by Mike Lawson
Emma hung up.
42
Dick Younger ran the largest detective agency in Richmond, and he could supplement his operatives with off-duty cops if he needed to—and for this job he needed a lot of people. A client had e-mailed him a picture of a hard-looking black guy and told him to send a dozen people over to Big Stone Gap. The black guy, according to the client, was scoping out Wallens Ridge so he could help a prisoner escape, and the client wanted Younger to find the man but not apprehend him.
So Younger did as he was told and sent a dozen people—eleven men and one woman, and he was betting it was the woman who would find the guy. Anita Gomez was the only female operative he employed on a full-time basis. She was a short Puerto Rican in her fifties, built like a fireplug, who knitted sweaters for her grandkids when she was on stakeouts. She was also the most observant person he had ever met. And sure enough …
Younger’s secretary called out from her desk, “Dick, Anita is on line two.”
“Dick,” Anita said, “I’m watching the guy right now.”
Wallens Ridge State Prison in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, is a Security Level Five facility—a super max built to contain the worst of the worst. There was no way a disabled, first-time offender like Nelson should have been incarcerated in the place, and Kelly knew the only reason he had been was because that bastard DeMarco had used his political clout to pressure the Arlington County prosecutor. If anything happened to Nelson in Wallens Ridge, Kelly was going to kill DeMarco in the most painful way he could devise.
The prison reminded Kelly of pictures of medieval castles he’d seen. It was surrounded by a high white wall, perched on a hilltop, and could only be approached by a single, winding road. Being a student of military history, Kelly knew castles were usually taken in three ways. The first was by brutal frontal assault using war machines—catapults, and later cannons—to batter down the walls and gates. If the attackers took this approach, however, they had to be willing to accept casualties in large numbers. The second way was by laying siege—surrounding the castle, cutting off all contact with the outside world, and starving the occupants into submission. The best way to take a castle, however, was from the inside—by bribing a traitor to open the gates.
Kelly would need a traitor to free Nelson from Wallens Ridge.
He had studied the place for hours, writing down his observations in a small, spiral-bound notebook. He drew a map marking the placement of guard towers and cameras; he observed the procedure for admitting people into the facility; he identified areas along the outside walls that were not fully illuminated by the lights at night. Earlier in the day he observed, through binoculars, a produce truck exiting the prison and how the guards did a sloppy job of searching the underside of the vehicle. He’d been looking at his notes for the last hour, going over them again and again, looking for some weakness in the prison’s security procedures—and then he slammed his hand down on the notebook, making the coffee cup on the table jump.
He was sitting in a diner, and several people looked over at him—and he knew what he had just done was foolish and undisciplined. He didn’t need to call attention to himself.
He also knew he was wasting his time.
Even if he could bribe a guard willing to help Nelson escape, how would the guard get a man in a wheelchair past all the other security measures inside the prison? To free Nelson, his only choice was to wait until Nelson was moved from Wallens Ridge to Arlington for his trial—and, before he was moved, to learn everything there was to know about how the guards transported prisoners. He’d know how many guards accompanied the prisoners, how they were armed, and whether they used a regular car or an armored vehicle. He’d study the likely route from Big Stone Gap to Arlington and identify the best place for an ambush. And it wouldn’t really matter what type of vehicle they used and whether it was armored or not. He would acquire whatever weapons he needed—maybe a rifle with a grenade launcher like he’d used in Africa—then he’d disable the vehicle, kill the guards, and free Nelson. Yeah, he could do that easily—but again he realized he was deluding himself.
He was deluding himself because he knew Fiona West. He knew Fiona would have Nelson killed long before he went to trial.
Before the trial, Fiona would bribe a guard—she’d offer the guard more damn money than he could count—and the guard would get some murderous psycho to stick a shiv into Nelson. It would just be one of those things that happens in prisons all the time.
So Kelly couldn’t wait until Nelson’s trial. Nelson was a dead man if he didn’t spring him from the prison in the next few days. And Kelly knew—he knew as soon as he saw the prison—that there was only one way he could save Nelson’s life.
What he didn’t know was if he had the courage to do what needed to be done.
Earl Lee was in his motel room in Big Stone Gap, lying on the bed, drinking a beer, and watching a rerun of a reality show about a bunch of Playboy bunnies who lived together. All the women were blonde, had big fake tits, big foul mouths, and were dumber than a box of rocks—but, boy, were they an eyeful. He was so absorbed in the show his cell phone rang three times before he heard it.
“Yeah?” he said.
“I was told to call this number,” a woman said. She had an accent of some kind, like she might be Mexican or something. “I’m watching a man named Kelly. He’s at a restaurant called the Huddle House on Wildcat Road, just off Route 23.”
“I’m on my way,” Lee said. “Stick with him until I get there.”
“I’ll be across the street from the restaurant, standing outside my car, and the hood of my car will be up like I had a breakdown. I’m wearing a pink blouse and blue jeans.”
“Okay, but if Kelly takes off before I get there, you follow him and call me again.”
Lee glanced back at the television. One of the Playmates was taking off her top, about to jump into a swimming pool. Damn, he thought, but he grabbed his duffel bag and headed out the door.
Earl Lee wondered where Kelly was headed.
When Kelly left the restaurant, he drove northeast, toward Roanoke, on I-81. He was about a half-mile ahead of Lee now and there were three cars between his car and Kelly’s van. Lee also wondered why Kelly was driving a clunky-looking van, but it sure made it easy to follow him. Three hours later, Kelly drove through Roanoke, continued traveling northeast, and Lee saw a sign that said he was two hundred miles from Washington, D.C.
Kelly exited the freeway near Waynesboro. Lee stayed behind him, hanging back as far as he could while still keeping Kelly in sight, and watched Kelly pull into one of those minimart gas stations. Lee drove past the gas station, made a u-turn a block later, and parked. Kelly was just starting to fill up his gas tank.
Lee exited his car and opened the trunk, but didn’t immediately pick up his new rifle. It had been necessary to leave the rifle he’d used to kill Hobson behind when he flew from Tennessee to Virginia, but the first thing he did when he arrived in Virginia—a state with some of the most user-friendly gun laws in the nation—was buy a new rifle with a good scope, a .45 semiauto, and a Kevlar bullet-proof vest. The vest seemed like a good idea since he was going up against Kelly.
With the trunk lid still open, Lee looked at Kelly again; Kelly was still standing by the gas pump. It was getting dark, but it wasn’t dark yet, and it would be risky to shoot Kelly from where he was because if someone drove up the street they were bound to see him. Then he noticed the espresso stand.
The espresso stand—a shack made of plywood and decorated with pink, plastic flamingos—was closed for the day. If he positioned himself on the side of the stand that wasn’t visible from the street, killing Kelly would be like shooting fish in a barrel. He glanced around to make sure no cars were coming, pulled his rifle from the trunk, jogged over to the espresso stand, and dropped to a prone position.
He raised the rifle and looked throug
h the scope. Kelly’s face appeared as if it was two inches away. He put the crosshairs right in the middle of Kelly’s forehead, let out a breath, and began to apply pressure to the trigger—then stopped.
Nah, he didn’t want to do it this way. Kelly had always looked down his nose at him, had always thought he was smarter—and tougher—than him. Maybe it was because Kelly had been Delta and he hadn’t, but whatever the case, it had always pissed him off that whenever he saw Kelly, Kelly would give him this little I-can-kick-your-ass-any-time-I-want-to smile. And his fuckin’ buddy, Nelson, was the same way.
No, he didn’t want to snipe Kelly. He wanted Kelly to know who killed him.
Lee was worried he was going to lose Kelly.
Kelly had just crossed the Key Bridge and was now on M Street in Georgetown, and even though it was after ten P.M., the traffic was heavy with college kids cruising the M Street strip. And every time he was stopped by a red light, more cars got between him and Kelly’s van, and Kelly was now two blocks ahead of him. If he lost Kelly, Fiona was gonna ream him a new asshole.
Then Kelly made a left-hand turn off M Street, and Lee almost did lose him. By the time he was able to make the turn himself, Kelly was almost out of sight and he could just barely see his taillights. He stomped down on the gas pedal to catch up, now worried that Kelly might notice he was being followed. Then he laughed off that idea. Delta Force guys were trained to attack—not to evade.
Kelly turned onto P Street, with Lee a block behind him. Kelly was driving slowly now, like he was looking for an address, and he finally pulled over to the curb and parked. Lee drove past him, turning his head to the left so Kelly wouldn’t see his face, and continued down the block. He turned at the next corner, parked his car in front of a fire hydrant as there was no place else to park, then, staying in the shadows, crept back to where he’d last seen Kelly.
As he hid behind a tree, he watched Kelly ring the doorbell of a narrow, two-story town house. He stood there a while, rang it again, and when no one answered, bent down, and it looked to Lee like he was picking the lock. Three minutes later, Kelly entered the town house, and when he was inside he didn’t turn on any lights.
Lee didn’t know what the hell Kelly was doing—or whom he was visiting—but this looked like the best opportunity he was going to get. He’d wait until Kelly left the house, and once he did Lee would kill him when he returned to his car. Then Lee remembered something. He wanted to prove something to Kelly—and to himself—but there was no point being a total idiot. He jogged back to his car, took the Kevlar vest from the trunk, and put it on.
43
DeMarco enjoyed a late dinner in Georgetown and after dinner went to a movie to get his mind off Brian Kincaid and everything associated with Mulray Pharma. He saw a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio where Leo somehow managed to invade people’s dreams and make them do whatever he wanted. The movie didn’t make a whole lot of sense to him, but he heard two women talking as he was leaving the theater, the women going on and on and on about Leo. DeMarco concluded that if you looked like Leonardo DiCaprio you didn’t have to make movies that made any sense.
As he walked back to his place, he passed a drugstore, and his mind unwillingly drifted back to Orson Mulray. He’d come to the conclusion that no matter what he and Emma did, Mulray was most likely going to get away with what he had done and Brian Kincaid was going to spend his life in prison. The papers were filled with editorials discussing the ambiguous morality of Mulray testing his drugs on uneducated, impoverished disaster victims—but no law enforcement agency appeared to be making any attempt to prove that Mulray had done anything illegal. Meanwhile, the scientific and medical communities were coming to the conclusion that Dr. Ballard’s drug was a wonder drug—and it was selling like hotcakes in Asia.
DeMarco unlocked his front door and stepped into his house, then stood in the foyer for a moment trying to decide if he should go straight to bed or watch the news first. He decided on the news. He walked into his den, flipped on a light, and saw a large black man sitting in the room, holding a gun.
DeMarco immediately recognized the man as Kelly, Nelson’s partner, because he’d seen Kelly’s photo in the passports Emma had brought back from Peru. Emma said she’d killed him. She obviously hadn’t. And now it looked like Kelly was going to kill him.
DeMarco had always wondered how he would act when confronted with the possibility of—or in this case, the certainty of—his own death. Would he go out groveling and begging, or would he face his last moments with some semblance of dignity? Would he be the guy who stands there calmly, refusing the blindfold when they put him in front of the firing squad, or would he be the one they’d have to tie to a stake to keep him upright as he wailed for mercy? DeMarco decided there was no way in hell he was going to beg this guy.
“You’re Kelly, right?” DeMarco said, surprised at how calm he sounded.
“Yeah. Sit down.”
“If you don’t mind, I’m gonna get a drink,” DeMarco said. “You want one?”
“No.”
DeMarco walked over to his liquor cabinet and pulled out the best cognac he had, the bottle he saved for special occasions—in this case, the special occasion being his untimely death. His hand shook as he poured a large shot into a snifter, thankful that Kelly couldn’t see his hand, then took a seat facing him.
“I feel like killing you for what you did to Nelson,” Kelly said.
DeMarco took a large pull on the brandy, but the words I feel like suddenly gave him hope. “What did I do to Nelson?” he said.
“You’re the one who stuck him in Wallens Ridge.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with that,” DeMarco lied. “That was the prosecutor’s idea. Anyway, what do you want?”
“A deal.”
“A deal? What kind of deal?”
“The first thing I want is Nelson moved out of Wallens Ridge and placed under the protection of federal marshals. And I want that done right away, like tomorrow morning—Mulray will have Nelson killed if he stays in that prison. Then I want Nelson given a suspended sentence. I don’t care what you have to do legally but you just let him go. And finally, Nelson and I have a lot of money, and Nelson gets to keep the money. He’s going to need it to take care of himself.”
“And if I can do all this, what do I get in return?”
“I’m not finished telling you what I want. The last thing I want is a deal for me. I know I’ll end up doing some time, but I want a sentence that’s commensurate with what I’ll give you. I won’t do a long stretch or life without parole.”
“Maybe I can make all that happen,” DeMarco said, “but you still haven’t told me what the government gets in return.”
The fact was, DeMarco had no authority to make a deal of any kind, but there was no point telling Kelly that.
“I’ll give you Fiona West,” Kelly said, “and she’ll give you Orson Mulray. Fiona would roll over on her own mother to save her skin.”
“Who’s Fiona West?”
“Officially, she’s Mulray Pharma’s lawyer. Unofficially, she’s Orson Mulray’s attack dog. She’s the one who organized everything.”
“I need specifics,” DeMarco said.
“Okay. Fiona ordered me to kill Phil Downing because Downing found out what Mulray Pharma was doing in Peru. And I framed Kincaid just like his lawyer said at his trial—and I’ll testify to that.”
“So what was Mulray doing in Peru?”
“Testing the Alzheimer’s drug on disaster victims and killing some of them to provide autopsy results.”
“Who killed the people?”
“I did.”
Just like that: I did.
“How many people did you kill?”
Kelly hesitated. “I’ll testify that in June I killed three people in Peru.”
“You o
nly killed three? What about at the Warwick Care Centers in Africa and Pakistan?”
“Like I said, I’ll testify that I killed three people. That’s all. And I’ll testify that Fiona ordered me to do the killings and that René Lambert gave me the drug I sprayed into those old folks to kill them.”
“Sprayed?”
“Yeah. I used a poison in the form of a nasal spray.”
“Do you have any proof? Any kind of physical evidence?”
“Like what?” Kelly said.
“Hell, I don’t know. Do you have the poison you used? Did you record any of the conversations you had with Fiona West? Do you have a document from West to you that corroborates what you’re saying? Something other than just your word against Mulray Pharma.”
Kelly shook his head. “No, I don’t have anything like that. But Nelson will back up my testimony, so it won’t just be my word alone. And there’s gotta be a way to trace the money from my account back to Mulray.”
DeMarco wasn’t too sure about that. Neil hadn’t been able to do so, but maybe the U.S. government could.
“Would you be willing to wear a wire? You know, meet with West and get her to admit that she ordered you to do these things?”
“Yeah. And Fiona will talk, and when you take her she’ll give you all the proof you need to get Orson Mulray.”
“Why are you doing this?” DeMarco asked.
“Because if I don’t, Nelson’s going to die. If he wasn’t crippled it would be a different story, but in the condition he’s in now he’ll never survive in prison. But I can survive inside.”
“I still don’t get it. Why are you willing to go to prison for Nelson?”
“Because he’s taken bullets meant for me and now I’m paying him back.”
DeMarco sensed that it was more than Kelly paying Nelson back, but he didn’t press the issue. Instead he said, “I kinda doubt you’re gonna get everything you want even if you are willing to testify.”
