“Not to worry,” he said. “I’m a cheap date. But just out of curiosity, if we were only going to stay at a roach motel, what was wrong with the first three places you scoped out?”
“None of them had the features I was looking for.”
“And what features would that be?”
“Oh, you know, a little of this, a little of that.”
“You already used that answer once today.”
“I know,” she said brightly, looking like the cat that ate the canary.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re one frustrating person to deal with?”
“More often than you might think.”
“I doubt that.”
Tracie parked the car in front of an office that looked like it had been built by the architect who designed the Bates Motel. An old-fashioned MOTEL sign hung in the front window, the glass tubes filled with red neon gas. The “L” had burned out, leaving MOTE flickering weakly in the darkness. Above it, another sign said NEW HAVEN ARMS.
Shane looked at the MOTE with distaste. “I hope that’s not a warning of what’s waiting for us in the rooms.”
“Ah, come on, how bad could it be? Where’s your sense of adventure?” she said, stepping out of the car and stretching.
Shane reached for the door handle to join her and then stopped, admiring the view through the windshield as she reached for the sky. The night was mild and she hadn’t bothered to pull on her jacket and her blouse lifted as she stretched, revealing a taut belly. He had already gotten an up-close and personal look at her legs last night while cleaning her injury, and he decided this young woman was the complete package.
She bent down suddenly and looked in the driver’s side window, catching him staring, and laughed. She waggled her index finger.
“Naughty boy,” she said through the closed window. It looked to Shane like her face colored a little, but maybe that was his imagination.
He clambered out of the car after her. “Sorry about that,” he said, although he really wasn’t, and he knew she knew he wasn’t. “So, what’s the plan?”
“What do you mean, what’s the plan? Come on Romeo, haven’t you ever shacked up with a girl of questionable repute in a run-down motel before?”
“Sure,” he said. “But when you say it like that it sounds so cheap.”
They shared a laugh and she turned toward the door. “Just follow my lead,” she said, and entered the office.
The décor was Spartan and had gone out of style sometime before John Glenn orbited the earth. A potted plant stood in one corner covered in dust. It looked like it was dying despite the fact it was made of plastic. A small couch, the fabric ripped and torn, lined the wall next to it. To the left of the entrance was a single rickety wooden chair.
They moved to the front desk and Tracie dinged a small bell. Through an open door behind the counter came a rustling sound and then the scraping of a chair, and a moment later a rumpled-looking scarecrow of a man appeared. He was dressed in loose-fitting jeans and a stained Rolling Stones T-shirt, and he gazed at them suspiciously through red-rimmed eyes, as if not quite able to believe a customer had actually entered the place.
“Help you?” he asked, making clear through the inflection in his voice it was the last thing in the world he really wanted to do.
Tracie flashed a smile and Shane thought she could have been a beauty queen if she wanted to. Or an actress.
“We’d like to rent two rooms,” she said, and the clerk actually took a step back, blinking in surprise. Shane knew how he felt.
“Two rooms?” he said and then paused, like he was waiting for the punch line.
“That’s right, and I know exactly which ones I want.”
“Oh-kayyy,” the clerk said, now clearly convinced the world as he knew it had been thrown off its axis.
“We would like to rent the rooms at the far end of the parking lot, one on each side, facing each other,” Tracie said, still smiling, enjoying the clerk’s confusion.
Scarecrow-man shook his head, not even attempting to hide his skepticism. “Sign here,” he mumbled, lifting a worn logbook up from under the counter and sliding it across at Tracie. “That’ll be fifty bucks total.”
She dug the money out of her pocket, signed the log book—Shane watched as she wrote “Sally Field” next to one room and “Kathleen Turner” next to the other, and the clerk shook his head again—and then received two keys. Each was attached to a red plastic fob with the words “New Haven Arms,” as well as the room numbers, stamped in faded gold lettering on both sides.
“Thanks,” she said, flashing another dazzling smile at the clerk, although she had to have known by now charming this guy was impossible.
They turned toward the door and the clerk mumbled, “Check-out time’s ten a.m., Miss Field.”
Tracie waggled her fingers in response and then they were back in the parking lot, the smell of the nearby Atlantic Ocean floating across the night air as they walked to the Granada.
“Two rooms?” Shane asked.
“Security,” she said, the answer puzzling him. Was she afraid of him?
If he was going to hurt her, he could have done it last night when she was passed out on his couch or in his bed. Besides, he thought, remembering the pistol she had waved in his face. She’s the one with the gun.
Tracie laughed. She seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. “Not security from you, silly.”
She started the car and drove slowly to the back of the lot, then nosed into the parking space directly in front of the last room on the right.
“Then from who?” Shane asked. “You don’t think those guys from the airport can find us, do you? I mean, how could they possibly know where we would be?”
“How, indeed,” she said thoughtfully.
Shane shrugged, exasperated. This was one strange young woman: beautiful and alluring and sexy, with a girl-next-door innocence about her, but also tough as nails and somehow world-weary, as if being chased by cold-blooded killers represented just another day at the office.
“Okay,” he said, shaking his head. “I give up. Which room do you want me to take?”
She flicked her thumb in the direction of the room across the parking lot, directly behind the Ford. Shane held his hand out for the key and Tracie looked at the room numbers stamped on the plastic fobs, then handed him one. He took it without a word, annoyed, then opened the car door and stalked off across the lot.
When he reached the other side, he stuck the key in the door, surprised by the motel’s poor lighting. The doorway was bathed in shadows despite the fact the moon was full. He opened the door and realized Tracie was right behind him.
“I thought you wanted me to take this one,” he said.
“I do. I also want me to take this one.”
“Then why the hell did we rent two rooms when you said you’re almost out of money?”
“I told you,” she said. “Security.”
Shane stared at her. “You really are worried about those guys.”
“Not worried, exactly, but let’s just say I like to maintain a healthy dose of concern at all times. It’s what keeps me alive.”
30
May 31, 1987
9:55 p.m.
New Haven, Connecticut
The room was more or less what Tracie had expected: small and cramped, with outdated furnishings and a bed topped a mattress that was probably as old as she was, covered by an off-white set of threadbare blankets and a fading blue bedspread. She had stayed in a hundred similar rooms all over the world—and many that were much, much worse.
It was clean at least, more or less.
Shane bounced on the bed like a little kid, grinning. “Wanna take it for a spin?” He waggled his eyebrows like Groucho Marx and she burst out laughing.
“As tempting as you make it sound,” she said, “I have work to do. I really need to call my handler. In fact, this phone call is way overdue. I should have contacted him last night, b
ut I was down and out and then today we’ve been too busy trying not to get killed. Before I do that, though, we need to set up the room across the way.”
Shane looked at her quizzically. “Set it up?”
“Yep. You can put all that excess energy to good use, although maybe not he way you intended. We’re going to haul all the pillows over there, as well as any extra blankets you can find.”
“What for?”
“Bait.”
Shane picked the two lumpy pillows off the bed while Tracie investigated the tiny closet. In it was a small ironing board, and ancient iron, and an extra set of bedding: two sheets and two blankets. She grabbed the blankets and sheets, wondering if anyone frequenting this rundown piece of shit motel had ever had occasion to iron an article of clothing, or if the iron even still worked.
“Take the blankets and the bedspread off this bed,” she told Shane. “We can use those across the way as well. We’ll leave the sheets, though. I don’t think I’d want to even sit on the bed without something covering it.” She wrinkled her nose.
“Take this bedding? What about you? What are you going to sleep on? I’ll sleep on the floor in my clothes and you can have the bed, but without blankets it won’t be very comfy.”
Tracie smiled. He was being a perfect gentleman, despite his half-joking proposition of a moment ago.
“We’re going to trade off sleeping,” she said. “Nobody will have to sleep on the floor, because one of us is going to stay awake all night, watching the room across the way. Even when you’re sleeping you’ll have to stay in your clothes, anyway, because if we have to move we’ll need to be able to do it quickly.”
“What will we be watching for?”
Tracie chewed on her lower lip, a reaction to stress she’d been trying unsuccessfully to break for as long as she could remember.
“Hopefully nothing,” she said in a tone that didn’t even convince herself.
Shane stared at her for a long moment. She thought he was going to reply but didn’t. Then he stripped the covers off the bed, rolled them up into a ball, and hugged the pillows and bedding to his chest. He opened the door and they trooped across the parking lot to their second room.
Tracie examined the lot as they crossed, pleased with her choice of motels. The sight line between the two rooms was perfect, the lighting in the parking lot was abysmal, and only a couple of the other rooms appeared occupied, both of them far off in the distance next to the office.
They entered the second room and found a mirror image of the one they’d just left, right down to the faded coloring on the decades-old bedspread. She pulled the spread to the foot of the bed and then did the same thing with the blankets and top sheet. She placed her blankets on the right side of the bed and told Shane, “Hand me yours.”
When he passed them over she placed them lengthwise on top of hers, folded the whole pile back on top of itself, and then scrunched everything up in the rough approximation of a sleeping body.
She stepped back and examined her handiwork with a critical eye.
“Hmph. Guess it’ll have to do,” she muttered. “Good thing it’s dark out there.”
She walked around the bed, darting past Shane with the grace of a dancer. “Toss me the pillows,” she said.
When he did, she arranged them lengthwise along that side of the bed, creating a second sleeping body. Then she pulled the original blankets back over her creation, covering the two lumps.
She took one more look and then shrugged. “What do you think? Does it look like two sleeping people?”
“Maybe to Ray Charles,” Shane said and she punched his arm.
“Wise ass. It only has to fool them for a couple of seconds.”
“Then what happens?”
“I happen.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means they get interrogated.”
“By you?”
“That’s right.”
“But this is all for nothing, because nobody’s coming.”
“Hope so.”
“You and me both,” Shane said, concern in his voice.
She winked at him and walked to the bathroom, flipping the switch on the wall. Then she pulled the door almost all the way closed. A thin shaft of dirty yellow light slashed across the main room, illuminating just enough of the beds, she hoped, to convince any interested visitors that two people were actually sleeping in them.
“That’s going to have to do,” she said.
“Now what?” Shane asked.
She pulled her dwindling supply of cash out of her pocket and studied it. “You said you had a little money, right?” she asked hopefully.
Shane said, “Yeah, I’ve got around twenty bucks.”
“Good,” she answered. “I’ll go out with you and start the Granada, then I want you to take it and find an open hardware store. We need duct tape.”
“Duct tape. What do we need duct tape for?”
Tracie grinned and waggled her eyebrows as he had done when they entered the first motel room. “Use your imagination.”
***
Back in the original room, Tracie picked up the phone and dialed a complex series of numbers from memory. She waited for an accompanying series of beeps and then dialed more numbers. There was a thirty-second silence and then the earpiece buzzed, indicating the line was ringing.
The call was answered on the second ring. “Green twenty-seven,” a voice said.
“Red eighteen,” Tracie answered.
“Thank God you’re okay,” Winston Andrews said. “When I didn’t hear from you last night I started to think maybe you had crawled off into the woods and gotten yourself eaten by a bear.” He seemed to be enunciating carefully, like he was trying not to slur his words.
“Nope, I’m still kicking.”
“Do you have the cargo?”
“I have it.”
“Any damage?”
“It’s like me: a little beat up but fine.”
“How close are you?”
“Still a few hours out. We’re going to hole up in a cheap motel for the night and come into D.C. tomorrow.”
“We?”
“I have a civilian with me. It’s the guy who rescued me from the burning B-52. He’s got a bulls-eye on his back now and will until this thing is over. I thought it best to keep him close.”
“That’s a serious breach of mission protocol.”
“I know that. I’ll deal with the consequences later.”
Andrews sighed heavily. Through the phone’s earpiece the sound was like a strong gust of wind. Tracie had worked with her handler a long time, and she was convinced he’d been drinking.
Like he had a lot on his mind.
Like he was worried.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“In the New Haven area, somewhere safe,” Tracie said, hoping against hope he would let the issue drop.
“Tell me the exact location and I’ll pull some strings,” Andrews said. “You know, keep you out of trouble. You left one hell of a mess up there in Bangor. Every cop along the Eastern Seaboard is looking for the dirtbag who shot one of their brethren point blank in the chest and drove off. They’re out for blood, and it seems they don’t much care whether they shoot one of the Russian guys or you.”
Her heart sank, and not because of the police who could be after them. Her worst fears had just been confirmed. Andrews was involved with the Soviets. She had always wondered about that, had heard whispered rumors over the years. The fact he wanted to know exactly where she was verified her suspicions.
Tracie hesitated, trying to put just the right amount of indecision into her response. “Me revealing my location on an unsecured line is against mission protocol, too.”
“I understand that, but I’m trying to keep you alive. I have some connections in the New Haven area. Tell me where you are and I can call in a few favors, divert the attention of the law from your area until you’re safely out of there tomorrow.”
Tracie sighed loudly and gave in. “Okay. We’re holed up in Room Twenty-One at the New Haven Arms, just south of I-95. It’s a cheap little dive, well off the beaten path. There’s no way anyone could track us here. We’ll be fine.”
“I hope so,” Andrews said. “Just the same, I’ll call my people in the area and make sure the cops stay away from there overnight.”
“Thanks. We should see you by late afternoon tomorrow.”
“Roger that,” Andrews said. “Stay safe.”
He broke the connection and Tracie sat on the edge of the bed, staring out the dirty picture window at the dark parking lot. She couldn’t decide whether to be angry or sad.
She settled on both.
31
May 31, 1987
10:50 p.m.
New Haven, Connecticut
Shane pulled the Granada into the spot it had previously occupied in front of the dummy motel room and then trotted across the pavement to Room Twenty.
The door swung open and he knew immediately something was wrong. Tracie barely acknowledged him. Her face was troubled and she was obviously deep in thought.
“What is it?” he said. “What’s the matter?”
She smiled forlornly. “You mean aside from this whole mess?”
Shane nodded.
“I just got off the phone with my handler, a man named Winston Andrews, an intelligence specialist who’s been the company’s foremost expert on Soviet covert activities since well before I was born.”
He placed a paper bag on the ancient dresser between the two beds. “Okay. And?”
“And I’m almost certain he’s involved with the guys who are trying to kill us.”
Shane froze. “Why do you say that?”
“He asked where we were staying, claimed he could use his influence to divert the attention of the police away from this area. They’re looking for us and are pretty pissed off about the dead cop back in Bangor. Anyway, Andrews said he would help keep the police from shooting our asses off.”
“So what’s the problem? I’m pretty fond of my ass and I’d hate to see anything happen to yours. We could certainly use all the help we can get.”
Tracie Tanner Thrillers Box Set Page 14