Cut and Run

by Carla Neggers

  “Our sergeant lives well,” Wilhelmina said, speaking still in Dutch. It was natural for her, and Catharina had made no objections.

  “I don’t think this camp belongs to him,” Catharina replied, not looking from the window. Her color wasn’t good; Wilhelmina was worried. Neither woman was as resilient as they’d been forty years ago. “My guess is it belongs to Senator Ryder.”

  “And Bloch has his fingers in his pocket—a nasty business.”

  “He’s called my bluff,” Catharina said despairingly.

  “So it would seem,” Wilhelmina said, solemn but not dispirited. “I’m sorry, Catharina. But I don’t think we should underestimate Juliana. She has a good mind and courage. She’ll do what’s necessary.”

  “What’s necessary to her will be saving us, Willie.”

  “Then so be it.”

  Catharina made no answer, sinking into the silence that had overtaken her since arriving at the camp. Wilhelmina was worried about her sister and wished she could do something to take away her pain, to ease her sense of despair.

  “I know how desperately you want Juliana just to hide herself away,” Wilhelmina said quietly. “I understand. But Catharina, she must make the decision herself.”

  “I don’t want her to suffer!”

  “Of course you don’t. You want to protect her, just as all of us wanted to protect you during the war. But tell me, Catharina, haven’t you always wished we hadn’t? You’ve tortured yourself for years because we all did everything within our power so that you wouldn’t be taken by the Nazis, too.”

  “You and Johannes sent me to Hendrik with the Minstrel because you knew he would never hurt me,” Catharina said suddenly, half to herself. “If he were to betray us, as he did, you knew he would keep me safe.”

  “No, you were the logical choice—”

  “Don’t lie to me, Willie. Please.”

  Wilhelmina sighed. “None of us wanted anything to happen to you. If you survived, a part of us would survive.”

  “Mamma and Papa didn’t survive. They died for me.”

  “No, Catharina. They would have died for you, make no mistake about that, but they didn’t. They died because they were knowledgeable, active members of the Dutch Underground Resistance. They knew names and places. They were filled to the tops of their heads with information the Germans wanted. The Nazis weren’t interested in you. You were safe in hiding, but they didn’t torture Mamma and Papa to find out where you were. That’s youthful self-centeredness, Catharina. They died because of their convictions.”

  Tears had spilled from Catharina’s soft eyes, and she pushed them away angrily. “I’ve always wanted to be as strong and unshakable as you, Willie—and look at me! Did you…were you there when Mamma and Papa died?”

  It was a question she’d never asked, and one Wilhelmina, although she’d known her sister must have thought it, had never tried to answer. She nodded, feeling so tired, so alone. “I was brought out to watch while they were executed—shot. Papa was nearly dead from the torture.”

  “Mamma?”

  “She was tortured as well, but not as much. They made me watch to weaken my resolve.”

  “They didn’t know you very well, did they?”

  “No,” Wilhelmina said. Her resolve had been strengthened. After that moment, she’d never feared pain or death.

  Catharina was sobbing openly now, her entire body shaking uncontrollably. “All my life I’ve thought I should have been there.”

  Wilhelmina shook her head. “I’m so glad you weren’t—and that was the best gift you could ever have given Mamma and Papa, not to have been there. Think if it had been you and Adrian, Catharina. Isn’t that what you’d have wanted for Juliana?”

  “Yes.” There was no doubt in her tone. “Yes, it’s what I’d have wanted.”

  “Then let us put the past aside for now, shall we? We must concentrate on the problem at hand.”

  Catharina smiled through her tears. “You’re a tough old bird, Willie,” she said in English. “I’m glad we’re together.”

  Wilhelmina nodded, deeply moved. “I, too, Catharina.”

  “His body turned up on a beach in Florida,” Alice Feldon said, giving Matthew the straight facts on what had come over the wire on Otis Raymond. “Apparent suicide. He was shot in the head. Usual burned-out Vietnam vet crap. Only reason it hit the wires is because he was found by a socialite on a fancy private beach on the Gulf of Mexico near Apalachicola. She promptly fainted. Anyway, that’s it.”

  Stark nodded slowly, his thoughts drifting back twenty years.

  “Beg pardon, sir,” Otis Raymond had said, sidling up to him with that deceptive ambling gait the first day they’d met, “but I want to tell you, you and me, we’re getting out of this shit alive. I ain’t planning to get aced in no goddamn jungle.”

  He’d given Lieutenant Matthew Stark a crooked, yellowed grin that strangely lit up his face, made him look almost innocent. He was skinny and ugly, and he still had pimples.

  “Hate snakes, you know?”

  But it was bullshit, and they both knew it. Otis Raymond hadn’t expected to live.”

  “I’m making sure the Gazette carries the story,” Alice Feldon said.

  “Thanks.” There was no emotion in Stark’s voice. “Weaze would appreciate that.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ziegler’s seeing what more he can find out.”

  “He doesn’t have to. I know what happened.”

  “Matt—”

  He looked at her, his eyes unfocused. “Weasel had an instinct for survival that he couldn’t suppress, but it didn’t make him cowardly. In fact, he’d do the craziest damn things and still live. But when Jake and Chuck got aced, Weaze figured it should have been him.”

  He stopped, and for once, Feldon didn’t press him for more. She just stood there and waited for him to go on—or not.

  “Jake MacIntyre and Chuck Fisher,” Stark said. Saying their names still hurt. “Jake was a pilot and Chuck was our crew chief. They died when a chopper I was flying went down. Chuck took three bullets and died on the ground, before the search and rescue team could get us out. Jake lived a while longer. Weasel held onto him all the way back, and he screamed the whole time, there wasn’t anything anybody could have done, but Weaze felt he should have been able to do something, that it was his fault, that because he didn’t mind dying he should have.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t anybody’s fault,” Feldie said.

  “No, it was somebody’s fault all right. It was Sergeant Phillip Bloch’s fault and Lieutenant Sam Ryder, Jr.’s—and mine.”

  “Stark—”

  But he didn’t listen, walking over to his desk. He pushed back the memories and picked up the telephone and dialed his attorney. “Dave, Stark here. I want you to do something for me.”

  “You don’t sound too good, Matt. Everything all right?”

  “Just listen. A man named Otis Raymond was found dead this morning on a beach on the Gulf of Mexico in Florida. They say he committed suicide.” Bullshit, Stark thought. Bloch had killed him, and Bloch had put him there because he knew it’d hit the wires and Stark would find out and come after him. Finally. “He was a Vietnam vet. There won’t be an investigation. I want you to arrange for his body to be brought back to his family in Valdosta, Georgia. Wire them the money for funeral expenses. Got that?”

  “Raymond, the Gulf, Valdosta.”

  “You know my iron box? Inside are some medals.” You keep ’em for me, Matt, okay, ’case one day I feel like wearing them again, like maybe I deserve ’em. “Get them to Valdosta, too. They go to his parents.”

  “Matthew, Jesus—”

  “Do it, Dave.”

  “If it’s what you want, but, Matt, are you sure his family can handle it?”

  Matthew had met the Raymonds once, when he’d delivered Otis to them half-dead from drugs and alcohol and nightmares. They were hard people, weather-beaten and uneducat
ed, and to this day they wouldn’t be able to find Montana on a map, much less Vietnam. But they’d loved their son. They hadn’t known what to do with him when he was a restless kid, and they hadn’t known what to do with him when Stark had dumped him on their front steps. But their impotence and his weaknesses didn’t matter anymore. Otis was dead.

  “Yeah,” Matthew said, “they’ll handle it.”

  Twenty-Three

  Juliana stopped at a pay phone at Washington National Airport and got the Palm Beach number of Abraham Stein from Florida information. She had called her apartment from Albany, getting her message machine, and she’d known then that Bloch had Aunt Willie, too. Or Aunt Willie was after him. She’d considered calling her father but had rejected the idea, simply because she couldn’t bear to hear the terror in his voice, to lie to him and tell him she was fine and everything would be all right. Instead she’d flown straight to Washington and taken a cab to Capitol Hill, hoping, praying Ryder would be in his office, that he could be compelled to help her. The impulse was there—still—to try the Gazette and his house for Matthew. She ignored it. Even if she found him, he would only ditch her again.

  She dialed the Palm Beach number. When Abraham Stein answered, she remembered his sister had just died, and she felt like an intruder. But she was running out of options.

  “Hello, Mr. Stein, this is Juliana Fall,” she said, not knowing where else to begin. “I’m Catharina Peperkamp’s daughter, and I need your help. I don’t have time to explain everything, but—”

  Abraham Stein didn’t hesitate. “Just tell me what you need.”

  “I need you to meet me at the Tallahassee airport in four hours.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “And—and I’ll need the quickest transportation you can arrange to Senator Ryder’s fishing camp on the Dead Lakes. If you could rent a car, that would be fine, I’m sure.”

  “Not to worry, Juliana.”

  “I can explain then.”

  “You can tell me whatever you want to tell me. But you don’t need to explain.”

  When she’d hung up, she didn’t move for a moment, and suddenly she swore and snatched up the phone again, dropping a quarter into the slot. She got the number for the Washington Gazette from information. Her call was routed to Alice Feldon. She quickly identified herself, asking for Matthew.

  “He’s not here,” the editor said. “You mind telling me what the hell’s going on?”

  “Has he been in?”

  “Yes. He left a few minutes ago. His buddy Otis Raymond is dead.”

  Juliana doubled over, falling against the wall. If the Weaze ends up on a board because you wouldn’t talk, count on seeing me again. “Did Matthew say where he was going?”

  “No, but if you have any idea, I’d like to know.”

  “Thank you,” Juliana said hollowly.

  “Wait a second—”

  She didn’t. Her flight for Tallahassee had been announced.

  Matthew intercepted Sam Ryder as the young, good-looking senator left his townhouse, where he’d stopped briefly on his way from his office to his club. He planned to spend the rest of the afternoon playing tennis, to lose himself in the sweat of physical exercise and competition. Whatever happened to Juliana Fall—whatever she chose to do—wasn’t his responsibility. He could have earned himself points by calling Bloch and telling him she was on her way, but he’d resisted. He was proud of himself for that act of will.

  But now his heart thumped wildly in his chest as he looked at Stark, leaning insolently against the wrought-iron rail on the bottom step in front of the senator’s townhouse. “Thought you’d end up slithering back here,” Stark said.

  Only once before had Ryder seen Matthew Stark’s eyes so black and distant. “I’m not in the mood for your insults, Matthew. If you’ll excuse me—”

  “No excusing you, Sam. Not anymore.”

  Ryder straightened up, perspiring heavily. “What do you want?”

  “You’re going to take me to Bloch and help me stop him.”

  “I can’t possibly—”

  “You can and you will, buddy. You know as well as I do the sonofabitch is going to pull up, cut his losses, and disappear. He’ll kill Catharina Fall and Wilhelmina Peperkamp and Juliana Fall if he can catch her, and he’ll dump their bodies on some beach the way he dumped Weasel’s.”

  Horrified, Ryder grabbed the rail. “Weasel? My God, Matthew, are you serious? Otis is…” He couldn’t say it.

  “Otis is dead. This time he did manage to die trying to save your sorry ass.”

  “I never asked him—”

  “That doesn’t make you less responsible. Bloch killed him, and you’re part of it.”

  “How—”

  “Blew his goddamn brains out. I’m going to find out why, Senator, and I’m going to find out exactly how you’re tied into it, and I’m going to see to it you take the fall this time.”

  “Stark, for God’s sake, calm down. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Look, I know Weasel was a friend of yours. I tried to help him out, remember, when he got out of the army, but he went his own way. I’m sorry he’d dead.”

  “Sorry doesn’t cover it, Golden Boy. You fucked up twenty years ago, and I let it go. I won’t this time.”

  Ryder was panting, trying to catch his breath. “I didn’t want anything to happen to Otis!”

  Stark’s gaze was unrelenting. “You didn’t want anything to happen to your father, either, but it did.” He pulled himself off the rail and stood up straight, feeling hollow and old and angry. “Let’s go. You’ve got your own private plane. We’ll take it.”

  “No, I won’t do it.”

  “I’m carrying a Colt and a SIG-Sauer. Commercial airlines are pretty touchy about folks taking weapons aboard their planes. I need a ride, Sam—and even if I didn’t, I’m not letting you off this time.”

  Ryder gulped for air. “You can’t coerce me, Matthew.”

  “I can talk, buddy. I can talk about Weasel, Rachel Stein, Hendrik de Geer, Phillip Bloch—and I can talk about Vietnam. My editor’s on my ass for a story. I’ll give her one.”

  Ryder gripped the rail; he was shaking and sweating and hating himself for his terror, but hating Matthew Stark more, blaming him. “Matthew, be reasonable.”

  “I am being reasonable. If I weren’t, I’d have beaten you to a pulp by now. Coming?”

  His legs feeling weak beneath him, Ryder stumbled down the steps, and Matthew moved smoothly in beside him, cool, remote, steady. Ryder tried to straighten up, tried to be as strong. But terror and indecision ate away at his muscles, and he despised Matthew for his control, his capableness—for his insistence on blaming Ryder for things that weren’t his fault. Didn’t he understand? Damn him, didn’t he understand?

  “Don’t blame me for this, Matthew. It’s Bloch…I couldn’t refuse him. He’d already set up at my fishing camp when he contacted me. There wasn’t anything I could do. He demanded money, thousands and thousands of dollars, and I did what I could, but then he wanted more. Rachel Stein came to me in the midst of all this, she’d seen me with the Dutchman, and I found out about the Minstrel, thought there’d be a possibility I could get it for Bloch and get him out of my camp and stop him from bothering me. But I tell you, Matthew—believe me!—I didn’t want anything bad to come of this.”

  Stark grunted. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you, Sam? The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

  Hendrik de Geer lit a cigar and rested back in the fishing boat. It bobbed silently in the cold, dark water, hidden among some cypress knees. He’d stolen it from one of the public camping areas along the Dead Lakes and had cautiously made his way here, careful not to get lost among the many channels and coves that had misled even the most experienced fishermen.

  Dominated by the lodge and surrounded by several smaller buildings, essentially shacks, the Ryder camp was perhaps a hundred yards from Hendrik’s vantage point. A guard posted at the dock obser
ved the lake through binoculars. Hendrik wished himself fortunate to have a pair He wasn’t worried about being discovered. He was well hidden among the cypress, and he’d stolen the fisherman’s cap and vest, thus disguising himself to some extent, although the cigar would probably give him away to anyone who knew his habits. But it was an excellent cigar, and he needed to think.

  Sergeant Bloch was preparing to abandon his camp. Hendrik could see that from the activity around the lodge, and it was something he would expect Bloch to do. He would wait until the last moment, but he would cut his losses when he knew he’d run out of options. Even if he could continue to control Senator Ryder, others—the American reporter, even Juliana—could find out where he was and bring the authorities down on top of him. The sergeant had broken innumerable laws, not the least among them murder. Now, obviously, he wanted to be ready to move. It only made sense. In his position, Hendrik would have done the same.

  The Dutchman put out his cigar and looked again toward the fishing camp. Did Bloch know Wilhelmina and Catharina would never lead him to the Minstrel? Would he kill them before he abandoned camp—or wait and try one last time for the stone by using them as bait with Juliana? She had the Minstrel’s Rough, of course. Hendrik was annoyed with himself for not having seen that sooner, from the beginning even. He’d been so sure Johannes had the stone.

  He should never have gone to Antwerp. He should have gone back to Florida, killed Bloch, then, if necessary, killed Ryder. He should never have talked himself into believing that he could accomplish everything. Keep the Peperkamps free from harm. Keep the Minstrel out of Bloch’s hands. Keep himself alive, too.

  Always the optimist, he thought bitterly.

  He watched the guards change in front of the shack where he guessed they held Catharina and Wilhelmina. It was where he would have put them, in Bloch’s place.