Once A Spy Part 17

'Afternoon, sir,' Tucker said into the mouthpiece, 'I'm calling for a customer who wants the info for the meeting.' He listened for a moment, studying Charlie and Drummond meanwhile, as if per something the man on the other end was saying. Placing a hand over the mouthpiece, he said to Charlie, 'He needs the name of your calculus teacher at Clara Barton.' If Tucker thought the request was strange, he kept it to himself.

Huddling with Drummond, Charlie asked, 'What do you make of that?'

'A false subtraction cipher, maybe,' Drummond said.

'What is a false subtraction cipher?'

'I*It's on the tip of my tongue.'

'Hang on for just a bit, sir?' Tucker said into the phone.

Charlie asked Drummond, 'Could it just be a straight question?'

'Why would they do that?'

'If they suspect we're too addled to remember what false subtraction is. Also it's the sort of information that wouldn't have made it onto any database. But you might have told it to a friend.' Drummond had followed Charlie's progress in math like other fathers did their sons' accomplishments on the ball field.

'I'm sorry, Charles, I just *' With a hangdog look, Drummond sought refuge in the Racing Form Racing Form.

'Mrs. Feldman,' Charlie told Tucker.

Tucker repeated the name into the phone, listened, and relayed to Charlie, 'The meeting's at seven thirty at the Montezuma Restaurant on a hundred sixty-fourth.'

'Dad, Montezuma Restaurant?'

'A Mexican restaurant?'

If the clock above the refrigerated shelves was accurate, it was now 2:10 P.M. Charlie estimated they could make it to New York by 7:30*if he drove like Dale Earnhardt. Which would entail having a car. The Cavalry man had had no reason to think they were on foot, but surely he knew, as soon as his phone rang, where they were.

Charlie turned to Tucker, 'Can you ask if he means tonight, or*?'

Tucker was glaring at the receiver, as though that would chasten the man on the other end of the line for the abrupt hang-up.

Charlie huddled with Drummond. 'Could Montezuma Restaurant on one sixty-fourth' be code?'

'What isn't code, really?' Drummond said.

Charlie might have considered the question profound, but Drummond's eyes were bobbing along with the hot dogs on the roller grill.

Charlie reflected that he and Drummond had demonstrated proficiency with the Drummond Clark-to-Duck cipher. So maybe the Cavalry was rolling with it.

From a spinning rack stuffed with road maps, he plucked one that included Monroeville and its environs, then tried to apply the cipher to 164th Street.

There was no 1st Street in the area, no 6th either. No Route 4, no 4th Street, no 4th anything. There was a narrow Country Route 1 ten miles north of Monroeville. Also, a few miles up Country Route 1 was a tiny blue soldier icon, labeled MONUMENT. And by dropping certain letters from Montezuma Restaurant *

Charlie's thoughts went to an old track axiom: 'If you hear hoofbeats behind you, it's a horse.' He felt the horse's breath on the back of his neck.

But what about the time of the rendezvous? 7:30 would mean five and a half hours to kill. Or to be killed*7:00 helped, but not enough; 0 would mean midnight, by which time their bones might be licked clean by buzzards; 3:00 was doable.

If they had wheels. Drummond could surely hot-wire the old pickup parked outside. But absconding with it would entail either bringing Tucker along or incapacitating him so he couldn't call the cops.

'Charles, what do you say I treat you to lunch?' Drummond said, digging a sheaf of bills from his bowling pants.

'Is that the motel manager's money?' Charlie asked, delighted as much as anything by the measure of justice in recouping his $157.

'No, the fellow who also lent us his wrist.w.a.tch.'

They'd strapped Cadaret's watch to a stick and floated it down the first stream they came upon. When tying him up, Drummond must have 'borrowed' his wallet too.

Five hundred dollars bought four hot dogs, two big bottles of Gatorade, the road map, two pairs of dungarees, two coats, a pair of sneakers for Drummond, and the decrepit 1962 Chevrolet short bed Tucker probably would have happily parted with for just the price of a fifth hot dog.

The truck's engine coughed rheumatically on ignition and the tailpipe sprayed the yellow clapboards with black oil. But soon enough, Charlie and Drummond were on their way to the monument, at fifty miles an hour, and in excellent spirits.

'All things considered,' Charlie said, 'we really owe that Cadaret a nice note.'

25.

According to the map, the '62 Chevrolet short bed needed to rattle and gasp just one more mile to reach the monument. At the wheel, Charlie imagined the government vehicle that would meet them and bring them in from the cold. He had no idea whether the Cavalry would send a sleek government car or a helicopter or something clandestine*a VW Love Bus, for instance. Whatever they sent, even another rusted-out '62 Chevrolet short bed, he was sure he would luxuriate in the ride. the map, the '62 Chevrolet short bed needed to rattle and gasp just one more mile to reach the monument. At the wheel, Charlie imagined the government vehicle that would meet them and bring them in from the cold. He had no idea whether the Cavalry would send a sleek government car or a helicopter or something clandestine*a VW Love Bus, for instance. Whatever they sent, even another rusted-out '62 Chevrolet short bed, he was sure he would luxuriate in the ride.

Drummond was smothering his second hot dog with a fourth packet of ketchup.

'Trying to get more condiments into your diet, Dad?'

'An interesting piece of information is that four tablespoons of ketchup have the nutritional value of an entire tomato.'

That actually is sort of interesting, Charlie would have said. But just as the pickup was about to chug past the weed-colored Battle of Staunton Historic Monument sign, which was mostly hidden behind tall weeds on the roadside, he spotted it. He pumped the brake and jerked the steering wheel, heaving the truck onto a long, b.u.mpy dirt road that wound through thick woods. The tires kicked up so much dust, the truck appeared to be chased by a sandstorm.

'So much for stealth,' he said.

'Oh,' said Drummond, squeezing the last molecule of ketchup from the packet.

The driveway terminated at a ramshackle blacktop. Some two hundred parking spots ran along one side of a much longer field of overgrown gra.s.s that was golden in the afternoon light.

Drummond's nostrils flared. 'There's no one here,' he said.

Indeed, the only sign of life was a few ravens perched on a statue of a soldier on horseback, about fifty feet into the field. Charlie pulled into a s.p.a.ce close to the statue, at the center of the parking strip. 'We're still five minutes early,' he said.

'Five minutes? That's all?'

'What were you expecting?'

'An hour at the least.'

Charlie wasn't sure what to make of this. Drummond's internal clock had been off by decades lately. But his intuition couldn't be discounted. 'Would you ideally have allowed yourself time to conduct one of those countersurveillance things, or to work up an escape route, something like that?'

'Of course. When is the meeting?'

'Uh, five minutes from now.'

Drummond pushed open the pa.s.senger door. The hinges croaked, scaring off some of the ravens. He lowered himself to the asphalt and edged toward the field. His eyes jumped around, as if he were watching the battle that had taken place here.

Trailing him, Charlie saw little and heard only the chatter of the remaining ravens and the rustling of tall blades of gra.s.s.

'What am I missing?' Charlie asked.

'There's no one here.'

'Maybe I screwed up the deciphering. If you were trying to bring us in, what sort of meeting place would you choose?'

'Someplace crowded, like a train station.'

'That's what I was thinking too.'

With a shrug, Drummond waded into the high gra.s.s, running his palms along the tips as if stroking a cat. His interest went to the man on horseback, a soldier from the Civil War era*the tip-off was the visored cap with the distinctive forward-sloping top*who was sculpted at about twice the size of life and cast in bronze. A real, wooden-wheeled cannon from the same period sat on the ground a few feet to his side.

'Any chance this is one of those dead drops?' Charlie asked. 'Maybe they hid directions here to the real meeting place?'

'Maybe.' Drummond peered into the mouth of the cannon. It was plugged.

He wandered around the granite pedestal, gazing up at the statue. The soldier would have been unrecognizable even to Civil War buffs because of the raven droppings.

'You know what's interesting?' Drummond said.

'What?'

'On equestrian statues, if the front hooves are off the ground, it signifies the soldier died in battle. If just one hoof is raised, he died later of wounds related to the battle.'

If they were going to learn anything here, Charlie thought, the soldier would have to tell them himself.

'If all the hooves are on the ground, like this one,' Drummond continued, 'it means the man died in his sleep.'

'You think it's possible they just missed that turnoff?' Charlie asked.

'It's possible.' With a yawn, Drummond lay down on the granite pedestal, using the horse's stout left front leg as a headboard.

Hoping Drummond's nonchalance indicated they were safe, Charlie took a seat beside him.

Ten minutes pa.s.sed, another raven was the only arrival, and anxiety began clawing at Charlie's stomach lining. Nudging Drummond from a light slumber, he said, 'It's not like they could have been caught in traffic.'

Drummond shrugged. He still seemed entirely unconcerned.

It no longer offered rea.s.surance. 'Maybe we should drive to the next town and call the number in the ad again,' Charlie said.

As the words left his lips, a black Dodge Durango roared down the driveway toward the field. The dust and glare made it impossible to see into the sport utility vehicle. Charlie looked to Drummond.

He was fast asleep.

'Looks like we're in business,' Charlie said, rousing him.

Opening his eyes, Drummond regarded the Durango with only pa.s.sing interest, if any*it was hard to tell.

Charlie expected the Durango would park near the pickup truck. But it veered away and drove to the far end of the field, pulling into the farthest possible spot.

'Could it just be someone else?' he asked.

He bet himself Drummond would shrug. He won the bet.

The Durango's driver's door eased open. A compact man of perhaps forty edged out. He had a dark brown flattop and wore a mossy-oak camouflage suit. His slow, deliberate movements made his circ.u.mspection obvious, even from the monument a hundred yards away. He might just be a hunter. As for his hesitation? He didn't have a hunting permit? Or maybe he was indeed the Cavalry's emissary, the camouflage was part of his cover, and his unease was attributable to the fact that he saw no one*the giant statue blocked Charlie and Drummond from his sight, and the lone vehicle in the lot, the rusty pickup, could well have been abandoned here years ago.

Charlie considered leaping up and waving. Intuition held him in place.

The Durango's pa.s.senger and rear driver's side doors sprung open. Out darted two more men in camouflage. Following Flattop, they dropped onto hands and knees and shot into the high gra.s.s.

Through gaps between stalks, Charlie glimpsed the man who'd been in the backseat. He was young, no more than twenty-five, with the slight build and serious look not of a hunter but a scholar. His pistol glinted. Charlie entertained the idea that this was some sort of intelligence a.n.a.lyst, pressed by exigency into field duty.

Then a gust of wind parted the gra.s.s, revealing the man who'd been in the pa.s.senger seat.

Cadaret.

Shock ran through Charlie like a sword.

'Dad, we've been set up,' he exclaimed. 'And that's the best-case scenario.' The worst one he could think of was that Cadaret and his men had intercepted the Cavalry.

Drummond looked up. 'That's a shame,' he said, then tried to get comfortable again against the bronze horse's shin.

From the Durango's end of the field came the whipcrack of a gunshot. Its low echo skittered along the top of the gra.s.s. The ravens leaped into flight. The bullet stung the bronze soldier's left elbow, turning the hardened excrement in its crook to a puff of white. The horse's barrel-thick left front leg shielded Drummond from all but a dusting.

Charlie pressed himself against the inside of the horse's right front leg, some primitive survival apparatus enabling him to coil himself so he wasn't exposed to the shooters. A second round splashed dirt onto the pedestal, pelting him like buckshot. Loath to move, he angled his eyes to Drummond.

On three occasions, peril had transformed Drummond into a superhero. He was incited now, but only in the manner of someone whose rest is being disrupted.

26.

Their gambit was plain to Charlie. From behind a mound at the far end of the field, Cadaret took a shot every few seconds. His objective wasn't to hit Charlie or Drummond*although that would have been perfectly acceptable*but rather to hold them in place behind the statue until Flattop or Scholar flanked them. Capitalizing on the rises and dips in the field, that duo had crept to within sixty or seventy yards, still too far to fire with any accuracy. At twenty-five yards, they probably would be able to split an aspirin. was plain to Charlie. From behind a mound at the far end of the field, Cadaret took a shot every few seconds. His objective wasn't to hit Charlie or Drummond*although that would have been perfectly acceptable*but rather to hold them in place behind the statue until Flattop or Scholar flanked them. Capitalizing on the rises and dips in the field, that duo had crept to within sixty or seventy yards, still too far to fire with any accuracy. At twenty-five yards, they probably would be able to split an aspirin.

Charlie hoped someone driving along County Route 1 would call the cops. The road was barely traveled, though, and the monument was far enough away that the gunfire might not be heard over an engine. If a good Samaritan heard and came to investigate still, he would find only hunters, as common in these parts as teenagers in a suburban mall. And if he investigated further, he'd die.

Charlie tried to conceive a more proactive solution. Every avenue his mind took ended with the sober realization that outmaneuvering professional killers on a battlefield was even further from his expertise than landing a helicopter.

Then there was Drummond.

'Hear those bullets, Dad? These guys are playing your song.'

'How about we shoot back?' Drummond put forth, as if it were a novel idea.

'We have Mom's gun.' Charlie patted the Colt in his waistband. 'But I think we're going to need more than that.'

A bullet bored into the horse's right shoulder and exited its left breast, buzzing directly over Drummond's head. Drummond hunkered closer to the pedestal but otherwise appeared untroubled.