After the Execution

by James Raven

  I slowed to a stop maybe thirty yards back from the house while Kate made the call.

  ‘Still no answer,’ she said.

  When I pulled the Explorer onto the driveway, I switched off the engine and waited anxiously for someone to come out of the house. But nobody did so I assumed it was empty. I looked in the back seat. Anna was sleeping, her chin resting on her chest.

  ‘Are you going to wake her?’ I asked.

  ‘No. She’ll be OK. I won’t be long.’

  I took the key from the ignition. Kate’s house key was on the same ring. I lifted the gun out of the door pocket, flicked off the safety.

  I still wasn’t comfortable with what we were doing. I would rather have taken Kate straight to a hotel. But she was insistent and I realized she had a point. I had no idea how long we’d be on the run. She obviously couldn’t go on spending money on new things as well as hotel accommodation.

  But as I walked up to the house my palms felt sweaty and the air around me seemed to be choked with a sense of foreboding. The street was still empty. The only sound the distant drone of traffic.

  I handed Kate her keys but she didn’t need them because the door was ajar and I noticed the lock was broken. I made sure I went in first. In the daylight the place was even less impressive. The hallway was narrow and gloomy. The yellow wallpaper was old and peeling at the joins.

  ‘Anyone home?’ I called out.

  It seemed a stupid thing to say seeing as it was Kate who lived here, but I felt I had to say something. There was no reply. The house was dead quiet. No ticking clocks. No creaking timbers. No rush of water through the pipes.

  The bedroom door to my right was open. The baby’s room. I peered inside. Empty. On the left, the kitchen. Also empty. It was just as I remembered it from the previous evening. It looked as though nothing had been moved, except that Frank Larson was no longer cuffed to a radiator.

  The next door on the right was slightly open. It was the main bedroom. Kate’s room. Clothes were strewn across the duvet from where she had hurriedly packed.

  The living room door at the end of the hallway was closed. I gripped the handle and turned it. The first thing that struck me when the door opened was the thick smell of cordite in the air.

  The second thing was the body on the floor. Frank Larson was lying on his back and the front of his head was missing.

  Kate was right behind me and saw the body a fraction of a second after I did. She let out a deafening shriek as I rushed into the room.

  I stood over the body and felt my heart shudder at the sight of all the blood and shattered bone. It was pointless checking for signs of life because I knew there wouldn’t be any.

  Detective Frank Larson was very dead. The wall behind him was sprayed with blood. Whoever had murdered him had fired from close range and the bullet had pounded into his forehead, blowing his skull apart.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Kate gasped.

  She backed out of the room into the hallway on shaky legs. Her face was scrunched up as though in pain, her mouth gaping in a soundless scream.

  I strode out of the room, grabbed her arm, pulled her along the hallway to the front door. She became hysterical the moment we stepped outside. She dropped to her knees on the small patch of wet grass, shaking her head and sobbing uncontrollably.

  I stood beside her and bent over, fighting a sudden urge to spew up my guts. My mind started racing along with my heart, telling me that Larson must have been murdered by the Feds. By Aaron Vance and his crew. Somehow they had followed my trail to this house last night and had found Larson cuffed to the radiator. Maybe he told them he’d recognized me. Or maybe they just killed him because they weren’t prepared to take any chances.

  Whatever the circumstances, his summary execution did not bode well for Kate. These bastards were ruthless beyond measure. It seemed inconceivable now that they would let her live, even if she made them believe she didn’t know who I was.

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We should go.’

  I was about to help her to her feet when I heard the roar of an engine. Looking up, I saw two familiar vehicles tearing towards us along the road.

  The Taurus and the Dodge.

  My chest exploded in a spasm of panic. I reacted by grabbing Kate’s arm and jerking her up. The intention was to make it look like she was my hostage. I was still holding the gun so I raised it and fired a shot into the air. The two vehicles slewed to a halt about twenty yards from the house. The doors were thrown open and men armed with pistols jumped out onto the road.

  For just a moment it looked as though a stand-off situation was going to develop. But then the sound of a baby crying came from inside the Explorer and Kate’s maternal instinct kicked in. She shook her arm free of my grip and made a dash for the vehicle.

  ‘Anna!’ she yelled. ‘I’ve got to get my baby.’

  I was left standing on the front yard, fully exposed and unsure what to do. I aimed the gun at the Feds. There were five of them spread out in the road and one of them was Aaron Vance. Their arms were outstretched and their pistols were pointing at me.

  I was maybe three steps from the front door of the house and ten steps away from the Explorer. Everything froze for a couple of tense seconds when Kate reached the vehicle. I thought she was going to open the rear door to get at her daughter. But instead she stood with her back to it protectively and spread out her arms.

  ‘There’s a baby in the car,’ she screamed at the Feds. ‘Don’t shoot.’

  Then she turned to me and said, ‘Run. There’s nothing you can do for me.’

  There was no way I could leave her alone so I took a side-step towards her. But it prompted Vance to shout a warning.

  ‘Don’t move. Just stay where you are and drop the gun.’

  I ignored him and took another step. In response one of Vance’s men opened up with a warning shot. I immediately returned fire. The Feds ran for cover and I instinctively moved back towards the house and away from Kate.

  Two bullets slammed into the timber either side of the front door as I threw myself inside. More shots were fired and one of the bullets thumped into the hallway wall.

  I caught a glimpse of Kate cowering against the side of the Explorer. There was no way I could get to her without taking a bullet. She was on her own now. There was nothing I could do for her but hope that Vance would not deem it necessary to kill her.

  I scrambled on all fours along the hall and into the kitchen. In the hope of slowing them down, I let off a shot at the window, shattering the glass. Then I homed in on the door to the back garden. My only escape route. The key was in the lock. A quick turn and the door was open. I rushed headlong into the rear garden and then across a small soggy lawn to a low wooden fence.

  I heaved myself over the fence into another garden that was slightly smaller and better looked after. I heard shouting behind me but I didn’t look back. I just kept running, along the path at the side of the house, and then into another residential street. I veered to the right and sprinted along the pavement.

  After about thirty yards I got lucky. A guy in a black SUV was just backing out of his driveway. He didn’t see me until it was too late. I pulled the driver’s door open and aimed my gun at his face. He braked instinctively and the SUV jolted to a halt.

  ‘Get out,’ I shouted. ‘If you resist I’ll kill you.’

  The guy was no hero. He got quickly out of the car. I jumped straight in behind the wheel and pulled the door shut. Then I stamped hard on the gas and the SUV shot out onto the road.

  There was no sign of the Feds in the rear-view mirror as I roared off. I knew they’d soon be on my tail so I had very little time to put distance between them and me. But as I drove I was oblivious to the speed I was travelling at and the direction I was going in.

  All I could think about was Kate and her baby. And how I’d been forced to abandon them.

  38

  GIDEON CRANE FROWNED when he saw his wife’s car pull up on the driveway. He loo
ked at his watch. She’d only been gone an hour, which was hardly enough time for a proper workout at the gym. Normally she took twice that long. So he wondered why she was back so soon.

  He turned away from the window and switched his attention back to the TV. He was still behind his desk and still following with interest the story that was unfolding on the screen.

  The murders in Mountain City continued to dominate the news. The two FBI agents who’d been shot dead hadn’t yet been named. And the killer was still at large. Neighbours who were interviewed claimed they’d heard the shots. One had seen a guy run out of the house and get into a waiting car, which suggested that there was more than one perpetrator.

  Reporters were inevitably speculating that the killings were somehow connected to Lee Jordan’s execution, but the FBI were saying this was highly unlikely. Crane was curious, but at the same time incensed that Jordan was still haunting him. The bastard’s photo was popping up with alarming frequency, and each time Crane saw it he felt a chill in his bones.

  It was like he was living through that terrible night ten years ago all over again in his head. The two men in ski masks bursting into his home. The explosion of gunfire. Jordan’s desperate expression as he came charging forward. And then Kimberley lying on the floor. The images were crowding his mind and causing his eyes to become moist.

  He was so caught up in this new blast of raw emotion that he wasn’t aware that Pauline had entered his study and was standing in front of his desk.

  Her sudden appearance made him jump and he was just about to smile at her when he realized she was staring at him with a look of cold contempt on her face.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he said.

  She produced from behind her back a large padded envelope and without so much as an explanation emptied the contents on the desk. It took a second for him to realize what he was staring at and when he did he felt his heart shift in his chest. Four colour photographs and a book with a pink cover. The photos were of him and Beth together. In one of them they were kissing. The book had the word Diary emblazoned in gold lettering on the front.

  ‘You low life piece of scum,’ Pauline yelled at him.

  Her words hit him like a series of blows to the solar plexus. He was too shocked to respond straight away. He just sat there feeling the heat of her anger, and wondering why he had been so stupid as to give her brother $100,000.

  ‘I suspected for months that something was going on,’ she said. ‘I just didn’t want to believe it. Not after all we’d been through. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you were just fucking the bitch. But it’s clear from what she’s written in her diary that it’s a lot more than that. You bastard.’

  She was struggling to hold back the tears and the hurt in her eyes made him ashamed of himself. Christ, it wasn’t meant to be like this. And it wasn’t meant to happen yet. This was a fuck-up on a grand scale. Horrible, ugly and potentially hugely damaging. He could see the headlines in his mind’s eye.

  Congressman quits Presidential race in disgrace.

  Crane cheats on wife number two.

  It would all come out. The details of his affair with Beth. His adulterous relationship with Pauline at the time of Kimberley’s murder. He tried to swallow against the dryness in his throat. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out.

  ‘God forbid that someone like you should ever become President,’ Pauline said. ‘You’re a disgusting, deceitful excuse for a man. And you’re stupid. Did you not think that I would find out? You were becoming more distant. And you stopped asking me how I was. I needed to know if something was going on so I asked Travis to find out. And he did. And he said you made it really easy for him.’

  Crane managed to swallow down the growing lump in his throat. He said, ‘Do you know about the money I transferred into his account last night?’

  ‘He just told me about it,’ she said with a smirk. ‘And do you know what? I’m glad he ripped you off. The fact that you were prepared to let him blackmail you makes you even more contemptible.’

  She continued to glare at him, her lips pulled back, her muscles like rope under the pale skin of her neck. He knew he would not be able to placate her, or reason with her. She was too far gone for that.

  ‘I know what’s going through your warped mind,’ she said. ‘You’re wondering if I’m going to bring an end to your naked ambition. Well for your information I don’t know yet. I need to think it through and decide what’s best for me. But I will tell you this. If you don’t fire that whore right away then you can kiss goodbye to ever seeing the inside of the Oval Office.’

  And with that she spun round and stormed out of the study, slamming the door behind her.

  39

  AFTER DRIVING AROUND for ten minutes I found myself in the centre of San Antonio, close to the River Walk. I pulled over to the side of the road and killed the engine.

  A flood of thoughts, incoherent and corrosive, were rushing though my tired brain. I felt angry, guilty, frustrated. The inside of my chest was burning and blood was pounding in the top of my head.

  I couldn’t keep Kate’s face out of my mind. I wanted to believe that she would be all right, that Vance wouldn’t harm her, but I wasn’t able to convince myself of it. His people had already killed Emily and Larson. So why would they spare Kate?

  A sudden burst of music made my jump. I thought the radio had switched itself on, but I quickly realized it was coming from a man’s jacket that was hanging on a hook behind the front passenger seat. I leaned over and pulled it down. In the inside pocket I found a cellphone. I stared at it for a good ten seconds before I felt compelled to answer it.

  ‘Is that you, Lee?’ It was a familiar voice.

  I didn’t respond, but neither did I hang up. I waited for him to speak again.

  ‘This is Aaron Vance here,’ he said. ‘The guy who owns the SUV told us he left his phone inside. I was hoping you’d pick up because we need to talk.’

  ‘What have you done with the woman and her baby?’ I said.

  ‘They’re safe, Lee. We’re going to look after them.’

  ‘She doesn’t know who I am so there’s no reason to hurt her.’

  ‘We don’t intend to. I promise.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ I said.

  ‘Look, I give you my word that no harm will come to them. Or you, Lee. Just let us come and get you and we can talk about what’s happened. There’s no reason to be scared. You’ve got it all wrong.’

  ‘You bastards killed my sister. And you tried to kill me.’

  ‘The man who tried to kill you outside the restaurant wasn’t one of us.’

  ‘You told me he was.’

  ‘We thought he was, but someone paid him to take you out. We were as shocked as you were, but you didn’t give us a chance to explain that.’

  ‘What about my sister?’

  Vance cleared his throat. ‘My men went there in case you turned up. They were meant to bring you to me and not harm you or your sister. But as you know that went wrong. I’m really sorry. It was tragic.’

  ‘This is all bullshit,’ I said. ‘You’re intent on eliminating everyone who knows I’m alive. Like Frank Larson.’

  ‘We had nothing to do with that.’

  ‘You’re a liar.’

  ‘It’s true. I didn’t know he was dead until I just went into the house.’

  Fury burned in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to get my hands on the bastard and wring his neck.

  ‘So why did you fake the execution?’ I said. ‘What was the point?’

  ‘It’s a complicated story, Lee. I’ll tell you everything but not on the phone. Let’s get together. You have to trust me.’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Because I’m here for you, Lee. You’ve got nowhere to go. You can’t keep running. If you want a new life then you need a new identity. We’ll give you that. Just like I told you.’

  A warning light flashed in my mind. With all their technology the Feds would
probably be trying to get a fix on the phone signal as we spoke. Maybe that was how they’d managed to track us down so soon after we arrived at Kate’s house. We’d used her cell to call her landline.

  Fuck!

  I ended the call abruptly and threw the phone out of the window. It smashed on the pavement. Then I turned on the engine, pressed the gas to the carpet, and got the hell away from there.

  Twenty minutes later I pulled up opposite the offices of Garcia and Cruz, attorneys at law, having put the address into the SUV’s satnav. It was a sedate street with rows of trees and very little traffic.

  I recognized the building as the one Martinez had been standing outside in the online news photograph. It was a two-storey affair that was part of a smart red-brick terrace. The building was narrow, with a single front door and a window on the ground floor. There were two other windows on the upper floor and no obvious access to the back of the building.

  Raymond Garcia was my only real lead. I was convinced he figured in whatever was happening. Why else would his business card have been left in the jacket I’d been given? So maybe there was something in his office that would either lead me to him or help me unravel what was going on. But it was clearly not going to be easy to get inside – if at all possible. The building was probably alarmed and I had no tools to help me force open a window or door.

  But as I was agonizing over what to do, I got lucky. A dark blue BMW pulled up outside the building. A guy in a light grey suit got out. He had dark hair and was in his late forties or early fifties.

  He mounted the steps to the front door, which he opened with a key. Then he disappeared inside. I thought there was a good chance the guy was either Raymond Garcia or Michael Cruz.

  I tucked the gun into my waistband and covered it with the now grubby Longhorns T-shirt. I was still wearing the baseball cap, but I wanted something to cover my face. I found it in the glove compartment, a long soiled rag that was probably used for cleaning the inside of the windshield.