DEADLY DRIVER Page 10

  A few tears were shed, handshakes turned into heartfelt embraces, and when it was time to go he called out to everyone, “Hey – I plan on continuing the tradition, one last time. Invitations go out soon for my Christmas Party in the Midlands. Hope to see you all there next month!” And then, he walked away. He’d never discussed the Werner announcement with any of them nor they with him. Business was business. Time to move on.

  The two security staffers who had shadowed him the entire weekend continued to do so. Bryce quickly changed into a red polo and blue jeans and black Skechers, grabbed a black Pirelli tire hat and kept his head down so he could b-line it to the boat. He wasn’t in the mood for a party and he’d left his trophy, a shining vase made of silver and gold with the crew. He’d retrieve it back in England. Something special had come to an end and could never be replaced.

  While he processed his mixed emotions, thoughts returned to Pete and Jack Madigan. Where the hell where they? Having managed to get all the way to his gangway with only four people stopping him for selfies or an autograph – most everyone else was still gathered, no doubt, below the podium on the pit road to experience the crowning of a new champion. Those who missed out on the glory had all quietly found their way from it.

  Bryce thanked his two shadows and said hi to the two still standing watch at the yacht. Unsure whether Madigan had ever found Pete or where either of them might be he opted not to ask the guards.

  “Nobody comes aboard!” he said in a tone that made it clear he was serious.

  He texted Madigan and then Pete. No response from either. He called both; again no answer. After a quick, cool shower and change into shorts and a light blue Olympic Park t-shirt, he grabbed a beer from the fridge and took a seat on the tan, leather sofa that faced a massive flat-screen TV in the main salon. He turned the air conditioning down to 65° F – despite the shower and the brew he was still hot to the core. He was pissed at them both for not answering but even more so for distracting him from the significance of the evening. It was his last race with the man and the team who had helped propel him to great success and fortune. He’d won the race but lost the championship by fewer points than fingers on a hand, and he didn’t have a care in the world – other than where the hell these two were.

  It had been quite some time since he’d had any contact with the people who had leveraged him into doing their dirty work. Maybe they’d forgotten about him, he mused. After all, it was a government agency with people climbing career ladders and changing assignments. In the shuffle, maybe they’d simply lost interest or had forgotten him and he was now free of them once and for all.

  He tried both phones again and then checked his watch. It was nearing midnight. After a long, hot race and a long, tiring season it was time to call it a night and start tomorrow’s scheduled adventure at mid-morning. As the partying on some of the other yachts docked there subsided, the quiet finally came. He checked the BBC news feed, watched the sports headlines of him taking the race win but passing the champion’s baton to Bishop. He felt a twinge of regret, and then helpless and resigned. He peeked out through the break in the window shade to confirm the security team was still there. Time for sleep, finally.

  It might have been a minute after he pulled the covers up over him, the master bedroom now chilled to perfection when he heard it.

  Someone or something was knocking banging, somewhere in the vessel.

  *

  “I’m going to kill that son of a bitch,” Madigan swore. He stood in front of the bar, downing his second beer and a shot of Jack Daniels. The bleeding from the gash over his left eye had finally stopped. “Damn it’s freezing in here!”

  Bryce and Madigan had been through a lot together, like brothers only without the occasional brotherly brawls. They’d seen the world, stood in victory lanes together celebrating wins at Indy, Daytona, Silverstone, and so many others historic tracks. But now, things were different. Bryce had made a decision Madigan couldn’t forgive or forget. Pete Winters had killed Joan Myers, Nitro. The season was over and tonight Pete had done something just as unforgiveable, something Madigan could never let stand.

  “He tased me. That bastard. We were on the bridge and I came down to take a leak. When I came out of the shitter the bastard tased me,” he told Bryce.

  “Seriously?” Bryce asked. “Pete did this?”

  “When I wake up, he’s got me hogtied and gagged on the bed. I got so pissed I fell off the damn thing, hit my head on the night table, and wound up where you found me. Did the prick shoot anybody?” Madigan asked. Bryce shook his head no.

  “I don’t know what he did or where he went, but I’m going to find that fuck and put a bullet in his head. No debate, no excuses, just a summary execution like he did to Joanie.” Bryce grabbed a hand towel from the bathroom and moved to attend to Madigan’s cut but Jack knocked his hand away.

  He glared at Bryce. He knew what these words meant. It was over between them. Pete had gone too far, and Bryce had been a part of it.

  “I don’t know where he is.” Madigan raged. “Hiding on this damn boat for all I know! But when I find him, Marine against Ranger, it’s on. I’m not going to be a chicken shit from a distance with a sniper rifle either. I’m going to do it face to face.” He drew a deep breath then shouted, “You hear me, Pete? You’re a dead man!”

  *

  Bryce looked at his friend with regret. He’d lost Werner and now with these words, Jack. He knew that there was nothing he could do to fix this now. Someone was going to die.

  “He’s not on board, Jack.”

  “You better hope he isn’t.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Kruger National Park covers over 7500 square miles, perhaps a bit smaller than the state of New Jersey and is located in northeastern South Africa. Bryce had visited there three times, once after hiking the 19,000’ Mount Kilimanjaro, a dormant volcano in Tanzania. He’d done the climb to draw attention through his media contacts to the lack of clean water in the region. His plan had been to push for contributions to a charity he’d learned of after his favorite NFL football team, the Philadelphia Eagles, had won the Super Bowl and a star player made the trek to drive awareness.

  After an eight-hour flight from Abu Dhabi to Kruger’s Mpumalanga International Airport, his favorite guide, an outgoing twenty-four- year-old local named Tommy, drove the 25 miles on decent roads to the Nkambeni Safari Camp near the park’s Numbi Gate. The camp was spectacular, just as he had remembered it, with incredible views of the hills and plains of the region. Flowers were abundant, as were all the comforts his hosts provided. If you wanted to connect with nature and wildlife, it was here. You could hear an elephant’s call or watch a giraffe pick leaves from a branch twenty feet overhead. Predators of all sorts were in abundance, too. Lions and leopards were plentiful and, despite everyone’s assurances that the more dangerous animals kept away from the camp, Bryce never – ever was without a sidearm, his American-made .45-caliber Sig P220 at the ready.

  “I don’t hike where bears and mountain lions live without carrying this back home. Why the heck would I leave my gun there when the king of the jungle roams here, licking his chops and waiting to take a bite out of me?” he always reminded Tommy and his hosts at check in.

  On this evening, as Bryce sat in his chair, rocking it back on its rear legs, he listened for a moment to the sounds of the wilderness and something man-made that he’d picked up on.

  “Like I said,” he shouted, “there are things out there can kill you, Uncle Pete. Big cats, buffalo, elephants, and what I came here specifically for this time – rhinos. Hell, most have claws, teeth, tusks or horns. The rest have size. But none of them have God-damned tasers!” He waited, hoping for a response.

  “Come on out, Pete. I know you’re back there.” Bryce kept his focus on the view as the sun faded in the west. Before long, the sounds of night stalkers would replace those of the singing birds.

  He could hear his uncle coming toward him but didn’t move.
As the chair beside his began to slide from the table, Bryce looked up and shook his head as Pete smiled and took a seat. They didn’t speak except to order a round of beers – local brew Castle Lager for Pete and Heineken 0.0 non-alcoholic for Bryce, and then another, and then another.

  After a bit, Pete finally broke the ice. “NA beer – why bother?” he asked, for perhaps the tenth time that year.

  “Need to get up really early tomorrow. I want to be sharp as a tack, Pete,” he replied. “When did you get in and what the hell are you doing here?”

  “Just a few hours before you. Tommy came and got me. Made him promise he wouldn’t spoil my surprise. Abu Dhabi to Doha and another stop then here. Didn’t sleep a wink. I knew you’d be headed here after the race and I wanted to take another run at a water buffalo down south of us.”

  “Don’t expect a pity party from me, you old bastard,” Bryce said, only half-joking. “Jack told me what you had planned – to screw with those two assholes if they played dirty. I get that. I don’t agree with it, but I get it. But why did you have to tase him and tie him up? What the fuck, Pete?”

  His uncle leaned toward him. His expression was one Bryce didn’t think he’d ever seen before. Considering Pete’s recent behavior, post-Baja, he grew concerned.

  “If I needed to put a shot in either of those pieces of shit, I would have. Jack would have tried to stop me. He might even have turned me over to the police to pay me back for Baja. Abu Dhabi isn’t big on retired military like me playing with suppressed sniper rifles. I would have gone to prison forever.”

  Bryce listened but something was off. He pushed harder. “Pete, you know how I feel about you - you old coot,” he added, “but we can’t – I guess I have to say I can’t keep doing this. It all started with us cleaning up messes, your messes. The CIA’s had Jack and me by the balls because they caught us dumping bodies; they didn’t know we were cleaning up after you. They’ve always thought Jack and I killed those shitheads. We agreed to work with them and keep up this charade to keep you out of jail, and this is how you repay us, Jack? One of these days you’re going to get caught. Jack’s done with the both of us. He’s gone. The CIA might be gone, too. I haven’t heard a damn thing from them since Baja. My point is—you have to stop killing people. I know they gave you a reason to, but every time you kill someone, we have to clean up the mess. You’ve jeopardized not just my career but also my freedom. Maybe you should work for the CIA and leave me out of it. Maybe it’s time we told them it was you who did the killing.” Pete shook his head, saying “But they’ve still got you dumping the bodies.”

  Pete Winters was as tough as nails and had taught his nephew well, stepping in for a father who was emotionally unfit to raise anything, let alone a young man. He’d always had intolerance for bad behavior and been in enough fist fights in high school, the Marines, bars, and parking lots whenever he felt someone was being wronged or abused, or unable to defend themselves. In Singapore he’d watched a rich punk, son of a wealthy banker push a girl around in an elevator. She got off, he didn’t. The body was found in a laundry chute the next morning.

  Pete rarely made a move on someone in Bryce’s presence, but when someone made a move on Pete, Bryce used everything his uncle had taught him about fighting, and killing, and went from witness to accomplice as quickly as he drove. Bryce liked winning races more than anything but what he learned of himself, thanks to Pete, was he felt he had a purpose when delivering justice and helping people. The son of a policeman and raised by a Marine, it was in his blood.

  Under the heavy yoke the CIA had placed on him, sometimes he delivered justice to a corrupt politician who enjoyed assaulting women, or a rich playboy who sold arms to bad nations, or the international drug kingpin who made a living ruining American lives. These were the same people who used their money, influence, and connections to party with the rich and famous. When the Formula One festivities came to town, they wanted in and when the CIA pointed out a target, Bryce always insisted on knowing why.

  It wasn’t always a death sentence though. Sometimes it was accepting an invitation to an exclusive affair where people would pose for photos and then identities could be discovered, fingerprints or even DNA retrieved. Once he attended a birthday party at the elegant Ritz Hotel in London. The CIA and England’s MI6 used him as bait, hoping a Czech contract killer would attend his niece’s extravagant birthday, unable to resist the chance to meet the special guest, an F1 champion.

  Bryce refused to take out, to eliminate, as the CIA would say, someone who had children – that was non-negotiable. But a hit was much more palatable if he felt he was doing some good. What he hated about the CIA arrangement, the only thing, was that they had control over him, and that was nearly impossible to stomach. Bryce was a control freak, in control of his life behind the wheel at over 200 miles per hour, and everywhere else except with this arrangement. For his trio, Bryce had gone from helping Pete, then working for the CIA and needing Jack’s help at times, then Pete had been called in to help them both but now Pete had gone too far.

  “I don’t think this is fixable, Pete. I think you’re going to have to watch your back the rest of your life.”

  Pete smiled. Bryce already knew his uncle’s response.

  “Well, I could put the bastard out of his misery if he’s still heartbroken over that woman. Guess he forgot when he was in deep that she forced him to kill people and was cheating on her husband. He sure can pick ‘em. Reminds me of someone else I knew.” Bryce didn’t understand the last reference but that didn’t matter now.

  The sun was long gone now. Darkness swept over the camp. With no moon to be seen but an incredible blanket of stars surrounding them in the sky, Bryce said he wanted to walk a bit before turning in.

  Pete stood up and gave Bryce a hug, tighter than the usual. “I love you, boy,” he whispered in Bryce’s ear and then broke off and headed for his cabin.

  As Bryce stepped down onto the ground from the deck and began to walk away from the lights of the open dining room, he heard a movement behind him. It was Tommy, and he was carrying a rifle.

  “Always watch your back, BW,” he whispered when he caught up to Bryce, using the nickname the American didn’t mind at all, at least not from him.

  “You have mountain lions in Utah, yes?” he asked.

  “Yep. People don’t think they’re out there, but they are. They’re usually just too smart to be seen.”

  They kept walking, listening to the sounds of dark Africa.

  “Same for leopards – all cats for that matter,” Tommy continued. “I will stay behind you so you can enjoy your walk and the surroundings.”

  Bryce wouldn’t hear of it and gestured for the guide to walk alongside him. They went one hundred fifty feet from the main building and stopped at one of the many bonfires the camp kept lit every night to ward off unwanted intruders. Bryce had done this many times before and came to a stop between two fires. All he could see was the darkness in front of him, his peripheral vision lit with the orange glow to his left and to his right. Then as his eyes adjusted, and he saw them he called Tommy in closer.

  “I’ll never forget the first time I saw the fire’s reflection in a lion’s eyes. It’s primal.”

  The animals knew there was plenty of food, a buffet of tourists, guides, and camp employees just waiting to be taken in the dark, if it weren’t for the damn fires. The camp knew, as well, an animal’s tolerance for the flames. They never, ever allowed the bonfires to die out or to be moved a foot from where they were set 365 nights per year.

  The next morning, Bryce had drunk a half-gallon of coffee before he’d gotten the energy to get moving and the clarity to engage the day. He hadn’t seen or heard from Pete but figured if he wanted in on the day’s plans, he’d turn up at some point. If not, that was fine. Bryce needed the space.

  Racing season was over but he was exhilarated to set out with Tommy to meet up with the rangers of another sort – Kruger Park Rangers, who were assigned
to the anti-poaching force. Today they expected to hunt down and capture a group they’d been chasing for weeks. The group was thought to be from Russia, well funded and very skilled in avoiding detection by drones, night vision technology, and anything else the force threw at them. Their treasure - Rhino tusks.

  According to what Bryce had read in National Geographic, on the black market in South Africa, the horn of the white rhino sells for up to $3,000 a pound. But on Asian black markets it wholesales for 5 to 10 times that, and from there retail prices can go up astronomically. There’s serious money in killing rhinos and cutting out their horns.

  Elephants were in great jeopardy as well. Bryce had seen this firsthand on a previous trip. But today the focus would be on saving rhinos and instead of using technology to track the Russians the rangers would rely on one species of animal to save another – dogs. In some parts of the world not only are they regarded as man’s best friend, but this particular breed of hunting dogs had been trained to smell out poachers and track them. Some risked being shot as the pack chased down their prey. But most times, when successful, they’d tree a poacher until the force could get there to bring them down and to justice.

  And so it was that, after a full day in the African heat, Bryce found himself standing face-to-face with three poachers the dogs had chased down.

  “I think putting these three in jail is too good for them,” he suggested to the rangers as he stared at their captives with contempt.

  “Why don’t we have some fun, give them a taste of their own medicine.” Tommy had seen Bryce in action before, taking a gun butt to the head of a poacher that had killed an elephant, and even more needlessly its calf.

  “I say we cut their noses off and leave them out here without weapons. If they survive the night, we set them free.” One of the rangers played along and pulled a knife from its sheath with a shine as bright as his smile. He held up the knife, almost a mini-machete in size, sleek blade on one side, the other serrated for those really hard to cut through moments.