Scott sighed and looked at George. The younger agent shuffled his feet on the grass. “Whatever you decide to do, Scott, is all right with me,” he said softly.
“Shit!” Scott said. “I’ve got to call in on this thing. I won’t make this decision on my own.” He grinned. “That’s called passing the buck.”
“What about the body for the time being?” Gary asked.
“Toss a tarp over it,” Al said. He looked over at Tom Starr and Frank Bruce. Both of them appeared to be in a mild state of shock. “You two stick close. Make sure nothing happens to this body. But you can sit in your units across the road.”
Both men looked very relieved at that.
George cut his eyes to Scott. “Do you know what you’re going to say about this?”
“No. Not yet. But I’ll think of something.”
“Better you than me,” the younger agent muttered.
Three
Scott talked to his superiors for a long time. A very long time. He was sweating when he finally hung up the phone in Al’s den.
“Well?” the sheriff asked.
“Can you trust the local mortician?”
“Yes. That much I know for certain.”
“Does he have facilities for storing the body?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Have him go out there and pick up the body. Stash it away for the time being. Say nothing to anyone. I’ve got people coming in here. They don’t believe me about the ghosts.”
“I can’t blame them for that.”
“Incredible,” George mumbled. “Bizarre.”
Cole patted him on the shoulder. “I do know the feeling, George. ”
Bev came into the room, a frown on her face. “The tape I shot was blank. Except for Cole, Scott, and George. George looks like he’s doing some sort of strange dance.”
Sitting off by himself, George grimaced at the thought.
“Nothing else showed up?” Scott said. “The cars, the club?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Damn!”
“I am not looking forward to being interviewed by our people,” George said. “It’s going to be very unpleasant.”
“Oh, maybe not, George,” his partner told him. “We do have witnesses to back our story.”
“This could well mean the end of our careers,” George said mournfully.
Scott had to laugh at the expression on the man’s face. “It’s not that bad, George.”
The sheriffs home was in the country, the nearest neighbor more than a mile away. The house sat well back from the road in a stand of timber, with several acres cleared around the house. Clouds had begun rolling in and the air was heavy, the clouds just beginning to dribble out sprinkles of rain.
John Costa had moved the timetable for the hit. He had come very close to calling off the whole damn thing; he felt his luck had turned sour. First the briefcase holding the scramble phone was stolen, then the ball-up with the room reservations made them all nervous. But the money was too good to pass up, so John had hit the button for the green light and assembled his people. When he saw that everyone involved had gathered at the sheriff’s house in the country, it was just too good an opportunity to let slide. John didn’t know who the two new people were, and he really didn’t care. Over the years, John had killed several politicians, local and national, politician’s girlfriends, cops, heads of industry, and everything in between. He once killed a mentally retarded six-year-old girl—the parents of the kid had paid him for that one. They said they had grown tired of seeing the brat slobber all the time.
It really didn’t make any difference to John who or what he killed, just as long as he got paid for it.
Costa was at the front of the sheriffs house, Weber at the rear, Collins on one side, and Ginny Hammond on the other. They were all dressed in dark clothing and wore ski masks. They were armed with automatic weapons and ready to go. There would be little finesse to this touch. It would be quick and bloody and very final. It is very difficult to really silence an automatic weapon, at least for any length of time, but these were silenced as effectively as present technology allowed.
Lightning began ripping through the sky, and thunder rumbled all around. Costa glanced up at the sky and smiled. The weather would soon be perfect. They would wait until the full fury of the summer thunderstorm hit, before they launched their strike. Sound would not carry far in this weather.
* * *
A vicious slash of lightning briefly illuminated the land just as Katti was looking out the kitchen window, where she was standing by the sink, rinsing out the coffeepot, preparing to brew another pot. She caught just a split-second glimpse of what seemed to be a man standing by a huge old tree. Lightning cut the sky again, and the man was gone.
Katti blinked her eyes and stared. She shook her head, was thoughtful for a moment, then left the sink, and walked into the den. “Cole? It’s probably just my imagination, but I swear I saw a man standing out by that big tree just a moment ago. He seemed to be holding something. I don’t know what. It looked like a big T-shaped thing.”
“A golf tee?” George asked.
“No. The down slash was shorter than the upper part.”
“Like a banana clip in a rifle, maybe?” Gary said softly.
Sheriff Pickens leaped for the gun cabinet and threw it open. “Help yourself, people,” he said. “Ammo in the bottom drawer.” A minute later, with everyone holding a rifle or shotgun, he hit the light switches and plunged the room into darkness.
“Get on the floor, Katti!” Cole said. “Right now! Do it! Get next to a wall and belly down.”
“Shit!” Costa said, as he watched the house go dark. “We’ve been spotted. Now!” he shouted. “Go, go, go!”
“We should advise them that we are federal officers,” George’s voice came out of the darkness. “Assaulting a federal officer is a serious matter. I think——”
“George,” Scott said, very patiently.
“I know, Scott. I know. Shut up.”
“Right.”
Then there was no more time for talk as four sub-machine guns opened up from out of the suddenly rainy night. The windows were blown out, and the slugs shredded drapes and curtains, tore into furniture, shattered lamps, knocked out chunks of paneling, destroyed the china cabinet and all the dishes in it, punched holes in the refrigerator, the microwave, the dishwasher, the coffeepot, the stove and oven, raised hell with the flatware, and tore the doors off many of the cabinets.
While the thirty- and forty-round magazines were being emptied, those inside the house were unable to do anything except stay low and pray they didn’t get hit.
When the assassins paused for a few seconds to change magazines, Cole slipped through the darkened and bullet-shattered home and out the back door, while the others opened up with hunting rifles and pistols.
No skill was involved in Cole taking out Weber. The two men ran into each other in the stormy night. But Cole’s reaction time was faster, and he clubbed the assassin on the side of the head with the butt of his rifle. Weber dropped unconscious to the wet ground.
Returning fire from inside the house tore a huge chunk of bark from an oak tree, and the bark slammed into the face of Ginny Hammond, drawing blood and momentarily blinding the woman. Collins had a leg knocked out from under him by a slug from a .30–30 rifle and hit the ground hard, dropping his sub-machine gun, both hands going to his bleeding leg.
By this time, George and Scott had left the house, circled around, and got behind Costa.
“Give it up!” Scott yelled over the crash of thunder. “FBI. Drop your weapon. Right now!”
“FBI?” Costa said, then dropped his assault rifle. “No one said anything about the FBI being here,” he muttered. “Damn!”
George put Costa on the ground and cuffed his hands behind his back, while Tom Starr and Frank Bruce rounded up the others. Al called in for an ambulance.
“You could get me out of this damn
rain,” Collins bitched to Sheriff Pickens. “I’d be drier and a whole lot more comfortable.”
“I could also shoot you in the head,” Al responded. “Then you could be dry and comfortable forever.”
Collins wisely decided to shut his mouth.
Al walked over to Scott. “Since I can’t be sure who to trust in this area, you take over here. Normally, I don’t have much use for the Feds, but you and George seem like all right people.”
Scott smiled, while the warm summer rain plastered his hair to his head. “I guess I’ll take that as a compliment, Sheriff. In a left-handed way.”
George took offense at the sheriff’s remark. He opened his mouth to speak, but Scott beat him to it. “Shut up, George.”
“But I haven’t said anything yet!”
“You were about to. Just cool it. Go call this in. Tell our people to get here ASAP.”
“Well, gee whiz!” George said, and walked off.
* * *
Victoria slammed down the phone in a rage, stilling the voice of Capt. Curtis Wood. She didn’t believe that crap about Costa not talking. If a good enough deal could be cut between prosecution and defense, Costa would blab. And if Curtis Wood went down, he would take everybody with him.
Victoria calmed herself, then sat quietly for a moment, deep in thought. She smiled and rose from the chair, walking over to a wall safe. She removed several stacks of bills, put the money into her purse, and then went out to the garage and got into her car. She drove straight to the home of Nick Pullen. She found him home and surprised to see her.
“What’s up, Ms. Victoria?” Nick asked, after showing her to a chair.
Victoria opened her purse and tossed the money onto a coffee table. “I want you to kill a man, Nick. That’s half the payment. You get the other half when the job is done. I want it done tonight.”
Nick didn’t hesitate. “Who’s the man?”
Victoria told him.
Nick smiled. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“And burn his house down around him, just in case he’s got something on paper about us.”
“No problem.”
“You’ll have to kill his wife, too.”
“No problem.”
“Don’t tell Albert anything about this. He’s weak.”
“I know that. Don’t worry. This is between us.”
Victoria rose from the chair. “Come see me in the morning.”
“I’ll sure be there.”
Victoria walked out into the stormy night. She felt better. Nick would do the job, and do it right. She knew that for a fact. She’d used him before. But this would be his last job for her. Tomorrow, when he came to the house, she’d take care of Nick.
* * *
A team of Bureau people was in the area within the hour. Ginny and Collins were taken to the local hospital for treatment and placed under heavy guard. Jim Deaton’s people, who were guarding Earl and Luddy, and the FBI, guarding Collins and Ginny, spent the rest of the night staring at each other in the hallway of the hospital. Not all of the stares were friendly.
Sheriff Al Pickens decided to stay at his house. The guest room had not been touched by the gunfire. But the rest of the house was sure a mess.
Costa and Weber were placed in the local jail and guarded by FBI agents. No one else was allowed to get near them.
Win Bryan sat in his chair at his house, having been unsuccessful in finding Gerald Wilson, and shook his head at the news he’d just heard from a deputy. Everything seemed to be coming apart. He figured all along that Curtis Wood would screw everything up, since, in Win’s opinion, most highway cops were overcome with their own importance.
But he just didn’t know what to do about the situation.
* * *
The residents of northeast Arkansas and southeast Missouri were shocked the next morning, when they heard the news about the attack on Sheriff Pickens’s home and the deaths of Highway Patrol Capt. Curtis Wood and his wife; they had died when their home exploded due to a faulty gas water heater. The coroner’s initial report was that they had been overcome with the gas and died in bed, before the house blew up and caught fire. There were no signs of foul play. An investigation was under way, but the bodies were so badly mangled that if foul play was involved—other than a gunshot or a stabbing—it was going to be very difficult to determine.
Gerald Wilson had spent a wet night in the brush, but he hadn’t paid any attention to the weather. His thoughts were solely of revenge. And now it was time to take that revenge.
Gerald emerged from the brush just as Nick Pullen was driving up to the Staples mansion. He smiled. “Good,” he muttered. “Now if that weasel Albert would just show up, everything would be perfect. I could rid the world of three evils in one day.” He consoled himself with the knowledge that two out of three wasn’t bad.
Staying low, Gerald ran along a carefully trimmed hedgerow that grew left and right from the house, starting about ten feet from each side of the mansion and set back about thirty feet from the porch. He made it to the north side of the house without being spotted. There he paused to kneel down and catch his breath. He had been watching the house all morning, had seen no one come or go, and guessed that Victoria was alone. The huge old mansion had been built of stone shipped in from some damn place by her great-grandfather. Gerald had never liked the house. The place had always given him the creeps.
Then he remembered his most recent visit to this house and the humiliation he had suffered at the hands of Victoria and the others, and in his mind rage grew as large as his madness.
Gerald moved to the rear of the mansion and entered the house through one of the back doors.
Gerald was fully prepared to die this day, and that knowledge did not frighten or alarm him . . . not as long as he could take some of this evil with him.
The sound of voices in heated argument drifted to him as he moved closer to the front of the great house. Two voices—Victoria and Nick.
Gerald moved closer, his boots silent on the polished floor, his rifle at the ready.
The quarreling voices grew louder. Gerald could not make out what they were quarreling about, but he was somehow pleased the two were quarreling. It meant something was wrong, and that was satisfying to him.
He came to a closed door and stood for a moment, listening to the angry voices. He could tell the two were in the next room. How to do this? Gerald wanted the moment to last for a time. He wanted to savor the sight of fear on their evil faces, and the scent of dread as they faced death . . . by his hand.
Gerald pushed open the door and stepped into the den of the mansion. Victoria and Nick stood facing each other, a few feet separating them. They stopped their quarreling and slowly turned to face him.
Gerald knew that while Nick was the younger, bigger, and stronger of the two, Victoria was by far the most dangerous. She was ruthless and cruel. He would kill her first.
But there was no fear in the woman. “Put that rifle down, Gerald!” Victoria commanded, her voice calm and strong. “Don’t be a fool.”
“Shut up, Victoria,” Gerald said. “Just shut your ugly mouth.”
Nick shifted his feet, and Gerald moved the muzzle of the. 308 in his direction. That stopped the two-bit thug cold. Gerald could sense his fear, and he relished the moment. “Both of you, strip! Right now. Take it all off.”
“Gerald, boy,” Nick said. “Just take it easy with that rifle. You got a right to be mad, but think about this.”
“Shut up your goddamn mouth!” Gerald screamed at him, spittle spraying from his lips. “And do what I tell you to do. Right now.” He raised the rifle, and the man and woman began hastily removing their clothing.
In a moment, they stood naked before him. Even at fifty years of age, Victoria had a magnificent body. Gerald knew she worked hard to maintain her youthful appearance. He smiled. “You like to humiliate people, Victoria. You like to inflict pain on people. Now you’re going to see how it feels.”
For the first time, Gerald could see real fear on the woman’s face. He laughed at her. “Get down on your hands and knees, Victoria.” He looked at Nick. Despite the situation, the man was getting an erection. “Now get behind her, Nick. In position, you might say. I think you know what to do.”
“No!” Victoria screamed. “He’s too large. He’ll hurt me.”
“That’s the general idea, Vicky baby,” Gerald said. He lifted the rifle and took aim at Nick’s privates. “Do it or lose it, Nick.”
A few seconds later, Victoria started screaming. Gerald sat down to enjoy the show.
Four
Win Bryan figured it was the damnest sight and situation he’d seen and got caught up in in many a day.
He’d gone looking for Nick. When he couldn’t find him, he went looking for Albert. Couldn’t find him either. On a hunch, he drove out to the Staples Mansion and pulled in when he spotted Nick’s pickup truck. First thing he heard when he stepped onto the porch of the mansion was someone hollerin’ and squallin’ loud enough to raise the dead.
Win knew that Victoria didn’t have servants on the weekend, unless she was having a big party (it was on the weekends they usually made most of their snuff films), so Win figured it was Victoria entertaining that fool Judge Evans.
But no, he thought, pausing at the door, that was a woman screaming. And that was no scream of pleasure, that was someone in real pain. Someone was hurtin’ real bad.
Win pulled out his pistol and stepped into the mansion. The screaming was much louder inside the big house. He followed the sound, and for a few seconds stood mesmerized by the sight before him. Gerald had backed up into a corner and was out of Win’s line of sight.
There was the haughty and snooty Victoria, naked on the floor, on her hands and knees, with Nick behind her, also naked, and he was pumping the meat to her butt. Victoria’s face was a twisted mask of pain and fury. Win figured Nick was skinnin’ up his dick some, too, judging by the expression on his face. Win holstered his pistol and stepped further into the room.
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