Lethal(58)

“He didn’t abduct me, Mr. Hamilton. I came with him voluntarily.”

Several seconds ticked by before Hamilton said anything. Then he cleared his throat and politely asked if Coburn was treating Emily and her well.

She thought of his threats, real and implied, and the strong-arming, and the battle royal over possession of the pistol, but she also remembered his snatching up Emily’s bankie and Elmo as they fled the house. She thought of his taking a chance on being captured to buy them food and water.

And she thought of his coming back rather than deserting them.

She said to Hamilton, “We’re all right.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Put Coburn back on.”

She passed the phone to him. He said into it, “Talk to me.”

“You first.”

He talked Hamilton through the mass shooting and everything that had transpired since. He was concise and ended by saying, “I had no choice but to get her and the kid out of there. They’d be dead if I hadn’t.”

“You’re certain that this policeman you killed was Sam Marset’s assassin.”

“I saw him do it.”

“Along with his twin.”

“Correct.”

Hamilton took a deep breath and expelled it loudly. “Okay. Except for the warehouse killer’s identity, and the misconception that Mrs. Gillette was kidnapped, that matches everything Tom VanAllen told me.”

“Tom VanAllen. Who’s VanAllen?”

“My successor down there.”

“When did you talk to him?”

“When it became apparent that you’d kicked up a shit storm.”

“You talked to this VanAllen before taking my call?”

“I wanted to get a feel for the situation from his perspective. I wanted it unfiltered. I even asked him if you were an agent from his office working undercover.”

“Gee, you’re a stitch.”

“I needed to know what he knew or suspected.”

“I’m kinda interested in that myself.”

“As far as local law enforcement is concerned, you’re a friendless dock worker who went postal and shot up the place. That’s good. Now that I’ve talked to you, I’ll admit to VanAllen that I tricked him in order to get his unbiased assessment, and then I’ll enlist him to help bring you and Mrs. Gillette in. Once you, she, and the child are safe, we’ll figure out how to go in and mop up.”

Coburn frowned, pulled at his lower lip with his teeth, and looked hard at Honor. Finally, he said, “Negative.”

“Excuse me?”

“Negative. I don’t want to come in yet.”

“Don’t worry about your cover. It will remain intact. The official word will be that you died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound during a standoff with federal agents. We’ll make arrests based on the intel you’ve gathered so far, but no one will know where it came from. You’ll be reassigned to another part of the country, and no one will be the wiser.”

“Sounds swell. Except that I haven’t finished the job here.”

“You’ve done well, Coburn,” Hamilton argued. “You’re getting out alive, which is no small accomplishment. And you’ve fingered some key people in The Bookkeeper’s organization. I’ve got men from San Antonio to key points east, all the way to the Mississippi/Alabama line, standing by to make arrests, soon as I give them the green light. You took out one of The Bookkeeper’s main facilitators this morning.”

“But we don’t have The Bookkeeper.”

“I’m satisfied.”

“I’m not. Something big is about to happen. I want to put him out of commission before it does.”

“Something big, like what?”

“A new client. A Mexican cartel would be my guess. I think that’s why Sam Marset was bumped. He was whining over a couple of his trucks getting stopped and searched. Those two weren’t hauling anything except potting soil, but it spooked Marset, because he was guaranteed that none of his trucks would be subject to search. The Bookkeeper wanted to shut him up. He doesn’t need a complaint department at any time, but especially not now.”

Hamilton considered it, then said, “But the new alliance isn’t a sure thing.”

“It’s pending.”

“Can you identify the cartel?”

“No. My time ran out Sunday night.”

Again Hamilton took several moments to mull it over. Coburn watched Honor watching him.

Finally Hamilton said, “We’ll go with what we’ve got. With or without this pending arrangement, you’ve built a case. It’s enough.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it. No federal prosecutor is going to touch this unless he’s got a smoking gun or an eyewitness who’ll swear his life away to see justice done, and no one is going to do that even if he’s guaranteed a new identity in Outer Mongolia, because everybody’s scared shitless of The Bookkeeper.

“It would also be a P.R. nightmare for the bureau. Sam Marset is just a name to you, but in these parts he was looked upon as a saint. Drag his name through the mud without absolute proof of his corruption, make charges that won’t stick, and all you’ll do is cause resentment among the law-abiding population and put the offenders on red alert.