The Liar

by Bobby Adair

  Summer went first, taking her time working through the trees and then creeping in close. Unfortunately, with the steep grade of the ground on that side of the house and the thin cover of trees over there, she wasn't able to get so close as to see the entirety of the room through the big windows into the basement.

  Using hand signs, she indicated that she could see three people but didn’t know if that was all. Two had weapons.

  Tommy knew there was no reason to assume the third wasn’t armed.

  The final information she provided were three sets of raised fingers, seven, zero, and four.

  Tommy pushed open a French door off one of the upstairs bedrooms, stopped, listened for the bleat of an intrusion alarm from inside the house, and heard nothing.

  He stepped through and closed the door behind him. The sound of the wind outside cut to nothing, and he heard only the silence of the house.

  Padding across the room on carefully placed feet, he was aware that the floor could creak, or he could slip on a carpet and tumble into a noisy fall. He might accidentally kick a misplaced something on the floor and alert everyone in the house.

  His breaths came quick and shallow. Realizing his nerves were running away with him, a big mistake, Tommy stopped.

  He needed control of himself. There was no room for emotion in the work he was up to.

  He drew slow, measured breaths, waited for his heart to stop racing, and for his nerves to stop buzzing with electricity.

  Control.

  He scanned the room for evidence that anyone had been using it, yet saw nothing besides a bed built on a frame of massive wooden posts, a stone fireplace stacked with logs waiting for a flame, a stuffed bear head growling from the mantle, and a view out the windows that made the one-off Tommy's deck at home seem pedestrian.

  The bedroom felt like a shrine to Viagra-stoked virility, a love-dungeon for dominated virgins and promiscuous divorcees.

  It had to be in Lugenbuhl’s room.

  Making his way to the doors, he entered a hall, long and dimly lit, and thought he heard the faintest sound of voices. Not close by, probably from down in the basement.

  Probably.

  Down the hall he went, peeking through each door, making sure he wasn’t leaving anyone to sneak up behind him as he worked his way down through the house.

  Tommy stopped at the top of the stairs, open, wide, and elegant, built of dark woods, waxed to a luxurious shine. He listened. Still, the faint echo of voices sounded from below, but not from the first floor. Going down was a safe move.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Tommy found himself in a space where the foyer and a great room met. It smelled of bourbon-soaked cigars and microwave dinners. The heads of exotic herbivores glared down from the walls.

  Off to one side, a wide walkway led into a dining room and kitchen. Across the great room, another staircase led down. It was wide and open, much like the stairs he’d just descended, and as Tommy drew closer to the steps, the voices became louder. The people Summer had spotted from outside were still down there, but heading down to ambush them wasn't an option. Tommy had to proceed carefully, so he crept through the main floor, checking each room, each bathroom, and even the garage, which contained the side-by-side four-wheeler, just as Summer had guessed.

  Making his way back to the top of the stairs again, Tommy stopped and listened, trying to count the number of targets from the sounds of the voices. There weren’t three, but seven, maybe eight, mostly men.

  He checked his AK. Full magazine. Fire selector mode was set to auto—a nasty, messy choice—but situations like this were the ones the designers had in mind when they’d created the AK47, close-quarters killing.

  Down he went.

  Chapter 22

  Tommy reached the landing halfway down and paused. The outside light glowed from the left into the room below, so he knew where Summer would be shooting from when the bullets started to fly. Though he could see a bar, half of a pool table, and part of a card table, he wasn’t able to see anyone to attach to the voices he heard as clearly as if they were talking to him.

  Everyone below had to be near the far end of the room. He decided that was good for him, so he didn’t take a moment to second-guess the logic of it.

  Confidence and surprise were significant advantages to carry into a firefight.

  He trotted down the stairs.

  As he reached the bottom with his weapon at his shoulder, he had only a few seconds to process the threats.

  A giant fireplace stood at the other end of the room, with logs blazing inside. Off to the side of the fireplace, a TV was hung on the wall, and Tommy realized at least some of the voices he’d been hearing had been coming from it.

  On the couches facing the TV, a pair of men were watching. At a few of several bar-height tables lined up in the center of the room sat two more men, each in front of a computer, both also fixated on Hazelton’s enormous head staring at them from the TV with a map of Asia on the wall behind him. On that map, dozens of mushroom cloud graphics stood out red and angry within the borders of Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea.

  Hazelton growled, “Let this stand as a warning to the rest of the world. Any country that sees America’s troubles as an opportunity better be ready to face the full might of our American justice. Nobody fucks with America.”

  The screen changed over to a static image of the presidential seal as a handful of news voices prattled into the silence.

  “Holy shit!” said one of the guys on the couch.

  Everybody was stunned, Tommy too, as he tried to understand what he’d just seen.

  One of the computer guys turned away from the screen, set an intense stare at his monitor, and started pecking at his keyboard.

  Tommy recognized him immediately. It was the computer guy from the interrogation room at the gym last Friday night. He was the first one to look up and see Tommy.

  It might have been the threat of the rifle, or his recognition of Tommy that did it, but he screamed and fell back in his chair as he made a sloppy effort to get away.

  Everyone looked at Tommy.

  Thrown off his game by the surprise, Tommy didn’t shout any orders to freeze, and he didn’t pull his trigger.

  The guy at the second computer jumped to his feet.

  The pair on the couch turned, understood they were in danger, and rolled to the floor.

  The standing guy reached for a pistol in a holster on his hip and quickly pulled the weapon out, pointing it in Tommy’s direction before Tommy realized he was in trouble.

  The guy fired and missed.

  Three rapid shots boomed, the window behind the shooter shattered, and his chest erupted, throwing him forward.

  One of the men behind the couch popped up and aimed a rifle at Tommy, but the gunshots had already snapped Tommy back into fight mode. Tommy let go with the AK-47, shredding the couch in a puff of foam and blood. He ripped a long burst across the back of the other sofa, then followed it with another, filling the room with an echo of thunder and the frantic wailing of the computer guy on the floor.

  Quickly changing out his empty magazine for a full one, Tommy ran down the length of the room, careful to keep the wall behind him.

  As Tommy walked up to Computer Guy on the floor beside his fallen chair, he stuck his hands in the air, begging Tommy not to shoot.

  “Don’t move!” Tommy ordered, and then, seeing no weapon near Computer Guy, passed him by to peer over the backs of the couches.

  Two bodies lay there, collapsed with hands on weapons, bleeding from multiple wounds, very busy dying. A third lay prone on a couch with a bloody head propped on a pillow, TV remote in hand. As Tommy realized the TV had gone silent, he guessed the dead guy with the remote must have muted it as his hand clenched when the bullet tore through his skull.

  Summer ran into the basement through the doors on the other side of the room. “Clear?”

  “I don’t know,” Tommy replied. “You okay?”

  “I’
m good. You hit?”

  “No. I’m good.” Tommy hurried over to Computer Guy, keeping his rifle trained on him. “On your belly. Roll! Put your hands behind your back.”

  Computer guy complied.

  Summer took a position beside a thick support column and trained her weapon toward the stairs where doorways led to rooms back that way.

  “Is there anyone else?” Tommy asked.

  “No,” answered Computer Guy, barely able to keep his voice level. “Just us.”

  “How many?” Tommy demanded.

  “Ah, ummm—”

  “How many?” Tommy pressed the barrel of his rifle to Computer Guy’s head.

  “Five. Just five, counting me.”

  Summer fired several bursts through one of the doors at the back of the room and rushed at it.

  “Summer, don’t!” Tommy called.

  She didn’t listen. She burst into the room beyond the door, so Tommy fired and shredded the door on the other side of the stairs.

  In a flash, Summer was out again, running around the foot of the stairs and stopping before she went in. She looked back at Tommy to make sure he was done firing. He was. She ran in and checked the other room, only to come out a few moments later. “Clear.”

  “Clear,” Tommy agreed.

  “The rest of the house?”

  “Swept it,” Tommy told her. He turned his attention back to Computer Guy and kicked him in the ribs, not brutally, but not gently. “Pick up your chair.” He glanced at Summer. “You know who this guy is?”

  She shook her head. “I see him at the coffee shop all the time. He likes to camp out there with his laptop.”

  Groaning and frightened, Computer Guy stood, then righted his chair.

  Tommy motioned him to hurry. “Put your hands flat on the desk and spread your legs.” To Summer, Tommy said, “Frisk him. Empty his pockets on the desk.”

  Summer got right to it. Computer guy didn't have anything important hidden on his person. He carried a sat-phone, a cell phone, car keys, a wallet, and earbuds.

  “Sit down in the chair,” Tommy told him. “Put your hands flat on the desk. Move them anywhere else, and I’ll shoot you.”

  Computer guy hurried into position.

  To Summer, Tommy said, “This guy was at the gym. He collected my info while that big knucklefuck beat me. He’s the one who took my bank passwords and cleaned out my accounts.”

  “Please,” begged Computer Guy, “I was just—”

  “Following orders?” Tommy menaced as he pointed the barrel of the rifle at Computer Guy’s face. “You’re going to start this out by lying?” He turned to Summer. “I need you to run to the garage and grab some things I saw out there.”

  ***

  “You got a name?” Tommy asked.

  “Please,” Computer Guy’s eyes were on the bodies of his buddies, “I’ll do whatever you want. I swear.”

  “Yeah,” Tommy told him. “And you still don’t understand cooperation. I just asked your name and your first instinct was to tell me something else. Bad choice.”

  “Please,” he begged, as he stared at Tommy’s gun. “I’ll do anything.” Predictably, his eyes watered up. “Please.”

  “Name?”

  “Chad Castleberry.”

  “Chad? I’d have pegged you more for a Herbert. What’s your middle name?”

  “Chandler.”

  “You’re kidding me. Chad Chandler Castleberry?”

  Chad was at a loss.

  “That’s a shitty name, Chad.”

  Summer came into the room carrying some flexible metal strapping, a box with several pairs of safety glasses and other accessories, and a big, orange gun-shaped tool. She didn’t look at all happy to have it.

  It alarmed Chad. “What’s that?”

  Tommy was feeling mean. “I think you know what it is.”

  Shaking his head, his trembling guess was, “A nail gun?”

  “Bingo. It’s a Paslode cordless framing nailer. No compressor needed. You know, your boss Frank has a fantastic shop out in his garage.” Tommy pretended to be impressed. “I guess because he’s a construction guy.”

  “Please,” begged Chad. “I already told you—”

  Tommy stopped him with a raised hand. "You already chose not to follow my directions once."

  “Please, I’ll do better. I swear I will.”

  “I know you will, Chad.”

  Summer laid the nail gun on the table, along with a couple batteries and a fuel cell, among other things.

  Tommy pointed at one of the laptops sitting on the desk. “This is the one you were using, right?”

  Chad nodded.

  Tommy shoved the other one onto the floor in a crash. "Is this your laptop case?"

  Chad nodded.

  Tommy dug around inside, and pulled out a white device the size of a paperback book with rounded edges. “What’s this?”

  “A satellite data link,” answered Chad.

  Tommy was impressed. “What are you, Frank’s tech guy?”

  “I’m an accountant.” He glanced back at the dead guy by the other desk. “Dalton was Frank’s tech manager.”

  “Why aren’t you using your satellite data link?”

  “Frank has his own dish. The whole house is wired for Ethernet and wifi.” Chad’s eyes went back to the nail gun.

  Summer took Chad's laptop and slid it over in front of herself, arranging her new little workspace so it was comfortable.

  Tommy picked up the nail gun.

  “No, no!” cried Chad, tucking his fingers into tightly balled fists and hiding his hands in his crotch. “Please, no.”

  Tommy raised his nine mil pistol in his other hand and pointed it at Chad's face.

  “Tommy,” warned Summer, “I don’t—”

  Tommy silenced her with a glare.

  "We don't need to stoop to their level," she said. "I know what he did to you, but revenge isn't—"

  “Summer,” Tommy told her, “we’re doing this my way.”

  “Mrs. Corrigan,” begged Chad, keeping his fists in his lap, “please don’t let him do this.”

  “You know her?” Tommy asked.

  “Yes,” blurted Chad, a frail smile crossing his face, like maybe he’d found a key to a way out. “Everybody in Spring Creek knows Mrs. Corrigan, she’s—”

  “Stop.” Tommy kept the pistol pointed at Chad’s face. “Is Summer a bad person?”

  “No.” Chad shook his head in a gross exaggeration. “She’s, umm, I mean, she’s popular. Everybody likes her.”

  “Everybody?” Tommy asked. “Even Frank?”

  Chad hit a wall on finding his words. He slowly shook his head again, and in a mousy voice said, “I don’t think so.”

  “Give Summer your login,” Tommy told him. “Don’t make a mistake. You hear me?”

  Chad provided the information.

  Summer gained access to the laptop. “What is this?”

  “I don’t know,” Chad told her.

  “You’re lying again,” Tommy accused.

  Summer turned the laptop so Chad could see a spreadsheet listing addresses, names, dollar values. “It looks like—”

  “These are the properties you forced people to sign over,” Tommy guessed, “aren’t they?”

  Chad nodded.

  “You’re totaling up your weekend haul, aren’t you?” asked Tommy.

  “I just keep the books,” whined Chad.

  “How much so far?” asked Tommy.

  Chad didn’t want to answer.

  Summer scrolled down and gasped.

  “How much?” Tommy asked.

  “A quarter of a billion,” she answered.

  Even Tommy didn’t believe it.

  “These transfers, if that’s what they are,” said Summer, “they’ll never stand up in court.”

  “They won’t have to,” Tommy guessed, recalling something of what Ezz had told him before she’d been killed that first night. “The only judges left alive
when all this is done will be in their pocket. They’ll uphold anything Lugenbuhl wants them to.”

  Summer shook her head in disbelief.

  Tommy told Chad, “I need all of your passwords.”

  “That’ll take time. I have lots—”

  “Then you have a list somewhere,” Tommy guessed. “Tell Summer how to access it.”

  “I—” Chad couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Tommy slid a pair of safety glass over to Chad. He put a pair on himself.

  Chad started to cry.

  “Put them on, or don’t,” said Tommy. “It’s up to you.”

  With shaking hands, Chad picked up the safety glasses. “I don’t… I’m not… I work for Frank. I—”

  "Chad," said Tommy. "I'm not going to pretend I don't want to kill you. I do. I'm not going to pretend I don't want to torture you. I want to do that, too. Here's the deal. You're more valuable to me alive than dead. But you seem to believe you can talk your way out of this shit. You think you can lie and delay—"

  “No, no,” cried Chad, “I don’t.”

  “You’ve lost your credibility, Chad. Put your hands flat on the table.”

  Chad wailed.

  Tommy cocked his pistol. “You pick, Chad. One. Two.”

  Shaking, Chad pressed his palms on the table. “Please.”

  “Understand me now, Chad, because you’re about to do the hardest thing of your life. You know what I’m going to do?”

  Chad wailed and begged.

  “If you move your hand, I’ll know you don’t plan to help me. I’ll know you’re a liar and you’ll be of no use to me. Chad, if you move your hand, I’m going to kill you. Do you understand?”

  “Please,” Chad blubbered. “Don’t.”

  “You’ll probably want to close your eyes.”

  Chad closed his eyes but kept on begging.

  Tommy quietly set the pistol on the table, then checked the side of the nail gun and saw one of the batteries was in its sheath. He opened the fuel cell door to make sure one was in the chamber. He verified that a clip of nails was loaded. He pushed the tip of the gun against the table a few times to disengage the safety, and rattled the trigger with his index and middle finger, emulating a technique he’d see guys use with paintball guns for rapid fire.