The White Mountain (5 page)

“But what good would a set of
footprints do?”

“I saw that bastard run in
here.  I know I did.  How’d he get out?  Where’d he go?”

“The one you shot, you think
he might’ve already been inside?  Some sort of Plan B?”

“Not a clue.  Possible,
though.  Henry said there were signs of rope burn on his wrists.”

“Why though?  Seems risky.”

Randall stood up, put a hand
on the wall and leaned over.  Thought for a second, then said, “Kill me,
probably Alice and Jesse, too.  Kill the other guy and make it look like a
murder-suicide.  If he’s as good as he thinks he is, he wouldn’t leave any
traces.  Y’all would be none the wiser.”

“So who’s the dead guy?  He’s
definitely not from around here.”

“Of course he wasn’t.  Small
town like this, you’d notice it too easy.  You open a carton of eggs and it’s
only got eleven inside, there’s something going on.  He brought him in from
somewhere else.”

“Makes sense.”

“It’s how I’d do it.”

The dim light of the cloud
cover made it hard to see inside, but Mary let her eyes wander around the room
anyway.  A tarnished feeding bucket sat in the corner.  Three sets of perches hung
on the walls, each of them covered in its own ancient layer of refuse.  A metal
scoop rested against the leg of a feeding trough.

That was it.  In a ten by ten
room, there was no place to hide.  Where could Randall’s attacker have gone?

A gust of wind rattled the
roof overhead.  Mary glanced up at it.  Something dark and out of place on a
ceiling rafter caught her attention.  As she stepped closer, trying to deduce
what it was, a flash of lightning provided her all the light she needed. 

Mary said, “Uh...Randall?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I found your
footprint.”  She turned, looking at the joist beside it.  “There’s another
one.”

“What the—”  Randall reached
up and ran his fingers across a ridged layer of dried mud.  Some of it flaked
away and dropped to the floor.  He wiped his hand on his jeans.  “Damn nimble
bastard.  Waiting up there, wasn’t he?  Hoping I’d come in and he’d be able to
drop right down on me.”

“Looks like it.”

“Mystery solved.”

“Not really, but it’s a
lead.  What now?”

Randall walked over to the
wire-covered window, gauged the area outside.  The rain on the tin roof had
accelerated from a machine gun rattle into a Gatling gun salvo.  He said, “Me,
I’m gonna wait, get ready.  Make sure all the guns are loaded, sharpen the
knives.  Gotta figure out where I can send Alice and Jesse for a few days.”

“What?  No, you need to pack
up—all of you need to pack up and run.”

“Run?  Hell no.”

“You can’t just hole up here
and wait it out, Randall.  Who knows how long it’ll be before he comes back.”

“Not just he. 
Them
. 
And I don’t have a choice.  It’ll take as long as it takes.”

“You know Al won’t just leave
you here alone.”

“She don’t have a choice. 
Get gone or get dead, because I can’t guarantee I’ll make it out of here alive
myself.  She’ll need to take Jesse and get as far away as possible.”

“Randall—”

“No other way around this
mess.  Could be days, could be weeks.  I can’t risk it.  No way.”

Mary realized that she wasn’t
going to change his mind.  He was prepping himself for another trip into the
bush.  Whether they came from a superior or from circumstance, orders were
orders.  She said, “They can come stay with me and Jimmy.”

“Won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve got a job for
you.  I can’t pay you much, but I sure could use the help if you’re willing.”

“A job?”  It was hard to
imagine she could do anything for Randall, aside from getting her sister and
nephew out of harm’s way.  As unfathomable as the idea was of a super-secret
cadre of trained assassins coming after her brother-in-law, he seemed convinced,
and reluctantly, she believed him.  He’d always been straight with her before. 
“I don’t know what I could possibly—”

“Hear me out.  You’re the
only person in this damn town with more sense than God gave a goose.  This
ain’t gonna be easy, and it’s probably as dangerous as hell, but what I need is
somebody I can trust.  Sure as heckfire won’t be Henry and them boys, I can
tell you that for certain.”

Mary moved closer to him,
braced herself against the wall to take more of her weight off her leg. 
“Okay.”  She nodded.  “Okay.  What do you need?”

“Here’s the thing: I’d do it
myself if I could, but I can’t leave town because that’ll set off all kinds of
alarms inside Henry’s head.  You, not so much.  I reckon I need you to do what those
ten-watt bulbs up at Langley can’t.  Find out who’s running this damn contest
so I can go after them.  Cut the head off the snake and make the prize money go
away, game’s over.  Won’t nobody keep playing just for the fun of it.  Not if
the money’s gone.”

She almost laughed.  If it
hadn’t been for the pleading look in his eyes, she would’ve.  “That’s it? 
Really?  That’s all?  Outsmart the CIA, find some sadistic billionaire hiding
out in his secret lair like a James Bond villain, killing off war heroes?  You
can’t be—this is so far out of my league, I’m not even playing the same sport. 
Look, I know you, and I trust that you’re telling me the truth, but good God,
Randall, as hard as it is to believe that this is your reality, it’s even
harder for me to believe that I could actually do something about it.”

“Well,” he said, “that’s it. 
That’s what I need.  Just tell me how much it’ll cost.”

“Money’s not the issue, you
big goofball.  You’re family.  I’d do it for free if I had even the slightest
idea of where to begin.”

He pivoted and held up his
hands, palms outward.  “There’s a couple things I left out earlier.  Should get
you started in the right direction.”

CHAPTER 5

Mary drove up I-81 as she
made her way toward Washington, D.C., passing the rolling green hills and
trailer parks alongside the interstate, zipping past the gas stations, hotels
and fast food joints that surrounded the base of nearly every exit ramp. 
Shell, Texaco, McDonald’s and Best Western.  Truck stops and convenience
stores.  Each hub was a sea of neon-laced consumerism.  A stopping point to
empty your wallet on the way to somewhere else. 

Eat here!  Buy now! 
Cheapest gas for twenty miles!
 
At least until she happened upon the next location promising the same thing.

With little or no reason to
ever visit the nation’s capital (saw it once, didn’t need to again), it’d been
years since she’d traveled that route, and it surprised her to see how much had
sprung up since the last time she’d been through.

Her windshield wipers swished
away the last remaining drops as the storm moved east, dumping its cargo on already
sodden ground.  She flicked the wipers off, and turned up the Chopin CD.  The
rhythmic tempo drowned out the hum of the tires and helped her think.  To process. 
To analyze.

Back on the farm, Randall had
revealed enough absent details to earn a punch on the shoulder.  All of them
happening years prior, before he came home and married Alice, but shocking and
unbelievable nonetheless.

Four drunken days spent in a
South Korean whorehouse in 2004.  Disobeying direct orders from a superior
officer.  Accidentally stumbling into the wrong room one night, finding the
Korean ambassador and Senator William Kemper playing ‘Hide the Pickle’ with one
well-endowed transvestite hooker.

Mary had stood there,
dumbfounded, with her mouth agape and eyes that couldn’t open any wider. 
“That’s just—what were—Henry was right.  Maybe you can just tell me when the
movie comes out.”

He’d put his hand over his
heart, stood up straight and clicked his heels together.  “On my honor,” he’d
said, “an honest to God, true story.  The head of the Foreign Relations
Committee, the Korean ambassador, and a chick with junk between her—
his
—legs. 
Took me a couple of seconds to figure out what was going on.  Couldn’t believe
it myself.”

“No shit, you couldn’t.  I
don’t even know what to say.  It’s as unbelievable as it is comical.  And what
am I supposed to do with that information?  What’s it got to do with some group
of hitmen coming after you?  And how are the other nine men on your—your stupid
list
—how are they involved?  I mean, are you all connected somehow?  Do
you even know who they were?  It makes absolutely zero sense, none whatsoever. 
It’s not logical, Randall.  You bust in on a couple of high profile politicians
boning a tranny hooker in South Korea and now nine, almost ten guys from the
Special Forces are dead...are you
kidding
me? 
That’s
your story?” 
It was then that she’d punched his chest.

“Dammit, quit hitting me.  I’ve
tried, but it don’t make a lick of sense to me either.  I spent God knows how
many hours running through everything I’ve done, every person I’ve ever pissed
off, and that night’s the only thing I can come up with.  The others, the ones
that’re dead already, no idea.  Your guess is as good as mine.  Hell, probably
better than mine.  You’re smart.  You’re a thinker.  You’ve always been one.  All
I did was shoot things.  Point out a target and I’d put a bullet in it from a
mile away.  I can’t say for certain, but I’d bet my life that it’s got
something to do with it.  Might
have
to bet my life on it.”

“Just so I understand...a
senator and an ambassador got caught doing something they shouldn’t have, what,
eight years ago?  For some reason, they wait
years
and then send a
sneaky German guy to tell you you’ve made their ten most wanted list.  They
turn it into a game, offer a reward, and recruit a group of killers from around
the world to play.  All so they can get to you?  What’s that sound like when
it’s repeated back to you, huh?”

“Maybe it ain’t
just
for me.”

“Randall!  If they wanted to
get rid of you, wouldn’t they have done it sooner?”

“It’s all I’ve got.  Could be
something completely different, but I need you to go find out for me.”

“There’s no way on God’s
green earth that I’m driving five hours away to chase down this stupid ass
theory of yours when there’s a threat to my family.  No way.  None.”

“You have to—”

“It’s ridiculous!”

“Trust me, we’re good here. 
I can take care of myself, and I’ll send Alice and Jesse off somewhere.  Forty-eight
hours.  No more.  You’d be back by noontime Thursday.  That’s all I’m asking. 
Go check around.  Find something.”

“What if I can’t find
anything?”

“Then I better say my
prayers.”

She’d agreed, with irritated
reluctance, but in a situation such as theirs, she figured it was better to be
proactive than reactive.  Randall’s story, as ridiculous as it seemed, was all
she had to go on. 

He’d offered a single contact
point—his CIA friend, Chuck Bailey.  He’d said that as far as he knew, what
help he could offer was likely minimal, but he might be able to get her started.

In addition to Chuck Bailey’s
information, Randall had given her a small GPS tracking device, barely bigger
than a postage stamp, and told her to keep it on her at all times, in case
anything went wrong and he needed to come find her.

“I mean it,” he’d said. 
“Don’t ever let this thing out of your sight.  Stick it in a sock, wherever,
just don’t lose it.”

As hesitant and disbelieving
as she was, she’d promised to do what she could.  She’d gone home, given Jimmy
as little detail as possible—a story about Randall needing help with tracking
down someone in the government was sufficient.  Then, she’d packed a bag and
hit the road.

She abhorred the idea of
leaving her family behind and in danger, but trusted Randall to find a safe
place for Alice and Jesse, and trusted that he’d be able to handle himself if
and when the first assassin came back, if and when the others showed up.

Now, she drove, scrutinizing
the details, trying to find a nugget of believable reality mixed in with the
chaff of Randall’s wild notions.  It couldn’t be true.  There had to be some
other explanation.  She remembered reading that after the recent election,
Kemper was considering a run for president in 2016.  There was no way he’d go
through the trouble of setting up something like this and risk having it dug up
during the vetting process.  Or...maybe he would.  Eliminate the ties to his
past, wipe the slate clean so no one would ever know about his South Korean
misadventures. 

As a former Texas oil
magnate, he certainly had the funds to make it happen.  But why?  Why go
through all that trouble?  Was it so impossibly ludicrous that no one would
ever believe it should they come looking?  Maybe a smart way to hide the truth
by being so blatantly stupid?

Was it conceivable?

No, couldn’t be.  Even in the
absence of a paper trail, there were too many possible ways for the information
to get out.  Too many mouths to keep quiet.  The orchestrator, which might
possibly be the German Randall mentioned, each assassin, each contact used to
get in touch with the assassins.  The level of exchanges needed to hide
something of that magnitude would be incomprehensible.  There had to be a
simpler explanation.