The Target

Chapter 33

The airport was small and the car rental options stood at one. Robie got the car while Reel retrieved the hard-sided bag containing their weapons.

She handed Robie his pistol while she slid into the seat next to him. He holstered the weapon and said, “What are the gun laws like in Alabama?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m being serious.”

“Basically, in Alabama if you have a pulse you can have a gun, as many of them as you want.”

She thunked the door closed and Robie started the car. “Thanks for the clarification,” he said curtly.

“You’re welcome.”

The ride to the prison would take an hour. Reel had called ahead and they were on the visitors’ list.

He gave her a sideways glance. “You ready for this?”

“No.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“When I was a little girl.”

“Then he’s changed a lot. I mean physically.”

“I’ve changed a lot more. And not just physically.”

“Decided what you’re going to say yet?”

“Maybe.”

“I won’t ask any more questions.”

She reached over and gripped his arm. “I really appreciate you coming with me, Robie. It…it means a lot to me.”

“Well, we’ve been through a lot together. If we don’t watch each other’s six, who will?”

She smiled at this comment and sat back against the seat. “I haven’t been back to this part of the country for a long time.”

“DiCarlo said you were a teenager when you went undercover and busted that neo-Nazi gang. Pretty remarkable. And the CIA found out about it when you were in WITSEC and recruited you.”

Reel was silent for a few moments. “My father believed in all that shit too. White supremacy. There’re many things to love in this country. The skinheads are not one of them.”

“So your father was a skinhead too?”

“I’m not sure he was that specific, actually. He basically hated everybody.”

“So the gang you busted all went to prison?”

“Not all of them. The head guy, Leon Dikes, had a good lawyer and only spent a few years in prison. When I was in foster care the ‘dad’ was related to someone in Dikes’s hate group.”

“A guy like that is eligible to be a foster parent?” said Robie.

“It wasn’t like he advertised it, Robie. And it was a perfect way to get teens in there to basically be slaves to their cause. Cooking, cleaning, delivering messages, sewing their ugly uniforms, xeroxing their hate pamphlets. It was like being in prison. Every time I tried to get away they caught me, beat me, terrorized me. Dikes was the worst of them by far. I hated him even more than I hated my father.”

“But you finally turned the tables on them, Jessica. And brought it all down.”

“Not all of it, Robie. Not all of it.”

She looked down, her eyes closing and her face wrinkling in pain.

“You okay?”

She opened her eyes. “I’m fine. You want to pick up your speed? Let’s just get this over with.”

They left their guns in the rental and cleared the security checkpoint into the prison. The place looked like it had been built about a hundred years ago. Its outer walls were stained black and part of the front entrance was crumbling, with rebar exposed under the masonry. There was only one road in. The land was flat, leaving nowhere to hide.

Robie eyed the guard towers set on all sides. Inside, men in uniforms paced back and forth with long-range rifles in hand.

“Don’t see many escapes happening from here,” said Robie.

“Well, if my father had tried, they could have shot him. Saved us all a lot of grief.”

They were escorted not to a visitors’ area, but directly to the hospital ward.

When they reached the doorway Robie said, “Okay, we’re here. You sure you’re ready to do this?”

She took a deep breath but still shook slightly. “This is crazy. I’ve stared down scum five times worse than his ass.”

“Those scum weren’t your father.”

She marched into the ward with Robie in her wake. The entrance to the area the patients were in was blocked by a guard stand. Robie and Reel went through this checkpoint. Robie eyed the name tag on the guard’s shirt.

Albert.

Albert was a big man, he observed. And he looked meaner than he was big.

Albert eyed Reel with great interest. Robie saw her gaze sweep over Albert, but he knew she was merely sizing him up in case she had to kick his ass later.

Albert said, “What you want with old Earl?”

“Visit,” said Reel curtly.

“I know that. You’re on the list.”

“Okay,” said Reel. “I’m on the list.”

“You know Earl?”

“You said I’m on the list. Do I get to visit him or not? If I have to answer twenty questions with you, I’ll just turn around and go back to where I came from.”

“Hey, hey, just asking, lady. You can go on and see him. Fourth bed on the left.”

“Thanks,” said Reel as she breezed by him with Robie next to her.

“Asshole,” she said under her breath.

She took more steps, counting down beds until she reached the fourth on the left. Then she stopped and looked down, her face a mask of stone.

Earl Fontaine was obviously expecting her. He was sitting up in his bed, his hair washed and neatly combed and his face shaved.

“Hello there, baby girl,” he said. “My, my, how you done grown. Is that really you, Sally?”