Way of Escape

by Ann Fillmore

  “I don’t think that’ll happen, Mom Ixey,” said Lou, leaning on his pitchfork. “I bet it was one of our spies down at the end of the drive. Maybe that Arab one. And since there’s been no complaints, well, those guys don’t want to be found out. That’s the answer.”

  “I hate to admit it,” said Bonnie, “but you may well have something there.” She patted the grinning dog on the head, but Gryph looked disappointed. He’d expected more praise for such a job well done.

  “Sure I do,” said Lou and, picking up the pitchfork and digging into the manure heap.

  Bonnie laughed. “I guess wealth produces these sort of problems.” She put an arm around her daughter, “Dell, how long are you and Lou planning to stay? You told me, I’m sure, and not that I would ever dream of pushing you out! It would be nice though if you could stay on a little longer while Trish and I fly to Sweden.”

  Dell nodded. “We can stay until Lou’s teaching term starts late next week. Right, honey?”

  He smiled. “We would much rather hang around here and play with horses than be rained on in Seattle.”

  “And after that, well, I could stay on for a while longer,” Dell said, a note of unwillingness in her voice, “I mean, if you think it’s necessary.”

  Bonnie hugged her. “You know I’d never do anything to keep you from that gorgeous man of yours.” She kissed her daughter on the cheek, “It’s just, I don’t understand what’s going on here, what with these people spying on us, the whole business of the baron’s estate, just…everything.”

  “And Dad’s farm is really important to you,” responded Dell, hugging her mom in return. “It’s pretty important to us, too. One of us will stay on and take care of it. Although, you know, Misimoto is as dedicated to the farm as we are.”

  “I know, I know,” agreed Bonnie, “and I’ll speak to her. Perhaps what I need from you two is simply assurance that you are here, that you will be where I can talk to you.” Bonnie turned away and patted a nearby horse on the neck. “I may be your mom, but I’m not above asking for your moral support.”

  “You’ll certainly have it,” said Dell and Louis looked around.

  “Mom Ixey,” he said with conviction, “you can count on us.”

  “Thanks, children.” She turned. “I’ve got to meet Trish in San Luis. We’re going to see if we can find any winter clothes.”

  Lou said, “Try the ski shops.”

  “And the outdoors equipment stores,” offered Dell.

  Bonnie nodded, “And if worse comes to worse, we can shop when we get to Stockholm.”

  “That might be even more fun, Mom,” said Dell, her face lightening up with the thought, “although probably much more expensive.” A funny look flitted over her face. “Oh, I guess that doesn’t matter any more. Oh, my. What a strange concept.”

  “Are you flying to San Francisco or driving?” asked Lou, grinning as his wife struggled with the new sensation of being rich.

  “You know how Trish is paralyzed with fear in those small planes. We’ll drive up tomorrow evening. See Ghirardelli Square, walk down to the Embarcadero, and have a good fish dinner. Spend Sunday at the Exploratorium or the museums,” Bonnie felt butterflies start fluttering in her own stomach, “and then we go to the airport. We leave at four on the first leg to New York.”

  Dell smiled at her mom. “This could be the adventure of a lifetime, Mom.”

  “Sure could,” Lou chimed in. “Lucky lady!”

  “I wish I didn’t have such bad feelings about those spies who are watching us,” Bonnie said, “I wish I knew whether they meant us harm or not.”

  “They’re just observing,” insisted Louis. “You’ll be okay. You and Trish will be fine.”

  The silver-haired lady with the lovely skin and blue eyes pursed her lips and tried her best to be cheery. “I’m sure you’re right, my dear. I’ve always wanted to see where your grandfather and the Seastrand family came from. And we’ll be staying in a real castle. What could be scary about that?” Bonnie gave them both another hug and walked out of the rich-smelling barn. Gryphon followed her a ways back toward the house until, spotting a taunting ground squirrel far out in the pasture, he scrambled away in a flurry of yelps and barks to vanquish the tiny intruder, who merely popped down his hole to reappear yards away, chattering. It was a long-standing game.

  Carl-Joran regarded his reflection in the window of the jet. They had taken off from Tel Aviv airport in bright sunlight and after a brief layover at Boston and six hours more in the sky, they were now on the long, long descent to Los Angeles. The sun was setting ahead of them. Lights, vast numbers of lights were coming on, rows and rows, hillside after hillside, freeway upon freeway became rivers of lights shivering in faint smog that hung year round in the LA basin. He could see enough of himself reflected in the window to be surprised.

  The darkening solution he’d used on his hair had changed the complete texture of it and his skin seemed more tan, more lined. When had he aged that much? He didn’t remember having crows-feet around his eyes and smile lines near his mouth. The beard he had not shaved yesterday was already past the five o’clock shadow stage and well into prickly and rough. He sighed. With that and the grotesque California beach shirt, white jeans and baseball cap, he looked so much like one of those dreaded American tourists coming home it scared him.

  Bump-bump-bump and they landed. “The weather in the Los Angeles basin tonight is clear and dry,” announced the pilot, “and you got some ocean winds and it’s sixty-five pleasant degrees.”

  Very similar to what he’d left behind in Haifa, thought Carl-Joran, unlocking his seat belt as the plane pulled into its parking spot. He hated flying in the cattle-car section. It had been years since he’d done it. His little American bank account wouldn’t have supported more though. He pulled his briefcase from under the seat, keeping it securely next to him. It contained his precious laptop computer. Hair almost touching the ceiling, he stood and was able to reach above the other passengers as he grabbed his duffel from the overhead compartment and stooping to avoid knocking himself out on the bulkheads, he made his way along the aisle and, gratefully, stretched upright on the ramp. He should, he told himself, immediately go to the rental car desk and pick up the car and get onto Highway 101 up the coast.

  The ramp, as all incoming foreign flight ramps do in all airports all over the world, led to an enclosed corridor down which all the passengers trod. After so many hours in flight, everyone was tired and wobbly-kneed. By the time they reached Customs and Immigration, most were beyond grumpy and had become obnoxious.

  Into a huge room they went, channeled now into one long line that wound like a snake through the room. Unobtrusively—which wasn’t the way in other countries, specifically third world airports where they stood right along the line—guards with guns stood here and there against the wall or behind door edges.

  Carl-Joran had a moment’s spasm of fear, quelled it and firmly told himself that the passport nestled in his briefcase was not illegal…except for the changed date, more recent photo and immigration entrance and exit stamp pages photocopied from his real Swedish passport. Which did make it a little illegal…though its number did belong to Carl Joseph Mink. The fear tried to come back. He squelched it again. Thank God for his years of martial arts training, even if he had taken it for other reasons. He had never intended to actually use it! He had trained in order to overcome his inordinate clumsiness and he had done so. He lowered his heart rate and relaxed. He couldn’t wait to write this whole experience down in his little computer file.

  His turn came. The immigration officer he ended up with was an older Chicano man who appeared tired and ready to finish his shift. He glanced at Carl-Joran, asked the usual questions: how long had he been in Israel, did he get to visit Jerusalem? Wasn’t he scared about the terrorist attacks?

  Carl-Joran’s American accent now was at home. The answers were no problem. The immigration officer stamped a page and handed the passport back to him. C
arl-Joran slipped it back into the briefcase and walked like any other tired, returning tourist past the guards and out of the huge room, down another long corridor and through the giant glass doorway arch that led into the general hustle of LAX.

  Immediately in front of the arch, half hidden behind a pillar stood Barbara Monday, sleek and trim in an olive-green cotton suit with a yellow silk blouse that spoke total native Los Angeleno, although Carl-Joran knew she had been born and raised in upstate New York. The woman fitted into her surroundings like a chameleon.

  He had to laugh. So much like Tahireh Ibrahim in Paris, and Carin Smoland in Sweden and the older Lori Dubbayaway in Thailand. He had once read a book about the women spies of World War I and II and how extremely deadly they were because of their ability to blend, to make the men around them think they belonged in that place, at the time, with those people. Certainly, the women who moved about doing the rescue assignments for the EW fit very well into their predecessors’ roles.

  She did not look at him as he stepped through the glass arch. She did not approach him as he walked by her. His eyes couldn’t help glancing at her, as any other man’s in the crowd did. She looked so attractive. He wrenched his gaze back to the unknown people in the crowd in front of him and went along toward the main exit. She fell in behind him, casually walking as if going to meet someone else.

  When she had come abreast close enough for him to hear her above the white noise of the bustling terminal, she said, “I need your help.”

  Without seeming to talk to her, he said, “I’ve got to get to Morro Bay tonight.”

  “It’ll only take a couple hours.” She sped up enough to get ahead of him as they stepped onto the escalator leading down to the parking garages. “The private investigator hired by Valentine’s husband has found where we’re keeping her. She has to be moved tonight. She has to be brought to the safe house near here, near LAX, so she can be put on the eight thirty-five a.m. flight to Miami.”

  “And there’s no way you can do it by yourself?” Carl-Joran’s face had a gravely perplexed expression.

  “If the private investigator has told the husband already, we could have violence,” she whispered.

  Carl-Joran snorted, replying sarcastically, “I think I win my bet. Okay, lead on, Ms. Monday.”

  They stepped off the escalator together in the fore-lobby of the garages and both noticed the Arabic-looking individual near the tall potted plant beside an exit, watching Barbara from behind a magazine. Carl-Joran strode away from Barbara, separating from her. The Arab slid away from his potted palm and, sticking the magazine into a nearby chair, followed her through one of the exits leading to the parking garage.

  Carl-Joran circled back and went after the Arab, who, once into the garage, paused to see where Barbara was headed. The man was completely absorbed in the fine legs and beautiful rump motion as she swung briskly along toward her rental car. Carl-Joran set his duffel and briefcase against a pillar and quietly came up behind the short, stocky man. As soon as no one was looking their way, he neatly—in a swift, small movement—pinched the side of the man’s neck, dropping him like a stone. He caught him, one arm under the shoulders and as if carrying a drunk, took him to an elevator and gently placed him inside, pushing the top-most button. The doors slid shut.

  Barbara, in her big rented Oldsmobile, pulled up as Carl-Joran retrieved his duffel and briefcase. He put them in the back seat and climbed into the passenger seat.

  “Neatly done, old man,” she laughed.

  “It is good to practice,” he responded. “Where are we going? And I assume you’ll drop me off back here at my own car after we’re finished?”

  “We’re on our way to Malibu and yes, you’ll be brought right back here.” It was dark outside. The roads were black ribbons with huge lights. Barbara finessed her way out of the massive traffic circles around the airport buildings and was quickly onto the San Diego freeway headed north.

  A few minutes later, Carl-Joran asked rather plaintively, “Do I really look older with my hair dark?”

  “Well,” she began, trying to think up an inoffensive way to say what she felt she should say, that is, the truth, and continued with, “I think the dye made your skin seem darker and your beard emphasizes those little lines.”

  “Oh,” he said, disheartened.

  “Hey, you’re still really handsome for an…” she said and then decided any more might be putting her foot in her mouth.

  “Ja-so,” he muttered.

  “I mean, look at Sean Connery and…and Edward Woodward and Clark Gable.”

  “Mr. Gable is dead.” The big Swede loosened his seat belt.

  Barbara switched to the fast lane and accelerated. “You’re missing my point. Any woman would love to date Sean Connery or Tom Selleck or Clint Eastwood.”

  “Uh.” Carl-Joran replied.

  Soon, they left the freeway to turn onto Sunset Drive to wind through the big houses toward the ocean and Pacific Coast Highway.

  It was something of a surprise when, after whizzing through Malibu, Barbara turned into the Pepperdine University entrance, but she seemed to know right where to go. Up past the last university building she swung onto a narrow drive that led to a small, dormitory-like structure. She pushed at Carl-Joran. “Get down.”

  As she parked, she motioned her head toward a black sedan, lights out, windows shaded, half-hidden behind the hedge. Its occupant, a white man with a buzz haircut, was lighting a cigarette while lowering his night glasses.

  “The PI,” she whispered.

  Carl-Joran gave one quick nod. He signed to Barbara to put her hand over the interior car light. She responded immediately by taking a scarf and pressing it over the light. Smoothly, like a long snake, he pushed the passenger side door open, slid from the car and amazingly, for a man so tall, disappeared instantly into the mottled shadows of the other vehicles, the trees, the fence.

  Barbara lowered the scarf. Waited several heartbeats and opened her door with the light unguarded. The PI’s night glasses jerked back up to his eyes. Deliberately she put her long, beautiful legs out of the car and walked along the sidewalk where he could observe her. The man’s neck craned around as she passed about fifty feet away bathed in the soft light from the porch lamp. As she went up the porch steps and under the shadow of the large portico cover at the front entrance of the building, the private investigator stubbed out his cigarette, lowered his glasses, and opened his car door.

  At that moment, from below the car window height, Carl-Joran in one swift motion jerked the car door fully open and hauled the fellow out. As silently and swiftly as the Arab had been dispatched, the PI was unconscious. Carl-Joran gently laid the man back into the car seat and closed the door. Standing upright, he turned and headed for the portico. Barbara had already gone inside.

  He was stopped at the door by a large woman who shook her head at him. Apologetically, she said, “We know you’re a good man, but just wait here. It’s our policy not to let men in. You’ll have to wait.”

  Not more than three minutes passed before Barbara and another largish woman, whom Carl-Joran guessed was the other half of a lesbian pair, stepped from the shelter carrying a thick suitcase and a smaller cosmetic bag. The woman handed both to Carl-Joran.

  “Thank you so much, Baron,” she smiled, and promptly retreated back into the building.

  Barbara motioned come along to someone behind her, someone who must not have wanted to leave because Barbara again motioned, and once more very firmly. A tall, stunningly beautiful black woman, nervously looking around, staring for a second at the car with the slumped over private investigator, finally, cautiously, stepped from the darkness of the doorway like a scared deer.

  “Valentine,” said Barbara Monday, “this is Baron Carl-Joran Hermelin, your benefactor.”

  “My God,” she breathed softly, her eyes moving up and down, “he’s ‘bout as big as my husband.”

  “We’d better go,” Carl-Joran urged them, “our sleeping
watcher won’t be unconscious much longer.” He led the way to the Oldsmobile, put the suitcase and bag into the trunk, and held a back door open for Valentine who, herself, had to duck low to get in. Passing that close, Carl-Joran was able to see on her dark skin, with only the interior car light, ugly bruises, half-healed, along the woman’s jaw, neck, and lower arms below the short sleeves of her dress. He cringed.

  Barbara opened her own door and had the engine started before Carl-Joran had clicked his seat belt. Off they went, back along Pacific Coast Highway, and this time, they stayed on the ocean-side highway until they were past Santa Monica. Barbara wound her way through the busy streets, busy even at this time of the night, and only after some round-about driving through one city street after another to be completely certain she had no one tailing her, did she slip back onto the freeway heading for the airport. The next stop was a ticky-tacky little house stuck between storage units behind an airfreight hanger. The vibrations of the incoming planes shook the car. They were directly under the near-end of the flight path.

  “Sorry for the noise,” Barbara shouted over her shoulder, then got out and helped Valentine out while Carl-Joran went to the door of the house. He tapped lightly and someone peeked between torn curtains. The curtains fell back in place. The front door creaked opened and Barbara hustled Valentine in. Carl-Joran took her suitcase and bag from the trunk and handed it in the door, which promptly closed with him still on the outside and this time no apologies at all. Over the years, he’d come to accept that this is how it had to be. He had long ago refrained from questioning the women who ran these places about why he, the man who helped support them, was always refused entry. It was not important to him any longer. The job was getting done, so be it.

  Not too long and Barbara hurried back. “She’s a brave lady,” said Barbara. “Holding up a lot better than I would under the circumstances.”