Last Chance to Die

33



As they neared the address for Master Sergeant Longmeadow’s apart- ment, Vail spotted one of the cars he’d seen at the chess club. There were two men in the front seat. “Luke, there! The guy driving is the one who calls himself Barkus.”

Bursaw waited until there was a little more distance between them before making a U-turn. “Think they saw us?”

“A black guy with a white guy, in this car? I wouldn’t be optimistic.”

“Do you want to try to stop them?”

“Not yet. If they did kill Longmeadow, he’s either in his apartment or in that car. If it’s the car, then we want to see where they’re going with the body.”

Bursaw knew what Vail wasn’t saying. Wherever they were heading, if Longmeadow’s body was in the car, they were taking it to someplace they considered safe to dump bodies. Maybe that was where Sundra was.

Vail picked up the mike and radioed the Washington Field Office. “We are following a car with two men who may have just committed a homicide. We need you to call the Camp Springs PD and have them immediately check the following location for a victim.” Vail gave them Longmeadow’s address and apartment number.

Bursaw continued to follow the car at a discreet distance, keeping at least two other vehicles between them. “Looks like they’re heading for 495.”

Vail didn’t say anything but continued to watch the car closely. It exited onto 495 and then 95 South. “Notice anything funny about the way they’re driving?”

“It’s by the book. Signaling lane changes, right at the speed limit.”

“Who drives like that?” Vail said.

“Someone who doesn’t want to get stopped. I’m guessing the late Chester Longmeadow is aboard.”

For the next fifteen minutes, they followed the car driven by Algis Barkus. As the traffic thinned out, Bursaw was able to lengthen the distance between it and his Bureau vehicle. Suddenly the WFO radio operator’s voice cut through the air. “The Camp Springs PD just called back. They had the manager let them into the apartment, and it was empty. There were no signs of a struggle or that anything unusual had taken place.”

“Copy, Central,” Vail said, and leaned back. “I guess we’re on the way to a burial.”

The area was more rural now and the road darker. Bursaw was able to drop back even farther. “Think we should call for some help? We’re getting close to the Richmond office’s turf.”

“The whole point is to follow these two until we find where they’re going to dump the body. The chances of someone jumping into the middle of a surveillance in progress and not getting burned are about zero.”

Barkus signaled that he was exiting off the highway and onto Route 30. “Too late now,” Bursaw said. He turned onto the ramp for 30 East. “Here we go.”

Once they were on Route 30, Bursaw closed the gap between them. They had gone less than ten miles when Barkus turned right onto a dirt road. Bursaw slowed to let the distance increase, since it would be harder to go unnoticed in such an isolated spot. The road was little more than a trail, narrow and barely passable. Bursaw slowed the Bureau car to a crawl and switched his headlights to parking lights.

There was no illumination from the main road, but the moon had risen and was providing some light through the partially cloudy sky. The road wound around, and with their headlights off, the two agents didn’t notice an overgrown path off to the right, which Barkus had turned his vehicle into. The Lithuanian had then made a left-hand turn and switched off his lights and engine, leaving him invisible as Bursaw went by with his parking lights now off. Barkus rolled down his window and listened. Once he heard the FBI car go by, he started the engine, backed up onto the dirt road, then shut the car off again, blocking the road so the agents couldn’t drive out of the woods.

Without a word both men got out and went to the trunk. They shoved the heavy canvas bag containing Longmeadow’s body to the side and took out night goggles, putting them on quickly. Ironically, Longmeadow had given Zogas the thermal-imaging devices when trying to demonstrate to him the utility of the larger system he was about to sell him the secrets to. Then they took out Russian-made Bison submachine guns, chambering the first round. Positioning themselves behind the car, they waited for Vail and Bursaw to drive back.

A hundred yards farther down the curving road, Bursaw hit the brakes. They were at the beach of a small lake. At one end of the sand was a dock with a ladder leading down into the water, presumably for getting on and off small boats. “Where did they go?” Bursaw asked.

“We must have missed some turnoff, but I didn’t see anything other than an overgrown path.”

“Think this is where the bodies wound up?”

“If it is, then why aren’t they down here?” Vail said. “You’d better go back.”

It took Bursaw a couple of passes before he could completely turn the car around. He still hadn’t switched his headlights back on, but he drove a little faster in case the two men from the LCS had used the maneuver to lose them. He came around the curve and almost hit Barkus’s car before slamming to a stop. “What the—”

Bursaw’s unfinished question was answered by automatic fire that ricocheted off the front of the Bureau car. In the muzzle flashes, Vail could see that the men were wearing night-vision goggles. After the first burst, the two gunmen ran from behind the car and into the woods to get some flanking fire into the vehicle from a vantage point where they wouldn’t have to fire through the engine block. Both agents saw where they were going and scrambled out of the passenger-side door. “Do you think they made the surveillance?” Vail asked.

“I’d go ask them if I spoke Lithuanian.” Another burst of fire raked the car, taking out the driver’s-side windows.

“I don’t suppose you have anything useful in the trunk, like a SWAT team.”

“Just a shotgun.”

“Did you see the goggles? They’re thermal-imaging.”

Bursaw waited a moment for some explanation as to how that was going to help them and then said, “What a fun fact, Mr. Science.”

“As soon as they figure out that we only have handguns, they’re going to fire and maneuver until they can get around our car, and we’ll be sharing a three-body condo with Longmeadow. Go back by the trunk. As soon as you hear them firing at me, look and see where it’s coming from. Then start firing in that direction. Take your time, empty a clip—but slowly. As soon as you finish, I’ll take off. Those goggles have a very narrow field of vision. I’ll fire at them, and they’ll see only me, but they’ll think we’re still together. Then get under the car toward the front. With the engine still running, there’ll be a billowing heat signature down there, and they won’t be able to distinguish you from the car. They’ll chase after me, thinking we’re together. Once they do, take the shotgun out and get down to the water as fast as possible.”

Vail took off his jacket and pulled off his black sweatshirt, putting the coat back on against the freezing cold. He took out his pocketknife and cut two slits into the shirt.

“You’re going down to the water?”

“Something like that. Once you hear gunfire down there, or me yelling . . . well, you can figure it out from there. Just remember, I’ll be the guy without the goggles.”

“There’s no place to hide down there.”

“Sure there is,” Vail said. “You ready?”

Bursaw moved to the back of the car. “Ready.”

Vail stood up, and almost immediately automatic-weapons fire raked the opposite side of the car as he ducked down again. Bursaw leaned across the trunk and fired in a slow rhythm.

As soon as he finished, Vail took off, firing a couple of shots to attract the two gunmen’s attention. Bursaw scrambled under the car and waited, his handgun reloaded and ready.

When Vail reached the beach, he ran out onto the pier. At the end, by the ladder, he carefully placed his Glock at the edge. Then, without hesitation, he jumped down, breaking through the thin layer of ice covering the lake. Using the ladder to keep himself under, he held his breath in the freezing water that bit into his skin like hot needles. He held a finger to his carotid artery and timed his heart rate. If he and Bursaw were going to get out of there alive, he was going to have to induce the initial stages of hypothermia to lower his body’s heat signature. After the run, his heart rate was at fifty-two. After a minute and a half, it had dropped to forty.

He raised his head out of the water and listened. He could hear the two men yelling to each other, working their way through the woods toward the beach. He lowered his head back into the water and waited.

When his heart rate hit thirty-six, he began to shiver uncontrollably, another sure sign of hypothermia. He started feeling light-headed and knew he was on his way to losing consciousness.

Slowly, so the dripping water couldn’t be heard, he climbed the ladder, picked up his automatic, and shoved it in the back of his waistband. Then he crawled onto the dock, placing the black shirt over his head and positioning it so he could see through the slits he had cut. He lay still with his hands underneath him and waited for his clothing to freeze. He was shivering violently.

Less than a minute later, Barkus and Mindera stepped onto the beach searching for the agents, looking as much at the woods behind them as in the direction of the water.

The two men were speaking Lithuanian and sounded as though they were both now on the sand. Vail closed his eyes and put his head down so they wouldn’t be able to detect the heat coming through the eye slits in his shirt.

Hopefully Bursaw had survived, but Vail couldn’t depend on that. Then he heard one of their voices coming closer, almost as if it were aimed at him. Vail knew that besides the narrow field of vision of the thermal goggles, they had one other disadvantage: everything that didn’t give off heat appeared green and lumped together, almost completely indistinguishable. Vail was depending on that one shortcoming, but he quickly became less confident when he felt one of his pursuer’s step onto the rickety pier and heard him yell something to the other man in Lithuanian that had the unmistakable tone of discovery in it.

Suddenly there was an explosion from the edge of the woods. A single booming shotgun blast was fired in the direction of the voices. And another. Both the Lithuanians wheeled and fired at the large tree where Bursaw was taking cover. Vail got to his feet and, still almost paralyzed with the cold, squeezed his handgun tighter than he ever had before. He fired three rounds at the man closest to him, some fifteen feet away. The body thudded lifelessly onto the pier.

Vail hurried to him, ripped off the goggles, and put them on. He could see that the second man, thinking Vail’s shots were his partner’s, was moving quickly toward the tree that protected Bursaw. As he moved to within a few feet of the tree, Vail dropped to one knee, held his breath, and emptied his magazine, aiming as best he could with his hands and body shaking furiously. The Lithuanian went down, and Vail stood up, ramming another magazine from his belt into the pistol, not knowing if the time in the water would prevent the rounds from firing. He started running at the fallen gunman, ready to fire again.

As Vail got to him, he called to Bursaw. “Luke, you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re both down.” The second man was dead and on his back. Vail rolled him over. Of the ten rounds Vail had fired at him, only one had hit him, in the middle of the back, apparently finding a vital organ.

Bursaw walked up, and Vail handed him the other set of goggles. He put them on and looked at the body. “You hit him only once? I imagine that’s about average for a bricklayer.”

For the first time, Bursaw noticed that Vail was wet and that his clothes were frozen. “You went in the water? Come on, we’ve got to get you to the car.”

The Bureau car was still running, and Bursaw turned up the heater as high as it would go. “Take those clothes off.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I do find you attractive, but . . .” Bursaw helped him pull his jacket off in the confined space. While Vail finished undressing, Bursaw called WFO and told them to get some agents out there.

When he was finished, he got out of the car and took a flashlight from the trunk. He headed back to the beach and five minutes later returned with a set of clothes. “One of the dead guys?” Vail asked.

“Quit complaining, you dress like a communist anyway.”

Vail pulled on the clothes and could feel a wet spot on the back of the shirt where the blood of the second man he’d shot was now ice cold.

It was almost an hour and a half before agents from the Richmond office arrived. Fifteen minutes later Kate drove up. She smiled at Vail, a mixture of sarcasm and relief. “I thought you were going to call me if there was shooting. And now I find out there was shooting and swimming.”

Vail looked over at Bursaw. “Snitch. And you still owe me dinner.”

Kate said, “I assume that’s Longmeadow’s remains in the trunk of their car.”

“We’re not sure,” Bursaw said. “They’re still processing the trunk. No ID, and with whatever they wrapped around his head, we can’t even see what he looks like.”

“Okay, let’s go take a peek,” Vail said.

“You’re going to a hospital,” Kate said.

Vail gave her a look that said there wasn’t even going to be a discussion about it. He got out of the warm car, shivering slightly, and went back to Barkus’s trunk. The heavy canvas bag containing the body had been opened up, revealing that the victim’s head had been wrapped in some sort of plastic material. Vail felt a corner of it between his fingers. He smiled in appreciation. “It’s bitchathane. Roofing material. They put it at the edge of roofs, six feet or so up, to prevent ice-dam leaks. You can put nails through it and it seals right up. When you get it off the master sergeant here, you’ll probably find gunshot wounds to the head. They wrapped it around him and then shot him. That way there was no blood, skull, or brains leaking out at the scene. Pretty ingenious.”

Kate said, “Do you think this is their dumping ground?”

“Thanks to Lucas Bumperlock here, they knew we were on them, so I don’t know if they were about to lead us to proof of past misdeeds or not. They’ve been very careful about getting rid of evidence. Sometimes even before it becomes evidence, like Longmeadow here.”

“It’s still worth searching the lake. You never know,” Kate said.

“I suppose so, but even if there are bodies here, it’ll only take us back to these two. Maybe we’ve gotten as even with them as we’re going to get.”

Kate said, “Luke said it looked like Zogas was supervising the whole thing back at Longmeadow’s apartment.”

“We’d have to get his phone records and find out who he actually called. Maybe something could be made out of it.”

“It’s certainly not airtight,” she said. “And with all the moles gone, there’s no corroboration, so is that it?”

“Let me thaw my brain out and see if there isn’t something else we can do.”

“I still think you should get checked out at the hospital.”

Vail leaned in close and whispered, “I just need something warm and exciting to get my heart rate up.”

“I think I could arrange that.” She smiled back seductively. “NASCAR is running in Florida this weekend.”