“I understand what you want to do there, Chant,” Jan interrupted quietly. “I told you I’m smart.”
“Don’t be too quick to understand, Jan, and don’t try to be too smart until you’ve been at this awhile. A single piece of information can mean the difference between life and death.”
“Will you let me come back into New York to research? Out in Rockland, no single library will have all the resources I may need, and there’s no time to use the interlibrary system.”
“You have a point; I’ll think about it. First, let’s see what you find in the Rockland libraries.”
“All right.”
“Bear in mind that I’ll be using the information you gather to formulate a plan to achieve those precise objectives I mentioned. In Houston, I want to get in and out without Blake learning that I’ve ever been there; but the assassin operation must be effectively destroyed, and I’d like to end with the names of any and all people who may have used them.”
“Precisely what your friend was trying to do.”
“Yes. The second operation is one you can research even if you’re in England by the time you start working on it. You’ll find out anything you can about that castle of Blake’s on Lake Geneva It’s probably the most secure complex on earth, but it’s also centuries old, a historical site, so some architectural details may be available in various magazines If you can find recent aerial photographs, that would be wonderful; if not, you and Alistair will arrange to have our own taken Incidentally, until you’ve gotten the hang of all this, never contract for services with an outsider until you’ve checked with Alistair or me.”
“What’s your objective in Geneva?”
“Simply to kill Blake.”
“And get away.”
“That would be nice.”
“Chant, please let me come to Houston with you. You can do your thing, and I’ll do mine. I won’t be in the way, I’ll stay well away from any danger, and you’ll have me right there to provide you with information as I find it. It will save you an awful lot of time.”
Alistair Powers and Jan Rawlings were going to get along just fine, Chant thought. He said, “No. If you’re going to work for me, you must learn to follow my instructions precisely.”
“Yes, mysterious sir,” Jan said, and sighed.
They rode in comfortable silence, Jan’s head resting on Chant’s shoulder, back up the Palisades Parkway to Rockland County and the house on South Mountain Road They got out of the car, walked up a long, sloping path to the door. Jan opened it, stepped inside, reached for the lights—and suddenly felt Chant’s strong grip on her wrist, pulling her hand away from the light switch Then he shoved her gently but firmly back into the shadows in a corner of the foyer. With Chant standing in the moonlight streaming in through the open door, Jan was amazed to see a knife suddenly appear, as if materializing out of thin air, in his right hand Then he darted quickly but in virtually complete silence up the stairs.
Jan waited, her heart pounding, in silent darkness that became almost a palpably heavy thing, pressing on her lungs Then the lights came on upstairs, and she heard Chant’s voice.
“It’s all right, Jan. You can come up.”
Jan hurried up the stairs, found him in his bedroom His knife had been returned to his sleeve, or wherever it had come from, but the expression on his face was intense as he slowly turned, studying everything in the room.
“Someone’s been here?” Jan asked breathlessly.
Chant nodded, continued to slowly turn.
“But nothing’s been disturbed.”
“You’re wrong. Everything in my room and yours—and probably in the house—has been gone through, by an expert.”
Jan sniffed, suddenly aware of a faint medicinal odor in the room, like strong mouthwash. “What’s that smell?”
“It belongs to the man who was in here,” Chant replied in a low tone. “His name’s Duane Insolers, and he works for R. Edgar Blake. He’s a bright man, obviously good at what he does.”
“But how could he have found us, Chant?!”
Chant shrugged. “Most likely, he posed as a police detective, talked to some of your friends and found out about this place. It doesn’t matter how; he’s been here.”
“What now?”
“Get your coat, Jan We’ve run out of time, and we’re leaving right now.”
Jan quickly went to her room. She put on her coat, made certain she erased the smile on her face before she turned to face Chant, who was standing in the doorway, coat on and suitcases in his hands.
“I’m ready, Chant.”
“Listen to me carefully, Jan,” Chant said in a flat voice. “Frankly, I’m surprised we’re alive right now—but we are There’s no reason to assume Insolers knows we’re aware that he’s watching us, which gives us a certain element of surprise. I think I can—”
“There’s no doubt whatsoever in my mind that you can do anything you say you can do—along with an almost infinite variety of things you don’t say you can do.”
“This isn’t a game, Jan; you could end up with a bullet in your head very quickly. First, we’ll use the balcony outside your bedroom to get up on the roof. Second, I want you to do exactly as I say, no matter how strange any instruction I give you may seem, immediately and without question. With a little luck, I think we should be able to get past whoever may be waiting for us outside, and be on our way.”
“Got it.”
“Take off your shoes and put one in each pocket of your coat. Also, begin right now to concentrate on breathing deeply and regularly; it will help you to relax and move quietly, and will also reduce the risk of hyperventilation if something startles you.”
“Yes, sir,” Jan said seriously—but she could not resist snapping a salute and adding, “Let’s go, boss.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Chant brought the rented Cessna Executive in to a smooth landing at the small, private airport just outside Houston. He taxied to his designated parking area, but before getting out he carefully packed his array of rented photographic equipment back into a leather satchel; he did not want anyone at the airport to know he had been taking aerial photographs.
It had been a long day, and it was not yet over; he still had to drive to the photographic studio he had rented in order to develop the film he had shot. Long, Chant thought, but productive.
Up before dawn, he had spent the early morning hours driving his rented car on the highways and roads surrounding the R.E.B. Pharmaceuticals plant, stopping occasionally to study sections of the complex through binoculars or take photographs with the macrotelescopic lens on his Nikon. From the distance around the complex, Chant estimated that R.E.B Pharmaceuticals occupied a tract of at least a hundred acres. There appeared to be three different sections to R.E.B Pharmaceuticals—a manufacturing complex, a warehousing and shipping area, and a smaller area with windowless buildings and a high-tech look, which Chant suspected comprised a research-and-development facility. Each area had its own employee parking lots and entrance from access roads, with the research area surrounded by warning signs and electrified fences topped with barbed wire. There were uniformed guards at each of the entrances, with a double contingent around the research area.
Chant had been impressed by the appearance of the security personnel. They were, he thought, not the usual contingent of retired police officers and high school graduates who made up the security forces of most companies These men were young to middle-aged, with a distinctly military bearing, and Chant suspected they were members of R. Edgar Blake’s private army, probably trained in secret in Europe.
Chant’s aerial reconnaissance had confirmed his belief that by far the greatest concentration of security measures were around the research-and-development facility, which was fenced off from the other areas inside the complex, as well as from the outside.
Those windowless buildings, Chant thought, were where he would have to go.
It was seven-thirty in the evening by the tim
e Chant finished in the photo lab, and he left with a large manila envelope filled with blown-up photographs under his arm. Using a pay phone on the street, he called Jan at the motel where they were staying to see whether she would prefer to have him bring back food or go out to dinner, and was cheerfully informed that she had already made arrangements for their dinner.
When Chant entered the motel suite, he was both surprised and delighted to find a superb sushi buffet spread over the surface of two writing desks, which had been pushed together. The fresh fish and vegetables looked well chosen, and the various dishes had been laid out to appeal to the eye as well as to the palate. In a corner of the room, a pot of aromatic tea sat on a hot plate Jan had apparently borrowed from the front office Jan, beaming, stood in the center of the room; she was dressed in a sheer, beige negligee, which nicely complemented her blond hair and brown eyes, and flattered her shapely body.
“Very nice, Jan,” Chant said with a smile and an appreciative nod. “Everything.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jan replied with a small curtsy. “I thought you would like sushi I don’t know why, but I always feel like there’s something so Japanese about you.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really Anyway, I once took a course in sushi preparation and presentation. I hope it’s all right.”
“It looks superb,” Chant said, pulling over chairs for them to sit in. He seated Jan, poured tea for both of them, then sat and sampled a few of the dishes with the chopsticks Jan had laid out “It is superb.”
“Thank you. They have delicious seafood all over here, and it was easy to get a bus just across the street. I hope you don’t mind that I bought the negligee, I don’t suppose it was really necessary.”
Chant looked at her, laughed “I love it. Buy whatever you want or need, just as long as you use the credit cards I gave you.”
“I did—and I destroyed all of my own cards, just to be on the safe side in case my purse is stolen.”
“Good. For now, you’re Mary Gurran.”
“How did you make out, Chant?”
Chant nodded toward the manila envelope on the bed behind them “Those are the photographs I took Later this evening or tomorrow, we’ll see what they look like under a magnifying glass. It’s a big complex, with a tough security force; you can bet there’s a hell of a lot more going on in there than drug manufacturing and distribution. I need to find the best way to infiltrate the security, then get into both the administration offices in the center of the complex, and those windowless buildings to the northwest.”
“Sounds exciting,” Jan said lightly as she deftly slipped some fish into her mouth. “Incidentally, I got a job today.”
“Oh?” Chant paused with his teacup halfway to his mouth. “I thought you were working for me.”
“I am,” Jan replied, pushing a plate of delicately sliced fish toward Chant. “That’s why I got this particular job. Mary Gurran is going to be working as a file clerk in the offices of R.E.B. Pharmaceuticals. I start tomorrow.”
“No,” Chant said in a flat tone, setting his cup down. He turned in his chair, fixed Jan with his gaze “Mary Gurran doesn’t show up for work tomorrow—or any other day.”
“Yes, she does,” Jan replied, the firmness in her tone matching his “It makes sense, and you know it.”
Chant deliberately set aside his chopsticks and napkin, rose to his feet, and stared hard down at the woman. “Working for me is a risky business at best, Jan. You know that. For that reason, I make decisions as to what makes sense and what doesn’t People who work for me follow my instructions. You’re fired Keep those credit cards and the rented car until you get to wherever it is you want to go; I suggest you take a long, cross-country bus tour. Keep the name Mary Gurran for at least another month, by which time this matter should be finished and you’ll be free to be whoever you want to be When you no longer need the cards, please destroy them thoroughly.”
Jan turned in her chair, crossed her legs, and spoke in a firm voice to Chant’s back as he began packing his clothes in his suitcase. “You can fire me, Chant, but I’m still going to work in the offices of R E.B Pharmaceuticals; you can’t stop me. And I’m not going anywhere. I have a job here in Houston, and—thanks to you—I have a perfectly good new identity. I’ll get my own credit cards. You see, it doesn’t make any difference what you do, or whether you fire me; I’m still going there. And if you care to stop back here at the motel from time to time in the next week or two, I will be more than happy to report to you what, if anything, I find out. If I discover anything particularly juicy in the files that it’s my job to keep in order, I’ll try to make copies for you. You may as well stop by to check out what I find, because—whether you come around or not—I’m still going to be digging through those files looking for the things you want to know. I’d hate to think all of my efforts will be in vain.”
Chant slowly turned around to face her. “Why?” he asked quietly.
Jan shrugged. “Why what?”
“Jan, you know I don’t want you to do this Why do you persist?”
“You don’t want me to do it because you think it’s dangerous.”
“I don’t think it’s dangerous, Jan; it is dangerous. You seem to forget that the last time we met it was in the company of a man with a machete who had it in mind to dice you up like the fish we’ve been eating. And you weren’t anywhere near as dangerous to R. Edgar Blake than as you are now; the people who’ll be your co-workers work for him.”
“I haven’t forgotten. How could I forget something like that?”
“Jan, your disguise and your identity documents are adequate—unless someone really wants to run a check on you. If you make a mistake—just one, mind you—somebody may put a bullet in your brain; or worse. I repeat what I said last night; this business is not a game for a woman looking for something exciting to do because her last job bored her. This job as a filing clerk could literally bore you to death.”
Jan felt herself flush with anger, but she remained sitting, breathing deeply, until the anger passed John Sinclair, she thought, was a master of control, and if she were not to lose the man she loved in this greatest of gambles she had to demonstrate to him that she, too, knew how to remain calm. When she was sure she was once again in control of her emotions, able to think and speak clearly, she rose and slowly walked across the room until she was standing directly in front of him.
“That was a very insulting and hurtful remark, Chant,” Jan said evenly as she stared directly up into his eyes. “But I forgive you, because I understand why you said it I wasn’t bored with my job in New York—and you know that I was desperately frustrated by my inability to effect any change in the lives of people I badly wanted to help. I came to believe that nothing I did made any real difference, and I was right; no matter what I did or how hard I worked, my clients kept on starving, getting bitten by rats, freezing in the winter, and roasting in the summer.”
Jan paused, raised her right hand and gently placed it on Chant’s massive chest “I want to work for you, Chant—I want to make a difference, like you do Please believe me when I say that the prospect of dying while I’m really doing something doesn’t frighten me nearly as much as memories of the empty life I was leading I once tried to kill myself, remember? You know I don’t think of this as a game. I’ll be careful, and I won’t make mistakes. It’s just an office job, for heaven’s sake Let me do it.”
“I never use people on field operations,” Chant said flatly, remembering an exception he had made with Alistair and how the old man had almost been killed Remembering Martha.
“Look, a situation like this will never come up again. After this, I will be most happy to serve in John Sinclair’s rear guard while he goes on with his solo operations around the world. But what I want to do at this time and in this place just makes sense. You need all the help you can get When I went into their employment office, I could see that the entire complex is crawling with nasty-looking, armed guards. The
place is guarded like a fortress.”
“I’m well aware of that, Jan,” Chant said dryly.
“I know you are, and I’m aware of the fact that you can—and even eventually will—get past all those men, the alarm systems, dogs, and whatever else they may have in there. But you’re the one who told me that information is the most potent weapon. You also precisely instructed me that the objective in Houston was to infiltrate, gather information, then quietly retreat. So, through me, you’ve already infiltrated I don’t have a death wish, Chant, I’m not going to take any unnecessary risks. If I can’t find anything in the files I’m assigned to work on, then that’s that But at least you’ll still have a pair of eyes in there. I accept any risk there may be, there’s no responsibility on your shoulders.”
“You sound like Martha,” Chant said, intending to shock “Did I tell you that she and her husband were decapitated?”
“I heard it on the radio,” Jan replied evenly “This is a totally different situation, and I consider it a privilege to help, in whatever small way I can, find the people responsible for Martha’s murder.”
Chant shook his head. “Mary Gurran doesn’t show up for work tomorrow—not if Jan Rawlings wants to keep working for me.”
Jan smiled. “You already fired me, remember? Now, speaking of infiltration, while I was taking my interview, I learned that R.E.B Pharmaceuticals is seriously short of laborers in their warehouse and loading operation. I happened to casually mention that I have a big, strong friend who’d just been laid off his construction job and is looking for work. They’d really like you to stop in and fill out an application, Mr. Marsh If you do, you’ll probably be working in the warehouse by tomorrow afternoon—that is, unless you’d prefer to be climbing over electrified fences and barbed wire, and padding tippety-toe past all those guards, instead of walking through the main gate.”
Chant sighed, reached out and took Jan’s hand in his “You’re getting to be a real pain in the ass,” he said quietly.
“And besides being gutsy, persistent, and clever, I’m also pretty good in bed—at least with you. Right?”
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