The Fourth Perimeter

by Tim Green

  Kurt watched his GPS carefully. After traveling his first three hours at fifty feet, he was now decompressing, traveling for the last hour in the dark at twenty feet. His last tank and a fresh AV-1 were back down at forty feet, so he wanted to get right over the spot before he dove to that additional depth to change gear.

  When he hit the spot, he directed the AV-1 downward and cruised to the bottom. A powerful little lantern that was clipped to his buoyancy vest lit the area around him with an eerie beam. His equipment lay in a heap just twelve feet away. Kurt swapped his used tank and regulator for the new one and tied it off to the spent AV-1, anchoring it to the bottom. In a mesh bag strapped to the fresh AV-1 was also a fresh set of hot packs.

  With trembling hands, he popped the plastic packs and exchanged them for the old ones inside his suit. Six he wedged into the torso, wincing from pain as he did so and trying not to let the plume of blood unnerve him. Of the remaining four, one went inside each glove and boot. Soon, he was almost too warm. But while the heat was a relief from the icy depths, he knew that the packs would soon wane and that for at least the final twenty minutes of his dive he would be cold again. He grabbed onto the AV-1 and snapped off the lantern.

  With his GPS to guide him, Kurt sped on through the water at his twenty-foot depth, finishing his decompression, his mind returning to the dilemma of what his next step would be. Escape was his first priority, but he wasn’t worried right now about getting overseas. He was only concerned now with escaping whatever dragnet the police and the FBI had erected around the immediate area. His jet could remain in Canada. A new flight plan would have to be submitted, but he could do that anytime. Ultimately, he would use the jet to escape from North America and retreat into a rural coastal region of Italy. But that part of his escape was on hold for now.

  Right now he had another mission to accomplish. There was no way, despite everything he’d been through, that his determination to avenge his son’s death had faltered. If anything, it had been exacerbated. He simply had the wrong target. He grimaced behind his scuba mask. The manipulation that he’d been subjected to was as monumental as it was diabolical. He tried unsuccessfully to prevent his mind from going back to everything Claiborne had said and done, and he chastised himself for not suspecting him, not seeing through his elaborate deception.

  There was a moment, he remembered, back in the National Gallery, when just a flicker of suspicion had crossed his mind regarding Claiborne. That had been erased when Claiborne shot and killed Leena Ventone. But now Kurt recalled that Claiborne had tried to dissuade him from finding her in the first place and from seeking absolute proof of the president’s connection to Collin’s murder. Then, when confronted with the possibility of Kurt’s finding the truth, Claiborne had simply taken her out—his own person, sacrificed.

  Kurt wondered what was in this deal for Claiborne. What price could prompt a man to kill an old friend’s only son? But then, Claiborne was no friend. Kurt wondered if he ever had been. He knew David had always harbored a certain amount of jealousy over his success. He also realized that not taking him on board when he formed Safe Tech was a bitter pill, but he never imagined that it had hardened him beyond the bounds of human decency. The “why” didn’t really matter, though, and that’s why Kurt kept trying to push it from his mind and concentrate on his own “how.”

  How was he going to kill David Claiborne? That was what he needed to keep his mind focused on as he raced along beneath the water’s surface. He knew where Claiborne lived, and as simple as that might sound, Kurt believed that was the best place to get him, in his own home. He didn’t know how much information Claiborne had, but he suspected that he had watched Kurt carefully. Claiborne would have wanted to make certain that Kurt was going to carry out the plan he had set in motion. That probably meant the people who killed Collin were the same ones who had been watching.

  It made Kurt’s skin crawl to think that they’d been there, somewhere in his own town, watching him and reporting back to Claiborne. Yes, they could have assured him, Kurt Ford is planning to assassinate the president. They could have seen his shipment of scuba gear. They probably tapped his phones. They might very well know his plan of escape. But none of that information could have been disseminated to anyone else in the Service. How could Claiborne explain it, even now? So Kurt’s obstacles wouldn’t be a phalanx of Secret Service agents backed up by the FBI and the D.C. police bent on protecting David Claiborne. Claiborne was alone. Except for the men working directly for him, Claiborne was exposed, and Kurt knew the best way to get him was a quick assault right where he felt the safest—his own brownstone in Georgetown.

  Even if Claiborne suspected that Kurt had discovered the truth, he would have no way of knowing for sure. He would presume, at least initially, that Kurt would try to flee the country. It would be madness to remain in the U.S. when every citizen across the nation would see his face plastered across the TV for the next several days. But madness or not, Kurt knew it would give him his best chance to get David Claiborne, and he had already made that a promise—to his son, to his wife, and to himself. He would kill Claiborne no matter what the cost.

  CHAPTER 40

  When Kurt drew near to the Mann family’s waterfront, he headed in toward the shore and began his final ascent. He broke the water’s surface quietly, removing his mask and breathing the real air deeply. The fresh scent of pine trees was a tonic after so many hours of the sterile Nitrox mixture. The lake had lost its brilliant daytime luminescence, and in the lee of Bear Mountain it had faded into a dark placid pool. The wooded ridges lay like slumbering giants along either shore. The canopy of stars and the faintest sliver of the new moon shining through the tattered clouds were a brilliant mosaic after the blackness. The contrasts were so startling that for a moment Kurt forgot the pain in his side and the hatred contaminating his heart.

  His reverie was quickly broken by the staccato chop of a state police helicopter as it cruised down the lake from the north. Monstrous spindly legs of brilliant white light crawled along beneath it, probing the shoreline. From the south, he now detected the buzz of a scarab looping into the lake’s last cove before heading north on a sweep of the western shore. Kurt scanned the Mann waterfront carefully. He saw no one and nothing. Quickly, he fixed the mask back onto his face, put the regulator in his mouth, dropped below the water’s surface, and accelerated the AV-1 toward the break wall.

  Twelve feet down, he wedged the machine blindly into a gap in the ancient cribbing. No sooner had he finished than the water was electrified with white light. Kurt could see clearly the gnarled timbers and old rocks that made up the break wall and he felt as if he were standing on a busy street corner in Manhattan in the middle of the day. He was completely exposed. With the determination of a windblown insect, he clung tight to the cribbing. Overhead, the hovering aircraft rippled the water’s surface. The light lingered and panic began to seep into Kurt’s blood.

  Still the light remained, and the helicopter seemed to be descending with predatory determination. Kurt held tight, but his mind began to work through a series of quick calculations. How far would he have to dive to escape the powerful lights? How much air did he have left? How far would the spent battery of the AV-1 take him? And amid all this, a secret voice began to chastise him for relying solely on one plan. He should have had contingencies, several of them.

  And then the light was gone. Kurt could see its broad beam burning up the water as it moved to the south. After a minute, it began to wane. Soon it was nothing more than a distant glow, and finally he was left once more to his perfect darkness. Without waiting, he kicked hard, pushing himself toward the surface.

  He tried to lift himself up over the edge of the break wall, but the weight of his equipment was too much for his cold, injured, and exhausted frame. Impatiently, he began to strip off his dive gear. Even after freeing himself, he was just able to pull his body up over the edge onto the gravelly surface. He rolled to his back gasping in pain. He was afr
aid of stiffening up if he lay still too long, so he rolled over and grimly rose to his feet. The GPS hung from a clip on his wrist and he consulted it as he made his way steadily up the gravel drive, across the wheat field, and into the woods.

  After the pitch-darkness of his dive, even the dull glow from the starlit sky seemed to fully illuminate the wooded terrain. Kurt lurched forward, his wound throbbing. He found the stream and followed it uphill. When he came to the unlit hunting camp, he cut right through the lot and under a little bridge, invisible in his black wet suit. By the time he reached the cross-country ski trail, he was in a full sweat. He stopped to remove his hood and unzip the torso of his suit. A gentle breeze whispered in the tall grass. He ran his hand over his short hair and blinked at the GPS, fighting hard to block out the pain in his side. He was nearly there.

  Ten feet from his camouflaged motorcycle, a stick snapped beneath him. The angry beam from a light caught him in its glare and all Kurt could think about was the .357 Claiborne had given him in D.C. He should have had it or the trooper’s .45 with him instead of leaving them in the Suburban. Now he realized too late that the greatest need for a gun might be before he got to his truck.

  He spun and darted off into the trees, hunching down against the inevitable impact of bullets.

  Instead came the desperate cry of “Kurt!”

  He stopped and turned, holding forth his hand to block the glare of the light. It bobbed toward him.

  “Jill,” he said wearily, not knowing what her presence meant. It could mean the end, or it could mean a new beginning. “How . . .”

  She was next to him now, and she held the light down at her side. In the glow, he could see her dust-stained face and the tracks of her tears. She was wearing a faded pair of jeans, a white T-shirt, and a jean jacket that he recognized as his own. The love he felt for her flooded over him. Her hair was a wild tangle and her abject sadness somehow heightened her beauty. She was crying still.

  “Did you kill him?” she wailed accusingly. Her voice had a hysterical edge that unsettled him. “Did you kill him?”

  “No,” Kurt said wearily. “It wasn’t him. The president didn’t kill Collin. It was Claiborne all along. I realized that, and I stopped. They shot at me, but I didn’t—”

  “Not the president,” Jill moaned, cutting him off with a vicious wave of her hand. “I’m talking about Jeremiah. Did you kill Jeremiah?”

  “Who is Jeremiah?” Kurt asked, his face suffused with bewilderment.

  “The state trooper,” she said in anguish. “The one who came to arrest you. I sent him. He’s dead.”

  Kurt’s face fell and a wave of nausea rocked his frame as he recalled the terrible blow he’d dealt to the trooper’s head. He was right, the trooper had been Jill’s friend.

  “Jill,” he stammered, “I . . . I, it was . . . I didn’t mean to. I thought he was with the men who killed Collin. I had to get away . . .”

  “Oh God,” she moaned and sank to her knees on the bed of needles. The flashlight fell from her hand and spilled its light across the forest floor. Files of towering pine trees stood straight and still, accusing him like a somber jury.

  “Jill,” he murmured softly. He knelt down beside her and encircled her shaking form with his arms.

  “No!” she cried, tearing free from him. “No, Kurt! You killed him! I loved you and I stayed by you and he tried to help me and now he’s dead! You murdered him! You’re as bad as they are! You killed him!” She scooped up her light and started out of the woods.

  “Jill, wait!” he cried.

  “Just go!” she screamed, without turning back or slowing down. “Just go, Kurt! Go to Italy, escape, fine. I don’t care. I won’t stop you. Go kill whoever you want! Just go from me!”

  “Jill!” he screamed. “I didn’t mean to! I didn’t think I would kill him. I didn’t know! Listen to me!”

  She spun and stabbed her light at him. “You didn’t mean to?” she yelled hysterically. “You shot him! You shot him in the head! Don’t tell me—”

  “I never did that!” he screamed. “Look at me! I never shot him! I hit him, yes. I hit him with his gun and knocked him out, but I never shot him. I didn’t, Jill. Please, you’ve got to believe me! You’ve got to!”

  Kurt’s face was contorted with agony. He had dropped to his knees in the harsh beam of her light. His hands were folded as if in prayer. He was pleading with her.

  “Jill,” he wailed, his voice cracking, “I love you. I need you. Please . . . Don’t leave me. I’ve been used in this whole thing. I was set up by David Claiborne to kill the president. I don’t know why. Everything has gone crazy. I don’t want to be alone without you. Don’t . . .”

  “You didn’t shoot him,” Jill said flatly. For almost a minute she contemplated him, her mind digesting the possibilities. “You’re saying you didn’t do it . . . Kurt, if you’re lying to me, it won’t matter . . .

  “I’ll find out,” she said, her words brimming with vehemence, “and if I do, nothing will matter. I won’t stay with you. I won’t help you. I’ll help them! I’ll help them find you and put you in jail. If you’re lying to me, tell me now and you can go, but tell me!”

  “Jill,” he choked, “I am not lying. I never killed him. I promise. Please, I love you. I need you . . .”

  Kurt stared into the glare of the light long enough to notice the sound of crickets cascading all around him. He heard clearly the roar of a car engine on the nearby road and the whine of brakes as it slowed to a stop next to Jill’s convertible. An instant later, the inky stand of pines was being probed with a powerful spotlight.

  CHAPTER 41

  The harsh beam of Jill’s flashlight wavered and went out.

  Kurt found her in the darkness and they embraced. He kissed her deeply, breaking free only when the spotlight flashed just past them and he heard the sound of men’s voices coming from the road.

  Grasping her by the shoulders, he whispered urgently, “We’ve got to go. Shh! Don’t say a word. Just come. I love you!”

  He grabbed her hand and dashed to a nearby clump of ferns. Tearing the camouflage covering free, he yanked the BMW upright and straddled it. With one hand, he pushed his helmet into Jill’s hands and then pulled her aboard. With the other, he turned the key, firing up the engine. The whine of the big bike was like a magnet for the searching beam of light that came from the road. Kurt heard the shouts of several men and saw new, smaller beams bobbing as they entered the woods and approached him through the trees.

  With the flick of his toe, he slammed the big machine into gear and shot back off into the woods. He hadn’t planned to go that way, but it was the fastest way to escape the men who he assumed were police. When he hit the ski trail, he turned north and opened the bike’s throttle, tearing through the high grass. Jill clutched him tightly, flooding his injured torso with pain. After half a mile, he came to a road. Without slowing, he leaned the bike, cornered out onto the road, and headed west. Jill buried her head in his back and held on.

  Kurt scanned the roadside desperately for a sign of something that would tell him where he was. He had a sense that he was headed in the right direction, but he wanted certainty. If he was going to elude capture, he needed to get back to his planned route.

  The narrow, winding road flashed past him like a high-speed video game. Kurt downshifted and leaned into the curves, accelerating out of them with dizzying speed. Before long, he came to a crossroad that he recognized as 41A, West Lake Road. He started one way, then spun around and went back the other when he realized that he’d come out too far down on the main road. A mile later, he saw the dark form of the car that had stopped by the woods where he met Jill. Like a crafty predator, it came suddenly to life. Its high beams blinded him and the bank of flashing lights on its roof made his heart skip a beat.

  Instead of slowing, Kurt pressed on directly toward the police car. Then, one hundred yards before he reached it, he leaned the bike into a turn and rocketed up a side road. The poli
ce car bolted forward and screeched around the corner with its sirens wailing. Kurt looked over his shoulder and realized that it would only be a matter of minutes before he had the full force of the police, the FBI, and quite likely the military, bearing down on him. He pressed forward, easily bringing the bike’s speed up to a hundred and thirty miles per hour and gaining distance on the car. He mounted a hill and took to the air. Jill dug her hands into his ribs and both their screams mingled with the whine of the engine.

  When they hit the pavement, Kurt slowed almost to a stop before turning the bike off the road and onto a dirt drive. He braced the bike up on its stand and scrambled down. With a fist-sized stone he scooped from the ditch, he smashed the bike’s headlight and then did the same to the taillight. No sooner was it extinguished than the cop car shot up screaming over the hill and smashed down on the road, sending a shower of sparks from its belly. In a rush of noise and frightening speed, the car hurtled past them, whipping up a vortex of dust and grit.

  Before kicking the bike back into gear, Kurt took two deep breaths to settle his nerves. It was one too many. Trailing the police car was an Apache helicopter from nearby Fort Drum. Unlike the police helicopters, the army aircraft was nearly silent. But its piercing searchlights blasted either side of the road with white light, and although it sped past Kurt and Jill twice as fast as the police car, it almost immediately swerved off toward the side of the road and doubled back.

  Kurt opened the bike’s throttle, tearing up the dirt road that separated two vast cornfields. The Apache was soon directly overhead and Kurt was nearly blinded by the intensity of its light mixed with the swirl of dust from the fields. Behind him rose a massive plume that might have been the smoke from a stream of napalm. More than anything, Kurt feared that the gunship would open fire. In the craziness of the flying dust and the motorcycle’s maniacal scream, it wasn’t himself that he was worried about, but the thought of Jill being torn apart by a hail of bullets almost made him stop and surrender.