Side by Side Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Praise for Inside out and The Last Family

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Preview of Too Far Gone

  About the Author

  Also by John Ramsey Miller

  Copyright Page

  For Susan

  Praise for the novels of John Ramsey Miller

  Inside Out

  “John Ramsey Miller’s Inside Out needs to come with a warning label. To start the story is to put the rest of your life on hold as you obsessively turn one page after the other. With a story this taut, and characters this vivid, there’s no putting the book down before you’ve consumed the final word. A thrilling read.”

  —John Gilstrap

  “Inside Out is a great read! . . . As many twists and turns as running serpentine through a field of fire and keeps us turning pages as fast as a Blackhawk helicopter’s rotors! Set aside an uninterrupted day for this one; you won’t want to put it down.”

  —Jeffery Deaver

  “[Full of] complications and surprises . . . Miller gifts [his characters] with an illuminating idiosyncrasy. This gives us great hope for future books as well as delight in this one.”

  —Drood Review of Mystery

  “Twists and turns on every page keep you in phenomenal suspense until the last page. Superb novel.”

  —Rendezvous

  The Last Family

  “Keeping a jaded reviewer up all night turning pages is no easy trick. But first-novelist Miller has done it with vivid characterizations and clever twists in this relentless thriller. . . . One word of advice: read The Last Family only when you can sleep in the next morning.”

  —People

  “From page 1 you’ll be caught in this gripping, taut thriller about a former Drug Enforcement Agency operative who is as strong a villain as we’ve read since Hannibal Lecter. There isn’t a boring page. . . . Five stars.”

  —USA Today

  “An attention-grabbing thriller that likely will find a home in Hollywood. The briskly paced page-turner pits former DEA superagents against each other in a taut dance of death and revenge.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “This is a right fine debut thriller based on a great idea.”

  —New York Daily News

  “Fast-paced, original, and utterly terrifying . . . I lost sleep reading the novel, and then lost even more sleep thinking about it. Martin Fletcher is the most vividly drawn, most resourceful, most horrifying killer I have encountered. Hannibal Lecter, eat your heart out.”

  —Michael Palmer

  “The best suspense novel I’ve read in years!”

  —Jack Olsen

  “Martin Fletcher is one of the most unspeakably evil characters in recent fiction. . . . A compelling read.”

  —Booklist

  “The author writes with a tough authority and knows how to generate suspense.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Suspenseful . . . Keeps the reader guessing with unexpected twists.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Miller has written a splendid thriller and keeps the reader enthralled.”

  —Southland Times (New Zealand)

  “The Last Family is a good non-stop thriller that is easily consumed in a single, satisfying gulp.”

  —Canberra Times (Australia)

  “A spring beach read if ever there was one.”

  —Courier Mail (Queensland, Australia)

  “In an amazing and rewarding first novel, John Ramsey Miller has crafted a terrifying tale of double crosses, coldly calculated gambles with the lives of innocents and their carefully planned executions.”

  —Roanoke Times & World News

  “Miller’s first novel is an ambitious tale . . . the constant action and twists and turns of the deceptive plot make this a violently entertaining read.”

  —Toronto Star

  “In a book where so many characters are prepared to die to achieve their ends, readers will be kept on the edge of their seats wondering which ones will.”

  —Ottawa Citizen

  “Miller’s fast-paced writing and his behind-the-scene look at one of the nation’s toughest federal law enforcement agencies deliver suspense fiction in overdrive.”

  —Memphis Commercial Appeal

  “Miller provides enough action for any Steven Seagal movie. . . . You savvy thriller readers who make a practice of second-guessing the author will have your work cut out for you. Some of Miller’s plot twists look like a long, easy pop fly coming at you in center field, only to dart around and pop you in the back of the head.”

  —Charlotte Observer

  Acknowledgments

  This book is also dedicated to all of the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces who, working as a unit, make freedom for us all a reality.

  Thanks to the usual suspects; my friends and family inclusive.

  My editor, Kate Miciak; my agent, Anne Hawkins; and my readers and friends (some of whom are in picture form on my website).

  Just before I started this book, my wife Susan was diagnosed with breast cancer. A year after the initial diagnosis, she had undergone two surgeries, twenty-four weeks of chemotherapy and intensive radiation therapy, as well as reconstruction surgery. She never doubted she would get to the other side of it, thanks to the professionals we drew. I wasn’t much help, though I offered what moral support I could. On chemo days I would set up my laptop on a rolling tray and hack at the weeds while Susie absorbed whatever cocktail they h
ad prepared. Thanks to the efforts of a lot of people, Susan is now cancer-free.

  So I want to express my heartfelt thanks to all of the doctors and the staff at Northeast Medical Center’s George A. Batte Cancer Center in Concord, N.C., who saved my dear Susan. Thank you, surgeon Richard Ozment, oncologist Thomas A. Steffens, reconstructive surgeon David Klein, and the ever-smiling oncology study nurse Rebecca Lyon Witkowski, who acted as our interpreter throughout. Also thanks to the dear Dr. Wanda Crowley, our glorious cheerleader GP.

  Also to Jill and all of the wonderful friends Susan works with at Wachovia, who made sure she didn’t stay at work when she felt bad, and to our friends and neighbors who sewed by hand (and secret) a friendship quilt for Susan.

  1

  Fast-moving clouds were mirrored in the puddles of standing water left by a late afternoon rainstorm. Halogen fixtures set on tall poles spaced fifty feet apart painted the landscape an unholy orange-blue.

  A solitary figure dressed entirely in black slipped through a vertical slit in the tall hurricane fencing topped with loops of concertina wire. The fence surrounded a forty-acre lot beside a train yard where several hundred steel containers had been stacked and ordered with Mondrian-like precision. Here and there the painted steel skins of some of the boxes showed brown fingers of rust from years of exposure to the weather.

  The man dressed in black, a thirty-year-old whose name was Patrick Taylor, slipped a hand-drawn diagram from inside his jacket and checked the inventory numbers on the closest container, then moved swiftly to the next one. Hours earlier, he had copied the coordinates from a scrap of paper he’d found secreted in Colonel Bryce’s safe. Opening his cell phone, he dialed a number he called only when he was alone and in a secure location. As he waited for the number to be answered he inspected the padlock using a small Mag-Lite. The lock was substantial; it would take some coaxing to defeat.

  When his handler didn’t answer, Taylor assumed he must be on another call, and allowed himself to be routed to a voice mailbox. At the request to leave a message, he said, “This is Dog. I’m hooking up the thumper now. Just going to take a peek to make sure it’s all in this box, then I’m leaving it up to you guys.” He closed the phone and pocketed it.

  He attached the GPS tracker to the steel foundation by means of a magnet. The tracker would allow the special task force to follow the shipment to its destination. Maybe that team would grab the receiving parties when they took possession, or perhaps they’d follow the cargo to the end users—terrorists all over the world and homegrown militias with the resources to buy the latest devices of death and destruction. Taylor’s sole responsibility was to stay close to the colonel, to collect the names of people the man met with, then report to his handler. Locating the first shipment of high-tech weaponry was a godsend—icing on the cake.

  Taylor had been undercover for eight long years, most of those spent building a faultless background and credentials for an operation like this. Eight years of being someone he wasn’t just so he could be of use to his government. He had spent the last three of those eight years getting close to one man and gaining his trust. Three years to find out Colonel Hunter Bryce, a decorated hero, could actually betray his country for money.

  Flashlight between his teeth so he could see, Taylor used his lock picks to open the padlock. As soon as he opened the door, he saw that the container was empty. Well, empty except for a sheet of plastic, which had been laid out like carpeting over the rough plywood floor.

  The sound of breathing alerted Taylor to the fact that someone was standing just off his left shoulder, at his seven o’clock.

  “Lieutenant Taylor?” a familiar voice asked. “What are you doing here?”

  Ice filled Taylor’s stomach. He turned, already deciding what his next words were going to be. He had not expected to run into Colonel Bryce, but nobody could think faster on his feet than Patrick Taylor. The colonel’s face was lit with ambient light from the halogen fixtures, so Taylor could see the quizzical smile the colonel was wearing. Taylor put on a confident smile and started. “Colonel Bryce, I know you’re—”

  The razor-sharp blade of the survival knife Colonel Bryce had carried during his years in the field severed Taylor’s windpipe, his jugular vein and carotid artery. Taylor crumpled, landing hard on the floor of the empty container, the thud of his body echoing within the space.

  Colonel Hunter Bryce used his gloved left hand to wipe the fine droplets of blood from his face. He cleaned his blade on Taylor’s pant leg before he replaced the weapon in its nylon scabbard.

  The colonel retrieved the GPS tracker that Taylor had placed and put it in his victim’s open mouth. Then he grabbed Taylor’s collar and dragged him deeper into the steel container.

  Before Bryce left, he stopped and spit on Taylor’s face. Every man the colonel killed won his mark of disdain. Then he walked off into the shadows, whistling softly.

  Two hours later, the ATF and FBI agents followed the GPS signal to the locked container. They noticed the fresh blood leaking from the closed door, pooling on the ground, so they opened it.

  The night watchman told the agents he’d heard someone whistling in the darkness out beyond the fence.

  “I think it was what the seven dwarfs in Snow White sang,” he told them. “‘Whistle While You Work.’ ”

  2 Charlotte, North Carolina

  Eleven months later

  Twelve across.

  Five-letter word for good-bye.

  ADIEU

  Lucy Dockery put the paper and pencil down on the bedside table. She liked solving crossword puzzles, but filling in words from clues was too easy. She loved better to build them from scratch, putting her thoughts and feelings into short clues. After she constructed a puzzle, she would file it away in her cabinet, unsolved. The inch-deep stack of pages was a journal of Lucy’s life for the past year.

  From her earliest memories, her parents always seemed to be working the crossword puzzles in The New York Times, other newspapers and magazines. Much to their delight, Lucy had begun crafting her own puzzles at an early age to entertain them. Their praise helped her build her self-confidence to bridge a painful shyness.

  Later she made crosswords for Walter. She designed them so that he had to first solve the puzzle and then play with the order of the words until they made up a coherent message. She remembered the one that worked out to say, Congratulations sir after many fun years of playing around with that wand comma a baby is growing inside Lucy. Eight down was _____ in the sky with diamonds. Although Walter loved a challenge, Lucy felt no need to make them complicated or too difficult.

  She still wrote puzzle-grams to Walter, but he was no longer able to solve them.

  As a child, she’d been told that any time you say good-bye to somebody it could be the last good-bye. She had never really believed that something that happened in a fraction of a second could change everything in her life forever. You automatically tell a loved one to “be careful” until it becomes as meaningless as “see you later.” Walter would often reply with, “But dear, I was looking forward to being reckless.”

  Lucy was bone-weary. Looking back, it seemed to her that her energy and enthusiasm for life had been boundless before the accident. And while Walter was beside her, she had felt invincible and filled to the brim with anticipation of a future—an ideal family nestled in a perfect world.

  She knew other mothers of small children complained of tiredness due to washing, cooking, cleaning, and all the million things you had to do daily, but the weakness Lucy felt was different. Lucy didn’t have to cook, or clean, or even watch her own child if she didn’t feel like it. And when did she feel like it? How many times had she—while propped up in her bed, or lying on the couch—watched like a member of an audience while her son interacted with one of his sitters, her father, or the maid?

  Lucy and her father shared the services of a woman who cleaned their houses three times a week. She had a list of competent babysitters to choose from.
She subscribed to a gourmet service and once a week a chef prepared all of Lucy’s and her father’s main meals and put them into the refrigerator or the freezer, labeled.

  Lucy had a very nice house, five thousand square feet of modern appliances and every convenience. She had a BMW X5 and a Lexus sedan in the garage. There was more than enough room in the place for her and Elijah, and everything was paid for, thanks to Walter’s obsessive desire to take care of his family. Her husband had carried a disability policy as well as one that paid all of his debts upon his death. He had a third insurance policy for two million dollars that carried an accidental-death clause that doubled that amount. Thanks to Walter, Lucy had plenty of everything except what she needed most—Walter.

  She’d been an odd-looking youngster, with big aqua eyes, a high forehead, and a narrow chin. The boys in the first grade called her “alien.” As she grew older that oddness evolved into “exotic.” Even when teenage boys suddenly found her attractive, she had still felt like an odd duck. She had dated several boys in high school, gone steady twice, but she had never fallen in love but once. She knew that there was only one Walter Dockery, and anyone coming into her life after him would be less.

  For three months after the accident, Lucy had lain in bed in the darkened bedroom she had once shared with Walter, crying and taking pills to make her sleep. For the year since, Lucy’s depression had taken the form of apathy, chronic fatigue, and difficulty making decisions. Her doctor said her depression would run its course as her grief lessened. He even had a list of the steps she could expect to pass through, like it was a disease with a progression of symptoms and even medicines to make it bearable.

  Modern people took a pill to combat grief. Indians suffering the same pain took off a finger. Lucy didn’t take mood-altering pills because Elijah was her most effective medication.

  Since he had been an infant when Walter died, Elijah wouldn’t remember anything about his father except what he was told.

  At seventeen months her baby was walking and talking a blue streak. He used recognizable words, but mostly they came out embedded in a string of nonsense, which Lucy knew was his attempt to mimic conversation.