Blood Silence (37 page)

“Name it.”

“I’m wondering if you could grease the skids over at the FBI. I have two probable cover IDs for a couple of what I think are professional killers. They look like cowboys. Just from their look and attire, and without being completely stereotypical, I’m thinking Texas, Oklahoma, and maybe Colorado might be good hunting grounds for these guys. I’m wondering if we have someone over at the FBI who’d be willing to see if they can figure out who these guys
really
are.”

“Get me the pictures, and I’ll see what I can do.”

Mac sent the pictures via e-mail to the Judge. He checked his watch. It was just after 7:00
A.M.
He yawned. He’d been up over twenty-four straight hours, other than a half-hour catnap on the flight.

“What are you thinking, Mac?” Rahn asked.

Mac sat back in his chair, looked at Rahn, and sighed. “Mr. Rahn, I’m thinking that as much as you don’t want to, at some point very soon, you’re going to have to come out of hiding. You’re going to have to speak to how you obtained this memorandum and of what you know. Are you going to be willing to do that?”

Rahn clasped his hands together and leaned his chin down on them in thought. After a minute, he exhaled and nodded slowly. “For Callie, I will.”

“Good,” Mac replied. “I respect what you’ve done. I’ll do what I can to keep the people who have to know at a minimum until the time comes. But sooner or later, I think you’ll have to speak, if we’re going to get what we want here.”

“I understand,” Rahn answered. “I knew that if I took this step, I might have to do that. Let the chips fall where they may.” The old man poured himself another cup of coffee. “So what’s next?”

“Sleep,” Mac replied tiredly. “I need to sleep for a few hours. Do you have a place I could crash for a bit?”

Rahn smiled. “I think we can fix you up.”

W
heeler watched his rearview mirror as he approached the right turn. The only vehicles behind him were the bright headlights of the two tanker trucks he’d passed, transporting the fluids that made the oil and gas fields work.

Fifteen minutes ago, he dropped his alibi off at her apartment. They met up at their usual place, the Wolf’s Den, sat at a table in the middle of the place, visible to all, made PDA spectacles of themselves and didn’t leave until nearly 1:00
A.M.
She spent the night with him, and he never went near the County Line, never took a call, and acted suitably horrified when word reached him about the sheriff. His alibi was as solid as it could possibly be.

He turned right and motored down the rough country road, vigilantly watching the rearview, but nobody turned to follow. Two miles down the road, he reached the turn to the farmhouse and took the lengthy approach road to the house, where only a sliver of light glowed out of the small, vertical gap in the kitchen-window curtains. He parked, slid out of his pickup truck, and looked to the right at the aluminum barn. The double doors that were typically slid open were now completely closed, concealing the Tahoe.

He walked up the steps and pushed his way into the kitchen to find Royce sitting in a chair, a .45 in his hand, pointed at Wheeler.

Wheeler put his hands up.

“Were you followed, Speedy?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. I was very,
very
careful,” Wheeler answered, panicked. “Jesus Christ, would you put that fucking gun down?”

Royce lowered it and looked to his right as Clint walked into the kitchen, his .45 in his hand, hanging casually toward the floor. Clint walked to the window and spent a moment peering through the narrow gap in the curtains. He turned and shook his head. The coast was clear.

“After last night, we’re not taking any chances,” Royce cautioned, resting the gun back in his lap. “At times like these, it’s not always easy to know who your friends are.
Someone
could suddenly decide we’re a liability,” he suggested.

“It wouldn’t be me,” Wheeler answered. “How far do we go back?”

“Since we was kids,” Royce replied.

“That’s right,” Wheeler stated hotly before sitting down. “If you two are a liability,
I’m
a liability.” He pulled a burner phone out of his pocket. “We need to call O’Herlihy.”

“Why would we even stay around here?” Clint asked. “We need to get the hell out of Dodge.”

“Agreed,” Royce affirmed. “Why stay? Why push it?”

“O’Herlihy will make it worth your while,” Wheeler promised. “He wants to talk, and he’s putting more money on the table.”

“I don’t know,” Clint replied.

“Look,” Wheeler pleaded, “I know you two can run and nobody will be the wiser, but
I can’t run.
Not like you two can. I need your help for just a little longer.”

Royce looked over at Clint, who shrugged the shrug that said, “We gotta have our guy’s back.” The three of them went back to childhood. That meant something to all three of them. Wheeler took the less violent route through life, but he’d always been there for them the last four years with work—good-paying work—and they needed to pay him back now that he was in a spot.

“First, what’s the latest on the sheriff?” Royce asked as he grabbed the coffee pot and three cups off the counter and poured everyone a cup.

“I don’t know for sure,” Wheeler answered, sipping the coffee. “Last I heard, he was still in surgery.”

“He jumped at the last second,” Clint offered, shaking his head in disgust. “But man, even still, I hit him but good. It should have been enough.”

“And McRyan?” Wheeler inquired.

“I just plain missed,” Royce answered flatly. “Based on what we saw yesterday and then heard on our wire over his table at the County Line, we needed to make the move last night. No choice and we had to improvise on the fly.”

“Someone laid on a car horn,” Clint noted. “That gave them both just enough warning.”

“Still,” Royce moaned. “I had McRyan in my sights but, at the last second, he saw us coming and dove, and I just … missed him. Is there any word on his whereabouts?”

“He’s at his hotel. I’ve got someone at a very comfortable distance, watching his Yukon, and it hasn’t moved,” Wheeler answered.

“And the police haven’t come to see you?” Royce asked Speedy.

“No. I’m kind of surprised.”

“Me too,” Royce answered. “Why do you think that is?”

Wheeler shook his head in confusion, and then his eyes flashed. “Perhaps McRyan hasn’t said anything about what he and Rawlings were up to. I mean, think about it—with Rawlings out of play, who would he trust around here?”

“Certainly not Borland,” Royce answered. “That guy is not up to the task, and I’m sure McRyan concluded that as well.”

“So that maybe bodes well for us,” Speedy Wheeler speculated. “It gives us some time. Are we ready for O’Herlihy?”

Clint and Royce nodded. Wheeler hit the pre-set number on the burner phone.

O’Herlihy answered on the first ring. After the update from everyone around the kitchen table, their boss took over. “Listen, everybody sit tight for now. Clint and Royce, you two stay at that farm while there’s daylight. You two can’t be out and about in the light—it’s too dangerous.”

“Agreed,” Royce answered.

“Dan, you go to work and conduct business as normal,” O’Herlihy ordered and then asked, “You have a solid alibi for last night, right?”

“I was at the bar until late and then went home
with
company, and she stayed the night,” Wheeler replied, “so my alibi is tight. I was nowhere near the County Line. If they want to check my cell phone records, they’re clean, and I already dumped the burner I’ve been using to contact Clint and Royce. I have a new clean one. So if they come and question me, I’m solid.”

“As far as we know, nobody has anything on Clint or Royce, not even what they look like,” O’Herlihy declared. “Once it’s dark out, you boys get rid of that Tahoe—burn it, bury it, drown it, destroy it, whatever you have to do, but get rid of that damn thing.”

“Then what?”

“Then you hunt McRyan down and kill him,” another voice replied, the one they’d heard one other time. “Another million will be wired to each of your accounts. He has to go down—whether up there or down here in the Cities, you have to take care of him and do it soon.”

“We can handle Rawlings if he survives,” O’Herlihy added. “He’ll be gun-shy after this. He’s got his son to think about.”

“And if he isn’t?” Royce asked.

“And if he isn’t,” O’Herlihy continued, “we’ll take care of him with our political friends, and if that doesn’t work … well, there’s other ways.”

“But McRyan will not stop,” the other voice continued. “He’s onto us now. He’s focused on Deep Core. You heard it on the wire, and you’ve seen it in his actions. I’m telling you, he won’t stop until he’s buried us or we’ve buried him. It’s as simple as that.”

• • •

Big Sky, Montana.

Mac’s cell phone alarm awoke him shortly after 10:00
A.M.
, after nearly three hours of deep, hard, and restful sleep. He’d always been someone who could function on three or four hours of sleep. In college, law school, and even in his job, he could go for days, full throttle, and get by on just a few hours of sleep here and there. He never understood why that was—it just was.

He rolled out of bed and pulled his black hoodie back on over his T-shirt then pulled on his hiking boots and laced them up. He slowly and sleepily shuffled out of the bedroom and found Phelps and Rahn back in the library, relaxing by the fireplace. Mac was mildly surprised. He’d half expected for the two of them to have flown the coop while he slept.

“Feel better?” Rahn asked, pouring a cup of coffee for Mac.

“Yes, thank you.”

“I’ve been thinking, Mac,” Rahn mused. “Is the memorandum enough to go after Deep Core?”

“I’m not going to have just that,” Mac answered. “I have a few other things percolating to which I should have answers soon.”

“Lining things up,” Rahn suggested and then smiled knowingly. “
The Art of War
.”

“But with a twist. I want to win the battle before there’s a fight—or at least another fight,” Mac replied with a smile. “There’s been enough bloodshed.”

“So what’s next?” Rahn asked.

“Back to Williston.”

I
f it were possible to be totally amazed yet completely unsurprised, that was how Mac felt. The lengths people, often wealthy people, would go to for money and power always amazed him yet no longer really surprised him.

Mac thought of himself as wealthy—not remotely Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, or Antonin Rahn wealthy, certainly, but he would never have to worry about money. And that always made him wonder about wealthy people who would go to any lengths for more money, for greater wealth, for more power. Why? When would there be enough? He didn’t yet know exactly who was calling the shots, but he knew, at the end of the line of authority, would be someone very wealthy for whom their fortune simply wasn’t enough, or for whom their fortune was worth more than nine lives.

It left him in a somber, dark, and angry mood.

It left him in a mood that matched the world around him.

November was always a gloomy month in the Midwest—cloudy, windy, and progressively colder, the month the Midwest transitioned from fall toward winter. It was a month in which, in this part of the world, nature reminded you daily of the bitter cold and snow soon to come. This was when the wind started coming with increasing velocity and ferocity from the north-northwest, with that chill from Alberta and environs farther north. Day after day, the clouds in multiple shades of gray enveloped the sky as far as the eye could see.

And today was such a day.

As the jet now dropped below the cloud deck, he peered out the window, sipping his coffee, taking in the vast expanse of gently rolling topography of western North Dakota. The fields long since harvested of their summer crops were now simply dotted with oil and gas wells. As the pilot announced the approach into Williston, Mac made a quick count of twenty wells in his view out of one side of the plane looking to the north, easy to see because of the gas flames burning off at the top of the oil derricks. Billions in oil and natural gas were being harvested. In North Dakota alone, there were over a million barrels of oil being produced a day—a day. And if his view of Highway 2 was any indication, the convoys of tanker trucks would make sure today was another million-barrel day.

Mac was a capitalist— he believed in making money and making it from energy. His investment portfolio was full of such investments. This was the crux of his conversation with Sally while he was on the phone. “It’s just like always, Sal—it’s about money. The way this company is drilling, the chemical composition they’re using, and the bodies they’re dropping—it’s all about money.”

“What should I tell the Judge?”

“Tell him that in about a day I’m going to give him information that he can pursue with the EPA, North Dakota’s Congressional delegation, not to mention the FBI, and who knows, maybe even the SEC if he wants to. I guess that will be up to him.”

Sally was worried. “I’m really wishing I’d never said you should do this.”

“There’s been a time or two the last few days I wish you hadn’t as well.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Mac replied with a small laugh and then quickly became more serious. “Someone needed to do something about this.”

“Just make sure they don’t stop you first,” Sally cautioned. “You’re still on your own up there.”

“I know the nature of the game, Sal, but this thing? I have a feeling this thing is going to be over today.” He hoped that was the case.

The plane landed at the airport in Williston just after noon. As it taxied toward the terminal, Mac’s phone buzzed. It was Detective Lincoln Coolidge.

“Linc, what do you have?”

“Son, you can’t walk anywhere in and around Reagan National and not show up on camera, especially if you’re an asshole wearing a cowboy hat. I got your boys Wilton and Hutchinson coming into DC on the same flight from Minneapolis as Shane Weatherly. The two came off the jetway maybe five seconds after Weatherly, and they split. I’ve got the one named Wilton, if that’s really this boy’s name, following Weatherly through the airport first to baggage claim and then out of Terminal B to the cabstand. He watches Weatherly get into a cab, and then a Black Tahoe sweeps in to pick up Wilton. I presume it was this Hutchinson who was driving the Tahoe. It was a rental, and guess what.”