Ten minutes later, the dark blue expanse of Lake Winnebago spread out before them. A grassy peninsula jutted out to the left, with a two-story mansion capping the point. A row of nice lakefront homes was spaced out along the adjacent bay, each with long driveways and carefully manicured lawns. The street below had two police cars — one unmarked — parked at the gate of one of the homes. Max flew past them, hoping he was high enough that they wouldn’t recognize faces, and if they did, that they wouldn’t think about the fact that there were two passengers.
He saw the farmer’s field, his intended landing spot, and maneuvered them around into the wind, lowering the throttle and making his approach on a flat patch of grass just next to the tree line. He quickly shut the engine down, and Trent disappeared into the woods with the duffle bag over his shoulder. Max walked along the field until he reached the street, then headed towards the senator’s driveway gate. He kept an eye on his watch, making sure that he gave Trent at least five minutes to make his way through the woods and towards the house.
Eventually Max walked up to the police car outside Becker’s property and waved. “Good afternoon.” He must have looked like a drifter, coming down the street without a car.
“Can I help you?” asked the uniformed cop, approaching from the nearest police vehicle.
“Sir, my name is Max Fend. My father is Charles Fend. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? He’s the CEO of Fend Aerospace and a good friend of Senator Becker’s. I know the senator is in, and I wished to pay our respects and offer our services.”
“The senator told us he didn’t wish to be disturbed.”
“Of course, I understand that, sir. However, my father and I have a personal relationship with the senator—”
The second cop got out of his vehicle and approached, this one in plain clothes. Good. Two cars, two cops. No one else watching the house. Max could make out a shadowy figure in the distance, walking fast from the woods towards the house, a black duffle bag over its shoulder. Moving quick enough to make up the ground at a good pace, but slow enough not to draw the eye’s attention. Just another few seconds.
“What’s going on?” asked the second officer. Max surmised that this was the senior man, based on the way he was posturing. Max relayed his request to pay Senator Becker a visit, adding, “Officer, our family is very close with the senator. My father, Charles Fend, owner of Fend Aerospace, is a good friend. I will only be a few minutes. My father wants to offer him a flight on his private jet back to D.C., where the funeral will be held.”
The last part was total BS, since the funeral likely hadn’t even been discussed, but Max figured where there was confusion, there was opportunity.
The two cops looked at each other. Max heard one whisper to the other, “Well, his dad is famous. I mean, what’s he gonna do? I say let him at least go to the door.”
The plainclothes cop shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Fend. But the senator said—”
A yell from the home interrupted them, and for a moment Max panicked, thinking Trent might have run into trouble.
But it was the senator, standing in the doorway, waving. “Let him in, gentlemen! Thank you.”
The police officers tipped their hats to Max, and he walked the fifty yards down the paved driveway and up the steps to the front entrance. The door was left cracked open, and the senator’s face looked much less peaceful this close up.
“They still looking?” Max asked.
“Yeah,” replied Trent from the dark hallway.
The maid was on the floor, her wrists and ankles bound with zip ties and her mouth covered with duct tape. Trent stood next to her holding a pistol, its suppressor nuzzled against the senator’s back.
Max shut the door behind them.
“Hello, Senator. We’d like to have a quick word.”
Chapter 30
From inside the home, Renee could see Ian Williams’s men moving closer to the group in the middle.
She spoke quietly, still trying to dig for information. The man was holding a weapon. A small black pistol. “Who are the men here, do you think?”
The assassin said, “I don’t know exactly. But I don’t give them much longer to live.”
Renee gave him a concerned glance.
One of the men sitting on the patio furniture called out to Williams. Renee could hear him speaking Spanish and laughing. Then Williams nodded to one of his gunmen, and the rest happened quick.
She cupped her mouth as the gunman wheeled around and unslung his submachine gun. One of the tiny black ones, with a long cylinder on the end. A rapid spray of flame, and the group of men around the fire pit were cut down in a burst of red, their bodies littered with bullet holes.
Everything went quiet as the shooters surveyed the scene. Renee was horrified. She saw two of the gunmen rolling out the same blue tarp that they had used to wrap up Jennifer Upton’s body. It looked like they were about to start cleanup.
The French-speaking assassin standing next to Renee suddenly cursed.
“What’s wrong?”
He had been calm during the gunfire but was now agitated. He stood up quickly and moved towards the window, holding his weapon in both hands.
“What’s wrong?” asked Renee again, wondering if he would go outside, leaving her alone in the room.
A chance to escape.
“Shhh.”
The men outside were now upset as well, she saw. One of Williams’s Mexican gunmen was down on the ground, dead and bleeding from his head. She heard Williams swearing at his men.
“Well, one of you must have bloody shot him! It couldn’t have ricocheted from there! How the hell…?”
Then another gunman’s face went missing, his body dropping to the brick patio.
For a moment everyone was frozen in confusion. By the time the third gunman was hit, they were scattering like ants. Williams and Syed sprinted towards the house, heads tucked low. Loud cracks of gunfire rang out as some of the sicarios began shooting towards the inlet.
At what, Renee couldn’t see.
The senator hadn’t known who Renee was or whether she was in captivity. But after Trent had held a gun to his head, Becker had done two things rather fast: wet his pants, and revealed Ian Williams’s location.
Williams was — incredibly — just across the bay, at the mansion on the peninsula. Within Trent’s rifle range. The senator’s window was the only spot with a view over the stone wall of the peninsular property. Just as Max and Trent looked out the window, they witnessed several men in black gun down a group sitting on a patio.
Trent had taken out his suppressed rifle and gone to work. Max ran down the stairs and out the senator’s front door, towards the police vehicles in front of the house. He had quickly called Wilkes, frantically filling him in. Wilkes promised to contact local law enforcement.
Now Max watched as the black-and-white police car put its lights on and sped out of the driveway, heading north on the main road. The plainclothes officer was halfway into his vehicle when he saw Max.
“We just got a call from our chief. It seems you misled us, Mr. Fend.”
“Sorry about that,” Max huffed.
They both turned as the sound of popping gunfire erupted in the distance.
“It was suggested to me that I let you tag along. You’ve got some three-letter agency affiliation.”
“Please… ”
The cop rolled his eyes. “Get in. Get in. We got to go.”
Max hopped in the passenger side and the police vehicle accelerated down the road.
“Does Oshkosh have a SWAT team?”
“Yes, we do.”
“They on the way?” The speedometer got up to eighty on the tiny road, the trees flying by. Then the police officer decelerated rapidly and took a hard right, following the lake road, the car bouncing as they drove.