The World's Finest Mystery Part 98

In short, the things that should have been there, if Len were a usual Maine farmer.

From inside the house came the yelp of the collie, and I refocused my binoculars.

The next day I picked up a few groceries and made a quick phone call from a pay phone at a combination gas station and convenience store, a new one. I had not shopped at the same store twice, because I didn't want to be remembered, not even for a moment. When Miriam picked up the phone, she said, "Owen, I apologize."

"Oh," I said. "Very well. Apology accepted."

A sigh from the other end. "Don't you even want to know what I'm apologizing for?"

I turned and looked at a large Agri-Mark dairy truck rumbling by. "You're right. I should have asked."

Another sigh, but lighter than the first one. "Look, I was having a bad time the other day. Some old memories."

"I hear you."

"Of course you hear me, but I don't think you understand. When you said you were leaving and you couldn't tell me much- well, I don't like being left high and dry twice in the same decade."

"I understand."

I could hear voices in the background. "Maybe you do, Owen. All right?"

"Absolutely, Miriam," and I was going to say something else when I heard a few more voices and then hers, saying, "Gotta-go-bye" all in one breath as she hung up.

When Len next went back into town, I wandered around the reaches of his property in my bird-watcher's disguise. He had enough acreage for one man to farm, if he hired help in the spring and fall. Beyond the edge of one of the fields, I found a dump, where he had trashed a few appliances, a box spring and some worn truck tires. When I walked up to investigate, a chipmunk jumped on a rusting washing machine and chattered at me.

"Oh, hush up," I said. "Don't you see I'm trying to uncover a dangerous Soviet spy?"

And I laughed.

Heading back, I saw something behind the barn that I hadn't noticed before, a worn path leading into the woods. I followed it, looking for a stream or a fishing hole, but instead it went deeper into the pine forest and then up a slight incline. The trail was old and well maintained, with branches and brush cleared away from the tree trunks. Last year's leaves crackled under my feet as I made my way. I stopped for a moment to note a red driveway reflector light nailed into a tree trunk. The nails were rust-red from being outside a long time. Farther up the trail were more reflectors. The trail was marked for someone traveling through here at night.

The climb got steeper and I rested for a few minutes, taking a swig of water from my bottle, before following the path through a series of switchbacks. After a few minutes of climbing that made my thighs twitch, I was on the top of the hill, breathing hard. "Excelsior," I muttered, as I sat down on a fallen tree log.

The view was not what I expected. An airport was down there, with a long concrete runway that ran at an angle to the hill. A control tower and a number of hangars were in the distance, together with enough buildings for a small town. It was a much bigger airport than the one I had pa.s.sed on the drive out, and also much bigger than such a remote and rural area would seem to need.

From the knapsack, I pulled out my binoculars and a map of the county. I scanned the few small private planes parked near the hangars. Those hangars were scaled for aircraft much bigger and faster than these Cessnas and Piper Cubs.

On the map, the marker for the town of Cardiff had a stylized aircraft symbol nearby. Below the cartoon plane were the words: Raymond Air Force Base Strategic Air Command (Closed and now available for civilian use) Looking down at the old Air Force base as I sat there, the d.a.m.n spring sun didn't warm me a bit.

That night in my gillie suit, I watched Len go through his routine. Tonight was a bit different. At the kitchen table, he tossed down shot gla.s.s after shot gla.s.s of something from a clear bottle. Vodka was my guess. Then he started singing, a morose tune that I couldn't make out. It could have been in a foreign language, or it could have been that the breeze was blowing away from me, softening the sounds from the house. I waited for long hours as he gently placed his head on the kitchen table and fell asleep, and my hands and feet were trembling from cold before he woke to stagger upstairs.

The night after the drinking bout, after Len left for town, I stepped right up in my bird-watcher's outfit. I whistled as I walked through his yard and through the open sliding barn door. Ain't rural life grand, where people keep their outbuildings wide open for the benefit of would-be a.s.sa.s.sins?

A John Deere tractor was parked in the center of the barn, along with a collection of tills, spreaders and harvesters. Everything looked to be in good working condition. There were a few bags of fertilizer and seed, and a ladder going up to the loft. I climbed it- wincing as a splinter dug into my hand- and on the second level found a collection of tools, leather harnesses, rolled blankets and more bags of fertilizer. I went back down and outside past the tractor. Something was wrong, something was quite wrong.

I looked around, picking at the splinter on my hand. My internal alarm bells were jangling and everything felt odd, as though my inner ear balance had gone haywire. I squinted at the barn. It was bigger outside than it was inside.

I went back inside and paced the interior, counting off my steps, and then I came outside and repeated the process.

The dimensions were wrong.

Something was hidden inside.

And it didn't take long to find. To the left as I went back in was an empty stable. I ran my fingers around the wood of its far wall and quickly located an eye-bolt and heavy iron ring. I twisted and tugged and something went click, and I was able to swing the door open. Inside was a room with some boxes and a low table.

A faint light flickered from overhead, and I looked up to see a wire running from the fixture down to a car battery. A light that automatically came on whenever the door was opened. How convenient. The wooden table was built right up against the wall, and an old kitchen chair was slid underneath. On the wall were thumbtacked photos, old black-and-white pictures that were curling at the edges, of Air Force aircraft: KC-135 and KC-10 tankers, and B-47 and B-52 bombers.

Squatting in the middle of the table was a dusty shortwave radio and receiver, about 20 or 30 years old, it looked like. Beside it was a desk calendar from 1979. Next to that was a small collection of books, cheap drugstore paperbacks. I opened one and saw rows of numbers, line after line. There were a few books in Russian, the Cyrillic writing looking odd in this place. There was also a small leatherbound notebook, which I scanned. The first brief entry was dated to 1959 and the last to 1981. The handwriting was in Cyrillic, tight and nearly illegible.

Maybe it was the dust or the flickering light, but a headache, a powerful one, started throbbing at the base of my skull. To the left, leaning against the wall, was a large pack frame with webbed straps that looked as if it were designed to carry a heavy load, and next to the frame were four wooden boxes, about two feet deep, three feet wide and five feet long. The covers weren't nailed shut; they had fasteners that allowed the boxes to be opened quickly. I had a pretty good sense of what I would find when I opened the first box.

There, nestled in a dry and cracked Styrofoam casing, was a long dark green metal tube, with a handle about a third of the way from one end. There was also a sighting mechanism and a few other odds and ends, and a projectile with fins, about 30 inches long. More Cyrillic writing decorated the tubing.

I closed the cover.

And it was the creaking floor that saved me.

I spun on my feet, ducking my head and raising my left shoulder, as Len Molowski charged in, swinging an ax. The blade bounced off my raised shoulder, sliced into my left ear and struck the wall. Len was shouting something incomprehensible and I backed away, tripping over the kitchen chair and falling flat on my a.s.s on the barn floor. With a triumphant bellow, he took three steps toward me, ax raised high in the air, eyes glaring, face red, mouth twisted in anger, and by then I had frantically dug under my coat and pulled out my 9mm.

I pointed it up at him, both hands tight in the approved shooting grip, and snapped back the hammer. The clicking sound seemed to echo in the tiny room and he paused, ax in midair, the portrait of a frustrated lumberjack.

My voice was calmer than I thought possible. "Right now I'm bleeding, Len, and when I'm bleeding, I tend to get upset, and when I'm upset, my trigger finger gets shaky. So toss the ax out into the barn and I won't be upset anymore. Understand?"

He stood there for just a moment, puffing and breathing hard, face still red. Then he tossed the ax, where it clanged off the John Deere tractor, and said, "You're trespa.s.sing. You're on my property. You get the h.e.l.l off before I call the cops."

"Sure," I said. "Sounds like a good idea. And when you tell them about the trespa.s.ser in your barn, I'll tell them about the Soviet military officer named Leonid Malenkov, who owns said barn with surface-to-air missiles and other delights, and who's been in this country illegally for about 40 years. Care to guess who'd they be more interested in?"

His eyes flickered to me and then to the ax, and I knew he was regretting having tossed it. Then he collapsed. His face whitened, his shoulders slumped and he nodded, a sharp little motion.

"So, you've come," he said. "CIA? FBI? What is your name? What do you want?"

I motioned to the kitchen chair. "The name is Owen. I want you to sit down on that chair. And then we'll talk. And please don't insult me by thinking I work for either of those agencies. Right now I'm an independent contractor who's feeling particularly ornery."

A couple of minutes later, I had sloppily tied my handkerchief to my left ear, which was throbbing and hurt like h.e.l.l but offered the advantage of allowing me to focus my mind. Len sat in the chair, thick hands folded on his lap. I sat on the table next to the radio, gently swinging my legs beneath me as I kept my 9mm pointed in his direction.

"Bomber gap, right?" I asked.

He looked at me, brow furrowed, eyes unblinking. "I don't know what you mean."

"Look, this will go a h.e.l.l of a lot easier if we don't play games, Len. I know your background, your real name." I waved my pistol in the general direction of the hill I had climbed earlier. "You've got half a dozen handheld surface-to-air missiles- they look like an experimental version of the SA-7 Grail, right? And you're living next door to a Strategic Air Command base, supposedly chock-full of nuclear-armed B-52 bombers, just waiting for the word to take off and head up over the Arctic Circle and incinerate your motherland."

I waggled the pistol back and forth. Deep cover mission, right? You and probably a couple of dozen comrades, you took up residence near Air Force bases in the U.S., maybe even Britain and Turkey and other places. You wait for the word, and when the word comes, and when those B-52s are rolling down those runways during an alert, you're ready for them. A couple of surface-to-air missiles later, you've got flaming B-52 wreckage everywhere. You and your comrades have taken care of the situation, right here in the enemy's backyard."

Len was quiet, but his head moved just a bit, as if he were nodding. "Bomber gap," I said. "Back in the Fifties and early Sixties, the U.S. thought there was a bomber gap, that you folks had more and better bombers than we did. And you know what? There was a bomber gap, but on the other side. We had bigger and better bombers, and your leaders, they must have been scared. They must have looked for something to tip the balance in their favor. Something quick and dirty and cheap. And they came up with you, am I right?"

A quick, almost embarra.s.sed nod, and then he talked rapidly, like he was finally glad to tell someone of what he had done. "Yes. We were young, committed, all volunteers. We were told it would be a long, hazardous mission. But we did what we had to do. You had us ringed with bases, your NATO, your missiles. Your generals boasted of destroying us in a fortnight."

He folded his arms and stared at the far wall. "We were sworn to secrecy and taken to a remote area in Soviet Asia, near Alma-Ata. We were trained and retrained on how to fire our missiles. We fired them in the air at first, and then at drones, and then...." He looked up at me. "Hard to say now, even years later. Last, we fired them at aircraft piloted by real pilots. American pilots, captured during the Korean War a few years earlier. They were told that if they could fly these jets and survive, that they could go home." A shrug. "None did, of course."

I touched the b.l.o.o.d.y handkerchief on my ear. "Of course. And so you were sent here, to wait. And wait some more. What was that like?"

"I lived as a Maine farmer, every day hating this place and its people. Bah. No culture, no sense of family, no real life. Just scratch a living out of this poor dirt and screw your neighbors."

"Why didn't you go home?"

"Home," he said, twisting his face as if the word itself was sour. "First, I have no money for such a trip." He looked up at me, fists clenched. "And what kind of home awaits me? The stupid b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! They gave it all up. All of it! And without a fight."

"Miss the old Soviet Union, do you?" I asked.

Len glared at me. "What do you think, you fool? At one time we were the mightiest empire in the world. We started with nothing, nothing at all. A backward peasant country dismembered by war, and in less than a decade, we were making you and your allies tremble. We meant something. We were powerful, we strode across the world stage, and now...." He nearly spat out the words. "Then we gave it all up, and for what? We have a drunken clown as a president. We have wh.o.r.es in Red Square and the Mafia ruling our cities, and that is what we have as we leave this century."

I looked around at the old gear and the radio and said, "How long since you've had contact from home? Five years? Ten?"

A shrug. "That sounds about right."

"In case you haven't noticed, your target air base has been closed for some years now," I said. "And the country you worked for doesn't even exist. There are ways of getting money. Why in h.e.l.l didn't you pack it up and leave?"

He folded his arms, jutted out his jaw. "Because I am a Soviet soldier. I follow my orders. And my orders are to stay here and keep watch on this base. I cannot predict the future. The old Communists may come back into power. This air base may be used again by your Air Force. I am not a coward, and I do not shirk my duty. I stay here and follow my orders."

I shook my head. "You know, there's a guy I just met that you should talk with. You two would probably get along. Old soldiers from old empires, still fighting in the middle of the wreckage and debris."

"And you, you are not an old soldier?"

"At one time I was, but things have changed."

"Then why are you here? To arrest me? Bring me back to your superiors?"

I lowered my pistol, aimed in his direction. "You see, that's the problem. I was sent here to kill you."

And with that, I pulled the trigger of the 9mm twice.

Back at home and exhausted after my nights and days in the Maine woods, I slept late. After I unloaded the new clothing and toys I had bought up on my way to Cardiff, I went to my little upstairs office and my computer, and, remembering certain things that Eric had taught me, did a little research in the wild reaches of the world wide web.

Mr. Smith was as good as his word and arrived the next day. I watched from my upstairs office, flanked by my new toys, as the dark blue LTD b.u.mped up the dirt driveway, and the two men started walking to the house. Old master and new master. They weren't very different.

I waited for the knock on the door before I wrapped some things up and went down to the kitchen. Special Agent Cameron and Mr. Smith stood at the door, the FBI man looking like he was on his way to the dentist, the government man with a large grin on his face.

"Am I being graced with both of you today?" I asked.

Cameron said, "I'll wait on the steps." He sat down gingerly on the stone steps to my house as Smith came into the kitchen. We sat at the table and I said, "Later this morning someone's coming to pump out my septic tank, and I'd rather spend the time looking into my septic tank than at you, Mr. Smith, so let's make this quick."

He smiled, self-satisfied. "You did well. Very good."

I made a show of looking surprised. "Surveillance. You guys were watching me."

A happy nod. "That we were."

"Your folks were good. Didn't notice a thing."

"They're the best."

"And what did they notice?" I asked.

Smith leaned back in the kitchen chair, the old wood groaning under the pressure. "They saw you conduct yourself well, performing a surveillance of the property for three days. They saw the target return early, and they heard two gunshots. They then saw you back up the target's pickup truck to the barn, stuff him in an old feed bag in the rear of the truck and then drive out at about midnight. On a bridge spanning the Queebunk River, you dumped your load, returned to the property. Then you left. Our team moved in, checked the bullet holes in the wall and the blood on the floor. We also found the evidence of the target's connection to Soviet military intelligence. Like I said, nicely done. There was even a typewritten note for the mailman, asking him to take care of the dog. You're an oldie and a softie, Owen."

I kept my hands steady on top of the table. "So I did a good job for you and your government friends, killing an old man who's no longer a threat to this country?"

The chair came down with a thunk. "Owen, in our little agency, we decide who's a threat or not. And then we decide what to do. And in this case, you did exactly as we asked by killing that old man. Very good."

"Really?" I asked.

"Not bad at all. In fact, we may extend our little agreement with you, have you perform a few other... unusual tasks."

My voice was flat. "In other words, you want to hire a killer."

"If you want to be blunt."

I looked down at the table, slowly shook my head. "Sorry. I'm not feeling well, and I have to go to the bathroom." I looked up and said, "Being retired and all, sometimes your body betrays you."

He waved a hand in the air. "Sure. You run along. We'll talk in a few minutes."

I got up from the kitchen table and went upstairs. Ten minutes later, I flushed the toilet and went to the head of the stairs. "Smith!" I called down. "Come up here for a moment, will you?"

I went into my office and was rummaging around in the closet as he came in and looked at my bookshelves and my humble computer, humming along on my desk. I came out of the closet with my 9mm and in one snap-quick motion, I inserted the barrel into his left ear.

"Hey!" he said, hands raised. With my free hand, I put a finger to my lips.

"Shush," I said. "Come over here and sit down. That's right, in front of the computer."

We moved slowly and I tried to keep everything focused, for I could feel something from him, a coiled sense of energy like a rattlesnake ready to strike. I said, "In less than five minutes, Smith, you'll be free to go, but if you try anything sneaky, anything at all, I'll blow your d.a.m.n head off. Understand?"