“What the hell does that mean? Do you know who I am?”
“Yes,” I said. “I do.”
“What do you want?”
“Instant obedience,” I said. I took out the Beretta for the second time that evening, fast, swift, like a magician. One minute my hand was empty, and the next it was full of dull steel. I clicked the safety to fire, a small sound, but ominous in the silence.
The senator said, “You’re making a very serious mistake, young man. As of right now your military career is over. Whether it gets any worse than that is entirely up to you.”
“Be quiet,” I said. I leaned forward and bunched Reed Riley’s collar in my hand, the same way I had with the sergeant from Benning. But this time I put the muzzle of the gun in the hollow behind his right ear. Soft flesh, no bone. Just the right size.
“Drive on,” I said. “Very slowly. Turn left on the crossing. Head up the railroad line.”
Riley said, “What?”
“You heard me.”
“But the train is coming.”
“At midnight,” I said. “Now hop to it, soldier.”
It was a difficult task. Instinctively he wanted to lean forward over the wheel for a better view out the front. But I wouldn’t let him. I had him hauled back hard against the seat, pulled and pushed. But even so, he did OK. He rolled forward and spun the wheel hard and crabbed diagonally up onto the rise. He lined it up and felt his right front tire hit the groove in the pavement. He eased forward, dead straight, and the edge of the blacktop fell away under us. His right-hand tires stayed up on the rail. His left-hand wheels were down on the ties. A fine job. As good as Deveraux.
“You’ve done this before,” I said.
He didn’t answer.
We rolled on, less than walking pace, radically tilted, the right side of the car up and running smooth, the left side down and rising and falling over the ties like a boat on a swell. We rolled past the old water tower, then ten more yards, and then I said, “Stop.”
“Here?”
“It’s a good spot,” I said.
He braked gently and the car stopped, right on the line, still tilted over. I kept hold of his collar and kept the gun in place. Ahead of me through the windshield the rails ran straight north to a vanishing point far in the distance, like slim silver streaks in the moonlight.
I said, “Captain, use your left hand and open all the windows.”
“Why?”
“Because you guys already stink. And it’s only going to get worse, believe me.”
Riley scrabbled blindly with his fingers and first his father’s window came down, then mine, then the one opposite me.
Fresh night air came in on the breeze.
I said, “Senator, lean over and turn the lights off.”
It took him a second to find the switch, but he did it.
I said, “Now turn the engine off and give me the key.”
He said, “But we’re parked on the railroad track.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“You asked me that before. And I answered. Now do what you’re told. Or do I have to make a campaign contribution first? In which case please consider my contribution to be not shooting your son through the knee.”
The old guy made a small sound in his throat, the kind of thing I had heard once or twice before, when jokes turned out not to be jokes, when dire situations turned from bad to worse, when nightmares were revealed to be waking realities. He leaned sideways and twisted the key and pulled it and held it out to me.
“Toss it on the back seat,” I said.
He did so, and it landed next to me and skittered down the slope in the cushion made by the tilt of the car.
I said, “Now both of you put your hands on your head.”
The senator went first, and I pulled the Beretta back to let his son follow suit. I let go of his collar and sat back in my seat and said, “What’s the muzzle velocity on a Beretta M9?”
The senator said, “I have no idea.”
“But your boy should. We spent a lot of time and money training him.”
“I don’t remember,” Riley said.
“Close to thirteen hundred feet per second,” I said. “And your spinal cords are about three feet from me. Therefore about two-thousandths of a second after either one of you moves a single muscle, you’re either dead or crippled. Get it?”
No response.
I said, “I need an answer.”
“We get it,” Riley said.
His father said, “What do you want?”
“Confirmation,” I said. “I want to be sure I have this thing straight.”
Chapter 87
I picked up the car key and put it in my pocket. I spread my left leg wide and braced my foot and got comfortable on the tilted bench. I said, “Captain, you lied to your men about dating Sheriff Deveraux, am I right?”
Riley’s father said, “What possible basis do you have for interrogating us?”
“Forty-nine minutes,” I said. “Then the train gets here.”
“Are you mad?”
“A little grumpy, that’s all.”
He said, “Son, don’t say a word to this man.”
I said, “Captain, answer my question.”
Riley said, “Yes, I lied about Deveraux.”
“Why?”
“Command strategy,” he said. “My men like to look up to me.”
I said, “Senator, why were Alpha Company and Bravo Company moved from Benning to Kelham?”
The old guy huffed and puffed for a minute, trying to convince himself to hold fast, but in the end he said, “It was politically convenient. Mississippi always has its hand out. Or in someone else’s pocket.”
“Not because of Audrey Shaw? Not because you thought your boy deserved a little gift to celebrate his new command?”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“But it happened.”
“Purely a coincidence.”
“Bullshit.”
“OK, it was a side benefit. I thought it might be fun. But nothing more. Decisions of that magnitude are not based on trivialities.”
I said, “Captain, tell me about Rosemary McClatchy.”
Riley said, “We dated, we broke up.”
“Was she pregnant?”
“If she was, she never said anything to me about it.”
