Last Man Standing (75 page)

“Sizewise. Is it particularly big?”

“Nope, it’s your standard seven-foot Townsmand bumper pull.” “
This
is a standard Townsmand? And that yearling is fifteen hands high? You’re sure?”

“As sure as I’m standing here.”

Web shone his light around the interior.

“If this is a standard trailer, how come you don’t have your tack boxes down there?” He looked at the man suspiciously and
shone his light at the sides of the trailer’s interior.

The man looked at where the light was shining. “Well, the first point, son, is you don’t never put anything like that where
a horse can nick its leg on ’em. A nicked leg can blow a sale.”

“You can pad them,” Web shot back.

“And the second point is . . .” He pointed up to the front of the trailer, where Web could see a large compartment filled
with tack, medicine bottles, ropes, blankets and the like. “And the second point is, you got all that tack room right there,
so why do you need to put something special in that might just tear up your horse’s legs?” The man looked at Web like he really
was insane.

Web wasn’t paying attention because something was starting to seep into his brain that, if true, would put a whole new face
on everything that had been happening. He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out some photos he had kept in an envelope, photos
Bates had given him. Web picked one out and held it in front of Romano as he shone his light on it. “The guy who you gave
the kid to that night?” he said. “Is this him? Think of him with a blond crew cut, not bald. I know it’s hard because he was
wearing shades. But try.”

Romano studied the photo and then gaped at Web. “I think that’s him.”

Web immediately took off running for the tree line, Romano right behind him.

“What the hell’s got into you, Web?”

Web didn’t answer. He just kept running.

T
he door to the underground room opened and Nemo Strait walked in. Claire and Kevin were each cuffed to a large iron bolt in
the wall, and their arms and legs were also bound with thick rope. Strait had ordered them gagged but not blindfolded. “You’ve
already seen way too much, Doc,” he had explained to Claire, “but it won’t matter none.” His chilling meaning had been absolutely
clear.

His men poured in behind Strait and came at her and Kevin with blankets and more ropes.

“Help us, help us,” Claire tried to scream out, but her words were barely audible because of the gag. She struggled vainly
against the men. Kevin just stared silently at his captors, as though his expectation of death had finally been realized.

“Let’s move it,” said Nemo Strait. “We don’t have all night, and we got a lot to do.”

As they carried Kevin out, Strait affectionately patted the boy on the head.

W
eb looked in each of the back windows of Nemo Strait’s house. The man’s truck wasn’t parked out front, but Web was taking
no chances. Romano was checking the sides and the front. They hooked up and Romano shook his head. “Nothing. Place is empty.”

“Not for long,” said Web.

It took all of twenty seconds to pick the back door lock and they were inside. They methodically searched the place until
they came to the man’s bedroom.

“What exactly are we looking for, Web?”

Web was in the bedroom closet and didn’t answer right away. He finally backed out with an old shoebox. “This might be a start.”

He sat on a chair next to the bed and started going through the old photos. He held one up. “Here we go. Remember Strait said
he was a guard at a juvenile detention center when he got back from Nam?”

“So?”

“So, guess who was an inmate at that same juvie center for putting a meat cleaver in his grandma’s head? I saw the file when
I met with Bates at WFO.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Clyde Macy. He’s the guy in the photo I showed you, the guy who impersonated an FBI agent. Damn, I wish I’d shown you his
photo before. Now I’m betting if we looked at the dates it’ll show Macy and Strait were there at the same time.”

“But Macy was with the Frees after that.”

“And maybe Strait finds him and convinces him to come and work for him.”

“But you said Macy was muscle for Westbrook.”

“What Macy is, is a cop wannabe. I’m thinking he was under-cover and was infiltrating Westbrook’s organization as part of
Strait’s drug ring.”

“Strait’s drug ring!”

“Oxycontin. Horse trailers, the perfect way to move the stuff. The trailer at the Southern Belle was how a Townsmand is really
set up. Strait had the one at East Winds put in with a false bottom that raised the floor so much a fifteen-hands-high yearling’s
head almost touched the roof. And he had storage boxes put in to carry even more drugs. And the speeding tickets? Macy wasn’t
going to the Southern Belle, he was coming here. And I bet he was the one who found out Toona was snitching for Cove. He used
that information to set up Cove and us and then told Westbrook, who eliminated Toona.”

“You think maybe Macy was the one who fired the shots at the Free compound and started the slaughter?”

“And planted the drugs there and all the other ‘evidence’ for us to conveniently find. And he probably stole Silas’s truck.
I’m bet- ting he was also the one who shot Chris Miller outside of Cove’s house. And Strait is ex-Army and maybe that’s how
he got hold of those machine guns, and he probably knows something about making bombs.”

“But that means they were both tied in somehow to the hit on HRT. Why?”

All this time Web had been going through the photos until he stopped and pulled another one out. “Son of a bitch.”

“What?”

Web turned the photo around. It was a picture of Strait in uniform in Vietnam. Next to him was a man that Romano didn’t recognize,
but Web certainly did. Even though the guy was much younger in the photo, he really hadn’t changed all that much.

“Ed O’Bannon. He was the army shrink who helped Strait after he escaped from the Viet Cong.”

“Jesus.”

“And that means that they may have Claire, and even Kevin, around here somewhere. The farm would be a perfect place to hide
them.”

“But I still don’t get it, Web, why would Strait and O’Bannon and Macy want to take out Charlie Team? It makes no sense.”

Web thought hard, but that answer wasn’t coming to him. At least it didn’t until he glanced down and saw it. He put the shoe-box
aside and slowly reached down and plucked the object up from where it had fallen partially under the bed.

He held the anklet up and shone his light on it. Yet Web already knew to whom it belonged. He ripped the bedspread off and
examined the pillows with his flashlight. It only took him a few moments to find the long blond hairs.

He looked at Romano in disbelief. “Gwen.”

T
he trailer was backed up to the pool equipment room. The horse ramp was down and one of Strait’s men had slid out the long
piece of metal revealing the false bottom space that was easily big enough for a large shipment of pills . . . or the bodies
of a woman and a little boy.

Strait was overseeing the transfer of Claire and Kevin to this compartment. They were struggling mightily and making noise—too
much noise.

“Open the pool,” he ordered. “Be easier if we drown ’em first. And cleaner than shooting them here.”

The cover over the pool cranked back and then the men partially slipped the ropes and blankets off Claire and Kevin and started
dragging them over to the water.

That’s when the voice called out.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Strait and his men whirled around. Gwen was standing there, holding a pistol.

“Hey, Gwen, what are you doing up?” asked Strait innocently. She looked at Claire and Kevin.

“Who are they, Nemo?”

“Just a couple of issues I got to deal with and then we can all ride off into the sunset.”

“You’re going to kill them?”

“No, I’m going to let them testify and put me on death row.” Several of Strait’s men laughed at this. Strait drew closer to
Gwen, never taking his eyes off her.

“Let me ask you a question, Gwen. You said you were going to take care of London. But I saw him ride off today and the man
was breathing just fine.”

“I changed my mind.”

“Oh, that’s good, you changed your mind. You mean you got cold feet. I figured. When you get right down to it, Gwen, you ain’t
got the stuff to do this. The killing. That’s why you need men like me to do it for you.”

“I want you to leave now. You and all your people.”

“Well, I’m planning to do that.”

“No, I mean without your
issues.
”

Strait smiled and drew still closer to the woman. “Now sweetie, you know I can’t do that.”

“I’ll let you have a head start of twelve hours before I release them.”

“And then what? That’s a lot of explaining to do. And you’ll take the heat for it?”

“I’m not going to let you kill them, Nemo. Enough people have died already. And it’s my fault. You were right, I should have
let go of the hate a long time ago, but whenever I tried all I could see was my son, dead.”

“See, the problem is, if I leave them here and they talk, the cops will never stop looking for me. But if I kill them, then
when I exit stage left, nobody gives a crap. And that’s a big difference, because once I settle down in a place, I like to
stay there, and I’m not spending my retirement running from the FBI.”

He glanced toward one of his men; he was circling around behind Gwen.

Gwen gripped her pistol and aimed it at Strait’s head. “I’m telling you for the last time, leave!”

“And what about your cut of the drug money?”

“That was all your doing. And I don’t want it. I’ll take the heat for everything. Just go!”

“Damn, woman, what got into you, you see God or something?” “Get the hell off my land, Strait, now!”

“Look out, Gwen!” screamed Web.

The voice caught all of them off guard, but the man circling behind Gwen still fired his gun, which missed because she had
ducked down at Web’s warning. The shot hit behind her.

Web’s sniper rifle barked and the man fell dead into the pool, the chlorinated water instantly turning red.

Nemo and his men took cover behind the horse trailer and opened fire, while Gwen disappeared into the bushes.

After they had left Strait’s place, Web and Romano had gone to the equestrian center because Web wanted to check something;
sure enough, he found the small wound on Comet’s back. Gwen had plotted to kill him and then had a change of heart. Because
of their talk? If so, Web wished he had had it years ago with the woman. He didn’t have proof of it all, but it seemed clear
to him that Gwen had enlisted Nemo and his men to exact her revenge for her son’s death. Whether it was Billy Canfield’s neglect
that had driven her to Strait’s bed, he didn’t know.

They were headed to the mansion next when they had heard the noise at the pool area and come running in time to hear the exchange
between Gwen and Strait, in time to hear Gwen admit that the people killed had been her fault, her revenge. Now they were
in a full-fledged firefight with no way to call in reinforcements. And the big problem was that Claire and Kevin were caught
in the middle.

It seemed that Strait realized this because he called out, “Hey, Web, why don’t you come on out now? ’Cause if you don’t,
I’m gonna put a bullet into the woman and the kid.”

Web and Romano looked at each other. Strait didn’t know Romano was there. Romano turned and headed to the left. Web headed
right and then stopped.

“Come on, Nemo, you’ve got no chance, and the cavalry’s on the way.”

“That’s right, I’m a desperate man with not a damn thing to lose.” He fired a shot very close to Claire’s head where she and
Kevin lay on the pool deck.

“Look, Nemo,” said Web, “two more killings aren’t going to help you any.”

Strait laughed. “Hell, Web, they ain’t gonna
hurt
me none either.”

“Okay, Nemo, tell me the one thing I haven’t been able to figure out,” Web called out. “Why the kid switch in the alley?”