After the Execution (10 page)

Kate appeared in the doorway after just five minutes, with a tired looking suitcase and fold-up stroller. She’d also slipped on a short, beige coat.

‘I’m done,’ she said. ‘Is Anna OK?’

‘She’s fine. Smells a bit, though.’

‘I’ll change her diaper in the car. You ready?’

She took the baby from me and I said, ‘I need some rope or
something
to restrain your ex.’

‘I don’t have any. But if you check his pockets you should find a set of handcuffs.’

I stared at her, open mouthed.

‘Why would he have cuffs?’

‘Because he’s a cop,’ she said.

O
N THE SMALL
black and white monitor a man in a light coloured suit could be seen wending his way between cars in the grocery store
parking
lot.

‘That’s him,’ Vance said.

The footage had been recorded on a security camera and it was of a pretty high quality. Not half as grainy as most he’d seen. He watched as Jordan came to a halt close to where a woman could be seen packing bags into the back of an Explorer.

Vance and Daniels were crowded around the monitor in the store’s tiny security office. It had been the obvious place to come after they lost sight of Jordan when he ran into the parking area.

On screen Jordan pounced the moment the woman got behind the wheel of the Explorer. He wrenched open the passenger door and climbed in beside her. It was a classic car hijacking. Forty-five seconds later the Explorer started up and drove out of the parking lot – straight past the Dodge. In fact Vance could even remember watching it go by, which served only to rub salt into his wounds.

‘We need to ID the vehicle,’ he said, his voice clipped.

It meant switching to another monitor which carried the recorded feed from another camera. It took about a minute to rewind to the relevant time code.

‘That’s it,’ Vance said.

The camera had picked up the Explorer as it exited the parking lot. And there was a clear image of the plate.

‘Get the number into the computer right away,’ Vance said. ‘I want to know who owns that fucking vehicle.’

While the wheels were put in motion to identify the owner of the Explorer, Vance stood outside the store and lit a cigarette. He needed to steady his nerves and slow his heart rate. It felt like he was on the edge of an aneurysm.

Almost two hours had passed since Lee Jordan had run away and he still hadn’t informed Washington. He couldn’t leave it much longer. Unless he caught Jordan soon then he’d have to tell them about the mother of all fuck-ups. He still couldn’t believe that the shooter had missed from a distance of only about twelve feet.

It wasn’t as if the guy had never fired a gun before. He was a member of the Bureau’s Clandestine Operations Unit. He supposedly had three kills to his credit and was an expert marksman. So how the hell had he botched it?

I had him,
the shooter had said after they picked him up in the Dodge a few blocks from the restaurant.
But he suddenly turned because you sped away like a fucking Indy car. I didn’t expect it and I hesitated
.

Vance couldn’t believe the guy had the temerity to try to pass the buck. He’d wanted to smash a fist into his face. It took a lot of
willpower
not to. Instead, he’d called him a fucking prick and a total moron. And told him he was in deep shit. But Vance knew that nothing much would happen to him. It was the agent in charge who always shouldered the blame for operations that went wrong.

But in this case it wouldn’t just be his own head on the block. The consequences would be felt all the way up the chain of command to the Director of the FBI. And maybe beyond!

His scalp prickled at the thought and he inhaled an anxious lungful of smoke. He could feel the pressure forming behind his eyes. The shooter did not realize how serious the situation was because he didn’t know the identity of the target. And neither did the rest of the ops team – except for Daniels.

They’d been working from the start on a need-to-know basis. The fewer people who knew about the faked execution, the better. Now there was a chance that the whole fucking world would find out and that would be a disaster for everyone involved, as well as for the Bureau itself – and even the integrity of the entire American justice system.

The Bureau had been involved in past scandals, including
allegations
that agents had assassinated US citizens. And conspiracy theorists had long maintained that some lethal injection executions were faked so the military and CIA could carry out illegal experiments on ‘dead’
inmates. The truth had always been successfully covered up. But in this case there was irrefutable evidence in the form of a resurrected Lee Jordan.

It was supposed to have been a no-risk operation. When Vance had laid out his plan to the powers-that-be, he had assured them that it was fail-safe. He’d thought it through, worked it out, told them he was confident that nothing could go wrong. He had even put pressure on the state governor to make sure that Jordan did not get a last minute reprieve.

According to the plan, Jordan was going to be alive for just over twenty-four hours. Then he’d be shot. Only a few people would ever know what had happened and why. But now the murdering scumbag was on the run and therefore able to reveal to everyone he came into contact with that he was still alive.

That was why Vance had already got the Bureau to block the phones of Jordan’s sister Emily and his lawyer Mark Zimmerman. In the last half-hour he had also arranged for special ops teams to be sent to their homes and wait in case Jordan turned up. Their orders were to arrest him or take him out. And if he managed to make contact with his sister or lawyer then they too had to be neutralized.

The orders carried the highest priority tag, meaning the individuals posed a serious and imminent threat to national security. Vance was praying that it wouldn’t come to that. If they could find Jordan then they could limit the damage. But Vance knew it was not going to be easy. It wasn’t even as if they could enlist the help of the cops because they weren’t in the loop either. And if by chance they arrested Jordan, for whatever reason, then the game would be up.

Vance even imagined how it might go down if Jordan was stopped by a patrolman.

What’s your name, fella?

Lee Jordan.

The same Lee Jordan convicted of killing Kimberley Crane?

You got it.

But aren’t you supposed to be dead?

That’s right.

Then how come you’re not?

Good question. You should ask the FBI.

A bad situation was made worse by the fact that the audacious plan had got the go-ahead for a good reason. A successful outcome would
have given them the ammunition to inflict the biggest blow so far against the Texas Syndicate. And that was something they had been desperately trying to do for years. But now it almost certainly wouldn’t happen. Instead, if Jordan remained at large, a lot of good people were going to be in big trouble.

‘We’ve got a name, boss.’

Daniels’s voice snapped Vance out of his thoughts.

‘The owner of the Explorer is a woman named Kate Pena,’ Daniels said. ‘She lives across town.’

Vance smiled without opening his mouth and a glimmer of hope blossomed in his chest.

‘Then what are we waiting for?’ he said.

D
ANIELS RECKONED IT
would take about fifteen minutes to get to Kate Pena’s house. The Dodge took the lead, followed by the Taurus.

Vance kept hoping that the woman had not recognized Jordan for who he was. And that Jordan had not revealed his identity to her. If she did know then she was as good as dead.

Nobody who learned the truth would be allowed to communicate it to anyone else. It was the only way to contain it. Otherwise it would spread like a destructive virus and the whole house of cards would collapse.

Vance was already cursing the night he received the call from the man he came to refer to as the Lawyer. That’s when it all started, just minutes after he turned up at the crime scene in the alleyway eight weeks ago. The Lawyer had known about the four dead Hispanic men. He’d also known about a crooked cop named Dennis Cross. And he’d known so much more about the workings of the Texas Syndicate, the state’s most notorious gang.

If you want me to expose the whole fucking operation then you have to give me what I’ve asked for. If you don’t, then you can kiss goodbye to the best chance you’ll ever get of smashing the Syndicate.

Those were the words the Lawyer had used at their first face-to-face meeting. And he’d been right. It was an opportunity of a lifetime and the Bureau decided not to pass it up. But now Vance wished they had. At least he wouldn’t be in this predicament. If his career was flushed down the toilet then that would be the least of his worries. In the worst case scenario he would surely face criminal charges and serve a long time in prison. And all because of the one thing you could never rule out in even the best laid plans.

Human fucking error.

When they got to the house it was in darkness. The short driveway was empty. No sign of the Explorer. But Vance noted that there was a Lexus parked at the curb. It was closer to this house than any of the others.

‘He probably got the woman to take him somewhere out of town,’ Daniels said.

It made sense, but it was not what Vance wanted to hear.

‘Let’s check it out anyway,’ he said.

They didn’t have a warrant, but that wasn’t going to stop them going inside if nobody answered the door. Two agents went around the back and Vance and Daniels took out their service revolvers and walked up to the front door.

They rang the bell. There was no answer. They tried opening the door, but it was locked.

Then they heard a sound from inside, like someone calling out. The voice was muffled and they couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman. They checked the windows on either side of the door, but the curtains were pulled across them on the inside.

‘Help me.’

This time they heard the words clearly. Definitely a male voice and very distressed.

‘Let’s go in,’ Vance said.

The property was old and worn out so the door was a pushover. It took just two violent kicks to break the lock. They executed a textbook entry, arms outstretched, shoulders hunched, ready to open fire at the first sign of danger.

‘FBI and we’re coming in,’ Vance shouted at the top of his voice. ‘If you’re armed then put down your weapons.’

Daniels switched on the light as they moved along the hallway, yelling as they went. After a tense few seconds they had the lay of the land. The house was small and shabby. There was only one occupant and he was in no position to put up any resistance because he was handcuffed to a radiator in the kitchen.

Vance felt the bottom drop out of his stomach when he saw it wasn’t Lee Jordan. This guy he’d never seen before. He had cropped hair and was wearing a leather coat. He was sitting against the wall and there was blood on his face.

Vance knelt down beside him and asked him what the hell had
happened.

‘I’m a cop,’ the guy said, and Vance experienced a billowing sense of dread. ‘Check my pocket.’

Vance shoved his hand into the guy’s inside pocket and came out with a police ID. His name was Frank Larson and he was a detective with the San Antonio police.

Vance couldn’t believe it. Things were going from bad to worse. A cop, for Christ’s sake.

‘Some guy took my kid,’ Larson said.

Vance squinted at him. ‘What guy? Who was he?’

Larson winced as he moved his head. ‘Never seen him before. I just dropped by to see my baby. When I came through the door he hit me with a pistol.’

‘So you don’t live here?’

‘No. My girlfriend rents the place.’

‘Would her name be Kate Pena?’

Larson frowned. ‘That’s right.’

‘Where is she?’ Vance asked.

‘Took off with the guy,’ Larson said. ‘And they have my kid.’

‘Where have they gone?’

‘How the fuck should I know?’

‘We’ll call an ambulance,’ Vance said. ‘Get you to a hospital. Where are the keys to the cuffs?’

‘No idea. I was unconscious when he put them on me. Look, are you gonna tell me what’s going on here? How did the FBI know what had happened?’

‘We didn’t,’ Vance said. ‘The guy who slugged you is on our wanted list. He jacked your girlfriend’s car earlier. We traced it here.’

‘Jesus.’

‘How old is your kid?’

Larson had to think about it.

‘Eight months,’ he said. ‘Her name’s Anna.’

Vance took out his notebook and started scribbling.

‘And your girlfriend – has she got a cellphone?’

‘Sure.’

‘Do you know the number?’

Larson summoned it up from his memory. Vance took his own phone out and rang the number. It was switched off.

Larson tried to say something else, but his words were snatched by a
paroxysm of coughing.

Vance got to his feet and told the other agents to find the keys to the cuffs and check out the rest of the place for any clues as to where they might have gone. But he didn’t expect to find anything. It was his guess that Jordan had got the woman to drive back here so he could rest up and get his mind around what had happened to him. Maybe he had even intended to stay the night just to get off the streets. But then Larson had turned up and he’d been forced to leave, taking Kate Pena and her baby as hostages.

It was a seriously bad development because now they had to decide whether to involve the police. A woman and her child had been
kidnapped
. Plus, a San Antonio detective had been attacked.

Vance pondered this and finally concluded that he was not going to be the one to make a decision on what should happen next. The whole thing had spiralled out of control and he just wasn’t sure how to handle it.

It was time to call Washington.

I
T TOOK ME
just ten minutes to get used to driving the Explorer. I hadn’t been behind a wheel in over ten years, but I discovered it’s like riding a bike. Once you know how to do it you never forget.

It didn’t mean I wasn’t nervous, or rusty, though. During the first half mile or so I ran it up a curb and almost collided with a stationary truck.

Kate had screamed at me to be careful because she began the journey on the rear seat changing the baby’s diaper. Now she was back riding shotgun and we were making good progress heading north-east along Interstate 35.

Our destination was Mountain City, about eighteen miles south of Austin. Luckily Emily’s address was stored in my memory because I’d written countless letters to her from prison. I thought I’d have trouble finding it until Kate pointed out that the Explorer had a built-in satnav. She’d tapped in the details as we left San Antonio and we were now following directions given by a disembodied female voice.

I felt wired, and was aware of the blood rushing around inside my body. Or maybe it was adrenaline. I had so much to think about that it was hard to concentrate on the road.

I’d asked Kate about her ex and she’d told me he was a detective as well as a violent bully. For weeks she had been planning to flee the city and cut off all contact with him. Now she was determined to do it. He had beaten her up once too often. She would go someplace and start a new life. Change her name and her appearance. Perhaps even seek help from one of the organizations set up to assist battered women. She knew it wouldn’t be easy given that he was a police officer.

I couldn’t help but admire the way she was coping with the
situation. Her life had been blasted to hell by her psycho ex and a
gun-wielding
stranger. And yet she was holding it together and using all the drama as a catalyst for change. She reminded me of Marissa in that respect. My wife’s unflinching resilience and strength of character had belied her angelic looks and timid charm.

I was uncomfortably aware that Kate and her baby were in mortal danger as long as they were with me. It was only a matter of time before Larson was able to raise the alarm and the Feds started looking for the Explorer. Hopefully that wouldn’t be for some hours as I’d left the bastard cuffed to a radiator.

I had no idea how the rest of the evening was going to pan out. I was desperately worried about my sister and I wanted to get to her. But then what? Once she knew I wasn’t dead would the Feds allow her to live? Probably not, in which case she would have to go on the run with me – like a hunted animal.

That wasn’t fair on her, but there was no easy way out of this mess. Even turning myself in wouldn’t bring about a happy ending for anyone. Likely as not there’d be a massive cover-up and I’d be disposed of quickly and quietly. Along with everyone I’d come into contact with.

‘You know my story,’ Kate said suddenly. ‘Don’t you think you should tell me yours? After what you’ve put me through you owe me that.’

‘It’s best you don’t know,’ I said.

‘Have you robbed a bank or something? Is that it?’

I shook my head. ‘No I haven’t. Now, for your own sake let it be. I’ll soon be just a bad memory. You can drop me off near my sister’s place and be on your way. Find a motel and get a good night’s sleep.’

‘Is this thing with your sister really true?’ she asked.

I looked at her. ‘That’s a stupid question.’

‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I don’t know anything about you, remember? Except that you kidnap defenceless women and carry a gun. For all I know you don’t even have a sister. It could be bullshit about her being in trouble.’

‘Her phones have been disconnected. That’s why I’m concerned.’

‘Maybe there’s a simple explanation.’

‘I doubt it. Too much of a coincidence.’

‘So you think she’s in danger – from the same people who are chasing you?’

‘That’s right.’

‘But if they’re cops they won’t hurt her, so what’s the problem?’

I hesitated. ‘They’re not cops. They’re federal agents and they want me dead. I don’t know why.’

She drew a breath and I saw the doubts clouding her features.

‘I’m not sure I believe you,’ she said.

I shrugged. ‘If I was you I wouldn’t believe me either, but it’s the truth.’

She started to say something, but the baby began crying because she was hungry or thirsty or just plain miserable. So Kate had to climb in the back to sort her out.

After she was done I told her I didn’t want to talk anymore. I said I had some more thinking to do.

So we sat in silence during the rest of the fifty minute journey to Mountain City.