“This have something to do with what happened to Charlie Team?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, damn, Web, I’d like to be in on that.”
And I’d like you to be covering my back. “Can’t desert the old post. I should be back before morning. Now, if I were you, I’d patrol around a little bit. I wouldn’t be surprised if Canfield started off by testing us and so he might slip out. Although I think almost dying this morning put the fear of God in him, but we can’t take that chance.”
“Not to worry, I’ll do some snooping.”
“If you see that plane or chopper go over, log it in. And I brought a bunch of night optics, help yourself.”
“Those damn things always give me a headache and they screw with your depth perception too much.”
“Yeah, well, you remember those ‘damn things’ saved our necks in Kosovo.”
“Okay, okay. I’m gonna hit the sack.”
“And Paulie?”
“Yeah?”
“Just because there aren’t a bunch of guys with big guns surrounding us doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous. Be extra careful. I don’t want to lose anybody else, okay?”
“Hey, Web, remember who you’re talking to.”
“You and me have had our differences over the years, but we’ve also been to hell and back together. I kind of like having you around. You hear me?”
“Gee, Web, you really do care.”
“You’re a real prick, Romano, you know that?”
33
When Web had called the number on the slip of paper Big F had given him, the voice that had answered was a man’s.Web didn’t know if it belonged to Big F, since his initial encounter with the giant had involved concussions rather than words. Web had hoped it was Big F on the line because the voice was high and shrill. What a wonderful joke for God to play on the man by giving him a squeaky set of pipes. Yet a silly voice wasn’t going to lessen the fear of doing the two-step with the walking oak again. Big F didn’t hit with his tonsils.
The man had told Web to be driving north across the Woodrow Wilson Bridge at exactly eleven o’clock that night. Web would receive additional instructions at that time; by cell phone, Web figured. His number was unlisted, but it seemed nothing was sacred these days.
Web, of course, had sensibly questioned why he should even go.
“If you want to know what happened to your buddies, you’ll be there,” the man had said. “And if you want to keep on living,” he added. Appropriately enough, the phone line had gone dead after that.
Web thought about running down to Quantico and snagging a Barrett .50 rifle and a couple thousand rounds of ammo from the equipment cage. One of the great things about HRT was that it purchased for its operators the very latest weapons and then let them do with them what they wanted. It was like a giant candy store for the violence-minded. Yet he finally decided that even at gun-happy HRT, it might raise some eyebrows—his checking out a .50 and enough ammo to shoot up a good-sized city. He did briefly think about calling in Bates as backup but then realized that might hold disastrous consequences. Big F hadn’t survived on the streets this long by being stupid or impossibly lucky. He would smell the Bureau boys for sure, and wouldn’t that just royally piss off the big guy. But if he had information about who had set up his team, Web had to find out what it was.
He had driven past the entrance to the Southern Belle farm. The opening was not as ornate at East Winds. And Web noted that the gates were closed and locked. He thought he could see a man patrolling near the entrance, but he wasn’t certain of that or whether the man was armed. An interesting place. Even as he was thinking this, he heard the chopper coming overhead. He looked up, saw it passing by and then it disappeared from his sight. Maybe it was landing at Southern Belle. Maybe terrorists had landed in America. Web was only half kidding.
He had stopped to fill the car with gas. He thought about calling Claire but then decided against it. What would he say? Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow, and maybe I won’t.
The Woodrow Wilson Bridge had long been the single worst traffic bottleneck in the United States interstate highway system. To most local drivers, mentioning the name of the twenty-eighth President of the United States sent them into fits of rage. What a legacy, Web thought, for a life of selfless public service. Better to have your name attached to a rest stop. At least then people would think of you in connection with badly needed bodily relief.
He rolled onto the aging bridge and checked his watch. Thirty seconds to eleven. The Potomac was calm tonight, with no boat traffic apparent. The thick line of trees on the Maryland side contrasted sharply with the bright lights of Old Town Alexandria on the Virginia side and the Capitol dome and national monuments to the north. He passed the halfway point on the bridge. Traffic was relatively light and flowing well. A Virginia state police car passed Web heading in the opposite direction. Web felt like yelling after him, Hey, wanta be my friend tonight? Got an appointment with Doctor Death.
Web left the bridge and kept driving. He looked around. Nothing. So much for exact timing. Then a chilling thought hit him. Was he being set up to take a hit? Was there a sniper out there somewhere drawing a bead on him right now with his scope? Was the guy dialing in the drop compensation right now, seating the shell, settling his finger on the trigger, exhaling one last breath before he fired? Was Web London the world’s biggest idiot?
“Take the next right. NOW! NOW!”
The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere and startled Web so badly he almost pulled the Mercury into a one-eighty.
“Shit!” Web cried out even as he shot the car across three lanes of traffic while horns blared at him and cars dodged around him. He cut it so close the sedan skimmed the guardrail.
Web was now on the entry ramp onto Interstate 295.
“Take it to D.C.,” the voice said in a calmer tone.
“Damn it, give me a little more notice next time,” Web shot back, and then wondered if the guy could even hear him. He also wondered how they had managed to plant a communications device in his car without anyone seeing them. Web pointed the car north to D.C. He took deep breaths to calm himself. Right now he wished to never again hear another voice without a face to go with it.
“Keep going,” the voice said. “I’ll tell you where to turn.”
Well, so much for what one wished for. It wasn’t Squeaky Voice. Maybe this was Big F. It seemed to be a Big F voice, thought Web, for it was deep, blunt, threatening. Figured.
Web was very familiar with the area he was now in. The low-down on this stretch of lonely, woods-bracketed highway was that if one’s car broke down, it would not be there when the owner came back for it. And if the owner stayed with his broken-down car, he wouldn’t be coming back either. The boys that hunted here were the AAA of felony. Also down this way was St. Elizabeth’s, the mental hospital for celebrity maniacs like John Hinckley and for those who kept trying to go over the fence at the White House, among many others.
The voice said, “Take the next exit. Turn left at the light, go one-point-one miles and take a right.”
“Should I be writing this down or can you fax it to me?” asked Web, because he just felt like it.
“Shut the hell up!”
Well, at least they could hear him. And see him. He looked in his rearview mirror, but there were quite a few headlights back there. And yet if there was one thing Web couldn’t stand, it was a criminal who lacked a good sense of humor. He slipped that one away in his payback file. He followed the directions and soon was smack in the middle of the death zones of Northeast and Southeast D.C. that bordered the Anacostia River and where over a thousand people had been murdered in the last seven years. By comparison, across the river and seemingly several universes away the affluent Northwest area had suffered a little over twenty homicides in the same time span. However, there was some sense of perverse balance because the Northwest quadrant had far more larcenies and thefts committed, for a very simple re
Web was given another set of directions and soon was pulling down a dirt road winding between nothing but trees and dense foliage. Web had been around here before. It was a favorite dumping ground for those in the more violent stretches of the city who didn’t like to mess up their neighborhoods with body parts. HRT had done a couple of ops down here, in fact. One had gone textbook, without one shot fired. The other had left three men dead. All bad guys who just couldn’t accept the fact that they were so outclassed and thus had stupidly pulled guns instead of putting up their hands. Maybe they thought there would be warning shots fired. Well, there was no chapter in the HRT manual on warning shots. Whenever Web had pulled his trigger, somebody ended up dead.
“Stop the car,” said the voice, “and get out. Lay your gun on the front seat.”
“How do you know I have a gun?”
“If you don’t, you got horseshit for brains.”
“And if I give my gun up, what exactly do I have for brains?”
“If you don’t, you ain’t gonna have no brains left.”
Web placed the pistol on the front seat and slowly got out of the car and looked around. He saw nothing except trees and a moonless sky. He could smell the river water, and it was hardly comforting. The few movements he heard were assuredly not Big F–like, most likely squirrels, foxes or minor-grade criminals trolling for their supper. Right now the only thing Web wished he had done was stash Romano in the trunk. Well, now you think of that.
He stiffened slightly when he heard them coming. As they appeared from the cover of trees, Web could make out three large men in a row. They were all taller than Web, and they all had some serious hardware pointed at him. Web wasn’t really focusing on them, though, for the far larger man was right behind them. Web had felt sure he was going to see the giant tonight, and yet the sight of Big F was still a little unnerving. He had on different clothes, but the same Club Med style. The shirt, though, wasn’t open this time. All of Web’s wounds inflicted by the giant criminal seemed to tingle in the man’s presence as though some chemical interaction had just been triggered. Next to Big F was a white guy, which surprised Web until he recognized Clyde Macy in the flesh. He resembled a skeleton more in person than he did in the photo. Web recalled his talk with Bates when they had speculated who Cove’s inside person might be. Macy? Peebles? Macy didn’t look like a snitch, but who really knew? As Web kept his gaze on the man, he noted that the suit Macy wore and the ear radio made him look like Secret Service. Maybe he’d had aspirations to join the Service once, until he realized he liked killing people more. Peebles was nowhere in sight. The new breed of criminal entrepreneurs apparently didn’t like to get their finger-nails dirty.
The three underlings circled Web while Big F stood there and watched. Macy hung off to the side. He looked alert and relaxed at the same time. But it was easy to tell the man took his work very seriously. To Web, the other men looked a little bored, as though they were the varsity called in to scrimmage with the JV. Well, that was a real confidence booster. One man drew a short object from his coat pocket that looked like a microphone. He ran it up and down Web’s body while another man checked Web for additional weapons. He found none but did confiscate Web’s cell phone. Another of the men, with what Web knew now was an electronic wand designed to ferret out nosey surveillance devices, did the once-over on Web’s car. The wand only sounded once, near the rear seat, but the man seemed unconcerned by this. He turned and nodded at Big F. Web understood this silent exchange: The man had detected the electronic device they had planted in Web’s car. The men stepped back and Big F came forward and leaned his bulk on the hood of Web’s car. Web thought he could hear the car groaning, and who could blame it?
“How’s the face?”
The man’s voice was neither squeaky high nor brutally deep. It was middle-of-the-road, calm, nonthreatening. It wasn’t the faceless voice inside Web’s car. Web could be talking to his stockbroker—if he had a stockbroker, that is.
“Only thing hurt was my pride. I take it you’re Big F.”
The man smiled at that and then slapped his thigh. To Web it sounded like the ominous smack of thunder. Everything this guy did was big. The other men laughed too, obviously cueing off their boss.
“Shit. Big F. Damn right I’m Big F. That’s good. Ain’t that good, boys?”
They all nodded and said it was good. Damn good. Macy didn’t even crack a smile. He just stood there and stared at Web like he was trying to will him to die.
“Because if there was somebody bigger than you coming down the pike, then I don’t think I want to make his acquaintance.” Web knew it was always good to get on the bad guy’s good side, show you weren’t afraid. Violent criminals just loved fear. And they just loved to cut the throats of fearful people.
Big F laughed again. Yet when he stopped and looked serious, so did everybody else. Instantly, Web noted.
“I got me a problem.”
“I’m here to help.” Web eased forward just a notch. Now he could take out two of the guys with kicks. Big F was something else altogether, sort of like punching Mount Rushmore, but you went with the point of least resistance first.
“Somebody’s setting me up to take a fall for something I ain’t done.”
“You know what happened to my team?”
“I don’t need that shit, you understand me?” He stood, towering over them all, and the look in his eyes made Web’s heart race. “How old you think I am?”
Web gave him the once-over. “Twenty-two.”
“Thirty-two,” Big F said proudly. “Now, that in black years.” He turned to Macy. “What that be in tidy whitey time?”
“A hundred and twenty,” said Macy in a learned tone, as though he were the Ph.D. of this illustrious group.
Big F looked back at Web. “I’m a hundred and twenty. I’m an old man in a young man’s bizness. I don’t need this shit. You go tell your crew that. Don’t come hunting my ass down, ’cause I ain’t done it.”
Web nodded. “Then I need to know whose business it is. Without that, I can guarantee you squat.”
Big F eased himself back down on the car and slid out a Beretta nine-millimeter, with a muzzle suppressor attached, Web noted. Things were definitely not looking good.
“Messengers a dime a dozen,” said Big F, eyeing Web calmly. “It’ll mean a lot more coming from me. I’ve got a lot invested in this one.” Web took one tiny step forward as he pretended to be merely shifting his weight. Now he could tag Big F with a spin kick right on the cerebellum. If the man could shake that off, then crown him king of the world. “And maybe you figure you owe me one for saving Kevin. Him being your little brother and all.”
“He ain’t my brother.”
Web tried hard not to show his surprise. “Is that right?”
“He my son.” Big F rubbed his nose, coughed and then spit. “Course, we got the same mama.”
Web started for a moment and then looked at the other men. They obviously already knew this and seemed to accept it as mainstream, at least their version of mainstream. Yet why shouldn’t they? Web thought. What was a little incest among family? You couldn’t exactly do it with strangers. Grandma had said Kevin was a little slow. Well, with that twisted family tree, Web could see why.
“Well, I hope Kevin’s okay,” said Web.
“The boy’s got nothing to do with you,” Big F said sharply.
Okay, thought Web, so Kevin did mean something to the man. That was valuable intelligence. “Who took out my team? Tell me, and we go our separate ways. No hard feelings.”
“Ain’t that easy.”
“Sure it is,” Web prompted. “Names. That’s all I want.”
Big F studied his pistol. “You know what my biggest problem is?” Web eyed the Beretta and wondered if he was Big F’s biggest problem. He prepared to launch himself.
“Economy’s too hot. I can’t keep good people.” He looked over at his men. “Toona-man, front and center.”
Web watched as one of the men stepped forward. He was six-foot-four and broad-shouldered and wore what looked to Web to be a very expensive suit and enough gold and silver on his neck, wrists and fingers to start his own precious metals exchange.
“You think you can take this little dude with just your hands, Toona?”
Toona smirked. “Ain’t be needing both hands for that boy.”
“Don’t know ’bout that,” said Big F. “Way this boy kicked me, I felt that shit. Well, if you think you can, lay your gun down and get to it.”
Toona slipped his gun out of his waistband and placed it on the ground. He was at least fifteen years younger than Web and much larger. And yet he moved so gracefully that Web was certain the man was as nimble as he was strong. And when Toona assumed a classic martial arts stance, Web knew he was in for something serious, and he hadn’t even recovered from last night.
Web held up his hand. “Look, we don’t have to do this. You think you can kick my ass, I think I can kick yours. Let’s just call it a draw.”
Big F shook his head. “Uh-uh, little dude. Either fight or take the bullet.”
Web stared at the man and his gun, sighed, then put up his fists.
The two men circled each other for a few moments. Web sized his opponent up and saw few weaknesses, yet he did see something else that might be helpful. He tried a kick and Toona easily caught Web’s leg and held on to it for a moment before twisting the limb -->
