Chasing the Son (33 page)

“Fuck you people!” Preston screamed. “My father is a Senator! You can’t touch me. I’ll kill him before I let you win! I have a plan! I
will not
allow you people to interrupt it.”

“Stop, please,” Mrs. Jenrette said. “There’s been too much pain. Too many deaths. This isn’t worth it.”

Preston looked down at the pier. “You. Daddy. What’s your son worth to you? Will you call off your dogs for his life?”

Chase took two steps forward, toward the boat, hands raised. “I’ll give you my life for my son’s.”

Sarah Briggs and Kate Westland halted about ten feet away from Chase and Riley. They had their weapons aimed up toward Preston, but they couldn’t get a clear shot as he was in the alcove of the hatch with Harry in front.

“Move east, swing around,” Westland said into her phone. “Target the man holding the hostage.”

“Negative,” the sniper responded. “I have to target the Sanction.”

“The Sanction has changed,” Westland said.

Sarah Briggs shifted her gaze to Westland. “Your Cellar support? Aiming at me? Let ‘em shoot. Fuck it. I don’t care any more. Maybe it will confuse the little shithead up there and someone else can get a clear shot.”

* * *

On board the chopper, the sniper gave the order and the Little Bird lifted out of the trees on Daufuskie and banked hard, heading out over the water so it could swing around and she could have a shot west, toward the boat and the new target.

* * *

Chase took another step forward. “Preston. Let Harry go. I give you my word. My heart for his heart.” He thumped his chest. “Shoot me and it’s over. The slate is clean.” He nodded toward Riley, then Sarah and Westland. “I’m ordering them to stand down if you let Harry go.”

“You’re full of shit,” Preston said. “You fucked everything up! All my plans!”

Chase held his hand over his heart. “My heart for his and yours.”

Preston pulled the gun from the back of Harry’s head and fired, pulling the trigger as fast as he could.

His first round hit Chase’s shoulder, staggering him back. The second and third into his chest, but then Harry slammed backward into Preston, getting space between the two.

And Sarah Briggs fired her SCAR, the round hitting Preston in the left eye, blowing his brains out.

Chapter Seventeen

Horace Chase had been shot before.

But this was different. In Afghanistan there had been pain, blood, gunfire still going off all around, his medic working over him.

But this time he felt strangely calm and still. He was lying on his back on the pier.

No pain. Dave Riley was kneeling over him. “What the hell were you thinking?” Horace could feel Riley ripping open his shirt. Probing. Doing something.

He didn’t care. Looking past Riley he saw Sarah Briggs staring down at him. And then his son.

“Harry,” Chase said. But he couldn’t hear his own words, which worried him that his son couldn’t hear them.

He remembered something though, even as he looked at his son. “Gator? Is Gator all right?”

“Vest took the rounds,” Riley said, pressing a bandage against Chase’s chest. “Biggest problem the dumb lug has is falling down those stairs and hitting his head. You’re going to be okay, Chase. You’re going to be all right.”

Chase smiled. “I
am
all right. A heart for a heart.” He suddenly saw his mother, Lilly. Reading to him each night. Often the same letter now in the bottom of his foot locker. So many times, so much love. Chase lifted his blood-covered right hand. And his son leaned over and took it. “
’And, which is more,
you’ll
be a man, my son’
.”

And then Horace Chase died.

Epilogue

A single death does not stop the other lives affected by it. It sends them tumbling, staggering, meandering, marching, searching, in different directions.

* * *

Kono leaned over Gator and placed a poultice on his chest. “It will make you better.”

“Chase is dead?” Gator asked. He was on the deck of the
Fina
, his chest bruised from where the bullets had hit his armor vest. He also had welts and bruises from his battering from hanging suspended underneath the swim platform of Preston’s boat.

Pain might be weakness leaving the body, but at the moment, Gator was feeling a smidge beat up.

“Yes.”

“Fuck.”

“He died well,” Kono said.

Gator looked up at his friend. “There is no dying well. There is just death.”

“He gave a life for a life,” Kono said. “There is nothing more honorable.”

* * *

Cardena watched Senator Gregory leave his mistress’s apartment building.

So predictable. And in the covert world, predictable was a kissing cousin of fatal. For the Senator, he probably thought it was no big deal.

He was wrong.

Cardena’s men grabbed the Senator quickly and efficiently, snatching off the street in Alexandria as if the man had stepped into a crack in the pavement to Never-Never land. Cardena followed the van to a black site, ironically one Senator Gregory had voted in secret to fund.

What goes around, comes around.

The Senator, once the gag was removed, was screaming threats. It’s what those who thought they were powerful did when suddenly transplanted into an environment where they weren’t.

“Are you in charge, you fucking asshole?” Gregory demanded of Cardena when he entered the padded cell.

Cardena wiped the Senator’s spittle off his face. “No. But I’m as in charge as you’re going to meet.”

“Who do you work for? Get them here right now!”

“I work for Hannah.”

That gave the Senator pause. Cardena could almost see the blocks of thoughts tumbling in the Senator’s brain, like dominos heading toward a bad ending. The man, after all, wasn’t stupid.

“What is going on?” Gregory asked, in a much more civil tone. “Is this about my asking her to back off in South Carolina? One of her people took a shot at my son, damn it.”

“Yes,” Cardena said. “But that was just a warning shot. Just think. If you were so upset about that, how upset would you be if your son had actually
been
shot?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “It would not be hard to imagine that you might possibly be so upset at losing your only son, you’d take your own life. On top of evidence being uncovered about the impropriety regarding a causeway and Daufuskie? What a scandal.”

Gregory’s face went pale. “Are you threatening me?”

“What’s curious,” Cardena said, “is that your first response is to ask if I’m threatening you, without any consideration whether your son has indeed been shot.”

“I’m a United States Senator and as such—“

“As such, you serve the people. The problem, Senator, is that your son murdered another cadet at the Military Institute. And since then he’s murdered others. Really. Don’t see how you can stay in office after all that.”

“You can’t—“

“You’ll be found hanging in your mistress’s apartment,” Cardena said. “She leaves for work in about twenty minutes. I usually don’t say this, since it’s such a cliché: if you are a God-fearing man, time to pray. But I doubt very much you fear God. But you do fear death.”

* * *

“These are yours,” Dillon said, handing the photo and bracelet he’d taken from Brannigan’s room at the Institute to Harry.

“Thank you.”

Dillon, Harry, Doc, Riley, Sarah Briggs and Kate Westland were gathered on the end of the dock in Brams Point. Riley had a black box containing Horace Chase’s ashes. Chase’s footlocker was on the planks. Doc’s sailboat was tied up on the outside of the dock, while Riley’s Zodiac was on the inside.

It was two days after the events on Daufuskie and the Cellar had efficiently policed up the site in just a few hours, leaving behind Kate Westland for the moment.

Doc was looking shoreward, at the house. “I want to go back to sea. At least for a while.” He glanced at Harry. “Do you want to stay here or come with me?”

Harry didn’t hesitate. “I want to head back out with you. We didn’t go everywhere we planned. And we need to talk”

“I can keep an eye on the place,” Riley said. “Stop by every so often.”

“Thanks,” Doc said. “But I think it needs to be occupied.” He turned to Sarah Briggs. “Do you need a place?”

Sarah was startled. “What?”

“A place to stay for a while,” Doc said. “While you sort things out. Dave told me some of your past. Sounds like you need a place of peace for a while.”

Sarah looked at Westland. “Will I be left in peace?”

“My mission is over,” Westland said. “Turns out there’s a reason the field agent has the final call on a Sanction. We had the wrong target.”

“I’d like that very much,” Sarah Briggs said to Doc.

Riley held out the black box and Harry took it.

“We’ll spread his ashes along the Intracoastal,” Harry said. “That way, he’ll always be around us.”

“And this is yours, too,” Riley said, indicating the footlocker.

“Thank you,” Harry said, but he was eyeing the footlocker with wariness. “Do you know what’s in it?”

“Your legacy,” Riley said. “And remember, you can always change it. Your father gave his life for that.”

“Hold on,” Sarah said. “There’s something we need to do first.”

They followed her down the dock. She assembled the group in that crazy room with the tree poking down through the roof (which she kind of liked).

“Wait a second.” She left and went into the small room, across the garage where they’d given her a bed. She came back with a large Gucci bag.

She opened it, showing them ten million dollars, wrapped tightly in bundles of hundreds. Old Mrs. Jenrette kept her word, Sarah had to give her that. Another surprise, wrapped in many.

“This is ours,” Sarah told them. “I’m only going to say this once. Each of you has access to this bag. We all earned it. You all have needs. Wants. Whatever. I know it might overwhelm you right now. But take some. For something you want right now.”

No one moved for several moments, but then Gator came forward, stuck his hand in and pulled out a single bundle.

“How much is that?” he asked, holding it up.

“Ten thousand,” Sarah told him.

“Cool,” Gator said. “There’s this really neat long rifle I’d like to get.”

And that was it. He walked away, apparently more than satisfied with such a small percentage of the amount, Sarah couldn’t even understand it right now.

Kono followed his friend. “I need two. I’m sorry. But I need to have the engines on
Fina
replaced.” So he pulled out two bundles. All of twenty thousand dollars out of ten million.

Sarah looked at Dillon. “Thanks for wanting the truth. I think you’re good at it. Perhaps a future in that?”

“Law school is expensive,” Dillon said.

“Oh, geez,” Sarah said. “It’s ten million dollars. How much is law school going to cost?”

“The first year will be around thirty thousand,” Dillon said, almost apologetically.

Sarah pointed at the bag and Dillon took his first year’s tuition.

“Make it through that year and come back for more,” Sarah said, not quite believing she was doing this. She’d envisioned Paris.

But what good was Paris alone?

Westland shook her head. “I’m good.” But she nudged Riley. “Dinghy?”

Riley flushed. “I only told you that because . . .” he faltered to silence.

“A boat would be nice,” Sarah said. “So you could come over and check on things.”

“I don’t think I have to do that,” Riley said. “But there’s this used Boston Whaler . . .”

And he took three bundles.

“Doc?” Sarah asked.

“Take care of our house,” was all Doc had to say.

Sarah looked at the last man. “Harry?”

He shook his head. “Take care of
our
house. That’s all I ask.”

Sarah looked around the room, keeping tight control, the control that she’d been trained, tortured into. “All right. Well. I’ll be here. Any time.”

And with that, farewells were said. Harry and Doc Cleary carried Horace Chase’s remains to their sailboat and cast off.

Dillon walked to his car to head back to Charleston.

And Kate Westland climbed into Riley’s Zodiac to journey with him back to Daufuskie Island.

They left behind Sarah Briggs, standing alone on the dock. But not for long as Chelsea came walking slowly down the long wooden pier and sat down next to her.

Without thinking, Sarah reached down and ran her hand through the dog’s mane.

Her last view of Doc Cleary’s boat was Harry Brannigan standing on the aft, slowly spreading his father’s ashes into the water.

* * *

Mrs. Jenrette was impressed that an arm of the government could work so efficiently. There was no sign of a gun battle at Bloody Point. She’d been assured by the woman with the black streak in her hair that this would be as if it had never happened. When Mrs. Jenrette had asked about how Senator Gregory would react to the death of his son, the woman had told her that she need not be concerned.

Something in the confident way the woman said it wiped away any doubts Mrs. Jenrette had. It would be handled as efficiently as this had been.

For now, there was just the quiet lap of the waves on the sandy beach. A heron flew by, unconcerned with the three humans standing on the beach. Fifty meters off shore a dolphin breached the surface, dorsal fin cutting through the water, then it was gone.

“Tide is changing,” Tear said, eyeing the water line and the currents.

Mrs. Jenrette had her hand on Thomas’ arm, needing his strength to stand.

“It is,” Mrs. Jenrette said. “Bloody Point has lived up to its name, once more.”

“It will be different from here on out,” Thomas said.

Mrs. Jenrette held a leather satchel in her other hand. She held it out to Tear.

The old Gullah took it.

“The land goes back to your people, the Gullah,” Mrs. Jenrette said. “There will be no causeway built. No development.”

“Not just my people,” Tear said. “We will welcome those who were here before us. Any Native American will be welcome.”