Law and Vengeance

by Mike Papantonio

  “That’s a good thing your firm did.”

  “So is that your way of telling me, ‘Thanks, but no thanks?’”

  Instead of directly answering, he asked, “Who is Angus Moore?”

  “He was my Uncle Angus. That’s what I called him when I was a girl. Angus was a partner in Dad’s firm. He was murdered because of the work he was doing with Sight-Clops and Arbalest. I know it probably sounds silly to you, but his death made it feel like our law firm went to war.”

  “Death sometimes just hangs around too long,” he said.

  “You wouldn’t believe all that’s happened,” she said. “The case exposed this trail of corruption that led to politicians and lobbyists and union leaders—and just about everywhere. It’s still being worked out. We know of at least five people who were murdered because of it.”

  “It does sound like a war,” he said.

  “We had Angus’s killer in our hands,” she said. “My father had him on his boat for questioning. He was writing up his confession for all that he’d done, and then he jumped off the ship. No one thought he could have survived. He was a long, long ways from shore. But my dad wanted to be sure. He had his investigators scouring through CCTV footage. And that’s where they caught some images of Ivan Verloc in and around Mobile.

  “My dad sort of went crazy. He blames himself for Ivan getting away. That’s why he’s put up wanted posters everywhere. He’s offering a quarter-million-dollar reward for the capture of Ivan Verloc.”

  “That sounds like a bounty.”

  “It sort of is. Dad and Gina—she’s the lawyer who took over for Angus—can’t stand it that Ivan got away after killing so many people. People are calling this Ivan guy the ‘Generation Y Killer.’ If you saw his picture you’d never guess he was capable of murder. He is this small, light guy, who looks like a teenager even though he’s twenty-five.”

  “With your dad offering up a quarter of a million dollars, I can’t imagine he’ll avoid capture for long.”

  “That’s what everyone thought. But Ivan seems to have disappeared.”

  They both sipped at their tea, and then Cara said, “That was a good job of misdirection, by the way, of getting off the topic of the wounded warrior fund. Is that what you did with the shrinks?”

  “Busted,” he said.

  “Just so I know I asked the right question, are you telling me you want to pass on getting any help from the fund?”

  “It’s not for me.”

  “I’m no mental health professional, Cary, but I’m wondering if anyone gave you a PTSD diagnosis when you were discharged.”

  “PTSD is just another name for bad shit that happened.”

  “You said our program isn’t the right thing for you. What is the right thing for you?”

  He shrugged his shoulders, unwilling to voice his pipe dream.

  “No reason to shut me out, Cary. What do you think would help?”

  “I’d just like to get away from it all for a while,” he said. “I’m happiest when I’m alone in the woods. That’s where I feel at peace. I don’t like being boxed in by buildings and people. I think it would be a lot easier to heal with open space.”

  Cara nodded. “Far from the madding crowd.”

  “That sounds about right.”

  Cara suddenly smiled. “Are you serious about living in the woods?”

  “That’s my fantasy,” he said.

  “Yesterday I heard my father talking with his partner Martin Bergman. He said they’d need a caretaker for the place in Montana owned by Angus—that’s the lawyer who was murdered. The firm bought it from Angus’s widow supposedly as a company retreat, but in reality it was a way of putting more money in her estate. For now though the place is just sitting empty.”

  “Your father is really going to hire a caretaker?”

  Cara made a gesture of crossing her index finger over her heart: “Cross my heart,” she said.

  “Hired,” he said.

  42

  A MEAL OF TROUT

  For so long, Cary Jones had felt like a bird without wings. Now, with every passing moment, he was feeling more alive and more grateful to Angus Moore. In a way, the man might have actually saved his life.

  Angus had purchased the hundred-acre spread as his getaway. It was a shame the lawyer hadn’t used the mountain paradise more often while he’d been alive. He had picked a spot in northwestern Montana bordering national forests. On Angus’s spread, there were three creeks. In Gaffney, they would have been called rivers. And on the northwest edge of the property, the Clark Fork River meandered by having branched off from the mighty Columbia River.

  After only a few days there, the place was feeling like home. He’d already seen elk, white-tailed deer, wild turkeys, and brown bear. He kept a .45 automatic strapped to his side, not for the brown bear but for the two grizzlies who seemed too comfortable within the immediate vicinity of the main residence.

  Cara had worried he’d be too cold and too isolated in Montana, but then she’d never visited Angus’s paradise. What he had built was really more of a house than a cabin; nevertheless the structure was mostly made up of red cedar and lodgepole pine. There were two river stone fireplaces; each generated lots of heat. It would be up to Cary, though, to cut enough firewood. Five cords were already cut and stacked; Cary would restock as needed. Even though the cabin was off the grid, it was equipped with a solar system and generator.

  Cary took a deep breath. Thank you, Angus Moore, he thought. You gave me a gift I could never have imagined. You gave me a chance to recover.

  Today, Cary decided, was a fishing day. The biggest creek on the property was only a few hundred yards away from the cabin. Yesterday, he must have seen at least a dozen fat brown trout in the shallows. And for every brownie he saw, Cary knew there were three he wasn’t seeing. The place had been well-stocked with fishing equipment. Cary knew very little about fly-fishing, but thought he’d give it a try. He’d also bring along a spinning rod. The bait would be a no-brainer. There were lots of grasshoppers. That was probably why there was a butterfly net in the house. He’d catch a bunch of live hoppers. If they didn’t bring the fish, nothing would.

  Ivan Verloc was getting increasingly pissed. He hadn’t counted on having to camp out for as many nights as he had. The situation sort of reminded him of a T-shirt he used to own that showed one vulture talking to another and saying, “Patience, Hell. I’m Going to Kill Somebody!”

  Ivan was reaching the same conclusion as the vulture. He had hoped the interloper would only stay for a few days and then move on. But now it was clear; instead of moving on he had moved in.

  Angus’s Montana getaway had seemed like the perfect place for Ivan to hole up. When Angus had first offered it to his whistle-blower, Richard Diaz, Ivan was immediately intrigued. And though Diaz had never taken the lawyer up on his offer, Ivan had.

  When Ivan was taken out on that little cruise, it was supposed to have been his last outing. Even as he was writing up his confession, he’d been plotting his escape. There was no way that bitch would have let him live. Her green eyes were like neon signs. They flashed “Murderer! Murderer!” And that sanctimonious prick Deketomis wasn’t any better. He’d wanted Ivan to confess his crimes as a way to justify what he intended to do to him.

  Screw you, Deketomis.

  Ivan had waited for just the right time to jump overboard. The sun was getting lower in the sky, and the chop was building. He’d calculated his best chance was to jump overboard and grab hold of the boat’s stabilizer that was just below the surface. From above they wouldn’t be able to see him. Of course if he’d missed, the next stop would likely have been the prop.

  Luckily he hadn’t missed, and he held on to the stabilizer while Deketomis slowly maneuvered the yacht around in figure eights. This offered Ivan his chance to make his break from the boat right before he passed out from lack of air. The big Indian and the bitch had done their best to spot him, but Ivan had remained invisible in the
chop and the glare from the setting sun. He kept his head from barely breaking the surface. They’d stayed in the area until it was dark. Sometimes their voices carried, and Ivan had heard them talking. They had tried to convince themselves that he was dead.

  Finally, they’d headed back to shore. Still, his survival was anything but assured. The direct route to shore was about ten miles away, but Ivan had let the prevailing current take him. He’d been able to rest at a few unmanned oil rigs on the way in. When he’d finally crawled ashore, barely able to move, he wasn’t far from Mobile.

  He’d broken into a house, taken some money and some clothes, and then he’d done his great disappearing act. Interstate 10 beckoned, and Ivan had gotten rides going west. He’d portrayed himself as a college freshman out to see the country. Along the way he’d picked up some traveling money and left at least one body behind.

  Ivan always appreciated irony; he thought it ironic that his destination was the remote Montana getaway of the lawyer he’d murdered. It was there he had planned to regroup. It was there he would plan his new life. The lawyer had told his whistle-blower, Diaz, that it would be an easy place for him to hide and never be seen. That sounded like the perfect hidey-hole to Ivan.

  What he hadn’t counted on was the visitor. Ivan was barely able to get out of the cabin unseen when the interloper had moved in. Since that time, Ivan had been forced to camp all the while keeping a close watch on the intruder. Now Ivan was convinced the man was some kind of caretaker. The cabin did have some pricy things inside. Ivan was holding one of those items: a Remington .223 bolt-action rifle. Ivan had watched the caretaker spend a day reattaching some fencing and part of another day clearing a trail.

  But today, Ivan thought, the caretaker had decided it was a fishing day. The man caught some grasshoppers and put them in a bag, and now he was walking toward one of the creeks with two fishing poles swinging over his shoulder.

  The kid sort of looked like an older version of Opie from the TV classic The Andy Griffith Show, Ivan decided. Every episode began with Opie and his dad walking toward the water with their fishing poles.

  Ivan hoped Opie would be lucky, because if he caught a fish, tonight Ivan would be eating trout.

  Afghanistan had taught Cary to trust his instincts. On his way to the creek, he’d heard sounds that were out of place. He was certain the noises weren’t coming from animal movements; years of hunting the South Carolina woods had attuned him to those sounds. He played it cool, though, never looking around, pretending like he didn’t have a worry in the world.

  Once he was at the creek, Cary walked along the bank. Behind him, every so often, he heard noises of someone on his trail. Whoever was stalking him knew very little about stealth or maybe didn’t care if he was heard. Cary looked for just the right spot; his concern wasn’t so much in locating the best area to angle for brown trout as it was to find a place that might afford him protection from being ambushed.

  Finally, Cary came to a stop. He cast his line in the water and waited. Then he retrieved his line and tried again. No one could have been more surprised than Cary when a trout hit his hopper. The struggle was brief, almost anticlimactic. The trout was reeled in and with a rock Cary ended the fish’s life.

  The rock was still in his hand when a man stepped into the opening and raised his rifle.

  Cary hurled the rock at the gunman. The man ducked and almost fell. Then he righted himself and raised his rifle again. But Cary was already in a shooter’s stance. He fired four rounds from his .45 and headed for the trees to his right.

  Ivan dove for cover behind the remains of a tree trunk that had washed up along the river. His right thigh had been hit with a round and was spewing blood.

  He’d need a tourniquet to survive, but first he needed to locate the man who had shot him. The same man he still intended to kill.

  Cary scrambled up the bank into the tree line directly behind Ivan. That’s where he would sit silently watching the armed predator slowly bleed to death.

  Where was the son of a bitch? Ivan thought as he looked around. His vision was getting blurry. His heart raced as a stream of blood poured out of his body. He felt as if he were looking through a narrow tunnel as he turned his head side to side trying to get a visual on the man who had shot him. He was losing it. He was dying.

  Ivan knew what he needed to do to stop the bleeding. He could visualize the tourniquet. It was nothing more than a piece of cloth, a belt, and a strong stick. He knew what was needed, but his body refused to respond to what his brain was commanding him to do. He tried to speak, but no words came to his mouth. He had the sensation of being suspended in the air and looking at his body lying in a pool of blood.

  Ivan had grown up playing hundreds of video games where computer graphics splattered virtual blood everywhere. But those were just games. He struggled to suck in two more breaths. Dying in real life was no fun. Game over.

  Cary watched the man die. It wasn’t like watching Ahmad’s grandfather pass on. This man had stalked him and had raised his rifle to kill him. He hadn’t expected Cary to shoot first.

  Cary walked down from his observer’s position. He was sure the man was dead, but he still wasn’t taking any chances. Cary kicked the man’s rifle away from his body and reached down to be certain there was no pulse. For the first time, he could confirm what had crossed his mind as he watched the man bleed out. He had killed Ivan Verloc.

  Cara’s story about her father’s campaign to find Verloc had prompted Cary to read everything he could about him on the internet. He had no doubt about the identity of the bloody corpse lying at his feet.

  Ivan’s eyes were open. Cary reached into his pocket for Ahmad’s coins. He took two of them and placed one on each eye.

  It felt right. The coins looked like they belonged.

  Even the shooting felt right. It had been a situation of kill or be killed, and he had chosen life.

  Cary took out his cell phone. The nearest cell reception was in a town more than ten miles away. Cary didn’t make calls with his phone; he carried it to take pictures. And now he took a picture of the dead Ivan Verloc. The picture was clear; there was no mistaking his features. Ahmad’s special coins seemed to tell a story as well. Cara’s father would want to see a picture of Verloc, he knew. Later, he’d go into town and send Cara the picture and ask her what he should do about the body.

  First, though, Cary was going to eat some trout.

  43

  THE NOBLEST VENGEANCE

  Deke walked into Gina’s office and found her staring off into the distant waters of the Gulf of Mexico. “Are you receiving visitors?” he asked.

  “Today, all forms of escapism are welcome,” she said. “Please join me.”

  Earlier that morning Deke had called four trusted friends into his office and told them that Ivan was dead. There had been a few amens, a few remembrances of Angus, and a few tears. Deke had asked everyone not to speak of Ivan’s death to anyone outside of that room. Cary Jones had endured enough trouble in his life; he didn’t need to go through another investigation or trial. In lieu of the cash reward, Cary had asked if he could continue to maintain Angus’s Montana home. If he was still of the same mind a few years down the road, Deke said he would transfer the home into Cary’s name.

  “I am still feeling numb,” Gina said.

  “That’s understandable.”

  “I would have killed Ivan that day we were out on the ship,” said Gina. “I had no intention of letting him escape alive.”

  “Nor I,” Deke said.

  “I felt so cheated when we came into port. We were all just guessing—was he dead, or was that sick bastard still walking around?”

  “I felt that same disappointment. I thought I had failed Angus. But in the days that followed, I came to realize how lucky both of us were. Had I killed Ivan, I think there would have been this infection inside of me, an infection that ultimately would have impacted me, and my family, and this entire law firm.”

&n
bsp; Gina nodded. “I’d like to pretend that I would have been tough enough to weather those consequences, that I was up to the task of revenge killing and that it wouldn’t have changed me. But the truth is my childhood already left me with more baggage than I can carry on most days. I didn’t need any more.”

  “You and Bryan should get married,” said Deke. “The two of you should have kids.”

  “You sound like Bryan.” She smiled and added, “I was sure that ship had sailed. But now maybe I’m reconsidering.”

  “I hope you do.”

  “My goal is to never have to plot to kill anyone else, okay Deke?”

  “Let me know ahead of time if you do get that urge,” said Deke with a laugh, “and I’ll send you on a long exotic vacation far away from people.”

  He surprised Gina by opening his suit jacket and pulling out a rectangular frame he’d been hiding. A surprised Gina accepted his offering.

  “I commissioned Rachel Frank to do the calligraphy,” Deke said, “and to add her special touches.”

  In addition to being the firm’s best paralegal, Rachel was a talented artist. Gina looked at the elaborate writing she’d penned: The Noblest Vengeance is to Forgive. Around her calligraphy, she had added some artwork. Gina studied the intricately drawn images; there was a dove in flight, a fish, a tree, and a mandala.

  “I love it,” Gina said, “I really do. And I’m going to put it right here on my desk as a daily reminder to try to be that noble.”

  “We both can try,” said Deke.

  The two of them shared a smile; each knew that was far better than forever sharing a dark secret. But Gina couldn’t let herself appear too warm and fuzzy. “You better not be expecting some miraculous transformation, Nick Deketomis. I’m a girl from Jersey. Deal with it.”