Cut and Run

by Ridley Pearson

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Hope and Larson crouched in the bushes less than twenty yards from Meriden Manor’s front gate as the headlights approached.

  “Sit absolutely still.” Larson hoped they were far enough back in the thicket not to be seen. White skin showed up easily at night, especially in a collage of green and black.

  With their eyes now adjusted to the darkness, it took several seconds for Larson to establish it was the same black Mercedes they’d seen leaving the estate less than twenty minutes earlier. The car rolled toward the gate, the driver’s side toward them. For a fleeting second, just a momentary flash, they saw a young girl’s profile through the rear side window. Hope heaved forward and off-balance, and Larson caught her and clapped his hand to her mouth to hold back the sobs that began involuntarily. That profile had been Penny’s.

  The car window went down as driver consulted the gate guard and Larson committed the face behind the wheel to memory. Male. Late twenties. Short, perhaps. Dark coloring. Roman nose. The large black gates yawned open. Taillights quickly receding.

  Larson had to think fast. He slapped his BlackBerry into her hand, while peeling his windbreaker from her shoulder and slipping it on. He zipped it, containing his upper body in its black fabric. In nearly the same motion, he retrieved her original cell phone from the windbreaker’s pocket and switched it on. Hope’s number had previously been call-forwarded to the untraceable Siemens he’d supplied her. He changed that now, call-forwarding that number to his own BlackBerry, now in Hope’s possession.

  He explained in a forced whisper, one eye tracking those receding taillights. “Can’t wait for those guys. If Romero tries to call you-and he may, because I’ve just turned on your phone-you’ll now get the call on my BlackBerry. I’m taking both yours and the Siemens.” He took the phone off her hip without asking. “With the BlackBerry, you can send me text messages.” He showed her quickly how to do this, though she cut off the demonstration. “I need to know what’s going on out here. Make your way back to the van, and keep me up-to-the-minute. When I establish her location, I’ll send for Hamp and Stubby.” He seized her by the shoulders, unclear if she’d heard anything he’d said. “We’re going to do this,” he said strongly. “We both saw her in the car: She’s okay. Right?”

  He waited for her faint nod, said, “Okay,” and then he took off low and fast through the dense undergrowth.

  Whether a nine- or eighteen-hole golf course, Meriden Manor covered far too much ground to be patrolled effectively. For this reason, Larson worked his way quietly through the woods for well over a hundred yards past where he’d seen the fence turn a sharp corner. Now he crossed the road and stayed low. He entered the woods and cut an angle to intercept the fence. He reached a chained gate-spiked wrought iron-used for dumping lawn and garden debris into the woods. The gate offered a good chance to get into the compound, but he was haunted by LaMoia’s description of a “Kodak moment,” and feared a video camera watching the gate.

  The fence was likely intended as much for keeping deer out as for blocking intruders. He continued down the wall until spotting an overhanging limb. He climbed the tree, worked his way out the limb precariously and dropped over the other side.

  LaMoia had infected him with paranoia. He imagined night-vision video and infrared “trip wires” set at waist height to avoid raccoons and dogs but to catch intruders. He envisioned silent alarms and legions of security guards patrolling the grounds, though in fact he didn’t see any such boxes or wires running up trees or any evidence indicating any such equipment or personnel. It was probably just fantasy. With the Romeros having called a meeting for some heavy hitters, they would concentrate their manpower around wherever that meeting was scheduled to take place.

  He began crawling. Hands and knees into the center of a fairway, believing the wide-open, grassy expanses the most difficult to electronically survey. Fairways were sprinkled, even in rainy Seattle, and sprinklers would trip alarms as quickly as any person would. The smart money put security sensors-if there were any-across the cart paths and at intersections between holes. He crawled on.

  A hundred yards farther he arrived at what was marked as the eleventh tee. The course had been cut out of forest. Stands of tall, mature trees separated one fairway from the next.

  Minutes later, he crested a small embankment, peering over at the clubhouse.

  An enormous Tudor structure loomed close by. Built a hundred years earlier and standing amid a ring of towering pines, this was clearly the original Meriden Manor-perhaps imported from England beam by beam, brick by brick. He imagined it as a family home belonging to a lumber tycoon or shipping baron. Running away from it were more structures, some private homes, some looking more like companions to the manor house, though built more recently. It looked more like the campus of a private boarding school, now that he had a closer look. Places like this went through a dozen such uses, one owner to the next. The Romeros had bought themselves an enclave.

  To his left, one road stayed on the level and appeared to service the private homes. Another fell down and away from the manor house, into the clutch of the dark woods. He could imagine barns and maintenance sheds, workshops and garages and buildings dedicated to equipment storage.

  Not five minutes later, headlights appeared from the woods to his left. What appeared to be the same Mercedes he’d seen at the gate climbed into view and parked in the manor house’s porte cochere. Larson couldn’t make out details well enough at this distance, but two men climbed out.

  No Penny.

  Larson glanced quickly left down the hill. Penny had been dropped off-or disposed of.

  He broke into a run. He would have to improvise.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  One of Philippe’s guys hurried over to him. At first Philippe thought he intended to valet the Mercedes around back, but his face indicated otherwise.

  “What is it?”

  “Her phone’s up. The mark-the Stevens woman. Her cell phone logged on to the PacWireless network a few minutes ago.”

  Philippe’s face tightened. It was too good to be true. The timing couldn’t be coincidental. “Now? After what, three days?” He thought a second. “They know about the meeting. They’re using this to try to distract us. They don’t want this meeting taking place.” He looked for what else it might mean. “Do we have a fix?”

  The guard lowered his voice and spoke quickly. “The phone is transmitting from here on the compound.”

  Philippe felt it as a blow to his chest. Eyes darting, looking for an answer in all that darkness, he muttered, “Not possible. Impossible. Here?”

  “Here,” the man answered, feeling obliged to say something.

  Philippe’s eyes landed on the tortured face of Paolo. The man’s objections to the treatment of the girl rang loudly in his head. “Oh, shit,” he said, under his breath.

  He carefully instructed the guard to show Paolo into the study and for him and one other to stand by once he had Paolo inside.

  Philippe suppressed a rush of panic. The one-eyed dog had betrayed him, had carried her cell phone with him in order to lead the marshals to his doorstep. He composed himself, struck a solid, confident expression and pose, not wanting to reveal any of his suspicions. He glanced around one last time, peering into the darkness, and strode inside.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Crawling toward the fringe of woods that bordered the road descending from the manor house, Larson witnessed part of the impromptu meeting between the driver of the Mercedes and a bodybuilder type. He wondered if it had anything to do with him. The brief flash of terror in the driver’s eyes had felt good.

  A moment later the driver spoke into his cell phone, and within a few seconds, two other men sped down this same hill at a run.

  At great risk of being seen, Larson rose and cut through the woods and paralleled these two, now confident that they’d been ordered to beef up Penny’s security. A trap for Hope and whomever she brought with her. />
  His shoes soaked through, wet from the ground cover. He caught a glint off the two black leather jackets as the road snaked gracefully down the long throat of the hill.

  At the bottom of the decline, the paved road crossed a noisy creek before rising again. Larson stopped short as he came across a formidable obstacle course-wooden walls with hanging ropes; car tires lashed together and suspended over a sand pit; a series of low stone walls; a shooting range with standing targets. It looked like something from an army boot camp.

  He slipped through the course, using it as cover, keeping the two guards in sight. As they approached a double-wide trailer home, a floodlight came on, triggered by a motion sensor.

  The guards arrived at the top of a set of raw-lumber steps and knocked.

  Larson drew closer, careful now of each footfall.

  The door was answered by a guy in a T-shirt and black jeans. Larson saw the blue flicker of television light. That, in turn, told him the windows were blacked out from the inside, just like the farmhouse. That alone told him he probably had found Penny.

  A sense of triumph and fear mixed in him as a cocktail. He felt the first trickle of sweat catch up to him. His mouth was dry.

  He glanced at the face of the Siemens, wondering if Hamp and Stubby were on their way.

  Larson needed a look inside the double-wide. But he didn’t want to walk into their trap. Instead, he needed to set one.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  “Talk to me,” Philippe said, stepping through the study’s door, his back now covered by two men, unseen, behind him. The room smelled richly of oiled leather and bookbinder’s gum. Three thousand volumes of rare books ran floor to ceiling, encased in imported library shelving complete with air-bubble glass-panel doors and brass fittings. A single Heriz covered the parquet flooring. An antique globe and an Englishman’s partners desk faced a pair of worn leather chairs that dated back to American independence. Paolo occupied one of these chairs, looking completely out of place, a mutt among the pedigreed. The light fixture, four fogged-glass orbs, had been converted from gas to electricity at the turn of the twentieth century. A land baron, looking vaguely unhappy, loomed large in an oil portrait that hung over a wrought-iron grated fireplace.

  “You said you’d get me a doctor,” Paolo said. He delicately touched the skin near his eye, then withdrew his hand.

  Philippe reached up under his coat and pulled the.22 out from the small of his back. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was loaded with live rounds and was accurate. He remained out of reach of Paolo, knowing his fast reaction time. He did not provoke him, did not aim the gun directly at Paolo, but its presence said it all.

  “Empty your pockets.”

  “Sure.” Paolo, confused but not about to object, did as he was told. He placed several credit cards and some bills and change on the edge of the desk. The stub of a pencil. A small pocket watch with a badly scratched face. His cell phone.

  “Behind your belt.”

  “You said my pockets.”

  “Everything.”

  “Whatever.” Paolo slipped the razor blade out from behind his belt and placed it on the desk. He kept it within reach, his eye on the gun in Philippe’s lap.

  “Show me the phone.”

  Paolo took the phone off the desk. It was a clamshell design, not powered up, its small screen dark. This didn’t fit with what Philippe had just been told.

  “Turn it on.”

  “But…” Paolo said. “I mean, think about it. If they have a lock on me, they’ll pull a location. Why risk that?”

  Philippe reached forward and swiped the phone out of the man’s hands, knocking it across the room. The battery came loose as the phone hit the floor. “When and where did they get to you?”

  “What the fuck?”

  Now Philippe aimed the gun directly at him. “When… and where?”

  “How about who?”

  “You needed a doctor,” Philippe said. “I can understand that.”

  Paolo turned the injured side of his face toward Philippe. “Does this look like I’ve seen a doctor? What’s going on here?”

  “The more you stall, the more you piss me off.” He made a point of the weapon. “Never piss off-”

  “-the guy holding the gun.” Paolo knew Philippe’s inside jokes better than his teacher knew them. “I’ve had no contact with them. You hear me? None! They did not turn me.” He said earnestly, “Don’t you get it? All I want… all I want more than anything is to do this job for you. This woman… she did this to me.” He touched his face again. “It’s my turn.”

  “What did you do with her cell phone?”

  “I never had her cell phone. If I did, she’d be dead, and I’d be offering it as proof.”

  Philippe had trained the man well: He showed no signs of breaking even under the threat of the gun.

  “Let me help fill in some of the blanks,” Paolo offered.

  “That’s the idea.”

  He extended his arms. “Are you going to do this or not?”

  Philippe lowered the gun. Paolo might have hidden her cell phone in the Mercedes, so that it wouldn’t be found on his person. But a second explanation presented itself, however improbable. “If it’s not a plant, then it’s her. She’s here. Could you have been followed?”

  “No way.”

  “Could the girl have signaled someone, gotten word to someone?”

  “Impossible.”

  “Because if she’s here, you have to tell me how she found us, you see?” Philippe talked to himself, working this out. “One of our guys could have given us up, I suppose.” He answered Paolo’s puzzled expression: “We suffered a setback last night in Florida. It was messy. Two of our guys and the professor. The phone could be her and this marshal, I suppose.” He considered this further. “Might even be intentional on their part. Or just plain reckless. We’d be stupid not to find out-to pass up the opportunity, if that’s what this is.”

  “If she’s on this property, I owe her,” Paolo said. “Cut me in on this.”

  “Your face? Your eye?”

  “Can wait.”

  “Collect your things,” Philippe said. “Hurry.”

  Paolo scooped his belongings off the desk and jammed them into his pockets. All but the razor, which he delicately returned to its hiding place behind his belt buckle.

  Philippe’s hand shook slightly as he returned the.22 to the small of his back. On this, of all nights…

  “If she’s stupid enough to show up at the house, I’ll call you. We’ve got it locked down tight for the meeting. One marshal and a witness are not going to present much of a problem. You back up the bunkhouse, just in case this marshal’s luck holds out a little longer.”

  “Consider it done.”

  Philippe debated calling off the auction, but to do so would be a sign of weakness. He had ten men; Ricardo, another six to ten. If possible, they would sweep the property one more time before the meeting. He could put off canceling until then. If they caught and killed Hope Stevens in the process-the only remaining living witness who could give them all jail time-he’d have a major announcement with which to open the auction. This might help him to cover that he had only a partial list: eight hundred witnesses and their three thousand dependents. And it’d be a major public victory for him personally.

  “Did you say something?” Paolo stood at the door to the study.

  Had he? He wasn’t sure.

  “The bunkhouse,” he said, then watched as Paolo walked briskly away. A man on a mission.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Larson moved before the double-wide’s motion-sensitive lights switched off because after that, if he approached the building, the sensors would bring the lights back on. Although the windows were blacked out, he couldn’t rule out a visual or audible alert connected to the lights on the inside.

  He worked around the near side of the building past four plastic trash cans, some discarded truck tires, and pieces of plywood used for
target practice. Wedged between the trash cans were the cardboard and Styrofoam from packaging that had contained a microwave oven.

  The double-wide was a glorified shoebox with a flat roof that extended in short eaves on every side. Larson followed with his eyes a black wire that attached to a video splitter under the nearest eave. Next to the cable wire ran a power line extending from the same pole.

  To crash through the door and attempt a rescue was not going to help anyone. Even if he reached Penny-doubtful-they’d never make it off the property. He had to get inside quietly, and sneak off the property with a five-year-old in tow. Possibly Markowitz’s grandson as well. Might as well throw in a tap-dancing elephant.

  Where were Stubby and Hamp?

  Larson found a stout branch to use as a club, preparing to carry out his developing plan. He then crept to the back of the structure and placed his ear to the glass, hearing only the low rumble of television and nothing more. No small voices. No kids crying.

  The front floodlights clicked off. But because of his continuing movement, the back lights remained on. He wondered if this gave him away.

  He leaned the wooden club against the trunk of the tree nearest the structure and climbed quickly. Several of the evergreen’s stout branches hung over the building’s sloped roof. Larson reached five branches up and then worked his way out along the thickest of these to where he could make the transfer from tree to roof. The back lights now went dark, leaving Larson literally out on a limb over the roof in the pitch black.

  He could sense that the limb he stood on was taxed by his weight. It sagged too low, bent too far. Somewhere just below and to his left was the edge of the roof. One last step was all he needed. But if he jumped in the dark, it would make for a loud landing.

  Slowly his eyes adjusted. First, geometric shapes. Then, the branch. The roof, directly below. The roof’s edge.

  Larson slid his left foot out and stepped off. On the roof now, he moved like a ballerina toward the eave and lay on his stomach. He reached under the eave and fished around until he found where the cable was attached. He unscrewed the cable from the splitter but only partially removed it.