Т Паркер - The Room of White Fire

“I’m so happy they expect me to recover.”

“I recommend it.”

“Was it foolish? What I did — trying to protect him?”

“Well, you got away with it, Paige. And you helped Clay get away with his life.”

“I’m glad they didn’t arrest you,” she said.

“They still might. They have a lot to sort out.”

She closed her eyes, a slight smile on her face. Then sleep. I watched her for a while, thinking: Paige, I’ve been wondering about something. I bet you know what. We’ll talk, later. Tonight, sleep tight. I’m heading home soon. Stiff bourbon and a smoke. I hope you feel better in the morning.

Squeezed her hand gently, touched her cheek.

I sat for a long while, listening to the chorus of hospital sounds, the hums and beeps and bumps and the quiet talk from the ICU nurses’ station outside. The pad of Crocs across the floor.

I was truly weary. Burnt out but on edge. Too tired to think clearly. But one thought was clear: I knew exactly where all of this had left me in relation to certain dangerous and guilty men.

Bodart knew that I suspected him of the murder of John Vazquez. Knew that I could drop his name to the Mendocino detectives any time. They could get him or his “short, stocky” partner on something as small as a fingerprint left in the Vazquez home. And Bodart also knew that I was a witness to his armed raid on an Oceanside motel room. If that wasn’t enough, I could identify him as one of four men who left the corpse of Briggs Spencer smoldering in the hillside scrub near Fallbrook. Such facts if known would land him in court, possibly in prison, and certainly cast his agency in the public light they so loathed. I thought of Laura and Michael. I wanted someone to pay for John Vazquez.

Then there were DeMaris and Tice, who had conspired with Spencer to sedate Clay Hickman with powerful drugs to keep him silent. Three years of that at Arcadia, an exclusive wellness community for treatment of mental and emotional disorders, at twenty-five grand a month. With testimony from Paige Hulet and myself, any prosecutor I’ve ever met could prove that charge.

So what exactly was I, Roland Ford, in their eyes?

A threat. A serious one. The one person who knew what they had done, from White Fire to Arcadia to Mendocino to Rancho de los Robles.

Sitting there in the ICU with Paige, I tried to see me differently in their eyes. Maybe I had it wrong. Exaggerating my own importance. A small man with big ideas. But I couldn’t figure it another way. Not with men like Bodart and DeMaris. Tunnel vision, on a mission. I was their biggest problem. And I believed they would try to make me go away. Quickly.

So I had the stay-alive plan.

Outside, the night was foggy and cool and the parking lot lights were wrapped in mist. Yellow, sickly lights. The lot was almost full. Windshields and windows sweating.

As I headed toward my truck a car door opened, then another. But neither shut. And no interior lights went on. Misty reflections off dark windows. Movement in the yellow light. A tingle on my forehead.

More motion, two figures coalescing near my truck — the approximate sizes and shapes of Joe Bodart and Alec DeMaris. I stopped and looked through the fog at them. I congratulated myself. They’ve come for me. Grim satisfaction in this, nerves sparking.

I stopped between two cars, partial cover, and dialed Burt. Slid the phone back into my trouser pocket. Then I wrapped my hand around the handle of the .45 in the right pocket of my baggy barn coat, took up the ultralight.22 in the left pocket, and walked toward my truck.

Fog drifting, asphalt wet. Bodart wore his leather duster as in his Wrangler days at White Fire. Thumbs hooked on his belt like a cowpoke. DeMaris in a hoodie, workout sweats, and duty boots, black gloves.

“The fun couple,” I said.

“Clay’s video is up to thirty-seven thousand views as of five minutes ago,” said DeMaris. “Viral as Ebola. Nice job, Ford. You helped an insane traitor betray his own country.”

“I thought his countrymen should see where their tax dollars go,” I said.

“To torturers like us?” asked Bodart. “Who don’t play nice?”

“What you did to Roshaan was a lot more than not nice. Live with it. Clay is.”

“The FBI will arrest him tomorrow,” said Bodart. “The charges will include treason, still punishable by death. If the girl won’t cooperate they’ll charge her, too. Co-conspirator. They might even go after you, Roland. Given how the video was created and uploaded on your property.”

I thought about that. Concluded what I always conclude regarding people like the Hickmans. “Rex will get his son the best lawyers money can buy. I’d give them better than even odds against the United States government.”

“And what about you?” asked DeMaris.

“I’ll buy as much justice as I can afford.”

“Better hope it’s enough,” said Bodart. “But we don’t care about Clay Hickman anymore. Damage done. Now we care about us.”

“I thought it would come to that.”

“How much did you tell the sheriffs about Bodart and me?” asked DeMaris.

I reminded myself that they were here to kill me. Probably not right here in the light of a hospital parking lot. Somewhere a little more private. I was the only thing standing between them and blue skies.

“Just your basics.”

They looked at each other. It was a lot like reading the dialogue in cartoon bubbles. Alec wanted to draw his gun and shoot me dead right there and then. Bodart wanted to stick with whatever they’d planned. An accident. A disappearance. A sudden heart attack from a practically untraceable drug.

“Well, Roland,” said Bodart. “The San Diego County Sheriff’s can’t take on the CIA’s Special Activities Division. That’s a losing bet.”

“He’s dumb enough to take it,” said DeMaris. “He’s a witness to all of it. The formulary at Arcadia, you guys storming onto his property. He might even point the posse at Mendocino.”

Bodart gave DeMaris an assessing stare. “We need you to forget us, Ford. Briggs was a lone gunman. Off his rocker and got what he deserved. You’re the one person with the bigger picture. How can we make sure you keep it to yourself?”

“Couple million?”

“Thought of that,” said DeMaris. “But you’ve got your dead wife’s money. So I figured, keep it simple.” He drew a thick black semiautomatic from the hoodie handwarmer. “Clean. Never registered.”

So after shooting me in the head with it, he could put it in my hand. Arrange my body in the cab of my truck, just so. One of the several scenarios that had been playing through my mind the last few hours.

“We’re going to take a drive in your truck,” said DeMaris. “The three of us.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I figured you’d shoot me somewhere less public.”

“If shooting was in the plan you’d be filled with holes right now,” said DeMaris. “We’re going somewhere we can talk some damned sense into you.”

“Just let me go home,” I said. “I’ll take a shower and wash the stink of you people off me and never give you another thought.”

Bodart smiled and shook his head. Right hand in the pocket of the duster. DeMaris had a stony expression and a small yellow glimmer in each eye. “Hands out and up, real slow.”

My chance of shooting through the barn coat and hitting them both? Poor. Even worse if I tried to draw. My forehead scar was burning and my guts were knotting and my feet felt like I was standing in a cold river. Maybe the Dambovita. Roshaan.

I let go of the guns and raised both hands. DeMaris put the barrel of his autoloader to my forehead and Bodart took my weapons. “You should have stuck with divorces,” Bodart said.