Eye of Vengeance

by Jonathon King

  Redman caught the movement in his spotting scope and grinned. There had always been a rumor in sniper circles that there were targets that had such premonition that they could actually feel the spot of death on their skin before you took the shot. Redman had caught Mullins in his lens as the reporter walked up the sidewalk and then followed him to the seawall, where he stopped and waited. Redman took an extra few minutes to scan the area. He knew where the stakeout people would be if Mullins had called the new detective, Hargrave, and alerted him to their meeting. From his vantage point Redman could see up all three entry streets to the river. No cop cars within two blocks. No unmarked Ford Crown Victorias that any idiot would know carried plainclothes officers. He was going to give it another five minutes of all clear when a voice behind him called out:

  “Excuse me, sir. Can I help you with something?”

  Redman turned and slipped the scope under his jacket all in one motion. At the ramp leading down to the next level stood a uniformed security guard, a young guy, hair cut high and tight, eyes clear and sharp, not lackadaisical and bored.

  “Well, I was trying to get my bearings,” Redman said, looking back out over the retaining wall and then returning to the guard. He then slipped his hand into his pocket and watched the guard approach, unwary. Not an undercover, Redman thought. No real cop would let some guy go into his pockets without reacting.

  As the guard came closer, Redman continued to dig around with his fingers and then pulled out the parking ticket he’d punched out of the machine and acted as if he were examining it.

  “I thought I was on the west side of the sixth floor, but I can’t seem to find my car.”

  “This is seven, sir,” the guard said, scanning Redman’s clothes, but not in a suspicious manner.

  “No shit?” Redman said, looking around, trying to act the part. He turned and pointed at the number seven that was painted on the front of a nearby column. “Man, I gotta get my eyes checked.” He hung on to the parking ticket, waving it but not offering or letting him see it too closely.

  “You can take the elevator over there down,” the guard said, pointing in the direction of the center column. “But you were right about the west side.”

  “Yeah, well, I guess I’m not all stupid this morning,” Redman said and started walking. “Thanks.”

  The young guard just nodded. “Yes, sir. Have a good day.”

  Redman took the elevator to the ground floor, convinced that his meeting with Mullins was clear.

  Nick looked at his watch—10:08—but he did not move from his spot. A lesson from years of street reporting: Don’t leave the scene until you’ve got everything you can get or your deadline is screaming in your face. At this point in the morning there was plenty of time to write, and knowing that Deirdre was waiting with a harsh SEE ME! was motivation to stay away as long as possible.

  He looked out onto the river, the water a dark impenetrable brown color. He recalled a description of the same spot, recorded by Fort Lauderdale pioneer Ivy Stranahan in the late 1890s, of a river so clear you could watch the fish swimming below. Growth of the area killed that vision, as it did her husband, Frank, who committed suicide by strapping weights to his body and throwing himself into the river in a spot not fifty yards away from where Nick now stood. Nick was thinking about ghosts when he picked up on the rustle of branches off to his left and saw a man coming through the sea grape hedge.

  Michael Redman did not suddenly appear like some stealthy ninja warrior. He even stumbled a bit extricating himself from the brush. At first Nick thought the man might just be a fisherman, but he was carrying nothing but a dark jacket. He was dressed peculiarly, like some gas station attendant. There were no furtive glances to see if they were alone, the man simply walked over with a confident stride and when their eyes met, any doubt was immediately dissolved.

  “Mr. Mullins,” Redman said and it was not a question. He stopped just within handshaking distance, but did not offer his hand.

  “Michael Redman,” Nick replied. He was studying the man’s face, older than he remembered, cut with deep crow’s-feet and lines across the forehead, sallow skin that accented the dark pouches that hung under his eyes. Not a man who slept well, Nick caught himself thinking.

  “I’ve read your stories, Mr. Mullins,” Redman said in a clear, conversational tone. “You’ve always impressed me with your knowledge of certain events and people.”

  Nick wasn’t sure how to react. But being cavalier, considering the circumstances, was out.

  “I believe you’ve made some of those stories, Mike. Especially some of the recent ones.”

  Nick wasn’t sure that the familiar use of Redman’s first name was appropriate. Redman only nodded his head, a noncommittal bob.

  “I believe the now-silent subjects of those stories created those situations on their own,” Redman said.

  Nick didn’t reply. He was assessing the man: clean clothes and freshly shaven, not living on the streets. Eyes clear of any obvious drug tinge. The man’s forearms were big for his otherwise thin frame, cabled with muscle that rolled in an almost dangerous way at the slightest turn of his big-knuckled hands.

  “Yeah, sometimes,” Nick finally said and believed it. “Can I ask where you’ve been the last few years, Mike? The last time I remember seeing you was after that crazy shoot-out at the Days Inn.”

  The look in Redman’s eyes slipped to memory and he let just the slightest twitch raise one corner of his mouth—a suppressed smile?

  “Wasn’t anything crazy about it,” he said, extinguishing the look. “It was by the book, just like you showed in your story. Too bad your editorial board doesn’t talk to you.”

  “Is that why you left?” Nick said, thinking instinctively about the reporter’s notepad in his back pocket, but then dismissing it.

  “No. Hell, I understand a little about the politics of offices like yours, and like the ones I used to work for,” Redman said. “No, I stayed for a while after that and then went to hell.”

  Nick hesitated. Man goes to hell. What does that mean? He gave it a second thought, but he rarely pulled punches at interviews and wasn’t going to start now.

  “What? Alcoholism? Rehab?” he asked.

  Redman laughed, outright and pure, and the softness it suddenly gave his face nearly made Nick smile.

  “No, man. Though there was plenty of that over there and plenty of rehab is coming down the road for the guys that will come back,” Redman said. “No, Mr. Mullins. Iraq. I went to Iraq.”

  He lost the laughter quickly.

  “There is no hell like war,” he said.

  “General Sherman,” Nick said quickly, a lesson from a Civil War history class jumping into his head.

  “ ‘It’s glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have never fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell,’ ” Redman quoted. “Ol William Tecumseh, he got that one right, didn’t he?”

  Nick let the silence take hold. Sometimes it was the best way to keep them talking, just say nothing, let them tell it on their own. He was watching Redman’s eyes as they went out onto the river. Post-traumatic stress? Just plain nuts? The quiet held too long.

  “Is that what it is you’re doing, Mike, waging war?”

  “No, Mr. Mullins. That’s not it. I did that for a lot of years with the Sheriff’s Office, warred against the criminals. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes you were second-guessed, as you know. But those editorial writers were the ones who never fired a shot or heard the groans, right?”

  Nick did not disagree.

  “No, this is just a list, my friend. One that’s got to be cleaned out before I go.”

  “What list might that be?” Nick asked and he could hear the anxiety in his own voice, thinking about his byline list, the Secret Service list, the cross-reference list of both.

  “My list,” Redman said, turning back to again look straight
into Nick’s face when he spoke. “Just mine. That simple.”

  “But what does your list have to do with me, Mike? I’m not a soldier. I’m not in a war. I haven’t fired a shot or heard the groans.”

  Redman would not move his eyes and they burned with some internal heat.

  “Yeah, you have, Nick. You’ve heard the worst groans, the ones that ripped your guts, man. You took the heaviest losses. You’re owed.”

  Nick’s mind was racing, but illogically, he was trying to second-guess the words without just asking the question, every reporter’s downfall. Find the guts to just ask the question.

  “Is it me? Am I on your list?”

  The question seemed to break Redman’s intensity. The three lines that creased his forehead deepened and then he grinned.

  “Well, hell, no, Mr. Mullins. You’re not on the list. You’re the architect of the list, man. You’re the spotter,” Redman said. “And I just wanted to meet you, properly, before we finish.”

  Redman then reached out his hand in such a formal and courteous way that Nick’s muddled reaction was to take it. It was Redman’s muscled forearm that gripped and raised the handshake one time and then let it fall. When he turned to go, Nick found his voice.

  “Wait. Wait a second, Mike. What do you mean, finish? You mean you’re going to kill someone else?”

  Redman kept walking and Nick didn’t follow. It was against his years of work and instinct to chase after an interviewee, even this one. He stood and called out instead:

  “Mike, come on. What are you doing? Why? How many more on your list?”

  Redman turned before he disappeared back into the sea grape.

  “One more, Mr. Mullins,” he called back. “Like I said, you’re owed.”

  Nick stared after the bushes, dumbstruck. What the hell did that mean? I’m owed? I don’t do anything but write the stories. Then he pulled the notebook out of his back pocket and knelt right there, next to the seawall, and wrote down everything he could remember of the conversation, the exact words.

  The now-silent subjects of those stories created those situations on their own. Yeah, alright, Nick thought.

  War is hell. Goddamn Sherman quote. But if Redman had gone to Iraq, he either joined up or went as a guardsman. A lot of guardsmen from Florida went over there. Nick had done several stories about locals who packed up and shipped out, leaving families behind. That would be easy to check out.

  This is just a list, my friend. One that’s got to be cleaned out before I go.

  OK, his list. He’s working his own list. Would it be a physical thing? Or all in his head? And was it the same as any of the samples Nick already had, the one with his byline all over it?

  You’re not on the list. You’re the architect of the list, man. You’re the spotter.

  That can’t be right. What’s that mean? I’m the spotter. Nick knew enough about SWAT operations and snipers to know what a spotter was. He’s the guy that calls the shots in a two-man team. I’m not on this guy’s team. How the hell did I get on this guy’s team?

  One more, Mr. Mullins. Like I said, you’re owed. Nick scribbled down the last quote, the final words Redman had used.

  “I’m owed?” he said out loud. Why am I owed? I’m not the subject of my stories. I have never been the subject of my stories. Your career, your journalism is not supposed to be about you, it’s supposed to be about other people.

  The sound of Nick’s cell phone caused him to jerk and he had to put his hand out on the rough concrete to keep from tumbling into the damn water. He looked at the readout and the calling number was blocked.

  “Nick Mullins,” he answered.

  “Mr. Mullins,” announced Detective Hargrave’s quiet voice. “You have a flair for the dramatic that I didn’t expect from you. I got your message about going out to meet with a homicide suspect on your own and tossing me an Internet research assignment as a bone. This is exactly why we don’t bring amateurs in on investigations, Mullins. They always tend to do stupid things.”

  Nick said nothing. The guy was right. What do you say?

  “Can I assume that you have already met with your possible sniper, or are you standing around in some open field waiting for him to put a round through your head?” Hargrave said in a muted, conversational tone.

  Nick looked around at the open lot.

  “No. I mean, yes, I met with him. It’s Michael Redman, one of your own, a former SWAT guy for the Sheriff’s Office. But I’m not a target. At least that’s what he said. I think it’s the subjects of my stories that are his targets and he said he’s going to do one more before he goes.”

  “Might I suggest, Mr. Mullins, that you come in to the Sheriff’s Office as soon as fucking possible?” Hargrave said, pronouncing the expletive in such a calm manner as to make it seem nearly inoffensive.

  “Absolutely. I will get there as soon as possible,” Nick said, almost adding a sir tothe end of his sentence and then listening as the hang-up tone on the cell bleated out over the river water.

  Chapter 24

  When Nick got back to the newsroom, the place was starting to warm up to the day. He took advantage of the fact that the editors were having their early news meeting and he could slip in and out without being noticed by the powers that be.

  He walked the long way around to his desk and started gathering up his notes and printouts from the research library. But he wasn’t invisible. His desk phone rang.

  “Nicky, man. Your ass is in the stew, brother.”

  Nick instantly recognized Hirschman’s voice.

  “Yeah, has been for some time,” Nick said.

  “No, no. Not like this time.”

  Nick sat and booted up his computer.

  “What do you have, Bill?” he said and looked around the corner to see the top of Hirschman’s head bobbing just below his partition. It was the norm these days in newsrooms and other offices. Employees didn’t get up and go talk to each other, they called you from fifteen feet away or sent you e-mails. Nick had learned long ago that the company could scan the contents of every e-mail sent either in or out of the building, so he rarely used it. And this clandestine technique of calling the guy next to you was as distasteful to him as interviewing people over the phone. But it was what it was and you didn’t ignore information even if that’s the way it was spread.

  “They’re gunning for you, man,” Hirschman said, using a low, conspiratorial voice. “From the stuff I overheard, they’re going to fire your ass for some kind of insubordination or keeping some kind of story away from Ms. Clompy Heels or some damn thing. The words human resources were definitely used and you know what that means when they’re pissed at somebody.”

  Yeah, Nick knew. That and due to economic considerations we are forced to separate certain employees from the company. Christ, they couldn’t even bring themselves to say you’re fired. It had to be couched in some damn lawyerese. Hell, if he wrote something like that in the paper, he’d deserve to be fired.

  “Thanks for the heads-up, Bill,” he said. “I’ll expect all of you to pull together in this time of eight percent profit margins instead of the usual twelve percent,” he said.

  “Ha!” Hirschman answered and hung up.

  Nick only smirked at the long-standing criticism of a newspaper industry that earned higher profits than almost any other business in the country and started cutting employees long before that margin came anywhere close to flat.

  At his desk he slipped a rewritable CD into the computer and called up a list of contacts he’d put together over a decade and copied it. He did the same with all of his notes on the sniper case. He also copied every e-mail address that he’d recorded. All of his personal stuff he could leave. If they ended up sacking him, they couldn’t deny him those, but he knew they could confiscate his computer and all of the files in his desk drawers and claim them as work products that belonged to them. He slipped the CDs and notepads into his briefcase and made it halfway down the hallway to the elevat
or when an assistant editor came swinging out of the break room with a cup of coffee in one hand.

  “Hey, Nick. There you are, man. Hey, I think we’ve got a big pileup on 95 up near Hillsborough Beach Boulevard that we’re going to have to check out. You know, no fatalities or anything, but photo got some pictures so we’re gonna need some cutline information at least.”

  Nick slowed but did not stop moving as he turned to sidestep the man.

  “But other than that I think we’re pretty clear, so what’s the word on this vigilante thing, because, you know, Deirdre’s going to get out of that meeting pretty soon and she’s going to want to see you. . . .”

  The editor’s scattergun spiel started to slow as Nick kept backpedaling and he first noticed the briefcase in Nick’s hand.

  “You’re not taking off again, are you, Nick, because, you know she’s really gonna be pissed, and—”

  “I’ll call you, man. I need to make this meeting with the cops and I’ll just have to call you. Alright?” Nick said and now he was walking backward with the editor following him. “I’ve got my cell. But I can’t miss this meeting. Tell her that, OK?”