“And his brother’s some kind of war hero, I understand. Superbly trained in all forms of eluding capture. That’s just great.”
“It is for our purposes.”
“Why don’t you explain that one to me, Frank?”
“I’ve ordered my men to shoot to kill. They’ll put a bullet into both of them as soon as they get a chance.”
“What if he tells somebody first?”
“Tells them what? That he got a letter from the Army that says something he has no way to prove? Now we’ve got a dead Supreme Court clerk on our hands. That just makes our job a lot tougher.”
“Well, we were supposed to have a dead country lawyer too, but, funny, I haven’t read his obituary anywhere.”
“Rider went out of town.”
“Oh, good, we’ll just wait until he gets back from vacation and hope he’s not in discussions with the FBI.”
“I don’t know where he is,” Rayfield said angrily.
“The Army has an intelligence component, Frank. What do you say you try to use some of it? Take care of Rider and then concentrate on finding Harms and his brother. And when you do, you put them six feet under. I hope that’s clear enough for you.” The phone went dead.
Rayfield slammed the receiver down and stared up at Vic Tremaine.
“This is going to hell in a handbasket.”
Tremaine shrugged his shoulders. “We take Rider out and then those two black SOBs, we’re home free,” he said in a gravelly voice that seemed perfectly calibrated to command men to fight.
“I don’t like it. We’re not in a war here.”
“We are at war, Frank.”
“The killing never did bother you, did it, Vic?”
“All I care about is the success of my mission.”
“Do you mean to tell me that right before you pulled the trigger on Fiske you didn’t feel anything?”
“Mission accomplished.” Tremaine put his palms down on Rayfield’s desk and leaned forward. “Frank, we’ve been through a lot together, combat and otherwise. But let me tell you something. I’ve spent thirty years in the Army, the last twenty-five in various military prisons just like this one when I could’ve gotten a civilian job that paid a lot more. We all made a pact that was supposed to protect us from a stupid thing we did a long time ago. I’ve kept my end of the bargain. I’ve baby-sat Rufus Harms while the others went on with their lives.
“Now, in addition to my military pension, I’ve got over one million bucks sitting in an offshore account. In case you’ve forgotten, you’ve got the same little nest egg. That’s our comp for all these years of doing this crap. And after all the shit I’ve been through, no one and nothing is going to keep me from enjoying that money. The best thing Rufus Harms ever did for me is escape. Because now I’ve got a bulletproof reason to blow his sorry ass away and nobody’ll ask any questions. And as soon as that sonofabitch has breathed his last, this uniform I’m wearing goes into mothballs. For good.”
Tremaine straightened up. “And, Frank, I will destroy anyone who even remotely tries to mess that up.” His eyes became black dots as he said the next word. “Anyone.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
* * *
On the drive to the trailer, Fiske stopped at an all-night convenience store. Sara waited in the car. A rusty Esso sign clanked back and forth from the force of a semi sailing past and made her jump. When Fiske got back in the car, Sara stared at the two six-packs of Budweiser. “You intend to drink your sorrows away?”
He ignored the question. “Once we get down there, there’s really no way for you to get back by yourself. It’s really in the middle of nowhere; sometimes I get lost.”
“I’m prepared to sleep in the car.”
About thirty minutes later, Fiske slowed the car, turned into a narrow gravel drive and drove up to a small, darkened cottage. “You’re supposed to check in here and pay the guest fee before going into the grounds,” he explained. “I’ll do it before we leave tomorrow.”
He pulled the car past the cottage and into the middle of the campground. Sara looked at the trailers, which were laid out in a street grid style. Most of them were brilliantly outlined with Christmas lights and had flagpoles either attached to the trailer or porch, or sunk into concrete. With the strings of lights and the moonlight, the area was surprisingly well illuminated. They passed late-blooming flower beds of impatiens, and red and pink mums. Clumpy vines of clematis gripped the sides of some homes. Everywhere Sara looked were outdoor sculptures of metal, marble and resin. There were a number of cinder-block grills and a large smoke pit; the commingled smells of cooked meat and charcoal lingered tantalizingly in the hot, humid air.