The Fourth Perimeter

by Tim Green

  They rode the rest of the way in pleasant silence, taking turns in the lead in order to share the draft. When they finally turned into the gravel drive that meandered steeply down to the lakeshore, it was almost seven-thirty. After a long stretch through a wide-open wheat field, the path finally dipped down into a cluster of pine trees that bordered the last bend before the lake came into view.

  There Jill skidded to a stop. Gravel and dust spun up from beneath her wheels and the bike slid sideways. Jeremiah was a good twenty feet behind her and he braked too at her frantic signal. She hopped off her own bike and quickly ran it back up the hill and around the bend.

  “We’ve got to hide!” she whispered frantically at Jeremiah. Her eyes were lit with panic.

  “Why?” he asked in total confusion.

  “It’s Kurt!” she hissed. “He’s here!”

  The shocking image when she’d rounded the bend was hot in her mind. It was Kurt’s fishing boat, anchored not far from the shore, and him swimming steadily through the water, headed unmistakably for the retaining wall and Jeremiah’s beach. She was sure he hadn’t seen her—yet.

  “Come on,” Jeremiah said. He took his bike and awkwardly walked it straight into the pines. Jill followed. No sooner had they lain their bikes behind a fallen tree and dropped down side by side to their knees than they heard the distinct crunch of feet steadily climbing the drive.

  From the gloomy wood, Jill peeked around the trunk of a tree. Through the trees, she was able to make out a picture of Kurt as he walked uphill. His face was grim. He was dripping wet, and as he strode by he was concentrating intently on something in his hand.

  Jill was trembling. “What’s he doing?” she moaned to herself. She was irrationally awash with guilt. She looked over at Jeremiah, who was unlacing his bike shoes.

  “I’ll find out,” he whispered, rising from the thick bed of pine needles.

  Jill grabbed his massive arm with both hands and in a near panic gasped, “Where are you going? He’ll see you!”

  “Even if he sees me,” Jeremiah said calmly, “which he won’t, what’s he going to say? He doesn’t know me. This is my land . . .”

  Jeremiah moved nimbly off through the trees, leaving Jill to herself. Alone, she reflected uneasily on her penitent reaction to seeing Kurt. She’d told him about Jeremiah from the start. He had told her to go right ahead and ride with him, and that’s what she’d done, nothing wrong. So why had she panicked? Maybe it was because riding and taking a swim off a remote dock were two different things. Or maybe it was because, deep down, her feelings weren’t completely innocent.

  No, that wasn’t it. She loved Kurt, really loved him. Yes, she thought highly of Jeremiah: anyone who knew him would. But it was completely platonic. She fully intended to stick by Kurt. Now was a difficult time for him. His mysterious actions frustrated her, but she certainly wasn’t going to abandon him. At her core, Jill was loyal, and she believed things between Kurt and her would ultimately work out. Of course, Jeremiah was a wonderful person too. He was the kind of man who deserved to have someone special. Someone, but not her. The debate went back and forth in her mind until she realized she was chewing up the inside of her cheek.

  Impatient, she moved slowly through the gloom in the direction Jeremiah had gone. Halfway to the edge of the trees, she saw him coming back into the woods and she stopped.

  “He went straight up the hill through the field and into the trees,” Jeremiah said breathlessly. “It looks like he’s headed for Bear Swamp. If you want to get back, you should just go now. I’m going to go back and follow him. Don’t worry. He won’t know I’m there. These are my woods. I know I look like a big bear to you, but if I can sneak up on an old ten-point buck, you better believe I can sneak up on some rich guy from New York City.”

  Jill looked at him sadly.

  “I didn’t mean anything by that,” he said kindly. “Just you go. Don’t worry. I’m just going to see what he’s doing. I don’t think he saw us.”

  “Not now,” she fretted as they moved back to where the bikes lay. “But he must have seen us sometime before—otherwise, why is he here?”

  “I don’t know,” Jeremiah said, knitting his massive brow. “But you go and I’ll find out what I can.”

  “I’ll call you later,” Jill told him, tipping her bike up off the ground. “Will you be home?”

  “I’ve got to combine a field, but I’ll keep my cell phone with me,” he said. Then he lowered himself down on his haunches and with narrowed eyes stared hard up through the trees and across the field at the spot where Kurt had disappeared.

  “You get out on the drive, and watch me go into the woods on the other side of the wheat field. If he’s a good way up in there, I’ll give you a wave and you go. If there’s any chance he’ll come back out, I’ll cross my arms like this and you just tuck up back in these pines. Okay?”

  Jill nodded and said, “I feel like I’m doing something wrong. I shouldn’t feel that way, should I?”

  “Of course not,” Jeremiah scoffed. “Now go.”

  Jill watched him lope across the field in his big bare feet without wincing. She recalled the thick yellow sole of calluses she’d seen when he took off his shoes to swim. Taking her bike out onto the drive, she waited at the corner of the trees. She couldn’t shake the nagging sense of shame. Jeremiah darted into the woods for a moment, then came back out and waved his arms frantically before disappearing again. Jill got up on her bike and took off for home.

  Although it had already been a long, hot ride, she didn’t lack for energy. One clear beacon of certainty shone amid the storm of questions in her mind about what Kurt was doing and why. She was going to resolve the doubts and suspicions that had been nagging her now for weeks. She was going to use the key she had and unearth the secrets she knew were hidden in Kurt’s office.

  CHAPTER 26

  A tangle of brambles tore into Kurt’s leg with its needle-sharp thorns and he cursed out loud. On the night of the assassination, he’d be sure to wear his wet suit all the way up the hill. But for now, he was dressed only in his bathing suit, a damp T-shirt, and a pair of black nylon water shoes. He glanced down at his GPS. It showed not only his position in the woods, but also where the roads were that marked the park’s entrance, and the spot where he would hide the motorcycle. Without it, he wouldn’t stand a chance. Several times the terrain forced him to double back until he finally came across a cool, mossy stream that took him in the right direction. He entered the spot into his GPS, marking it for later reference.

  At one point he had to skirt around a small hunting camp, but once past that, the stream took him almost directly to a cross-country skiing trail. The trail was overgrown now with grass that reached up to Kurt’s belt line and showered his legs and feet with ripe seeds. Still, it was an easy path to follow and he had to take only one turn before he found the cluster of pines in which he planned to hide his BMW. The job was longer, hotter, and harder than he had imagined. But when it was done, he was quite satisfied that with the electronic trail he’d marked on his GPS, he’d find the spot again without too much trouble.

  He logged the final spot and turned immediately downhill. Getting back to the boat was much easier, and the trip reinforced his familiarity with the rough terrain. He stopped at the edge of the run-down break wall and scanned the lake. Out near the middle, boats now careened back and forth at regular intervals. Kurt was bedraggled, dusty, sweaty, and covered with grass seed. He plunged into the cool water and was instantly revived. With a strong, steady breaststroke he swam back to where he had anchored his boat. Before climbing up onto the swim platform next to the out drive, he submerged himself completely in order to more easily slip out of his T-shirt.

  As he wrestled himself free, Kurt peered down into the luminescent green depths of the water. It was eerie to think of himself down there, fifty feet deep, in water that was less than sixty degrees, in the dark, with all the force the world could bring to bear scouring the land
scape in search of him. It would be a difficult mission, and for the first time, his mind was disrupted by doubt.

  He climbed aboard his boat, toweled off, and put on some dry clothes. As he dressed, he reminded himself what was at stake. If he didn’t carry out his plan, then Collin’s death would not be avenged. That was enough to make him proceed, even if in the end he didn’t escape. The urgency to survive had been born from his love for Jill and the hope of their life together. And while he still did love her, the feeling, despite his will, seemed to have grown indistinct over the past several weeks. The energy that he had expended devising and implementing his plan for revenge seemed to have left nothing for anything else, anything at all.

  Weary and depressed, he started the engine and opened the throttle, cruising quickly back to the north end of the lake, oblivious to the brilliant sunshine and the pleasant breeze on the water that brought some relief from the heat. With the boat back in its slip, he strode up the path. By the time he reached the house, he was sweating again. Even the towering shade trees couldn’t fend off the sticky heat. A locust buzzed loudly overhead as he let himself in through the French doors that led to the kitchen. He went inside and found no one there. He presumed Jill was still out riding and Clara was grocery shopping.

  He was about to go up the back stairs and change when he thought he heard a noise come from his library. Tiptoeing into the living room, he made for the library with his heart dancing nervously. He froze outside the door, listening. The Secret Service agents who had visited him only a few days ago came immediately to mind. He tried to dredge up any error he might have made, any conversation they might have heard on a phone tap since the fishing trip had been arranged. Anything before that wouldn’t make sense. They wouldn’t have been watching him until the last few days, if at all.

  He was suddenly jolted by the image of David Claiborne. But if Claiborne were going to take any action against him, wouldn’t it only be to warn him off? After everything that had happened at the National Gallery and Leena Ventone’s trailer, only a warning from his old friend would make sense. It was quite possible, given Claiborne’s almost seditious overtones, that even if he suspected Kurt, he wouldn’t intervene. Maybe, however, Claiborne had had second thoughts about the sanctity of his job. Maybe he had put himself on this detail for just the purpose of keeping a special eye on Kurt and foiling any attempt he might make on the president’s life.

  In the library, Kurt could hear the distinct sound of someone rifling through his papers. He thought of the gun he had down in the boat. He thought of escape. Then, without thinking at all, he peered cautiously through the narrow gap between the open door’s hinges.

  “Hey!” His angry shout rang out like a shot. He thrust himself into the room, outraged at what he saw. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Jill looked up, ashen-faced, her lips trembling. But a darkening brow quickly replaced her shocked and frightened look and she glared at him through furious narrowed eyes. “That’s not the question,” she shot back. “The question is, what the hell are you doing?”

  “You . . .” Kurt snarled, looking down at the sensitive information she had uprooted from the files in his desk.

  “Yes,” she said defiantly. “I know, Kurt. I know now why you want me to go to Montreal. I know why we have to leave . . . I know the answer to a lot of things after seeing this.”

  She held up a manila file bursting with papers. There wasn’t one specific thing in them that spelled it out, but Kurt knew she was smart enough and instinctive enough to know exactly what he was planning.

  He stepped uncertainly toward her and stopped in the face of her crazed expression. Conflicting emotions churned madly inside his head. But beneath them all, anger still boiled. She couldn’t stop him. She wouldn’t. He would either kill Calvin Parkes or die trying. And if she had him put in jail? That would be the same as death.

  “What are you going to do now?” he demanded.

  “I’m going to stop you,” she said emotionally. “You can’t do this.”

  “I can,” he told her somberly. “I can and I will.”

  “I won’t let you, Kurt,” she said, with tears beginning to spill down her cheeks and her lips quavering. “I can’t let you destroy yourself this way. Do you realize what you’re planning? It’s mad.”

  “If you stop me, that’s the only thing that will destroy me,” he said flatly. His eyes were wild and there was an edge to his voice that bordered on insane. “Can’t you see that? Can’t you see what’s happened to me?” He lifted his hands out and up. “If I don’t do this, I can’t live! I can’t rest, I can’t think, I can’t even feel . . . not with this thing inside me! I have to kill that man, Jill. That man killed my boy.

  “He killed Annie’s boy!” he suddenly bellowed. “My God, can’t you see that? Don’t you know me at all?”

  Kurt felt the beast stirring within him, choking him, filling his eyes with tears. He felt it straining, as if on the end of a leash, to tear him apart and consume him. He fought hard and the internal struggle caused him to tremble.

  “I won’t go with you, Kurt,” Jill was saying defiantly, and that got through. He forgot about everything else for a moment. He knew from the sound of her voice that she meant what she said, and for the first time he realized how much it meant for him to have her.

  “Don’t say that,” he said desperately. “Don’t say you won’t go with me, Jill. I need you. I love you. I just have to do this. I have to.”

  She stared at him.

  “I know you don’t know, but try to imagine,” he continued, pleading. “Try to imagine if you had a boy and that boy was killed—killed for no reason, murdered! Think of Collin! Think of what he was!”

  “And if you kill someone,” she said passionately, “you think that will make things better? You think that will bring him back? Kurt, you need to let it go. You need to tell people what happened. There are laws. He’ll be punished. But if you try to do this, your life will be over. Our life together will be over. You’ll go to jail, Kurt. That’s if they don’t kill you first. How could you even think like this? You, of all people! Don’t you realize how absolutely crazy this is? You’re talking about assassinating the president!”

  “There are no laws for him,” he said bitterly. “You’re being naive. This is the president of the United States. My God! Do you really believe that he would ever be punished for what he did? You just don’t know. You forget that I know how all this works. He can do almost anything he wants.

  “And they won’t get me,” he added defiantly. “They won’t. This is my game. I helped make up the rules.”

  Jill just stared for a moment before she said in an empty voice, “My God, you really believe what you’re saying, don’t you?”

  The room was heavy with silence.

  Finally, Jill shook her head sadly and said, “No, Kurt. I won’t do it. I won’t be a part of it. I don’t care about Calvin Parkes, even if he’s the president. I’m not that patriotic. But you’re wrong. I know you, Kurt. I know you better than you think.

  “You’ll be in jail, Kurt,” she continued. “Even if you can kill him, that’s where you’ll be. You can’t get away with this. No one ever has. And as much as I love you, I don’t want to be there too . . . I’m sorry.”

  She set the papers gently down on the desktop and walked quietly from the room. Kurt stood without moving, his mind whirling in crazy gyrations. In the stillness, he listened. He listened to the sound of her feet moving across the floor above him. As her steps descended the stairs, he opened his mouth to yell something, but nothing came out. He listened to her open the front door and leave in the noisy little refurbished MG convertible that he’d given to her as a birthday present nearly a year ago.

  The sound faded up the drive until it was gone. Kurt felt as though all the insides had been violently sucked out of his body. Yet the emptiness was so complete that the pain was less than he would have imagined. At the same time, in a strange way, he fe
lt relief. A huge burden was now gone. He no longer had to worry about Jill. It was just him now, a lethal killing machine with the knowledge and the access to take out the most important man in the world. He wasn’t going to worry about her turning him in either. She wouldn’t do that. And even if she did, there was nothing he could do about it anyway. He would proceed as planned. And when he didn’t have to account for Jill in his plan, everything just became that much easier, that much more certain. Nothing could stop him.

  CHAPTER 27

  Reeves drove bleary-eyed down Route 20 to the town of Auburn in the early evening heat. Once a thriving port along the Erie Canal, the small town’s biggest claim to fame now was a maximum-security prison. Many of the once-proud edifices from grander days had devolved into tenements for the devoted families of inmates from downstate. Reeves never saw the nicer parts of the town, the homes by the lake, the grand history of the place. He only knew about the traffic lights, the mini-marts, the inside of his musty room at the Holiday Inn, and a little Mexican restaurant just down the street from the prison.

  Reeves had no idea why his partner hadn’t relieved him in the field last night. Odds had it that something was wrong, and the feeling was exacerbated by the fact that Kurt Ford’s girlfriend, a pretty little dish, had busted loose. Reeves knew that meant trouble somehow, some way. He got out of his car and took a moment to stick the gum he’d been chewing onto the door handle of the car next to him. Smiling mildly to himself as he mounted the stairs, he hummed his tune and thought of the handful of goo someone was going to get. He was puzzled when he opened the door that joined his room to the next and saw Vanecroft’s burly form daintily packing underwear into a faded old plastic Samsonite.