“After all that time? So close to the finish line?”
“When candidates ring out, or opt out, of Special Forces training like that, it isn’t a decision. A decision implies alternatives. When the mind and body come to an agreement like that, it just happens. No pomp and circumstance. No hesitation.”
“There was no further evolution, was there?”
“It was just another test. Once all the candidates had returned, the proxy told us to head down to the barracks, offering a ride to any who wanted one.”
“Your friend quit for nothing.”
“Not nothing. The accomplishment of making it so far into the program would allow him a second attempt. He made the cut six months later and joined my operational unit.”
“And you?”
“It was at that moment I knew I would make it. The only test remaining was to face a board of superiors who had access to every fitness report, background investigation, Delta performance rating—it was a tribunal configured to break the candidate. And they were very good at what they did. But after the night before, I had come to the realization that I’d grown. I couldn’t be defeated. I could feel Delta in my core.”
“And the tribunal?”
“As I said, they were good at their job. I nearly broke, despite my convictions otherwise. In fact, when I exited the ‘interview’, I was certain the board would not consider me Delta material.”
“Tell me what you can about the reasons you left.”
“I was deployed as a forward operator over a dozen times. Eventually I realized that our missions were less about stopping terrorists and more about stopping specific terrorist operations—ones that happened to knock over dominoes those in command were instructed needed to remain in place.”
“Not based on threat?”
“No. Based on political necessities.”
“How long after your honorable discharge did you begin—”
“Killing?”
“When did you decide there was more work to be done and that you were the one for the job?”
“You’re asking for the trigger—what event caused me to snap,” Veritas said, annoyed.
“You didn’t ‘snap’. I want to know when.”
“After my wife died.”
“I respect your boundaries, Shale. Tell me as much or as little as you want.”
“When my wife died, she was run down by a driver high on prescription medications and alcohol.”
“Pain killers. Not his own.”
“He was a repeat offender. Three DWI offenses. The man had connections in the judicial and law enforcement system. He served a total of eighteen months in county jail, not prison, before he murdered my wife. For intoxication manslaughter, he was given ten years. His sentence was ultimately reduced to forty-two months because of prison overcrowding.”
“But James Gavin was never one of your victims.”
“In Delta, I learned that death is a part of life. I also learned that once someone was dead, they weren’t ever coming back. It sounds obvious, but our inner selves tend to disbelieve that our loved ones are gone or that there is some act that will bring them back. I held no unrealistic expectations. Everything I did, I did for the sake of vengeance and, more importantly, justice.”
“So why not Gavin?”
“Too obvious. If I wanted to embark on a career and not a simple act of retribution, I couldn’t possibly risk a crime that would call for the police to suspect me first and foremost, particularly with my background.”
“How many?” Constantine said. It was another big question that she knew had to be asked, and she hated the way she spewed it forth like a spray of vomit.
“Thirty-seven,” Veritas said. “Give or take.”
“You don’t remember for certain?”
“Thirty-seven.”
“And then you claim you turned yourself in. After Silas Drew.”
“Claim?”
“Retired Texas Ranger—”
“Bertram James is an egomaniac.”
“He claims the arrest was part of his long-standing, unauthorized investigation.”
“Well, our versions differ.”
“He did bring you in.”
“I knew of retired Ranger James for a long time. He had done well to close in on my trail. I reached a point where I had to decide whether to continue or whether I was finished.”
“How could you be finished without dispensing justice to your own demon?”
“Gavin?”
“Bert James claims the fact that you never killed Gavin proves you weren’t finished.”
“I stopped because I realized somewhere along the line I ceased doing this for the right reasons and rather was feeding my own monster. Killing Gavin would have been the final step into the abyss.”
“So you allowed the Ranger to catch you?”
“I left him what he wanted. And it’s retired Ranger.”
“Why Emily? Why did you decide my daughter would be your final chapter?”
“You remind me of Selena.”
“Of your wife?”
“I decided my penance would be to allow my story to be told. I’ve read your columns in the Seattle Times. Your article about human trafficking that Esquire published. Your voice reminds me of Selena’s. She was a strong woman. You’re a strong woman. It was time.”
“You accepted the death penalty as your penance.”
“The death penalty is not my penance but my punishment under the laws of this land. I needed to do more than that.”
“More than die yourself?”
“Yes. But I couldn’t risk my story being mistaken as a plea for understanding. For forgiveness. I’m not asking for that. All I want is the truth.”
“The District Attorney announced there would be no appeals,” said Constantine.
“It was part of the deal I made. I can’t last long caged from the outside world. And I don’t care to appeal a fair and just sentence.”
Constantine retrieved from her purse a folded piece of newspaper. She carefully unfolded it and paused a moment before reading a paragraph. “Without benefit of the appeals process and by the corporal punishment statute of the State of Washington, the death sentence will be carried out exactly thirty days post-sentencing.”
“That was from your column,” Shale said.
“Shale, the book, your story—it won’t be published before you’re—goddammit, you know.”
“Easy, Constantine. I have faith. I know you will tell this tale the right way.”
Veritas knew retired Texas Ranger Bertram James had made a ferocious post-career hobby of connecting the dots in what the ex-cop believed to be a large string of related homicides all across the United States. Veritas had, over a year earlier, begun his own counter-surveillance on the investigation and had been monitoring the progress since. The old man was good. A detailed background investigation by Veritas revealed much about his pursuer, most of the information not favorable for a man intent on carrying out a personal, five-year clandestine operation of dispensing justice under his own established code.
Former Ranger James did not possess enough hard evidence to put a proven name on his prey, but he’d gotten far enough in his diligence to understand the truth about the man he was chasing, and it would be only a matter of time before the retired lawman had enough circumstantial evidence to present it to current officials.
Therefore, Veritas intended on using James for what he knew was close anyway.
The end.
And Veritas wished it were simply the finish of his own personal vendetta.
For half a decade he’d waged a private war. However, his campaign against the trail of offal left in the wake of a long-time ineffectual justice system had changed him. When he began, it was in part because that ineffectual system had not only let him down, but also so very many other helpless victims of heinous crimes. Now it was more than that; now the evil had infected him.