by Brad Thor
The two men sat in silence for several moments. The night air was heavy, damp from the marine layer moving in from the coast. The estate’s wrinkled oaks and towering pines swayed like sleeping horses in a neatly manicured pasture.
Behind a long row of brushed aluminum garage doors were several million dollars’ worth of high-end luxury automobiles. In the glass-and-steel house next to it were other expensive toys and priceless pieces of art. Behind the home was a hand-laid mosaic swimming pool, a three-hole golf course, and exotic gardens that would have rivaled anything in ancient Babylon. To most outside observers, the man in the passenger seat had it all, and then some.
Larry Salomon, a handsome fifty-two-year-old movie producer, was the man with the Midas touch, or so said those with short memories who seemed not to recall or not to care about how hard he had worked to get to where he was.
Even the politicians Salomon had hosted at his home for fund-raisers, back before he stopped doing fund-raisers, loved to smile and tell him how easy he had it. Hollywood, they would say, is a petting zoo, compared to the jungles of D.C.
None of them knew what they were talking about. Hollywood was a lot like a Charles Dickens novel. It could be the best of places; it could be the worst of places. Machiavelli, Dante, Shakespeare… all would have felt at home here. Tinseltown was a bustling contradiction.
It was a modern-day Zanzibar; a slave market where souls were bartered, sold, and stolen seemingly on the hour, every hour. It was also a place of incredible genius and beauty, where dreams still came true.
Hollywood was where some of man’s most endearing and compelling stories were told and retold. It was home to a globe-spanning industry that could frighten and terrify, but more important, could uplift and inspire.
Hollywood was a place where one creative mind could join with others to craft something with the ability to affect the lives of millions upon millions of people. It was a place, for most people, where magic was still alive. Unfortunately, and despite his success, Larry Salomon was no longer one of those people.
In his mind, magic was for the woefully naive. “Happily ever after” existed only in fairy tales and of course, their modern-day equivalent, the movies. It was smoke and mirrors, and Salomon knew it all too well.
“Larry?” repeated the man who had driven the movie producer home. “I want to make sure you’re going to be okay.”
“I miss her,” said Salomon.
Luke Ralston put his Porsche in neutral and pulled up the parking brake. He had worked on Salomon’s past six films, and the two men had developed a very deep bond. With his tall, fit frame, rugged features, whitened teeth, and expensive haircut, Ralston looked like he could have been one of the producer’s top actors, if you overlooked the limp that plagued him from time to time.
But Ralston wasn’t an actor. He was what was known in Hollywood parlance as a “technical consultant.” A former Delta Force operative, Ralston used his extensive military experience to make sure Salomon’s actors and actresses looked like they knew what they were doing in their action scenes, especially when those scenes had to do with firearms, hand-to-hand combat, evasive driving, or any number of other tactical situations.
“It’s supposed to get easier,” Salomon continued, staring into space. “That’s what everybody tells you. They tell you to stay strong. But it doesn’t get easier.”
A mist had begun to build on the windshield. The temperature was dropping.
Ralston pondered raising the car’s windows, but decided not to. It would have broken the mood and sent the two men in their separate directions too early. Salomon still needed to talk, so Ralston would sit and listen for as long as it took.
A pronounced silence grew between them. The only sound came from the throb of the GT3’s engine and the water cascading in the fountain. Eventually Salomon spoke. “I think I’ll go inside.”
“Do you want me to come in for a while?”
The older man shook his head. He unlatched his seat belt and searched for the door handle.
Ralston put a hand on his friend’s arm. “Skip the nightcap, Larry. Okay?” The movie producer had already consumed enough alcohol.
“Whatever you say,” the man replied, waving him off. “The guesthouse is free if you want it.”
The younger man looked at his watch. They had left Salomon’s car at the restaurant when it became apparent he wasn’t in a condition to drive. “I’ve got an early morning run with friends,” said Ralston. “I’ll call you when I’m done and we’ll work out getting your car back.”
The producer grasped the handle and opened the door. “Don’t bother. I’ll figure it out,” he said as he climbed out of the car.
There was an edge to Salomon’s voice. He was making the alcohol-induced transition from maudlin to angry.
Ralston shook his head. He shouldn’t have let his friend consume so much booze. But, at the end of the day, that’s what sorrows were meant to be drowned in. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” he asked as the producer shut the car door and began to walk away.
Salomon didn’t bother to turn; he just waved over his shoulder and mounted the steps to the entrance of his home.
Ralston knew him well enough to know that he’d probably go inside and keep drinking. There was little he could do about it. “Try to get some sleep,” he recommended as the producer reached the top of the stairs and opened his etched glass front door.
Ralston waited and watched until his friend was safely inside before putting his Porsche in gear and pulling out of the motor court.
On his way down the winding drive, he wondered if he should turn back. Of all the nights of the year, this was the roughest for Salomon.
Had she not been murdered three years ago, it would have been his daughter Rachael’s twenty-first birthday. Within a year of Rachael’s murder, Larry’s marriage had fallen apart. Losing a child was a pain no parent should ever have to bear, having been abandoned by his spouse in the process was almost too much.
When his wife left him and moved back east, Larry never fully recovered. Though actresses, some very well known, threw themselves at him, he hadn’t been with another woman since. He had no desire. The only thing that had kept him going was his work.
What if this time he does something stupid? Ralston wondered. Alcohol and depression were a very bad combination.
The thought plagued him all the way down to the gate, and probably would have bothered him all the way home, had something else not captured his attention. Tire tracks.
How could there be tire marks on top of his? Ralston slowed down to study the tracks. They were different than those of his Porsche and appeared to have veered off to the left, taking the service drive that led to the rear of the property.
Salomon was one of the few wealthy Hollywood people he knew who didn’t maintain around-the-clock domestic staff. And while it was well after midnight and therefore technically “morning,” it was still too early for landscapers or any of Salomon’s other help to have arrived. Someone had to have come in through the gate behind them. Ralston decided to take a look.
Backing up, he killed his lights and turned onto the service drive. In a town like L.A., where you are what you drive, the red 911 had suited him perfectly. Because of the distinct engine whine, though, this was the first time Ralston ever wished he was driving a whisper-quiet Prius.
The service road was far less dramatic than the estate’s main drive. Instead of a lushly landscaped serpentine approach, it was a boring, blacktopped lane with two switchbacks abutted by cinderblock retaining walls.
After the second switchback, the service road opened up onto a darkened view of the far side of Salomon’s house and the silhouettes of outbuildings that supported the estate.
Ralston brought his Porsche to a stop using the parking brake so as not to illuminate his tail lights and watched. A Ford Econoline van was in the process of turning around so that it was facing back down the service road in the direction from which it had come.
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Its driver killed the headlamps, but left the marker lights illuminated. Ralston waited, but nothing happened. No one got out. No one got in.
He couldn’t help but wonder if he was looking at some sort of getaway vehicle. Was Larry Salomon’s home being burgled?
It didn’t take him long to get tired of waiting. Removing his cell phone, he decided to call Salomon to see if maybe there was some other explanation.
He depressed the speed dial key for Salomon’s cell phone, but the call failed to connect. Scrolling through his address book, he tried the number again, but the call still didn’t go through. Looking at his signal strength, he saw he wasn’t getting any bars at all. He couldn’t remember ever having trouble getting reception up here before.
That was all it took. He’d been taught not to believe in coincidences. Releasing the parking brake, he put his car in gear, and as he did, a very bad feeling began to overtake him.
CHAPTER 4
It was at times like these that Luke Ralston wanted to throttle the State of California for not being more cooperative when it came to the carrying of firearms. Here it was the middle of the night, a strange van had followed his car onto a private gated estate, and he was unarmed. While the van and its driver might have had a completely legitimate reason for being there, he doubted it, and he would have very much appreciated having a weapon right now.
Knowing that if the van and its driver were up to no good they would very likely be armed, Ralston proceeded accordingly.
Speed, surprise, and overwhelming violence of action had been drilled into the very fiber of his DNA in his military career. While he couldn’t preemptively attack the van and its driver, he could take immediate control of the situation by using both speed and surprise.
Increasing his speed, he turned on his headlights, engaged the high beams, and raced toward the van.
At that moment, the driver leaped from the van with what appeared to be a shotgun. Ralston pinned the accelerator to the floor.
The weapon exploded with a roar and a round slammed into the front of Ralston’s Porsche. The shooter had been aiming at the headlights. Big mistake.
Ralston continued to pick up speed, aiming right for the driver. As the man pumped his weapon to chamber another round, Ralston killed his lights-plunging the man’s dilated eyes into darkness.
All the shooter could do was aim for the sound of the car that was barreling down on him, which is exactly what happened.
Whether the driver of the van was just that good, or just that lucky, Ralston had no idea, but his second shot exploded with another booming roar and tore a hole right through the windshield. Buckshot would have deflected off the glass. Whoever was shooting at him must have been using slugs. Ralston didn’t need to look over to know that the seat next to him was shredded. A few more inches to the left and he would have been shredded as well.
With the 911’s engine screaming, Ralston readied himself for what was about to happen.
Flipping his lights and high beams back on, he once again flooded the shooter’s eyes with light. There was the roar of the shotgun once more, but it was the last thing the man did before the right front quarter of Ralston’s car struck the man’s lower body.
Rather than being thrown clear, the large man was pulled halfway beneath the car. Ralston fought to maintain control. As if guided by some unseen force that wanted to raise the car and snatch the body from underneath the suspension, the Porsche’s right side tilted up, and Ralston thought for sure the car was going to flip. But just as it had begun to rise, it slammed back down.
Ralston maintained a death grip on the Porsche’s steering wheel as he tried to regain control.
It wasn’t until the car spun through the wet grass and slammed into the side of one of the outbuildings that the horror finally came to a stop. But as that horror ended, a new one began.
Unbuckling his seat belt, Ralston struggled to get out of the car. It was a mess. Adrenaline and fear coursed through his body.
What sounded like a muffled gunshot from inside the house suddenly refocused his mind on the threat that still remained.
It was pointless to waste time searching for the driver’s shotgun. Without a flashlight the chances of rapidly locating it were slim to none. The odds were the same for finding a secondary weapon somewhere in the van. Ralston took off in a sprint. He had to get up to the house and save Salomon.
Whoever was inside had undoubtedly heard the noise of the melee out on the service road. Whether any neighbors in this remote part of the canyon had heard the shotgun blasts and had called the police didn’t matter. By the time they arrived, whatever was happening here would be over. If Salomon was still alive inside, his attackers were going to be doubly determined to complete their objective and to get the hell out. That meant Ralston had to move fast.
Often, high-end home invasions were “inside jobs,” where the perpetrators had firsthand knowledge of the layout of the home. They were able to move quickly, knowing where everything and everyone would be. The one thing these home invaders wouldn’t be prepared for was Ralston, and Ralston knew the layout of the Salomon home well.
Based on where the van had turned around, it was obvious that whoever was inside had been dropped off at or near the home’s service entrance. Add one more point to the inside job column. Approaching the door, he saw that it had been propped open. It seemed that not only was this the way in, but it was also going to be the way out.
The good thing about the door having been propped open was that the alarm, which Salomon never bothered to arm, would have already sounded its quick, three-bell chime. No one heard Ralston as he slipped inside the house.
Near the service entrance was a utility room the size of a small family apartment. Here, all of the home’s mechanics were housed, including eight panels of circuit breakers.
Ralston cut the power, plunging the house into darkness. Once his eyes adjusted, he went for a weapon.
He could have used a golf club, but he preferred something he was more proficient with. In the kitchen, he found exactly what he wanted. It was the perfect tool-not too long, not too short, and incredibly sharp. He pulled the seven-inch fillet knife from the knife block and moved on.
Coming around the corner of the large island in the kitchen, he found what he assumed to be the victim of the muted shot he had heard from outside. He was relieved to see that it wasn’t Salomon.
In his midtwenties, in jeans, a T-shirt, and a pair of Chuck Taylors, he looked like a college kid. Ralston had never seen him before. Who the hell was he? he wondered. A friend? A visiting relative? An employee?
The boy had been shot through the bridge of his nose, right between his eyes. He was lying in a puddle of milk commingling with his own blood. An upturned bowl of cereal lay nearby. Ralston reached down to double-check him. He had no pulse, but was still warm.
Moving quickly, he crossed the kitchen and moved into the darkened dining room. From what he could tell, nothing was out of place. Salomon’s expensive pieces of art still hung on the walls and his box of antique silverware was still proudly displayed on the sideboard. That fact, coupled with the professionalism with which the boy in the kitchen had been dispatched, was making this look less and less like a home invasion and more and more like some sort of hit.
The thought was just solidifying in his mind, when Ralston heard someone step on the warped floorboard that Salomon had never bothered to get fixed.
CHAPTER 5
Ralston’s breathing all but stopped. Making sure he didn’t bang into any of the dining-room furniture and give himself away, he slipped across the room as fast as he could to the open double doors on the other side. Pressing himself against the wall, he gripped the knife tighter and waited.
He didn’t have to wait long. From out in the hallway, he could hear a man’s voice. He was whispering and in some sort of a foreign language. It sounded to Ralston like Eastern European, maybe Russian, but he couldn’t be sure.
When the man repeated himself, Ralston realized he was speaking over a radio. Was he trying to raise the driver outside? Or were there more men inside the house?
Either way, it wasn’t good. Ralston needed to get to Salomon. He could hear the man’s footfalls upon the wood floor of the hallway growing closer.
Ralston had two choices. He could face the man head-on, or he could wait until the man had passed and take him from behind. Shots had been fired and at least one person inside the house had already been killed. Ralston was literally bringing a knife to a gunfight, so he slipped off his shoes and settled on the latter course of action. Three seconds later, the man moved past the dining room doors.
He was huge-just as the man outside had been-six-foot-three, at least, and well over 250 pounds. He had wide shoulders, draped in what even the home’s semidarkness couldn’t hide was a very cheap suit. His feet were shod in the long, box-toed dress shoes so popular with Europeans. In one hand he carried a radio and in the other a suppressed pistol.
His hair was crew-cut short and the back of his head looked just like a Russian’s. From the base of his neck to the crown of his head, it was flat as a board. It was a cultural attribute that most Russian men, tightly swaddled and picked up seldom by their mothers, shared.
As the Russian passed, Ralston slipped into the hallway behind him. The intruder had no idea he was there until it was too late.
In one fluid motion, Ralston grabbed across the man’s forehead, yanked his head to the left, and with his right hand plunged the filleting knife into the anterior triangle between the top of the clavicle and the side of the neck. It severed the man’s internal jugular vein and carotid artery. He then swept the blade across, severing the trachea. All that could be heard was a hiss, like air being let out of a tire.
Ralston put all of his weight on the man to prevent him from using his last seconds of life to fight back and rode him down to the floor. Convinced he was no longer a threat, he dragged him off to the side, next to a cupboard, and left him there to bleed out.