by Black, Sean
39
Chance pulled the pick-up truck into the driveway of the ranch house and waited for her father to get out the other side. He took his time doing it, peering over the top of new sunglasses at the stand of trees masking the front of the property.
‘Nice and quiet. How long you been here?’
‘Rented it last month.’
‘Landlord?’
‘It’s a woman. She spends most of her time down in Baja.’
‘Huh.’
The pit bull started barking. Reaper walked over to its run and knelt down. It came over and licked at his hand through the wire mesh. ‘I know how you feel, brother,’ he said to the dog. Then he turned back to Chance. ‘Some guard dog.’
Chance smiled. ‘Never seen him do that before.’ She turned towards the house. ‘We’ll have to go in the back way.’
He glanced at the front door. ‘You rigged it?’
She nodded. ‘There’s an old fire road about four hundred yards back. I have another truck parked back there. Keys are in the ignition.’
He smiled. ‘Man, I taught you well.’
‘Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.’
They headed round to the back of the property. Chance opened the door and they walked straight into the kitchen.
‘If you want to get some rest, there’s a bedroom through there.’
Reaper stretched out. ‘No, I spent enough of my life sleeping.’
Chance crossed to the refrigerator, reached in, came up with a six-pack of Coors and tossed it over. He caught it one-handed, ripped off a can and held it up against his forehead, just like in a commercial.
‘You know how long it’s been since I had me a cold one?’
Chance frowned, her throat tight. ‘Ten years. Three months. And fourteen days.’
Reaper studied the floor. ‘I’m sorry, Freya.’
She forced herself to perk up. Here was her father, a hero to the cause who’d sacrificed the best years of his life, and on his first day of freedom she was busting his balls.
‘You’ve got nothing to apologize for,’ she said.
‘Wasn’t a day went by that I didn’t think of you.’
Her father ripped the beer open and offered it to her.
‘I’d better not,’ she said.
‘That’s right. I forgot. You been getting sick yet?’
‘First couple of months. I’m over it now.’
Reaper sat down at the small circular kitchen table. He took a sip. ‘You have no idea how good that tastes. Listen, I ain’t been around and you’re a grown woman, but the daddy…’
Chance could feel herself flush. ‘One-night stand. He was white. That’s all you got to worry about.’
‘I wasn’t worried.’
‘Hang on there for a second.’ She walked into the living room, reappearing a moment or two later with a couple of Gap bags. ‘I got you some clothes. Everything you asked for.’ He started to empty them, laying out a selection of pants and underwear. He unfolded a couple of casual business shirts. ‘Long-sleeved. Perfect.’ It was the same uniform the members of the AB had worn to court – dress-down office casual, verging on the geeky.
‘And nothing blue,’ Chance added. ‘I figured you might be sick of blue.’
Reaper drained the last of his beer. ‘You got that right. I’m going to jump in the shower. Then I’m going to try on some of these brand-new duds.’
‘I’ll show you your room.’
In his room, the TV was on with the sound down. There was a live update from outside what was left of the Federal Building in Medford. The reporter was the blonde. It had to be that asshole Lock’s girlfriend, Carrie something.
‘Hey, turn it up.’
Chance picked up the clicker which was resting on the arm of a chair and maxed out the volume.
Onscreen, Lock’s girlfriend was talking with someone back in the studio.
‘So far, authorities are staying tight-lipped, but it’s believed that the group which last night staged the most violent and audacious jailbreak in America’s history are also the same people responsible for the death of ATF agent Kenneth Prager and two subsequent bombings of the Federal Buildings in Los Angeles and San Francisco.’
The guy in the studio cut in. ‘Let me interrupt you for a moment there, Carrie. Do the authorities have any idea who these people are?’
Lock’s girlfriend shook her head. ‘Not as yet. But they are saying that because of the tactics they deployed they believe at least some of these individuals are well equipped and highly dangerous, perhaps even former members of the military.’
Reaper clicked the mute button with relish. ‘Big bang. Helicopter. Lot of guys with guns. That’s all they’ve got.’ He hit the button again.
‘It’s now clear that what we face in the hours and days ahead will be the largest ever manhunt to take place on American soil.’
Reaper clicked off the TV. ‘With what I’ve got planned, they’re gonna have bigger problems than finding little old me.’
Chance frowned. ‘What you got in mind?’
‘A holy war,’ he said, solemnly. ‘Blood flowing through the streets. It’s gonna make ’68 look like a picnic.’
Part Two
40
The van was gone, spirited away for forensic investigation. Four pads of melted rubber from its tires marked out the rectangle where Jalicia had died. Spent shell casings and shards of broken glass lay scattered among tree limbs torn away by the storm. The building itself was still standing, though showing visible scars from the events of the previous night. Blinds dangled from glassless windows and charred, sooty tongues licked up its external walls where small fires had taken hold, discoloring the structure’s normally white facade.
The media were here too, in even greater numbers than the night before, their satellite vans, honey wagons and production trucks making up a small village across from the Federal Building. Lock could see Carrie among them, delivering a piece to camera, still awake, running on the adrenalin of the night before.
Accompanied by Coburn, he stepped back into the lobby. The morning light had offered up one final surprise from last night’s events, and he wanted to see it for himself.
They worked their way up the stairs towards the penultimate floor, which contained the prison’s main holding area. Construction workers were already busy sifting through the debris and shoring up what was left of the roof and internal ceiling with heavy-duty props. Forensic techs flitted among them, or stood chatting in huddles, seemingly unsure of where the hell to start.
This wasn’t your typical crime scene, Lock reflected, where a single fiber or hair would offer up a debonair and otherwise flawless killer. This had been a bold, brazen, in-your-face massacre-slash-hostage extraction, the tactics copycatted from similar jailbreaks staged by groups like the Taliban.
‘They’re in here,’ Coburn said, nodding towards a door on their left-hand side. ‘I should warn you, it’s pretty grisly.’
Lock shrugged. Seeing Ty shot on the yard and Jalicia’s charred corpse sitting upright in the van hadn’t exactly been a bundle of laughs. Grisly he was used to. Grisly he could cope with. It was losing that he struggled with.
And that, sure as hell, was what this felt like. Reaper had played all of them, yet he was the one who’d sensed it coming, and chosen not to be more strident about his concerns. You could call it gut instinct, or a sixth sense, but he knew that what it really was was the mind putting everything together, but not in a clear enough way that you could articulate it. You just knew that things were off, and he had known this ever since Jalicia showed him the footage of Prager, that they were all – her, Coburn, Ty, him – being drawn into a web. He had also sensed that Reaper’s eventual escape wasn’t an ending but more of a beginning. And that there was more to come.
‘You ready?’ Coburn asked him, pushing open the bullet-pocked door.
‘I’m ready,’ Lock said, stepping through into the blood-soaked area where the six members
of the Aryan Brotherhood had been held for the trial.
‘Guess Jalicia got her wish in the end,’ Coburn said, as Lock took in the carnage.
Against the back wall of one single holding cell the bodies of the Aryan Brotherhood lay piled up, their arms and legs entangled. The floor of the cell was slick with congealed blood. A forensic photographer hunkered down, clicking away with a digital SLR camera, capturing the scene for posterity. Even at this early stage, the bodies were starting to reek.
‘Live by the sword, die by the sword,’ Coburn said, almost respectfully.
Lock took his time, studying the heads, mouths gaping, eyes staring vacantly or with a measure of surprise. There was something off about this as well. Even raking the cell with an M-4 would have eaten up precious seconds. Revenge seemed too slender a motive for someone associated with Reaper.
‘And dead men tell no tales,’ added Lock, stepping in closer to the slaughter and counting off limbs. ‘There are only five bodies.’
‘What?’ said Coburn, startled.
‘Count ’em if you don’t believe me. Someone’s missing.’
The photographer maneuvered round Lock, the camera still to his face. ‘Yep, one of ’em made it,’ he said, matter-of-factly.
Coburn looked startled. ‘No one told me. Where’d they take him?’
The photographer finally lowered the camera from his face. ‘Craziest thing I’ve ever seen,’ he said. ‘They must have fired a couple of hundred rounds into that cell, but one guy crawled in under the other bodies, played dead. There was barely a scratch on him. Freaky, right?’
Coburn grabbed the photographer by the arm. ‘Where is he now?’
The photographer looked down at Coburn’s arm, clearly not appreciating the attention. Lock was spooked by it too. Coburn was upset about Jalicia – hell, so was he – but there was no point taking it out on some forensic tech who was only doing his job.
‘The Marshals took him.’
‘Where?’ spat Coburn.
The photographer bristled. ‘Take your hand off me, buddy, and I might tell you.’
Lock put a hand on Coburn’s shoulder. ‘Take it easy, huh?’
Coburn seemed to snap out of it. He mumbled an apology.
‘They said something about shipping him back to the SHU at Pelican Bay, seeing as how it’s the nearest Level Four facility to here.’
Lock walked back downstairs with Coburn, and sat out on the steps of the Federal Building with him. Coburn offered him a cigarette, which Lock declined.
‘What the hell’s going on here, Coburn?’ Lock asked.
Coburn sighed. ‘I wish I knew.’
‘Bullshit. First these people kill Ken Prager, a federal agent.’
The muscles in Coburn’s face tightened. ‘He was undercover. What d’you think they were going to do to him? Throw him a party?’
‘They took his family. Lured him out to the middle of nowhere so they could torture him and his family. Then they recorded the whole thing and mailed it to you. That seem like normal behaviour to you?’
‘There is no normal when you’re dealing with people like this, only levels of abnormal.’
‘So why send Jalicia the footage?’
Coburn struck a match off the step and lit up. His face was lined and haggard, the grey hairs at his temples seemingly more numerous than when Lock first met him. Lock guessed he was still trying to come to terms with what had happened to Jalicia.
‘I’d guess they were trying to send a message,’ he replied after blowing out his first lungful of smoke.
‘And killing Prager and his family wasn’t sufficient?’
‘If a federal agent gets killed in the forest and no one hears it, did it really happen?’ Coburn asked rhetorically.
Lock sighed. It had been a hell of a twenty-four hours. ‘They handed Jalicia a case. And if that wasn’t enough, Reaper got in touch to make sure it moved ahead.’
‘And then he pulled the rug out from under us. See what I’m saying, Lock? You’re looking for some master plan here, when there isn’t one.’
Lock thought it time to voice something that had been nagging away at him since he’d first met with Coburn and Jalicia. It made no sense to him then, but had seemed not to trouble anyone else, even though it left a huge cartoon question mark above the entire investigation.
‘Prager was feeding back information to you while he was with the Aryan Brotherhood. So what was he saying? I mean, he must have known who these people were.’
‘You think they’d still be out there if he had?’ said Coburn.
Lock was incredulous. ‘An investigation that went on for months and you don’t know the identities of any of the people involved?’
‘They were super-careful. Prager never visited their homes, never got their real names. Nothing. Not up until the end, when he confided some of it to Jalicia. We had a debrief planned for the night he was murdered. He was going to give us a lot of it then and we were going to pull him out.’
Lock wasn’t convinced. He leaned in towards Coburn, trying for some kind of personal contact. ‘Level with me here, Coburn. There’s something you’re not telling me.’
But Coburn turned away. ‘Listen, Lock, this isn’t your problem. None of this is.’
Lock thought of Jalicia, burned alive in the truck. ‘That’s not how I see it.’
‘Clearly.’
‘So humour me.’
‘You’ve been an investigator, right?’
‘For a time.’
‘And how did you like it when other people started interfering in one of your cases?’
‘I didn’t. But then this isn’t your case either any more, so we’re kind of in the same boat.’
‘You want to know what I think?’ Coburn asked, looking at Lock properly for the first time since he’d lit his cigarette. ‘I think they killed Prager and his family because they’re sick individuals who didn’t like the idea that they’d been betrayed by someone they thought was on their side. I think Reaper used his testimony to get himself out of the Bay so his buddies could try and spring him. When that was foiled they knew they’d already crossed a line so they gave it one more try to get him out. And I think that Jalicia was killed because she went after them in the first place, and to make matters worse, she’s black. Revenge is motive enough without us needing to go any deeper. Listen, Reaper and his buddies are probably halfway to Argentina by now. The whole thing’s a mess, but there’s no great mystery here, so take my advice and leave it alone.’
Coburn ground out his cigarette with his boot, got up and walked away.
Lock watched him go, more convinced now than ever that Reaper’s jailbreak was the beginning of something, not the end. But what? Knowing Reaper, Lock could be sure about one thing. Whatever it was, it was bad.
41
Cowboy and Trooper were eating a breakfast of pancakes and bacon at the small circular pine table in the kitchen when Reaper walked in sporting wrap-around sunglasses. His eyes were still getting used to long periods of natural sunlight. Chance drifted in a moment later, wearing white sweatpants and a fleece – the antithesis of the hellcat that had been on display the night before.
Reaper snuck a piece of bacon from a plate set down on the counter and popped it into his mouth. ‘Damn, it’s good to be free,’ he said with a broad grin. ‘Boys, I want to thank you. You’ve taken a lot of risks for me.’
Cowboy forked a square of pancake into his mouth. ‘Shit, last night was fun.’
‘You know,’ Reaper said solemnly, ‘there’s money available if either of you want to get out.’
‘No way,’ Cowboy said, getting up to grab a beer from the refrigerator. ‘I’m already looking at life in Leavenworth soon as I walk back on base.’
‘Screw it,’ added Trooper. ‘I’ve fought their goddamn war for ’em, now I’m going to fight one that I believe in.’
‘OK then,’ Reaper said, taking a seat at the table as Chance took a manila folder from under a cutl
ery tray in one of the drawers next to the stove top and handed it to him. He opened it and pulled out a small bundle of paper. ‘The material is a little flung together but, believe me, this has been a long time in the planning. I know you guys have already helped my daughter with locating our second target. We have two reconnaissance missions. Both fairly straightforward but our window of opportunity is slim.’
Reaper selected a large glossy photograph, of a scholarly-looking elderly white man, and handed it to Trooper. ‘Junius Holmes, member of the United States Supreme Court. Take a good look. He’s famously a creature of habit. Right around now he trades his townhouse in Georgetown for a family home not too far from here. We need his daily routine, weekdays and weekends.’
‘He carry a security detail?’ Cowboy asked.
‘That’s one of the other things we need to figure. None of it’s public domain. The Marshals have a unit dedicated to judicial security but it’s stretched thin. Thinner since they’ve lost so many men here. But you and Trooper will have to assess that. Can I trust you to do that for me?’
Cowboy and Trooper nodded.
‘Good,’ said Reaper, picking out a second photograph, also of a man, but much younger, getting into a car outside a modest-looking suburban house. He was late thirties, early forties at most, white with sandy blond hair that ran to his collar. ‘Glenn Love. He’s a foreman at the San Francisco Department of Public Works, Bureau of Street and Sewer Repair.’
Cowboy and Trooper traded a look of bewilderment.
‘Bear with me,’ said Reaper, flicking to another picture, this time of the same house but with a woman packing two kids into a mini-van. ‘This is Glenn’s wife, Amy, and their two kids. This should be a slam dunk too. Families have a routine. We need to know what it is.’
‘And once we know?’ Cowboy asked.
‘Details to follow.’
Reaper caught Trooper studying the floor.
‘You got something to say, then say it, son.’
‘Both men are white, and the second guy’s got kids.’
‘Just to set everyone’s minds at rest, we’re not out to hurt any kids. It’s their father who’s our target, and I don’t plan on hurting him either, unless he leaves me no choice.’