by Scott Blade
“What? What do you mean?”
“John, didn’t you think this through? Building a border wall will do a lot more than prevent illegal immigration. It will prevent drug running. Do you know how much money that will cost the cartels? Not to mention your friends in the DEA, the crooked agents. Didn’t you ever think about their pockets?”
Sheridan said nothing.
Widow said, “I doubt you’ll live long after the truth is exposed. I doubt your kids will even live to see their kids.”
“Okay! Okay! I’ll bring the money.”
“Good, John. That’s real good,” Widow said, putting a special emphasis on the word good, which he had heard somewhere before, a movie maybe, one of those old 1980s action movies. Stallone or Schwarzenegger.
“Okay. I’m getting it. I’ll call you after.”
“No, John. You think I’m an idiot? Get the money, bag it up. Leave the line open. I want to hear you the whole way.”
Sheridan said, “Okay.”
He set the binoculars on the railing and walked back inside. He shut the doors.
Widow heard walking and the sounds of a desk drawer running across the tracks. Then he heard the sounds of a safe’s lock, the clicks and mechanics. The safe door opened, and he heard papers shuffling around—the cash. There were some other ambient sounds, and after a long moment, Sheridan came back on the line. He said, “Okay. I got it.”
Widow said, “I’ve got binoculars too. I better see a big bag.”
“Okay. Now what?”
“Get in your boat. Tell no one. Come across. Bring the cash. We’ll talk.”
Sheridan said, “Okay. What do I tell my family? I’ve got a bunch of guests here.”
“Tell them nothing. Just come. You’ll be back before they notice.”
“I should hang up the phone. They’ll wonder why I’m on the phone.”
Widow said, “Fine. Don’t make me wait.”
He hung up the phone.
CHAPTER 38
SHERIDAN GATHERED all of the cash out of his safe and piled it into a backpack. He left the safe open and hung up the phone from the guy who was trying to blackmail him. He cursed Glock’s uselessness under his breath.
Behind the cash, in the safe, was a snub-nosed .38 special. Two-inch barrel. Brown handle. Spurless Model 206. It was a gift given to him by his party’s candidate for president. Even though he doubted that his party’s candidate had actually picked it out for him. It had been delivered by a surrogate of the campaign, a mutual friend. No reason to doubt its authenticity, but he did.
He kept it loaded, but he opened the cylinder and spun it anyway. It was fully loaded.
He put it under the front of his sweater, tucked into his chinos. He slung the backpack, one strap, over his shoulder and left the study. He walked out with no intention of paying this guy. He’d let the guy count the money and shoot him first chance he got.
Sheridan was a politician and a damn good one, by his own admission. Therefore, he knew how to fake smile and fake talk to people. He was an expert in social encounters. He saw his family and extended family’s faces, all familiar. And two or three new faces he didn’t recognize. Normally, he would approach the new faces, spend time talking with them, listening to them. That was his secret. When he met new people, he focused on them, honed in on them like a bullet to a target.
This time, he had other things on his mind. He waved at his wife and pointed to the back door like he was saying, “I’m gonna step out for a second, hon. Be right back.” And he thought he would. He’d pull his gun on the stranger and shoot him. A gunshot would echo across the lake, that was true, but this was Central Texas. And there, the lake was surrounded by woods. Gunshots weren’t uncommon. One of the Secret Service might get their tail feathers all riled up, but once they saw he was okay, they would forget all about it. He could throw the guy’s body into his boat, cover it with a tarp, and then weight him down with rocks early in the morning. Tomorrow was Sunday anyway, and he was always sneaking out to go fishing.
Everything would be fine.
He walked out of the house, dismissed another agent who offered to follow him, and closed the back door behind him. He looked off in the distance, across the water, but couldn’t see the light flashing.
He carried the backpack down a long gravel walk to the water’s edge and stepped onto the pier. Once he left the lights from his house behind him, he could see the light strobing across the lake. He walked past a tarp his kids used to cover up their fishing gear to protect it from rain. He took it and balled it up. He would need it for the body. He tossed it on the twenty-foot boat and stepped onboard. He tossed the backpack into the passenger seat and started up the engine. The back motor roared to life, and water sputtered and bubbled behind the boat. Sheridan untied the ropes to the pier and kicked off. He kept the lights on the boat off.
He pulled the .38 out and placed it on his lap as he hit the accelerator. The boat jumped to life and blew across the water, not fast, not slow.
When he got farther from shore, he hit the accelerator. The engine roared, and the propeller rolled.
At full speed, it took about five minutes to get close to the southern shore. Once he neared the shore, he slowed the engine to a hum and moved in slowly. He was going to have to jump into the water and walk to shore. Explaining his wet shoes and socks and pants to his wife was the least of his concerns.
He scanned the shore with his eyes, saw no one. He took off his ball cap, revealing a full head of brown hair with graying temples. He tossed the cap on the passenger seat and killed the motor.
The anchor was manual, which meant he had to throw it over the bow and let it catch at the bottom. He waited, and the boat gently rocked to a stop.
Sheridan walked to the rear of the boat, ready to jump into the shallows and wade over to the beach, but he stopped. He looked down. Under the tarp he had tossed into the boat was a pair of shoes he didn’t recognize. They couldn’t belong to his kids. They were huge. He bent down and picked up a left shoe, held it up, and stared at it. It must’ve been a size thirteen, but he only wore a ten.
Then he heard a noise behind him. He spun around and saw a giant hand reach up onto the bow from the water. A second later, a large man was standing on the boat.
Sheridan went for his .38 but stopped cold when he saw a Glock 17 staring at him.
The large man said, “Don’t!”
CHAPTER 39
JACK WIDOW SAID, “Don’t! Don’t move!”
Widow had hung onto the front of Sheridan’s boat, waves slapping him across the face, for the whole five minutes until they reached the beach.
Sheridan said, “What? What is this?”
“You’ve done some very, very bad things, Senator.”
“I brought the cash,” Sheridan said and tossed the backpack between them, hoping the large man would follow the bag with his eyes. Sheridan figured he just needed the large man to look down for a split second, but he didn’t.
Widow said, “A little girl lost her father because of you.”
Sheridan said, “Wait a minute. Take the money. Aren’t you going to look?”
“No. This isn’t about money.”
“It’s all there. Take it!”
“This isn’t about cash. This is about people.”
Sheridan said nothing. He just shivered with his hands up. His wedding ring faced out.
“You a married man?”
“Of course.”
“Got kids?”
“Of course.”
“Know who Jemma is?”
“I don’t know.”
Widow said nothing, just stared at Sheridan.
“She’s Hood’s spic daughter.”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
“What’s that word you said?”
“Spic. You know, beaner.”
“Ah. I see. So this wall is more than just money. It’s about Mexicans?”
“We gotta keep ’em
out!”
“You know, Jemma lost her father because of you. And now I’m thinking we can blame losing her grandmother on you too.”
Sheridan said, “I don’t care about those people. Why should I? Bunch of wetbacks. Illegals. They aren’t even supposed to be here.” He started to lower his hands, closer to his waistline. He asked, “What’s it to you?”
Widow stayed quiet.
“Don’t kill me. Take the money. I brought it for you.”
Widow said, “You think you can get to that gun? I’m aiming right at you. Center mass. And I’m a good shot. You think you can beat a bullet?”
Sheridan stayed still.
“You want me to lower mine? We can draw. Like the Old West. This is Texas.”
Sheridan said, “Yes. That’s only fair, right? You’re supposed to be some kind of good guy here. Like the cowboy who just blew into town? Like John Wayne?”
Widow nodded and said, “Okay. Like the Old West.”
He started to lower his gun.
Sheridan smiled because he might not have been the get-his-hands-dirty type, but one thing that he could do was shoot straight. He watched like a dog with hungry eyes as Widow lowered the Glock.
“Ready?” Widow said.
Sheridan asked, “Really?”
“Just kidding,” Widow said, and he shot him right in the sternum, center chest. The red mist exploded, and blood gushed and burbled out of the 9mm hole in his chest.
Widow watched as Sheridan stumbled forward and toppled back, landing against the rear wall of the boat, near the motor. His body crumbled over like a sinkhole imploding in on itself.
Widow looked to the shore, saw lights flick on all over the place. The gunshot had been noticed by the residents of Lake Hills. He didn’t have much time. He guessed maybe he had fifteen minutes or so.
He stuffed the Glock into his waistband and walked over to Sheridan’s body. He lifted it up and over to the side of the boat, tossed it overboard.
He pulled up the anchor in a rush, which reminded him of SEAL training when they had to pull huge truck tires with ropes. After he got the anchor in the boat, he dumped himself down in the driver seat and sped off, down the west leg of the squid and to the farthest shore.
Then he stood up, half-crouched so that he wouldn’t fall out of the boat. He grabbed the backpack, dumped the cash into the waterproof bag. He took his shoes and put them back on. He left the backpack in the boat, and he dove into the lake.
Widow swam as hard as he could in the opposite direction, away from the boat, away from Sheridan’s house, and down the opposite leg of the squid. He swam east and then followed the winding tentacle south.
CHAPTER 40
THE SOUTH TIP of the lake led Widow to a calm suburban street with single-story family houses with lush amateur gardens and uniform mailboxes and porches with porch swings. It looked like the kind of neighborhood where everyone knew everyone else and no one locked his doors. He came up on the street and shook his pants, which clung to him. He slipped off the waterproof bag and pulled his shirt off. He wrung it out and cracked it like a whip several times, trying to dry it off. He slipped it back on.
He pivoted and looked back at the lake. He had swum a long, long distance. His legs hurt. His arms hurt. Even his chest was sore from holding his breath for so long. He had actually lost count of how many times he came up for air.
Behind him, far in the distance, across the lake, just over the trees, he could see red and blue lights. He imagined that neighbors had heard the gunshots, came out to investigate, and dismissed it. But the senator’s Secret Service detail wouldn’t have dismissed it. They’d probably investigated and noticed the senator was missing and his boat was missing. They wouldn’t have freaked out over it, but an unexplained gunshot at night, plus the missing senator, would make them worry.
Widow had swum for more than ten minutes. In that time, the boat had probably crashed on the opposite shore. Maybe it had crashed into someone’s yard or even their boat. Whatever happened, someone had called the police. Those lights were police lights.
None of that mattered. He was ahead of them so far, and no one even suspected he was involved.
Right now, the police had discovered an empty boat. Probably saw the blood. The Secret Service would show up, recognize the boat. They’d start searching. First, they’d focus on the water, dispatching boats and maybe a car or two to circle the lake. But Lake Medina was a big lake and not a circle. It had many snaking twists and turns and canals. Therefore, there was a lot of lake to cover, a lot of shore, and a lot of homes.
Widow would be long gone by the time they thought to drag the lake. By the time they found the senator’s body, no one involved would name Jack Widow.
CHAPTER 41
WIDOW HATED humping it over seven miles of woods and grassland, but he had no choice. He wanted to be far from Lake Hills, and hitching a ride wasn’t an option because he was not only a man who looked like a creature that belonged in a lagoon, but he was totally drenched from head to toe. And looking the way he did, combined with his wet clothes, made it smarter for him to take his chances going east through the woods.
Eventually, he found his way to a road and walked alongside it a while. His clothes dried to the point of damp, but not dry. He followed the road for a long, long time but gave up on finding a town. It was a lot of nothing, and he started to see signs that pointed to another lake called Diversion Lake.
He was about to give up all hope when a Ford Bronco, an old one, pulled alongside him.
The window rolled down, and a decent-looking blonde woman said, “Howdy there. You sure look like a fish outta water.”
Widow leaned down and smiled at her. He didn’t get too close to her window—no reason to take a chance and blow a ride. He said, “You have no idea.”
“You from around here?”
“No. My girlfriend abandoned me, back near the lake.”
Everyone who hitchhikes likes to embellish the truth sometimes. Why not?
“Girlfriend, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“What, y’all fighting?”
“No. We’re done.”
“Really?” she asked and smacked gum in her mouth, which annoyed Widow, but she had a great smile, and he wasn’t one to turn down a ride, no matter who was driving.
He nodded.
“You need a ride?”
“I do.”
“Pitch in for gas, and I’ll give ya a ride.”
“Not a problem,” he said. He scrambled around the rear of the truck and took out a small wad of hundreds from the bag and zipped it back up before she could see it.
He hopped in the passenger side and handed her a hundred-dollar bill. He said, “How far will this get me?”
She took it and examined it and said, “Hell, that’ll get you to San Antonio if you want.”
“Seriously?”
“Well, I’m actually headed in that direction. I was gonna go to a local dive. Have a beer. Look for a friendly man like yourself. A man with some extra cash. If you catch my meaning.”
She was a hooker. A hooker with a Ford Bronco. For some reason, this made Widow smile and give a slight chuckle. After everything he’d been through, and the cops and probably the Secret Service two steps behind hunting for him, a hooker had come to the rescue.
He said, “Tell ya what. I don’t know how much you charge. But I’ll pay you two hundred to drive me to San Antonio.”
She looked in the rearview mirror and then back at him and said, “Two hundred?”
He nodded.
“You got it.”
And they were off.
Six minutes later, his phone rang. It wasn’t the dead guy’s phone—it was Sheriff Harks’. He almost didn’t answer it because he figured that by now, the sheriff might’ve gotten out. But it was Cameron.
“Hey,” he said.
Cameron said, “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. It’s good.”
“The pil
ot said you didn’t return with him. Said you exited on your own. Wouldn’t talk anymore about it.”
“Yeah. About that,” Widow said.
“Yeah?”
“There might be some cleanup.”
Cameron said, “I already told them I didn’t know who you were or what they were talking about. And I encouraged them to forget as well.”
“Thank you,” he said.
She asked, “Where will you go now?”
“East, I think.”
“Why east?”
“Why not?”
She didn’t respond to that.
He said, “Get some sleep. I’ll see you around, Cameron.”
“See you,” she said, and he hung up.
He sat back and stared out the window.
“Everything all right, hon?”
“Yeah.”
“Who’s dat? Girlfriend?”
He said, “Yeah.”
“You want to talk about it? We got a long drive still.”
“Nah. Actually, I want to take a nap. Would that be okay?”
She said, “Sure. I won’t bother you until we get there.”
“Thanks. Thanks for everything. What do I call you?”
“Michelle.”
“Jack Widow,” he said, and he racked the seat all the way back and closed his eyes.
CHAPTER 42
THE NEXT MORNING, a forgiving sun rose over El Paso, Texas. Sunbeams fired through the windows of the hospital. Patients were sleeping in all over the hospital because the night before they had to be moved around and stay up most of the night due to a false fire alarm. Parked in the parking lot were a firetruck and an El Paso police car, both on reserve.
A local detective had been on the phone with the US Navy all morning, trying to track down a helicopter that had landed on their roof, but the Department of the Navy was denying any such event. Then it was proposed that perhaps one had been stolen, but they vehemently denied this.