The White Mountain (13 page)

The Devil Himself lay quietly
on his back, staring up at the flooring joists overhead.

Randall had stopped the man’s
shoulder from bleeding and offered a variety of painkillers, mostly as a joke,
all of which were denied. 

He hadn’t bothered with a gag. 
On a fifty-acre parcel of land, a half-mile away from Lawson’s farmhouse, The
Devil Himself could scream until his voice went ragged and nobody would hear
him.  Except for maybe Dempsey Jr. and his buddies, but the last time Randall
had checked, hours earlier, the kids had moved on.

Randall walked over, grabbed The
Devil Himself by the ankles, and dragged him across the floor, hefting him up
and over the sandbags, centering his head in the middle of the tarp.

The Devil Himself said,
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Randall put his hands on his
hips, looked around the room.  “Not that I know of.  One gun, one bullet.  I
need anything more than that to flush a turd, I ain’t doing my job right.”

“Not me, hillbilly.  When you
shot Enigma, you cut out the contact.  The others won’t know I’m dead and that
he wanted to put the game on hold.  And you know what that means, don’t you?”

Randall pulled his .45 from
the waistline of his jeans and held it at his side, finger resting against the
trigger guard.  The Devil Himself had a point.  He’d been so afraid for Mary’s
safety, and so gobsmacked by the revelation of Ares’ identity that he’d failed
to consider all the other repercussions of Enigma’s death.  With no master to
control the movement of the chess pieces, Randall was a pawn sitting alone in
an open field of battle.  The others had no way of knowing the war was under a
temporary truce.

If he were to survive this,
he needed all the information he could gather.  If Mary would answer her damn
phone, he could give her a heads up, tell her to be careful, but lead her
precisely where she needed to go to gather intel, without putting her in too
much danger.  If he could get anything more out of The Devil Himself about Ares
and the others, he might come out alive and on top, ten million dollars
richer.  But, he had to play it the right way, make it seem like he was doing
the man a favor.  Guys like Devil, they didn’t talk so easily.

Randall said, “Unless they’re
laying low like I was, it means they’re
all
coming.”

The Devil Himself snorted and
lifted his head.  “Those guys?  Yeah.  They’re coming.  And it means you’re a
dead man.  Once I saw who the others were, I was smart enough to know I
wouldn’t win.  I just wanted to last for as long as I could.  You and me, we’re
a couple of goldfish tossed in with a bunch of piranhas.”

“Says the dipshit with a
bulls-eye on his forehead.  Whatever you’re up to, I ain’t falling for it.”

“Do you have any idea who
they are?  Geisha?  Mein Kampf?  Yankee Doodle?”

“I reckon they’re three
piss-ants that ain’t never come across a southwest Virginia redneck that can
shoot a tick off a dog’s butt all the way down in Tennessee.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Am I now?  How you figure?”

“You need me.”

“Like I need a hole in the
head.”

“If you knew what I know, you
wouldn’t be so confident.”

“Sure I would.  Home turf,
baby.  Ain’t nobody coming in
La Casa de Randall
and getting out alive.”

“Whatever.  Shoot, hillbilly,
so I can laugh at you from the other side.”

Randall smirked.  “Suit
yourself.”

He lifted the .45, aimed, counted
to ten in silence, long enough to draw out the moment, and then he pulled the
trigger.

Click
.

The Devil Himself exhaled
heavily, spittle flying out of his mouth.  “Coward.  Do it.  Just get it over
with!”

Randall said, “You got any
money?”

“What?”

“I said, you got any money?”

“You want my money?”

“No, numbnuts.  Answer the
question.  You got any saved up?”

“Some.”

“Good.”  Randall took a step
closer and knelt down beside The Devil Himself, but remained an arm’s length
away.  Even with his wrists and ankles bound, the man was still a threat.  “Say
I was curious enough to entertain the notion of cutting you loose.  You tell me
everything you know and you’re done.  Empty your bank accounts, raid your
mattress, whatever.  You go on and get as far away as you can.  Hide out
somewhere in the South Pacific, find some little island girl with a pretty
smile and a nice rack, and you pretend this
never
happened.  You’re dead
to everybody but her and the guy that sells you fish down at the beach.

“The way I see it, the game’s
all but over now that Enigma’s gone.  There ain’t no stretching it out.  They
come, I send ‘em along their merry way to hell.  Nobody’s left but me and
Ares.  He drops and I’m clucking over a golden egg.  I don’t care if they
wanted to postpone this shit or not, rules are rules.  Ares takes a dirt nap
and I’m the king.  How’d you feel about that, huh?  I got no bad blood with
you.  No hard feelings.  Business is business.  So, one, you die and I take my
chances, or two, you spill your guts and appreciate the fact that you might
just get another blowjob one of these days.  Pride, she’s a dirty bitch.  Don’t
let her get in the way of enjoying what time you might have left.”    

“Are you done?”

“Done?  Hell, I’m only
getting warmed up.  I don’t think you’re in much of a position to—”

“Just shut up.  Jesus.  You
let me go and I’m gone.  You’ll never see me again.”

“You giving me your word? 
You won’t come back?”

“You’ll never know, will
you?”

“No, I don’t reckon I will. 
If I was tied up with a gun to my head, I wouldn’t trust me either.”  Randall
sat down, propped his elbow on a knee.  “We got a standoff going on here or
what?  They say there’s no honor among thieves, and I suppose that goes for two
pawns in a death game, too.”

“Flip a coin.  You’ll get the
same odds.  But on my honor as a fellow Marine, I’m done.  Gone.  I was never
really in it for the money anyway.”

Randall perked up.  Something
The Devil Himself said caught his attention.  “What’d you say?”

“The money wasn’t important.”

“No, before that.  How’d you
know I’m a Marine?”

“Are you that stupid?  If I
know who Ares is, don’t you think I’d know who
you
are?”

“Point taken.  Where were you
stationed?”

“Boot camp at Parris Island. 
That’s all I’m giving you.  You want stuff about me, find it yourself.  It’s
the others you should be worried about.”

“Then start blabbing.  If the
others are coming, I ain’t got time to sit here and jaw about who should trust
who.”

“What’s stopping you from
shooting me in the head after I tell you?”

Randall held the handgun over
his heart.  “Marine to Marine, you have my word, but make sure it’s worth it.”

The Devil Himself eyed
Randall from his spot on the tarp.  He nodded, said, “All right,” and then
swallowed hard.  “Geisha, Mein Kampf, and Yankee Doodle...you couldn’t find
three higher value targets in the whole goddamn world.  They’re right up there
at the top of the CIA’s list.  Arms deals, missions for Al Qaida, you name it,
they’ve done it.  Geisha had bin Laden on speed dial before they dumped his
body in the ocean.  That subway bombing in London?  Mein Kampf.  That hotel in
Bali?  Yankee Doodle.  The press has everyone so up in arms about terrorists in
Iraq and Afghanistan, blaming the Muslims, nobody expects some everyday white
guy or a Japanese native to flatten a building or kill a shit-ton of civilians. 
You could put the three of them side-by-side on a tour bus and nobody would
give them a second look.  But they’re huge, man, they’re big time, and you’re
delusional if you think you stand a chance.”

“We’ll see ‘bout that, and so
far, you ain’t telling me much more than what I already know.”

“Listen to me, hayseed.  You
need to run, too.  Dig that tracking chip out of your shoulder, grab your
family, and buy that hut next door to mine, because otherwise, you’re toast. 
Pride, remember?”

“Nah, I’m gonna win this
thing, one way or another.  Is that all you got?” Randall said.

“You need more than that?”

“Can’t say you impressed me. 
It’s about like taking what’s behind Door Number Three and winning an old nanny
goat instead of a new car.”

“How about the fact that I
lied about Ares earlier?”

Randall sat up straighter. 
“You son of a bitch.  I thought the Secretary of Defense seemed too damn crazy
to believe.  I knew he was in ‘Nam, but that one—that was way out in left
field.”  Randall took a deep breath and cursed himself for being so gullible.  He
thanked God that Mary
hadn’t
answered her phone.  If he’d sent her on a
wild goose chase trying to dig up more info on such a high-powered political
figure, who knew how many years she might’ve racked up in a federal prison? 
“Who is he then?”

“The question is,” The Devil
Himself said, rolling his head to the side, grinning, “am I lying about lying?”

“Enough of this mess.” 
Randall rolled off his backside, clambered over to The Devil Himself and pinned
the man down with a knee on his chest, jamming the barrel into his forehead. 
“Last chance, Devil.  You got about five seconds for a proper debrief.  I’m
tired of this shit.  Five...four...three...two—”

Wide-eyed and unprepared for
Randall’s aggression, The Devil Himself spat out, “All right, all right. 
Enigma said...he said that Ares was...”

“What, damn it?  Enigma said
what?”  He pushed down harder on the barrel.

“He said that Ares—there’s
more than—”

The sound of shattering glass
stopped them both.  Randall flicked his head over his shoulder and saw the sole
of a boot kicking at the remaining window shards.  A dust cloud glinted in the
ray of light pouring through.

“What the—”

A hand appeared, followed by
the distinctive
chink
of an armed grenade, as the metallic pinecone
floated, arcing across the open space in slow motion, frame-by-frame.  It hit
the floor, bounced high in a chaotic angle, waffling toward them like a wounded
duck falling from the sky.

The Devil Himself said, “Oh,
God.”

For the briefest of miniscule
moments, Randall watched it, holding steadfast and unable to react as his mind
processed and calculated the timing.  Was a second or two enough to grab it and
hurl it back out the window?  What if he missed and it caromed back into the
basement?  What other options were there?  Trapped in a small basement, twenty-feet
square with a low ceiling pressing lower, he’d never make it into the stairway
where he might find cover.

He whipped his head around,
spotted the stack of 2x4s.

The Devil Himself shouted,
“No!” and tried to grab Randall.  With his hands tied, he only managed to wrap
his fingers around a small clump of a pants leg.

Randall wrenched away, took
two small steps, and then propelled himself through the air, level with the
ground.  He flew over the pile of wood, dipped his shoulder, and landed on the
concrete as the explosion ripped through the basement.  The blast pushed the
2x4s onto Randall and scattered them across the floor like a smattering of
matchsticks.

The high-pitched screaming in
his ears meant two things: he was alive, and the person outside would soon be
coming to confirm his kill.

CHAPTER 13

Chuck drove Mary to the
closest clothing shop where she purchased something more professional than the
shorts and t-shirt she wore.  A gray pantsuit, white blouse, and a pair of
black flats that didn’t bother her leg too much when she walked.  She couldn’t
approach the First Lady’s brother under the guise of conducting an interview
looking like she’d just stepped out to the grocery store.

Back in the car, she tossed
her bag of old clothes into the back seat and straightened her jacket.  “I
can’t remember the last time I wore something like this.  My dad’s funeral,
maybe.”

Chuck said, “You look good. 
Like a pro.  He’ll never know the difference.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.  Herb Richmond
likes to talk about himself a lot.  Doubt he’ll spend more than a couple of
seconds trying to figure out if you’re legit.”

“I’m nervous.”

“Don’t be.  You’ll do fine.”

“Not as confident as I was
back there in the coffee shop.”

“Come on, you’re a P.I. 
You’ve played dress-up before, haven’t you?”

“Nope.  Never.  Smythville
has about six thousand people living there, and every single one of them could
call me by my first name.”

“Because you were a cop?”

“There’s that, and my
grandmother owned a restaurant on Main Street for forty years.  Everybody knew
her, so by default, everybody knew me.  Most of my jobs involve spying from a
distance.  You know, busting a bogus worker’s comp claim or trying to find out
if the mayor’s trophy wife is cheating on him.  Small stuff.  Nothing where I
have to pretend like I’m somebody else.”