Below the Belt

by Stuart Woods

  “Well, since you’re still alive, I assume you either killed them both or gave them the case.”

  “I gave them the case, and the key, which had arrived only a few minutes before.”

  “So, there’s an end to that,” Stone said.

  “Not quite,” Ed said, “they still have to get it open.”

  —

  AS THE TWO MEN drove away from Rawls’s house, one of them said to the other, “Are we going to open the thing?”

  “That’s above my pay grade,” the man said. “I’ll pass it up the line, and somebody else can make that decision.”

  They drove into Washington, went to Erik Macher’s office, and delivered the case and its key to him. “Rawls didn’t give us an argument,” the man said.

  —

  WHEN THEY HAD gone, Macher sat and stared at the case. Weeks of trouble, he reflected; how many dead? He had lost track. He inserted the key into one of the two locks.

  “No,” he said aloud. He put the key back into his pocket and called Christian St. Clair.

  “Yes, Erik?”

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “Have you heard anything further from our people in England?”

  “No, sir. It’s mid-afternoon there, so I expect there has been no change in the circumstances, or I would have heard.”

  “Then what can I do for you?”

  “I have the strong case, sir.”

  There was a sharp intake at the other end of the line. “Bring it to me, unopened,” he said.

  “Where are you?”

  “At my home in New York.”

  “I’ll leave immediately, sir. It should take me four or five hours to drive the distance.”

  “I’ll expect you.” St. Clair hung up.

  Macher left his office, stowed the strong case in the trunk of his car, and drove away. He turned on the satellite radio and selected CNN. All the news was of Nelson Knott’s announcement of his candidacy the previous day. He found some classical music.

  —

  STONE WENT DOWN to his office in time to get a call from Will Lee.

  “Good morning, Will.”

  “Good morning, Stone. Have you had any news of the delivery of your packages?”

  “Not yet. They are all supposed to be delivered by three PM, or so the post office promises.”

  “In time for the evening news.”

  “Should be plenty of time.”

  “I’ll look forward to it,” Will said.

  The two men hung up.

  57

  AROUND NOON, Stone got a call from Ed Rawls.

  “Hello again, Ed,” he said.

  “Hello, Stone. If it sounds like I’m in a car, I am.”

  “Your old Mercedes?”

  “No, that’s a short-range car, it’s tucked away in my garage. I’m driving a rental.”

  “Is this a long-range trip?”

  “It is. I’m headed to Islesboro. I’ll drive as far as Augusta, then get a lightplane charter to the island. It occurred to me that when the mailing hits the media I’m going to be getting a lot of phone calls and interview requests that I want no part of.”

  “I expect you’re right. Would you like to stay at my place until yours is finished?”

  “Thank you, that would suit me very well.”

  “I’ll call Seth Hotchkiss and tell him and Mary to expect you. Knock on his door when you get there, and he’ll let you in.”

  “Perfecto. Have you had any blowback from the mailing yet?”

  “No, and I don’t expect any, since nobody will associate me with your book.”

  “Well, there are a couple of mentions of you.”

  “I’d forgotten about that, but they were innocuous.”

  “I guess that describes them. What are you going to do with the Parkers now? Once the news is out, they’ll no longer be a threat to Nelson Knott or Christian St. Clair.”

  “No, but the press will be looking hard for them. They’d be a hot interview.”

  “The DVD will cover that. They’ve got enough quotes for a week, anyway.”

  “I’ll just leave them where they be, I think. I’m sure they’re enjoying the vacation, and I don’t want to cut it short.”

  “Good idea. Let me give you my latest cell number.”

  Stone wrote it down.

  “You might give that to the Parkers, too, should they want to reach me.”

  “You know, Ed, you might have saved their lives by figuring out that St. Clair had people following them.”

  “Maybe, who knows?”

  “What are you going to do for the rest of the year?”

  “I’m going to finish my house and furnish it, then I’m just going to sit around and watch the election campaigns on TV. When it’s over I won’t have anything else to do.”

  “You’ll think of something,” Stone said.

  “Maybe I’ll take a look at the new crop of widows up there. We seem to get three or four a season.”

  “I’m sure the attention would make them happy.”

  “Okay, you take care.”

  “Give me a call when you’re in the house, and I’ll give you some tips on how to run the place.”

  “Will do. Bye.” They both hung up.

  —

  STONE HAD A sandwich for lunch and was reading a contract later when Joan buzzed. “A producer at 60 Minutes is on one for you.”

  “Did he say what it was about?”

  “Nope.”

  Stone picked up the phone. “This is Stone Barrington.”

  “Mr. Barrington, we’ve received your mailing, and—”

  “My mailing? What mailing?”

  “The Ed Rawls book and the DVD. I’d like to ask you some questions about it.”

  “It’s nothing to do with me. Call Ed Rawls. Goodbye.”

  He hung up, and Joan buzzed again. “Somebody from MSNBC,” she said, “a producer on the Chris Matthews show.”

  “Tell him I’m busy, to call Ed Rawls.” Before he could hang up, she said, “Somebody from Fox News on line two.”

  “I don’t want to speak to anybody about the books,” he said. “Refer them all to Rawls.” He hung up and wondered how the hell he had been connected to the mailing. He buzzed Joan.

  “Yes?”

  “You didn’t put my name on those envelopes, did you?”

  “Nope, just the address, in case we got returns.”

  Stone groaned. “Okay, then, you handle the calls. There are going to be two hundred of them.”

  “But how would they know the books are from you?”

  “You ever hear of a reverse directory, Joan? You look up an address, and it tells you who lives there.”

  “Oh, my God, I’m so embarrassed.”

  “You can convey your embarrassment to the two hundred callers.”

  She buzzed back a few minutes later to say Dino was on line two. Stone pressed the button. “Hello.”

  “You must be getting a lot of calls,” Dino said. “I hear your address is on every envelope.”

  “Yeah, Joan screwed up, something she doesn’t often do. She’d never heard of a reverse directory.”

  “What are you doing about the calls?”

  “Referring everybody to Ed Rawls.”

  “And where is Rawls?”

  “On his way to Maine, driving a rental. He didn’t want the calls.”

  “Will they track him down there?”

  “I don’t think so,” Stone said. “His phone was destroyed with his house, and he’s using a burner. He’s staying at my place until his new one is finished.”

  “Is the Parker family okay?”

  “They’re fine. They’re at my place in England.”

  “So every
body’s battened down for the big moment, huh?”

  “Everybody but Nelson Knott and Christian St. Clair. They’ll be getting the first calls soon.”

  “Yes, that could ruin their day. Have you heard anything from Lance Cabot?”

  “Not since yesterday. Will Lee called this morning, and we had a brief chat. He seemed calm.”

  “Heard anything from Holly?”

  “Nope. I think she’s back at work by now and probably doesn’t have the time to call.”

  “Why don’t you get her to quit the job and marry you? Viv thinks you’re made for each other.”

  “Tried that, didn’t work. She’s married to the White House, and I’ll tell you a secret—Lance is a candidate for Kate’s running mate this time.”

  “What’s wrong with what’s-his-name, the VP?”

  “He’s unwell, something serious, I think.”

  “Has Holly got a shot at Lance’s job, if he runs with Kate?”

  “I believe she has.”

  “Well, that means she’s not going to marry you until she’s old and gray, and you’re nearly dead.”

  “That crossed my mind,” Stone said. He hung up and watched the lights flashing on his phone, as people called in.

  58

  ERIK MACHER GOT OUT OF his car and tried to see as far forward as possible. He was stuck on I-95 in New Jersey and had been for half an hour. His cell phone rang.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Alf. We’re stumped here. Another half-dozen armed people have arrived and are now deployed. Even if we just wanted to shoot this family, we wouldn’t have a chance, without fifty percent fatalities of our own. Only a mortar or a rocket-propelled grenade would give us a chance at them. How long do you want to go on paying us to watch the grass grow?”

  Macher made his own decision: “All right, pull your people out and go home. If I hear that anything has changed, I’ll call you, and we can start all over again.”

  “Right. We are aborting this mission.”

  Macher hung up and ran for his car. Traffic had started to inch forward.

  —

  JOAN BUZZED STONE. “Yes?”

  “Lance Cabot on two.”

  He pressed the button. “Yes, Lance?”

  “We’ve processed Nelson Knott’s DNA sample from his coffee mug. It’s a match for Martha’s son—no doubt.”

  “What do you think we should do with it?”

  “Get it to your mailing list as soon as possible,” Lance said.

  “I don’t have the mailing list, it was on the envelopes.”

  “Come to think of it, Stone, neither do I. But we have a list of contact and fax numbers for several hundred media organizations worldwide.”

  “I think fax is a good idea. Send it to all the U.S. numbers, and who cares if it’s overkill.”

  “Okay, I’ll get our lab to type up a suitable letter, and we’ll attach the report to it.”

  “Somebody is going to reach me eventually about this, and they’re going to ask how we got the DNA sample. What do you want me to say?”

  “Well, for God’s sake don’t say my people got it. Say that someone in Knott’s organization managed to obtain it and sent it.”

  “Sent it to whom? Not to me!”

  “A law enforcement agency.”

  “That would slow them down for about half a second, Lance. Which law enforcement agency?”

  “Let me talk to somebody at the FBI, maybe I can get them to release the results.”

  “They’re a criminal investigative body—they would process it only if the commission of a crime were involved.”

  “Rape is a crime,” Lance pointed out.

  “Yes, but not a federal crime.”

  “Where did the alleged rape take place?”

  “In Knott’s office in Washington, according to her DVD testimony,” Stone said.

  “I’ll send the whole package to the D.C. police chief and see if we can get them involved. They’re the proper investigative authority.”

  “Good idea!” Stone hung up.

  —

  A GROUP OF men and women sat in a screening room at the D.C. police department and watched Martha’s statement. It ended, and the chief looked around the table. “Since receiving the book and the DVD, we’ve received a lab report saying that there’s a DNA match between Nelson Knott and the boy. My question is, do we have the basis for an investigation here?”

  “Certainly we do,” her deputy replied, “if it occurred in the District, and the woman says it did, and it would have occurred within the statute of limitations.” There was general assent around the table.

  “The book and the DVD, but not the DNA report, have been sent to two hundred media outlets around the country. Should we send out the DNA report?”

  “We’re not exactly ahead of this story,” her deputy said. “Sending out the report might give us some catch-up.”

  “We have a list of press and media fax numbers, don’t we?” the chief asked.

  Her public affairs officer raised his hand. “We do, Chief, and I can have it out to them in a matter of minutes. We can robo-dial all the numbers.”

  “Fine, do it, and let’s get an investigative team assembled right now and start substantiating everything.”

  —

  IN NEW YORK, at CBS Television, another group sat watching Martha’s testimony on the DVD. It ended, and everyone was quiet for a moment.

  “Okay,” the executive producer said, “how do we go forward?”

  “We get it on the news, pronto,” somebody said.

  “Why us?”

  “Because we gave Knott 60 Minutes last week. All of it.”

  “That doesn’t make us accomplices in a rape. Is this cause to disrupt a presidential campaign?”

  “I’ll give you a better reason to get it on the air now,” the youngest member of the group said.

  “Go ahead.”

  “This package didn’t just come to us, every media outlet in the country is going to know about it in no more than an hour. We don’t want to be the only one not broadcasting it.”

  “That’s a very good reason. Get a report together, call Knott for a comment, and we’ll lead with it on the evening news. Then let’s get it on 60 Minutes Sunday night, the whole statement. Go!”

  —

  ERIK MACHER WAS now doing forty miles an hour; he called St. Clair, and his secretary answered. “It’s Macher. Let me speak with him.”

  “He isn’t taking any calls this afternoon. He didn’t feel well after lunch, and he’s lying down. And there have been many calls from the media.”

  “I’m not surprised, given yesterday’s announcement. Let him know that I was delayed by traffic accidents on the interstate, and that I’ll be there in two hours.”

  “I’ll tell him as soon as he wakes up.”

  Macher hung up and tried to see into the future. Getting ahold of the strong case had given them a leg up, he thought. Knott’s announcement had been received respectfully by the media; now they would start digging into Knott’s past. He’d been working for years to make sure that there was nothing in that past that would cloud the man’s political future, even to committing murder. With the handing over of the strong case to St. Clair, Macher would be the hero of all their efforts, and he intended to make the most of it. He would go from being in charge of an at-arm’s-length security company to being an important executive in St. Clair’s business empire. They couldn’t afford not to give him that, because he knew too much to be cold-shouldered. He was going to place that case in St. Clair’s hands personally, and reap the attendant rewards.

  Traffic was clearing; he picked up speed.

  59

  STONE GOT A CALL from Mike Freeman.

  “Yes, Mike?”

  “
My people in England tell me that all opposition around your estate has disappeared. They’ve apparently been withdrawn.”

  “I expect that St. Clair has heard about Martha’s statement by now, and if so, she would no longer be in danger.”

  “Should I withdraw my people, then?”

  Stone thought about it. “Wait until tomorrow morning, but leave two people with them. If they can find out where the family is, the press and media are going to want to interview Martha, and they will be very pushy about it.”

  “All right, I’ll do that.” He hung up.

  Joan buzzed. “Ed Rawls on one.”

  Stone pressed the button. “Yes, Ed, where are you?”

  “North of Portland. I’ll get a room in Augusta and fly tomorrow morning. The forecast is good.”

  “What’s up?”

  “I was just wondering if you’d heard anything from St. Clair or his people?”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “Not a peep,” Stone said.

  “How about Knott?”

  “Nothing from him, either, but I haven’t expected any of them to contact me.”

  “I just wondered,” Ed said. “Good night.” He hung up.

  Stone went upstairs to his study and poured himself a drink. He glanced at his watch. Half an hour to go.

  —

  ERIK MACHER PULLED up before Christian St. Clair’s double-width town house. One of his people was guarding the door. He got the strong case out of his trunk and trotted up the stairs.

  “Good evening, Mr. Macher,” his man said.

  “Don’t let them give me a ticket,” Macher replied, and rang the bell. Another of his people answered it. “Where is Mr. St. Clair?” he asked the man.

  “I believe he’s in his study,” the man replied. “He just woke up from a nap. He’s been down all afternoon.”

  “Thank you,” Macher replied, and walked up the curving staircase from the marble hall to the second floor, to the double doors of St. Clair’s study, which was where he worked when he was in New York. He rapped on the door.

  “Who is it?” St. Clair called from inside.

  “It’s Erik, sir.”

  “Do you have the strong case?”

  “I do, sir.”