Mesmerized

by Gayle Lynds

  The shiny brass elevator doors began to open, and she readied herself to leap out and rush to the conference room.

  "Beth?" It was Phil. His handsome, dimpled chin dropped in surprise. "Well, you're here. Very late, but here."

  There were three of them talking together in the foyer of the elegant law office, a trio in freeze-frame beneath a massive brass chandelier. Phil was facing Beth, looking dapper in a young-Washington-lawyer sort of way. Michelle had her back half-turned. Today she wore a solemn black Yves St. Laurent suit, equally appropriate for Big Business or a state funeral. Deep in conversation with her was Zach Housley. He had on one of his usual suits with the baggy pockets—his distinctive trademark that signaled the power he wielded not only in the firm but within the Beltway. In the legal profession, only the crème de la crème could afford to look like nobodies.

  As soon as Phil said Beth's name, Zach and Michelle turned to stare.

  "I'm sorry." Beth stepped out of the elevator.

  "What happened?" Zach Housley cocked his bullet-shaped head. His imperious gaze swept over her clothes and settled narrow-eyed on her face. "You must've taken a wrong turn, Beth. The canoeing club's down on the river." He was angry. Not only was she an hour late for a meeting with a top client, she was dressed unacceptably in sporty clothes that were also wrinkled and messy. But he would never chastise a firm lawyer in front of a client—not out of any sensitivity to the lawyer, but because it would make the firm look bad. Instead, he had made a joke, and she got the point.

  Beth tried to smile. "It's a long story. Entertaining, too. I'm sure you'll understand when I explain. Right now, I need to—"

  Phil interrupted curtly, "Michelle, we'd better go. You have that appointment—"

  Michelle waved her hand, silencing everyone. "I don't care what she looks like. I don't care that she's appallingly late. I want to know whether she's got the goods on HanTech." Her sharp gaze behind her round-rimmed glasses focused on Beth. "Do you have what you promised me?"

  Beth's chest seemed to cave in. If her life last night had been normal, she would have studied the list of names and quietly planned how to present and use them to Michelle. This morning, she would have arrived hours ago, prepared and eager, and gotten quite a bit of other work done before the meeting. Instead, she had found a dying man, slept in a strange motel room for which no one was registered, and then discovered not only the corpse had vanished this morning, so had the entire company that rented the building.

  Would Michelle, Zach, and Phil believe any of it? The Arlington police certainly had not. Which meant all she could do was forge ahead and rely on the exemplary work she had done for Michelle and the firm in the past: "As I said, it's a long story. Right now, what's important to you is I do have the evidence."

  The corners of Michelle's small lips turned up in a smile. "Good. Where is it?"

  "In my briefcase."

  "Not in there?" She stared pointedly at Beth's shoulder bag, her only accessory.

  "Unfortunately, no. I had to drive here directly so I'd catch you. I didn't have time to go to my house. That's where I left my briefcase last night."

  "Last night?" Michelle's voice rose. "You took my list home—a list that could make the difference to me of hundreds of millions of dollars—and then you spent the night somewhere else? Let me be sure I understand clearly. You forgot my list?"

  "I didn't forget. When I explain what happened—"

  Michelle shook her head. "Of course you didn't forget. I know you far too well to believe that. You're Ms. Fix-it. Win the argument or the case no matter what. You don't make stupid mistakes like forgetting evidence." Her eyes narrowed, and she accused, "You're stalling. You don't have the list at all. Probably it doesn't even exist. Phil's right. This is just one of your ploys to buy time until you come up with something—anything—to convince me to leave him."

  Beth bit back her rage. "That's not true. Remember everything I've done for you, Michelle. You know I've always played it straight. You owe me this. I'll drive home right away—"

  But Michelle's voice was as sharp as the chop of an axe. "No." In business, you had to know when to cut your losses. "Phil, dear, you were right. I am running terribly late, aren't I? We'd better move along." She nodded curtly at Zach Housley, her face grave. "Good-bye, Zach. Let me reassure you: As long as Phil is willing to work closely with me, I expect to have a long and lucrative relationship with Edwards & Bonnett."

  That was it: The death knell for Beth's return to the firm's partnership track. Phil had pulled ahead, the winner.

  "Michelle—" Beth began.

  "Don't even try." Michelle lifted her chin and stepped onto the elevator, Phil close behind. They turned toward each other, heads close, talking seriously. As the doors closed, Phil's handsome features radiated a look of utter triumph.

  Beth turned slowly to face Zach. "I know this looks bad."

  He glanced across to the receptionist, who was trying to appear busy. Other than her, they were alone in the foyer, which was decorated with hand-tufted sofas and chairs, oil landscapes from the late 1800s, and antique Queen Anne tables. Tasteful and expensive. A showplace, but then that was what the firm expected and demanded. After all, it had an international position to uphold. For the first time, Beth saw how nicely the fine furnishings disguised superficiality.

  He lowered his voice. "It is bad. Very bad. Right now, I'm furious with you. This was a clear-cut situation. All you had to do was produce your data. I think you're right—Phil could be facing a political situation that might cost us Michelle's lawsuit. The 'national security' excuse is old, but it still works. But now, because of your carelessness, we don't have another way to win. Instead of saving the day, you've failed completely." His eyes were black with fury, but just as if he were trying a difficult case, he kept his tones under complete control. "However, since I'm sympathetic with what you've been through in your illness, I'll make no rash decisions. I'm going to walk into my office, close the door, and contemplate your future. I will, of course, eventually consult the partners." He indulged in a frown. She had made the firm look very bad. "Don't pursue any other Edwards & Bonnett cases or clients until I get back to you. That's an order."

  His message was clear: He would not fire her, but not because he was being smart or magnanimous. As she had predicted, he would demote her and turn her into an object of pity, while making the firm look good in Washington legal circles for keeping on a poor, befuddled former star.

  She did not bother to hide the steel in her voice. "I have the information at home we need to save Michelle's deal, just as I said. Yet you're ready to destroy my career. After all the impossible negotiations I've won for this firm, the fragile agreements I've held together, the clients I've attracted, the sleepless nights of research, the missed vacations . . . now you're threatening to take away my work because I've made one mistake."

  Zach Housley arched back his head and peered down his nose at her. Associates were not exactly scum on the totem pole of the firm's hierarchy, but they were close. His voice was as hard as hers: "If I say the firm no longer needs your services, Ms. Convey, security will have you out the door in five seconds. Never forget you are but one among hundreds of attorneys. I will see you tomorrow. Then I will let you know whether you have a future at Edwards & Bonnett."

  As he glowered, it became clear that he understood at least one thing: Her priorities had changed. This morning she had been far more interested in finding out what her bizarre experiences meant than she was in meeting with Michelle. In fact, her drive to make partner was beginning to seem beside the point. Did she really want to be a member of a firm managed by a jackass like Zach Housley?

  Inside Beth, something snapped. She was disgusted, fed up. Her voice cut like an arctic wind. "You've just given me very little reason to care." Her lip curled. "What's that awful odor I smell? Ah, now I recognize it. Decayed principles. Superficiality has its price. You really must clean out your sewer lines more often."

&n
bsp; His eyebrows shot up. "You're fired."

  She let rage pour into her face and voice, and the legendary Zach Housley stepped back, intimidated. "In your dreams. I quit five minutes ago when you refused to back me with Michelle. If you had, I'd be on my way home now. And in an hour, you'd have the bullets you need to win Michelle's case. Who's the screw-up here? Who's really hurt the firm? Go look in a mirror, Zach. You're worse than a pompous fool and bigot. You're incompetent."

  His heavy-cheeked face was stunned. "I—" He was speechless.

  She turned on her heel and strode back toward the elevator, her footfalls soundless in the plush carpeting, her muscles rippling.

  Behind her she heard an angry, guttural sound, then the closing of the door to Zach's office suite. She felt a massive feeling of release. Of freedom. Zach had never quite adjusted to having women and minorities on the firm's letterhead. She had believed he had put his prejudices behind him if for no other reason than it was practical. In the District's competitive legal environment there was usually a leveler—results. If you won enough, you were a winner. If you lost, you were a loser. Whether you wore a skirt or trousers, whether your skin was white or black, whether your religion was Protestantism or animism. Nothing, ultimately, mattered but results.

  She had always been a winner. Now Zach was trying to turn her into a loser because of another factor in District legal circles—the power to be as much of a jerk as he pleased. To hell with him.

  "Beth?"

  It was the soft voice of the receptionist, Joleen. She was a faded redhead with careful eyes and a brightly painted pink mouth. She leaned forward over her busy desk. One hand rested next to the day's stack of The Washington Post, one of the perks the firm offered its attorneys. With the other hand, she beckoned Beth.

  As Beth approached, Joleen whispered, "You've quit? Good for you. But I hate to see you go. . . . "

  While Joleen talked on, Beth caught sight of a photo on the Post's front page. She snatched up the copy. In the picture, a man stood at some party, a cocktail in his hand. He had sunken cheeks and gray hair brushed up over the top of his bald head. Her pulse raced with excitement. She was certain: It was the dead man from last night. Quickly she read the headline and photo caption, which told her his corpse had been found in the District—miles from Arlington where she had discovered him. His name was Anatoli Yurimengri. She paused over the name, thinking about it: Yurimengri.

  According to the piece, Washington police were investigating his murder as a homicide committed during robbery. He was a Soviet defector who had made a fortune in the machinery-parts business in post-Cold War Russia and America. It was a fine analysis, full of detail. She noted the journalist's byline: Jeffrey Hammond.

  She raised her gaze to the receptionist, who had paused. She gave her a distracted but friendly smile. "Thanks, Joleen. I've got to go." The newspaper under her arm, she strode away. When she told Zach that she quit, she'd had no idea what she was going to do next. Now she knew.

  "Beth!" Joleen called after her. "You'll be at home if Mr. Housley wants to talk?"

  "I'm going to see a man about a dead Russian. Tell Zach he can leave a message on my machine. Everyone knows he loves the sound of his own voice."

  8

  Shadowy hollows and gray, weathered barns advertising chewing tobacco appeared intermittently along the pitted asphalt road that snaked east out of Stone Point, West Virginia. Only a few miles beyond the tiny town, the road climbed past a forest of leafy beeches and old maples so close together they were a sieve between the sun and the earth. Finally it dead-ended at a double-wide metal gate that was topped with barbed wire and locked. No one was in sight, and no sign indicated what lay beyond. But anyone with the right skills would soon locate the hidden cameras and sensors that provided visual and electronic surveillance.

  Locals knew this secluded piece of the Appalachian Mountains had been the site of constant activity for the past three years, with hunting enthusiasts coming and going, often in packs. It was called Bates Hunt Club.

  The mountain people figured the owner of the club's thousand timbered acres—Colonel Caleb Bates—had to be a millionaire at least. He had completely surrounded his property with a chain-link fence topped by concertina wire, although everyone else found the dense Appalachian foliage provided plenty of privacy. But even more unusual was the expense. In Stone Point's two competing cafés, the villagers gossiped about how much surveying, digging the post holes, and putting up the barrier must have set Bates back. But no one asked. In this hardscrabble land of food stamps and spotty government assistance, not intruding on another's business was as inbred as the poverty.

  Caleb Bates was aware the town talked about him, his property, and the close-mouthed people he flew in and out of the village in his private planes. But he knew with the certainty of a man who left nothing to chance that unless he set the mountain afire or ran naked down Stone Point's main street, no one would ask, no one would bother him, no one would invade his club's privacy, and he could continue his crucial work. It was why he had chosen this rural outpost in West Virginia.

  That Wednesday when Bates returned from Washington, he found a nervy energy had overtaken his people. There was a light in their eyes. Vigor infused their steps. He had announced before he left that the first big operation they had been training for, and anticipating, for so long, was just three days away—Saturday—and everyone was excited and eager.

  A sense of urgency filled Bates, too, as he moved among them, advising and exhorting. With the cool, clinical detachment of long experience in such operations, he watched them fight through the scenarios he staged on the club's five-acre central plot he had named Little U.S.A. Here was where he had ordered the trees thinned out and a sixteen-building town constructed. It contained everything from a city hall and a church to two bars, a hotel, a small business district, a post office, and even apartments.

  Although hollow and constructed of cinder-block, the buildings were painted the usual city hues of whites and tans. The concrete streets and sidewalks were wide, but the windows were snipers' havens. There were sewers to give invaders practice penetrating a city, and draped high above it all was camouflage netting that allowed sunlight to filter through, while to anyone who flew overhead, Little U.S.A. looked like any other part of the West Virginia forest.

  The latest exercise was for his top sixteen men. Following his rules, they used only hand signals rather than radio communications, to increase their capacity to surprise. They carefully infiltrated, protecting themselves from potential snipers, and took over the city hall and post office from the home defenders.

  Then suddenly a booby trap detonated inside the post office, exploding special colored paint. One of the invaders swore. Splashed with red, he was "dead." He dropped to his haunches and pounded his fist against the cement floor, disgusted he had been so careless as to be "killed" and, for this day, out of action.

  As Bates observed closely, the exercise continued with episodes of live rifle and machine-gun fire to keep everyone off balance and alert. Midway, there was an attempted ambush. Finally the fifteen remaining invaders "killed off" most of the townspeople who, marked by the red paint, sat or lay among the mock buildings. Since they were supposedly dead, they were not allowed to talk, smoke, or nap. It was a reminder of failure that had worked for Bates before.

  In a final triumphant sweep, the guerrilla winners rounded up the surviving defenders and barricaded them in the cinderblock shell that was one of the fake bars.

  But as the sergeant who was in command of the invading squad stepped forward to announce victory, Caleb Bates spotted beyond him and the others a wiry shape slithering out a high window so small no one had ever used it to escape.

  Surprised, Bates watched the youth land lightly on his feet and hug the building for cover. Bates frowned, but gave no indication he had spotted the youth. Meanwhile, since in both winners' and losers' eyes the exercise was over, the "dead" and "captured" began to converge on Bates
along with the victorious attack team.

  The sergeant in command of the attackers snapped a salute. "Little U.S.A. wrapped up tight, sir!" Sergeant Aaron Austin, in his mid-thirties, with buzz-cut hair and pitcher-shaped ears, had the trim waist, broad shoulders, and thick thighs of a man who knew muscles and strength mattered. Like everyone else, he was dressed in woodland camouflage.

  "Good. Well done, Sergeant." Bates returned the salute. "You think we're ready?"

  "I'd say so, sir," Austin nodded.

  Bates looked around at the others. "At ease, patriots."

  He appeared to be some sixty years old and burly in a General Patton sort of way. He had iron-gray hair that showed beneath his black beret, a low, husky voice, and brusque manner that proclaimed the assurance of a man who knew who he was, where he was going, and exactly how to get there. This, he understood, was what his troops wanted. In fact, what they needed.

  There were fifty of them involved in this exercise, and they focused intently on him. His gravelly voice was measured, and it carried to the farthest ranks. "This exercise is a perfect example of what we've been talking about in urban warfare. Precision and coordination. Once you invade, you must switch to small-unit initiatives, which the sergeants will lead. Every squad must act like a guerrilla group. . . ."

  As he spoke, he surreptitiously watched the agile young man—he recognized him now, it was Martin Coulson—who had slipped out the window. Armed with an automatic pistol, Coulson sped around the crowd. He was about twenty years old, with a light case of acne on his bony face. He had narrow hips and muscles that were like corded steel. A few heads turned among the defenders, while the invaders at the front of the throng were still caught up in their celebration and had not noticed.

  Just as Bates began laying out the program for the next two days, Marty Coulson jumped out, raised the gun, and accurately showered paint-bullets at the invaders.