by Jeff Buick
Travis took a quick look over the edge and disappeared back into the dark hallway. He moved quickly now, his footing sure and his hands steady. He clipped the box back onto his belt and smoothed out his hair with one hand while keeping the other against the wall. He reached the door to the stairwell and opened it, glancing about. No one had responded to the fight on the catwalk yet and he raced down the stairs. He heard the familiar sound of sirens as police closed in on the station. He had to get out of the stairwell and in with the masses before the police came, or the game was up. He’d be charged with murder and the diamonds would surely be found, exonerating Kerrigan.
He reached the door leading to the main station and opened it a crack. Police were pouring in the front doors, guns in hand. He quickly opened the door, slipped through and merged in with the other bystanders trying to stay out of harm’s way. He slowly migrated to the nearest exit, moving neither slowly nor quickly. At the door, an ambulance worker grabbed him as he walked from the building. He was speaking Flemish and pointing at Travis’s face.
“I don’t speak Flemish,” he said. “Just English.”
“Yes, yes. I speak the English. You face is with blood. You are hurt.”
“I’m okay, just a bit shaken. There are many more people inside hurt much worse.” He pointed at the door. “You should get in there and help them.”
The man nodded that he understood and disappeared into the station. Travis unclipped the metal box from his belt and took a minute to wipe the blood off his face, using the metal as a crude mirror. He angled across the street toward De Beers. The sidewalks were crowded with office workers and pedestrians who had stopped to watch all the action outside Central Station. He politely made his way through the crowd, watching for Samantha as he approached De Beers. At first he didn’t see her—she was partially hidden behind a tall man. Then their eyes locked and they both smiled. He closed the distance and hugged her close to him.
“That wouldn’t be your handiwork over there, would it?” she asked.
“Hey, some guy was crawling around the rafters of the building. He fell off. How could I have anything to do with that?”
“I don’t believe you, Mr. McNeil.” They linked arms around each other’s waists and began to walk away from the station. She glanced up at him. “I’ve got an idea of what we can do with Kerrigan. We need to find the nearest pharmacy.”
FORTY-TWO
Patrick Kerrigan stormed out of De Beers and into the crowds watching the commotion at the station. He ignored the excitement and flagged down a passing cab. He gave the driver the name of his hotel and settled into the backseat. What a mess.
She’d switched the real diamonds and replaced them with highly accurate forgeries. She must have duplicated them before he took them from her in Cairo. But why? He was completely in the dark. She had taken a shot at him and it had hurt. He knew full well what the repercussions would be. His career was finished. His name would be blacklisted in every establishment worldwide that dealt in legitimate precious stones. He would be a social pariah—again. It wasn’t enough that his ex-wife had screwed him; now Samantha Carlson had as well.
Shaw had probably taken out McNeil by now. The confusion at the station may have had something to do with McNeil’s death, but he didn’t care. Right now, he just wanted to get back to his hotel, have a drink and think of what to do with Carlson when he finally got her in his hands. The audacity of the bitch. Showing up at his sight. Then fucking everything up. Christ, he was furious.
The taxi pulled up outside the Park Lane Hotel. He paid his fare and entered the lobby. The desk clerk waved to him with a message. Davis Perth in New York. Now what the fuck did Davis want with him? The stupid, rich asshole. He should just stay on his sailboat and leave the office stuff to someone who knew what he was doing. The elevator opened at his floor and he entered the quiet hotel suite. He poured a drink of scotch and calculated the time difference to New York. It would be about seven o’clock in the morning. He placed a call to Perth, expecting his secretary to answer. He was mistaken.
“Good morning, Patrick,” Davis said once Kerrigan had identified himself. “How are things in Antwerp?”
“Very well, thank you. I thought you wouldn’t be back for another few weeks?”
“Oh, some part broke on the boat and it was going to be three weeks to have it manufactured and shipped over, so I just came back to NewYork. What are you doing in Belgium?”
“We had some rough I wanted to get graded. What better place than Antwerp?”
“Yes, of course. We’ve got a meeting with the Securities Commission tomorrow, Patrick. Is it possible for you to be at the meeting?”
“I hate those pricks, Davis. Why don’t you handle them this time?”
“Because that’s what I pay you for. I don’t like them either. The meeting is set for two in the afternoon. Please make it back.” The line went dead.
Kerrigan hung up the phone and poured another drink, this one a double. Things were just getting worse. The Securities Commission were Doberman Pinschers, and they weren’t scared to take a bite out of your ass. And it had only been four months since the last face-to-face meetings with the pricks. Usually it was six months, almost to the day. Then he stopped. Something was wrong. These guys were diarists. They probably made notes of when they crapped each day. There was no way they would be two months early.
Kerrigan placed a call to his CIA connection and asked him to check around and see if anything was going on behind the scenes. He didn’t have long to wait. The return call came back inside five minutes.
“Jesus, Patrick. What have you done?”
His knees began to tremble as he spoke. “What do you mean? What’s wrong?”
“The FBI and the FAA have both issued warrants for your arrest. They aren’t saying what for, but you’ve been placed on the top of their most wanted list. You must have really fucked someone over.”
“Warrants?” Kerrigan steadied himself by sitting in the armchair close to the phone. “They’ve issued warrants?”
“Yes. If you set foot in the United States, you’re going to jail.”
“Okay, I understand. Thank you.” He let the phone slip from his hand onto his lap. He sat motionless for a minute until the phone began to beep. He replaced it in its cradle and cupped his head in his hands. What had happened? If the FAA was involved, it could very well be that someone had finally connected him to the Cranston Air disaster. But whom? And how?
He placed another call, this time to Lufthansa. They had a flight for Tunisia leaving in three hours and he booked a seat. He needed a country that the United States did not have an extradition treaty with, and Tunisia would work just fine. He packed his bags and called the front desk to send up a porter. He spent the five minutes waiting for the porter downing another scotch. He gave the room a quick onceover, then took the elevator down with his baggage. He had the desk clerk total his bill and handed over a platinum card. After a few swipes on the machine, the clerk apologized to Kerrigan.
“I am sorry, sir, but our machine must be malfunctioning.
Your card is being rejected. I’ve been asked to phone the bank. I’m sorry, but I must comply.”
“Do as you wish. As you say, the machines must be down.”
The clerk dialed a central number for the Visa center, spoke to the representative, then hung up and addressed Kerrigan. “They have instructed me to destroy the card, sir. Do you have another?”
Kerrigan stared at the man. His platinum card had a one-hundred-thousand-dollar limit. He pulled another card from his wallet and handed it over. Three swipes and a phone call later, the clerk destroyed the second card.
“I’ll pay cash,” Kerrigan said, withdrawing a wad of bills and paying the tab. He left the hotel knowing that the far-reaching tentacles of the FBI were in motion, and that he had limited time to transfer his assets to safe havens. He instructed his taxi driver to find a Credite Suisse Bank. The man knew of one and drove him straight th
ere. He told the driver to wait and entered the bank. Fifteen minutes later, a distraught Patrick Kerrigan exited the bank. All his accounts were frozen. At best, he was limited to the offshore accounts in the Bahamas and Cayman Islands. And those would follow suit soon. He had to think. He had over one hundred thousand dollars in cash, tucked in a hidden compartment of his carry-on baggage. There was no way to access the two accounts that weren’t frozen without actually visiting the Caribbean, and that was too dangerous right now. He had to get to Tunisia and lie low for a bit.
He ordered the driver to the international airport in Brussels and sank into the leather seat, watching the countryside. The longer he thought about it, the more it all started to come together. Samantha Carlson. Somehow, she had figured out his complicity in the Cranston Air crash and had relayed that information to the FBI. And they had bought it. The Bureau had then issued the warrants for his arrest, terminated his charge cards, and frozen his accounts, both national and international. Christ, she had screwed him and screwed him good.
The only avenue left to him was to flee. And his options were very limited. The United States had powerful connections worldwide, and that meant only a handful of countries would be safe. He cursed her as the taxi sped toward Brussels. He cursed her and he hated her like he had never hated anyone before.
FORTY-THREE
The phone rang and Samantha picked it up. She handed the phone over to Travis and went back to wrapping a small package for the post. She covered the bubble wrap with brown paper and addressed it. She slipped it and a letter into her handbag. He waited as the hotel operator connected the overseas line.
“Is this Travis McNeil?”
“Yes.”
“This is Davis Perth. We spoke two days ago.”
“Yes, of course I remember. What can I do for you, Mr. Perth?”
“Please, call me Davis. And the question would be more like, what can we do for you?” he said. “I gave an accurate account of what you told me on the phone to the director of the FBI. He happens to be a personal friend and golfing buddy. He contacted the FAA. It seems that the FAA knew exactly what downed that airliner, but they never released that information to the press. They also knew about the payment to Garth Graham, but they didn’t know who had paid him. They were keeping what they knew under wraps until something else came up. Something like Patrick Kerrigan’s involvement.”
“So they believed us that Kerrigan was the mastermind?”
“Absolutely. They’ve drawn the net in on him already. Warrants have been issued for his arrest. His credit cards are useless and all his accounts worldwide are frozen. The man is finished.”
“Excellent. Thanks, Davis. Without you getting the FBI to lend a high-ranking ear to all this, he would have walked.”
“He may still,” Davis Perth cautioned. “He’s reserved a seat on Lufthansa to Tunisia. It departs Brussels in less than two hours. The U.S. consulate in Brussels can’t work through diplomatic channels fast enough to stop him.”
“Then I’ve got to go. Samantha came up with an idea that might just work. Talk to you later.” He turned to an inquisitive Samantha Carlson. “I’ll tell you in the taxi what’s going on. Let’s go.”
Kerrigan sat in the business-class passenger’s lounge, relaxing now that he had cleared customs and immigration. The ticket agent had been excellent, considering his predicament. The credit card authorization he had initiated from his hotel room an hour earlier had been rejected, leaving him without a ticket. The plane was almost filled, but the agent managed to find him a business-class seat when he produced the cash. Now he was just a few minutes from boarding, and freedom. A sharp prick on the back of his left hand caused him to open his eyes and jerk upright. To his right was Samantha Carlson, and to his left was Travis McNeil. They both clamped their hands over his, holding him tight to the arms of the chair.
“Thinking about leaving, Mr. Kerrigan?” McNeil asked.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Samantha added. “Since you’re a murdering son of a bitch.”
“Fuck you, Carlson. You’ve done enough damage. You’re not stopping me from getting on that airplane.”
“You’re the one who’s done the damage. I loved my parents, and a day doesn’t go by that I don’t think of them. And you killed them. Just like you murdered every person on Cranston Air Flight 111.”
“Not to mention the expeditions you sent into the jungle, knowing full well that you were going to kill them once they found the diamonds,” said Travis.
Kerrigan was twitching slightly, and his sight was blurring. He shook his head to try to clear the cobwebs. McNeil was grasping at his coat. He pulled away, talking loudly to attract the attention of the gate personnel. An airline rep appeared and Kerrigan lurched forward into her arms. He tried to talk, but his speech was slurred, incoherent. The Lufthansa employee looked to Travis and Samantha for help.
“Our uncle is mildly handicapped,” Samantha explained. “If you could help him to his gate and onto the plane, it would be greatly appreciated.
“Of course, miss,” the agent said, grasping Kerrigan and steadying him. She led him toward the row of gates leading to the planes. “Where is your ticket, sir?” Kerrigan managed to pat his chest and the woman removed his ticket from the vest pocket. She looked at it and led him away. “You’re at gate forty-one, and they are just starting to board.”
Travis and Samantha watched as the woman led Kerrigan to the plane. They returned through the metal detectors and left the section reserved for ticketed passengers. They threw the business-class tickets they had just purchased in the garbage, went to the main doors and jumped in a cab.
“I hope he enjoys the flight,” she said cheerfully.
“I don’t think he’ll remember much of it. How much curare did you put on that needle?”
“Quite a bit. He’s going to be in a trance for quite a while. Curare is a powerful muscle relaxant. Pretty good idea, eh?”
“Very good.” He gave her a long, loving kiss.
“Remember when I asked you if you’d consider quitting what you do and maybe starting a business?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Do you remember what you said?”
“I said yes, and I meant it.”
“Okay, then let’s figure out what we should do. You like to dive, right?”
“Scuba?” he asked and she nodded. “Yup, I love to dive.”
“Then we could set up shop somewhere really warm, with white sand beaches and underwater reefs and run a dive shop.”
“But I also like to ski,” he said, frowning insincerely.
“Okay. We’ll run a dive shop for five months, and a skiing operation for five months. How does that sound?”
“That’s only ten months.”
“We need two just for us.” The taxi pulled into Antwerp and she asked the driver to find a post office. He did, and she deposited a letter and a small package, then rejoined Travis in the backseat.
“You’re probably the kind of guy who hates the thought of marriage,” she said.
“I used to. I’m not so sure anymore.” He grinned at her and she knew. He was sure.
FORTY-FOUR
The flight attendant gently nudged the passenger in 4B. He had slept for the entire flight and the pilots were just beginning their final approach into the airport. He snorted a couple of times, then opened his eyes. They were unfocused, teary.
“Sir, we’re going to be landing soon. You have to put your seat back in an upright position.”
“Oh, yes, of course. Did you say we’re almost there?”
“Yes, sir. We’re just beginning our final descent right now.”
“I must have slept through the entire flight.”
“You did, sir.”
“That makes buying a business-class ticket seem like a waste,” he said. The attendant smiled.
Patrick Kerrigan handed over the small airline pillow and blanket. He moved his seat back to the p
roper position and ran his hands over his hair. The attendant reappeared with a glass of water and he accepted it. He took a long drink and relaxed. He had slept well on the flight and felt refreshed. Slowly, however, he began to recall the incident at the Brussels airport. McNeil and Carlson sitting on either side of him. Then nothing. No recollection of anything until now. He shook his head slightly, trying to stir his memory. Something else had happened at the airport. What was it? McNeil’s voice, then a pinprick on his hand. His left hand. He looked down at the back of his hand, and balked. Between his second and third knuckles was a tiny red mark.
He began to sweat. The vague memory of McNeil and Carlson was real. They had been at the airport. But what had they wanted? He had made his flight and escaped. They had failed to stop him. His breathing began to slow and he felt the initial adrenaline rush dissipate. He settled back into the first-class seat and closed his eyes. Whatever they had tried, it hadn’t worked.
He felt the tires touch down on the runway. He was safe. Safe from the FBI and Interpol, and aside from the CIA mounting a covert operation to return him to the United States, safe from any law enforcement agency. And the chances of the CIA sending in a team on such a high-risk mission was just about zero. It would take time to rebuild his fortune but it could be done. It would be done. He had enough cash with him to get set up in Tunisia and finance a quick trip to Sierra Leone. He still had ties to small mining sites in that hellhole that would move him back to millionaire status within months. And once he was back on his feet financially, he’d take care of Samantha Carlson.
The ground crews attached the bridge to the plane and the flight attendants opened the door. The business-class passengers began to deplane and Kerrigan fell in line. He smiled at the attendant as she thanked the passengers for flying Lufthansa.