The Exile Page 23

  “You know beforehand this time, John.” Halliday opened the car door. The interior lights went on, and Barron could see Halliday’s jacket deliberately pulled back revealing the 9 mm Beretta automatic in the holster at his waist. “Let’s go.”

  71

  4:57 A.M.

  Raymond was standing under a single fluorescent lamp as Barron and Halliday came in. His hands were cuffed in front of him with Polchak to his left and Lee to his right. Valparaiso was a few feet in front, standing near a workbench, his hand around the thing he’d been carrying—one of the coffee containers. In the dimness behind them an old Volkswagen Beetle loomed like a ghostly sculpture, its tires and windows papered over and taped in preparation for painting, its body primed an ethereal gray-white. All around, the floor, walls, equipment, doors, and windows were coated with layers of the same gray-white, a product of years of drifting paint molecules that, in its flatness, sucked up what little light there was. It felt like the inside of a tomb.

  Halliday closed the door and he and Barron moved into the room. Barron saw Raymond’s eyes follow him as he crossed behind Valparaiso. They were desperate, pleading, looking to him for help. What he had no way of knowing was Barron’s situation. Even if he wanted to help him he couldn’t. If he tried to intervene, he would be killed himself. All he could do was stay and watch.

  But Raymond continued to stare at him. It was then Barron realized what was really going on. Raymond’s look was not so much terror as insolence. He wasn’t just asking for help, he was expecting it.

  It was the wrong thing to do, because Barron was not only offended, he was suddenly, and very deeply, enraged.

  Here was a man who had killed without mercy, heinously slaughtering one person after another in cold blood. A man who, from the beginning, had taken Barron’s deepest principles and twisted them for his own good. Who had stolen into his home and manipulated him into helping him escape. Who had carefully and purposefully involved Dan Ford because of his professional influence and his close friendship with Barron and would have killed him in the blink of an eye to serve his own interests. Now, here he was, moments from death, expecting Barron to step in and save him.

  Barron had never felt such revulsion in his life, not even toward the murderers of his mother and father. Red had been right. Men like Raymond were not human beings, they were despicable monsters who would kill again and again. They were a disease that had to be eliminated. For people like them laws and courts were porous and indecisive and therefore not to be trusted with the public welfare. So it was up to men like Valparaiso and Polchak and the others to do what civilization could not. And good riddance. Raymond had misjudged him grievously because Barron no longer cared.

  “You were the one who asked for coffee, Raymond.” Valparaiso stepped forward, a coffee container in his hand. “Being nice guys we stopped for it. Even brought it out to the car for you. When we did, and even though you were still handcuffed, you took yours and threw it at Detective Barron.” Abruptly Valparaiso flicked his wrist, splashing hot coffee over Barron’s shirt and jacket. Barron started and jumped back.

  Valparaiso put the coffee container down and moved closer still. “At the same time, you grabbed his Colt Double Eagle automatic, a personal firearm he carried to replace the Beretta you had taken from him at the Lufthansa terminal. The one you used to kill Commander McClatchy. This gun, Raymond.”

  Suddenly Valparaiso pulled Barron’s Beretta from his waistband with his right hand and held it in front of Raymond. A heartbeat later he reached behind him with his left hand and lifted Barron’s Colt from where it had been tucked into his waistband at the back of his belt. “Two-Gun Raymond.” Valparaiso took a half step backward. “You probably don’t remember, but Detective Polchak took both of these away from you just moments after he set off the stun grenade. You later saw him return the Colt to Detective Barron.”

  Barron watched, transfixed, as Valparaiso worked Raymond, giving him the details of the story that would become the official version of his death. It was akin to torture and Barron didn’t care. Instead he found himself enjoying it. Suddenly Raymond turned and looked right at him.

  “What about the e-mails, John? Kill me and no one can call them back.”

  Barron smiled coldly. “Nobody seems very concerned about them, Raymond. The real story is you. We already have your fingerprints. Any part of your body will give us a DNA sample. A sample we can match against the bloodstains on a washcloth we found in a dead man’s suite at the Bonaventure Hotel. We’re going to find out about the men in Chicago. About the people in San Francisco and Mexico City. About the Gulfstream and who sent it. About Alfred Neuss. What you had planned for Europe and Russia. We’re going to find out who you are, Raymond. We’re going to find out everything.”

  Raymond’s eyes went around the room and then looked away. “Vsay,” he said under his breath. “Vsay ego sudba V rukah Gospodnih.” What hope he had held out that Barron would aid him was gone. All he had left was his own inner strength. If it was God’s plan to have him die here, then so be it.

  “Vsay ego sudba V rukah Gospodnih,” he repeated, strong and compelling, an allegiance to God and to himself, the way he had for the Baroness.

  Slowly Valparaiso handed the Beretta to Lee. Then he stepped forward and shoved the Colt between Raymond’s eyes and finished what he had to say.

  “After you took Detective Barron’s gun, you ran away and hid in here. When we tried to come in after you, you shot at us—” Abruptly Valparaiso stepped back and turned the automatic toward the paint shop’s front door.

  Boom! Boom!

  Thundering .45 caliber gunshots rocked the building, and paint-coated windowpanes exploded into the alley, leaving jagged patterns of black from the night outside in the gray-white wall.

  Valparaiso turned back, poking the Colt up under Raymond’s chin. “We stayed outside and ordered you to come out with your hands up. You didn’t. We called in again and gave you another chance. But all there was was silence. And then we heard—one last shot.”

  Barron watched Raymond carefully. His lips were moving, but no sound came. What was he doing? Praying to God? Asking for mercy before death?

  “John.”

  Barron looked up. Abruptly Valparaiso turned and grabbed his hand and put the Colt into it.

  “For Red,” he whispered. “For Red.”

  Valparaiso’s eyes held on Barron for the briefest moment, then went to Raymond. Barron followed his gaze and saw Polchak move in to put Raymond in the same iron grip he had Donlan.

  Raymond fought against Polchak’s hold, all the while staring openmouthed at Barron. How could God allow this? How could the man he had chosen to save him instead become his executioner?

  “Don’t, John, please don’t,” Raymond whispered. “Please.”

  Barron looked to the automatic in his hand, felt the heft of the gun. He took a step forward. The others were silent, watching. Halliday. Polchak. Valparaiso. Lee.

  Raymond’s eyes shimmered in the fluorescent light. “This isn’t you, John. Don’t you understand? It’s them!” Raymond’s eyes darted to the detectives, then came back to Barron.

  “Remember Donlan. How you felt afterward.” Raymond’s words were hurried, but the manipulation and insolence were long gone. He was pleading for his life. “If you believe in God in Heaven, put the gun down. Don’t do it!”

  “Do you believe in God, Raymond?”

  Barron came closer. Anger, hatred, revenge. His emotions combined like the rush from some fantastic drug. The reference to Donlan meant nothing. The gun in his hand was everything. And then he was there right beside him, his face inches from Raymond’s.

  Click!

  Mechanically he pulled back the hammer. The barrel of the Colt went to Raymond’s temple. He could hear Raymond’s breath go out of him as he struggled against Polchak and the handcuffs. Barron’s finger tightened on the trigger and his eyes locked on Raymond’s. And then …

  He froze.
<
br />   5:21 A.M.

  72

  “Kill’m, goddammit!”

  “He’s an animal. Pull the fuckin’ trigger!”

  “Shoot him, for Chrissakes.”

  Voices shouted behind him as Barron’s face twisted in agony. Suddenly he turned away.

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  Gunshots roared as he fired into a tattered, paint-splattered overstuffed chair.

  “What the fuck’s the matter with you?” Lee didn’t understand.

  Barron turned back, trembling, horrified at what he’d nearly done. “The matter, Roosevelt, is that somewhere this old ‘witch of a city’ suckered us. A man forgets about the law, he forgets about a lot of things—like who the hell he is.” For a moment Barron stared at them all. His next words came in a whisper. “What you don’t understand is—I’m not capable of murder.”

  Valparaiso moved forward and held out his hand. “Give it to me.”

  Barron stepped back. “No, I’m taking him in.”

  “Give him the gun, John.” Lee crossed in front of Halliday.

  Abruptly Barron swung the Colt, leveling it at Lee’s enormous chest. “I’m taking him in, Roosevelt.”

  “Don’t do it,” Halliday warned.

  Barron ignored him. “Everyone put his weapon over there.” He nodded toward a paint-splattered workbench near the door.

  “You’re all fucked up, John.” Polchak moved out from behind Raymond.

  Valparaiso inched forward. “You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

  “You were the first one here, John.” Lee paid no attention to the gun pointed at his chest. “Raymond had the Colt. By the time we caught up, you were already dead.”

  “Raymond buys it anyway.” Polchak closed in a little more. “What about your sister, who’s gonna look after her? You gotta think about these things, John.”

  Suddenly Barron swung the gun, jamming it into Polchak’s crotch. “Another centimeter, you lose your brains.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Polchak jumped back.

  “Guns on the workbench. Roosevelt, you first.”

  The Beretta still in his hand, Lee stayed where he was, and Barron could see him judging, wondering if he could bring the gun up to fire before Barron did. Or even if Barron would fire.

  “It’s not worth the chance something goes wrong, Roosevelt,” Halliday said quietly. “Do what he says.”

  “The Beretta, Roosevelt. Use your left hand. Two fingers on the grip, that’s all,” Barron ordered.

  “Alright.” Slowly Lee raised his left hand and picked Barron’s gun from his right hand in a two-finger grip, then walked to the workbench and set it down.

  “You’re next, Marty. Same way.” Barron shifted the Colt toward Valparaiso.

  For a moment Valparaiso did nothing, then slowly he lifted his automatic from his belt holster and put it on the workbench.

  “Now back away,” Barron said sharply. Valparaiso did, his eyes going to Polchak and then Halliday.

  Cautiously Barron went to the workbench, picked up his Beretta, and stuck it in his belt.

  “Now you, Jimmy. The same way, two fingers.”

  Halliday crossed to the bench, slid out his Beretta, and put it down.

  “Move away,” Barron said, and Halliday did. “Len.”

  For the longest moment Polchak did nothing. Then his eyes went to the floor and he shrugged. “This isn’t good, John. Not good at all.”

  Barron saw Polchak move. In the same instant Lee turned to the workbench, grabbing for his Beretta. Barron lunged, hitting Lee hard with his shoulder and driving him backward into Polchak.

  Polchak went down with Lee on top of him.

  Barron whirled with the Colt. There was a single thundering report. The work light over Raymond’s head shattered and everything went black. Then Barron lashed out, found Raymond’s handcuffs, and dragged him forward in the dark.

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  Lee’s muzzle flashes lit up the garage behind them. Glass shattered around them. Slugs ricocheted off wood and steel as Barron found the door.

  Boom! Boom!

  Lee fired toward the door.

  “You’re gonna hit me, you asshole!” Polchak screamed.

  “Then get the fuck outta the way!”

  Barron and Raymond came through the door fast. Outside the air was wet with drizzle, the sky just beginning to lighten on the horizon. Barron glanced at the unmarked cars, then realized he had no keys. The thought took almost too long.

  “Look out!” Raymond yelled as Lee came through the door. Handcuffs and all, he grabbed Barron by the jacket and dragged him behind the second unmarked car.

  Lee fired twice in the dark, his shots blowing out the car’s rear window. Polchak was right behind him. Then Valparaiso and Halliday.

  Lee came around the car fast, Beretta in two hands, ready to fire. Polchak came from the other side. No one.

  “Where the f—?”

  Then they saw the hole in the wooden fence just beyond the car.

  73

  5:33 A.M.

  Barron kept Raymond in front of him as they half scrambled, half fell down a short, steeply pitched hill. Then they were at the bottom and Barron pulled Raymond up in the dark. They could hear the others coming, crashing through the fence and starting down the hill. Then a powerful flashlight flicked on, and then a second.

  “Stay with me, Raymond.” Barron grabbed Raymond by the handcuffs and dragged him blindly forward. “You try to get away, I will kill you. I promise.”

  A flashlight beam swung past them, then came back.

  Boom! Boom!

  Two quick shots thundered behind them, the slugs tearing up the ground at their feet. Wildly, Barron tugged at Raymond’s handcuffs, dragging him one way and then another in a zigzag pattern as they ran on, scrambling through weeds and over rough ground made slick by the light rain. Behind them flashlight beams cut the air and they could hear more shouting. Then Barron saw pieces of giant earth-moving equipment loom up in the dark and he dragged Raymond toward them.

  Seconds later, soaked with sweat and rain and gasping for breath, they took cover behind a massive bulldozer. In the distance they heard the throaty rumble of a jet aircraft on takeoff. The sky lightened a little more and Barron looked around, trying to get his bearings. All he could see was mud and vague forms of the heavy equipment.

  “Don’t move,” he whispered to Raymond, and pulled himself up into the bulldozer’s cab. From there he could see the distant lights of Burbank Airport’s main terminal and realized they were on the far side of a construction area on the south side of it. Behind him was an open area maybe thirty yards wide and then a steep embankment topped by a chain-link fence. Beyond it were the lights from the airport Metrolink station.

  Hurriedly he jumped from the bulldozer, landing beside Raymond in the dark. He looked at his watch. It was approaching six in the morning. Just when the Metrolink commuter trains began running. He looked to Raymond.

  “We’re gonna take a train ride.”

  74

  5:47 A.M.

  They saw Polchak go past in the dim light and then stop. Barron knew Lee would be to his left or right, with either Valparaiso or Halliday coming up behind. The other would have taken one of the cars and be headed for the street on the far side of the construction zone between where they were and the Metrolink station. What they were doing was flushing them out the way hunting dogs would a game bird from a thicket.

  If they didn’t find them then, they would call in helicopter air support and black-and-white units and probably even dogs. Their story would be simple: Raymond had broken free and taken Barron prisoner. It meant the force against them would be massive, their capture all but certain.

  How they would get them into their custody afterward he wasn’t sure, but there was no doubt at all they would. And it would happen very quickly. In no time Raymond would be shot dead and Barron taken off, most probably to his own house, where they would give him a lethal combination of
alcohol and pills and then either shoot him with his own gun or just leave him to die. Another tragic police suicide caused by family circumstance, the violent deaths of Red McClatchy and the other police officers, and intolerable pressures of the job.

  “Move,” he whispered, and then he and Raymond were up and running for the distant lights of the Metrolink station.

  “There they are!”

  Barron heard Valparaiso yell in the dimness behind them. That meant it was Halliday who would be in the car trying to cut them off as they attempted to reach the station.

  Heart pounding, feet sliding on the slippery ground, one hand holding the Colt, the other tucked inside Raymond’s handcuffs, Barron raced them across the construction area toward the station, praying they’d get there before Halliday or a bullet did.

  Then they were at the far embankment and scrambling up it to the fence at the top. He could still hear them coming behind them, the police flashlights crisscrossing in the dark trying to find a target. Now they were at the fence and Barron literally picked Raymond up and threw him over it, then vaulted over himself.

  “Car,” Raymond said as Barron hit the ground beside him. A half mile away headlights turned the corner and accelerated toward them.

  “Go!” Barron yelled, and they were up and running. Crossing the street and charging up the ramp to the Metrolink station.

  6:02 A.M.

  Halliday saw them cross the street in the distance. Ten seconds later he pulled the car to a stop and jumped out just as the others came over the fence.

  “Station!” he yelled, and the four took off on the run for the ramp where Raymond and Barron had gone.

  The light of day began to appear, as a pale streak on the horizon, as the detectives reached the top. Polchak and Halliday ran down the platform one way, Lee and Valparaiso the other. There was nothing. The platform was deserted.