Last Man Standing (56 page)

“I’ve been an FBI agent for so long, Gwen, I’ve heard just about everything and I tend to be a very good listener.”

She shot him a glance. “I don’t spill my heart even to people I know
well,
Web, at least not anymore.”

“I’m not asking you to. But if you want to talk, I’m here.”

They rode some more and then she stopped. “I’ve been thinking about the trial in Richmond. Those awful people even sued the
FBI, didn’t they?”

“Tried to, but it got thrown out. The lawyer, Scott Wingo, the one who was recently killed, he tried to make some hay out
of that during Ernest Free’s trial, but the judge saw right through it and put a stop to it. But it probably caused enough
doubt in the jury’s eyes that the prosecutor got scared and did a plea bargain.” He paused and then added, “Of course he’s
dead too now, and the judge.”

Gwen stared over at him with her large, sad eyes. “And yet Ernest Free is alive and free, after everything he did.”

“Life makes no sense sometimes, Gwen.”

“Billy and I had a wonderful life before all that happened. I love him very much. But ever since David was killed, it hasn’t
been the same. The fault probably lies more with me than him. It was my idea to put David in that school. I wanted him to
get a first-rate education and I wanted him to be exposed to lots of different types of people—translation, people of color
and ethnicity. Billy is a good man, but he was born and raised in Richmond, not with any sort of wealth or privilege but in
a neighborhood where you’d never see anyone but those of your own kind.” She added quickly, “He’s not a racist or anything
like that. Half the drivers and dockworkers at his trucking company were black and he treated them all the same. If you worked
hard, you had a job at fair wages. I’ve even gone with him to drivers’ homes when they’d fallen off the wagon. He would bring
food and money to the families, counsel the men, get them professional help and pay for it, or AA meetings, get them back
on their feet. And even though he could have fired them, even under union rules, he didn’t. He told me once his lot on earth
was to be the King of Second Chances, because he’d had enough of his. I know some people might look at him and me and not
see the attraction, but I know there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for me and he’s stood right next to me through good and bad
times and we’ve both had our share of those.”

“Hey, Gwen, you don’t have to convince me. But if you’re having problems, have you sought counseling? I actually know someone.”

She gave Web a hopeless look, gazed up at the hot sun again and said, “I’m going for a swim.”

They rode back to the stables and Web drove Gwen back to the house in one of the farm trucks. She changed into her swimsuit
and met Web at the pool area. He wasn’t swimming, he told her, because his gun would get wet. She smiled at this remark and
went over and turned a key that was set in a device built into a stone wall next to the pool. The gray automatic pool cover
slid back on its tracks.

“We put this in because we kept finding turtles, frogs and even the occasional black snake in the pool,” she explained.

As the cover slid into its holding trench at the far end of the pool, Web squatted down and examined the current-machine built
into the deep end of the pool. He looked up in time to see Gwen step out of her sandals and slip out of her robe. She had
on a one-piece suit that was cut a little low at the bosom and a little high at the hips and buttocks. Her body had a nice
tan, and the muscles in her thighs and calves matched those he had already seen in her arms and shoulders. Forget the butt-burners
and thigh-masters, women should just go horseback riding.

“How’s this thing work?” asked Web.

Gwen tucked her long hair under a swim cap and walked over to him. “Water’s pumped from the pool and through the cannon that
you see there. It shoots out the water at a certain rate providing a resistance that you can increase or decrease, as you
want. We had a portable machine for a while that was very cumbersome. And then I was using it so much that it made sense to
have it built in. The pool’s heated, so I use it pretty much year-round.”

“I guess that’s why you’re in such great shape.”

“Thank you, kind sir. Sure you don’t want to swim with me?”

“I’d probably just slow you down.”

“Right. There’s not an ounce of fat on you.” She went over to a control panel that was bolted to the stone wall that was set
against the side of the pool nearest the house, opened the box and pushed some buttons.

Web heard water pressure building up and then he looked into the pool and saw white frothing water pouring out of the underwater
cannon, creating the current Gwen was going to swim against.

She put on a pair of swim goggles and dove in. Web watched as she came to the surface and started her strokes. He watched
for about ten minutes. The woman never varied her pace or stroke. She was like a machine herself and Web was actually glad
he had declined the woman’s offer to join her in the pool. Every HRT man had to be able to swim and know how to use diving
equipment, and Web was a strong swimmer, but he wasn’t sure he could have kept up with Gwen Canfield.

After about twenty minutes the frothing water stopped and Gwen came over to the side of the pool.

“Done?” asked Web.

“No, I had it set for forty-five minutes. The circuit might have tripped.”

“Where’s the power box?”

She pointed to the double doors set in a stone wall that was built up against a small slope. “In the pool equipment room.”

With the grade of land the way it was here, Web figured the room was partly underground. He headed over and turned the knob.
“It’s locked.”

“That’s odd, we never lock it.”

“You know where the key is?”

“No. Like I said, we never lock it, I just assumed there wasn’t a key. I guess I’ll have to cut my swim short.”

“No, you won’t.” He smiled. “The FBI is a full-service agency and a happy client is our best customer.” He pulled out his
key ring, on which he always carried a very slim piece of metal that could pick ninety-nine percent of the world’s locks in
about thirty seconds. He opened the pool equipment room in half that time.

He went in, found the light switch and turned on the lights, which was a good thing, because even with the lights, he almost
took a tumble down a short flight of steps just inside the doorway. Well, he thought, that was a lawyer’s dream case. The
place was noisy, with water running and machinery clanking and pumping. He went down the stairs. There were shelves filled
with pool stuff, big canisters of powdered chlorine, skimmers, scrubbers, an aquatic robot to clean the pool and assorted
junk that probably no one had used in years. It was cool down here and Web calculated that he was about ten feet underground
at this point because the floor had continued to gently slope downward once he had gone down the stairs.

Web found the power box and sure enough the circuit had tripped. Since the current machine was a new addition, unless they
had upgraded their wiring, it might be throwing too much electrical strain on the system. They should probably have that looked
at before it blew and started a fire. He made a mental note to tell Gwen this. As he threw the breaker back on, he heard the
machine start up again. There was really quite a racket down here. As he turned to go back outside, Web didn’t notice another
door down a short hallway. He turned and walked back out, turning off the light.

On the other side of that door and down another short hallway was another door, for there was quite the little maze down here.
Inside that room Kevin Westbrook held his breath. First he had heard footsteps and then he hadn’t. He had heard the damn machine
go on and then off and then on again. And the chlorine smell, for he had long ago deduced what it was and grown used to it.
But the footsteps going away had surprised him. Whenever people had come down here before, they had come to see him. He wondered
why they hadn’t this time.

W
hile Gwen showered, Web waited in the library. One wall of the room consisted of built-in cabinetry with a large-screen TV.
There were also five shelves filled with videocassettes and Web idly ran his gaze along them until the handwritten numbers
on one of them made him freeze. He reached out and took it off the shelf. The numbers he had seen were only a date, yet the
date was one that Web would never forget. He looked around, but there was no one about.

Web popped the tape in the VCR. The scene was one he had played over and over in his head. The Richmond school was filled
with smart, willing children from all types of socioeconomic backgrounds. It was quite symbolic, the newspapers had said at
the time, that the former capital of the Confederacy was trying a bold program to reintegrate its schools after most federal
courts and most states had thrown up their hands and said what was there was the best that could be done. Well, Richmond had
tried to do more and was succeeding, drawing national attention to its programs. Then Ernest B. Free and several of his homicidal
gang had walked in the front doors with body armor and enough automatic weaponry to defeat the Union in the Civil War.

Chaos had followed as the two teachers were gunned down and over forty hostages, including thirty children, ages six to sixteen,
were forced to take part in an event not one of them wanted anything to do with. The negotiators had worked the phones nonstop
with the men inside, trying to keep them calm, to see what they wanted and whether it could be gotten for them. And all the
time Web and his Charlie Team were standing by along with Zulu Team sniper guns trained on every available point of attack.
Then there were sounds of gunfire inside and Web and his men were called up to the front lines. Each man had the battle plan
firmly in mind, though it had been concocted on the fly on the way down from Quantico. Web remembered that they had gotten
so close to getting the call to hit the target that he had even rubbed his .45s for luck.

What little Web knew about the Frees had not made him feel any better. They were violent but disciplined and well armed. And
they were entrenched and had lots of innocent lives in their control.

The Frees had contacted the negotiators through a phone system that they had jerry-rigged. The shots were merely a misfire,
they had said. Right away Web hadn’t liked that. He could sense something bad coming, for the very simple fact that men like
the Frees didn’t operate under good faith. Yet Charlie Team had been called off. After Waco, the FBI’s position on hostage
rescue had changed. Basically it was a sit-and-wait game and the Bureau had shown that it was willing to wait until a new
year had dawned before forcing the issue, so deeply ingrained was the starkly brutal image of lost children burning in Texas.
But after the Frees had broken off negotiations, HRT had been called up again and this time Web knew they were going in.

With the TV cameras out front letting the whole world watch this drama unfold frame by frame, Web and Charlie Team had inched
toward a little-used entrance at the rear of the building. To maximize surprise, since the precise location of the hostages
and the Frees was not known, they had decided against using a breach charge to blow the exterior door and had opted for stealth.
They had gotten inside quietly and made their way down the corridor and toward the gymnasium, where the best intelligence
available said the hostages probably were.

HRT had crept to the double door, where Web had peered through the glass on the door and methodically counted hostages and
hostage takers. They all appeared to be there. Just before ducking down, Web had made eye contact with the boy; he tried to
keep him calm so he wouldn’t give Web and company away, even giving him a thumbs-up. At the time Web didn’t know that the
young man was David Canfield.

HRT had begun its countdown. Each operator knew exactly where to shoot and they were confident that they could take out each
of the Frees without losing any more hostages, though each of them also knew that things could go to hell quickly through
the unexpected.

And they did.

Right before they burst into the room, there came a loud, high-pitched sound. It could not have come at a more inopportune
time. And to this day Web didn’t know its source.

HRT came in firing, but the Frees, now forewarned, instantly returned it.

And the shots were carefully placed. David Canfield had been shot through his left lung, the round exiting out of his chest.
He dropped to the floor. With every breath the boy was jettisoning his blood through the large hole in his body. Though it
couldn’t have been more than a couple of seconds, David Canfield had stared at Web with an expression the man would never
forget. It was as though the boy had put his entire faith in Web, his touchstone against all the madness, and Web had let
him down. Thumbs-up.

That’s when the real fighting started, and Web had to forget about David Canfield and concentrate on the other hostages and
the men trying to kill him. He had taken the flamer after saving Lou Patterson, then eaten the rounds in his neck and torso.
After that he had been a one-man wrecking crew and none of the Frees were left standing. Web couldn’t believe that Ernest
Free had managed to survive.

Reliving this was sickening, yet Web hunched forward as the cameras captured him once more. He was being brought out on a
stretcher, paramedics surrounding him. To his left was Lou Patterson. On his right was a sheet over a body. David Canfield
was the only hostage to have died with HRT on the case. Web continued to watch himself on the TV as the cameras alternated
between him fighting for his life and David Canfield’s still body. A light from one of the TV cameras continued to shine on
the boy until somebody actually shot it out. Web often wondered who had done it. And then the tape went dark.

“I was the one who shot out that camera light.”

Web whirled around and saw Billy Canfield standing there, staring at the TV and seemingly having been privy to Web’s thoughts.
He moved forward, his steps halting, his finger pointing at the screen.