John Ramsey Miller by The Last Family

Author:The Last Family
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307785268
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-01-11T22:00:00+00:00

28

KURT STEINER DROVE UP MAGAZINE TOWARD THE GARDEN DISTRICT. The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started, the windshield clearing the final drops of water. He thought about the money in the trunk, and for a split second he fantasized that he would leave for the airport and simply be gone. He could be home early with a king’s ransom. Then he dismissed the thought and cursed himself for such a treacherous idea.

He turned his mind back to the airport in Dallas, where he had been dispatched on an errand by Martin. As usual he had no idea why the trip was important, because Martin never told him more than he absolutely had to know. Kurt didn’t blame Martin; secrecy kept him alive.

Martin put seemingly unrelated pieces of an operation into play at different times. The envelope affair a month before had been another mission that had made sense only to Martin. Kurt had been dispatched to Pueblo, Colorado, armed with an address that matched a barren-looking, garbage-strewn, and junk-stacked piece of land in the middle of nowhere with a distressed-looking trailer parked on it. Martin had given him an unsealed business envelope that held ten crisp ten-dollar bills, and a separate manila envelope with what appeared to be an advertising brochure for a condominium project. There was no vehicle in evidence, and no shade, except for a few small trees with a minimal amount of leaves on them.

He had tapped at the door, and an elderly man holding a shotgun had appeared behind the torn screen. The old man, dressed in baggy jeans, didn’t allow Kurt inside but placed the shotgun against the wall. He opened the door slightly, held out his hand, took the envelope with the cash, and opened it to count the bills. Then he took the manila envelope and peeked inside, nodded to himself, and closed the door in Kurt’s face. They had not exchanged a single word.

He was sure he wasn’t being followed, but he glanced in the rearview mirror, watching the faces and mannerisms of the people moving through, and thinking about Martin. He had met Martin while he’d been at Fort Benning learning counterinsurgency techniques as a representative of the police from a South American country. Kurt’s father was a retired diplomat and had vast cattle holdings in Argentina.

From the moment the two men had met, Kurt had felt drawn to the older man, the instructor. In Martin Fletcher he saw the kind of man one could give loyalty to. Martin was a man who deserved loyalty; he was a master of his own mind, spirit, and body—a born leader. In short, Martin was someone to swear an oath to. My loyalty is my life. Martin had taught him so much that no one, not his schools, his grandfather, his father, nor the army, had. He had learned to ignore pain, to kill without compassion, to create multiple identities and disguises, and to live dual lives comfortably. His lives were like little compartments, each with a different story, different feelings, and different motivations.

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