Exclusive

by Sandra Brown

  Smiling at the possibility, she picked up the phone. “Barrie Travis.”

  “Saw you on TV yesterday. Did you color your hair?”

  It was Charlene Walters. “I had it highlighted. Do you like it?”

  “No. You ought to change it back the way it was.”

  Barrie smiled. Charlene was almost as famous as she. Her name had appeared in every story, broadcast or print, about the collapse of the Merritt administration. The prison inmate now considered herself Barrie’s colleague.

  “How are you, Charlene?”

  “I’ve got gas. They fed us beans at lunch.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Listen, I’m due on the set in—”

  “You must be walking on air, on account of what all you started.”

  Six months had passed since Becky Sturgis’s resurrection. Trials were pending for Merritt and Armbruster. Prosecutors were still organizing their cases. Defense attorneys were trying to scrape together a defense against overwhelming evidence and witnesses willing to give incriminating testimony in exchange for immunity or leniency.

  “I don’t take any pleasure in lives being destroyed,” Barrie said. “Although I hope this will serve to prevent such unconscionable abuse of power in the future.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it, people being what they are.”

  Barrie glanced at the clock. Three minutes. She placed the phone in the crook of her neck and took a mirror and powder puff from her desk drawer. There’d be no time for makeup. “It’s been great talking to you, Charlene, but—”

  “For myself, I wish they’d take the bastards out and hang ’em. After what they did to Becky, they shouldn’t be allowed to go on breathing another day.”

  “If they’re convicted, the justice system will punish them appropriately.”

  Charlene snorted her contempt of the system. “At least when I told you about Becky, you did something. It took you a while, but you finally got busy.”

  “Yes, well—”

  “Not like her. She didn’t do a damn thing.”

  “Well, she was in prison. As she said, there wasn’t much—”

  “Not Becky, nitwit. Mrs. Merritt.”

  Barrie set down her mirror and took the telephone receiver back into her hand. “Mrs. Merritt?”

  “Ain’t that what I said? Vanessa Armbruster Merritt.”

  Surely she’d missed something. With one eye on the clock, one on her mirror, and Charlene chattering in her ear, she’d missed a vital segue. “Are you saying you told Vanessa Merritt about Becky Sturgis?”

  “Duh!”

  “When, Charlene?”

  “When what?”

  “When did you speak with her—when did you tell her about Becky Sturgis and her baby?”

  “Let’s see now. It was after Becky told me, of course. Must have been shortly after Mrs. Merritt became First Lady.”

  “Charlene, if this is one of your tales—”

  “You’re my friend. I don’t tell tales to my friends.”

  Barrie’s mind was spinning. “Let me be sure I understand. You told Mrs. Merritt, the First Lady, about Becky Sturgis—about her involvement years ago with David Merritt?”

  “All of it. Just like I told you. I told her that David Merritt had killed Becky’s kid and that the senator had covered it up for him.”

  Barrie placed her elbow on her desk and rested her forehead in her palm to stop the room from whirling.

  “I wrote her letter after letter,” Charlene went on, “warning her that she was married to a killer, but she ignored me. At least I thought she did. Then one day, she calls me up here at the prison. Gave a false name, of course, but left a number where I should call her back collect. We talked for half an hour or more. Pissed off the ladies waiting in line to use the phone, but I told them to screw off.”

  The clock on Barrie’s desk was ticking, but not as loudly as her heart. She swallowed a surge of nausea.

  An assistant producer poked her head through the door of her office. “Barrie? Ninety seconds.”

  Barrie acknowledged the notice. “Charlene, didn’t you tell anyone that the First Lady had called you?”

  “Course I did!” she exclaimed. “But you think they believed me?”

  The woman who’d been Robert Redford’s college sweetheart and had borne Elvis’s love child? Who would have believed her?

  “So…” Barrie couldn’t hold a thought. “So…”

  “Barrie?” The assistant producer reappeared. “You okay? We’re on in one minute.”

  “I’ll be right there.” Then she said to Charlene, “So after you told her the Becky Sturgis story, what did she say?”

  “She said to keep it between us and stop writing her letters or she’d sic the FBI on me. I said she could come down here, meet Becky, and hear the story for herself, but she said no, she couldn’t do that. She said it had happened a long time ago and that it probably wasn’t true anyway. Made me mad as hell, me going to all that trouble to get in touch with her, and her not even heeding my warning. Less than two years later, she comes up pregnant. After what I told her, she still went and had a baby with that man. She must be crazy.”

  Vanessa Armbruster Merritt was anything but crazy.

  Barrie, please help me. Don’t you know what I’m trying to tell you?

  What if her motive was plain ol’ everyday spite?

  I did not kill Robert Rushton. She did!

  About that, David Merritt had been telling the truth.

  She’s the crazy one.

  And in the words of Charlene Walters, jailhouse philosopher, Crazy people can get away with just about anything. You’d be amazed.

  In a voice barely audible, Barrie asked, “Did you ever hear from Vanessa Merritt again, Charlene?”

  “Only once. When she called and suggested that I call you.”

  About the Author

  Sandra Brown is the author of over sixty New York Times bestsellers, including most recently Low Pressure; Lethal; Rainwater; Tough Customer; Smash Cut; Smoke Screen; Play Dirty; Ricochet; Chill Factor; White Hot; Hello, Darkness; The Crush; Envy; The Switch; The Alibi; Unspeakable; and Fat Tuesday, all of which jumped onto the New York Times list in the numbers one to five spots. There are over eighty million copies of Sandra Brown’s books in print worldwide and her work has been translated into thirty-four languages. In 2008, Brown was named Thriller Master by the International Thriller Writers Association, the organization’s top honor. She currently lives in Texas. For more information you can visit www.SandraBrown.net.

  Journalist Dawson Scott knows well the horrors of war.

  But when he investigates a pair of domestic terrorists, his true ordeal begins…

  Please turn this page for a preview of Deadline.

  Prologue

  Branch, Oregon—1976

  The first hail of bullets was fired from the house shortly after daybreak at 6:57.

  The gunfire erupted in response to the surrender demand issued by a team of law enforcement agents.

  It was a gloomy morning. The sky was heavily overcast and there was dense fog. Despite the limited visibility, one of the fugitives inside the house got off a lucky shot that took out a deputy U.S. marshal whom everybody called Turk.

  Gary Headly had met the marshal only the day before, shortly after the law enforcement team comprised of ATF and FBI agents, sheriff’s deputies, and U.S. marshals met for the first time to discuss the operation. They’d congregated around a map of the area known as Golden Branch, reviewing obstacles they might encounter. Headly remembered another marshal saying, “Hey, Turk, grab me a Coke while you’re over there, will ya?”

  Headly didn’t learn Turk’s actual name until later, much later, when they were mopping up. The bullet struck half an inch above his Kevlar vest, tearing out most of his throat. He dropped without uttering a sound, dead before landing in the pile of wet leaves at his feet. There was nothing Headly could do for him except offer up a brief prayer and remain behind cover. T
o move was inviting death or injury, because, once the gunfire started, the open windows of the house spat bullets relentlessly.

  The Rangers of Righteousness had an inexhaustible arsenal. Or so it seemed that wet and dreary morning. The second casualty was a redheaded, twenty-four-year-old deputy sheriff. A puff of his breath in the cold air gave away his position. Six shots were fired. Five found the target. Any one of three would have killed him.

  The team had planned to take the group by surprise, serve their arrest warrants for a laundry list of felonies, and take them into custody, engaging in a firefight only if necessary. But the vehemence with which they were fired upon indicated that the criminals had taken a fight-to-the-death stance.

  After all, they had nothing to lose except their lives. Capture meant imprisonment for life or the death penalty for each of the seven members of the domestic terrorist group. Collectively the six men and one woman had chalked up twelve murders and millions of dollars’ worth of destruction, most of it inflicted on federal government buildings or military installations. Despite the religious overtone of their name, they were wholly without conscience or constraint. Over the relatively short period of two years, they had made themselves notorious, a scourge to law enforcement agencies at every level.

  Other such groups imitated the Rangers, but none had achieved their level of effectiveness. In the criminal community, they were revered for their audacity and unmatched violence. To many who harbored antigovernment sentiments, they had become folk heroes. They were sheltered and were provided with weapons and ammunition as well as with leaked classified information. This underground support allowed them to strike hard and fast and then to disappear and remain well hidden while they planned their next assault. In communiques sent to newspapers and television networks, they’d vowed never to be taken alive.

  It had been a stroke of sheer luck that had brought the law down on them in Golden Branch.

  One of their arms suppliers, who was well-known to the authorities for his criminal history, had been placed under surveillance for suspicion of an arms deal unrelated to the Rangers of Righteousness. He had made three trips to the abandoned house in Golden Branch over the course of that many weeks. A telephoto lens had caught him talking to a man later identified as Carl Wingert, leader of the Rangers.

  When this was reported to the FBI, ATF, and U.S. Marshals Service, the agencies immediately sent personnel, who continued to monitor the illegal weapons dealer, and, upon his return from a visit to Golden Branch, he was arrested.

  It took three days of persuasion, but, under advice of counsel, he made a deal with the authorities and gave up what he knew about the people holed up inside the abandoned house. He’d only met with Carl Wingert. He couldn’t—or wouldn’t—say who was sequestered with Wingert or how long they planned to harbor there.

  Fearing that if they didn’t move swiftly, they’d miss their opportunity to capture one of the FBI’s Most Wanted, the federal agents enlisted help from the local authorities who also had outstanding warrants for members of the group and were more familiar with the rugged terrain. The team was assembled and the operation planned.

  But it became immediately obvious to each member of the team that Wingert’s band had meant what they’d said about choosing death over capture. The Rangers of Righteousness wanted to secure their place in history. There would be no laying down of arms, no hands raised, no peaceful surrender.

  The lawmen were pinned down behind trees or vehicles, and all were vulnerable. Even a flicker of motion drew gunfire, and members of the Rangers had proven themselves to be excellent shots.

  The team commander radioed the operations post, requesting that a helicopter be sent to provide them air cover, but that idea was nixed because of the inclement weather.

  Special Ops teams from local, state, and federal agencies were mobilized, but they would be driving to Golden Branch, and the roads weren’t ideal even in good weather. The team was told to stand by and to fire only in self-defense while men in safe, warm offices debated changing the rules of engagement to include using deadly force.

  “They’re playing patty-cake because one of them is a woman,” the commander groused. “And God forbid we violate these killers’ civil rights. Nobody admires or respects us, you know,” he muttered to Headly, who was the rookie of the team.

  “We’re feds, and even before Watergate, ‘government’ had become a dirty word. The whole damn country is going to hell in a handbasket, and we’re out here freezing our balls off, waiting for some bureaucrat to tell us it’s okay to blast these murdering thugs to hell and back.”

  He had a military background and a decidedly hawkish viewpoint, but nobody, especially not he, wanted a bloodbath that morning.

  Nobody got what they wanted.

  While the reinforcements were still en route, the Rangers amped up their firepower. An ATF agent took a bullet in the thigh, and from the way it was bleeding it was feared his femoral artery had suffered damage, the extent of which was unknown, but on any scale that was life-threatening.

  The commander reported this with a spate of obscenities about their being picked off one by effing one unless…

  He was given the authorization to engage. With their assault rifles and one submachine gun, in the hands of the wounded ATF agent, they went on the offensive. The barrage lasted for seven minutes.

  Return fire from the house decreased, then became sporadic. The commander ordered a cease-fire. They waited.

  Suddenly, a man bleeding from several wounds, including a head wound, charged through the front door, screaming invectives and spraying rounds from his own submachine gun. It was a suicidal move, and he knew it. His reason for doing it would soon become apparent.

  When the agents ceased firing, and their ears stopped ringing, they realized that the house had fallen eerily silent except for a loose shutter that clapped against an exterior wall whenever the wind caught it.

  After a tense sixty seconds, the commander said, “I’m going in.” He levered himself up into a crouch as he replaced his spent cartridge with a fresh one.

  Headly did the same. “I’m with you.”

  Other team members stayed in place. After checking to see that they were loaded and ready, the commander crept from behind his cover and began running toward the house. Headly, with his heart tightly lodged in his throat, followed.

  They ran past the body sprawled on the wet earth, took the steps up to the sagging porch, and then stood on either side of the gaping doorway, weapons raised. They waited, listening. Hearing nothing, the commander hitched his head and Headly barged in.

  Bodies. Blood on every surface, the stench of it strong. Nothing was moving.

  “Clear,” he shouted and stepped over a body on his way into an adjacent room, a bedroom with only a ratty mattress on the floor. In the center of it, the ticking was still wet with a nasty stain.

  In less than sixty seconds from the time Headly had breached the door, they confirmed that five people were dead. Four bodies were found inside the house. The fifth was the man who’d died in the yard. They were visually identified as known members of the Rangers of Righteousness.

  Conspicuously missing from the body count were Carl Wingert and his lover, Flora Stimel, the only woman of the group. There was no sign of the two of them except for a trail of blood leading away from the back of the house into the dense woods where tire tracks were found in the undergrowth. They had managed to escape, probably because their mortally wounded confederate had sacrificed himself, taking fire at the front of the house while they sneaked out the back.

  Emergency and official vehicles quickly converged on the area. With them came the inevitable news vans, which were halted a mile away at the turnoff from the main road. The house and the area immediately surrounding it were sealed off so evidence could be collected, photos and measurements taken, and diagrams drawn before the bodies were removed.

  Those involved realized that a thorough investigation of the incident
would follow. Every action they’d taken would have to be explained and justified, not only to their superiors but also to a cynical and judgmental public.

  Soon the derelict house was filled with people, each doing a specialized job. Headly found himself back in the bedroom, standing beside the coroner, who was sniffing at the stain on the soiled mattress. To Headly, it appeared that someone had peed in addition to bleeding profusely. “Urine?”

  The coroner shook his head. “I believe it’s amniotic fluid.”

  Headly thought surely he’d misheard him. “Amniotic fluid? Are you saying that Flora Stimel—”

  “Gave birth.”

  Look for These Thrilling Sandra Brown Novels!

  Low Pressure

  Lethal

  Mirror Image

  Where There’s Smoke

  Charade

  Exclusive

  Envy

  The Switch

  The Crush

  Fat Tuesday

  Unspeakable

  The Witness

  The Alibi

  Standoff

  Best Kept Secrets

  Breath of Scandal

  French Silk

  LOOK FOR SANDRA BROWN’S THRILLERS

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Welcome Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two