Divine Justice

Stone let out a heavy sigh. "Look, son, I've got my own problems, so I'm about five seconds from leaving your ass to the hyenas over there unless we get an attitude adjustment real fast."

"What do you want me to do?" he snapped.

"Tell me your name and where you're from."

"Da

Stone didn't hesitate. "Ben." That had been his father's name. "From where, Da

"Divine, Virginia. Little coal-mining town just this side of hell."

"How far from here?"

"About here to the moon."

Stone sighed again. "Is your mother still there?"

"That's right."

"So you just left her in the little hellhole all by herself?"

"She's not alone, trust me."

"You got money to get back home?"

"Maybe."

"You sure, or did you lose it all in the poker game? They say you were cheating."

"They just said that because they can't play cards worth shit." He glanced over at Beefy and cracked a smile. "Ain't that right, fat boy?"

"Where were you headed to on the train?" Stone asked.

"Where there ain't no coal to mine."

"You worked in the mines?"

Da

He walked off toward a greasy spoon visible about a block away. It had a neon sign spelling out "restaurant" in cursive, with only the final "T" still lighted. In his head Stone instantly dubbed it the "One T."

Stone glanced back at Beefy and his battered goons. Beefy had a knife in his hand. If Stone left Da

They ate at the counter with Stone occasionally looking over his shoulder to stare at Beefy and his boys sitting at a booth gobbling up their burgers and fries and shooting nasty glances at them from over their beer mugs.

When Stone went to pay the check Da

"Thanks for helping me out back there," he said, without a trace of an attitude.

"You're welcome."

"You fight pretty good for a geezer." Somehow this statement did not come out as an insult.

"I might not be as old as you think. I've just had a tough life."

"Ain't we all."

"So where to now?"

"Gotta keep rolling or else you die. Think somebody important said that once."

Not bad advice to live by, Stone thought. I'm a rolling stone right now.

As they left the One T Beefy confronted them outside the door, his two mates right behind him.

"Where the hell you two think you're going?"

"You know, I can set your nose back in place if you want," Stone said amiably.

"You lay another hand on me, you son of a bitch, I'll cut you bad." He brandished a knife. Well, it was technically a knife, but it was so small and the guy was handling it so awkwardly that Stone had trouble thinking of it as actually being a weapon.

"Okay. Good luck then."

He and Da

A second later he dropped to his knees holding his belly. Da

"Not nearly as much fun when it's just one-on-one, is it, chunko?"

Beefy weakly threw a punch at Da

Stone glanced sharply at Beefy's two friends, who seemed to be deciding whether to attack or run. He said, "I'm done with you guys. So if you don't take your friend here and get the hell out of my life right now I'm going to beat both of you into a coma."

He knelt down, picked up the knife, and with a flick of his wrist tossed it ten feet where it embedded neatly in the wooden façade of the One T. Seconds later his two sidekicks were helping Beefy down the street as fast as they could go.

Da

"Summer camp. So what's it going to be, Da

"Home. Couple days. No more."

"Sounds like a plan."

"What about you?"

"Flop here for one night. Wait for the next train south. Tired of the cold." Just tired.

The men started walking down the street.

"I wasn't cheating at cards."

"I believe you."

"How come?"

"You don't seem dumb enough to cheat when it's three against one. How you getting to Divine? The train go there?"

Da

Stone's gaze caught on a black sedan that pulled slowly down the street. It stopped next to a police car and the driver of the sedan rolled down his window and started talking to the cop. Stone's eyes dropped to the white government plate on the sedan.

Bureau car? Here? Did the train conductor suspect something and make a call?

Stone turned to face Da

Da

"Sounds good."

"What?"

"Let's go."

"You're kidding, right? I'm telling you, man, it's hell."

"I don't think so, Da

"What makes you a damn expert?"

Because I've actually seen hell. And it wasn't in Virginia .

CHAPTER 9

JOE KNOX CLIMBED IN his Range Rover and drove slowly home, deep in thought. He'd gone over every scrap of paper in that box and each held a startling revelation. Yet while the sum total of information was considerable, the investigative leads flowing from this intelligence were negligible. The CIA was exemplary in covering its tracks, and the Agency had outdone itself here. However, Knox had been able to piece a few things together.

The reason that Gray's home had been blown up six months ago seemed tied to an unauthorized CIA operation targeting the Soviets back in the 1980s. Exact details were not available and probably never would be. The co

A shoot-out in the middle of the Capitol? Gray must've been insane.

There was an indication in the file that Gray had met with the current CIA director, a man Knox considered a useless political appointee who had started at the Agency but had been brain-drained by his later years in the Congress. Whether Knox could get in to see the man was not a given. As Macklin Hayes had made clear, there was a difference of opinion at the Agency as to how this matter should proceed. Or not proceed.

Gray had also been given a secret audience with the president at Camp David. Knox suspected this piece of information was one of the ones Macklin Hayes had gotten hold of that he wasn't supposed to know about. Knox realized that the odds of his interrogating the president of the United States about this meeting were about the same as his spontaneously combusting while in the shower.