A man’s deep voice, thick with a slow Southern accent, said calmly from the small kitchen, “Either of you special agents move and you’re both dead. I don’t want to kill you, but I will if I have to. Do not turn; keep your eyes on Mr. Bowler. Now, slowly drop your Glocks.”
Ruth and Ollie dropped their Glocks, both guns hitting the wood floor like cannon shots.
“Excellent,” the man said, stepping out now from behind the kitchen partition. “Both of you get facedown on the floor, hands behind your heads.”
Bowler managed to spit out the sock. “He’s going to kill all of us! You have to do something!”
“Shut up, Bowler. Down, both of you. Now!”
Ruth lay on her stomach, watched Ollie start to go down on his knees. He stumbled on a table leg, grabbed his leg, and yelped. Ruth twisted onto her side to face the man, jerked her Kahr P380 from her ankle holster and fired. He flinched but fired back, missing Ruth, the bullet thudding into a sofa back. She rolled behind a ratty old recliner and the man kept firing, at Ollie now, and one bullet hit him squarely in the chest as he dove behind the sofa. Ruth’s heart flipped when he went sprawling backward to the floor.
Ruth fired again, but he’d ducked behind the bar dividing the kitchen from the living room. She stilled, waited until he finally reared up and fired two more rounds. More bullets hit the recliner. Ruth came up on her knees, fired two more shots, and struck him center mass before he could get off another round. The man stared at her a moment, silent, and fell heavily to his knees, then tipped over onto his side, his gun flying out of his hand to the linoleum floor. Ruth ran over to kick the gun out of his reach, then rushed to Ollie’s side. He lay on his back, taking light shallow breaths, holding his chest. He cocked an eye open. “Give me a minute, Ruth. I’m okay, but you know a bullet at this range packs quite a punch. Thank you, Kevlar.”
Ruth said a silent prayer of thanks he hadn’t shot Ollie in the head.
Bowler called out, “You killed him?”
Ruth patted Ollie’s arm, got up, and walked to the kitchen to kneel beside the man. She pressed her fingers against the pulse in his neck. There wasn’t one. His chest was soaked with blood, now dripping into a pool around him. His eyes were open, staring up at her in mute surprise. Soon his eyes would begin to dull. She felt the shock of violent death, forced herself to breathe deeply, until her heart began to slow. She checked the man’s pants pocket, pulled out his wallet. No ID, only three one-hundred-dollar bills.
“Yes, he’s dead,” she said over her shoulder. “He was a professional, like the man who tried to kill you Monday.” She stood, locked her shaking legs, took out her cell phone, punched video and said, “Unidentified white male, midforties, brown and brown, medium height, medium weight, seriously receding hairline. He has a cell phone, a burner, no incoming or outgoing numbers show on it, probably to be used only once, when the job was done.” She panned the entire area, identified Bowler and Ollie, and satisfied, punched in Dillon’s number. When he answered, she told him the situation, sent him the video she’d just made. She knew the Washington Field Office was closest and they’d be there within the hour.
Savich was silent, then: “I’ve got your video. I’ll get this man through facial recognition. He’ll be in the system.” He paused. “Ruth, you and Ollie did well. Now squeeze all the juice out of Bowler you can before the crime scene people arrive.”
Ruth saw Ollie rubbing his chest, nearly back together. She started untying Mr. Bowler. He was breathing hard, still terrified. She crossed her arms, looked down at him, said in a disgusted voice, “You had to know the man who hired you wouldn’t stop after the miss Monday, and he didn’t. You’re a great big loose end, Mr. Bowler. You do realize that now, don’t you? He found you quickly, as we did, which tells you what a crappy plan it was to hide out here.” Ruth leaned over, right in his face. “Do you finally understand, you moron? He wants you dead. Because of what you know, what you might tell us about him. Are you ready to come into the light—that’s us—or do you want to repeat this scenario until you’re dead? The boss man you’re trying to cover for seems to have an unlimited supply of killers to send at you.”
Bowler moaned, shook his head back and forth. “But I don’t know anything.”
“If we hadn’t come, our friend over there in the kitchen would have shoved your dead body into a landfill, or better yet, concretized your shoes with you in them and dumped you in the middle of Lake Ginger.”
49
Bowler raised his head to face them. “He wanted to know what I told the FBI when you agents came to my office. I should never have called the emergency number they left me, never told them anything about it. Yes, all right, I did broker a deal between Manta Ray and, well, certain people, but I did nothing more. I’m a lawyer, my livelihood depends on keeping confidence with my clients, keeping my mouth shut. I wouldn’t have ever said anything to the authorities. How could they not know that?” Bowler swallowed. “Would you please untie my ankles, Agent Noble?”
She leaned down, untied him. “Don’t move.”
She turned. “Ollie?”
Ollie had hauled himself up to sit on the sofa. He was still rubbing his chest.
“You’ve probably got a cracked rib, so go slow and easy.”
“I’m okay.” He forced himself to stand. He looked at the dead man lying on the kitchen linoleum, then over at Bowler, who was rubbing feeling back into his hands and feet. “How long was that man here before we arrived, Mr. Bowler?”
Bowler stared at him. “I still can’t believe you’re alive. I saw him shoot you in the heart. You fell on your back, and I thought you were dead.”
“The wonder of Kevlar. How long, Mr. Bowler?”
Bowler glanced over at the dead man, then quickly looked back at Ruth. “I was eating some cereal when he snuck in on me about a half hour ago, tied me up. Then he sat down, drank my last two beers, and told me he’d kill me slowly and then go after Magda and Renée if I didn’t tell him exactly what I’d told the FBI. He never stopped smiling when he told me what he would do to them.”
Ollie looked him over. “He had half an hour, but you don’t look like you’ve been harmed. Why are you still alive?”
Bowler gave an ugly laugh that wasn’t a laugh at all. “I’m a lawyer, Agent Hamish. I can talk, and so I did. I told him the truth, at great length. I told him I didn’t know who his boss was, I didn’t know much of anything at all. My role was the middleman, so what could I have told the FBI that his own people hadn’t told me? He kept asking me what I knew about the man who’d hired me, about what Manta Ray had told me. I knew he was going to kill me in the end, like that man in the garage Monday, and I knew there was nothing more I could do for my wife and daughter. And then I heard you shout, Agent Noble. He stuffed that sock in my mouth and told me to keep quiet.”
Bowler began crying, tears running down his cheeks. “I thought I was going to die for sure. I still can’t feel my feet.”
“Get up, Mr. Bowler,” Ruth said. “Stomp your feet and walk. If you try to run, I will hurt you, do you understand me?”
“Yes, yes, I understand.” He hiccupped. “Thank you, really, you saved my life.” He began to stomp his feet as he hiccupped.