by Jeff Buick
26
Deirdre could hardly walk when they arrived back at the parking lot. Her open-toe shoes were fine for cruising Main Street, but next to useless for hiking on the uneven mountain paths that rimmed Logan Canyon. She fell into the backseat of the van, unfastened the straps on her shoes and gingerly slid her feet out.
“Oh, my God, that feels good,” she said, lying flat and wiggling her toes. “I thought I was going to die.”
Claire caught the language but let it pass. “We’ll find something to rub on them when we get to Logan. You can survive until then.”
“I doubt it,” she said.
Abraham jumped in the front seat. “Shotgun.”
“Like I care,” Deirdre said.
Claire started the van and backed out. The forestry road wasn’t busy and she pulled out, heading south toward Salt Lake. Hiking with the kids was fun; they were still young enough to enjoy spending time with their mom, but old enough that she didn’t have to worry about them. Memories of her children as toddlers sifted through her mind and a hint of a smile crept across her lips. Kids grew up too quick. One minute they needed their parents, the next they wanted to walk on the other side of the mall. The gap between the two stages was a lot smaller than she could ever have imagined. She glanced in the rearview mirror but Deirdre was lying down. Next to her, Abraham was playing a video game on his Game Boy, his fingers tapping the buttons like he was a concert pianist.
She looked back to the road, a series of twists and switchbacks under the afternoon shadow of Naomi Peak, a ten-thousand-foot wall of rock to the west. The road was a challenge, even on a clear summer day. She’d never traveled it in the winter and had no desire to try. They were only twenty miles out of Logan, then she’d be back on Highway 89. From there it was easy driving back to Salt Lake. Claire relaxed her grip on the wheel slightly. No problem, everything was fine.
Darvin kept Claire Buxton’s van within his line of sight for the first three miles, losing it on some of the twisty sections of road. He wasn’t worried. Following someone on a highway was easy. Unless they turned off on one of the tiny secondary roads, or into a campground, they weren’t going anywhere but straight. Four miles from the parking lot he touched the accelerator and closed the distance between his vehicle and the van.
“Almost there,” he said to himself. “What’s it like to have a minute left to live? But then, you wouldn’t know that, would you, Senator?”
He slipped a remote control from his windbreaker pocket. He entered a four-digit code and waited. The road climbed slightly, then crested and began a long downward slope. His index finger touched one of the buttons, triggering a deadly sequence of events. A tiny receiver under the driver’s seat in the van picked up the radio signal, electronically closing a circuit and sending a current from the battery to the solenoid coil. A small electric magnet opened the canister, releasing the pressurized cyanide gas into the passenger compartment of the van.
“Good-bye.” He set the remote on the seat behind him.
Claire shook her head, trying to clear the cobwebs. Beside her, Abraham’s fingers were slowing down and his head was drooping. Then he stopped altogether. She turned back to the road and swerved sharply to the left. The van’s tires caught the edge of the road and gravel spit up, peppering the side of the vehicle. She brought the van back under control, but her reaction times were slow. Too slow. She misjudged the next turn, going over the center line and almost hitting a car coming the other direction. The look on the man’s face registered for a brief second, then she forced her attention back to the road.
Another corner. This one coming fast. She steered into it, but her actions were sluggish and the van’s passenger tires caught the gravel and slammed into the guardrail. It held, forcing the vehicle back onto the road. Claire’s brain finally sent a message to her foot. Get off the gas. Slow down. Stop. Something’s wrong. Her foot lifted off the gas pedal, and without power driving the van into the turns, it started to skid. The passenger-side rear wheels slid forward until the van was traveling almost sideways down the center of the road. Then the rubber caught on the pavement, sending the van directly into a rock wall on the wrong side of the road. The air bags deployed, but the force of the crash was too great. The impact crushed the front of the van, driving the motor into the passenger compartment and impaling the driver with the steering column. The van bounced off the wall and careened across the road, hitting the guardrail head-on. The posts and metal were designed to keep a car on the road when it sideswiped the rail, not a frontal impact. The van cut through the guardrail and flew off the road into the ravine.
It crashed through the first row of trees, each of the thick trunks taking its toll on the battered piece of metal and plastic. When one of the trees finally stopped the van’s forward motion, there was little left of the front section and the entire passenger side was ripped apart. A couple of branches snapped, and there was a grating sound as one of the wheels slowly rolled to a stop. Then a surreal quietness settled over the forest.
Darvin overshot the accident scene by a couple of hundred yards, then ran back to where the van had left the road. His car was far enough down the road that no one would notice the make or the license number. He would be some guy at the scene, nothing more. But now, he had to move quickly. The car Claire Buxton had almost hit had stopped and turned around. He had less than a minute. But that should be enough.
He jumped over the destroyed guardrail and slid down the steep slope, grabbing tree trunks and branches to slow him. The van was almost a hundred feet below the road and hung up on a couple of large spruce trees. As he reached the vehicle, a smile spread across his face. The driver’s door was forced open and he could see inside the compartment. It was completely destroyed, Claire Buxton’s battered body visible, crushed between the seat and the steering column. Since the door was open, the threat of any cyanide gas lingering in the vehicle was almost nil. He approached the vehicle with caution, then, convinced that the gas had dissipated, slipped his hand under the seat and found the canister. He pulled and it came free. The device he had activated from his rental car was still loosely attached, but the solenoid was missing. It must have fallen off onto the floor. He cursed under his breath, slipped the empty canister into his windbreaker pocket and knelt down to search for the trigger mechanism. It was impossible to see under the seat, it was too tight to the floor. He moved his hand carefully across the carpet, feeling from one side where the seat was bolted in to the other. Nothing. Time was running out. He tried again, quicker and pushing harder with his hand in case the tiny mechanical device had sunk into the carpet pile. He felt a sharp piece of the seat cut him before he could react. He swore under his breath but ignored the pain and kept searching. It took another fifteen seconds to locate the device and he squeezed it between his index finger and his thumb and pulled. Some carpet fibers came out with it and he tucked everything in his pocket and jumped back to his feet. He had the evidence. His finger was bleeding slightly, and he wrapped a tissue around it, dabbed at the blood, then stuffed it in his pocket.
He glanced over at the body in the front seat. It was Bux-ton’s son. He was dead, his head almost severed by an impact with some part of the van or a tree. It angered him that the boy had died. If his mother wasn’t such a power-seeking bitch, he would still be alive. Another decent life snuffed out by the walking vagina that had brought him into the world. Like it was their birthright to destroy the lives they had created. He traced his finger across the boy’s cheek, his flesh still warm.
“Sometimes they kill us fast. Other times they take a whole lifetime,” he whispered to the corpse.
A low groan emanated from the backseat and he peered in. The daughter was still alive. Barely. He would have preferred they all died, but there was nothing he could do now. She must have been lying down on the seat otherwise the roof of the van, which was caved in, would have hit her in the head, probably breaking her neck.
He leaned into the cab slightly, so
he was only inches from Claire Buxton’s bloodied face. He stood motionless, staring at her. His expression changed, mutating into a cold mask. His eyes went dead, all emotion drained from the pupils, like a flower left without water. His mouth turned down into a sneer, devoid of hate, but also of empathy. Color drained from his face, giving his already white skin a pasty texture. His hand snaked through the air, tracing the outline of her face.
“Dead now, dirty thing,” he said, his voice a low whisper. He was careful not to touch her. “So close, but you can’t get me. Dead dirty things are helpless.”
Above him were voices. The glazed-over look slowly dissipated from his eyes as people coming down the hill toward the crash site. Within a few minutes the scene would be crowded. Do-gooders all over the place. Trying to save the girl. Throwing up at seeing a body impaled by a steering column. Then, once the scene was sufficiently overrun, he would leave. A quick jaunt through the trees, then up the hill to his car. And gone.
“Holy shit,” the man said as he reached the vehicle. “Is anyone alive?”
“I think so,” Darvin said, not meeting the man’s gaze, but keeping his focus inside the van. If they don’t see your eyes, they’ll never remember what you look like. “The girl in the back. I think she might still be breathing.”
More people arrived, scrambling down the slope, cell phones pressed to their ears. Emergency crews and police would already be dispatched, but Logan was fifteen miles to the south. At least fifteen minutes from the time the first person called in the accident. And by that time he’d be gone. A ghost in the forest.
27
The American embassy in Nairobi was of no assistance. They had no idea who Mike Anderson was, or where he might be. If he was even still in the country. And until someone could produce proof he wasn’t shacked up in one of the many brothels in the sprawling city, they weren’t pre pared to start looking for him. Leona was frustrated, but not surprised. If embassies and law enforcement agencies jumped every time someone went missing for a couple of days, their workloads would double or triple. She had spent most of Sunday on the phone, but with little to show for it. It was after midnight when she fell into bed. Her favorite movie, Chariots of Fire, was in the DVD player and she burrowed into her pillow and watched it for the nth time. What fascinated her about the film was all the characters doing the same thing, but for different reasons. Maybe fundraising was the same—so many people looking for money for so many good causes.
When she woke on Monday, the skies had clouded over and a light rain was falling on the nation’s capital. Leona drove to work, the wipers beating a steady cadence as they cleared the water from the windshield. She took the stairs to the twelfth floor and was breathing deeply when she finally reached the upper stairwell. It was early, before seven, and the hallway was deserted. Her breathing and pulse returned to normal as she stopped by the staff room and grabbed her morning Diet Coke. Can in hand, she settled into her office with the reports for the Coal-Balt income trust conversion in front of her.
Her decision to approve the trust conversion was a bit of a shock—even to her. The company was going to face problems in the near future, even more so if Senator Claire Bux-ton’s bill passed. But her job was to assess risk and determine whether the bank would find its investment in jeopardy if the conversion were successful. Nothing in the reports indicated that the bank’s loan would be compromised. Would she buy shares in the company? Absolutely not. The medium-to long-term prospectus for the company was okay, but not rosy. Short-term gain drove the deal; she knew it. But had the company compromised any regulatory or accounting standards? Not that she could see. And that was the basis of her decision. They had done nothing wrong.
“You’re in early.”
The voice shocked her and she spilled soda on her desk and one of the printouts. She looked up to the door. The bank’s CEO, Anthony Halladay, was leaning on the door jamb. “Are we still on for two this afternoon?” he asked.
“Yes. Two is fine. Sorry, you gave me a bit of a start. I didn’t think anyone was in yet.”
“Just you and me.” He moved into the office, his footsteps inaudible on the thick carpet. “Have you finished the reports on Coal-Balt?”
Leona pointed at the papers on her desk. “Everything is done. Ready for the meeting.”
“And . . .”
“Things are fine,” she said.
He smiled. “Excellent. That’s good news.” He turned toward the door. “I’ll see you at two.”
“Two o’clock.”
Halladay vanished into the dimly lit hallway and Leona finished dabbing the errant liquid off the papers. A few needed to be reprinted, but that was easy. She made a note of the page numbers and walked it out to her executive assistant’s desk, then retreated to her office. The sun was up and light flooded through the easterly facing window, but the dark wood closed in the space around her. She sucked in a few deep breaths and felt the anxiety decrease. Damn the claustrophobia. She was, and always had been, a tomboy. Tough to the core, her father’s son he never had. But she couldn’t fight the pure fear she felt when the world closed in on her. Elevators were a nightmare. Even public washroom stalls felt confined. And there was no upside to the phobia. None at all. She glanced at the door as another face appeared. It was Bill Cawder.
“Big day.” Steam wafted from the cup he held in his hand.
“How’s that?” Leona asked.
“The Coal-Balt report is due. Your first test as VP.”
Leona shook her head, her mouth open slightly. “That’s amazing. How did you remember that?”
“Like a steel trap.” He touched the side of his head. “That, and the fact that my report on Nabisco is due today as well.”
“Ahh,” she said, nodding. “And how did that go?”
“A no-brainer. Easiest decision I’ve had to make in six years. Yours?”
“Probably not as easy, but it went well. Anthony Halladay should be pleased.”
“Good to hear. He’s the one who counts. See you later.”
“’Bye.”
More staff were arriving and the hallway lights came on. Ruth, her executive assistant, poked her head in the door.
“Did you make any changes to the files you want me to reprint, or are we using the same ones we used to make the original copies?”
“Same files. I spilled pop on them.”
“Give me ten minutes.”
“No rush, I’m not due in Halladay’s office until two.”
There were a few small details she needed to take care of on the Coal-Balt file, some e-mails that required a response and a handful of voice mails on her phone. It was approaching noon when she wrapped everything up and cleared her desk. She walked down the hall to the staff room and picked up a copy of the Washington Post. She sat down, flipped open the paper and stopped dead. Staring back at her from the front page was Senator Claire Buxton. The caption under the photo explained the article in five words.
Senator Killed in Car Crash.
Leona read the copy, quickly at first, then reread it, looking for any hints that Buxton’s death might have been something other than an accident. Nothing. The reporter kept to the facts, stating that the weather conditions were optimum, the pavement was dry and there was no fog or low cloud obscuring the road. A driver was quoted as saying that he had passed her going in the opposite direction and she had crossed the center line, almost hitting his vehicle. She crashed a few hundred yards down the road, her van traveling through a guardrail and down a steep embankment. The senator’s son died in the crash, but her seventeen-year-old daughter survived, and was in serious condition in the intensive-care ward of Salt Lake Regional Medical Center. The remainder of the article was on Claire Buxton’s contributions as a senator and a mother.
What was going on? Reginald Morgan, CEO of CoalBalt, disappears from a cruise ship sailing through calm waters. Senator Claire Buxton, the author of a new bill that would deeply impact Coal-Balt, is killed while driving in t
he middle of the afternoon under ideal conditions. And all this just before Coal-Balt was scheduled to convert to an income trust. What were the chances?
Slim, she thought, but possible. She set the paper on her desk and leaned back in her chair. Who stood to benefit from the conversion? The company’s common shares would increase dramatically, and that played in Reginald Morgan’s favor. It also benefited Derek Swanson, the second-largest private shareholder behind Morgan. But did it benefit him enough for him to murder two people, three if you counted the senator’s son? She flipped through the file, looking for the information on Coal-Balt’s major shareholders. When she found it, she recalculated the value of Derek Swanson’s shares with the projected figures after the conversion. A touch over thirty-five million dollars. Plus bonuses. Corporate executives always tied their stock options and bonuses into the company’s performance on the market. And Swanson’s bonus would be substantial. Maybe another ten million. That totaled to the mid-forty-million mark and gave Derek Swanson a whole lot of motivation to keep the trust conversion on track.
Leona stood up and walked to the window and stared down at the street. What the hell was she thinking? Murder? A company president killing off people for his own personal financial gain? How totally ridiculous was that? Stupid thinking, that’s what it was. Reginald Morgan had fallen over the edge of a cruise ship and Senator Claire Buxton had perished in a traffic accident. It was simple. Don’t read any more into it.
But still, her intuition was telling her that something wasn’t right.
28
The low-pressure front had settled in over the entire eastern seaboard, then pushed inland, and West Virginia was socked in under low cloud cover. Derek Swanson stood at a second-floor window in the front of his house, staring over the small city of Morgantown. How much longer would he have to live here? One year, maybe two. Then he could bow out of his position at Coal-Balt and return to Richmond. That day couldn’t come quick enough.
