The Fourth Perimeter

by Tim Green

  A hint of light from the street filtered in through the curtains and the red numbers of a clock radio glowed angrily from the bedside table. Kurt surveyed the room. It was eerily still. In the bed was Claiborne’s prostrate form with the sheets pulled up over his head. With his finger on the trigger and his gun aimed directly at the figure, Kurt stepped cautiously through the doorway and into the room.

  In the same instant, the lights went on and Kurt felt a terrible bolt of pain in the back of his neck. The gun flew from his hand and he went down in a heap in the middle of the floor. Standing over him, in the glare of the light, was David Claiborne. In one hand was a baseball bat, in the other a pistol with a long ugly silencer. On his face was a grin that was as contemptuous as it was malicious.

  CHAPTER 46

  Reeves had been around long enough to know when a deal had gone sour, and he smelled it now as surely as rotten milk. His own years of experience in Military Intelligence and then with the CIA had left him in the habit of always being ten minutes away from a total disappearance. Reeves could fit his lifetime of personal effects into a small box. Besides a silver pocket watch that had belonged to his grandfather and a small framed black-and-white picture of him and his mother when he was a child, all he had were handfuls of medals, some from his days as a college boxer and some from his military service.

  Now he stuffed a complete set of clothes and the trinkets that defined him as a human being all into a single military duffel bag. From the desk, he slung a thick briefcase over his shoulder that contained his computer and enough documents and passports for three different identities, excluding his real one. With the duffel bag in one hand and the small suitcase that contained the money he and Vanecroft had split in the other, he was ready to go. His apartment, a nice one-bedroom on M Street with a terrace, contained nothing but rented furniture, and he bid it good-bye without ceremony.

  Letters to his landlord, the furniture rental company, and the car dealer where he’d leased his Town Car were all prepared. He dropped them in the mail at the box on the corner and hailed a cab. After storing his things in a locker at the airport, Reeves took another cab back to the city and met Vanecroft in a mean little bar on Constitution Avenue halfway between the Capitol building and RFK Stadium. Vanecroft was waiting for him in a booth against the wall, glaring at the other patrons in a way that made even the roughest characters give him a wide berth. Beside him on the dull pink seat was his own suitcase of money, discreetly handcuffed to his wrist. After a few drinks and technical talk about the job they were about to embark upon, Reeves looked at his watch and said they’d better go.

  They took Vanecroft’s car, a new dark blue Pontiac Firebird, to the stadium and parked on the edge of one of the outer lots. It was nearly midnight. Reeves had told his partner that they were to meet the man who would supply them with the equipment they needed to carry out their plan: two high-caliber competition rifles, along with the kind of hand-loaded ammunition that would guarantee them an accurate shot from five hundred yards. He had asked Vanecroft to bring some cash. Each would pay for his own gun. But the way his burly partner had the entire case clapped to his wrist made him suspect that Vanecroft wasn’t letting the money out of his sight.

  Reeves looked around. The area was run-down and deserted. The stadium was a sad reminder of prouder days, its parking lot littered with garbage. Weeds sprung up from the cracked pavement. Reeves took two Cuban cigars from his coat pocket and offered one to Vanecroft. His partner looked at him suspiciously. Neither of them had ever given the other anything but subtle barbs in the four months they’d been together.

  “To celebrate,” Reeves explained. He gazed dispassionately at Vanecroft with his unfeeling eyes.

  “Thanks,” Vanecroft said, smiling slightly and taking the proffered Cohiba.

  While Vanecroft was busy lighting his cigar, Reeves removed the Glock from his coat in one smooth motion, leveled it at the side of his partner’s head, and blasted a hole through his skull that shattered the driver’s window and showered the upholstery with a bright crimson spatter. Reeves quickly opened his door and scanned the area. The pungent smell of gunpowder hung about the car, but the night was quiet and nothing moved. As he rounded the car, he removed a nasty little camp knife from his pants pocket. He opened the door and Vanecroft slumped over, hanging halfway out of the car. With the care of a patriarch carving a turkey, Reeves worked his knife through the tendons and between the bones in Vanecroft’s wrist. He removed the hand and tossed it to the ground. The handcuff slipped free from the stump of Vanecroft’s arm. The money was his.

  From Vanecroft’s jacket, Reeves removed a long dark pistol whose barrel was burdened by a cylindrical state-of-the-art silencer. It was a good weapon and Reeves hated to see it go to waste. With the gun in his belt and the briefcase in his hand, he looked carefully around again and started off across the vast parking lot, a solitary figure in the warm dark night, heading into a neighborhood that most people would have feared. But for Reeves, who had seen the worst the world had to offer, even the most dangerous neighborhoods in D.C. felt safe.

  It would be several blocks before he could find a cab, and as Reeves walked, he pondered his next move. He had a flight out to Mexico City first thing in the morning. He could simply return to his apartment for a good night’s sleep, but the habits he’d acquired through the years of dark plots and backroom deals told him to sweep his tracks completely clean. He didn’t want to run for the rest of his life. That wasn’t his style. He wanted to set up in a little oceanside place on the beach near San José in Guatemala where he could fish and drink rum and wander into town to sample the local talent on an as-needed basis. He didn’t want to have to worry about the spooks from the CIA or NSA or even the people at MI with some vendetta hunting him down for the rest of his life because he was part of an assassination plot.

  The problem with Vanecroft was that he had been so bitter, his judgment was clouded. The problem with Claiborne was greed. Reeves had seen that in the man’s eyes. And, like all greedy people, he presumed that everyone else harbored the same sentiment. To Claiborne, half a million dollars was enough to entice them to do a monumental job, and he presumed the promise of three times that if they succeeded would carry the day. But Reeves could live comfortably on half a million for the rest of his days. And with Vanecroft’s money as well? He was in fat city.

  The job itself could have been done. With the classified information Claiborne had given them, they could have done the deed with limited exposure. It was the getaway that bothered Reeves. He didn’t trust a military transport to Brazil. Something smelled sour about that. Now his only connection to the whole thing was Claiborne. That was the only track Reeves had left behind.

  CHAPTER 47

  Your boy,” Claiborne said with an evil smirk, “was a pretentious little shit. But why should that be a surprise? He wasn’t that unlike you, Kurt . . . So when it became obvious that killing him was the perfect way to implement my plan, I ordered it with pleasure.”

  Kurt stared up at Claiborne with clenched teeth and unbridled hatred. Rage contorted his face behind the fake beard. In his mind, he was thinking only of how he could kill Claiborne. He didn’t give a damn for his own life. Lying there, unarmed, with Claiborne’s weapon leveled at him, he expected to die. But he wanted to die knowing he’d taken Claiborne with him.

  “You were my friend,” he whispered, tears brimming in his eyes.

  Claiborne could have no idea they were actually tears of rage, and he snickered out loud, obviously relishing the sight. “So in the end,” he sneered, “it’s me who has everything, isn’t it? For twenty years, I’ve watched your company. I followed the stock! And I knew how rich you were becoming. So when I had my chance, did you think I wouldn’t take it?

  “What I want is for you to know, in these last few minutes of your pitiful life, that it’s you who caused all this. You are responsible for what happened to your precious son. You!

  “I was your fri
end and you shut the door in my face!” Claiborne snarled. “But after all these years of Kurt Ford getting everything and being everything to everyone, it’s me who’s the better man, it’s me who’s on top. Isn’t it, Kurt?” He raised his voice hysterically, baring his teeth.

  “Yes,” Kurt whispered, buying time to clear his head from the blow of the bat so he could make his final lunge, take the deadly bullet, but still get at Claiborne and kill him before his own life expired. His eyes flickered to his own gun, four feet away underneath the bedside table—too far.

  “Go ahead,” Claiborne sneered. “Make a move, Kurt Ford. The famous, rich, successful Kurt Ford. Make a move. This is my game and it’s over!”

  At that moment, Kurt knew he’d have to go at Claiborne, take the bullet, and try to wrest the gun free, killing him with his own weapon, or fail altogether. But when the dark figure of Reeves appeared in the doorway behind Claiborne, Kurt changed his mind in an instant and went for his own gun. A muffled shot went off, ripping through Claiborne’s torso and throwing him forward into the room. Kurt reached his gun, but instead of turning to fire, his instincts from years ago took over and he rolled. Reeves’s second shot tore into the floor, kicking up a spray of splinters that stung Kurt’s neck and ear.

  He seemed to come up out of his roll in slow motion. His gun was leveled at Reeves and he could see the man’s gun likewise staring back at him, a dark black hole in the end of its barrel ready to spit death. The two men fired at the same time. Kurt struck Reeves squarely in the chest. Reeves’s bullet struck Kurt in the head.

  Kurt saw stars and went down hard. Dazed, his ears ringing, he reached up and felt for his wound, a neat little trench in his scalp that poured blood out onto the floor. Staggering, he got to his feet, blood spilling from him like a faucet. Reeves lay open-eyed on the floor with a hole in the center of his chest and the scarlet stain around his heart blooming like a rose on his white shirt.

  Claiborne lay facedown next to the bed, raspy sighs escaping from his nose and mouth, which also bled out onto the floor. Kurt took the gun from his hand and turned him over. Claiborne’s eyes shot open, alert with fear, blood gurgling in his throat. Kurt could tell he’d been shot through the lung. With some immediate help, he would survive.

  “I didn’t mean it,” Claiborne said in a desperate, choking whisper. “Kurt, I lied. I didn’t have anything to do with Collin. Reeves did it. I lied. I wanted to get you back for everything, for not taking me with you when you made everyone rich, but I didn’t do it. I would never do that . . .”

  Kurt knelt beside Claiborne, his own blood spattering steadily onto the floor in fat red droplets. He smiled grimly at his old friend.

  “This is what my son felt,” he said, setting his jaw and jamming the gun into Claiborne’s mouth. Claiborne’s eyes widened in horror and his arms began to flail desperately.

  Kurt spewed his words. “This is for Collin, you piece of shit!”

  The gun erupted with a muffled clank. Then there was silence.

  Kurt staggered to the bathroom and cleaned up as best he could, wrapping his head in gauze and tape and pulling his cap down over the wound. Quietly, he let himself out the front door, noting the broken glass in the front room where Reeves had come in through the window.

  Kurt spent the drive back to the motel fighting hard to keep his composure. After what seemed like a lifetime, he pulled into the back of the lot and knocked on the door of their room. It flung open and there was Jill, her face alive with worry and then loving relief.

  “Is it over?” she whispered.

  Kurt nodded that it was.

  He looked at her dully and stepped over the threshold wearily, shutting the door behind him. They embraced. He tried to speak but couldn’t. He looked down at her through the blurry wash of tears. When he closed his eyes, he saw clearly the images of Collin and Annie. He no longer had the strength to restrain whatever it was inside of him. A pitiful sob escaped his throat. Crying, he lay down in a crumpled ball on the bed and let it go.

  There were moments of clarity for Kurt when his consciousness rose up out of his sea of pain for brief moments. He didn’t know what would happen. He felt certain he would die. But through that horrible night, when it seemed that dark sea he’d fallen into held no escape, he would always see her face. Tearful, but compassionate and full of love, he’d see Jill’s face shining like a beacon. And somewhere deep inside him there smoldered an ember of hope.

  EPILOGUE

  Fifteen miles south of the small coastal town of Sapri in southern Italy, a couple sat on a secluded terrace that jutted out over the sea. Below was a private beach, its clean black sand nestled in a cove whose sides rose like the walls of an enormous fortress all the way up to where the winding road took the occasional car, truck, or bus up and down the coast. The roar of the surf explained the tangy scent that mixed with the lemon trees planted in enormous pots resting on the festive terracotta floor. The couple, a handsome middle-aged man with his striking young wife, sat curled up together in a large rattan love seat. They were barefoot, he in cotton drawstring pants and an old T-shirt, she in a loose-fitting cotton shift.

  They sat placidly together sipping from drinks laced with wedges of lime and absorbing the mist-enshrouded mountains that fell straight into the blue-green sea. They were talking languidly about the merit of various names. The woman said she liked the name Jeremiah and the man agreed that it was fine.

  The pink glow from the setting sun softened the scene, giving it a dreamlike quality. So it seemed almost fitting when Anna Rosa announced in her quietest voice that they had a visitor. They never had visitors. They kept to themselves, treating their staff like distant relatives, doing the right things by them without becoming intimate. When they did go out to dinner, or take a driving tour to Florence or Rome, it was always in a quiet way, with both of them perpetually hidden behind glasses and hats.

  They were quite unremarkable people, really, aside from the burning attraction they shared for each other. Most of their time was spent swimming, sailing, or reading the books that arrived almost weekly, delivered by the boxload to the nearby post office. They had suddenly appeared, a little over a year ago, at the modest villa whose original owner was bent on seclusion. As if to honor his spirit, they too kept to themselves.

  Kurt set his drink down and stood languidly, surprised when he saw that their visitor had simply followed Anna Rosa into and through the house and was now standing behind her with the somber smile of a man whose long search had finally ended. Kurt’s body went rigid and Jill turned in alarm to see Mack Taylor standing there, looking peculiarly American in his dark suit, sunglasses, and tie.

  Taylor removed a gun from beneath his jacket and pointed it at Kurt’s chest. A wicked smile crept across his face. Kurt froze and Jill gasped in horror.

  “Bang,” Taylor said.

  After a few moments Kurt said coolly, “I never knew you were one for humor, Mack. Can I offer you a drink?”

  Taylor removed the glasses, revealing his lifeless pale gray eyes, and said, “Yes, that would be nice.” He holstered his gun, still smiling, and sat down.

  Kurt said, “I have scotch, vodka—”

  “One of those would be just right,” Taylor said, pointing toward the opened bottle of Pellegrino that sat on a tray beside the love seat. He took in the view and sighed heavily, taking the glass Anna Rosa had hurriedly brought to Kurt before disappearing shamefaced and frightened into the house.

  “How are you, Mrs. Ford?” he said politely.

  “Fine, thank you,” she said, sitting back down but no longer interested in the sunset.

  “How did you find me, Mack?” Kurt asked tiredly.

  “I made it my hobby,” he said gruffly. He continued to stare out at the sea, the mountains, and the sky and seemed to be truly enjoying himself.

  After a while Kurt asked, “Are you taking me back?”

  Taylor looked at him and a rare smile, born from humor alone, tugged at the corn
ers of his mouth. “No,” he said. “I’m not.”

  Jill exhaled audibly.

  “Then what are you doing?” Kurt asked calmly.

  “I’m here for two reasons,” he said, taking a drink of his water and puckering his lips at the hint of lime. “First, I wanted you to know that I could find you . . . And if you had killed the president, I would have killed you.”

  Kurt looked at him soberly, knowing he meant it.

  “Second,” he said, “the president wanted me to thank you personally and to let you know that there is no effort under way in any agency to seek you out. That’s his offering of thanks, and his offering of reconciliation to you for what you did for him and for what happened to your son.” He cleared his throat and added, “I’m sorry as well . . .

  “Of course, you need to remain anonymous,” Taylor continued after a reflective moment. “That would be part of the deal. We can’t have you resurfacing. What happened was too much of an embarrassment . . .

  “And,” he added, looking pointedly at Kurt, “the Claiborne murder investigation is still open as well.”

  “Of course,” Kurt said quietly.

  “Otherwise,” Taylor said, finishing his drink and taking one last look at the magnificent view, “we wish both of you the best of luck.”

  Then, after standing to go and taking a brief glance at Jill’s swollen figure beneath the loose-fitting dress, he said, “I guess I mean to say, good luck to all three of you.”