Desperate Measures

by David Morrell

  "Then what did he want?"

  "For us to be true to the principles he'd taught us. He was appalled

  that we'd formulated such stern government policies against the Soviet

  Union. He wanted us to undo those policies and recommend cooperation

  between the two countries. It was nonsense, of course. The Soviets had

  been made out to be such monsters that there wasn't any way to change

  America's official attitude toward them. Any politician or diplomat who

  tried would be committing professional suicide. No, the only way to

  build a career was to be more anti-Soviet than anyone else.

  "And after all, your careers mattered more than anything," Pittman said.

  "Of course. You can't accomplish anything if you're out of the loop."

  "So you balanced Duncan Kline against your careers. and . . - " l

  "Killed him," Gable said.

  Pittman tensed, his instincts warning him. It wasn't Gable's habit to

  reveal information. Why was he doing so now? To hide his unease,

  Pittman frowned toward the obituary he held. "It says here that Duncan

  Kline died from exposure during a winter storm. " Dear God, Pittman

  thought. He finally understood. Involuntarily, he murmured, "The snow.

  I I

  "That's right, Mr. Pittman. The snow. Duncan was an alcoholic. When

  we met him at his cabin, he refused to be budged byour arguments. He

  insisted that if we didn't soften our policy toward the Soviet Union, he

  would expose us as former Communist sympathizers. A blizzard was

  forecast. It was late afternoon, but the snow was falling thickly

  enough already that we couldn't see the lake behind Duncan's cabin. He'd

  been drinking to excess before we arrived at the cabin. He drank

  heavily all the while we tried to reason with him. I suspect that if

  he'd been sober, we might have had more patience with him. As it was,

  we used the alcohol to kill him. We encouraged him to keep drinking,

  pretending to drink with him, waiting for him to collapse. Or so we

  hoped. I have to give Duncan credit. After a while, even as drunk as

  he was, he finally suspected that something was wrong. He stopped

  drinking. No amount of encouragement would persuade him to swallow the

  scotch we poured for him. In the end, we had to force him. And I have

  to give Duncan credit for something else-all those years of rowing had

  made him extremely strong. Drunk and in his sixties, he put up quite a

  struggle. But he wasn't any match for the five of us. You helped hold

  his arms, didn't you, Winston? We poured the scotch down his throat. Oh

  yes, we did. He vomited. But we kept pouring." Pittman listened,

  repelled. The scene that Gable described reminded Pittman of the way in

  which Gable had murdered his wife. "At last, after he was unconscious,

  we picked him up, carried him outside, and left him in a snowbanks"

  Gable said. "His former students and faculty members knew how extreme

  his alcohol problem was. They thought that the reference to exposure

  was discreet, since privately many of them were able to learn the true

  nature of his death. Or what they thought was the true nature-that he'd

  wandered drunkenlyoutside in his shirt sleeves and passed out in the

  snowstorm. No one ever discovered that we had helped Duncan along. We

  removed all evidence that we'd been in the cabin. We got in our cars

  and drove away. The snow filled our tire tracks. A relative of his

  became worried when Duncan didn't return to Boston after the reunion at

  Grollier. The state police were sent to the cabin, where they saw

  Duncan's car, searched, and found his bare foot sticking out from under

  a snowdrift. An animal had tugged off his shoe and eaten his toes. "

  "Aod almost forty years later, Jonathan Millgate began having nightmares

  about what you'd done," Pittman said. "Jonathan was always the most

  delicate among us," Gable said. "Strange. During the Vietnam War, he

  could recommend destroying villages suspected of ties with the

  Communists. He knew full well that everyone in those villages would be

  killed, and yet he never lost a moment's sleep over them. But about

  that time, his favorite dog had to be destroyed because it was suffering

  from kidney disease. He wept about that dog for a week. He had, it

  buried, with a stone marker, in his backyard. I once saw him out there

  talking to the gravestone, and that was two years after the fact. I

  think that he could have adjusted to what we did to Duncan, a bloodless

  death, falling ever more deeply asleep with snow for a pillow, the

  corpse preserved in the cold, if only the animal hadn't eaten Duncan's

  toes. The mutilation took control of Jonathan's imagination. Yes, he

  did have nightmares, although I assumed that after a time the nightmares

  stopped. However, a few years ago, I was surprised, to say the least,

  when he began referring to them again. The Soviet Union had collapsed.

  Instead of being jubilant, Jonathan reacted by saying that the fall of

  communism only proved that Duncan's death had been needless. The logic

  eluded me. But the threat didn't. When Jonathan began pouring his

  tortured soul out to Father Dandridge, I felt very threatened indeed."

  "So you killed him, and here we are," Pittman said, "trying to come to

  terms with your secrets. Was it really worth it, everything you did to

  me, the people who died because of the cover-up? You're elderly. You're

  infirm. The odds are that you would have died long before the

  investigation led to a trial."

  Gable rubbed his emaciated chin and assessed Pittman w itheyes that

  seemed a thousand years old. "You still don't understand. With all

  that you've been through and with all that we've discussed this

  afternoon, you still somehow fail to understand. Of course I'd be dead

  before the matter even got as far as a grand jury. I don't care about

  being punished. Indeed, as far as I'm concerned, I did nothing for

  which I deserve to be punished. What I care about is my reputation.

  I won't have a lifetime of devoted public service dragged into the

  gutter and judged by commoners because I eliminated a child molester, a

  drunkard, and a Communist. Duncan Kline was evil . As a youth, I

  didn't think so, of course. I admired him. But eventually I realized

  how despicable he was. His death was no loss to humanity. My

  reputation is worth a hundred thousand Duncan Klines. The good I have

  done for this country is a legacy that I refuse to allow to be smeared

  because of a desperate act of necessity that protected

  MY career.

  "Your career."

  "Precisely," Gable said. "Nothing else matters. I'm afraid that I

  brought You here under false pretenses. The million dollars, the two

  passports, I regret to say that I never intended to provide them. I

  wanted to discover what you knew. Quite a lot, it turns out. But

  without proof, it's all theory. you're hardly a threat to my security.

  But you are very much a threat to my reputation. Winston's behavior

  this afternoon shows that he, too, is a threat to my reputation. He

  can't guard his tongue. Fortunately both problems have a common

  solution. Mr. Webley.

  "Yes, sir."
<
br />   Webley proceeded toward Pittman and stopped behind him. Pittman's

  bowels turned cold when he heard the hammer on his .45 being cocked.

  "No!"

  The barrel of the .45 suddenly appeared beside him. The shot assaulted

  his eardrums. Across the room, Winston Sloane gasped, jerking back,

  blood erupting from his chest and from behind him, spattering the sofa

  upon which he sat. The old man shuddered, then collapsed as if he were

  made of btittle sticks that could no longer support one another. His

  head drooped, tilting his balance, sending his body sprawling onto the

  floor. Pittman was sure he heard bones scraping together.

  The shocked expression on Pittman's face communicated the question he

  was too horrified to ask. Why?

  "I told you, I need to eliminate problems," Gable said. "Mr. Webley."

  The gunman stepped from behind Pittman and walked to ward the entrance

  to the room. He stopped, turned, set the .45 on a table, and pulled a

  different pistol from beneath his suit coat.

  "Perhaps you're beginning to understand," Gable told Pittman.

  Terrified, Pittman wanted to run, but Webley blocked the way out. The

  instant Pittman moved, he knew he'd be killed. His only defense was to

  keep talking. "You expect the police to believe that I came in here,

  pulled a gun, shot Sloane, and then was shot by your bodyguard?"

  "Of course. The .45 belongs to you, after all. Mr. Webley will wipe

  his fingerprints from it, place the weapon in your hand, and fire it so

  that nitrate powder is on your fingers. The physical evidence will

  match what we insist happened.

  "But the plan won't work."

  "Nonsense. Your motive has already been established."

  "That's not what I mean. " Pittman's voice was hoarse with fear. He

  stared at the pistol Webley aimed at him. "The plan won't work because

  this conversation is being overheard and recorded. "

  Gable's wrinkle-rimmed eyes narrowed, creating more wrinkles. "What?"

  "You were right to be suspicious," Pittman said. "I did come here

  wearing a microphone."

  "Mr. Webley?"

  "You saw me search him thoroughly. He's clean. There's no microphone.

  "Then shoot him!"

  "Wait. " Pittman's knees shook so badly that he didn't know if he could

  support himself. "Listen to me. When you searched me, you missed

  something."

  "I said shoot him, Mr. Webley!"

  But Webley hesitated.

  "My gun," Pittman said. "The .45. Before I came hvli

  I went to a man I interviewed five years ago. He's a specialist in

  security, in electronic eavesdropping. He didn't recognize me, and he

  didn't ask any questions when I said I wanted to buy a miniature

  microphone-transmitter that could be concealed in the handle of a .45. 1

  knew the gun was the first thing you'd take from me. I was counting on

  the fact that you'd be so pleased to get it away from me, you wouldn't

  stop to realize it might be another kind of threat. You checked my pen,

  Webley. But you didn't think to check the gun.

  Webley grabbed the .45 off the table and pressed the button that

  released the pistol's ammunition magazine from its handle.

  Pittman kept talking, nauseated from fear. "I have a friend waiting in

  a van parked in the area. It's loaded with electronic equipment. She's

  been recording everything we said. She's also been rebroadcasting the

  conversation, directing it to the Fairfax police. Her signal is

  designed to block out normal police transmissions. For the last hour,

  the only thing the police station and all the police cars in Fairfax

  have been able to hear is our conversation. Mr. Gable, you just told

  several hundred police officers that you killed Duncan Kline, Jonathan

  Millgate, Burt Forsyth, and Father Dandridge. If

  I'd had time, I'd have gotten you to admit that you also killed your

  wife."

  "Webley!" Gable's outrage made his aged voice amazingly strong.

  "Jesus, he's right. Here it is." Webley looked pale as he held up a

  bullet-shaped object that was obviously intended for another purpose.

  "Damn you!" Gable shouted at Pittman.

  111'11 wait in line, thanks. You're damned already."

  "Kill him!" Gable roared toward Webley.

  ,But ..."

  "Do what I say!"

  "Mr. Gable, there's no point," Webley said.

  "Isn't there? No one subjects me to ridicule." Spittle erupted from

  Gable's mouth. "He's ruined MY reputation-" Gable's face assumed the

  color of a dirty sidewalk.

  As Webley continued to hesitate, Gable stalked toward him, took the gun

  from his hand, aimed at Pittman

  "No!" Pittman screamed.

  ... and fired.

  The bullet struck Pittman's chest. He groaned in anguish as he felt its

  slamming impact. It lifted him off his feet at the same time that it

  jolted him backward. In excruciating pain, he struck the floor,

  cracking his head, graying out for a moment, regaining consciousness,

  struggling to breathe. From where he Jay, his chest heaving

  spastically, ' he watched in panic as'Gable coughed, faltered, then

  lurched toward him.

  Gable's shriveled face towered above him. The Pistol was aimed toward

  Pittman's forehead.

  paralyzed from shock, Pittman couldn't even scream in protest as Gables

  finger tightened on the trigger.

  roar of the gunshot made Pittman flinch. But it didn't from the pistol

  in Gable's hand. Rather, it came from Pittman, from the direction of

  the wall-length window as glass shattered and gunshots kept roaring,

  Gable's face bursting into crimson, his chest shuddering, obscene red

  flower patterns appearing on it. Five shots. Six. Gable lurched

  against a chair. The pistol fell from his hand, clattering onto the

  floor. A bullet struck his windpipe, blood gushing, and suddenly Gable

  no longer had the stature of a diplomat, but the gangly awkwardness of a

  corpse toppling onto the floor.

  Through gaps in the window that had been shattered by gunshots, Pittman

  heard Denning shout in triumph.

  Denning's grotesquely manic face was framed by a jagged hole in the

  window. The old man's skin seemed to have shrunk, clinging to his

  cheekbones, making his face like a grinning skull.

  Hearing a noise from the other side of the room, Pittman twisted in pain

  and saw Webley stand from behind a chair, where he had taken cover. He

  raised the .45, aiming toward Denning.

  The pistol that had fallen from Gable's hand lay on the floor next to

  Pittman. Sweating, wanting to vomit, mustering resolve, Pittman

  reached, grasped the weapon, and fired repeatedly at Webley, too dazed

  to know if he was hitting his target, merely pulling the trigger again

  and again, jerking from the recoil, concentrating not to lose his grip

  on the pistol, and then the gun wouldn't fire anymore, and it was too

  heavy to be held any longer anyhow, and Pittman dropped it, his chest

  seized by agonizing pain.

  He waited for Webley to retaliate. No response. He listened for a

  sound from Webley's direction. Nothing. He fought to raise himself,

  squinting past Gable's corpse, still seeing no
sign of Webley.

  What difference does it make? Pittman thought. If I didn't kill him,

  I'm finished.

  But he had to know. He squirmed higher, clutching a chair, peering over

  it, seeing Webley lying motionless in a pool of blood.

  Pittman's painful elation lasted only a second as he heard a groan from

  beyond the shattered window. His chest protesting from the effort, he

  turned and saw Denning clutch his own chest. The old man's elated grin

  had become a scowl. His eyes, which a moment ago had been bright with

  victory, were now dark with terror and bewilderment. He dropped his

  pistol. He sagged against the windowsill. He slumped from view.

  By the time Pittman staggered to the window, Denning was already dead,

  collapsed in a flower garden, his eyes and mouth open, his arms and legs

  trembling, then no longer trembling, assuming a terrible stillness.

  Pittman shook his head.

  In the distance, he heard a siren. Another siren quickly joined it. The

  walls became louder, speeding nearer.

  Bracing himself against a chair, Pittman peered down, ftimbling to open

  his sport coat. The bullet that had struck his chest protruded partly

  from his sweater. When Gable had commented that the two garments were

  the reason Pittman reacted badly to the eighty-degree temperature in the

  room, Pittman had been afraid that Gable would become suspicious about

  the sweater. After all, the sweater was the reason Pittman had needed

  to contact someone else he had once interviewed before he came to the