Forewarned, they had taken advantage of that intelligence and escaped a fate that they shouldn’t have. Someone here had done that. Tucker had suspicions of who that might be. But he needed more than suspicions. And he aimed to get it.
Along with two rogue agents.
He stared at the doorway that Amanda Marks had walked through a few minutes before.
He had brought her here principally because she had the reputation of being both a ball buster and a company person through and through. He hoped that she lived up to that rep. If not, she would be assigned to a place in the middle of nowhere, with no possibility of ever getting back.
But he didn’t really care about her. His fixation was Robie and Reel. Jessica Reel was in his crosshairs. She was the trigger woman on his former DD and an analyst whom she had shot in the back.
Illegal. Treasonous. Unforgivable.
Tucker didn’t care what her reasons were. That was why they had courts and judges and juries. And executioners. Reel had taken it upon herself to be all of those things. Then she had jumped right to the execution part. For that she had been allowed to walk free and even given a medal.
That stark injustice made Tucker seethe.
Well, he was not without influence or resources. He would use both to make sure that the appropriate punishment was meted out to her. And Robie too, if he was idiotic enough to stick with her.
The fact was, Tucker knew that he would likely be resorting to his Plan B on the upcoming mission. The odds were very high that Robie and Reel were not going to make it out of the Burner Box. So if justice could not prevail in a court of law, it would still triumph somewhere in the wilderness of North Carolina.
Tucker knew that he was staking everything on this. The mission he was engaged in with General Pak would be the pinnacle of his career. Or the catalyst for his downfall. For what they were proposing to do was quite illegal, even if the president had signed off on it. Tucker had not believed that the current occupant of the Oval Office had the cojones to make that sort of call. But the president had surprised Tucker and done so. Now the die was cast. There was no going back.
In a perfect world, the mission would succeed and Robie and Reel would be history.
A perfect world. The only problem was, his world was about as imperfect as it could possibly be.
He cradled his drink, took a sip, and sat back. Another long day of keeping everyone safe. It was a dirty, filthy business, what he did. And no one involved in it was anything other than filthy.
Including me, thought Evan Tucker. Most of all, me.
Chapter
8
EARL FONTAINE SAT BACK IN his bed and let out a contented sigh.
The visit had been a successful one. The two men had been all that they had claimed to be when they had first contacted him. It was a little surprising to Earl that he was allowed visitors at this point, but perhaps the warden didn’t think he was dangerous anymore since he was old and dying in a crappy prison hospital ward.
Well, the man could not have been more wrong. Maybe his stinger had been pulled, but Earl had other resources, starting with the two men in the black suits toting the Bibles. And they had others, lots of others, to work with them.
The Bibles were a nice touch, he thought. Bibles put people at ease, when they should be on the highest alert. Good for Earl. Bad for the law. In fact, what was bad for the law was always great for Earl Fontaine.
The men in black had done their part. They were all ready. Now it was time for Earl to do his part.
He grabbed at his belly and hacked up what felt like part of his left lung. That was really the only one he had left. They’d cut most of the other one out years ago in an effort to stem the cancer. They’d only done it to try to get him healthy so they could kill him. But he’d beaten them on that. He wasn’t getting healthier. He was dying. Dying fast, but not too fast.
Ironically, the only thing keeping him going was the idea that if he could accomplish this last thing in his life, he could die easy. It was all he thought about. He was obsessed with it. It was the only thing keeping his good lung moving, his diseased heart pumping, and the pain relatively at bay.
He caught his breath, wiped the sweat from his face, and struggled to a sitting position. It was hot. It was always hot here. Apparently, Alabama didn’t enjoy a winter season. For over twenty years the sweat had spilled off him day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute—but he had endured, eventually making clever jokes about the heat that had passed from one cell to the next, making Earl a bit of a celebrity in here.
He looked down at the tube. He got his basic nutrients through an IV right into his belly. Although he’d been a hearty eater all his life, food meant nothing to him now. And neither did the smokes, despite his giving the nurse a hard time about those.
He gathered his energy and eyed the woman making her rounds through the patients here. She was young and attractive, and the first time Earl had seen her, he had had thoughts that he hadn’t had in a while. In his day, big, tall, handsome, what he could have done with a woman like that. To a woman like that. She would know who ruled the roost, that was for damn sure. She was a doctor, smart, educated, liberated no doubt. She probably had a bunch of ideas in that pretty head. Hell, she probably went and voted too, and not just the way her hubby told her to. He loathed women like that. But that didn’t mean he didn’t want to possess them.
He stared over at Junior, who had perked up when he too had eyed the young doctor making her rounds. Earl grinned at this. He could see Junior taking in the shoulder-length hair that smelled so good, the slender hips, the nicely rounded bottom that pushed against the fabric of her skirt, the glimpse of a soft bosom resting just beneath the white blouse. The stethoscope around the long neck. Her ears were pretty too, Earl had decided. He would like to nibble on them. He would like to nibble on all of her.
He imagined her naked and then in every sort of scanty lingerie. He imagined himself doing things to her. His breathing grew heavy, but that was all. His equipment downstairs no longer worked. The chemo and radiation had seen to that.
But Junior had no such problem. Earl could see his right hand under his sheet. Disgusting little shit. World would be better off when they killed the bastard. But part of Earl was jealous that Junior could still jack off and he couldn’t.
Behind the doc was Albert, the largest and meanest guard here by far. He made Earl look small. He made everybody look small. His uniforms were always too tight because the Alabama correctional system apparently had none large enough to properly fit him. He surveyed the room, his gaze always moving, his baton held at his side. He was shadowing the doc, Earl knew, because of past incidents.
Inmates had tried to put hands on her, feel her up, snatch a kiss. Now Albert walked with her as she made her rounds. You tried to touch the skirt now, you got a baton rammed down your throat. Albert didn’t care how sick you were or how much pain you were in. He’d just make you hurt more. Earl knew because he’d seen Junior try it once. And any thought Earl had had of doing the same had disappeared because of what had happened to Junior.
Albert had knocked three of his teeth out and the blood had flown so far that it had reached Earl’s bed. That had been two months ago, when Junior had been in here for another ailment. The man was full of sick, it seemed. Although maybe it was just the thought of the poison needle heading his way that made him feel so poorly. Earl didn’t know and really didn’t care. He was simply biding his time until she got to him.
Twenty minutes later the doctor arrived.
Her scent reached him long before that, though—honeysuckle and lily of the valley. They were smells he knew well growing up in the backwoods of Georgia. She was the only one who smelled like that in the whole place. There were no female guards, and the male guards reeked almost as bad as the inmates. But the doc was a honeysuckle. She was fine. Earl looked forward to her visits and got himself in a temper when another doc substituted for her.
She took h
is records off the hook on the end of the bed and read through them. She must know them intimately by now, Earl thought, and they all pointed relentlessly to his demise. But she had to see that his meds and such had been properly given, he figured.
“How are we doing today, Mr. Fontaine?” she asked. She never smiled, never frowned. Never looked happy or sad. She was just…there. And for Earl, that was enough, especially today.
He eyed Albert standing behind her. Albert glanced down at Earl, and the smirk on his face was something that made Earl want to put a bullet in the guard’s brain.
“Fine, fine. No complaints. Mebbe a little more morphine in the drip, Doc. Get me through the night.”
“I’ll see if we can do something about that,” she said, her eyes flicking over his chart. She checked his vitals on the monitor and then listened to his heart pumping away. When her hand grazed his neck he felt his skin burn with pleasure. He hadn’t been touched by a woman in over…well, he couldn’t exactly remember how long it’d been. Before the Clinton boy got to be president, probably.
She asked him a few questions and even sat on the edge of his bed as she checked him over. When she crossed her legs her skirt rose enough that Earl could see her rounded knee. It gave him the tingles. Her in his bed?
He looked up at Albert and gave the smirk right back, the big asshole.
“Anything else, Mr. Fontaine?” she asked as she rose off the bed and looked down at him.
This was the moment. This was what Earl had been waiting all this time for.
“I do got me something, Doc.”
“What’s that?” she said, but there was no interest behind her eyes. Inmates here probably had lots of special requests of her, most of them perverted, even with the massive Albert standing behind her. Lust often trumped good sense.
“Got me a daughter.”
Now her eyes focused on him. “A daughter?”
He nodded and struggled to sit up. “Ain’t seen her in forever. She’s all growed now. Must be, let me see, well into her thirties sure enough.”
“Okay?”
“See, thing is, hell, you know it, I’m dying. Ain’t long for this world, right? She’s all I got left. Like to see her, if I could. Say goodbye, all that. You unnerstand?”
She nodded. “I can see that, certainly. Where is she?”
“See, there’s the thing. I don’t know. Hell, for all I know she’s changed her name. Well, I know she did for a fact.”
“Why would she have done that?”
Earl could not lie here, though he wanted to. The doctor could check. And if she found out he was lying she would surely not do what he so desperately needed her to do.
“She went into Witness Protection. Her real name’s Sally, named after my momma, God rest her soul. Last name Fontaine, o’course. Like mine. I’m her daddy. Ain’t seen hide nor hair since she done that.”
“Why did she go into Witness Protection?”
“Ain’t nothing I done,” he said quickly. And this was true. She had gone into the protection program for another reason unrelated to her murderous father. “It was because of what others done, over in Georgia. After her momma died and I went to prison she got put into foster care. Got mixed up with some bad eggs and then turned agin ’em. That’s why she went in.”
“Okay, but what do you want me to do?”
Earl shrugged and put on his most pathetic expression. He even forced tears to slide down his face. He had always been able to do that on command. The tactic had worked on many women. Too bad for them.
He said simply, “I’m dying. Want to see my only kid before I kick off.”
“But if she’s in Witness—”
He broke in, growing impatient. “You can call ’em. Tell ’em about me. They’ll have a record of her. Maybe she’s still in there, maybe she ain’t. Maybe it’s a long shot. Hell, probably is. But if they could get a message to her? Be up to her, o’course, if she wants to come see me or not.”
“But will they let her?”
“Long time ago all that stuff happened. Folks after her, hell, they’re all dead now. Or in prison. She’s got nothing to be afraid of. And she don’t have to come. Up to her, like I said.” He paused and looked directly at the doctor, assuming the most sincere expression of his life. “My only chance to say goodbye, Doc. Ain’t got much time left. Hell, you know that better’n anybody. Better’n me even. Why I decided to ask you. Don’t think the warden gives a damn.” He paused. “You got kids?”
She looked startled by this. “No, I mean not yet. But I hope to—”
“Best thing I ever did in my life. Royally screwed up the rest of it, no lie there, but my little girl? Now, I done good bringing her into this world, and I’ll tell anyone who asks.”
Earl heard Albert snort at this but he kept his gaze on the doctor. His eyes bored into hers. He had always been able to play to the sympathies of women. He hoped he had not lost this skill.
“My little girl,” he said. “Last chance. If she wants to come and see me, so be it. If not, then that’s okay too. But I just want to give her the chance to see her daddy one last time. That’s all, Doc. Can’t make you do it. You got to want to. All I can do is ask. Well, that’s all I got to say. Up to you now. If you don’t want to, I’ll unnerstand. Shoot, just go to my grave wondering, I guess. Mebbe no mor’n I deserve. Don’t know. Just don’t know. My little girl. My little…”
He lay back against his pillow, out of breath, his frame sunken in, looking as pitiful as he possibly could.
He could see the conflict going on in the woman’s mind. He had spent much of his life studying people in order to learn how to best exploit them. The eyes revealed the internal turmoil she was experiencing. She looked uncertain, confused, all good things for him.
At last she said, “I’ll…I’ll see what I can do, Mr. Fontaine.”
He reached out his hand for her to shake. Albert quickly stepped up but the doctor motioned him back. She shook Earl’s hand. Hers felt warm and soft inside his bony cold one.
“God bless you, Doc. God bless you from a dying old man.”
She walked off to the next patient. But Earl had done his job.
He knew she was going to do exactly as he had asked.
Chapter
9
THE CARGO PLANE BUMPED ALONG at about ten thousand feet as they descended into what looked to be dense forest. Robie and Reel sat across from each other in jump seats in the cargo hold. As the plane shuddered and thrashed through the air Reel smiled.
“What?” asked Robie.
“For some reason I thought the agency would have sent one of the Gulfstream jets for us.”
“Right. At least the trip wasn’t long.”
“Good old North Carolina. In the middle of nowhere, North Carolina,” she amended.
“The agency does not encourage neighbors,” replied Robie.
There were no windows for them to look out, but their ear pops told them the plane was in descent. And their watches confirmed this to be the case.
“What’s your best guess for when we get there?” she asked.
Robie shrugged. “They said they were going to put us through the paces. I expect them to do nothing less than that.”
“And afterward?”
“If there is an afterward.”
“I don’t think that’s entirely up to us, Robie.”
“Never thought anything different.”
Five minutes later they heard the landing gear come down. A few minutes after that the plane touched down on the tarmac, then rolled for a bit as the thrust reversers and wheel brakes were engaged and the aircraft came to a clunky halt far down the runway.
The plane taxied and then the engines were killed. A door was opened and they were told by one of the aircraft’s personnel to exit.
They walked down a set of portable stairs that had been rolled to the open door of the plane.
When they touched ground a Humvee pulled up with a skid. Inside was a dri
ver and, next to him, Amanda Marks, dressed in cammie gear. She got out and faced them.
“Welcome to the Burner. We’ve made some changes since you were here last.”
“What kind?” asked Reel.
“I don’t want to spoil the surprise,” replied Marks. She eyed them both and then looked at a sky full of clouds. The chilly wind whipped around them.
“Down to your skivvies. You can keep your shoes on.”
“Excuse me?” said Reel.
“Strip down to your skivvies,” Marks said again. Her tone now carried no pleasantness.
“And why would that be?” asked Robie.
“Either do it or get back on the plane and hire a lawyer,” she retorted.
Robie and Reel looked at each other and then slowly started to undress on the tarmac.
Robie had on running shorts and a white thermal long-sleeved T. Reel had on bike shorts and a blue tight-fitting long-sleeved Under Armour workout shirt. Both had on running shoes.