Scruff

by Robert Ludlum

  He instructed the one on his right to go down the road to the house and cut the telephone wires. The “lieutenant” seemed to understand, which told Bonner something about the man. The second, addressed as “Augie,” was told to walk back behind the car and watch for anyone driving up the road. If he saw anything, he was to shout.

  The man called Augie said, “Okay, Mario. I can’t think what happened!”

  “You can’t think, fratello!”

  So Mario de Spadante was protecting his flanks.

  Good, thought Bonner. He’d remove the artillery, expose the flanks.

  The first man was really quite simple. He never knew what happened. Paul followed the telephone cables as he was sure the “lieutenant” would do, and waited in the darkness by a tree. As the man reached into his pocket for a knife, Bonner came forward and crashed a karate hand into the base of his neck. The man fell, urinating through his trousers. The Major removed the knife from the immobile hand.

  Since he was a short distance from the study, Paul ran down the slope to the terrace and knocked quietly on the door. It was a time for instilling calm. In others. Andrew spoke through the thick wood.

  “Paul?”

  “Yes.” The door opened. “Everything’s going to be fine. This De Spadante’s alone,” he lied. “He’s waiting in the car; probably for his friend. I’m going to talk to him.”

  “Bring him here, Paul. I insist on that. Whatever he’s got to say, I want to hear it.”

  “My word. It may take a little more time. He backed his car up, and I want to approach him from the rear. So there won’t be any trouble. I just wanted you to know. No sweat. I’ll have him here in ten, fifteen minutes.” Bonner left quickly, before Trevayne could speak.

  It took Bonner less than five minutes to pass De Spadante’s car in the woods. As he came parallel, he could see the huge Italian standing by the hood, lighting a cigarette, cupping the flame. He seemed to be kneading something in his hand. He removed the cigarette with his left and then did a strange thing; he placed his right hand on the car and scraped the hood. It was a harsh, grating sound, and incomprehensible to Bonner. It was some kind of furious, destructive gesture with metal against metal.

  The man called Augie was sitting on a large whitewashed rock in a bend on the road. He held an unlit flashlight in his left hand, a pistol in his right. He was staring straight ahead, shoulders hunched against the cold wetness. He was also on the opposite side of the road from Paul.

  Bonner swore to himself in irritation and backtracked swiftly, to cross the road unseen into the opposite woods. Once there, he edged his way west until he was within ten feet of his target. The man had not moved, and Paul realized he was faced with a problem. It would be so easy for the pistol to be fired in surprise, and even if it was silenced, as had been the weapon fired by his assailant, De Spadante would distinguish the sound. If there was no silencer, the report might be heard by Trevayne back in the study. Even soundproof rooms weren’t guaranteed against gunfire. Trevayne would telephone the police.

  The Major did not want the police. Not yet.

  Bonner knew he would have to risk murder.

  He withdrew the knife he’d taken from the man at the telephone wires and inched his way forward. The knife was a large utility knife that locked into position. Its point was sharp, its edge like a razor. He knew that if he inserted the blade in the lower-right midsection of a body, the reaction would be spastic: appendages, fingers, would fly out, open, rather than be clutched. The neck would arch back, again spastically, and there would be a brief instant before the windpipe had enough air to emit sound. During that instant he would have to yank the man’s mouth nearly out of his head in order to keep him silent, and simultaneously crack the pistol out of his wrist.

  The man’s life was dependent upon three problems of the assault: the length of blade penetration—internal bleeding; shock, coupled with the temporary cutting off of air, which could cause a death paralysis; and the possibility that the knife would sever vital organs.

  There was no alternative; a weapon had been fired at him. The intent was to kill. This man, this mafioso of Mario de Spadante, would not weep for him.

  Bonner lunged at the sitting figure and executed the attack. There was no sound but the quick retch of air as the body went limp.

  And Major Paul Bonner knew his execution had not been perfect, but, nevertheless, complete. The man called “Augie” was dead.

  He pulled the body off the road, into the woods, and began making his way back toward De Spadante’s car. The snow was heavier, wetter now. The juxtaposition of ocean and land created a moisture inhospitable to clean, dry snow. The earth beneath him was getting soft, almost muddy.

  He reached a position parallel to the automobile. Mario de Spadante wasn’t there. He bent down and crept to the edge of the road.

  No one.

  And then he saw the outline of the footsteps in the snow. De Spadante had gone toward the house. As he looked closer, he realized that the first few imprints were separated only by inches, then immediately by over a foot or two. The track signs of a man who’d started to run. Something had caused De Spadante to race toward the house.

  Bonner tried to imagine why. The “lieutenant” by the telephone wires would remain unconscious for at least three or four hours; Paul had made sure of that. He’d moved the body out of sight and used the man’s belt to tie his legs. It hadn’t been pleasant. He’d had trouble with the belt, and the man’s trousers had been drenched with urine; he’d rubbed his hands in the snow to try to cleanse them.

  Why had De Spadante suddenly, in such a hurry, run to Trevayne’s house?

  There was no time to speculate. Trevayne’s safety was uppermost, and if De Spadante was near the house, that safety was in jeopardy.

  Time couldn’t be wasted using the woods, either. Bonner started down the road, keeping the footsteps in view. They became clearer, newer, as he approached the drive. Once in sight of the house, his instincts told him to take cover, not expose himself on the open driveway, assess the area before entering it. But his concern for Trevayne overrode his alarms. The footsteps led to the telephone cables, and then sharply angled away onto the driveway, toward the front of the house.

  De Spadante was searching, obviously for the man he’d sent to cut the wires. He had to know there’d been a fight, thought Paul. The ground around the telephone housing was disturbed, the snow parted by his dragging the body to the woods.

  It was then that Bonner knew he’d been taken—or was about to be taken if he wasn’t careful. Of course, De Spadante had seen the ground and the interrupted patterns in the newly fallen snow. Of course, he saw the path created by the immobile body pulled into the tall grass. And he’d done what any man used to the hunt would do; he’d faked out the hunter. He’d tracked away from the area and then doubled back somewhere, somehow, and was waiting; perhaps watching.

  Paul rushed to the steps of the front entrance, where the footprints stopped. Where? How?

  And then he saw what De Spadante had done, and a grudging respect surfaced for the mafioso. Along the base of the building, behind the shrubbery, the earth was simply damp, black with dirt and peat moss; the snow deflected from above. There was a straight, clear border nearly two feet wide heading straight to the end of the house, to the corner where the telephone wires descended. Bonner bent down and could see the fresh print of a man’s shoe.

  De Spadante had doubled back, hugging the side of the house. The next logical thing for him to do would be to wait in the shadows. Wait until he found the man who’d attacked his “lieutenant.”

  De Spadante had seen him on the road approaching the drive, had waited, perhaps yards away, for him to run toward the front steps from the telephone wires. Only seconds ago.

  But where was he now?

  Again the logic of the hunter—or the hunted: De Spadante would use the existing tracks in the wet snow and follow them into the woods.

  The Major could not
underestimate his opponent. They both were quarry, both hunters now.

  He quickly slipped around the front steps to the other side of the raised entrance, dashed to the end of the house, and entered the offshoot drive toward the garage. Once near the garage, he turned right onto the flagstone path that led to the terrace and the stone steps above the dock and the boathouse. Instead of crossing onto the terrace, Bonner jumped over the brick wall and steadied himself on the rocky slope beneath. He made his way around to the stone steps and continued beyond, to a point directly above the boathouse. He crept to the top of the promontory and was at the edge of the ocean side of the Barnegat woods.

  He remained on his hands and knees and crawled in the direction of the spot where he’d left the first man. He shut his eyes several times for periods of five seconds so as to make them more sensitive to the darkness. It was a theory doctors disputed, but sworn to by Special Forces infiltrators.

  Thirty to forty feet inside the small section of the forest he saw him.

  Mario de Spadante squatted by a large fallen tree limb. He was facing the house, a gun in his left hand, his right gripping a low branch to steady his hulking weight. The Italian had positioned himself quite far from his “lieutenant.” Mario de Spadante wanted to be able to reach the driveway quickly if alerted by the man up the road—the man who lay dead, the result of an imperfect assault.

  Bonner rose silently to his feet. He withdrew his forty-four and held it straight out. He stood beside a wide tree, knowing he could dodge behind it at the first sign of hostility.

  “The back of your head is my target. I won’t miss.”

  De Spadante froze, then tried to turn around. Bonner shouted. “Don’t move. You do, and I’ll blow your head off.… Open your fingers in front of you. Open them!… Now, shake the gun off.”

  The Italian complied. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Someone you missed taking out at the hospital, you fat bastard.”

  “What hospital? I don’t know any hospital.”

  “Of course you don’t. You’re just here making a survey. You don’t know anyone named Joey; no one named Joey followed Trevayne, set him up for your personal attention.”

  De Spadante was furious and unable to conceal it. “Who sent you?” he asked Bonner in his rasping voice. “Where are you from?”

  “Get up. Slowly!”

  De Spadante did so with difficulty. “Okay.… Okay. What do you want from me? You know who I am?”

  “I know you sent a man down here to cut the telephone wires. That you posted another up the road. Are you expecting someone?”

  “Maybe.… I asked you a question.”

  “You asked me several. Start walking out to the drive. And be careful, De Spadante. It wouldn’t bother me one bit to kill you.”

  “You know me!” De Spadante turned.

  “Keep walking.”

  “You touch me, an army comes after you.”

  “Really? I may have one of my own to hold them off.”

  De Spadante, now only feet ahead of Bonner, turned while walking, his hands angled in front of him to ward off the branches. In the very dim light he squinted the large eyes in his huge head. “Yeah.… Yeah, that shirt; that shiny buckle. I saw. You’re a soldier.”

  “Not one of yours. No family; just colonels and generals. Turn around. Keep moving.”

  They reached the edge of the woods and walked onto the driveway.

  “Listen, soldier. You’re making a mistake. I do a lot of work for you people. You know me, you should know that.”

  “You can tell us all about it. Go down the side of the house. Straight ahead. Down to that terrace.”

  “Then he is here.… Where’s that little prick, Joey?”

  “You tell me why you left the car in such a hurry to get down here, I’ll tell you about Joey.”

  “I told that son-of-a-bitch to cut the wires and signal with his flashlight. Cutting a couple of wires don’t take no ten minutes.”

  “Check. Your friend Joey’s inside. He’s not well.”

  They walked down the sloping lawn on the right side of the house. De Spadante stopped midway to the terrace.

  “Move it!”

  “Wait a minute. Talk.… What can a little talk do? Two minutes.”

  “Let’s say I’ve got a time problem.” Bonner had checked his watch. Actually, he had probably five minutes before Trevayne would telephone the police. And then he wondered. Perhaps De Spadante might tell him something he wouldn’t say in front of Trevayne. “Go ahead.”

  “What are you? A captain, maybe? You talk too good for a sergeant-type.”

  “I’ve got rank.”

  “Good. Very good. Rank. Very military. Tell you what; this rank of yours. I’ll up it one, maybe two. How about that?”

  “You’ll do what?”

  “Like I say, maybe you’re a captain. What’s next? A major? Then a colonel, right? Okay, I guarantee the major. But I can probably get you the colonel.”

  “That’s horseshit.”

  “Come on, soldier. You and me, we have no argument. Put down that gun. We got the same fight; we’re on the same side.”

  “I’m not on any side of yours.”

  “What do you want? Proof? Take me to a phone; I’ll give you proof.”

  Bonner was stunned. De Spadante was lying, of course; but his arrogance was convincing. “Who would you call?”

  “That’s my business. Two-oh-two’s the area code. You recognize it, soldier?”

  “Washington.”

  “I’ll go further. The first two numbers of the exchange are eight-eight.”

  Christ! Eight-eight-six, thought Bonner. Defense Department. “You’re lying.”

  “I repeat. Take me to a phone. Before we see Trevayne. You’ll never regret it, soldier.… Never.”

  De Spadante saw the astonishment on Bonner’s face. He also saw the military man’s disbelief turning into unwanted reality. Unacceptable reality. And that left him no choice.

  De Spadante’s foot slid on the snow-covered slope. Not much, just a few inches. Enough to establish the possibility of falling on the wet lawn. He steadied himself.

  “Who at Defense would you call?”

  “Oh, no. If he wants to talk to you, let him tell you. Are you going to take me to a phone?”

  “Maybe.”

  De Spadante knew the soldier was lying. His other foot slipped, and once more he steadied himself. “Fucking hill’s like ice.… Come on, soldier. Don’t be dumb.”

  For a third time De Spadante seemed to lose his balance.

  Suddenly, instead of regaining his posture, the Italian’s left hand lashed out at Bonner’s wrist. With his right he slapped the flat of his palm across Bonner’s forearm. The flesh tore open, the sleeve of the shirt instantly saturated with blood. De Spadante whipped his hand up into Bonner’s neck; again the flesh ripped open in serrated lacerations.

  Paul recoiled, aware that blood was pouring out of him, seeing strips of his own flesh beneath his eyes. Still he held on to the gun, which De Spadante tried to pry loose. He brought his knee into the soft flesh of the Italian’s groin, but it had no effect. De Spadante pummeled the other side of Bonnet’s head with slaps, drawing more blood with each contact. Paul realized that De Spadante’s weapon was some kind of razor-sharp implement fitted into his right fist. He had to grab that first and hold it, keep it away.

  De Spadante was beneath him, then above him. They rolled, twisted; slipped on the white, wet earth. Two animals in a death struggle. Still De Spadante locked his immensely strong fingers over the chamber of the forty-four in Bonner’s hand; still Bonner held the razor-sharp iron knuckles away from his bleeding wounds.

  Bonner kept bringing his knee up with crushing assaults into the Italian’s testicles. The repeated hammering began to have an effect. De Spadante’s grip lessened. Minutely so, but nevertheless he was weakening. Bonner exploded with his last—he believed it was his last—surge of strength.

  The
sound of the forty-four was thunderous. It echoed throughout the quiet, white stillness, and within seconds Trevayne came out on the terrace, pistol raised, ready to fire.

  Paul Bonner, covered with blood, weaved as he stood up. Mario de Spadante lay in the snow, curled up, his hands clutched over his huge stomach.

  Paul’s senses were numbed. The images in front of his eyes blurred; his hearing was sporadic—words audible and then indistinguishable. He felt hands over his body. Flesh, his flesh, was being touched. But gently.

  And then he heard Trevayne speak. Or, to be more accurate, he was able to make out the words of a single sentence.

  “We’ll need a tourniquet.”

  The blackness enveloped Bonner. He knew he was falling. He wondered what a man like Trevayne knew about tourniquets.

  31

  Paul Bonner felt the moisture on his neck before he opened his eyes. And then he heard a man’s voice quietly making pronouncements. He wanted to stretch, but when he tried, there was a terrible pain in his right arm.

  The people came into focus first, then the room. It was a hospital room.

  There was a doctor—he had to be a doctor, he was in a white cloth jacket—at his side. Andy and Phyllis were at the foot of the bed.

  “Welcome, Major,” said the doctor. “You’ve had quite an evening.”

  “I’m in Darien?”

  “Yes,” answered Trevayne.

  “How do you feel, Paul?” Phyllis’ eyes couldn’t hide the anxiety she felt at the sight of Bonner’s dressed wounds.

  “Stiff, I guess.”

  “You’re liable to have a few scars on your neck,” said the doctor. “He missed your face, fortunately.”

  “Is he dead? De Spadante?” Paul found it difficult to speak. Not painful, just exhausting.

  “They’re operating now. In Greenwich. They give him sixty-forty—against him,” replied the doctor.

  “We brought you up here. This is John Sprague, Paul. Our doctor.” Trevayne gestured with his head in Sprague’s direction.

  “Thank you, doctor.”