“Is that right?” Shaw asked, a slight sneer in his expression. “It’s not your name on the wanted posters, Wolff. If my guess is right, you’ll be out of the country in the next twelve hours.”
“And so will you, if you’re smart. What makes you think I’m so protected from fallout?”
“Your kind always are. Just give us the money, and we’ll be out of here.”
Wolff returned Shaw’s stare, slowing smiling and nodding. “I’ve got three briefcases, each with a passport, false identity cards, and $100,000. Think you can live on that for a year or so, Shaw?”
“Back off, Wolff,” Shaw said. “It’s probably five percent of what you got.”
“First Sergeant,” Wolff said, looking past the driver into the backseat, “would you mind giving me a hand?”
“Get the money, Otto, and let’s get the hell out of here,” Shaw ordered.
Otto Krueger exited the vehicle, walked with Wolff several steps to the BMW, and retrieved the three briefcases.
“The black one is yours, First Sergeant,” Wolff said, opening the briefcase to show the money and papers, “gray for Shaw, and the brown is Jeffs’. The new IDs are inside. Do you know where you’re going?”
“We’ve made plans,” Krueger answered, nodding.
“Together?”
Otto Krueger glanced toward the Jeep and then back at Wolff. “Yeah, right. Like I’m going to hang with these losers.”
“See you next time, Otto. You’re a good man to have around in a tough situation. I’ll look forward to working with you again,” Wolff said, extending his hand to shake Otto’s.
“Don’t count on it, Wolff, or whoever you are. I trust you less than I trust them, and that ain’t much,” he said, turning and quickly covering the distance to the Jeep.
From the open window of the driver’s seat, Shaw voiced a few expletives and spun his wheels as he left the parking lot. Wolff’s last view of the Shasta Brigade leadership was of Commander Shaw starting down the access road to I-5 North.
Wolff entered his BMW and drove out of the lot toward the I-5 South on-ramp. He paused at the top of the ramp, looking north toward the tawny colored Jeep. Reaching into his glove box, he extracted the same small transistor control box he’d used while playing golf with Shaw some three months earlier. Wolff glanced again at the rapidly departing vehicle, extended the antennae, and triggered the signal.
The resulting fireball, some half-mile north on I-5, destroyed the Jeep Cherokee and a small Honda Civic that Shaw was in the process of overtaking. After viewing the carnage for a few seconds, Wolff threw the BMW into gear and entered the freeway, heading south toward the San Francisco International Airport.
“Air France is pleased to announce the boarding of Flight 83 for Paris De Gaulle. We will now begin boarding our first-class passengers, if you please.”
The sunset was magnificent as usual, but John Henry Franklin had come to accept the spectacular evening display as routine. Seated comfortably on the veranda of his home at Sea Ranch, he quietly rocked in his chair, contemplating his losses and the evaporation of his former international political alliances, none of whom had bothered to return his calls for over two weeks. The disappearance of Jean Wolff and the unauthorized withdrawal of over $30 million from the Cayman Island account that had been used to fund the patriot movement were the latest evidences of the collapse of Franklin’s empire. His control over events and people had diminished considerably. But not for long, he comforted himself. As Franklin saw it, money always brought out the best in people, and if nothing else, John Henry Franklin had plenty of money.
“Coffee, Senor?” Consuela asked.
“Yes, thank you,” Franklin replied.
Consuela stepped to the small food cart and poured a cup of coffee, adding the usual two spoons of sugar and a dab of cream, along with the touch of whiskey John Henry Franklin had always enjoyed on these evenings when he sat on the veranda and allowed time for reflection.
“From Carmen, para su placer,” she whispered.
“Excuse me?” Franklin said.
“Nada, Senor. Just a special blend from my sister’s daughter-my niece, Carmen.”
“Ah, well, please thank her for me, Consuela.”
“Si, Senor, but you can thank her yourself, Mr. Franklin,” she said, pushing the cart through the double French doors.
Puzzled, Franklin ignored her parting comment, thinking she was talking to herself. The woman had been acting strangely of late. Perhaps she needed a vacation, or better yet, early retirement. He returned his gaze toward the ocean, watching as the sun concluded its daily journey over the United States of America. Thereafter, somewhere beyond the International Dateline, and 7,500 miles south-southeast, it would begin its new day rising above the eastern shores of New Zealand.
At that same moment, Daniel Rawlings and Nicole Bentley were relaxing on the wrap-around deck of Dan’s father’s home in the Bay of Islands. The trip to New Zealand had been prescribed by Dan for the convalescent benefit of the reluctant patient. Nicole had gone to her sister’s home in Connecticut, where she had spent three weeks with her nieces and nephews and regained her strength. Then came Dan’s offer of a trip to New Zealand to meet his father and the New Zealand branch of the family. In addition to almost immediately liking the beautiful and gracious woman, Tom Rawlings had seen the healing that Nicole had brought into Dan’s life, and for the first time in several years, Tom could see that Dan looked forward to his future. The elder Rawlings couldn’t have been more pleased for his son.
Shortly after dawn the next morning, the gardener found John Henry Franklin still seated in his rocking chair, dead, with a ghastly picture of a truck full of dead Mexican immigrants pinned to the lapel of his expensive silk smoking jacket. The old gardener failed in his frantic attempt to find Consuela, the housekeeper and domestic help manager, to report the tragedy.
Consuela, now well-rested and content in her comfortable Mazatlan retreat-a place she had acquired from the proceeds of her years of service to her deceased employer-had no doubt that John Henry Franklin had been unable to thank her niece, Carmen, for her unique coffee blend. His kind of devil, Consuela thought, as she prayerfully fingered her Rosary beads, does not mingle with the saints.
Epilogue
Rumsey, California
December, 2012
From the hillside above and behind Jack’s home, Dan watched the clouds form patterns over the western slopes that ringed Rumsey Valley. Looking down the hill at the neatly kept, twenty-acre almond orchard, Dan could see, in his mind’s eye, a six-year-old boy running after a man as they worked to change the sprinkler pipe. The boy, struggling to keep up and to carry his share of the burden, wrestled with the eighteen-foot sections of aluminum pipe, which were not heavy but unwieldy for such a young lad to maneuver between the symmetrical rows of almond trees. Dan continued to envision the scene as the older man watched the lad, his young grandson and protege, who was the latest in the line of pioneer ancestors who had settled the valley many years earlier.
As the boy and his grandfather worked together, the man would relate the history of their pioneer forebears-tales of struggle in the early days, of victory and failure over the elements, of life and death. And the voices became real to the young lad. Those voices were muted now, put to rest with the completion of Voices in My Blood and the immortalization of those whom he had come to love vicariously. The remaining voice, now seemingly heard again as Dan continued to look down at the tidy orchard, was that of the old man as he spoke to the boy.