by David Zeman
As a precaution they played the tapes all the way through to make sure nothing had been recorded over the commercial VHS. They had also turned the pages of the books and magazines, one by one, looking for notes inserted between the pages, underlined passages, or anything else unusual. There was nothing.
Not a clue as to what might have been going through the Lawrence woman’s mind during the abduction, or what might have transpired between her and Susan.
Kraig still did not understand why Justine Lawrence, having so expertly managed both the abduction and the sequestration, had not made it harder for the authorities to locate her hideout. Why had she sent her demand by audiotape, inviting the police to analyze her voice as well as the background sounds? Why had she not moved the hideout when she had the chance? It was almost as though she wanted to be caught.
Kraig would never forget the way her hand came up with the gun in it when he burst through the door. Or the look in her eyes. It was a knowing, almost pitying look. As though the Lawrence woman knew something that Kraig himself was not able to know. Not free to know, perhaps. That look would haunt him for the rest of his life.
A full twenty-four hours after the rescue Kraig had learned that there was an urgent message for him from Karen Embry. He was too busy to return her call until yet another day had passed. He got her answering service. He left several messages, but she never called him.
He would talk to her when things settled down, he decided. She might know something that would be of use.
Of course, there was no hurry. The worst was over.
83
—————
May 5
KAREN EMBRY had kept out of sight since the day of Susan Campbell’s rescue.
She had had to do some fast talking when the federal agents swarmed into the alley behind Justine Lawrence’s bungalow. She told the agents she was a reporter who had heard something important was “going down” in the area, something connected to Susan Campbell. The agents escorted her to her abandoned car and then shooed her away like an annoying insect, never suspecting how much of the truth she really knew.
Since then Karen had stayed at home, watching events take their course. She had ignored Joe Kraig’s phone messages. She had tried to warn him of the truth about Justine Lawrence, and had failed. Now Justine was dead. The media reports about the abduction and Justine’s identity were obviously a cover-up in the making. Karen felt her best course was to observe this process from a safe distance.
On Wednesday, more than a week after the rescue, Karen heard a knock at the door of her apartment. Through the eyehole she saw a mailman.
“Yes?” she asked through the intercom.
“Registered mail, ma’am.”
“Just a minute.”
Karen had just emerged from the shower and was wearing nothing but a towel. She slipped on her terry-cloth bathrobe and opened the door, leaving the chain latched.
“Sign the receipt.” The mailman handed her a clipboard. She signed her name and took the package, which was a padded envelope.
It was not until she was standing in her kitchen with the package in her hand that she saw the postmark was ten days old. “Uncle Sam,” she said under her breath.
She opened the envelope. Inside it was a videotape in a cardboard slipcase. It bore no label. When she pulled it out of the slipcase a handwritten note fell on the tabletop. Frowning, Karen picked it up.
Dear Karen,
Here is the last piece of the puzzle you tried so hard to put together. I’m sending it to you now because Justine and I have talked the situation over, and we suspect that neither of us will be able to contact you directly after we are found.
The scar is from the first surgery. That dates the event on the tape.
If I am still alive, you and I are the only ones who know the truth. I can’t be the one to reveal it to the world. I want it to be you.
Please don’t let me down.
Susan
P.S. The day you interviewed me at our house, the phone call was from Justine. I knew you were overhearing, but something told me it would be better if you heard. I never told anyone else—not even Joe. I’m telling you now so you’ll know I’m writing this of my own free will.
I know you will do the right thing.
Karen read the note over several times. The signature was Susan’s. The graceful, diffident handwriting could not belong to anyone else.
She stood in the silence of the kitchen, thinking. Adding up what she knew, connecting dots between things she knew and things Justine must have known.
She looked at the clock—3P .M. on a Wednesday afternoon.
“All right, Susan,” she said out loud.
She turned on the living room TV and slid the tape into the VCR. Still dressed only in the terry cloth robe, she sat down to watch.
84
—————
The New York Times
May 8
GOSS, CAMPBELL IMPLICATED IN SEX PLOT
Kidnapper of Susan Campbell Was Victim
In a bizarre turn of events coming on the heels of the rescue of Susan Campbell by federal agents, her husband, Maryland senator Michael Campbell, has been implicated in a sex scandal dating back to his college years. Ironically, Campbell’s bitter political enemy Colin Goss is named as the ringleader of the sex ring, and allegations are circulating in Washington to the effect that the two political figures have been involved in a covert alliance for years.
It is alleged that Goss used illegal experimental drugs manufactured by his pharmaceutical company to victimize young girls in grotesque sex parties in the Boston area fifteen years ago.
Michael Campbell, then a student at Harvard, lured the girls to a downtown hotel where they were drugged and forced to act as prizes in the perverse “Donkey Game.” Many of the girls died or suffered permanent disability as a result of the drugging.
TheTimeshas received a damning videotaped image of the naked Campbell, blindfolded, participating in the game. Campbell is seen approaching a helpless female victim with a “donkey’s tail” held in his hand.
In an even more stunning revelation, sources toldTimesreporters that the woman responsible for the abduction of Senator Campbell’s wife was herself one of the Boston victims. The apparent lack of motive in the abduction would be cleared up if this report is confirmed.
Spokesmen for both Goss and Campbell strenuously denied the allegations. Federal authorities refused comment, but sources have told reporters that Senate confirmation of Campbell as vice president will be delayed pending criminal investigation of the charges against him.
————
JUDD CAMPBELL was sitting on the beach.
He watched the waves in their ceaseless approach to the shore. There was no limit to their power, Judd reflected. The sculpted majesty of each crest seemed, for one instant, eternal. Yet their end was always collapse, surrender, death.
It was here, on this spot, that a freak wave had risen up to sweep Michael away when he was a little boy. The wave had almost won. But Judd, armed by the love he bore for his son, had given the last of his strength and energy to fight off the ocean, and Michael had survived. Judd had never been the same after that day, for the exertion had left a scar on his heart that would eventually force him to take a back seat in this life, and leave the achievement of his ambitions to his talented son.
But Judd had misunderstood everything. Fate had not been trying to harm him that long-ago day. Fate had been trying to save him.
Judd recalled his words to Susan. “My whole life has been a lie.” Only now did he realize how terribly true that statement was. He wondered why it had taken him so many years after Margery’s death to understand it.
He had lost Margery. He had lost Ingrid. And, in a way, he had lost Stewart. They were all victims of the same curse.
Judd understood everything but his own blindness. Why had he striven so single-mindedly, fought so hard, devoted himself so completely to the one thi
ng that was sure to destroy him?
For it had been Judd who nurtured the slow growth of this cancer in his life, fed it with love and advice and wisdom and experience—all he had to give—until it was strong enough, evil enough, to threaten the whole nation and even the world.
He was pondering this thought when a footfall in the warm sand interrupted him.
“Dad?”
Judd turned to see Michael standing beside him. Michael was crying.
“Dad. What am I going to do?”
Michael fell to his knees before his father.
“Dad. Save me.”
He lay down on the sand and curled up with his head in his father’s lap. Judd saw the rich, thick hair of his most-beloved child, touched the skin of his cheek. This was the child he had given everything to, and placed all his hopes in.
“All right,” Judd said. “You want me to use my powers. Is that it?”
Michael nodded.
“Tell me something,” Judd asked. “Do you love me?”
“Yes, Dad.” Michael’s voice was choked by grief.
“I love you too, son.”
Judd stroked his son’s hair.
“I’ll save you,” he said. “But you have to tell me the whole truth. If you lie, I won’t be able to help you. Do you understand?”
Michael nodded. His fingers had curled around his father’s hand, and he clasped it hard.
“Did you kill Ingrid?” Judd asked.
There was a hesitation. Then Michael nodded.
“You were in it with Goss?”
Again, after a hesitation, Michael nodded.
“And she found out?”
“Yes.”
Judd thought for a long moment, his eyes on the waves.
“You got those girls for Goss,” he said. “The ones he played the game with.”
“Only because he wanted me to.” The response was muffled. “He made it seem so important . . .”
“Why, Michael? Why Goss? What possessed you to get involved with such a man?”
There was a silence.
Michael sat up to look at his father. “You always said the main thing was to win,” he said.
Judd sighed. “That’s right. I did.”
So now he knew the key to the Sphinx’s riddle. His own ambition. He had caused it all, by encouraging Michael in precisely the direction that would lead to the greatest possible destruction.
“But I was wrong,” Judd said.
Michael looked at him. Uncomprehending. Disappointed.
“Do you understand that?” Judd asked.
Michael shook his head. How could he understand, after all these years, that black was really white, and white really black?
“When did it start?” Judd asked.
“At Bryce. He came to one of the soccer games. He said he knew you and Mother.”
Judd sighed. Yes, he and Margery had known Goss. He had beaten Goss, humiliated him. And Goss had repaid him by corrupting the son he loved. Judd saw the poetry of Goss’s revenge.
“Why did you go along with him?” Judd asked. “Why did you do such terrible things?”
Michael thought for a moment.
“I thought he could do more for me,” he said. “He was getting into politics. You always said the real power was in politics.”
Judd smiled to see his own opportunism turned against him. Yes, Michael had done what Judd himself would have done at that age. Followed the line of least resistance. Accepted help from the most powerful hand offered. Damn the consequences. Damn right and wrong. Move upward, take no prisoners, do whatever it takes.
“I understand,” he said.
“You don’t hate me?” Michael asked.
“No, son. I don’t hate you.” After a pause, “I’m just sorry.”
The sky had clouded suddenly, as it often did at this time of year. The waves were creeping further up the shore. The tide was coming in. Judd looked at Michael, who was drying his tears.
“Everhardt and Palleschi and Stillman,” Judd said. “They were removed because they were in your way.”
Michael nodded.
“And the president,” Judd concluded. “He would eventually have been removed, too.”
“Yes,” Michael agreed.
“And you would have become president,” Judd said.
Michael nodded.
Amazement and horror overcame Judd as he realized that the dream he had coveted all these years, Michael as president of the United States, might have become a reality. And that would have been the worst disaster in the history of the nation.
Thank God,he thought.Thank God they stopped him in time.
“It was what you always wanted, Dad,” Michael said hopefully.
“Did you ever think that it was wrong?” he asked.
Michael looked perplexed. “You mean Danny and the others?”
Judd nodded. He felt as though he were talking to a child.
“Yes, I did. But there was no other way to do it,” Michael said. “Remember what you told me about other people?”
Judd nodded.Treat other people with respect and kindness, unless they are in your way. If they are in your way, walk over them . It was his own lesson.
He looked at his son.
“What do you think of Colin Goss now?” he asked Michael.
“I think he wants what’s best for the country,” Michael replied. “The situation is out of hand. People and governments are being held hostage by terrorists. That can’t be allowed. He wants to make the world a safe place.”
“Even at the cost of innocent human lives?” Judd asked.
The blank look in Michael’s eyes was his answer.
The gods had played their joke to the hilt, Judd realized. He himself had formed this child, morally. He had taught him not to be a human being, but to be a winner. Countless times he had repeated his empty wisdom, setting the boy moral dilemmas and teaching him to ignore what was right, to think only of victory. Michael was Judd’s own creation.
“Son,” he said. “Your mother killed herself because she found out about you, didn’t she?”
This hesitation was the longest, so long that for a moment Judd dared to hope that it wasn’t true. Then Michael nodded.
“There was a girl. Someone I found for Goss. She committed suicide. Her mother found out about me. She told Mom.”
“I see.”
Judd’s heart constricted as he realized that Margery’s last transaction on earth had been to hide from her husband the awful truth she had learned about her son. She hadn’t wanted to break his heart because she knew how much he loved Michael. So she had taken herself out of the picture.
If only she had killed Michael, instead of herself!
“And how did it make you feel?” Judd asked.
“Terrible. I never felt anything so awful,” Michael said. “I wished I was dead.”
“And when Ingrid died?”
“The same,” Michael said. “Maybe worse. It was like the end of the world.”
“And Susan, son,” Judd said. “Susan would have been next, wouldn’t she? Because she knew too much.”
Michael thought for a moment. Then he nodded. His eyes filled with tears again.
Judd was silent. He knew Michael was sincere. And this was the worst part of it all. That Michael did have feelings. That he genuinely grieved for the mother he had destroyed, the sister he had killed with his own hands. This was evil in the flesh, Judd reflected—Michael’s tears.
Michael was looking at the waves. Confession had eased his conscience; his face looked young and fresh again.
“You see those waves, son?” Judd asked. “Those were the waves that tried to drown you when you were just a little boy.”
“But you saved me, Dad.” Michael’s voice had changed. He even sounded like a child now.
“Yes, I did.”
Judd rested his hand on his son’s shoulder. He knew this body. He thought he had known the person inside it.
“Coli
n Goss is finished,” he said. “He can’t help you anymore.”
Michael nodded.
“But I can help you, son.”
Michael took his father’s hand.
“I’m going to get you out of this,” Judd said, “but you must do exactly as I say. Do you understand?”
Michael nodded. “Yes, Daddy. I’ll do anything you say.”
Judd disengaged his hand and helped Michael to sit up.
“Don’t look at me, son. Look at the waves. Count the waves coming in to shore.”
The old joke sounded hollow now. But Judd’s voice was full of love.
“One,” Michael said. “Two, three, four . . .”
Judd took the gun out of his windbreaker and aimed it at the back of his son’s head. Then he thought better of it.
“How many, son?”
“Five, six, seven . . .”
“Count them with your eyes closed. Show me how high you can count.”
“Eight, nine, ten, eleven . . .”
Judd moved the gun and fired into Michael’s temple. A cry rose from the direction of the water as Michael fell. Gulls rose against the gray sky, shrieking. The waves crashed against the shore. A spray of rain began to fall.
Judd felt his son’s blood inundate his hands. He listened to the screams of the birds. The waves rose higher, then higher still. The tide was coming in fast.
Judd waited for another moment. Then he placed the gun in Michael’s left hand and stood up. He took a few steps along the sand, turned around, and looked at what he had done.
“Forgive me,” he said aloud. Then he walked back toward the house.
Before he got there he paused for a last time to look down the beach. The rain was coming faster. The waves were lunging up the sand as though hurriedly wiping away the traces of what had happened. The footprints were already gone. One of the breakers covered Michael’s body and then let go. Michael slid down toward the eager waves, his arm flopping sideways.
Heavy raindrops mingled with the tears running down Judd’s cheeks. He wiped at them with both hands. Then he turned and went into the house.