John Miller - The Last Family

It all came to the surface in a flash of pain. Martin Fletcher was the man who had had him shot. Fletcher had escaped from federal custody and vanished even as Paul had fought for his life in a Miami hospital’s trauma unit. He had masterminded the hit on Paul’s team from his prison cell and then had escaped the same day, before anyone could put it together.

“Far as I can find out, nobody’s ever come close to catching him,” Joe said.

Thorne sighed. “The family killings started four years back. That gave him a good two years from his prison break to plan it.”

“I don’t remember all of it. It’s kind of fuzzy. I remember he escaped. If he was retaken, I never heard about it.”

“Remember when he said he’d eat our hearts out?”

“Sort of. Yes. I know he was berserk last time I saw him. At the trial.”

“What is this if not a way to eat our hearts out?”

“I remember sitting on the stand and his eyes as I testified. And the outburst when he was sentenced.”

“He set us up, remember?” Thorne turned and looked out at the stream. “You know what he did to you… tried to kill all of us.”

“I know what he did to me.” Every time I look in a mirror or try to use my left hand or gauge depth.

“It’s retaliation, Paul,” Joe said, breaking in. “The ultimate twisting of the blade. Better than blowing our brains out.”

“I’ll make some calls,” Paul said. “Some people still owe me, I guess. Maybe I can do something.”

“I’d trade my life for two minutes alone with him,” Thorne Greer said. “Look what he did to you, for Christ’s sake. How long has it been since you left this goddamned cabin? Look around. You’re stuck in a calendar shot. The closest town is a cluster of log huts. He’s already fuckin’ killed you, you just ain’t noticed yet.”

Paul looked out the window. “Five years since I came back here. Month since I even went to Aaron’s store. I’m no good outside here. I just can’t… you got to understand…”

“Goddamn it,” Joe exploded. “You owe us. He fuckin’ did it because of what you did. You nailed his ass to the cross. You set him against us.”

“Come on, Joe. Fletcher’s nuts,” Thorne said.

“What?” Paul stammered. “I just arrested him.”

“Nobody bothered to tell Martin it was merely an arrest and that you didn’t mean anything by it,” Thorne said.

“Martin left a note on Doris’s body. Wanted you to know it was him. Said he’d leave you alone if you’d leave him be.” Joe realized Paul was confused and frightened. But they had to have Paul to get Fletcher. Paul was once powerful stuff at DEA. At the time of the ambush he had been a heroic figure in the agency, a leader who went into the field and faced danger with his men. The files bulged with citations and press clippings on his career.

“I’m sorry… God, I’m sorry. I was doing my job. If I had known-” Paul hung his head.

“Fletcher wants us to blame you. But we don’t. Do we?” Thorne looked at Joe. Joe nodded slowly and slammed the flat of his hand against a beam. “Martin Fletcher’s crazy as a shithouse rat.”

“Crazy as a shithouse fox,” Joe said.

“Couldn’t it be anyone else? We made some people mighty unhappy. Maybe it’s someone wanting us to think it’s Martin. Hiding behind his mystique.”

“The players we chased around after are mostly washed up-kids who were in diapers then are leaders now. Ochoa, Lopez, Perez,” Joe said. “The ones that are still alive are in hiding in Spain, in jail, dead, or so deep in the jungle they’re making monkeys.”

“He butchered our families. He has to be stopped. You have to come out and help us,” Thorne said.

“I’m sorry,” Paul said. He looked out the window and took a deep breath and exhaled it. “I can’t… can’t think about going out there again.”

“What the hell do you mean?” Joe snapped. “Haven’t you been listening? Our families have been fucking wiped out! What makes you think he’s finished?”

“Finished?”

“There’s only one family left, Paul. Yours.” Thorne frowned.

Joe started. “You think because you left them and took up with the fucking trout they aren’t targets? He may have disliked us, but, Paul, he hates your fucking guts. He said he was finished in the letter he left for you, but you believe for one second he’ll let your family live?”

“Dear God,” Paul said. “It didn’t occur to me.” Laura, Erin and Adam-Reb.

Thorne washed out the coffee cup. He watched as Paul tried to use the weakened left hand to get a cigarette from the pack, failed and used the right.

“It’s better,” Paul said defensively when he realized they were watching the hand. “I’m still doing my therapy. I’m supposed to squeeze a tennis ball. I forget.”

“We’ve got people in New Orleans watching Laura and your children, but we can’t keep them there long without T.C. getting wind of the expenditures. We’ve got a twenty-four seven in place, but we need cops and all sorts of help down there.”

T.C. Robertson’s face crossed Paul’s mind. He was the acting director of DEA, and he and Paul had never been friends. They had been rivals for the position T.C. now held. He was acting director because the presidents couldn’t find an excuse to push him out, but they didn’t want to make him director either. The new president was no different. But T.C. Robertson was popular with the average man on the street because he was always showing up on the evening news making tough statements about drug cartels.

“Okay,” Paul said after a long silence. “I’ll think it over. In the meantime let’s talk about what you’ll need.”

Thorne and Joe watched in surprise as Paul slowly began to pull himself together and take control again. In the few minutes they’d been in the cabin, Thorne had actually forgotten that Paul’s face was so fiercely fucked up. Now he could see that under the ill-fitting flannel shirt and beneath the beard and scraggly hair, well, Paul Masterson was still in there after all. This was the man that he and the other men would have followed through the gates of hell. Now Thorne and Joe both had actually begun to believe they could take on Martin Fletcher. Believed that they would do it. And they could see in Paul’s face that he knew it as well. After three cigarettes and a few cups of coffee he had written down an outline for capturing Martin Fletcher. Then he stood, stretched his arms, opened the refrigerator door, and stuck his head inside. “You guys up for elk steaks and bourbon?”

“I could eat a horse,” Joe said.

“You choose, I got both,” Paul said.

Paul was in Miami. He didn’t know that because of anything he could see-the world was a seamless wall of white, thick fog-but from a feeling he had. But his face was healed and he was seeing out of both eyes. There were two men standing a few feet away in the fog, and as Paul approached them, they turned toward him, their movements jerky, machinelike. But he knew them. Paul turned at the sudden sounding of a freighter’s horn, and when he looked back, the men had disappeared. He was alone. “Joe Barnett? Jeff Hill?” he called.

He walked after them, and the ground grew soft, spongelike. Then suddenly there was pressure on his ankle, and he looked down to see that skeletal hands were gripping his legs. He shrieked and awakened to the familiar dark of his bedroom. He listened and realized that the two men in the cabin were not awake. So he must not have called out in his sleep. He was thankful for that.

Paul was not often seized by the horror anymore, had few dreams at all, thanks to the pills he took before he went to sleep. But the combination of Irish whiskey and the thought of leaving the mountains and of his family’s danger at the hands of Martin Fletcher, fell over him like a net. His mind froze in fear, his chest constricted, and the room seemed to enlarge. His life was an obvious mess held together by twisted, frayed threads, and he felt small and powerless. He wanted to roll under the table or the bed and make these men leave him alone. But he knew he couldn’t. He had to be able to face his image in the mirror. He had to realize that leaving wasn’t death, that he wasn’t inadequate in the eyes of others. They didn’t know how terrified he was, how his soul cried out in pain, and how fear had become something that he could taste and almost feel with his fingers. He would be vulnerable out there. He was afraid, so afraid. He began to breathe deep breaths. He didn’t want the anxiety attack to continue, but it was beyond his control.