Rampage

by John Sandford

  She said, “I…the FBI…” Then, after some muffled talk in the background, she said, “We don’t owe the FBI. We owe you. If the TV people are there, I’ll talk to them.”

  Cade sent a news tip to the Flagstaff TV station: all they could do.

  —

  Cade said, “There’s not much more to do from here—not if the feds are going to the ranch, and the…experiments…have been moved.”

  Harmon cleared his throat and said, “How far do we trust the FBI to break this open. All of it?”

  “They’ll do what they have to, but there are so many important people here—politicians, political contributors, those kinds of people—it’ll be hard going,” Twist said.

  Shay asked, “Harmon, what are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that Singular’s still operating at a pretty powerful level, if they’ve murdered Dash and think they can get away with it.”

  “Well, we know the vice president’s involved…,” Cruz said.

  Harmon rubbed his temples, staring down at the floor between his shoes.

  Shay got impatient and said, “What? What’s bugging you?”

  Harmon looked up. “They didn’t shoot Dash.”

  “No, they probably poisoned her or something. So…?”

  “So who are they shooting at twenty-two hundred yards?”

  Shay said, “Oh,” and pressed her fingers to her lips.

  Harmon said, “I don’t even like to think this, to suggest this, but I don’t see how they can get out of this mess unless somebody shuts down the investigation at the very top. The vice president isn’t quite at the very top, but if something were to happen to the president…”

  “What?” Twist said. “That’s…that’s…”

  “Nuts,” Harmon said. “I know.”

  “Perfect one-word description of Thorne,” Cade said.

  “Did we get pictures of that gun? Should we send them to Barin?” asked Twist. “I don’t think I’ve mentioned the vice president—we could send that photo we found in Janes’s files. The one with the heads of Singular, the North Koreans, and Lawton Jeffers…”

  “I can pull all that together,” said Cade. “He might believe us.”

  “What else?” Shay said. “What else can we do?”

  Harmon was staring at the floor again. “I know about a guy Singular was trying to recruit….His name is Gerald Armie. Another billionaire. I was there when he was first told about the Singular project—well, I wasn’t exactly there, I was eavesdropping. I later heard that they were still talking to him…he was dragging his feet. But I have to believe he knows more names. Somebody had to recruit him, somebody had to vouch for Singular. But it seemed like he might have been resisting.”

  “He’s a thread that could be pulled,” Shay said.

  “Yeah. If we think we should do that,” Harmon said. “The whole idea of an assassination…Anyway, Armie’s got resources. He’s got all the resources that Varek Royce has. And that could be useful, too, if he was on our side.”

  “Then we should talk to him,” Shay said. “We should keep attacking.”

  “He lives somewhere in Oklahoma,” Harmon said. “I don’t know exactly where—or even if he’s there now.”

  Twist looked at Cade. “Can you find that out?”

  —

  It took Cade an hour. In two minutes, he’d learned that Armie lived in a suburb of Oklahoma City, that he ran a chain of supermarkets covering most of the central states, that he was sixty-two years old, and that he was halfway up the Forbes list of the richest four hundred people in the U.S.

  Figuring out where he’d be was harder, but Cade eventually found an online item on the Oklahoman’s site saying that he, his wife, and their daughter would attend a charity ball…in two days.

  “Can we get to Oklahoma City in two days?” Shay asked.

  “Yeah. It’s probably a thousand miles, but it wouldn’t be a problem driving it,” Harmon said.

  “This whole fight with Singular has been like a moving geography lesson,” Shay said. “I’d hardly ever been out of Oregon before it started. Now I can tell you the driving distances for almost anyplace in the West.”

  Cruz said, “So…are we going?”

  Twist looked at them all. “This doesn’t feel done yet.”

  They all nodded. They were going.

  —

  Harmon said good-bye to his friends, and they all thanked them profusely for the hospitality. X gave Chickee a snoot good-bye as they headed for the cars.

  “I don’t know if he was really ready for a committed relationship,” Shay said to Chickee, and she led X to Twist’s truck.

  —

  I-40 seemed to stretch on forever under the big bowl of the Southwestern sky, Twist singing out the Eagles’ “Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona…” as they went through Winslow, then on and on and on through New Mexico and all the heat mirages on the highway until they got to Amarillo, Texas, which was basically a concrete gulch filled with fast-food joints and motels. They got a McDonald’s dinner and found a motel on the east end of town.

  The next day, they did it all again. The miles rolled by in a blur of small towns as they left Texas for Oklahoma and, finally, five hours out of Amarillo, rolled into Oklahoma City.

  They found a Twist motel special with Internet not far from the site of that evening’s charity ball. “I found some pictures from last year’s event. All the men are wearing tuxedos, and the women are in gowns….We might not be dressed right for this,” Cade said.

  “Probably be best to catch him outside, if we can,” Harmon said. They were all together in Twist’s room. “We won’t be able to talk to him in a crowd anyway.”

  “What do the waitresses look like?” Shay asked. “I’ve still got my hotel outfit from San Francisco.”

  Harmon said, “Might have some blood spatter on it.” Shay gave him a look, and he said, “Okay, maybe not.”

  Cade called up photos from the previous ball, but none of them showed waitresses.

  Twist said, “So we play it by ear.”

  “Gotta do better than that,” Harmon said. “We actually have to talk to the guy for a while. And to tell the truth, I don’t want to strong-arm him. I’m seeing some possibility now that we could get out of this without going to prison, and I wouldn’t want to screw up our chances.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Shay asked.

  “We figure out how we can approach him at a place where we can actually sit down and talk.”

  “There’ll be a lot of cops around that ball tonight,” Cade said. “It’s a pretty big deal. If he started yelling…”

  Cruz: “Why don’t we find out where he lives and go knock on his door?”

  They all looked at him for a moment, and he shrugged. “We’d be alone with him….”

  “He’ll have security,” Twist said. “He’s a billionaire.”

  “If he’s got security at his house, he’ll have it everywhere,” Harmon said.

  “What about his office?” Shay suggested.

  Harmon shook his head. “He’ll be surrounded by employees—we could get swarmed.” He looked back at Cruz and said, “I’m thinking Cruz might be onto something. Can we get his address on the Web?”

  Cade could, and he found a street view as well. “No gate across the driveway. We could drive right in.”

  Shay said, “What if I put on my hotel outfit and got a box with a ribbon on it—like a big chocolate box—and knocked on the door? I’m this nonthreatening teenager….”

  “Probably be answered by a maid,” Twist said.

  “But that gets us to the door,” Harmon said. “How about this: Shay won’t turn the box over. Instead, she gives the maid a high-end-looking envelope with a message that says something…that makes our pitch.”

  “That says if he doesn’t come to the door in five minutes, we’re leaving,” Shay said.

  “I’m liking this,” Harmon said. “What would we say in the message? Ho
w would we know that he’d be at his house?”

  “The ball starts at seven o’clock, and he’s giving some kind of speech, so they probably won’t be late, or too late, anyway,” Cade said. “And they’ve got to get all dressed up in fancy clothes….Which means he’ll probably be home no later than six o’clock or so.”

  “Okay, okay, I’m seeing this,” Twist said. He kicked back on the couch, then sat up and said, “This couch smells bad, like somebody…Never mind. Anyway, let’s nail this down.”

  Armie lived in a rambling two- or three-story—it was hard to tell—red-brick home set on a broad expanse of grass with carefully plotted trees and shrubs and petunias.

  “Pro tip,” Harmon said to Shay the first time they cruised the place. “Flower beds can be used to hide security equipment.”

  There was no gate at the entrance, which would have been mandatory with a similar home in L.A. A multiple-car garage sat partly behind the house, but its size was obscured by more plantings along the curving driveway. The driveway was bordered on the house side by a two-foot brick wall, with another flower bed running along the top.

  “Another tip,” Harmon said as they passed the end of the driveway. “You see that low wall? Looks decorative, doesn’t it? It also makes it impossible to get a car or a truck to the front of the house. You see walls like that in the Middle East. The place looks open, but suicide bombers can’t get their trucks close to the target.”

  Shay said, “Hmm.” And a second later, “Looks like four cars in the driveway….Wonder if they have visitors. If they’re having a pre-ball party, we could have a problem.”

  “Yeah.”

  —

  They went on, and a minute or so later, Twist, Cade, and Cruz drove by. Twist called Harmon and Shay on the walkie-talkie and said, “Somebody’s leaving. Young blond lady in a Lexus.”

  “How many cars in the driveway?”

  “Three…”

  —

  They spent fifteen minutes driving around, checking possible escape routes and looking for police. They never saw a patrol car. “Doesn’t mean they aren’t there—it just means we didn’t see one,” Cade said.

  “Oh, now we’ve got Mr. Optimist with us,” Twist said.

  “But he’s right,” Cruz said.

  “You know what?” Cade said. “If we had a few firecrackers, with long fuses, and dropped them out behind the local police station just before Shay and Harmon went into Armie’s house…I bet every cop car in the city would be pulled into the station. They’d think somebody was shooting at them.”

  “Nope. Not going to do that,” Twist said. “I have an aversion to spending time in an Oklahoma penitentiary.”

  “Aw, come on, man, it’d be fun,” Cade said.

  “Nope.”

  Cade looked at Cruz, who said, “Nope.”

  “You guys are hopeless,” Cade said.

  —

  Harmon and Shay were on the main drag when Harmon spotted a FedEx drop and told Shay to pull over. He got a couple of FedEx envelopes and said, “A minor improvement in the plan.”

  —

  They met at a bagel shop, got sandwiches, and carried them to a nearby park, where they could let X out and talk over what they’d seen.

  Cade pitched the firecracker idea to Harmon and Shay, who both said no.

  “You don’t want a bunch of scared cops running around with their guns out—too much chance somebody would get hurt,” Harmon said.

  Cade let it go, and Twist looked at his watch. “Getting close to six o’clock.”

  “Time to pull the pin,” Harmon said.

  Cruz asked, puzzled, “What pin?”

  Harmon said, “Just an expression. There’s a safety pin on a hand grenade. When you pull it…”

  “Yeah, I see. You need a better expression,” Cruz said.

  —

  They pulled the pin.

  Harmon, Twist, and X would stay in the Mercedes while Shay went to the door. Cade and Cruz would circle the area, ready to call in any signs of trouble.

  “Nervous?” Twist asked Shay as they got close to the mansion.

  “Sure. A little,” Shay said.

  “Good,” Harmon said.

  There were no cars on the narrow street in front of the Armie mansion, and as they turned into the driveway, Twist said, “Only two cars now.”

  Harmon pulled forward until they were even with a short set of flagstone steps that went through the wall along the driveway to a sidewalk that led to the front door.

  Harmon handed Shay the FedEx envelope, and she hopped out of the truck. She was wearing black pants, a black shirt, and high-heeled black boots. The outfit had passed for a chic hotel employee’s in San Francisco. It was more ambiguous here. Fashion-forward delivery girl?

  The front door was actually two doors, set into a wide, heavily decorated niche in the front wall. Metal doors, disguised as wood, with small, lightly mirrored windows, she noted. Somebody inside could see out; nobody outside could see in.

  She rang the doorbell and waited. A minute later, she could hear footfalls from inside, and then a nice-looking, sandy-haired young man with big white teeth—a frat boy, Shay thought—opened the door, took her in, the red hair and the black outfit, and said, “Whoa. You ain’t selling Girl Scout cookies. What’s up?”

  He’d made her smile, and she said, “I have a FedEx special express for a Mr. Gerald Armie. I’m supposed to wait to see if there’s an immediate response.”

  The young man looked past her at the Mercedes in the driveway. “FedEx delivers in Benzes now?”

  “I’m a contract worker, and I’m usually in a totally trashed Subaru, but it broke; I borrowed my father’s car,” Shay said.

  “I hear you. Well, step inside. Uh, I’ll run this up to Dad.”

  “I can only wait a couple of minutes—I’ve got seven more deliveries.”

  —

  Gerald Armie was sitting in his dressing room, getting into his tux. His black patent-leather shoes were next.

  “Goddamn shoes,” he said as he pulled the first one on. “They make me look like a sissy.”

  “Yeah, you and every other shiny-shoed gazillionaire in Oklahoma,” his son said. “You don’t look like sissies, you look like…old guys crashing a prom.”

  “Thank you. You’ve been disinherited,” Armie said.

  “A FedEx delivery girl brought this”—he handed his father the envelope—“and said she was supposed to wait for an answer, but it’s gotta be quick because she’s got more deliveries. She said it’s a special express, whatever that means.”

  “Never heard of it,” Armie said. He put on the second shoe, took the envelope, said, “Feels empty,” and pulled it open.

  Inside, he found a single folded sheet of paper with a note:

  My name is Shay Remby. I’m with the group that has brought down Singular. Senator Dash was murdered by a professional assassin still employed by the men behind Singular. We are uncertain of your status, but would like to discuss it with you. I will wait for two minutes, then I am gone.

  Armie read it a second time, then said, “Hoyt, run downstairs and tell the girl that I’m on my way. I have a reply. And hurry, before she leaves.”

  Hoyt started to walk away, and Armie snapped, “Hurry. Hurry. Tell her I’m coming.”

  Hoyt disappeared, and Armie read the note again, sighed, and briefly considered the possibility of calling the police. But that might turn out to be a really, really bad idea, especially if this group had tied him to Singular, and if Dash had actually been murdered.

  He sighed again, said, “Shit,” then stood, picked up the black cummerbund that had been sitting next to him, and put it on. Then he walked over to a necktie drawer, pulled it all the way out, and removed the compact semi-automatic pistol that was nestled in the back. He checked to make sure the pistol’s safety was engaged and then tucked it into the cummerbund at the small of his back and put on his jacket.

  He walked down the hall to h
is wife’s dressing room, where a hairdresser was putting the final touches on her updo, and said, “No hurry, Alice. Some business came up….”

  “Gerald…”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ll make it as quick as I can.”

  Another thirty seconds took him down the main staircase, then through a corner of the living room to the front door. Hoyt was there with a young woman in a severe black uniform and with flaming red hair. He thought, She’s just a little girl.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “We’d like to talk to you for five minutes,” she said. “We need to tell you some things and also ask you some questions.”

  Hoyt said, “Wait a minute….”

  “That’s okay, Hoyt,” Armie said. Then to Shay, “Who’s we?”

  “Two of my friends, who are still in the car. I hope you didn’t call the police, because if you did, we could all be screwed. Including you.”

  “Who are these people?” Hoyt asked, stepping away from Shay.

  Armie said to his son, “I want you to listen into this conversation, but keep your mouth shut.” And to Shay: “I didn’t call the police. Get your friends in here, and let’s talk. I’ve been worried since I heard about Charlotte.”

  —

  Harmon still had the car’s engine running, in case they needed to leave in a hurry. “She should never have gone inside,” he said.

  Twist didn’t disagree, but then the door opened and Shay waved them in.

  “We’re up,” Twist said. “You’re not carrying a gun, are you?”

  Harmon said, “No.”

  “Good.”

  “But Shay is.”

  “What!”

  “Less likely to be searched by any security personnel.”

  “You are a very bad influence,” Twist said.

  “And a hippie painter anarchist isn’t?” Harmon asked as they walked up the sidewalk.

  “Everybody should have a hippie painter anarchist in their lives,” Twist said. “It’s the guys in silvered aviators with guns that you’ve got to be wary of.”

  —

  Gerald Armie was a square-built man of average height, with silver-white hair and a ruddy complexion. His son, standing behind him, was taller, thinner, and almost blond.