by Stuart Woods
“The Farm.”
“Yes. He did extraordinarily well there, learned many skills, seemed made for covert work, the wet kind. Then he killed another trainee. With his hands.”
“So why isn’t he at your little establishment in Leavenworth?”
“Claimed it was self-defense; a couple of witnesses backed him up. Another witness claimed he provoked the other guy, but he got through the investigation and was returned to training. Less than a month later, he got into a fight with an instructor and got his ass kicked, but when the instructor was walking away, Jack Jeff picked up a board and fractured the man’s skull. This time, he got the boot. The Corps didn’t want him back, so a general discharge was arranged, and Jack Jeff vanished into the hinterland. Five weeks later the instructor whose head he had broken had a seizure, collapsed and died. Apparently, too much time had elapsed between the original injury and the death to prove murder, and anyway, our boy was gone. The Agency never heard of him again, until now.”
“What were some of those skills he picked up at the Farm?”
“Hand-to-hand combat, explosives, weapons, communications, document forgery, the opening of locks and safes, the bypassing of alarms of all sorts and how to create false identities and cover his tracks. Among others. He was there for nine months.”
“Everything a boy needs to know to carve out a criminal career for himself.”
“Everything but experience. He got that over the next decade and a half, doing the con jobs that we know about and, probably, a lot that we haven’t discovered, yet. Apparently, he didn’t kill anybody until the hooker at your house, but we can’t be sure of that. Are you at your place in a nearby state? I’ll send some people up to watch you.”
“Don’t bother; we’re doing just fine.”
“You took Arrington with you? What about her child?”
“Him, too. Look, Lance, we’re okay. There’s no way Billy Bob could know about this place.”
“How about the little piece about your house in Architectural Digest two years ago?”
Stone felt ill. “How would he run across that?”
“How’d you find out about Billy Bob’s past?”
“Google. That’s a long shot.”
“It’s how I found you.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Exactly. You must learn that working for us entitles you to certain protections.”
“I suppose you want to put us in the Agency’s Protect Your Consultant’s Ass program and ship us off to Omaha, or someplace?”
“Tell the truth, I’d rather send a team up there and hope Jack Jeff shows up.”
“You want to turn us into bait?”
“Bait is alive. Corpses are dead.”
“All right, but can you do it without Arrington noticing?”
“I can do it without you noticing.”
“I’d rather notice.”
“If you see a very Irish-looking fellow—thirtyish, red haired, red faced, chunky—he’s mine. Name of McGonigle. There’ll be others. McGonigle is all you need to notice.”
“All right, when?”
“They’re already on their way.”
“Are you going to tell the local cops? You don’t want to get them rousted.”
“I’ve been in touch with them. I trust you are now armed?”
“To the teeth.”
“Don’t let Arrington or the boy go anywhere without you. The team won’t be as effective, if they have to split up.”
“Oh, there’s a nanny, too, Swedish, name of Ilsa.”
“Keep everybody close. If there are errands to be run, send Ilsa. I’ll let McGonigle know about her. Oh, there was one other piece of information, goes to the motive of our boy.”
“What’s that?”
“You remember a little German man named Mitteldorfer?”
“Oh, Christ, yes.” Stone and Dino had sent him to prison, and, once out, he’d made repeated attempts to kill them.
“There’s a nexus: Jack Jeff has visited him a number of times in prison, using other names. We’ve no idea how they first made contact, but apparently, he’s annoyed with you at having Mitteldorfer put away a second time.”
“Yeah, he kept trying to kill us. Get some people on Dino, too, will you?” Stone said.
“I’ll do that. Talk to you later.”
“Lance?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.” But Lance had already hung up.
Stone drove on to the wine shop, but he hurried. He returned to find the house still quiet. Even Ilsa wasn’t making any noise in the kitchen.
He went in there to put the wine in the kitchen rack, and Ilsa was still sitting at the kitchen table, where she had been shelling peas, but now, she had fallen asleep, her head on the table.
Stone put away the wine and went to wake her, then he stopped, confused. She had been shelling peas, not cutting tomatoes. There were no tomatoes for dinner. Still, there was a lot of tomato juice on the kitchen table, and some had spilled onto the floor. He walked slowly around the table and saw where the red came from.
Ilsa’s throat had been cleanly, surgically cut.
40
STONE TOOK his 9mm from the holster on his belt, looked into the hallway, saw no one, then slipped out of his shoes and ran silently up the stairs, two at a time, his heart pounding, steeling himself for more gore. His bedroom door was open. He put his back against one side of the door, listened for a moment, then went in, ready for anything. The bed was empty, its covers mussed. Arrington’s shoes were still sitting neatly at one side.
He ran to Peter’s room. The door was closed. He put his ear to it and listened, heard a murmur and the squeak of bedsprings. He looked through the keyhole and saw a hand hanging over the side of the bed, then he quietly opened the door and looked in. Peter was sleeping on his stomach, undisturbed. He closed the door quietly and checked Ilsa’s room and the rest of the upstairs. Nothing, no one.
Stone started back down the stairs, then stopped. Through the glass pane of the upper door, behind the wrought-iron grillwork, lit from behind by a streetlamp, was the silhouette of a man. The man cupped his hands around his eyes and peered through the front door, then moved away.
Stone ran down the stairs, opened the door, and, his weapon at the ready, looked around. The man was now peering through the kitchen window.
“Freeze!” Stone said, not too loudly, as he didn’t know if the man was alone. The man straightened up from the window. “Hands on top of your head,” Stone said. The man complied. “Turn and face me.”
The man turned, and the light from the kitchen window illuminated his face, which was red. So was his hair.
“I’m from Lance,” he said. “My name’s McGonigle.”
“Come here,” Stone said, still holding the gun on him.
McGonigle approached, his hands still on his red head.
“Show me some ID.”
McGonigle produced a leather wallet with an ID card.
“Inside,” Stone said. “You can relax.”
McGonigle stepped inside the house, and Stone closed the door behind them.
“What’s wrong with the woman in the kitchen?” McGonigle asked.
“Her throat has been cut,” Stone said.
McGonigle’s voice remained calm. “Anybody else hurt?”
“Arrington Calder has been lifted. Her son, Peter, is still upstairs, asleep. They apparently didn’t know he was in the house.”
McGonigle nodded. “Have you spoken to Lance?”
“Fifteen minutes ago. I was on my way into the village to pick up some wine when he called.”
McGonigle produced a cell phone.
“It won’t work here,” Stone said. “With the exception of a few spots, Washington is pretty much a dead zone. There’s a phone in the kitchen, on the wall, at the end of the counter.”
“I think you can put the gun away,” McGonigle said. “They’re gone.”
“Billy Bob won’t be happy unti
l he has me, too.”
“That’s why he took the woman when he didn’t find you here. He can take you at his leisure, now. He knows you’ll come to him, when he wants you.” McGonigle went into the kitchen and used the phone to call Lance. They talked for a minute, then McGonigle called out, “Stone, he wants to talk to you.”
Stone went into the kitchen, trying not to look at Ilsa, and took the phone. “Yes, Lance?”
“I’m sorry we were too late,” Lance said.
“Thanks for trying.”
“Billy Bob didn’t know about the boy; that’s good.”
“Yes.”
“First things first. I’ll have to notify the local authorities; a civilian is dead. I’ll ask them to be discreet. I’ll also call the Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York State Police and ask them to put out a bulletin on Arrington.”
“Thanks.”
“As soon as you’re done with the police I want you and the boy to go with McGonigle and his people. We can’t leave you there.”
“All right.”
“Pack some things for both of you.”
“All right. You haven’t said that we’ll get Arrington back.”
“I don’t have to tell you why.”
“No, I guess you don’t.”
“We’ll get you through this,” Lance said.
“Goodbye.” Stone hung up.
“Why don’t you go upstairs and pack,” McGonigle said. “I’ll call you when the local cops arrive.”
“All right.” Stone went upstairs and put some clean clothes into a bag, then went to Peter’s room and packed for him without waking him. When he came back downstairs, there was a uniformed Connecticut State Trooper sergeant standing in the hall.
“Mr. Barrington? My name’s Coll.” He offered his hand.
Stone took it. “Sergeant.”
“I’m the local law. You want to give me your account of what happened?”
Stone did so, while Coll took notes.
“Thank you, I think that will do it. My people will take over here, now. You can go with Mr. McGonigle.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ve got a van out front,” McGonigle said.
Stone went back upstairs and thought of waking Peter, but he remembered how he had slept when he was that age. He picked up the boy, wrapped him in a blanket and walked downstairs with him. “Will you get our bags and his coat from upstairs?” Stone asked McGonigle.
“Sure.”
He went outside and got into the van. Another man and a woman were already inside.
“I’m Corey, he’s Tucci,” the woman said. Tucci backed the van into the street and drove away. “We’ll be there in ten minutes,” Corey said. “It’s where we had planned to stay.”
Stone held Peter against him, the sleeping boy’s head on his shoulder. They drove through the village, in then out, then back, obviously checking for a tail. A few minutes later they turned into a driveway.
“I’m going to get out and open the door,” Corey said. “When I’ve checked out the place, I’ll call you, and you get Peter inside quickly.” She got out of the van, and a moment later came back.
“All right.”
Stone got out of the van and ran to the open door of the house. Inside, he was directed upstairs.
“You can put Peter in the first bedroom,” Corey said. “Let’s let him sleep.”
Stone put the boy to bed and came back into the hallway.
“In here,” Corey said.
He walked into a kitchen, and beyond that was a nicely furnished living room. The shades were all drawn. “Where are we?”
“We’re in the carriage house of the Rocks, the house next door to you. The owner is away, but he’s acquainted with Lance, so we’re all right for as long as necessary. We have half a dozen people watching this place and your house, in case they come back for you. We can hope that happens, because it will make it easier for us to find them.”
Stone nodded and sat down.
“Have you had anything to eat?” Corey asked.
“I’m not hungry. Peter will be when he wakes up, though.”
“We’ve got some groceries; I’ll make some soup.” She busied herself in the kitchen.
A moment later, Peter walked into the room, rubbing his eyes. “Where are we?” he asked. “Where are Mom and Ilsa?”
“Come in and sit down,” Stone said. “We had a call that someone in Ilsa’s family is ill in Sweden, and she had to go home. Your mom has gone with her, to help her.”
“That doesn’t sound like Mom,” Peter said.
“She’ll be back next week sometime. In the meantime, you and I are going to stay here.”
“Where are we?”
“In the house next door to mine. We had a pipe break over there, and there’s water all over the place, so we moved over here, to a friend’s house.”
Peter looked around. “I don’t like this as well as your house.”
“Neither do I,” Stone said, “but we’ll be comfortable here until my house is fixed.”
“Hi, Peter,” Corey said. “I’m Annie; I’m a friend of Stone’s.”
“How do you do, Annie?” Peter said. He sat down and began to eat the soup she had put in front of him.
Stone tried to eat, too, and mostly failed. He had never felt so helpless.
41
THERE WERE FOUR bedrooms in the place, and they put Stone in the one next to Peter’s. It was windowless and not well ventilated, and Stone slept fitfully until nearly daylight, then he finally drifted off. He was aware of people coming and going in the flat; apparently there was another place downstairs, so there was plenty of room.
He finally came fully awake a little after 9 A.M. and lay there, thinking, going over every moment he had spent with Billy Bob, or Jack Jeff, or whoever the hell he was. Everything the man had told him was either a lie or invented to back up a lie, and the invented things—the phone numbers in Dallas and Omaha—would be gone and the people who answered them gone, too, and probably impossible to find. Billy Bob’s apartments in New York had already been thoroughly searched; Lance would have run down whatever Billy Bob had told the rental company who supplied the Hummer and driver; and Lance would have people tracking the Jack Jeff Kight name, but that would take time, and he didn’t have time. Sooner, rather than later, Billy Bob would reel him in with a threat to Arrington, and the best he could hope for in such a meeting is that he and not Arrington would be murdered. It didn’t seem an attractive prospect.
He called Joan at home.
“Where are you?” Joan asked. “I’ve been trying you at the Connecticut house and on your cell phone, but I couldn’t get an answer on either.”
“We had to leave the Connecticut house, but I can’t come back to New York, yet, and I still don’t want you to go to the house.”
“There’s a strange phone message on the answering machine,” she said. “I erased a couple of others that don’t matter, but you should listen to this one yourself. I didn’t understand it.”
“I’ll call now.”
“Where can I reach you?”
“I’ll call you every day. Bye-bye.” He hung up and dialed his New York number, then entered the code for the answering machine.
“Hey, Stone,” Billy Bob’s voice said. “I figured you’d check in for your messages sooner or later. We ought to get together real soon, because Arrington isn’t eating, and I don’t know how long she can last. Here she is.” There was a scuffling sound, and Arrington came on. “Don’t look for me,” she said quickly, “just get out.” This was followed by the sound of flesh striking flesh, and a cry, then Billy Bob came on. “Well, she doesn’t really seem herself today. The girl’s a good lay, though, if you tie her down. I’m going to let you think about that for a little while, then I’ll call this number again and leave you some instructions. If you don’t follow them explicitly, I’ll send you Arrington’s head in the mail. See ya!” He hung up.
Stone took deep
breaths, trying not to feel what Billy Bob wanted him to feel. That had been the point of the message, and Stone had to fight it.
He had one other, very tenuous idea. He went to the living-room phone, where Corey couldn’t hear him, and called Dino.
“Bacchetti.”
“It’s Stone.”
“Lance told me; you okay?”
“Yes, considering.”
“I’ve sent Mary Ann and Ben out to Eduardo’s house; they’ll be safe. Is Arrington’s boy all right?”
“Yes. I told him his mother went to Sweden with the nanny. I’m not sure he bought it, but he’s not asking too many questions yet.”
“You heard anything?”
“I had a message on my answering machine, designed to shake me up and make me pliable.”
“Let’s get the fucker together; why should Lance have all the fun?”
“I had a thought; it’s a long shot, but . . .”
“Tell me.”
“A few months ago, the burglar alarm was acting up, and Bob Cantor came by to fix it. He did the original installation.” Bob Cantor was an ex-cop who supplied technical services to Stone when he needed them.
“Yeah, Bob’s good.”
“I was standing there, and when he finished and buttoned up the system, he wiped it down very carefully, and I asked him why. He said he wanted it clean, so that if anybody ever tampered with it, he could lift his prints.”
“Yeah, Bob’s careful.”
“Billy Bob, or someone who works for him, tampered with it last week, and one of Lance’s people came to fix it. That means that the prints of two people could be somewhere either on the alarm system box or on the main telephone box. Can you get somebody over there and see what you can lift from those two pieces of equipment?”
“Right away.”
“If you find prints and run them, there’ll probably be a government block on Lance’s man, but the other guy’s might get us a name, and that’s a start.”
“I’ll get on it. Where can I call you?”
“I’ll call you. And you can always reach me by leaving a message on the machine in Turtle Bay.”