Last Man Standing (48 page)

“I don’t know him personally, but me and him do some business together. And I’m sure he ain’t somebody you want to fool around
with, and thank you for the advice. But the thing is, we’re working together right now, sort of. I asked him real nicely to
do something for me having to do with that Web London fellow, and he did it.”

“I bet he done it ’cause you told him you had me. He doing it ’cause he don’t want nothing to happen to me.”

“I’m sure he did, Kevin. But just so you know, we’re going to return the favor. Some folks real close to your brother want
to cut in on his business. We’re going to help him out there.”

“Why you gonna help him?” Kevin asked suspiciously. “What’s in it for you?”

He laughed. “Man, if you were just a little bit older, I’d make you my partner. Well, let’s just put it this way, it’s a win-win
for everybody.”

“So you ain’t answered my question. You gonna let me go?”

The man rose and went over to the door. “You just hang in there, Kev. Good things tend to happen to patient folks.”

W
hen he got back to the carriage house, Web called Bates at home, waking him up, and told him about his violent encounter with
Big F. He also told him about his meeting with Cove. He rendezvoused with Bates and a team of agents at the courtyard in southeast
D.C. an hour later. The sun was just starting its rise and Web could only shake his head. He hadn’t even been to sleep yet
and it was time to start a new workday. Bates gave him another phone to replace the one Westbrook’s guy had smashed; same
phone number, so that was convenient.

Web thanked Bates, who didn’t comment on the fresh injuries to Web’s face, though Bates clearly was not in a good mood.

“You keep going through government equipment like that, it’s coming out of your damn paycheck. And I left you messages on
your old phone that you never returned.”

“Well, damn, Perce. I get voice-mail messages popping up on my screen sometimes a day after I get them.”

“I never had a problem.”

“Well, that really helps me, doesn’t it?”

They had left one agent to watch their cars. In this neighborhood, nothing was safe or sacred, least of all Uncle Sam’s property.
In fact, some enterprising young fellows would like nothing better than to chop-shop a Bucar and make a tidy profit in the
bargain.

As they walked, Bates’s temper seemed to grow. “You’re lucky you’re alive, Web,” he snapped, not seeming happy at all that
Web had been so lucky. “That’s what you get for going off on your own.

I can’t believe you went into that with no backup. You disobeyed my orders. I could have your ass, all of it.”

“But you won’t because I’m giving you what you need. A break.” Bates finally calmed down and shook his head. “Did he really
blow the guy away right in front of you for being a snitch?”

“That’s not something one tends to get wrong.”

“Jesus, the balls the guy must have.”

“Bowling balls, if they fit the rest of him.”

They all went inside the target building and down to the basement level. It was dark and damp, and it stank. Going from a
stone mansion in Virginia horse country to a dungeon in Anacostia made Web want to laugh. Yet he really had to concede that
he was more of a dungeon guy.

“Tunnels, the man said,” commented Bates, looking around. There were no working lights down here, so each agent had brought
a searchlight. “See, the thing is, we checked for things like that, Web.”

“Well, we need to check again, because he seemed to know what he was talking about, and there’s really no other way those
guns could have been brought in with no one seeing anything. Don’t they have plans down at the Department of Public Works
that would show the location of the tunnels?”

“This is D.C., okay? If you want to go and try and find anything at a city agency, be my guest. Stuff from yesterday is hard
enough to track down, much less from half a century ago.”

They searched everywhere until Web came to a large collection of fifty-gallon oil drums in a far corner. They were ten abreast
and ten deep. “What’s with all this?”

“Furnace system was oil-based. Supply just got left when the place was shut down. Too costly to move it.”

“Anybody check under them?”

In answer, one of the agents went over to the pile and pushed against one of the drums. It didn’t budge. “Nothing’s under
here, Web. You wouldn’t park a million tons of oil on top of a tunnel you had to get in and out of.”

“Is that right?” Web eyed the drum the man had tried to move. He put his foot against it and it was indeed full. Web pushed
the one next to it and the one next to that. Then he pushed against drums in the second row. All full.

“Okay, are you convinced?” asked Bates.

“Humor me.”

As Bates and the other agents watched, Web climbed on top of the drums and started stepping from one to another. With each
one he would stop and rock his weight back and forth. When he reached the middle of the cluster of oil drums, he rocked on
top of one can and almost fell over. “This one’s empty.” He stepped over to the drum next to it. “This one too.” He marched
out a four-drum-by-four-drum grid. “These are all empty. Give me a hand.”

The other agents scampered up to help and very quickly they had cleared away the empty drums and their lights shone on a door
in the floor.

Bates stared at it and then looked at Web. “Son of a bitch. How’d you figure that one out?”

“I did a case when I worked in the Kansas City Field Office. Guy scammed a bunch of bankers by filling up a warehouse with
drums that were supposed to contain heating oil the guy was using for collateral for this huge loan. The bankers sent their
inspectors out and sure enough, they opened a few drums and they were all filled with heating oil. But they only checked the
front fringes because guys in suits don’t like to climb over dirty oil drums. Turns out ninety percent of the drums were empty.
I know because I checked every damn one after we were called in when the guy skipped town.”

Bates looked chagrined. “I owe you one, Web.”

“And believe me I’ll hold you to that.”

Guns drawn, they opened the door, climbed down into the tunnel and followed its straight and then sharply angled path.

Web flashed his light on the floor. “Somebody’s been through here recently. Look at all those tracks.”

The tunnel ended in a stairwell. They headed quietly up, every man alert and ready to fire. They eased the unlocked door open
and found themselves in another building much like the one they had just left. The area they were in had a lot of abandoned
property. They moved stealthily upstairs. The room they found there was large and empty. They moved back downstairs, exited
the building and looked around.

“I figure we went west about two blocks,” said one of the agents, and Web agreed with that. They all looked at the building
where the tunnel had led. Faded lettering on one wall identified it as once having been a food distribution company, and it
came complete with a loading dock where trucks could deliver bananas. Or machine guns. At the loading dock were a couple of
abandoned trucks, tires gone, doors missing.

“In the middle of the night you pull up with a truck and squeeze it right between these two, off-load your crates, take ’em
through the tunnel and that’s it,” said Web. His gaze swept the area. “And there are no residences around here, no one to
see anything, that’s probably why they used it.”

“Okay, but we got Big F on murder one. With your testimony he goes away forever.”

“You have to find him first, and from what I’ve seen he’s pretty good at what he does.”

“We’re going to need to put you in protective custody.”

“No, you don’t. I’m good on that.”

“What the hell do you mean, you’re good on that? This guy has every incentive to blow you away.”

“If he had wanted to do that, he would’ve done it last night. I was just a tad helpless then. Besides, I’ve got a job to do—protect
Billy and Gwen Canfield—and I’m going to finish that job.”

“That’s what I don’t get. He murders a guy right in front of you and lets you walk.”

“So I could deliver the message about the tunnels.”

“What, he’s never heard of a damn phone? I’m not kidding, Web, I want you in protection.”

“You said you owed me, I’m calling in my chit.”

“What the hell is more important than staying alive?”

“I don’t know, Perce, in my line of work I’ve never really thought about it very much. And I’m not going in.”

“I’m your superior, I can make you.”

“Yeah, I guess you can,” said Web, looking at the man evenly. “Aw, shit, you’re more trouble than you’re worth, London.”

“Figured you learned that a long time ago.”

Bates looked around the loading dock. “The thing is, there’s nothing tying the Frees to this warehouse or those guns. Without
something to go on, we can’t hit them. Right now they’re being little angels, giving us no excuse to pay a visit.”

“Nothing has turned up with the killings in Richmond to connect them to the Frees? That’s a lot of tracks to cover.”

“From the angle of the shot on Judge Leadbetter we traced it to a building across the street that’s under construction. Hundreds
of people work there all the time, laborers who come and go.”

“What about the phone call he got?”

“Pay phone in southside Richmond. No trace.”

“But the judge was downtown. So at least two people were involved and they had communication links so the timing of the call
was right.”

“That’s right. I never thought we were dealing with amateurs here.”

“What about Watkins and Wingo?”

“All the people in Wingo’s office have been checked out.”

“Cleaning people? One of them could have applied the atropine to the phone receiver.”

“Again, we checked. Those people come and go, but we found no leads.”

“Watkins?”

“Gas leak. It was an old house.”

“Come on, he gets a phone call right as he walks in. Again, it’s split-second timing. And by somebody who knew all three men’s
routines. And he just happened to have a solenoid in his phone that would make the spark necessary to blow him to heaven?”

“I know, Web, but these guys also had lots of other people with incentives to kill them. One or two of the murders might be
related, but maybe all of them aren’t. At least right now all we have to link them are the phones and the Ernest Free case.”

“They’re connected, Perce, trust me.”

“Right, but we have to convince a jury, and that’s getting almost impossible to do these days.”

“Anything on the bomb out at East Winds?”

“Very sophisticated C4 device. We’ve checked the backgrounds of all the people working out there. Most of the farmhands came
with Strait when the place they were working at closed down. They’re all pretty much clean. A few had misdemeanors, mostly
for drunk and disorderly, stuff you’d expect from a bunch of rednecks.”

“What about Nemo Strait?”

“Like he told you. Grew up on a small horse farm that his father managed. That’s how he learned the business. He fought in
Vietnam and was a superb soldier. Lots of medals and lots of hard fighting. He spent three months as a POW.”

“One tough dude, to be able to survive that. The Cong weren’t known for their hospitality.”

“He did some odd jobs when he got back to the States, prison guard, computer sales. Along the way he married, had some kids,
started working again with horses and got divorced. He came to the Canfields just about the time they bought East Winds.”

“What about old Ernest B. Free?”

“Not one damn sighting, and that’s got me amazed, frankly. Usually we have thousands of phone calls, ninety-nine percent of
them wrong, but usually we get one or two legit leads. This time, nothing.”

A very frustrated Web looked around. His gaze went past the device and then came back to it and was riveted. “Damn,” he said.

“What? What is it, Web?” said Bates.

Web pointed. “I think maybe we’ve got another eyewitness of sorts.”

Bates looked over at the traffic signal at the corner diagonal from the warehouse loading dock. Like other signals in the
area, on top of it was mounted a surveillance camera. And like the other cameras Web had seen in the area on his last trip
through, this one had been pointed in another direction, presumably by mischievous hands, and that direction happened to be
right at the loading dock.

“Damn,” echoed Bates. “You thinking what I’m thinking?” “Yeah,” said Web. “That looks like one of the older models on video
loops that run twenty-four hours a day. The newer ones only activate when they’re triggered by the speed of a car and take
a still photo of the rear license plate.”

“Well, let’s hope the District police haven’t taped over a certain segment.”

Bates signaled for one of his men to make that call immediately. Web said, “I’ve got to get back to the farm. Romano’s probably
starting to feel lonely.”

“I really don’t like this, Web. What if you end up dead between now and then?”

“You got Cove. He saw it too.”

“What if
he
ends up dead too? That’s just as likely, with everything that’s been going down.”

“Got a pen and some paper?”

Web wrote out the entire account of Toona’s murder. Toona’s real name was Charles Towson, Web had found out from Bates, and
no one knew where the nickname had come from, yet everyone working the streets seemed to have one. Well, whoever pulled Charlie
Towson’s body out of the river, if anyone ever did, was going to lose whatever was in his stomach. Web positively identified
the killer as Francis “Big F” Westbrook. He signed it with a flourish and two other agents witnessed his signature.

“Are you kidding me? A defense attorney will tear that apart,” raged Bates.

“It’s the best I can do right now.” Web walked away.

W
hen he returned to East Winds, Web checked in with Romano and then went to the carriage house and eased into a hot bath. A
catnap while he was soaking and he’d be as good as new, he figured. He’d gotten by on a lot less sleep over the years.