Divine Justice (41 page)

“They came to the house and got me. Maybe killed the man Tyree had guarding me, I don’t know for sure.”

“Why would they want you?”

“Something to do with Danny.”

“So he
is
mixed up in this?”

A sob slipped from Abby’s mouth. She just nodded mutely.

Stone was going to say something else, but a billy club hit him in the back.

“No more talking,” the warden snapped.

Stone lost track of time. Minutes or hours, he couldn’t tell down here in the black of a mountain’s bowels. He couldn’t imagine spending his life down here on his hands and knees digging out rock. Digging his own grave.

Knox, Stone and Abby were suddenly grabbed and told to stay still. The two guards ran ahead and Stone could hear scraping sounds, large things being moved and the grunts and curses of the men doing that heavy moving.

Up ahead the darkness suddenly turned a bit lighter.

Tyree pushed them forward. Stone and Knox exchanged a glance. Neither knew exactly what was going to happen in the next few seconds. Stone kept as close to Abby as he could. If need be he would shield her with his body. He strained against the cuffs, trying to free himself. They probably only had a few seconds left.

They ducked down and came out into a moonlit night. Freedom at last from Dead Rock. Except for the cuffs and the men with guns surrounding them. And except for the fact that their lives were about to end. Stone could hardly believe that what many men with special skills had tried to do and failed, a pudgy warden from a backwater hole-in-the-wall was going to succeed in doing. Kill him. And yet as he glanced over at Abby, he felt far worse for her. The truth was he should have been dead long ago. He had done things that he deserved to die for. But not Abby. It shouldn’t end this way for her. And he told himself he would do everything in his power to prevent the woman’s life from ending violently here on this high rock.

Stone glanced around. They appeared to be in the middle of mountainous forest, but as his eyesight adjusted he was able to make out a wide path that had been cut through the heavy brush.

Tyree took ahold of Stone’s arm and propelled him forward. He tripped over a rock and fell awkwardly to the ground. He rose to his knees and looked at the warden.

“They have this place completely locked down.”

“There are ways out of here that I know that nobody else does. You don’t think I didn’t plan for something like this?”

Knox looked at the guards. “Must’ve been more guys than this involved. You just going to leave the others for the feds?”

“What do you care? You’ll be dead,” Tyree sneered.

“Would it sound really stupid if I said you’ll never get away with it?” said Stone.

“Yeah, it would.”

“How about if I said it?”

Tyree and the others whirled around to see Alex Ford step from the shadows of the trees, his gun aimed at the warden’s head. When the guards pulled their weapons, a bullet sailed over their heads and the men froze.

A wisp of smoke floating from his gun’s muzzle, Harry Finn moved forward while Reuben leveled a shotgun at the men. Annabelle and Caleb stepped out of the woods and stood next to Reuben.

Tyree suddenly pulled Abby toward him and leveled his pistol at her head. He said, “You folks better back the hell off or this lady is dead.”

“Put the gun down, Howard.”

Tyree jerked at the sound of the voice and then looked for its source. His gaze stopped and held as Lincoln Tyree stepped from the tree line. “Put it down, Howard.”

A smile eased across the warden’s plump face. “You know you were never any good at telling your big brother what to do. Now why don’t you stop playing detective and just go on back down to your little town and pretend you know what you’re doing.”

“I know what I’m doing,
big brother
. I’m arresting you for enough stuff that you’re the one’s who’s gonna end up at Dead Rock.”

Tyree jammed his pistol against Abby’s neck, causing her to cry out in pain. “Maybe you didn’t understand what I said. If you don’t back off, this lady is going to die.”

“Put the gun down,” the sheriff said again. “Killing her gets you nothing. It’s over.”

“Gets me nothing? Nothing? I tell you what it gets me. Satisfaction.”

Alex said, “Last chance. To all three of you. Weapons down, now!”

“Go to hell,” screamed Tyree.

He started to pull the trigger. But his gun never fired because Stone slammed into him, knocking the pudgy man off his feet, his pistol flying away.

“Run, Abby,” screamed Stone, as he struggled to get up.

Tyree stopped rolling and sat up. Unfortunately, he’d stopped right next to his gun. He snatched it up and aimed for Stone’s head.

The shot rang out and the round caught Tyree in the forehead. For a second or two the warden didn’t seem to realize that he’d been killed. Then he fell on his back, his eyes staring up to the sky, the guard towers of Dead Rock visible in the distance, though he couldn’t see them anymore.

Alex shouted, “Where did that shot come from?”

No one had time to answer that question because another man emerged from the tunnel and opened fire. And the weapon he carried was an MP-5 submachine gun that laid down a solid wall of fire all across the tree line. Stone had been in position to see this before anyone else. An instant before he fired he had gotten to his feet, lunged and tackled Abby as she was trying to run for cover.

Alex, Reuben and the others fell to the dirt as rounds zipped past overhead, shredding tree bark and anything else in their path. Ripped leaves rained down on them like snowflakes.

Sheriff Tyree yelled out as a round caught him in the leg. He fell heavily to the earth, grabbing at his thigh.

Stone glanced at the mineshaft opening. It was one-eyed Manson wearing a neck brace now along with the eye patch trying to kill them all.

God, I should have finished the son of a bitch when I had the chance.

Knox had thrown himself behind a large boulder, while George and his buddy had run off toward the woods. His buddy didn’t make it very far because one of Manson’s errant rounds caught him square in the back and he fell facedown in a wash of blood.

Stone got up and ran with every ounce of speed he had. He made a flying tackle on George and both men went down hard. Stone was still handcuffed so he couldn’t hit him with his fists. He did the next best thing. He head-butted George flush in the face and the guard fell limp under him. Stone flipped over and, using his cuffed hands, tore at the leather pouch on George’s belt. His fingers closed around the key. He felt for the opening and unlocked the restraints. He grabbed George’s gun but looked down in dismay. The pistol had landed on a rock and the trigger had snapped off.

A moment later Stone ducked down as MP-5 rounds roared overhead and Abby screamed.

“Abby!” Stone slid like a snake through the dirt and rock, his clothes ripping and his skin tearing as he made his way frantically back to her. He’d done this exact same maneuver a thousand times through the jungles of Southeast Asia, yet never for a reason more important than now.

On his belly too, Knox had dragged himself over to the dead Tyree. He wrenched the gun from the dead man’s hand and slid back toward where Stone was heading.

Manson was barely ten feet from Abby. He stopped again to slam in another clip. Alex, Harry and Reuben opened fire, but Manson had wisely taken up cover behind a large rock outcrop. When he came back out with fresh ammo his firepower would overwhelm them at the shortened distance. But clearly Abby would be the first to die.

“Oliver!”

Stone looked up at Knox’s shout.

Still cuffed, Knox held up the gun between his feet and Stone nodded. Using his feet like a catapult Knox tossed and Stone caught. He had bare seconds.

“Stay down, Abby,” he warned.

She frantically dug into the earth with bleeding fingers, trying to get as low as possible.

A second later Manson stepped out, the muzzle of the MP-5 searching for and finding her lying feet from him. Alex and the others had no line of fire because of the chunk of mountain lying between Manson and them.

Stone had no direct line of fire from where he was either. The first rule of the sniper was that any unintended movement of gun and shooter would spoil the shot. Steady hand, breath exhaled, heartbeat in the sixties and weapon locked in position against a stable surface—that’s how one killed successfully. And Stone had mostly followed those rules in his career as the best assassin the U.S. ever had.

Mostly, but not always. Because sometimes what looked good in planning went to shit in the field. When that happened the merely good and competent failed nine times out of ten.

The best cut those odds down to fifty-fifty.

The very best improvised and upped the percentage of success by twenty points.

And then there was John Carr.

John Carr, who had come back from the dead at least one more time, to save a good woman who did not deserve to die at the hands of a maniac wielding a weapon of mass destruction.

Stone leapt, his pistol arrayed out at the sharpest angle he could hold it and still get a shot off. Manson’s finger closed on the trigger.

Stone fired. Joe Knox would later claim that he had seen the damn bullet actually bend around the chunk of rock. No one argued with him.

Manson pulled the trigger and the MP-5 roared. But all the rounds went straight up into the air because there was a massive hole in the side of Manson’s neck. The shredded arteries released their rich blood supply high into the air and for several horrifying moments a red rain poured down on the dying Manson. Then he hit the dirt, his one eye open but now as unseeing as the other.

CHAPTER 79

S
TONE RACED TO
A
BBY
and helped her up. She was scared, but okay.

Alex and Harry Finn were putting a tourniquet on Tyree’s leg using a stick and a piece of Finn’s jacket. The tall sheriff was sitting up now, grimacing with pain.

Stone and Abby came over to him and she knelt down next to him, took his hand.

“Tyree, are you okay?”

He tried hard not to show the pain. “Hell, take more than this to get me all worked up.”

The shout made them all turn toward the woods.

Caleb was running back to them. “Hurry. Hurry.”

They raced after him, Stone and Reuben in the lead. They plowed through the brush and vines.

When Stone saw what Caleb was pointing to, he felt like he had just died. He rushed to the fallen man’s side.

“Danny? Danny?”

Danny Riker was lying on his back, a scoped deer rifle in the brush next to him. Stone wasn’t focusing on the weapon, but rather on the large splotch of red on Danny’s chest.

Danny’s eyes focused on him. He managed a smile. “Don’t think I ducked in time,” he said weakly.

Stone looked back over his shoulder toward where Manson lay. That first blast from the MP-5 had hit right here. He turned back and counted no less than three bullet holes in Danny’s shirt. And they were placed at locations that Stone knew did not allow for survival, even if they could get him to a hospital in the next few minutes, which they couldn’t. He had brought Willie Coombs back from the dead using the juice from a spark plug wire. There would be no such miracle for Danny Riker.

Reuben squatted next to his friend and picked up the rifle. “He was the one who took out the warden.”

“Damn right,” Danny said, his voice growing stronger for an instant. “He killed Willie. Told the little son of a bitch what I’d do if he did that.” His hardened features softened. “Get my ma, will-ya, Ben?”

Stone felt rather than heard the presence behind him. He rose and stared at Abby, whose gaze was only on her son.

“I’m sorry, Abby,” Stone said. “I’m sorry.”

Blood was spilling out of Danny’s mouth. “Ma?”

She dropped to her knees next to him, taking his hand in hers. The sob burst from her with such force that all the others, who’d clustered somberly around mother and son, felt tears rise to their own eyes. Her features looked like those of a child fleeing a monster in a nightmare. Yet then Abby almost instantly calmed, perhaps sensing that her son needed her to be strong; that her boy’s last moments on earth would not be taken up with the sight of a hysterical mother.

“I’m sorry, Ma. For all the stuff.”

Stone knelt and held the young man’s other hand. He felt it growing cold.

She said, “I love you, Danny. I’ve always loved you more than I loved anything.”

“Shouldn’t got mixed up in all this drug stuff. But didn’t want to work the mines. And didn’t want to take the death money either. You know?”

“I know. I know, baby.” Tears were spilling from them both.

“Didn’t have nothing to do with any killing. ’Cept the bastard warden.” Danny’s pupils were losing their focus, receding into the white pools of the eyes, as Stone had seen on many a dying man.

“I love you, Danny.”

He looked over at Stone. When he spoke his voice was so weak Stone had to bend close to hear. “Me and Willie. State champs . . . Boy caught everything I threw at him. Shoulda played at Tech together. You know?”

“You two were the best, Danny,” Stone said, gripping the cold hand. “The best.”

“California dreaming, man.”

He turned back to his mother. “California dreaming . . .”

Danny’s eyes grew hard and flat, and the fingers that had gripped his mother’s now fell away. Abby bent down and kissed her son and then wrapped her arms around him. And just held him.

Just held him.

CHAPTER 80

T
HE
C
AMEL
C
LUB
sat at Rita’s Restaurant. The place was not open for business today, but Abby had insisted that they use it and her home for as long as necessary. Sheriff Tyree was expected to make a full recovery. He had summoned the Virginia State Police, who were currently sorting out the mess in Divine. Since transport of drugs across interstate lines had occurred, the feds had also been called in. Knox and Alex had run interference with their government colleagues and Stone, Annabelle, Caleb, Reuben and Harry were not part of that questioning. Prison guards had been rounded up, bodies collected and other evidence secured. Judge Mosley had been stopped at a small airport in West Virginia trying to board a regional jet for Dulles International Airport with a travel itinerary that included several countries that had no extradition agreement with the United States.