by David Wind
“Steven,” Carla said as she picked up the receiver, “Latham has been your friend all your life. Why didn’t you know about this house?”
Steven shrugged. “He never mentioned it to me. He bought it three years ago,” he added after checking the date of purchase.
Carla glanced at the date, and then dialed the number. Steven paced, his thoughts bogged down in the years of friendship he and Latham had shared. He tried to picture Chuck in the role of his and Ellie’s executioner, and failed.
Something told him it wasn’t possible. Yet, in the past week too many things that had happened, were just as impossible. He turned when he heard Carla hang up the phone. “What did she say?”
Carla moistened her lips, hesitating. “It’s an income property. However, the house is only available for rental from May through September. No exceptions.”
“I want to see the house.”
Carla looked out at the clear sky. “I think we should wait. We’ve been very visible today. It makes sense to wait until dark.”
He shook his head impatiently. “If it’s a seasonal rental, there won’t be any electricity. We need the daylight. It’s almost three now. We’ve got an hour and a half of real light left.”
“I...” She stopped herself and, instead, said, “All right, but do you think you could turn on the heat in here so it’ll be livable when we get back?”
He’d been so caught up in his thoughts he hadn’t noticed how cold the inside of the house had become in their absence. Nodding, he went to the thermostat and saw it was set at seventy. But when he looked at the temperature reading it showed only fifty-three.
“The boiler must have gone out,” he muttered. “I’ll be right back.” Steven went through the kitchen and into the utility room. He checked the water heater. It was cold. He knelt to peer at the pilot on the boiler. It was out, as he’d thought.
Returning to the kitchen, Steven got a wooden match from the box on the shelf above the stove. He started back into the utility room, but stopped when he passed the stove.
He looked at the stove, and then at the floor. There was a scratch on the floor near the left front corner of the stove. Then he remembered Banacek had been at the house, searching it. He’d found the ring on the windowsill.
He went back into the utility room and, kneeling on the floor; he turned on the gas and pressed his nose to the boiler.
When he was satisfied that there was no leak, he moved the lever to pilot, pushed the red button in, and lit the match. He held it in the opening for the required thirty seconds. When he released the button, the pilot flame stayed on.
He turned the switch full on, waited until he heard the flame start, and went back to the living room.
“All set,” he said as he reset the temperature on the thermostat.
Carla slipped into her coat and picked up her purse and the manila envelope.
“It’ll warm up in a few minutes,” he told Carla as he put on his coat and started toward the front door. “We can g—” He cut himself off at the sound of a low pop. The hairs on the back of his neck stood out stiffly.
His reaction was instinctive. He grabbed Carla and shoved her toward the front door. Just as he opened the door, the house exploded around them.
A gust of hot air slammed into them. He caught Carla around the waist, pulling her against him before the force of the blast tore him from his feet and sent them tumbling out of the house.
They crashed down the steps of the porch, and out onto the ground. Carla landed on top of him, driving his back agonizingly into the frozen ground.
Then there was another explosion, louder this time. He rolled instinctively, turning them away from the blast. He held Carla close, keeping her face buried against his chest and shielding her from the blast. Parts of his house flew everywhere: A piece of two by four hit him a glancing blow in the back of the head.
Pain raced over him and through him, but he held Carla until the hail of debris ended. When he released her, they both scrambled to their feet.
“Are you all right?” he asked, looking her over from head to toe.
“I’m fine,” she said, staring wide-eyed over his shoulder. Steven turned and saw his house consumed within a flaming behemoth.
Steven’s physical pain faded into oblivion as this newest catastrophe held him in its grasp; and as the high roaring flames devoured the home he had built after returning from Nam, he thought of Ellie, of his friends Lomack and Londrigan, and even of secret service agent Paul Grange.
Anger came then. A rage so coldly intense he was able to turn from the hell consuming his home, and walk away. Behind him, Carla followed. He felt her hand on his arm, but shook it off.
He skirted the burning house, and went a hundred feet beyond it, to a wooden storage shed partially hidden by overgrown evergreen bushes. Padlocked, he reached above the door, and searched inside the wood joining were he’d hidden the key. He found it and opened the lock.
“Steven, please… We have to get out of here.”
“We will,” he said, entering the shed.
The inside of the shed held a tractor lawn mower and the supplies necessary to take care of his property. At the rear of the shed were shelves. He went to those, and took down a green metal box from the highest shelf.
He brought the old ammunition box outside, set it on the ground, and opened it. He extracted a plastic bag, and unsealed it. A flood of memories hit him. He ignored them and withdrew a canvas bundle. Opening the bundle, he revealed an oil-filmed Colt forty-five automatic. It had been his backup side arm from Nam. He hadn’t turned it in, because a friend had done him a favor and issued it to him under a different name.
Then he pulled out three clips wrapped in another canvas towel. Still without saying anything, he wiped the gun down and checked the clips. Then he took out a box of full jacket forty-five shells, and loaded one clip. Still squatting on his heels, he slammed the clip home, pivoted, raised the pistol and fired twice.
The loud and crisp explosion combined with the sharp recoil told him the pistol was in as good a shape as the day he’d put it in the shed and set about forgetting that he owned it.
Using the small terry cloth towel he’d kept on the bottom of the metal box, he wiped the remaining oil from the pistol and loaded the two spare clips. As he worked, he looked back at what had been his home, and channeled his hatred and rage until he was under full control.
When he was finished with the pistol, he reached inside the ammo box. There was only one object left in it. Slowly, he withdrew Xzi Tao’s bone handled knife.
He looked at the instrument that had been his salvation so many years ago. The handle was cold and smooth. The leather of the scabbard was cracked; the hand painted ornamentation was brittle and flaking. He put the knife back into the box.
Then he stood.
“Steven,” Carla whispered. He turned, and saw her eyes were fear widened.
“We can go now,” he said. Slipping the forty-five into the waistband of his pants, he returned the box to the shed, and locked the door.
In the car, Steven started the engine but did not pull away. He turned to Carla. “Did you call in?”
Her eyes went from shocked disbelief to anger. “When could I have called in? I’ve been with you all the damn time.”
He read the truth in her stormy eyes. “I’m sorry. I had to ask.” Shifting in the seat, he handed Carla the Beretta and hit the accelerator.
“How did he know where we were?” Carla asked.
Steven stared straight ahead. He exhaled sharply as one of the remaining elusive threads came to him. It had been there all along. He should have seen it before he’d almost killed himself and Carla.
“Predictability,” he said through tightly clamped teeth. “Everything I’ve done has been predictable, from my reactions about Ellie, to going to see Xzi Tao, and even to coming here. I told you I thought he found me because he’d studied me. I may be wrong. If it was Chuck Latham, he already knows the
way I think and, apparently, even knows what I’ll do in most situations.”
Reaching the main road, Steven floored the accelerator.
“How did you know there was a bomb?” Carla asked.
Steven’s laugh was harsh. “It was a neat setup. I imagine it was plastique, C-4—the same stuff he used to kill Lomack and Londrigan. He used the mercury switch in the thermostat as the timer. As soon as I turned the boiler back on, it activated the thermostat. Once the house warmed up, the mercury switch would level off and ignite the bomb. When that happened, we would have been blown apart with the house.”
“But it happened right away.”
“Because I had manually reset the switch, and by doing so, I’d leveled the mercury vial, instead of waiting for the heat to do it.”
Carla said nothing for a moment. “Who is it?”
The cut-off for the lake came up quickly. Braking hard, Steven veered onto the lake road. “I don’t know yet. It could be Chuck,” he said, accepting the hurt of having to admit the possibility aloud.
After another half hour of swift and silent driving, they reached Lake Pompton. Steven slowed by the wide curve of the lake’s tip, and pointed to the spot where they’d found Ellie.
The only remaining evidence of the attempted killing was in the thinner coating of snow on the ice near the shore and the marks on the trees. Carla shivered and hugged herself.
Steven drove into the resort community. It was eerily quiet. The sun had almost reached the peaks of the western mountains. Soon, the area would take on the unsettling false and early dusk that marked the end of a short winter day.
The fifth street in the community was Deer Walk Lane. The houses were set a comfortable distance apart. Latham’s property was the fourth house on the lane. It looked as deserted as the rest of the houses.
Steven pulled into the curved drive of the house across the street. He parked behind a neatly planted group of tall evergreens that lined its drive.
He shut the engine off and leaned his head against the headrest. His pulse was pounding; his mouth was dry. He didn’t want to go across the street because he already knew what he would find.
“Steven?”
“I’m all right.”
“I can go alone, if you want.”
He smiled, reached across, and took her hand. “I have to see for myself. Do you have your weapon?”
Nodding, she withdrew her hand from his, opened her purse, and took out the nine-millimeter Browning.
“Let’s go.”
He opened the car door, stood, and stared across the street at Chuck Latham’s rental house. His feet were like lead as he crossed the street and prepared himself to discover if the person trying to kill him was one of his two closest friends.
<><><>
“I’m scheduled on a morning flight to the coast. I’ll stop Pritman from bringing up Entente. But, Steven, if you’re wrong, it may cost us the election.”
Julius Axelrod shut off a cassette player, popped out the cassette, and turned to Amos Coblehill who was sitting in one of the two leather chairs across from him. “I think that takes care of our doubts about Pritman. It clears Savak as well.”
“That conversation between Savak and Morrisy took place hours ago. Why did it take so long to get it?” Coblehill asked, a frown of annoyance making his face stark.
“It’s an unmonitored tap on Savak’s home phone. They collect the tapes up once a day, around noon. The conversation came late in the tape. Amos, we can’t let Pritman attend that meeting. The President will have to authorize the move.”
“He has no choice. Not with that tape. He’ll see that. When it’s over and we’ve sorted it all out, he’ll have a private meeting with Pritman, and explain everything.”
“What about Morrisy? Have you located him?” Axelrod shook his head. “I sent a team to his townhouse. He wasn’t there.”
“Pennsylvania?”
“On their way, by helicopter,” Axelrod said. “They should be in Greyton in an hour.”
“I still find it hard to believe that Xzi Tao called you and volunteered the information.”
“Not so hard after hearing what Grange had to say about Xzi and Morrisy in Nam. But we need the name of the Bureau’s informant. He has to be our man.”
Coblehill nodded. “The director went into a goddamn fury when we met. It wasn’t a put-on. Julius, he didn’t have any idea of what was happening on the investigation.”
“Christ,” Coblehill exploded. “He’s the director of the Bureau, not someone taking orders under a need-to-know screen, which means only Blayne knows who the informant is.”
Coblehill looked at his watch. “The director should have called by now.” With a shake of his head, he picked up the phone from the table set between the two chairs, and dialed the Bureau’s director. He spoke his name, and then fell silent, staring directly at Axelrod. Forty seconds later, he hung up.
“Blayne is three hours overdue to report in. They don’t know where he is. His supervisor told the director the information on the mole came from the CIA.”
“The CIA?” Axelrod eyes hardened.
“That’s what he said. There’s more. The director called them. Langley is denying any knowledge of the investigation or the cooperation between The Company and Blayne.”
Standing slowly, Axelrod walked over to the corner window and looked at the stately buildings across Pennsylvania Avenue. “Amos, we can’t afford to wait any longer. We must call Langley and find out what the hell they’re up to now.”
“Of course.” Coblehill’s voice told Axelrod of his reluctance to pull rank on his counterpart at the CIA. He picked up the phone and dialed the number. Seconds later, he was speaking to the man with the answers.
Axelrod continued to stare out the window until the head of the NSA hung up the phone. When he turned back, he saw Coblehill’s face was dark with anger.
“God help us,” Coblehill said. “We must make sure those papers are confiscated from Pritman, no matter what price we end up paying.”
“You know, then?”
Coblehill stood and walked to Axelrod’s desk. He fingered the loosely piled papers on the center of the desk until he found the list of suspects. He pointed to a name a third of the way down the list.
Axelrod walked back to his desk and looked at the name Coblehill’s thick finger hovered above. He shook his head in disbelief, and then said, “Let’s notify our teams. They’ll have to move fast.”
Chapter Thirty
Steven looked around. The resort community was deathly quiet. The only sound was wind blowing through trees. Not even a winter bird seemed to be present.
Glancing over his shoulder, he caught the leading edge of the sun touching the mountaintops. He estimated that perhaps a half hour of daylight remained.
Enough.
He motioned to cross the street. The snow crunched beneath their shoes. On Latham’s narrow drive, the snow was deeper than the street, and muffled their steps.
Steven paused to take in the house. It was a two-story, nondescript and vinyl sided house, a mirror image of all the homes in the area.
Latham’s house sat in the center of a quarter acre lot. It had an idyllic, peaceful appearance and seemed well suited as the perfect place to spend summer weekends, go fishing, and barbecue. He prayed it would continue to look the same from the inside.
At the stoop to the front door, Steven turned to Carla and signaled her to keep watch while he did a quick circle around the house and saw the new snow obliterated any footprints left by Ellie and her torturer.
Returning to the front, he shook his head and motioned Carla forward. He tried the front door. “Locked. We’ll have to try a window.”
“No. There’s only one lock.” Opening her purse, she withdrew a small leather case and slid out two thin metal wire tools. Thirty seconds later, the lock clicked and Carla pushed the door open.
Steven entered first, the Colt outstretched before him. Carla followed, holdi
ng her weapon in a two-handed extension.
It was pitch dark in the house. Steven pressed himself to the wall and searched for a light switch. He found one and turned it on. An overhead fixture flared into life.
That answered one question: The electricity was on. It had either not been shut down for the winter, or had been turned on recently.
After adjusting to the light, Steven knew why it had been so dark inside. Heavy canvas drop cloths sealed with silver duct tape covered the windows. Steven was sure that no light leaked out.
A burning started in the pit of his stomach. The blackout coverings told him his nightmare was true. “Goddamn you!”
Without saying anything else, Steven and Carla went through the first floor. There was nothing in the living room, but the family room yielded an ashtray overflowing with unfiltered cigarette butts.
In the kitchen, they found a plastic bag filled with garbage. The sink was clean, as was the stove.
Carla bent over the garbage bag, and peered through the clear plastic. “They used paper plates and plastic utensils.”
Steven noted Carla’s use of the word they, not he. It made sense. If Chuck Latham were involved, he would have had help in watching Ellie while he kept on with what passed for his real life.
“Upstairs,” Steven said.
They checked the master bedroom first. It was empty, and showed no signs of occupation. The large bed was unmade–a mattress sitting on a box spring and frame.
The second bedroom was empty as well, but not as clean as the first. Another ashtray, filled to overflowing, was on the small nightstand next to the bed. A burned down butt was next to it, a half-inch scar leading to the filter tip marred the wood of the table.
Because of the cigarettes, Steven had to reevaluate his original thought. There had been at least two people here, beside Chuck. The hope grew that maybe his friend wasn’t involved: Chuck didn’t smoke.
Backing out of the room, he started toward the last bedroom just as Carla came out of the hallway bathroom. “Shaving residue and cigarette butts were all I found,” she said. “There were two types of cigarettes, filter and plain.”