by John Grit
Raylan sat there, looking at the empty, cavernous hanger and stoic men, who stood around him, not speaking a word, checking their wristwatches every few minutes. Outside, the roar of jets reverberated against the steel walls, as airliners took off or landed. He could tell when someone communicated with them using their closed-loop com system, because they would freeze and stare off into space or up at the steel rafters, and nod slightly. The one Raylan didn’t know had a bad habit of reaching up and pressing the earphone deeper to help him hear – a dead giveaway to anyone watching and an amateurish mistake. After a few minutes of that, he found the whole thing humorous and chuckled under his breath. That prompted glances from all three men, but they said nothing and never showed any emotion. They probably attributed it to nervous release.
Ten more minutes passed in silence. Raylan began to sweat. At the hospital, they had helped him dress into a T-shirt and thin slacks, so the sweating wasn’t from being dressed too warmly. The problem was his already-reduced-dosage meds had worn off completely, and his leg in particular was throbbing. The same could be said of his chest wound, but it seemed more like a steady ache, and his left arm was still on fire from the abuse it had taken earlier. He started to speak when a sudden change in all three men warned him something was about to happen.
The two mutes ran to a door and waited for the other man to push Raylan to them. As the wheelchair-bound Raylan reached the door, one opened it and stepped aside. The roar of jet engines grew louder.
Then the cuffs were removed.
Raylan’s heart jumped into high gear, as he thought about all the ways Riley could screw him. The bullets could be duds, the Glock’s striker could have been filed and useless, hell, even the knife could be rigged to fall apart when he tried to use it. There was no way to know what Riley’s real agenda was. It was likely he wanted both Janowski and him dead, and this was the perfect way to get it done. There could be high explosives in the wheelchair, ready to be triggered any number of ways. And if Janowski somehow managed to take off with Raylan on the plane, he could only hope that Riley would order it shot out of the sky over the ocean and not allow the hell awaiting him in Moscow to happen.
The man behind him leaned down and said, “How you do it is your business, but you have to do it inside the plane. I’m going to push you out there and leave you. Once I walk away, you’re on your own. If you try to run before they get you inside, a sniper will kill you.”
Raylan listened intently. “Nice. What a plan. Somebody deserves a raise.”
“Yeah, it’s a raw deal,” the man said.
Raylan heard a spark of humanity in the man’s voice and thought he would at least give it a try. “Could you ease my worries a little by slipping your pistol under me? I have little faith that Glock will go bang when I need it to.”
There was silence for a few seconds. The man pulled his pistol out of a holster, another Glock, .40 caliber this time, and slid it under Raylan. “Both of them will fire, I promise you that much. I wish I could have done more.”
Raylan nodded. “Thanks.”
“Good luck,” the man said, and pushed the wheelchair through the open door and out onto the tarmac.
The pilot didn’t bother to kill the engines, and it was obvious to Raylan he might be leaving U.S. soil in a few minutes and out of U.S. airspace as fast as that plane could fly. He fought to control his breathing and heart rate.
A giant emerged from the plane, so tall he was forced to bend over when exiting the hatch, so wide he had to turn at an angle to squeeze through. He had lifeless black marble eyes and a blocky face with sharp edges. His head was shaved. To Raylan, he didn’t look remotely human, and he knew the giant was going to be trouble. It took considerable self-control to fight off an urge to rip the tape loose and reach for both Glocks, but he had to wait until he was in the plane. When the wheelchair stopped moving, he knew he was in the hands of the Russians.
The giant didn’t push the wheelchair from behind; instead, he reached out with a five-inch-wide hand and pushed it along from the side. When they got to the stairway, Raylan felt himself being lifted and bodily carried up the stairs, wheelchair and all. He pretended to be sedated to the point of near-unconsciousness, allowing his head to hang down on his chest. At the top of the stairs, the wheels touched the plane’s cabin deck and a shove pushed him inside.
A voice, heavy with Russian accent and mingled with a hint of some backwater Soviet hellhole, came to his ears. “So now we finally meet, Raylan Mad Ox.”
Raylan looked up bleary-eyed and saw Janowski standing in a salon area, puffing deeply on an over-sized cigar, leaning back to counterweight his protruding belly, a look of total satisfaction on his face. The smoke from the cigar filled the cabin and smelled like burning shit. Raylan let his head fall back onto his chest, pretending to be barely aware of his surroundings. Janowski stepped closer, sucking air through his cigar and causing the lit end to glow red. He pressed the fire into the flesh of Raylan’s right hand. Raylan tried to seem as if he was too sedated to feel it.
“Just a small taste of what’s to come,” Janowski said. “I always smoke one of my favorite cigars to celebrate success.” He laughed. “You have no idea what I’ve planned for you. Wait until the drugs they gave you wear off. It’s a long flight. We’ll start the fun before we arrive.”
The sound of the hatch slamming closed told Raylan the giant was occupied and had his back turned. He ripped the tape loose and snatched the knife from under his left arm, rising from the chair and slashing upward in one motion, he opened Janowski’s big belly from crotch to sternum, spilling his intestines out onto the lush carpet. Janowski made an effort to scream but couldn’t, collapsing bug-eyed to the deck while silently working his big mouth like a trout out of water, still holding the cigar. Raylan had both Glocks in his hands before the giant could get to him — hindered by the wheelchair in the way, he had taken a tenth of a second too long. Round after round of 9 millimeter and .40 caliber bullets buried themselves ten inches deep into the giant’s chest, but he kept coming. Raylan aimed higher and double-tapped him in the head with two 9 millimeter rounds. The giant fell in his own shadow and never twitched. A bullet struck Raylan in the right shoulder, spinning him around, he fired at two men who had emerged from the cockpit, both armed with Russian Makarovs. Another bullet hit his right shoulder only inches from where the last one hit, and his right hand involuntarily released its hold on the pistol. It fell to the carpet. The weak round wasn’t enough to stop a determined man like Raylan, and he continued to fire with the Glock .40 in his left hand until they fell and stopped moving. When the striker clicked on an empty chamber, he dropped the .40 and bent down to pick up the nine. His right leg seemed to snap, and he almost fell over on his face. Pain shot up his leg, and he gasped. Gun smoke in the confined cabin choked him and his ears rang so loud he couldn’t hear the teen Janowski had brought with him for entertainment screaming her head off.
He moved through the cabin toward the cockpit, trying to keep most of his weight off the shattered leg. Finding no one else on board, he turned and hobbled toward the back, pistol held out in front, ready to shoot. He had been told to kill Janowski. The others were inconsequential. But he was pissed off and in pain, there were a few more rounds in the gun, and he intended to make good use of them.
Finding a locked door, he shouldered it open and stepped into a stateroom, nearly falling over from the pain in his right leg. It felt like the screws in his bone brace had broken loose.
A small man with wild, terrified eyes lunged at him. Raylan squeezed off a quick shot. The little man grunted and doubled over. His knees buckled under him as he looked up at Raylan in shocked surprise. Another round to his forehead finished him. It wasn’t until later that Raylan would learn the small man was the most powerful underworld kingpin in France, Pierre Ladue, second only to Janowski in power and misbegotten wealth. Janowski and Ladue died thinking they had a U.S. President in their pockets. Raylan had been the weapon Ril
ey used to prove them wrong by killing them both.
Movement in a dark corner caught his attention. He moved closer, looking over the pistol sights. A teenage girl dressed in a strange black dress and ridiculously high-heeled shoes someone had made her put on cowered and recoiled from him, shaking violently. After making certain no one else was in the room, he approached her slowly, stuffing the pistol under his belt and holding his open hands out. As he came closer, he saw bruises on her face and both her lips were swollen and cut. He spoke in Russian, telling her he wouldn’t harm her and she should leave the plane before it blew up. He thought that might get her to listen and exit the plane with him. Chances were anyone found in the plane would be killed after he left. He wasn’t even sure he wouldn’t be killed when he walked outside onto the steps.
She was too terrified to move. Then he tried something else, another pathway to her trust: human empathy. In Russian he explained that he was wounded too seriously to make it down the stairs without her help. She looked at him and saw that he was bleeding from several wounds and slowly pushed her shaking body to her feet. Overcoming her fear, she kicked the high heels off and walked to him. She braced his right side, taking much of his weight off the shattered leg. “Thank you,” he said. Together, they inched through the plane, past Janowski’s body, and out through the hatch. On the steps, she looked back at Janowski, and for a moment it seemed her fear faded away. It took Raylan all he had to step down the stairs without falling on his face, but once on the tarmac, he made good time with her help.
At the hanger, he said, “Open the door for me, and we will find friends on the other side.” His words rang hollow in his ears, and he wondered how she could believe a man who obviously didn’t believe his own words. She reached for the doorknob with a shaking hand, turned it, and pulled it open. The same three men who had prepared Raylan were waiting, submachine guns aimed. The girl shivered and cried, expecting to be shot. Raylan wondered if her fear wasn’t justified.
The talker, who had given Raylan his personal gun, lowered his weapon and said. “Damn, Maddox, you work fast. You’ve already found another girlfriend.”
The two mutes almost smiled.
“Did you get Janowski?” the talker demanded.
Raylan answered, “Everyone on board is dead.” He held the 9 millimeter in his left hand. “She lives and she lives free. Anyone wants to argue, we’ll have it out now.”
“No argument,” the talker said.
The mutes lowered their weapons.
Raylan leaned too heavily on the girl. She yelled something in Russian. Not able to hold him up, she strained as he lost consciousness and dropped to the hard concrete. All three men rushed to him. Within minutes they were in a helicopter, flying back to the hospital Raylan had left just two hours before. The girl held his hand until doctors took him away and rushed him to an ER. Raylan and the girl never saw each other again.
Chapter 25
Raylan spent fifteen minutes warming up before starting his three-mile jog. Every bone-jarring step sent a shockwave of pain up his right leg, but he insisted on his exercise routine every morning. The doctors told him the leg had healed over the last few months, but the pain would never go completely away. His shoulder was stiff at times, especially when waking up early on cold mornings like this one, but it wasn’t bad and didn’t hurt much. He could do pretty much anything he needed to do with it.
He was no longer in the custody of the CIA and had been transferred to a federal prison where he was kept behind bars in a wing all to himself, except for a dozen M4-carrying U.S. Marshal Service deputies that surrounded him at all times. The installation was brand new and only partially filled, leaving him with plenty of room and a safe separation from the criminals in the other wings. Someone high up wanted him kept isolated, and that was obvious. The Deputy Marshals had been told nothing about him and were instructed not to say a word to him about anything other than prison security topics, such as, “Cross the red line and you’re dead.” The emptiness of his life didn’t seem so bad, because he had been told it wasn’t forever and he kept busy reading when he wasn’t exercising. Since President Riley hadn’t double crossed him so far, he still had hope of freedom someday.
Senate hearings on CIA corruption under the late Director James Dulling had started, and they had questions. They had been told Raylan couldn’t travel until he had recovered from his wounds, an obvious stalling tactic of President Riley’s, who was holding onto his presidency a little longer. For what purpose other than ego and a lust for power, Raylan didn’t know. Smelling blood in the water for months, senators grew impatient and demanded Riley produce Raylan Maddox, or face impeachment. He had plenty to say and knew many people would not like it. He believed President Riley’s advice to tell the truth still stood, and he planned to do just that.
He had been assigned another lawyer. This one he didn’t like so much, but he seemed to be competent enough. During their short and infrequent jail-cell meetings, Raylan always pumped him for news on what was going on in the world outside the prison, especially what Riley had been up to. No lawyer or judge was going to help him. Only a president’s power could. If Riley didn’t come through, he was finished. Two things chewed on him day and night: a lingering doubt Riley would keep his promise in the end, and a deep emptiness that came from missing Carla.
~~~
One morning, his lawyer told him he would be testifying in front of the Senate the next day. He brought a barber with him to make sure he had a trim. He also brought a new suit and shiny black shoes. Raylan wondered how much this guy was charging the taxpayers for his high level of legal expertise. Who would’ve thought of putting on his best appearance? The guy was good, real good. Raylan smiled as he got dressed, thinking he might as well have fun on the way to the gallows.
~~~
After Raylan was sworn in, Senator Cameron started the proceedings. “Let’s get to the heart of this matter. Can you tell us if President Riley knew of the late Director Dulling’s connections with international crime syndicates?”
Raylan answered, “Riley knew Dulling was dirty and so did many in the CIA. We were being ordered to do things that had nothing to do with national security and everything to do with serving Janowski and other crooks Dulling had sold out to. As for the killing of Mita Agenziano and President Riley’s involvement, I only know what Carla Baylor told me.”
“And you believe her story?”
“Every word of it. Evidently, Dulling had the president’s mistress murdered to cover up his affair and give him a chance to win another term. Dulling used that to blackmail the president, and that gave him a green light to use much of the government as an international crime syndicate at taxpayers’ expense and with the blood and lives of patriots who were in the field dying for a country they loved.”
Several senators lost their cool and yelled out, “Lies! Lies! He’s a Republican shill!” One senator yelled that Raylan must be a ‘tea bagger.’
Senator Cameron regained control, and the others settled down, their eyes bulging with hate, as they glared at Raylan.
“I notice,” Senator Cameron said, “a glaring lack of any allegation that the president was involved in the murder of the young lady and her unborn child.”
“I have no proof, but he certainly profited from her silence through her death, and Carla Baylor certainly believed he had given at least tacit approval of the murder.”
“But she had no proof.”
“No,” Rayland said. “And neither do I. That’s why I haven’t accused the president of the crime here.”
“Have you been threatened?” Senator Cameron asked. “I mean, have you been warned not to implicate President Riley in any crimes, especially the murder of Mita Agenziano?”
“Actually, I met the president once, while I was recovering from my wounds. He told me to tell the truth as I knew it. I’m not here to protect anyone or to lie about anyone for political or personal reasons. I may despise the president, but I hav
e no proof he had any knowledge that his lover was going to be murdered. I know only what Carla Baylor told me. I will repeat here that I believed her when she told me the story, with tears of shame running down her face over the killing of an innocent woman, and I still believe her. She was the one ordered to kill Agenziano under the false pretense the young woman was a threat to U.S. national security, and she knew more about it than I do. Unfortunately, she was killed by Janowski’s thugs and cannot speak for herself.”
Senator Sandy Mann, a member of the Tea Party, was given a chance to ask Raylan questions. “I’ve been going over your record with the CIA, and it’s very impressive.” He looked up from his notes. “I have a feeling, though, there are large gaps in the information the CIA sent me. Would you fill in some of those gaps?”
Raylan braced himself. “Just keep in mind that I will not reveal any information that harms the national security of the United States.”
Senator Mann said, “I understand. I promise I’ll keep my questions focused on the corruption of the CIA under Director Dulling and the president.” He shuffled through some papers. “Let’s see…uh, I have some questions about the killing of international Mob bosses in South Carolina.”
Raylan relaxed. It didn’t matter if he admitted to any crimes he may have committed. He had come to the end of his life as Raylan Maddox. There was no need to fear prison. His life was completely in Riley’s hands. Riley had told him he had to die. Whether that meant a faked death, as he thought Riley was saying, or a real one, he expected Raylan Maddox to be dead soon.
Raylan calmly asked, “Such as?”
~~~
The hearings had come and gone, and Raylan had no idea what the people’s reaction to his testimony had been, or what Congress was up to. They didn’t allow him access to the outside world, no papers, radio, or TV, and no internet. He could only guess and assume certain reactions and that the American people were outraged. But then, the American people had yawned at so many scandals in the past.
