John Miller - Smoke and Mirrors

As he drove in, Winter slowed and looked at the SUVs parked beside the graveled road at the mouth of the woods. A deputy was using his flashlight to peer into the last one, a Toyota Highlander with Tunica County tags. The other two parked behind it-a Yukon and a Trailblazer-had Tennessee plates and dark film on the windows.

Winter drove out into the open landscape. The fenced lot around the barn was alive with the flashing lights of cruisers, EMT buses, pickup trucks, and three fire trucks. Winter pulled through the open gates and parked. A dozen deputies were walking around the lot, shining flashlights on the ground to search for evidence.

There was indeed a hole in the barn, although the word hole didn’t begin to describe the opening in the shed, which was large enough to push an eighteen-wheeler rig through sideways. The aluminum roof that remained was blackened and peeled sharply back, and a fan-shaped blast crater extended out from it for fifty feet. The limousine, only distinguishable as such by its length, looked like a giant had picked it up, plucked off the tires, twisted it like a pretzel, and drop-kicked it through the hurricane fence. A section of the fence was down, and the poles that had held it up were bent over or snapped off.

“Stay here,” Brad told Leigh.

“Don’t worry,” she said, looking off to her right where her parcel was located. “I’m as close as I want to be.”

Winter followed Brad to the sheriff standing at the mouth of the hole, using a powerful battery-operated searchlight to peer into the building. Winter could see other moving light beams scattered around inside the structure. The sheriff saw Brad and handed the light to the deputy beside him.

“Brad,” Watson said.

“Sheriff Watson,” Brad said. “You know who was in there?”

“‘Was’ is the operational word,” he said. “I don’t know who they were, but they ain’t nothing at all now. I’ll get some dogs here from Jackson to help find the pieces. Doesn’t look like there are any survivors. They found a pair of boots with the feet still in ’em, some meat and scraps and cloth so far. Hopefully we can find some wallets or something. Whatever they were doing went wrong. I don’t imagine they knew what hit ’em. Looks like they must have had a few hundred pounds of dynamite in there that went up.”

“Sheriff!” a deputy hollered as he ran up, holding something pinched between his gloved fingers like it smelled bad. “It’s a gun with a silencer on it. Was back over there by the bottom of the fence.”

“Sure is,” Sheriff Watson said. “That ain’t any construction equipment I know about.”

“Destruction equipment’s more like it,” the deputy added.

Winter looked at the remains of an MP5SD with a blasted away stock and a bent suppresser. “Have you run the plate on that limo and the other SUVs?”

“I did,” Sheriff Watson said. “Limo belongs to an RRI corporation. You know of it?”

Brad looked at Winter, and Winter nodded his agreement that he should tell the sheriff. “The Roundtable casino is owned by RRI. They own all that land they’ve been clearing there in my county.”

“They own this land and the building too,” Watson said. “Why you suppose they had a machine gun?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Brad said. “It’s a foreign corporation.”

“Foreign? Maybe it’s some terror mess going on and they were making those fertilizer bombs to attack Memphis with. I’m going to let the ATF figure it out. I called them soon as we rolled up.”

“Maybe you should call Homeland Security,” Winter said. “Give them those vehicle tag numbers.”

“First I’m going to search those vehicles,” Watson said. “Might get some idea of what they were doing here.”

“You could,” Winter said. “but they could be booby-trapped or some damned thing. If it’s a terror cell, the Feds will want to get right on it.”

“You run the other plates?” Brad asked.

Watson took out a notebook and opened it, using a penlight to read what he’d written. “The Toyota is registered to an Albert W. White, lives in your county.”

“He’s the security chief at the Roundtable,” Winter said.

“You know him?” Watson asked Winter.

“We know him,” Brad said. “He was assistant chief of police in West Memphis. Been with the casino since RRI bought it.”

“He clean?” Watson asked.

“Seemed all right.”

“The other two go to a Trinity Corporation. You know, I believe I’ll call the FBI, right now. They want to call in Homeland Security, they can do it,” Watson said. “Shit, we can’t do much. No fire, no bodies, no electricity. And we got this freezing rain that’s going to get a lot worse pretty quick. Who would you suggest I talk to at the casino about this?”

“The manager is Pierce Mulvane,” Brad said.

“You should ask for a man named Kurt Klein,” Winter said. “He’s the owner and maybe he can help you figure out who was here and why. Be a good start.”

“I’ll do that,” Watson said. He made a note and closed the pad. “The number we had for a contact for RRI is connected to an answering machine.”

“Well, looks like you’ve got this under control. If I can help you out, let me know,” Brad said.

“Your casino or not, this is my mess,” Watson said. “I wish to God it wasn’t.”

As Winter and Brad were walking back to the Jeep, Brad said, “You think the cutouts got Styer?”

“Looks like it. I think they followed White here. Maybe Styer was with him or they found out he was meeting Styer. Styer could have come out in the stretch. If they did get him, he got them back. Soon a lot of men in suits are going to swarm this place, and that could be pretty unpleasant. I think we should get clear.”

At least I can stop looking over my shoulder for a while, Winter thought.

The freezing rain droplets pecked at Alexa’s face as she walked toward the front porch, hands cuffed at her back, a silenced gun pressed into her spine. Styer was walking behind her, Cynthia on her left. “You try and warn them, I’ll have to kill them.”

A backlit figure appeared at the window, vanished, and the door opened. Roy Bishop and a young deputy sheriff were visible just inside.

“Hello, Cyn,” Jeff said.

“Where is young Hampton?” Styer asked in character. Alexa knew they would be fooled by the purloined voice.

“Asleep,” Roy said, smiling and extending his hand to shake Styer’s. “Good to see you…” He stopped and a cloud passed quickly behind his eyes as he realized something was wrong.

Alexa didn’t feel the gun leave her back or see Styer’s hand come up until she heard the pops, which sounded like finger snaps from the.22, spaced impossibly close together. Both men collapsed, shot at close range through their foreheads.

Cynthia yelped.

Styer shoved Alexa hard from behind, and as she flew through the open front door, she tripped on Chief Deputy Bishop’s body and crashed to the wooden floor. Cynthia went past her, landing on her right side.

Without her arms free to slow her fall, Alexa’s torso and the side of her face struck the floor hard. She waited, sure Styer would shoot her, too, but he grabbed her by her coat collar and dragged her a few feet into the house before dropping her.

Kneeling beside her, Styer said, “I think my disguise fooled them.”

“Dear God, please. You said you wouldn’t hurt them,” Alexa begged.

“They didn’t feel anything. What kind of man do you think I am?”

Cynthia whimpered loudly, but Styer aimed the gun at her and she quieted.

As Styer moved over her, Alexa’s last conscious thoughts concerned Hamp and Estelle.