Then he waited.
Given there was no police response, he assumed the security cameras reached only to the property boundary. James enjoyed this aspect of a covert operation: he felt as though he owned the night. He closed his eyes, trying to get his mind to relax. In the stillness, even the faintest sounds could be heard—a dog barking in the distance, a neighbor’s garage door opening down the street, a car moving nearby along the pavement. He moved as a panther does, quietly and stealthily. Circling the estate, he made mental notes, scrutinized the smallest details. He peered through night-vision binoculars, scanned adjacent homes, memorized window locations and sightlines.
Recalling a section in the file Kate had prepared, he drew closer to inspect the home next door, occupied by a single woman in her seventies who lived alone and had no relatives living in the area. None of the windows faced the street, and the bedrooms were situated in a rear wing. Judging from an overgrown landscape, the woman was a recluse.
Set between Specter and the woman’s property, a narrow strip of woodland ran beside the two driveways, extending out to the road. Twenty feet in from the edge of the road, James discovered an ideal hiding spot. It was nestled beneath a canopy of trees, the underbrush sufficiently thick for providing cover. From this vantage point, both the Specter estate and the entire street could be seen. But the “hide” wasn’t risk free. If any of the neighbors detected a presence here, the operation would have to be aborted.
He broke into a grin.
Specter’s decision to settle in beside the recluse had been a mistake. A fundamental rule of battle: never leave a flank unprotected. He should have bought her property and combined it with his own. Unwittingly, Specter has created an opportunity. This hiding place is only fifty yards from where he sleeps. A blunder.
Satisfied his reconnaissance was done, he embraced the crisp night air, jogging back to Old Greenwich and the cottage. He set his backpack inside the door and glanced at his watch: 2:30 A.M. Kate was asleep in the bedroom, and he went over the plan in his mind one more time before setting the alarm. As he drifted off to sleep, a thought persisted.
In a few hours we roll.
6:30 A.M.
James woke in a restless state and roused Kate. With some last-minute details refined they scrambled out to the carport. Kate got behind the wheel of the Chevy, switched the headlights off and quietly drove along the narrow strip of blacktop. She headed to a bridge overpass above the Merritt Parkway, ten minutes from Specter’s estate and along the route the lawyer drove on his way to work in Manhattan. Kate rolled to a stop in the darkness and James got out.
They checked the communications equipment to be certain of its working order.
“Be careful,” she said.
“Remember. Be calm and stay focused.”
“I’ll try.”
She watched him disappear into the woods by the edge of the road, which led him under the concrete overpass to a spot he had scouted out yesterday.
Kate drove to a private school in the foothills—a mile from Specter’s house, parked the Chevy in the lot, removed the road bike from the trunk and peddled to the hiding place next to his estate. Here, she removed a camouflage tarp from her backpack and covered the bike.
An hour passed before a blanket of night gave way to dawn. Sunlight cut through a canopy of towering oak trees, and for Kate, it seemed like a switch had been turned when the neighborhood came to life: birds chirping in unison, an elderly woman walking along the road, shiny cars zipping by—neighbors dashing off to busy lives.
Suddenly Kate heard a noise behind her: a garage door opening at the Specter house. Scooping up her binoculars, she quickly raised them to her eyes, adjusted the focus dial. Between the trees, the form of an automobile began taking shape, backing into the motor court and moving along the driveway.
A few seconds passed.
Behind a veil of underbrush, a black sedan rolled to the gate, tires rumbling on top of brick pavers.
A Mercedes came into view and stopped at the driveway gate, the driver waiting as the gate swung wide. The distance to the car was not more than forty feet, the driver’s window open. Bingo.
ALEC SPECTER
His expression was clear: arrogant, smug.
Kate’s research had paid a dividend. She had found a pattern. A common trait among successful people: an adherence to schedules and routines. These made for productive lives, though predictable. In the world of covert operations, predictability means vulnerability.
Specter swept the road with his eyes, apparently seeing nothing out of the ordinary as he turned and drove away. Kate remained still, waiting for another vehicle to leave the estate and follow Specter, but none did so.
She spoke into a small microphone near her chin.
“He’s on his way.”
A response.
“Copy.”
Then Kate spun around, horrified. In a full sprint, a canine was charging toward her.
Her heart raced. She froze.
Oh, no!
Barking ferociously, the dog halted just a few steps away.
Now what?
Seconds later, a teenage boy shouted from across the street.
“Rex! Come on boy. Come here Rex.”
Abandoning instinct to obey a command from his master, the dog turned his head sharply and trotted off.
Kate sighed in relief as the boy ushered the canine inside the house and left for school.
When James had been doing his reconnaissance a few hours earlier, he stood in the boy’s driveway across the street, observing the Specter estate while his body scent settled on the ground. Unfortunately for Kate, the olfactory glands of canines give them a sense of smell two hundred times greater than humans. When the teenager opened his front door, the dog picked up the scent James had left at the “hide” and made a beeline for the spot in which Kate was hiding.
Kate wiped beads of sweat from her forehead.
That was close.
A moment later a second Mercedes—this one an SUV—backed out of the Specter garage and came down the driveway. When the car stopped at the gate, Kate looked into her binoculars and saw a woman, and a young boy seated beside her.
She’s driving her son to school. No bus for this child, too risky.
Seemingly from nowhere, an engine roared and a car raced by on the road.
Just some teenagers.
But as Kate studied the woman’s expression, it told a different story. Fear and terror in her eyes.
This poor woman is imagining assailants pulling her and the boy into a vehicle and stealing away. What an awful way to live. She lives in a gilded cage, the bars forged by her husband’s grasping hands.
After the Mercedes disappeared, Kate removed items from her backpack and changed into a Polo shirt, cap, khaki shorts, sunglasses and shoes. She stuffed the tarp into her pack, glanced up and down the street, pulled the backpack over her shoulders and emerged from the woods on the road bike. As she rode away casually, she appeared as an everyday Greenwich resident, out for a morning ride.
She peddled toward the private school and the Chevy, thinking of the role James would play in the next phase of the operation.
A crucial one.
CHAPTER 8
A bedside telephone was ringing high above the pre-dawn traffic in Washington, D.C. as the city lights cast a dim radiance on the dark interior of a penthouse in the Watergate Complex beside the Potomac River. Deep in slumber, Senator Benjamin Cohen’s first believed the ringing was part of a dream, but then his hand began fumbling near his bedside table and picked up the phone.
“Hello,” he mumbled.
“Senator Cohen,” a voice said. “Please accept my apology for this intrusion.”
Emerging from his stupor, the Senator thought he recognized the caller’s voice. He glanced at the clock: 4:16 A.M.
“Do you know what the time is?”
“I do.”
The voice had become unmistakable, and based on prior
experience, the Senator knew the caller did not adhere to standard conventions: it seemed as though he was in every place, twenty four hours a day.
“We have to talk.”
Cohen cleared his throat.
“Okay, I’m listening.”
“I need your decision. Tonight.”
“I need more time, Deacon.”
“Unacceptable. Do you want to avoid the fate of the others?”
Senator Cohen needed no clarification; he had two choices:
Silver or lead, accept a bribe from the Deacon or face death.
He felt torn. To let his office, and his principles, be bartered for money ran contrary to everything he believed in. But things had not been easy in the past couple of years. The passing of his wife had left him alone to care for a young son who suffered from Down syndrome. The boy required constant care, depending completely on his father. The Senator loved him dearly, and he could not bear any thoughts of leaving the boy adrift. As he saw things, he had no good options. With much reluctance, he gave in.
“You’ll have my vote.”
“You are a sensible man,” replied the Deacon.
“I want to make this clear. There will be no trail.”
“Understood, the funds will be deposited in an offshore account of your choosing.”
Cohen hadn’t any interest in the money, even if the $10 million the Deacon would pay was a huge sum. His investment portfolio had grown beyond his needs, and extravagance wasn’t his style. He could think only of his son, and he was determined to be there for him.
And if he didn’t go along? The Deacon would question his motives, and he might wind up in the bottom of a ravine.
“Okay,” the Senator managed to say.
The Deacon’s voice was almost a whisper. “Goodnight.”
And the line went dead.
Alone in the dark with his thoughts, Cohen sat upright and a silence fell as he looked out the window. Even at this early hour of the morning, the headlights of cars flickered off in the distance as commuters drove across the Key Bridge and into the nation’s capital.
Senator Cohen couldn’t believe what he had just done. Feelings of regret washed over him, and he lamented his earlier decision to run for reelection to the U. S. Senate.
He slid out of bed and into his slippers before walking along a dark hallway and to his son’s bedroom. Here, the child seemed peaceful in his sleep. Cohen moved from the doorway to the bed, and leaning in, gently brushed the boy’s cheek with his hand.
Ignorance is bliss, my son will always have his innocence.
A cool breeze whistled lightly by the window as he pulled up the covers and tucked them beneath the boy’s chin. He thought of his son’s caregiver who would be here in less than three hours, but for a while it would be just the two of them. He didn’t move for a long time.
But eventually, he slowly retreated and went into the living room, sat on the sofa, hung his head low, and wept.
CHAPTER 9
High above Greenwich and the Merritt Parkway, James removed a Remington M24 sniper rifle from a duffel bag at his feet. He assembled the weapon system, attaching a bipod, muzzle suppressor and a telescopic scope. He then spread out on his stomach on top of a concrete ledge beside some vegetation along the edge of the bridge. His perch afforded cover, and a clear line of sight toward oncoming traffic.
This location was selected because of its extended sightline. James focused on a predetermined spot on the parkway, adjusted a dial on the scope for wind speed. From this vantage point, he could see approaching vehicles in the high-powered scope. Even the faces of drivers were clearly visible. The distance to the target was seven hundred yards. Close to a half-mile.
James had achieved mastery in the use of the weapon. Navy SEAL commanders were amazed by his world-class skills. He was among a very small group, maybe a dozen men who had the talent to harness the lethality of the weapon at extreme distances.
Kate meanwhile had driven the Chevy from the private school into downtown Greenwich where she parked the car. Casually attired, she pulled a latex mask over her head which gave an image of an elderly woman, then put on a short wig. She glanced in the rearview mirror, took a few deep breaths.
Here goes.
She crossed the street to a small building—the Greenwich branch of First Fidelity Bank—moved around to the back, pressed a chunk of plastic explosive against a window pane and stuck a receiver into the putty-like stuff which had been synchronized to a transmitter in her pocket.
She circled around to the front of the building, stood motionless, and with her eyes swept her surroundings.
All clear.
She taped a cardboard sign to the front door, returned to the Chevy, gunned the engine and headed for the foothills above town. Holding the transmitter, she pressed a button which remotely igniting the plastic explosive on the window pane at the bank.
Then all hell broke loose.
The glass shattered, a security system node tripped—sending a signal appearing on a monitor at the Greenwich Police Department. Every patrolman within a five-mile radius of the First Fidelity Bank sped over.
The first police officer arrived and saw the sign on the door.
KEEP BACK—WE HAVE A HOSTAGE
Not long after a dispatcher relayed the information every patrol car available headed for the bank.
The chaos was in full swing at First Fidelity when Alec Specter entered an onramp to the Merritt Parkway. He slipped into traffic, accelerated to 60 M.P.H., classical music piping through surround-sound inside the luxury interior.
James calmed his mind and muscles, concentrated on regulating each breath.
Slow. Rhythmical.
He felt his heartbeat. Body and rifle—a single mechanism.
A beat.
Then he saw it: the sedan came into the crosshairs.
He fingered the trigger.
Three . . . two . . . one . . .
Crack!
A bullet sliced the air, at supersonic speed.
The hot-lead projectile moved at three thousand feet per second: a tremendous clank as the bullet tore into a rear tire. Sparks flew as a wheel scraped against pavement. Specter reeled from the blowout, struggled to control the vehicle. Gravel spit against the undercarriage. He skidded toward the shoulder, finally coming to a stop.
James pulled back on the rifle bolt, a spent cartridge flying into the air.
He chambered a second round of fury, Specter shaking violently.
James fixed the crosshairs, squeezed the trigger, Specter unable to react before the bullet cut through the windshield: A leather seat tore open—very near his rib cage.
Terrified, he flung off his seatbelt and dove for cover. He pressed his body against the carpet, struggled to grasp his mobile phone.
“Nine-one-one operator. Where is your emergency?”
“I’m . . . somebody’s trying to kill me.”
“Sir, please talk slowly. What’s your location?”
“Uh . . . Merritt Parkway . . . North of King. Hurry, damn it!”
Ahead on the parkway—under the bridge—James set the rifle on a bed of red-hot coals he had prepared earlier. He scurried up to the pavement, casually strolling on the side of the road.
Kate slowed the Chevy alongside him. He opened the door, hopped in. She drove away from the area.
“How did it go?” she asked, anxious.
James looked at her, grinning, his adrenaline pumping still.
“We’re good, just drive.”
She exhaled, shaking her head.
“This is going to age me twenty years.”
He rubbed her shoulders and neck.
“I think we got our message across.”
A silence.
James added, “There’s one way to know for sure that Specter’s our man.”
Kate said, nervously, “Tonight, we find out.”
Tonight.
CHAPTER 10
Kate awoke slowly.
&
nbsp; There was no clock at her bedside in the cottage, but judging by the sun’s angle early afternoon was approaching. She lay there in the dimly lit bedroom, coming out of a dream. The dream is kind of similar to ones that she’s been having off and on in recent months.
In the dream, the morning begins like any other. She leaves home in search of an anniversary gift for James, along with their daughter. They’ve become inseparable, best buddies. It’s another girl’s day of shopping, the destination a shopping mall in a nearby suburb.
Once inside, they browse through specialty shops and stop at the food court for ice cream. There, they talk about things. They can converse on any topic. It’s great. Fun and spirited, the girl is a precious gift from James—the apple of Kate’s eye.
Suddenly, she’s now fully awake.
The dream doesn’t surprise her. She’s been thinking more and more about having a child and would love to start a family.
That is, if she and James ever emerge from this horrible nightmare.
With her mind back in the present, she pulled herself out of bed and jumped in the shower, wondering how James was doing with the preparations for tonight.
Feelings of relaxation washed over her as her body was pelted by the flow of hot, soothing water.
Stepping out of the enclosure she wrapped herself in an oversized towel, opened a window and dried her hair as a cool breeze skimmed across her skin.
On the porch, she nestled into a cozy chair with a cup of coffee, a bagel and a blanket draped across her legs. Old Greenwich is so quiet you can hear a pin drop. She listened to a chorus of birds singing from the woods at the alley’s end. The sun’s glow warmed her face, and in the moment, she felt peaceful and safe.
She knew it wouldn’t last, so she soaked it all in.
Now back inside the cottage, Kate heard the Chevy pulling into the carport below. Moments later James came through the door.
“Kate, I’m back.”
At first, he didn’t see her.
“Where are you?”
“In here.”
He came closer to the bedroom door.
The Tangled Webb Page 3