The Last Kind Word (34 page)

I swung the truck and trailer in a wide arc to the right, stopping only when the trailer was settled next to the wooden shack. The shack was open like before, and I thought, that's where the canvas chairs came from. Off went the pickup's headlights and engine. I didn't realize how big and bright the moon was until I climbed out of the cab. Daniel continued to point his gun at me while we moved toward the fire.

“Do yourself a favor,” I told him. “Don't stand too close.”

“Oh, I won't.”

“Protect the girl.”

“I said I would.”

The Mexican's three henchmen moved into flanking positions as we approached, one to my right and the others to my left, stopping when they found an angle that would allow them to fire on me without hitting each other. I had the distinct impression they knew exactly what they were doing.

“Veo que trajiste a tus hombres,” I told the Mexican.

I heard my words echoed in English—“I see you brought your men”—something I found quite disconcerting, until I noticed Fenelon whispering into Brand's ear.

“Y bastantes armas también,” the Mexican said.

“And plenty of guns, too,” Fenelon repeated.

We stopped a few yards short of the fire pit. Daniel backed away while still holding his gun on me—I hadn't asked him to move for his safety, but for mine. Brand remained sitting in his canvas chair. The flames from the fire pit reflected in his face, making him look like a movie villain. All he needed was a white cat to stroke.

“I take it I'm not to be arrested, then,” I said.

“You're referring to Deputies James and Williams,” Brand said. “We decided not to include them in our transaction. I hope you don't mind. Their presence made my partner nervous.”

The fire gave Brand's teeth an orange glow when he smiled. I glanced at the Mexican. He wasn't smiling at all.

Brand wagged a finger at me. “Trying to turn my friend against me, that was a bold move, Dyson.”

“Mátenlo,” the Mexican said.

“Kill him,” Fenelon repeated. He leaned in when he spoke, and I could see his battered face. Someone had worked him over good and proper—the sight answered all of my questions.

“Wait, wait,” Brand said—which was exactly what I was going to say. “Daniel, how did it go?”

“Perfectly. Almost too perfectly.”

“The money?”

“It's hidden inside the lockers on the pontoon boat.”

“How much?” asked the Mexican.

“Won't know until we count it but it's—substantial.”

“I do not know that word.”

“Cómo no,” Fenelon said.

While they were talking I cautiously reached into the left-hand pocket of the swimsuit I was still wearing and produced my cell phone—the one I had been using ever since I arrived in the northland, the one no one else knew about.

“Now you can kill him,” Brand said.

The Mexicans raised their assault rifles. I raised my hand. The light from the cell phone shone like a small flashlight.

“Are you guys in a hurry?” I was speaking loudly, almost screaming. “Do you have a bus to catch?”

“Don't,” Daniel shouted. “Hold your fire, hold your fire.”

The henchmen didn't lower their rifles. On the other hand, they didn't shoot, either, so I had that going for me.

“¿Qué es esto?” the Mexican asked, and then translated for himself—“What is this?”

“Daniel?” Brand asked.

“Goddamn sonuvabitch,” Daniel answered.

“Daniel, what?”

“I have a bomb wired to a cell phone detonator,” I said. “Any sudden moves and I'll blow up the money, the boat, that shed filled with aviation fuel, and maybe some of you. It'll be one helluva an explosion, I promise. The CBP guys at the inspection station across the lake should have no problem seeing it.”

Everyone was standing now. Brand moved to Daniel's side and grabbed him by the arm. “Is this true?” he asked.

Daniel pulled his arm away. “I thought I got his cell phone.”

“Two bombs, two cells,” I said.

“You let him bring a bomb here?” Brand said.

“We must kill him,” the Mexican said. He was speaking English so no one would misunderstand. I did, too.

“Hombre, we had a deal,” I said. “The money for the girl. Bring me the girl. Do it now. You can keep the money.”

No one looked like they believed me. Brand nodded his head, though, and Fenelon quickly crossed the clearing to the Subaru. A few moments later, he led Jill by the elbow to the fire. Brand intercepted him, grabbed the girl, and pushed her toward me. She stumbled. Instead of attempting to catch her I stepped away and let her fall. Brand and the Mexicans flinched like defensive linemen waiting for the ball to be snapped yet did not move.

“You sonuvabitch,” Brand said.

“Don't call me names, John. I don't like it.”

“You think you're getting away with something?”

Jill rose slowly from the ground and stood by my side. She was still wearing the soiled nightgown; she looked dirty and worn. I spoke to her in a low voice without taking my eyes off of Brand and the Mexican.

“How you doing, sweetie?” I asked.

“I'm okay.”

“You don't sound okay.”

“I bet I look worse.”

A sense of humor,
my inner voice said.
Amazing.

“You got the girl like I promised,” Brand said. “Now give me the phone.”

“Not a chance.”

“We should kill him,” the Mexican said.

“All I have to do is tap the button and all that money burns.”

“You will die.”

“You're going to kill me anyway—you keep saying so.”

“The money,” Brand said. “We need to think about the money.”

“You promised millions,” the Mexican said.

“Yes, I did.”

“In the meantime,” I said, “everyone move to the fire. Do it now.”

The Mexican regarded me for a long moment, then gestured for his men to gather around the fire pit. Both Brand and Daniel hesitated before joining them. When he realized he was standing alone, Fenelon joined the group, yet not before saying, “I'm sorry.” I actually felt sympathy for him.

“Is this what you call a Mexican standoff?” the gunrunner asked.

“In a manner of speaking,” I said. My arm was getting tired holding the cell in the air. I refused to lower it because I wanted them all to appreciate the danger; I didn't want anyone getting careless. “This is what we're going to do. You're going to give me the keys to the Malibu. Jill and I will take the car and drive away. As soon as we're gone, Daniel can disarm the bomb. He knows how. Everybody gets what they want. Simple.”

“No,” Brand said.

I ignored him and continued to talk to the Mexican. “You and your amigos can climb into your plane and fly back to wherever you came from with a couple hundred pounds of U.S. currency.”

“No,” Brand repeated.

The Mexican turned his back to me and spoke quietly to Brand. I couldn't hear exactly what he said, but his tone of voice suggested that he was questioning Brand's judgment. While they were discussing the matter, I whispered to Jill.

“In a minute, they're going to light up this clearing like Target Field. As soon as they do, you and I are going to make a run for the dock and jump into the lake. Cannonball, don't dive—we don't know how deep the water is.”

“We won't get away doing that,” Jill said.

“We're not trying to get away. We're trying to get out of the line of fire.”

“I don't understand.”

“Once we're in the water, we'll swim under the dock and wait until it's over.”

“Until what's over?”

I took Jill's hand. I had hoped to give it a reassuring squeeze, but my grip was far too tight for that.

“Dammit, Chad,” I said. “They're all standing in the open in a frickin' group, no less. What the hell are you waiting for?”

“Who are you talking to?” Jill wanted to know.

“The man on the other end of the phone.”

“What man?”

Daniel overheard us, although I didn't think he understood exactly what we were saying. He gripped his gun with both hands and brought it up, yet he didn't point it at us. Instead, he peered into the darkness.

“Something's wrong,” he said.

Brand waved at him the way parents dismiss children who interrupt their conversations. When they finished talking, both he and the Mexican turned to face us.

“Mr. Dyson, we find your terms unacceptable,” Brand said.

“I'm open to suggestions.”

“I'm going to kill you.”

“Ahh…”

“One way or the other, you're a dead man. If you want to take the money with you, that's your choice. If you give me the phone instead, I promise I'll let the girl live. Daniel will take her home. I'm not worried about her testifying because she knows what I'll do to her family if she does. If you don't give me the phone, I will kill you both.”

“I'm supposed to take your word for that?”

“Not just my word, Daniel's, too. He seems to have taken a liking to her.”

“I hadn't noticed.”

“The money for the girl. That was our original deal.”

“So it was.”

“Give me the phone, Dyson. Do it now. Don't make me wait.”

“Any frickin' time now, guys,” I said.

“Something's wrong,” Daniel repeated.

Please, please, please,
my inner voice chanted.

The lights came on, five of them in an arch arranged from one end of the clearing to the other. I was right about the Target Field reference—you could play baseball under them.

“This is the ATF,” a man shouted over a megaphone. “You're surrounded.”

There was something else about dropping weapons and raising hands. By then I had Jill turned around and we were both running, hand in hand, toward the dock. She was in bare feet, yet that didn't seem to slow her down.

Guns were being fired. Single shots and full automatics. I heard someone shout, “Don't hit the girl.”

The wooden dock groaned under our feet. We had to duck our heads to avoid being decapitated by the wing of the seaplane. When we reached the end of the dock we jumped in. The water was deep. We didn't touch bottom. I held tight to Jill's hand while I kicked my legs toward the surface. We both came up gasping for breath. I was facing the lake. In the distance I could see the lights of two boats that had not been there before. They were coming fast.

I turned toward the shore. The scene in the clearing was chaotic. Two of the Mexicans were down. The third henchman and his boss were standing rigid, their hands locked behind their heads. Men dressed in windbreakers emblazoned with the initials
ATF
pushed them to their knees and clasped their arms behind their backs with handcuffs.

I could not see Brand and Daniel, and then I did. Somehow they had managed to reach the wooden shed. The far side of the shack was on fire—I have no idea how that happened. Brand was inside the shed; Daniel had taken cover behind the near wall. They were both firing on the ATF agents with assault rifles. They had attempted to escape into the woods, but the agents had blocked their path.

I pulled Jill to me, wrapped an arm under her shoulders, and swam with one hand to the end of the dock—it never even occurred to me to ask if she could swim. We grabbed hold of the piling. I positioned myself so that my body was between her and the clearing.

The fire grew until the far side of the shack was engulfed in flame. I wanted to warn the agents about the aviation fuel inside, only I knew they wouldn't hear me—the roar from the two speedboat engines was so loud I couldn't even hear myself. As it turned out, the agents didn't need a warning. I realized that when one of them jumped into the cab of the pickup truck. I whispered a “thank you” to no one in particular that I had left the key in the ignition. The agent started up the truck and drove across the clearing, pulling the trailer and pontoon boat with it.

Moving the vehicles exposed Brand and Daniel to additional gunfire. Brand was the first to fall. Daniel was hit, yet he managed to keep his feet. He leaned against the wall of the shack. He looked out toward the lake. It seemed to me that he was staring directly at Jill when the aviation fuel ignited.

The words formed in my head—
The Jabberwock with eyes of flame, came whiffling through the tulgey wood
—yet I couldn't manage to say them out loud.

*   *   *

Jill sat in Brand's canvas chair, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Someone had built up the fire, and she was staring into it. Her hair had dried some, yet it was still matted to her head. Her eyes were swollen from the crying she had done. I sat next to her and held her hand. I had been holding it for nearly two hours. I just didn't want to let her go.

The volunteer fire department had come and gone. There hadn't been much for them to do except wet the ground and extinguish all the embers they found. After the barrels had exploded, the fire burned off all the aviation fuel. A few trees had gone up with it, yet not as many as you'd think before the fire died out on its own.

The Mexicans were on their way to the Cities along with their weapons. The serial numbers of the guns proved that they belonged to a batch the ATF had lost in Operation Fast and Furious. There were only four of them, and Bullert seemed disappointed until his people searched the Mexicans' seaplane. Apparently they had enough ordnance on board to arm the entire population of Orr. The seaplane was licensed to an address near Thunder Bay, Ontario. Bullert conveyed that happy bit of news over the phone to his people in Washington, D.C. It was a pleasant conversation. When he finished he smiled broadly and announced he was going to Canada in the morning.

“Good for you,” I said.