The 13-Minute Murder Read online

  “Hell no,” Mason roars through gritted teeth. “I wanna be there when we breach that damn farmhouse, and see the looks on those bastards’ faces!”

  Taylor, Carey, and the other agents are taken aback. They’ve never seen the usually calm and collected Mason so enraged. So primal. It’s scary.

  “Jesus, Mason,” says Taylor. “You’re bleedin’ all over the damn place. No one’s been working harder to get these bastards than you have, but—”

  Thankfully Mason doesn’t have to argue: his and Taylor’s radios crackle to life.

  “Alpha and Charlie teams have reached the farmhouse,” says one of the other teams’ leaders. “Ready to enter.”

  “Roger,” responds another agent over the radio. “Delta team closing in.”

  That’s great news, and Mason and his men all know it. Two of the four SWAT units are in position outside the house, with the third nearby.

  Mason turns his gaze toward the farmhouse. It’s so close. The final stand.

  “Bravo Command, copy that,” Mason responds into his walkie, signaling Taylor and the others to get back into formation and keep moving. They obey.

  “En route, too. Prepare to breach!”

  3 minutes, 45 seconds

  Clink…clink, clink…boom!

  The entire ramshackle farmhouse gets briefly lit up like a jack-o’-lantern as four flash grenades are thrown and detonated inside simultaneously.

  “Go, go, go!”

  Mason barks the command at his team and into his radio—and nearly all the remaining agents kick down doors and crash through windows and pour into the home from all sides.

  “FBI!” they yell, moving in tight fluid lines from room to room like slithering snakes. “Get on the ground! FBI! Lemme see your hands!”

  The pop-pop-pop-pop of gunshots soon rings out from inside as well, followed by exclamations like “Clear!” and “Suspect down!” and even “I’m hit!”

  Mason’s focus is so tightly on the farmhouse, he barely notices his wounded shoulder anymore, the black sleeve of his jumpsuit soaked in blood.

  “Bravo and Charlie teams, moving upstairs!” comes a voice over the radio.

  Mason and Taylor share a look.

  This nightmare of a raid is almost over.

  But it’s not finished yet.

  “We got one!” an agent exclaims over the radio. “In the attic!”

  Mason holds his breath and waits. Waiting to hear those magic words…

  “Charlie Leader, giving the all clear! Repeat, site is clear and secure!”

  Mason pumps his fist in triumph. Taylor claps him on his good shoulder. The agents can finally breathe easy.

  “Bravo Command, good copy,” Mason radios back. “All clear and secure. Stand down.”

  And then, for good measure: “Well done, every one of you. Damn well done!”

  Only now does Mason glance down at his bloody shoulder. But his adrenaline is pumping so hard, he barely feels it.

  Slowly, the entry teams begin exiting the farmhouse from all sides. Many are carrying confiscated firearms. Others, bags and bags of crystal methamphetamine.

  Finally, Mason sees the person he’s been waiting for—and he’s shocked.

  It’s one of the sole surviving suspects. In handcuffs, lip bloodied, screaming and spewing a string of profanities, being led out of the farmhouse by two agents.

  “Here’s the one we found in the attic, sir,” says one of the escorting agents.

  Mason just nods. He recognizes who it is right away.

  The ringleader of the group. The criminal mastermind he’d been after all these months.

  Mason can’t believe his eyes. He marches right over. “Abraham J. McKinley, you have the right to remain silent.”

  “Goddamn murderers!” the crazy old man shouts, struggling against his restraints. “All of you! Look what you done!”

  Mason ignores his theatrics and keeps going. “You’re under arrest. For multiple counts of federal grand larceny, felony assault with a deadly weapon, illegal possession of a firearm, and conspiracy to commit—”

  “Boy, what the hell you talking about?” McKinley demands, getting as close to Mason’s face as he can. With his wild mane of white hair fluttering behind him, McKinley’s resemblance to the man caught on camera buying those Halloween masks is undeniable.

  “The bank robbery in Plainview,” Mason answers. “The horse-auction theft. All the evidence points to you and your crew, Abe.”

  “Huh? We ain’t never stole nothing and you know it!”

  Mason just smiles. “What about distributing a Class 2 illegal drug? Word is, you and your boys have been doing that for months.”

  McKinley shakes his head. Then he looks back into his farmhouse, at all the carnage, inside and out. Numerous suspects lie bloody and dead. He starts to lose it. He twists and writhes in his handcuffs. The agents hold him steady.

  “You…you killed ’em! You pigs killed all of ’em! Look what you did!”

  “No, Abe,” Mason replies calmly. “Look what you did.”

  And then, as McKinley is just about to be led away, still ranting and raving, Mason leans in close and whispers, “Because you…killed him.”

  It takes McKinley a moment to realize the bombshell Mason has just admitted.

  “You…you framed me?! You son of a bitch! This whole thing is bullshit!”

  Mason watches in silence, betraying nothing, as the aging meth king—the man whose gang made and sold the drugs that killed Alex—is carted away.

  But then, across Mason’s handsome face creeps a sly little grin of satisfaction.

  45 seconds

  This part of west Texas is as flat as a pancake. Not a hillside for a hundred miles. And most buildings in Hobart top out at two floors.

  Tonight, that just wasn’t going to be tall enough for me.

  So I took the long drive to the giant water tower on the outskirts of town.

  I parked my truck. I hopped the rusty metal fence. Then I climbed up slow and steady, all the way to the top, over eighty feet high.

  Yes, I was breaking the law. But after months of robbing and shooting and evidence tampering, what was a little harmless trespassing?

  I settled in and aimed a pair of high-power binoculars at a multiacre farm about a half mile to the southwest. It belonged to a band of meth dealers that, I had on very good authority, was currently being surrounded on four sides by the FBI.

  Stevie, Nick, and J.D. had just arrived for my dinner party and were helping me set the table when I got the text from Mason. It read simply: Thinking of you .

  When I read it, I gasped. Then rushed out the door. Alone, I insisted.

  Mason often sent me sweet little text messages throughout the day, but he never, ever ended them with a smiley or winking face. He thought it was childish, not cute. So did I.

  Which meant, we both agreed, using one would make the perfect secret code to alert me that the FBI’s raid on the McKinley farm was a go.

  For safety’s sake, Mason had refused for weeks to give me any specific details about how the case against the McKinleys was developing or when the search and arrest warrants would come through. But recently he’d started dropping hints that it was close.

  I always knew this day would come. I had a feeling it might be tonight, but I didn’t know for certain until barely ninety minutes ago.

  From my elevated perch, I watched the whole thing happen. The multiple teams of SWAT agents. The lumbering armored vehicles. The shooting. The screaming.

  I prayed to God that Mason wouldn’t be harmed. I prayed that none of his colleagues would be, either.

  But I prayed that Abe McKinley and his boys…well, I prayed that they finally faced justice. Whatever that meant. However the man upstairs decided to mete it out.

  Which was the real purpose of my “hell of a plan” all along.

  Yes, we needed the money to pay back the bank to save our farm. Desperately.

  But more than anythin
g, I needed to make McKinley pay…for killing my boy.

  And tonight, I finally did, with the help of my then-fiancé and now-husband—who walked me through the ins and outs of a federal bank robbery investigation…who planted the assault rifles at the Golden Acres horse ranch…who “discovered” the location of the pay phone Hank used to call in the anonymous tip that turned up Stevie on camera, wearing a white wig, buying the Halloween masks.

  My “hell of a plan” worked like a hell of a charm.

  I’ve been sitting on the ledge of the water tower for well over an hour. Finally the shooting seems to have stopped for good. Agents are moving in and out of the farmhouse now with ease. So are crime scene techs, and paramedics.

  I even think I spy Abe McKinley himself being hauled out in cuffs, thrashing and carrying on like the madman he is.

  I’d love to have seen his face when he realized what was happening. And when he realized why. But I’ll settle for hearing about it from Mason secondhand.

  I should probably get back home. The show’s over, folks. I still have that dinner party to throw—and now my family really has something to celebrate.

  I’m sure Mason is going to be tied up at the scene for hours. But he’ll have to come home eventually. When he does, I’ll still be up, waiting. Beyond grateful.

  I put away my binoculars and stand, stretching out my cramped legs.

  But before I climb down, I take out a folded piece of paper from the pocket of my jeans. I carefully open it.

  It’s that drawing Alex made in first grade that I just discovered tonight, of him and me floating together in outer space, the destination of his dreams.

  As my eyes begin to water, all these months of pain and stress and work and agony finally coming to an end, I hold the paper to my chest.

  And I look up at the night sky, a blanket of blackness dotted with a trillion points of light.

  Alex, I think, you are floating in the stars. You made it after all. May you find peace and comfort and love.

  Someday, I will be there beside you. Just like you dreamed.

  But not yet.

  1 minute

  It’s my very favorite time of the day. The world outside my window is calm. Peaceful. Quiet.

  It’s not quite night but not yet dawn. And I’m not quite asleep but not yet awake.

  I snuggle a little more into Mason’s strapping arms. He mumbles happily and hugs my body tighter.

  I nuzzle his shoulder, just above the scar from the bullet wound he got well over a year ago now, during that fateful raid on the farm.

  The one that resulted in the arrest of Abe McKinley and three surviving associates, who were sentenced to a combined 136 years in federal prison, at the US Penitentiary in Beaumont, Texas.

  But all of that’s in the past now. Ancient history. Our family farm has been paid off. The guilty have been punished. And life has carried on.

  For the first time in a long while, I feel relaxed. Rested. At ease. I breathe in my husband’s sweet musk. I run my finger up and down his collarbone.

  I could stay like this forever, I think.

  And then, I hear something. A noise coming from inside the house.

  I could wake Mason to handle it. But should I?

  I glance at the clock on his side of the bed—his holstered sidearm and FBI badge beside it. It’s just after 5:00 a.m.

  No, I decide. I’ll let him sleep.

  I slip out of bed and tiptoe down the hall. The sound is getting louder.

  I finally reach a door that’s slightly ajar: the door to Alex’s old bedroom. The door I once couldn’t even fathom opening.

  But this morning, I drowsily push it open and enter without a second thought.

  I’m used to it by now, but the space is so different from how it once was. Fresh paint, different carpet, new furniture. It’s almost unrecognizable as my son’s former bedroom.

  Because now it’s my new daughter’s nursery.

  Little Abby is wailing in her crib. “There, there,” I coo, picking her up and bouncing her gently in my arms. “What’s wrong?”

  I fed her a few hours ago, so I know she can’t be hungry. I check her diaper; she doesn’t need to be changed. The room is a comfortable seventy-two degrees, so she can’t be hot or cold. What could it be?

  As Abby continues crying, I get an idea.

  I open the closet, revealing stacks and stacks of comic books. Alex’s beloved old comic books. Those, of course, I couldn’t throw away in a million years.

  I pick one at random and open to the first colorful page. As if by magic, Abby stops crying, captivated by the words and pictures, groping for them with her tiny hands.

  “You know,” I whisper, “your brother used to like these, too.”

  And then I begin to read.

  “The Amazing Spider-Man. This one’s called…‘Brand New Day.’”

  The 13-Minute Murder

  James Patterson

  with Shan Serafin

  Chapter 1

  Strolling through the halls of Harvard University, plotting the murder of one of its more notable students, mulling over my options—poison, piano wire, maybe a knife—I had to stop and ask myself the obvious question: How would Anna Karenina do it?

  I mean, what exactly is the most acceptable form of murder in today’s multicultural salad of etiquette? Victim under the wheels of a train? Too noticeable. Poison in a sandwich? Too risky. Sniper fire? No. Tomorrow would be windy.

  “Limits,” I muttered.

  If you’re going to kill the son of a mob boss in the middle of an Ivy League campus, you want to be decorous.

  “Crosswind is too high,” I added. “Second shot might nick him, but first one ends up in a bystander.”

  “Yeah,” Milt said. “It can’t be a distant hit.” He described the only option we had left in two simple words. “It’s gotta be arm’s reach.”

  “Arm’s reach.” We were in agreement.

  Milt was my partner of eleven years. Partner in crime. Partner in general skepticism. Partner who was about to split a hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar payday with me. We were now scouring the heart of the Harvard campus for its weakest ventricle, wandering the quad looking like creepy middle-aged men.

  “And scrambled eggs,” I added.

  “No, no, no,” said Milt. “Not that.”

  His job was analyzing the geometry: the brick walls, the brick arches, the backpacks, angles, shadows—any opportunity for our twenty-year-old victim to, let’s say, accidentally fall off a ledge. My job was to study the human element. I was checking the faces of the various students passing us. The redhead. The tall Korean. The non-giggling girls on a bench. The tardy jogger. I needed to look into their eyes and see them seeing tomorrow’s murder. I needed to see their reaction to what hadn’t happened yet.

  “I hate scrambled eggs,” said Milt.

  So did I. But we’d received no info about our target, except that he was enrolled in an economics class on Wednesdays at 11:00 a.m. in Harvard’s Massachusetts Hall, the building behind us.

  “We should cross the courtyard,” I said. “Get measurements.”

  We were planning a silent hit. The type that has your target die roughly five seconds after contact. That means we theoretically had five seconds to clear the area. We would then have about six minutes to escape from the widening circle of police response.

  Six minutes.

  We debated the numbers all morning, betting on the reaction times of everyone around us. Trying to identify the most prototypical student, I focused on the girl on the steps reading Proust, or possibly the guy behind her sketching a quasar. We wanted a guinea pig who might be representative of the types of panicking we could expect tomorrow.

  “Her,” said Milt, nodding to a girl in a floral-patterned dress. “She’s your test case. Go chat her up.”

  “Her? No.”

  “The body language says yes. It says yes to a tall glass of Michael Dennis Ryan.”

  “We’re onl
y here for the test. And no, I’m twice her age.”

  “Half plus seven. C’mon, man. These ladies are exactly like you. Socially dead. Sittin’ around having an imaginary conversation with a book.”

  “I don’t do that.”

  “Yeah, you do. Probably whisperin’ to Moby Dick right this moment, while not listening to me.”

  I wasn’t whispering. I was focused on a new development in our day. A little bit of good luck—or catastrophic luck, depending on how you saw it.

  “There’s the mark,” I said, nodding to a particular student we hadn’t expected to see yet. “And he’s not alone.”

  We were assigned to kill Goran Šovagović Mesic tomorrow. His description: twenty years old, tall, athletic, loud. And currently walking across the courtyard.

  “He’s totally alone,” said Milt.

  “Behind him.”

  “Where? I don’t…Oh.” Milt saw the two thick men lagging in the distance. “Yup. Croatian Mafia. They like baiting it.”

  Milt meant that the kid’s bodyguards followed well behind him. It meant these guys preferred a fight—essentially daring someone to come and start trouble. Yet it also meant we’d have access to a faster, cleaner hit.

  Cleaner—as long as he behaved the way we needed him to.

  Goran walked with his backpack slung over one broad shoulder, his cashmere V-neck snug. He looked exactly like what you’d expect an Eastern Bloc playboy to look like.

  “A Vronsky,” I murmured.

  “A what?”

  Vronsky, the gent who had lured Anna Karenina to the dark side. He was stately and well composed—with just the right array of anatomical features to inspire an alluring young lady of the 1800s to derail her own marriage. I didn’t say all this to Milt. I summarized the essence of it. “A guy who’ll always act in his own best interest.”

  “That’s every male in Massachusetts.”

  “He happens to do it in a way that helps us. He’s someone I can predict.”

  Milt pointed out that I’d never met him, that I knew zilch about him. That once again, I was making a big deal out of an irrelevant detail, instead of sticking to ballistics triangulation and trajectory analysis. He was right about most of it. But I was right about something, too—call it a gut feeling, or something based on years of experience: the murder of this kid wasn’t going to be simple.