Capitol Punishment (An Art Jefferson Thriller Book 3) (41 page)

*  *  *

“What...” John’s eyes flared. He spun toward the front room. His youngest son ran by the opening toward the front door, Louise following. The leader of the Aryan Victory Organization knew those to be foolish acts. He looked left. A second later he was through the back door and running into the woods lining Fawley Hollow.

*  *  *

“What’s going on?” Jones asked the HRT leader as gunfire erupted up the road that was the only access to the house.

The black-clad agent listened to the radio chatter in his earpiece briefly. “They spotted us coming in. We had to drop one.”

“Is a perimeter up?” Jones asked. Art was listening intently to this question. “Not yet.”

“Dammit!” Jones swore. “Get the helicopter overhead. Now. Jeferso—” He looked past the HRT leader. Art was moving up the road, gun drawn, at a dead run. “Jefferson!”

*  *  *

“Toby!” Stanley yelled at the sight of his brother lying facedown on the cement driveway. A circle of darkness was expanding from beneath his stomach.

“Toby!” Louise screamed as she tried to push past her youngest boy. He saw beyond his brother, small flashes of intense red light—
laser aiming devices!
— coming from the trees. His left hand shoved his mother to the ground inside the house as he stepped out, aiming at the lights with his weapon, and squeezing off shots. More came back to him.

“STANLEY!” Louise screamed as her baby boy fell back into the house, bullets tearing into the walls. She reached for him and pulled his limp body out of the doorway. “Stanley?” She brushed his hair, and laid a caring hand on his chest. It was damp, warm, and still. “Stanley? STANLEY! NO!!!”

*  *  *

John Barrish is weak
. Art thought this as he trotted off the road and into the trees, making a wide sweep to the right of the advancing HRT line.
John Barrish is a small man
.
A coward who uses others to do what he is afraid to do. John Barrish will not stand and fight. John Barrish will run. No. John Barrish will slink away.

Art had dealt with bigger men, but not with bigger dangers. For John Barrish was the keeper of a virus.

Trees flashed by as Art moved through them toward the woods to the rear of the house. The ground to his right sloped downward, and he heard the sound of water gently running. He heard something else to his front.

The virus.

Art slowed and crouched. He realized his white shirt, even though soiled, was standing out in the darkness of the forest. He pulled it and the T-shirt beneath it off, barely noticing the chill. Twenty yards ahead he saw movement crossing his path left to right. The form was lighter than the darkness.

You almost killed the woman I love. You could have destroyed my country.
Art stepped easily right, finding footing on the slope as the form ahead slowed and took cover behind a tree. Sounds off to the left announced the arrival of the HRT at the rear of the house. Art eased forward, using the trees as a screen, inching closer, foot by foot, yard by yard, until he could see the virus from behind. It was lying on the ground twenty feet away staring back upon the route it had taken.

Covering your rear?
Art thought.
Wrong rear
. He leveled his weapon at the prone form of John Barrish. There was a twig at his feet. He could step on it, make a sound, force John Barrish to move threateningly at him. Then he could kill John Barrish. Then he could kill the virus. He could do that, and no one would ever know. No one would ever know. He wouldn’t even care.

But someone would. And Art Jefferson knew he could not hide a darkness such as that from her.

“Barrish!”

John twitched at the sound from behind.

“FREEZE!”

The gun was in his hand. He would just have to roll, aim, fire.

“DROP IT! NOW!”

That voice. John knew it. But from... He looked behind, moving only his head. Light from the rear of the house illuminated the bare-chested African’s face, and his stainless-steel gun.

“SHOW ME YOUR HANDS!”

John heard the command, but the tones said
Don’t. I want to kill you. Make me kill you.

Art maintained his partial cover behind a tree and watched John Barrish roll slowly on his side, hands empty, compliant.

“Show me your hands!” Art commanded.

Barrish did, as footsteps came from the direction of the house. HRT agents approached and lit up the area with their weapon-mounted lights. Red dots danced on John Barrish’s body. Art lifted his weapon clear as two agents moved in and cuffed the man, then lifted him to his feet after searching him. They walked him to where Art stood.

“You want him?” an agent asked.

Art answered by grabbing Barrish by the elbow and leading him through the trees to the front of the house, HRT agents following. Director Gordon Jones and Bud DiContino were waiting in the driveway by a VSP cruiser.

“Good catch, Jefferson,” Jones said. His expression said
Stupid move, Jefferson.
But it was the words that counted.

“Sir, this is John Barrish.” Art gripped the elbow a bit tighter and lifted the man.

“Did you Mirandize him?”

“HRT did when they cuffed him,” Art reported.

Bud studied the man for a moment. Small. So small. Size said so much in this instance.

“So it’s a crime to run when men start shooting at your house without warning?” Barrish asked defiantly.

Art spun him so they were face to face. “No, it’s a crime to murder eighteen hundred people.”
And how many more?
Art wondered.

Barrish smiled. “You have no proof of that.”

“Yes they do.”

Barrish turned to the voice. It was Louise, standing just a foot or so away, hands cuffed behind, blood soaking her clothing. Her face was tear streaked, but she was no longer crying.

“Louise...”

“You killed my sons! You killed them!”

Art held Barrish steady, making him face his most damaging accuser.

“And you killed the others, John. I know that, and I will tell everyone who wants to hear exactly what you did. Everything, you goddamn bastard!”

Barrish glared at her, wishing he could get his hands free for just a moment. She was weak. The doubter had become a challenger.

“And one other thing,” Louise said to her husband’s face. As he stared across at her she stepped forward and brought her knee up, full force, into his groin before the HRT agents could pull her back.

“Get up,” Art said, lifting the doubled-over racist to his feet. He was moaning in pain and gasping for breath. Two agents from the HRT came up and took Barrish from him, leading him to a VSP cruiser separate from his wife. Art watched as they were both driven away.

Bud DiContino reached out and offered his hand to Art Jefferson. “Thank you.”

Art shook the NSA’s hand with some puzzlement. “For what?”

“For stopping this.”

Art shook his head. He might have smiled, but could not manage that expression at the moment. “I didn’t stop anything.” He looked at the bloody corpses of the two Barrish boys lying where the HRT had laid them in the driveway. “There’ll always be another like John Barrish. Animals reproduce, remember?”

“Right,” Bud DiContino agreed. This would never be over.

EPILOGUE

State of the Union

There was no need for them to be present, but there was reason, though neither Art Jefferson nor Frankie Aguirre could adequately put it in words. Less than a month after the night that most would like to erase from their memories, the agents stood beneath a wintry afternoon sun and watched the aircraft belonging to the United States Marshal’s Service descend and land on runway two-five left at Los Angeles International Airport. The aircraft slowed, swung left, and taxied back toward them before stopping at the transient parking area on the airport’s south side. A ramp truck pulled to the front door, and a minute later three U.S. marshals led a manacled and shackled John Barrish down the steps and toward a waiting van that would take him to the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail to await trial. The eight deputies at the van to receive him were all black.

“Appropriate, wouldn’t you say?” Frankie asked.

“A bit of a show,” Art responded. It might have been, but now that John Barrish was in chains, maybe it wasn’t altogether bad to complete the role reversal. It was for his benefit only, but Art wondered if it would make much of an impression on the man.
Would anything?
he asked himself.

With no delay John Barrish was placed in the rear of the black-and-white van, a deputy on either side, and within a minute the three-vehicle caravan was heading out from the airport for the forty-minute drive to his new home...for the time being.

“I hope he chooses gas,” Frankie commented as the trio of vehicles disappeared into traffic.

“There’s still a trial to come, partner.” And Art knew that would be lengthy and messy. The incarceration in San Quentin. Then ten or fifteen years of appeals. Then, if John Barrish hadn’t been done away with already, it would be the chamber or a gurney. Gas or lethal injection.
Gas
, Art thought. Frankie was right. It was the appropriate way for him to go.

“At least he’s here and not tied up in a tug-of-war,” Frankie commented. The authorities in several jurisdictions back east had gladly approved the extradition of John Barrish to California so that he might face capital murder charges—several thousand of them—in a jurisdiction itching to add another to the long line of death row inmates. Then there was the question of Moises Griggs. “The kid is going to go down with him,” she said with no glee.

Life without parole. Was it better than death by gas or lethal injection? Art didn’t know, but Moises had obviously decided that cooperating in the prosecution of John Barrish was worth the trade. There was also vengeance in the young man’s heart, a burning desire to avenge the murder of his little sister. Then, he could consider his own future.

“It’s a waste, partner, but it’s of his own doing,” Art observed dispassionately. That wasn’t how he felt, but it was how he had to look at it.

Frankie nodded agreement, but the reasoning was deeper than that. “Think of it. The kid was drawn to the very people who killed his little sister because he became like them.” She was able to laugh. “Let some psycho-type loose with that one.” There would be plenty of those wanting at Moises Griggs, she suspected.

“Speaking of psycho-types, has Anne settled everything yet?”

“All set,” Art said, allowing a smile. “We leave Tuesday.”

Frankie smiled back at him, though the lump rising from her chest was threatening a different display of emotion. “Who am I going to eat chili dogs with now?”

“Bacon chili cheese dogs, partner,” Art corrected. “Your little girl. Cassie would love ‘em.”

“When she’s eighteen, maybe.” Frankie chuckled, then fell silent as the moment became awkward.

“Well,” Art said for the sake of saying
something
.

“Well, partner, two days,” Frankie said, cheering herself up with thoughts of the wedding to come this Saturday. “Do you remember how to be married?”

“I’m hoping to learn the right way,” Art answered. “Speaking of which, what have you got planned for the afternoon?”

Frankie noticed the innocent look in his eye, and knew it meant quite the opposite. “Nothing...”

Art started walking for their car, his partner for the next few days following him. “Do you know any good jewelers?”

She froze mid-step. “Art Jefferson! You don’t have a ring yet!”

“What?”

Frankie shook her head at him. “You don’t know how to be married, but you sure know how to be a man.”

“There’s a difference?” Art joked, then climbed in the car with the full expectation that a lecture would be his to endure. A lecture he would cherish always.

*  *  *

The Secret Service frowned upon it, but the president was the president, and if he wanted to take in the night sights of the Mall from the vantage point of the Truman Balcony, well, he could do so. Standing next to the man,

Bud DiContino could understand why his boss was so obstinate on that point.

“It’s beautiful tonight, sir,” the NSA commented. Looking due south he could see the brilliantly lit obelisk that was the Washington Monument. One sight among many that gave the capital city its charm at night.

The president, though, was looking to the southeast, at a diffused glow rising from the containment tents that had been set up around the Capitol reflecting pool. The decontamination process had begun immediately, and would continue for some time. They had been lucky, the chief executive knew. Very lucky. “Have you thought of what would have happened if Barrish’s plan had worked?”

Bud saw what the president was gazing toward. “The important thing was it didn’t, sir.”

“It was too close.”

“Yes, it was,” Bud agreed. There had been too much distrust of the Bureau by the CIA, too much insulation of theories by the Bureau itself, and too little understanding of the threat posed by people like John Barrish. Already there was one casualty: Gordon Jones. His tenure at the Bureau was in doubt when the World Center attack took place. Having a similar attack almost come to be in the laps of the Congress was too much. Whether justified or not, he was gone, and a replacement was yet to be named.

So the lessons were obvious. Learning from them was a process just beginning.

“I feel like we were fighting a vapor cloud on this one, Bud. Something that you can see, that you know is there, but that you can’t get a grip on. It’s unnerving.”

“But not unbeatable,” Bud reminded the president as a chilly wind kicked up from the west.

The president leaned on the white plaster railing and stared toward the glow for a long moment as he thought. “How long is it going to take, Bud?”

The NSA recalled the report from the Army specialists responsible for the cleanup. “About six weeks, sir.”

The president looked to his NSA and smiled, seeing immediately that the man realized he had given the right answer to the wrong question. “I think it’s going to take a bit longer than that, Bud.”