by Tom Clancy
They reached the top of the stairs, and Marissa led the way into a bedroom with a large window that allowed in a fair amount of light—or would if it wasn’t so gray and overcast as it was today. The bed was a double, with a brass headboard shaped like a big letter H with a second crosspiece, and there was a heavy patchwork quilt covering it. It was somewhat cooler than downstairs, and Thorn reckoned that the woodstove was the primary, if not the only, source of heat. Close the door here and it was apt to get pretty chilly on a winter’s evening.
“The little bathroom is at the end of the hall, and there’s a space heater in it—it gets cold. You can shower there, but the tub is in the big bathroom downstairs.”
“Nice.”
“This used to be my room. Fortunately, my grandparents didn’t make it into a museum after I grew up, so you don’t see the Wesley Snipes, Denzel Washington, and Tom Cruise posters I had up when I was fourteen.”
“Tom Cruise?”
“Even then I had a weakness for cute white boys.”
Thorn chuckled. “So, you were talking about Shelia?”
“Anybody who says, ‘It’s just a dog.’ has never really gotten to know one. My grandparents have owned—or been owned by—Sheila for ten years. She’s family. Before that, they had others: Titus, Laramie, and Winslow are the ones I remember.”
“I never had a dog as a kid,” he said. “Too many cousins in and out of our house, wasn’t enough room to keep a hamster.”
“People love their companion animals. They feed some of ’em better than a lot of people in this country eat. They take them to the vet when they get sick or hurt, give them medicine, have surgery done. Pretty much anything you can do to a person with a surgical scalpel, somebody has done to a pet—they fix torn tendons or broken bones, take out tumors, even replace bad hips. X-rays, MRIs, whatever tests you need. I knew a man once spent six hundred dollars on treatments for a budgie for a broken wing. Bird cost him thirty dollars originally.”
“Jesus.”
“So if your dog tears up his hind leg running through the field, you can get it repaired by a top surgeon who specializes in doggy orthopedics, and then you can take him to someplace like Canine Peak Performance, where a vet who does rehab will put him in a tank full of water with a treadmill in it and strengthen the muscles without putting as much weight on the injury as it would walking around your neighborhood. That’s what Sheila is doing.”
“Really?”
“It’s a coming thing. Been around for years, started out for rehab on show animals, or dogs entered in athletic competitions—catching Frisbees or agility competitions and the like—and once people started seeing how well it worked, they started bringing in the regular critters who were just ordinary door-blockers, like Sheila.”
“I had no idea.” Thorn shook his head. “And there is one of these places out here in the Georgia boonies?”
“My second cousin runs it,” she said. “She got trained in it out in Raleigh Hills, Oregon, by a woman vet named Helfer, who had flyball dogs. Cousin Louella has enough customers so she keeps busy, even out here.”
“I guess I need to get out more.”
“That’s for sure, Tommy. You are woefully lacking in general knowledge about the world. All those years as a computer geek. I’ll shape you up, though, don’t worry.”
He smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”
They heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. Thorn moved to the window and looked out. An old, dark green Ford pickup truck arrived. A tall and fit-looking black man alighted, reached back into the truck, and collected a large, short-haired, black and tan dog. Thorn didn’t recognize the variety. The man—that would be Marissa’s grandfather, Amos—squatted and set the dog gently onto the ground. She wagged her tail and headed for the front door, favoring her right rear leg.
Marissa said, “Let’s go down and let you meet Grampa and Sheila. If the dog bites you, you and I will have to rethink our relationship.”
Thorn grinned. For a second, Marissa kept her face serious. Just when he was getting worried that she was serious, she cracked a smile. “You’re funny,” he said.
“I am. Try and keep up. Nobody likes a slow white boy, even if you are cute.”
13
New Orleans, Louisiana
Lewis had elected to meet the potential buyer, Mishari Aziz, in New Orleans this time. It was much cooler here than in Miami, downright chilly, temperature maybe forty, with gray skies and a turn-your-head-around wind blowing. Even in the cold, the place smelled damp. When her plane had come in for a landing the first time, a couple days earlier, she’d halfway expected to look down at the swamps surrounding the airport and see dinosaurs lumbering around.
Assuming, of course, that they all hadn’t drowned in the most recent flood. New Orleans was still right in the middle of Hurricane Alley, and a deluge was always lurking to fill the bowl that was the city.
No dinosaurs down there today, either—if you didn’t count Aziz and his hidebound antifemale attitude.
She drove her rented car to the FedEx place at the airport and collected the package she had sent to herself before leaving the District. Back in the rental car, she tore open the box and removed her little gun—an S&W Chief snub-nose in .38 Special. Packing a gun for air travel was still possible, of course, but you had to declare it, and several of the airlines would put a big tag on the suitcase with “GUN” to identify it, and she didn’t need that connection. Plus, there were thieves at the baggage carousel who hung around waiting for such tidbits. People who thought their checked luggage was safe on an airliner were wrong.
She slipped the revolver into her jacket pocket, then fished out the Walther .380 PPK, which she had gift-wrapped to look like a birthday present.
She hadn’t seen Carruth yet, but he was supposed to have gotten to the airport three hours before she arrived, and he was no doubt following her. Playing it cute by staying hidden, but that was the point.
She pulled a cell phone from her belt and thumbed the button for the programmed number.
“At your service, ma’am,” Carruth said.
“Where are you?”
“Other end of the FedEx lot, in the white van with the magnetic sign on the door.”
She looked. Saw the van. The sign on the passenger door said SPEEDY COURIER SERVICE.
“All right, let’s do it.”
“I’m on my way. Give me forty-five minutes’ head start so I can get set up.”
“Go,” she said.
She tried to sound calm, but the truth was, she was nervous. This was where the rubber would meet the road. Up to now, Aziz had been playing it cautious, maybe not as sure of her as to believe she really could deliver the goods. The more he became convinced of that, the more dangerous the game became.
And while it shouldn’t matter, she had embarrassed him in Miami by losing the surveillance team he’d sicced on her. A reasonable, rational man in the game would accept that and move on; of course, a reasonable, rational man wouldn’t want to do what Aziz wanted.
There was a chance that once he believed she could give him the keys to the armory he lusted after, he would think he could just take them instead of paying for them.
She didn’t know how smart he really was and, unfortunately, the only way to find out was to put herself in a somewhat risky position. She didn’t trust the man as far as she could walk on water, but at least she could keep the risk minimal.
Proper planning prevents piss-poor performance. She grinned at the memory. Her father had told her that—but failed to pay attention to his own advice, in the end. Still, as these things went, she had done just about everything she could to set it up properly. She had scouted the location, made the arrangements, gone over it in her head a dozen times. No battle plan ever survived first contact with the enemy, of course, but she was willing to bet she was better prepared than Aziz, who would have been informed of the specific meeting place only about the time Carruth got there.
The meet
ing was set for Woldenberg Riverfront Park, a twenty-acre green space right on the Mississippi River, near the French Market. There would be tourists there, even in this cold weather—there was something called “The Moonwalk,” which let you hike right down to the edge of the river. You could see the big bridge from there, and the Toulouse Street Wharf. There was an old riverboat ferry moored just up the river. Very public.
New Orleans was not a good town to drive in, at least not down in the French Quarter, that part having been built long before big automobiles were the normal means of transportation. Narrow streets and a lot of traffic made for slow going, and if you had to leave in a hurry, you might find yourself in trouble. Plus there were cameras on every other corner these days—the barely controlled riot that was Mardi Gras came every year, and being able to keep an eye on things, with a filmed record to go along with that, made the local police happier.
There weren’t any cameras where she was to meet Aziz, at least not any official ones. She had checked there, the day before yesterday.
The drive from the airport took a while, but she was in no hurry, and when she finally found a parking place and alighted, it was mid-afternoon. The cold wind blew off the river, which was passing wide at this point.
She carried the wrapped Walther in her gloved left hand, and kept her right hand in her Windbreaker’s pocket, fingers curled around the butt of the Smith & Wesson. The fastest draw, she’d been taught, was to have the gun in your hand when trouble began. If it came to that, she’d be ready.
She spotted the white van as she headed down the path toward the river to the appointed meeting place. A man in that van with a scoped rifle would have a clear field of fire, which was what she wanted.
There was some kind of weedy smell in the air, maybe some dead fish mixed in. Not the same as you’d get at the seashore, no salt in it, but definitely not a pleasant odor. She had her hair tucked under a baseball cap, and her clothes were baggy. From a distance, she might pass for a slightly built man or maybe a teenaged boy.
Aziz was already waiting for her. He was dressed for the weather, wearing a long jacket over wool trousers, a hat with earmuffs, and leather gloves. He still looked cold.
He saw her approaching, and couldn’t stop himself from glancing to his right quickly.
Might as well point that way and announce it: Hey, my backup man is hiding right there. . . .
She didn’t bother to look. Carruth should have that covered.
Aziz glared at her, that male disdain obvious in his stare. “What have you brought?”
“See for yourself.”
She handed him the package.
There was nobody else close to them. Aziz tore open the wrapping until he could see the gun.
“Ah!” he said. He smiled. Nice teeth. Even, straight, white.
He knew what it was, of course, but she pushed it a little. “You recognize this?”
“Of course. It belonged to the freedom fighter and martyr Abu Hassan. I read about the theft only yesterday.” He stroked the pistol as if touching a religious icon.
“Are we to a point where you now believe we can deliver the items about which we have spoken?”
“Yes, we believe it.”
Finally. How sweet to hear it, at last.
But his next words turned it all sour: “The gun, it is loaded?”
She felt her belly clench. “No.”
Did he really think she was that stupid? To give a loaded gun to a fanatic who wanted something she had in the worst way? Probably he did think so.
“Ah, well, no matter.” He stuck his free hand into his jacket pocket. He hadn’t quite cleared his pistol when she shot him, two rounds, through her Windbreaker’s pocket. He was almost close enough to touch, she didn’t need to aim. Both bullets struck him in the center of the chest, and he was not wearing a vest. His eyes went wide in pain and fear, and he tried to speak, but managed only a gurgle as he felt to his knees.
She heard the sharper crack! of a rifle shot behind her, and looked up to see one of Aziz’s ops crumple as he stepped out of the cover of the trees twenty yards away, right where Aziz had glanced earlier.
There was another rifle report a second later, but she didn’t see what, if anything, that bullet had hit—she was already moving.
Crap!
Even though there wasn’t anybody else close, somebody would have heard the shots, and two or three dead men sprawled in the park would draw attention soon enough, even in New Orleans.
She grabbed the Walther from where Aziz had dropped it, slipped it into her left-hand jacket pocket, and began walking quickly toward the river. The hole in her right pocket smoked a little where the muzzle blast had scorched it. Great. She’d have to lose the jacket.
She had, two days before, arranged for a small boat to be tied up, not more than a hundred meters away. It took only a minute to get to it, step in, and crank the engine. She cast off the shoreline and headed up river.
She had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but she was glad she had considered the possibility and had been prepared to deal with it.
She had never shot anybody before, and she expected to feel something other than she did—fear, regret, horror, even. What she felt was anger. The stupid, greedy son of a bitch had brought it upon himself. He would have kidnapped her and tried to use her to get the information he wanted without having to pay for it. Well, he had paid, and more than he’d planned, that was for damn sure.
Explain that to Allah, when you see him—killed by a woman?
For shame . . .
A few blocks away in a long-term lot was the other rental car she’d parked, just in case something like this happened.
She put the boat ashore—no prints because of the gloves—and walked briskly to the car. She drove away. The local cops would probably identify Aziz as a terrorist pretty quick, and figure out this was some kind of deal gone bad, but there was nothing to tie her to it. Her rental car would eventually be towed, but the ID she’d used to get it was fake, and what she looked like when she collected it was somebody in a baseball cap with dark glasses, supposedly from New Mexico.
Crap! She’d have to start over again, to find a new buyer. Doing so required caution, and would take time.
She frowned, but after a moment her frown faded. Maybe this would be to her advantage. Word might get out that she wasn’t somebody you should screw around with. Sometimes these people talked to each other.
You hear what happened to Aziz? Did you hear that it was a woman who did it?
Carruth should be long gone by now—he had an escape route figured out—and she’d talk to him once they got back to Washington.
Damn.
There was an empty FedEx box under the seat, and she put her .38 Special into that, along with the Walther, packed it tight with bubble wrap, and sealed it. She’d drop the package off at the airport and have one of Carruth’s men pick it up in D.C. The Smith would have to go away, being ballistically linked to a dead man, but she had another one like it at home. The Walther? That would be tucked away safely somewhere to maybe impress the next potential buyer.
It could have gone worse. Aziz was dead, but there were more where he’d come from, and potential buyers from all kinds of places around the world. And she was still alive and kicking.
She looked at her watch. She had tickets booked on three flights leaving over the next six hours, under different names, and she had a picture ID for each. Her basic plan had been to be on the last morning flight to Atlanta, with a second leg booked from there to the D of C, and it looked as if that was going to work fine.
She had scheduled a meeting with Jay Gridley around four P.M. at her office, and that shouldn’t be a problem.
Okay, so Aziz had been a setback, but it wasn’t a disaster. The train was still on the tracks.
Now she needed to go and make sure Jay Gridley was in his sleeping car. . . .
14
Club Young
Chicago, Illinois
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br /> April 1943 C.E.
The Club Young was dark, smoky, and packed, every table in the place occupied. Half the patrons were soldiers or sailors in uniform. A tall and willowy brunette torch singer in a black silk sheath dress stood in a spotlight on the stage, backed by a small swing band. The singer’s voice was as dark and smoky as the atmosphere in the room as she sang “Mean to Me.”
Her facial features bore a passing resemblance to Rachel, Jay thought. Maybe that was just him.
Save for an occasional clink from a highball glass, the place was quiet as the patrons listened to the singer.
A voluptuous blond cigarette girl in a skimpy costume, complete with black silk fishnet stockings and six-inch stiletto heels, came by and smiled at Jay. She leaned over, showing a good amount of breast cleavage, offering her tray. “See anything you want, sir?”
Jay shook his head. “No, I’m good. Thank you.”
After a couple of verses, the trumpet player took a short solo with his muted horn, adding a little wah-wah effect by moving the mute in and out of the bell with one hand.
Seated next to Jay, Rachel Lewis said, “Like it?”
It was another of her scenarios, and a well-built one. You could smell the smoke, taste the liquor. “Very nice,” he said.
In this milieu, Rachel had altered her appearance just a little. She had long hair, done up in what Jay had always thought of as the WWII look—smooth, flowing, the ends somehow rolled under, like a teardrop. She wore a pale brown dress with padded shoulders, and had a cigarette in an ivory holder. As far as Jay could tell, everybody in the place was smoking, save for him, and not a filter in the bunch. There was a package of CareFree cigarettes by Rachel’s elbow, featuring a picture of a blonde seated on a beach in a bathing suit, looking at the crotch of a rugged fellow standing in front of her in his boxer swimsuit. There was a small box of matches on the table. The logo on the matchbox showed a hot-pink, stylized, fat letter Y, presumably from the club’s name, though the logo looked somehow mildly obscene.