Stone Cold

by David Baldacci

  a living.

  “That you were a soldier.”

  “Oh, that’s right, I was.”

  “I’ve been telling everybody that you were in the navy. And that you were a walrus,” she added importantly.

  Finn tried hard not to laugh as he patiently explained that he had been a Navy SEAL, not a walrus. “Remember, sweetie, up in this area there are a lot of people who used to be in the military. It’s not that special.”

  “But you’ll be the best, Daddy, I know you will. Please come, please.” She tugged on his sleeve and then wrapped her arms around him.

  In the face of this, what father could say no? “Okay, honey, I’ll be there.”

  As he turned out the light and was leaving, Susie said, “Daddy, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure, what is it?”

  “When you were a soldier, did you ever kill anybody?”

  Finn leaned back against the door. This was not the question he’d been expecting.

  Susie added, “ ’Cause Joey Menkel said his dad killed lots of bad people in Iraq. And he’s a soldier too. So did you?”

  Finn sat back down next to her, took his daughter’s hand and said slowly, “When people fight, people get hurt, sweetie. It’s never a good thing to hurt someone else. And soldiers only do it to protect themselves and their country, where their families live.”

  “So did you?” she persisted.

  “I’ll see you at school tomorrow, baby. Hope you sleep well.” He kissed her on the forehead and nearly sprinted from the room.

  A minute later he was in the garage. He kept his gun safe here. It weighed nearly a thousand pounds and had a key, combo and biometric lock system that only he could open. He unlocked the heavy door and took out another, smaller box that also was key and combo protected. Opening that, he carried the file over to his workbench and started looking through it. The photos, the reports, were both now faded, yet they never failed to incite in him a nearly uncontrollable rage. He read the words aloud to himself: “Rayfield Solomon, Alleged Traitor, Commits Suicide in South America.” He looked at the photo of Rayfield Solomon, his father, a dead man with a hole in his right temple, and the legacy of having betrayed his country.

  Finn still felt rage tonight, but it was not the same as all the other times he had looked at the final wreckage of his father’s past, and that was due to a little girl’s question: Did you ever kill anybody, Daddy?

  Yes, honey, Daddy has.

  He locked the items back up and turned out the garage light. He didn’t return to the house. He went for a walk. He walked until it was midnight. When he got back to the house, everyone was long since asleep. His wife was used to his late-night ramblings around the neighborhood. He slipped into Susie’s room, sat on her bed and watched her chest rise and fall as she clutched one of her precious guardian angels.

  When dawn came, Finn left his daughter, showered, dressed and got ready to go to school, to talk about being a soldier. Of course, he would not talk to them about being a killer. Though a killer he was.

  As he walked through the hall to his daughter’s third grade class, a tiny crack appeared in the wall of his mind that separated Harry Finn from the other man he had to be. It was doubtful he even knew it had happened. He opened the door to the class and was nearly knocked down by his daughter, who flew across the room to give him a hug.

  “This is my daddy,” she announced proudly to her classmates. “And he’s a seal, not a walrus. And he’s a good guy.”

  Am I? thought Harry Finn.

  CHAPTER 39

  STONE FILLED ANNABELLE IN on his conversation with her father at the grave site. “He looks like he’s dying.”

  “I’m delighted to hear it.”

  “And he seems sincerely guilty about what happened to your mother.”

  “I highly doubt that.”

  “Do you want to follow him?”

  “No, I want to kill him.”

  “Okay, what now? More sleuthing around town?”

  “No. Let’s just go back to the inn. I need to drink and I want to do it in the privacy of my own room.”

  Stone dropped her off at the inn and headed back out. He drove through the town’s few streets until he saw Paddy’s truck parked at the curb. Father and daughter had had the same idea. He parked and went inside.

  The bar was dirty and dark. At this time of the afternoon there was only one man at the bar, a pitcher in front of him. Stone sat down next to Paddy, who barely looked up.

  “I guess cemeteries make people thirsty,” Stone said.

  Paddy gave him a sideways glance and took a sip of his beer. His eyelids were droopy, his skin grayer inside the bar than it had been in the sunshine.

  “Never needed a reason to have a pint or two,” Paddy replied, his speech a little slurred.

  “My name’s Oliver,” Stone said, extending his hand.

  Paddy didn’t take it; he studied Stone warily.

  “You run into a man once, no problem. You run into a man twice in the span of an hour, it makes a body wonder.”

  “Town’s not that big.”

  “Big enough to let a man have his space.”

  “I can move.”

  Paddy’s gaze burned into him for another second or two. “Forget it. What are you having? I’m buying.”

  “No need to do that.”

  “There’s never a need to buy another man a drink. It’s a privilege. And don’t turn it down. I’m Irish. I’d have to slit your bloody throat for refusing.”

  Two hours later, Stone and Paddy left the bar, Stone holding Paddy up.

  “You’re a good bloke, you are,” Paddy blubbered. “A good frien’.”

  “Glad you feel that way. I don’t think you’re in any shape to drive. Tell me where you live and I’ll drop you off.”

  Paddy fell asleep in Stone’s car. It was for the best because Stone was taking father to see daughter.

  Annabelle had stared at the bottle of gin for at least an hour without touching a drop. She only drank when a con demanded that she do so. She had enough memories of her drunken father saying and doing incredibly stupid things to swear her off the stuff forever. The knock on the door barely made her look up.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s Oliver.”

  “Door’s unlocked.”

  It opened. Annabelle didn’t glance over until she realized she was hearing the sounds of four feet instead of two.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she screamed.

  Stone half carried Paddy over to a sofa and let him drop onto it.

  However, the sounds of his daughter’s voice had managed to pierce right through the wall of booze. Paddy half sat up. “Annabelle?”

  Annabelle moved so fast that Stone had no chance to stop her. She lunged at Paddy, hit him right in the gut with her shoulder and they both toppled to the floor. She pinned the old man to the floor and started slapping his face.

  Stone wrenched her away, holding her off the floor as she tried to kick and punch her father.

  Stone pushed Annabelle up against the wall, holding her there. When she wouldn’t stop thrashing he slapped her. She froze, stunned. Then she looked over at her father lying there on the floor in time to see his face turn white, and he threw up.

  In the next instant she had ripped free from Stone and had fled the room.

  Two hours later Paddy opened his eyes and stared around. Then he sat up and immediately felt Stone’s hand on his shoulder.

  “Just take it easy,” Stone said. “You had a nasty shock.”

  “Annie? Annie?” Paddy scanned the room.

  “She’ll be back,” Stone said. “She had to, uh, step out for a minute.” He’d already cleaned up Paddy’s sick and had waited for the man to awaken.

  “Was it really Annie?” Paddy asked, a shaky hand gripping Stone’s arm.

  “Yeah, it was really Annie.”

  When Stone heard Annabelle’s footsteps on the stairs he put himself between Paddy an
d his daughter. The door opened and she stood there, her face white, her expression, well, expressionless. For a terrifying moment Stone wondered if she’d gone out and bought a gun.

  She closed the door behind her, pulled a chair out from the small dinette set in one corner and sat down facing the two men.

  She stared between Stone and her father before settling her gaze on Paddy. “You done puking?”

  He nodded dumbly. “Annie?”

  She held up a hand. “Just shut up. I didn’t say you could talk, did I?”

  He shook his head and sat back against the sofa, a hand over his flat stomach.

  She turned her attention to Stone. “Why the hell did you bring him here?”

  “I figured it was time the two of you talked.”

  “You figured wrong.”

  “I didn’t get a chance to tell you before you stormed out. When your mother was killed, your father was in a federal holding cell in Boston on a counterfeit check kiting charge.”

  Stone sat back next to Paddy and studied Annabelle. The woman was the greatest con of her generation, he felt, because her face didn’t betray the slightest hint of emotion at the stunning news.

  “How do you know that?” she finally said, her gaze never leaving his.

  “I checked with my friend Alex on the way over here. The stuff’s all computerized now.”

  “How did you even know to check?” she asked dully.

  “Because the bloke asked me about your mother’s death when we were sitting at the bar,” Paddy broke in. “I told him. I was in that damn cell for nearly a month. They didn’t have enough to convict me, but I couldn’t afford a lawyer. By the time I got out your mother was long since buried.”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that you’re the reason she died in the first place.”

  “I never said it did. Not a minute goes by that I don’t wish it was me in the ground instead of her.”

  Annabelle stared over at Stone. “And you bought that sob story? That’s Con 101.”

  “No, it’s the truth, and I don’t give a damn if you believe it or not,” Paddy exclaimed, rising unsteadily to his feet.

  “He comes all the time to see her grave,” Stone added.

  “Who cares?” Annabelle snapped. “But for a lousy ten thousand bucks that this scum ripped off Bagger, she’d be alive today.”

  “I never thought he’d come after your mum. I don’t know who tipped Bagger off where she was. If I did know, I’d have killed the bastard.”

  “Save it for someone who cares.”

  “And not a day goes by that I don’t think about having my hands around Jerry Bagger’s neck.”

  “Really? So why haven’t you? It’s not like you don’t know where the guy lives.”

  “He’s got a damn army around him.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  Paddy stared at her curiously. “I heard Bagger ran into some trouble recently. Scuttlebutt around the con world. Was that you?”

  Annabelle rose and opened the door. “Get out.”

  “Annie—”

  “Get out!”

  Paddy left, stumbling against the wall as he did so. Annabelle looked at Stone. “I’ll never forgive you for this.”

  “I’m not looking for forgiveness.” He stood.

  “So why did you really bring him here?”

  “Why don’t you think about it and see if you can come up with the answer on your own. It might mean more to you that way.”

  Stone walked out the door and Annabelle kicked it shut.

  CHAPTER 40

  TWO OF BAGGER’S MEN discovered that Milton had been to the hotel across the street from the Pompeii. They talked to the clerk on duty and also to Helen, the masseuse who’d worked on Milton. Confronted with Bagger’s grim foot soldiers, neither held back anything. And Milton clearly was not a cop or a fed. The call was made later that morning to Bagger with this information.

  “Pick him and his friend up, find out what they’re up to and then kill them,” was Bagger’s response. “Then make sure Dolores knows about it. If that doesn’t shut her up for good, I know something else that will.”

  The men drove to Milton and Reuben’s motel on the outskirts of the casino strip, where Bagger’s surveillance team had told them the men were staying.

  They pulled to a stop in front of the motel and got out. Milton and Reuben were on the second floor, room 214.

  They went in hard and fast. Milton was on the bed packing his bag.

  One of Bagger’s men said, “Okay, you sorry sack of—” That was all he could manage because his jaw was cracked by Reuben’s hammer fist. He dropped to the carpet, out cold. Reuben grabbed the other fellow, lifted him up and slammed him against the wall, laid a massive elbow into the back of his head and then let him fall limp to the floor.

  Reuben quickly rifled through their pockets, taking the ammo from their pistols and their car keys. He flipped through their IDs. Pompeii Casino. They were Bagger’s goons. He had watched them drive up in the Hummer, slipped into the bathroom and pounced when they’d burst in.

  “How’d you know they were coming here?” Milton asked as he gazed at the two unconscious men.

  “I figured if they killed that Cindy chick, they’d probably be keeping a close eye on the mother. They must’ve spotted you last night talking to her, spent the time in between retracing your steps, found out you were interested in this Robby Thomas guy and Bagger ordered a little visit.”

  “Pretty good deduction.”

  “Ten years in military intelligence wasn’t entirely wasted on me. Let’s go.”

  They loaded their bags in Reuben’s truck. Five minutes later they were heading south as fast as Reuben’s decade-old ride could carry them.

  “Reuben, I’m scared,” Milton said as they hit the interstate.

  “You should be scared, because I’m shitting in my pants.”

  CHAPTER 41

  CARTER GRAY WAS BRIEFING the current CIA director on the matter of Rayfield Solomon. “I think it’s someone close to Solomon,” Gray told the director. “The picture that was sent, they wanted me to know why I was being killed.”

  “Did Solomon have any family?” the director asked. “I know about the case, of course, but it was before my time here.”

  “Solomon was involved with a Russian. That’s what started the whole thing. We only knew her first name, Lesya.”

  “And after Solomon died, what happened?”

  “She disappeared. Actually, she disappeared before he died. We believed it was prearranged. They knew we were closing in. We got him, but not her.”

  “And this was how long ago?”

  Gray said, “Over thirty years.”

  “Well, that means if she’s still alive I doubt it’s her running around killing people.”