Hard Fall Part 26

"I'm sorry?" he said. "I think you have the wrong number."

A long pause occurred as she considered his words. He was dealing with his own sense of panic; he could only imagine hers. There was no time to wait. The FBI or whoever was on to them might have trap-and-trace in place. The trap-and-trace would identify his number immediately. As they spoke, cars could be rolling. If she wouldn't acknowledge .. .

"I'm calling Dallas," she said, in a constricted voice.

"No, no." He said. "I'm in Washington. You do have the wrong number." He hung up. There. It was done. Over. His operation was coming apart at the seams.

He had to keep them one step behind. He had to keep moving. He had to force all other thoughts from his mind close all the compartments and focus on the individual elements essential to his escape. He threw open the Yellow Pages Taxi while the little black box on his phone line remained the center of his universe. Kort dialed. The dispatcher answered. a.s.suming his line was also tapped by now but hoping it wasn't, Kort calmly ordered a cab under the name of Anthony Carl Anthony for twenty minutes from now. His heartbeat reminded him of horse hooves on cobblestone. Miraculously, the LED on the black box remained dark. He was about to celebrate his anonymity when it lit up brightly. Kort's knees went weak.

Compromised!

The resulting flurry of activity he threw himself into helped overcome his sense of panic. He disconnected and pocketed the small box that warned of telephone surveillance, headed straight to his weapon, checked that it was loaded, and slipped on the holster. He placed an additional two magazines in his left pants pocket: it gave him twenty-seven shots. Not many against an army of FBI agents.

How many would they send? How certain would they be? How much time did he have? He checked his watch. Thirty seconds had pa.s.sed.

He shoved some clothes into a flight bag and in a single sweeping gesture cleared his toilet articles and cosmetics off the shelf above the sink and into the bag. That would allow him a change of disguise. He pocketed the copies of Caroline's keys. Glanced around.

No time .. . He had been careful in this room. There would be precious few fingerprints found here. Precious little evidence, even for forensic specialists.

He slipped quietly down the back stairs, through the empty kitchen, and out the back door. He walked quickly but did not run down the back alley, alongside a neighboring yard. Ten minutes later he arrived at the Farragut North Metro station.

As he descended the escalator, he kept a sharp eye for any possible agents but it was too difficult to gauge. Any of these people could be agents. All he saw was a transit cop ha.s.sling some vagrants. It planted the seed of an idea in his mind.

He boarded the first train available, taking a seat near the overhead b.u.t.ton marked Emergency Stop $100 fine for illegal use.

Monique was the biggest problem. How much had he actually told her? he wondered. Too much. h.e.l.l, anything she knew was too much. He had given in to her, revealed more than he should have.

In a perfect world, she would be "made redundant" as Michael called it before she brought the operation down around her. Michael had used freelancers for such jobs on at least two occasions. Kort had worked with them both, though at a distance, acting as bait so the hit men could identify their targets. Kort had committed their impa.s.sive faces to memory. They were certainly faces to remember, faces from which to run if he ever saw them again. Michael kept his house in order; no one was ever fully out of his reach.

But what to do about her? Not only did she know far too much, she was the key to the operation. Its entire premise revolved around his ability to pa.s.s himself off as a guest of In-Flite Foods, to enter the field side of the airport as he had in Los Angeles. To subst.i.tute fire extinguishers. It depended on Monique.

He disembarked at the third stop Judiciary Square, how appropriate! alert for any tails. He waited, now certain that he wasn't being followed, and rode the Red Line on to Union Station.

Tricks: he knew a hundred. But he felt no safer.

If he killed Monique, what then? Would they think of this? Would they use her as bait?

Monique was beside herself.

She headed straight to her bar and poured herself a deep vodka and tried to sort things out. She poured herself another. The wrong number! The ice melted and she didn't bother replacing it. She couldn't feel the liquor, couldn't feel anything but fear. Think! She scolded herself, drinking down another just as fast. Think!

What would Anthony do? Would he desert her? Kill her? Protect her?

Wrong number! It rang in her head. The Greek! The f.u.c.king Greek had given her to them. Had to be. b.a.s.t.a.r.d!

She poured herself another.

She felt tempted to look out the window. Were they out there right now? She had no way of knowing what they knew. Were they guessing? Her training dictated that she be the exact woman today and tomorrow as she had been yesterday: flirtatious, sure of herself, a good businesswoman with a nose for vulnerable markets, a provocative woman of the nineties. An actress. Could she do this? Was there any choice?

As she helped herself to three ice cubes, she switched on the television set and tried to be normal. What was normal? Eating a lot of junk food. Drinking vodka. Walking around in only her underwear on the hot nights. Masturbating in the shower .. . Jesus, did they have microphones in place? Did they have cameras? Did they know every little intimacy? Were they listening right now? Were they watching her? She coiled more tightly in the chair and hugged the gla.s.s.

Was it true that their microphones were strong enough to pick up a heart rate?

If so, then what were they thinking right now?

Kort checked his duffel bag at the baggage counter at Union Station. He rented a Toyota from the Union Station Avis counter using the Carl Anthony credit card for the last time, with no intention of ever returning the vehicle. He knew the FBI would soon question the owners of the bed-and breakfast who would give them his alias. The first thing they would then do is conduct a name search with credit card companies, banks, airlines, rent-a-car agencies, other hotels anything and everything that would give them the next link to him. The credit card could be traced. His one remaining card, under a different name, was necessary to his escape. In a perfect world, it might still serve that purpose.

As with any drive that involved expectation, this one seemed to drag on indefinitely. Thirty minutes pa.s.sed as slowly as several hours. He got lost twice, despite his attention to the map, but finally drove past the address he had gleaned from the envelope Caroline had used for a shopping list.

The house was singularly unremarkable: common, quite small, and poorly landscaped. It reminded him of several safe houses he had used over the years.

For his needs the property was perfect: A high wooden fence defined the perimeter, making it unlikely, if not impossible, for an adjoining neighbor to see a prowler.

He drove the neighborhood once, alert for any night owls. By the darkness of the houses, most everyone was asleep a bedroom community living up to its name.

He drove the ten minutes back to the main road and found himself a twenty four-hour donut shop where he shared a countertop with a reformed alcoholic and a pair of weary traffic cops under the harsh glare of fluorescent lights, and the rambling monologue of a waitress on diet pills. Sipping coffee, with a pair of cops not ten feet away, added to his confidence. He was n.o.body. Invisible.

He burrowed his way into a USA Today, catching up on everything from the Kremlin's monetary policy to Madonna's latest video, ate a jelly-filled donut and switched to decaf for the third cup. At a few minutes past one o'clock the cops returned to their patrol car. By two o'clock, Kort was the only one left, although the occasional motorist stopped for "brain food." Kort made a men's room stop and crammed himself back into the Toyota. He had reviewed his plan internally a dozen times. Now, at two fifteen in the morning, it was time to carry it out. In a perfect world, he would be in and out of the house in a matter of minutes.

A van, several years old, was parked in the driveway. He had missed this on his first pa.s.s. Christ, what else had he missed? He parked the Toyota down the street and waited to see if any neighborhood lights came on.

After several minutes, his copy of Caroline's keys in hand, he left the car, easing the door closed so as to avoid making any noise. He headed directly to the front door. A streetlamp threw a pale blue aura across the front porch. Kort could feel himself disappear in the shadows. There were four possible keys to try. It had to be done quickly and quietly. Alone in his room, he had practiced handling the keys so as to do this efficiently, but nothing fully prepared him for the actual moment. The trick was to do this slowly to study the matchup of the key and lock before making any contact between the two. But in the darkness, this proved much more difficult than he had expected. The first key didn't fit. He felt his scalp go p.r.i.c.kly with sweat. The second key entered, but didn't turn. It made noise coming out: to him a cymbal crash.

The third key turned and the door opened.

He stepped inside.

Thankfully, the door shut as silently as it had opened. He was no cat burglar. This was unfamiliar ground in every way. Breath short, heart pounding, he withdrew the penlight from his pocket and switched it on. He had taped some gauze over its lens to mute its effects. The woven pattern of the gauze, like a large, white net, spread out ahead of him. He pressed on.

He found himself standing in an uncomfortably small sitting room. Cheap furniture. A television. A shelf of paperback books. If this room was any indication, the floor plan was a rat's maze.

He tried to conceive of the layout, and decided the kitchen would be at the back of the house, the bedrooms and bath to his left.

He moved to his right and through an open doorway.

Another, even smaller, room.

The dull light, with its bizarre pattern caused by the gauze, played over the walls and across the table a dining table, he realized. It was littered with opened envelopes, stamps, a box of paper clips, and a yellow legal pad.

But no briefcase.

Kort edged past the table toward the end used as a desk. Where was it? Daggett coMn't have brought it into the bedroom with him! Was he that careful with it?

He trained the soft light to the floor. He hadn't realized how nervous he would feel. Sweit trickled down his ribs.

Standing on edge, alongside the end chair exactly as it would be if you had worked with it, closed it, and put it aside was Daggett's briefcase. It was closed.

Kort had hoped to find it open.

He hoisted it quietly to the table, surprised by its substantial weight, and studied the front latches and lock combination.

The latches were springed. They would make noise as they snapped opened if he wasn't careful.

Was it locked? He was about to try one of the latches when the dim light caught the combination number and froze him: Ten-twenty-three: A number as significant to Anthony Kort as to Cam Daggett.

He was certain it would open.

He blocked the latches with his thumbs, and opened the briefcase. He stuffed the light into his mouth and began to read.

A gold mine! On top of all the papers, scribbled hastily in pencil, he read the name of his bed-and-breakfast and the address. Although he should have been prepared for this, he wasn't. A drip of his sweat splatte-ed onto a red folder. Kort mopped it up frantically: he had no intention of leaving a calling card behind. It didn't dry very well. It wrinkled the paper. He leafed through the briefcase's contents, one by one, his attention fixed on the sweat-stained folder. Examining the file marked "Rosen" le found three black-and-white police artist's sketches of hs face surprisingly accurate. There was a grainy photograph of Monique in a scarf and gla.s.ses. Dozens of reports, notes, memos, and message slips.

He removed the red folder and turned it over. Printed in black block letters around the entire perimeter of the envelope were the words EYES.

ONLY.

The folder had been last signed off by Richard Mumford. Daggett's name was printed on a cover sheet, his signature alongside.

Kort carefully opened the envelope's string fastener and withdrew the material. The first things he came across were the itineraries! He recognized the names: Mosner, Goldenbaum, Sandhurst, Grady, Fitzmaurice, Savile. He had no interest in flight numbers or carriers, he wanted only the dates of arrival and departure. Four of the itineraries shared a common date: September 21. The thrill of his discovery filled him with an uncanny sense of power. Although arriving on different days, two were departing the evening of the twenty-first. It had to be the twenty-first.

He was going to kill Mosner in two days.

As he quickly scanned the other papers in the briefcase, he suddenly felt ill. The more he read, the more it seemed impossible. He paid no attention to time. The minutes rushed by. Impossible! Daggett knew everything! This memo covered the possibility of explosives on board flight 64. The next addressed the repeated simulator tests at Duhning. There was a photo of Monique. They had a detailed explanation even a drawing of Bernard's detonator. What nearly took his breath away was the FAA lab a.n.a.lysis of the fire extinguisher: carbon monoxide. They knew everything! Or did they? Did they know his target? The actual target? If they knew his target, he was finished. All his preparation would prove useless. They would be sitting at the airport waiting for him. There would be no way to do what it was he had come to do. He might as well be dead.

The living room light came on. It cast a white rectangle of light into this small dining room. In one clean motion, Kort extinguished the beam of his flashlight and quietly closed the briefcase, leaving it on the table. He crouched, took two steps toward the invading harshness of light, looked quickly into the living room, and, seeing no one, charged through the light and reached the far wall, tucking himself behind the room's open door.

In one quick look at the briefcase, he saw that a section of the red folder protruded from its edge. It appeared hastily closed.

He heard the wheelchair before he saw the boy. The sound of wheels running on carpet was distinctive. He hoped for the sound of the television next. He hoped for a bout of boyish insomnia to be filled with the late, late show so he might be given the cover of noise to escape out the back. But as the boy's mechanical shadow stretched, turned, and filled this room like hand games on a projectionist's screen, Kort realized the boy's destination was the kitchen beyond, a course that would require he pa.s.s within a foot or two.

The wheelchair's complex shadow shrank as the boy propelled himself through the doorway and into this room. Kort changed his plan: Once the boy was in the kitchen he would return the briefcase to the carpet and make for the front door.

The boy stopped.

He looked to his right toward the briefcase straightened his head, and sniffed the air. "Carrie?" he said softly.

The cigarettes! Kort had smoked half a pack at the do-nut shop.

The boy's head rotated slowly to his left. Kort tightened his fist, waiting. At the moment they met eyes, Kort slugged him and crushed that nose. The kid's head snapped back and went slack.

He hurried to the briefcase, reopened it, ordered the contents, and was placing it onto the carpet when the idea struck him with a ferocity that he equated with genius. What better way to insure he controlled the operation from here on? He let go of the briefcase and headed over to the boy.

He was heavier than he would have guessed. But then again, dead weight always felt heavier.

TWENTY-FIVE.

DAGGETT AWAKENED EARLIER than usual, charged with a renewed energy from his victory with Mumford, and fully aware of the responsibility now placed upon him. He decided a morning run was in order. One or more of the chemical executives was Kort's intended target. Who, and how Kort intended to kill him them remained a mystery he had less than seventy-two hours to solve.

He took little notice of the spectacular sunrise, the melodious trumpeting of the songbirds that nested in his neighbor's apple tree, or the pungent fragrance of fresh-cut gra.s.s that hung heavily in the air. Dressed for his run, he pa.s.sed Duncan's room quietly and slipped out the front door, as always, equally quietly. Just after six, there was very little activity, except that of fellow runners, their faces, even their clothing, familiar, their names unknown. He put in an effortless four miles, paying little attention to his route, even less to the color and magnificence of the sharp September day, instead calculating and recalculating where to focus his energies and resources.

His first sign that something might be wrong came when Duncan's alarm rang out and failed to be silenced. Daggett, by this time dressed and in the process of knotting his tie, investigated. Finding his son's room empty, the bed slept in, he stopped the alarm and called out, "Dune?" The first time he tried this, it was delivered with a father's exploratory uncertainty. There was a half-bath down the hall; he didn't want to intrude on the boy's privacy. But as he stepped back into the hallway, he saw this door standing open, and the second time he called his son's name it carried with it an added degree of concern. One of Daggett's greatest fears was his son striking his head while climbing off the toilet.

The hallway bathroom was empty.

The chin-up bar that had to be it. "Duncan?" he called out stridently, as his step quickened and the first warm flush of worry crept electrically over his skin. His imagination was running wild by the time he charged around the corner and crashed into the wheelchair. He fell fully over it, rode it into the wall, and collapsed with it. His worry transformed itself into anger it wasn't the first time Duncan had abandoned his chair with no regard for his father. But the anger gave way to pure terror as his hand went sticky with room-temperature blood. He sat there on the floor, the overturned wheelchair trapping his legs, staring with stunned horror at his open hand. Later, he would not remember anything at all about the next few minutes. Minutes spent frantically searching every conceivable spot his boy might be found.

The cop in him soon took over. Blood in the chair. He checked the kitchen thinking, The boy comes into the kitchen for a midnight snack, cuts himself .. . but he found no knife, no sign in the kitchen of Duncan having been there at all. He's in bed; he awakens to a b.l.o.o.d.y nose, regular occurrence for him; he heads to the kitchen for some ice. He's in his independent phase and doesn't want to wake me.

It wasn't until he righted the overturned wheelchair, five? ten? twenty? minutes later, that he found the hand-scrawled note: I've got him now. Don't DO anything. Nothing at all.

Anthony Kort He couldn't think. His mind filled too fast with thought and played the devilish trick on him of shutting down completely, Too much water to get down the drain, he over flowed, spilling thought, unable to contain it, unable even to mop it up. His first clear thought was: The nerve of the man to sign the note.

Don't DO anything. Nothing at all.

He looked at his watch. He considered calling Mumford immediately, but as quickly ruled it out. He considered calling Carrie, but to what end? He stumbled around the house for the better part of the next hour, unable to sit down, unable to stop walking, unable to pick up the phone. He b.u.mped into furniture and into doors, not seeing clearly through his tears. He ran water, forgetting to turn it off. Twice he stopped before a mirror and contemplated his image, but was too shaken by the face he saw there. One of the mirrors now lay broken in pieces on the floor. He paced the small house endlessly, his mind churning with possible options. Where once existed the shrewd mind of an experienced investigator was now the stomach knotted panic of a father.

He checked his watch once again. The minutes ticked off relentlessly. Kort was out there planning something. Duncan was .. . Could he afford to stop the investigation? To call in sick? He thought not. People knew him too well. Nothing would stop him at this point. It would draw far more attention to him if he missed work, than if he showed up and looked busy. He felt crushed by the weight of the reality of the situation: If he now stalled the investigation, Kort was likely to succeed with whatever it was he had planned, and Duncan would live. Or would he? If he continued with the investigation, if he made enough headway to actually stop Kort, then someone else perhaps many, many people would be spared. He couldn't forget the gymnasium filled with the personal items of 1023's victims. He couldn't ignore the devastation caused by the crash of flight 64"And thinking about it now, he couldn't believe that a man like Kort would spare anyone, even a young boy like Duncan.

His decision made, he reached for the phone and told Mrs. Kiyak to take the day off. The drive to Buzzard Point had never taken so long.

TWENTY-SIX.

HAVING SPENT THE wee morning hours driving circles around the beltway with a paralyzed boy gagged and bound on the floor of the Toyota's backseat, an anxious Anthony Kort headed into the Virginia suburb where Caroline had taken him house-hunting. After much reflection, this seemed the logical answer to his dilemma: He would use one of the houses that she had shown him as a safe house. There simply wasn't time to go through the effort of starting the renting process all over again especially with the boy in the backseat, especially given the FBI had a pretty good sketch of him, especially given his timetable. Having raided the bed-and-breakfast, the FBI would be expecting him to seek a roof over his head. They could be watching or would have already alerted, hotels, motels, rooming houses, perhaps even property management firms like Caroline's. There wasn't a lot of choice: he had to leave the boy off somewhere and get to the business at hand. He would have to improvise.

Early, early morning, just at sunrise, seemed to him the best time to try it. Any earlier and the darkness itself might raise a person's curiosity. But right at sunrise is when people experience some of their deepest sleep, and with the air gray and grainy in the limited light, the boy in his arms might appear no more than an awkward bundle from a distance.

"We seldom show this one," he recalled Caroline's having told him, though finding the cabin took him the better part of forty minutes. As he pulled down the long twisting drive lined with out-of-bloom dogwood, lilac, and an unbelievably huge hedge of azalea, his recollection of its near complete isolation proved accurate. The drive was potholed. A low stone wall marking the western boundary fronted a dense acreage of wood. Ahead, the road swung right, then turned abruptly left, and the gravel became deeper under the tires. And there it was. A two-room cabin situated on the far end of a former estate that had since been subdivided, the tiny dwelling wasn't large enough for a family, was too remote for most young couples. It was so off the beaten track that someone had installed a satellite dish. Seeing it again for only the second time (she had dropped it from her list of repeat attempts to find him a place), he felt mildly confident the cabin would not be shown in the next day or so at least this was what he convinced himself of as he sat quietly listening to the car engine cool, getting up his nerve to break in. Time was everything.

TWENTY-SEVEN.

HOW TO CONTACT her?