by Ralph Dennis
“Used and cast aside?”
“Think of it as a perspective godfather’s gift to the expected godchild. A living father. I have a feeling this is going to be rough.”
“Mr. Hall.” Denise stood in the doorway. Her voice was tight. “Mr. Rivers wants to see you now.”
Hall turned to Mac, who said, “I’ll see about getting the next ferry to Wales.”
“It might be the best thing.” Hall stood and put out his hand. “Until the next time.”
Mac grinned. “It’s due in five or six months.”
“The boy?”
“The christening,” Mac said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Within an hour, the British SAS Westland Commando helicopter landed in a clearing across the road from The Keep. It was accompanied by a Westland Lynx cover ship flying shotgun above and directly behind the Commando. The Lynx darted side- to-side, hovering, while Aaron and Hall loaded Rivers on board. With the four passengers seated and the door closed, the Commando headed for Shannon.
An 833A Viking had been dispatched from a U.S. carrier off the coast. It waited, a Navy doctor aboard, on an apron in the military berthing area.
While Rivers was taken aboard, Hall stood on the apron and watched the Lynx, a G.E. minigun mounted in the doorway, moving, covering, wheeling side-to-side while the Commando disembarked its passengers. Then the Commando whirred upward and away, trailed by the Lynx. The helicopters vanished beyond a tangle of hangers.
The Warden, Edgar Moss, met them at the former safehouse in the Virginia countryside. The colonial home was on twenty-five acres of land. The estate had been used to house defectors until the Director decided, because of one aborted escape attempt, that the location had been compromised. Now the house was kept on the books as a Company recreational center, until such a time when it could be sold and another safehouse purchased to replace it.
Two male nurses wheeled Rivers into the first-floor bedroom. Moss, heavy and pink-skinned as a baby, met Hall and Denise and offered them the use of the bar while Rivers was being prepared for the conference. Denise said she’d like a glass of white wine. Hall found a chilled bottle in the refrigerator under the bar and drew the cork. After he poured a glass for her, he mixed a scotch and water for himself. All the time he was aware that Moss was staring at him.
The Warden was chief of internal security for the Company. As such, he was Rivers’ direct superior. The dogs let loose on Hall, that could not have been done without an okay from Moss.
“To the safe return,” Moss said. “Ireland appears to be a murderous place these days.”
“Dangerous to strangers,” Hall said.
“A swimmer from the ferry you were on and then the try on Rivers.”
“Washington is as bad,” Hall said.
“Boyle?” The Warden nodded. A vain man, Moss combed his thin hair across the bald center of his head. “I think we have been running at cross purposes.”
Denise sipped her wine, ankles crossed demurely and her eyelids lowered when she looked at Hall. One, she’d said in the formal garden behind The Keep. Only one.
The bedroom door opened and the gantry was wheeled outside by the two male nurses. After a few moments, Aaron stood in the doorway. “I think he’s comfortable enough to talk now.”
“Bring a drink with you,” Moss said to Hall. He looked at Denise and hesitated. “I’m not sure whether we need you, Miss Lawton. Perhaps you’d like a bath and a rest. Aaron will find you a room …”
“I thought Denise might work with me on this,” Hall said. “That is, if I’m going to work with you …”
“Fine with me.” The Warden found the bottle of white wine and poured a trickle into Denise’s glass. While Moss poured, his back was to Hall. Hall watched Denise’s eyes open wide, seeing him for the first time since the walk in the formal garden. “Ready?”
Aaron backed away from the doorway and turned aside.
“I see it this way.” Rivers held up a pale and shaky finger. “One. There is a matter of some housecleaning at the Farm. In this whole screw-up, the opposition has been half a step behind us or half a step ahead.”
“A leak,” The Warden said.
“Worldwide Metals … and I am certain they are behind this … has ears somewhere in the middle of the circuit.”
“Where?” Moss tipped cigarette ashes into the palm of his hand until Aaron brought him an ashtray.
“I think we can construct compartments,” Rivers said. “A way of slicing the circuit into airtight parts so that we can feed some quite different information in and see which version surfaces at Worldwide.”
“You have a plan?” The Warden leaned forward and flicked an ash from the shiny toe of his black Chuka boot.
“There’s a touch or two to add. I’ll have it by morning if I’m not too drugged to do the thinking.”
“Take all the time you need. Aaron will stay with you and give you the shot when the plan’s solid.”
“By morning then.” Rivers took up a tumbler of water and drank with a glass straw. “Two. What are we going to do about Worldwide?”
“That’s the hard one.” Moss shook his head. “It might take years and a large part of our resources if we attempted a Wall Street operation.”
“Self-defeating,” Rivers agreed.
“Still, they’ve tried to use us. That is what is hard to forgive.”
“There is no question of forgiveness,” Rivers said. “We need to give them a warning. A spectacular warning.”
“A bruise that won’t go away for a year.” Moss nodded.
Hall finished his drink. He turned and held the empty glass toward Aaron. “Scotch, water and two ice cubes.”
Aaron hesitated. His eyes darted toward Rivers. Rivers nodded and Aaron took the glass and left the room.
“I have an idea that might serve as a beginning,” Hall said. “The article in The Truth Seeker was the first move in the game. Do you have any plan to block publication of this issue?”
“I’m afraid we can’t.” The Warden shrugged. “Unless we decide to torch the printing plant in Newark.”
“Then the article will appear?”
“I’m afraid so. Of course, we will refuse to comment on the specific details.”
“Enos Blackman refused to believe I hadn’t written the article. He may be willing to add a box. New, additional information.”
“I don’t follow you,” Moss said.
Hall told him.
The Warden put back his head and laughed. Even Rivers smiled.
“I’ll need some information, the proof that establishes Worldwide’s connection with Paul Marcos and the moderate party.”
The Warden swallowed the laugh. “I can do better than that. I can have the box written and delivered here by morning.”
“I’ll fly to New York tomorrow for a meeting with Blackman.”
“Fine.” Moss seemed pleased.
“I’d like to take Miss Lawton with me,” Hall said. “To watch my back.
The Warden said, “Why not?”
The Warden broke up the meeting.
In the night. A raw wind blew through the trees outside the bedroom where Will Hall slept and awoke and slept again. The curtains were open and he could see the dark night sky. In a way he wished for snow, for the pale flutter and fall. For the peace of snow. For that sense.
He was half awake when the air pressure in the room changed. It was almost impossible to detect but he felt it. The door had opened and then closed. He braced himself. There was only a one in a hundred chance that the security at the safehouse had been penetrated.
A count of ten, waiting. Then he relaxed. He could smell her perfume. She crossed the room on bare feet and stopped at the side of the bed.
“I don’t blame you for what you said to me in the garden. You have a right to be bitter and distrusting. I would be if I were in your position,” Denise said. “I want to make things clear.”
The robe she wore was too large for h
er. Probably a man’s, furnished from the stock they kept at the safehouse for foreign visitors.
“Okay,” Hall said.
“I’m here because I want to be. That’s the way it was before. And that’s the way it is now.”
Denise opened the robe, removed it and dropped into the seat of a chair behind her. When she turned back toward the bed, she was wide-legged. Hall lifted a hand and touched her on the inside of her thigh. The skin there was incredibly soft.
“Do you believe me?” she asked.
Hall did. “I’m getting there.”
Teasing, she edged forward until his hand was trapped, caught between her thighs. “What can I do to convince you?”
He moved his free hand and wrapped the arm around her. He pulled her forward, tumbling her over him and partly on top of him.
“We’ll think of something,” he said.
Hall made two phone calls from the airport. The first was to George, the doorman at his uncle’s apartment on Riverside Drive. The apartment was not being used.
The second call was to Enos Blackman at the magazine office.
“Mr. Hall, I think we have had our conversation. I think I’ve told you that I have no intention …”
“Wait a minute. Since I saw you some new information has come into my hands. It doesn’t change anything in the original article. It does, however, enlarge upon what was really happening in Costa Verde.”
“I can see you at twelve-fifteen,” Blackman said.
“It’s a love nest.” Hall emptied his suit bag and pushed the hangers to one side of the bedroom closet. “The other half is yours.”
“Half the apartment?” Denise was smiling.
“And half the bed as well.”
Denise sat on the edge of the bed. “So, you have a fancy love nest in New York?”
“It seems so.”
“A summer house in Blowing Rock. A love nest in New York. Anything else?”
“A flat in London.”
“I heard you were wealthy.” Denise tapped the toe of her shoe against the floor, the sound muffled by the carpet. “I think that was when I decided to set my cap for you.”
“A quaint expression for a modern girl.” Hall stripped away his tie and removed his shirt. He found a soft gray wool turtleneck in a dresser that held some of his belongings. He pulled the sweater over his head and adjusted the shoulders. “The truth is that the big money is on the other side of the family. An uncle on the Harker side of the family leases this apartment and the flat in London. Poor relations are allowed the use when he’s not in town.”
“And the house in Blowing Rock, the one you didn’t invite me to?”
“That’s mine, as long as I can pay the taxes.”
Denise smiled. “At least you’re almost a third as wealthy as I imagined you were.”
Hall found a topcoat in a storage bag. He struggled into it and wrapped a scarf around his throat. Denise followed him to the door that led to the hallway.
“How do you want to play this?”
“You get to Blackman’s building ahead of me. I’ll be at a phone booth a block or so away. Walk past the building, see if you can spot surveillance or anything that seems out-of-place. If it looks clear, call me at the phone booth.” Hall said. “I’ll go in and see Blackman. You keep watch outside. Before I leave, I’ll look out the window. If there’s trouble, have a newspaper in your hand or under your arm. If it’s all clear, don’t have anything.”
“Seems simple enough.”
It wasn’t brilliant trade craft, but sometimes it was the simple approach that worked best.
The incredibly thin girl led Hall through the maze of desks and stopped at Enos Blackman’s doorway “He’s here.”
“Come in, Mr. Hall.”
Hall entered the office and remained standing. Behind him the girl said, “I’m going to the deli to get lunch.”
“Lean corned beef on seeded rye, potato salad and a pickle.”
“To drink?” the girl said.
“Cream soda.” Enos passed a five-dollar bill to the girl and then closed the door after she moved away. He turned and motioned Hall to a chair. He sat behind the desk and placed his elbows on the desk blotter. “I was afraid when you called it was another …”
“No reason for you to think otherwise.” Hall pulled the plain brown envelope from his topcoat pocket and passed it across the desk. While Blackman read the two typed pages, Hall removed his topcoat and folded it over the back of his chair.
At the safehouse, earlier in the morning, he’d checked over the “new, additional information” that Moss had supplied him. What the paper did was document Worldwide Metals’ ties to Paul Marcos and the moderate party in Costa Verde. What had been, in the article that The Truth Seeker was publishing, a one-sided matter, the Company and the right wing against a legitimate political party now became a war between two large multinational companies.
Overall, it could have been his writing, his voice, but he’d taken the time to change a word here and there, striking out a word he wouldn’t use and substituting one that he would.
Across the desk, Enos Blackman read the two typed pages once. He closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened his eyes, he nodded to himself and re-read the paper. “It’s worse than I thought,” he said finally.
“They don’t really fight over bananas anymore.”
“Sharks trying to swallow other sharks,” Blackman said. He tapped the two pages. “It’s a better story, your article with this added to it. More balanced.”
“My thought exactly,” Hall said.
“Only there’s a problem,” Blackman said. “The paste-up’s done. I don’t know where we can add this.” Blackman opened a desk drawer on his right and brought out the paste-up, the model, for the new issue. The cover was in gray with a black border. The banner, across the top, was in black as well. Centered below the banner was the main article of the issue.
THE COMPANY STRIKES AGAIN IN COSTA VERDE
William K. Hall
Hall put out a hand. Blackman passed the paste-up to him. Hall took a few minutes to flip through the magazine. It was full, every space taken. Hall turned it in his hands. He was about to return the mock-up to Blackman. He stopped when he saw the blank back of the cover. “Anything here?”
“No, we never …” Blackman turned the back cover toward him. “It might fit. I think it will, even if we have to drop down a type face size or two.”
The outside door opened and closed. The thin girl knocked and entered. She placed a paper bag and Blackman’s change on the corner of the desk She was backing toward the doorway when Blackman stopped her. “Sheila, after you’ve had your sandwich, I need you.”
Hall stood and put on his topcoat. “I guess that’s all.”
Blackman smiled and put out his hand. “No charge for this?”
Hall glanced out the window. Denise pretended to be window shopping across the street. There was no newspaper in her hands. All clear.
“Not a penny,” Hall said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Rivers hadn’t allowed them to transport him to the hospital. A doctor, with a military bearing but wearing a suit, was leaving when the Company car delivered Denise and Hall to the safehouse. The doctor tossed his black medical bag into the passenger side of his new black BMW and stood looking back at the safehouse, shaking his head.
The Warden was in the living room drinking coffee. Hall took the coffee Moss offered. Denise said she was tired and carried her bag upstairs to her room. Hall nodded at the closed bedroom door. “How’s the second in command?”
“He’s being stubborn. I’ve been trying to get him to the hospital all day.”
“That’s the Beau Rivers syndrome.”
“Huh?” Moss blinked at him.
“His brother, Beau, played the second half of the Princeton-Yale game one year with a broken arm. Just took a wide roll of adhesive tape and wrapped the arm.”
“Hmmmm.” Moss didn’
t appear to care for Hall’s insight. He preferred to think that all the men in the Company had that inner toughness that a gentleman always had. “While you were in New York …” Hall thought Moss wanted to add “… enjoying yourself.” “While you were there, Rivers worked out the details of the compartments.”
He carried his cup to the coffee pot and fixed himself a refill. “Yes?”
“It’s quite brilliant really. Rivers thought of the circuit in terms of three compartments. Each is divided by what we can think of as firewalls. A way of blocking access from one compartment into the others. Then we fed different information into each compartment.”
“Did it work?”
“We’ll know soon.”
Hall gulped his coffee and put the cup aside. “Rivers want to see me?”
“He’s resting now.” Moss followed Hall to the foot of the staircase. “No trouble with Blackman?”
“It was like giving candy to a baby.”
Hall went back to Denise’s room. She was asleep on her bed, laying on her side in only her bra and panties. An afternoon nap. He moved onto the bed beside her, facing her back, and nuzzled her neck. He slipped his hand between her legs and stroked her very gently with his fingertips through the thin fabric of her underwear. After a time, her breathing changed and she awakened with a low moan, her eyes still closed.
“Am I dreaming?” she whispered.
“Is it a good dream?” he asked, sliding his hand up to her flat stomach.
“I’ll let you know,” she said and pushed his hand back down between her legs.
There was more color in Rivers’ face. Aaron, on the other hand, looked pale and drained and red-eyed, as if he hadn’t slept since Rivers was shot.
Hall stopped Moss in the doorway. He said, in a voice that didn’t reach far beyond them, “I think Aaron needs a sleeping pill and about twenty hours sleep. I can take the afternoon turn at being a body keeper.”
Moss was blind to a lot of what was going on around him. He pushed himself so much that he didn’t recognize a worn-down co-worker unless it was pointed out to him. “I can do better than that. I can have another man here by this evening.”