"Does it look like it?" Sonderheim replied, holding his shoulder with one hand, the blood oozing out from between his fingertips, and also pouring out of the sole of his shoe, where the second bullet had caught his foot.
For a second, the two men stared at each other.
The spell was broken by the sound of another car approaching, screeching around the corner at the end of the avenue. Realising that he was very exposed, Kerrin took a last look at Sonderheim and jumped into the driver's seat of Sonderheim's Mercedes. The key was still in the ignition, the engine purring away.
Without looking back, Kerrin kicked the car into gear, then drove forward, swerving around in a tight curve and scraping the pristine bodywork along the edge of the wall bordering Sonderheim's estate.
The other car swung up to the gate, and two security guards in black uniforms from Purlington Bay jumped out and starting firing rapidly after the disappearing Mercedes.
Accelerating away fast, Kerrin swung the car back onto the road and vanished down the avenue ahead.
The men made no attempt to follow, and as the metal gates to the estate swung open, the last Kerrin saw of them in the rear-view mirror was as they disappeared through the wall, rushing to Sonderheim's side.
A few blocks away he cut his speed in half in an effort not to draw any unnecessary attention to himself. He found the street where he had parked his own car, driving past it and parking the Mercedes a hundred yards further down the road.
The street was a normal residential area, and people were attending to their gardens and chatting to each other on their porches in the approaching dusk.
He walked casually back to his own car, climbed in and drove back to his hotel. Once inside his room he quickly showered, packed his bags and checked out. He had already paid up-front for three nights in cash, but he didn't bother wasting any time asking for a refund for the night he hadn't used the room.
It was only when he had driven a hundred miles along the route to Las Vegas that he started to relax.
It was then that he noticed that his hands were still shaking.
Chapter 32
Day Twenty-One
The Sonderheim Residence
Millionaire's Avenue
Carmel
The two security guards rushed in through the gates, grabbing Sonderheim just as he began to fall backwards onto the ground. Within minutes they had applied a tourniquet to his left leg, had bundled him into their car and were speeding off to the hospital in Carmel.
Sonderheim was beginning to show the first signs of shock, but it looked like they had managed to stem the blood loss just in time. He would probably survive.
As Sonderheim lay in the back of the car, drifting in and out of consciousness, he started to wonder what had just happened. It made no sense to him.
He guessed that the man who had been waiting at his gate was Kerrin Graham. He had read the file on him, and had been fully debriefed by Laura on her successful trip to South Africa.
David had expected Kerrin to try to kill him. That Kerrin had managed to track down his new, supposedly secret address, was a warning that David had completely underestimated the man. Kerrin was dangerous. Perhaps he should have ordered Laura to kill him after all.
But what David couldn't understand and was puzzling him the most was, who was it that had just tried to kill him? Had the assassins been trying to shoot at Kerrin, in order to protect himself, with him accidentally getting caught in the cross fire, or had the assassins been trying to kill him?
And if they had been trying to kill him, why had Graham saved his life?
The most likely scenario was that they had tried to kill the Graham man, and that the assassins had been incompetent fools who had not known who David Sonderheim was.
The alternative, that somebody else apart from Graham was out to kill him too, was not a thought that he wanted to entertain. At least, not yet.
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The Road to Las Vegas
Nevada
The drive to Las Vegas through the dark night was a long and boring one. The road was straight, and clear, but void of any landmarks or distractions to break up the journey. Exactly what he needed to let him think.
What had just happened didn't seem to make any sense to Kerrin.
Could it be that Kerrin had effectively just saved the life of the person he had come all this way to kill?
As best as he could make out, while he had been in the process of assailing David Sonderheim, potentially even about to kill him, someone else had beaten him to it.
At first, he thought that the assassins must have been trying to get him, in order to defend Sonderheim, but thinking back upon it again the events didn't bear out that conclusion.
These guys were trained killers. Professionals. They'd had two clear targets, and their first shot had been at Sonderheim, who had been behind him. When they had hit him and Sonderheim had fallen, they had repeatedly shot at him on the ground. Kerrin had not drawn any fire to himself. Only when Kerrin had killed one of them and wounded the other had the second assassin opened fire on him, in what may actually have been self-defence.
If only he had got the chance to examine the bodies for some clues as to who they were. Interestingly, Kerrin noted the fact that the Glock he had borrowed from the second dead man was one of the preferred weapons of a large number of CIA agents. Was this just coincidence, or were the dead men trained CIA assassins? If they were, why did the CIA want to kill Sonderheim?
Another traffic sign flashed past, announcing the imminent arrival of Las Vegas at his car, …or was it the other way around…it was all relative anyway, wasn't that what Einstein had said?
Kerrin was a bundle of emotions.
His stomach was busy shouting reminders at him to eat something, and he knew that by all rights, he should be feeling really tired. Exhausted even.
Yet, in spite of the exertions of the past two days, Kerrin felt completely awake.
As he overtook a car in front that was driving far too slow for his liking, Kerrin realised just how much more vibrant he had felt in the past few weeks. He had begun to feel like his old self again. The thrill of the chase, the buzz of being involved in a real criminal investigation, the challenge of trying to find and put together the clues, flirting with danger, and the knowledge that he was now both the hunter as well as the hunted. It was him versus them. It all added up. It reminded him of his days on the force, and for the hundredth time that year, he hankered after times past.
Kerrin looked at his watch.
It was getting late.
Although Kerrin had not finished introducing himself to Sonderheim before he was shot, it was very likely that Sonderheim had recognised him, or at least, had guessed who he was. Which meant that Kerrin now couldn't fly back to the east from any of the major airports in California. He just couldn't take the risk of being stopped at the check-in.
No, his best bet was to get out of the state and make his way to one of the smaller airports, like Las Vegas, and fly back first thing in the morning. It would take a day or two for any interstate alert to go out. Chances were, that even if the security staff at Las Vegas had received a warning, it would be a while before they read the thing, let alone acted on it. Kerrin felt sure that he would be safe to board a flight to Washington the next morning without there being much risk of being identified and caught. There was even a chance that the Californians may never even get round to alerting their colleagues in Nevada at all.
Kerrin hated incompetence in anyone, but now with his life under threat, he was banking on it.
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Day Twenty-One
Divisional Director of the CIA
Florida
E.S.T
Cheng Wung knew the score.
He knew that California wasn't really under his jurisdiction, and ordinarily he would never interfere on someone else's turf.
But after his team had successfully recovered Alex Swinton's h
ard drive with the missing copy of the 'Orlando File', Buz Trueman had called him to ask if he would be interested in another two jobs. He had accepted both.
The first had not worked out exactly according to plan. Buz had wanted someone terminated. Cheng knew not to ask too many questions. Unfortunately, the hit had not gone smoothly: the target had survived and his team had been eradicated. It was not yet clear exactly what had happened and why the mission had failed…
The second job sounded interesting.
True, the 'bonus' Buz had offered for its successful completion was substantial, but for Cheng it wasn't just the money.
The thing was, Buz Trueman was a powerful man, and the fact that Buz was trusting him to resolve the Graham issue, was the sort of trust that money couldn't buy.
$1.5m was, after all, a lot of money.
But if Buz hadn't mentioned the money first, he might even have done it for free: now, more than ever, Cheng had a reputation to uphold. Sonderheim might have survived, but Cheng would ensure that Graham would be caught and delivered as promised.
At all costs.
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In this case, the road to riches and recovery would start with a call to an FBI colleague in California:
"Hey Don,…it's Cheng Wung…howyadoin? Fine?…That's excellent. And how's little Don Junior doing? How old is he now…He should be about four now, right?…Yeah, I know, it's been too long…yeah,…We should definitely get together soon…Yeah, that would be nice…Thanks…and you too…Listen, now you come to mention it, there is something that you could do for me…One of the guys we're trying to track down looks like he's scarpered over to your neck of the woods…What's he done? No firm evidence yet, but he's heading up our list for one of the guys responsible for the terrorist bombing in Disney World…Yep, that's the one…sure…even if he isn't the one, it looks mighty like he did do it, and we need to bring him in straight away…We know he was in the Carmel area yesterday, but that's all…It's pretty obvious he's using switched names again…Listen, if we send you the last photo-ID we had on the guy, can you arrange for some of your guys to go around all the hotels and the motels in a hundred mile radius of Carmel and see if anyone recognises him? Yes? Excellent…that would be great…and if we can't catch him, it would be great to at least find out what his latest alias is…great…By tomorrow? Fantastic!…Okay, got to rush too…but I like your idea of getting together soon. Give my regards to Junior and your wife. Thanks…bye Don."
One phone call. That's all it took. Cheng was pretty sure that by this time tomorrow night they would have Kerrin Graham's latest alias.
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Day Twenty-One
The Road to Las Vegas
Nevada
P.S.T
With only another five miles to go to Las Vegas, Kerrin's mind turned to the other problem that was vexing him about his encounter with David Sonderheim. Something else that didn't make sense at all…
When Kerrin had first stood face to face with David Sonderheim he had been talking to a man with the appearance of someone only about thirty years old. Kerrin knew, no…Kerrin could prove that Sonderheim was forty eight years old. So why had the man he had met had the physique and looks of a thirty year old? How could it be possible?
An oncoming car flashed his lights at Kerrin, just in time to warn him that he was slowly straying over to the other side of the road. The car passed him by, its horn blaring, the tone of the blast becoming deeper in the classic Doppler effect you hear whenever an ambulance passes by with its horn blaring.
Kerrin returned to his thoughts, which now switched to Alex Swinton. Kerrin remembered how when he first met him on the beach, how struck he had been by how much younger Alex had looked compared to the last time they had met. He must have looked at least five years younger…
He thought hard about him, desperately trying to remember what it was that Alex had told him just before he had been killed…He thought about their meeting in the restaurant in Langebaan. He could picture him so clearly sitting opposite him at the table, he could remember the sound of his voice…and then suddenly it was there, the last words he had said before he was shot…
" Yes…but that's trivial in comparison to what we discovered next…Mike Gilbert was the one who noticed it…the one who should get the credit. It will maybe even go down as the single most important discovery in the field of genetics and medicine ever…"
But there was one more thing prodding at his memory…one more thing that Alex had said.
What was it…?
Try as he might he couldn't put his finger on it, and after a while he decided to leave it. If it was important, his subconscious would drag it to the surface in due course.
The lights of a Texaco station glowed bright red in the darkness ahead, and a few minutes later Kerrin pulled over onto the forecourt, parking beside a phone booth. He searched through his pockets and pulled out a handful of quarters.
He pushed open the doors to the phone booth and stepped inside, laying his note book on the shelf in front of him, and arranging the quarters in little pile beside the book.
The first person on the list to call was Mrs Calvert.
The phone rang six times before it was answered.
"Mrs Calvert, this is Kerrin Graham. We met a while ago when I came to ask you some questions about the death of your husband?…Yes, that's me, Martin's brother-in-law. I'm really sorry I'm calling so late, and I'm sorry if I woke you, but something's come up and I needed to ask you a question. It may sound stupid, but please bear with me on this one…Mrs Calvert, in the months or weeks leading up to his death, did you notice any changes in your husband's health? I mean, were there any indications that his health was improving or…well, did you notice any changes in his appearance at all?"
There was a silence at the other end of the phone.
"Mrs Calvert?…Are you still there?" Kerrin prodded.
"Yes. Yes…I'm still here. It's just that it's all still so fresh in my memory…Sorry." She started to cry. There was the sound of a little sniffing into a handkerchief, and then she was back.
"Actually, now that you mention it, the answer is 'yes'. In the weeks before he died he couldn't sit still! He kept talking about how he wanted to take us all up to the mountains, and do some walking and fishing in the Rockies. I didn't know where he was getting the energy from. I can't say that he was looking any younger though, well, apart from the colour of his hair. The silver bits had started to turn brown again. I thought he was dying it. Maybe he wasn't?"
The next person he called was Henry Roberts’ widow. She was not at all happy at being disturbed so late, but when Kerrin had managed to calm her down and persuade her that the questions he had for her were very important, she agreed to listen to him.
When she heard the questions, her anger vanished, and she answered them without hesitating, a touch of excitement even showing in her voice.
"No, I can't say that I saw any physical changes in his appearance, but he did seem to be healthier and stronger… When he was young he was quite an accomplished runner, even won a few races and awards, but he hadn't run in over twenty years. Then all of a sudden Henry started to do laps of the garden before breakfast. I thought it was his way of fighting back, coping with the stress…And then about a week before he died, he told me that he had actually sent in an application form to run in next year’s New York marathon! I laughed of course. I couldn't believe it, but he was deadly serious, and if you knew Henry, you would know that once he set his mind on something, he would do it…"
Afterwards he had called Mike Gilbert's fiancée. She too had an interesting story to tell.
It turned out that when they had just bought the new house, they had both taken out new life assurance policies. The insurance companies had insisted on them both taking stringent medicals.
"But Mike got full marks for everything. Practically got a Gold Star. The doctor said Mike was one of the fittest men he'd ever seen."
And Sam Cohen?
His sister was wide awake and watching Letterman when he called, and Kerrin could tell from her voice that she was genuinely pleased to hear from him. When asked about his health, at first Sam's sister replied that she hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary: he had always been a strong swimmer and was incredibly fit. But then she told Kerrin that she had noticed a distinct improvement in the quality of his skin, and she had even commented to her brother when he was alive that the brown freckle-like markings on his hands and forearms, the tell tale signs of ageing, had almost all but disappeared.
No doubt if Kerrin were to ask his sister about any health improvements she had noticed in her husband before he had died, she would have a few to report. Kerrin would almost bet on it.
Kerrin walked into the gas station and picked up some fresh coffee. Going back outside, he stood in the desert night, away from all the bright lights, and looked up at the stars. Holding the coffee cup in both hands to keep warm, he sipped the brown liquid, his eyes looking up and watching the night sky above. The stars were incredibly bright, the constellations forming amazing patterns in the sky. Kerrin had learned the names of all of them as a boy, and as he finished the coffee he remembered the nights he had spent stargazing with his father all those years ago, on the coast near Baltimore where he grew up.
A shooting star blazed a fiery path across the heavens and Kerrin smiled to himself. It was a sign of luck. A good omen.
He got back in the rental and drove on, one hand on the steering wheel, the other hand pulling absentmindedly at the hair at the base of his neck.
What was it that Alex Swinton had said? He needed to remember. It was something he had mentioned about trials…What had he called it…?
The Orlando Treatment?
The Orlando File Omnibus : (Omnibus Version-Book 1 & Book 2) Page 27