Veil of Civility

Chapter Eight

Declan shifted furiously through the gears as he turned right and accelerated onto Cottonwood Road. They flew past the two shopping centers that occupied the corner of Cottonwood and the highway and over a concrete bridge spanning railroad tracks, then large brick homes came into view. Rounding a leftward bend, Declan finally saw the house he was looking for.

Sitting on top of a high knoll on the right side of the road, the Briton-Adams mansion was a well-known local landmark.

"What's that sound?" Declan asked, looking towards the floor.

"It's my phone," said Constance, hearing the tiny beep. Her mascara had run while she was crying and smudged around her eyes. She dabbed at them with a tissue as she said, "That's the sound it makes when it's passing in and out of service."

She leaned over and pulled the Samsung smartphone from her purse, tapping on the display to light up the screen. "See?" she said holding it up. "No signal."

"This close to Lynchburg? That's odd.”

"The tower changes over in Bedford, remember? There's never a signal here for a few miles."

"Yeah, but that's twenty miles down the road," Declan said, reaching for his own phone before realizing it had been in the jacket he'd left inside the Barton Center.

The convertible whined as Declan downshifted and swung into the driveway. He stopped at the closed gates. Pushing the automatic down button, he waited as the driver's window descended with a low hum.

"Where are the guards?" Declan said as he looked around. "Levi said there were three guards at the property."

Constance looked around. "I don't see anyone. Are you sure there's supposed to be someone here?"

Declan didn't answer. Outside of the Barton Center he'd been unable to escape the feeling that Kafni was still in danger. While he couldn't be sure that Kafni had been the target, his instincts told him that was the case. Was it an old skill that had been reawakened by seeing his old friends? He'd learned to trust his feelings in his two decades in the field and if something didn't feel right, he'd learned the hard way that it probably wasn't right. Even though there had been several representatives of the United States government inside the building, none of them had carried the notoriety of the event's keynote speaker. Nor had any of them been the target of six previous assassination attempts or the subject of a handful of fatwas calling for their deaths.

Opening the door, he stepped out onto the wet pavement and looked three hundred and sixty degrees around the car. The first thing that drew his attention was a set of muddy tire tracks ten feet away. On closer examination it was obvious that the tracks had been made recently as a vehicle had turned left into the property at high speed and had cut a corner, tearing up the wet grass. Could the vehicle have been the SUV driven by Levi Levitt? From his knowledge of the area, Declan doubted it. While it was possible Levitt had taken a less direct route through one of the neighborhoods south of the property, Declan thought it was highly unlikely. The routes through the neighborhoods were full of turns and Levitt had only been in town for a few days. The risk of getting lost, especially at night, would have been far too great.

He walked towards the guard house. Inside an opened newspaper and a cup of coffee sat on a cheap particle board desk, but no guard was present. He turned and walked out. As his eyes swept the area, he saw a black boot lying on the ground in the high grass near one of the brick columns that supported the gate. Rushing over, he knelt beside a heavy set man with brown curly hair, wearing the same type of navy blue uniform as the security at the Barton Center. He reached down and felt for a pulse with his index and middle fingers, although it was obvious from the man's glassy stare and the entry wounds on his chest that he was deceased. The man's skin was warm to the touch, a sign that he had only recently met his end.

Declan ran back to the driver's side of his car and opened the door. "Do you have a cell signal yet?" he said to his wife, who looked at him wide-eyed from the passenger seat.

"No," she said thumbing the device's screen, “nothing."

"I need you to drive down the road until you get a signal and call the police."

"Declan, what's happened?"

"Tell them to come to the Briton-Adams mansion immediately," he said, ignoring her question. "Tell them the guard's been killed."

Her response seemed to catch in her throat as she watched him reach under the driver's seat. With the sound of tearing Velcro he removed a leather pouch and opened it to reveal the black grip of a Glock pistol. Withdrawing the gun, he released the magazine and checked it before reinserting it into the grip and chambering a round.

"What are you doing?" Constance asked, as her eyes darted between her husband and the gun in his hand.

"I'm going to find Abe. Get going and don't come back until I call you and tell you it's safe."

He slid the pistol into his pocket and pulled off the neck tie he'd been wearing, before jogging towards the gate. He jumped and gripped the top of the gate. Pulling himself up and swinging his legs over, he heard his wife shift her sports car into reverse and exit the driveway. Landing on the wet pavement beyond the gate, he pulled the pistol from his pocket and ran towards the well-lit house on the hill two hundred yards ahead of him.