Revenge Story

by Julia Broussard

  Ben leaned across Ray in the passenger seat and stuck his head out the window. “Hello, Greg. Long time no see.”

  “You’re not here to cause me any trouble, are you?”

  “No, man.”

  “That’s good. Because you and your friends are wanted by every goddamn law enforcement agency in the country. That wasn’t part of the deal, you know. You’ve been out there killing people.”

  “I know.”

  “Did you know you’re wanted for killing five or six Federal agents now? And some cops in California?”

  “Yeah. We heard it on the radio.”

  The man still made no move to approach the van. “You heard about it on the radio. Yeah. Well, that wasn’t part of the deal when you asked me to help you. I didn’t think you were going to become number one on the FBI’s list before you show up to my fucking house, you know.”

  “We didn’t have a choice!” Ben yelled. He opened the door and got out, walking around the front of the van. He kept his hands in plain view.

  Woodburn raised his pistol. “That’s far enough. We need to talk about this situation first.”

  Ben ignored the gun and walked up to Woodburn until they were a few feet apart. “We’re not here to cause you any trouble,” he said. “But we need some help getting out of the country.”

  “I know. You want passports, legitimate ones. But that’s going to be tough because your faces are on every criminal database now. Your pictures are all over national television. Even if you have the passports, they are bound to spot you at any border crossing, any airport. They won’t do you any good unless you are already out of the country. You are truly fucked now, man. Maybe you should just get a good lawyer and turn yourselves in. If you’re lucky, they’ll let you plead guilty and take a life sentence. Don’t waste your money paying me for passports that won’t get you anywhere anyway.”

  “Why the gun? I thought we were friends.”

  “Sure we are. But you’re desperate now. And somebody who has killed as many people as you have lately might not hesitate on one more if you thought it would help your situation. Have you kept a body count, Ben? It’s beginning to add up.”

  “It just happened. Cops got in the way. We had to take them down,” said Ben firmly. “I’m not going to apologize for that. And besides, you’ve killed a few people yourself.”

  “Sure I have,” said Woodburn. “But that was business, and I’ve never shot a cop.”

  “We’re not here to double-cross you,” said Ben. He held out his hand. “We need your help. Let us worry about using the passports.”

  Woodburn studied Ben Cummings’ face for a few seconds before tucking the pistol into his belt. He took the offered handshake and returned it firmly. “All right. You can come inside and we’ll discuss your situation. But you leave any weapons you have in that van. And I’m going to pat you all down before we go in the house. Okay?”

  “Okay. But what if the cops show up?”

  “They won’t, unless someone knows about that van and they saw you drive up here. Anyone see you?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe so, but just before you showed up there was an update about you guys on the TV news again.”

  “That so?”

  “The cops found that plane you stole. They think you’re in Seattle.”

  Ben laughed. “Well, they got that right. Seattle’s a big town though and they don’t have an address for us.”

  “Let’s try to keep it that way. If anyone finds out you and your friends are here, we’re both fucked,” said Woodburn. “You have an escape plan? You know you’ll have to leave the country for good. Preferably some place without an extradition treaty.”

  “We know that. What about those passports you promised?”

  “Already done. My guy is supposed to deliver them soon. Says he found some good photos of all of you he could use. Mostly from news articles, of course.” He put his arm around Ben’s shoulder. “No worries. It’s good to see you again. I just wish it were under better circumstances. Is it true that bitch wife of yours ran off with your vet? Or were you just bullshitting me on that? Never mind. You can tell me all about it later. Now call your friends over and let’s head inside.”

  Ben waved at Ray and Karen. “Come on!”

  Woodburn patted all three of them down for weapons. He gestured for Karen to open her purse and took a cursory glance inside it. “Okay,” he said, turning for the door to the house. “Upstairs.”

  The four of them went up a flight of stairs lined with plush white carpet and emerged into a living room half the size of a basketball court. Massive picture windows looked out over Lake Washington and a fireplace made of polished stone rose from one end of the room. Oil paintings hung on the walls and a few pieces of expensive-looking sculpture – obviously commissioned – were scattered about. Against a far wall was mounted the largest television they had ever seen, with an integrated video and audio system that was taller than the average man. “Pretty nice setup,” said Ben, staring through the glass door covering the video-audio components. “Business must be good.”

  “Business is always good in my trade,” said Woodburn offhandedly. “Everyone wants the weapons they can’t have, and I provide them. The profit margin is good. Why don’t we sit down and talk about how I can help you.”

  “So you’ll help us?”

  “The sooner I get you out of my life, the safer I’ll be. Why don’t you all have a seat and let’s talk about that.”

  Ben found a recliner and sat down. Ray and Karen took the couch.

  Woodburn sat down on a marble shelf in front of the fireplace. He shook his head. “I guess I have to ask all of you something.”

  “What’s that?” said Ben.

  “Do you guys have any idea how much trouble you’re in?”

  Ray spoke up. “Excuse me, but that sounds like a dumb question. Of course we do.”

  Woodburn got up and went over to a portable bar sitting in the corner. Going around behind it, he pulled out a glass and a bottle of liquor and poured some into the glass. He took a big swallow, but didn’t offer any of them a drink. “I don’t think you realize the extent of the problem, Mr Morris. There’s a reward for any information leading to your capture. You’re on the fucking TV news cycle twenty-four seven right now. Did you know that?”

  Ben laughed. “How much are they offering?”

  “A half-million dollars,” said Woodburn.

  Ben eyed him warily. “You were thinking about trying to collect?”

  “I don’t need the money, Ben.”

  “Well, that’s good,” said Ben. “Because I thought you could be...” He stopped as two large men dressed in expensive suits suddenly appeared from another room, both carrying automatic pistols.

  “Don’t anybody move,” said Woodburn. He came out from behind the bar holding a revolver, pointing it directly at Ben’s chest. The other men pulled out their own pistols and took places in front of Ray and Karen.

  “What the fuck is this?” said Ben. “I thought you said you didn’t need the money. What the fuck are you going to do? Just kill us right here?”

  “No. If I wanted you dead, I would have done it in the garage right away. I’m turning your asses over to the F.B.I.”

  “You made a deal with the Feds?” Ben Cummings glared at him with an expression of absolute hatred.

  Woodburn laughed. “Do you know how much happy-happy I can get from the cops for this? Shit, they’ll never look my way again. Once in a while, they do get the idea I might be involved in the gun trade. They aren’t sure about it, but I know my name’s come up a few times. It’s time for me to retire from the business while the going’s good. I was thinking of Aruba.”

  “Maybe we’ll just fill them in on your history,” growled Ben. “Fuck you, asshole!”

  “Go ahead, Ben. Tell them whatever you want about me while you’re sitting in jail. They won’t listen to you. And even if they do, I’ll just have my associates here cle
ar out any inventory I have lying around and move it elsewhere for a while. They won’t find anything. I’ll be the biggest goddamn hero in America. I’ll donate the reward money to the ASPCA and even the animal lovers will worship the fucking ground I walk on.” Woodburn walked up quickly and cocked the pistol, pointing it dead center at Ben’s head. “What in the fuck were you thinking by coming here after what you did?” he shouted. “I was ready to help you, but that was before you killed maybe a dozen cops! You and your friends are too hot to deal with, even for me. You’re not my friend anymore, Ben. You’re a liability.”

  “Whatever,” said Ben. “Did you lie about getting us passports, too?”

  Woodburn laughed. “No, actually I didn’t. I had those commissioned a while ago. And once you deal with this guy, you have to take delivery, and you have to pay, otherwise he will kill you. So I’m letting the passports show up here, not that they will do you any good. But I changed my mind about helping you after you shot down that F.B.I. helicopter. No big deal, Ben. I’ll just pay him off with some of that bank money you stole and burn the passports in my fireplace.”

  Karen Morris began to sob and reached into her purse for a handkerchief. She dabbed at her eyes and then laid the handkerchief on the sofa between her and Ray.

  Ray sat stock still, but out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a tiny glint of silver under the edge of the handkerchief. It was the tiny 9MM Beretta pistol. He had slipped the pistol to Karen when Woodburn had ordered them out of the van and into the house. Woodburn hadn’t spotted it in her purse. His heart began to pound so hard he thought it would burst from his chest. Woodburn was still shouting things at Ben, but Ray no longer heard a word of it. He was thinking about the gun and whether he had any chance at all to turn the tables. A dozen scenarios raced through his mind in the space of a few seconds. The two hoods in front of him now had their pistols pointed more toward Ben than he and Karen. They think Ben’s the real threat.

  Ben shouted something back at Woodburn, something about loyalty, raising his voice higher. The goons shifted their eyes over to Ben even more.

  Ray slipped his right hand under the handkerchief and grasped the pistol. No one noticed. He flipped the safety catch with the barest of movements. The shouting match between Ben and Woodburn reached a fevered pitch.

  Then everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

  Ray brought the Beretta up smoothly and shot Woodburn in the temple. Crack. Even before Woodburn started to collapse, Ray rose from the couch, and before anyone could react, he squeezed off two more shots in quick succession into the foreheads of the goons. Crack, crack.

  All three men fell to the ground with a heavy thud at almost the same moment. A light drift of smoke powder floated from the barrel of the Beretta.

  Karen screamed, and then slapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide with terror.

  Ben threw himself to the floor and snatched up Woodburn’s revolver, wildly looking up for a target. But there was no one to shoot anymore. He looked around at the sudden carnage. It had all happened in the space of two or three seconds.

  Large crimson puddles began spreading out on the white carpet from beneath the heads of the three men. Blood flowed from the corner of Woodburn’s mouth. All three of the dead men had a look of surprise permanently embedded into their faces. Ray looked down on them in disdain.

  Ben got up from the floor and tucked the revolver into his belt. He looked at Ray as if he didn’t know the man at all. He shook his head in wonder. “Jesus, Ray.”

  “Fuck ‘em,” said Morris. “Some friends you got.”

  A meeting was in progress in a conference room at the Federal building in downtown Seattle. Ryan McKenzie sat quietly at one end of the table and sipped from a bottle of water while he listened to the members of a newly formed task force. They were bouncing theories off each other about the possible whereabouts of the fugitives. McKenzie was barely listening. He stared at the wall and tried to put himself in the shoes of the people he wanted to kill. He didn’t want to catch them, although he would settle for that. His fervent wish was to walk straight up to all three of them and calmly put a bullet into each of their heads. He knew it was wrong to think that, but he didn’t care. The trio he sought were responsible for the deaths of several good men he had called friends. He had attended barbeques with their families. He had stood side by side with them while facing down armed criminals.

  “McKenzie, what do you think?”

  “What? I’m sorry, sir. I was thinking.”

  The assistant director of the F.B.I. stared hard at McKenzie. “I’d appreciate it if you paid attention. You’re the case agent here. I asked if you had any thoughts on why our fugitives decided to come to Seattle. More banks? Maybe they’re going to try and flee to Canada?”

  McKenzie shrugged. “I don’t know. They’re being sought up in Canada just as much as they are here. I don’t see where going to Canada would do them any good. We know they have a friend here who’s probably sheltering them right now. But all we have is a phony name and a bogus address.”

  “Yes. This ‘Greg’ person.” The director glanced around the room. “Come on, people. I want to hear some ideas. D.C. is putting the pressure on me to come up with results. We need to put these people – and anyone who is helping them – into the bag and I mean by yesterday. I’m getting a hundred calls a day, and even the President is demanding action.”

  “Well, one good thing happened today,” said McKenzie. Forest Service personnel found a ranger wandering down a road not far from where the Bell helicopter was shot down. He took them back to a campsite and showed them where our perps held him prisoner for a while. They found the Stinger missile that Cummings stole from the armory last year. So at least they aren’t packing that goddamn thing around with them anymore.”

  “It’s encouraging to know they won’t be shooting down any airliners at SeaTac Airport,” said the director dryly. “Anything else?”

  “Unfortunately we struck out trying to trace Cummings’ disposable cell. I had agents canvass every store within a ten-mile radius. He must have bought it with cash and probably wore a disguise doing it.”

  “What about Goldendale? Anyone know how the hell they managed to land a plane at the local airstrip and then just vanish?”

  McKenzie took a small notebook from his breast pocket and flipped it open. “There’s only three ways they could have left town. They either took a bus, bought a car, or someone was waiting for them.”

  “And?”

  “They didn’t take the bus. We checked. So far, there’s nothing on the bulletins we put out there locally asking anyone who sold a car that day to come forward. And we checked out the car lots. Nothing. So we figure this friend of theirs probably drove down from Seattle and picked them up.”

  “What you’re telling me then is that you have nothing?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. Trust me. There’s no lack of motivation on this team. It’s personal. These people killed agents everyone in this room knew. We all want to see them in custody. But we need a break, just any lead at all. And right now we have zip.”

  Over at the offices of KING-TV news near the Seattle Center, reporter Jennie Walker nibbled on the end of a pencil and studied the reports she had downloaded regarding Benjamin Cummings and the Morris couple. She pursed her lips and tried to think. Two decorated war vets, one of them an officer, she thought. A beautiful wife. None of them with a prior criminal record. Some files on an emergency operation in an Oregon hospital – a miscarriage – that was somehow related to a run-in with a rookie Oregon State patrolman. A patrolman who may have been a bit overzealous in his duty. Three police officers and several FBI agents were dead and the perps were on the run with nearly a million in cash. How did it all fit? How did people without a record who seemed as ordinary as anyone else go to becoming the most wanted felons in America? And in less than two weeks?

  She suspected there was a story here even bigger than the police reports, the killin
gs, and the theft of all that cash. She tried to put her finger on it but kept coming up empty. What was the missing piece? Then it came to her.

  She needed to speak to them and get their version on how it all went down. It would mean a Pulitzer if she could figure out how to do it without getting killed.

  Karen finished covering the bodies in the living room with some silk sheets from a bedroom closet and then found Ray and Ben in the kitchen. “It’s done,” she said. “What do we do now?”

  “Have a soda,” said Ben, handing her a can of Sprite.

  Karen popped the top and took a small drink. “You think the neighbors heard the shots?”

  “I don’t think so. This house is solid as hell and the nearest neighbor is almost a hundred yards off,” said Ray. He looked at Ben. “She’s right, though. We need a plan. And we can’t stay here. Sooner or later someone else is going to stop by and we can’t just keep killing people as they come in the front door.”

  “Okay. We search this place from top to bottom,” said Ben. “We take whatever we can use and leave the van in the garage. I saw a motorhome outside. I say we use that.”

  “Sure, man. But where the hell do we go? Every cop in the state has our pictures on their goddamn dashboard,” said Ray. “And we still don’t have those passports. Can’t see how we can get those now.”

  “We’ll worry about that when it’s time to go. I’ll search the main floor and the guest bedrooms. You two go upstairs and look around.” Ben turned and quickly headed away.

  “What are we looking for?” Karen yelled after him.

  “Guns and money,” Ben shouted back. “What else?”

  When Ray and Karen entered Woodburn’s bedroom they discovered a king-size bed with a memory foam mattress, and imported cherry wood furniture. A small Picasso sketch hung on the wall over the bed and for a moment, Ray considered taking it. “Search all the drawers and closets,” he told Karen.

  Together, they began pulling open the drawers and tossing the contents to the floor. After several minutes, all they had discovered was about forty dollars in cash, a Rolex watch, and two forty-five caliber pistols in a double-sided shoulder holster, which they piled on the bed.