by Ralph Dennis
“Good idea.”
Rivers had a fresh pillow placed behind his head. He almost seemed friendly. “I understand it went well in New York.”
Hall nodded. “Blackman will run the new note. It opened his eyes, you might say. Now, to him, it’s sharks trying to swallow other sharks.”
“That’s an improvement,” River said.
Moss shifted in his chair. “I’m calling in another man. From the looks of him I’d say Aaron needs a vitamin shot and a few hours of sleep.”
“Good of you to think of him.”
“The least I can do.” The Warden seemed pleased with himself.
Rivers lifted a hand and pressed the bandage on his shoulder. “Where’s Denny? You leave her in New York?”
“She’s fixing lunch.”
“I hope she was helpful.”
“Very,” Hall said.
Rivers didn’t press it. “I thought you might be interested in the way I’ve set up the compartments.”
“If it’s not too complicated for me to understand.”
“The Warden handled it for me. Administration, operations and communications, those three compartments. Each of them received a different packet. Each with a standard initial slip. For example, the packet received at administration had already been initialed by operations and communications.” Rivers allowed himself a sly grin. “No reason, therefore, for that packet to return to operations or communications, right? It was the same with the information delivered to operations. Already initialed by administration and communications. And on and on. You understand the concept?”
Hall dipped his head. “I’m more concerned with the kind of information you furnished them.”
“Administration was told the truth, that you were back in the fold and vindicated to some degree. Operations was told that you were considered killed in Ireland, Communications was informed that you’d worked out the Marcos connection with Nationwide Metals.”
“Any reaction?”
“Not yet,” Rivers said.
“I guess we wait then.”
Rivers nodded. “That’s the program.”
Hall led the way from the room. Before Moss pulled the door closed behind him, Hall saw Aaron feeding Rivers another pain pill.
It was early evening. Dusk wasn’t very different from the overcast sky that had been there most of the day. A light, wet snow fell. It fluttered down on the hard snow crust that surrounded the safehouse.
Head down, an arm around Denise’s shoulders, Hall picked his way through the trees. Now that he was, in effect, reinstated there was no problem about the Python .357 that he’d taken from Freddy Webb at his Blowing Rock house. The Warden was even forward enough to offered him a box of loads to replace the spent shells. The weight of the Python dragged at the right pocket of the parka. Not that he believed he would need it. As far as he could tell, the safehouse was just that, a safe place. However, The Warden, when Hall said that he and Denise were going for a walk, had suggested that he carry, just in case, The Warden had said that he’d like a walk himself but he was waiting for the relief bodyguard to spell Aaron for a day or so.
They stopped in a clearing. Beyond the clearing, as one boundary, there was a stream that was hardly more than a ditch. They’d walked slowly and they were, he estimated, about two hundred yards from the house. The water in the stream ran sluggishly, clogged with patches of ice. Hall stopped and looked down at the stream. He wasn’t dressed for fording even a shallow stream.
Denise placed her back to the stream. “You don’t seem taken with Rivers’ plan.”
“That’s only part of it.”
“What is?” Wet snow stuck to Denise’s eyebrows.
Hall lifted a hand stroked the snow away. “I think he’s trying to be too clever. He hasn’t considered the risks. The crap about compartments. It’s easier to talk about than to accomplish. Say Worldwide’s got a man in one unit … operations. What’s to keep him from having a cup of coffee with a man from communications? Too bad about what happened to Hall, huh? That’s the man from operation who thinks I’m reported dead in Ireland. What do you mean? the man from communications says. He’s alive and well and probably somewhere in Virginia. And then it’s a simple matter to—”
There was a muffled crackling in the distance, from the direction of the safehouse.
It was the unmistakable sound of a submachine gun, Hall thought. Probably an Ingram with a noise suppressor
Denise’s eye widened and her face paled. He nodded, acknowledging her thought, reached into his right parka pocket and brought away the Python .357. It couldn’t match the firepower he’d heard.
Hall had seen the arms cabinet at the house. It was located in the kitchen next to the pantry. He’d had his look when he’d been getting loads for the .357. Two or three of the old standby, the .45 automatic, a Dan Wesson .357 with a six-inch barrel, an M-16 and an M-21 with a 3-9 Redfield scope. Those and boxes of loads and clips. But no Uzi and no Ingram.
There was another extended burst from the subgun. Hall wrapped his free arm around Denise. “Are you dressed warm enough?”
“I think so.”
There was a large thick clump of bushes next to the stream. It was snow covered. Hall pulled her in that direction. “Under there,” he said.
“I’ll go with you.”
“Not this time.” He circled the bush and lifted a section of it. There was a cavity formed under it. A frightened bird, moving so that that Hall couldn’t identify it, broke cover. One wing brushed Hall’s shoulder. “In there.” She dropped to her knees and crawled under the bush. “Stay here until I call you. Stay here until morning if you have to. If I don’t come back at all, you head west until you reach the highway. You can probably hitch a ride.”
She didn’t argue.
Hall lowered the section of the bush. He thought he heard another burst from the subgun. Working hurriedly, he scooped snow from a low mound and threw it about until he had covered most of the tracks that led to the bush. It wasn’t as good a job as he would have liked. Maybe it wouldn’t matter. It was almost dark now and the slow fall of wet snow might complete the work. “Remember. Until morning if I don’t come back for you.”
“Be careful, Will.” There was a shiver in her voice.
There was a silence in the distance now. He walked in the direction of that silence.
When he and Denise left the safehouse for the walk there had been a glow of light from inside. The porch light, twin spots, hadn’t been lit. From his shadow place at the edge of the woods, Hall saw that it was changed around completely now. The house was dark and the twin spots blazed downward from the edge of the roof.
Hall remained beyond the reach of the lights. Still as the tree he stood beside. A dark form, a body, sprawled on the steps, face down. The body seemed wedged there, like a fly that had been swatted and mashed into place. From the bulk, Hall guessed that it was Aaron. There was no movement and no sound.
No reason to be careless, Hall told himself.
He backed away from the light and followed the woods that ran parallel to the narrow road that led from the highway to the safehouse. Halfway to the highway, there was a scraped area to one side. Parking spaces for five or six cars. Earlier in the day, two cars had been parked there, a black Mercedes that belonged to Rivers and the Company car, a tan and white Ford station wagon. The same now, he told himself. The same two cars. But there was the smell, the hint, of exhaust in the cold clean air. Hall started across the road and stopped. New tracks, heavy snow tires, were printed in the snow crust, each detail clear and clean, unspoiled by the slow snow flutter.
He trotted south, toward the stream. He’d cut the angle too sharp and missed the bush. He followed the stream until he found it. “Denise?”
There was a rustle, scratching, and Denise clawed her way from under the bush. She ran against him, her arms circling his neck. “I was worried. What happened?”
Her hands were cold. He shoved the Python into his
pocket and broke the clasp at his neck. He held her hands between his until they felt warmed.
“I don’t know yet. I had to be sure they were gone, whoever they were. It looks like a strike of some kind. But I couldn’t leave you out here while I checked.”
“Any survivors?”
He knew of at least one likely casualty. “Let’s go find out.”
Before they stepped into the patch of light from the twin spots, Hall lifted the Python and held it at the ready. He put his left arm around Denise and guided her to the other side of the steps, past Aaron’s body to the doorway.
“Don’t look back,” he said. He left her and moved down the stairs and squatted next to Aaron. First, he noticed that Aaron was wearing a tweed jacket, no outer coat. That probably meant he’d stepped outside with the expectation that the time away from the warmth would be brief. Hall leaned down and caught Aaron by one shoulder. He pulled him upward, long enough to see the damage that the Ingram or whatever it was had done to Aaron’s chest and stomach. A burst of twenty rounds or so had almost torn Aaron in half. Hall released the dead man’s shoulder. No heartbeat, no pulse. He’d probably been dead about the time he hit the steps.
“It’s going to be ugly in there,” Hall said to Denise, who had her back to him and Aaron. She didn’t want to see it. “Prepare yourself.”
Hall opened the door and stepped inside. Denise followed him, one hand on his arm. He touched the light switch to the right of the doorway. The overhead lights flared on. He’d prepared himself for more blood. The living room was empty. Hall turned and caught Denise by the hand
The door to the bedroom was ajar. Hall went in that direction, Denise stayed behind. A push at the door and he stopped in the doorway. There was light in the room from an overturned lamp. Rivers had tried to roll out of bed. He’d had trouble. Now he was frozen in place, his feet trapped in the sheets and blankets. The top half of his body hanging over the side of the bed. A stitch of rounds from the subgun had walked its way up his spine and blown off the top of his head.
Hall backed from the bedroom. He closed the door until he was the way it had been. Denise stared at him. Hall shook his head. “Rivers, too.”
That left Moss, The Warden. Hall pictured the scenario.
Aaron goes outside for some reason. Is hit there. Moss hears the subgun. What does Moss do? Even if he is carrying a handgun, he knows he is outgunned. What does he do? What would I do?
“Wait here,” Hall told Denise.
He found Moss at the arms cabinet beside the kitchen pantry. The doors unlocked, probably reaching for the M-16. A clip on the floor beside him. The wood of the right door to the arms cabinet splintered. The subgunner walking the rounds right to left, low to high, hitting Moss in the hip and spinning him. Then in the chest as he turned. The head shot when Moss was down. Brain tissue splattered across the floor and the baseboards.
Hall returned to the living room. He found a decanter of cognac in the liquor cabinet. He poured two heavy shots. He handed one to Denise and watched her sip. He gulped his. His stomach flipped. He was queasy.
“It was a sweep,” he said.
He poured another shot for himself and carried it to the phone. He dialed the Farm number.
“This is Hall. Delta two, delta four, Bravo one, fox three.”
The story told. His story recounted in one of the upstairs bedrooms while Denise was questioned in a room down the hall. During this time, the cleanup was going on in the kitchen, the first-floor bedroom and the front steps.
While he talked, Hall drank mugs of hot coffee. His nerves were better now, he thought, and he considered the problem housekeeping had. The weather too nasty for a sailing accident. Who’d be out in this kind of mess? No, it would be a skid on bad roads. Aaron driving and Rivers and Moss passengers in the back seat Not just a crash. A fire as well. Midnight or later when the roads were clear of some of the usual traffic. Too bad about Rivers’ black Mercedes.
“You’ll take a polygraph?” Ray Stiggers asked.
“Any time you want,” Hall said.
Two men were in the room with Hall. One was a bone-breaker. Hardly a word from him the whole time. He was in the room to be sure that Hall didn’t try to do something that wasn’t planned for. The second man, Ray Stiggers, the one doing the questioning, he was the interesting one. Out of Brown the same year Hall left Yale. He was the number three man in security. Said to be a Rivers’ apprentice. Stiggers had some of the same mannerisms as his mentor. The pipe, the harsh tobacco and the English tailoring. Any similarity ended there. The body under this tweed suit wasn’t sickly. It was hard and flat as rolled steel. He was a tall man, with dark hair and a faint feathering of gray at the sideburns.
“Tonight?” Stiggers said.
“Fine with me. If being tired and strung out won’t screw up the machine.”
Stiggers shook his head. “Not likely.” He took the warm pipe from his mouth and rubbed the bowl against the side of his nose, oiling it. Not, Hall thought, the kind of gesture Rivers would have made. Stiggers closed his notebook. “Too bad the girl was with you. Otherwise …”
“If she hadn’t been out walking with me, she’d be zipped in a body bag by now. And, if I can guess the second part of the statement, I’d say you’re out of your mind. If I hadn’t had to hide Denise, I might have got back to the house and got a look at the killer or killers. But I’m not going up against an Uzi or an Ingram with a handgun. Not unless I’ve got a sure back shot at three or four feet.”
Ray Stiggers wanted to avoid the putdown. “Killers?”
“Had to be at least two. It was a matter of timing.” Hall stopped. “You want my guess?”
Stiggers nodded and rubbed the nose oil into the pipe bowl with his fingers. He clamped the pipe in his teeth.
“I’d say at least two men. Probably a driver who waited at the parking area. Somehow, they got Aaron on the porch. He was always armed but he wasn’t carrying a weapon in his hands. Maybe he knew them. One man cut down on Aaron. That cleared the way to the door. The second man made his sprint for the entrance to the house. The first man probably made sure Aaron was out of it for good. Then he followed man number two. Probably about a step behind him. Moss was in the living room. He heard the subgun and knew he was outmanned. He made a run for the arms cabinet. Moss might have made it if there was only one killer.”
Hall paused. “I didn’t get a good look at the bedroom where Rivers was. Was he armed?”
Stiggers nodded. “Sidearm on the floor. Night table drawer partly open. Pistol probably was there and Rivers had trouble turning and reaching into the drawer. Before he could turn with the handgun, he caught it in the back.”
“Two men,” Hall said. “One man reached the living room in time to see Moss heading for the gun cabinet. That man followed Moss and got him before he could put a clip on the M-16. Fast work. Good timing with this team. A ten second delay, even less, and Moss would have been a dangerous man. Killer number one, the man who’d gunned Aaron, made his run for the first-floor bedroom. The same man couldn’t have killed Moss and Rivers. Too little time. Rivers would have been armed. He might have got off a round or two. Rivers would have been prepared if he’d had the time it took the killer to finish off Moss. Moss would have been prepared if a single killer had finished off Rivers before coming after him.”
“At least two men then,” Stiggers said. “Too bad you didn’t get a look at them.”
“That bothers me,” Hall said. “You know what else worries me?”
Stiggers talked around the pipe mouthpiece. “No.”
“They didn’t come looking for me.”
Stiggers closed his eyes and sucked at the pipe.
Hall wasn’t hungry. Denise insisted that they needed at least a bowl of soup. Stiggers and the other were in the living room, waiting for the polygraph machine and the operator to arrive from The Farm. Denise found two cans of black bean soup on a shelf above the stove. While the soup heated, she placed bowls on th
e table and told Hall to make himself useful.
“I need sherry and crackers,” she said.
The weapons cabinet was closed but not locked. Hall passed it and stepped into the pantry. He flipped on the overhead light. There was a section of cradled wines and he read labels until he found a bottle of dry California sherry. He tucked the wine under one arm. Crackers? Crackers? Yes, there. A large tin of English water biscuits. He’d turned and started from the pantry when he heard the squeak. He stopped and waited. Another squeak. It was a familiar sound but he couldn’t place it. He walked the length of the pantry, ears close to the shelves, until he located the source of the sound. There. What looked like the front of an antique flour bin. He pulled the front of the bin downward and leaned forward.
The tape recorder was still running. The squeak was at the head of the recorder. Probably needed cleaning or lubrication. The sound, that was where he’d heard it before.
On his way through the kitchen, he placed the sherry and the water biscuits on the counter. Denise said, “Aren’t you going to pull the cork?”
Hall shook his head and went looking for Ray Stiggers.
The kitchen smelled of the earthy black bean soup and the dollop of sherry had added to it. She ladled two bowls and when Stiggers looked hungrily at their supper she poured the remainder into another bowl and scraped the pot.
Stiggers thanked her.
On the other side of the kitchen, one of the bonebreakers set up the tape player. He’d found it in an equipment room in the attic.
It had taken Stiggers only a couple of minutes to find the trip switch for the recorder. It was concealed under the left arm of the stuffed chair that Moss usually sat in in the living room. There was an ashtray stand beside that chair, in it the dead half of one of the Cuban cigars the Warden smoked.
Stiggers showed Hall the switch. One touch and the recorder in the pantry stopped. On the way to the kitchen, Stiggers asked, “was there anything going on earlier that Moss might have wanted taped?”