by Stuart Woods
“Thanks, Dino.”
“You’re welcome, Stone, and for what it’s worth, if it were Ben at risk, I wouldn’t hesitate.”
“I guess I should have known that. Bye.” Stone hung up, took a deep breath, went back to the bedroom, and got dressed. Emma was snoring lightly when he left. He had crumbled an Ambien into her brandy glass at bedtime.
He had some orange juice and a cup of coffee, checking his watch regularly. Finally, he went upstairs, got into a dark golf jacket and a baseball cap and a pair of driving gloves.
He ran his pistol onto his belt, took a deep breath, and left the house by the rear door.
Teddy had arrived at the Bel-Air by five AM, leaving his car up Stone Canyon and walking down the hill to the rear of the hotel, wearing a black sweater over a white shirt, black trousers, black rubber-soled slippers, and latex surgical gloves. He carried his silenced pistol in a holster under the sweater and a switchblade knife in a hip pocket.
Majorov’s suite was the second up the hill from the rear service road, and Teddy was through the hedge and over the wall very quickly, landing lightly on his feet. A streetlight cast some light on the suite’s patio, and he moved into a shadow and waited for three or four minutes. The Viper was probably a light sleeper, and if he heard anything he would come out armed.
There were three sets of French doors, one for each bedroom and one for the living room. Teddy checked all three and in one bedroom found Majorov’s bulk visible by the light of a television set that he had failed to turn off before falling asleep. He went back to the patio outside the other bedroom, half expecting to encounter the assassin on his way.
Nothing happened. Teddy carefully picked up a chair from the patio and moved it into a dark corner, then he crept to the French doors and listened for movement inside. All he heard was snoring. He stared through the glass into the room and located the bed with its sleeping lump, dimly lit by a night-light. When his eyes had adjusted better he saw, on the bedside table, a silenced pistol. Vlad was a cautious man.
He put his hand on the doorknob and tried turning it. Locked. He had expected as much, and he had come prepared. He removed a strip of sturdy but flexible plastic from his pocket and inserted it between the door and the jamb. He probed until he felt the bias-cut bolt begin to open, then he stopped, leaving the plastic strip in place.
He went to the chair in the corner and settled into it; he had a couple of hours to wait. He switched on his iPhone, turned down the backlighting a bit, then went to the New York Times website and began reading the front page.
• • •
Stone let himself out of the house and got into Peter’s Cayenne. It was parked on an incline out back, where he had left it after visiting the florist, so he let it roll for a hundred yards before starting the engine. He rolled up to a back gate, and it opened automatically at the approach of his car.
The drive to the Bel-Air took only three minutes, and the sun was up now. Twenty-five past seven. He parked the car just up the street from the rear gate of the hotel, and then he got lucky. He looked around a hedge and saw the guard on duty at the back gate leave his sentry box, presumably in search of a toilet.
Stone managed a brisk walk, without appearing to be in too much of a hurry. As he walked, he rubbed his gloved hands over the spots on the flower box where he might have left fingerprints. He turned right and climbed a few steps, passing a room service waiter carrying a tray of dirty dishes, then he saw what he needed. He walked over to a guest door and removed the DO NOT DISTURB sign, then he walked a few steps more and found the correct suite number on a door. He hung the sign on the doorknob, leaned the box against the door, took a deep breath, and repeatedly rang the doorbell, then he turned and retraced his steps to the car. The security man had still not returned.
He had seen no one but the room service waiter, and the man had carried his tray on his shoulder, so that it blocked his view of Stone as they passed. He drove back to The Arrington and punched the code into the box outside the gate. It opened slowly.
He put the car away and went back into the house, tiptoeing up the stairs to the master bedroom, then he undressed in his dressing room and got back into bed with Emma.
He worked at relaxing, until his heart rate was normal.
• • •
At six-thirty, Teddy heard a door to the patio behind him open. He froze and switched off his phone. Then he heard singing from a gruff, baritone voice. Majorov in the shower.
At seven o’clock, with the sky lightening, Teddy moved to a position that allowed him a full view of Vlad’s bedroom and, through the open door, a view of the front entrance. Shortly, Majorov appeared, opened the front door, and closed it behind him. On his way to breakfast.
Teddy watched closely to see if Majorov’s moving around had wakened Vlad, but the man continued to lie on his back, snoring. He waited, trying to stay relaxed, for the sound of the doorbell.
It came at the stroke of seven-thirty, then again and again. Vlad stirred, then sat up and shook his head, as if he couldn’t identify the sound. Then, muttering, he put his feet over the side of the bed and walked toward the front door. As he did, the bedsheet moved back, revealing the butt of a shotgun. The man slept with a shotgun in bed!
Teddy moved quickly, now; he pressed home the plastic strip, moved the bolt back, opened the door, and stepped inside. He moved quickly to the side of the bed where the pistol rested on the bedside table, then slid behind the drawn curtain. He drew his pistol and flipped off the safety.
He heard a flower box being thrown across the room and a spate of swearing in Russian. Then Vlad stumbled back into the bedroom, muttering, and got back into bed. Shortly, he was snoring again.
Teddy peeked from behind the curtain and found not the sleeping figure he had expected, but a man sitting up in bed pointing a silenced pistol directly at him. He was still snoring, but he was smiling, too.
“Good morning, Mr. Burnett,” Vlad said.
Teddy fired through the curtain at where he thought Vlad would be, then he pushed back the heavy cloth with his gun raised, ready to fire again. Vlad was gone.
Teddy ran around the bed, ready to pursue him into the living room, but he found the Russian lying faceup on the floor on the other side of the bed, his head in a growing pool of blood. He had hit the man somewhere. Vlad’s body began to shake, and Teddy fired another round into his forehead. He lay still.
“Good morning, Vlad,” Teddy said. He started to leave the room the way he had come in, but then he noticed a black suitcase on a stand across the room from the bed. He walked over and examined it; it was unlocked. He raised the lid and found an assassin’s dream: a case of instruments of killing. There was a disassembled sniper rifle, two pistols, a silencer, four knives, and some disposable syringes with a rubber band around them. Next to the syringes was a bottle labeled POTASSIUM.
Teddy closed the case, locked it, and buckled the two straps that secured it, then went back to the patio, stepped outside, and set the case down. Then something unexpected happened: the front door opened.
“Vlad!” Majorov shouted. “Wake up!”
Teddy held the plastic strip in place as he pulled the door closed, then withdrew the strip, locking the door. He ran to the patio wall, set the case on it, stepped on a chair, and hoisted himself to the top. He dropped lightly to the other side, then jumped clear of the hedge. A moment later he was back in his car, wondering why he had not stayed to shoot Majorov, too. Never mind, he would leave the man to the police.
He was halfway back to Santa Monica Airport before it occurred to him that Majorov wasn’t going to call the police.
Majorov took one glance into Vlad’s bedroom and saw the body on the floor, covered with blood. He reached for the weapon he carried in a shoulder holster and pointed it into the bedroom, waiting for someone to appear. No one did.
He tiptoed around the suit
e, looking into corners and closets, and found no one. He picked up the phone and was about to dial the hotel operator, but he stopped and thought for a moment. He hung up, got out his cell phone, and called his pilot.
“Yes?” He sounded sleepy.
“We’re leaving Los Angeles immediately,” Majorov said. “Get to the airport as fast as you can, and file for Gander, then Moscow.” He would feel safer at his dacha outside Moscow than in his Paris apartment.
“I can be ready to taxi in one hour,” the pilot said.
“Have the airplane brought to the ramp immediately. I’ll wait aboard for you to arrive.”
“Yes, sir.”
Majorov hung up and looked at his watch: seven-forty. Vlad had room service deliver his breakfast every morning at eight. In a panic he went to his closet, got out his three cases, and began throwing things into them, then he went to the bathroom and raked his toiletries off the shelf over the sink and closed the small valise that carried them. He went back to the bedroom and called the front desk.
“Yes, Mr. Majorov?”
“Please send a bellman to my room immediately and get me a car and driver for the airport.” He didn’t mention which airport; if the police came too soon, they would think LAX.
“Are you checking out, sir?”
“Yes, but my companion is staying for one more day. Just put it on my bill.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll send a bellman right away.”
Majorov hung up, then carried his four bags to the front door, opened it, and set them outside on the little entry porch. He couldn’t have a bellman entering the suite. He noticed that the DO NOT DISTURB sign was already on the doorknob. Had Vlad put it there? No, probably his murderer. Burnett—it had to be Burnett.
He went back to the bedroom, put on his necktie and jacket, and returned to the living room. As an afterthought, he closed Vlad’s bedroom door.
The bell rang, and he let himself out to find the bellman loading his cases onto a cart. “I’ll meet you at the car,” he said to the bellman, handing him a hundred-dollar bill. “Go ahead and load everything.”
“Yes, sir.” The man began pushing the cart away.
Majorov went back inside and checked for any of his belongings he might have left. Then, instead of taking the usual route along the hotel paths to the parking lot, he walked to the road, walked down the hill and into the lot, where he found the bellman closing the trunk of the hotel limo. He ambled, as casually as possible, to the car, where the driver held the door open, gave the valet a fifty, and got into the rear seat.
“LAX, sir?” the driver asked, as he closed his door.
“No, to Santa Monica Airport, Atlantic Aviation.” The car began to move. Good God! he thought. I forgot to call room service! He checked his watch: seven-fifty. “And step on it,” he said, “I’m running late.”
“I think we’d better avoid the freeway if you’re in a hurry, sir. May I take Sunset to Bundy and go that way?”
“Fine, whatever you say.” He was sweating, and he pulled the silk square from his breast pocket and dabbed at his brow, then he adjusted the air-conditioning for more flow.
• • •
Stone got out of bed and went to the bathroom. When he returned, Emma was sitting up in bed, reading The New York Times. “Breakfast in bed or downstairs?” he asked.
“Oh, I think in bed,” she replied.
“Order me bacon and eggs, orange juice, and coffee,” Stone said, getting into a robe. “I’ve got to give Peter his car keys.”
He grabbed the keys from the dresser and walked downstairs. Peter, Hattie, and Ben were having breakfast in the dining room. He gave Peter the keys. “Don’t be late for work,” he said.
“Dad, we’re traveling in the Strategic Services car.”
“Oh, I forgot,” Stone said. “Have a good day.”
“Dad, how long do we have to do this security stuff?”
“Not much longer, I should think,” Stone said. “I’m just guessing, of course.”
“Great.”
Stone went back upstairs, shed his robe, and got back into bed.
“Did you go somewhere last night?” Emma asked.
“Go somewhere?”
“I woke up at some point and you weren’t in bed.”
“I must have been in the bathroom,” he replied. “Or maybe you were dreaming.”
• • •
Majorov’s car arrived at the airport and was buzzed through the security gate. The Gulfstream was just being towed to a halt on the ramp. He waited until the airplane had been chocked and the door opened, then he showed the driver where to put his luggage. Finally, he took off his jacket, hung it up, and went to his usual seat.
He reclined the seat halfway, put a pillow under his head, and closed his eyes. He needed to calm down.
Teddy arrived at Santa Monica Airport, was buzzed through the gate, and drove to the hangar. He stopped at a taxiway to check for traffic and saw Majorov’s Gulfstream being towed out of a nearby hangar. So the man was not hanging around the Bel-Air to speak to the police.
He pulled into the hangar and closed the big door behind him. Tim was not at work yet, and Betsy would be upstairs. He had seen some things belonging to Livingston’s pilot, but where? In the flat? No, in the pilots’ lounge somewhere.
He walked quickly back to the lounge carrying Vlad’s weapons case and looked around. Not in the closet where he had put the safe; in the other closet, maybe. He opened it and found a uniform jacket, a cap, and a laundry box on a shelf above them. He broke open the box and found a shirt. A moment later he was dressed as a corporate pilot.
He hoisted Vlad’s case onto the table, opened it, removed one of the syringes from the bundle, filled it with potassium from the bottle, replaced the cap, and put it into an inside pocket near his holstered pistol. He put on the cap and his aviator sunglasses, left the hangar by the rear door, and walked toward the ramp. As he emerged from behind the hangar he saw a limo drive away from the Gulfstream and depart through the gate. He walked quickly toward the airplane.
As he approached, a stewardess came out of Atlantic Aviation carrying a heavy bag of ice in one hand and a caddy filled with wine bottles in the other. He caught up with her. “Let me give you a hand,” he said, taking her burdens from her.
“Thank you. I’ll go get the lunches—they weren’t quite ready.” She turned and walked back toward the FBO.
Teddy walked quickly toward the Gulfstream and up the airstair. At the top he peeked into the airplane. Cockpit, empty, but in the rear of the cabin, stretched out in a reclining seat, was Majorov, his head on a pillow, a blanket covering his lap, his eyes closed.
Teddy carefully set down the ice and the wine in the galley, stood very still for a moment, and watched the man for some sign of movement; he appeared to be sleeping, or trying to. Teddy reached into his inside pocket and retrieved the syringe, then began walking carefully down the aisle toward his quarry.
As Teddy approached, Majorov heaved a deep sigh and resettled himself in the seat, then he opened his eyes and looked at Teddy.
“Leave me,” he said. “I need sleep.”
“Yes, sir,” Teddy said, and stood where he had stopped. He waited a full minute for Majorov to settle down, then he walked silently toward the man. When he reached his side, he uncapped the syringe, put it in his right hand, and with his left, pushed Majorov’s head firmly into the pillow and held it there while he sought the carotid artery. Majorov began to struggle, but Teddy held his head down as he slipped in the needle and pushed the plunger home. Then he released Majorov.
The Russian sat up, rubbing his neck where the needle had gone in. “What have you done?” he demanded.
“Just something to help you sleep,” Teddy said. “Compliments of Billy Burnett.”
“You?” Majorov spat. “You are Burnett!”<
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“For the moment,” Teddy said.
The Russian suddenly convulsed and clawed at his chest. He seemed to be having trouble breathing.
“There, there,” Teddy said, pushing Majorov back into his seat and buckling his seat belt. “Just a heart attack. You’ll be gone in a moment.”
Majorov went limp, exhaling one last time. Teddy picked up a cocktail napkin and dabbed away a drop of blood that had escaped the needle prick, then he tucked the pillow under the man’s head, turned it to the right, and pulled the blanket up to his chin. He switched off the light over the seat, closed the shade on the window beside the dead Russian, then walked back toward the cockpit, closing shades on both sides as he went. The cabin was now dark, the only light coming from the open door and the cockpit windows.
Teddy started down the airstair and met the stewardess coming the other way. He took the box lunches from her and set them in the galley. “Your passenger asked not to be disturbed,” he whispered to her. “He said he needs sleep.”
She nodded. “Thanks for your help, uh . . .”
“Just a neighbor. I’m in the Hawker across the ramp. Have a good flight.”
As Teddy walked back toward the hangar a car was let through the security gate, and two uniformed pilots got out, set down their flight bags, and, each with a clipboard, began their walk-around and preflight inspection.
Teddy walked back to the hangar, broke the syringe into three pieces, and tossed them over the fence; then he let himself through the rear door, went to the pilot’s lounge, took off the uniform, and laid it on the table. He had just gotten back into his own clothes as the big hangar door opened and Tim Peters drove in, closing the door behind him.
Teddy found a canvas holdall in the clothes closet, then folded the uniform and put it inside with the cap on top. He carried the bag to Tim’s office and rapped on the doorjamb. “Good morning,” he said. “I found a uniform that apparently belongs to Livingston’s pilot. Can you send it to him, please?”
“Sure,” Tim replied. “I’ll drop it by his place on the way home tonight.” He tucked the holdall into the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet and closed it.