the punches.”
“You’d be surprised sometimes.”
“That was some party last night.”
“Billy can really throw them. The Ransome brothers were not exactly what I expected.”
“You don’t believe that’s their real name, do you?”
“Not for a second.”
“When I first met them I thought they were gay. That is, until you walked into the room, and then their sexual orientation became pretty clear.”
Gwen laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
They rode past the opening to the small glen where Gwen’s chapel was.
“Aren’t you going to the chapel today?”
“Not today.” Gwen looked away from the opening in the trees. Today was not a day for prayer. While Web wasn’t looking, though, she crossed herself. Forgive me, God, for what I am about to do. Even as she silently mouthed the words, she never really expected that prayer to be answered.
They reached a steep slope of earth that at the top was covered with trees. She had never taken Web this way before. Perhaps in the back of her mind she had known this day would come.
Gwen whipped up Baron and charged toward the slope, Web and Comet right on their heels. They galloped up the slope, Web almost nosing ahead of Gwen. When they got to the top, they stopped their mounts and gazed out over the countryside while the horses sucked in huge amounts of air.
Gwen looked at Web with genuine admiration. “I’m impressed.”
“Hey, I had a great teacher.”
“The watchtower is close by. The view’s even better from there.” Web didn’t tell her he’d already been up there with Romano when they had checked out the Ransomes’ spread. “Sounds good.”
They rode to the tower, tethered the horses to a wooden post and let them graze. Gwen led Web up to the top of the tower and they watched the sun rising and the woods coming to life down below.
“I guess it doesn’t get much better than this,” said Web.
“You’d think not,” said Gwen.
He leaned against the belly-high wall and looked at her.
“Problems with you and Billy?”
“It’s that obvious?”
“I’ve seen worse.”
“Have you? What if I told you that you have no damn idea what you’re talking about?” she said with sudden anger.
Web’s tone remained calm. “You know, we’ve never really done that. Talked.”
She avoided his gaze. “Actually, I’ve talked to you more than I do to most people. And I barely know you.”
“Chitchat, maybe. And I’m not that hard to get to know.”
“I’m not totally comfortable with you yet, Web.”
“Well, we’re running out of time. I don’t think our worlds will come together again. But I guess that’s a good thing.”
“I suppose,” she said. “I’m not sure Billy and I will be at East Winds much longer.”
Web looked surprised. “I thought this was it for you two. Why go anywhere else? You may have your problems, but you’re happy here. Aren’t you? This is the life you wanted, right?”
She spoke slowly. “There’s a lot of factors that go into the equation of happiness. Some are more apparent than others.”
“I guess I can’t help you there. I’m not an expert on happiness, Gwen.”
She shot him a curious glance. “Neither am I.” They stared at each other awkwardly for a long moment.
“Well, you deserve to be happy, Gwen.”
“Why?” she asked quickly. For some reason, she actually wanted to hear his reasoning.
“Because you’ve suffered so much. It’s only fair—that is, if anything in this life is fair.”
“Have you suffered?” There was a harsh bite to her words, but she covered it quickly with a sympathetic expression. She wanted to hear that he had. But it couldn’t come close to what she had endured.
“I’ve had my share of bad times. My childhood wasn’t exactly the American dream. And my adulthood hasn’t really made up for that.”
“I always wondered why people do what you do. The good guys.” She said this with a completely straight face.
“I do the things I do because they need doing and most people can’t or won’t do them. I’d much prefer that my occupation become obsolete, but I just don’t see that happening.” He looked down. “I never had a chance to tell you this, but I might not get another one.” He drew in a long breath. “What happened in Richmond, that was about my first time as an assaulter, the guys who go in and get the hostages.” He paused again. “After Waco the FBI was really spooked and got ultraconservative in those situations. I’m not saying that that was right or wrong, just that it was different. We wait around for the negotiators listening to all the lies on the phone. It seemed like it always took someone dying before they let us do what we do, and by then we were always playing catch-up. But those were the new rules and we had to play by them.” He shook his head. “I knew something was up when the Frees broke off negotiations. I could feel it. I’d been a sniper for a lot of years, and watching things unfold all that time, you get a sixth sense for what’s coming. You just do.” He looked at Gwen. “I’ve never told you about this. Do you want to hear it?”
“Yes.” Gwen said this so fast, she had no time to even think about it.
“Billy knows some of it. When he came to see me in the hospital.”
“I’m sorry I never was able to.”
“I didn’t expect you to. I was stunned to see Billy, actually.” Web seemed to take a few moments to compose his thoughts. While he did so, Gwen stared out at the foothills of the Blue Ridge in the distance. Now that she thought about it, she really didn’t want to hear this, but she couldn’t tell him no.
Web said, “We got to the gymnasium entrance clean. I looked through the window. Your son saw me. We made eye contact.”
This clearly surprised her. “I didn’t know that.”
“Well, I never told anyone before, not even Billy. The time never seemed right.”
“What did he look like?” she said slowly. Her pulse was pounding in her ears as she waited for his answer.
“He looked scared, Gwen. But he also looked stubborn, defiant. Not an easy thing when you’re ten years old and facing a bunch of psychos with guns. I guess now I see where David got that spirit.”
“Go on,” she said in a small voice.
“I motioned to him to keep calm. I gave him the thumbs-up because I wanted him to stay cool. If he got spooked and reacted or something, they probably would have shot him instantly.”
“Did he?”
Web nodded. “He was smart. He knew what I was trying to do. He was right with me, Gwen. With all that stuff going down, he was as brave as anyone could be.”
Gwen could see that there were tears in his eyes. She tried to say something but found she couldn’t speak. The terrible years of her life started to seem erased by his words.
“We were about to go in. Quiet, no explosive. We’d seen through the window where each of the Frees was positioned. We were just going to pop them all at once. We got our countdown and then it happened.”
“What? What happened?”
“A sound from inside. It was like a damn bird or whistle, or alarm or something. It was loud, high-pitched and it couldn’t have come at a worse time. The Frees were instantly on alert and when we came through the door, they opened fire. I don’t know why they shot David, but he was the first to go down.”
Gwen wasn’t looking at Web now. Her gaze seemed frozen on the hills. A whistle?
“I saw the shot hit him.” Web’s voice was now very shaky. “I saw his face. His eyes.” Web closed his and the tears dribbled out from under the lids. “They were still looking at me.”
Gwen’s eyes were filled with tears now too, yet she still wasn’t looking at Web. “What did he look like then?”
He turned and stared at her. “He looked betrayed,” Web said. He touched his dama
ged face. “My face, and the two bullet holes I have in my body, none of it hurt me more than the look on your son’s face.” He said again, “Betrayed.”
Gwen was trembling so badly now that she had to support herself against the railing as the tears poured from her. Still, she couldn’t look at him. A whistle.
“Maybe that’s why I disobeyed orders when I joined the attack on the Frees.” He stared at her. “It cost me my career, Gwen, I’ve been kicked out of the Bureau for it. But I’d do it again. Maybe it was my way of atoning for things. See, your son deserved better than I could give him. I live with that every day. And I’m sorry that I let him and you down. I don’t expect forgiveness, but I just wanted you to know.”
She said quietly, “We probably should get back.”
Gwen went down first and walked over to Comet instead of Baron. She lifted the horse’s foreleg. Every nerve in Gwen’s body was now on fire, her pulse still banging in her ears. She could barely stand, but she had to do this, despite all that had just been revealed, she had to do this. She had waited long enough. She closed her eyes and then reopened them.
“Is there a problem?” asked Web.
She couldn’t look at the man. “It seemed like he was a bit off in front. But it looks all right. I’ll have to keep an eye on it.”
She reached up and patted Comet’s neck, and while Web wasn’t looking she slipped the object she held in her hand under the saddle.
“Okay, now this is your big test,” she said. “We’re going to gallop hard down that slope toward those trees, but then you have to rein in the horse quickly because the path through the trees is too narrow to do much more than a walk. Understand?”
“I’m game.” Web patted Comet’s neck.
“I’m sure you are. Let’s ride,” she said with finality.
They both swung into the saddle and started toward the trees.
“You want to lead?” asked Web as he settled into the saddle.
“You go ahead. I want to watch Comet’s leg—”
The horse bolted and Web wasn’t ready for it. Comet accelerated and headed at full gallop down the slope and straight for the thick trees.
“Web!” screamed Gwen, and she rode after him, but she was subtly reining Baron in and was falling behind. As she watched, Web lost a stirrup and then almost fell off. The reins dropped from his hands and he clutched the saddle horn in desperation even as the ground between him and trees was closing fast. He didn’t know it, but every bounce in the saddle was driving the small tack Gwen had placed under the saddle further into the horse’s body.
Web never looked back. But if he had, he would have seen a woman suddenly in terrible conflict. Gwen Canfield wanted so desperately to see horse and rider slam into those trees. She wanted to see Web London die right in front of her, to be vanquished forever. She wanted to be released from the pain that had tormented her for so long. She just couldn’t endure it anymore. She was beyond her limit. Something had to give. All she had to do was sit back. Instead she whipped up Baron and thundered after Web. Fifty feet separated Web from those trees, and Comet was living up to his name. At forty feet, Gwen slipped a little to the side of her horse. At thirty feet she started reaching out, poising her hand at just the right angle. They were twenty feet from the trees and now Gwen had thrown her fate in with Web’s, for if she couldn’t stop Comet, she and Baron would be hitting those trees too.
At ten feet she managed to lean far enough over to grab the reins. And she pulled with a strength that came from all the agony bottled up inside her for all those years, for she almost single-handedly pulled down a thousand-pound horse going at break-neck speed barely five feet from the tree line.
Breathless, she looked over at Web, who just sat there, slumped over. He finally glanced at her but still said nothing. And yet Gwen felt like the load of the collective misery of the world had been lifted from her shoulders. She had long envisioned it as akin to barnacles against her soul, impossible to remove; and yet now it had disappeared like sand in a breeze. And she marveled that finally letting go of all the hate could actually feel this wonderful. Yet the cruelty of life had not finished with her, because now Gwen’s hate had been replaced with something even more corrosive: guilt.
52
When Gwen dropped Web off at the carriage house, she was strangely silent. He tried to thank her for saving his life, but she had cut him off and driven away. A very curious woman was Gwen Canfield. Maybe she blamed herself somehow for what had happened with Comet.
Yet at least Web had accomplished his goal of finally telling the woman what he had been holding in all these years. He thought about going up and telling Billy too, but maybe it would be better coming from Gwen—that is, if she bothered to tell her husband at all.
He went inside and Romano was eating breakfast. “You look a little whipped,” commented Romano.
“Hard ride.”
“So we are officially done here, aren’t we? See, Angie’s back and she is one ticked-off lady. I’m going to need to head home sometime and face the music.”
“Yeah, I guess we’re done here.”
“Hey, Web, I’ll race you back to Quantico, we’ll find out what your Mach is really made of.”
“Look, Paulie, the last thing I need is a speeding . . .” He froze and Romano looked at him curiously.
“What? It’s not the end of the world getting stopped for speeding. You flash your creds and they let you go. Professional courtesy.”
Web pulled out his cell phone and punched in the numbers. He asked for Percy Bates, but he wasn’t in.
“Where is he? This is Web London.”
Web knew Bates’s secretary, June, and she recognized his voice. “I know it’s you, Web. I’m so sorry what happened.”
“So Perce isn’t around?”
“The truth is, he took a couple days off. The media relations people are going nuts. They wanted to bring you in to get some quotes, but Perce said no. Have you seen the TV or the papers?”
“No.”
“Well, someone would’ve thought we killed the Pope by mistake, for the fuss people are making over what happened.”
“Well, a lot of people did die, June.”
“People with guns shooting at other people take that risk, Web,” she said, steadfastly toeing the Bureau line. “Anyway, Perce said he had to get away for a couple of days. I know he felt horrible about what happened with you.”
“I know, June, but maybe there’s a silver lining in there for me.”
“I hope so, I really do. Now, can I help you with anything?”
“Clyde Macy, he worked as a foot soldier for one of the local drug crews. I saw some speeding tickets in his file. I just wanted to find out exactly where he had gotten them and when.”
“I’ll have to call somebody for that, but it should only take a few minutes.”
Web gave her his number to call back. As promised, she did shortly. She gave him the information and Web thanked her and clicked off. He looked over at Romano with a dumbfounded expression.
“What?” asked Romano as he swallowed the last bite of his pastrami-on-rye breakfast.
“Clyde Macy got three speeding tickets over a six-month period. Almost lost his license.”
“Big whoop. So he drives too fast.”
“Guess where he got all three?”
“Where?”
“All within one mile of the Southern Belle farm, and one of them less than a hundred yards from the entrance. The entrance was actually noted as a landmark on the Fauquier County police officer’s report. That’s why I picked up on it.”
“Okay, so I guess I’m not going home to Angie today?”
“Sure you are. But tonight we’re hitting the Southern Belle.” They packed their gear and got in their cars.
“You tell them we’re heading out?” He motioned toward the mansion.
“They know.” Web glanced back at the stone house and said quietly, “Good luck, Gwen.”
As they
were driving out, they saw Nemo heading toward them in his truck. He slowed and stopped. He looked, Web noted, very surprised to see him.