The Successor

by Stephen Frey

  She pointed to the left. “This way.”

  Christian had always hated hospitals and the sterility that pervaded them. The smell of alcohol and bad food, the bare walls, the uniforms. They seemed more like prisons than places of comfort. It seemed to him that administrators ought to take more time to make patients feel at home, especially on floors like this one where people had basically come to die. He glanced at an elderly man who was shuffling the other way, one hand sliding along the wall for support. The man was wearing a plaid bathrobe and shabby slippers. His thin gray hair was tousled, as though he hadn’t combed it in weeks, his eyes were sunken, and he had that awful ashen hue to his skin.

  When they were past him, Christian looked over at Beth. He could see tears already building on her lower lids, and her bottom lip starting to quiver. Suddenly he felt awful about his doubts of a few moments ago.

  It was so quiet on this floor, he thought to himself, looking away so as not to embarrass her. Not even the faint sound of television sets coming from rooms because most of the doors were closed. People on this wing wanted seclusion, wanted to suffer in privacy. Like wild animals going off on their own to die. Deep into the forest, or to a cave.

  “Hoosiers,” he murmured.

  She looked up, wiping a tear from one eye. “What did you say?”

  “Hoosiers. That’s my favorite movie of all time.” He’d never told anyone that, not even Quentin. Never told anyone how deeply the film affected him every time he watched it.

  It was based on the true story of a tiny, rural high school in Indiana with a total enrollment of just sixty kids winning the 1954 state basketball championship against incredible odds. Against an inner-city high school with thousands of kids. An even greater story because it couldn’t happen anymore. In the fifties, every high school in the state competed in the same tournament. These days, there were separate tournaments for different-sized schools. It always inspired Christian to watch people pull together to achieve something great by caring about and trusting each other so much. To achieve something they really shouldn’t have achieved simply because they were more committed to the goal than the more talented people. It was always emotional for him at the end of the movie—as the team huddled in the locker room just before they went out on the court for the championship game—to hear the coach tell his players he loved them. So Christian never watched it with anyone, always alone, so no one would see his emotion. Which was why he’d never told anyone that it was his favorite movie. He never wanted to watch it with anyone.

  Beth stopped outside a door in the middle of the long corridor, slipped her hands to his face, rose up on her toes, and tried to kiss him on the lips.

  But he moved forward too fast, pressed cheeks, and gave her a hug.

  “Thanks for coming with me,” she said, giving him a strange look. As if she couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t want to kiss her. “That walk from the elevator was so much easier for me than it’s ever been before. It’s wonderful having you here. It means a lot.”

  For a moment Christian thought of his father, thought about how many times he’d wished he could have had one more conversation with him. How one moment he’d felt secure knowing his father was in the world, how the next he’d felt so insecure because he wasn’t. He could feel the emotions welling up, remembering that moment he’d found out about the crash so many years ago. Still seemed as if it were yesterday. “Thanks for asking,” he said, his voice raspy. Her lips would have felt so good on his, but he couldn’t do it. “I just want to help any way I can. Is this it?” he asked, pointing at the door.

  “Yeah.”

  “You ready?”

  She nodded hesitantly.

  Christian opened the door and moved into the room first, but held up only a step inside. This time the sterility of the surroundings overwhelmed him.

  Beth’s mother lay on her back on the narrow bed, eyes closed, bone-colored covers pulled up to her chest. She had that same pasty tone to her skin the old man shuffling down the hallway had, tinged with a hint of faded yellow. Her cheeks were hollow, lips dry and pale, hair completely gray and pulled away from her face. She looked sixty, but he could tell from her features she was probably at least ten years younger—the disease making her seem so much older. He gazed at her face for a few moments. She was asleep, but her expression wasn’t peaceful. He could still see the pain the cancer riddling her body caused. It was the same expression he’d seen on his sister’s face as she slept in that Los Angeles hospital a few years ago, battling lung cancer. Nikki had fought long and hard, but ultimately it had killed her.

  The rest of the small room reminded him of the room he’d met with Dex Kelly in this morning down in Crofton. Stark and uninviting. The floor tiles were gray, as were the walls, ceiling, and drapes. Even the barely touched food on the tray beside the bed looked bland.

  He turned, brushed past Beth, and headed down the corridor back toward the elevators.

  “Chris,” she called. “Christian!”

  ANTONIO BARRADO guided the Boston Whaler along the shallow, narrow canal—thirty feet across at most—bordered by an endless wall of eight-foot-high reeds. Dodging alligators as he roared ahead at thirty knots—their noses and tails visible, sometimes directly in his path. He had only a half hour of light left, and he didn’t want to have to find his way back to the camp in the darkness—he didn’t like it out here at all by himself now that he’d had the other guys with him for a while—and he didn’t want to have to use lights. You never knew who was watching.

  He strained to see through the last dim rays of the sun, looking for that break in the reeds on the left—the last turn on the way to the camp. It was only six or seven feet wide, barely enough to get the boat through, and he’d already missed it a couple of times on the way out here. He’d thought about putting up some sort of indicator—a handkerchief tied to a reed, maybe—to make finding the break easier. But he was worried someone might figure out why it was there and come looking.

  Barrado powered down, easing the throttle back with his right hand, keeping his eyes peeled for the break—and for gators in front of him. Two days ago he’d seen a thirteen-footer near the camp and shot it—not wanting it to steal into one of the crude huts they were using while they were asleep, looking for an easy meal. He wasn’t certain he’d killed it, despite hitting it squarely in the back of the head from close range with a nine-millimeter hollow point. It had thrashed about on the surface wildly for a few seconds, then gone down. He’d heard stories about these things coming after tormentors, and it had stared at him as he’d approached in the boat—not afraid. He winced. Being dragged to the bottom of the canal and rolled by a thirteen-foot alligator would be a horrible way to go.

  A moment too late he spotted the break in the reeds.

  He swung the Whaler back around and carefully guided the bow through the opening, scanning the reeds for snakes that might drop into the boat. On the other side of the break, this canal opened back up to twenty feet. Not as wide as the other one—and it was even shallower—but that was all right. There were no more turns to make. He felt better now. He’d be sure to run into the camp as long as he hugged the right bank.

  He smiled. Only a few more days out here before everything went into motion. Two of them would head into Miami early next week and stay at one of the nice hotels where they’d make final preparations. The other two would stay here to guard the camp, and to prepare.

  Barrado’s eyes narrowed as he came around a bend—the camp was only a few hundred yards away now. He thought he’d seen that monster gator again, but it was almost dark and whatever it was had sunk beneath the surface before he could tell for sure.

  “NOW THAT’S BETTER, ” Christian said, satisfied. “Don’t you think?”

  Beth’s mother, Kathleen, glanced around the room—now decorated with flowers and plants from the shop downstairs—in awe. He’d even bought a game of backgammon and a big jigsaw puzzle at the gift shop, as well as a few magazin
es—to go with the ones on the floor beside her bed.

  “It’s very nice,” she said weakly. “Thank you so much.”

  “Now you can see why I adore this guy,” Beth said, coming up behind Christian and putting her arms around him.

  Christian checked the magazines on the floor beside the bed. All business rags. He recognized himself on the covers of two. Beth hadn’t been kidding. Her mother really had read all about him.

  “I certainly can.” Kathleen motioned for him to come close, took his hands when he got to the side of the bed. “Thank you very much. It feels so much more like home now.”

  “So where is home for you?” Christian asked politely, hoping his agenda wasn’t obvious.

  “Well, I live—” She covered her mouth and began to cough hard.

  “You all right, Mom?”

  Christian backed off as Beth moved in front of him and grasped Kathleen’s fingers. He’d spoken to the doctor on his way back up. Kathleen was in bad shape, but she was hanging in there. There was no telling exactly how long this would go on. Which almost seemed sad, Christian thought. She looked awful. Almost looked as if she’d rather be out of her misery.

  ALLISON GAZED WARILY at the cages of snakes and lizards. It seemed as if they were closer this time, as if the office weren’t as big as she remembered. Maybe it was because everything in her life seemed to be closing in around her.

  “Still not used to them, are you?” Victoria Graham asked from behind her office desk.

  “No.”

  “What’s wrong, dear?”

  Allison glanced out the window into the darkness twenty stories above Fifth Avenue. She couldn’t decide what was bothering her—at least, what was bothering her the most. The fact that Christian had been gone all day and hadn’t told her where he was going. The fact that she’d acted like a child last night, storming out of the 21 Club. The fact that Sherry had told her as she was leaving Everest to come over here tonight that Christian had gone to Baltimore to see the young woman he was apparently dating. The fact that Sherry seemed to know so much about Christian’s schedule lately. Or was it what she was doing for Victoria Graham that bothered her most?

  “I saw that Christian sent out the official announcement about you being promoted to vice chairman,” Graham said happily when Allison didn’t respond. “I got it the other day. That was a good thing.”

  “I guess,” Allison said.

  “Don’t you want to talk about it, dear?”

  “What’s your favorite movie?” Allison did want to talk about Christian seeing a woman who was so much younger than he was, wanted to get Ms. Graham’s opinion about it. Just talk about it with someone. But she didn’t want to seem weak, either. “I told you mine, now you tell me yours.”

  Graham put her head back and laughed. “I told you it was a great question. It’s got you thinking, hasn’t it?”

  Allison nodded. Thinking about how Christian wouldn’t tell her what his favorite movie was, but had probably already told this new woman. Who was gorgeous, according to Sherry. This morning, she’d asked Sherry to describe the girl. Tried not to, tried to keep from asking, but ultimately she couldn’t help herself. She had to know. Short, dark hair, a beautiful figure, awesome legs. Christian had always claimed he was partial to long blond hair.

  “My favorite movie is Sabrina, and not the newer version with Harrison Ford. The older one with Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. I guess I’m just a sucker for a good love story.”

  Me, too, Allison thought. “Are you sure what we’re doing is right?” she asked bluntly. She’d taken Ms. Graham at her word for everything, assumed that she wouldn’t lie. Hoped she hadn’t done all that because Ms. Graham had engineered the vice chairmanship for her and that was clouding her judgment.

  Graham leaned forward, her expression turning grave. “Absolutely. We’ve been over and over this. You know it’s the only way.”

  “But I don’t know if—”

  “It won’t be much longer, dear, but we must stay the course.”

  MELISSA WAVED as Christian and Quentin drove off. She was standing beside her car in the parking lot of the restaurant where the three of them had gone to dinner. An Italian place in Towson, a town outside Baltimore near the hospital. She and Christian had said good-night in front of the restaurant while Quentin had gone to get their car—just a polite kiss on her cheek and a warm embrace. She’d found herself wanting so much more, but how fair was that? She’d basically been hired to spy on him, to make certain they knew his every move. They’d been clear yesterday, too, very clear. If she screwed this up somehow, she wouldn’t just be sacrificing her paycheck.

  She walked across the small area to the car they’d provided her—a Ford Taurus—searching the shadows for any sign of them. But she saw nothing. They wouldn’t be watching her now, wouldn’t want to take any chance that Christian might see them watching.

  She removed the car keys from her purse, unlocked the car, then stopped and banged the roof. She’d been so stupid, asking him what his favorite movie was. She’d seen in his eyes right away that he thought it was a strange question. She’d seen in his eyes that he was connecting the dots. He hadn’t given any indication at the hospital or later at the restaurant that he had connected anything, but you never knew with Christian. He was as cool as they came.

  Melissa felt tears coming to her eyes, real ones this time. Not those crocodile drops she’d shed before. Christian had been so sweet to that poor woman they’d found to play her mother—who really was sick. He’d bought her all those flowers and everything else, made her feel so good. Like the Lionhearted should have done for her mother eight years ago on her deathbed. But, of course, he hadn’t, he’d ignored both of them. He wasn’t a man like Christian Gillette who noticed and cared for those around him. Her father was selfish, completely into himself. Of course, that was 50 percent of who she was so maybe she needed to worry. Maybe that’s why she was willing to screw up Christian’s life in exchange for a few dollars. She swallowed hard. Maybe even take his life. They hadn’t told her yet exactly what this was all about, but if they were threatening her life, it had to be just as serious for him.

  She took a deep breath, thinking about how she’d actually suggested the hospital idea, suggested the whole thing about a dying mother. As a way to really reel Christian in, as a way to dig that barbed hook into his mouth as deeply as it would go. They’d looked at her as if she were crazy when she’d come up with it, as if they couldn’t believe she’d have the emotional strength to pull it off. After all, she’d gone through exactly the same thing eight years ago. But she’d told them she was an actress, an Oscar-winning actress, and that she could pull anything off. Still, they’d shaken their heads. Maybe they were right after all. Maybe it wasn’t just acting, maybe she really was that cold.

  “I hate you, Beth Garrison,” she muttered angrily, unlocking the car door and throwing it open. “I hate you, you bitch.”

  16

  TONIGHT THE SECRET SIX were meeting by the beach where Padilla typically met alone with General Delgado. Padilla had waited until just a few minutes before five this afternoon to drape the paper napkins over the bushes in the park with that single spot of superadhesive glue he always used—which made them stay in place even if a breeze blew in off the ocean. He was always careful to take the napkins off the bushes early the next morning, before he went to the hospital, so the prisoner crews that infrequently sauntered through the park occasionally picking up trash wouldn’t get suspicious and alert their guards. He’d been worried that not everyone would see the signals on the bushes, but they had. All six of them now stood in the darkness beneath the swaying palms that lined the beach like a row of sentinels. The banker, Alanzo Gomez, had been the last to arrive.

  “What was so urgent that we had to meet tonight?” the attorney demanded.

  “It’s going live,” Padilla answered directly, his voice strained. “This is it.”

  More and more Padilla worrie
d about what he’d gotten himself—and his family—into. More and more the romanticism of being part of the Incursion had been replaced by the reality—and a horrible dread. He’d hardly slept in three days—it was as if he were doing his first few weeks of residence again. Every time he closed his eyes his mind conjured up awful images of what might happen if the attorney—or Delgado—turned out to be a spy for the Party and the conspiracy was uncovered. Or if the Incursion didn’t work because the United States didn’t deliver on its promise of support—as it hadn’t at the Bay of Pigs—or not enough of the FAR rank and file turned their allegiance and followed Delgado. He shuddered, thinking about his wife being tortured to death in a prison cell, about his children being slowly and systematically dismembered—fingers and toes first, then arms and legs—over several hours until they bled to death. He’d heard rumors that those were the consequences for the families of men convicted of treason against the state. Suddenly, he was hearing a lot of things like that. Maybe it was just because he was listening more, or maybe somebody was trying to tell him something.

  “It’s all actually starting to happen,” he whispered.

  “When will you meet with Christian Gillette?” the banker asked.

  “In two days.”

  “Where?”

  Padilla glanced at the banker through the night. Now he was asking a lot of questions. Padilla’s shoulders slumped slightly. He hated this, suspecting everyone of turning on him. God, maybe even his wife would turn on him to save the children. “Miami. In a hotel there, I think.”

  “After that it’s here in Cuba, right?” the banker asked. “With all of us and the general. That’s the next meeting, yes?”

  Padilla glanced at the attorney. He was stroking his chin, looking at the ground as if deep in thought. “Yes. We’ll meet at the Cruz ranch that night, then it will be only a day or two later that the Incursion begins.” Padilla gestured at them. “Do you all have your codes?” He was referring to the codes they would need to relay to the U.S. military if they called the emergency numbers on their satellite phones. If they needed to get out quickly because the Incursion was failing. He suddenly realized that those numbers probably wouldn’t be much good at that point. But it was something to hang on to psychologically—which they all needed at this point. At least, five of them did.