Hard Return

by J. Carson Black

  “I’ve been driving. We’ve been listening to different stations.”

  “We?”

  “A friend of mine.”

  Silence.

  Landry said, “I haven’t heard a name but maybe we missed it.”

  “From what I saw,” Gary said, “there’s just the photo. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have your name. Good thing, though, you can barely make out who it is with the sun behind you.”

  “I recognized it right away,” Landry said.

  “Yeah, but you remember where you were and what you were doing. If I was them, I’d withhold your name right now, too. It looks like you, but there’s no way they can be sure.”

  And if they did put a name to it, Landry thought, it would be Joe Till. That was what his DL said. Still, his face, while blurry, might be recognizable to some. People who knew what to look for.

  “The man in the photograph is a person of interest in the shooting at the Gordon C. Tuttle High School,” Landry said. “Have they seen it?”

  “You mean Cindi and Kristal?”

  “Who else would I mean? Have they seen it?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to them. It’s only been an hour. I’ve been with the shoer all morning.”

  “Does James know?” Landry asked, thinking of their older brother.

  “He didn’t call me. He’s at Churchill already.”

  “So they made it okay?”

  “Yeah, he flew the horses in day before yesterday.”

  “I mean Cindi and Kristal. Did they make it okay?”

  There was silence on the other end.

  “Gary?”

  “Look, there’s something—”

  “They’re in Kentucky, aren’t they? I told you to contact Tom. You got ahold of Tom, didn’t you?”

  No answer.

  Jolie said, “Something wrong?”

  He held the phone closer and tried to stem the cold feeling of dread spreading through his vitals. “Gary, they’re in Kentucky, aren’t they? They’re staying with Tom, right? Tell me they’re staying with Tom.”

  Tom was former military elite and ran a PSC—a private security company. He was not only a friend, but also an ally. One of the only people Landry knew he could trust completely. Tom would do anything a relative of Landry would ask. That was a given. He wouldn’t ask questions, and Landry knew he would protect Cindi and Kristal with his life.

  Landry was about to ask again when Gary said, “There’s been a change of plans.”

  A Corvette put on the afterburners and swerved in front of them. Landry let the van slow a little. Checked his side mirror for police. Change of plans? “What do you mean, a change of plans? Haven’t they left yet? Gary, you can’t fool around! You need to make them go.”

  “Look—”

  “It’s Kristal, isn’t it? She doesn’t want to go?”

  “Look, everything’s changed—”

  “Nothing has changed. Not on the ground. She has to go. You have to convince her.”

  Another pause. Finally: “She’s not here.”

  “What do you mean she’s not there?”

  “Cindi and Kristal aren’t here in town. They’re gone. Like you said, we had to get them to someplace safe.”

  If it weren’t for the traffic, Landry would have stopped the car. He could feel a humming in his gut, like a low-grade fever. “What are you saying, Gary? Spit it out! Why haven’t they gone yet?”

  “Because they’re not going at all!” Gary blurted it out.

  Landry’s hand tightened on the phone. He didn’t trust himself to drive, so he eased over into the breakdown lane and brought the van to a stop. “What are you saying, Gary?”

  “They decided to stay in California.” Gary sounded scared. Scared and defiant.

  “Cindi and Kristal did? Did you tell Cindi that she needed to go find sanctuary?”

  That was the phrase they had always used. “Finding sanctuary” in Landry’s trade meant to go underground.

  “We’ve got it covered.”

  “You’ve got it covered. You and Cindi? Are you telling me she’s decided not to go to Kentucky where she’ll be safe?”

  “Look, I’m not like you. I can’t boss her around—”

  “I never bossed her around.” Cindi knew when he wasn’t fooling around, knew that when he told her he had to go to ground, or that she needed to watch her back, it was gospel. Then it dawned on him. “Was this your idea? You think you’re better equipped to make that call?”

  “She’s an adult. Not only that, but she’s been a widow for three years now. She can run her own life. You have no idea what she’s been dealing with all this time. How bad it’s been—”

  “Don’t you get it?” Landry tried to keep his voice low and reasonable. “This is what I do. This is my life. I know what I’m doing.”

  “One thing you do real well,” Gary said, “is ruin lives!”

  Jolie touched Landry’s arm. He waved her away. “I am trying to save their lives now.” His teeth gritted together. His heart was pounding, the same adrenaline rush he felt when he prepared to go into battle. Wound up, and ready for action.

  Ready to kill. “You call her or I will.”

  “You’re—”

  “—dead? Not anymore I’m not. Now I can finally talk to my wife and—”

  “Your wife?” Gary sounded incredulous. “She hasn’t been your wife for three years! You let her and Kristal go through all that shit, because you didn’t have the courage to tell them you were still alive? You didn’t even trust your own wife? Are you living in a dream world? You honestly think you can just pick up where you left off and everything’ll be just hunky-dory? Are you that full of shit that you think she’ll take you back?”

  Landry stared at the freeway, the cars rushing past, rocking the van. He couldn’t look at Jolie. But he could feel her eyes on him, knew that she understood what he was going through.

  Gary’s voice sounded tinny. “Look, bro. It’s over. She’s moved on—like you moved on. Or you should. She’s engaged, she’s happy. Happy as she can be except for the fact that Kristal’s boyfriend is dead.”

  Landry said, “Why don’t you say it? You think it’s my fault Luke died?”

  “Don’t you?”

  Landry’s jaw ached. He tried to push his blood pressure back down from the boiling point. “You know everything, Gary. Am I right? You know everything about our marriage. I’m telling you, and I’m going to make this as clear as I can make it. They need to get out of here now. Maybe I’m to blame, but I am goddamn going to make sure they’re safe.”

  “They’re safe, you can count on that.”

  “And who’s going to keep them safe? Todd?”

  A pause.

  “Todd?” Landry felt a lot of things. Anger at Gary’s betrayal. Determination to keep his wife and daughter safe. But he also experienced something he wasn’t used to feeling. Helplessness. It felt as if his heart were dissolving.

  “Yes,” Gary said. “Todd. He took them somewhere safe.”

  “Where, Gary?”

  “She doesn’t want you to know.”

  “Did she tell you that? Does she know I’m alive? Have you talked to her today?”

  Silence.

  “I thought so. You’re full of shit, Gary. Give me her number and I’ll tell her what she needs to do. Because if you don’t, you’ll regret it. We’ll all regret it.”

  “Bite me.”

  And he hung up.

  Landry looked at the phone in his hand, disbelieving. His little brother, the kid brother who looked up to him—the one person in his family he could count on—had betrayed him. For a moment, Landry wondered if Gary’d had something to do with the photograph, but no—that was on Barbara Carey.

  It made him want to vis
it her.

  It was a thought that was unworthy of him.

  He stared through the windshield, feeling the bleakness of the situation sinking into his bones.

  Jolie touched his arm. “You okay?”

  “Fine.” He started up the van. “I’ll call him later and find out where she is.” He took the entrance ramp, but this time heading back in the direction of LA.

  “We’re going west again,” Jolie said. “LAX, right?”

  “Don’t you think that’s best?”

  Jolie crossed her arms over her chest. He couldn’t see past her sunglasses. “You going, too?”

  “I would.”

  “But now—with the photo everywhere—you could be recognized.”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  She kept her arms crossed, looking out the window. Hard to tell if she was angry or not.

  She said, “You think I’m going to argue with you?”

  “Are you?”

  “No. If, God forbid, we got stopped, and I was with you? Good-bye Tejar Sheriff’s Department.”

  “Good-bye any police department,” Landry agreed. “Still, it’s a trade-off. You could be famous—a femme fatale. Like in the olden days. Ever see High Sierra?”

  “High Sierra?”

  “An old movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino—a crime drama.”

  “Oh, I think I remember. There was a dog in it?”

  “Yes—Pard.”

  “There was a manhunt. Bogart got chased up into the mountains and they shot him. Didn’t he die in Ida Lupino’s arms? You think that’s what’s going to happen to you?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  He dropped Jolie at the airport—at the curb. They kissed long and hard—clutching tightly before letting go. He felt guilty for dragging her along on this adventure and opened his mouth to say so, but by then she had turned and walked in through the sliding doors.

  He thought that maybe he and Jolie were better suited for each other than he and Cindi—a thought that disturbed him.

  He drove out to the exit and got back on the freeway.

  Cindi had been a medical health technician when he met her—she’d been studying to be a nurse. She’d just gotten her degree when she became pregnant with Kristal. Cindi wanted to stay home with Kristal and she did.

  It was a traditional marriage; at least that was how it looked from the outside. He was gone a lot. On deployments, and later, on missions. Cindi kept the home fires burning. She was very capable. She would have made a great nurse. She’d wanted to be an operating room nurse, but that hadn’t panned out because she was determined to stay home with their daughter. She had friends—mostly wives of other service members, especially in the early days—and when Kristal got older she worked at a doctor’s office.

  They had fun together as a family, but it was always the things he wanted to do. There was his surfing phase, his bicycling phase, his running phase. Camping trips—that was her idea. They went all over the western United States, staying at public campgrounds and in national forests. It was an incredible education for Kristal. By the time she was about to start her teenage years, she was eyeing the boys at the other campsites.

  No more camping.

  All these things they did, but they had to crowd them into short spaces of time. Because mostly, he was gone. He always came back home to familiarity. And he loved his wife and daughter. He loved them to distraction. He missed them—he and Cindi were soul mates. They were a beautiful family, the three of them.

  But he never thought—and she never mentioned—what it must be like for her to see him go away and wonder if he might not come back.

  She always kept her feelings close to her chest. Even more than he did—and that was saying something. They’d had their share of arguments, but it was always about little things—nothing earth-shattering.

  But now, sitting in the van, he thought about what Gary had said. He thought about how she must have felt when the worst happened. When he packed up for the trip to Florida and left the house and this time he didn’t come back.

  She never shared her feelings. She was easy to be with that way. Everything had been easy. He could just go off and do his thing.

  It wasn’t as if he didn’t do wonderful things for her. He did. He never forgot a birthday. When he was home, he would plan elaborate parties for her, or romantic getaways or dinners. He had a flair for surprising her. And she knew he worshipped the ground she walked on.

  But now he wondered if that was enough. How did she feel about the life they had? Was Gary right?

  He looked at it from her point of view. Or at least he tried—his mind kept wanting to shy away. The thought she might not have liked the idea of a husband who could be killed any moment made him uncomfortable. He’d avoided thinking about it. Maybe because he felt she should have just sucked it up, trusted him. She was a military wife . . .

  In her mind, he was dead.

  But if that were true, if she was that tough, wouldn’t she be tough enough to cope? Wouldn’t she just . . . move on?

  He would have.

  The only thing that had kept him from moving on completely was the knowledge that he could get everything back the way he wanted. The three of them would have to go someplace else; they’d have to stay under the radar. But always at the back of his mind, he’d been convinced they would be a family again.

  Maybe she really was serious about Todd.

  Maybe, she loved him.

  He decided not to think about that.

  CHAPTER 24

  - Kuwait City, 2005 -

  It took Cameron Mills three hours and forty-five minutes to reach Kuwait City. He drove to the business district, a mixture of onion-domed minarets and towering office buildings. The bank district was gold plated—the sun shone off phalanxes of windows rising into the deep blue sky.

  He walked into the tallest tower in the largest bank building in the city and rode the elevator up to Barrett International. The fact that Barrett International was US based would be a help. Cam was keenly aware of Kuwait’s very strict banking policies. For the average citizen, especially an expat, it was virtually impossible to open a bank account unless several hurdles were cleared.

  Fortunately for Cam, he had friends employed by the big guys, Blackwater and the Brits with Aegis Defence Services Limited. They’d respected him and thought he’d go places, drank with him and shared stories. They’d told him which banks were accommodating, who should be avoided, and who could be “financially encouraged.”

  Even though Kuwait had very strict banking policies, this was a time of war, which meant a time of great opportunity. There was always a way around the rules, if you were a contractor who would bring in millions of dollars.

  After a short wait, Cam was ushered into the office of the bank president and greeted cordially. Their introductions preceded a dainty dance—a fucking minuet—but there was little doubt that the president wanted High Risk’s business. Speaking in generalities, their discussion touched on the requirements for depositing and transferring the cash High Risk had earned from its security jobs. They discussed the types of accounts necessary to keep his money liquid, and to facilitate wire transfers. After a friendly handshake and an awkward hug, Cam returned to the Humvee with a hand truck. This was the way money was transferred in this war-torn part of the world.

  On his last trip to the Humvee, he heard a car horn blare—another near miss.

  He glanced up and saw a man waiting for the light across the street. From his camo gear and his posture, loose limbed but alert, Cam pegged him as a Navy SEAL.

  Hard to tell, with the mirrored sunglasses, but Cam thought the man was looking at him. And why wouldn’t he be? Cam was directly across the street, piling stacks of cash into a handcart. “Nothing to see here,” he muttered. “Move along.”


  Even after he turned away, he was aware of the man watching him, so much so, he found himself glancing back. Paranoid much? Guy was waiting for the light—big deal. He stacked ten more bricks before glancing back again. Still there—the light hadn’t changed. Cam tried to shut him out and returned to the work at hand. But for an instant paranoia got the best of him and he wondered if his CO knew what he was doing. If he was laying a trap for him. But that was ridiculous.

  He’d worked hard on his relationship with the CO. It was solid. The guy across the street was just your average bad motherfucker. He knew this by the way the man carried himself. Cam had been around long enough to know a bad guy when he saw one.

  Then the light changed and the man walked on, down the busy street. Cam had filled his hand truck by then. He carted the money into the lobby and hit the elevator button.

  The twenty-five cans had previously held .50-caliber ammunition. He’d even weighed two cans—one filled with the ammo, and one with the money—just to make sure they were equal, in case anyone, maybe a guard at one of the checkpoints, got it into his head to heft one. They were almost identical. To be precise, the money weighed 59 pounds, and the ammo, 58.2. Anyone picking up a can would never suspect there was anything but .50-caliber rounds inside the cans.

  Each can was worth $660,000.

  Each brick of money held a hundred one-hundred-dollar bills. He was able to fit sixty-six bricks per can: sixteen million, five hundred thousand dollars.

  A lackey led him to the count room. There, the man lifted out a brick of cash, hefted it, and slit the cellophane. He peeled the shrink-wrap away, slipped the band off the bundle, and dumped it into the money counter. Cam watched as the first brick went through. The counter moved at high speed. A divider would pop up, smooth as glass, every time the counter reached $10,000. Incredibly fast and efficient.

  He’d already done the sums in his head—many times—and so there were no surprises. When all twenty-five cans of cash had gone through the money counter, he had $16,500,000. Sixteen million, five hundred thousand dollars.

  And he knew that was only the tip of the iceberg. The money stacked in the craters—he figured there would be at least another $2 or $3 billion—and maybe the whole $6.6 billion!—remained.