by Roger Weston
The car alarm went off.
Several dogs started barking.
She started down the alley, walking fast. Tires squealed on the asphalt up ahead like a cougar in heat. She saw the reflection of flashing lights just before they took the corner into the alley.
How could they have gotten here so fast?
Sirens blared in the distance. A cop swerved into the alley, no siren to announce his approach.
Meg’s adrenaline hit her hard. Her fingers shook. Her knees rattled. She sucked in breaths faster than a hummingbird.
She practically flew over a fence into somebody’s back yard.
“Freeze!” a cop yelled.
Dogs in the neighborhood went crazy.
Meg bolted around the side of the house. In the backyard, she found a wood fence. She jumped against the fence to get a head start on climbing over. As her weight slammed into the wood, she heard the rotted post break at ground level and felt the fence sag. As she climbed over, she heard the approaching footsteps of the pursuing cop.
“Give it up.”
The dogs barked louder.
Meg dropped over to the other side of the fence and flashed down the street. The cop was fast and twenty yards behind her. Meg worked harder, but the cop’s heavy breathing got louder as he closed on her. Meg bounded across the street and slapped a couple of garbage cans over to make obstacles for her pursuer. She heard him grunt as he jumped them. She ran past homes and fences and parked cars.
Meg wanted to scream. She could not believe she was running from a cop. If they caught her, she would probably just disappear. Neil had told her that if they caught her, they would turn her over to the feds. The people who killed Eric would get her and she would disappear. Was Neil telling the truth? She thought about this in a flash, and fear pumped steam through her knees.
Meg knew she was running for her very life, and she sprinted faster than she thought possible. But the cop—that running demon—gained on her. His gasping breaths came closer. Meg hated gambling because of her father, but she had to throw the dice. Without slowing, Meg leapt over a three-foot fence into a front yard.
A big dog’s yelping behind her changed into ferocious barking, and Meg sprinted faster and with terror. Just feet behind her, the cop also cleared the low fence, and Meg felt his warm finger touch the back of her neck.
The cop shrieked in a way that Meg would never forget. A German Shepherd growl-barked in fury as it tore at the officer’s clothes. The dog was still attacking him as Meg went over the back fence.
Meg heard two shots, and then the animal went silent.
Meg sprinted down a side street and zipped down an alley. She never slowed down, but zigzagged through the neighborhood. She thought the cop was behind her but couldn’t hear him.
Meg leaped over fences. She tore across lawns. She flew down dark streets like a blur and avoided street lights. She heard the helicopter and saw the spot light. The glowing streak drifted toward her, beaming down from a giant mosquito that hovered less than a block away.
Meg looked over her shoulder for the first time and realized that the cop was not in sight. She pumped her elbows as she slowed down, and she dove to the gravel and slid underneath a car in the lot of an auto shop. Within a few moments, the thumping and pounding of the helicopter became deafening as the craft hovered over the lot and played the spotlight across the cars. The copter hovered in one place, the spotlight shifting around the lot and the adjoining properties.
“No.” Meg pounded her fist into the gravel. “No.”
The copter swung around the lot in a circle, churning up a dust storm, and Meg knew her luck was dry. But then the chopper drifted a block away.
Meg took a chance and ran.
CHAPTER 22
A few hours later, Meg tried again and succeeded in hot wiring an orange 70’s era Ford Pinto. She remembered hearing about the car when she was a little girl. It had been all over the news, how its infamously placed gas tank would explode on impact if involved in a minor fender bender. Unfortunately, she wasn’t in the position to be picky about her choice of a ride. Driving the Pinto, Meg headed south to Olympia and then turned north onto the Olympic Peninsula. In Tukwila, she stopped at an REI store and loaded up on camping gear. She was the first customer of the day. The manager was a gray-haired man who wore the company shirt. He inspected Meg longer than necessary. “Going camping, huh?”
“Just for tonight,” Meg said, looking at the floor.
“All by yourself?”
“My husband too.”
The man nodded. “That’s good. You either want to have a buddy or a shotgun in these parts, and you don’t look like the gun-toting type.”
Meg forced a smiled and handed over seven crisp hundred dollar bills.
Continuing north on the peninsula to The Olympic National Forest, she picked the most secluded campground she could find, deep in the old-growth rainforest. She set up her new tent and boiled some water on the propane stove. After having a quick bowl of instant oatmeal she lugged the wood box and a couple of file boxes from the trunk of the car into the tent.
After a three hour catnap, Meg got up and went over the files.
The first file she opened was called personal expenses. She discovered that Eric had taken many trips she’d not known about. When she thought he was in Seattle, he’d been in Brazil. When she thought he was in Portland, Oregon, he’d been in Paris, France. His expenses were carefully detailed. All flights were economy class (reservations under other names), cheap hotels (all cash), one meal per day max, sometimes nothing but a few cups of orange juice.
The next file was related to commercial real estate. At first she thought that they were the properties of Eric’s client, but then she saw that they were all owned by the Jones Family Trust. When she opened the file on the trust, she was shocked to find that she was the trustee. She now controlled a multi-million dollar real estate portfolio. Not only were there hotels in South America and strip malls in Los Angeles, there were also apartment buildings in Madrid, London, Seattle, and Maryland. As trustee, she was anonymous and yet had complete control of the properties and the profits.
Meg was shocked to realize that Eric’s biggest client—the one who had frequently called and required him to fly around the country to deal with property management issues—was actually Eric himself. She didn’t know who had actually made the calls, but the properties Eric had managed were his own.
Meg couldn’t believe it. In Eric’s other life, he’d grown wealthy, and he’d turned it all over to Meg a week before his death. A tear filled the corner of her eye, growing larger until it couldn’t be contained any longer. It burst and escaped, burning a path down her cheek.
“How could you be so cruel?” she said to Eric as if he was right in front of her. “I’ll be lucky to live out the week.” She dropped her head. “What an inheritance.”
After working through a wave of emotion, she went on to more files. Inside one file she found a scrawled hand-written note with the name Paul Priest on it and nothing else. Meg had never heard Eric mention anyone named Paul Priest. She continued searching. When she found the files on men that her husband had assassinated, porcupine needles filled her stomach.
Meg skimmed over forty files, the needles in her stomach piercing deeper. Her only consolation was that most of the targets had been evil men. A few files had the word: DECLINED written across them. It appeared that these were good people.
At least Eric had some standards, Meg thought. Other assassins wouldn’t have cared who their targets were. She knew this because Eric was obsessive about notes in the margins and thinking on paper. What kind of man kept these kinds of notes? Meg was sure that this was not standard procedure for an assassin, and one of Eric’s notations even stated that he really should quit his dangerous note-taking habit.
On Eric’s behalf, Tom Sikes had traced the identities of most of Eric’s employers. This had not been easy, and Sikes had been compensated with a hundred gr
and for each job. He had subcontracted out some of the work to people who did not have any idea who they were working for or why the information was required. But these people were talented and looking for a paycheck. They knew better than to ask questions. Even with several professionals on the job, it sometimes took Sikes as much as two or three months to connect messengers with their employers. Once the employers were tagged, however, the amount of information collected on them was disturbing. In fact, Meg soon realized the files only contained briefs on Eric’s employers. Detailed records and backup materials were only included for his last seven jobs. The complete files contained not just standard information on the employers, but also on dealings they’d had, associations, cell phone call transcripts, emails, who they met for lunch and what they talked about. The attention to detail reached into many areas of their lives and businesses. In at least one case, Eric had known the brand of deodorant the man used, what prescriptions he took, what time he took a walk at night, what route he generally took, and what kind of shoes he wore on these walks. There were pages and pages of details, including arrow charts illustrating the links in command chains leading from the man who queried Eric about the assassination back to the man who originated it. All of the personal information about each suspect was broken down into patterns and preferences. Meg was horrified.
The records of past employers included a well-known American billionaire, the CIA, and colonels from Argentina, South Korea, and the Ukraine. In each case, Eric’s investigative team had managed to trace the order back to the employer. Only Tom Sikes knew who they were working for or what the purpose was. Information was dug up on the employer until some damning secret surfaced. Then it was simply a matter of Eric blackmailing the people who had hired him. He demanded money and secrecy and, of course, they had to agree not to try to sanction him or to ever look for him again. If they broke any terms, they would be ruined. The key was to find a truly horrendous secret, but that turned out to be the easy part. People who hired assassins tended to have plenty to hide.
Eric had run an audacious and elaborate extortion scheme. He even blackmailed the Israeli Mossad, a sure death sentence, according to one of his hand-written remarks, but he pulled it off. Sort of. In fact, there were people who’d tried to kill him, and it wasn’t easy to trace the order even if he had a body. He’d done so twice, however, and leaked secrets that resulted in ruined careers including a suicide.
There was one file that had caused Eric more trouble than all the others, and it was for his latest employer. Sikes had not been able to trace the order in time, but because it paid $7 million dollars, Eric had decided to risk doing the job without researching the principal and the quarry. Although he’d collected the money, an assassination attempt on him came the following day. He’d survived, but he regretted that he broke his own rule and took a job before he had leverage. Worse still, Sikes had run into roadblocks in subsequent research. Taking the job had been his biggest mistake, and it was his final one. At last communication, Sikes had come up with a name—Harding Corporation—but he’d yet to dig up anymore than that. Evidently it was some obscure offshore corporation that was protected from public scrutiny, and their security measures had so far proved airtight.
Meg was thankful for her background in theatre, because as Eric’s heir, she had no doubt that even if she was never involved with another play, she would spend the rest of her life changing disguises and playing new roles. As Eric’s widow, she was a marked woman, and not even giving all the money away would help. In fact, she would need all the money just to live on the run. The needles in her stomach scratched unmercifully at her insides.
In the next box, Meg found four DVD’s marked “survival skills”. She stood up in the tent to stretch and went outside to the car. She got Eric’s laptop and connected it to the cigarette lighter adapter in the Pinto. She booted it up and inserted the first DVD. Eric’s image appeared on the screen. He looked directly into Meg’s eyes. He gave her instructions on how to live the life that he had forced her into. In detail he outlined how to survive. One thing Eric said more than once was “Do the unexpected.” Before Meg went to sleep, she learned to disassemble a pistol and put it back together. She did so numerous times.
In the morning, Meg practiced a couple of the self-defense moves that Eric showed her in the DVDs. Then she got out a stage makeup kit. There were a variety of possible shadow mixtures that she might have used to convey aging. She wished that she had a makeup person to do this for her, but those days were gone. First, she cleaned her face with cream to remove the dirt and old make-up that her face was coated with. She needed a clean pallet to work on. To convey contour, she applied dark foundation to her temples and cheeks, patting it in place. She applied more of the foundation from the base of her nostril to the line of her mouth and then used a lighter shade around the edges to bring out the contours she’d just created. Applying shadow along the top part of her eye lid, she worked highlighter in along with the rest. After painting below the eyes, she continued working on her face for what seemed like a long time, accentuating the frown wrinkle and chin wrinkle. Next, she blended her jowls to give the impression of two sagging bulges. Using a toothbrush, she applied graying material to her hair and eyebrows. She then used a comb to distribute the graying material more evenly in her hair. The effect of aging was dramatic. She put on a sun hat that she’d picked up at REI and a new pair of sunglasses.
She thought of Lee Strasberg. The great acting coach had said, “The human being who acts is the human being who lives.” His words carried new meaning for Meg.
She practiced walking across the campground, walking slower than normal, as though she was fighting joint pain. As she walked, she leaned forward, slightly craning her neck and gently touched her hairline as if she had a headache.
For a few minutes she frowned at the person in the portable mirror. Then she packed up her camp and headed for the Washington state ferry in Port Townsend. From Whidbey Island she headed to Anacortes. It was time to meet Sikes.
CHAPTER 23
South Seattle
Marcel hurried out of the manager’s office of the Rainer Valley Motel with a little slip of paper. The manager had called in shortly after ten p.m., wanting to know if there was a reward for Meg Coles, who he’d seen on the late evening news. He thought one of his guests might be Miss Coles although he wasn’t sure. And was there a reward or not? Her hair was different, but he was good with faces. With three separate news stories having been run on Meg, dozens of leads had been called in. Marcel had been in close contact with Kurt who was working the leads. None of them had paid off until now.
The boys had dusted the hotel room for prints, and they’d made a match. Meg Coles had rented out the room, and left something behind. An etched impression was left behind on the second page of the thin motel scratch paper pad. Meg was heavy handed. Her note read, Anacortes to Orcas. Tom.
Marcel slid into his car. The wheels screeched as he raced out of the parking lot.
CHAPTER 24
Anacortes, Washington State
Meg drove her car onto the big green and white Washington State ferry. After parking on the main deck, she climbed the stairs and found a window seat. As the ferry rumbled into Puget Sound, gray ragged whitecaps slapped its hull. The ferry swayed back and forth in the wake of a cargo ship as it worked its way deeper into the sound. Meg’s eyes fixated on the scene that surrounded her—steep, tree-covered islands with yellow crumbling sea cliffs. She hoped that Sikes would show her what to do and how to stay safe—but she wouldn’t trust him. Maybe she didn’t even need his help. She would only trust herself.
Rocky shores strewn with driftwood and secluded homes with private beaches and lush lawns passed into her view. This was another world. Maybe she could hide out here. With all the money Eric left her, she could afford an island home. The ferry glided past two tug boats which were guiding a log boom that stretched as long as a football field. She imagined herself getting a job on
one of them or on a fishing boat. It would be a great way to hide from the world and stay alive. She could even buy a boat of her own now. Yes, that would be the best way to disappear. As soon as she got these thugs off her back, she would come back here and look into buying a boat. The thought made her relax a little. It wouldn’t be a bad life.
Turbulent waters alongside the shore of Orcas Island slapped boats at their moorings. Houses perched over rocky shores and sandy gray beaches clutched crumbling cliffs. The ferry slipped in to a cage of tall pilings and stopped with a jolt. Meg’s head smacked against the Pinto’s headrest. She put the car in gear and drove down the ferry’s ramp. Gray gloom filled the sky and firs, cedars, madronas, and alders reached over the road as if they wanted to grab her.
When Meg broke out of the tunnel of trees, she saw a small dated two-story building on the edge of town. She pulled into the parking lot and saw two entrances. A sign for an accountant hung by one; the other was unmarked. She went in that one. At the top of the stairs, she tried to open a glass door, but couldn’t. A woman inside hunched over her desk shot her head up. She pressed an intercom button and said, “Your name?”
“Meg Coles.”
The woman glanced down at her desk for a second.
“I’m here to see Tom Sikes,” Meg said.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“He’s a friend of my husband’s.”
A buzzer rang out, and Meg pushed the glass door open. Inside, the sweet fragrance of cigar overtook her senses.
“What’s this about?” The woman’s expression revealed her surprise.