John Miller - Side by Side

“I’ve known Alexa Keen for ten years,” the judge repeated.

“Winter has known her a lot longer and a lot better. And yet she’s betrayed him, and people who are in on this with her have tried to kill him three times. The kidnappers are a local bunch of thugs who are getting their orders from Bryce’s friends.”

“Exactly who are Bryce’s friends, Mrs. Massey?”

“A Russian crime group waiting for delivery of an arms shipment and members of our military intelligence who are involved in the smuggling operation. Major Antonia Keen is an Army intelligence officer. She’s the connection.”

“Say this is true. What do you expect me to do?”

“Winter’s on his way to get your family out. He’s all alone. He must have figured you’d know what to do. I was just supposed to get word to you.”

“Do you know where he’s going?”

Sean pulled a map of North and South Carolina out of her coat and opened it on the table. She picked up the judge’s pen and pointed to the circle Hank had drawn. “Right about here. Off of Clark Road.”

“I see.”

“Can you get him some backup?”

“All the help he needs,” the judge said, frowning. “Gentlemen, Mrs. Massey wants our help.”

Sean looked up from the map as two men dressed entirely in black filled the doorway. The machine guns in their hands had large silencers on them.

“Please, Judge Fondren, there’s no time-” Sean started.

He looked down at her. “I’m terribly sorry to have deceived you, Mrs. Massey. My name is Kelly Crisp. Judge Fondren is upstairs resting.”

Sean felt a sour burning in her stomach. “Exactly who are you?” she managed to ask.

“We’re government employees, Mrs. Massey.” Kelly Crisp’s smile could only be described as predatory.

The Tahoe SUV was full of fuel when Winter Massey stole it. He kept the speedometer around eighty, and stayed on the interstate until he was well into South Carolina. He couldn’t afford to be stopped by the highway patrol, muddy, badgeless, driving a vehicle he didn’t know who owned, with several ebony anvil cases in the back. He didn’t have time to look through the cases to see what equipment they contained, and didn’t want the cops to be the people who got first look inside them. There was also the spent brass littering the floorboard, console, and seats of the vehicle. There were discarded thirty-round H amp;K magazines on the passenger’s floorboard, and a half dozen loaded ones on the console.

Click had said that his father had been taking people that “needed” killing to the hunting property in South Carolina for twenty years. It was a safe place because it was in a forested area owned by the Smoots and they controlled the local authorities. Click had described the layout and given Winter directions to it-directions Winter had committed to memory.

Winter had called Hank’s private line from a pay phone, and had entrusted him to deliver a message to Judge Fondren, hoping he would get some firepower on the scene before it was too late.

He topped a hill to the sight of three patrol cars, blues flashing, pulled off on the shoulder. He slowed, joining the traffic that crept by so the drivers could rubberneck. A passenger van had been pulled over, its contents unloaded in the grass. Several luckless Mexican men stood in the rain in wet clothes looking like flood victims while cops in raingear casually tore their vehicle apart.

After passing over the next hill, Winter floored the SUV. All the cops in the area, he figured, had their hands full for the moment.

Because it was dark and Click Smoot hadn’t given Winter exact distances between turns, he had to read the signs at every crossroad and intersection he came to. Some of the road signs were impossible to read without slowing. After he spotted a blood-red glow on the horizon, Winter was sure he would find the place just by steering a general course for the flames. It could have just been a coincidental house or a barn fire, but his instincts told him that the source of the blaze was the Smoot place and that it had something to do with the Dockerys.

Perhaps, knowing Winter was on his way there, Clayton Able had called the Smoots to sanitize the scene-and few things destroyed evidence like nice big fires. If that was the case, it was all over and the consequences of his actions during the past several hours could be very unpleasant. It would be best for the Keens and Able if Winter never got a chance to present his side of the story. Winter could only hope that Hank had gotten his message to Judge Fondren, to explain what was really going on. He wasn’t at all sure that the jurist could do anything in time to make any difference. The Dockerys were probably dead.

One last right turn off of Clark Road onto State 332 and two miles down that gravel road and a left fork just past a country store and he’d be at his destination, a red gate. As he rounded a curve, he saw the unmistakable blue strobes of a police cruiser, and again he slowed. The rain had stopped, and he flipped off his wipers. Red lights behind him signaled an approaching fire truck.

A pair of sheriff’s department cruisers blocked a gravel road off Clark Road and deputies were turning away traffic. One of the deputies was having a discussion with the driver of a pickup truck with a flashing red light sitting on its dash. The fire truck flew around Winter’s Tahoe and stopped at the intersection behind the pickup, but the sheriff’s department cruisers remained in position, blocking the fire truck’s path.

Winter kept going, slow and steady, not flicking on his turn signal. He noted the firmness in the deputies’ rebuff of the firemen. Winter didn’t know if there was another way in, so he was going to have to hide the SUV and go in on foot.

A quarter mile farther down, he spotted a private road and, turning off his lights, pulled onto it. At the tree line a gate made up of strands of barbed wire stretched across the dirt road. He aimed for the No Trespassing sign that hung from the topmost strand, and snapped the wires as he roared through.

Only when the road made a sharp left turn did he stop the Tahoe. Climbing out, he went to the tailgate, lifted the rear door, and started undoing the casket hinges on the cases. He was looking at the tidbits every proper assassin needed to have close at hand.

Sometimes God smiles.

After Max Randall’s second heated phone call, Peanut leaned against his truck, thinking. Max was on his way, and the Russian, Sarnov, was tagging along. Peanut couldn’t see why they were wasting their gas. He figured he was going to be the only loser in this deal. One, he probably was going to have trouble collecting the kidnap-and-killing fee on the Dockerys that Bryce was supposed to pay Laughlin, even though the woman and kid had been kidnapped and killed successfully, which was the point and it shouldn’t matter so much-check the damn small print-how or when. And second, he had lost prime buildings and two Smoot-blood employees who would be a sight more difficult to replace than structures. Third thing was, none of this mess was his fault. The fire was obviously an act of God-an accident. Of course Sarnov would do his communist best to keep him from collecting one red cent. Peanut doubted Randall, who was pretty danged upset, would go to bat to get Peanut his money. And Peanut wasn’t getting points in the arms deals in the future, which didn’t sit right, considering that Laughlin was getting plenty.

The county sheriff, a first cousin of Peanut’s wife by marriage, was going to earn his five-grand pay envelope this month. Although, at the moment, he was busy over at the Grissom place because Mr. Grissom, twice his wife’s age, had murdered her and disappeared. Sheriff Sparkes was making sure the fire department stayed away from Peanut’s place, ordering his deputies to tell the volunteers there was no need for them out here, because everything was under control, and being investigated and monitored by the sheriff, who would call the fire boys if he needed their help.