She did not argue with him. Words would serve no purpose at this point. But she did make a decision, and even though she was seething with anger, she knew the decision would serve a dual purpose. It would allow her to strike back at Ironman for what he had done to Chad. And it would also show Dallas Hunter that she was once again the strong-willed, fiery woman she had been before—the type he could fall in love with.
Of course, she mused, that was if the plan worked. But if it didn’t, she wouldn’t have to concern herself with feeling distressed over its failure. She looked over the side of the plane, through the openings in the white clouds, at the ocean below. No, she thought, if the plan failed, she wouldn’t have to concern herself about anything. She would be dead.
When they landed in New York, Hunter was met at the airport by an agent from the Treasury Department’s east coast office, an agent named Lee Joel. Joel was a lean, salt and pepper haired man. Hunter and Joel talked for several minutes. Then Hunter excused himself to go to Grand Central Station to put Kristin on a train for California. Joel offered to do this for him, since Hunter had an appointment to keep in Washington, D.C. Hunter thanked him but refused in a somewhat cold tone of voice. Kristin could sense that Hunter either didn’t trust Agent Joel, or he had a personal dislike for the man.
“It was nice meeting you,” Kristin said to him politely as Hunter ushered her to a waiting car to take her to the train station. In the car she asked Hunter why he had been so brusque with the man.
“I wasn’t brusque. I just don’t want to talk to him right now. After I put you on that train, I have to come back to the airport, anyway. I’ll talk to him then.”
Kristin still suspected some sort of bad feeling between the two men, but she said nothing further about it. At the train station when her train was about to leave, she looked at Hunter, wondering how he was going to say good-bye to her. Was he going to kiss her good-bye? She would not initiate the kiss. He would have to make the first move. He stood stiffly for a moment as the conductor called out the final “All aboard!” Then he took her hand and squeezed it. “Have a good trip,” he said.
She turned and climbed aboard, just as the train began pulling out of the station.
By the time Hunter made it back to the airport, his plane was refueled and overhauled. He had a half-day’s wait, though, before he was cleared for takeoff, due to some mix up regarding his flight plan. He used the time to try to rest up. He talked to Agent Joel for a few minutes during that period. Then he took off for Anderson Field on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.
A black limousine was waiting for him when he landed to take him to the Capitol. In it was Rogers, who was wearing a vested business suit and looking very professional. Hunter was dirty and rumpled from his flight, and he was still wearing a leather flight jacket. He was exhausted despite the half-day’s rest he had taken in New York. He had made two flights across the Atlantic, to Paris and then back again, in less than a week.
“You look like hell,” said Rogers in his usual deep voice as Hunter wearily settled next to him in the cushioned backseat of the limousine.
“You’re cute too,” Hunter said. The car started forward.
Rogers shut the window partition so that the chauffeur could not hear their conversation. Hunter grinned at this. It was typical of Rogers, who was a stickler for proper procedure and detail. The chauffeur had been cleared by security; closing the window was unnecessary. Rogers did not take chances however.
“All right,” said Rogers. “Let’s have your report.”
“I got her back. I packed her off to California, where she has some relatives. Just like I told you I would when I phoned.”
“Just in the nick of time, as far as I’m concerned. After that story broke in Life magazine about the decadent American beauty who was raising hell in Europe,Ironman probably sent half an army over there to track her down. Now that he knew where to look for her.
Hunter pinched the bridge of his nose. “What’s the decision on my plan to collar Ironman? Do I get the go-ahead?”
“You got it. But I don’t think it’s going to work. At least that’s my personal feeling.”
“It’ll work. Now that he can’t get his hands on Kristin, he has to worry about her testifying against him. We can’t make any of our charges stick, even with her testimony, but he doesn’t know that. That’s why he’s been trying to track her down. And it’s why he’ll have to go to his bootleg warehouse in New York to destroy the records of his operations when we let it leak out that Treasury agents are finally about to close in. He’ll think that if we have those records plus Kristin’s testimony that she entered the figures for him, we can bust him.”
Rogers seemed skeptical and moved uneasily in his seat. “No one’s ever put away a hood on tax evasion charges. I don’t know if he’ll really be that worried about it. And besides, how do you know he doesn’t have his records in Chicago, and that we won’t be waiting at the New York warehouse for nothing?”
“He moved them. Most of his revenues come from his gambling ship now, and he spends more time in New York than Chicago. To be near the Daisy.”
“Well, still,” Rogers persisted, “for your plan to work, he has to go to the warehouse himself, and we have to actually catch him with the records. What makes you so sure he won’t just send some lackey to bring him the books?”
“He’s the only one with the combination to the safe, and he wants to keep it that way. He keeps a lot of the Daisy’s winnings in there.”
Rogers nodded, seeming more convinced. “Well, it’s the best shot we’ve got. So long as he thinks your lady can testify about those figures she entered into his ledgers, he’ll have to destroy the ledgers when he hears we’re going to raid the place. That’s why I’m glad you got her on her way to safety. If he thought he could silence her permanently, he’d never fall for this bluff of ours.”
The limousine was no longer driving down a country road, but was now speeding through the bustling streets of Washington, D.C., toward Pennsylvania Avenue. “You’re not really taking me where I think you’re taking me, are you?” Hunter asked.
Rogers nodded.
Hunter gestured at his grubby clothing and greasy, dirt smudged face. Only the area around his eyes, which had been protected by the goggles, was clean. “You’re taking me to see him looking like this!"
“He wanted to see you as soon as you landed.” Rogers smiled reassuringly. “He doesn’t give a damn what you look like. He likes you. After all, he was the one who sent the orders down to recruit you to help put Ironman behind bars. He’s obsessed with the idea of stopping Ironman.”
“You don’t have to tell me that. He already told it to me when he talked me into this damn mission.” Hunter said it in a grumbling voice, as if regretting ever having anything to do with the mission.
Rogers laughed and slapped him on the leg. “You should be proud! How many former bootleggers get a personal request from the President of the United States to go on a secret mission for him?”
Hunter still felt rueful about the whole thing. Before this mission he had been a successful bootlegger enjoying an adventurous life, earning what would have amounted to a fortune had he pursued it. Rogers had approached him first. Hunter refused. Then Rogers told him about a highly placed man in government who had personally decided Hunter was the right man for the job. Who was this mysterious man? Hunter had asked. The next thing he knew, he was being ushered into a meeting with President Coolidge, just as he was being ushered into one now.
“A pep talk,” Hunter said, shaking his head in wry amusement. “He’s calling me in for a pep talk.”
“A report,” corrected Rogers.
“Bull! You can give him my report. He just wants to put the screws on. To tell me again how important the whole thing is.” Hunter sighed and leaned back in the seat as the car pulled up the drive to the White House. He glanced at Rogers and reflected on how Rogers didn’t think Hunter’s plan would work. Rogers thought Ironm
an would end up going scot-free. But Hunter knew something Rogers didn’t know. He knew that even if Ironman did manage to destroy the ledgers before they could nab him in the act, it wouldn’t matter. Because Hunter planned to kill Ironman. He would get him even if it meant shooting him down in cold blood and making it look like an accident afterward.
Hunter did not tell Rogers any of this, because Rogers was too much of a stickler for proper procedure. He’d never go along with it. He was too righteous and too soft. Hunter smirked. The President probably knew Hunter would take this tactic against Ironman, even if Rogers didn’t know. Maybe that was why the President had chosen Hunter in the first place. And why there had been that mysterious twinkle in his eyes when he explained the mission during their first meeting.
Well, Hunter knew, he wouldn’t let the President down. Hunter’s plan would work. All Ironman had to do was to just show up at the warehouse, where Hunter would be waiting for him. If he just showed up, that’s all it would take. Hunter would make sure he never left the place alive.
When they reached the White House north entrance, the limousine stopped, and the White House doorman opened the door. He grimaced at Hunter’s rumpled appearance. The doorman was upset that a person could dress and look so unbecoming, no matter whom he was visiting at the White House. And he undoubtedly thought Hunter was visiting some low-level civil servant. Hunter grinned at him and said, “Between you and me, pal, I’m going in to see the President.”
The doorman looked aghast, and then extremely doubtful.
“You didn’t have to say that,” Rogers scolded as they walked across the highly polished, floor of the rotunda.
“What’s it matter? He didn’t believe me.”
“Security. Your relationship to the President is top-secret.”
“Look,” Hunter said with growing irritation, “the only security you have to worry about is the security around Kristin when she reaches California. I want to be sure you’ve got men waiting there to protect her, like we agreed earlier.”
“It’s all arranged. Don’t worry. So long as she arrives, she’ll be provided for.”
“She’ll arrive,” said Hunter. “I put her on the train myself.” He stepped into the elevator that would take them to the Oval Office.
At that very moment, Kristin was making plans to leave the train at its next stop, catch another one going in the opposite direction and head back to New York. She had no intention of going to California to visit nonexistent relatives, and she never had any intention of doing so. She had only let Hunter put her on this train in the first place because she knew he would interfere with her plan if he knew she was actively plotting to get even with Ironman. She had deceived him. And now that he thought she was out of the way, she could return to New York and put her plan into action without his interference.
Did he really think she would let Chad’s death go unavenged? she wondered bitterly. Now that she was back in the States and back to her senses, she would make sure Ironman paid, and paid dearly.
She was in the dining car, finishing her poached salmon lunch, when the conductor came through to announce that the train would reach Chambers, the next stop, in 15 minutes. Kristin left the dining car and went back to her private coach. Halfway there, though, she realized she’d left her purse in the dining car. She reversed direction and headed back down the narrow passageway. It was then that she saw for the first time that she was in danger.
A man was facing her in the corridor, now that she had pivoted around. He had been behind her. He was surprised by her quick turn, and he cast his eyes down as if he were merely another train passenger casually wandering down the hallway. The truth was more apparent though, for his expression had shown panicky surprise. Kristin had noticed the man earlier during her trip, but thought little about him. She had heard the conductor call him Mr. Peters when taking his ticket. He had stuck in her mind only because he had a somewhat pockmarked face and because he often happened to end up in the same car as herself.
Now that she saw the expression on his pockmarked face, she realized that he had not just happened to be in the same cars at all. The man was following her! She looked at him closely as she neared him in the narrow passageway, but he kept his head down. He was wearing a brimmed hat with the brim pulled low.
“Pardon me,” she said as she brushed past him. She said this to him to hear his voice in reply, curious about how he would sound. He did not answer though. He merely put his fingertips to his hat and tipped it slightly.
She went out of the coach car, through the connecting accordion link and back into the dining car. She retrieved her purse from the table. Then, instead of returning to her coach car, she took a seat in the booth directly to the side of the door. This way no one could look through the window in the train door to see where she was. She waited, watching the doorway.
Her suspicions were confirmed. After a moment, the pock-faced man in the hat burst through the door and hurried down the aisle, right past Kristin, not even noticing her. He rushed up to the dining room porter and said in a desperate voice, “The dame in the green dress! The pretty one! Where is she? Where’d she go? I saw her come in here!”
The porter looked startled by his panicky voice.
“Did she go on through?” the man insisted, nodding toward the train door at the opposite end of the aisle.
The porter just shook his head, bewildered by the man’s agitation, and pointed toward Kristin, who was seated in the booth near the door the man had entered by. The man turned to look at Kristin, his face appearing vicious at that moment. Their stares locked. Kristin saw Peters scowl with self anger at his stupidity in giving himself away like this. She did not wait to hear any explanation. She was sure she knew everything there was to know: Ironman had discovered her whereabouts after all, and he had sent this man to follow her—and to kill her at the first opportunity. She got up from her booth and rushed to the door.
“Hey!” shouted Peters. “Wait!”
She was out the door, though, and rushing through the accordion connecting link, then into the other car. She saw him through the glass window, rushing through the accordion link after her. There was a lock on the connecting doorway. Kristin turned it quickly, just in time. Peter’s hand was on the door latch. He became flustered and furious at the way she had foiled him, and he began screaming through the door. She could not hear his words due to the thick glass plate and the rumbling of the train. But she saw his agitated features and the way his face was turning red.
A woman was coming out of her compartment as Kristin rushed by. “Don’t unlock that door,” Kristin said to her. “There’s a madman out there.”
The woman looked shocked. “A ... a madman?” She glanced at the door, saw Peters’s angry face through the thick glass, and with a small gasp she turned back into her compartment, slamming shut the sliding door.
Kristin continued down the aisle, then hurried out the far doorway and into the next car. She was breathing quickly from fright, but her mind was working clearly. She had to lose this man. Her life depended on it. She could not tell a porter about the situation and expect any protection. The man Ironman had sent was undoubtedly ruthless. A porter, unused to physical violence, would be no match for him and would certainly not be able to protect Kristin from him.
She could not go back to her own compartment. The man would look for her there. She could not simply wait until the train arrived at Chambers either, and then disembark, because Peters would undoubtedly have the dining room porter unlock the door by then and would be after her.
Kristin had a desperate idea. She would pull the emergency stop and halt the train as they were passing through the small town. Then, in the confusion, she would rush away.
The problem, though, was that there was no emergency stop cord to pull. She looked everywhere, frantically. Oh, dam, she thought feverishly, feeling betrayed. There had always been an emergency stop cord in all the movies she’d seen. How was she to know that such a th
ing did not exist in reality.
Oh, no! Looking through the glass in the doorway, she saw the pock faced man coming through the accordion passageway. He was still after her, and getting closer! Well, at least there was one proven way to buy time. She quickly forced the latch on this new door, locking it. On the other side of the door, Peters turned the handle, saw that he had been defeated again, and now his expression became really enraged. He cursed through the thick window, though the rumbling of the train again drowned out his words.
She hurried through the car and exited into the next one. She knew she could not use this ploy again. This time the man would be smart enough to take the key from the porter and carry it with him, rather than just ordering the porter to unlock the door. What could she do? They were only minutes away from the next stop now, but that meant nothing if she did not live long enough to reach it.
Standing in the passageway, she had an idea. There was a gap of perhaps nine inches between where she was standing and the train car’s exit. She looked through it. There were handles running the length of the accordion passageway, outside it, for use by the train crews in pulling the folding metal contraption into place and securing it. It was incredibly windy out there, and there was only a tiny ledge on which to place her feet. Worst of all, she knew that if Peters did find her there, all he would have to do would be to give a small push, and she would plummet down the steep embankment of the tracks, at around 80 miles an hour.
There was no choice. She had only seconds. She took the folding money from her purse and stuffed it into the pocket of her blouse. Then she tossed the purse away through the gap between the accordianway and the train car. She pushed the gap as wide as she could make it, then slithered through to the outside as carefully as she could. She was not careful enough. She had not anticipated the blast of wind that caught her as the train barreled along at such high speed. It almost lifted her straight up and away into the air. She gripped the handles tightly and finally managed to plant her feet back upon the tiny ledge.
Passion's Wicked Torment Page 29
