The Exile

by Allan Folsom

  Within the hour, world media were clamoring for details about what was being called “The Great Metrolink Shootout” and demanding more on the identity of the man tabbed Trigger Ray Thorne. What they got instead was a terse LAPD news brief stating only that three detectives had been killed in a deadly crossfire with the suspect while trying to rescue one of their own, that Thorne himself had been seriously wounded, and that a concentrated internal investigation was in progress.

  And then, for everyone, the whole thing spun suddenly and impossibly out of hand. With John Barron taken to Glendale Memorial Hospital for emergency treatment for multiple gunshot wounds—wounds that by the grace of God were all in soft tissue and not life-threatening. Raymond Oliver Thorne was rushed to County-USC Medical Center in far more serious condition.

  And there, barely thirty hours later, following multiple surgeries, and without ever regaining consciousness, he died of a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in the lungs. Then, in a mix-up at the county coroner’s office that bordered on the comedic and added grievously to the embarrassment of the department, his body was inadvertently released to a private funeral home and within hours was cremated. Once again the LAPD shuddered while the world’s press did cartwheels.

  7:30 P.M.

  Three hours into their flight. Supper over, the cabin lights were off; passengers were sipping after-dinner drinks and watching movies on their personal TV screens. Rebecca still slept. John Barron tried to do the same but sleep wouldn’t come. Instead the memories of what had happened continued.

  Early the same evening that Raymond had died and been cremated, Saturday, March 16, Dan Ford visited Barron in his hospital room. Clearly concerned for his best friend’s life, there was something about him, about his manner, that told Barron he knew what had happened in the shoot-out and why, but he said nothing. Instead, he told of visiting Rebecca at St. Francis; she had been sedated and was resting when he came in, but had recognized him and taken his hand. And when he’d said he was on his way to visit her brother and asked if he could tell him she was okay, she’d squeezed his hand and nodded yes.

  Then Ford had given him two pieces of news concerning Raymond. The first was about an interview the Metropolitan Police had had with Alfred Neuss in London.

  “All he told them,” Ford said, “was that he had come to London on business and had no idea who Raymond was or what he’d been after, and the only reason he could guess why his name was in the address book of the brothers Raymond allegedly murdered in Chicago was that they were tailors he’d once used when he was there and had had them send the bill to his shop in Beverly Hills.”

  Ford’s second piece of information had to do with what LAPD investigators had learned in their attempt to find out who had contracted for the private jet sent to pick up Raymond at the Mercury Air Terminal in Burbank.

  “West Charter Air sent a Gulfstream for Raymond not once, but twice. A day earlier, the same plane had gone to meet him at Santa Monica Airport, but he had never shown up. The aircraft had been contracted for by a man calling himself Aubrey Collinson, supposedly a Jamaican lawyer, who came into the company’s Kingston office and paid for the charter in cash. Later, obviously knowing Raymond hadn’t met the plane, he returned, apologized for the mix-up, and paid again, asking simply that this time his client be picked up at the Burbank airport instead of Santa Monica. The rest of the instructions remained the same.

  “The pilots were to pick up a Mexican businessman named Jorge Luis Ventana and fly him to Guadalajara. Along with the instructions was a small package to be delivered to Ventana when they met him—a package the LAPD took as evidence from the Gulfstream at the Mercury Air Center. Inside, they found twenty thousand dollars in cash, a Mexican passport in the name of Jorge Luis Ventana, an Italian driver’s license with a Rome address, and an Italian passport, both in the name of Carlo Pavani. All three bore Raymond’s photograph. The address in Rome turned out to be a vacant lot. Both the Italian driver’s license and passport were false, as was the Mexican passport. And so far inspectors from the Jamaica Constabulary Force have been unable to find anyone named Aubrey Collinson.”

  It had been then, with Ford’s last words barely out of his mouth, that the door to Barron’s hospital room had opened and LAPD Police Chief Louis Harwood, dressed in full uniform, and accompanied by his deputy chief, came in. Harwood nodded a simple hello to Ford and then quietly asked if they could be alone. Without a word Harwood’s deputy chief walked Ford to the door, saw him out, and closed it behind him.

  It was a gesture that, under other circumstances, might have suggested the need for intimacy, a police chief concerned about the well-being of one of his officers wounded in the line of duty. Instead, it was an act of menace and filled with foreboding.

  Barron distinctly remembered Harwood crossing the room, telling him he was happy to learn his wounds weren’t serious, and that Harwood had been informed Barron could be released from the hospital as early as Monday. And then Harwood’s eyes became stone cold.

  “As of an hour ago the case of Raymond Oliver Thorne was officially closed. He had no allies, no ties to terrorist cells. He was a single gunman acting alone.”

  “What do you mean acting alone? Somebody sent a chartered plane for him to two different airports and on two different days. You know that as well as I do,” Barron, even in the shape he was in, had protested directly, even angrily. “You’ve got people dead here in L.A., in Chicago and San Francisco and Mexico City. You’ve got safe deposit keys to a bank somewhere in Europe. You’ve got—”

  “The formal announcement,” Harwood cut him off, “will be made at the appropriate time.”

  Under ordinary circumstances Barron would have kept up his protest, pointing to the specific references Raymond made in his calendar to London, France, and April 7/Moscow. He would have told Harwood what Raymond had said on the train about “the pieces that would ensure the future” and then warned him that even though Raymond was dead he was certain that what he had begun wasn’t, that there was something else perhaps even more deadly still to come. But these were not ordinary circumstances, and he didn’t. Besides, Harwood wasn’t finished.

  “As of an hour ago,” Harwood continued in a monotone icier than his glare, “the one-hundred-year-old Five-Two Squad was officially dissolved. It no longer exists.

  “As for its remaining members—Detective Halliday has been given a three-month leave of absence, after which he will be assigned to a less stressful post at Valley Traffic Division.

  “You, Detective Barron, will sign a nondisclosure agreement pledging never to divulge anything about the actions and operations of the Five-Two. Following that you will resign from the Los Angeles Police Department for medical reasons and be given a lump-sum medical disability payment of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  Abruptly Harwood looked to his deputy chief, who handed him a large manila envelope. Holding it, Harwood turned back to Barron.

  “As you know, for her own safety, your sister was medicated with psychotropic drugs on-scene at the rail yards. I have been assured that the effect of those drugs in combination with her emotional state and her need to continue on the medication for some time will leave her with little, if any, memory of what happened there.

  “As it stands the people at St. Francis believe she was taken to see you at the hospital because you had been wounded in the shootout with the fugitive and suffered a breakdown on the way. As a result she was taken to the nearest hospital. That’s all the media and public know and ever will know. There will be no record in the official report that she was ever at the rail yards.”

  Abruptly Harwood handed the manila envelope to Barron. “Open it,” he commanded, and Barron did.

  Inside was a twisted, badly scorched California automobile license plate. It was from Barron’s Mustang.

  “Somebody torched your car in the parking lot of the Mercury Air Center where you left it yesterday morning.”

  “Torched,” B
arron said quietly, “as in ‘deliberately set on fire’?”

  “Yes, as in ‘deliberately set on fire,’ as in ‘burned up.’” Slowly Harwood’s eyes filled with hatred. So did his voice.

  “You should know there are any number of rumors circulating through the department. Chief among them is that you were directly responsible for the deaths of Detectives Polchak and Lee and Valparaiso. And, ultimately, for the end of the squad.

  “Whether it’s true or not, once you leave the hospital you will be returning to a very unfavorable, even hostile, environment.” Harwood paused, and Barron could see the loathing in him grow even stronger. Then Harwood continued.

  “There is the story of a note handed to the mayor of a small city in a war-torn South American country. It was given to him by a farmer but sent by a guerrilla commander. It read something like—‘For the good of your health, you must leave the city. If you don’t, you will become a target.’

  “For the good of your health, Detective, I would take the same advice, and act on it as quickly as is humanly possible.”

  2

  STILL BRITISH AIRWAYS FLIGHT 0282. MONDAY, APRIL 1. 12:30 A.M.

  Only one soul stirred in the darkened first class cabin. It was John Barron, wide awake and wired, as if he were pumped full of caffeine. As much as he tried to forget, memories still twisted.

  It was as if it had just happened. The sharp click, the abrupt close of the door as Harwood and his deputy chief left. Harwood had not said another word. There’d been no need. Barron had been explicitly warned that his life was in danger. It meant he had no choice but to do what he had planned to do after the squad’s murder of Frank Donlan. Take Rebecca and leave Los Angeles as quickly and with as little trail left behind as possible. He had stopped short of it before because of Raymond and because he felt it was his duty to do anything he could to help bring him in before he killed again. But now Raymond was dead and whatever else he had been involved in, whatever else had been set in motion and was yet to happen, was someone else’s responsibility. He had to concentrate on one thing alone. Saving his life and Rebecca’s.

  The first time it had been a matter of working things out with Dr. Flannery, finding a destination, packing his car, collecting Rebecca, and leaving. But then the shootout had taken place, and because of it her massive psychological breakthrough had happened. As a result of the intensive psychiatric care she would require to help her continue through it, to say nothing of his own physical condition, the idea of going anywhere and quickly seemed impossible. But there was no alternative. If the retribution Harwood promised came to be and he was killed, Rebecca would freak out again and very quickly slip away to nothing.

  Wholly unnerved, he’d called Dr. Janet Flannery early the next morning, Sunday, March 17, and asked her to come to the hospital. She arrived just before noon and, at Barron’s request, took him in a wheelchair to a large outdoor visitor seating area, where he asked about Rebecca’s condition.

  “She’s made a huge advance,” Dr. Flannery had said. “Enormous. She’s speaking haltingly and responding to questions. But the period here is crucial and very difficult. She’s medicated and very in and out. Hysterical one minute, withdrawn the next, and asking for you with every other breath. She’s strong and exceptionally bright, but if we aren’t very careful we could lose her and she could easily slip back to where she was before.”

  “Dr. Flannery,” Barron had said quietly but emphatically, “I have to get Rebecca and myself out of Los Angeles as quickly as possible. Not to Oregon or Washington State or Colorado as we talked about before, but farther. Canada or maybe Europe. Wherever it is, whatever we choose, I have to know how soon she can travel that long and that far.”

  He remembered Dr. Flannery studying him and knowing she saw the same urgency and desperation she had seen before. Only this time it was stronger and far more desperate.

  “If everything goes well, maybe two weeks at the earliest before she could be handed off for treatment elsewhere.” Dr. Flannery studied him even more closely. “Detective, you have to understand Rebecca is on an entirely new plateau, one that needs intense management. Because of it, and because of what you want to do, I need to ask you why.”

  Barron hesitated for a long moment, unsure of what to say. Finally he realized he could not do what had to be done alone and asked if he could have a private session with her, he as the patient, she as the professional counselor.

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  She told him it was unorthodox and that it would be better if she were to arrange for him to see another therapist. But he pleaded with her, confiding there was real physical danger here and time was truly of the essence. She knew him and she knew everything about Rebecca; moreover, he trusted her.

  Finally, she agreed, and wheeled him to a far corner of the area, away from the other patients and visitors. There, under the shade of an enormous sycamore tree, he told her about the squad, about the execution of Frank Donlan, about Raymond’s killing of Red, his fight with Polchak and what happened at the auto body shop after they’d captured Raymond, and then what happened in the rail yards. He ended with the burning of his car and Chief Harwood’s solemn warning.

  “I have to change my identity and Rebecca’s, and then we have to get as far from L.A. as we can, and as quickly as possible. The identity part I can handle. The rest I need help with—where we can go so that Rebecca can get the treatment she needs without people asking too many questions, and where the LAPD would not be likely to follow us. Someplace far away, where we can fit in and safely start a whole new life, maybe even another country.”

  Dr. Flannery said nothing, just studied him, and he knew she was measuring the reality of what needed to be done against the reality of what could be done.

  “Obviously, Detective, if you change your identities, as you feel you must, the health insurance she now has will no longer be valid unless you want to risk leaving a paper trail.”

  “No, I can’t do that. No paper trail.”

  “But you understand, wherever you go, her treatment will be expensive, at least initially, when she will need the most care.”

  “I have been given a kind of substantial ‘severance package,’ and I have a small savings account and some bond investments. We’ll be alright for a while, until I can find work. Just—” Barron stopped in midsentence and waited for a male nurse escorting an elderly patient to walk past. Then, lowering his voice, he continued, “Just tell me what Rebecca’s needs are.”

  “The key,” Flannery said, “is finding a top post-traumatic stress treatment program, one that will expedite and help create what’s called ‘personality stability,’ getting her to the point where she can comfortably function on her own. If you’re thinking of Canada—”

  “No,” Barron interrupted suddenly, “Europe would be better.”

  Dr. Flannery nodded. “In that case three places come to mind, and each is excellent. The post-trauma treatment center at the University of Rome in Italy, the post-trauma treatment center at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, and the Balmore Clinic in London.”

  Barron felt his heart catch in his throat. He had suggested Canada or Europe because he knew there were Americans everywhere and felt they could find some community where they could fit in without drawing undue attention to themselves. They would also be far enough away to make it both impractical and difficult for the forces on the LAPD that Chief Harwood had warned him about to track them down, especially if they had new identities and left no trail for those people to follow.

  But now he realized he had abruptly narrowed it to Europe for another reason. Raymond and what else he had been about pointed to Europe, and most directly to London. Wounded as he was, as concerned as he was for his safety and Rebecca’s and her continued treatment, there was something inside him that would not let Raymond go. Raymond had been good, too good, too professional, too controlled in handling what he had had to deal with to be written off simply as a ma
dman. Clearly he had had other goals and, as the chartered aircraft attested, he hadn’t acted alone. Even without concrete evidence, Barron, as young as he was, was still a seasoned detective, and the sense that something more was to happen crawled inside him and stuck in his gut. That was why, when put on the spot, he had picked Europe over Canada. And by suggesting London as a potential site for Rebecca’s rehabilitation, Dr. Flannery narrowed his focus even more.

  London had been Raymond’s immediate destination after he’d finished with whatever he had intended for Alfred Neuss in L.A., and Neuss’s life had been spared simply because he had gone to London. It was a journey that had obviously surprised Raymond because he had clearly expected to find Neuss in Beverly Hills.

  There were the other things, too, the “pieces,” as Raymond had said: keys to a safe deposit box of Belgian manufacture whose company did business only within the European Union, which meant the box and whatever was in it was in a bank somewhere in continental Europe; and the three notations referencing London specifically: an address—21 Uxbridge Street, which the London Metropolitan Police had described as a well-kept private home near Kensington Gardens, which was owned by a Mr. Charles Dixon, a retired English stockbroker who lived most of the year in the South of France, and was within easy walking distance of the Russian Embassy; the reference to the embassy itself; and the reminder to meet someone called I.M. in Penrith’s Bar on High Street, a person a Metropolitan Police investigator looking into it had been unable to identify.