The Deadliest Game

by Hal Ross

  He reclaimed his seat. His head began to throb. A quick nap would be nice, he was thinking, just as Castaway returned.

  “Here,” she said, handing him an envelope.

  Opening it, he found an airline ticket to Tel Aviv. He placed it on the table.

  An awkward moment passed between them.

  Castaway came to his side. She touched his shoulder in a provocative way. Then she told him that he must hold on to the ticket.

  He began to wonder what would happen next. If her sweater would come off in a slow tease.

  “You and I must reach an understanding,” she said.

  He purposely played dumb. “What do you mean?”

  “Your return trip to Israel.”

  “I’ll let you know,” he said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get out of here.”

  Castaway’s face sagged. “You can’t leave yet.”

  “I want my daughter back.”

  “You will get her back, after this is over.”

  “No. I want her back now, before I consider helping you.”

  “Blair, I explained that this isn’t possible.”

  He noticed the change to a first-name basis. “Too bad, then,” he said as he stood.

  “Listen to reason. Please?”

  “I’ve listened to enough reason,” he said.

  Still unsteady on his feet, Blair entered the corridor. He headed in the direction opposite to the one they’d taken earlier.

  “You’ll need a key to get out,” Castaway advised.

  That stopped him.

  “But I can’t let you go yet,” she said.

  He held his ground, told her he was leaving whether she liked it or not.

  She looked daggers his way. Then, like a chameleon, she quickly changed back to her more pleasant persona. “Have a seat in the kitchen. I’ll see about your release.”

  “I’ll wait here.” He indicated the empty hallway.

  “But there’s nowhere to sit.”

  “I like standing.”

  Her sigh was close to a groan.

  When she returned some ten minutes later, there was a burly character with her, all neck and shoulders. “We’ll have to blindfold you,” he said.

  Blair didn’t comment. He didn’t want to lose his nerve or to have them gain theirs. The blindfold went on and he was led up a flight of stairs. Along a hallway and finally outside. The blindfold loosened a little and he was able to catch a partial glimpse of the exterior of the house. Unusual brown brick. Black-framed windows with shutters. And an address ending with the digits 7-5-6.

  They guided him into the backseat of a car.

  The ride was quick; less than five minutes. No one spoke. They came to a stop and he was asked to get out. “Do not remove the blindfold for sixty seconds,” Castaway warned.

  He counted to ten before ripping it off.

  Blair observed his surroundings.

  He was close to the East River. He caught the name of the street he was on as well as the one on the opposite corner.

  He began to walk, keeping his eyes peeled for a cab. It was late afternoon. The sun was barely visible in the clouds. Before he could go a hundred paces, he heard his name being called.

  “Don’t turn around,” John Dalton said.

  He turned.

  The agent’s appearance surprised him. Gone was his suit and tie, replaced by blue jeans and sweater. His always-perfect hair was disheveled. And his dark eyes, usually cold and penetrating, now seemed to have softened somewhat.

  “Blair,” Dalton said, “I need you to pretend you don’t know me.”

  He refused to cooperate.

  “This is serious.”

  “So is kidnapping my daughter.”

  “We didn’t kidnap her.”

  “I want an explanation, John.”

  “All right. You’ll get one. But I need you to keep moving. Both our lives are at stake.”

  He didn’t believe him. But he brought his eyes forward and began to walk.

  “They are getting close,” the agent said, keeping a few paces behind. “Should anything happen to me, you are to work with Rena Castaway. She has your best interest—”

  Suddenly, gunfire rang out.

  “Run!” Dalton shouted.

  Blair’s pulse spiked. He had no idea where the shots were coming from. He was just scouring the rooftops, when a bullet whizzed past.

  Dalton groaned, stumbled, and went down.

  Blair bent over him.

  “Save yourself,” the agent breathed.

  The gunfire was getting closer.

  He didn’t want to leave Dalton alone. He searched the man’s waist and found his gun. He’d never handled a weapon in his life. Blair’s hands were of average size. But the gun felt awkward when he palmed it.

  There were two shooters that he could see. And they were gaining ground. He took aim above their heads and pulled the trigger. The impact blew him back on his butt.

  “You mustn’t let them catch you,” Dalton barely whispered.

  Blair rolled onto his side, uncertain what to do next.

  The sight of the two men retreating made up his mind for him. That, as well as the car just coming into view, the same one that had transported him a few minutes ago. He could make out Rena Castaway, seated in the front passenger seat.

  He dropped the gun.

  Then he rose to his feet, turned, and ran.

  CHAPTER 33

  He unlocked the door to his condo, hurried into the kitchen, and removed a highball glass. He barely had it in his hand when the glass fell and shattered on the floor.

  Blair stood for a moment, shaking his head.

  He cleaned up as many of the broken pieces he could find, then reached into the cupboard for another glass. He filled it with ice, poured the Scotch and, holding on with both hands, dragged himself into the den. He took a seat on the sofa, gulped the liquor, then began to replay the shooting of John Dalton. There was a surreal feel to it. He knew it had happened and that he was involved, but it was almost as if it had happened to someone else.

  He quickly finished his drink, leaned back on the sofa, and closed his eyes. He was half asleep when the doorbell rang. He heard the ringing but willed it to go away. Only when it persisted did he force himself to his feet. He approached the intercom and pressed the buzzer.

  It didn’t take long for Rena Castaway to reach his door. She seemed overcome with emotion. He barely had time to greet her when she fell into his arms. “Thank God you’re unharmed,” she said.

  “Rena—” He tried to pull away.

  “Shh,” she muttered, holding on for dear life.

  He wormed out of her embrace. “How is John?” he asked.

  “John?”

  “Yes. How is he?”

  “…dead.”

  “Dead?” Blair rocked back on his heels.

  “Yes,” she said. “That’s why I was so worried about you.” She began to cry.

  Blair didn’t know how to react. John Dalton was not someone he could ever like. But to be killed this way, gunned down on the street. It shook him more than he would have thought possible.

  “May I come in?” Castaway asked.

  He’d forgotten they were still standing in the entranceway. “Sorry,” he said. He waved her in and closed the door behind her. “Would you like something to drink?”

  “No, thank you.”

  He retrieved his glass in the den. Then he led the way into the kitchen, where he invited Castaway to have a seat.

  He sat down opposite her at the table.

  “Please take this,” she said, very businesslike.

  He opened the envelope and found a card with her direct line listed. And the same airline ticket she had offered him before.

  “Your flight leaves at the end of the week,” Castaway explained. “You will ask a personal favor of Jeremy Samson. We just need him to slice off the mini DVDs to OTE.”

  Blair shook his head in exasperation. “It won
’t work,” he said. “Don’t you get it? Jeremy turned me down.”

  “Tell him your bank insists upon it.”

  “I’ve already tried that.”

  “We need you to catch the El Al flight,” Castaway said, ignoring his comments. “These people suspect we are close. If they are desperate enough to shoot down one of our agents, there is no telling what else they might do. Let Jeremy know that your bank will cancel your company’s line of credit unless he comes through for you.”

  He no longer had the will to resist. But the thought dawned on him that he could use this opportunity as leverage. “I will agree, but on one condition,” he said. “I want my daughter to make the trip with me. You can drop her off here, before my flight, or at the airport. I don’t care which. But I will not go without her.”

  “That can’t happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because—” She paused.

  “Look,” he said, “either Sandra comes with me to Israel or I don’t go. It’s as simple as that.”

  Castaway began to pace the room, the minutes passing in awkward silence.

  “Well?” he finally pushed.

  “All right,” she said. “We’ll have your daughter at the airport.”

  The phone rang a few minutes after she had left. He picked it up in the bedroom.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you,” his ex-wife said in an obviously irate frame of mind. “Why haven’t you answered my calls?”

  He couldn’t tell her the truth. “I was traveling,” he said.

  “Traveling? While your daughter is being held? Some father you turned out to be.”

  “Mandy—”

  “You have twenty-four hours. If I don’t have Sandra back by then, I will hit you with the biggest, goddamn lawsuit you’ve ever seen in your life! For child endangerment, if nothing else! Capisce?”

  He couldn’t blame her for being upset. “Just hold on for a while longer,” he pleaded.

  “I will,” Mandy said defiantly. “For twenty-four hours.”

  Blair went to the bathroom, where he made the mistake of peeking in the mirror. His eyes were blackened, his nose swollen. A welt on his cheek left the surrounding skin discolored.

  After washing his hands, he headed into the den. He picked up his BlackBerry and dialed Lisa’s number.

  “I’m free tonight,” she told him once he got her on the line.

  “I can’t tonight,” he said.

  “Oh? Why not?”

  “Too much work to do.”

  “At home?”

  “Uh-huh. I have to go back to Israel. Something urgent came up. But I won’t be gone long. And then you’ll be able to see me as often as you’d like.” Once the damage to my face has cleared up, he neglected to say.

  “Promise?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  Blair turned on the TV. He flipped the channel to CNN. He was curious to see if John Dalton’s murder made the news. After watching for several minutes, he switched to the other networks: NBC, CBS, ABC. There was no late breaking story. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  A vision of his daughter popped into his head. He wanted to send her a telepathic message. He wanted to let her know that her daddy was thinking about her, that very soon they would be reunited.

  He hoped and prayed…

  CHAPTER 34

  “Blair, it’s about Mom,” his sister, Cynthia, was saying on the phone. “I don’t mean to alarm you, but she’s taken a turn for the worse.”

  He steadied himself. “How much worse?”

  “She’s not going to die, if that’s what you’re asking. But her lucid moments are becoming far less frequent.”

  “Shit!”

  “Sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you. I just thought you’d like to know.”

  “It’s no bother at all. I’m glad that you called.” He paused.

  All day long he’d been racking his brain for someone he could turn to for advice. His ex-wife was adversarial. Jeremy Samson was his best friend. But he, more than anyone else, was involved in this situation, whether he realized it or not. Andrew Sciascia, his lawyer and another friend, was a good guy, though Blair didn’t believe they were sufficiently close. So that left only one prospect. Why not turn to his sister? If he went to Montreal he could visit his mother, then spend time with Cynthia. He would confide in her. She would have a different perspective on things.

  “Blair?” she was saying now.

  “I’m here.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  Go for it, he told himself. “Look, how would you feel about my driving up there? If I leave early tomorrow morning, I can be at your place by mid-to-late afternoon.”

  “Really? That would be wonderful.”

  “Okay,” he said. “If there’s any delay, I’ll call you. Oh—” He caught himself. “One more thing. Make dinner arrangements at Gibby’s for us.”

  “Gibby’s? Isn’t that a little extravagant?”

  “No problem. You deserve it. See you tomorrow, Cyn.”

  He was on the road the next morning before six.

  Some three and a half hours later, he was driving through the Adirondacks. The clouds had darkened and a light hail was beginning to fall, making the condition of the road precarious.

  He questioned his decision to drive instead of fly. But he had lost faith in air travel, the hassle it had become.

  A Daughtry song came on the radio. It was the second week of May but many of the farms Blair passed still evidenced a light blanketing of snow.

  He was getting closer to Canada.

  When his sister opened the door to her apartment, a bachelor pad in the Montreal suburb of Notre Dame de Grace, Blair was taken aback by her weight. The moment they embraced, however, he realized how much he missed her. And that was all that mattered.

  She held him at arm’s length. “My God, what happened to you, Blair? Your face…”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Nothing? Not only your face. It looks like you lost twenty pounds. Tell me your secret. I could use a little weight loss myself … as you can see.” She did a pirouette. “But never mind. With the crappy weather just about gone, I’ll start jogging again. It’s the damn winter that does this to me. Too friggin’ cold to do anything.”

  They gave each other another hug.

  His sister liked to talk and for once Blair found it therapeutic. He became lost in such mundane topics as their cousins and their kids, everything that had happened to them in the past six months or so. These were not thumbnail sketches, by any means.

  Then Cynthia mentioned the man she was dating, a fireman. She wasn’t in love, she said. But her relationship with the guy was the next best thing.

  Blair observed that even with her added weight, his sister was still attractive. Over five feet, five inches tall, blonde hair cut short. Smooth, wrinkle-free skin. Her face was only marred by the Mulligan curse, the start of a double chin.

  “Where’s your bag?” Cynthia asked. “I thought you were staying over?”

  He moved into the foyer. And his heart sank. “It’s in the car,” he said. “I’ll get it later.”

  Disposophobia was the clinical term for her condition, an obsessive-compulsive disorder that caused her to hoard newspapers and magazines, shoes, clothing, and everything in between. But to Blair, “hoard” wasn’t sufficiently descriptive.

  Cynthia’s apartment was designed in an open style. But its concept was defeated by the columns of unwanted goods. They were piled almost to the ceiling. Along the walls in the foyer. In the kitchen. Throughout the hallway.

  She caught his expression. “Don’t say it,” she said.

  “I thought you had it under control,” he admonished.

  “Blair…”

  He didn’t want to criticize. But it hurt him to see that Cynthia wasn’t getting any better.

  “Do you want to wash up before we head out?” his sister asked a few minutes later. “You must be exhausted from the
drive. Can I get you a drink?”

  He gave her arm a squeeze. “It’s so good to see you,” he said.

  She placed her hands on his shoulders. “Good to see you, too. But you are troubled, my brother. I can see it in your eyes. Blair, we don’t have to go out. I made a reservation at Gibby’s, like you requested, but I can cancel it.”

  “No, no, Gibby’s is fine,” he said, “but let’s leave now, so we can spend some time with Mom.”

  Cynthia nodded. “Okay. My car or yours?”

  On the rare occasions he had allowed his sister to drive, he’d felt in need of a tranquilizer. “We’ll take mine,” he said.

  Blair knew that Montreal was an easy city in which to get around. Especially in May. If this were mid-summer, road construction on most major routes would likely have been slowing traffic to a crawl.

  From N.D.G., he took Cote des Neiges. They entered the downtown core some ten minutes later. A few turns and they were parked at the special-care facility that housed their mother.

  Cynthia led the way inside the converted three-story office building. There was a strong antiseptic smell in the air. Nurses and doctors were speaking in hushed tones. The reception area was painted an austere shade of gray.

  “Est’ce que je peux vous aider?” a woman in her mid-sixties, wearing a form-fitting off-white dress, called to them from the lone desk. “Ah, Cynthia,” she caught herself. “Je m’excuse. Je ne vous ai pas vu.” She indicted toward Blair. “Et c’est ton frère, j’imagine?”

  “Oui,” Cynthia said. Then she switched to English. “Blair, meet Monique. Monique, Blair.”

  He approached the desk and shook the woman’s hand. This was not the same receptionist he’d met the last time he had visited. “C’est un plaisir,” he said, enjoying the use of what little French he still remembered.

  “The pleasure is all mine,” Monique said in perfect English.

  Her smile was infectious. And it dawned on Blair how charming most French Canadian women were, no matter their age or status in life.

  “I guess you’ve come to visit your mother,” Monique said. “Let me call someone who will bring you to her.” She reached for the phone.