Last Man Standing

by David Baldacci

  wanted on every one.”

  “Well, damn, that’s something to celebrate.” He eyed Web and Romano. “You fellows want to celebrate? I tell you what, we’ll wait until old Nemo gets back tonight and then we’ll have us a little party right here. What do you say?”

  “I doubt that they feel much like celebrating, Billy,” said Gwen. “Well, I sure as hell do. We got yearlings sold, Frees dead and we got to give Web and Paul here a going-away party, ’cause with those boys dead, we don’t need protection anymore, do we? Y’all can pack up and get out right now,” he said in a loud voice.

  “Billy, please,” said Gwen.

  Web was about to say that the jury was still out on Gwen and Billy being safe, but he stopped himself. “I tell you what, Billy, you let us stay on a couple more days and we’ll come to your party tonight.”

  Gwen looked at him in astonishment while Billy merely nodded and grinned, sucking down the rest of his cigarette with a long pull. He put it out in his leathery palm without even wincing. Web noted the man’s hands for the first time. They were large, muscular and stained with what looked to be acid or something like it. Then he recalled the taxidermy workshop. Killing and stuffing.

  “See you tonight, gents,” said Billy.

  Gwen led them out and told Web in a low voice that he didn’t have to do this.

  “I’ll see you tonight, Gwen,” was all he said in response, and she closed the door slowly after them.

  What the hell was all that about?” said Romano. “I mean, talk about your freaky shit.”

  Before Web could answer, his phone rang. He whipped it out, hoping it was Claire, but it was Bates.

  “I guess it’s time to pull the pole on the East Winds tent,” Bates said.

  “You can call your guys off, but the Canfields have asked Romano and me to stay.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “No, and I think it’s a good idea, actually. The Frees who were at that compound are gone, but who’s to say they don’t have more members out there? And Ernie’s still at large.”

  “That’s true. Okay, look, you hang there, but let me know if anything goes down, and I mean the second it happens, not Web London time.”

  “You got it. Anything from Cove?”

  “Nothing. It’s like he’s disappeared from the face of the earth.” Web thought about Claire. “Yeah, I got one of those too.”

  About the time that Web was wiping out the Free Society in southern Virginia, Claire Daniels sat blindfolded with a gag stuffed painfully in her mouth. She could hear men in the background discussing, or rather arguing, presumably about her. She recognized Ed O’Bannon’s voice and she bristled each time she heard it. The bastard had kept the gun on her all the way down to the parking garage and then duct-taped her arms and legs and thrown her in his trunk. She had no idea where she was. As she blinked back tears, she still couldn’t believe she had worked next to the man all this time and never suspected what was going on.

  The voices stopped and she felt people moving toward her. All she could think was that another pistol was going to be placed against her head, and this time the person would surely fire and kill her. Claire was suddenly pulled up so roughly she thought they had popped her arm out of place. She felt herself being lifted up and put over a shoulder. Whoever was carrying her was strong; the man wasn’t even breathing hard, and where her stomach was pressing against him, he felt hard as iron.

  A few minutes went by and she was laid down and then she felt the plink of metal against metal. Another car trunk. Blindfolded and shuttled from place to place, Claire had lost her sense of balance and also felt nauseous. The car started and they were soon on the move. She tried listening for sounds that would provide some clue as to where they were, but she soon gave up, there were just too many confusing noises, and they were all muffled. She judged they had been driving for about an hour when the movement of the car seemed to indicate that they had gone from straight, level roads to winding, rolling ones. Had they gone into the country? Were they driving her to some isolated wooded area to kill her and leave her body for the animals, insects and elements to slowly destroy? In her work with law enforcement, Claire had seen the remains of a woman who had been raped and murdered and left in the forest for two weeks. Other than bone, there was virtually nothing left of her. She had become sick at the sight of it. Was that how she would be found?

  The car slowed and then she felt a sharp turn and then it decreased its speed again. Now they were going over rough dirt roads and she was pitched around in the trunk, hitting her head twice, once hard enough to bring tears. The car stopped again and then she heard the engine cut off and the doors open. She braced herself. She heard footsteps moving to the rear. She tensed even more, the feeling of despair and helplessness far worse than she had ever endured before. What did it feel like to die? A bullet to the head, would there be any sensation of pain? Web had been shot, twice. He knew what it was like to think he was dying. He had survived, though, because he was a survivor. He had it much tougher in life than she had. She counseled folks over their troubles, and except for a divorce that was fairly amicable, Claire had had no significant disruptions in her own life. For the first time ever, she wondered what gave her the right, other than her fancy degrees, to tell people how to get through their issues. Yes, Web had survived much; Claire didn’t think she was that strong. She took a deep breath as the trunk was opened and strong hands closed around her and lifted her up. It wasn’t O’Bannon. Claire knew he was a man of very little physical strength. From all around she heard the sounds of the forest and animals that lived there, predators that might soon be visiting her remains. She initially fought back the tears and then just decided to let them go. These people wouldn’t care.

  She felt the man moving over uneven ground, stumbling a few times but then righting himself. His feet went from dirt to something else, wood, brick, or perhaps stone, she wasn’t sure, but she had heard the change in sounds, and then a door was unlocked and opened. This surprised her because she had assumed they were in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps it was a cabin, but then she heard noises of machinery going and what she thought was the flow of water. Were they near a stream or river? Was there a dam nearby or a water treatment plant? Was that where her body was going to end up? Then she had a sense of either going up or down, she wasn’t sure about that either, for with her ruined sense of balance she had also lost her sense of direction. In fact, she thought she might be sick, and her stomach pushing into the man’s hard, bony shoulder didn’t help much. And there was also a strong chemical odor that seemed familiar but that she couldn’t quite identify, so out of whack were all her senses. For an instant she thought that vomiting on him would give her some small sense of pleasure, of triumph, but it also might prompt him to accelerate the timing of her death.

  Another door opened and they passed through, presumably into another room. He squatted and laid her down on something soft, perhaps a bed. Her skirt had risen up embarrassingly high while she’d been riding on the man’s shoulders, and with her hands bound she had no way to pull it down. She tensed when she felt his hands go up her legs to a point where she thought he was going to pull down her underpants and add rape to his list of felonies. However, all he did was tug her skirt down to its normal position.

  The next thing he did was pull her bound hands over her head and the clink of metal made her think that he had handcuffed her hands to something, perhaps the bed or a ring bolted to the wall. As soon as he moved away, she tried to pull her hands down, but couldn’t budge them. Whatever she was handcuffed to, she wouldn’t be able to escape it.

  “You’ll get some food and water later. For now, just try to relax.” She didn’t recognize the voice. The man didn’t laugh at his insane words, but Claire could easily sense the mirth behind them.

  The door closed and she was once again alone. Alone, that is, until she sensed movement from across the room.

  “You okay, lady?” asked Kevin Westbrook
.

  47

  Web was now getting worried. Claire had not called back, and he had phoned the hotel but gotten no answer. He called her house and there was no answer there either. Her office hadn’t seen her; she had no patients scheduled because it was her normal day off. Maybe she had just gone out for a drive along the Blue Ridge or something, he thought. She hadn’t mentioned a trip to him, and even if she had gone, why didn’t she answer her cell phone? Every professional instinct he had was telling him something was wrong.

  He left Romano at East Winds and drove to the hotel. It was not the sort of place where anyone would necessarily note the coming and going of guests, but Web figured he’d try. However, the staff that possibly would have seen her come in the previous evening was not on duty yet. And no one he talked to remembered anyone resembling Claire coming through the lobby the day before. Her car wasn’t in the parking lot either. He drove to her house, found a back window open and crawled through. Web went through her house thoroughly but found nothing that could tell him where she might have gone. He did find a book with her daughter’s phone number and address in it. She went to school in California, so it wasn’t like Claire could have popped in to see her for the day. Web contemplated calling the daughter, but a call from the FBI might throw the girl into needless hysterics if it turned out nothing was wrong. He left and went to Claire’s office. O’Bannon was not in, but another person who worked there was. She hadn’t talked to Claire and didn’t know where she might be.

  “Three strikes and you’re out,” muttered Web.

  He went downstairs to the security desk, flashed his badge and asked if anything unusual had happened the previous night. The rental cop snapped to attention at the sight of the FBI shield and flipped through the notes left by the night shift. Web had gone through the security check before when he had come to see Claire because guests had to sign in, but he didn’t recognize this guard. They probably rotated them throughout lots of buildings.

  “Yeah, the log shows a call from Dr. Daniels at twelve-thirty A.M.

  She said the lights had gone out in her office and the guard informed her that all electrical systems were a go and that it might be her circuit breaker and asked if she needed assistance.” The young man read this all in a stilted yet quavering voice probably not all that far removed from puberty. “She replied in the negative and that was all.” He looked up from the paper. “You want me to do anything?”

  The kid’s big eyes were just begging Web to send him into action. The guy was armed and probably shouldn’t have been, Web noted.

  “I know you keep a record of visitors entering and leaving the building. I just signed in on my way in.”

  “That’s right.”

  Web waited patiently for a few seconds, but the kid just wasn’t getting it.

  “Can I see the register?” Web finally said.

  The fellow almost jumped out of his chair. Web had noted that the kid had checked out his face and might have recognized him from all the TV stuff lately. He was probably thinking that Web was half insane and needed to be humored at all costs if one wanted to avoid a violent death. And right now Web was perfectly fine with that perception.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He pulled the book out and Web quickly searched through the pages. There had been lots of guests during business hours the day before, but they ended at six o’clock. He looked at the guard.

  “What about after hours? What’s the sign-in procedure?” “Well, it’s a keycard system and the doors automatically lock at six. If you want to get in after six, a tenant has to call down and let security know, and when the guest gets here we call up and the tenant has to come down and get the person when they show up. Or the guest may use the exterior phone, identify themselves and who they’re here to see. We call up, and the tenant comes down. If the tenant doesn’t answer or isn’t expecting the visitor, they don’t come in, that’s the rule. There are some government offices in here and such. I think maybe something to do with the Pentagon, even,” he added, with a small measure of pride. “It’s a very secure facility.”

  “I’m sure,” said Web absently as he continued to study the pages. “This place have an underground garage?” Web had always parked out front.

  “Yes, sir, but it’s on a keycard system twenty-four hours a day, tenants only.”

  Web made a mental note to check and see if Claire’s Volvo was there. “So tenants can come and go through the garage elevator and bypass security?”

  “That’s right, but tenants only.”

  “Regular lift gate on the garage?”

  The guard nodded.

  “How about someone slipping into the garage without a car? Can they take the elevator up without a keycard?”

  “Not after hours.”

  “But how about during business hours?” persisted Web.

  “Um, that might be possible,” said the guard in a small voice, as though Web’s observation had just blown his whole professional life.

  “Right. Look, is there any way I can talk to the guy who was on duty last night, the one who spoke with Claire?”

  “Tommy Gaines. He’s a friend of mine; we actually joined up at the same time, right out of high school. He’s working the ten-tosix shift.” He grinned. “Tommy’s probably home dead asleep.”

  “Call him,” said Web in a tone that made the kid grab the phone and start dialing.

  Tommy was reached and Web took the phone and identified himself. He could hear the sleepy Gaines become instantly alert. “How can I help you?”

  Web explained what he was looking for. “I take it you didn’t see Claire Daniels leave?”

  “No, I figured she just went out through the garage like she always does. I worked the day shift there for a year and so I knew who she was. She was a real nice lady.”

  “She’s not dead yet, son,” said Web.

  “No, sir, I didn’t mean that.”

  “It says she called you at twelve-thirty last night. Did she often work that late?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t necessarily know that, since she didn’t have to come and go through the front lobby.”

  “I understand that; I was trying to find out if you had ever seen her here that late before.”

  “No, I hadn’t.”

  “Did she sound strange when she called?”

  “She sounded scared, but I guess if the lights went out on me I would be too, and she was a woman by herself and all.”

  “Right.” Web knew female FBI, Secret Service and DEA agents who could bite young Mr. Gaines in half and never break a sweat. “Did she say that she was all by herself?”

  “What? Well, actually, come to think of it, no, she didn’t. But I sort of got that impression because she called down and all.”

  “And the lights down here were fine?”

  “Yep. And I could see some of the other buildings out the front. The lights were all right there too. That’s why I told her the breaker might have popped. See, this building is set up that each unit has control boxes for their space. That way if one office is doing renovation or has to cut the power for some reason, it doesn’t affect the rest of the building. There is a main power switch for the whole building, but that’s locked up and the building engineer has the key.”

  “And you told her you’d come up, but she said that was all right and she said she’d check the circuit breaker box herself.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you didn’t hear anything else from her?”

  “That’s right.”

  Web thought for a moment. The lights were working in Claire’s office now. But it might be worth another check.

  “Oh, Agent London,” Gaines said. “Now that I think about it, about twenty minutes after Claire called I did notice something.”

  Web tensed. “What? And give it to me exactly as you remember it, Tommy.”

  “Well, an elevator started up. That can only happen after hours if somebody has a keycard and activates it.” />
  “Where did the elevator originate?”

  “From the garage, heading up. I could see it on the floor indicator. It was on P2 and then was coming back up. I was doing rounds and got a clear view of it.”

  The other guard piped up to Web, “Maybe that was Claire Daniels leaving.”

  Web shook his head. “Most elevators, especially after hours, are programmed to return to the lobby level. If Claire had hit the button for the elevator, it would have originated from the lobby, not the garage level.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” said the crestfallen kid.

  Tommy Gaines obviously had heard this exchange and said, “I guess I was thinking it was Ms. Daniels too, because she had called so recently, and I was thinking the lights going out had freaked her out and she had decided to go on home. But you’re right about the elevators. The car must have been called from someone on the P2 level and I happened to pass by it when it was heading back up and got it in my head that Ms. Daniels had called it up.”

  Web said, “But did you see where it stopped at? If I remember correctly, the office where she works takes up most of that floor.”

  “No, I just kept making my rounds. So I didn’t see that or when