The Silent Places (29 page)

At 8:10, the front door opened. A man came out in a dark suit and an overcoat. Not the senator. The senator’s legislative assistant.

No. Not an assistant. A bodyguard. Probably another ex–Navy SEAL. He would be checking the vehicles.

Which meant the senator would be coming out.

Reese leaned forward, his finger over the trigger.

“Reese!”

Reese froze.

The voice was coming from his right.

A man positioned behind a tree, a Winchester rifle aimed at him.

“Take your finger off that trigger,” Hastings said. “You won’t makeit.”

Reese thought, I might. Then he swung the rifle at the voice and fired.

The shot hit the tree and Hastings flinched and stepped back, taking cover behind the tree. Then he stepped back out and saw Reese running, limping, but running for cover. Hastings raised the Winchester, aimed for Reese’s leg, and pulled the trigger.

The shot boomed out and Reese flipped in the air. Hastings pulled the bolt back to put another shell in the breech, but now Reese had scrambled behind a tree.

Now they both had cover.

Birds flew away in the damp chilly air. A couple of moments passed by.

“Shit,” Reese said, loudly enough for Hastings to hear. “How did you find me?”

“Your scope,” Hastings said. “It reflected sunlight.”

“Goddammit. I forgot to shield that. Dumbass mistake.”

“It happens,” Hastings said.

“You working for Anders?”

“No. St. Louis police.”

A pause. Then: “Are you the one who followed me into the park?”

“Yeah.”

“Hell. Do you know I could have killed you back there?”

“No.”

“I could have, but I hesitated. If I’d thought you were working for Anders, I wouldn’t have hesitated.”

“You didn’t hesitate just now.”

“Well, I didn’t know you were a cop.”

“You do now. Why don’t you throw down the rifle and come out with your hands on your head.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“It’s over, Reese.”

“Don’t tell me it’s over,”
he shouted. “Do you have any idea what that piece of shit did to me? What he’s doing to other soldiers?”

“What do you mean, ‘other soldiers’?”

“His relationship with Anders. Don’t you understand? Anders is getting rich off those contracts, and Preston is, too. By supporting an unnecessary war. Men are dying for that. Men with families.”

“That’s not my concern.”

“It isn’t? Just who the hell are you working for?”

“I told you. I’m a cop. Besides, this isn’t about soldiers in Iraq. You just want revenge.”

“Well, wouldn’t you? Preston knew I was innocent. The CIA told him I was, but he went ahead and put me in jail anyway. He
lied
. To him, I was nothing. A step in his career.”

“Look,” Hastings said, “if it’s any consolation, I believe you. But you can’t kill him. You do that, you’re nothing but a murderer.”

“He tried to have me killed. How do you think I got out of prison? He sent men there to bring me out and kill me.”

“What?”

“You heard me. God, don’t you know anything? He’s using you, too.”

“That’s my problem,” Hastings said. “But I cannot let you kill him.”

“You’d protect him?”

“It’s not about him,” Hastings said. “Listen to me, John. I know about your wife. I know she died while you were in. Do you think she’d want this?”

“You don’t know anything about her, so just shut your mouth.”

“I’m sorry for your loss. I’m sorry for the injustice. But you can’t kill him. Not in cold blood. Not in my town.”

Hastings heard quick steps behind him. He turned just in time to see Clu Rogers hit him in the face with the butt of a machine gun. Hastings went down. Not unconscious, but stunned. He reached for his rifle on the ground, but Clu stepped on it.

Clu pointed the machine gun at Hastings.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Clu said, a nasty smile on his face. He raised the gun and said, “We’ll put this on Reese, huh?”

The crack of a shot, and before Hastings could cry out, he saw Clu stop. A hole now in Clu’s forehead. Clu fell back. One shot, one kill.

Reese rammed another shell in the chamber and turned on Dexter Troy, who was back and to his left. Reese raised the rifle as Troy fired the M16 at him. Shots exchanged, but Reese taking three to Troy’s one. Both men went to the ground.

Troy was on his back. He had been shot through the stomach, the shot going out the back. Slowly, he sat up and reached for the M16, and Reese shot him again, this time through the heart.

Hastings ran over, the Winchester in his hands. He pointed it at Troy and said, “Stay where you are! You hear me! You go for that rifle, I’ll kill you!”

The shouts were for nothing. Dexter Troy was dead.

Hastings picked up Reese’s Enfield and flung it away. Then he turned Reese over. Reese was shot to pieces, his chest and neck open and bloody.

Reese was grinning at him. He said, “You never know who your friends are, huh?”

“Shit,” Hastings said, overwhelmed by the sight of it, the man red and busted apart. “Why did you do that?”

“He hadn’t earned the right to kill you,” Reese said.

“John. You shouldn’t have come back here.”

“I had to,” Reese said. “Now look at me.” He gasped out something like a laugh. “What folly. I guess I’m going now.”

“What are you talking about, ‘going’?”

“You know,” Reese said. Then he died.

Hastings was leaning against the back of one of the police cars parked by the Preston house. Chief Grassino broke away from a group of police officers and federal agents and walked up to him. The chief was holding two cups of coffee. He held one of them out to Hastings.

Hastings took it and thanked him. Grassino leaned up against the car next to him.

Grassino said, “Where were you hiding?”

Hastings said, “I was on third floor of the house across the street. The place we were when we did our stakeout.”

Hastings held a cloth over a cut above his eye. The skin had been slashed open by the butt of Clu Rogers’s machine gun.

Chief Grassino said, “You had permission from the owners?”

“Yes.”

“What about Preston? Did he know you were there?”

“No. His wife did, though.”

“You asked his wife?”

“Yes. She said it was okay.”

“How long were you there?”

“Since about midnight,” Hastings said.

The chief said, “The senator’s not happy about this.”

“I don’t care.” Hastings lowered the cloth and looked at the chief.

“Well,” the chief said, “I do. It seems pretty clear to me you saved his life. But I wouldn’t wait around for a thank-you if I were you.”

“I don’t plan to.”

“How did you know, George? How did you know Reese would come here? That he wouldn’t try the assassination downtown?”

“I didn’t know for sure,” Hastings said. “But I suspected it. A Hinckley, a glory seeker, would have done it at the Soldier’s Memorial. Try to make a name for himself. But Reese wasn’t after glory. He just wanted to kill Preston. This was the smart move.”

“And you say he saved your life?”

“He did. I don’t know why.”

Martin Keough was striding toward them.

“Oh, here we go,” Hastings said.

Keough stood in front of him and said, “You’re finished.”

“Pardon me?” Hastings said.

“You heard me,” Keough said. “Your career is over.”

“Why is that?”

“To begin with, who the hell gave you permission to be here? Huh? You were not authorized. We’ve got two men dead.”

“I didn’t kill them. Reese did. And I’m glad he did.”

Keough leaned in. “What?”

Chief Grassino started to speak, and Hastings raised a hand to stop him. Hastings said, “I said I’m glad he did. One of them was going to kill me. Probably the other one, too. Reese saved my life.”

“I say you’re lying.”

“I don’t care what you say. I don’t work for you.”

Keough turned to Grassino. “What do
you
say?”

Grassino said, “I say it’s a police matter, and if you’re half as smart as you seem to think you are, you’ll move on.”

“Excuse me?”

“By the way,” Grassino said, “where do you get the idea that you get to determine what is or is not authorized by the police department? You got some special police badge in your pocket? Because if you do, I don’t remember deputizing you.”

Keough took it in. Then he snorted out one of his shitty little laughs and said, “I see. You’re going to protect your own, huh?”

“Whatever I do, it’ll be my decision. Not Preston’s and certainly not yours. Savvy?”

Keough looked at Hastings, then at the chief, and then at Hastings again.

“You’ll regret this,” Keough said.

Grassino gave him an up-and-down appraising look, then smiled and said, “I doubt it. Go on.” The chief waved his hand as if he were shooing off a child. “Go,” he said. And Keough went.

Hastings said, “You know, Chief, you’ve got quite a way with words. You ever think of running for public office?”

“Don’t fuck with me, George. Not now.”

The boy behind the desk was polite and he handled the guests professionally. He gave them directions to the St. Louis Zoo and told them to have a nice trip. They thanked him and left, impressed with his maturity and attitude. The boy made an entry into a computer behind the desk and then looked up at the man with a bandage over his eyebrow.

“Yes, sir?”

“My name is Lieutenant Hastings. I believe Mrs. Mangan is expecting me.”

The boy’s expression changed.

“Yes,” Connor Mangan said. “She’s my mother. I’ll get her. If you like, you can wait in the dining room. There’s coffee in there.”

Molly Mangan wore a blue winter dress, which Hastings thought flattered her. She sat with him at a table in the corner of the dining room. She asked if he preferred tea or coffee. Hastings told her he preferred coffee and what he had was good.

Molly said, “You didn’t have to come see me. I guess I should thank you.”

“I had the time,” Hastings said.

“I called after I saw it in the paper,” Molly said. “I saw his picture and I knew it was him. He had told me his name was John. He had told me that he’d lived in England.”

“He told you the truth.”

“He didn’t tell me everything.”

“Maybe he told you all he thought he could.”

“He was kind and I want you to know he didn’t try to trick me. Or—”

Hastings imagined what had happened between them. He told himself it was none of his business.

Molly said, “But I didn’t know. I didn’t know why he came here.”

“I believe you. You have no obligation to explain yourself. Not to me or anyone else. I understand he registered here under a false name.”

“But he told me his real name.”

“Yeah,” Hastings said. “He did.”

“Where is he now?”

“They buried him in a pauper’s grave. It’s standard procedure when the person has no funds. Or family.”

“Couldn’t they have buried him next to his wife?”

“No one claimed him. I’m sorry, ma’am, but that’s how it is.”

A man and woman came into the dining room. The woman took a seat and crossed her legs. The man went to the long table and poured two cups of coffee and put cream in one of them.

Molly said, “I wanted to ask you something.”

“Okay.”

“Do you think he would have killed Senator Preston if he could have? If he had had the chance?”

Hastings had no doubt that he would have. But now he said, “I don’t know. He never got the chance.”

The Mangan woman lowered her head.

Hastings said, “Mrs. Mangan, I want you to know two things. One, he saved my life when he didn’t have to. The second thing is, he was innocent of the original charge. He wasn’t lying when he said he was wrongly convicted.”

“He could have stayed here,” Molly said. “He could have left it alone. I guess he just didn’t want to. It’s all just such a waste.”

Hastings sighed and said, “Yes, it is.”

Molly looked directly at him. “Would you have killed him? To save Preston? Would you have done that?”

“That would have been up to Reese. But if it had come to it, yes, I would have.”

“Even though you knew the senator deserved it. You’d have done that.”

“We can’t allow vengeance killing. Deserving has nothing to do with it.”

“Some business you’re in,” she said.

Hastings had intended to tell her not to feel bad about getting involved with Reese. Not to feel dirty or guilty. But now he saw she didn’t need that sort of comfort. She was angry at him now. She had to be angry at somebody. It would pass, though. He believed it would pass.

The next day, Rhodes came into Hastings’s office and said, “Senator Preston’s on television.”

Hastings went into the homicide squad room and joined the group of detectives watching a CNN broadcast. It was Preston thanking Dexter Troy and Clu Rogers for sacrificing their lives for him.

American flags were in the background and somewhere else the logo of Ghosthawk, Incorporated. Preston was eulogizing the “heroes” who “gave their lives” selflessly, protecting him from an American terrorist.

Groans in the homicide squad room. Murph saying, “Have you ever heard such shit? He was about to kill a cop.”

“Fucking disgraceful,” Rhodes said.

Preston kept talking. Klosterman said, “I don’t think he’s finished.”

“
. …
In a time of cynicism and despair, we can take some comfort in the bravery of these men. They are the personification of courage. They represent what is best about America
…
.”

“Oh, God,” Murph said, “this guy is unbelievable.”

“
. …
Their sacrifice has moved me to remember that America is a country that deserves better. They deserved better. We need leadership that is worthy of such Americans. Leaders who do not fear the dark of night. Leaders who do not run from terrorists. Leaders who do not negotiate with evil but, rather, face evil and say, ‘We will defeat you!’ Leaders who do not treat the enemy the same way we treat a shoplifter but, rather, who believe in the old-fashioned idea of treating the enemy as the enemy. Leaders who know that when we are pushed, then, gentlemen, we will take the fight to them.”