Presidential Deal (28 page)

Chapter 47

Deal could see her from a quarter-mile or more away: the tiny figure waving his shirt for a beacon, her shape growing more and more distinct until finally he could make out her anxious features. She stood on the slope beside one of the deadfalls, her hands clasped now, intent on his approach. He passed the prow of the sunken roof, cut the engines back to idle, swung the boat into a steady broadside perhaps thirty feet out from where the waves lapped placidly against the reef-protected shore.

He ducked inside the cabin for the prized bottle of
jugo de papaya
, came back up to find her still watching from her place on the rocky slope. He held up the bottle with a grin, then vaulted over the side, landing chin-deep in the silty water.

He slogged as fast as he could manage through the shallows, holding the bottle toward her like a trophy, giddy with exhaustion, with his success. When he stumbled onto the shore, he found her still on the slope above, staring down at him with a wary expression.

“You believe it?” he called, sweeping his arm toward the Cigarette. “We’re out of here, dammit…”

He came up the rocky slope toward her, thrusting the bottle toward her like some knight errant home from the quest. “Their boat,” he said, unable to wipe his grin away. “It was their fucking boat, hung up on the reef out there. The one those guys were trying to tie off…”

“John,” she said, shaking her head, her face a ruin.

He couldn’t fathom her reaction. He’d come back with sweet nectar to drink, a mechanical steed to carry them home, its engines rumbling anxiously over his shoulder. What on earth could be wrong?

He stopped, glanced down at himself, at his filthy briefs, gave her a look that was meant to pass for a loopy apology. “Hey,” he said. “I’m sorry I’m not dressed…”

She was still shaking her head when he heard the voice behind him, felt the press of steel at the base of his neck. The juice slipped from his hands and shattered on the coral at his feet. Sticky nectar slithered down his calves.

“Very, very carefully, Mr. Deal,” the familiar voice intoned. “Step forward, now.”

Deal did as he was ordered, his eyes still on Linda’s distraught face.

“I’m sorry, John,” she said, her voice strained. “He came ashore on the other side while I was watching for you. I didn’t hear him until…”

Deal started to turn, felt something clip him above the ear. He staggered forward, went down on his hands and knees against the rock. He steadied himself on all fours for a moment, waiting for the static filling his head to clear. He felt Linda kneeling at his side, felt her hands at his sides. He could still hear the idling engines of the Cigarette, but they seemed to come from miles away.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

Deal managed a nod, looked past his shoulder at the blurry shadow standing there. The shape swelled into utter fuzziness, then congealed into the form of a man. A very tall man with handsome features. He seemed to be leaning on something—a stick, a makeshift crutch—and there was also a pistol in his hand.

“He can stand if I tell him to stand,” Angel said mildly. He waved the pistol in their direction.

“Stand,” he said after a moment.

Deal turned away from Angel. Linda lay her cheek against his back, her arms tight about him. A gunshot sounded and hot shards of rock blew against his ribs. Linda flinched, but her grasp grew tighter.

“I gave you permission to
stand
,” Angel repeated.

“I’m so sorry, John,” she whispered.

“It’s not your fault,” he said, struggling to his feet.

He stood, helped her up, turned to face Angel. The man had been hurt, Deal realized. Blood soaked a circle beneath his shoulder, and he leaned heavily against the branch he’d fashioned into a cane. But his other hand held the pistol steadily upon them.

“I’m glad you came in, my friend,” Angel said. He was trying to maintain his smile, but it seemed difficult.

Deal stared at him. “You thought I wouldn’t?”

Angel coughed and winced, giving a little sideways step. When Deal leaned forward, Angel lifted the pistol on a line with his chin. “The woman tried to convince me you had abandoned her, that you had gone for help,” he said. His smile grew again, though there seemed a shadow behind his eyes.

“Noble of her, wouldn’t you say? I reminded her that we both knew better. You are a hero, after all.” He tried a bitter laugh, but the sound dissolved into a gargling, wracking cough.

Deal wanted to go for him, but the pistol stayed level at his chin.

“You need a doctor,” Deal said.

Angel nodded. “I have been told that before,” he said, his smile flickering back.

“You should put the gun down.”

Angel nodded, looking at Linda now. “Spoken like a champion, no? Too bad we have no medals here. You could drape him with his proper laurels before he dies.”

“Stop it,” she cried. “No one has to die”

Angel fired again, and Deal felt scalding splinters of rock on his bare legs.
A hero
, he thought bitterly.
Sure. A hero with his pants down
…

Then it registered.

“How’d you find out?” Deal asked.

“Find out?” Angel said, wiping at his chin. His eyes seemed glassy for a moment, but regained focus quickly.

“You thought I was Secret Service, some kind of government security,” Deal said. “That’s why you took me along in the first place.”

Angel paused for a moment. Thinking, perhaps, or waiting for a wave of pain to subside. Then, the tolerant shake of the head, that all-knowing smile.

He held up his hand, displaying the watch he’d taken from Deal days earlier. “I told Chappelear about you. The idiot informed me as to who you really were.” He shrugged. “I thought about killing you then, but there was no urgency, was there?”

Deal heard Linda gasp. “Chappelear?” she repeated. “Larry Chappelear? You’ve spoken with him?”

Angel glanced at her. “For a number of years now.”

Deal felt her hands tightly on his arm, but he kept his eyes on Angel. One moment, one slip, that’s all he prayed for.

“What do you mean…” Linda was saying, her voice faltering. “Who are you? Who are the people you work for?”

“He works for us,” Deal said, breaking in. “Isn’t that right, Angel?”

Angel glanced back at Deal, something like amusement on his face. “Good with his hands, a good mind as well,” Angel said. He turned back to Linda.

“Lawrence Chappelear and I have done business for years. As Mr. Deal suggests, one might even say that I work for your husband.”

“My husband would never…” she said, starting toward him. Angel raised the pistol menacingly, and Deal pulled her back.

“Your husband is a politician,” Angel said. “He needed the support of Jorge Vas, and Angel Salazar provided a way to get it.”

“Angel Salazar? That’s you?” Deal repeated.

Salazar shrugged, wincing, then continued. “I am a practical man. I approached Chappelear and explained how an incident could be staged that would bring these votes…”

“An
incident?”
Linda cried. “You call that massacre an
incident?”

“Not what your Chappelear had in mind, I will grant you. But by then there were other considerations,”

“What are you talking about?” Linda seemed dazed by it all.

Salazar kept his gaze on Linda. “Your husband’s true plans were discovered, I’m afraid.”

“What plans?”

“Frank Sheldon is a mediocre politician, I will grant you. But he knew that opening relations with Cuba would give him a place in the history books.”

“You’re insane,” she said. “Frank’s been interested in normalizing relations, but…”

“No need to dissemble, Mrs. Sheldon. The issue, shall we say, is a dead one.”

“But…”

“You found yourself another player,” Deal cut in. “Is that what happened?”

Salazar simply smiled.

“Someone who wanted to short-circuit this business of normalizing relations with Cuba once and for all,” Deal said, glancing at Linda.

“And who would that be?” Salazar asked, his grin teasing.

“Any number of people, Jorge Vas included,” Deal said. “But I can’t imagine anyone who’d authorize the things that you did.”

Salazar shrugged. “The task was mine to accomplish. I did what was required to accomplish it.”

“Work both sides of the street, screw them both,” Deal said.

“I know what is necessary…”

“You’re insane,” Linda cried.

“I am
efficient
,” Salazar snapped back. “The world has become inured to
incidents
. It gobbles them up with its corn flakes each morning. What I have accomplished will stand for years.”

“Keep all the bad blood flowing,” Deal nodded. “That ought to be good for the mercenary business.”

Salazar nodded. “And you will help me, Mr. Deal.”

“Not a chance,” Deal said.

Salazar waved his weapon dismissively. “That the First Lady die was always a foregone conclusion,” Deal heard Linda’s intake of breath, but Salazar went on unconcerned. “That her work seem the work of leftists was another.” He paused. “But imagine, what if she were to be slain by one of the so-called heroes she had come to honor? What if it should be discovered that this ultimate honorable man should have conspired in such perfidy?”

“You’re not human,” Linda said, her voice calm, her jaw thrust, her eyes fierce.

Salazar kept his eyes on Deal. “Chaos is the norm, Mr. Deal. It is my purpose to remind those who pretend otherwise.” He glanced momentarily at the sky, then gestured with his pistol. “Now, stand a bit closer together, if you don’t mind,” he said. “We are beginning to lose our light.”

True, Deal thought. The light
was
nearly gone, the sky shading from gunmetal to charcoal, the slight breeze cooling ever so slightly. The time of day he normally cherished most, when the light softened and all things slid toward the flip side of being…

…when you’d like to take a drink in hand and stroll about the grounds, any grounds, and dream that there is an order that prevails, that all things are forgiven and that tomorrow will be the golden day. Now a lunatic had appeared to wipe such thoughts away. Maybe it was a suitable enough time to die, he thought. At least as good as any.

And then the explosion came. Just another bubble of water vapor in the Cigarette’s fuel line, really. But enough to send one of the finely tuned engines into a startling backfire that rang across the water like a gunshot. Enough to send Angel’s head swiveling about in alarm.

Deal leaped forward, bringing his fist around hard, but trying to keep control. Aim was what was important, after all.

He knew he’d been putting on weight, up until the last few days, at least. Even with what he might have lost in dehydration, he figured he had to be carrying around 210, 215. Add that to the force of coming downhill, the frustration, the hatred, the desperation that was behind the punch, it would have had its effect on anyone, anyplace it struck.

But Deal had his sights on the stain spreading down Angel’s chest: gunshot wound, stab site, whatever. His fist splatted into the center of that sticky circle, and Angel screamed and flew backward off the shelf where he’d been standing. He was airborne for most of the distance, but struck the rocky ground before he tumbled into the water, losing his grip on the pistol.

Deal was over the rocks and on him before he could come up from the shallows. He drove another uppercut to Salazar’s injured shoulder, and the man went back into the water with a groan.

Deal fell upon him, his arm locked about Salazar’s neck, forcing his head under, grinding his face into the sand. Salazar thrashed violently, managed one gasp of air, but Deal fell back upon him, digging his heels to lever them toward deeper water. Salazar flung himself about frenziedly now, but his movements were panicked, lacking any focus. Deal sucked a breath of air and pulled them both to the bottom, his arm locked about Salazar in desperation.
Whatever it takes
, he thought.
Whoever comes up
…

Finally he felt an explosion of bubbles at his side, a last spasm, and then all was quiet. He rose to the surface, pulled Salazar’s inert form up by the hair.

“Sonofabitch!”

It was Linda Sheldon, her face wild, struggling through the shallows toward them. She had the pistol clutched in her hands, was sobbing now.

“Bastard,” she cried, steadying the pistol, bringing it an inch from Salazar’s face. “Bastard,” she repeated. Her sobs shook her body now.

Deal pushed the pistol aside, let Salazar drop into the shallows, put his arm about her heaving shoulders. “We’ve got a better use for him,” he said.

She glanced up at Deal, uncertain. He took the pistol from her hands, pulled Salazar up by his hair once more, and moved them on toward shore.

Chapter 48

“You want to try and step a little more lively there, Ray?”

Driscoll stood with his hands on his hips, watching Brisa struggling down the path toward him. He felt something sting the back of his neck, swatted at it reflexively. He inspected his palm, found a dark speck that had been a mosquito, a smear of red beside it the size of a quarter. If he’d waited any longer to nail the thing, he might have fainted from loss of blood.

They had bypassed the marina complex, keeping to the heavily wooded canal bank opposite the buildings. There was an old utility road there, nearly overgrown now, but still used as a hiking trail, primarily by nonboat-owning fishermen willing to walk the two or three miles out the levee for some form of access to deeper channels. Driscoll had been on the road a couple of times before, but he hadn’t been after fish. Not the marine variety, anyway.

He’d had to shoot a man in these woods once, a guy who’d promised to come out of his boat with his hands up, and had done so…though there was a pistol held in one of them as well. Not a memory Driscoll treasured. He’d had no choice, and yet he had been holding the man when he died.

Brisa, in the meantime, had caught up, stood panting beside him, his hands braced on his knees. Driscoll pushed his memories away, stared at his unlikely companion. “You must be about thirty years younger than me, Ray. You’re starting to make me feel in shape.”

Brisa glanced up at him. “I got a serious injury here. You ever stop to think about that?”

Driscoll shrugged. “How is it a burn on your ass affects your ability to walk?”

“Forget it,” Brisa said. “I don’t like talking to you.”

“I really can’t blame you,” Driscoll nodded. “Come on, we got to get out of here before it gets dark. The bugs’ll carry us off.”

Brisa fell wearily into step behind him. “I saw a restaurant the other side of the canal back there. There’s gotta be a phone. Why don’t we just go call ourselves a cab?”

“Because I came too far already to chance getting picked up now,” Driscoll said.

“You’re paranoid, I’m telling you. Nobody gives a shit about you and me.”

“Uh-huh,” Driscoll said, bending to avoid a gnarly pine limb that drooped across the path. He judged there to be another mile or so through the brush. Then a series of housing developments, maybe another mile or so out to Old Cutler Road. They’d find a strip mall, he’d feel safe enough using a phone out there. He was about to turn and tell Brisa something of the sort when he sensed movement in the dim shadows ahead. Something in his cop’s radar told him what was coming even before he heard the voice.

“You two hold it, right where you are.” It was a deep voice, authoritative, calm. Not a trigger-happy voice, Driscoll thought.

“Aw, man,” Brisa groaned, bumping into Driscoll’s backside.

Driscoll lifted his hands slowly, spoke without turning. “Just do what you’re told,” he said.

Two uniformed cops were coming out of the underbrush toward them now, one on either side of the trail. “Keep those hands high,” the cop who’d spoken first was saying. He had his service revolver drawn, but held it casually at his side. His partner, younger, advanced in some kind of step he must have seen on a television cop show, his pistol braced in both hands. Driscoll heard a helicopter rattling somewhere not far away.

“Tell that kid to ease off,” Driscoll said.

“Oh yeah?” the older cop said warily. “And why should I?”

“Because it’s
me
,” Driscoll said.

The older cop stopped, found a flashlight, snapped it on. He waved it over Driscoll’s face quickly, then snapped the beam off.

“Hell if it isn’t you,” the cop said.

“What’s going on?” the younger cop said. He’d stopped a dozen feet away from Driscoll and Brisa, still had his pistol braced.

“It’s Vernon Driscoll,” the older cop said. If it meant anything to the younger cop, he didn’t show it. The older cop holstered his sidearm. “Who’s your friend, Vernon?”

“You mind if I put my hands down, Emmeling?”

The older cop looked surprised. “Oh,” he said, smiling. “Sure, go ahead, long as he keeps his up.” He pointed at Brisa, who scowled in return.

Vernon worked his shoulders for a moment. “This is Ray Brisa,” he told Emmeling. Driscoll paused, glanced at Brisa. “Just somebody lending me a hand on a piece of business.”

Brisa might have relaxed a bit at that, but he still seemed ready to go off any second. Maybe the young cop had good instincts, Driscoll thought.

Emmeling, meantime, was nodding affably, as if they were two old pals who had just bumped into one another at the supermarket. “I heard you went into the rent-a-cop business,” he said.

Driscoll noticed that the younger cop had taken a step back, still had his pistol trained upon them. Emmeling glanced over, shrugged. “Kid’s wrapped a little tight,” he said. “So what are you doing down here, running through the woods?”

Driscoll hesitated. He’d known Bert Emmeling for more than twenty years. Emmeling wasn’t the brightest, most ambitious cop, but he was honest and dependable. “I just got off a boat,” he said, nodding behind them. “I wasn’t sure who might be hanging around the marina, so we put in up the breakwater a bit.”

Emmeling shook his head, turned to his partner. “That something?” he said. The younger cop’s expression didn’t suggest whether he thought it was something or not.

“What are you doing down here yourself, Bert?”

Emmeling turned back to Driscoll. “Surveillance,” he said. “The feds had a tip a couple of guys might be coming in.” He gestured upward where another helicopter was racing overhead, a search beacon spearing down through the gloom from its belly. “They never gave us any names, though.” Emmeling peered at him through the gathering darkness. “Are
you
our guy, Vernon?”

Driscoll thought there was honest curiosity in Emmeling’s voice.

“You want me to call in?” the younger cop said.

“Listen, Bert,” Driscoll said. “Before you do anything, I want you to call Dedric Bailey, tell him…”

“Dedric Bailey?” Emmeling cut in, his voice rising. “You haven’t heard?”

Driscoll felt his knees give ever so slightly. He glanced at Brisa, then back at Emmeling. “Heard what?”

“He got killed this morning.”

“Killed?” Driscoll felt his heart beginning to race.

“Car wreck. Poor bastard been up all night, was on his way home, drove right into a canal out that way, is how I got it.” Emmeling glanced through the screen of trees at the waterway beside them, shaking his head. “Must’ve fallen asleep,” he said.

Driscoll felt himself sag, felt his breath leave him in a sigh. The prospect of explaining to Emmeling what was racing through his mind was impossible.

“Anyways,” Emmeling said, “you can just come along with us now. We’ll take you out to the command post they got set up, you can get you a ride to wherever you’re going.” He turned toward the young cop, had to duck away from the still-upraised pistol. “What the hell are you doing, son? Put that gun down.”

The young cop faltered, lowered the pistol. He was looking at Emmeling, about to say something, when Driscoll gave Brisa a nod. “Get that gun now,” he said as Brisa moved past him in a blur.

Driscoll swung about, burying his elbow in Emmeling’s solar plexus. The big cop’s breath exploded from him in a
whoosh
. He went down, doubled over, his hands clutching his gut. Driscoll had Emmeling’s sidearm out of its still-unfastened holster before the man could respond.

He heard a thudding sound behind him, turned to see Brisa standing over the young cop, the cop’s pistol in Brisa’s upraised hand. The cop was rolling about on the ground, groaning, his hands holding his head. “That’s enough, Ray,” Driscoll said.

Brisa glanced back, uncertain. “Get his cuffs for me,” Driscoll ordered. He bent down beside the still-gasping Emmeling then. He got Emmeling’s cuffs off his belt, snapped one around the cop’s meaty wrist, then pulled his arm around a nearby tree trunk. When Emmeling pulled feebly back, Driscoll jammed the barrel of the service revolver against Emmeling’s cheek.

“It’s nothing personal, Bert,” Driscoll said, snapping the other cuff, “but I can’t go with you right now.”

Emmeling was half sitting, half leaning, his arms thrown around the tree as if he’d fallen in love with it. He was trying to say something, but he still hadn’t caught his breath and only strangled gasps came out. His eyes were another story, however. Pure hatred there.

“I’m sorry I can’t explain it to you,” Driscoll said. “I’m gonna look you up after this over, give you a free shot, any way you want to take it. You’ll know why I did it, okay?”

Emmeling turned, as if Driscoll’s words were too insulting to bear. And Driscoll could understand. He’d never laid hands on a fellow officer, and even though he was off the force for years now, what he’d just done shamed him. He’d known crooked cops himself. He knew what was going through Emmeling’s mind right now. He shook his head, reached into his pocket, found his handkerchief, which he used to gag his old pal, the cop.

He pushed himself to his feet, glanced at where Brisa was working with the other one. The young cop’s cap had fallen away and a dark trail of blood ran out of his hair and down the side of his cheek. His eyes were rolling around, and he was still groaning softly as Brisa finished cuffing him around a tree of his own.

“How hard did you hit him?” Driscoll asked.

Brisa glanced up. “He’s not hurt.”

“Yeah?” Driscoll said, moving toward him. “How about I try it on your thick skull? Just break out laughing when you’ve had enough.”

“Fuck you,” Brisa said, standing to thrust his jaw at Driscoll. “You said take his gun, I took his gun. What you want me to do, ask him for it?”

Driscoll closed his eyes for a moment. Once upon a time, in another dimension, another state of being, he had allied himself with cops, had dedicated himself to the apprehension—in fact, the annihilation—of such as Raymond Brisa. In that world had lived a man named Dedric Bailey. Another named John Deal. Things in that jolly place had gone more or less by design.

Now he found himself at the center of chaos. In fact, he had begun to wonder if he had not become its perpetrator. After all, here at his side was Brisa. There at his feet were Emmeling and another young policeman whom Driscoll and his new partner had assaulted and chained to trees with their own handcuffs. Overhead, helicopters churned the skies and strobed the land below, looking for him, for him and Ray Brisa.
How it turns
, he thought.
How the poor world turns
.

He turned from the sight of the battered cops then, and put his hand on Ray Brisa’s good shoulder and patted.

“Okay, Ray,” he said then. “You’re right. I’m wrong.”

He held up a ring of keys he’d taken from Emmeling’s belt along with the handcuffs. “Furthermore, I have this feeling there’s a patrol car not far from here. What do you say we find it.”

Brisa stared at him for a moment. He glanced off into the near-darkness as if he had other options to consider. “I always wanted to drive a cop car,” Brisa said finally. And then they went to find it.