King Con

Chapter Thirty-Four.

IT WAS TEN-THIRTY FRIDAY NIGHT AND GRADY HUNT was in an FBI satellite van on Fillmore Street, just off of Geary. It was hot in the back of the van and Denny Denniston had just stepped outside to have a smoke.

Victoria and Beano were somewhere inside the Ritz-Carlton. Grady had several two-man jump-out teams in sedans parked in strategic locations around the hotel. He had placed an agent in a doorman's coat out front. Every time that unlucky agent had to lift luggage off the valet cart and pack it in a guest's car, he would swear at his FBI teammates in low tones over the mike on his lapel.

The paging unit that was in Victoria's purse was sending a very nice signal up to Satcom 6 and bouncing it back to the Global Positioning Satellite Dish on the top of the blue minivan. Grady could follow Victoria, watching her movements on the lighted electronic map on the screen in front of him. The pagers had been developed by the FBI field operation lab and were actually miniature tracking units. He loved giving these special pagers to snitches. He would always page them a few times to let them know he was thinking about them, but the real reason was to activate the satellite tracking in case they took off or got out of pocket. Victoria and Beano thought they had lost Grady on the roof of the Penn Mutual Building, but the beeper gave him back their location in less then five minutes.

The phone in the van rang and he snapped it up. It was Gil Green from his hotel room at the Fairmont, downtown. "Give me an update," the colorless D.A. demanded without preamble.

"They're still cooped. When they leave, I'll call."

"Still at the Ritz?"

"Yeah."

"I wonder what they're doing there. Makes no sense."

"Yeah." Grady was trying to get the politician off the phone. Then his satellite track went hot. "They're moving. Gotta go," and he hung up.

He banged on the back door for Denniston. Seconds later the Vanilla Surprise jumped back into the van. Grady Hunt yelled at his driver, "They're headed down Stockton, just took a left on Broadway," he said, as the driver put it in gear. "Get on the air and tell Larry White this Mobile Command Post is in motion," he said to Denniston, who picked up the mike and switched the scanner over to Tac Two.

"This is Operation Brushfire, M.C.P. We're hot. Target was heading down Stockton, took a left on Broadway."

"Roger that," the voice said back.

Grady leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder. "Put a little oomph in it. I'd like to make visual contact, see what they're riding in."

"Okay," the driver said, and he put the pedal down and the blue minivan accelerated.

Grady grabbed the mike and triggered it as he watched the blip turn on his video map. "He's making a right on Van Ness. He's on Route 101, everybody. I'm going to move up. Intersect point is in two blocks. Hold your pattern," he said.

The others all waited.

In the ex-Delta Force van, one of the sharpshooters was driving, the other rode shotgun. Tommy was seated, his hands cuffed behind him in a backwards seat facing Joe. He was looking into his brother's hollow, cold eyes. Beano and Victoria were in the tan Lincoln just behind them with Reo, Reefer, and Doughboy.

"Joe, you gotta listen to me," Tommy finally said.

Joe didn't respond. His eyes were looking right through his brother.

"We own a fucking oil company. It's the largest stratigraphic trap in the Northern Hemisphere. I bought it for both of us. I found out about it from these two guys who hit the casino in the Bahamas. The old guy, he's a physicist; the young guy is a geologist. They worked for this Fentress County Tennessee oil company. Stop fucking staring through me and listen to me, Joe!"

But Joe Rina said nothing.

"They found this huge oil field. I'm talkin' a fucking monster, Joe. Six acres. Now, I know that don't mean nothin' to you, but if you knew geology, you'd know a six-acre pool is like, unheard of. It's not like some fucking little pocket well with fucking anticlines an' shit. It's a full, shale-roofed stratigraphic trap or some damn thing. That's where the big oil finds always are. And these two geeks worked for FCP amp;G and they proved the field with this well… called a delineation well and…"

"You bought the company?" Joe interrupted. "Is that your story? But the money was still in your car. You think I'm stupid?"

"I don't know how that happened, they musta-"

"What were you doing hanging out with Victoria Hart?" Joe interrupted again. "She tried to put me in jail for attempted murder. We had to kill three people to shake her off. Now she's in your hotel room calling you 'honey' and 'darling.' You make me want to vomit."

"She was in makeup, Joe. I didn't recognize her. She was pretending to be Laura Luna, the company's Financial Officer. See Chip Lacy, he's the President of the company, but he had a heart attack and…" Tommy stopped because Joe rubbed his forehead in disgust. "Listen, this whole thing sounds stupid, I know… but if you'll fucking listen, Joe, just listen to me, I'm sure you're gonna-"

"You know why I quit clipping guys and started letting you do it?" Joe interrupted for the third time.

"Look, Joe, this whole fucking thing… I can explain it."

"Reason I quit was I couldn't stand listening to dead men whine. You used to be a man; don't go out whining. Not that I care about memories anymore… but why don't you help me here and stop it? You're nothing but a walking piece of yesterday. A disappointing part of my personal history."

"Joe, how can you say that?"

"Only reason I don't put you down right now," Joe continued, "is this suit is raw silk, and at this range, I'm gonna get pieces a'you all over me from the back spray."

Tommy looked into Joe's eyes and saw such cold clarity that he knew his brother wasn't kidding.

"Joe, please listen… just let me…"

But Joe thumbed back the hammer and fired a shot. The driver of the van jumped and almost ran off the road. The bullet tore through Tommy's chest, puncturing his lung. He jackknifed forward from recoil and landed on Joe's lap, pouring blood all over the black, raw silk suit.

"Nuts," Joe said softly, then pushed his stunned and bleeding brother back into a sitting position. "Now shut up, will ya? I don't wanna hear any more."

They arrived at the Presidio entrance on Lombard. Reo pulled the Lincoln around in front of the van, got out, and, using a padlock key he had in his pocket, opened the gate of the old, abandoned military base. It sat on fourteen hundred acres of prime waterfront land and used to be the military command center for the eight Western states until it was closed because of budget cuts. The site was magnificent, with its wood-frame, turn-of-the-century architecture. The clapboard structures were built in the 1870's, with large bay windows that looked out on the Golden Gate Bridge. Reo stood aside as the Lincoln, driven by Doughboy and containing Reefer, Beano, and Victoria, pulled through the gate, followed by the sharpshooters in the white van with Joe and Tommy. Once they were through, Reo locked the gate. Then he got in the Lincoln and they pulled up Presidio Boulevard, past the deserted Letterman U.S. Army Health Clinic with its low eaves and slanting roof. They passed the old wood-frame Army Headquarters, which was closed up and abandoned. They turned left on Arguello Boulevard and headed up into the hills, leaving the base and the road lights behind. They drove south on the old rutted road, climbing toward the wooded hillside where Reo and his squad had done their LURRP training years before.

"They're in the Presidio," Grady said into the mike as he hunched over his GPS unit in the back of the van. He had a slight tinge of annoyance in his voice. "They could get lost up there. Let's move in. I'm gonna take the Lombard gate, you guys go in on Presidio Boulevard. Don't fuck with the lock, break it off if you have to."

Denniston was already out of the van and had taken the tire iron and busted the lock on the Lombard gate. He got back in the van, and they drove up into the Presidio… Following the GPS, they turned south, heading up into the hills that overlooked the old military base and San Francisco Harbor beyond.

The sharpshooter parked in a wooded area and set the hand break on the white van. An unusual gale wind several months before had blown trees down in this area of the Presidio. It was dense with fallen trees and thick underbrush.

They got Tommy out of the car, still handcuffed. His legs were weak, and he stumbled in front of his little brother. He didn't look like he would last much longer or make it much farther. Blood was running down the front of his shirt and also out a large exit wound in his back.

When Beano saw him, he knew they were in trouble. The entire con depended on keeping Tommy alive to testify. He hadn't thought Joe would shoot him in the van. With Tommy dead, they didn't have a witness. Joe Dancer would get away clean.

They moved through the underbrush, and Reo found a foot trail that led into a clearing. This was the place where Reo's weapons team had done Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol training. Reo and his crew knew every inch of this terrain, especially the underground network of caverns that had been built to prepare them for tunnel fighting. Reo's S.I.O.P. called for them to kill Tommy, Victoria, and Beano, then drag their bodies down into one of the abandoned tunnels and, using a physics package made up of C-4 and a radio detonator, collapse the tunnel, burying the three bodies fifty feet down under tons of soft earth. They would never be found.

The group of nine moved along the footpath, and finally out into the clearing. Reo kicked back a big piece of wood that had been covering a man-sized "spider-hole" trap door just like the ones Charley had used in Vietnam.

"On your knees," Joe said to the three of them.

Tommy was coughing blood now. He half dropped to his knees, and the loss of blood was making him dizzy. It was all he could do to stay upright.

Beano knew they were all just seconds from oblivion.

Doughboy had set up down the road to guard their backs. He heard cars coming, so he edged up on the ridge and looked down at the road below through a Starscope. He could see a blue van with a satellite dish, being followed by several cars full of men. He made them instantly as Feds, and grabbed his mike.

"I got a number ten situation here," he said.

Reo had his Heckler and Koch MP5 sub-machine gun out. He slowly lowered it and triggered the walkie-talkie instead. "Whatta you need to fix it?" he said.

"Send Reefer with a Zippo unit. I've got less than a minute."

"Wilco," Reo said. Then he turned to Reefer. "Get the flame thrower out of the back of the van and set up down the road with Doughboy. Unfriendlies coming."

"Shit," Reefer said, and he took off running toward the van. He opened the back, grabbed a small flamethrower unit, and started running down the road, shouldering the two tanks as he went.

Grady didn't know what hit him. They were driving up toward the woods at the top of the hill when, all of sudden, the entire satellite van was awash in fire. Then almost immediately, and without warning, the gas tank exploded, and he was shot through the roof of the van and was dead before he hit the underside of the metal satellite dish.

"Holy shit!" the FBI Agents said in the sedans behind, as the van, billowing smoke and fire, rolled out of control toward a sheer drop and tumbled off, taking all three men with as it fell.

The FBI Agents in the follow cars hit reverse and squealed backwards as Reefer, carrying the flame thrower, ran across the top of the hill and down the opposite bank, then took up a fire position on the road below. The cars full of FBI Agents roared past him, still in reverse. He pulled the trigger and let them have a stream of liquid death. The cars both caught fire. The Agents all dove out while the cars were still moving. Some men were burning and rolled in the dirt to extinguish themselves; the others came up pulling their weapons. They laid down a cover fire and chopped Reefer down with a hailstorm of hollow-point Devastators. One of the rounds hit the Zippo tank and Reefer exploded in a rolling orange cloud that singed everybody and lit the sky above them in a ball of raging rocket fuel.

In the clearing, they all heard the thundering explosion as Reefer was blown to cinders. Joe pointed his gun at Tommy.

"Joe, don't do this," Beano said. "He's been telling you the truth. It's all been a scam." Beano was on his knees, his hands cuffed behind him.

Victoria was on her knees beside him. "It's true," she said, also trying to save Tommy's life. "The whole thing was a con."

But Joe aimed his gun right in his brother's face. "Hey, go fuck yourself, Joe," Tommy coughed at his little brother.

Victoria wasn't prepared to die, but it seemed like there was nothing she could do to save herself or any of them. She was strangely calm, almost as if this were not reality. Then a remarkable thing happened. She looked over and saw that Beano was looking at her. In that moment, through his startling blue eyes, she could see right into his soul. Despite the situation, it was a beautiful sight.

"Light 'em up," Joe said.

Beano heard the two sharpshooters pull the slides on their assault weapons. Tommy looked up into the deadly bore of Joe's revolver. It was, for a moment, as if time had slowed and was almost standing still. They heard the click of Joe's gun as he pulled the hammer back and aimed at Tommy; this was followed by a distant rumble.

"The fuck?" Reo said, as the ground started to shake. It got louder and stronger, followed by some kind of ungodly screaming…

A shiny, red, three-quarter-ton Chevy Silverado four-by-four exploded over the rim of the hill from below. It flew into the clearing, all four tires spinning loose dirt in the air. It landed hard and the whip antenna, with a red feather taped to the top, swayed back violently, almost touching the back fender. And then three more shiny lacquer-and-chrome trucks, with red feathers and Arkansan license plates, came right behind: two Dodge Rams and a Dodge Dakota Club Cab. There were albino Bateses tied with rope to the roll bars in the backs of the trucks. All of them were holding pump shotguns. Simultaneously, four Ithaca over-and-under shotguns with hand-carved stocks fired in the darkness. Red feathers whipped and swayed in the night as more trucks raced around the clearing.

Reo's two sharpshooters started firing at the trucks. Then three more crew cabs came from the other side, roaring into the clearing. The sound of hillbilly music and Confederate war cries filled the night, along with the reports of shotguns and automatic weapons fire.

During all of this, Joe turned to finish off his brother… Beano lunged at him just before he pulled the trigger. Beano's hands were pinned behind him by the plastic cuffs, but he hit Joe in the stomach with his shoulder, driving him back. They both fell in the soft dirt, but Joe scrambled up and aimed his pistol at Beano. Then, as he was seconds from death, Victoria lunged at Joe, hitting him mid-shin. He went down again, firing the gun in the air. The gun flew from his hand and skidded near the spider hole that was to have been their grave. Beano jumped up and kicked the gun down the hole. He heard it land in the darkness fifteen feet below.

Beano lost track of the commotion behind him as he lunged again at Joe, hitting him with a head-butt, letting all of his adrenaline complete the follow-through.

Joe was finally on his back, dazed. When he tried to lift himself up, he didn't seem to know where he was. There was still gunfire going on in the clearing, but it was mostly mop-up.

Doughboy had taken up a position on the high ground, but didn't count on the Hog Creek Bateses, who drove their shiny trucks right up the hill after him. He was badly outnumbered and finally threw his weapon down and surrendered, lying down on his stomach, looking up at three plastic bug shields on the trucks' shiny grilles. Bronco and Echo Bates pounded on him gleefully.

"Say uncle," Echo yelled, as he repeatedly hit the commando.

"Uncle…" the bleeding man finally said.

Beano could see that Tommy was in deep shock. "Let's get him outta here. He needs a hospital," he said, as Chevy and Cadillac Bates cut the plastic handcuffs with their skinning knives.

Beano and Cadillac lifted Tommy into the rear of the Ram truck. He was delirious now, losing consciousness. Suddenly, there were the sounds of sirens approaching from far away.

"I think we better throw the chairs in the Buick and get rollin'," Cadillac said. "Picnic's over."

The Bates family members ran to their trucks. Beano yanked Joe to his feet and handed him over to Cadillac Bates. "Sit on this movie star till it's time for his curtain call." Cadillac Bates put Joe Rina in the Silverado crew cab, next to him. Echo Bates got in beside the mobster, who now looked over at the huge albino, wondering what planet they'd all come from and who the hell they were.

"You're so gad dum pretty, I might just have ta fuck ya right here, Boy-oh," Echo Bates said and grinned, exposing two empty spaces in his gum line.

Joe feared it actually might happen.

They all left the clearing, going in different directions, not using the road. The four-wheel-drive trucks churned in low gears down the rock-strewn hillside. Beano was holding Tommy as they roared past the burning FBI satellite van. They slowed, but Grady Hunt, Denny Denniston, and the driver were all dead. The remaining FBI men were running toward them, so they didn't stop, but roared on. They had to save Tommy's life in order to save the bubble.