by Alan Russell
Monroe slowed down a little, remembering that he was supposed to be strolling. The restaurant was still a few blocks off. Monroe wondered what he should do or say if Pilgrim approached him on the way to the restaurant. Or inside it. He inhaled and exhaled. Damn. He was almost hyperventilating.
There were four floors at the Russian Tea Room. Monroe’s favorite dining area was the second floor, with its revolving aquarium filled with sturgeon, and its colorful glass walls and ceiling. But maybe he should stay out in the open on the first floor. It annoyed him that Blackwell hadn’t been more specific. They had communicated through encrypted e-mails, but it had been clear Blackwell was rushed for time. There had been no mention of how long he should stay at the restaurant.
No more than an hour, thought Monroe. Russian food wasn’t his favorite. It was too heavy. To him, borscht had the look of congealed blood, and the way his stomach was already flip-flopping, the idea of kakusa or karskiy shashlyk was not appealing. First he would order a very large scotch. After downing that, he might be able to stomach a little blini with smoked salmon.
Monroe had never liked the idea of being Pilgrim’s handler, but Blackwell had insisted he pose as a spook. The acting job had seemed to go well. Playing the Lady Godiva and Le Croc card had put a major pin in the paparazzo’s balloon. It was always exhilarating having that kind of a whip in hand. He never would have guessed the beaten dog could turn on him and be trying to track him down. Or at least that’s what Blackwell suspected he was doing.
Monroe resisted the urge to turn his head and look around. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped down his forehead. After this was done, he and Blackwell would have to talk. Monroe wasn’t cut out for spy stuff. And he particularly didn’t like being bait.
Never again, he thought. Never again.
As the two men crossed over Fifth Avenue, Pilgrim moved in two steps behind Monroe.
It was a good place for Pilgrim to make his move, thought Blackwell. He had trailed the two men for four blocks. During that time Pilgrim had remained fixated on Monroe, never aware of what was behind him.
Amateur, he thought. He would pay for the mistake.
Blackwell suddenly picked up his pace. He would strike at the same time Pilgrim did.
Closer now, and still closer. Pilgrim was only a step behind Monroe now. He was all but breathing down his neck. Monroe might have sensed his approach, but it was hard to tell. The man had been stiff as a board ever since leaving his building. By trying to appear relaxed, he had come off as the opposite. The man was a terrible actor. They were both lucky that Pilgrim hadn’t picked up on that.
The paparazzo was apparently going to come up on Monroe’s left and press up against him. He had his hand in his pocket. It looked as if he planned on getting Monroe’s cooperation by faking that he had a gun in his jacket.
Blackwell hit the catch on his briefcase that released the safety. At close range, the briefcase rifle was very effective. By pressing the latch shut, he activated a small pump that pressured the trigger into firing. It would take little more than a second, just a heartbeat really, for the entire magazine to empty. Blackwell tucked the briefcase under his arm, sighting on the target. He had practiced with his briefcase rifle enough to be confident in its use. The device was an efficient assassin’s tool. It had been designed to muffle the gunfire, capture the gun’s escaping gas, and collect all the ejected casings. The only thing Blackwell intended to leave behind was a body.
He tilted his head right and left. No one was looking at him. New Yorkers weren’t big on eye contact, and besides, Blackwell appeared to be just another suited businessman.
Just ahead was an alleyway. There, thought Blackwell, was where Pilgrim would make his move. He would force Monroe into the alley, and try to intimidate him to get his answers.
In three seconds, thought Blackwell.
Two.
One.
Pilgrim shoved his hand in Monroe’s back. The man put a lie to the theory that white men in Bruno Magli shoes can’t jump. Pent-up anticipation gave him good spring. By the time he returned to earth, Blackwell was already in position to shoot. Monroe’s hop, skip, jump, and yelp had attracted all the eyes around him. That didn’t dissuade Pilgrim. He gathered Monroe in by the elbow.
Briefcase firmly braced at his side, Blackwell closed the latch. As the firing began, he swiveled slightly.
The bullets entered their target. Fabric separated and bone shattered. A line of red appeared along the man’s upper chest. The bullet entry wounds were spaced no more than an inch apart.
The man didn’t fall immediately.
It only took a moment for his blue, pinpoint oxford shirt to turn red. He looked at his chest in disbelief.
And still he didn’t fall.
Pilgrim’s hand was on his elbow. Maybe that was keeping Monroe up. Pilgrim looked even more surprised than the dying man he was supporting.
The crowd started screaming. Everyone was staring at the paparazzo and Monroe. Half the people were running away. The other half were frozen, watching in horror.
Pilgrim eased Monroe to the ground. He took his hand away from him. It was covered in blood. “I didn’t,” he said to the crowd.
No one said anything back.
Pilgrim’s mouth opened and then closed. People stared at his bloody hand.
Without warning, he suddenly sprinted away. Several people took off after him, but it was clear to Blackwell that they couldn’t match his speed. The paparazzo had run again. He was predictable.
Half a minute later, police sirens were everywhere. From over a hundred yards off, Blackwell took one look back. A huge crowd was already forming around the body.
Blackwell flagged down a cab. He had a flight to catch.
CHAPTER
FORTY-SEVEN
Graham kept his arms folded. He didn’t want his sport coat opening up, or his hand exposed. Hours before he had used the lining of the jacket to clean the blood off his hand. Ever since he had felt like Lady fucking Macbeth. The blood was nowhere in sight, but it still felt as if it were there.
He was out of his league. In Graham’s profession they talked like hit men. Among themselves the job was “going after the target,” and “getting the shot,” and “closing in for the kill.” They were hunters tracking prey. They scoped and stalked and got hits. But people didn’t die. At least not until Paris. That was where his life had started its descent into hell.
Monroe had been shot down in broad daylight in the middle of crowded Manhattan. His blood had stained Graham’s hand red. Any number of people witnessed him pressing his coat pocket into Monroe’s back. All of them had stared at him in horror. They were sure they were looking at a murderer.
Instead of explaining, he ran.
He should have stood his ground. There were tests that could prove he didn’t fire the gun. It wasn’t too late to give himself up. He could tell the police what he knew about Monroe, but that would mean telling them about the oil rig.
And about the tunnel in Paris.
And his role in Ran’s death. He wouldn’t even be able to protect Lanie. Everything was too interconnected.
It was possible the killer wanted him to surrender to the police. If the intelligence community was involved in this, they might be able to put a muzzle on things. Custody might not mean safety. People died in prison all the time. And Jack Rubys had a way of turning up. It was easy being paranoid after seeing someone shot down right next to him.
What Graham couldn’t figure out was why he was still alive. Whoever or whatever was behind this had wanted him dead before. They had tried to kill him in LA, and then Paris. It didn’t make any sense letting him walk away in New York.
Graham expected to be shot down as he ran away. He assumed a sniper had gotten Monroe, and that he was the next target. But the bullet never came. He escaped underground, his
head in constant scanning motion, and grabbed the first subway. After two stops he got off and flagged down a cab. His first impulse was to fly out of LaGuardia or JFK, but instead he had the driver take him to the Port Authority. There, he caught a bus to New Jersey. As far as he could determine, no one had followed him. If the New York police were looking for him, maybe they hadn’t extended their search as far as Newark Airport.
But it wasn’t the police that worried him the most.
Over the loudspeaker, Graham heard the last call for his flight to LA.
He waited another thirty seconds, and just as they were closing the gate, he ran up waving his ticket. After he boarded the plane, the door was closed directly behind him. Graham took his seat. He had this superstition about flying. Whenever the plane took off, he watched the runway disappear below him. He thought by just watching the takeoff he would be safe.
The plane gathered speed, and lifted off the ground. Graham watched the plane leave the runway, but he didn’t feel safe.
Paris, LA, and then New York, Graham thought. Each time death made him run.
I won’t run again, he promised himself. I won’t.
CHAPTER
FORTY-EIGHT
Jaeger drove up Sulphur Mountain Road again. The brothers had used his information to track her down. The one who didn’t look like an overcooked lobster had gone and researched Ventura County records. Lanie had tried to bury her name among the corporations that fronted her investments, but knowing which aliases she regularly hid behind made her attempt at subterfuge all too transparent. She thought she could hide amid all her land, but that was what gave her away. In all those interviews she must have imagined herself so clever, never realizing her cryptic comments would lead him to her.
Shangri-la, she had said. In English, the word has come to mean a Utopia. But for residents of Ojai, the word is more personal. Much of the 1937 film Lost Horizon was shot in Ojai. Ronald Colman traipsed around the Upper Ojai Valley’s Dennison Grade, and residents of Ojai hadn’t forgotten. They still occasionally referred to their community as Shangri-la. In a way, Lanie was betrayed not only by her incautious remark, but by the film industry. She was going to die in Shangri-la.
He wished there was time to better investigate the two hundred fifty acres she owned in Upper Ojai off Sulphur Mountain Road. Her house was hidden from the road. Jaeger guessed it was at least a half mile from the imposing entrance gate. It was a good location to build a castle, a spot hard to reach and potentially easy to defend. An unpaved road wound up the hill, falling out of sight behind a blanket of red-berried toyon bushes, scrub oaks, and laurel sumac.
There was no viable backdoor entrance to her property. The mountains prevented that. Given a full day and night, Jaeger could have crossed that terrain and surprised her from behind, but he didn’t have the luxury of time.
Jaeger continued driving until he was stopped by a US Forest Service gate and the end of the paved road. He had seen no sign of Lanie, or a security detail, but that didn’t mean guards weren’t patrolling closer to home. As far as he could determine, there weren’t any cameras in or around Lanie’s property, but it was still possible the road was being watched. The traffic was infrequent enough for a single car to stand out on the road, but there was another way to travel and be inconspicuous.
In his eight-mile drive along Sulphur Mountain Road, he counted five mountain bikers. Over the course of six miles the incline rose upward several thousand feet. The grade, switchbacks, and scenery apparently made it a popular route for bicyclists.
The Purloined Letter, thought Jaeger. Be obvious, and not be noticed.
He drove back into Ojai, paid cash for a mountain bike and various supplies, then visited two other stores, coming away with several changes of clothing. Two miles from Lanie’s house was a pull-out for a hiking path. Jaeger parked there and began his ride. On his upward climb, he spent as much time looking as he did cycling, especially when he drew near her property. Sulphur Mountain Road overlooked the Ojai Valley. Her house, Jaeger figured, probably had a three hundred sixty-degree view that took in Lake Casitas to the west, the mountains of Los Padres National Forest to the north and east, and Ventura and the distant ocean to the south. Closer to home, it was likely she would be able to see anyone’s approach up the road to her house.
Jaeger turned his mountain bike around. The turns were fast, requiring him to lean hard into them. He only braked when absolutely necessary. If it came down to it, Jaeger knew he could outrace a car. It had taken him close to fifteen minutes of hard cycling to get up the pass; in less than three minutes he was back down at the pull-out.
He changed outfits and helmets, and added some tape to his bicycle. Anyone looking would see a different cyclist going back up. Jaeger pushed back up the hill. He was several hundred yards past Lanie’s turnoff when he pulled to the side of the road.
Upturning the mountain bike, he set it seat down, then leaned over a wheel. Anyone driving by would assume he had a flat. To complete that picture, Jaeger pulled out a patch kit from his pack and made a show of fumbling around with it. Lanie’s house wasn’t visible, but his vantage point allowed him a good view of her long driveway.
Darkness wasn’t far off. Jaeger would wait until then. His equipment was in the car. He would replace his cycling outfit and sunglasses for black clothing and night-vision binoculars. There was enough shrubbery to afford him more than adequate hiding spots. It wouldn’t matter if she had an army of security. He would still find his way in. She had said in interviews her place was a “remote getaway from it all,” with no telephones and no distractions. Jaeger knew better than to believe all that he read, but it would be nice if she didn’t have a way to communicate with the outside world.
The sun was setting when he saw dust rising in the distance. His spine started vibrating like a tuning fork. His hunter’s instinct told him his prey was coming out. That surprised him. He had been all but sure she would stay holed up.
The brush lining the driveway obscured his view, and he waited to catch a glimpse of her. When the car emerged into open space he got the look he wanted. Lanie was out for a solo drive. Jaeger was glad she was alone. That would make things easier.
Jaeger jumped on his bicycle. Though he had a gun in his backpack, he decided not to ambush her at the gate. It would be too easy to spook her, and shooting her outright didn’t fit within his plans.
He was already past her gate and sailing down the road. The gate would take half a minute to open, giving Jaeger at least a minute’s lead on her. He leaned right, then left, looking for just the right spot. When he came to a tight switchback, he braked hard. Sometimes the old methods were best, he thought. He had taken out her limo in much the same way, and then removed the incriminating evidence. Luck had been with the actress on that day. Her stand-in hadn’t been so lucky.
Ancient armies used caltrops. The device was simple, yet effective. It consisted of four spikes. Toss the caltrops down, and three of the four spikes rested on the ground, while the fourth raised its ugly head. Caltrops stopped horses in their tracks and slowed armies. When trucks replaced horses, they fared little better against well-placed caltrops. The four-legged and the four-wheeled both pulled up lame.
Jaeger’s caltrops were specially designed. They were dark and nonreflective, with hollow points that would disable even so-called puncture-proof tires in a matter of minutes. Six caltrops in hand, he hunched down and rolled them along the grooves marking where tires were forced to bite hard into the asphalt. The caltrops tumbled end over end, coming to a pointed stop in the bend.
Just like playing jacks, Jaeger thought.
Lanie bounced along in Graham’s rental, wishing she had driven her Land Rover to the retreat. She had bought her four-wheel drive out of necessity, not as part of Southern California’s love affair with vehicles on steroids. When it rained at the retreat, you needed an SUV to get around. Luckily, the
skies had remained clear.
The car was shaking so hard it felt as if it were going to fall apart. The earth looked hard-packed, but it was full of holes and ruts. Lanie wished she had brought along a mouth guard for the ride.
She checked her cell phone and saw it still registered as being out of range. Her retreat’s remoteness was a blessing, but it did make any communication difficult. Closer to Ojai she would be able to pick up Graham’s call. He had told her he would phone at seven o’clock Pacific time. More than anything, she wanted to hear his voice. She remembered his promise that he would come back to her as soon as he could. All paparazzi are resourceful, she thought. That had never seemed endearing before.
During his all too brief visit to her retreat, she had sensed that Graham had felt the magic of the property. “So this is your Zen garden,” he had said.
She could see his amusement. “What’s so funny?”
“The Zen gardens I’ve seen usually have a rock stream, a few bonsai plants, maybe a koi pond, and a serene statue or two. They haven’t been the size of Montana.”
“There’s a lot I’ve been meaning to contemplate,” she said.
They had both laughed. She liked the way Graham spoke his mind without weighing the words. To other people, even those who knew her well, she was Miss L. That was a stumbling block most people could never get over. Lanie believed that was one reason she had ended up seeing the vice president. She and Brett Tennesson had their celebrity in common, and high-profile people had a way of finding one another. Rock stars married supermodels. Professional athletes married actresses. Going into the relationship, celebrities were mutually aware of the pressures of public life.