillights were out of sight before he started running behind the car driven by his dear enemy.

  73

  If it was up to him, Peanut Smoot would have set the store on fire and shot anything alive that came out through a door or window. The Utzes were outsiders who had inherited the store from a relative of theirs. They were smug bastards, who figured they were too good to do business in a way that would make their little cracker-box store a profitable enterprise.

  Since Mr. Laughlin had asked him to do what Max said, he’d wait for Max to get there before he went in to get the Dockerys. Getting those two out without destroying the store meant that Peanut might buy it from the Utzes’ estate for chump change already stocked. He doubted any of the Utz kids would come out to the middle of nowhere and run a store that didn’t sell enough goods to pay them minimum wage. If they did, he’d make it plain that they had no alternative but to sell it to him.

  He had already figured he would have to stage an accident that would explain the deaths of Ed and Edna “Busybody” Utz. The sheriff would investigate it, hold a midnight inquest, and the funeral home would cremate the bodies by accident, and that would be it.

  Peanut smiled, pleased by the perfection of his plan.

  Terrible tragedy was a part of life. You live, you lose people you love, you make money, you die and you go to heaven-if you’d accepted the Lord Jesus as your savior, which Peanut had on many occasions.

  He could hear the kid bawling through the walls of the store.

  Peanut hollered out, “Ed, I got an idea! Why don’t you and Edna just go take a drive and when you come back all this will be like it never happened.”

  “I already phoned her daddy,” Ed called out.

  “I bet you never talked to him, though,” Peanut said.

  “Yes, I did. He’ll be sending people you don’t own out here to straighten you
out.”

  “Naw, Eddie. See, my people got something called sophistication. They’ve got the judge’s phone blocked and wired. Point is, nobody is coming out here but people I’m partnered with. They’ll come, and they’ll kill you all with poison gas or something that won’t leave bullet holes in you.”

  “Hey, Peanut?” Utz called out. “I got an idea.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Kiss my sophisticated butt.”

  Utz’s barky laugh was exactly the kind that could piss a man off.

  74

  Serge Sarnov saw the store ahead and unzipped his jacket to make sure he could get to his gun quickly.

  The cell phone in Max’s lap rang and he picked it up. “Yeah?”

  Serge stretched his arms out.

  “We’re coming up on the store now,” Max said. “Okay. That’s good. We’ll call them in if we need them.”

  He closed the phone. “The Major and the FBI agent are coming in through the roadblock. Two cars with Major Keen’s people are there and they’ll hold back unless we need them.”

  “Fewer hands involved, the better,” Serge agreed.

  Max turned into the lot, illuminating one of the twins, who was dressed completely in hunter camouflage and holding a shotgun across his chest like a soldier. Max pulled in beside him, threw open his door, and stepped out. The men in the back seat did the same. Serge slowly opened his door and got out last.

  The twin put a walkie-talkie to his ear. “There’s that Tahoe full of men here.” He listened for a second. “Are one of y’all Max Randall?”

  “I’m Randall.”

  “Yeah, Daddy. One’s him.”

  “What’s the situation, pal?” Randall asked the twin.

  “The old people that own the store won’t give us our hostages.”

  Max said, “Where is Peanut?”

  The twin raised his arm and pointed at the store. “Back there with my brother Curt. We got them boxed up. They live in the back part.”