Free The Nomination by William G. Tapply Page A

could keep going.
    You did whatever you had to do to stay alive, and you hoped that tomorrow, not today, would be the day you died. You killed so you wouldn’t get killed. You set huts on fire, and sometimes you slaughtered women and children and old men, because if you didn’t, they might kill you.
    Larrigan himself had not done that. But he knew, if he’d been in the right situation, he would have. In a heartbeat. Without giving it a second thought. And without remorse.
    The only other way was to blow your brains out. Plenty of boys did it that way.
    That’s how it was. Unless they’d been there, they had no right to judge.
    But, of course, they would.
    He turned to Moran. “Only four people know, and two of them are sitting in this car and one of them most likely died a long time ago.”
    â€œLeaving Bunny,” said Moran.
    â€œGet those fucking photos, Eddie.”
    Moran looked at him. “You really think Bunny’s gonna—?”
    â€œDo what you have to do,” said Larrigan.

    BLACKHOLE SAT IN his nondescript Subaru and watched the judge’s Lincoln Town Car, parked in the corner of the McDonald’s lot, through his zoom lens. When the unidentified man opened the passenger door and slid in, he snapped one picture in the brief flash of the dome light. Hard to say if the man’s face would show up, although the computer techs could do wonders with blurry, underexposed digital photographs. Not that it mattered. Blackhole had already photographed the license plate of the Ford Explorer the man had parked on the other side of the lot. Identifying him would be no problem.
    The two of them sat in the front seat for twelve minutes—from 6:42 to 6:54 by Blackhole’s watch. From where he watched, he couldn’t see what they were doing. Then the stranger opened the passenger door, stepped out, and went back to his Explorer.
    Blackhole snapped several photos of the judge’s friend in the light from the parking lot floods. He looked to be somewhere in his fifties. Five-ten, about one-seventy-five. Thinning hair, bony face. Bulky around the shoulders. He walked with his arms held a little bit away from his body. Wrestlers carried their arms that way on account of their overdeveloped upper bodies. But this man wasn’t awkward or muscle-bound. There was a smooth efficiency to the way he moved. Graceful, almost, like a confident, well-conditioned athlete.
    Most people, civilians, they wouldn’t take a second look at this guy, and afterward, they wouldn’t remember him, or if they did, they wouldn’t be able to describe him. He was nondescript, ordinary. He blended in—which, of course, was the whole point.
    Blackhole knew the type, though. He knew a lot of men who carried themselves like this one. They were highly trained. Former SEALs or Special Forces, civilians now, still valued for their particular skills. Dangerous men. Men without normal compunctions.
    Blackhole himself was one such man.
    The Town Car and the Explorer started up, flashed on their headlights, and headed for the parking lot exit at the same time. The judge turned left, which, Blackhole knew, would take him home. The Explorer turned right.
    Blackhole was briefly tempted to follow the Explorer. But his orders were to stick to the judge, so that’s what he did.
    Perhaps that would change now that he had finally come up with something worth reporting. Blackhole’s job was to gather intelligence, not to judge it or interpret it. But he knew that Federal District Court judges didn’t meet highly trained, dangerous men in the shadowy corner of a McDonald’s parking lot unless they were up to something.

CHAPTER 5
    E ddie Moran drove slowly past the little square modular home. It was nearly three in the morning, and this was his fifth trip past the place since he’d gotten to Key Largo late that afternoon.
    On his first pass, Moran had observed that the trash still