Stone Cold

CHAPTER 99

OLIVER STONE HAD SHOT GRAY from such a long distance away that he did not need to sprint away from the man’s bodyguards. In truth, he had made even more difficult shots in his career, but none that meant more to him. He made his way slowly back through the woods to the dead man’s home. As he walked along the rain started coming down harder, and the flashes of lightning and accompanying cracks of thunder picked up their pace.

He’d killed Simpson from the unfinished building across the street, his sniper rifle perched on an oil drum. The photo Stone had taped inside the newspaper was of his wife, Claire. He wanted Simpson to know. He’d placed the photo at a precise spot on the page, gauged his shot accordingly, leaving behind no evidence of who was in the picture.

Stone had driven here right after the shooting because he had to kill Gray before Simpson’s murder was discovered and Gray went deep into hiding. He’d checked the forecast the night before. The approaching storm front from offshore was critical. Choppers didn’t take off in such weather. That limited Gray to his motorcade. Stone had set the tombstone and flag by the side of the road, certain that even a cautious man like Gray would roll down the window to get a good look at it. That few seconds was all Stone had needed. With his scope and trusty rifle, and killing skills that one never really lost no matter how many years passed, it was a near certainty that he would get his man. And he had.

He skirted the edge of Gray’s property, his gait steady but unhurried. He knew Gray’s men would be coming soon, but in many ways he’d waited his entire adult life for this moment. He did not intend to rush it.

He reached the edge of the cliff and looked down at the dark water far below. Racing through his mind was the image of a young man very much in love, holding his wife in one arm, his baby girl in the other. The world seemed to be theirs. Their potential seemed unlimited. And yet how very limited it had all become. Because the next mental image was one of John Carr killing as he ran from one brutal murder to the next over a span of a decade.

He had built his life on lies, deception and swift, violent death with “government authorization” as his sole justification. In the end it had cost him everything.

He had lied to Harry Finn that day in the nursing home. He’d told Finn that he, John Carr, was different from the likes of Bingham, Cincetti and Cole. Yet he really wasn’t. In many ways, he was just like them.

He turned and walked away from the edge. Then John Carr whipped around and ran straight toward the edge and over it. He sailed out into space with his arms spread wide, his legs splayed. It was thirty years ago and he had just killed another man. It was a successful hit, only there were dozens of men intent on killing him. He had run like the wind; no one could catch him. Faster than a deer he was. He had run straight to the edge of a cliff three times as high as this one and without a second thought had jumped into nothing but air. He had plummeted down, bullets raining all around him. He’d hit the water cleanly, come up and lived to kill another day.

As the water rushed toward him, Carr’s arms and legs came together in perfect form. Some things you just never forgot. Your brain didn’t need to send a message; your body just knew what to do. And for most of his life, John Carr had known just what needed to be done.

An instant before he hit the water, Oliver Stone smiled, and then John Carr disappeared beneath the waves.