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Authors: John Gilstrap

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BOOK: At All Costs
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“Come on!” he whisper-shouted. “Let’s get this over with!” He waved at them one more time and they finally emerged from their camouflage, looking anxiously over both shoulders as they scurried to join him.
“Relax, Carolyn. You look like you just robbed a bank.”
“I
feel
like I just robbed a bank.” She sounded close to tears. “I don’t like this. Harry said . . .”
Carolyn fell silent, and they stopped dead in their tracks as the Cadillac pulled smoothly away from the narrow shoulder.
“What the hell is he doing?” Jake gasped. He fought the urge to call after him.
Then they saw it. First, as a wash of headlights, then as a blue and white Ford with a light bar. West Virginia State Police.
“Oh, shit!” Jake hissed. “It’s a setup.”
“No!” Carolyn insisted. “Not from Harry.”
“What are we gonna do?” Travis whined.
They were completely out in the open, too far from the tree line to make it back without being seen. Whatever they were going to do, they had to get it done in the next five seconds, or this would all be over. “The ditch!” Jake declared, pointing.
Moving as one, they dashed the three steps to the drainage ditch that ran parallel to the road, and dove in, sliding face-first in the gooey runoff and road trash.
Jake thought his chest might explode as he lay there, his eyes closed tight against the fear, listening as the cruiser drove past. If the cop spotted them, they were done. Even his gun was useless. He couldn’t get to it in time for it to do any good.
No one moved, even after the sound of the engine disappeared. A good minute passed before Travis broke the silence. “Is he gone?”
Jake sneaked his head above the ditch and slipped his hand to the grip of his pistol. Nothing but empty road, twisting out of sight in both directions. “Clear,” he announced at a whisper. “Back to the trees!”
Jake grabbed Carolyn’s hand, and she grabbed Travis’s as they scurried back to the shadows and collapsed into the bushes.
“Oh, my God,” Carolyn breathed. “I
told
you to wait!” She hit Jake in the chest, hard enough to hurt.
He said nothing.
When you’re right, you’re right.
“Do you think he saw us?” Travis whined.
“No,” Carolyn said unequivocally.
Jake wasn’t so sure. “I don’t know. Even if he saw us, he might not have stopped. We’re armed and dangerous, remember?”
No one was sure what to do next. Their ride was gone, the police were cruising the area, and they were stuck in the middle of nowhere at midnight, without transportation. Five minutes passed.
“Do you think he’s coming back?” Jake asked.
“Who, the cop or our ride?”
Jake shrugged. “Pick one.”
Again, Travis answered for his mom. “I’m guessing: ride, yes; cop, not for a while.”
Jake rumpled his hair, drawing an annoyed look. “I like the way you think.” Two more minutes passed. Then three. Then five. “This isn’t good,” Jake whispered.
When Carolyn and Travis both missed their cue to argue, Jake’s spirits slipped even further. Suddenly, capture seemed imminent. And what exactly would capture mean? Certain jail time, he figured, for decades, at least, if not life—or maybe even death. For the first time in years, Jake’s mind recalled a tour he’d taken of a police station back when he was a Cub Scout—maybe ten years old. The best part of the tour had been the weapons locker, with all the rifles, pistols, and shotguns lined up like soldiers at attention; but the tour also included a peek at the detention cells, with their peeling paint and their metal beds and their toilets without any privacy. Even after all these years, Jake could clearly remember the tour guide reciting the dimensions of those steel-and-concrete boxes: six-by-eight. He didn’t even know what the numbers meant back then, but he knew that it meant small. And he hated small.
You could suffocate in a cage that small.
In fact, of the entire Cub Scout den, he alone refused to cross the threshold to “try the cell on for size,” as the cop had said. He knew how much other kids liked to fool around, and he remembered feeling terrified that one of them might think it would be funny to close the door on him. Even if they’d been able to find a key, there’d have been those minutes—however few—when he would have been locked alone in a tiny room, with everyone watching him and laughing at him as he sobbed and begged for them to let him out.
But it never happened that way. He’d said, “No thank you,” to the police officer, and the police officer had respected his wishes. Still, the fear he’d experienced back then felt very, very real, even today, nearly thirty years later.
Neither surrender nor capture was a viable option.
“How long do you think we should wait?” Travis asked.
“Till next Thursday, if we have to,” Jake said.
The Cadillac returned. “There he is,” Carolyn said excitedly.
The mammoth white car returned to its spot in the road and parked. “This time we stay put until he gives the signal,” Travis ordered. God, he was getting bossy.
Nothing happened for thirty seconds, and then the interior light came on. Right away, Jake recognized the driver as good old Thorne—the man without a sense of humor. Even after fourteen years, he hadn’t changed a bit.
While the Donovans watched, the broad-shouldered man pulled himself out of the driver’s seat and closed the door behind him. There was movement, but they couldn’t tell in the dark what he was doing until a lighter flared in front of his leathery face.
“Now?” Jake prompted.
“C’mon.”
They approached the car slowly but not stealthily, walking like regular people down a regular road in the middle of a regular night. “Remember,” Travis whispered. “Don’t startle him.”
Jake smiled. “God, Trav, if he can’t see us by now, I don’t want to be riding with him in a car.”
“Just remember, is all.”
“I’ll try.”
No one said anything until they’d approached within five feet of the driver, who, on closer inspection, had only one eyebrow, which stretched from ear to ear. He made no moves as they approached, but there was something about the way he smoked the cigarette that didn’t look right. Then Jake realized that the guy was keeping his hands free.
How reassuring.
And the hands wore gloves.
“Hello, Thorne,” Carolyn said softly. “Nice to see you again.” She gave him a perfunctory hug, and the tightly coiled man returned it, sort of.
Thorne did his best to squeeze out a smile. “Mr. Sinclair says hello. Your friend Nick will be able to join you tomorrow.”
“That’s
great
!” Carolyn exclaimed. “What about Uncle Harry? Will I see him, too?”
Jake checked his watch nervously. “Shouldn’t we get going?”
Thorne ignored him. “No, Mr. Sinclair can’t make it. The FBI’s been watching him pretty closely since you guys popped up again.” He seemed a little startled at the sight of Travis, who in turn did his best to keep his father between himself and the cold brown eyes. “What’s this?” Thorne asked.
“It’s a boy,” Jake answered, his voice weighted with sarcasm.
Thorne’s mouth smiled, but his eyes did not. His eyes never smiled, in fact. “I’d forgotten what a funny man you are, Jack.”
“It’s Jake,” Travis corrected defensively.
Thorne regarded them both as if they were table scraps. “We’ve gotta get going,” he said. He opened the back door and revealed a mess of luggage and newspapers strewn all over the seat and floor. “This spot’s for you, kid,” Thorne instructed. “Climb under all that stuff and cover yourself up good.” He pushed a button on his key chain, and the trunk popped open. “You and your husband have to ride back here for a while, Sunshine,” he explained. “They got roadblocks every place looking for you two. Can’t stop us without probable cause, and with you back here, they got probable nothin’.”
Jake pulled up short. “I’m not getting in the trunk,” he said.
“Oh, yeah?” Thorne challenged, clearly amused. “Why not?”
“I’m claustrophobic.”
The big man rolled his eyes. “Get over it, then. ’Cause that’s how I’m driving you. It’s that or walk. You choose.”
Jake watched as Travis burrowed under the trash in the backseat, and Thorne helped Carolyn into the trunk. At least it was a big one.
Shit.
In the end, Jake took a deep breath, swung his feet over the edge, and lay down.
C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-THREE
Nick Thomas had every right to be at his desk, even if it was after one in the morning, just as he had every right to be grazing through the computer files on his screen. He’d written the damn things, in fact.
Why, then, did he feel like such a criminal?
This was crazy, he told himself as he pulled up the documents he needed, and printed them out. Topo maps, prevailing wind patterns, daily work logs—everything that had anything to do with the EPA’s cleanup of the Newark site. The more he thought about this Sinclair character’s explanation of Jake and Carolyn’s theory, the more ridiculous it sounded. Talk about overkill. All of that destruction just to hide a corpse, which could have been hidden, anyway? It was absurd.
There was a certain logic, he supposed, that a blade of grass is best hidden in a bale of hay, but could the same hold true of bodies? If you stacked bodies high enough and violently enough, could you possibly hope to slip one through a crack somewhere?
Every twenty minutes or so, he fought a new urge to call the police and bring this all to a stop. To his knowledge, Nick had never before broken a law—unless you counted the occasional speeding violation. Even there, he allowed himself ten percent over the speed limit, no more. Now he couldn’t
begin
to imagine the number of laws he was preparing to break.
If he ultimately found himself explaining his actions to authorities, he’d cast Harry Sinclair in the role of villain, threatening his own family with a horrible fate. Given the telephone ruse, he thought it would get him past a lie detector. Without such an excuse, people might figure out the real reason he was going along with this foolishness. And when they did, they’d know something that he’d only just figured out for himself.
The reality of it all smacked him in the head around ten o’clock—long after Sinclair had dropped him back at the headquarters building. The ninety-minute drive was over, and his assignment was clear. As Nick pieced together the plan in his head, he realized that for the first time in years, he felt truly alive. He’d stepped outside of his up-at-five, homeby-seven routine, and the presence of a little danger felt inexplicably invigorating. He felt guilty as hell for thinking such juvenile thoughts, and then he realized that even the guilt felt good. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt true emotion like this, unburdened by second thoughts about what he
should
be feeling or what he
ought
to be doing.
For at least these few brief moments, he was working for himself. The only deadline he faced was the one he imposed upon himself by accepting this assignment, and deep in his heart of hearts, he knew that he was doing a job for which he was uniquely qualified. No one else in this massive sea of bureaucrats could dig up the details of Newark so efficiently—not his boss; not the fresh meat from college. He alone knew what to look for in these files, because he alone knew what he put there.
Knowing the layout of the storage magazine was crucial—too crucial to be left to memory. He and the Donovans had to know how to get in, and how to get out if something went wrong. Then there were the security concerns. He dove into the project with a zeal he hadn’t enjoyed in years.
Reflecting further on it, Nick figured that at the end of the day, this was about friendship
and
about settling scores. About facing the image in the mirror every morning. He’d allowed himself to be railroaded into silence back in 1983, surrendering to the political forces who wanted the Newark Incident to just disappear. In his haste to cover his own ass, he’d sat quietly and allowed the EPA and the FBI to construct an ironclad case against his friends, never once speaking up to declare that the authorities were full of shit. It was too easy to remain silent. Even now he couldn’t point to a single action he could have taken or a single speech he could have made that would have changed anything. But fact was, he didn’t even try—and not only Jake and Carolyn but he himself had paid the price.
Then there were the bodies: the worst sacrilege of all. To this day, the entry team remained where they had fallen, denied the simple dignity of burial, all because the people in charge had placed their careers above human decency.
Well, Nick could fix that now. He could fix a lot of things, in fact.
It was one-thirty by the time he’d printed everything he needed, and then it was time to go. He placed the two-inch stack of papers into his briefcase and clicked it closed. He’d told his family he was headed to Arkansas for business, but left a note for his boss that he needed a few days off to attend to a sick relative in Oregon. With an overnight bag in one hand and his briefcase in the other, Nick walked briskly toward the door. He’d still have a short wait for his ride, once he reached the lobby, but that was okay. He knew the guard on duty that night, and for weeks the guy had wanted Nick to see pictures of his new baby.
As he headed for the elevator, Nick marveled at the value of this gift he’d been given. How often, he wondered, did a person get to travel back into his own past to set the future straight?
BOOK: At All Costs
13.71Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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