Tightrope

by Amanda Quick

  Jasper grunted and shuddered under the impact. He dropped the gas canister. It landed on the mezzanine floor. Everyone except Matthias froze, waiting for the fatal hissing sound that would spell doom for all of them.

  Nothing happened.

  “The fire,” Raina shouted. “It’s spreading to the tablecloth.”

  “Damned if I’ll let that bastard destroy my club,” Luther said.

  He headed for the mezzanine stairs. The two security guards leaped up to follow him.

  Amalie dangled in midair, both of her hands wrapped around the railing. It was a long drop to the floor—not a killing fall, Matthias thought, but far enough to break an ankle.

  “I could really use a ladder,” Amalie said.

  “Hang on,” Matthias said.

  He holstered his gun and crossed the space to a point just beneath her dangling feet.

  “Let go,” he said. “I’ll catch you.”

  She didn’t question him. She released her grip on the railing and fell straight into his arms. He staggered a little under her weight but he didn’t lose his balance.

  “I’ve got you,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said. “You do.”

  He set her lightly on her feet. She turned in his arms. He pulled her close and tightened his grip on her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into him.

  Up on the balcony Luther and the security guards quickly beat out the flames.

  Raina looked at Matthias.

  “How did you know the canister wasn’t going to explode and release the poison gas?” she asked.

  Matthias thought about the harsh dissonance in the thundering frequencies of Jasper Calloway’s threat.

  “He lied,” Matthias said.

  Luther appeared at the mezzanine railing and looked down. He was grim-faced.

  “The FBI won’t be getting any answers out of Calloway,” he announced. “And neither will anyone else.”

  Matthias released Amalie. “Dead?”

  “Not yet, but he will be soon,” Luther said. “One of my men is calling an ambulance, but I doubt if it will get here in time.”

  Matthias took the stairs to the mezzanine level two at a time.

  Jasper Calloway was sprawled on his back on the floor. The pool of blood around him was spreading rapidly. The shots had punched through his leather vest. One of the security guards was trying to stanch the flow but it was clear that there was no hope.

  Luther crouched beside the dying man.

  Jasper coughed. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. He opened his eyes partway.

  “How did you know?” he managed in a grating whisper.

  “That there was no poison gas?” Luther said. “Mr. Jones has a talent for detecting lies.”

  “I underestimated both of you,” Jasper said hoarsely. “Figured you both for a couple of ambitious mob guys who were trying to expand their business operations. Thought you were in over your heads. But you’re not mob, are you? Who the hell are you?”

  “Why did you do it, Calloway?” Luther said, not answering the question. “It wasn’t just about the money, was it?”

  Jasper grunted. “You know what they say about revenge.”

  “Something about digging two graves before you set out on that path, as I recall,” Luther said.

  “It’s a drug,” Jasper said. “At the start it gives you a purpose. A reason to live. Eventually it takes over your life.”

  “You don’t have a lot of time left,” Luther said. “You can undo some of the damage. Clear your conscience a little. Who is the real client for the cipher machine?”

  Jasper managed a harsh chuckle. “You and Jones are agents, aren’t you? Hell of a cover you’ve created. Got to give you credit for that. I never saw through it.”

  “This is your last chance to make things right,” Luther said. “Who did you plan to sell the cipher machine to?”

  “Now, why would I make it easy for you?” Jasper tried to laugh and ended up choking on blood. “Here’s where things get interesting. My revenge isn’t finished.”

  Matthias got the familiar chill across his senses. The frequencies and the wavelengths were distorted by impending death but there was no mistaking the energy that shivered in Jasper’s words.

  “He’s telling the truth,” Matthias said. “At least what he believes to be the truth.”

  Luther leaned over Jasper and looked into the dying man’s eyes.

  “What did you mean when you said that your revenge wasn’t finished?” Luther said.

  “Every good horror movie ends with the promise of a sequel,” Jasper said. “Just wish I was going to be around to see what happens next.”

  The last spark of life in his eyes died. Matthias knew he was gone.

  Luther’s jaw tightened. He got to his feet.

  Sirens sounded in the distance.

  “That will be the ambulance and the cops,” Luther said.

  Matthias looked at the briefcase. Without a word he crossed to the table and unlatched the case.

  There was one object inside—a small leather-bound notebook. Matthias took it out.

  “Are we going to give this to the FBI along with the cipher machine?” he asked.

  “We’ll make that decision after we examine it,” Luther said.

  “Help.” Vincent’s Hyde’s deep, resonant voice boomed through the club. “Somebody call a doctor. I’m bleeding. I may be dying.”

  Matthias went to the railing and looked down. Hyde was downstairs, clutching his head with one hand. His elegant jacket and crisp white shirt were rumpled and bloodstained.

  “Mr. Hyde,” Amalie exclaimed. She rushed forward to grip Hyde’s arm. “You must sit down. Let me help you.”

  Raina looked at him. “There’s an ambulance on the way, Mr. Hyde.”

  “That is very good news,” Vincent said. He sank down onto a chair. “I have no idea what happened to me. I must have tripped and struck my head.”

  Matthias leaned over the railing. “What’s the last thing you remember, Hyde?”

  “What?” Vincent craned his neck to peer up at the mezzanine. “Oh, it’s you, Jones. All I recall is that a waiter brought me an urgent message from my chauffeur. Something about a studio executive waiting to talk to me in private outside in the gardens. I remember walking down a path and . . . that’s it. The next thing I knew I was waking up under an orange tree with this dreadful headache.”

  “Got a hunch Jasper Calloway lured you into the gardens and knocked you out,” Matthias said.

  “My chauffeur?” Vincent’s eyes widened in shock. “He attacked me?”

  “Looks like it,” Matthias said.

  “After all I did for him,” Vincent moaned. “I should have known he’d turn on me one day.”

  Chapter 53

  “I, for one, will be very happy when those FBI special agents get here to take charge of the cipher machine,” Amalie said. “I can’t wait until it’s a long, long way from Burning Cove.”

  The four of them were gathered around one of the cocktail tables on the main floor of the club. She and Matthias occupied one side of the booth. Raina and Luther sat across from them. They were alone now. Dawn was rising over Burning Cove.

  A short time ago the police had taken charge of Calloway’s body. Luther had sent his staff home to recover from the drama. Vincent Hyde’s head wound had been dealt with by an ambulance attendant. A police officer had driven him back to the Hidden Beach Inn. Irene Ward had rushed off to file the story in time for it to make the morning edition of the Herald.

  Detective Brandon had taken charge of the cipher machine. Amalie thought he had appeared uncharacteristically cheerful at the prospect of the glowing press reports that would soon appear in the Herald. Irene had assured him that the story of how the Burning Cove Police D
epartment had uncovered a plot to steal a top secret military device would go national. The public would be given to understand that the FBI was very grateful for the assistance of the local police.

  That, in turn, would come as news to the FBI. Luther predicted that the Bureau would be annoyed but that its reaction would be nothing compared to the outrage of the director of the Accounting Department. He would be downright horrified.

  “Good riddance to Lorraine Pierce, too,” Raina said. “Once she starts talking she’ll have a lot of information to give to the FBI or the Accounting Department, depending on which agency gets custody of her.”

  “They will probably fight over Pierce,” Luther said. “There are no feuds like the feuds between government agencies. But that’s not our problem.”

  “I still can’t believe that one of Hollywood’s most popular gossip columnists was part of a gunrunning ring operating out of the heart of Hollywood,” Raina said.

  “The more I think about it, the more I find it hard to understand how a legendary agent like Smith was able to operate out here in California undetected for so long,” Amalie said. “It certainly doesn’t say much for the efficiency and effectiveness of our intelligence agencies.”

  “No,” Matthias said, “it doesn’t.”

  “But, unfortunately, it does sound all too familiar,” Luther said. “The Bureau spent the last decade chasing bootleggers and mob figures. These days they’re looking for Communists under every bed. As for the few remaining spy agencies focused on the rest of the world, they’re currently a handful of alligators fighting internal battles for money and power in the very small swamp that is Washington. Again, not our problem. Time to see what’s in that notebook.”

  He unlatched Calloway’s briefcase and took out the leather-bound notebook. Amalie and the others watched.

  “Huh,” he said.

  “Well?” Raina said. “Don’t keep us in suspense.”

  Luther frowned. “It looks like a collection of poems. Handwritten, not printed. Smith may have fancied himself a poet.”

  Matthias held out his hand. “Let me see that notebook.”

  Luther handed it to him without a word. Amalie leaned over Matthias’s shoulder to get a look.

  “It is poetry,” Amalie said.

  Matthias paused to read some lines aloud.

  The light of the August night strikes sharp and clear;

  My senses are shattered by bolts of fire that crash and sear.

  I swim into the deepest shadows, drowning on the midnight tide . . .

  “Not exactly uplifting imagery,” Raina said.

  “I’m no judge of poetry,” Amalie said, “but those sound like the words of a doomed soul. You were right about Calloway. He was driven by a passion for revenge.”

  “I think,” Matthias said, “we had better not leap to the conclusion that Jasper Calloway wrote depressing poetry in his spare time.”

  Luther’s brows rose. “Think those poems are written in a code?”

  “Given what we know about Calloway’s career, that’s a definite possibility,” Matthias said.

  “Maybe we could use the Ares machine to decode it?” Raina suggested.

  Matthias turned a few more pages. “I don’t think so. There are dates on each of these poems. One was written last month but the earliest entries go back almost four years. The Ares machine is a prototype that didn’t even exist until quite recently, so most of these poems could not have been encrypted on it.”

  Amalie looked at Luther. “Can I assume that notebook will go to your old agency?”

  Luther did not respond immediately. Amalie and the others awaited his verdict in silence.

  “The notebook stays here, at least for now,” he said. “We have to figure out what Calloway meant by a sequel. At the moment, these poems are our only lead.”

  “If it is a codebook, we need to break the encryption, and we need to do it fast,” Matthias said.

  “Yes,” Luther said. “And, frankly, I don’t trust the Accounting Department to do it.”

  “Why not?” Raina asked.

  “For one thing, it’s unlikely that they will have people who can handle the job.” Luther smiled a cold smile. “They fired all the best analysts when they fired my team.”

  Raina was amused. “The best code breakers worked for you?”

  “It wasn’t as if there were a lot of career opportunities for people who have a knack for that sort of work,” Luther said. “The field of cryptography got a bad reputation after Stimson, Hoover’s secretary of state, found out about the Cipher Bureau and closed it down with the immortal words Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail. So, yes, I had my pick of talented agents.”

  “Do you think Henry L. Stimson actually said that line about gentlemen not reading each other’s mail?” Raina asked. “It sounds like movie dialogue.”

  “Who knows?” Luther said. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “If a code was used to write those poems, do you think you can break it?” Amalie asked.

  “I doubt if I can,” Luther said. “Not my particular talent.”

  “I’m good at spotting verbal lies,” Matthias said, “but I’m not an expert on encryption.”

  Luther tapped a finger against the notebook. “I know someone who might be able to tell us if the poems are encrypted. He could probably break the code, as well. But he disappeared after we were all let go. I’ve lost track of him.”

  “I might be able to locate him for you,” Raina said. “That’s one of my talents.”

  Luther smiled. “It is indeed.”

  “Hanging on to that notebook could lead to more trouble,” Amalie warned.

  “The problem,” Luther said gently, “is that trouble may already be heading our way.”

  Amalie took a breath. “What do you mean?”

  It was Matthias who answered.

  “We know that Jasper Calloway operated out here on the West Coast and that he most likely used Hollywood as his base,” he said. “Odds are good that if he did leave some unfinished plan behind, it was slated to take place out here, not back east.”

  “The West Coast is our territory,” Luther said. “We know it. The Accounting Department doesn’t. I should add that there is one other reason why I think it would be a good idea to keep quiet about this notebook, at least for now.”

  “What’s that?” Raina asked.

  Luther’s eyes darkened with cold fire. “I’ve got the same question about Smith’s career in Hollywood that Amalie has. How was he able to operate undetected for so long?”

  Matthias looked at him. “You’re thinking he may have had some assistance from someone buried deep within one of the intelligence agencies. Maybe someone inside the Accounting Department.”

  “I think there is a high probability of that, yes,” Luther said.

  Amalie looked at the faces of the others. None of them appeared shocked or even mildly stunned.

  “I guess I’m the naïve one here,” she said. She looked at Luther. “Let me get this straight. You’re wondering if the head of the Accounting Department can be trusted?”

  “The double agent, if there is one, is more likely to be someone working for him, an individual he believes is trustworthy,” Luther said. “There is also the possibility I’m wrong about all of this. But I don’t think we can afford to take any chances with the notebook. So, for now, it stays in my safe here at the Paradise, and we will agree that none of us will speak about it to anyone who is not in this room.”

  There was a quiet chorus of yeses.

  The four of them had sworn an oath, Amalie thought. For now, Calloway’s notebook was their secret.

  Chapter 54

  Irene Ward’s story about the arrest of Lorraine Pierce and the recovery of a top secret cipher machine was splashed across the front page o
f the morning edition of the Herald. Amalie and Matthias were drinking coffee with Hazel and Willa in the kitchen of the Hidden Beach Inn when the paper was delivered.

  Willa read the headlines aloud. “Famed Gossip Columnist Arrested for Murder of Robot Inventor. Top Secret Invention Recovered.”

  An entire paragraph was devoted to glowing praise of the brave, professional work of Detective Brandon and the officers of the Burning Cove Police Department.

  Matthias picked up his coffee mug. “A special agent from the FBI is probably yelling at Brandon and the chief of police at this very moment, but there’s no putting the cat back in the bag, and everyone knows it. The only thing the Feds can do is go along with Irene’s version of events and pretend to be grateful to the Burning Cove Police Department.”

  Hazel got an anxious look. “Do you think the FBI might arrest Irene Ward because she ran the story?”

  “The Bureau will be annoyed with Irene but there’s nothing they can do about her, either,” Matthias said. “It’s not as if she released classified information. She’s just a reporter who covered a red-hot story about a Hollywood gossip columnist and a stolen invention. They’ll play along. After all, they got the Ares and they’ve taken a suspected killer and gunrunner into custody. It will be interesting to see if they can hang on to both.”

  Chapter 55

  The editor saved the other big story of the day for the afternoon edition of the Herald. Amalie was at the front desk when it arrived. She read it immediately, searching for mention of the Hidden Beach Inn.

  ACTOR VINCENT HYDE ATTACKED BY CHAUFFEUR

  Early this morning a dramatic encounter took place in the Paradise Club. Events began to unfold shortly after closing when Mr. Vincent Hyde, the well-known actor who played the lead in the Mad Doctor X films, was brutally attacked and left unconscious by his chauffeur, Mr. Jasper Calloway.

  Following the assault on his employer, Calloway took a local innkeeper, Miss Amalie Vaughn, proprietor of the Hidden Beach Inn, hostage inside the nightclub. He threatened to release poison gas into the atmosphere, killing everyone in the club.