Chapter 26

Connor rode in the back of Burdette’s GMC Yukon—cuffs off but doors automatically locked—to the Williamsburg County Law Enforcement Center in Kingstree.

It was a single-story building with almost no glass, red aluminum roof, and a windowless annex off to one side. Scraggly elms and oaks and tupelos shaded a fenced parking area that was set back from the street, not enough cover to protect against the large plops of rain from a passing shower. A pair of huddled cops lowered their voices as he was led past them through a side entrance, and lots of eyes stared as they passed by.

Uniformed deputies and civilians wandered the halls, where everyone seemed to know everyone else. Burdette escorted Connor to the equivalent of an interrogation room, but it wasn’t like anything he’d seen on television. No table and chairs bolted to the floor, no steel rings for wrist and ankle manacles. No two-way mirror with visitors standing behind it, watching every gesture and facial tic. He did notice a camera in a corner of the ceiling, but there was no flashing red light, so he couldn’t tell whether it was operational or not.

Still no handcuffs, which he considered a good sign.

He sat there alone for a good thirty minutes before a woman unlocked the door and came inside. She was a little on the heavy side, with rosy cheeks and an eyelid that seemed to droop. Short hair, no discernible make-up. No uniform, either, just black jeans and blue polo shirt, which indicated she wasn’t a cop. Unless she was plainclothes, since hers couldn’t look any plainer. Connor didn’t catch the name that was printed on a plastic badge pinned to her shirt, and got the feeling that was her intention.

She set a bag of KFC take-out on the table and said, “Someone figured you probably hadn’t eaten in a while. Put the bones back in the sack when you’re done.”

Chicken. How appropriate.

Eventually Burdette wandered in, preceding another man who also was not wearing a uniform. They both looked angry, neither of them appearing ready to cut Connor any slack. This was going to be a bad-cop, bad-cop routine. The new guy seemed out of place in gray slacks and a long-sleeve blue shirt, no tie, probably had a matching jacket draped over a chair somewhere else in the building. He carried a notebook with loose pages stuffed inside, while Burdette held a cup of coffee Connor knew was not meant for him.

They both sat down across the table, four menacing eyes glaring at him as if they were trying to bore into his psyche. Then Burdette said, “Connor, this is Deputy Director Leland Emery from Homeland Security. Office of Operations Coordination.”

Homeland Security? Connor wondered. What the hell is he doing here?

“Glad to know you,” he replied.

“You won’t be,” the Homeland guy said. “You stepped in big shit.”

“Not my intention. And I have to make a phone call.”

“You will when I say you will.”

“I need to get someone to let my dog out,” Connor said.

“Should’ve thought of that earlier,” Emery told him.

“I didn’t expect to be gone this long.”

“Did you expect to fuck up a major federal operation?”

“I sure as hell didn’t expect to find out that Colt Lomax is funding a terrorist militia group that’s training for all-out civil war,” Connor replied.

Emery shot a look at Burdette, who shook his head with a look that implied I didn’t tell him a thing.

The Homeland agent’s irritation level ratcheted up, but he wasn’t going to get bogged down by trifles. He placed both palms flat on the table in front of him and glared at Connor, then said, “Do you have any idea how much you screwed things up?”

“Two weeks ago someone shot up my car and tried to kill everyone in it, sir,” Connor replied. “I have reason to believe whoever it was came at me after that. What was your federal operation doing about that?”

“You’re in no position to be acting like an asshole,” Emery said. “Do you really want to spend the next ten years in federal prison?”

Connor hoped Emery’s question was rhetorical, but now seemed not the time to spar with a government suit—sans jacket—who clearly held the better cards. The only way out of this “big shit” into which he’d stepped was to fess up to what he’d done, and what he knew. That meant admitting to his earlier visit to the Lomax property and his trek last night into the woods and the compound of earthen mounds. He took a deep breath, then launched into a story about the shooting range, the camo truck he’d tailed to a farm supply store outside Georgetown, and Joey Barber’s involvement with Willis Ronson’s attempted theft of copper.

His tale took a good forty minutes, with plenty of questions and interruptions from Deputy Director Emery. It was clear that he’d viewed both of the clandestine videos, and he pressed Connor about their provenance. “Just how did you come to possess those files?” he asked.

“Mrs. Ronson sent them to me,” he replied.

“Why you?”

“You’ll have to ask her,” Connor said. “And for the record, when I got them, I passed them on to Burdette.”

“After you watched them?”

“Of course. I had no idea what they were until I did.”

“Then you know what we’re dealing with out there.”

“What we’re dealing with is a bunch of sickos who are itching for a bloody war.” Connor drew his gaze to Burdette and asked, “Have you located the bus I told you about?”

At that point Emery gave a sharp glance at the SLED investigator and said, “Outside.”

They both stepped out into the hallway and closed the door, presumably for some sort of powwow. Connor heard a lot of shouting, wall-pounding, and door-slamming, followed by a long silence. The two men returned a half hour later and sat down, both of them glaring at him again. Since this had started out as a state investigation into a homicide but had evolved into interference with a federal operation, Connor suspected Emery was in the catbird seat.

He was right.

“It appears we have a jurisdictional dispute, and a broad difference of opinion,” the Homeland guy said. “Burdette wants to keep you here in South Carolina, while I want nothing more than to lock you up and throw away the key. I hear Leavenworth is really nice this time of year.”

Connor nodded but said nothing.

“You compromised a federal operation, interfered with law enforcement, and obstructed justice,” Emery continued.

“Again, that was not my intention,” he replied. “I was just following up on a report that someone was trying to break into a rehab facility and kill Ronson’s public defender.”

“And you almost got yourself killed in the process. Almost got my men killed. Now we’re scrambling to pick up the pieces of a case that has crumbled under the weight of your careless—and possibly criminal—interference. Understand what I’m telling you?”

“Yes, sir,” Connor said. If there ever was a time for contrition, it was now.

“If it were my decision, I’d hang your ass out to dry.”

Connor glanced at Burdette, who just shrugged.

“Like I said, you stepped in some big shit,” Emery continued. “You disrupted a long-term, multi-million-dollar investigation, and also killed a man—”

“Self-defense—”

“That remains to be seen.”

Connor shifted uncomfortably in his chair and said, “I also saved a woman—a federal agent—who had been tortured and was probably hours away from dying.”

“A woman who also stepped in big shit. But yes, you saved her life. Which Burdette, here, so kindly reminded me of just now. So, against my better judgment, I’m going to make an arrangement with you. An arrangement, not a deal. And certainly not a promise, which he also tells me you’re not that good at keeping.”

No argument from Connor.

“Thing is, if I drag your ass back to D.C., I’ll have to write up a dozen Goddamned reports detailing how I allowed some washed-up bounty hunter with a history of booze and PTSD to step all over my investigation and ruin it. That wouldn’t look good. Not for me, and not for my boss. Or her boss. Instead, I’m going to let you be Burdette’s problem, at least for now.

“Yes, sir.”

“And don’t think for one second that you’re off the hook,” Emery continued. “You’re going to have to go through interviews and depositions, get strapped in for polygraphs, maybe get your ass hauled up in a federal sling. But for now, you’re an albatross I don’t want, and don’t need. In fact, I’m out of here.”

With that, the Deputy Director pushed back from the table and stood up. He glared at both of them, then did a one-eighty pivot and crossed the tiny room to the door. As he yanked it open, he focused on Connor and said, “You’ll be hearing from me, I shit you not.”

Then he left.

Burdette and Connor sat there for what seemed like forever, but probably no more than ten seconds. Connor was waiting for him to speak, figured the investigator was giving Emery enough time to leave the building. Or at least exit the hallway.

Eventually Burdette scratched a fleck of dry skin off the tip of his nose with his thumbnail and said, “What Mr. Homeland didn’t mention just now is that the Virginia state police stopped your bus about an hour ago, about two hours south of D.C.,” he said. “The driver didn’t go down easy, and was critically injured during a brief gunfight.”

“What about the containers I saw them load inside?”

“Field analysis indicates it’s ammonium nitrate, like you said,” Burdette confirmed. “About five tons of it. To put it in perspective, it’s more than twice what McVeigh used to blow up the Murrah building in Oklahoma City.”

“Shit…those guys meant business,” Connor said. “Any idea where it was headed?”

Burdette appeared indecisive about how much to reveal, considering the deep shit Connor was in. He’d already told him way too much, given Connor’s track record. But in the end he threw up his hands and said, “Screw it. The driver had a destination plugged into GPS on his phone. Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.”

Connor shook his head; the address meant nothing to him. “Where’s that?” he asked.

“U.S. Justice Department. Across the street from the FBI building.”

“Damn.”

The two men sat in the interrogation room a few more seconds, silence between them. Finally, Burdette said, “Can I offer you a ride somewhere?”

“Excuse me?”

“A ride. I’m driving back to Charleston in about five minutes.”

“What about…all this?” Connor glanced around the interrogation room to indicate what he meant by this.

“Don’t be fooled by my pleasant demeanor,” he said. “This isn’t going anywhere. You’ve been a royal pain in the ass and you’re looking at all sorts of charges. But you saved the life of a federal agent, and might have saved many more. And you don’t have a car.”

There had to be a catch, especially after all Connor had done, and hadn’t done. And Burdette certainly had no good reason to want to help him. It sounded more like a set-up, a plot to get him alone and then transport him to some secret SLED holding tank where a federal judge would arraign him on any number of felony charges.

“In exchange for what?” he asked.

“Nothing, at least not tonight. Take it or leave it, but the way I see it, you really don’t have a choice. Or much time to make it.”

He was right. Connor’s burned-out Ford was likely on its way either to an impound yard or an evidence garage, where it would be torn apart by forensics experts searching for any kind of clues related to the fire. Insurance would cover most of Connor’s liability, but he’d have a lot of explaining to do before Jordan James bought him another one. And that wouldn’t happen until he was able to get another phone, since his captors had seized his and he had no idea what they’d done with it. It would probably show up at some point, but once again it would be appropriated as evidence in a crime. A shit ton of them, most likely.

“Act quick, before I change my mind,” Burdette said as he stood up to go.

The last thing Connor wanted was to spend the next hour and half with a SLED agent whom he had repeatedly deceived, circumvented, and lied to. Burdette had every reason to lock him up for a host of flagrant crimes, and then destroy the key. But he wasn’t threatening to do that, at least not at the moment, and Connor took that as a good sign. So was allowing him to ride in the front seat of his GMC Yukon, rather than cuffed in the back.

Burdette stashed his service gun in the glove box, then started the engine and slowly eased out of the lot. Neither of them said anything for the first five minutes of the ride, Connor sagging low in his seat as he watched the trees flash by in the twilight. The dashboard clock indicated it was almost nine p.m. They were heading south on a two-lane stretch of state highway, through some swampy woods flooded with runoff reflecting the last of a blood orange sunset painted across the cloudless sky in the west. Not much different from the evening he’d been driving Ronson back to jail, after collecting his drunk ass from a motel not too far from here and loading him into the rear seat of his Cherokee.

Burdette had been kind enough to loan Connor his phone so he could call Julie and let her know what happened. She’d already figured something was wrong, since Clooney had been trapped on the drinking deck, where Connor had left him before heading out the night before.

“Arrested?” she asked after he’d filled her in. “Shit, Jack…what the hell is going on?”

“I’ll explain when I get there. I should be back before last call.”

“They released you?”

“It’s complicated,” he said.

She grunted something else into the phone, and then he heard someone order a rum punch and a G and T, and she hung up.

He and Burdette rode in silence a while after that, which allowed Connor to close his eyes. He’d been awake for most of the last thirty-six hours, and what little sleep he’d managed had come as the result of a probable concussion. It wasn’t long before his head was lolling against the side window and his brain had dropped into a deep, slow-wave sleep.

Then Burdette punched him on the shoulder and said, “You are one lucky sonofabitch.”

Connor couldn’t tell if he was referring to the fact that he was alive, or not locked up in jail. Or maybe just because he was getting a free lift home. “I know an apology won’t cut it, but for what it’s worth, I know I totally screwed the pooch,” he said.

Burdette shot him a quick glance, said, “You’re right, on both counts. And don’t get any idea that you’re in the clear, because you’re not. But what I mean is, you’re lucky that Homeland shit-for-brains didn’t haul you off with him. Otherwise, you’d be lost in the system. The American equivalent of Siberia.”

“I was wondering about that. How did you pull that off?”

“Let’s just say I owe him one. Which means you owe me.”

“I’m aware of that,” Connor said. “It’s what worries me.”

“It should.”

Connor hated being indebted to anyone, or anything. He held no mortgage, had no car payment, and managed to pay off his credit card every month. “That’s why I’m here with you, and not Emery?” he asked.

Burdette ignored the question, instead asked one of his own. “How did you manage to find that place? Homeland spent weeks sending up drone after drone, but they never came close to finding it.”

“It was that patch I found at the crash site,” he said. “The one with the Lomax logo on it, remember? A property search showed me that Colt Lomax had bought up thousands of acres of worthless property around there, and when I drove up to take a look, it kind of matched what I’d seen in the videos. And before you beat me up over it, yeah, I should have told you what I’d found.”

“If you had, none of this would have happened,” Burdette said, gesturing with his hands to mean everything he’d fucked up over the last twenty-four hours.

“What are you talking about?” Connor asked.

“The night of the attempted break-in at the motel in Andrews, remember?”

“I told you, I had nothing to do with that—”

“I know what you told me,” Burdette said, glancing over at him. “But when I showed up at your door the next morning you said you’d been home all night, watching The Natural. I had the good sense not to believe you, so I got a warrant that allowed me to place that tracker on your car. I knew sooner or later you’d pull some stupid move, and I wanted to know what you were up to when you did. Good thing, too.”

Connor didn’t say anything for a while as he considered the corner into which he’d painted himself. Finally, he replied, “Well, you’re wrong about one thing.”

“Is that so?”

“You said Field of Dreams was a better movie than The Natural, but c’mon…what dad ever said to his son, ‘do you want to have a catch?’”

Burdette actually considered what he said, and Connor could swear he saw him try to hold back a grin. Then he said, “Let’s get back to Willis Ronson. Poor bastard had been murdered, and his lawyer was severely injured. You were one lucky sonofabitch to escape with only a few scrapes. All you needed to do was let me do my thing and stay the fuck out. What in God’s name were you thinking?”

Connor had no answer for him. He was treading water here, not convinced Burdette wasn’t going to throw him in a cell at the end of the ride, just to cause him to sweat. And think. Something he clearly hadn’t been doing up till now.

“Did you know about Lomax, and what he was involved with?” he asked.

“Emery wasn’t exactly forthcoming with facts,” Burdette admitted. “Just played the federal card when I turned the videos over to him.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I told him you’d driven out to that area well over a week ago. Emery was convinced you were wrong, that nothing was going on there. GPS said your car was around the place early this morning but, since it’s only accurate to a hundred yards or so, we didn’t know exactly where you’d gone. We came out and looked around, trying to figure out what you were up to.”

“So, what happens to Colt Lomax?” Connor asked. “He’s a dangerous and powerful man with friends in high places.”

“That’s for people higher up the food chain to—”

Burdette never finished his sentence. At that moment the rear window of the Yukon exploded in a rapid burst of gunfire. A half dozen rounds at least, then several more as he lost control and the SUV veered off the road. It ripped through a stand of second-growth saplings as it pitched and rolled through the woods, bouncing off trees and rotting dead fall. Finally coming to a rest upside down, headlights casting a ghostly glow through a thick curtain of briars and vines.

Déjà vu all over again, as someone once said.