by Tim Green
“That’s no reason not to stay for dinner,” Jill said lightly.
“Jill,” Kurt snapped suddenly, “you can’t just burst in here—” He stopped, realizing how boorish he sounded, and said more gently, “I’m sorry. He just can’t stay, that’s all.”
Jill appeared to ignore him. “Well, Cheng, it was very nice to see you anyway,” she said demurely, her chin held high. “Have a safe trip back.” Then she turned and stormed out of the room.
The warm feelings Kurt had begun to have throughout the day working with Cheng were suddenly chilled. The realization of what he was planning to do had been brought painfully home by Jill’s entrance. How could he be sure she’d go with him when it was all over? The clandestine nature of his movements between now and when the president came wasn’t going to change. If anything, need would require him to become even more secretive in the ensuing weeks; he wondered if Jill and he would even make it that far.
“I think if you don’t need anything else, my friend, then I’d better go,” Cheng said quietly.
Kurt realized that he was simply standing there in the middle of the room transfixed in thought. He looked up abruptly. “Yes, Cheng,” he said with a quickly constructed smile. “When do you think you can get me the equipment that I need?”
“I have everything you need. The only problem is that they’re in different pieces in different plants,” Cheng explained. “I’m going to put this together myself, Kurt. But it will take time. Everything has to be shipped to my laboratory. That could take one week, maybe less. Once I get everything I need? Maybe I can have it for you in one week if I don’t do anything else.”
“Two weeks, then?” Kurt said.
“Yes,” Cheng replied after careful consideration. “And the passports I’ll get this week.”
“Good. I want to ask you something else, my friend.”
“Of course.”
“Obviously I’m leaving the country, for good.” With visible discomfort he said, “I won’t come back.”
Cheng blinked but said nothing.
After a slight bow from his friend and employee, Kurt said, “And . . . I meant what I said about a succession plan . . . I was thinking of having Johnson take over as CEO, but I won’t do that if you don’t think it’s best, Cheng.”
Cheng looked at him slyly and said, “You think I wouldn’t like to have another man as my boss?” Then he smiled broadly. “No, Johnson is the right man. I know what I am and I know what I’m not. I’m a scientist, not a businessman. If you’re not going to be here, the only thing I care about is Safe Tech’s stock, and if you say Johnson is the man to keep it up, then Johnson is the man for the job.”
“That’s what I think,” Kurt said slowly, measuring Cheng’s reaction. “But I wouldn’t do it without your consent.”
“I thank you for asking,” Cheng said, bowing low.
“And I’ll let Johnson know it too,” Kurt said.
Cheng bowed again, slightly this time, and said, “Thank you. Now if that’s all, I have work to do for a very good friend, a friend that to me has been like a brother . . .”
As the two of them embraced, neither had the slightest idea that they were being watched. Nor did they know that everything they had just said and everything they planned to do had been heard.
CHAPTER 18
Along the southern edge of Kurt’s property, a thick hedge of lilacs, now a naked green without their brilliant purple blossoms, mobbed the spaces between a lofty row of blue spruce. In the midst of that wild tangle lay a man dressed from head to toe in leafy camouflage. The sight of him, even the idea, would have been ridiculous except for the nasty 9mm Glock that was strapped to his hip, complete with a gleaming black silencer.
Under his leafy hood the man wore a pair of earphones. In front of him on a small tripod lay a directional microphone sensitive enough to pick up the voices from within Kurt’s library by the faint vibrations they made on the large picture window. When he wasn’t listening to that, he had his headset switched over to a receiver that picked up a transmitter tapped into the phone lines on the pole that ran up the side of Kurt’s long driveway. And still, no matter what he listened to, the snatch of a Bruce Springsteen song he’d heard that morning on the car radio spun around and around in the back of his mind so that often he caught himself humming its tune.
The man’s name was Mitchell Reeves. He was a special agent within the Secret Service. A short, compact man with dark hair and olive skin, he was a former officer in Military Intelligence, and had once been an aggressive soldier and a devotee of discipline. He was secretive by nature and uniquely qualified for this type of work. He had no recording devices. He reported to one man and one man alone. He asked no questions. He took no action that he wasn’t first authorized to take.
This job was Reeves’s chance at redemption. After leaving the military more than a decade ago, he’d spent time training insurgents in South America for the CIA until that whole thing went sour. Since then, he had drifted further and further from the legitimacy that he once enjoyed as an officer in the army. His most recent job before this one had been so squalid that he hated to think about it. But now there was no cause to recall the dark cellars and the shocking human moans—he was back in the real world, with a real assignment. The first meeting with his new boss was still fresh in his mind. After a glossy black Seville had delivered him from National Airport in Washington, he was treated to an elegant lunch at the Four Seasons and offered the job before coffee.
But while Reeves didn’t ask questions aloud, even to his partner with whom he shared connecting rooms at the Holiday Inn in Auburn, he did wonder to himself. He wondered how long this man, Kurt Ford, was going to be allowed to proceed. He wondered why he wasn’t recording what was being said. If the Service was going to grab him—and he knew they would—wouldn’t they want the things he was saying and doing preserved for a jury to convict him?
Deep in his mind, Reeves was convinced that people much higher than he within the Service intended to let this whole thing reach critical mass. Then—and only then—would they insert themselves between Ford and the president. Reeves had to admit it would be a spectacular public relations coup for the Service, whose morale had suffered since the Clinton scandal with Monica Lewinsky, when agents were asked to testify against the man they protected.
Whatever the reason for the inaction, Reeves was convinced that he wasn’t the only one who knew Ford was going to make a run at the president. How, he wasn’t yet certain. The fact that he’d seen Ford through his night binoculars chug all the way across the lake in the middle of the night to visit the judge’s mansion by boat suggested a surgical-type assault. But that certainly didn’t make any sense when one considered the lengths to which Ford was going to ensure his escape. Reeves knew Ford was a former agent. While that experience, along with some very advanced technology, might allow him to penetrate the fourth perimeter, he also must know escape would be impossible. And Ford was obviously very bent on escape. As far as Reeves could see, most of his time was devoted to that end.
The only other possible rationale for what was happening was that the entire thing was a sham, a kind of training mission, a test for Reeves and Art Vanecroft, his partner. That wouldn’t surprise him. At this level, the government was always up to some kind of shenanigans, one agency testing the effectiveness of another, or testing the viability of itself to justify more money. At the end of the day, that was what everything was about—more money. Reeves didn’t have to ponder that for very long.
He looked at his watch and shifted his position ever so slightly. He had several hours to go. A fat mosquito landed on his nose; Reeves could just make it out if he shut one eye and looked hard. It bit him, but he didn’t move to swat it away. That would be careless. It wasn’t easy, working twelve-hour shifts, holding almost perfectly still until dark. But that was part of the deal. Being involved in anything covert included more drudgery than it did excitement. But when it was exciting, it was really exciting
. That was what kept Reeves going. He liked being in the eye of the storm.
If this whole thing was for real, Reeves was pretty certain of one thing: There would be a good chance somewhere along the way for someone, probably Kurt Ford, to be killed, and that was the ultimate high, really. Life-and-death stakes—that was excitement. That was living on the edge. And if someone did have to be killed, odds were that Reeves would be the one who got to do the killing. It was the kind of killing you didn’t go to jail for, either. It was like in the movies, like James Bond, 007—licensed to kill. The idea made him smile.
CHAPTER 19
The next morning, Jill rolled out of bed at five, changed, and crept quietly downstairs. She was going to take a long ride. The rubber from the tires of her new bike filled the garage with their pungent aroma. Jill sniffed the air with faint disgust and wheeled the bike out of the garage with her cycling shoes and socks in hand.
On a whim, she set the bike down in the driveway and walked barefoot back around the house toward the water. She followed the meandering path, over an old stone bridge that spanned a small creek, and across the expansive lawn that stretched for more than a thousand feet from side to side beneath the ancient trees. Soon she was standing on the stony beach with a warm south wind in her face and the waves lapping gently at her feet. In the glow of the coming dawn, only Jupiter blinked overhead. She could see nearly fifteen miles to the end of the lake where the magnificent glacial hills plummeted into the deep narrow corridor of water. It was an exhilarating place to be: Skaneateles. Over the last several summers, she had grown not only fond of it, but also attached to its placid beauty; she wondered if Kurt’s plans would ever bring them back.
Sighing heavily, she made her way back up the path toward the house amid the now noisy revelry of the waking birds. On her bike, she pumped her way to the top of the drive and set out as usual, eager for the endorphin high she knew was waiting for her only a few miles down the road.
The lush woods and streams and fields brimming with nascent sprouts of corn and wheat and alfalfa rushed by and her mind wandered to weddings. Over the last two years, she’d been to a few with Kurt. Two had taken place at the Pierre in Manhattan. They were fresh in her mind, memorable for their opulence, with flowers cascading from columns that rose all the way to the ornate ceiling. That wouldn’t bother her, to do it right like that. Especially after her failed first marriage. She’d like people to know that this time things were going to be different.
Her first wedding had taken place in a small church in Binghamton. The reception was in the nearby VFW hall. The only member of her family willing to attend was her brother, and part of her wished he hadn’t. She could still remember the shame she felt seeing him sit there in the sweltering heat with his overweight wife, drinking iced tea and smiling politely at the dregs flopping drunkenly about on the dance floor in ill-fitting rented tuxedos and frumpy pastel-colored dresses. It had been a nightmare.
But now, would she even have the opportunity to invite people to a wedding? Kurt hadn’t said anything about it, but the way he talked made her suspect they were simply going to elope. And although she felt a pang of shame, with the way Kurt had been acting she didn’t want to even ask. There were moments when she felt the eerie sensation that she was playing out the role she’d taken on with her first husband, the same role her own mother had played with her father. But Jill was sure, as sure as she’d ever been of anything, that any irritability or restraint on Kurt’s part was temporary and born only from grief. Talia’s words came back to assuage her anxiety.
As she rounded a bend in the road and began to climb the last big hill before the ravine where she’d been run off the road, Jill became aware of a person up ahead. By now the sky was ready to burst into day and the imminent morning sun was quickly burning the last orange haze in the east away. As the first ray pierced the sky, it shone full on the figure, an enormous man wearing red shorts and a white T-shirt with a biking helmet that reminded her of a fruit bowl. Beside him was a racing bike, as new as her own.
Even with his hand buttoned to his forehead to block the bright sun, the figure was recognizable as Jeremiah. Jill tittered bashfully to herself as she pulled right up to him and stopped. He had obviously been waiting for her. She could see his house perched above them away to the west.
“Hi,” she said cheerfully. “I didn’t know you had a bike.”
“I don’t. I mean, I do now,” he responded. “I just thought it looked like fun.”
“You look like you mean business,” she said, eyeing his brand-new biking shoes.
“Is this the right stuff?” he asked, looking down at the rigid-soled shoes. “I just got what they told me.”
“You did good,” she told him. “The shoes alone will save you half an hour around this lake.”
He gave her a puzzled look and said, “Really?”
Jill nodded. “Think about when you ride a bike in regular shoes. When you push down on the pedal, half the force is used up by the bend in your foot. With these, every ounce of push goes into the bike.”
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said after a pause in which he continued to contemplate the shoes, “but you said you ride almost every day and I got this bike yesterday and I just thought I’d watch the sun come up and see if you came by. Do you mind if I join you?”
“No,” she said. “I think it would be great. I’ll feel safer just knowing you’re not out driving around in your pickup truck.”
Jeremiah’s face drooped pitifully until Jill laughed cheerfully and said, “I’m kidding.”
At that, he brightened and climbed up onto the bike whose seat sprouted ridiculously high from the frame on its chrome stem. Jill couldn’t help herself from thinking of a bear she’d seen in the Big Apple Circus riding a tiny scooter. But she checked her remark and, thankful for a companion, said, “Let’s go.”
Later that morning, after breakfast by herself and a lonely swim in the lake, Jill found Kurt in his library. He was busy and he looked up impatiently at her as he replaced the phone on its receiver. She suddenly felt an unwarranted pang of guilt.
“Remember the man I told you who almost hit me, the farmer who gave me a ride back here after my bike was ruined?” she asked. “He was really so nice about it and it wasn’t his fault at all.”
“Yeah,” he said somewhat testily, sliding some papers off his desktop and into the drawer. “I remember.”
“Well, I saw him today,” she said tentatively. “He was out riding a bike too and we ended up riding around the lake together. He’s a very nice person, Kurt. I like him. I told him I’d ride with him again, but I wanted to say something to you before I did. I don’t want you to think—”
“The farmer? Of course not,” he scoffed, dismissing any notion of jealousy with a wave of his hand. “Listen, I appreciate your saying something to me about it, but you go ahead and ride your bike. I’m glad you’ve got someone to ride with. Don’t worry about that at all.”
Despite Kurt’s hastily spoken permission, Jill felt ill at ease. And whenever she felt that way, there was only one person she could call. She dialed Talia’s home number in part to reinforce her spirit and in part to gain further approval for her actions.
“He said that?” Talia exclaimed.
After a moment of consideration, Talia continued in her typically spirited manner, “Then you go right on ahead and do it. You need some human contact.”
“Talia,” Jill moaned, “it’s not like Kurt and I don’t talk at all.”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” her friend said ardently. “I already told you how I feel about Kurt and I still want you to support him. But I’m talking about you now. It won’t do him any good when he comes out of this thing to have you falling apart. You need some company, a friend!”
“Well,” Jill said, “I don’t know why I feel guilty about it, but I do. But if you think it’s all right . . . then I’ll do it.”
“I think it’s a wonderful idea,�
� Talia said. “And Jill . . . I admire what you’re doing. I respect it. It’s right to stick by Kurt, but let’s not forget about you, Jill. You can’t do that. You may think you’re doing everyone else a favor, but for those of us who really love you—and I’m sure that includes Kurt—we want you to be happy too.”
“Thank you, Talia. Thank you.”
CHAPTER 20
It wasn’t long before Jill began to round that same bend in the road with great anticipation and a clear conscience. Every morning it was like a new pleasure to see Jeremiah standing there beaming foolishly at her with his boyish grin. They never talked about the fact that they would meet the next day—they just did. Then one particularly hot morning, after nearly two weeks of circling the entire lake together, Jeremiah apprehensively asked if she would like to take a swim.
“We could double back,” he suggested. “I’ve got a lane down to the lake and a swinging rope . . .”
They were riding along the east side of the lake, directly across from his farm, which he had pointed out to her with pride on their first ride together and every day since. With the heat already waffling up from the pavement, the idea of a swim was too great a temptation to say no to. Of course, she could swim by herself when she got back home, but it would be nice to take a dip with someone who’d shared the same grueling ride in the heat. It was like going to a movie. Jill never went to movies alone. She liked to share the experience or not have it at all.
“Okay,” she said, “let’s do it.”
By the time they were coasting down the gravel lane, Jill had sweat dripping from her nose, and Jeremiah looked as if he’d already taken a swim. The sun was yellow in the sky, burning angrily behind a thick humid haze. Even the shade of the enormous old willow that had thrust itself into the side of the stony bank brought no relief from the heat.
The water looked invitingly cool. Many years ago, the Manns had used a bulldozer to cut the lane down into the steep embankment, pushing the earth into the lake to form a little grassy picnic area and a small beach. An old wooden retaining wall kept it mostly intact, but beyond that, the water plunged to an unfathomable depth. Jill left her bike on the gravel lane, hung her helmet from the handlebars, and walked awkwardly in her biking shoes to the water’s edge. The lake’s depth gave its aqua green color an intensity that was mesmerizing. It seemed almost man-made, a rich luminescent fantasy color fabricated from a mixture of neon blues and greens.