He had no one to speak for him, no one to step up and bear witness to the atrocity of his death.
No one to give him justice.
No one but her.
53
Landry’s watch alarm woke him at four a.m.
Franklin had given Landry a guest room in the main house. Nothing fancy, which surprised him, because these were rich people. The room was functional but not spectacular. The white jacquard bedspread was nice, though. Landry had slept well. His wrist throbbed, but as long as he wore the wrist brace, it was all right.
He made the bed, hospital corners as he had been trained to do, and sat on the jacquard bedspread. Thinking about Cardamone.
He didn’t waste time wondering where Cardamone was. He knew Cardamone had flown to Panama City, but after that, he’d disappeared. If his thought processes were anything like Landry’s, he would stay away from hotels and rental cars. He would not use credit cards. He would rent a house somewhere nearby, a cash transaction.
After Landry’s phone call to the Indian man at “Gulf Homes” last night, Cardamone would think Landry’s team was in place on Cape San Blas in preparation for an assault on the island in the small hours of the morning. If Cardamone didn’t hear soon, he would begin to wonder. Before too long, he would become worried. He would check the news and see nothing. In addition, the two men who had been keeping track of Franklin’s whereabouts—Agent Salter and Ted Bakus—had not reported in. Landry had Bakus’s phone. He’d expected to hear from Cardamone yesterday, but maybe the man was too cagey for that. Presumably, they would have called Cardamone if the attorney general did anything out of the ordinary.
Landry thought it doubtful they’d check in with Cardamone if Franklin kept to his routine. Cardamone was a busy man. So it was possible he thought everything was okay.
But when it dawned on Cardamone that there had been no assault on the island, he would send someone to the safe house on Sea Oats Lane.
He might expect to find four dead men—that was within the realm of possibility. But instead of Jackson, Davis, Green, and Peters, he would find Jackson, Davis, Green, Salter, and Bakus.
Landry thought he would be shocked by that. Cardamone would wonder: How did one-offs like Salter and Bakus meet up with his elite assassination team? And where was the fourth member of the team—the team leader?
He would want to know what happened to Landry.
Cardamone would run through a number of scenarios, the most likely being that Landry had killed the other five. But Cardamone wouldn’t know for sure.
So what would he do next?
He would double down. He would send another team, if he had one. Landry suspected he had at least one other team, maybe more. But it would take time for them to get here.
Or, from what Franklin had told him about Cardamone, he would come himself. In an ideal world, that was what would happen. Cardamone would come alone, and Landry would be waiting for him. But Landry didn’t think so. Cardamone would send the other team.
The question was, would Cardamone come along this time, to make sure?
Franklin had told him Cardamone was hands-on. The man was proud of his time in special forces. According to Franklin, he spent hours a week at the firing range and worked out six times a week. His favorite saying was, “You make your own luck.”
He would consider the assault on his men an assault on him.
But he was smart. Had to be, to have survived this long. And the smart thing to do was stand back and let his team do their work.
A quick knock and his door opened. Franklin stood in the doorway. He looked stricken. “Grace is dead.”
“Dead?”
“There was a fire at the church. A massacre.” Franklin came in and sat down on the bed next to Landry. His movements were slow and wooden, like a zombie’s. Shock.
“Are you sure she’s dead?”
“I know it. I can feel it.” Franklin looked at him. “She was the main target.”
“Why was she the main target?”
“Grace was the chief fund-raiser for Wembi’s church. She was in all the way. All the stuff they were doing, hiding assets, tax fraud. And she had friends at the capitol in Tallahassee. They were investigating the rival church for gunrunning and money laundering and their ties to dangerous groups in the Congo. It was all a competition between the two churches.”
“A competition.”
“Yes, but it got out of hand. The other reverend, Beebe, swore he’d wipe her out and all her family. It was probably just an empty threat to scare us.” He sighed. “But you don’t even know the half of it.”
“What’s the rest?”
“The vice president is dead.”
Landry absorbed this. “You think Cardamone had him killed?”
Franklin nodded.
“How did he die?”
“They say cardiac arrest.” Franklin rubbed the bridge of his nose, looking around as if he didn’t recognize where he was. Then he teared up. “She’s dead. The love of my life is dead, and it’s all because of me.” Then he reached around and grabbed Landry and held him in a sideways bear hug.
It wasn’t a homosexual thing, Landry knew that. But he recoiled. More from the blatant show of emotion than anything else. But he let Franklin hang on to his neck, cry into his chest like a little boy—loud sobs. Embarrassingly loud sobs. After a decent interval, Landry patted him on the back and disengaged.
“Turn on the television,” Frank said. “They might have news. Maybe she’s not dead.” His voice sounded hopeful but strangled by tears.
Just then Franklin’s cell phone rang. He answered, stood up, and went to the open doorway. “You’re sure?” he asked. “When did they—? They’re sure? They’ve made an identification? You’re sure?”
His footsteps echoed down the hallway.
When Franklin was gone, Landry turned on the TV. As Franklin had told him, there was a fire at the church.
Landry looked at his watch. It was now almost six a.m.
Decision time.
Now he knew for sure there was another team. It was the team Cardamone had sent to the church to kill Grace. Landry headed a team of four, so it was likely the other team had four members as well, although he would allow for more.
Landry changed channels to CNN. He kept the sound turned down. The screen was divided. One showed the church, the boiling smoke, the firemen. The other, the larger screen, showed a panel of doctors at a press conference, talking about the vice president’s death.
Cardamone’s other team was in Tallahassee. Tallahassee was two hours away by car, less than half that time by jet. The minute Cardamone knew about the safe house, the other team would be on its way to Indigo.
The wise choice would be for the team to set up and wait until the early hours of the morning, or at least until midnight, but Landry couldn’t count on that. With the weather as cover, they could just as easily come in and take them out quietly, then wait until dark to do the second half of the job: to make it look like a Congolese uprising. Landry couldn’t rule that scenario out. He had to plan for the possibility that they were two to three hours away at the latest.
It was even possible they could be here now.
Landry switched to the local channels to see if there was anything about the house on Sea Oats Lane. The only shows on were talk shows. The church fire in Tallahassee and the death of the vice president of the United States didn’t make a dent in the talk show lineup, apparently.
Landry had no idea where Michael Cardamone was in the space-time continuum. So he decided to act as if
