Clear Skies

by A. M. Murray

  Slade could picture the room as a modern office twenty years ago, but it looked like Woodcock had not updated the premises since starting his business. The man probably kept information about his clients on his computer but still printed everything and stored it with fastidious care in his filing cabinets.

  A glance around the room gave the impression that methods of office administration had not advanced in the past two decades. Woodcock made a fortune in commissions and fees from a large number of offshore clients and did not intend to waste any of it on upgrading a facility that few, if any, of his clients visited.

  It would not surprise Slade if Woodcock owned one of the most luxurious villas on the island up on the hill, with unobstructed views of Road Bay through massive glass walls. He would be sure to have a modern home office with the latest high-tech equipment, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, a tennis court, and all the other accouterments of great wealth. He probably presided over lavish soirees every weekend and was, no doubt, a close friend of the police commissioner and Acting Commissioner Penn.

  “I apologize for the intrusion. I won’t take up much of your time.” Slade pulled out his FBI identification. “My name is Slade from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. I need to ask you a few questions to help clarify several murders my agency is investigating, in collaboration with the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Force.”

  “What could that possibly have to do with me here in the BVI?” Woodcock said. Slade expected him to show a degree of agitation, at least about the potential tarnishing of his elite reputation in Road Town by even the slightest association with heinous crimes, but he appeared unconcerned. A telltale glimmer of determination flitted across his face, signaling that Penn had telephoned Woodcock to warn him about an imminent visitor and how the good people of Road Town would rely on his absolute discretion.

  “Not you, Mr. Woodcock, but one of your clients.”

  “I’m sorry, but I cannot give you information about any of my clients. I have signed full non-disclosure agreements with all of them.”

  “I don’t believe any such agreement remains valid if the client in question is dead, especially if murdered. I represent the government of the United States in making these inquiries.” Woodcock opened his mouth to respond, but Slade cut him off. “I believe a couple calling themselves Richard and Carol Palmer, who were your clients, visited you yesterday. They were not the people they claimed to be, but imposters. I need to know why they came and the instructions they gave you.”

  “As I said, I cannot and will not provide this confidential information, especially without proof of your accusation. All I can say is that I met Mr. Palmer for the first time yesterday, but I have met Mrs. Palmer before. She is not the type of woman one readily forgets, so I doubt the veracity of your claim.” He folded the newspaper and slipped it into his briefcase, which Slade wagered was otherwise empty. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m leaving the office. I have a social engagement and cannot be late.”

  “The woman you know as Carol Palmer is lying on a slab in Road Town’s morgue, the victim of a savage attack that likely took place a short time after she met with you. The man claiming to be her husband has fled the island and no doubt absconded with access to her considerable fortune. We want to determine that man’s whereabouts, and it should be in the interests of your reputation as a business manager to help the authorities with their inquiries.”

  Woodcock barely paused. He took Slade’s arm and ushered him to the door. “If what you say is correct, it is most regrettable, but as I explained, I am under no obligation to disclose client information.”

  They stepped out of the office and Woodcock turned his key in the lock, which Slade noted was not a deadlock, but an old-style pin-and-tumbler mechanism vulnerable to an easy forced entry.

  Woodcock gestured for Slade to walk ahead of him down the stairs. “Can I offer you a lift to your hotel?” He clicked his remote to unlock the parked Mercedes.

  “No thank you. I have a car waiting.”

  From Woodcock’s disinterest in the fate of his clients, Slade felt sure he’d received a hefty fee for services he’d provided Harris and Ashton and did not expect any more payments. In all likelihood, Woodcock had liquidated Carol Palmer’s paper company in the British Virgin Islands and shifted the money via a circuitous route to an even more obscure haven. And Slade felt equally sure Woodcock filed details of that transaction in the cabinet labeled “P.”

  CHAPTER 44

  (Tuesday Evening— Road Town, BVI)

  The light was fading and, with it, the heat there had been to the day. Slade’s cab dropped him off at the Village Cay Hotel, overlooking the Village Cay Marina. It was conveniently located within brisk walking distance of the town center, and the driver had recommended the restaurant’s island cuisine and bar.

  After checking in, Slade left the hotel to visit a sports store in the shopping area and purchased black sweatpants, a black hooded sweatshirt, black sneakers, and a medium-sized black backpack. He moved on to a general store to buy a change of underwear, socks, shaving gear, a pair of black cotton gloves and a simple tool, and then returned to the hotel. He showered and changed into his new clothes, chosen to meld into the shadows after dark.

  He summoned housekeeping to collect his trousers, jacket, and shirt for the hotel’s express cleaning service and called room service to order a three-course dinner and half-bottle of wine.

  The meal left him hungry, like most room service meals. It reminded him of kaiseki ryōri, Japan’s traditional multi-course haute cuisine presented on individual trays with centuries-old origins in simple meals offered at ancient tea ceremonies. Each course of a kaiseki dinner is served in elegantly arranged micro-amounts. While delicious and refined, the food never satiated Slade’s appetite, and without exception, he’d leave the restaurant for one of Tokyo’s ubiquitous ramen noodle bars to stave off late-night hunger.

  With his appetite controlled for five or six hours, he called Isa, but her phone appeared to be switched off. He set his alarm for nine o’clock and lay down for a three-hour nap.

  # # #

  Slade awoke reluctantly. Since taking the red-eye flight from Nice yesterday, he’d spent the day in London and traveled that same night to Washington, DC via New York, where he’d changed planes at an indecent hour this morning. Sleep on the transatlantic flight had been fitful at best, perhaps no more than thirty minutes in total. He’d been a few hours in Washington before flying down here through stomach-wrenching turbulence and several more hours attempting to reach his final destination by ferry. On top of that, he’d sat through a fashion show, been shot at, been offered afternoon tea beside a battered corpse in the local morgue, and now planned to engage in subversive activity.

  He hadn’t noticed any deleterious effects of such a fierce pace of activities and sleep deprivation in his twenties and reflected that early signs of physical decline with aging had started five years ago, soon after turning thirty.

  Slade’s job in Tokyo didn’t help, as his life there consisted entirely of work stretched out over long, irregular hours, similar to the life pattern of his Japanese colleagues. Most of the time he sat in front of a computer. Membership fees of sports centers with professional training equipment were high, and the CIB’s gym was old, overcrowded, and always in heavy use. When he returned to Japan and his routine normalized, he would ignore the issue of cost, reevaluate his schedule, and put in a two-hour daily workout at a half-decent gym.

  Slade pulled on the backpack and left through the hotel’s rear exit. He flagged down a cab, got out three blocks from BVI Management Associates, and covered the remaining distance on foot.

  It was a dark evening, interrupted by short bursts of insipid light from the moon lurking behind fast-moving clouds. The only noise came from tree branches groaning with sudden gusts as the evening wind booted up. He climbed the stairs two at a time and crouched down to examine the door lock.

 
; Slade had been trained by one of the most rigorous and clandestine organizations in his country, and his instincts were finely tuned. While he picked the lock with the small Allen wrench he’d bought earlier, he sensed rather than saw a slight movement on the opposite side of the road. He turned his head without any perceptible shift of his body and strained his eyes to see what had moved.

  A man dressed in black like Slade stood beneath the old tree where the cab had pulled up earlier in the day. He was loading what appeared to be a single-shot rifle equipped with a silencer and high-powered scope, accurate up to sixty or more yards in Slade’s estimate. The shooter’s ample frame was about Slade’s size—six foot two over one hundred and seventy pounds—but he looked fitter. He moved with the unruffled confidence of a professional about to tackle a simple task.

  When a shard of silver moonlight appeared for a second between two thick clouds, Slade glimpsed reflections from steel toes on the man’s shoes.

  The sound of the rifle being cocked meant the shooter’s sights were fully trained on his target. And if that target was Slade, he had only seconds to evade a deadly bullet.

  He hunkered down lower and jiggled the wrench in the lock again with greater urgency. The door opened, and Slade lurched into the room, still in a crouched posture. He rolled to the side just as a bullet flew through the opening and slammed into the back wall of the office with a dull thud. The shooter hadn’t realized he’d been made and expected Slade to stand up before entering the room, causing him to miscalculate the height and timing of his shot.

  Slade closed and locked the door from the inside and ran to the filing cabinet with the drawer labeled “P.” Palmer’s file was at the front. He stuffed it in his backpack and put the backpack under the desk.

  He heard footsteps approaching on the stairs and attempted to slide one of the filing cabinets to block the entrance but couldn’t shift it fast enough. In desperation, he grabbed the heavy laptop computer from Woodcock’s desk and stood flat against the wall adjacent to the door.

  The lock blew into the room in a shower of pieces after another blast from the man’s rifle. The man entered the room and reloaded as he moved. Slade pounced on him from behind, bringing the full weight of the cumbersome computer down on his head and again on his lower arms. The man staggered and dropped his rifle onto the floor. Slade seized it and hurled it with all his strength through the open doorway and over the balcony railing to the street below. Slade heard a loud clatter as the weapon hit asphalt. At least the rifle was out of play.

  His adversary shook off the effects of the blow to his head in less than ten seconds. He struck out with a ferocious roundhouse kick when Slade turned back into the room to face him. A steel-capped shoe exploded into Slade’s shoulder and knocked him off his feet. The edge of the metal desk slammed against the side of Slade’s head like a knockout blow, and he crashed to the floor.

  He attempted to sit up, but the room spun. Pain engulfed his head, and the lights went out.

  CHAPTER 45

  (Tuesday Night— Road Town, BVI)

  Slade stood beside Isa, the wind twisting her hair around her face. She was more beautiful than ever. In the outdoor sauna of a midsummer Tokyo night, they ate yakisoba, a popular fried noodle dish bought from a roadside food stall. They were in the Odaiba district, where towering apartment blocks, hotels, and a trendy shopping center stood with hellacious optimism on land reclaimed from earthquake-prone Tokyo Bay, which sits atop a major fault.

  They were watching a display of hanabi or fireworks, an annual summer ritual of jostling crowds crammed into overcrowded spaces to see the night sky light up over the bay. Rapid bursts of ear-hammering explosions propelling bursting spheres of color upwards quickened his blood flow and jolted his body into a more alert condition.

  He sat up, still drowsy, his nostrils filled with the pungent smell of smoke. The temperature had shot up to an intolerable level since he’d entered the room. Slade felt a burst of adrenaline as life poured back into his body. Several explosions on the first floor brought him to his feet, and now fully conscious, he knew the building was ablaze, and the hanabi display was no more than an illusion.

  Slade realized that when the shooter had lost his weapon, he’d moved to Plan B and set a fire in the first-floor office, confident that Slade was out cold and would die in the blaze.

  Slade glanced at his watch. Fueled by gasoline in the motorbikes and fanned by the rising wind, the fire had taken less than ten minutes to spread through the entire wooden structure. Smoke building up in the room could kill him, and the floor might collapse any moment. He had to get out fast.

  He tried to open the steel door, but swollen by the fire’s heat, it was jammed. He could tell through the opaque glass window that flames were already licking the third-floor balcony and the wall surrounding the door was burning, preventing any escape from that route.

  Slade dropped to his knees and crawled behind the desk to look for his backpack and found it unharmed. He pulled it on and while still on his knees, dragged Woodcock’s heavy, old-model printer to the table’s back edge. He stood up, grabbed the printer, hefted it a few times, then smashed it into one of the windows behind the desk, the thin glass shattering and flying in every direction.

  The sudden inrush of air fed the flames around the door, causing the balcony window to explode. The fire roared into the room in a greedy ball of flames and searing heat to feed on the fresh jet of air. Slade ducked down again behind Woodcock’s old solid desk to avoid the hot blast, which ended almost as soon as it began.

  He stood, kicked out defiant shards of glass lingering in the frame and leaped through the open window, aiming for one of the dumpsters. He fell, feet first, into one overfilled with organic waste, which gave him a soft landing and protection from the worst of the fire’s heat.

  The impact knocked the air from Slade’s lungs. When he hauled himself over the side of the dumpster, struggling to regain his natural breathing rhythm, he slashed his arm two inches above the elbow on the dumpster’s rough metal edge.

  Slade ignored the wound and barreled into the cool forested area behind the building. He heard the sirens of fire trucks and police cars arrive out front, but continued to run, forging through undergrowth between the trees toward the town center. He moved fast, like prey from a hawk, through the forested area until well clear of the fire-engulfed building and out of sight of first responders and curious locals.

  He veered out from the trees behind several large homes backing onto an unlit lane that provided the perfect flight route. Not wanting to draw unwanted attention he reduced his pace to a slow jog and caught his breath.

  As his distance from the blaze increased, he slowed further to a casual walk, and soon a foul odor assaulted his nostrils. Pieces of rotting food and other organic trash clung to his clothes and shoes, and blobs of decomposing gelatinous muck stuck to his hand after he ran it through his hair. Blood ran down to his hands from the gash on his upper arm. Returning to the city center and hotel covered in rotting fruit, meat, sewage, and blood would arouse unwelcome interest, and he wanted to stay off Detective Inspector Penn’s radar for the rest of his stay in Road Town.

  A tall, unkempt hedge bordered one of the houses he’d just passed and stood out from the high concrete walls topped with barbed wire protecting the other residences. He retraced his steps and eased through a gap in the hedge into the garden to look for a tap to clean up. Instead, he found a swimming pool in the grounds of an old, run-down home. The pool-cleaning service had not been here in a long time, but right now, the water looked more inviting than anything his hotel had to offer.

  He removed his backpack, dived in and swam underwater to the deep end. He remained submerged while he rubbed off the debris. He climbed out, wiped the backpack with his wet gloves and left the way he’d arrived, dripping and shaking himself like a dog after a bath, his objective achieved—clean and relatively odor-free.

  Slade resumed his route along the lane, his clothes
drying in the balmy night breeze. With the buffer of smoke and trash odors gone and now a tidy distance from the fire, the air was thick with the scent of tropical flowers. The natural aromatherapy soothed his nerves during the final stretch until he reached the hotel’s rear door and ran up the stairs to his room.

  In the likely event that Penn learned where he was staying and paid him a visit, Slade pulled the Palmer file from his backpack and slid it under the mattress. He jumped in the shower to rinse the gash on his arm and eradicate any telltale trace of smoke with a thorough soaping down from head to foot, then dressed in his freshly laundered clothes. He used a thin hand towel to bind his injured arm and rolled down his shirt sleeve to hide the wound.

  He wrapped the sweatsuit, sneakers, gloves, and backpack in a plastic bag and left the hotel again through the rear door. As he dropped the bag into a trash can three blocks away, he heard a small private jet fly over the town, climbing as it went.

  He was willing to bet it carried the shooter on his way to rejoin his employer, confident that Slade was dead. And Slade believed the same man had killed Chloe Harris.

  CHAPTER 46

  (Tuesday Night— Road Town, BVI)

  Back at the hotel, Slade made his way to the bar and ordered three single-malt whiskeys, two shots on the rocks, in quick succession. He struck up a conversation with his fellow drinkers, most of them owners of the yachts berthed in the marina. He’d just swallowed the last mouthful of an American-style club sandwich and tossed back his fourth whiskey when Detective-Inspector Penn arrived, cap tucked under his left arm.