Last Man Standing

by David Baldacci

  again. They came to a darkened house, but that had a truck parked out front. Claire was debating whether to try and slip inside the place and use the phone to call the police when a man charged out of the house, jumped in his truck and roared off.

  “I think that person just found out we got loose,” she whispered to Kevin. “Come on.”

  They ran to the house. Claire had noted that in his haste the man had left the door open. They were about to go inside when they heard a sound that made Claire’s stomach lurch.

  “He’s coming back,” cried out Kevin. They raced back into the woods even as the truck bore down on them.

  Pushing their way through the thick undergrowth, Claire quickly lost her shoes, and her and Kevin’s clothes were being shredded by thorny vines and hard branches. They reached an open bit of ground, paused to catch their breath but took off running again when they heard the sounds of feet crashing through the underbrush.

  They raced through to an open space and Claire saw a building loom up out of the darkness.

  “Quick,” she said to Kevin, “in there.”

  They climbed up on a loading dock and entered the Monkey House through a hole in the wall. Claire and Kevin looked around at the ruined insides of the place. Claire shivered when she observed the rusted cages. Kevin held his nose.

  “Damn, it stinks in here,” he said.

  The sounds of men, and now the baying of dogs, were growing closer. “Over there,” Claire said frantically. She climbed onto a box, boosted Kevin up and into a hole in the wall that probably once housed a ventilator fan. “Stay down and keep quiet,” she told him.

  “Where you going?”

  “Not far,” she said. “But if they find me, don’t come out; whatever they say they’ll do to me, don’t come out. Do you understand?”

  Kevin nodded slowly. “Claire,” he said. She turned back. “Please be careful.”

  She smiled weakly, squeezed his hand and climbed back down. She looked around for a moment and then crept out through a gash in the rear wall. Once she was outside, the sounds of the dogs was even more terrifying. They must have given the animals something with her and Kevin’s scent on it. She tore off a bit of her dress, grabbed a small rock, tied it inside the strip of material and threw it as far away from the Monkey House as she could. Then she ran off in the opposite direction. She reached the woods again, slid down an embankment and halted at the bottom. She looked around, trying to gauge the direction the sounds of men and dogs were coming from. Unfortunately, because of the topography, the noises were echoing all around. She forded a small creek, falling down halfway across and soaking herself. She struggled up and managed to scale a small embankment on the other side, then found herself on flat land. She was so tired now, part of her just wanted to lie here and wait for them to find her. Yet Claire pushed herself up and ran. When she reached another steep climb, she gripped a sapling and used it to thrust herself up. At the top she surveyed the land. Off in the distance she saw a light, and then another and another, all in pairs. A road. She took several deep breaths and took off at a steady jog. Her feet were torn and bleeding, but she didn’t allow the pain to slow her down. She had to get help. She had to get help for Kevin.

  The sounds of the men and dogs were gone now and she allowed herself the small hope that she might actually manage to succeed in escaping. She crawled the last few feet to the road and sat in the ditch for a moment, the tears spilling from her, partly from exhaustion, fear and having gained her freedom. She heard a car coming, stood and ran into the road, waving her arms and screaming for help.

  At first it didn’t appear the vehicle was going to stop at all. And Claire realized that she must look like some lunatic. But the vehicle finally slowed and then stopped. She ran to the passenger door and pulled it open. Her first sight was of Kevin sitting in the front seat, his mouth gagged, his arms and legs bound. The second sight was of Nemo Strait pointing a gun at her.

  “Hey, Doc,” he said. “You need a ride?”

  He stretched his long body and then involuntarily shivered. The night had been a little cool and the dampness seemed to have settled into him. He wrapped the blanket tighter around him.

  Francis Westbrook was not accustomed to camping out. What he was doing was about as close to camping as he was probably ever going to get, and he was not enjoying it. He drank some water and then edged his head out from his hiding place. The sun would be rising soon, he gauged. He hadn’t slept particularly well; hell, he hadn’t really slept since Kevin had disappeared. One lousy phone call, that was all he had been given. He had met with London, like they had told him to, and filled him in on the tunnels, again like they had told him to. He had undertaken a little unfinished business along the way with Toona, sure. Contrary to what Westbrook had told Web, he could abide skimmers and even those who used the product because if you didn’t you wouldn’t have anyone willing to come to work for you in the drug trade, it was as simple as that. But what he would never tolerate was a snitch. Macy had tipped him off to what Toona was doing and he had checked it out himself and found out Macy had been correct. So Toona was, appropriately enough, fish food. Sometimes life was fair, he thought.

  Through the street grapevine he had learned that Peebles had been killed. The boy just didn’t have what it took. But Westbrook had also learned, albeit too late, that Peebles had been orchestrating a takeover of his crew and consolidation of other crews in the area. That one had caught him off guard. He hadn’t thought that old Twan had that in him. Macy had simply disappeared. That disloyalty had really ticked him off. Westbrook shrugged. Served him right for putting any trust in a white boy.

  Now whoever had killed Twan might be gunning for him. Westbrook would just have to lie low and rely only upon himself until things worked out. Relying only on himself—it was just like old times. He had a couple of pistols, a few mags of ammo, about a thousand dollars in his pocket. He had abandoned the Navigator when he had come here, and the cops were still looking for him. Well, let them look. He had seen the Feds patrolling the place, but he had spent enough time dodging the cops to know how to hide even his very large carcass so that he blended right in with where he was. He had seen some strange things going on here. And he had heard the sounds of dogs barking off in the distance. The dogs were bad news. He had hunkered down farther into his hiding place and pulled over him a blanket he had covered with branches and leaves until the sounds had receded. As best as he could figure, London was still close by, and if London thought this place was important, then Westbrook did too. He checked his gun and settled back, took another drink of water, listened to the crickets and wondered what the new day would bring. Maybe it would bring Kevin.

  Ed O’Bannon paced around the small, bare space. He hadn’t smoked in years, yet he had gone through almost a pack in the last two hours. Discovery was something that he had always contemplated, but as time went on and things went smoothly, his fears had receded, even as his bank account had swollen. He heard someone coming and turned to the door. It was locked, and thus he was surprised when he heard the knob turning. O’Bannon backed away. When the man came in, he breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Long time no see, Doc.”

  O’Bannon put out his hand and Nemo Strait shook it.

  “I wasn’t sure you were going to make it, Nemo.”

  “When have I ever let you down?”

  “I’ve got to get going. The Feds are bottling the country up.” “Don’t get yourself all bent out of shape. We got lots of ways for you to go and the planes, papers and the people to get you there.” Strait held up a packet of documents. “Through Mexico to Rio and then on to Johannesburg. From there you got your option of Australia, New Zealand, lots of fugitives go there. Or maybe hit our old stomping grounds in Southeast Asia.”

  O’Bannon eyed the packet and breathed another sigh of relief. He smiled and lit another cigarette. “That seems like a hundred years ago.”

  “Hey, I’ll never forget. You saved my as

s after the Viet Cong screwed with my mind.”

  “Deprogramming, not so difficult for someone who knows what he’s doing.”

  “Lucky for me you did,” said Strait. He paused and grinned.

  “And catching a little drug action on the side. That was a nice little side benefit for your practice.”

  O’Bannon shrugged. “Everyone was doing that back then.”

  “Hell, yes, they were, myself included, though it was just for my personal use.”

  “I have to hand it to you, when you looked me up with your idea of bugging my offices and selling the information on the streets, that was pure genius.”

  Strait grinned. “Well, the Feds got all these resources, we had to level the playing field a little bit. But it was a win-win. You got the info, I got folks who need that stuff to conduct their business, myself included. You make money, I make money and the Feds get the short end of the stick. What could be better?”

  When Gwen had brought Strait in on her plan to exact revenge on the people involved with her son’s death, he had started investigating both Hostage Rescue and Web London. Growing up on a horse farm just made a person methodical like that, Strait had long ago realized. You got all the information you could, formed a plan and executed that plan. Until he had been captured by the Viet Cong, Strait had been an excellent soldier, leading his company in and out of many hellish situations, and he had a chest full of medals to prove it, not that that had ever mattered to him. Then he discovered that the Ed O’Bannon he had known in Vietnam was the same O’Bannon treating Web London. That had given him the idea to both set up London and HRT because he knew firsthand what Ed O’Bannon could do with someone’s mind. Initially, however, O’Bannon wanted no part of it. But when Strait had learned how many law enforcement people he had as patients, he had approached O’Bannon again and repeated his offer to bug the premises, sell the information to criminals and split the proceeds fifty-fifty with the good doctor. With that inducement O’Bannon had signed on immediately. The passage of years had not lessened the man’s greed. Some of the bugged psychiatrist sessions had also provided Strait with all the information he needed to set up HRT. He had never told O’Bannon about his Oxycontin drug trade because the man no doubt would’ve wanted a cut of that too. And now Strait already had a partner in Gwen Canfield. Twenty-five percent, damn! But he had to admit, last night had been worth it.

  Nemo said, “I was one surprised pup when you brought Claire Daniels to us. Although I guess I shouldn’t have been. When you told me London was seeing her, I knew it’d be a problem down the road.”

  “I tried to get him to stay with me. But like I said, I couldn’t push too hard without raising suspicions. I kept most of his file from her, of course. And you were the only ones I could turn to.”

  “You did the right thing. I can guarantee you this: She’ll never testify against you in court.”

  O’Bannon shook his head. “It’s hard to believe it’s over.”

  “Well, we had us one sweet operation going.”

  “‘Had’ is right,” O’Bannon said mournfully.

  “I guess you got no love for our federal government either.” “After what I saw in Vietnam? No. And working for the Bureau in-house didn’t do much to change that opinion.”

  “Well, I’m betting you got you a nice little nest egg to last you the rest of your days.”

  O’Bannon nodded. “I’ve been smart about it. Now I just hope I get to enjoy it.”

  “I want to thank you, Doc, for all your help. You did London perfect.”

  “With his background, believe me, he was an easy case. Didn’t even need any drugs.” He smiled. “The man trusted me. What does that say for the mighty FBI?”

  Strait yawned and rubbed at his eyes.

  “Late night?” asked O’Bannon.

  “You could say that. Sort of burning the candle at both ends and in the middle too.”

  There was a quiet knock at the door.

  Strait said, “Come on in.” He looked at O’Bannon. “Here’s your ride. This is my best guy. He’ll take care of everything.”

  Clyde Macy walked in and stared first at O’Bannon and then at Strait.

  “I go way back with this boy. Showed him the error of his ways, I guess, ain’t that right?”

  Macy said, “The old man I never had.”

  Strait laughed. “You got that right. If you can believe it, this boy infiltrated a black drug crew in D.C. Set ’em up to take the heat for what we did. One of ’em, dude named Antoine Peebles, was trying to take over this fellow Westbrook’s turf. So Mace played along with this little plan, Peebles helped us when we needed it, and then Mace killed Peebles.”

  O’Bannon looked puzzled. “Why’d you do that?”

  “Because I wanted to,” said Macy, his remorseless eyes dead on O’Bannon. “It was a mission I put together for myself. And I successfully completed it.”

  Strait chuckled. “Then he made sure HRT and the Free Society shot it out. The man is invaluable. Okay, Mace, this is Ed O’Bannon, the friend I told you about.” He handed O’Bannon the documents and slapped him on the shoulder and shook his hand.

  “I meant what I said, Doc, you did right by us. Thanks again, and you make yourself one fun-loving fugitive from justice.”

  Strait turned and left. As he closed the door behind him, he heard the first muffled shot and then one more. Damn, that Macy was efficient. He’d taught the boy real well. He did have some faults, though. Macy’s competition thing with the FBI was sometimes inconvenient. One of the concessions he had made to keep the boy happy had been pretty risky, but all in all Strait could not have pulled this off without Clyde Macy.

  Strait had nothing against Ed O’Bannon, but loose ends were loose ends. And Nemo Strait didn’t trust Ed O’Bannon or anyone else. Okay, one problem down, now just two more to go: Kevin Westbrook and Claire Daniels. They had escaped once, but they wouldn’t have a chance to do it again. And then it was time to call it a career. The Greek islands were sounding better and better. Not bad for a boy who had grown up dirt poor and who had lived by his wits ever since. America was the land of opportunity indeed.

  As he got in his truck, Nemo Strait wondered if there were any horse farms in Greece. He hoped not.

  In the carriage house Web opened his eyes and looked around. He didn’t hear Romano stirring, and when he glanced at his watch he knew why. It was not yet six. He got up, opened the window and inhaled an early morning breeze. He had slept unusually heavily.

  He would be gone from here soon and part of him was glad about that and part of him wasn’t.

  What he was thinking about mostly, though, was Claire. His experience told him that there was very little chance that the woman was still alive. It was numbing, the thought of never seeing her again.

  As he continued to gaze outside, he saw Gwen driving down the road from the mansion in a Jeep with its top off. She pulled into the cobblestone courtyard in front of the carriage house and got out. She was dressed to ride in jeans, boots and a sweater; her long hair gracefully framed her face. She wore no hat.

  As she walked to the door, he called out. “Rent check’s in the mail, call off the eviction.”

  She looked up, smiled and waved. “I thought we might go for one last ride.” She looked at the lightening sky. “By the time we saddle up, it’ll be the best time of the day to cruise the trails. You with me, Mr. London?” She flashed a smile that seemed to push away just about every concern Web had.

  They saddled their mounts, Gwen on Baron and Web on a smaller roan horse named Comet. Gwen explained that Boo had an infected leg.

  “Hope the big fellow will be all right.”

  “Not to worry, horses are very resilient,” answered Gwen.

  They covered a good deal of ground over about an hour and a half, and as they rode along all Gwen could think was that she had never killed anyone before. Yes, she had bluffed Nemo Strait the night before, but when it came down to it, could she do it? She looked at Web riding next to her and tried her best to cast him in the form of her worst enemy, her most terrifying nightmare. Yet it was difficult to do. For years she had dreamed about killing each and every member of this so-called heroic band of federal agents whom everyone had assured here were the best there was. That they would get her son and all the other hostages out alive; that was what they had drilled into her, until Gwen’s fears had receded and her expectations had soared. It was like being told you had cancer but that it was absolutely curable, and you believed this until they closed your coffin and put you in the ground. Well, they had almost accomplished their goal of rescuing every hostage, allowing only her son to perish. And then she had watched, seething, as Web London’s face graced newspaper, magazines, TV shows, his heroic deeds outlined in nauseating detail, ending with a medal given to him personally by the President himself. She could not think of his horrible injuries. She did not know of the grueling ordeals he had endured as he fought his way back on to HRT. Not that any of that would have mattered to her. All she could think of was that Web was alive and her son was dead. Some hero.

  Yes, the sight of her son lying dead next to Web London had popped something in her brain. She could actually remember the crackle that seemed to go through every nerve in her body, like lightning had struck; and she had never been the same since. She had never had a day since when she did not see the bloody body of her son lying there on the ground. Nor could she ever forget the image of men in battle gear going in to rescue her son and somehow managing to bring everyone out alive except him. She looked back at Web and he slowly took on hues of black, of evil. He was the last man. Yes, she could kill him. And maybe her nightmare would finally be over.

  “I suppose you and Romano will be leaving today?”

  “Looks that way.”

  Gwen smiled and flicked at her hair. She kept a tight grip on her reins, for she felt her hand might start shaking. “Your good work done?”

  “Something like that. How’s Billy?”

  “All right. He goes through moods, like we all do.”

  “You don’t strike me as moody. You seem the type to roll with -->