The last refuge, p.20
The Last Refuge, page 20
I swung like I was hitting a homer out of Jack Murphy Stadium.
The board connected with Sidney's soft gut. The air rushed from his mouth and nose, and he bent double. I drew back on the board and swung again, downward this time, aiming for his neck. But Sidney was quicker than I thought. He stepped into my swing, taking only a glancing blow on his shoulder, and shoved the rifle stock into my own stomach. The board cartwheeled from my hands as I went down on my knees. The blow made Sidney squeeze off an accidental round. It went wild, skipping across the roof with a high-pitched whine. Sidney swung the rifle toward my head, but I grabbed it before he could put a gash on my head to match the scar already there.
For a moment we were frozen in time, glaring at each other over the rifle grasped in our hands, like adversaries staring across a trench line. I was stronger than Sidney and in better shape. But he had the strength of a full rush of adrenalin and who knows what else, the kind of strength that makes normal men lift over-turned cars off family members and turns a drug addict into a Hercules when confronted by police.
I pushed myself to my feet, but Sidney used his shorter advantage and his superhuman strength to push me back until finally the roof wall pressed into my back and there was nowhere else to go but down, like Jack Sweeney. Sidney pressed the rifle toward my throat, his mouth twisted into a malefic grin.
"Sidney, why?"
The words were a harsh whisper through clenched teeth. Sidney leaned in and answered me in a voice that made me cold throughout.
"Someone has to make them pay," he whispered. "Someone has to make them hurt, too." I could smell his acrid breath, the stench of sweat and stale booze on his shirt and in his pores. He was too close and it gave me my chance. I butted my head hard against his face. He screamed and his grip weakened. He staggered backward as I pushed him, blood pouring from a smashed nose and lacerated lip. I was nearly in a position to force him to his knees, to yank the damn rifle from his hands and slam it into his face when I slipped on the graveled tarpaper of the roof and fell. My head hit the wall and sent a jarring pain down my back. Searing flashes of light burned my eyes from the inside. When I open them again, Sidney was standing over me, the AK pointed at my head.
"Don't fight it anymore, Brandt," he said. "Everyone loses once they get involved in this place."
Then he pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
Sidney glanced at the rifle and cursed. I squinted, trying to see past the fireworks blinding me. The AK's bolt was stuck open on an empty chamber. The round Sidney had let loose jabbing me with the rifle stock had been the last of the magazine.
Sidney fumbled with the empty magazine. I willed my legs under me and tried to stand, but there was too much pain and not enough strength left in my limbs. Besides, I wasn't certain anymore which way was up. The magazine fell with a clatter and another slid into its place. The bolt snapped with a metallic click, then Sidney lowered the rifle again.
I heard the shot, deeper and throatier than normal, but felt nothing.
Sidney turned violently to his right, a stunned expression on his face. The AK let go two rounds in quick succession, higher pitched than the first. The slugs pounded the wall to my left. I rolled to my right, away from the wild firing. Another shot, like the first, and Sidney bucked forward and landed at my feet, two gaping holes in his back oozing blood.
The fireworks in my head cleared enough for me to see Jo standing behind Sidney. She had gone back to Sherman's office and found what she had been looking for, what I had forgotten. Now she stood in a crouch, arms extended, smoke streaming from her 9mm army-issued pistol.
Her eyes had lost the cold anger they held earlier. Now they were darker, deeper set, and empty.
CHAPTER 26
SHERMAN WAS RIGHT. There was no way they were going to let me publish the Stanning story.
The police had arrived by the time Jo half-carried me down from the roof. Fire fighters and paramedics were triaging Sidney's victims, separating the wounded from the dead. The floor where Sherman's office was located was rank with the wet copper smell of fresh blood. The toll was eight dead, including Sherman, Godzilla and King Kong, and, of course, Sidney Clipper. There were four wounded survivors, including the phony CID man.
Then there was Jo.
A balding police detective dressed in faded jeans, a white shirt open at the collar, and a corduroy jacket questioned her and me at length about Sidney's death. We used one of the empty offices. The door had three holes in it that were not part of the original design. Three corresponding holes pocked the opposite wall. No one had died here, thank God.
Jo sat in a chair behind a large desk in one of the empty offices, her blonde bangs stuck to her forehead with sweat. I stretched out on a sofa in the office, my head still spinning, my back aching. The detective was polite, and that made me nervous. He was just tying up loose ends, he explained. Sidney's death was obviously self-defense. Justifiable homicide.
He had just one last question.
"Can you tell me, Miss Rice," he asked, "why did you have a gun with you in the first place?"
Jo looked at detective and I looked sharply at her. She plucked at the hair drying above her brow. Her eyes were still hollow blue globes.
"I'm the Pentagon's security liaison here," she said, as if the answer was obvious. "I have access to all varieties of classified information. I'm authorized to carry a weapon at all times."
The cop seemed to accept that. He grunted, scribbled in his notebook and muttered: "More spooks." Afterward, he arranged for a black-and-white to take us to the hospital. We stayed there the night, Jo treated for shock, me for a mild concussion and a bruised spine. In the morning, they arrived.
"They" consisted of two men, one short and thin, with a receding hairline and round yuppie glasses resting on a long, thin nose perched above a thin slit of a mouth. He looked like a cross between a CPA and a lawyer. The other was big and dumb-looking, like a cross between Godzilla and King Kong, and obviously bought along for physical intimidation. The shyster carried one of those expanding file holders and it was packed. They said they were representatives of the federal government, but they offered no names or credentials, even when I demanded them.
"Mr. Brandt, we need to know what Colonel Sherman told you before he, ah, died," the shyster said.
"Who said he told me anything?"
"The gentleman that was with Colonel Sherman when you arrived said the colonel spoke to you and Miss Rice at length before the, ah, unfortunate event."
The shyster's glasses exaggerated his eyes. After thinking a bit, I decided he looked like a darker Sidney Clipper.
"Now what did the colonel tell you, Mr. Brandt?"
"He confessed to a variety of criminal actions," I said, sighing. "Among them, illegal shipment of weapons and technology, treason, aiding and abetting the enemy during a time of war, illegal possession of drugs and, finally, a couple counts of premeditated murder. It was sort of a death bed confession, only he didn't realize he was about to die."
Neither the shyster nor his muscle liked my attitude. I could see it in the look of distaste on the shyster's face. The big guy frowned menacingly at me. I blew him a little kiss.
"I hardly think you categorize Colonel Sherman's actions accurately," Mr. Brandt," the small man said. "Everything he did was under the color of law."
"Everything he did was extra-legal and you know it. Maybe we should let the readers and Congress and the courts categorize them," I said.
"I don't think we will."
The shyster reached into his expanding folder and removed several file folders. Each had my name typed on the tab. Some had TAX YEAR followed by dates under my name. Another file was stamped DEA. Another had nothing but my name.
"No, I don't think we will bother your readers nor our legislators and judges with this matter."
"You can scare off one magazine, but I doubt even you and Bubba here can scare off the entire U.S. news media," I said. "I'll find a market."
I considered about telling them I had already found a market with Michael Larrs, but thought better of it. One of the few wise moves I had made in recent weeks.
The shyster pursed his lips and shrugged his shoulders.
"It has been done, Mr. Brandt," he said. "History is replete with instances when the American press has been scared away from stories—or at least subtly steered cleared from them. But I don't think we need to go to such lengths in this case."
He selected half a dozen of the largest files and tossed them on the hospital bed beside me. I glanced through them, then laughed.
"You're trying to scare me with a tax audit?" I said. "That might work with someone who earns enough to make tax cheating worth it, but I don't. Besides, I have an accountant who does everything for me. He'll testify—"
It was the shyster's turn to laugh.
"Mr. Brandt, did I say those were the returns you actually filed?"
His lips formed a thin cruel smile as I flipped through the returns. They bore my name, my signature, my accountant's, too. But the dollar amounts were way out of whack.
"These aren't my returns," I said dumbly.
"Exactly, Mr. Brandt," the shyster said, still grinning. "But only you, me, my colleague here, and a half dozen, um, specialists who prepared these returns know that. Once they replaced the originals, no one at the IRS will ever know the difference. Certainly the federal judge who tries your tax evasion case wouldn't know the difference."
"We could fight this." I said it, but I didn't believe it.
"Of course, you could, Mr. Brandt." The shyster pulled another file from the stack and tossed it on the bed. It was the one marked DEA. "But at the same time, you might also have to fight charges of drug smuggling stemming from your relationship with certain known members of Latin American drug cartels."
I scanned the DEA file. It made me sound like Carlos Escobar's first lieutenant.
"This isn't right," I said. "The only dealing I had with drug traffickers was as a journalist interviewing sources for news stories. The DEA agents I knew down there knew that. They'd never write this crap."
"But did I say the DEA wrote that report, Mr. Brandt?"
The shyster smiled again. So did his behemoth friend. I sized them up. A man with a small body and another with a small mind, each enjoying their positions of covert power to wreak torment and vengeance on a world they felt had abused them. If my head wasn't still swimming, I would have gotten up and smashed those smiles into the back of their heads.
"Oh, and then there's this."
He held up a manila folder, then tossed it at me. Inside were news clipping from a Palm Springs newspaper about a shootout.
"Three men died in that shoot out, if I recall, Mr. Brandt."
"They were trying to kill me," I said. "They killed my ex-wife and my friend. The cops know all that."
"But let's say a new witness comes forth, Mr. Brandt."
The shyster rose from his chair, slipped his hands into his pockets, and paced the floor.
"A witness who sheds new light on the case, as they say. Someone who would testify in court that you were part of the smuggling operation along with those three men. Ah—" He pointed to the DEA report. "Remember this report now makes you a known cartel associate."
He started pacing again, hands in his pockets.
"And this witness testifies that you sanctioned the murder of your ex-wife and planted the bomb that killed your friend because he was getting too close to the truth. Between this new witness, that DEA report, and those tax returns showing how you laundered certain monies—well, what could a jury conclude?"
The shyster shrugged cheerfully and grinned.
"You see, I don't think we need worry about you publishing this story anywhere, now do we?"
I stared at a spot on the far wall and said nothing.
"I thought not."
The shyster collected the folders from the bed and replaced them in the expandable case. He turned toward the door, then stopped.
"And Mr. Brandt, we will be checking on you for a while, just to be certain. That includes your house, so if you have anything that might be problematic to us, I suggest you dispose of it in an appropriate way. Do we understand each other?"
I still said nothing. The two bastards walked to the door and opened it.
"Goodbye, Mr. Brandt," the shyster said. "It really has been a pleasure. For me, at least."
"You're not going to get away with this," I finally said.
"Oh, and why not, Mr. Brandt?" The shyster's eyes were large and amused behind the yuppie lenses.
"Sooner or later, it's going to come out," I said. "Someone else will stumble on it. You have me tied up, but someone else will eventually find out. You can't threaten all the press, no matter what you say."
"Mr. Brandt, listen to me carefully," he said slowly, as if speaking to a stupid child. "Anyone who publishes this story will be landed on by the force of God. And we're God. Good day, Mr. Brandt."
§
They released me from the hospital two hours later and I took a cab back to my bungalow. I don't remember anything of the ride home. My mind was on other things.
Once home, I made a drink, smoked a cigarette from my nightmare stash, and thought. When I finished both the smoke and the drink, I picked up the phone and called Michael Larrs.
"We had an appointment yesterday, Brandt," Larrs said. "Is this how you work, missing appointments?"
"Something came up, Larrs," I said. "Or didn't you hear about the shooting at ConEl?"
"I heard about it," he said. "I also heard you were there again. What's going down over there, Brandt? Does the shooting have something to do with our story?"
"No," I lied. "It was a random act. I was just caught in the middle again. And there is no story."
"What?" Larrs' stage projection was so good I thought I could hear him without the phone. "What the fuck are you trying to pull on me, Brandt? You owe me, remember? You owe for that stunt you pulled years back."
"Sorry, but I screwed up," I said. "The story didn't pan out. There's nothing. No story."
"Brandt, you sonofabitch!"
"And you're right, Larrs. I do owe you. And I will pay you back someday."
I hung up and stared out the window.
"And payback, Larrs," I muttered, "is a motherfuck."
I made another drink, sat back at the desk, and erased all the Stanning note files from my computer's hard drive. After that, I ran a defragmentation program to delete them for good. Then I burned all the print outs in my kitchen sink, and washed the ashes down the drain.
I went to my little hidden wall safe and removed the Stanning lawsuit and the Pentagon report Polmar sent me. I went to the bedroom, slipped on a pair of old gloves, then to the kitchen for a clean dishcloth. Back at the desk, I rubbed down each page of the suit and the report, then slipped them both into a large manila envelope. From the desk drawer, I took Larr's business card, wiped it clean with the dishrag, then used a glue stick to fix it to the envelope. I pulled a long strip off the tape dispenser, wadded it up and tossed it in the wastebasket. I took two fresh strips off the roll, and taped the card more securely. I put more than enough postage on the envelope, and didn't bother with a return address.
I stuck the envelope in the waistband of my pants, then pulled on a jacket even though it was too warm for one. Before leaving, I slipped off the gloves and took a white handkerchief from my dresser. Then I walked to the post office to check my box, checking for anyone who might be following me. No one seemed to be.
Inside the post office, I used the handkerchief to pull the package from my belt and dropped it in the mail slot.
"Payback's a motherfuck, Larrs," I whispered.
EPILOGUE
THE QUICK RAP at the door had the sharp precision of a military drill team. I knew who it was before answering it. Jo Rice stood there in full dress uniform, complete with ribbons and spit shine shoes. Only her face lacked the military crispness she bore the first time I saw her in uniform.
"You look tired," I said.
Jo limped in and took off her beret. "I've been up all night," she said. "Did you see the news last night?"
I nodded. Three days after I had mailed the package to him, Michael Larrs aired the story. As I expected, he did little more than read the Stanning lawsuit and the Pentagon report. By rushing to broadcast, he hadn't alerted the shyster and his cohort.
"It wasn't the full story, though," Jo said.
"No, but it was enough," I said. "It's already in this morning's papers. By tomorrow, Larrs will be on the Larry King Show. All you need is a crack to let in the light. Soon, others will start looking at it, then Congress. That's the way it happens."
Jo put her arms around me. "I'm sorry. I know what the story meant to you."
"He deserved it," I said. I'm sure she didn't understood how I really meant that. Larrs would be in for some powerful retribution from Sherman's comrades. Payback.
"I wonder how he got it?" Jo looked at me suspiciously. I just shrugged.
"You're all dressed up, Captain Rice," I said. "What's the occasion?"
"They're burying Sherman today with full military honors."
"You're kidding. Flag-draped coffin and gun salute?"
"The whole thing." She tossed her beret onto the couch and dropped down next to it. Her face was slack and dark circles surrounded her eyes. "Washington's covering everything up. Everything. Even what Sherman did to Mitch, Alvarez, and the rest. They're going to bury that traitor like he was a national hero."
"You want some coffee?"
She shook her head. "I want you to come with me."
"Where?"
"Sherman's funeral."
I sat next to Jo and put my arm around her. Being intimate with an army officer was getting easier all the time. "You're going to his funeral?"
"I have to stop them," she said. "I owe it to my men. I've been up all night thinking about it, and I owe it to them. I've got to stop them."
"Stop them?" I eyed her suspiciously. "How?"
