The Constantine Conspiracy (7 page)
Buster almost laughed. People were idiots. If he lived through this, which he hardly expected, he’d tell them precisely why he did what he’d done. Infamy. Since he’d lived as a nobody, he wanted somebody to remember him, and since he had no way to make that happen by doing normal things, he’d make it happen by doing something highly abnormal. Off the charts abnormal. Point-the-camera, breaking-news, put-it-in-the-history-books abnormal.
Now, comfortably in place on top of a thirty-story building just outside the I-285 perimeter of Atlanta, Buster Will pulled his cell phone from his pocket, flipped it to video cam, and set it up on the six-inch-thick wall that edged the roof. Then he lifted his M-16 rifle and peered over the edge to the parking lot below. Time to rock and roll.
A car pulled up and parked as Buster pulled a cigarette from his shirt and lit up. Two people climbed out of the car—a doctor whom the stocky man had told him to target—and a nurse companion. Lovers, the thick man with the Southern accent had informed Buster. The doctor was married to someone else, another reason for Buster to take care of business this morning. The doc was an adulterer and a murderer.
“The doctor does over a hundred abortions a year,” the stocky man had said.
“Innocent babies,” Buster fumed. “No threat to nobody.” He remembered that he’d always wanted a baby sister, somebody to love and take care of, somebody who might even love him back, but his momma never had one. “Don’t need another noose hanging around my neck,” his momma said after her third abortion. “Bad enough I got you to worry over.”
“He likes the money,” the blocky man said, talking about the doctor again. “All of them do.”
Buster took dead aim with the M-16. If he did this just right and traffic wasn’t too heavy, he could take this doctor out plus two or three more before lunch.
He laughed after he pulled the trigger and the doctor fell, his body collapsing like a scarecrow in a hailstorm. By six o’clock tonight the Heritage Home—a shelter for unwed mothers in the heart of Atlanta—would have a million-dollar cash donation granted to them by Buster Will and delivered by UPS in a brown suitcase filled with unmarked bills. Better yet, everybody in America would know his name.
Buster turned and faced the camera as the doctor died. The guy who’d handed him the cash had made it plain what he needed to say next.
“The Lord Jesus hates baby-killers!” Buster yelled. “And I’m a soldier in the Lord’s Army!”
Grabbing his rifle and the camera, he sprinted away from the roof and on to his next appointment.
W
ith his truck whipping along at 85 miles an hour about forty miles out of Wolf Creek, Rick reached several conclusions. First, he needed to avoid the use of any technology the cops could use to track him. Stay away from areas—including airports and large cities—where cameras might film him. No use of ATM machines or credit cards. No vehicles with GPS devices. No calls on his cell phone. Even Luisa’s phone scared him; eventually the authorities would discover that she’d given it to him.
Second, whoever murdered his dad—and clearly someone had—could have fled in any direction. Rick needed time to figure a way to find the assassin. But how? He weighed all kinds of options, but none felt likely to produce results. He tried his grandfather’s phone again but got an answering machine again, so he hung up without speaking. Pops was probably visiting a head of state somewhere, locking up an international contract, making a bargain to buy another company. He wondered if the police had found him, given him the news.
Rick flipped on the radio, discovered his new vehicle had satellite broadcasting, and searched the stations until he found Fox News. The speaker announced a breaking bulletin and Rick held his breath.
“This just crossing our desk from Helena, Montana,” said the broadcaster. “Not many details in place yet, but reports tell us that police about eighty miles from the capital have found the body of Steve Carson, the son-in-law of the world’s richest man, dead by drug overdose. Like I said, details are sketchy and no one has characterized the death as a homicide yet, but we have confirmed that the police have named Rick Carson, the deceased man’s son, as a ‘person of interest’ in the death.”
Rick pounded a fist into the seat. Whoever said that even bad publicity was a good thing was an idiot. He flipped off the radio, considered the resources at his disposal, and tried to calm down. He still had close to ninety thousand dollars, plus a truck and cell phone it would take the cops awhile to discover. He rubbed his beard, thankful for the disguise it offered. His hand dropped to the pistol on the seat beside him. Not that he’d ever use it, not even to avoid jail, but its presence still gave him a strange comfort.
But where should he go? Not to one of his famous friends— talk about a paparazzi free-for-all! He also eliminated the family estate outside of Atlanta. A thousand cops probably surrounded it by now, fighting for curb space with a thousand members of the media. He thought of Pops again but rejected that option. Although he wanted Pops to hear this news from him, he didn’t plan to run to him for help, because he knew where that would lead. Pops would hire the best lawyer on the globe to defend him, but that would push the police toward the suicide explanation, and Rick wanted no part of that. Steve and Pops never liked each other, and if Pops faced the choice of a disliked son-in-law committing suicide or a beloved grandson murdering him, Pops would throw his considerable power behind the suicide verdict every time.
Where to turn then? A light rain started to fall as Rick slowed for a caution light in the center of a small town, and he thought of Shannon Bridge. Did she grow up in a town like this? Home to a few farmers and their chickens? If not, what brought her to the area as a ranger? Would she help him as she offered? She seemed honest, trustworthy. But she didn’t know him and he certainly didn’t know her. And that prayer business as he left Solitude . . . it gave him the quivers. She was obviously one of those right-wing nut jobs he ran into occasionally—a Bible-toting, flat-earth-believing, every-second-praying woman of virtue. A virgin-until-marriage, a liquor-never-touched-my-lips, a curse-word-never-crossed-my-tongue kind of lady.
Rick shook his head in disgust. A woman of her obvious intelligence should know better; might as well believe in Sasquatch as Jesus. He reached the end of town, hit the gas again, then punched on the radio once more as a breathless announcer updated the news.
“Just getting this in,” the man panted. “From outside of Detroit. A suicide bomber just blew up a mosque. No casualty numbers yet, but we’re hearing that the bomber called 911 right before he entered the holy place of worship. According to our informant, and again remember this is all still raw news, the bomber claimed to be acting in the name of Jesus Christ. Not exactly what church leaders want to hear, I expect, but there you have it. We’ll get you more information as soon as it comes to us.”
Rick grunted and thought of Shannon Bridge again, but the announcer’s next statement brought him back to his own troubles.
“Now, let’s catch you up with new information on the Steve Carson death,” the reporter said. “Police now say that Rick Carson, the deceased’s son, apparently ditched his Hummer at a local eatery in Wolf Creek within an hour of the family refuge in Montana. Police aren’t sure where Rick Carson is headed, but they tell us they’re now searching Wolf Creek for anyone who saw him earlier this morning. It’s possible he purchased a vehicle from someone he met at that diner, but no one has come forward to substantiate that.”
Rick pushed the truck to 95 miles per hour as the rain fell harder. He needed a different vehicle now, as well as a destination. But where? To whom? He turned up the windshield wipers and it came to him, the only place that made any sense. Yes, it would take hours and hours to reach her, but if anyone had a clue what had happened to his dad and why, she would.
Dealing with the delusions might cause a few problems, of course—the occasional incoherent babbling, the effects of heavy medication. And who knew what he’d find when he arrived at the posh mental facility outside of Atlanta; conditions might have worsened since he’d last visited there almost six months ago. Nothing guaranteed he could get in either, that he could slip past the facility’s security to talk to her. No doubt the cops had the place staked out, waiting for him. He needed a way to slither in, find out what he could, and slither out. No easy task for a non-entity—perhaps an impossible one for one of the most recognized people on the planet. Still, he held no other cards, so he had to take the chance.
Rick jammed the accelerator to the floor. If he managed to elude the police long enough, he planned to make a long-overdue visit to his mother.
T
he police told Shannon Bridge they’d contact her again when they needed her, then dismissed her from the station in Wolf Creek just before noon. Instead of going home, though, she drove straight back to Solitude, parked off the highway about fifty yards from the ranch’s gate, and pulled a camcorder from the truck’s glove compartment. Then she hopped out and started a slow, deliberate walk around the exterior of the retreat. Although not expecting to find anything, Shannon still felt driven to do this—just in case.
She wondered about Rick as she studied the ground. Did he murder his father? She didn’t think so, but it was possible. But why? What screwed-up family dynamic caused a son to kill his dad? She knew the chief possibility, of course; the one thing that could have stolen Rick’s soul, poisoned it to the extent that he would act without conscience. If Rick had lost himself to— She shook her head against the idea, her instincts rebelling. Something in her wanted to protect Carson, and she sensed that if she entertained the notion—even for a moment—that the worst would end up true. But why did Rick flee if he was innocent?
Shannon recalled all she’d learned about him. International party-boy, friend of all the Hollywood A-listers, the international glitterati. Flyer of jets, player of guitar, climber of mountains, including Everest. Yet also known for large contributions for neurological disease research, the time he gave for children’s literacy, and his amiable relationship with the paparazzi who snapped his gorgeous face every time it showed itself in public. An odd mixture of a man, she concluded, intriguing but repellent at the same time.
A media van slammed on the brakes at Solitude’s gate, and Shannon snapped back to the present to watch it. Scores of them at the house, she figured, the feeding frenzy already loose on Rick’s family. No wonder he ran; anything to postpone facing the scandal-hungry hordes who feasted on this kind of situation.
A raindrop hit her forehead and Shannon turned her face to the clouds and inhaled deeply. Although she dreaded the trouble let loose by Steve Carson’s death, she also felt strangely grateful that it had come. That’s why she’d accepted this particular assignment; not because she wanted Carson to die, but because she needed to deal with a certain episode from her own past, and this situation almost guaranteed that she would. Truthfully, she’d never expected it to happen here; who would have? What could happen this far in the wilderness? But once again, she’d learned a hard lesson. Humanity’s worst vices lived everywhere, and no matter where she went, she inevitably ran into it. Part of her calling, part of the cross she’d carried since . . .
“Why, God?” she wondered to the clouds as heavier rain fell. “Why me again?” She heard no answer, but that didn’t bother her. She trusted God in the silence as much as she did any other time, perhaps even more. Good thing too, since silence seemed to be God’s specialty, at least in her life.
Licking the rain off her lips, she wrapped her arms around her waist and looked down again, her eyes sweeping the ground as she walked through a small swale. The earth dropped away slightly and formed a small hollow space. The ground felt softer here, and she remembered the heavy rain that had fallen three days ago—a quick afternoon storm that had burned the sky with lightning and drenched the soil with a quarter inch of water. This hollow had caught that rain, held it here like a saucer holding soup. Even now the grass squished under her feet. She bent and stalked the area, then saw what she had hoped to see—a single narrow tire track, obviously from a motorcycle.
She traced the track out of the hollow and it creased the ground all the way to the highway where it disappeared in the asphalt. Steadying her camera, Shannon pointed it at the track and put it on video, all the way back to the hollow, the spot where someone perhaps hid his bike while he did his deed at the Carson ranch. Then she wiped the lens and snapped several pictures with the still-frame feature.
Finished, she straightened and wiped the lens again. The rain continued to fall, not heavy but steady. A gray car approached from the highway, and she stopped to watch as it pulled up to the gate. More media? The window rolled down and a man poked his head out and waved—not in a friendly way. Shannon tensed.
Both doors on the car opened and two men in dark suits and sunglasses hopped out and moved her way. Her heart raced, but she kept her wits enough to turn and quickly film the surrounding area, making sure to record identifiable features to mark the location of the motorcycle track. If this ever ended up in court, the authorities needed to see landmarks to attach the track to a specific location. Otherwise a defense lawyer could claim the track had no connection to the murder scene.
The men yelled at her and she shut off the camera and hustled to her vehicle.
“Hold it there!” the men called, now running at her. “Who are you?”
Wondering the same thing about them, Shannon hopped into her truck and sped away, the men no more than twenty feet behind. She checked her rearview mirror and saw the men stop, turn, and rush back to their car. One of them had ears like saucers and she made note of that as she wheeled around one corner then another, calculating the time it would take the men to reach their vehicle and come after her. She turned left on a side road, then right past a grove of trees. One thing about her year as a ranger—she knew the area. Another turn and she saw the road she sought, a gravel path off the highway. She pointed the truck down it and sped around a twist, then a turn, until she reached a thick rock outcropping. Panting, she braked to a stop behind the rocks and waited for several minutes, her senses on alert for sounds of pursuit. Nothing followed, so she took a deep breath as an unexpected sense of relief hit her. Although the tire track didn’t prove anything, it offered at least a little support for Rick’s suggestion that an intruder had killed his father, and she desperately needed that—something to help her believe in his innocence. Otherwise her mission to Montana made no sense, and she had spent the past year in the wilderness chasing a ghost.