Conspiracy

102

Christopher Ball had killed at least three dozen people in his life. Most were in Vietnam, where as enemy soldiers or guerillas they had clearly deserved it. Most of the rest were criminals, or involved in criminal activity, generally with Ball during the five or six years after Vietnam when he had par-layed his portion of the Key Tiger money into a sizeable nest egg by selling Asian heroin. Their deaths were also easily ra-tionalized, as was the revenge killing of Jason Evans, the developer who had robbed Ball of much of his money in the mid-1980s, squandering over a million dollars in a scheme to build condos outside of LA. And then there was Reggie Gordon, whose murder — disguised as a suicide — was an absolute necessity. Gordon had clearly been the one to tell Forester about the theft of the Vietnamese payoffs: the only other people alive who knew what had happened were McSweeney and Ball himself. Killing Gordon was easy, in fact, pleas ur able, though it had been more than a de cade since Ball had found it necessary to use the skills he had learned as a young Marine.

But Amanda Rauci was different, and Ball couldn’t precisely say why. It wasn’t just that she was a woman; he had killed two women in Vietnam, both guerilla leaders, at least according to the CIA. It wasn’t just that she was a federal agent. He’d killed a DEA agent during his drug dealer days, albeit one who was dealing on both sides of the law.

Ball tried to parcel out the differences as he drove north on the Parkway toward Albany. The more he tried to define it, the more impossible it became.

And the more her death haunted him. He heard her again, felt the way she pushed against his arms, life ebbing from her.

He told himself not to think about it, but there was nothing to replace the thoughts. He glanced down at his speedometer and saw that he was pushing ninety. Ball immediately backed off the gas. He wasn’t afraid of getting a ticket; if he was stopped, he’d casually show his badge while reaching for his license, mention that he was on official business, and out of professional courtesy the trooper would let him go. But then someone would know where he was.

When Forester didn’t keep his appointment that day, Ball had feared the worst — that the Secret Service agent had seen through his smile and his bs, and realized that he did know Gordon. Then, when he heard the news that Forester had killed himself, Chief Ball thought that God Himself had intervened.

There was a certain logic and even rough justice to the thought. All of the money he had gotten was gone, long gone, most of it stolen by that crook Evans. Ball had paid the price for his moment of weakness in many ways, and had done good work besides.

But now he saw that was simply wishful thinking. Clearly, these people weren’t going to stop until they caught him. It occurred to Ball that Forester’s suicide was a setup — they were eventually going to blame him for the death, and put him away for life.

They wouldn’t give him the chair, because of the way the law read in Connecticut. Which was probably why they chose to do it there, rather than in New York — they wanted to torture him for the rest of his life.

Would he have to kill them all? DeFrancesca next? Then the FBI agent, and the other Secret Service agent — he couldn’t even remember their damn names.

Could he kill them all?

He’d have to.

Not if it meant choking them. Amanda Rauci’s eyes loomed in front of him.

Why were they after him now? Was it Gordon’s fault? Or was McSweeney pulling the strings?

It couldn’t be McSweeney. He had too much to lose.

God, the way Rauci shook when she died.

Ball felt her pushing against his arms. He saw her face when he picked her up.

Ball’s stomach began to react. He made it to the side of the road just in time.