by Tim Green
CHAPTER 43
Gentlemen,” Claiborne said—he always treated his thugs with great dignity, that was part of the catch—“I am going to disclose to you information that’s so classified there are only a handful of people in the entire world who are privy to it . . .”
He paused, looking hard at his men. He already knew it, but even if he didn’t he could see clearly from their faces that they liked this kind of talk. Claiborne was behind the desk in the small suite he had taken for the night. Musty books lined the shelves on one wall and a lace-covered bed stood against the wall, neatly made. Behind him was a large bay window that looked out over the quiet tree-lined street. Dusk was nearly at hand, but the tall glass lamp on the corner of the desk lit the men’s faces with a clear orange glow. They were grim yet eager.
“The mission we have carried out over the last several months was not what it appeared,” Claiborne said somberly. He sighed long and low before continuing. “The president, gentlemen, is on the brink of destroying everything this country has built over its two-hundred-plus-year history. He is on the verge of implementing, along with a few key appointees in the military and intelligence communities, the disclosure of a substantial body of military and intelligence secrets to the Chinese. It will be done under the auspices of diplomacy and a newfound alliance. It will be packaged and sold to the public, who will buy it the way they buy everything else that’s fed to them by the media. But underneath it all will be the simple exchange of money for secrets. It will undermine the United States in a way that will change history . . .”
Claiborne searched their faces. A vein transecting Vanecroft’s forehead had swelled angrily and it beat a steady pulse. Reeves’s reaction was less clear, but Claiborne felt confident he’d struck the right chord with them both, so he continued.
“Ford was supposed to do the job,” he said. “But he failed. Our role, as I’m sure you’ve already guessed, wasn’t to prevent Ford from carrying out his mission, but simply to monitor it. But he failed. He wavered in the final seconds. He missed his target . . .
“The target, gentlemen,” he said in a low tone, “is the president.”
Claiborne reached down to the floor before getting to his feet. He placed a small suitcase on his desktop and flipped open the brass latches, boldly revealing the cash. An inky scent filled the room and charged it with tension.
“A symbol of the seriousness of what we’re being asked to do—one million dollars in cash,” he said, eyeing the men carefully. There was another suitcase, but he was keeping that for himself in the event that these two men, like Ford, somehow failed him. One million wasn’t twenty, but in a worst case, it was better than nothing.
“I have for you here the address of a safe house in Maryland. That will be your refuge once the job is complete,” he went on. “From there, you will be transported by military helicopter to Fort Bragg and from there to Brazil. You’ll be provided with new identities as well as the remainder of the money—another million and a half dollars apiece in offshore accounts.
“There are other candidates for this mission,” Claiborne continued, picking up two bound stacks of hundred-dollar bills and handing one to each of the men. “But we’re getting the first crack at it. This is a chance for you, and I won’t lie, for me—if we succeed, I’ll get two million as well—to cash out. It’s this, in fact, or nothing. Gentlemen, this is the mission of a lifetime. If we succeed, the viability of this country will be preserved and we will be well compensated.
“Our escape is secure,” he lied. In reality, he had made no provisions for these men. The address was a false one.
“If you accept, I have here the president’s detailed itinerary for the next seven days. Despite Ford’s attack, they’ve decided to stick to his schedule. He has to. It’s campaign time and they don’t want to give the impression that he’s afraid. I’ll trust your judgment as to the best opportunity for success, but I would strongly suggest you take a close look at the Acid Rain March he plans on participating in down Fifty-ninth Street in Manhattan. The size of the crowd and the multiplicity of hotel windows will provide an extraordinary opportunity. I also have the location points of the counter-sniper teams, so you can avoid falling into their direct line of fire. That’s just my suggestion . . .”
Claiborne stopped speaking. He watched the two men think. Vanecroft was massaging the packet of bills. He licked his lips.
“I’m in,” he muttered. “I’m in all the way.”
They looked at Reeves, who narrowed his eyes and said, “I’m in if my partner here will agree to two shooters. We coordinate everything to the second, and at the predetermined time, we shoot.”
“Like Kennedy?” Claiborne said, arching his eyebrow.
“Why not?” Reeves said. “It worked.”
“Art?” Claiborne said, his heart beating fast.
Vanecroft nodded sullenly and said, “I don’t mind if he calls the shots as long as I get my money and we take this traitorous piece of shit out.”
“Good,” Claiborne said, not wanting to upset the momentum of the two men’s decisions by bogging them down with details. “I have packets here for each of you. If after looking over the information, you agree with my assessment, then we’ll meet at Clyde’s on M Street Sunday night at seven. They have a back room that will be reserved under the name of Jones. We can finalize the plans there and I can update you on any itinerary changes.”
Claiborne closed the suitcase and handed it over to Vanecroft, knowing he would appreciate the gesture and that Reeves was a big enough man not to care who was holding it. He walked with them silently down the stairs and out the front door of the inn. Like strangers, they went in opposite directions.
At the corner, Claiborne caught a cab and headed back to his brownstone. He closed his eyes briefly as the cab trundled along, wondering what the odds of success were. Probably not bad. People thought killing the president was harder than it really was. If you knew his itinerary, and you could shoot a rifle, it wasn’t that tough.
When he got home, he looked suspiciously up and down the street. He wondered if there had been a tail on him when he left the house five hours ago. If there was, he was confident that they were panic-stricken and still looking for him in and around Dulles Airport. Inside the brownstone, he went directly to the kitchen and mixed a drink. He didn’t linger over it. In three smart gulps, it was gone. Claiborne didn’t have time to celebrate his second chance, even though it was worth celebrating. He had to see to some preparations of his own.
CHAPTER 44
Jill drove all the way to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, before Kurt would finally let her stop for the night at a motel along the highway. Earlier in the trip, she’d gone into an all-night pharmacy in a small town along the way and come out with enough sterile bandages, antiseptic salve, and Advil to keep Kurt as safe and comfortable as possible without the help of a real doctor.
The amount of blood he had lost frightened Jill. His skin seemed pallid and his lips were faintly blue. When they dressed his wound the bleeding seemed to have stopped, but even so, she couldn’t help herself from fearfully prodding him awake in the front seat every half hour or so just to make sure he was still alive. After they stopped, Jill checked them in at the motel office while Kurt waited in the Suburban. They collapsed into a sagging double bed and both of them slept until nearly ten the next morning.
When Kurt awoke, Jill was alarmed at his continued pallor. He admitted that the pain was intense, but nevertheless insisted that they continue their trip. He had stocked the Suburban ahead of time with enough food, drinks, and extra clothes in case of an emergency, and Jill was thankful for his thoroughness. The less they stopped, especially during the daylight hours, the better. Jill was also happy that he was willing to let her drive while he rested with his seat fully reclined as they cruised down the highway toward the nation’s capital.
Kurt didn’t tell Jill where exactly they were going or what exactly he was doing. She didn’t want
to ask. She thought she knew, and she was going with him anyway.
“I think it’s better,” he had told her early in the trip, “that we don’t talk about where we’re going. If we’re caught—not that I expect we will be, but if we are—I want you as insulated as possible.”
Kurt slept most of the drive. When he wasn’t sleeping, he rode with his eyes closed. She knew he was avoiding conversation and she understood. When they got to the outskirts of D.C., he sat up and pointed out another roadside motel. Again Jill checked them in while Kurt waited in the back of the Suburban where the windows were tinted.
Jill asked for a room in the back, explaining to the manager that she couldn’t sleep with the noise from the passing traffic. Besides giving her a furtive, hungry look, the greasy-looking man didn’t say or do anything unusual. It seemed strange to her that people were going about their lives normally while she was languishing in a world of tumultuous uncertainty and fear. The manager gave her a room on the back ground floor as she requested, and she pulled the truck right up to the door so Kurt could get quickly inside.
Jill unloaded the duffel bags from the truck. When she was done, Kurt put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door and began to unpack. From the first bag, he extracted some dark clothes and dark rubber-soled shoes that gave Jill an unsettled feeling. But that was nothing compared to when he removed the .357 and began checking its action. Jill turned away and busied herself in the bathroom organizing the items she’d purchased for herself at the drugstore the night before.
“It’s gone,” Kurt said from the other room. He sounded like a father watching a scary movie with his little girl. “You can come out.”
Jill reentered the room, her face slightly flushed.
“Will you help me with this?” he asked, slowly removing his shirt. His pain was obvious.
Jill helped him change the dressing on his wound, and when they had finished, her lips were pressed tightly together in her effort to keep from saying something that she knew wouldn’t help the situation.
“You’re scared?” he asked, touching the side of her face.
She nodded.
“Don’t be,” he said softly. “When it’s dark, I’ll go. I won’t be gone long and when I come back, it will be over. We’ll go up to Montreal. I know a place we can cross the border near Champlain. The jet will take us to Europe and we can start everything over, together.”
With tears in her eyes, Jill turned her face up toward his and kissed him. They held each other gently for several minutes, with Jill’s head buried in his chest, before she said, “I suppose it wouldn’t do any good for me to ask you not to go?”
“No,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
After a final hug, he said, “I have to get on my computer. I need to line up another routing to Switzerland for the day after tomorrow and do a few other things, but first I need to dye my hair.”
“Your hair?” Jill exclaimed.
“It’s a precaution,” he told her. “I don’t think anyone is going to see me anyway in the dark, but if they do . . .”
Jill nodded. They both knew that his picture was on the front of every newspaper and in the lead story of every news broadcast across the land. She helped him follow the directions without comment.
After a satisfied examination of a much younger-looking Kurt Ford in the mirror, Kurt removed a portable notebook computer from its case in one of his bags. He sat down at the desk, plugged it into the phone jack, and got online. Jill looked on with interest as he secured all the proper clearances for a new flight schedule from Montreal to Geneva. She didn’t say a word, but watched in anticipation as he searched the D.C. phone directory online. When Kurt found the address of David Claiborne in Georgetown he glanced quickly up at Jill with a blank face. She nodded grimly and continued to watch.
Kurt went to the yellow pages and began systematically breaking into the computer systems of all the home security companies that serviced the area. The third one on the list, AST, also happened to be Claiborne’s company. Getting the client list was child’s play, Jill knew, but she was awed as she watched him proceed to break into the company’s actual security reporting system. To do so required a substantial decryption process. Kurt’s computer didn’t have that capacity, so what he did was access the hardware inside Safe Tech. When she saw what he was doing, Jill realized that breaking into AST’s most protected information was only a matter of time. In less than an hour, Kurt was in. Jill watched over his shoulder as he studied the layout of Claiborne’s individual system. It was clear to Jill that with that knowledge, getting into the man’s house and disarming the system would be an easy thing to do if Kurt went through the basement window. She said nothing, because she was certain he saw the same thing.
After a few minutes of study, Kurt let out a satisfied grunt, jotted down some notes, and shut down his computer. Without discussing the plan, the two of them shared a silent meal of crackers, cheese, slices of pepperoni, and granola bars. Jill offered to go out and get something more substantial, but Kurt argued that better fare was no reason to take any chances.
“They might start putting your picture out there too,” he said.
Jill nodded in agreement. They had already seen his face all over CNN when Kurt briefly flipped the TV on and then off again.
“The way it worked out,” he said through a mouthful of crackers, “with you not being there when he came to the house, was the best thing that could have happened. You’re not in any of the news clips, so no one should recognize you. Still, if the media does some digging, you never know. The less you’re seen, the better.”
When they’d finished eating, Kurt made a feeble attempt at conversation. He talked wistfully about what things would be like when they got to Italy—the sea, the wine, the complaisant disposition of the people. Jill attempted to join in, but their words rang hollow, and like the sunlight that crept in through the shabby curtains, their talk began to fade. They soon found themselves sitting in silence.
“I’m going to try to rest,” Kurt said after a while. He stretched out on the bed. “Will you wake me around eight?”
CHAPTER 45
Jill didn’t have to wake him because Kurt never slept. But at eight o’clock, she helped him affix a false beard and mustache onto his face as well as arrange a body pillow, adding what looked like about fifty pounds to his frame. With his red hair, matching beard, belly, and a pair of wire-framed glasses along with a baseball cap, Kurt looked nothing like the images of him that had been plastered all over the newspapers and TV. He had planned to use the disguise at the jet’s hangar in the event someone saw him, but in the present situation it couldn’t have served his purpose better, enabling him to go out into the streets without exciting suspicion. Even Jill, who knew him so well, thought that he was unrecognizable.
The last thing Kurt did before leaving the hotel room was dig into his shaving kit for a couple of caffeine pills. He wanted to overcome the sluggishness that seemed to emanate from the wound in his side. He thought too of taking something more than Advil for the pain. He had some codeine left over from a back injury a couple years ago, but he didn’t want to cloud his judgment in any way. Instead, he would let the pain in his side goad him like a thorn in the paw of a wild animal.
With clenched teeth he made his way toward the capital, stopping only at an Ace Hardware to purchase some tools, and then into Georgetown itself. Glancing down at the map, he wound his way through the streets until he came to a placid tree-lined lane lit at intervals by decorative lampposts. Kurt drove past Claiborne’s brownstone and murmured something inaudible when he saw a yellow glow from the highest window. He cruised through the area for several minutes, searching patiently for a parking spot. When he found one, he got his bearings, pulled his cap down tight, absently patted the pistol under his arm, and set off. In his pocket he carried a simple glass cutter, a suction cup, a penlight, and a pair of wire cutters.
After strolling casually up and down the street sev
eral times, and seeing the light go out in Claiborne’s upper window, Kurt stole into the alleyway behind the row of houses. Counting carefully, he found the one that belonged to Claiborne, hopped a fence, and stood plastered against the back wall with his heart banging like a dryer full of shoes. Clouds had obscured the moon, but a powerful halogen streetlight halfway down the alley cast enough light to make him feel exposed.
There was a small rectangular window that opened into the basement of the brownstone, and that was where Kurt was going in. The window sensor would go off only if he opened the window, and his glass cutter would obviate that. Kneeling on the small brick patio amid a rusty set of outdoor table and chairs, Kurt fixed the suction cup on the window and cut around the edge of the frame. Carefully, he removed the pane of glass and set it quietly on the bricks.
On the other side of the fence, a dog barked suddenly and ferociously, and Kurt’s heart leaped into his throat. He jumped at the sound, but then froze and listened, straining to remain calm amid the mad din. The dog was right on the other side of the fence, howling maniacally. A light went on and Kurt scrambled in through the cellar window, disappearing from sight just as the neighbor poked his head over the fence.
“You damn fool” Kurt heard the neighbor growl at the dog. “Get inside!”
When it was quiet, Kurt stood bracing himself against the damp brick basement wall and waited for his breathing to slow. Then he moved. This was his one chance. He knew he had to make it neat and clean—get in, kill his son’s killer, and get out. But he knew that if he rushed, the chance for error would double. With the small penlight in his mouth, he found the security system control box on the wall. Quickly, he cut the phone line that reported any intrusion to the security company, the wire to the internal siren, and finally the power to the system itself.
Satisfied that he could now move throughout the house with complete impunity, Kurt removed the .357 from beneath his arm and mounted the stairs. Slowly he made his way through the space, ready at every opening to find Claiborne’s bedroom. Moving that way, it was nearly twenty minutes before he found himself on the third floor in front of what he felt had to be the right door. Carefully, he turned the knob and opened it.