The Golden Kill

by Marc Olden

  “I get your point. A photograph of you right now goes on a wanted poster, with CCE paying a reward for your balls on a tray. You think she’s on Drewcolt’s payroll? ’Nother thing—didn’t the phony customs men see you?”

  Sand stood up and stretched, then took a few steps around Clarke’s hotel suite. “About the girl, I don’t know. Anything’s possible, and I don’t believe in coincidence. Find out where she lives—I’m paying her a visit tonight. Make sure you have both her studio and home address; they might be different. As for the phony customs men, they can probably say a few words about me, but that’s one of the disadvantages you white people have. You’ve never really looked at blacks. I was a chauffeur, that’s all. Would you bet your life on your ability to describe what your black servants look like?”

  The Baron chuckled. “You got a point, son. I think we hurt them tonight, though. They’ve either got to cancel that virus attack on a Red China city, or they’ve got to find another way of killing a lot of Chinese at one time. If nothing else, we’re eating into their timetable. When that agreement’s signed, Drewcolt’s finished.”

  Sand rubbed the back of his neck. “Eight days left. From the way they were prepared tonight, I don’t think they’re going to let go forty billion dollars in gold without a fight.”

  “I won’t let them get it without a fight, either. Now we’re in a position to find out who Drewcolt’s White House man is. That’s the dude I want. I don’t like the idea of anyone using that place for his own little sidelines. When you picked up this little tin can here, you made it necessary for everybody to crawl out from under his little ol’ rock and show his face.”

  “What are you going to do with that thing?” Both men turned to look at the metal virus canister, now pushed deep into a silver wine bucket of crushed ice.

  The Baron shrugged his shoulders. “No problem. It goes into the sea, far enough out so nobody sees it again. ’Ceptin’ maybe God on judgment day. Let me make a phone call to somebody and check on that gal for you. What did you say her name was?”

  “Andrea. Andrea Naiss.”

  “What the hell kind of name is that?”

  “Make that phone call, and we’ll both find out.”

  She was afraid of this black man, and at the same time found him more attractive than any man she had ever known. Balance. That was the word. He seemed so balanced, totally in control of himself and whatever else was around him. “Cool” wasn’t the word. He was far more than that.

  Perhaps that’s why, sitting across from him, she found it hard to lie. She wanted to. With Reiss and the people he worked for all involved in this thing, lying meant living. But she couldn’t lie to this man, and that was saying a lot. If there was one thing Andrea Naiss found easy to do, it was lying.

  “I didn’t think it showed that much,” she said to Robert Sand.

  “It does,” he said, his eyes, his eyes on her face, his voice soft. “It’s in your high cheekbones. That’s the part that said ‘Oriental.’ Your eyes, they’re slightly almond-shaped, and even when you speak, there’s a reserve, as though you’re holding back.”

  She smiled. He was right about holding back. Filipino and black to her had meant being a part of two worlds, and in the end, a part of neither. On too many occasions, both worlds had rejected her, leading her to fall into the habit of not putting too much of herself forward. The less she extended herself, the less there was of her out front to get stomped on.

  When she had stepped from her darkroom with the dried prints, he was standing inside her living room. She dropped the prints to the floor, her hands covering her mouth, her heart pounding almost in time to the watch ticking on her wrist.

  “You’re in no danger,” he said. “The pictures—may I see them, please?”

  She stood still, rooted to the spot, while he came over to her, bent down, and picked up the photographs.

  Stepping back, he turned and moved to a worn overstuffed chair covered in gray. Sitting, he turned on the gold-painted lamp on a small brown table near the chair. Slowly he examined each photograph. “Please sit down.”

  She did.

  “I didn’t hear you ring or knock or anything” she said.

  Looking up and smiling at her, he said, “Yes, I know. Please forgive me. I’m sorry if I’ve startled you.”

  “You’re the one who tied up those men at the airport, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I get the feeling you don’t want your photograph taken.”

  He smiled at her, saying nothing, then dropped his gaze back to the black-and-white photographs in his hand. Without looking up, he said to her, “Who are these for?”

  “The Africans, the Nigerian embassy.”

  “Anyone else?”

  She was silent, her hands folded in her lap. Then in a small voice she said, “Yes. Maynard Reiss.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Works for Consolidated Communications as a kind of contact man. I guess he does whatever they want him to do. No one knows for sure.”

  “You phoning him, or he phoning you?”

  “I’m calling him,” she said. “Uh, can I ask who you are?”

  “Ask.”

  “Who are you?”

  “A man who belongs to himself.”

  She smiled. “That’s easy to see. You know, when they untied those men tonight, they cursed you and your mamma until I thought the building would melt. If those Chinese understood English, they’re going to think we’re all dippy in this country.”

  He was still staring at the photographs. When he finished, he looked up at her and said, “Call Reiss, tell him he can pick them up now.” There was no mention of the one photograph showing the back of his head.

  Andrea felt an excitement with him as though it were the first Christmas morning of her life. Obeying him seemed natural.

  Getting up, she crossed the room to the telephone, dialed Reiss’s number, and listened. Turning to Sand, she said, “Busy. I’ll call back.”

  He nodded his head, then swept the room with his soft brown eyes, seemingly absorbing all of it in seconds. The room was filled with pieces of her life, and like her life, they were worn, frayed, and secondhand. Sometimes she wondered how the hell was it possible to feel so old at only twenty-eight.

  “I like your work,” he said. He sounded as though he really meant it. “When you let your feelings show, the photographs are good.”

  She smiled nervously, looking at the floor. “That’s my trouble. I feel too much, you know? I try to keep it out of my work.”

  “Don’t,” he said softly. “Others will care only when you show you do. Walls built to keep out rain keep out sun, too.”

  Pressing her lips tightly together, she leaned her head to the side and shrugged her shoulders like a child without an answer to a hard question. “Everyone builds walls. I’m just tired of having other people’s walls collapse on my head, is all.”

  “Because you’re not white, is that it?”

  She looked at him, again shrugging her shoulders.

  Sand smiled. “Don’t get mad, get even.”

  She grinned warmly at him, her face more beautiful now, delighting in his remark. For precious seconds she forgot the pain and abuse of her life. It wasn’t just what he said, it was the way he said it, as though he was goddamn sure there would always be a way to get even. Christ, he really believed that!

  As though reading her mind, he said, “Believe it.”

  “It would be nice to,” she said. “You haven’t spent much time in this town, have you?”

  “No.”

  “Where are you from? You seem, well, different.”

  His safety would not allow him to talk about himself. “Like you, I’m part of where I’m from. Please try Reiss again.”

  She did. Reiss picked up on the second ring, listened, then said, “Fine,” and hung up.

  Hanging up, she turned to Sand. “He’s on the way over.”

  “May I have his address?”


  “Yes.” She gave it to him.

  He stood up, his black leather jacket and pants catching tiny patches of the living-room light. “I’d like to ask a favor, if I may. I want you to meet me tomorrow morning, nine-thirty, the park near the Lincoln Memorial, south side. Can you be there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. See you then. Again, I hope I didn’t frighten you.”

  She grinned like a schoolgirl, her hand brushing her black curly hair. “Yes and no, with emphasis more on the ‘no’.”

  “Good.” Turning, he moved smoothly across the floor, through the door, and was gone.

  A different kind of man, she thought. Dangerous and gentle at the same time, like a sleeping tiger. All she knew about him was what she felt, and that was, well, being truthful for once … mystical and sexual.

  She knew one more thing about him. She wasn’t mentioning a word of his visit to Maynard Reiss, and the thought of keeping something from that fat Alabama prick made her smile. Yeah, beautiful black man, go on with your bad self! Don’t get mad, get even. Oh, yeah, baby. Oh, yeah.

  Chapter XI

  “HARLEY, HARLEY, HARLEY,” DRAWLED Maynard Reiss, his voice drawing the words out. “You know and I know that you are gonna end up doing just like you are told, and that’s a fact, bubba. Print Drewcolt ain’t no kinda man to take kindly to hearing no when his heart is set on hearing yes.”

  Reiss smiled, two hundred and eighty pounds of flesh on a five-foot-nine frame, an eight-hundred-dollar dark-blue Swedish topcoat making him look like a dark mountain. Both men sat in the back of a limousine moving slowly through the dark, rainy Washington night.

  With CCE behind you, Reiss knew, you had all the aces when it came to getting a tight grip on somebody’s gonads. Reiss liked having all of the odds on his side when dealing with anybody on anything. It was the Washington, D.C., disease—obsession with power.

  Reiss had gotten the phone call from England and listened politely when told to take no excuses on this next project. Find Canning, no matter where he was, and get results. Lean on him hard, let him know Drewcolt and CCE were calling in all IOU’s. Forget about breaking cover or getting discovered. If Canning didn’t get his ass out of that dinner party over in Georgetown right now, he had better make arrangements with God to hold back the dawn, because tomorrow was going to be agony for him.

  Angry at being threatened, and apprehensive at what could happen tomorrow, Canning had left the party and had kept walking at his halting pace until, after a few blocks, Reiss picked him up.

  “CCE wants another package, just like the one you delivered tonight.” Reiss’s thick lips stretched in a smile. He could feel Canning stiffening. The white Republican Presbyterian who was used to being obeyed was now being made to obey. He didn’t like it.

  “Now, before you say no, Harley, understand something. This comes from the man himself, and let me tell you, he ain’t just whistling ‘Dixie’.”

  His eyes flashing, his teeth gnawing nervously at the inside of his mouth, Canning stared at the fat man. “You’re crazy! What the hell does Drewcolt think I’m running here, a two-for-one sale on secret weapons? What happened to the first package?”

  “Harley, Harley, Harley, don’t ask, don’t ask. Something happened, and we don’t have the first package, and—”

  “You don’t what?”

  “Somebody else got it, somebody who shouldn’t, but that’s not your concern. We need another, and we need it badly. You got the connections. We need it like yesterday, old buddy. There’s two hundred thousand dollars more for you, and you can buy a lot of segregated real estate with that.”

  Canning looked away from Reiss and stared out of the window on his left, his eyes on the gray sky. No two ways about it. Drewcolt could break his back if he wanted to. He was a fool to think otherwise. A leak to the press, a doctored tape, and it was all over. Number-three man in the White House, and he could be brought down in seconds. Nothing new about this. It was happening in Washington every month.

  “I’ll try,” he said.

  Reiss’s drawl came at him slowly out of the semidarkness. “We knew you would, Harley, all of us knew that. But for your sake, old friend, I heartily suggest you do more than try. Exceed that particular goal. I recommend that you do. Need I say more?”

  Smashing his fist into his left palm, William Baron Clarke said, “Damn! Harley Canning and Maynard Reiss. Canning. I should have known. So that’s Drewcolt’s man in the White House. Damn!”

  Sand ate slowly. Steak, salad, milk. He rarely ate before a mission or strike. After leaving Andrea’s apartment-photography-studio, he had phoned The Baron from a public phone with information on Maynard Reiss. That’s when he’d asked The Baron to have the food ready when he returned to the hotel suite.

  It had been a simple matter for Clarke to have Reiss watched immediately and his limousine followed to Georgetown. The cab company used three drivers to tail the fat man, and having worked for The Baron before, the company was thorough in reporting to him.

  Seconds after Canning stepped into the limousine, his description was relayed to the cab company, which passed it on to someone else. That someone else relayed it to The Baron, who quickly checked to see if Harley Canning was in the Georgetown area tonight.

  That, too, had checked out.

  “Bet on it,” said The Baron. “Bet that Canning’s going to get them another can of that virus.”

  Sand swallowed a cool mouthful of milk. Then he said, “Wasn’t that virus developed when you were President?”

  Turning to him, Clarke roared, “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?

  “Nothing. I just like to keep things in proper historical perspective. Anyway, let him do it.”

  “You get hit on the head tonight? Did I hear you say let Canning get the virus for Drewcolt?”

  Sand nodded yes.

  Clarke sputtered, his face getting red under his Texan tan.

  Smiling at him, the Black Samurai said, “Calm down and listen. By taking that virus shipment tonight, we’ve done a lot. We’ve connected Drewcolt with a White House name, and that name has a face. Next, we’ve pressured them so that they can’t afford to stand still. If you’re right and Drewcolt is staying with the virus, it means they’ve got to hold on to this one. It is as important to them as the gold, because it represents the gold.”

  Clarke’s eyes narrowed, and he twisted his mouth to the side in thought. “Say it straight, son.”

  “If he gets the virus, he has to store it in the safest place possible, the one place where it can be watched, where the security is the best. He’s got to keep it where he can see it every day.”

  Clarke snapped out the words. “Crafford Castle. That’s what he planned to do.”

  “Right. And that’s where I’m going in a few days. I’m going into the castle the night before the virus is to be carried to the plane. They’ve got to keep it on ice, so they won’t take it out of storage until the last minute. Once I get it, they’ll have no time to get another and still have it shipped across the Atlantic in time. There’s just no way. And to make sure, there’s something I want you to do.”

  Quickly nodding his head once in sharp agreement, The Baron listened intently to Sand.

  “Once the virus is out of the country, I want you to put Harley Canning out of business. Pressure him, force him to resign. Get him out of government so he’s got no influence and no access to anything, not even a paper clip. Can you do it?”

  Grinning like a timber wolf peeking into a chicken house, Clarke said, “Sheeit, son. Can I get Canning out of the White House? Is the Pope a Catholic? Does the cat have an ass? Does the pig shit in the woods?”

  Both men laughed, the tan Texan’s laugh roaring through the huge luxury suite, the sound of it bigger than life.

  Shaking his head from side to side, Talon said, “I don’t believe you, Victor, really I don’t.”

  Victor Barnes’s small slanted teeth nervously gnawed his th
in bottom lip. “Talon, I—”

  “I know, Victor, I know. You’re going to tell me you’re in this room for something else, not for those photographs you’re holding in your hand.”

  The trap had been quickly set and just as quickly sprung. The bait had been the photographs taken ten hours ago at Dulles customs in America and now in a small office safe on the castle’s second floor. A handful of people, all of whom knew the safe’s combination, had been told two things: the photographs were there, and Talon was leaving the castle for two days.

  Talon hadn’t gone anywhere. He had simply disappeared for two hours, and now, with two jet-black Great Danes lying at his feet, he was in the office doorway staring at the small, nervous accountant, Victor Barnes. Barnes had not heard them until it was too late.

  “I, I don’t understand,” said Barnes, his mouth stretching in a weak grin.

  “A trap, Victor. It was a trap. Those photographs you’re holding were bait, and you, dear friend, got caught. It couldn’t be simpler than that, now, could it?”

  “I can explain. You see—”

  Talon’s voice was soft, purring, like steel fingers in velvet gloves moving to squeeze Victor’s throat. “Oh, yes, Victor, oh, yes, I know you can explain. I’m counting on that. I’m counting on you to explain whom you really work for, exactly why he wants to stop Mr. Drewcolt from getting that Chinese gold, and what he plans to do next. Yes, Victor, I’m sure you can explain, and you will.”

  The warm morning sun coming in through the high castle window felt cold on the back of Victor Barnes’s neck. His mouth was dry, his eyes watering, clouding the room, which seemed to whirl around him as though he were on a carrousel now spinning out of control.

  The shocking idea immediately came to him that he was a dead man, with his life now measured in handfuls. Still he clung to those handfuls. “Please, Talon, please hear me out.”

  His harelip mouth twisted in a grin of cruel satisfaction, Talon snapped his fingers twice, each sharp click slicing through Barnes’s brain like a surgeon’s scalpel. Instantly the two giant black Great Danes lying at Talon’s booted feet leaped up, their nails scratching against the brightly polished wooden hallway floor, muscles rippling and tensing under sleek, shiny coats, eyes bright with anticipation. Each was one hundred and seventy pounds of powerful killer, capable of ripping a man’s arm from the socket.