The Last Mile (Amos Decker, #2)(6)

He threw the bag of trash into a receptacle in the parking lot, climbed back into his car, and drove off. He turned on the radio. The top of the hour was coming up as he found the local NPR station. The news was coming on. The lead story had to do with a death row inmate whose life had been spared, melodramatically, at the last minute.

It had been a last-second Christmas present, the announcer said.

The man’s name was Melvin Mars. And he had been convicted over twenty years ago of killing his parents. Now, all of his appeals had been denied and the state of Texas was ready to take the man’s life as punishment for his crimes.

But startling new evidence had emerged, the announcer said.

A prisoner in Alabama had confessed to the crime and had allegedly offered up details that only the real killer could have known. Mars, a former college All-American, Heisman Trophy finalist, and top NFL prospect, was currently still behind bars as he awaited the results of the ensuing investigation. But if that investigation verified the confession, reported the announcer, then Melvin Mars could go free, after two decades behind bars. His NFL dream was over, of course, but perhaps justice would finally be served, if a bit late.

Damn, thought Decker, as he turned off the radio. Some justice for Melvin Mars.

Then his mind started whirring, his memories flashing past in neat chronological order, though Decker did not really need his hyperthymesia to remember this one.

Melvin Mars was a star running back at the University of Texas. The Longhorns had played Decker’s team, the Buckeyes of Ohio State, on the last week of the regular season in a nationally televised game. Decker had played linebacker on his squad. He was tall for a linebacker and was a good player, but not great. He had the size, strength, and toughness, but didn’t have the wheels and pure athleticism of the truly outstanding players.

Mars had made life miserable that afternoon for Decker and the Buckeyes. Texas had ended up winning by a whopping five touchdowns and ruining any chance Ohio State had for a national championship.

Mars himself had scored four times. Three by running and once with a nifty catch-and-run starting at the Buckeyes’ thirty-five yard line. Decker remembered that one well. He had been covering Mars on the play as he came out of the backfield.

He had hit Mars with everything he had as soon as he caught the ball. But Mars had somehow managed to keep on his feet, juked the corner and then the safety, and then run over another safety coming in near the goal line as Decker lay on the field thirty yards back. It had seemed like the fifth time Mars had gotten the better of him that day. As his coaches later pointed out on film day, it was actually the tenth.

Decker had gone to the bench after that hit and miss. The Longhorns were up by twenty-eight points with less than six minutes remaining. They would tack on one more score when they got the ball back after an interception. It was Mars again who hit the Buckeyes’ starting middle linebacker—a wall of granite named Eddie Keys, who would go on to play twelve years with the Forty-Niners—so hard that the man had been blown backward into the end zone as Mars made his last score of the day.

Melvin Mars.

Decker had thought the guy would be a shoo-in for the NFL too. It was a big story back then about Mars being arrested. But Decker had been working hard for his own shot at the big leagues and the arrest and conviction of Melvin Mars finally had faded into the past.

Two decades in prison. For a crime he maybe didn’t commit.

Another man had confessed. Had details only the real killer would know.

It was so close to the murders of Decker’s family that not even his unique mind could grapple with the possible odds of it.

He drove right through Pennsylvania, and then south into Maryland and farther south into Virginia. He didn’t stop to sleep. His mind was alert and awake and thinking.

He was thinking about Melvin Mars.

A name from the past.

Decker did not believe in fate, or even its little cousin, serendipity.

Yet something had made him turn on the radio right at that very moment. If he had taken a couple minutes longer to eat his meal, or stopped to take a leak, he might never have heard the story.

But he had heard the story.

So what did that mean?

He wasn’t sure. And he also wasn’t sure that the name Melvin Mars would ever leave him again.

Hours later he reached the address he’d been given. It was at the Marine Corps Base Quantico, one of the largest U.S. Marine bases in the world, and also home to a basketful of federal law enforcement platforms.

The facility was behind high fences with a guard gate where serious men in uniform stood holding automatic weapons.

Amos Decker drove up to the gate, rolled down his window, drew a long breath, and prepared to start his brand-new life.





CHAPTER

4



THREE ROOMS.

A bedroom about the size of a prison cell. A bathroom about a quarter the size of that. And a third room for everything else, including the kitchen.

It was far more space than Amos Decker had been accustomed to over the last year and a half.

He set his bags down and looked around his new home. He should grab some sleep, but he wasn’t tired.

He could sleep all day sometimes, but other times, like now, his mind would not allow him to rest. His brain was on fire.

There was a small table across from the kitchen area. On the table was a laptop computer with a note stuck to it. The note was from Agent Bogart. The laptop was his to use. There was secure WiFi here. Bogart would be by later.