Power Play

by Joseph Finder

  "Where do you keep your sat phone?"

  It took him a few seconds to respond. Clumsily, he tried to wipe the tears from each eye with the backs of his bound hands. He looked hollow. "My office," he whispered. "But that crazy guy-Verne?-asked me about it and made me give him my office key."

  "That's not the phone that Russell was using, was it?"

  He shook his head. "Mine's an older model. He just must have taken mine so no one else could use it."

  "Your office-you keep it locked?"

  He nodded. "But they took the key, I told you-"

  "I understand. What happens if you misplace your key?"

  "You mean, do I hide a spare somewhere?" He nodded. "Under the base of the lamp on the legal bookcase outside my office door. An old skeleton key. Opens every damned door in this old place-real high-security, huh? But I told you, he took the sat phone."

  "That's all right. There's other ways."

  Ali, watching us talk, said: "The Internet."

  "Right. They obviously haven't cut the line if they're planning on using it to do the wire transfer."

  "Landry, you see that guy in the front of the room? There's like five guys with guns out there. You've really lost it."

  I looked toward the window.

  Two silhouetted figures in the silvery moonlight struggled with a body, moving in the direction of the forest.

  "But Russell-"

  "I have a feeling that Russell told his brother he was only going to put a scare into Danziger and Grogan. Not bullets in their heads. As long as we can hear them arguing, we can count on them being distracted in the screened porch."

  "And this guy?" She glanced at Buck.

  I explained.

  "Are you out of your mind?" she said.

  51

  You lost your mind?" Dad said.

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Trying to rip me off? You didn't really think you could get away with it, did you?"

  Suddenly he had the crook of his arm around my neck and was squeezing hard. I could smell his Old Spice, his boozy breath.

  "Hey!" I felt the blood rush to my head, bright spots swimming. "Cut it out!"

  "We can do this the hard way or the easy way. Up to you. Which it gonna be?"

  I tried to pry his arm loose, but he was much stronger. I was thirteen, tall and scrawny. Everything was bleaching out.

  On the bulging muscle of his upper arm, the Marine Corps tattoo: an eagle, a globe, an anchor, a circle of stars, "USMC" in Old English lettering. I noticed the imperfections, the fuzzy lines, the blotches of green-black ink.

  "You know how easy I could break your neck?"

  "Let go!"

  "Either you're gonna give me back the fifty bucks, or I'm gonna break your neck. Which it gonna be?"

  I'd taken the money from the cigar box in his dresser to buy a bus ticket and get the hell out of the house. A cousin was at college in Bellingham, Washington. I figured the fifty dollars would get me at least halfway across the country, and I'd beg or borrow or steal the rest. Once I showed up at Rick's apartment, he wasn't going to turn me away. The worst thing was leaving Mom alone there with Dad, unprotected, but I'd pretty much given up on her. I'd begged her to leave, and she wouldn't. She wouldn't let me say anything to Dad. "Just stay out of it, sweetie," she'd said. "Please, just stay out of it."

  Finally, I gasped, "All right!"

  Dad loosed his grip, and I sank to the floor.

  He held out his hand, and I fished the crumpled bills from the back pocket of my jeans. Tossed the wad onto the wall-to-wall carpet.

  He smiled in triumph. "Didn't I teach you nothing? What kind of pussy are you, can't defend yourself?"

  "I'm telling Mom."

  He just snorted.

  "I'll tell my guidance counselor what you did."

  "You do that, and I'll tell the cops how you been stealing money from your parents, and you know what's gonna happen to you? They'll send you right to the boys' home. Reform school. That'll straighten you out."

  "Then I'll just take one of your guns and steal the money."

  "Hah. You gonna rob a bank, Jakey? Or the 7-Eleven?"

  I sat there on the carpet, head spinning, as he went downstairs to the kitchen. Heard the refrigerator door open. The hiss of a pop-top: a can of Genny.

  Mom was standing at the top of the stairs in her Food Fair smock, tears in her eyes. She'd seen the whole thing.

  "Mom," I said.

  She gave me a long, imploring look, and for a moment she looked like she was coming to give me a consoling hug.

  Instead, she gave me another sad look and went down the hall to the master bedroom to change out of her work clothes.

  52

  I lay on my side as if asleep and drew my left knee up to bring my foot closer to my roped hands.

  I'd lost a little feeling in my fingers, not because the ropes were too tight but because my palms had been clamped together in the same position for so long. They felt prickly and thick and useless.

  But I was able to extend my hands and, despite the limited range of motion of my fingers, grasp the blade of the steak knife. And fumbling with my leaden fingertips, I got hold of the handle and pulled it slowly, carefully, from my shoe.

  Meanwhile, Cheryl was talking to Ali in a low, soft murmur. "What just happened-it puts all these petty games into perspective, doesn't it? One minute I'm vowing I'm going to take this fight to the board of directors and outmaneuver Hank, and the next minute I'm wishing I could call my children and tell them I love them."

  "How old are they?" Ali asked.

  "Oh, Nicholas is a sophomore at Duke, and Maddy's living in the West Village. They're not children. They're grown. They're in the world. They don't need me. But…"

  Now that the thing was out of my shoe, I realized how much low-level discomfort it had been causing me. I'd almost gotten used to it, as if a sharp stone were stuck in there. To get it out was a relief.

  "I feel like we've just come out the other side," Cheryl said. "Got through the hard part. Both of them, we had such a difficult relationship for so long. Maddy dropped out of Hampshire and stopped speaking to me for, oh, it must have been three years or more. Nicholas still resents me for sending him away to prep school so young. He's convinced I wanted him out of the house so I could concentrate on my career."

  Ali looked uncomfortable hearing her boss speak so openly. She studied the carpet. Then she said: "He's young. He'll come around."

  I turned my head to make sure Buck couldn't see me. He seemed to be dozing.

  Keeping my back to him-and to Cheryl and Ali as well-I positioned the knife blade up and began moving it back and forth against the rope.

  The blade was razor-sharp, but it was the wrong tool. Great for cutting aged prime steak, maybe, but not so great with synthetic Kernmantle. This was a high-quality climbing rope woven from twisted strands of polyester around a nylon core. It was made for rappelling, so it had a high tensile strength. It was made to be abrasion-resistant. In other words, it wasn't supposed to cut easily. A coarser knife-edge would have had more bite. A serrated edge would have been best of all.

  But what I had was a steak knife, and the wrong kind.

  So I kept sawing away.

  "No, he's right," Cheryl said. "I couldn't be mom and corporate executive at the same time, and I knew it."

  "You needed a wife," Ali said.

  "Or a stay-at-home dad. But they didn't even have a dad at all for most of their childhoods. After Bill ran off with some chippy." She sniffled. "So this is what I screwed up my kids for. So I could spend half my time trying to keep Hank Bodine from stabbing me in the back."

  Once I'd pierced the outermost polyester sheath, the strands began to fray, then splay outward. The process started getting easier, until I'd got halfway through the first rope. They'd wound the rope around my wrists three times, but of course I'd only have to cut through in one place to get it off.

  "I bet Hank's kids are
screwed up even worse," Ali whispered. "Only he probably doesn't even care."

  Upton Barlow noticed what I was doing, and he stared in astonishment. Then, to my surprise, he smiled and nodded.

  "And then die in this godforsaken fishing lodge in the middle of…" Cheryl's voice got high and thin and constricted, then stopped.

  I went back to sawing at the rope.

  "Didn't think you'd ever see a CEO cry, right?" Cheryl said.

  "Cheryl," Ali said gently.

  "You know what they say-when a man's tough, he's decisive. When a woman's tough, she's a controlling bitch." She sniffed again. "That's okay. I knew that when I started. Back in the day. When all women in business were legally required to wear those stupid floppy bow ties with every blouse. At least it'll be easier for you. The clothes aren't as bad."

  Finally, I was down to the last strand, and the blade broke through.

  My hands were free.

  But Barlow was looking at me with a different expression: alarm. His eyes darted up and to the side repeatedly, signaling something to me.

  I heard the floorboards squeak.

  Others were now looking around, seeing the same thing that Barlow was looking at.

  I froze. It had to be Buck, and judging from the sound, he was standing just a few feet away.

  Slowly, very slowly, I lowered my hands to my chest.

  Tried to wind the rope back around my wrists, keeping my movements small, imperceptible from behind.

  I sank to the floor, closed my eyes, feigning sleep. The carpet had that farmyard smell of wet wool.

  I waited.

  Buck cleared his throat. "You ladies keep it down," he said.

  Then I heard his footsteps recede. I waited twenty seconds, then a minute, before opening my eyes.

  Barlow nodded.

  I sat up slowly. Ali, then Cheryl, saw, and their eyes widened.

  "Oh, my God," Cheryl said.

  53

  I gave Ali a quick nod.

  "Excuse me," she called out.

  Buck looked around. I held my breath.

  "Excuse me," she said again.

  Buck came over, scowling. His jet-black hair looked stringy and unwashed.

  "The hell do you want?"

  "I need to use the bathroom."

  "You can wait," he said, turning away.

  "No, I can't," Ali said. "It's-look, it's a woman problem, okay? You want me to explain?"

  Buck stared, shook his head slowly. He didn't want to hear details. Men never do.

  "It's gonna have to be quick," he said at last.

  She held up her hands, and he yanked her to her feet. "Move it," he said.

  She walked, and he followed. Before they left the room, he slowly looked around. "Anyone moves an inch," he said, and he unholstered his gun. "You saw what happened."

  I waited for a few seconds, then slipped my hands free of the rope and stood up.

  Then I trod quickly along the carpet. Behind me, I could hear faint rustling, soft whispers. I turned around, held up a hand to silence them.

  A low voice: "You're a goddamned idiot, Landry."

  I didn't even have to look to know it was Bross.

  "I hope they catch you."

  "Kevin," said Bodine. "Not another word."

  "Shut the hell up, Bross," Cheryl whispered.

  "No way," Bross said, not even bothering to keep his voice down. "I'm not going to sit here and let this kid get us all killed."

  I was just about out the door when I heard the squeak of floorboards.

  "I thought I heard something," boomed a voice from the corridor.

  Buck leveled his giant Ruger.44 at me. With his other hand he clutched Ali's neck.

  She watched me evenly, her face a mask of calm.

  Buck shook his head, cocked the revolver. "Russell warned me you might be trouble."

  54

  I put my hands up in surrender.

  "Jesus, Landry," Ali said. "I thought Russell cut him in."

  Remarkable how calm she sounded-annoyed, even.

  "Not in front of the others," I said. Her poise steadied me.

  "Don't move," Buck said.

  I ducked my head, said quietly, "You telling me Russell didn't let you in on our deal?"

  "I told you, don't move."

  I took a step forward. We were now maybe six or eight feet apart. "Can we take this out in the hall?"

  "Maybe Russell wanted to cut him out," Ali said. She winced involuntarily as he squeezed her neck.

  I was close enough now to smell his oniony foulness, the wood fire on his clothes. "I really don't want to talk in front of the others."

  "The hell you talking about, cut me out?" Buck said.

  "Why the hell do you think they even brought me here," I said.

  Another step. I looked up. "Because I'm the treasury guy. The operations guy. Hammond Aerospace is a company with billions of dollars in cash, and I'm the only guy who can tap into it. That's why Russell told his brother to cut me loose. He didn't fill you in? Unbelievable."

  "Russell-?" That giant steel cannon of a gun was still pointed at the middle of my chest. Buck was listening now, but he was also prepared to shoot at any moment.

  I took another step closer.

  "I don't know how much they're paying you, Buck, but it's chump change compared to what Russell and his brother are taking."

  His expression was guarded, but you couldn't miss the glimmer of interest, of greed.

  "It's not just that you're getting the short end of the stick," I said very quietly. "You don't even know how long the stick really is."

  "What're they getting?" he asked.

  One more step. We were right next to each other now, so close that I could smell his chewing-tobacco breath. "This has got to stay between you and me," I said in a voice that was barely audible. "I mean it." My head was down, my chin on my chest. I noticed the dried mud on the laces and the soles of his boots.

  "What kinda money we talking?" Buck demanded. "I want to know."

  I dipped my knees slightly, but not so much that he'd notice. My back was rounded, my stomach muscles contracted.

  "Why don't you tell me," I whispered.

  I didn't care what he said, just so long as he opened his mouth, parted his jaws.

  "Tell you-?" he began, and then I uncoiled, exploded upward, the top of my head slamming under his chin with a sudden violent force.

  His teeth cracked together so loud it sounded like the snapping of bone. He made a weird uhhh sound as he tumbled backwards, sprawled onto the floor with a loud thud. His Ruger crashed to the floor alongside him.

  The impact had sent a jolt of pain through my skull, but it was surely nothing compared to what Buck felt the instant his teeth smashed together.

  Ali gasped as she pulled free of his grip. Someone behind me cried out, then a few more. Buck was unconscious. That I hadn't expected: I'd thought I might knock him off-balance long enough to grab his gun. Maybe my skull had struck some bundle of nerves underneath his jaw or in his throat.

  "My God, Landry," Ali said. "Where the hell did that come from?" She was looking at me with a peculiar combination of gratitude and respect and, I think, fear.

  "I was just about to ask you the same thing."

  "But what you did just now-how did you-?"

  "I don't know," I said.

  But of course I did.

  55

  A few weeks after I'd finished serving out my sentence at Glenview, I appeared before the Family Court judge, at the advice of my Legal Aid lawyer, to request that my records be sealed. Otherwise the crime would follow me for the rest of my life.

  The Honorable Florence Alton-Williams regarded me over her tortoiseshell half glasses. "Well, young man," she said in her stern contralto. "Your record at Glenview was impeccable. The warden's report on your conduct was simply glowing."

  Of course it was. Neither he nor the superintendent wanted trouble from me; they didn't want any more details about Pe
e Wee's death to see the light of day.

  "Looks to me like the right wolf won," she said.

  I didn't reply.

  Swooping down to retrieve Buck's stainless-steel Ruger, I tucked it into the waistband of my pants. Then I turned around to face the roomful of my fellow hostages. Everyone was awake now.

  "You goddamned idiot," Kevin Bross said, even before I could speak. "As soon as Russell sees this, he's going to start picking us off-"

  "That's why I need help moving this guy," I said.

  Some looked at me blankly; some looked away.

  "Come on. Anyone. Upton, you're a strong guy. I'll cut you loose."

  "I'm sorry, Jake. Those guys are going to be back any second," Barlow said.

  "Come on, Landry, let's go," Ali said. She stood at the edge of the room, held her hands out to me. "Slice these ropes off me."

  "No. They'll notice you gone right away. Someone else. Paul, you know the layout of this place better than anyone. You'll know where to stash this guy."

  "I'm in no shape," the manager said.

  "How about your son? Ryan?"

  Ryan shot me a frightened look, but his father spoke up for him: "It's a suicide mission."

  "This asshole's going to get us all killed," Bross said.

  "How about you, Clive?" I said.

  Rylance shook his head. "It's madness, Jake."

  "Come on," I said to the rest of the room. "Someone? Anyone? Do I have to do this myself? Any of you guys?"

  Silence.

  "Damn it," I said, and turned to deal with Buck's body myself.

  "You got yourself into this," I heard Bross say. "Try and get yourself out of it. What the hell did you think you were going to do-sneak out of here? Save your ass?"

  I turned slowly. "Trying to save all of our asses, Kevin," I said. "Because if you think just sitting here and being good boys and girls is going to save us, you're wrong. We have to get help."

  "That's exactly what got Danziger and Grogan killed."

  "Wrong. Russell killed them because they'd figured out who he is. Somehow he found that out-they could identify him. And I'll tell you something else: Grogan was the only one who knew our bank account numbers. Which means Russell's not going to get his money. And you want to guess what Russell's going to do when he doesn't get his money, Kevin?"