by David Dun
“We make the plan but then we ask Sam.”
“Whatever. I’m gonna be late. Oh, and one more thing. I need to make a little stop at the Carter Building on the way. At nine-thirty A.M.”
Shohei’s eyes grew wide and he looked into hers. It wasn’t a stare but it wasn’t a vacant look either. It was tranquility. It was Sam’s look. She turned her eyes from his.
“It is to your credit that you cannot look at me,” he said.
“I can look at you,” she said, leveling her eyes on his. But in his countenance there was a certainty that she could not match. Somehow he knew she was hiding something. She suspected that he even knew what she was hiding.
“How did you know?” When he didn’t answer she thought for a moment. The same way that Sam knew I was checking him out.”
“You drop this little stop on me like big bomb. I’m not supposed to notice this, this ... this ... afterthought?”
“I need to drop something very important off at the building. It’s personal.”
“Your period is personal. We talk about the safety of my ass, lady.”
At that she laughed.
“Why don’t you cut funny business and tell me what is going on?”
“I just did. I’m going to give someone something at the Carter Building.”
“Who someone?”
“It’s private.”
“I be right back.”
Sixteen
Shohei stepped outside the apartment and used his cell phone to call the office.
“Call back. Tell the office to use safe-talk,” Sam said.
Shohei did it and updated Sam.
“Our rose wants to be watered. Hair, you know. Tomorrow morning at ten forty-five A.M. Oh, and she has little afterthought. She wants to stop for espionage at the Carter Building.”
“Carl Fielding. Physics guy. He’s good. I’d use him. John Weissman would be better. If we say no, she’ll be pissed?”
“You got that right.”
Sam seemed to pause to think. “Let her go to the Carter Building. Same with the hair appointment. I’m sure Gwen is still her hairstylist. She’s nearby. Try to find out what these shadows are about.”
“Hey, Boss, you pretty good. How you know about Gwen?”
The door to the apartment opened. It was Anna. “Is that Sam?”
“Yes.”
“I’d like to speak with him when you’re finished.”
“Sam, you hear that?”
“Put her on.”
Anna took the phone and headed back inside.
“Wait,” Shohei said, “if you go inside, then you go in bathroom to talk away from any window.”
“Why?”
“Parabolic mike. Window is big eardrum.”
“Jeez, unbelievable.”
Anna’s bathroom was large and included a small sitting area.
“How are you doing?” she said as she sat down in her soft-cushioned wicker chair.
“I’m doing well. Are you behaving yourself?”
“Of course. What is our plan for Jason? I spoke with Roberto and he’s giving me the creeps. Bad.”
“We’re gathering information. We’re working on making an ally of Grady. I want to go get Jason and take him to another doctor but it takes planning. I need some Canadians with old ties to law enforcement to go in with me. I also need to make progress with Grady. Plus we have to line up a good shrink. It’s all coming together and there are a lot of good minds at work.”
“I haven’t officially hired you.”
“We’ll work out the contract soon.”
“Okay, well, it’s hard to wait I really want to get Jason to a doctor. Our doctor. So how is Grady doing?”
“Fighting. When they argue and tell you to get a life, you know there’s hope.”
“I see. A scream is better than a yawn.”
“Exactly. And how are you doing?”
“Fine. I’m sure Shohei just told you that I need to go out.”
“Gwen could come to your house.”
“How did you know that? Did Shohei tell you?”
“No. It’s my business to know.”
“It irritates me that you can find this out so easily.”
“Who said it was easy?”
She made a conscious effort to restrain herself. “Do you know anything more about what Grace is up to?”
“I pushed a contact at Interpol and got him to tell me the dark side of Grace Technologies. It is linked in some as yet indiscernible way, they think, with an international arms dealer.”
“And what does that tell us?”
“Well, people like that are willing to break the law in big ways, and you really hate to find out that you are dealing with them. They tend to be dangerous.”
“So what do we do?”
“We try to be careful and not get shot.”
“I need to tell you something,” she said. “I need to tell you how I got to where I am today.”
“Certainly, if you’ve waited this long, now would be a good time to tell me.”
“I had some resentment toward my father.”
“Alleged perfection is always a real bad sign.”
“When I was about nine I walked in on my mom and dad making love. Let’s just say it was graphic and not exactly conventional sex. As an adult I have no problem with it at all. In fact as an adult I would have laughed. In fact after my dad’s death my mom and I worked up the nerve to talk about it and we both laughed. But at nine it was a little bizarre. At the time it happened, my mother freaked, which probably didn’t help.
“After that day my dad never had a serious conversation with me except once; it was a rainy day under the tree in the front yard. He put his arm around me and he told me he loved me. That simple gesture and those few words were the only serious communications that I received right up until the day he died.
“All the rest of the time he only joked. Just smiley and friendly but never close, never truly warm. Never hugged me or touched me except to pat me on the head. It was like I knew something and he couldn’t wash it out of my mind. So I had leprosy or something.
“This does all relate to my brother but you have to be patient. When I was twenty my brother was married to Sydney. One day she comes over to the apartment. It was Saturday and I was cleaning up my room and trying to clean up the rest of the apartment that I shared with two other girls. It’s kind of my ritual.
“About midmorning Sydney was ushered in by a roommate. Sydney’s makeup had been running and she looked bad. We had this conversation. ‘Jason is seeing another woman,’ she said. She tells me she found jewelry under their bed. After being with her mother on a visit, Sydney came home to discover the jewelry. I pointed out that it didn’t prove anything, but at the same time I had this sinking feeling. And I hate to say it, but burned into my brain was the idea that my dad was, you know, oversexed or something. It was crazy, but I thought, oh, yeah, a chip off the old block. Then she tells me she found cocaine in his pants. Grady is only three and he was watching her and I freak out.
“Sydney made up an excuse to leave town, but hid her car and came to my place. Right in the middle of school and work when I had things to do fourteen hours a day, I faked an illness and we took turns watching Grady and following Jason.
“At that time part of Jason’s work was in conjunction with a molecular biology lab associated with the university. Often he went to the lab for conferences although his regular office was at the university. On a beautiful Saturday afternoon I was following Jason when he walked to the lab but did not go in. Outside he met a young woman who looked like a student. I figured a graduate student. Although the woman was no knockout, she was slim and not bad-looking.
“Scared to death he’d catch me, but determined, I followed them to a condominium. They walked into the complex and with all the corners, it was hard to follow. Near the swimming pool they disappeared. I was pretty sure they must have gone inside one of the units fronting the pool,
but couldn’t be positive. It proved nothing, but two days later Sydney reported that Jason had gone to the condo with a woman matching the description and hadn’t come out for two hours.
“Thereafter Sydney showed up at my apartment with a bruised face, the result, she said, of a fight with Jason. She had confronted him. There was some counseling, but a divorce followed and I took Sydney’s side. I was convinced that Jason was a cocaine-using wife-beating two-timer. There was a divorce and then we had the custody battle. Jason’s money paid for both sides. It got very ugly and I was desperate to win. It had almost become my fight; I was pushing Sydney.
“God, I hate to say it but I saw my dad in Jason and I just fought like a junkyard dog. Even Sydney, I think, was feeling driven by me. I remembered every bad thing about Jason that I could, and I used whatever charm I had on that judge and we beat Jason until he gave up. I never personally asked him about the coke or the girl or the beating. In court he said it wasn’t true and I just knew he was a lying SOB. Once he tried to call me in the middle of it all, and he tried to stop me on the sidewalk. Both times I told him to go to hell. Now for the really ugly part.
“After Jason went to France he called me. I had just gotten my first really big checks from User Friendly. I had money. And this is the part I really hate myself for. ...” She choked but composed herself.
Sam was smart enough not to comment. He just waited in silence.
She cleared her throat. “Anyway, he calls and says that he’s having some mental issues. And I just told him to quit snorting coke and he’d feel better. Then I hung up. Right after that he got treatment of some sort, from Chellis Labs, and then went off to Canada and I never heard from him again. But his call really bothered me. I think I waited a week and then I went off to see Sydney in California. By this time I was mostly living in Manhattan, although I was spending a lot of time in LA so that I could be with Grady. This was back when Grady liked me.
“Anyway, I talked with Sydney and she was kind of ticked that I was bringing it all back up again. And she started reminding me that we had Grady and that was the important thing. She reminded me that we had fought for Grady. Why did we have to rehash the past? So really my questions about the coke and her story about the beating went unanswered except in the most general way.
“Then things went along fine for a while. At the ripe old age of fifteen Grady got her first boyfriend. She thought it was serious. Sydney and I were determined that Grady was too young, and she was, and we determined that we were going to break it up, and we did. Grady has the strongest will of any child I have ever known. The apple of my eye, my little honey, turned into a tigress. Since she didn’t want to hate her mother, she sent it all my way. Every ounce of it.
“Soon thereafter, when Grady was sixteen, Sydney was in a really bad car accident with a drunk who ran an intersection. We thought she might die, but she didn’t. I went to see her when she was really bad, and she begged my forgiveness and told me she had lied about Jason. He had been talking about moving to France and it scared her. She knew there would be a divorce and was desperate to get Grady.
“While Sydney was convalescing, Grady begged her mother to place her with her Aunt Lynn. Lynn was what Grady wanted because Lynn worked, wanted the money that went with keeping Grady, and meant well, but had no time. So Grady lived as though she were eighteen when she was sixteen. And I lost her. It broke my heart, but I understood Sydney giving in to Grady.
“With Sydney’s revelation I went after my brother and began visiting regularly and here we are today.”
“Quite a story,” Sam said.
“You’re not going to go over how stupid I was, are you?”
“Lectures? Nope. I’m the guy who got his son killed.”
For one of the first times in her life, Grady wasn’t sure what she should do. A full day and night had passed since she had spoken with Guy. Her trainers had announced a twenty-minute break, during which Grady was to pee, think, and, as Spring put it, find her center of gravity. Spring, like Sam, was a force to be reckoned with.
Grady had only twelve more minutes in her bedroom alone. She closed her eyes and picked up the phone, determined to call Guy.
“Grady?” A knock at the door. It was Spring.
She put the receiver back. “Yeah?”
Spring opened the door, looking partly stern, a little sad, and slightly amused. Jill was with her.
“Why did you have to go and blow the rest of your time?” Jill asked. “Now it’s another one-hour run. Why don’t you tell me what you are doing? Don’t lie to me.”
“I was trying to make a call.”
“To whom?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“Okay. Well, you know the rules. No calls until we have an agreement about calls.”
“And when does that happen?”
“When we trust each other,” Spring put in.
“That could be a long time.”
“That thought had occurred to us,” Jill said. “Now start your run.”
Devan Gaudet sat in the back of a dark-windowed van down the street from the Carter Building. The leaves were not yet showing autumn color, but the women were cloaking themselves for the season, and watching them was enthralling. They had style, and an aloof self-assurance that he found sensual.
An hour earlier he had seen a man named Shohei lurking around the apartment of Anna Wade. Shohei was a world-class bodyguard who sometimes worked for the man he knew only as Sam, a figure who was more apparition than man, hidden behind a cloud of emissaries, agents, and collaborators. This confirmed his hunch about the “Sam” who had found Anna Wade in the waters of British Columbia.
Had he been sure that Anna was involved with this man, he would have raised his price. When he last crossed paths with Sam he had nearly been caught, which meant that he had nearly failed in his mission. Having to move quickly made this one an especially challenging job.
For once the regular gumshoes rounded up by Chellis had been useful, setting up first-class electronic surveillance from across the street.
What he was doing now was risky and he knew it, far more complicated than simply killing her. In the new America there were more police, and the slightest hint of terrorism would bring in an army. Laws had changed and the American police had many more surveillance powers and greater numbers and were increasingly wary.
He stepped out of the van wearing gabardine slacks, a white shirt, and a name tag that said BRICKRIDGE TECHNICAL SERVICES. He carried a briefcase, a cell phone, and two pens. Salt-and-pepper gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard along with gold wire-rimmed glasses gave him the look of a college professor. Inside the Carter Building he took the elevator to the fifty-ninth floor.
After a quick survey of the hallways, he proceeded to the roof. The helicopter was no surprise; the people he was dealing with were far too clever to allow themselves to be trapped at the top of a high-rise. According to his sources this was the only office building in Manhattan on which a helicopter could be landed and it required a special permit. Quickly he moved back downstairs and entered the offices of Dyna Science Corp.
He greeted the receptionist who sat behind a large built-in island that looked like a breakfast bar in a modern kitchen. He smiled and showed her his name tag, while she transferred a call.
“Super sent us up here. We’re checking for spores. Stachybachus. There were some complaints on the fifty-ninth. I’ll just be taking some dust samples.”
“Spores?”
“Yes. If overly abundant they can cause a significant health risk. But we can fix it, even if the concentrations are high.”
“Well, that’s good to know,” said the young woman, a blonde with wonderful skin. She also had a name tag. Virtually everyone had a name tag these days.
The phone beeped quietly and she spoke into the headset.
He opened the briefcase and removed a tiny vacuum machine utilized in the collection of dust samples from carpets.
&nb
sp; “Maybe I could just take a sample from under here,” he said, coming around behind the island. She looked slightly dismayed at having a man crawling around near her legs, but soon got caught up in another call. He pressed a small microphone onto the underside of her desk. It stuck on contact.
He went down the hall to the rest room, where he entered a stall and set up shop. From his briefcase he removed a Beretta semiautomatic with a silencer already affixed. Next he installed an earpiece and commenced the tedious job of listening to the receptionist. It was a full twenty minutes before he heard the serious-sounding male voice of Dr. John Weissman.
He placed the pistol in the briefcase and exited the rest room.
Alder leaves of yellow and mustard brown were strewn in the trail and the wet had matted them like carp scales, making the forest run almost quiet save for the wet thud of tennis shoes and the raspy breaths of tired lungs. Jill and Grady broke out of the park and onto a three-cornered beachfront road where a group of small shops attracted tourists.
“I’m going to use the rest room,” Jill said. “You be good.”
Grady saluted, and after Jill had disappeared into the ladies’ room she trotted to a nearby phone booth, punched in the number of Guy’s cell phone, and used her calling card number to make the connection.
“Hey,” she said when he answered.
“Where are you?”
“Way up the coast. Near Carmel, I think, maybe Big Sur. There aren’t any signs right here.”
“Are they holding you against your will?”
“I can leave any time I want. I’m okay. It’s rough but I’m okay. I could really use a hit but I guess that’s the whole point. Look, any second my keeper will be coming out of the can, and if she sees me I’m toast. So I just called to say I’m fine and I’ll call for a real talk as soon as I can.”
“Take your time. I know you’re working through things but I do love to hear your voice. You need to let me know where you are, just in case.”
She set the receiver in the cradle, knowing she could easily be caught. Then she ran toward the rest room door to put distance between herself and the offending paraphernalia. After a few strides Jill came out.