by Jon Land
He felt the plane level off briefly before settling into an uneasy emergency descent toward National Airport. Blaine continued to work the chasm desperately until he heard the whir that signaled the lowering of the Airbus’s landing gear. He barely had time to refasten himself haphazardly to the tie line before the plane swooped in for what he expected would be a jarring jolt of a landing. He could barely believe it when he felt Hollis bring the Airbus down gently and ease into a slow glide down the runway. In the passenger compartment above him, Blaine could hear the cheers and applause.
The Airbus was still taxiing when he began the process of clearing the luggage he had piled from the fissure. A jagged tear stretched out five feet in both directions from the hole that was now twice as large as the one he had fashioned. Blaine dropped out through the fissure a moment before the emergency chutes activated and helped the first passengers down the nearest chute get to their feet.
Captain Hollis was the last one to slide off.
“I’d fly with you anytime, Captain,” Blaine said, helping him up.
Hollis grabbed Blaine at the shoulders. “You’ve earned your wings, Mr. McCracken.”
More emergency vehicles continued to arrive, sirens and flashing lights preceding them. The rescue workers had little to do other than gather the passengers up and begin the chore of loading them onto the waiting buses.
“Then do me a favor, Captain,” Blaine said, “and don’t mention to anyone that I was on board.”
Hollis gazed back at the hole Blaine had dropped the bomb through to save his plane. “Not an easy trick, under the circumstances.”
“Stall them, then.”
Hollis took a long look at the bruises across Blaine’s face, courtesy of the flying luggage. “I get the feeling this kind of thing is nothing new for you.”
“You might say that.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Captain!” a new voice rang out.
Hollis turned briefly to acknowledge the rescue boss. “Thing is,” he began as he turned back Blaine’s way. He let the sentence dangle.
McCracken was gone.
CHAPTER 14
Ben Samuelson’s call reached the President while he was dressing for a state dinner with representatives of both the Israeli and Arab negotiating teams. The Mideast peace process had become yet another quagmire that had bedeviled his eighteen-month tenure. Tonight’s dinner marked a concerted attempt on his part to get the process going again. As soon as he got off the phone with Samuelson, though, the President buzzed his appointments secretary and instructed him to bump the dinner back an hour at the risk of offending his guests.
The FBI chief was ushered into his private office twenty minutes later. A handleless briefcase was tucked tightly under his arm. He had asked to see the President alone, without even Charlie Byrne in attendance.
“Only you can make the decision of who should share the information I’m bringing with me, sir,” Samuelson had explained.
“You were rather coy on the phone, Ben,” the President started, the door to his private office closed again.
The head of the FBI stood before him stiffly. “Let me go in order, sir. First off, Langley has confirmed from the logs that Tom Daniels met with the director on three separate occasions over the past ten days. The last meeting took place this past Thursday, the evening prior to the murders.”
“Is that unusual?”
“In and of itself, yes, because by all accounts Daniels skipped channels and went straight to Jardine. I could accept that happening once. But three times could mean only that Daniels had Jardine’s blessing to pursue whatever he was on to.”
“I don’t suppose those logs included a summary of what they discussed.”
“No, sir, they didn’t. At that point I was at a dead end, with no more to go on other than the feeling that the two murders were connected.”
“I gather you have more to go on than that now.”
“If I may, sir …”
“Please.”
Samuelson moved to the Queen Anne writing desk over on the right. He placed his briefcase atop it, careful to skirt the unkempt piles of the President’s personal correspondence.
“Two hours ago I received a call from the Russian ambassador insisting he had to see me immediately on a matter vital to national security.”
“Ours, I assume.”
“Quite,” Samuelson acknowledged and withdrew the cassette tape former KGB station chief Sergei Amorov had given to Vasily Conchenko. “Apparently, one of the last accomplishments of the KGB was to plant a bug inside Jardine’s office.”
“And it went undetected?”
“By all indications, yes. For years.”
“Years? Then …”
“Yes, Mr. President, the bug remained active after the KGB was withdrawn. Ambassador Conchenko assures me no foul play was intended. Either way, the placement of the bug proved most fortunate.” Samuelson’s eyes shifted to the cassette. “Thanks to it, and thanks to our friend Ambassador Conchenko, we now have a copy of this tape which was made Thursday night.”
“My God,” the President realized. “Jardine’s final meeting with Daniels.”
Samuelson removed a thin tape player from his briefcase and popped the cassette in. He pushed PLAY and the voice of Clifton Jardine filled the room.
“How many copies of this are there, Mr. Daniels?”
McCracken used the chaos enveloping all of National Airport as cover to flee. A cab brought him to Dulles, where he just made the evening’s last plane to Miami. A half hour after the thankfully uneventful flight had landed, Blaine was back at Strumpet’s, a mostly private club located in the basement of another building in South Beach. The lack of windows, if anything, added to the ambience. Strumpet’s was dark enough for people to hide out in the open. The single bar room was decorated in shades of peach and mauve, lit by electrified reproductions of Victorian gaslights. Its large bar was slightly curved and paneled in dark wood that matched the room’s walls.
The man who had put Blaine on to Ventanna was drinking in the same corner booth he had been in Thursday night. He was dressed all in black. Oil slicked his hair back and had taken the wave from it. The gold chains dangling from his neck glinted faintly in the dim light. He pretended not to see Blaine approaching.
“Hello, Rafael,” McCracken said from over him.
Rafael didn’t look up. “You fucked me good, you asshole.”
“Did I?”
“You set up Alvarez. They find out I helped you, I’m dead.”
“I had nothing to do with the Coconut Grove hit. And I came back to Miami to go after the real perps, Raffy.”
Rafael drained the rest of what looked like vodka on the rocks. “I buy you a drink?”
“I’d settle for more info.”
“Sorry. Fresh out.”
Blaine continued to stand. “Alvarez was selling to Arlo Cleese. Name ring a bell?”
“Can’t say that it does.”
“Sixties revolutionary who apparently hasn’t given up the cause. It’s possible he wants to finish the revolution he helped start a generation ago, with the help of firepower supplied by Alvarez.”
“He and his kid both got whacked for their efforts. That’s what you’re saying?”
McCracken nodded. “Because Cleese must have all that he needs. That means whatever he’s planning to do is going to happen soon.”
“He’s who you’re after …”
“And I can find him by following the trail of the guns Alvarez shipped out of Miami.”
A waitress arrived and set a fresh vodka on the rocks down on a napkin in front of Rafael.
“I could make some calls,” he offered when she was gone.
“Tell them I’m after whoever it was killed their boss and his kid. Tell them I don’t usually fail.”
McCracken accompanied Rafael to a private dock on Biscayne Bay two hours later.
“Must be them now,” Rafael said as a sleek 32-f
oot Gulfstar cabin cruiser approached, running with a single light.
The cabin cruiser slid up against the dock. A big man in shiny clothes jumped off and held it against a pylon while Blaine climbed on board. Instantly flanked by an armed man on either side of him, McCracken looked back toward Rafael.
Rafael held his ground and waved. “Have a good life, amigo.”
McCracken couldn’t have said for sure at that point what the intentions of the men on the crowded cruiser were. He counted five in all: the two flanking him, the one who had held the boat in place, a driver, and a final man atop an open air bridge who was holding a Mac-10 submachine gun.
“Your gun, please,” the one closest to him said.
Blaine surrendered his SIG-Sauer and the man wedged it into his belt. The Gulfstar set off.
His escorts gave no indication where they were heading and McCracken didn’t ask. He simply stood at the rail in the warm night air and tried to relax.
The cruiser made good speed through the calm night waters. An hour into the voyage, Blaine made out the shape of a large yacht silhouetted against the moonlit horizon. When it came clearly into view, he recognized it as an 82-foot Hatteras motor yacht, complete with twin Detroit 875-horsepower engines. Strictly top of the line, at a cost of maybe two million dollars. The captain drove it from a high-perched, enclosed bridge. Even from this distance, Blaine noted a figure standing high on the large top deck following the approach of the Gulfstar.
As McCracken tried to get a better view of the figure through the night, a pair of speedboats roared from around both sides of the Hatteras and sliced toward the Gulfstar. They took up positions along the cruiser’s port and starboard and guided it the last stretch of the way.
A steel ladder was secured from the stern of the 82-foot Hatteras, and a pair of men on the cruiser’s foredeck reached up to steady it for McCracken. Taking the signal, Blaine began to climb.
“This way,” one of them greeted after McCracken had pulled himself onto the deck.
The man, conspicuous by the fact that he was unarmed, led him up to the top deck where the figure Blaine had glimpsed before stood with eyes gazing over the yacht’s port. The figure turned round slowly and the moon illuminated his face.
“Manuel Alvarez,” McCracken greeted, recognizing a man who was supposed to be dead from pictures Captain Martinez had shown him the day before.
“I see you are a difficult man to surprise, Mr. McCracken.”
“Not always. I’m surprised you had me brought here.”
“But not that I’m still alive.”
“I read your file,” Blaine told him. “You let them blow up the smaller of your two yachts.”
Alvarez smiled thinly. “Vanity, I’m afraid.” The smile disappeared. “You came down here expecting to find me.”
“Hoping, anyway. I knew the bait would interest you.”
“I was interested even before you left it. I might have contacted you myself earlier if I had known how. I looked at it as a godsend when word reached me you had returned to Miami.”
Blaine started forward. “Why?”
“I have well-placed contacts inside the Miami police. They informed me of who you were, what you managed to do in the Grove. It seems you saved many lives.”
“Not your son’s, Mr. Alvarez.”
“You would have. I know that.”
“If I’d had the chance, yes.”
Blaine met Alvarez at the halfway point of the upper deck. Alvarez leaned his elbows on the railing and turned his gaze back to the sea, anguish squeezing his features into a taut grimace. His naturally dark skin looked sallow. The wind ruffled his neatly coiffed hair and his thin mustache seemed to droop.
“That’s why I’ve been hoping I’d have this chance, Mr. McCracken.” He turned toward Blaine again. “I need you to avenge my son.”
“That means finding Arlo Cleese, Mr. Alvarez.”
Alvarez’s hands tightened around the railing. “It was Cleese’s people in the Grove, wasn’t it?”
“If you asked the question, you don’t need me to answer it.”
“I warned my son to lay low. I warned him! He thought himself beyond danger.” Alvarez sighed. “The folly of the young.”
“Then you must have suspected something. That’s why you faked your own death, let Cleese blow up that other yacht.”
“The indications were subtle, yet present. Contact had been broken off. My man who served as conduit with Cleese disappeared last week.”
“Leaving you and your son as the only sure links to him.”
“I told him what he should do. I warned him of the danger. I thought he would listen.”
“He was too greedy, Mr. Alvarez, a lesson learned at your knee, perhaps.”
Alvarez nodded painfully, conceding the point. “You can’t hurt me any more than I already have been. I know the responsibility for my son’s death”—a heavy sigh—“is mine.”
“You might soon be responsible for far more deaths than that.”
“Because of Cleese …”
“You never questioned what he intended to do with your merchandise.”
“He was like any other customer, Mr. McCracken. He placed his orders and I filled them.” Alvarez swallowed hard. “The guns that were used in the Grove, I had them checked. I … I had to know.” His eyes glistened. “They were part of one of the shipments I made to Cleese.” A look of detached resignation crossed his features. “My own guns had been used in the killing of my only son. For that, I must make amends and you must help me.”
“Stopping Cleese from killing anyone else would make a nice start.”
“Whatever it takes. I can give you the location of the storage facility where our shipments to him ended up.” More pain stretched over Alvarez’s face. “I could have had the cache of weapons I supplied him destroyed, I suppose, but that hardly qualifies as justice. It’s Cleese who must pay for this, but he has to be found first.”
“And for that you need me.”
Alvarez turned his gaze vacantly in the sea’s direction once more. “After you find him, Mr. McCracken, I will supply any and all help that you need to do what must be done.” His eyes came back to Blaine. “For my son.”
“For the country, amigo.”
CHAPTER 15
Kristen Kurcell had called Senator Jordan from Duncan Farlowe’s office before leaving Grand Mesa.
“You should have told me what was going on before you left,” Jordan said softly. “I’ve been so worried. Jesus, I would have helped you.”
“I’m sorry. I just panicked. I … didn’t know it was going to be this bad.”
“I’m the one who’s sorry, Kris. But I’ll be waiting at the airport when you land. We’re going to take this on together. Hell hath no fury like an angry senator with a crucial committee seat.”
Jordan’s driver was standing next to the Lincoln’s rear passenger door when Kristen stepped out of the terminal Saturday night. The man saw her and pulled the door open. Kristen hurried over and placed her single small overnight bag in his outstretched hand. Then she plunged into the backseat.
Inside the senator was waiting. They embraced and Kristen felt Jordan’s lips sliding toward hers and turned away at the last.
“It’s okay,” Jordan said soothingly, kissing her on the cheek instead. “You’re home now.”
Samantha Jordan held Kristen tightly against her as her driver restarted the Lincoln’s engine.
Samantha Jordan had not made any advances toward Kristen until the night they had celebrated her promotion to chief of staff eighteen months before. A wonderful dinner had been followed by a bottle of champagne at the senator’s townhouse. They sat together on the couch sipping glass after glass, Kristen becoming uneasily aware that Jordan was moving ever closer to her. One of the senator’s hands began to stroke her knee and then slid slowly up the inside of her thigh.
Kristen pulled away. Their eyes met and in that instant of silent embarrassment she knew. It
was in Samantha Jordan’s stare even if it hadn’t been in her words. Kristen had left the townhouse and walked home in a stupor.
Perhaps she should have resigned the next day. She could never recall a time in her twenty-seven years when she’d felt more uncomfortable and ill at ease. But that would have meant throwing away a friendship with the person who had been there for Kristen during the most difficult time of her life in the summer preceding the election in ’92. Samantha Jordan had canceled two days of campaigning to be by her side for her parents’ funeral. She had helped with the arrangements, helped with everything. Kristen didn’t know what she would have done without her, glad to be able to return the favor when an unpleasant divorce ended with Jordan losing custody of her two children just two months later.
Kristen had spent the night the final decree had come down with the senator just talking, and she did not see the inside of Samantha Jordan’s townhouse again until the night they celebrated her promotion in November. She knew Jordan was lonely and, since the divorce, given to frequent bouts of depression. She accepted the attempted seduction as an upshot of that tumultuous emotional combination.
But more attempts followed in the succeeding eighteen months, inevitably mirroring Jordan’s lowest times. They always ended in the same innocent fashion with Kristen helping the senator up to her bedroom and then sleeping downstairs to be there in case Jordan awoke with the bout of depression still in progress.
Washington loves rumors, and those linking the two women amorously were among the hottest for a time. They continued to simmer in large part because Kristen did not bother to refute them, afraid that drawing more attention to the situation might bring Samantha Jordan’s emotional instability to light and destroy the brilliant career that alone was holding the senator together. Beyond that, there was no man in her life Kristen could point to in order to repudiate the story, and there hadn’t been for some time. The death of her parents had torn away any desire she had for a relationship and had severely constrained her urge for physical pleasure. Whenever she started to feel good, guilt inevitably entered in. She thrust herself into her career, because working was the only thing that took her mind off everything else.