Last Man Standing (36 page)

Their response was to move forward. Web’s response to that was to move back until he felt the wall behind him, and further
retreat and ultimate escape would have to be confined to his imagination. Then two of the crew directly in front of him were
tossed to the side so violently it was like gravity had been suspended from underneath them. In this gap Web found himself
staring up at the largest man he had ever seen outside a professional football game. The giant was six-foot-six or -seven
and if he carried less than four hundred pounds on his frame, Web didn’t know how. He realized that this new antagonist must
be the legendary Big F.

The man was dressed in a short-sleeved burgundy-colored silk shirt that was so large Web could have used it for a blanket.
Beige linen pants covered long legs that actually looked short, so thick and massive were they. He had on no socks, his bare
feet were in suede loafers and his shirt was open to the navel, even though it was only about fifty degrees with a sneaky
little breeze that quickly got under one’s skin. His skull had a shadow of fuzz covering it. His facial features matched his
great size, with a heavy blob of nose and conical ears, each pierced with about a dozen diamond studs that gleamed impressively
even in the poor light.

He wasted no time and strode right up to Web. When Big F reached out to grab a fistful of him, Web delivered a vicious blow
to the man’s gut that would have dropped a heavyweight boxer. All he got from Big F was a grunt. Then he lifted Web off the
ground, reared back like he was preparing to hurl a shotput and threw the two-hundred-pound Web a good ten feet down the alley.
The rest of the gang hooted, cursed and otherwise had themselves a little federal agent ass-kicking party, high-fiving, exchanging
growls and knuckle-banging each other with animalistic glee.

Web had not even gotten to his feet before the man was on him again. This time he hooked Web by his belt, lifted him up and
sent him sailing into a line of garbage cans. Web came up fast, gagging for air and nauseous with the pounding he was taking.
Before Big F could get to him, Web shot forward, lowered his shoulder and laid his very solid frame directly into the man’s
gut. Web might as well have slammed himself into a pickup truck, for all the good it did. He dropped to the asphalt without
having budged Big F one damned inch. His shoulder felt dislocated. Web got to his feet, feigned being seriously hurt and then
exploded with a leaping kick that caught Big F flush on the side of the head. Splotches of blood appeared at the corner of
Big F’s ear, and Web noted with satisfaction that he had relieved the man of some of his diamond studs, leaving jagged bits
of earlobe in their bloody wake.

Yet Big F was still standing, like one of the brick buildings surrounding them. Web had knocked hundred-pound body bags right
off their supports with that kick. How could this be? Well, he had no time really to think about how it could be because Big
F, moving faster than a man his size should ever have been able to, delivered a forearm the size of a six-by-six to the side
of Web’s head that came one dizzying star from knocking him out. A few seconds later, Big F was half carrying and half dragging
Web down the alley, his shoes and jacket lost somewhere along the way. His pants were ripped and his legs and arms were bleeding
from being dragged over the pavement.

Apparently just for fun, since Web was putting up no further resistance, Big F tossed him headfirst against a Dumpster. This
did knock out Web, and he stayed that way until he felt himself being thrown onto something soft. He opened his eyes; it was
the interior of the Mercury. He flinched when he saw Big F slam the door and walk away. The guy hadn’t said one word, and
Web had never been more humbled in his life. No wonder Granny and Jerome had acted the way they had. Hell, Jerome was probably
still running.

Web sat up slowly and felt around for broken bones. When he opened his right hand a paper fluttered out of it. Web saw the
numbers and words scribbled on it, looked over in amazement at where Big F had been but was no longer. He put the slip of
paper in his pocket, pulled out his keys, revved up the Mercury and burned rubber off the rear wheels getting the hell out
of there, leaving behind his jacket, his shoes, his pistol and a big chunk of his confidence.

I
t was early in the morning and Web was soaking in the tub in another crummy motel. Every part of him ached. The long scrapes
on his arms and legs burned like there was a branding iron pressed to them. He had a knot on his forehead from where his noggin
had met Dumpster and a gash along the good side of his face that probably still had some grains of asphalt inside. Boy, he
was aging really well. He should try out for male modeling when he left the Bureau.

The phone rang and Web swung his hand out and snagged it. It was Bates.

“I’ll pick you and your buddy up in an hour at Romano’s house.” Web groaned.

“What’s wrong?” asked Bates.

“Late night. Got a bitch of a hangover.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Web. One hour. Be there or find another planet to live on.” Bates hung up.

Exactly one hour later Bates picked up Web and Romano and they headed to Virginia horse country.

Bates looked at Web’s fresh injuries. “What the hell happened to you?” asked Bates. “You better not have trashed another car,
because after the Mercury you’re riding a bicycle.” Bates glanced over at Web’s car parked at the curb.

“I slipped getting out of the bathtub.”

“You did all that getting out of the tub?” Bates clearly did not believe this.

“You know what they say, Perce, most accidents happen at home.”

Bates stared at him for a long moment before deciding not to pursue it. He had a lot of other items on his to-do list.

After an hour’s drive they got off the highway and drove for miles along twisting roads and hairpin curves bracketed by thick
woods. They missed a turn somewhere because they ended up on a dirt road barely wide enough for their car. Web looked over
at a sagging metal gate and the sign next to it that read,
EAST WINDS FARM NO HUNTING, FISHING OR TRESPASSING. VIOLATORS PROSECUTED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW
.

East Winds, they knew, was the name of the Canfield farm. They must have come in on the rear side, Web concluded. He smiled
as he read the sign. Well, damn, these people meant business; he was shaking with fear. He glanced at Romano, who was looking
at the sign and smiling too because he was probably thinking the same thing. The fencing here was low, rail board on post.
The place was in the middle of nowhere. “Somebody who knew what they were doing could hop that fence in a second, go to the
main house, kill the Canfields and everyone else there, have a drink, watch some TV and no one would probably know until the
spring thaw,” opined Romano knowledgeably.

“Yeah, and since murder isn’t one of the offenses listed on the sign,” added Web, “I guess he’d be free from prosecution.”

“Keep that crap to yourself,” growled Bates. However, Web could tell the guy was worried. This place was vulnerable.

They finally found the correct turn and reached the front entrance to East Winds. The gates reminded Web of the ones in front
of the White House. And yet with all the exposed property, the big gates were a joke from a security perspective. Above the
entrance was an arch of metal scrollwork with the name of the farm written large. And to top it all off, the gates were open!
There was a call box, however, and Bates hit the button. They waited and someone finally came on.

“Special Agent Bates with the FBI.”

“Come on up,” said the voice. “Follow the main road and take the first right up to the main house.”

As Bates pulled forward, Web pointed out, “No closed-circuit TV. We could be Charlie Manson and company, for all they know.”

They headed straight. The rolling green land stretched as far as they could see, much of it enclosed by horizontal rail fencing.
Large rolls of hay lay in the fields. Off to one side was a small pond. The main road was asphalt and ran straight for a while
and then curved right around a swath of towering oak and hickory, with scrub pines wedged between. Through the trees to the
right they caught glimpses of an enormous structure.

They finally came to a large two-story stone house with high Palladian windows and broad sliding doors below and topped with
a large tin-sheathed cupola patinaed by the elements, with a weather vane of a horse and rider mounted on top. To Web it looked
like a color Martha Stewart might try to copyright and then sell to the masses as something far more chic than simple weather
rot.

They turned right, away from the carriage house, and passed down a long paved drive. Some of the largest maple trees Web had
ever seen were situated in rows on each side of the drive, forming a natural roof of limbs and leaves.

Web looked up ahead and his eyes widened. It was the largest house he had ever seen and it was constructed all from stone,
with an enormous front portico supported by six massive columns.

“Damn,” said Romano, “that looks to be about the size of the Hoover Building.”

Bates parked the car in front and started to get out. “It’s a house, Romano, and put your tongue back in your mouth and try
not to embarrass the Bureau.”

The massive door opened and a man stood there.

Billy Canfield had not aged well, thought Web.

He was still tall and trim, but the broad shoulders and deep chest—which Web remembered from the man’s visits to Web in the
hospital—had fallen in. His hair was now thinner and almost fully gray and the face had grown even craggier. As Canfield walked
out to see them, Web noted the limp in the man’s gait and he saw where one knee turned inward more than normal. Canfield,
he figured, would be in his early sixties now. Fifteen years ago he had married for the second time, to Gwen, a woman much
younger than he was. He had grown children from his first marriage, and he and Gwen had also had their own boy, the ten-year-old
who had been killed by members of the Free Society at the school in Richmond. Web still saw David Canfield’s face often in
his dreams. The guilt had not lessened over the years; if anything, it had grown more intense.

Canfield eyed each of them fiercely from under thick tufts of eyebrows. Bates put out his strong hand and held up his credentials
with the other, just like the Bureau taught you, observed Web.

“I’m Agent Bates with the FBI’s Washington Field Office, Mr. Canfield. Thanks for letting us come out.”

Canfield ignored Bates and instead looked over at Web. “I know you, don’t I?”

“Web London, Mr. Canfield. I’m with Hostage Rescue. I was down in Richmond that day,” he added diplomatically. “You visited
me in the hospital. That meant a lot to me. I want you to know that.”

Canfield nodded slowly and then put out his hand to Web, who shook it. “Well I appreciate what y’all tried to do then. You
did all you could, risked your life and all for my boy.” He stopped and looked over at Bates. “But I told you on the phone
that nothing’s happened out here and if that son of a bitch comes my way he’ll end up dead and not the other way round.”

“I understand that, Mr. Canfield.”

“Billy.”

“Thank you, Billy, but you have to understand that three people with a connection to what happened at that school in Richmond,
and possibly a fourth person, have already been killed. If the Free Society is behind it, and I have to tell you that as yet
we have no direct proof that they are, but if they are, you could be a target. That’s why we’re here.”

Canfield looked at his watch. “And what, you want to put me under lock and key? I got a damn horse farm to run, and let me
tell you it don’t run on autopilot.”

“I understand that, but there are unobtrusive steps we can take—”

“Y’all want to keep talking, you got to come on with me. I got things to do.”

Bates exchanged glances with Web and Romano and then shrugged. They followed Canfield over to a jet-black Land Rover and climbed
in.

Canfield didn’t wait for seat belts to be put on. He hit the gas and they sped off. Web was in the front seat next to him.
As they drove along, he surveyed the farm.

“Last I heard, you owned a trucking company in Richmond. How’d you end up on a horse farm in Fauquier County?”

Canfield slipped a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and lit up, cracked the window and blew smoke out. “Gwen doesn’t let
me smoke in the house. Take my shots when I can,” he explained. “Now, that’s a damn good question, Web, from trucking to horses.
I ask myself that sometimes and sometimes I wish I was back in trucking. I was born and bred in Richmond and like it there.
That city creeps into your bones for better or worse, and I’ve seen both sides of that coin.

“But Gwen’s always loved horses; she grew up on a farm in Kentucky. I guess it gets in your blood too. All it’s done for me
is make my blood
pressure
go through the roof. Anyway, we decided to make a go of it. Jury’s still out on how we’re doing. Sunk every damn dime I have
into this place, so at least we have the incentive to make it work.”

“What exactly do you do on a horse farm?” asked Romano as he leaned forward. “See, the only horses I’ve seen are the ones
that pull the carriages around Central Park. I grew up in the Big Apple.”

“Sorry to hear that, Yank,” said Canfield. He looked around at Romano. “Didn’t catch your name.”

“Romano, Paul Romano. Friends call me Paulie.”

“Well, we’re not friends, so I’ll just call you Paul. Now, the main thing you do on a horse farm is bleed money, Paul. Bleed
it like it’s ice in a damn hailstorm. You pay out your ass for a property like this and all the people to help run it. You
get you some horses and they eat you out of house and home. You pay outrageous stud fees so some son-of-a-bitching horny stallion
with a few track victories to its name will impregnate your mares. And then nature delivers you some foals that proceed to
chip away at what little money you got left. As the foals grow into yearlings, you spend enough on the little sons of bitches
to send a dozen kids to Harvard. And then you hope and pray that maybe one of ’em shows some promise and you can sell it to
some poor sucker and maybe get a five percent return on your money for working your ass off sixteen hours a day. And if you
don’t, then the bank that you’ve sold your life to comes and takes every single thing you’ve ever owned in your whole life
and you die dirt poor without a roof over your head, a stitch of clothes on your back or a single person you could call a
friend.” He looked back at Romano. “That’s about it,
Paul.
You got any other questions?”