Bull Mountain(10)

“Even you?” Holly asked.

Clayton didn’t have an answer for that.

“Then let me put it another way,” Holly said. “The United States government is putting together a multiagency task force consisting of well over a hundred people ranging from the FBI, ATF, the DEA, all the way down to the state police. Homeland is even involved. They’re educated, trained, willing, and able to set the entirety of Bull Mountain on fire. That’s not a threat, Sheriff. It’s a fact. We know the locations of all sixteen cookhouses and we know the routes heading into Florida, Alabama, both Carolinas, and Tennessee. The finger is on the trigger, they are intentionally leaving you out of the loop, and a lot of people are going to die. It’s a brand-new ball game. The post-9/11 rules give us the teeth we need to get it done with close to zero accountability. This operation was already supposed to happen. It’s been in development since your brother Buckley was killed and exposed Halford’s involvement with Wilcombe. The powers that be want the revenue being generated on that mountain so bad they would rather burn it down than see your brother get over on them one more day.”

“So what’s stopping them?” Clayton said.

“Me.” Holly’s shark smile returned. “I am.” He let his words dangle between them before setting the hook. “I have a better plan, and that’s why I’m here, Sheriff.”

“Go on,” Clayton said.

4.

“Nothing makes a U.S. federal law enforcement agency drool more than a huge pile of money. Nothing, except of course, a bigger pile. That’s what I’ve got in Florida—a bigger pile. If we can take that down, this place dries up by default.”

“Couldn’t Hal just find new suppliers?”

“Sure, he could, but would he want to? You said it yourself, he was born into this dance with these boys from Florida. He didn’t have to go through the bloodshed and double-crossing most entrepreneur types like your brother have to go through. It takes a long time to build that kind of trust, and your father just handed it to him. Do you think he’s up to going through all that at his age? Fifty-three is no time to go back to the drawing board. He has no children that we know about. There are no young up-and-comers ready to take his place as far as we know, and the bloodline ends with him.” Holly paused and corrected himself. “Well, other than you, of course.”

Clayton nodded and spun one finger in the air like a wheel, signaling for Holly to keep going.

Holly said, “He’s practically cut off from civilization up there. Take Wilcombe out of the equation and Halford Burroughs could just retire. Take his winnings and cash out.”

Clayton hesitated for several moments before speaking. “And you’re telling me that you would leave him be?”

“Yes,” Holly said without a bit of hesitation.

“And there’s paperwork to back that up?”

“Yes,” Holly said. He crossed his arms and let the prosecution rest.

Clayton’s eyes slowly became skeptical slits as he studied Simon Holly. There was a lack of pretension about this man that Clayton found himself admiring. This wasn’t just a chance to put a commendation in his jacket; at least it didn’t feel that way to Clayton. This was a chance to do some real good on the mountain. If it wasn’t all bullshit, and normally Clayton could smell bullshit a county over. He got the impression this meeting was more important to Holly’s case than he was letting on. The agent was presenting well, but fidgety. His knee bounced slightly, and Clayton could tell he was a touch nervous. This case must be a career maker, he thought. “Why do you care?” Clayton said. “If you have all the intel you need to pick him up, then why don’t you just go in and take him out? Why do you care what happens to the people up here?”

Holly looked mildly surprised, then genuinely hurt. “Why would I not care? You don’t have a monopoly on keeping people safe, Sheriff. You said before that you’re nothing like me, but with one fell swoop we could shut down the biggest flow of guns and dope in the history of the East Coast—one that floods over six state lines. I won’t lie to you and say it wouldn’t be nice to be recognized as one of the men who did it, but if you’re the man I think you are, living in the shadow of your family’s legacy can only make this all the more important to you. The number of lives we’d save, a lot of whom live in your backyard, is the reason I do this job. I would say we’re a lot more alike than you think.”

Clayton scratched at a rust-colored patch in his calico beard, hardly noticing his fading headache. “And Hal walks?”

“Anywhere he wants.”

“If I can convince him to be a rat.”

“Listen, Sheriff, I just told you why I’m invested in this, but for the sake of total disclosure, the truth is, nobody is interested in this place. No offense, but it’s just a big rock in the hottest, stickiest state in the union. No one I work with would dream of being stuck in this place if your brother wasn’t breaking the law, and breaking it so well. If that stops, we stop. Period.”

Clayton opened the bottom drawer of his desk, the place that used to be reserved for the good stuff when he was drinking, and took out a can of long-cut snuff tobacco. He pinched out a wad and seated it between his lower lip and gum, then spit into an empty Styrofoam cup.

“Nice speech.”