Smoke & Mirrors (27 page)

104

ALEXA SAT IN THE EXTENDED CAB OF LEIGH’S PICKUP
parked in a dark pecan orchard a mile from Six Oaks, waiting for whatever Styer was waiting for.

“Can we go home now?” Cynthia asked. “I told Mama what you said to.”

“Sit quiet and let the adults talk. We’ll be going in shortly,” Styer said. He continued thoughtfully, “I should have been an athlete. My father was a gymnast, a gold medalist for East Germany. My mother was a chess player, a grand master who was a cryptologist for Stasi. When I was eight, I had an IQ of over one hundred and sixty, amazing physical strength and agility.”

Styer smiled, his eyes far away. “My parents were good Germans. Hitler and his generals were giants, conquering an entire continent one country at a time. Few complained while they were winning because their stomachs were full and they could feel proud again.”

“Good Germans,” Alexa said, not knowing what else to say.

“My parents let the KGB take me from them when I was nine. I remember them telling me how wonderful it was that I would be trained as so few were. How fortunate I was to have been born so special that such very important men and women would prove my greatness to the world. They were so proud.” There was a distinct note of bitterness in the last words.

“When they came for me to take me to the school, it was winter. I recall how the exhaust pipe smoked in the dark, how the snow crunched beneath my shoes. I was taken by plane to a base at the foot of the Ural Mountains, and out from there, by military helicopter.”

“What kind of academy was it?” Alexa asked, curious.

“It was a school for assassins, but of course I didn’t know that at first.”

Styer stopped talking when three sets of headlights came into view. “There they are. Massey and the others. Jeep and two cruisers. Let me remind you, Alexa, before you try to turn on the lights, that I have the cell phone in my hand.”

“I know that.”

After the caravan was out of sight, Styer set down the binoculars. “Where was I?”

“You were talking about your parents.”

“Last year I dropped in for a visit with them. Not a word had they had from me in twenty-nine years, and they begged me to stay. But we were no more than strangers. My mother said she was sorry she ever let them take me, but had no choice. She and my father were just being good Germans who showed their appreciation by giving their beloved only son to the state. I became no more than an instrument for others to use to their own ends, instead of something else like a doctor, a musician, even an Olympic gold medalist.” Styer smiled strangely. “You can’t imagine all those nights I cried silently in my bed so no one could sense my weakness and use it against me.”

“I know there must be something of the boy you were deep down inside you,” Alexa said. “None of this is necessary. If you leave, Winter won’t be a threat. His children need him. His wife needs him.”

Styer put the truck in gear, then turned it off and looked at her. “It will be less suspicious if you will drive again from here, Alexa. Cyn, no warning looks or I will kill the deputy and cut your throat. Come around, Alexa, and I will slide over.”

Alexa got out and climbed back into the cab to find that Styer had adjusted the seat forward for her. She cranked the truck, deciding to keep him talking if she could. She wanted to reach the little boy who had once loved his parents.

“Do you keep in touch with your parents?”

“That’s hardly possible, darlin’,” Styer said in the voice of the man he was now impersonating. “They died in an accidental fire while I was visiting with them. Of course, being an only son, I stayed in Berlin long enough to make the funeral arrangements.”

105

A MAN DRESSED IN A CASINO EMPLOYEE’S ATTIRE
waited at the elevators, smiling at their approach. “Mr. Klein and his attorney are expecting you.”

His name tag said he was Alex Coyle, the concierge. After they got into the car, he signaled to a young bellboy who was standing beside the desk. The youth came over and got into the elevator, taking a key from the concierge. He put the key in the lock, pressed the button for the eighth floor, and watched the panel with a customer-service smile plastered on his face.

“Hello, Mr. Green,” Winter said to the boy whose name tag read,
JOHNNY GREEN
.

He nodded. “I’m supposed to show y’all up.”

“Nice night,” Leigh said.

“I guess so,” Johnny said. “In here you wouldn’t know if it was night or day. Is it freezing over yet?”

“It’s getting colder by the minute,” Billy Lyons said as the elevator stopped.

Johnny Green escorted them down the hall to suite 825, and rapped on the partly open door with gloved fingers.

“Enter!” Kurt Klein’s unmistakable voice cried out.

Billy Lyons reached into his pants pocket, withdrew a money clip, and peeled off a twenty, which he handed to the bellboy.

“Thank you,” Johnny Green said, putting the bill into his pocket without inspecting it. He held the door open until they were inside and closed it gently behind them.

“Never would have found the eighth floor on our own,” Winter said, ribbing his friend.

“What I’m charging for this,” Billy said, “I can afford to be generous.”

106

THE LIMOUSINE FLOATED ALONG NEARLY DESERTED
county roads, while Albert recorded the confession Finch had demanded.

“That was almost perfect,” Finch said, after listening to the second version. “Concise and covers all of the major points.”

Despite the fear that he was about to be killed, Albert was furious that Klein was going to cover his ass using Albert’s dead body.

Albert knew where they were going before they turned off the paved road, through the woods to where the landscape opened up like a battlefield. The limousine rolled among great tortured clumps of gathered tree limbs toward the lone equipment-storage structure, which was visible against the levee that ran north to south like a great wall.

The limo driver got out and opened the gates, then drove into the parking lot surrounding the structure, leaving the gates standing open.

“You don’t have to kill me,” Albert said weakly.

“In fact, I do,” Finch told him. “Those are my orders. How I accomplish the task is up to you. I can torture you and roll your fat carcass into a hole and let you smother as we push dirt over you, or I can put you to sleep painlessly. I don’t dislike you, Albert. There’s nothing personal in this. I believe the mitigating factor is that you and Jack Beals robbed and murdered customers of Herr Klein’s casino for profit. Pretty shortsighted—liquidating future customers—don’t you think?”

Albert didn’t know how they knew about his side enterprise, but seeing that they had found his stash, and knew about Beals’s stash, there was no sense denying it.

“How much did Mulvane take?”

“He wasn’t in on it.”

“Was Murphy involved?”

Albert shook his head.

“Just you two?”

Albert nodded. He was thinking about the gun locked up in his desk, and wishing Tug had come along. With Tug, there would be hope. Without him, there was none.

The limo stopped ten feet from the door. The driver and the two thugs climbed out. The driver used a key to open the personnel door and stepped inside to turn on the lights. Meanwhile, Finch aimed his weapon at Albert. “After you, Albert.”

Albert rolled from the seat and crabbed out of the vehicle, hardly aware of the icy drizzle that stung his cheeks like BBs. When he took a step, he slipped in a slick patch in front of the door and his feet flew out from under him. At the sight of Albert flat on his back and flailing in pain, Finch and the thugs laughed—cruel children delighted by the struggles of a flipped-over turtle. With one of the big men pulling on either of his arms, Albert scrambled to his feet, his pants clinging wetly to his soiled buttocks.

107

TUG HAD FOLLOWED THE LIMOUSINE, AND PARKED
White’s SUV at the edge of the woods. On foot, he trailed the five men into the enormous barn filled with massive earth-moving equipment. The tires on some of the pieces were taller than he was. Only the closest rows of overhead warehouse lights were on, and the men were clustered below a steel support beam in front of the manager’s trailer.

After slipping into the rows of equipment, Tug watched as the driver placed a cinder block and a wooden crate side by side below the beam. The larger of the thugs went into the office trailer and returned with a looped yellow nylon rope, which he threw over the beam. The driver tied a slipknot in one end and, after taking out the slack, the noose dangled five feet over the crate.

“You’re planning to hang me?” Albert asked in a horrified voice. “Not that!”

“Do as we say,” Finch told Albert. “There are propane torches in here, if you’d like to go that route.”

“Get up on the crate, fatso,” the largest thug demanded. “There’s also dynamite in the explosives shed. We could shove a stick up your ass and light it.” The men all laughed, no doubt delighted by the prospect.

“We could roast your little pig balls,” the driver said, snickering.

Tug moved closer each time the men said something, using their noise to cover his stealthy movements.

Resigned, legs shaking, Albert climbed onto the cinder block and stepped onto the crate, which shifted under his considerable weight. While the smaller of the thugs kept his gun aimed at Albert’s groin, Finch climbed up onto the block and placed the noose around Albert’s neck. The driver pulled the far end tight and tied it to a steel water pipe.

Albert began begging for his life, steam issuing from his mouth in the cold building.

“Please…please…don’t do me like this, Mr. Finch,” he said.

“Mr. Finch…please!” the driver called out. The four men, standing in a loose line with their backs to the equipment, were laughing and jeering.

Tug Murphy was in position, his shotgun loaded to its steel gills with five rounds of double-ought. It would be enough. He had left his coat outside so he would have immediate access to the USP45 in his shoulder holster, along with the six loaded magazines suspended under his right armpit.

“Please!” Albert screamed. “Please let me have me a few last words!”

Tug stopped behind a bulldozer that stood between him and the men. He crept around the massive steel treads and in behind the lowered blade. Tug put the shotgun against his shoulder, took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and straightened, now square to the men as the gun cleared the top of the steel blade. While only his head and shoulders were exposed, the men between him and the wall had no cover at all, and not one of Klein’s henchmen had a gun in their hand at the moment.

The limousine driver saw Tug rise into view, but the barrel aimed at him froze him in mid-laugh. When Tug squeezed the trigger, the driver’s head literally vanished. As his corpse collapsed, his hat spun away like a Frisbee.

Tug aimed the next shot at Finch’s legs, but because Finch was already moving, the buckshot only took his right knee off. The South African fell hard on his left side and went for his gun, but Tug swung the barrel to one of the others who had drawn steel and was raising the muzzle of his handgun. Tug blew a hole in that man’s chest, a few inches below his neck.

There was a dull clap as Finch’s gun barked, but the bulldozer blade deflected the round. Tug’s third blast hit Finch in the right shoulder, rendering his hand inoperable as the gun locked in his grip fell heavily to the dirt.

Tug heard a report and felt a slap to his right shoulder. He turned to see Albert kick out at the last standing shooter, striking him in his back before he could fire again. It didn’t keep the man from firing at Tug, but it spoiled his aim. As Albert shifted his balance to kick out again, the crate fell on its side, the noose abruptly ending his fall. It took longer than it should have for Tug to point the gun, but the back-kicked man was squatting now to get a more solid shooting stance. He took the buckshot square in his stomach and fell behind the overturned crate. Tug pointed the shotgun at the crate and fired again, the buckshot piercing its wood slat walls to find the man behind it.

Having counted his shots, Tug was peeling a shell from the bandolier as he made his way around the blade. Albert grunted and clawed desperately at the noose and began spinning and kicking, moving in a jerky circle. In the time it took to get a shell in the tube, jack it into the gun’s receiver, and aim at the swaying rope, Albert’s tongue was already sticking straight out between his teeth.

The lead pellets cut the ski rope and Albert fell, flattening the crate.

As Tug rushed past Finch, he kicked his Browning away. He set the shotgun down and loosened the slipknot. Albert gagged and choked, but he picked up one of the shoes he’d kicked off and hummed it at Finch.

Albert couldn’t talk, but he grunted pitifully, pointed a fat finger at Finch, and made a throat-slashing motion.

“Good idea,” Tug said, plucking out a foam earplug. He stood, took out his folding knife, and went over to Finch, who looked at him with furious eyes. “Go ahead, wanker. You don’t know what you’re in for,” he said.

“I know what you’re in for,” Tug said.

Finch smiled. “They know you’re…” Tug grabbed Finch’s ear, and as he was drawing the serrated edge hard through Finch’s throat, the man said something that sounded like “Paulazar.” Whatever it was, he wouldn’t be saying it again, because Tug severed Finch’s windpipe as he drew the blade through his neck, with no concern for the warm spray that hit his face. When Tug stood and looked at Albert, he saw figures moving behind him and several bright muzzle flashes. The kneeling Albert White jerked like he’d grabbed a live wire. His shirt sprouted red blossoms as more red spray filled the still air.

Tug felt dull punches all over his body. He threw himself behind the manager’s shack as the dirt where he had stood was still being churned. Bullets pinged the pieces of equipment as, with great effort, Tug pulled out his pistol and fired several rounds toward the figures dressed in black who’d come through the same door he had. He heard a loud grunt and smiled bitterly. At least he’d hit one of them, but they had to be SWAT because they were in black assault suits with body armor, so the hit wouldn’t do more than knock the breath out of him. He had seen at least four shapes, though it was likely there were twice that many.

“You think you’re going to arrest me?”

A man laughed. “We aren’t the arresting type. Here’s the offer. Come out and we’ll hold fire.”

“Go fuck yourself with a stick,” Tug barked, spitting blood. If they weren’t cops, were they Finch’s backup? Christ, what had the man expected he might run into? He could hear more men running into the building and dispersing. In a few seconds they would kill him where he lay mortally wounded.

He looked from the door to the explosives safe facing him. Sitting up, he crawled over, aimed, and used two bullets to blow off the hasp holding the large padlock. Painfully, he pulled the door open and scooted inside the dark cold space.

“You aren’t getting out!” the voice yelled.

Tug set the handgun down and used the flashlight from his pocket to look at the stacked crates of TNT. He figured there were several hundred pounds of explosives in the small shack. He was losing focus as the blood ran in gushes from a dozen holes in his body. The bullet-struck organs were closing down, and coupled with blood loss, it made it difficult to remember why he was there. He stared at the boxes in the circle of light from the flashlight he had dropped, reached for one of the small cardboard boxes on the shelves beside him, and put it on the floor against the carton of dynamite closest to him.

“Hey!” he yelled, coughing. “Come on in. I’ve got something for you!”

He heard men talking outside the structure and, opening the box, he looked at the cylinders stacked inside.

“Ten seconds to come out or we start filling that shed with holes,” a voice replied. “Ten, nine, eight, seven…”

Tug used his remaining strength to stick the muzzle of the HK down against the blasting caps and tighten his grip.

“Three, two…”

His hand trembling, Tug felt the trigger giving.

“One!” the voice outside yelled.

Smiling, Tug Murphy closed his eyes and squeezed.