by J. B. Turner
Richmond kneeled down to lift up Craig’s chin. ‘Not so tough now, hard man, huh?’
A single shot shattered the dark stillness. And the goon dropped with a grunt to the sand. He’d been hit in the right eye.
Deborah spun around. Further down the beach, two hundred yards away, she saw a man aiming a scoped rifle at them. He wore what looked like virtual-reality goggles.
‘Go ahead!’ Richmond shouted. And he laughed like a screwball again and started walking towards the gunman. ‘Know something? You’re fucked. Have you any idea who you’re dealing with?’
A split second later, one side of Richmond’s face was ripped apart, just like John F. Kennedy in the grainy, color footage from Dallas. His face hung off his skull, a crimson mess of skin and bone.
Deborah pulled Annie and her mother close as they quivered in fear.
Another shot rang out. A bullet struck Richmond in the chest and he fell to the ground.
Deborah covered Annie’s eyes as Craig groaned and blood seeped into the sand. They would be next.
But the rifleman had disappeared.
Deborah scrambled for her cell phone and called 911. There was a screech of burning rubber as a car sped away along the ocean front, past her condo. She narrowed her eyes and tried to make out what sort of vehicle was being driven. It looked like a red Chevy.
47
In the weeks that followed, Deborah began enjoying life again. For the first time since San Francisco the sadness and guilt receded. Soft drinks at the Hard Rock Cafe and clubbing on Washington with some of the girls from the office, not to mention Faith and the Overtown crew. It was fun to let go, after all. The obsession with Craig was over.
She redecorated her condo in pastel pinks and yellows to match her more optimistic mood. Only the lingering guilt about her devil’s pact with the governor gnawed away at her.
Senator O’Neill cut a deal with the FBI after a couple of weeks of negotiation. By late November, he had divulged everything on Wilkinson in return for a five-year stretch at the white-collar Federal Prison Camp at Eglin in the Florida panhandle. FBI sources told the Miami Herald that he had turned informer as soon as the governor released Craig.
He wrote to his wife who didn’t reply to his letters. It was reported that he enjoyed yoga, bocce ball and tennis with computer hackers half his age. Rose was never seen outside the gated community.
O’Neill was signed up to write his memoirs. He became one of the most famous inmates—including Watergate conspirators H. R. Haldeman and E. Howard Hunt, Medellin cartel boss Jorge Valdes, and former Florida House Speaker and well-known tax evader Bolley ‘Bo’ Johnson—to grace Eglin.
Like most of the eight hundred and fifty Eglin jailbirds, the ex-senator alternated between pulling laundry or kitchen duty. He preferred to stay inside and not join one of the groups who volunteered to tend the grounds.
A month after Craig was freed, Tallahassee police received an anonymous tip-off that Governor Wilkinson did drugs. After a dawn raid at his mansion at 700 Adams Street, a five-gram bag of cocaine was found in the desk drawer of his study. The maximum sentence for possession was one year in jail, but he managed to escape with probation. He quit office in disgrace. But he never raised the question of blackmail, possibly feeling more comfortable with the public’s acceptance of recreational drug use than with coming out of the closet as a homosexual. And he made a comeback. He started appearing on talk shows, televangelist programs and the college lecture circuit as a staunch anti-drug campaigner. Deborah lost count of the number of times he broke down on TV, claiming that the stresses of the job had made him ‘weak’. The public lapped it up.
Dennis Morrison, the Miami Police Chief, committed suicide after his wife took her children to live with her mother in Key Largo. He had faced charges ranging from accepting bribes to perverting the course of justice.
The William Craig story became part of history. As 2002 drew to a close, the preparations for a war against Iraq took center stage. Deborah was promoted and headed up investigations at the Herald. She was the youngest journalist ever to lead that team. She found her confidence again and was no longer racked by guilt and self-doubt. She had moved on.
Sam Goldberg had awarded her the assignment and they had grown closer. She discovered that he was not the distant man she had thought he was. And she admired the fact that he was a hard-working, dedicated journalist who encouraged all his staff. And she really enjoyed his company.
In her spare time she wrote a book about her experiences after receiving a six-figure advance from a New York publisher. By December, no one was paying any attention to the red Chevy that parked opposite her condo.
• • •
It was December twenty-second, and South Beach was hosting a rap-athon fronted by Will Smith down on the sand. The music throbbed as people in Santa masks strolled along Ocean Drive. Tourists from Iowa and Buffalo laughed as they took snapshots.
Deborah was packing the last of her clothes into a tan suitcase. She had completed her Christmas shopping. In twenty-four hours she’d be going back to Jackson to spend Christmas in Farish Street with her father, mother, brother and sister-in-law.
She smiled as she glanced out of her window. Midwinter in South Beach was hot, in the high nineties.
Her cell phone rang. She picked it up, expecting to hear Goldberg. But it was Manhart, the mystery detective.
Deborah said, ‘I’ve been wanting to speak to you. You haven’t phoned for nearly two weeks.’
‘This is the last time you’ll hear from me.’
‘Why?’
‘I have two bits of information about Richmond which you might find interesting.’
Deborah grabbed a notepad and pen from a table.
‘I know who killed him.’
‘You do?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So, you gonna tell me?’
‘There wasn’t a single person responsible. It was an organization.’ His voice was low, as if he was afraid that he would be overheard.
‘Cosa Nostra?’
‘Bigger than that. Far more powerful.’
‘What’s more powerful than the Mob?’
‘The federal government.’
Deborah felt the old familiar shudder.
‘Richmond had iced four Feds. They’d had enough.’
‘Are you telling me the American government had him killed?’
‘In a roundabout way.’ It was something that was perfected by undercover operatives in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s.
‘Which agency?’
‘Look, I ain’t goin’ there.’
‘Are we talking covert ops?’
‘Could be.’
‘Authorized by whom?’
‘You don’t wanna know.’
‘I see.’ Deborah wanted to keep him talking but sensed that he was going to stop the conversation ASAP. ‘Is it over? Their work, I mean.’
‘On this occasion, yeah, it’s over.’
‘What’s the second thing you had for me?’
‘Richmond and Senator O’Neill are connected. And I don’t mean Mob-connected.’
‘You lost me.’
‘The Feds took DNA samples from Richmond’s body during the autopsy and also some from O’Neill. Richmond was O’Neill’s father. Turns out that old Mrs O’Neill had a brief fling with Paulie Fachetti when he was a young man. She provided sexual favors in return for money. That way she fed and clothed her family, and put Jack through Harvard.’
‘Can you get me proof?’
‘The report’ll be on your desk in the New Year.’
‘Was this your NSA guy?’
Silence. Manhart had said enough.
‘One final thing. Have I anything to worry about?’
‘With regard to what, exactly?’
‘The special-ops guys.’
The line went dead.
Nicaragua, Guatemala, El
Salvador, Honduras: the list of atrocities committed by US-backed death squads—at the instruction of the CIA—was well known. This was something else. Or was it? Wasn’t the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas rolled up in some Mafia/CIA/FBI cover-up? Wasn’t the forthcoming ousting of Saddam Hussein part of the same hypocrisy? A US-backed psychopath who eventually had to be chased down, but not before the torture and wholesale murder of his own people.
Had Richmond’s putrid world of corruption and killing been tolerated while it suited the establishment? Then, as his links to so-called mainstream society were exposed, the powers-that be decided that enough was enough.
The red Chevy outside Raiford had followed Deborah down I-95. Had the driver been assigned to look after her interests, knowing the danger she was in?
Deborah rode the elevator to the lobby and froze when the doors opened. Sam Goldberg was staring back at her, jacket slung over his shoulder.
‘Sam, what’s going on?’
He smiled, eyes tired as always. ‘You wanna take a walk?’ She followed him out into the brilliant Miami sunshine, blue skies overhead, and headed along Washington.
‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ he said. ‘Something I’ve not mentioned before.’
Deborah smiled, her insides churning. ‘I’m listening.’
‘I’ve stopped drinking. And I’m getting my life into gear again. I’m looking forward, you know, instead of living in the past.’
She smiled at him. ‘I’m pleased.’
Sam scratched the back of his head, sweat beading down his forehead. He couldn’t have looked more awkward if he’d tried. ‘I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve made a reservation for my two sisters and their partners at Tequila Blue. It’s a great Mexican restaurant. Anyway, I was wondering if you’d like to join us.’ The words seemed to hang in the air forever. Was this his clunky way of inviting her out on a date? ‘They’re dying to meet you.’
Deborah thought her legs were going to give way. ‘Are you sure they won’t mind?’
‘Not at all.’
She didn’t have to give it much thought. ‘Okay, I’d love to.’ And that was that.
Deborah and Sam walked on for a while in silence. Then stopped for a coffee at the News Cafe where they went over the Craig story yet again.
Deborah felt at home in South Beach. Even the slightly rougher edges to the area—the tattoo parlors, scruffy twenty-four-hour convenience stores and screwed-up veterans begging on Ocean Drive—appealed to her, along with the beautiful art-deco hotels.
They strolled back slowly to her condo. Sam pecked her on the cheek and said he’d pick her up at seven.
Deborah seemed to float through the silver and gold tinsel-decorated lobby of her condo tower, suddenly at peace with herself and life.
She took off her sunglasses. The song playing on the small radio behind the desk was John Lennon’s ‘Happy Christmas (War is Over)’.
She picked up her mail.
Only one card.
She smiled at the concierge. ‘You finished your shopping, Steve?’
He shrugged. ‘I leave that to my wife.’
Deborah pulled a face in mock indignation. ‘Shame on you,’ she said. ‘I thought you were a new man.’
‘Believe me, Miss Jones, she’s the one who wears the trousers in our house.’
Inside her condo she triple-locked her door. Old habits die hard, she thought.
A gentle Atlantic breeze blew through the curtains, making them sway slightly. The card had a postmark from Scotland.
Craig had sent one every week from a different part of the country. Said he was rediscovering his homeland.
The picture on the front showed a wide expanse of golden sand, fringed by cool blue waters. It was Belhaven Bay, Dunbar—his hometown.
Happy Christmas from a free man.
Would be honoured if you and your family could come and visit.
Fondest regards,
William Craig
• • •
Deborah put the postcard in her bag. She walked out to her balcony and gazed across the blue waters of the Atlantic.
Thousands of miles away, William Craig had been reborn.
She closed her eyes for a moment and smiled. So had she.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the following people for their help and support:
Many thanks to Caradoc King, and to my editor, Paul Sidey, for all their hard work, enthusiasm, and belief in this book.
Also, thanks to Alice Peck, of Brooklyn, New York, who looked over an early draft. I also want to acknowledge the help of the Miami Herald, especially Elissa Vanaver and Dave Wilson. They both gave me an insight into how the paper works, but for the sake of drama, I put my own spin on things.
Last, I would like to thank my family and friends for their encouragement and support. And, most of all, my wife, Susan, who was with me every step of the way, as each draft developed, offering brilliant advice and displaying the fortitude and patience of a saint, all down the line.
About the Author
J.B. Turner is the author of the acclaimed Jon Reznick action thriller series: Hard Road, Hard Kill, Hard Wired and Hard Way (Thomas and Mercer). The fifth book in the series, Hard Fall, is due for release in early 2018. He is also the author of the forthcoming Nathan Stone thriller, American Ghost, which is due for release some time in 2018, as part of a new thriller series. Turner also penned the Jon Reznick novella, Gone Bad, and the Deborah Jones crime thrillers, Miami Requiem, and Dark Waters. He began his writing career as a journalist. He is married and has two young children.
Check out his website at www.jbturnerauthor.com
Follow him on Twitter @jbturnerauthor
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“How far would you go to uncover the truth”
When the partially dismembered body of a young man is found in the Florida Everglades, Deborah Jones, the fearless African American investigative journalist for the Miami Herald, finds herself caught up in a story that has ramifications for beyond anything she could have ever imagined. The victim had contacted Deborah anonymously just the day before, promising the top-secret government documents – the missing 28 pages of the 9/11 report – if she’d agree to a meeting. But he didn’t show up, calling to say he feared for his life. Deborah Jones is a woman not easily deterred by threats. But when a second person dies in mysterious circumstances, it is clear to her and to everyone on her newspaper that Deborah could be next on the assassin’s list.
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Table of Contents
PRAISE FOR JB TURNER
Prologue
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4
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47
Acknowledgements
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
iends