by Allan Folsom
Barron stared at him. There was the answer to Donlan’s killing. Like the long line of others, his had been no murder, just a simple extermination of vermin.
“You might be afraid, John Barron, that somehow, in some way, someone will find out. But in a century of this kind of work, nobody’s found out yet. You know why? They don’t want to.”
“They?”
“John Q. Public. These are situations they don’t even want to think about, let alone know about. It’s what they pay us to take care of.”
Barron watched him for a long moment, staggered by his simple justification of cold-blooded murder. “That’s what ‘the go’ means, isn’t it?” he asked quietly. “Permission to carry out the execution. That’s why there was never a question of taking Donlan off the train at one of the earlier stops. The LAPD had no jurisdiction there; you would have had to call in a local agency, and this ‘go’ would never have happened.”
“True.” Red nodded.
“Who gives it?” Barron could feel his anger rise. Abruptly he stood and crossed to the window to stand in the bright glare of the March L.A. sun, then turned back to face McClatchy. “The chief? The commissioner? The mayor? Or by now is it all a computerized bunch of X’s and O’s tallying up the score and choosing who lives and who doesn’t?”
McClatchy half smiled, and suddenly Barron realized he had been purposely manipulated into revealing his emotions. The way he’d been manipulated by Raymond, too.
“This is an old witch of a city, John. Over time she’s found a thousand different ways to survive, not all of them entirely legal, but necessary just the same. You were exposed to it the same way we all were. You’re a member of the squad, you’re there, it happens. It’s the way it’s been done from the beginning, for a hundred years.” Red sat down on the edge of his desk. “Don’t think you’re the first to be upset by it. I was myself a long time ago. But that day we didn’t immediately have another mass murderer out on the streets like we do now.” Red’s eyes narrowed.
“Before you go, let me give you something to think about. It’s what I’ve said to every member of the squad the day after he experienced his first ‘go.’ When you joined the Five-Two you took an oath of commitment to it for life. It means you’re in it for the long haul. Get used to it, and don’t get so angry and self-righteous over one incident that you make a mistake and forget your commitment. If you continue to have a problem, keep in mind another part of your oath, to resolve any differences inside the squad. That’s the way it’s been done for a hundred years, and in that same hundred years no one has ever quit. Remember that. And remember you have a sister who depends on you for everything. I wouldn’t want to think about what her mental state might be if you betrayed your oath to the men and tried to walk out.”
Barron felt ice creep across his neck and slide down his spine. The commander had not only manipulated him into revealing his emotions, it was as if he had also read his mind. For the first time he understood why Red McClatchy had become a legend. Why he was so respected and so feared. He not only headed the squad, he protected it. Try to walk away and they would kill you.
“If I were you, Detective, I would go back to my desk and file the report on the Donlan shooting right now. Show us all you’re a hundred percenter, a partner we can trust without question. That way we can put Mr. Donlan behind us and give our full concentration to this Raymond Oliver Thorne we’ve got out there.”
For the briefest moment McClatchy said nothing, just stared at Barron. When he spoke again his manner was softer. “Do you understand what I’ve said, Detective?”
Barron could feel the cold sweat bead up on his forehead. “Yes, sir.” His voice was little more than a whisper.
“Good.”
32
SUITE 1195, WESTIN BONAVENTURE HOTEL. 10:20 A.M.
They spoke in French.
“Where are you?”
“A hotel in Los Angeles.”
“Los Angeles?”
“Yes.”
“Are you hurt?” Her voice was calm and, for the moment, matter-of-fact. Raymond knew her call would have been routed through switching devices in at least four countries and would be all but impossible to trace.
“No,” he said, and turned to look out the window and to the street in front of the hotel a dozen stories down. From his vantage point he could see three black-and-white police cars and two groups of uniformed officers standing on the sidewalk talking among themselves. “I’m sorry, Baroness, I did not mean to involve you. It was Bertrand I called.”
“I know, my sweet, but I am the one you are talking to. What is this number you’ve given us? Who is Charles Bailey? Where is your phone? I’ve called and called but with no answer. You are in trouble. What is it?”
Raymond’s call to Jacques Bertrand in Zurich some ninety minutes earlier had been made with the express hope that the Swiss lawyer would speak to him first and not inform her until afterward. Obviously, that had not been the case.
“Her” was Baroness Marga de Vienne, his legal guardian, the widow of the international financier Baron Edmond de Vienne and, as such, one of Europe’s wealthiest, most prominent, and most powerful grandes dames. Normally, at this time of year, she would be at Château Dessaix, her seventeenth-century manor just outside Tournemire, the picturesque village in Auvergne in the Massif Central, the mountainous middle region of France. Instead she was in her suite at the Connaught Hotel in London, where it was nearly six-thirty in the evening. He could picture her, jeweled, and dressed as always in her trademark combination of delicate white and pale yellow, her thick dark hair woven into an intricate bun, preparing for the dinner party she would be attending at 10 Downing Street given by the British prime minister for visiting Russian dignitaries, Nikolai Nemov, the mayor of Moscow, and Marshal Igor Golovkin, Russian Federation minister of defense. It would be a gathering where the principal intrigue was certain to be the very hush-hush rumor that in an effort to give stability to a society widely perceived as chaotic, corrupt, and increasingly violent, Russia was giving strong consideration to returning the imperial family Romanov to the throne in the form of a constitutional monarchy. True or not, there was little reason to believe the Russians would be willing to discuss it even in those heavily guarded quarters. Still, they would be pressured to do so, and the diplomatic banter would make for an interesting evening. It was an event he had looked forward to attending with the Baroness, but now, and quite obviously, that was not possible.
“Baroness, a regrettable series of circumstances left me in a position where it was necessary to kill several people, policemen among them. The authorities are looking for me everywhere. You will no doubt see it on the international news if you haven’t already. I called Bertrand for assistance. I have no passport and therefore no way out of the country.
“Even if I were to avoid the police, getting out of the country without a passport, let alone to England in so short a time, would be all but impossible. Have Bertrand arrange for a private jet to pick me up at a local civil aviation airport. Santa Monica is closest and best.
“With the plane I will need money and credit cards and a new passport in some other name and nationality. French or Italian, probably. It doesn’t matter.”
Below he could see two motorcycle units pass and then two more black-and-whites. And then an LAPD helicopter crossed overhead.
“Today Peter Kitner was knighted at Buckingham Palace,” the Baroness said abruptly, as if she had heard none of what he’d said.
“So I would imagine,” he said coldly.
“Do not take that tone with me, my sweet. I know you are in trouble, but you need to understand that all the other clocks are still ticking and we cannot afford to lose any more time than we already have. When we last spoke while you were on the train from Chicago, you assured me you had the keys. Where are they now?”
Raymond could have hung up there. He wanted to. Throughout his life he had never once heard sympathy from her, only the reali
ty of what was at hand. Even as a child, a cut or scrape or even a nightmare was something not to be fussed over but to be dealt with and resolved as quickly as possible so that it was no longer an issue. Life was filled with bumps, large and small, she had preached for as long as he could remember. This was no different. No matter what had happened he was unhurt, still on his own, still able to phone Europe from the relative safety of a private hotel room.
“My sweet, I asked you about the keys.”
“I was forced to leave my bag on the train. I assume the police have them.”
“What about Neuss?”
“Baroness, you do not understand what is happening here.”
“It is you, my sweet, who do not understand.”
Raymond understood exactly. Alfred Neuss would have a key to the safe deposit box. Alfred Neuss would know where it was. Without a key, without the contents of the box, and without Neuss dead they would have nothing at all. To her there were only two questions, and the rest be damned. Had he gotten the name and location of the bank, and had he taken care of Alfred Neuss?
His answer: “No.”
“Warum?” Why, she demanded in German, suddenly changing languages on a whim in that maddening way she had of force-feeding him what she thought he ought to know. French, German, English, Spanish, Russian, the language didn’t matter. He was expected to understand what was being said around him always, even if he acted as if he didn’t.
“Madame la baronesse, vous ne m’écoutez pas!” Baroness, you are not listening, he said angrily, holding to the French. “I am the subject of a massive hunt by the police. What good am I under arrest or shot dead?”
“That is not an answer.” She cut to the quick as she always had.
“No,” he agreed in a whisper; she was right, she was always right. “It is not.”
“For how long, my sweet, have we talked about the significance of difficult times, so that you can learn to adapt and rise above them? You have not forgotten who you are.”
“How could I? You are always there to remind me.”
“Then understand how severely your schooling and cleverness and courage are being tested. In ten years, twenty, it will all seem like nothing, yet you will remember it heroically as an invaluable lesson in self-knowledge. In casting you into the fire, God is commanding you as He always has, to be great.”
“Yes,” Raymond whispered.
“Now, I will work on what you need. The plane is easy. The passport and getting it to the pilot who will deliver it will be harder, but both will arrive sometime tomorrow. In the meantime do what needs to be done with Neuss. Get his key and find where the bank is, and then kill him. Afterward overnight the key to Bertrand, who will then go to France and retrieve the pieces from the box. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” Below Raymond could see another group of police on the sidewalk across the street. These were different from the patrol officers he had seen before. They wore helmets and flak jackets and carried automatic weapons. He edged back from the window as several looked up toward the hotel’s higher floors. They were a SWAT team, and it looked as if they were preparing to enter the hotel.
“Baroness, special police have gathered directly across the street.”
“I want you to put them out of your mind and listen to me, my sweet, listen to my voice,” she said quietly and forcefully. “You know what I want to hear. Tell me, tell me in Russian.”
“I—” He hesitated, his eyes on the street below. The SWAT team hadn’t moved, its officers still where they had been before.
“Tell me,” she commanded.
“Vsay,” he began slowly. “Vsay … ego … sudba … V rukah … Gospodnih.”
“Again.”
“Vsay ego sudba V rukah Gospodnih,” he repeated. This time his voice was stronger and had more conviction.
Vsay ego sudba V rukah Gospodnih. All his destiny is in God’s hands. It was a common Russian saying, but she had personalized it to mean him. The destiny he was talking about was his own; God directed everything, and everything happened for a reason. Again God was testing him, commanding him to rise and find a way out, because surely there was one.
“Vsay ego sudba V rukah Gospodnih,” Raymond said once more, repeating the saying like a mantra for perhaps the ten thousandth time in his life, exactly the way she had taught it to him from childhood.
“Again,” she whispered.
“Vsay ego sudba V rukah Gospodnih!” His concentration was no longer on the police but on what he was saying, and he spoke it like an oath, forceful and compelling, an allegiance to God and to himself.
“There, my sweet, you see? Trust in providence, your education, and your wits. Do that and the way will be opened for you. With the police, with Neuss, and then on Friday with our dearest—” She paused, and he could feel the decades of hatred pour out as she said his name. “Peter Kitner.”
“Yes, Baroness.”
“Tomorrow, my sweet, you will have a plane and safe passage out. By Friday the pieces will be in our possession and you will be with me in London.”
“Yes, Baroness.”
“Godspeed.”
There was a click and the phone went dead. Raymond hung up slowly, her aura still with him. Once again he looked out the window. The police were still there, across the street where they had been. But they seemed smaller now. Like chessmen. Not so much to be feared as played.
33
10:50 A.M.
Believe in himself and a way would be shown. The Baroness had been right. In no time it was.
It began with the simple reasoning that if the police had tracked him that far, the media would be on top of the story, too, and he turned on the room’s television hoping to find a news broadcast that might give him some sense of what the authorities were doing.
Quickly and rudely, he got a great deal more than he expected. Almost every channel was showing video clips of the aftermath of the shootout at Criminal Courts. He saw the covered bodies of the sheriff’s deputies, the bailiff, the female police officer, and the man he’d strangled in the stairwell in order to take his black jacket loaded into coroner’s vans. Shaken and outraged police officers and equally shocked and irate civilians were interviewed. Aerial video coverage of the slow-speed police chase after the taxi was immediately followed by clips of the African-American teenager and her mother. Then came the live studio anchor people announcing the “citywide most-wanted and extremely dangerous” alert 5-2 Squad Commander Arnold McClatchy had put out for him. Next came his physical description and a full-screen close-up of his LAPD booking photograph. With it came a plea to the public asking for help and directing them to immediately call 911 if he were seen.
Raymond stood back trying to absorb the sheer magnitude of it. The Baroness had been right. God was testing him, commanding him to rise up and find a way out. Whatever that way was, one thing had become indelibly clear—he no longer had the luxury of trying to hide for an extra day waiting for the Baroness’s privately chartered aircraft to pick him up at Santa Monica Airport. What he had to do was get to Neuss, get his safe deposit key and learn the location of the French bank the safe deposit box was in, and then kill Neuss, get out of Los Angeles, and be on his way to Europe as quickly as possible. Which meant sometime late today. Considering the size of the force mounted against him it was a huge, if not impossible, undertaking. But he had no choice; the future of everything they had planned for so long depended on it. How to do it was something else again.
Abruptly the television channel he was watching cut to a commercial. Trying to think of a way out and looking for more video coverage, he switched channels. Inadvertently he came upon the hotel’s in-house channel displaying a schedule of the Westin Bonaventure’s events and activities for the day. He was about to continue when he saw a notice for a welcoming reception for Uni-versität Student Höchste, a tour group of German university students, that was under way in a downstairs function room at that very moment.
Ten minut
es later he entered the room, with his hair slicked back and still wearing the murdered New Jersey consultant’s suit and tie and carrying his briefcase. Inside it were Charlie Bailey’s wallet and cell phone and one of the two 9 mm Berettas. The second Beretta was tucked into his waistband under his jacket.
He stopped just inside the doorway and looked around. There were probably forty or more university students and three or four well-dressed tour guides enjoying coffee and a simple buffet and chattering away in German. Their number nearly an even split between boys and girls, they looked to be anywhere from their late teens to mid-twenties. They seemed happy and carefree and were dressed like students anywhere—jeans, loose-fitting shirts, some leather, some with body jewelry, some with brightly colored hair.
Beyond the obvious—the closeness in age to himself and the fact that he spoke fluent German and could easily blend in—were two other things Raymond coveted, and knew they would all have: a passport and at least one current credit card that would not only complement the passport as identification but fund a transatlantic airline ticket. What he needed was to find one of them, male or female, he could impersonate.
The approach had to be casual, and it was, going first to the buffet table and taking a coffee cup and filling it from a large silver-plated urn, and then, cup and saucer in hand, walking toward the back of the room, acting for all the world like one of the tour guides and as if he belonged there.
Again, he stopped and looked around the room. As he did, a man in a dark suit with a brass hotel-employee name tag on his lapel came through the main door. With him was a helmeted, flak-jacketed SWAT team sergeant. Raymond turned easily and set the briefcase down, his left hand holding the cup and saucer, his right just inside his jacket, resting on the grip of the Beretta.
For a moment the two men stood surveying the room; then an older man, a tour guide, he imagined, left a small gathering of students and walked up to them. The three stood talking, with the guide occasionally gesturing toward the people in the room. Suddenly the SWAT sergeant stepped away and moved toward the buffet area, his eyes searching the crowd. Raymond took a sip of coffee and stayed where he was, doing nothing to draw attention. After a moment the policeman turned back and said something to the others. Then he and the hotel man left, and the guide returned to the students.