The Kill Clause (50 page)

“But you walk,” Bear said.

Tim finally sat down. “The system’s not supposed to work this way.”

“Do us a favor this time, Mr. Rackley,” Reed said. “
Don’t
do anything about it.”

Tannino stood up and placed his knuckles flat against the table. “Here’s what your future looks like, Rackley. Tomorrow in court you plead to this
misdemeanor
”—he spat out the word—“and you skate. It goes without saying that we’re gonna keep you on a very tight leash, keep an eye on you. If you step even an inch out of line, we’ll hammer you. Any part of this unclear?”

“No, Marshal.”

“Don’t call me ‘Marshal.’” On his way to the door Tannino shook his head, muttering under his breath. “A Medal of Valor winner. For the love of Mary.”

The others filed out, Richard pausing to shake Tim’s hand. Only Bear remained. They had a tough time making eye contact but finally did.

“Did you do that on purpose? Forget to read me my rights?”

“Nah.” Bear shook his head. “But if I did, I wouldn’t tell you anyway.” His shirt was rumpled as always, and Tim thought he detected a splotch of salsa beneath the too-short tie. “I brought you a suit for court. Have it out in the rig.”

“I hope it’s not one of yours.”

It took a moment, but Bear returned his smile.

THE READINESS CONFERENCE
went so quickly that Tim barely kept up with the proceedings. Though sawhorses and cops were keeping throngs of press at bay on Main Street, inside it was a remarkably unimpressive affair; he was shoehorned between an Argentine drug dealer and a Bel Air madam with reputed mob connections and two-inch lashes. Though he smelled distinctly of tequila, Richard proved capable and articulate counsel.

Tim barely rose to his feet before Judge Andrews pronounced, “You are free to go.”

As he headed down the center aisle toward the courtroom doors, he was enfolded in an incredible loneliness. For the past several months, he’d been focused on one crisis after another, all of them immediate. Now he had the rest of his life to face. The events of the past forty-eight hours still hadn’t taken on a reality; it was inconceivable that he could be walking away.

The clamor of media rose as he stepped through the doors—glinting lenses, flashing bulbs, shouted questions. An army of reporters documenting his going free due to precisely those types of technicalities he’d committed such violence to protest. With some effort, police held their line at the sawhorses.

Tim continued down the marble courtroom steps, his eyes on the Federal Building standing tall and proud across the square.

When he glanced down, he saw Dray standing in the apron of calm at the base of the stairs, a twenty-meter stretch of sanity before the held-back horde. She was wearing the yellow dress with tiny blue flowers, the dress she’d worn the first time they’d met. He drew nearer, his pace slowed with disbelief, and saw that she was wearing her ring—no rock, no inscription, the plain, worn, twelve-karat band he’d given her on bended knee back when he couldn’t afford anything more.

The din seemed to recede—the scrape of cable on concrete, the babble into microphones, the strident queries—fading into inconsequentiality.

He paused a few feet from her, regarding her, unable to speak. The wind kicked up, blowing a strand of hair across her eye, and she left it.

“Timothy Rackley,” she said.

He stepped forward and embraced her. She smelled like jasmine and lotion and a touch of gunpowder around the hands. She smelled like her.

She pulled back her head and regarded him, hand on his cheek.

“Let’s get you home,” she said.

Specifics of bomb construction and cell-phone tracking have been altered in the interest of public safety. Also, please don’t run with scissors.

When I started writing
The Kill Clause
, I knew I wanted to examine the theme of vigilantism. I wanted a protagonist who was a stand-up guy, not too preachy, but someone who was a man of the law. The various branches of the intel and law enforcement communities have all had their reputations tarnished in one manner or another over the years, and because of extensive media coverage or depictions in films, it seems everyone has preconceived notions of, say, the FBI or LAPD. I started poking around my contacts, asking, who are the most stand-up, ethical guys you’ve worked with? And the answers kept drawing me back to the Marshal Service.

Try doing research on the U.S. Marshal Service. There’s not much material. I managed to find only four books that even dealt with the Service, three of them out of print. The first thing I did was to go back and review the entire history of the Service, starting with Stuart Lake’s biography of Wyatt Earp (1931)—recounted to him in Earp’s own words. I got my hands on a few documentaries, and delved heavily into the Service’s role in the civil rights movement, most significantly during James Meredith’s enrollment at Ole Miss—a second Civil War for this country about which very few people are knowledgeable. While this didn’t directly influence my story, it gave me a great background and understanding of the Service.

From there, I did what I normally do—I called a buddy of mine (the former agent whose brain I picked for Ed Pinkerton’s character in
Do No Harm
) and asked him if he ever overlapped with any deputy U.S. Marshals he could put me in touch with. I talked to his good friend, a deputy out of East St. Louis, and we got along great. He was coming to L.A. on some business and promised to set a few meetings for me in the California Central District office (there are ninety-four U.S. districts, and ninety-four appointed U.S. Marshals, one corresponding to each judicial district). So he flew in, we grabbed breakfast and headed over.

I figured I’d meet a deputy or two and get shown a couple of cubicles. Awaiting us was the legend himself: U.S. Marshal Tony Perez; his Deputy U.S. Marshal Supervisor; the Supervisory Deputy for the Arrest Response
Team; and the Explosive Detection Canine Team; as well as a few other key lieutenants. The Marshal had them all waiting to answer any questions I might have, and promised me a tour of the facilities later. He even offered to suit up his men and run through tactical scenarios for me. When I asked Marshal Perez whether it was fact or fiction that he’d once allowed his beloved dog, Gus, to execute an arrest (long story), I knew I’d won him over. He called off his lunch and took me to Cuban food.

I was completely blown away by the reception I received. It turned out that Marshal Perez was trying to expand public awareness of the Service, and so I was benefiting from precisely the information shortfall that had proven such a research obstacle to begin with. I was in on the ground floor, able to ask questions and get answers at the highest level, a privilege I continue to enjoy as I work on my Tim Rackley sequel.

From there, I needed a few more guys on my contact list, so I kindled a friendship with a brilliant Los Angeles Public Defender, and struck up a relationship with a dynamo of a D.A. I’d have one guy holding while I was on the line with the other, playing their legal arguments off each other as I clicked back and forth. A lot of lunches and dinners and bar tabs helped me fill in the blanks about their views of the law and its frustrations.

The locksmiths were, maybe unsurprisingly, the toughest contacts to make open up. They were incredibly tight-lipped. I followed a few guys around, asking questions, but they refused to answer most of them. I watched them burn keys. I read pamphlets and called lock companies. I tore through the Yellow Pages, calling up randoms and asking questions about lock picking. When they got too suspicious, I hung up. They wouldn’t give me information on lock picking as a novelist, because they were worried crooks would read my book and pick up new techniques. So I posed as a reporter, a customer, a victim of a home robbery. It took a while, but I finally managed to piece together a convincing world view of a forensic locksmith. In the finished book, by the way, I’ve altered at least one piece of information, or left out a key fact, so the bad guys can’t, in fact, use
The Kill Clause
to break into your apartment.

Next, I needed to get the feel of a .357 down, as it would be Tim Rackley’s prize weapon. Fortunately, one of my Navy SEAL buddies was in town, teaching an explosives course to California SWAT teams. He’s one of the leading demolitions experts in the world, having come up on the SEALs counterterrorist group, and he’s had more trigger time than whole platoons put together. He’s also built like a brick shithouse—huge
comic book lats, barrel chest, and a Fu-Man-Chu mustache. I’ve been out with him places where he’s shot his patented don’t-fuck-with-me look and gotten whole groups of guys to leave a bar.

We headed up to a range he used on occasion with a bevy of handguns in tow. He told me not to ask any questions or say anything at the guard booth. He bullshitted us through (I had no clearance, which I didn’t realize was required until I was being eyeballed by the deputy on duty) and got us to the range. I practiced with a Beretta, a Colt .45, and the .357 (a wheel gun from Smith & Wesson), so I could compare their operational differences. At one point, I was grouping high and right on the paper targets. My friend asked to borrow my gun to make sure the sites were appropriately lined. He turned and fired, not in a Weaver firing stance, not bothering to site correctly or even hold the weapon with both hands. He hit the dead center of the critical mass—and I mean
dead center
. Five bullets, one hole. I couldn’t believe it. It was like something from an old-school Western. He returned the .357 to me, wisely surmising that there was no problem with the gun and that I was merely anticipating recoil. He then hunkered down with the .45. Each time he fired, the muscles in his back contracted, bulging out through his T-shirt. Watching him, I thought, this is probably the last guy in the world I’d ever want to piss off.

Which got me to thinking about
The Kill Clause
.

The only thing I could imagine more intimidating than my buddy was two of him. And so I created the Mastersons—twin brothers, built to crush skulls.

I wanted to put Rackley and the Commission up against some of the worst offenders in order to drive home the imperative for vigilante action. For these horrific crimes and for the assassinations of the criminals, I had to proceed with a shadier group of contacts. I asked some of my darker off-the-record boys about the worst things they’ve ever seen, and I was told a few stories and shown a few video clips that kept me up nights. These trickled down from my memory onto the pages, finding expression in the refrigerator scene and Lane’s dispatchment.

The most dangerous research move I pulled for this book (or any before it) I didn’t even end up using. I was debating having a small plane figure in the ending of
The Kill Clause
, so I talked to a friend of a friend who flew a lot. I met him at the Santa Monica airport to ask some questions, but he threw me a parachute and told me to put it on. I was belted in before he informed me he was a stunt pilot. Now, I’m not the best flier as is (and here, I’m referring to subdued Friendly Skies kind of flying), so being up in the great blue open doing barrel rolls and flips was not my idea
of a relaxing Sunday. But I landed in one piece, went home, and wrote down many of the sensations I’d experienced. But the damn plane scene never found its way into the book. I kept trying to hammer it in one place or the other. I didn’t want to believe I’d gone through all that for nothing. Killing your babies, as writers call editing out material, is hard enough normally. When you’ve paid for the scene by losing all the blood to your head for an hour, it makes it next to impossible. But, if it doesn’t serve the plot, it doesn’t serve the plot. Tim gets up to a lot of trouble in
The Kill Clause
, but he doesn’t get stuck on a stunt plane. That we left to his idiotic creator.

—Gregg Hurwitz

Los Angeles

July 2003