Side by Side

by John Ramsey Miller

  “If she doesn’t have them safe by Monday, you’ll let Bryce walk?”

  His eyebrows rose. He considered the question, then nodded slightly.

  “But Alexa isn’t planning to get to them until after the sentencing,” Sean said. “And, sir, Lucy and Elijah will be dead and buried an hour after you let Hunter Bryce walk. Alexa Keen is part of a conspiracy to free Bryce. Clayton Able, Alexa, and her sister, Major Antonia Keen, are not at all what they purport to be.”

  “And why should I believe that?”

  “Because my husband said so.”

  “I know Alexa Keen quite well. I don’t know you at all, and I don’t know your husband except to say hello.”

  “Think about it: When did Alexa Keen last make contact with you before the abduction?”

  “Two weeks ago Agent Keen was in town for a meeting. She called me up for lunch. I’ve known the woman for ten years.”

  “And before that when did you last see her?”

  “Maybe two, three years. How is this important?”

  “And when she met you for lunch, did she say anything like, ‘If you ever need anything, call me first’? Or play up the fact that she has the number one solve rate for kidnappings? When you contacted her after Lucy and Elijah were abducted, did she suggest you not tell anybody else? Not to tell a single soul, because Bryce has friends in sensitive positions everywhere—even inside the FBI?”

  Judge Fondren put his hand to his chin and rubbed the short whiskers.

  “Winter knows who has your family, Your Honor, and he knows where. He is also pretty sure Alexa does, too.”

  “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.

  63

  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&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.

  64

  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.

  65

  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. Pea
nut 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.

  The deputies would let Max Randall and his pals through, but nobody else. Maybe Peanut would ask for more money since he was using his valuable contacts to keep the scene off-limits. Randall had said to make sure the scene was sanitized, which Peanut assumed meant cleaning up the body parts after the fire cooled off. Hell, a fire like this one didn’t leave body parts.

  The sound of hollering drew his attention. He turned to see one of the twins pelting up the road, waving his flashlight around like he was being chased by a swarm of hornets. Peanut took a deep breath and scratched his head. The twins hadn’t had time to get to the gate, so why in the hell was one of them disobeying his orders so soon?

  It was Burt, and he was so winded, he had to sag against the truck to catch his breath before he could say anything that Peanut could understand.

  “Traaaack . . . woooon’t beeee . . . lieve it . . .”

  “What the Sam Hill are you doing back here, boy?” Peanut slapped the back of his son’s head so hard Burt’s forehead hit the side of the truck.

  “It’s her . . .” Burt wheezed, putting a huge hand to his reddening cheek. “She’s not . . . dead. She left footprints a ways up in the mud.”

  “Dixie?” Peanut felt a wave of relief. “My baby’s alive?”

  “Naw. Dixie’s feet are big as mine. It’s a bunch of little bitty gal tracks, headed out toward the gate. Curt’s following them and I came back here to get you.”

  “Get in the truck,” Peanut growled. He jumped into the cab, made a U-turn in the grass, and roared off. He grabbed the phone and pressed Redial as he drove.

  One thing he never imagined was possible was that that little gal could escape from Dixie and Buck. The damned barn door padlock was still in place and locked. He had seen that for himself. How in the hell could she have got out of there without turning into a ghost and walking through the walls? She’d tell him how she did it before he filled her sorry ass with holes.

  66

  After Lucy understood that the gasoline cans were going to go up and the explosion would kill her and Elijah, she had run back to the corner beside the door to scoop up Elijah, intending to hold him against her until the end. Hearing yelling, she’d looked up to see Buck’s illuminated face framed in the padlock hole.

  “DIXXXAAY!” he hollered. “GAWD, I’M COMIN’, DIXAY!”

  He’d undone the padlock, hurled the door open, and raced into the barn, going straight for the garden hose not ten feet from where Lucy and Elijah hid. She slipped around the door and into the rain. She started looking around frantically for the padlock.

  Yelling something incomprehensible, Buck had grabbed the coiled garden hose. The water ran from it in a trickle because it had become pinched in several places as he tugged it toward his flaming sister.

  Lucy spotted the padlock on the dirt and reached for it, holding Elijah tight.

  Buck turned, saw Lucy, dropped the hose, and bolted for her.

  Lucy put the unconscious child down on the gravel, shoved her weight against the door, and managed to get the lock’s ring through the hasp. Fumbling, she tried to snap the lock closed.

  Buck slammed his weight against the door a split second too late. He had somehow gotten the padlock in his fist before Lucy could break off a match in the mechanism, as she had originally planned. He had a key in the other hand—now he was fighting to shove it into the lock, roaring curses at her as he did so.

  Looking down, Lucy had spotted a U-shaped piece of rusted baling wire on the ground. She pushed it through the hasp an instant before Buck pried open the padlock and flipped it off. The lock landed between Lucy’s feet. Despite the fact that he was clawing blindly at her, despite the fact that the sharp steel was cutting her hands, Lucy had somehow managed to twist the wire in place.

  As he had worked to unwind the wire, Buck cursed her through the hole—promising her more of what he had already given her.

  She had known he was going to undo it.

  Desperation enveloped her. Lucy scooped up the open padlock, removed the key, shoved it through the hasp beside the twisted wire, and locked it. Trembling, she tossed Buck’s key off into the wet weeds. His left arm shot out of the padlock hole and gripped the hem of Lucy’s poncho.

  He jerked and pulled her toward him violently. When he released the poncho, he grabbed her hand, but she jerked it and her fingers slipped from his grip. She leapt back away, safe for the moment.

  It looked like he was trying to get a grip on the edge of the steel sheeting to peel it off the frame, but it was sturdy and had been riveted in place. He sounded to Lucy like a Tasmanian devil. He cursed at her as if he thought he could terrify her into opening the door for him.

  Lucy wondered if the others would figure out a way to get the door open and she knew Buck would come after her again the moment he was freed. All she could do was run for it. Lifting Elijah, who babbled at her and burst into tears, she went into the shed, where they would be shielded from the driving rain. Maybe one of the vehicles in there had keys in it.

  “Let me out!” Buck screeched. “Them gas drums are going to blow any second! There’s blasting powder in here! Let me out, damn it!”

  Lucy knew there was no time to get a vehicle from the shed. She kissed Elijah’s slack face, which was wet with rain, tucked him under her poncho, and ran.

  “Help me!” Buck screamed through the hole. “You rotten bitch!”

  Maybe it was the adrenaline coursing through her, but Elijah seemed weightless. He squirmed restlessly against her. She gripped him tighter, scared she’d drop him, and kept running. As she ran, the gravel sliced the soft soles of her naked feet, but that didn’t slow her.

  She had gotten no more than a hundred yards away when the fumes inside the gasoline drums caught a spark. She turned in time to see the warehouse roof rip open and unleash a fireball that appeared to draw a black tornado into the sky.

  Lucy gasped. She realized that she had just killed two human beings. She told herself that she would never erase the memory, the absolute horror of it, from her mind. She told herself, too, that, necessary for her and Elijah’s survival or not, she would feel guilty about her actions for the rest of her life. But she would deal with guilt later. Right now, she had to find help.

  And the plain truth was that Lucy Dockery had never felt stronger or more alive in her life.

  Elijah jerked and cried out. He was coming around.

  Luckily, Lucy had seen the headlights coming in plenty of time to get off the road and lie down in the wet high grass. As the black truck thundered by, she saw the massive forms of the twins in
the bed, hunkered down against the cab. When the truck suddenly stopped, she was terrified that they had seen her, but then she saw several deer illuminated by the truck’s headlights as the frightened animals ran for the trees. She pressed her lips against Elijah’s cheek, murmuring his name, and to her relief, her son remained quiet until after the truck drove on, and the sound of rain on dead leaves again filled the night.

  67

  After what felt like an eternity, Lucy and Elijah arrived at a padlocked gate. Although she was hopelessly lost, she didn’t panic. Nothing that lay ahead of her could be nearly as bad as what was behind her. She had no earthly idea whether the direction to their safety was to her left or right. The main gravel road in front of her was wide, with steep shoulders, ditches on either side, and beyond that, tall weeds and the woods. Looking at the soaked ground, she could make out that vehicles turning right off the gravel road had made the majority of the tire impressions. So she’d go that way. She put down her hood and climbed over the gate, keeping Elijah in her arms as she did so. Then she struck out, keeping near the right ditch. If any vehicles came, they might be carrying more of the bad guys. She remembered that Dixie had boasted that her family owned that part of the county.

  Elijah was fully awake now, and he was fussing steadily. Her left side was growing numb under his weight. His diaper was wet, and he was cold and hungry. There would be no quieting him now. The rain had stopped, but still dripped loudly from the trees.

  Lucy walked as fast as she could. She was thirsty, and growing very hungry herself. After she had gone what seemed like miles, the road curved and she smiled because she could see a lighted sign in the distance. Buoyed by the sight of civilization, Lucy switched Elijah to her rested hip and, despite the pain of the gravel on her bleeding feet, she picked up her pace.