The Sam Prichard Series - Books 9-12 (Sam Prichard Boxed Set 3)

by David Archer

  The trip across the causeway was uneventful at this time of morning, and he found the Sunset Motel with no trouble. The parking lot wasn’t very full, so he pulled into a slot toward the back and picked up a tablet from the center console. He tapped on it a few times, and it displayed a page of information. Harry Winslow had rented a Buick Enclave a few hours before, and he looked up to see it sitting just a dozen spaces away.

  Like most motels lately, this one had security cameras on the parking lot. A few more taps on the tablet got him into the servers that recorded the video from them, and it was the work of only a few minutes to turn them off and delete the last hour of video from them. He put the tablet down, reached into the glove box and pulled out a small magnetic device, then got out of the car and walked up to the Buick.

  The biggest problem was where to put it. So many parts of the car were nothing but plastic that he finally had to reach up underneath and stick the magnet to a piece of its frame. His thumb pressed a button on the side, and the little tracking device began transmitting its location every eight seconds. He stood up and walked back to his car, leaned the power seat back as far as it would go, and went back to sleep.

  When the sun finally began to peek over the horizon at a quarter to seven and tickled his eyelids, he woke again. The Buick was still sitting where he had left it, but he was sure Winslow and Prichard would be up and about.

  He opened a small case from the console and pulled out two small, plastic rings. He squeezed them and put them into his nostrils, which caused his nose to flare and look bigger, then put on a pair of fake glasses and got out of the car.

  This was one of those motels that offered a free continental breakfast, and the nice thing about those was that the people on duty in the mornings hardly ever recognized the guests who had come in the night before. He walked into the breakfast room like he owned it, and went directly to the waffle maker. By the time it signaled that his waffle was done, Prichard and Winslow had entered the room.

  He sat down at a table and proceeded to eat, watching them only with his peripheral vision. The two of them sat at a table close by and he heard some ridiculous conversation about waffles in the wild. A couple of times, it was all he could do not to chuckle, but that would draw their attention. They weren’t expecting to see him, so the simple disguise was more than sufficient as long as they didn’t look closely.

  He finished his breakfast and rose quickly, turning his back to them as he did so. It wouldn’t be long before they were ready to leave, and he wanted to be in his car by then so he went directly out the front door without looking back.

  Sure enough, they came walking out at just a little past seven-thirty, bags in hand. They loaded them into the back of the Buick and Prichard slid behind the wheel. He started the car up and backed out of his slot, then left the parking lot and pointed the car toward their destination.

  The man who was watching them didn’t bother to hurry to follow. The tablet beside him would let him know every turn they made, so he waited another few seconds before starting his own car and going out onto the street.

  It was just as he had expected. The Buick was headed for his house. He cruised along at the speed limit, ready to set this portion of the plan into action.

  Apparently, he was having better luck with traffic lights than Prichard was, because as they got onto the causeway, he was only three cars back. He let a few more cars get between them, then took a couple of slight detours in order to give them a few more minutes of lead time. By the time he got back into his neighborhood, the Buick was parked in his driveway and the two men were nowhere in sight.

  Excellent. That meant she had let them in, which was one of the variables he could not predict with 100 percent certainty. Yes, he was fairly sure she would invite them in, but there was always that small possibility that fear would make her insist that they leave. If that had happened, he had backup plans in place, but he was glad to see that he wouldn’t need to use them.

  He parked the car in the garage of the vacant house a block away, one that he had quietly purchased through a dummy company. Like his own home, the backyard opened on the water and there were privacy fences that prevented any of the neighbors from seeing what he was doing back there. He left the Chevy in the garage beside the Lamborghini, then went through the house in the backyard and stepped into the boathouse. He carefully climbed into the fishing boat he kept there, then slipped on the hoodie he’d left in it. The electric trolling motor took him out of the boathouse silently, and he cruised along the coastline until he got to his own boathouse at home and silently entered it. He tied up the boat inside and dropped the hoodie back into it as he started toward the house.

  They were all too occupied to notice the slight drop in air pressure that resulted from him opening the back door, and he was able to slip inside and make his way through the kitchen and bathroom to get into position.

  “Michael is on an assignment,” he heard Prichard say, “to smuggle some foreign national out of the US and into Japan. I’d say the odds are good that that person is the real passenger on that flight, and Michael—”

  “Is standing right behind you, Mr. Prichard,” he said suddenly, “with a gun pointed at your head.”

  Now, if only Prichard could be half as smart as his reputation seemed to suggest. It was all up to him.

  10

  Kathleen was the first to react physically, leaping to her feet. “Michael!” she said in shock. “Michael, don’t—”

  “Sit down and be quiet, Kate,” he said. His eyes were on Harry and Sam, and the barrel of his gun remained aimed where it had been. “You didn’t actually think I wasn’t watching you, did you? I knew the moment you got your fake ID, and I knew right then why you wanted it. I’m no fool, you know.”

  He moved around to stand close to her, but his eyes and his pistol stayed on Sam. Slowly he sank into the chair beside the one she was in, and Sam began taking stock of the situation.

  I’m facing a cold-blooded killer who has a gun aimed at my face, and it’s one hell of a gun. What is that, a small machine gun? He’s the same man who manipulated an entire family more than thirty years ago to satisfy his own desires, putting them all through the hell of thinking they had lost loved ones in order to gain what he wanted. He’s the same man who told his wife he’d kill her and Harry if she tried to contact him, and now he’s looking at the two of them together in his own living room. He has no intention of allowing Harry or me to leave here alive, but he probably hasn’t decided what to do about her yet.

  Poker, Beauregard said I’d have to play poker! Those are the cards I’ve been dealt, so how do I play them to win?

  The thoughts flew through his mind in the space of a single breath, and Sam fought the urge to go for his gun. With Michael already aiming a gun at him, there was no chance he could draw and fire before being shot. A trained gunman can react to sudden movement and squeeze a trigger in less than an eighth of a second, but it would take more than half a second for Sam to lean forward, reach back under his jacket and grab the butt of the Glock, snatch it free of the holster, swing it around and point it at Michael and fire. He’d be dead before his hand closed on the grips.

  Old police training kicked in, and Sam started thinking. One of the first things he had been taught to do in a confrontation like this was to evaluate his opponent. He looked closely at Michael, trying to examine every facet of the man.

  This man is thin and wiry, but there are muscles hidden in there. He’s about the same height and build as Harry, but about twelve years younger. His suit is clean and expensive, probably uses a professional drycleaner who can keep the creases nice and sharp. Hair is thick and still showing some color, even though the sides have gone pretty gray. Hands are clean, nails neatly trimmed—looks like he’s had a manicure. His shoes are sharp and freshly polished. All of this says he’s a man who stays in control of himself, doesn’t ever like to let someone else have the upper hand. If I make the wrong move, he will react i
nstantly. Got to think everything through, can’t make a mistake with this guy.

  “I’ve been expecting this to happen for more than a year now,” Michael said. “Ever since your face showed up on CNN, Harry, she’s been acting out, and I knew it was only a matter of time before she’d defy me and make contact with you. That could have so many, well, unpleasant consequences that I thought I’d better nip it in the bud, right?”

  “Michael,” Kathleen said, “I wouldn’t have contacted him. All I wanted was to see him, from a distance, just know he was alive and okay.”

  “I know, Kate, and that would have been enough for a while,” Michael said. “But you said it yourself, you kept hoping he’d notice you, spot you. Sooner or later you would have started getting bolder, you would’ve begun stepping out in front of him, and if that didn’t work, you’d finally just bump into him. I know how this goes, Kate. I had it all figured out that night we saw him on TV, and I knew what was going to happen.”

  He turned and looked at Sam. “Prichard, I’ve got to commend you. After that Lake Mead incident, I followed your career. Hell, I even bought some of your CDs and went to two of your concerts in Denver. You should have stayed in music. As a private detective, though, you are very, very good. I’m not surprised Harry went to you once he found out about all this. I will confess that I’m surprised you found us so fast. That wife of yours, she’s really quite good with a computer, isn’t she?”

  “You had him followed,” Sam said, with a sinking feeling building in his chest. “You had an accomplice watching my house?”

  “Of course not,” Michael said, grinning at him. “I bugged your house months ago; all I had to do was have someone listen in to the recordings now and then, send me transcripts, things like that. I heard all about your discussions with Harry yesterday, and with your wife, so I knew you were coming. I had to scramble a bit yesterday to rearrange my ‘business trip’ and make a few changes, but Kate didn’t suspect anything, so it didn’t matter. And yes, since I know you’re wondering, I heard you tell her to take your daughter and leave this morning. It won’t matter, though, because I’ve got trackers on all of your vehicles. I have them in some of your daughter’s toys, in your wife’s computer, your mothers’ cars. No matter where she goes, I’ll find her.”

  Time to ante up, Sam thought, and he grinned. “Assuming you can,” he said. “I’ve wondered for a while if we were bugged, so I tend to make some arrangements away from the house and on a burner phone. You didn’t think we’d come in here with no backup, did you?”

  Michael smiled and let out a loud laugh. “Oh, Mr. Prichard,” he gasped through his laughter, “you and I would have been friends if we’d met under other circumstances. That was one of the boldest bluffs I’ve ever heard.” He took a second to get himself under control. “I know you’re alone, Pri—may I call you Sam? I know you’re alone, Sam, because I followed you from your hotel. And Harry, I’ve got to say you’re slipping. I sat two tables away while you ate breakfast, and all it took to disguise myself was a couple of nostril pluckers and a pair of cheap reading glasses. No, Sam, you can’t bluff your way out of this one. We just have to make a few hard decisions, the four of us, and then we’ll find out how this will all end.”

  “What kind of decisions?” Sam asked. Harry sat beside him, his mouth shut and his face blank. At the moment, that was exactly what Sam wanted him to do. “And what kind of endings are you seeing for this mess? What kind of ending is there that lets us all walk out of here alive, Michael?”

  “Oh, I can see one, perhaps two. That’s something we learn in the intelligence services, Sam, how to look at the current situation and extrapolate from it the possible outcomes. I can see six distinct possible outcomes from where we are at this moment, and two of them leave us all alive. One leaves only me alive, one leaves only me dead, one has me and Kate surviving, and one has Kate and Harry being the only ones left alive.”

  Sam nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s talk about the ones that leave us all alive and well. What needs to happen to bring one of those to pass?”

  “That’s easy,” Michael said. “You need to understand that I’ve got a life I enjoy, and I don’t plan to give it up. All it will take is for the two of you to walk away, right now, and never come back here, never tell anyone what you’ve learned, and never, ever attempt to contact me or my wife again. Of course, the real problem isn’t getting you to agree to do those things; the real problem is how you’re going to convince me I can believe you when you do. Any suggestions?” He looked from Sam to Harry and back. “Now, you, Sam, I can probably get your cooperation pretty easily. All I’ve got to do is remind you that I can reach out and touch your wife and daughter at any time, and that there’s no way in the world you can protect them from me. I can find you no matter where you go, and I can kill all of you without ever being close enough for you to see me. I think that would be sufficient, don’t you?”

  He turned to Harry. “You’re being awfully quiet, old friend. I find it very difficult to believe you don’t have anything to say about all this. Maybe we should leave the possible futures alone for a bit and let you vent. What do you want to say to me, Harry?”

  Harry sat and looked into his eyes for a long moment, then leaned forward slowly. “I once thought you were my best friend, Michael. I trusted you with everything, literally with my life on more than one occasion, and I trusted you with my wife, even though I was fully aware that you were infatuated with her. I knew, down deep inside me, that you would never betray me, not while I was alive. I also knew that if anything happened to me, you’d be there for Kathy and the kids, you’d see that they made it through everything and you’d take care of them. I even suspected that, should that ever happen, you might even win her heart one day and end up with her, but since it would mean I was dead, I saw that as a good thing.” He sighed and shook his head. “What I never suspected was that you might try deception to make her vulnerable to your charms. You had to have convinced her I was dead, and that wouldn’t have been all that hard to do, since we weren’t allowed any contact with home when on a mission. I’m sure you brought her a condolence letter, properly signed by the director and the president, and told her that she was in danger and had to leave the country immediately. You took her to Brazil, I know, and left her in some kind of safe house or something, while you came back and arranged for my house to burn down with three bodies that would be identified as those of my wife and children, so that you could hand me the final report and walk me through their funerals. And then you took a transfer, went away and left me all alone, but that was what I needed for a time. I needed to be alone and come to terms with the grief and the anger and the bitterness, and I did so, over time.”

  He sat back again, and shook his head once more. “No, I never believed you could be capable of something like this.”

  Michael looked at him and had the decency not to smile. “You want to know the ironic thing, Harry? I got the whole idea from you. Remember the German woman, her husband was a leader of the Red Army Faction and we wanted to get her away, turn her against him? You suggested a plan just like this. You would go in deep and befriend them, then have him sent away and convince her he’d been killed, and that she’d be next if you didn’t hide her away somewhere, remember that?”

  Harry’s face became dark, and it was clear to Sam that he did indeed remember. “That was in seventy-six,” he said. “The director turned down the idea and you went in to assassinate him, instead.”

  “Yes, but I never forgot about it. It sort of sat in my mind, and one day I just fantasized about using it to make Kate mine, and it took root. Eventually, I realized that I had worked out every little detail, and I put it into action. Ever wonder why you were called up for the Cambodia mission? You had been out of that kind of work for four years, but suddenly only you could be trusted with it, did you never wonder why? It was because I just happened to be on the planning committee for it, and I made the comment that I wished you
were available, because you were by far the best man for the job, and the director overheard me. I made sure he did, Harry, because he was such a guppie it was easy to lead him around like a little kid. He decided to call you up, and I knew you’d follow orders without a single protest. You were gone, and eight days later I put through a CCL for someone else. It was a simple matter to wash out the original name and put yours in, and then Kate was so scared she’d have done anything I wanted her to do. After all, I was the only thing protecting her and her children, right?”

  Michael shook his head at Harry and turned back to Sam. “See my problem, Sam? I can get you to go along with me, but Harry’s got thirty-odd years of grief and anger to let out. He’s never going to agree to my demands, and if he did, it would last as long as it took him to get to a gun.”

  “Let’s talk about something else,” Sam said. “You put the letter in Harry’s apartment to lure him here, right? Why? All you had to do was let Kathleen know you were onto her, and she would have stopped what she was doing. Harry would have been none the wiser, and we wouldn’t be sitting here playing games. Why did you do that?”

  Michael looked at him for a moment, and Sam sensed some doubt in the man, as if he hadn’t really figured out himself why he’d done it. “I needed to bring it all to an end. Harry was a big shot in the intelligence community, and I spent years worrying that he and I might run into each other. Suppose he wanted to renew the old friendship? I couldn’t exactly take him home to meet the family, now, could I? And then there was Kate; like I said, sooner or later she would have taken things a step too far, and Harry would have seen her. He’d have found out all about what I’d done, and it all would have blown up in my face. I couldn’t afford that. While there might not be any legal charges to bring against me, the government alphabet groups I work with would take a dim view of it, I’m sure. Do you know how much documentation I had to forge in order to keep the government from figuring out that my wife was the same woman who died in that fire? Yeah, I think they might have been just a little upset if it all came out, now. I’d have lost everything, even if they didn’t decide I was rogue enough to justify termination.” He looked at Harry. “And I owed Harry something, even if it was only a glimpse of the truth. He had the right to know Kate and the kids were alive, and to die with that knowledge was the greatest favor I could do him. It was a fitting end to his long life and career, I thought. When I heard the word he was being retired, I knew the time had come.”