The Forgotten Holocaust (Ben Hope, Book 10) (23 page)

By the time they’d ridden the lift up from the subterranean car park to the mall above and reached the exit, the whole place had been invaded by a swarm of police who were trying to contain the crowds of terrified shoppers driven from the mall in a mass panic by the sound of gunfire and explosions from down below. A pall of black smoke was pouring from the mouth of the car park entrance and climbing into the late afternoon sky as a fleet of emergency vehicles screeched onto the scene. A chopper was hovering overhead, its thud mingling with the chaotic noise of sirens and hysteria. Pitched gun battles evidently didn’t happen every day in downtown Tulsa.

Gazing up and down the packed street, Ben could see no sign of the white van. It must have managed to get away unnoticed just in time. ‘I didn’t catch your name,’ he said.

‘Erin Hayes,’ she replied, frowning at him. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me who you are?’

‘Let’s get some coffee,’ he said.

The coffee shop they found quarter of a mile away was already alive with the breaking news of the incident. ‘I heard an eye witness said it was a buncha Muslims,’ one guy said. ‘Goddamn a-hole terrorists,’ someone else kept insisting loudly, over and over, until someone shushed him as a report came on the little TV above the counter and they all gathered around to stare. Ben bought two coffees and took them over to a booth by the window, far enough away from the focus of attention for him and Erin to talk privately. They could hear the helicopters and sirens even from this distance. Now and then a patrol car went screaming down the street outside, drawing stares from anxious passers-by.

‘So, Ben,’ she said after a long gulp of coffee. ‘It is Ben, right?’

‘Ben Hope. Nice to meet you, Erin.’

‘I suppose I should be thanking you for saving my life.’

‘That makes a difference from pointing a gun at me. My pleasure.’

‘Except I still don’t know who the hell you are, or where the hell you popped up from all of a sudden.’

‘Long story. What did they want with you?’

Her eyes moistened suddenly and her coffee cup began to shake in her hand. Now that she was safe, delayed shock was beginning to set in. ‘They were trying to kidnap me. They’ve been after me for days. My life … everything … just fell apart. They’re going to kill me. I know it.’

‘That’s not going to happen, Erin,’ Ben told her. ‘Why are they after you?’

‘Because of something I witnessed,’ she said, working hard to compose herself. ‘Something they did. Them and their boss.’

‘You mean McCrory?’

She looked at him. ‘So you know what this is about. You didn’t just appear out of nowhere.’

‘I have an interest in McCrory,’ he said. ‘Him, and his men. They kill people.’

She nodded. ‘That pretty much sums it up.’

‘What’s your connection with him? Do you work for the mayor’s office?’

‘His wife runs a charity here in Tulsa. I work for her. She and I are kind of friends. That’s why I was there at the McCrorys’ cabin that night when they …’ She paused, looking at him through narrowed eyes as a thought came to her. ‘This isn’t about Kirk Blaylock, is it? Some kind of revenge thing?’

‘I’ve never heard of Kirk Blaylock,’ he replied, with a look of sincerity that convinced her he was telling the truth. ‘Who is he?’

‘Was. The man I saw them shoot to pieces that night. He was about to betray McCrory to the Feds.’

‘I’m not here because of him. I’m here because of someone called Kristen, Kristen Hall. She was murdered.’

She scrutinised him carefully. ‘Then are you a cop? A detective?’

‘I’m just a concerned individual,’ he said. ‘I was there when they killed her. I’m responsible for putting things right. She suffered. McCrory has to be answerable for that.’

‘Was she—?’

Ben shook his head before she finished. ‘No relation. Just a friend.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Me too.’

‘Why did they kill her?’

‘All I know for the moment is that she was a threat to them. I’d like to know more, and I get the feeling you have more information than I do. I think we can help each other. Who was the man you were with? The one they shot?’

Erin hesitated before replying. ‘He was a police detective. His name was Topher Morrell. He was helping the FBI. They’re investigating McCrory because they believe …’ She paused again, and glanced anxiously across the coffee shop.

‘Nobody’s listening,’ Ben said. ‘The FBI believe what?’

Erin leaned forward and said in a low voice, ‘Morrell said that McCrory deals arms to a Mexican drugs cartel called Los Locos. It means “the Crazy Ones”.’

‘I know what it means,’ Ben said. He wasn’t even that surprised at what he was hearing.

‘McCrory supplies them with all kinds of military hardware. It’s a big-time operation. If he becomes governor, it’s going to get even bigger.’

After all, Ben thought, the higher you rose in US politics, the more illegal arms you could trade into Mexico. The efforts of a small privateer could never compete with the government’s own Fast and Furious programme, which had deliberately and secretly introduced tens of thousands of firearms into the Mexican criminal underworld in order to create instability and justification for US paramilitary expansionism.

‘McCrory was a lawyer. He’s never been remotely connected to the military. Where’s he getting the stuff?’

‘The Feds think it comes through Ritter and Moon. They’re his henchmen, or lieutenants, or whatever the hell is the right word.’

Ben’s eyes narrowed. ‘Ritter and Moon?’

‘Billy Bob Moon, he’s the one with the ponytail. Chews gum all the time. Matt Ritter is the other one. Morrell said they were both ex-Special Forces.’

Ben was silent for a few moments as he pictured the two men in his mind. ‘It’s what I thought,’ he said quietly.

‘About the arms dealing?’

‘No, but I might have guessed about that too. Every time I meet up with those two, there are fireworks.’

‘You’ve met them before?’

‘The first time it was just sticks and blades. But the second time they were using automatic rifles and an awful lot of fancy munitions. Today they were using KRISS Vectors. Pretty newfangled hardware, and full military spec too. Not easy to get hold of.’

‘Morrell said that Ritter’s the one with the connections,’ Erin said. ‘They have a whole warehouse full of weapons, somewhere in Tulsa County. And crews of drivers trucking it down through Texas, over the border. This one cartel, Los Locos? They’re getting ready to fight a whole war against federal firearms and drugs agencies who’ve been trying to clamp down on them. Scum like McCrory are only too happy to supply all the military hardware they can get. Like those things – what did you call them?’

‘KRISS Vectors. Forty-five calibre submachine gun. Like a radical update on a Tommy gun. All polymer. Very advanced delayed recoil system, cyclic rate of over a thousand rounds a minute. I’d never even seen one before. I can imagine drug gangs would pay a pretty penny for a few crates of those.’

‘How come you know all this stuff?’ she asked, looking at him hard.

‘Because I was a soldier too,’ he said.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter who you were. You can’t go against these people. It’s not just Moon and Ritter. McCrory has about thirty men working for him. A small army.’

‘That should even the odds a little in their favour,’ Ben said with a grim smile.

‘They’ll kill anyone who stands in their way,’ she insisted. ‘Like Kirk Blaylock. He was ready to tip all the information over to the authorities. Your friend, Kristen, she must have known something too. That’s why they got to her.’

Ben was silent for a moment as he considered what he’d only just that afternoon discovered in Elizabeth Stamford’s journal. He thought about Kristen obtaining McCrory’s personal number from Chris Ingram. Remembered her telling him with excitement that if her plan worked, she could give up work forever. ‘I think Kristen was shaking McCrory down for money,’ he said. ‘A lot of money.’

‘There, see?’

He shook his head. ‘She didn’t know anything about this. It’s something else.’

‘There’s more you need to know,’ Erin said. ‘The police chief, O’Rourke – McCrory owns him.’

‘Naturally.’ No great surprises there either.

‘Morrell was spying on him for the Feds. So we can forget about going to the cops.’

‘That was never my intention,’ Ben said.

‘But we have to do something.’

‘We?’

‘I have evidence,’ she said. ‘Evidence that could put McCrory away forever. The murder at the cabin – I videoed the whole thing on my cellphone.’

‘Where’s the phone now?’

‘I gave it to O’Rourke, along with a copy I burned on disc. That was before I knew he was one of them, and it’s what made me a target the moment I told him what I knew. But there’s another disc they don’t know about. A second copy.’

‘Got it with you?’

‘You’re kidding. It’s hidden. Somewhere nobody would think to search for it.’

‘And what are you planning on doing with it?’ Ben asked her.

‘I figure there’s only one thing I
can
do, now I know what I know,’ she said. ‘Go to the Feds.’

‘Then what?’ he asked.

She frowned at him. ‘They won’t do nothing.’

‘Maybe not. Maybe they’ll come galloping into town on their white horses, arrest McCrory, put an end to his political career forever and then sling him in jail. Or else maybe they’ll just keep doing what they’ve been doing so far, sitting it out until they have enough to nail the whole operation. Why else didn’t they pounce the moment you handed Morrell the evidence?’

‘I need a new life,’ she said. ‘I can’t go back to the old one. I’m a single woman with no kids, no ties, no family worth hanging onto. I’ve already walked away from my job and my home. The FBI can easily make me disappear. Gone, forever, where I’ll be safe and I can start over.’

‘I’ve heard of people disappearing even more permanently when the witness protection programme didn’t quite live up to the hype. It’s a little too much faith to place in government agents. The authorities haven’t exactly done a great job of protecting you so far. You’ve put your neck on the block for them, and they allow you to remain at risk. Does that sound as if they really care about what happens to you?’

‘McCrory will be in jail. You said so yourself. He can’t get to me from there.’

Ben shook his head. ‘Think again, Erin. Think really hard. A man with McCrory’s wealth can get to you from anywhere. How many Mafia hits have been sanctioned from inside, over lobster and champagne dinners with the prison governor?’

‘Isn’t that a little bit cynical?’

‘Cynical, as in, not hopelessly naïve?’

‘So what are you saying?’

‘That you can run. You can run halfway around the world if you want to.’

‘But I can’t hide?’

‘Not forever. Even if it all goes the way you hope and the FBI are true to their word and whisk you away under a whole new identity, and McCrory and his henchmen get slammed up in jail until they’re very, very old men. Doesn’t matter. They’ll get you eventually, because nobody ever disappears. Not completely. It can’t be done.’

‘You sound pretty darn sure of that.’

‘I am, because I’m the guy folks used to call upon to find those disappeared people. It’s what I did for a living.’

‘And now you’re going to tell me you always found them.’

‘If a person’s still breathing, they can be found. Take it from me. What happens to them then depends on who found them. If it’s someone like me, it can be a happy ending. If it’s someone like McCrory’s people, it won’t be.’

‘That’s just wonderful,’ she said sourly. ‘So let me get this straight. Even if the Feds give a shit what happens to me – which they probably don’t – and even if I can trust them to put me in the protection program – which I probably can’t – I’m dead anyway?’

He nodded. ‘More or less.’

‘Thank you so much for the reassurance. You just made a fantastic day even better.’

‘I don’t want to have to think that the worst could happen to you,’ he told her. ‘Just like I don’t want to have to think that McCrory is living it up in a nice warm minimum-security jail somewhere, with more privileges than most people on the outside and more power than it’s safe for a man like that to have at his disposal. And he won’t serve out the full term, either. No chance.’

‘So what’s the alternative?’ she asked helplessly. ‘What the hell am I supposed to do?’

‘Drink your coffee.’

‘It’s cold.’

So was his, but he drained it anyway. ‘Then let’s go.’

‘Go where?’

‘The nearest used car place, for a start. There’s not much we can do without transport. After that, I have an errand to run. Then we’ll hole up and get some rest while we think about our next move.’

‘Hole up?’

‘My place.’

‘Uh-huh. Your place.’

‘You’ll love it. Very snazzy. All mod cons.’

She raised an eyebrow.

‘Don’t you trust me yet?’ he asked.

She looked at him. ‘Do I have a choice?’

‘Not if you want to live.’

‘Okay,’ she said after a beat. ‘But we don’t need to buy a car. I have another one we can use.’

Evening was falling as they reached the row of lock-up storage units. ‘This one,’ Erin said, pointing at the third steel rolldown shutter door on the right. The graffiti on it was old and faded, matching the neglected-looking state of the rest of the place. She produced a pair of keys from her purse, knelt down at the foot of the shutter and undid the heavy padlocks that fastened it securely at each side. ‘Help me out, will you? Mechanism’s kind of rusty.’

‘I hope the car inside isn’t rusty, too.’

‘Wise-ass. You’ll see.’

Ben grasped the bottom of the shutter, tugged hard and it rose up with a grinding scrape. Erin ducked her head as she walked inside the dark space. He followed her, seeing nothing but shadows. The inside had the garage smell of car wax, old oil, cold metal.

‘There’s a light,’ she said. ‘But roll down the door first.’

Another grinding creak, and for a moment they were in total darkness before Erin found the switch and flipped it on. Overhead neons blinked and flashed brightly to life. Ben looked around him. The garage was bigger than it looked on the outside. Apart from a few old boxes of junk stacked up along one wall and a wooden workbench with an array of tools, all it contained was the long, wide, low shape of a car covered by a canvas tarpaulin. She walked over to it, picked up one edge of the tarp and began pulling it away.

Ben wasn’t much of a car enthusiast. He appreciated automotive virtues like ruggedness, reliability and speed where needed, but beyond that he’d never regarded cars as anything more than tools. A vintage Land Rover was no more or less exciting to him than a Lamborghini, depending on whether he had to navigate a desert or race across Europe in a day. But even he had to give a low whistle as the tarp slipped to the floor. The lights gleamed on the sleek curves, deep black paintwork and chromed wheels of the classic American muscle car.

‘1971 Plymouth Barracuda,’ Erin said, gazing at the car with a wistful look in her eye. ‘My daddy’s pride and joy. He built most of it himself.’

‘He lets you drive this old beast?’

‘Daddy passed away some years back. He left it to me. This car was pretty much all he had to leave to anyone, security guards’ pensions being what they are.’ Erin opened her purse again and took out a set of car keys. ‘It’s not been used a whole lot since he died. I’ve only driven it a couple of times, but I keep it maintained.’ Seeing Ben’s look of surprise, she added with a smile, ‘Daddy taught me a lot of things most little girls don’t get to learn. How to strip down a Hemi V8, how to handle guns. I can skin and dress a whitetail, too, from when he used to take me deer hunting.’

She drew the Springfield nine-millimetre from her pocket. This time she didn’t aim it at Ben. ‘This pistol was the last thing he gave me before he died.’

‘Now I understand why you didn’t want to leave it behind,’ Ben said.

‘Said the world was going to hell in a hand basket. He wanted his little girl to stay safe after he was gone.’

‘You will be,’ Ben said.

‘Maybe. Or maybe I’ll end up like Topher Morrell. Poor Topher.’ Erin walked around the back of the Plymouth, unlocked the trunk and opened the lid. Reaching inside, she took out a large brown envelope. Inside was a polythene bag that Ben saw contained a compact disc. ‘Another reason I brought us here,’ she said. ‘This is where I’ve been keeping it.’

‘The copy of the video?’

‘You got a DVD player at your place?’

‘I don’t need to watch it,’ Ben said. ‘I don’t need convincing. I’ve already seen what McCrory does to people who get in his way.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘You already asked me that,’ he said.

‘And you never gave me an answer. What’s your plan? Walk right in there and kill him, is that the idea?’

‘Let’s just say that you won’t end up like Morrell. Not if I have anything to do with it.’

‘What about Ritter and Moon? You want to get to McCrory, you’re still going to have to deal with them sooner or later.’

Ben made no reply. He turned away from the Plymouth and ran his eye along the old wooden workbench. Its surface was rough and pitted. It had an old-fashioned steel vice G-clamped to its top. Ben sifted through the assortment of tools and picked up a heavy-duty hacksaw and a steel file. ‘Mind if I borrow these? And the vice, too.’

‘Be my guest,’ Erin said with a shrug, too bemused to ask what he wanted them for.

‘Will you drive, or will I?’ he asked.

‘I’ll drive, you navigate. Your place, right?’

He shook his head. ‘Shopping first.’

Frank Gallagher’s general store was closed and in darkness, but when Ben walked around the side of the wooden building he saw there was a light on in one of the upper floor windows. Around the rear was a rundown porch with a back door. Ben tinkled a bell that hung from a bracket on the wall.

‘This guy a friend of yours, or something?’ Erin asked, frowning in the dark.

‘We’re like this,’ Ben said. He tinkled the bell again. A dog started barking resonantly inside. A few moments later, he heard footsteps from the other side of the door, along with the scrabble of canine claws on bare floorboards. A light came on in the porch and a voice said, ‘Quiet, Elvis.’ The dog stopped its noise. An eye appeared in a small hole drilled through the door. It blinked and peered at Ben. Then there was the sound of locks rattling and the door creaked open.

‘Back so soon?’ the old shopkeeper asked with a wrinkly grin. He was barefoot and appeared to be wearing nothing but an ancient pair of dungarees. The smell of sour mash whiskey wafted from the dusty hallway. A large German Shepherd stood by its master’s side, eyeing the visitors with a lolling tongue.

‘Couple of things I left off my shopping list,’ Ben said. ‘You said I could give you a yell any time.’

‘Like I said, store never closes,’ Frank said. ‘Come on in. How’s the Perryman place workin’ out for you?’

‘A real home from home,’ Ben said, leading Erin inside. ‘Thanks for the recommendation.’

‘Evening, miss.’

‘Erin, meet Frank.’

‘And this is Elvis,’ the old man said.

‘Ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, right?’ Erin said, patting the German Shepherd, which lathered her hand with its enormously long tongue.

‘He keeps away the customers I don’t want comin’ round after regular hours,’ Frank said as he locked the door shut behind them. He ushered them down the dusty hall. Another door led through to the back of the store. Elvis trotted along after them, having taken an instant shine to Erin.

‘So what can I do for you, Ben? I never forget a name,’ Frank said with a smile. ‘You need some provisions? Beers? Some more clothes, mebbe?’

‘I was thinking more along the lines of a Browning A5, Mossberg 500, something like that,’ Ben said.

‘Goin’ hunting, huh?’ the old man said without missing a beat.

‘You might say that. And some boxes of shells, too. Double-aught buck and Brenneke slugs.’

‘Little on the heavy side for a turkey shoot?’

‘Christmas is a long way off,’ Ben said. ‘The turkeys are safe for now.’

‘Then I reckon you’re goin’ after more dangerous game?’

‘The most.’

‘Whatever you say. Stay right there.’ The old man vanished into a side room and came out a few moments later with a long box under his arm, which he laid on the counter and opened up. ‘Ithaca 37 Featherlight,’ Frank said, lifting out the shotgun from the box. ‘Just like we had in ’Nam. Five-shot pump, slam-fire trigger, cylinder-bore choke. A regular Howitzer. How many shells you want?’

‘As many as I can get in the trunk of a ’71 ’Cuda,’ Ben said.

The old man grinned from ear to ear. ‘Oh, boy. Didn’t I say old Frank Gallagher’s got everythin’ you need?’ He disappeared again into the back room, then re-emerged staggering under the weight of a teetering armful of cartridge boxes. ‘Hornady and Federal mostly, some Winchester mixed in there,’ he panted, dumping them on the counter next to the gun before returning for more.

Ben ran his eye across the mountain of boxes. Each slug load propelled over an ounce of solid lead at twelve hundred feet per second – enough knock-down power to kill an elephant, if killing elephants had been his thing. The 00-buck cartridges blasted out eight round balls of .33 inches in diameter, roughly equivalent in firepower to three short bursts from a submachine gun, only delivered all at once in a lethal swarm that could blow a door off its hinges. He counted seventeen boxes of buckshot and thirteen of solid slug. Twenty rounds per box. The shotgun took four in the magazine and one in the chamber. He had enough to reload it one hundred and twenty times over.

‘That should do it,’ he said. ‘I’ll need a bag for this lot.’

‘I’ll throw the bag in for free,’ Frank said, going over to a stand and picking up a black canvas holdall that looked strong enough to carry a full load of gold bars inside.

‘One more thing. I need a knife, too.’

‘Can’t go huntin’ without a knife, right?’ Frank said. He reached below the counter and nonchalantly produced a monstrous survival knife, as if customers asked for them all the time. Ben popped the retaining stud on the sheath and inspected it. Cheap stainless steel and a short tang, mass-produced in some Far-Eastern factory and just waiting to snap in half at the first bit of punishment.

‘No good?’ Frank said, seeing his expression. ‘Okay, hold on. I got somethin’ back here that’s a little more special. Didn’t have no mind to sell it, but …’ He disappeared once more and Ben could hear him rooting about in the Aladdin’s cave he had back there. ‘Here it is,’ said the muffled voice, then Frank came back out holding something wrapped in a rag. He laid it on the counter and pulled back the folds of oily cloth.

‘Hundred fifty bucks,’ he said proudly. ‘Because it’s you.’

Ben picked it up. The knife was old, but almost immaculate. Its blade was long and double-edged. The steel hilt was shaped like a spiked knuckleduster, with four separate holes for the fingers to slip through. It had a skull-crushing pommel cap and stamped letters on the metal handle that said ‘US. 1918’. This wasn’t a hunting knife. It wasn’t a survival knife. It existed for one purpose only, to kill. It had been designed a long time ago by a military mind that knew exactly what that involved and how to make an efficient job of it. And Ben could tell it had been used in the past for just that purpose. The faint dark stains on the blade were corrosion from the blood of someone who’d died many years ago with it inside him.

‘Mark 1 US army trench knife,’ Frank said.

‘That’ll work,’ Ben said.

‘If it don’t, it means you got a serious problem on your hands. Which I’m guessin’ maybe you do anyway. Am I right?’

Erin shot Ben an anxious look. Ben said nothing.

‘I mind my own business,’ Frank said. ‘Just tell me one thing. You’re not goin’ to do anything crazy with all this hardware, now, are you, son?’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it in a thousand years,’ Ben said.

‘Good enough for me. You paying cash? That’s even better.’

‘It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Frank.’

‘You enjoy the rest of your stay in Tulsa, Ben. You too, Miss. I’m sure glad you folks stopped by tonight.’

‘Oh, sure,’ Erin said, raising an eyebrow at Ben. Elvis padded across and slobbered over her hand, his way of saying goodbye.

Ben carried the Ithaca and the heavy holdall out to the Plymouth and got Erin to unlock the trunk. ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this,’ she said, watching as Ben laid their cargo inside, next to the tools he’d brought from the lock-up garage and the brown envelope that contained the DVD. ‘You drive,’ she said, tossing him the car keys. ‘I mean, you’re not insured, but what the hell. We’re past the point where it really matters any more.’

‘Let’s go and get something to eat,’ he said.

‘I’m not sure I have much of an appetite.’

‘Then I’ll get something to eat,’ he said.