DEADLY DRIVER Page 16

  “Because he did,” Bryce stated.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Washington D.C. had always intrigued Bryce. As a much younger man he had visited as a tourist many times. There was so much history there, so much power in those three buildings – The Capitol, The Supreme Court, and The White House. On one of his earliest trips his Uncle had taken him to the Marine Barracks, to pay respects to the fallen at Arlington, and tour the Pentagon and many other sites.

  Bryce had planned this trip with someone special in mind. Following the meeting with the CIA he drove the sixty miles east to Washington and checked into the historic Willard Hotel. Back in 1861, amid fears for the safety of Lincoln, detective Alan Pinkerton brought the president-elect into Washington ahead of schedule, by some accounts in disguise. He took up lodging at Parlor 6 on the 2nd floor of The Willard and Lincoln would reside there with his family until his inauguration on March 4, 1861. Four years later, just a five-minute walk from there, Lincoln was assassinated in Ford’s Theater. On the drive to DC Bryce had thought about Lincoln and then of John F. Kennedy, both shot in the head by someone with an agenda.

  For tonight, Bryce had reserved the George Washington suite located on the tenth floor. He had stayed there the night the president had honored him with a dinner at the White House and remembered the room for its views of the city, including the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial.

  “Well, this is impressive,” Kyoto exclaimed as she walked through the living room to check out the full dining room and the view from its window.

  “That dress is what’s impressive. Red flags in racing mean you have to stop but you – in that and off the shoulder? You look amazing.”

  “Thank you,” she said as she continued her tour. “I see the sport coat and jeans are still your go-to. You don’t sleep in those, do you?” she teased.

  “No way. I switch into superman pajamas with a cape that hides the trap door in the back.”

  She played along. “Funny to hear that. I’ve been called kryptonite a few times. Tonight could get really interesting.” She walked past him and stepped into the master bedroom on the opposite side of the suite. “Nice. Is this what you do with all the ladies you entertain?”

  He laughed and guided her back into the living room where he popped the cork from a bottle of champagne and poured two glasses.

  “Nope,” he said and handed her a flute. “I told you in New York that I didn’t entertain much. I have to be careful of the women, everyone I let into my life. I need to avoid frivolous lawsuits, paternity charges, blackmail, and all the other nonsense that comes with the territory. I’ve found it easier to just avoid getting too friendly with women. If you don’t let someone you just met at a party into your hotel room, it’s pretty tough for them to say something happened there.”

  Kyoto went to sip her drink, but he protested. “Not until we toast,” he insisted. “To the future,” he said as he raised his glass and clinked hers.

  “You’re saying since I’m in your room you’ve now left yourself vulnerable,” she teased.

  He grinned. “Not so fast, little lady. I’ve got a dinner reservation and we need to get moving.” He downed the champagne and headed for the door. He turned to see his guest still standing by the plush gold sofa, glass in hand, staring at him with a questioning look.

  “Come on – I’ve got the room for the night. It’ll be here if you want to come back up for a nightcap or check out my PJ’s.” She smiled and followed him out the door.

  Bryce was thrilled to find that Kyoto was up for just about anything. Days later, after he took her for a really fast rally car ride through the woods of Vermont she was up for a drink. He had finally gotten comfortable again racing at high speed through tree-lined courses, thanks to the introduction of ballistic windshields that kept tree limbs, or anything else, from crashing through and penetrating the pilot or co-pilot.

  Fire is a race driver’s worst fear. But when Bryce had seen a young deer impaled on a sharp branch, years before he ever raced, he never forgot that warning image.

  After the car was loaded back into the hauler, Bryce got Kyoto her drink and thanked the team by treating them all to a happy hour at a local bar. He stuck to Heineken 0.0 though as there was more driving to do. He wanted to show her that there was more to him than fast cars and private jets. A few hours later, with Bryce now sound asleep on the couch in Pete’s mountain cabin, he was startled awake when Kyoto pushed at him.

  “Bryce,” she began softly. “I’ve been reading your uncle’s diary. You said it was okay. But I’ve come across something I think you need to read for yourself.”

  He looked up at her, the orange flicker of light from the fireplace made her eyes sparkle, but her expression was sad, almost scared, and he sat up once his mind cleared. “What is it – can’t you just tell me?”

  She shook her head and handed him the diary. They were still getting to know each other, and this was a side that Bryce hadn’t seen before. Her expression concerned him. Instead of diving right in he got up and made coffee, refilled her wine glass, checked his phone, and then sat back down. He motioned for her to sit with him, but she had returned to the rocking chair near the fire and shook her head again. He flipped the diary over and began.

  Damn that woman. Paul always picked the worst of them. Even back in high school, no matter how hard I tried to convince him this one or that one was better looking, nicer, or had more potential for doing something with their lives, he always chose poorly. And it always cost him. After I retired from the Marines, Paul let me stay at his house until I got my shit together. She was there. I found a job easy enough and bought the old Johnson place down the road from where we grew up. Walk right into the woods, quiet, just what I wanted and needed after all I had done in the Corps.

  Bryce took a moment from his reading and gave Kyoto a questioning look. She gestured for him to keep going.

  Liz had been pretty enough, was a decent cook, and liked a well-kept home, but she had a temper, especially when she had been drinking. I couldn’t understand why Paul put up with her bullshit, the verbal abuse, the drinking, and her hanging out with her friends down at Casey’s Bar. Nothing good ever came of that place late at night. Nothing. Finally, I moved into my new digs. I hadn’t finished all the painting and work that needed to be done, but I couldn’t take listening to those two late into the night – every night. So, I moved out.

  I felt bad for Paul. His mind had never been right after he’d shot that kid. Cops have to do a lot of tough things, but when a gun barrel comes out of the darkness at you it’s time to eliminate the threat. He sure did with his service revolver. He could always shoot a pistol, even better than me.

  That punk had always been a piece of shit in my book, most everyone’s, but he was still a kid at fifteen. He’d been picked up more times than anyone could remember. I think the department even stopped logging him in. He’d bullied the other, smaller or timid kids in school, had been caught breaking into homes, stole a car, and then some. The kid’s father was the mayor for Christ’s sake. That made keeping the kid behind bars where he belonged even harder.

  So one night, he pulled a gun on Paul. Paul responded and did us all a favor, far as I’m concerned. The kid was headed for worse crimes. But Paul was fired from the force. Between losing the job he loved and taking that life, he crashed. Luckily, he was able to get disability payments.

  But something broke in him, and that bitch just couldn’t leave him be. She nagged him, poked at him, and one night when I stopped by to check on him I found Liz sound asleep in their bed with some truck driver she’d picked up at the bar. They couldn’t screw in his sleeper cab – she had the balls or the utmost disrespect for her husband, my only brother, to humiliate him like that. Paul just sat there staring at me while I stared into their bedroom at the mess those two had made.

  I walked into Bryce’s room to check on him. He was sound asleep. I pulled his blanket up tight over his shoulders and I rem
ember smiling at him. I didn’t know shit about little kids, hell he was only four, but I loved this little guy so much. I closed the door to his room behind me and then I lost it. I never told anyone except for writing it here. I pulled that driver out of the bed, bare ass naked he was, and threw him through the screen door. He came charging back in, but I beat the shit out of him. This time he was smart enough to take the belongings I threw out the door behind him. He walked off with his tail between his legs. As to Liz, I was done with her, even if Paul wasn’t. The house was his, and she wasn’t welcome there anymore.

  Bryce stopped again. He didn’t look at Kyoto this time. He just stared into the fire and then continued reading.

  I grabbed her by the hair. I had never laid a hand on a woman before that, and I never have since. But she drove me past my limits. I regret what I did to this day but that night I couldn’t stop myself. She fought back and threw a punch that missed. I yelled at her to knock it off. The party was over, and she was going to follow that shithead right through the door. When we got into the living room she started yelling at Paul. “Stop him – make him stop!” But he just stared at her with contempt, tears in his eyes.

  Part of my heart broke right there for him, but the other part kept going with rage. I told her to keep quiet. She said fuck you or something like that and then she changed her pleas to insults. “I wouldn’t have to fuck anybody else, Paul, if you could get your shit together and act like a man.” The insults went on and on. She was fighting back like a wildcat. She swung at me, clawed at me, bit me twice, and then I saw her spit on Paul, right in his face. That did it. She turned toward me, and I hit her as hard as I had ever hit anyone, anywhere, ever. She flew back and landed right on his lap. I looked at her lying across him. Her eyes were open, her mouth was open, and so was everything else.

  I looked at Paul and he looked down on her. He didn’t say a word. He just shoved her body off him and onto the floor. I could hear Bryce crying in his room, but I just stood there looking at Paul and looking down on his dead wife. I’d just killed that little boy’s mother.

  Bryce shook his head in disbelief. He looked around the cabin, the place where he and his Uncle Pete had shared so many experiences together. Pete had been a stand-in father for Paul, and he’d been great at it, until now.

  Kyoto began to speak but quieted as he continued to read.

  I checked the body to confirm what I already knew. I shut the front door, got a dirty sheet from the bed, wrapped her in it and then slid her body back into their bedroom and closed the door behind me on the way out. Paul just sat there. He hadn’t said a word. I looked into his eyes and he mumbled something I didn’t hear. I got closer and leaned in. He shook his head and then whispered, “Thank you.”

  We both cried. The Lizzie nightmare was almost over. There was a little boy who needed attending to. But as long as the truck driver had climbed into his rig and left town without filing a complaint, we would be okay. I could bury her up in the woods and nobody, except for whoever she might have been banging down at the bar, would ever miss her. Bryce was too young. He would never remember anything about her. That’s a good thing.

  Bryce slowly closed the diary and stood up. He walked to the fireplace and stood in front of it, the diary dangling from his hand. Kyoto remained quiet, watching. He turned to her and let out a deep breath, a sigh of relief.

  “Well, that was different.”

  “They told you she ran off with a truck driver?” she asked.

  “Yep.” Bryce walked into the kitchen area, and stared out the window into the darkness. He stood there for a few minutes while Kyoto sat quietly, waiting.

  Finally, he turned to her, feeling a deep sadness from within. “I know it’s late but feel like going out for a few beers?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Of course - but this time I’m doing the driving.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Melbourne, Australia was the site of the first race of the new season and after a very good test session in Spain Bryce was optimistic about the New Year and the new ride. Having to attend team meetings and debriefs with his new teammate, Dickie Jones, was unbearable at first, considering Bryce wanted to beat the living daylights out of the guy for knocking him off track as he and Bishop had fought for the championship. Team Manager Mick Roberts, another Brit, hadn’t pushed too hard to make them share a peace pipe just yet. He’d told them he’d let time run its course and encouraged them to bury their differences. Bryce had found that remark hilarious and had laughed, to their consternation, when he’d heard those words.

  As luck would have it though, a crash on the very first lap of the race ended his day and meant the 8,000-mile flight from the U.S. was a waste, unless he included the work the CIA had planned for him there.

  The private jet ride from Melbourne to Sydney was over before his host could open another bottle of champagne. “Drown your sorrows or celebrate life, your choice my new friend,” Alistair Marshall had said through his homeland’s accent. Marshall was a billionaire, much like Max Werner. Passionate about everything but especially the young twenty-something beauty he wore on his arm like an expensive watch.

  Marshall had his hands into nearly every field of business down under, from constructing skyscrapers and exclusive beachfront resorts to owning cable news networks and print media around the globe. Tonight though, he was focused on impressing his new friend and bedding the woman he’d met on holiday in Thailand just weeks before.

  “Come with us,” he’d told Bryce. “Spend a few days with us on Bondi Beach and give a few interviews. We’ll drink, we’ll eat, we’ll sun, and who knows what trouble we can find. And we will look for it, I can assure you,” he joked.

  Meanwhile, back at Langley, Sandra Jennings had other plans.

  *

  “He talks a good game. He has the personality and the charisma to be an excellent covert field agent,” she told her superiors at their Monday morning closed-door briefing. “As long as he maintains his celebrity and continues the global travel.”

  During their first encounter back at the driving school, after she had convinced him she had different intentions, Bryce bared his soul to her. While seeking attention is what so many drivers and race sponsors want, Bryce hadn’t gotten into racing for the fame. He liked the competition, thrived on it, and had found he could make good money using his talents behind the wheel. If posing for pictures, doing interviews, and relentlessly traveling was the cost, so be it. Death wasn’t a consideration, at least not his. At the CIA, it was.

  “How sure are you that he was party to the hits on Gunn and Myers?” one of her superiors asked.

  “One hundred percent,” she replied with confidence. “Agent Chadwick paid Jack Madigan a visit. He reported that it took little leverage to get Madigan to spill what he knew about Baja. He volunteered that he’d been having an affair with Agent Myers and that Winters had flown his uncle, a former Marine sniper among other things, to Mexico to take out Gunn and Myers. Madigan said Bryce resented both of them for forcing him into taking out people, even if their targets were bad actors. He told Chadwick he thought the plan was actually a pretty smart one, saying it was retaliation for the hit in Sochi. If he hadn’t been in a relationship with Agent Myers he would have backed it fully. He also told Chadwick that Winters, Bryce, had not known about the affair and claimed he wouldn’t have taken her out if he’d known.”

  Jennings watched as the three superiors sitting across from her went quiet, lost in thought. The stark meeting room, the only decoration a photo of the president on one wall and the CIA insignia on the opposite one, was a place where decisions about taking lives, not on furnishings or décor, were made.

  “Any corroborative intel from other sources?” one woman asked.

  Jennings shook her head no.

  “Maybe Madigan is making this up, for whatever reason, to get us to issue an action against Winters,” another suggested. Jennings nodded. “Does that mean you agree with that assertion or ar
en’t sure?”

  “It’s conjecture at this point. There is no other evidence to indicate that’s what happened. Pete Winters is dead; we can’t interrogate him. I would actually like to confront Winters with Madigan’s statement, but then the big question is, what if he says it’s true?”

  “You saw Pete Winters’ body? Did Madigan? Did anyone? You sure he’s dead?” the woman pressed.

  “No, I have not. I’m told Madigan has not spoken with Winters since the last race in Abu Dhabi. He told Chadwick that he confronted Pete Winters there and that he’d been tased, tied up, and left on a yacht. Bryce had found him and cut him loose, but that was the last for them – except for Madigan telling Bryce, according to Chadwick, that he was going to find Pete Winters and kill him. Not just as payback for Myers but for assaulting him,” she reported. “Madigan used to be Bryce’s body man, closest friend, tech consultant to the race team, and get this – a retired Army Ranger.”

  Jennings had been watching the expression of the third person at the table. The man sat between the two others doing the questioning but hadn’t uttered a word, until now.

  “So, let me sum this up. We put a famous race car driver, an asset, on a short leash, blackmailed him into doing terminations overseas, he ordered a hit on two CIA agents, and now we’re talking about what to do with the damn bastard. Have I described this situation correctly?” he said sternly.

  Jennings nodded.

  “Okay, well, let me offer a few words,” he stated in the strong southern accent he’d brought with him from South Georgia. “Bryce Winters is a national hero, for Christ’s sake. He’s a good-will ambassador. Hell, he’s had dinner with the president at the White House, even took the boss for a ride. I think it was at Road Atlanta or somewhere up north. I don’t know which son of a bitch at this agency had the dumb-ass idea to screw with this man, but it wasn’t well thought out.”

  Jennings sat quietly until she saw the man’s eyebrows rise to indicate he was waiting for a response of some kind.