by Stuart Woods
“Then we’ll meet at seven, like before?”
“That’s fine. Where?”
“I’ll call you when you’re on the way. Any noise from Genaro?”
“He invited me to a meeting with Majorov. You were the subject. I didn’t give them anything.”
“Good girl. Do you own a red scarf?”
“Yes, a silk one.”
“If you think you’re being followed, wear it around your neck, then go to the restaurant as planned and have a drink at the bar. I’ll catch up with you, or call you with a new location.”
“Got it,” she said. “I’ll call you around five on Friday. Do you have a new number?”
He gave it to her. “See you Friday.” He hung up.
• • •
Todd found the hotel room where Charmaine spent her rest periods and tapped lightly on the door.
“Who is it?” a woman’s voice called out.
“Hotel services. I have to change the lock on your door.” He smiled into the peephole.
“Just a minute,” she answered. “Let me get decent.”
He waited patiently until the door began to open, then he pushed it hard, knocking her back a few paces. She was wearing a hotel robe, and her hair was wet. She seemed too shocked to scream.
Todd swung hard and struck her cheek and ear with the flat of his right hand, knocking her nearly unconscious. He grabbed her hair and jerked her to her feet, then he stripped off the robe, pushed her onto the bed, and sat on her. Holding his left hand over her mouth, he reached into a back pocket, retrieved a switchblade, and held it to her face. “Scream, and I’ll cut you, understand?”
She nodded.
He moved his hand from her mouth to her throat. “This is how it is,” he said quietly, but with threat in his voice. “I want to find Billy Burnett, and I know you know how to do that. If you don’t tell me right now, I’m going to fuck you a few times, then cut your throat. There won’t be a second chance, so you’d better get it right the first time. Go.”
“All right,” she said. “All I have is a new phone number. He called only a few minutes ago.” She gave him the number.
“Where does he live?”
“He told me that when he left Shutters he was going to find a place in Santa Monica. The last time I talked to him, he said he had found a place, but he wouldn’t tell me where. He’s very cautious.”
“I told you there wouldn’t be a second chance,” he said, pressing the sharp blade to her face.
“I swear to you, that’s all he would tell me. He wants me to come to L.A. on Friday, but we’ll meet at a restaurant, the way we did last time, then go to his place. He’ll call me en route with the name of the restaurant.”
He squeezed her throat. “There’s something else. Tell me.”
“That’s all I know, I swear it.”
“When do you leave on Friday?”
“At four.”
“Pick me up in front of the hotel. I’ll ride down to L.A. with you.”
“Whatever you say.”
“Don’t bother going to Genaro,” he said. “Genaro sent me. You’re being watched. Fuck with us, and you’re a dead girl. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
He got up, walked to the door, and left the room, without another word.
Charmaine opened the bedside drawer and removed a .25 caliber pistol that she was licensed to carry in Nevada. She ran to the door, opened it, and looked up and down the hall. He was gone. She closed the door and found her throwaway cell phone but stopped before making the call. If the man hadn’t been lying, her room might be bugged; her car, too. There might even be a camera.
She took a few deep breaths, dried her hair, got dressed, and went to work, as usual. All evening she gave a performance, one that said everything was normal. She smiled at Genaro when she saw him on the floor, and he smiled back.
She had to hang on until Friday, she thought; she had to keep it together. If they were watching, she would betray nothing. But on Friday, she would be wearing that red scarf.
Teddy was working on a Winchester 73 when his boss, Jim Garver, came into the workroom, pulled up two chairs, sat down in one and offered Teddy the other.
“I’m impressed with your work,” Jim said. “How’d you like to come to work full-time here?”
“I don’t know, Jim, I’ve just retired from thirty years in my own business, and I’m having a good time. I’m happy to help you out from time to time, but I don’t want to commit to a full-time job.”
“Here’s my problem,” Jim said. “I’ve got more than two thousand weapons here, and a lot of them are old and in the same shape as the Winchesters. What I’d like to do is to overhaul every single one of them, and I think you’re the man to do that.”
“Tell you what, Jim, when I finish the Winchesters I’ll draw up a plan in writing for overhauling your stock, and I’ll make a start on it, but part-time. You start looking for a good gunsmith, and I’ll help you evaluate applicants by working side by side with them until you find the right guy. But—and I know this is a big but—I’ll set my own hours and work at my own pace, and you can pay me by the hour—fifty dollars per—instead of by the weapon.”
“You’ve got yourself a deal,” Jim said, offering his hand. “I’ll get you some new credentials that will make it easier for you to move around the lot. I’ll throw in free meals at the commissary, too.”
Teddy shook his hand.
• • •
Mike Freeman was having lunch in the commissary with Peter Barrington, having completed a private tour of Centurion Studios, which he had greatly enjoyed. They were finishing their lunch when a man came into the commissary and was waved over by Peter.
“Billy,” Peter said, “we’re leaving shortly, but if you’d like to sit down, you can keep our table.”
“Thank you, Peter,” Teddy said, and sat down. A waitress brought a menu and he ordered the daily special.
“I’m sorry,” Peter said, “I didn’t introduce Mike Freeman. Mike, this is Billy Barnett.”
The two men shook hands.
“Mike is a friend of my father’s,” Peter explained. He put his napkin down. “Mike, will you excuse me? I’ve got to be back at the bungalow for a meeting. You finish your lunch.”
“Thank you, Peter,” Mike said. He stood and shook the younger man’s hand, then sat down again. “A fine young man,” he said to Barnett.
“That is certainly my impression of him,” Teddy replied.
“I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr. Barnett,” Mike said.
“Please call me Billy—everybody does.”
“Thank you, Billy. I’ve been hearing about you from Peter and Stone.”
“Oh?” Teddy asked, frowning.
“Only favorable things,” Mike said. “Billy, may I tell you a story you might find interesting?”
“Please do,” Teddy said. “I like a good story.”
“Many years ago,” Mike said, “my name was not Michael Freeman, it was Stanley Whitehouse.” Mike thought he saw a flicker of recognition on Barnett’s face at the mention of the name. “I was an intelligence officer with MI-6, which you probably know is the British foreign intelligence service.”
“I’ve heard of it,” Teddy said. His lunch arrived, and he began eating. “Please go on.”
“I was having a good career,” Mike said, “and had been earmarked for promotion, perhaps to a high office, by my superiors. Then one day, my direct superior, a man named Palmer, invited me to his country house for the weekend, so that we could discuss an intelligence operation without being interrupted by office business.”
Mike waved over the waitress and ordered another glass of iced tea. “Not a very British beverage, really,” he said. “They prefer it hot.”
“I’ve heard,” Teddy said.
“So I went down for the weekend, and I was introduced to Palmer’s daughter, Penelope, who was a doctoral candidate at Cambridge. She was considerably younger than I, but we really hit it off. By the end of the weekend I was in love with her, and she, with me. It can happen very quickly.”
“I’m acquainted with the syndrome,” Teddy said.
“We agreed to meet in London for dinner, and by the time a few more dinners had passed, we were living together at my flat. It was early summer, and she would not return to Cambridge until the fall. Before much time had passed, she became pregnant—an oversight on both our parts. I was married and in the throes of a divorce, which in Britain at the time, with the best will in the world on the part of both participants, could take a couple of years, so this was very inconvenient for both of us. She told me that she wished to have the child. I asked her to marry me, and she accepted, understanding that she would be a single mother for a while.
“The following day, I was dispatched to the Middle East on an assignment, and not until I returned some three weeks later did I discover that much had happened in my absence. She had told her father of her pregnancy and the name of the child’s father. He did not react well and pressed her to abort the pregnancy. She refused, there was a fight, and she left her father’s house and went to my flat. Over a weekend, she reconsidered the desirability of carrying the fetus to term, and she asked a close friend who was a medical student to help her. He was the son of a man named Prior, who was the parliamentary private secretary to the foreign minister.
“The boy had seen an abortion performed but had not conducted one himself. Nevertheless, he thought he could handle it, and he brought the necessary implements for the procedure to a friend’s country cottage, where he met Penelope. The procedure seemed to go well, and he spent the night with her to be sure she was all right, then he returned to London to see his boyfriend—he was gay. Later that day she became ill, and he had not left her with an antibiotic. By the time he returned the following day, she was in extremis, and he called an ambulance. It turned out that he had perforated her uterus during the abortion, and infection had ensued. In spite of heroic efforts to save her life, she died in the hospital.”
“I’m very sorry,” Teddy said.
“I, of course, had gained the enmity of her father, who blamed me entirely, so my position at MI-6 was untenable. I had to leave the service and make my way in the world by other means. Fortunately, I had made the acquaintance of an important businessman who found the skills and languages I had gained in MI-6 useful to him. I was sent to Egypt to work there. In the meantime, the Prior boy, who had performed the abortion, was arrested and sent to prison for two years. While there, he was raped and murdered.”
“Good God!” Teddy said. “Your story gets worse and worse.”
“There’s more,” Mike said. “Palmer left MI-6 and went into politics, and both he and Prior were elected to seats in parliament. When the Conservatives came to power some years later, they both became cabinet members—Prior, foreign secretary, Palmer, home secretary. As such, Prior held sway over MI-6, and Palmer over the police. Not long after that, an attempt was made on my life, unsuccessfully, and it became clear that other attempts would follow.
“My employer introduced me to an Englishman, now an American citizen, who ran a large security company in New York called Strategic Services.”
“I’ve certainly heard of that,” Teddy said.
“I used the skills I had learned in MI-6 to create a new identity for myself and came to this country to work for Jim. I learned through friends in England that Prior and Palmer were still pursuing me, and Jim Hackett came under suspicion of being me—Stanley Whitehouse. As a result of that, he was murdered. Shortly afterward, the current head of MI-6, a friend of Stone Barrington, managed to expose Prior and Palmer as being behind Jim’s murder. As a result, they were expelled from the government and tried for his murder. They are both now in prison.”
“I’ve read bits and pieces of your story,” Teddy said, “but I didn’t know the whole thing.” He looked a little uncomfortable. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because I want you to know that, having been on the run and in constant danger for years myself, I understand what you must have gone through the past few years.”
Teddy stared at him. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said.
“I know that you are Teddy Fay, and I have every sympathy for your position. Stone Barrington, by the way, suspected you of being who you are, but after meeting you, decided that he was entirely wrong. I helped convince him.”
“So you are the only person who thinks I’m this Teddy person?”
“Quite so. And I am no threat to you. In fact, I want to offer you employment at Strategic Services. I think someone with your skills could be very valuable to us. For your part, you could establish a permanent new identity and live in the open as a free man. Since you have obviously changed your appearance to the extent that no one who knew you in your earlier existence would ever recognize you, you would finally be safe. I will offer you a handsome salary and a full package of benefits, and your future would be assured.”
Teddy took a deep breath and let it out. “And why do you think I have all the skills you mention?”
“Because I read your CIA file, when such a file still existed. Don’t worry, I don’t have a copy, and, I suppose, neither does anyone else.”
“Well, Mike,” Teddy said, “this has been a very interesting lunch.”
“We will not meet or speak again, unless that’s what you want,” Mike said. He gave Teddy his business card. “This is how you can get in touch with me, should you ever wish to. My offer will remain open indefinitely.” He stood up. “Now, if you will excuse me, I will exit your life until such time as you may wish to rekindle our acquaintance.” He offered his hand, and Teddy shook it.
Mike left the commissary, and Teddy was left staring into his lunch plate. He felt exposed and, unusually for him, panicky. Gradually, as he thought it over, he became calm. What Freeman had said to him had obviously been sincerely offered. By the time he had left the table to return to work in the armory, he felt some comfort, knowing that he had a way out of his life as a fugitive, if he wanted a way out. Right now, though, he had things to do.
Charmaine was leaving the New Desert Inn to retrieve her car from the parking lot when her assailant fell into step with her.
“My car is in the employee lot,” she said, pointing.
“We’ll take my rental car,” Todd said. “It’ll be a nice surprise for Mr. Burnett.”
“As you wish,” Charmaine said.
“Here we are,” Todd said, as they approached a black Camaro. He handed her the keys. “You drive.”
He put her bag in the trunk, and they started their journey to Los Angeles.
• • •
Teddy worked until three at the Centurion armory, then went home to his new apartment, showered, then, at five o’clock, he called Charmaine on her cell phone.
• • •
A ringing came from her handbag. “It’s my phone,” Charmaine said to Todd.
“I’ll get it for you,” he said. He found the phone in her purse, opened it, and pressed the speaker button.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hi, there. Why are you on the speakerphone?”
“It’s against the law to use a cell phone in the car. It’s not so obvious when the speakerphone is on.”
“Are you on schedule?” Teddy asked.
“Right on the button. Where are we meeting?”
“Would you mind going to Michael’s again?”
“Not at all. I liked it there.”
“Michael’s, then, at seven-thirty.”
“You’re on.”
“Are you wearing my favorite scarf?”
“The red one? You b
et!”
“Great, I’ll see you at the bar.” Teddy hung up.
“What does the red scarf mean?” Todd asked, stuffing her phone back into her purse.
“Mean? Nothing—he just liked it the last time I wore it, so I wore it again.”
He squeezed her thigh. “You sure about that?”
“Oh, don’t be so nervous,” she said. “Billy has no way of knowing you’re coming.”
Todd checked his watch. “Step on it,” he said. “I want to be a little early.”
• • •
At Todd’s instruction, Charmaine pulled over to the curb down the block from the restaurant, instead of giving it to the parking valet. It was seven o’clock. Todd pressed the button to lower the windows, then switched off the ignition.
“I like the night air in L.A.,” he said, making himself comfortable in the passenger seat. “All you have to do now is to alert me when you see your Billy drive up to the restaurant.”
• • •
Teddy reached through the car window and placed the silencer to the back of the man’s head. “Why wait to be introduced?” he asked.
“Shit,” Todd muttered.
“Charmaine,” Teddy said, “please get out of the car. Is your bag in the trunk?”
“Yes,” she said, getting out and pressing the trunk release.
“Move over into the driver’s seat,” Teddy said, prodding Todd with the silencer.
Todd scrambled over the console as instructed.
“Charmaine, go into the restaurant and have a drink at the bar. The gentleman and I will have a little chat, then I’ll be back. I won’t be long.”
“I’m here to deliver a message to you,” Todd said.
“Start the car, and let’s drive over to Shutters,” Teddy said. “You haven’t checked in yet, have you?”
“No, but they’re expecting me.”
“While you drive, you can give me the message.”
“Mr. Majorov would like to meet you in Las Vegas,” Todd said.
Teddy chuckled. “I’ve already received that message, from the last gentleman Mr. Majorov sent, and you may recall, I declined.”