“Montana, you got delusions of grandeur—”
“Four things, Conlee. Four things or that tape airs in less than a week. And nobody but me can stop it.”
Conlee held up his hand to silence Montana. “This is ludicrous. I’m supposed to call Diego Carmago? Tell him he has to meet the demands of some half-assed assistant attorney—”
“Precisely.”
“—and I don’t even know what’s at stake? Come clean, Montana. What exactly do you know?”
“No,” Montana said. “When your people know a secret it doesn’t stay secret. What you protect doesn’t stay protected. I’m going around you. It’s the only way left.”
Conlee was silent for a long moment. He stared with distaste at the water stain on the wall. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said.
“Yeah,” Montana said. “You do that.”
On this same day, in a hospital in Tahiti, Burton Fletcher had been told about his sons. He was distraught when he heard what they’d been through and exasperated that he hadn’t been informed sooner.
Burton could both walk and talk now. He walked with feeble, uncertain steps that sometimes veered sideways when he meant to go straight. He talked with hesitation and a slur, and he had odd gaps in his memory.
He could not, no matter how hard he tried, remember how he had come to be in a hospital in French Polynesia. He had trouble remembering why he’d been in French Polynesia in the first place. His emotions were raw and unstable, and he had fits of weeping.
When he fretted during daylight hours, he was comforted by a pretty little part-Tahitian nurse named Marie Therese, who took special interest in him and gave him sympathy.
It was Marie Therese who broke the news to him about Rickie and Trace. She knew only the sketchiest outline of what had happened and ended with, “Your sons were in trouble, but now they’re safe and well. You’ll soon be well, too.”
Other people told him the same thing. His sons had been in serious danger, but now they were fine and under protection.
The twins, he was told, were in a hospital, just as he was, but they weren’t hurt. They were presently being held for observation, and their teacher was with them. People said he owed a debt of gratitude to this woman, that she had helped to save their lives. She and a man had done it, and another three men had died trying to protect them.
The thought of his children in peril, of people risking their lives for them, caused Burton to cry. He wanted to go home. He wanted to see his two sons again. He realized that he loved them, even though he knew they could not return his love, not in expected ways.
He had been wrong and foolish to reject them. When he was hurt, he’d had complex dreams of how happy he had once been with them and with, his wife. They were all that was left of Mary Catherine. She would hate that he had turned from them. He had hated himself for it.
Burton insisted on talking to his sons by phone. Marie Therese helped him put through the long-distance call and held his hand while he talked to their teacher and to them.
The teacher, Laura Stoner, sounded guardedly upbeat. She assured him that the boys were fine. “Right now they’re restless, that’s the worst. They’re full of energy. If we had chandeliers, they’d swing from them.”
“How are they—emotionally?” Burton asked in his halting way. Marie Therese squeezed his hand. “I—I was told there was a fire? And shooting?”
Laura Stoner paused. “They’re confused. And disoriented. But they’re coping. Trace doesn’t know what happened that night. He just knows that now things are different. Rickie gets upset when we try to talk to him about it. He puts his hands over his ears and says, ‘No bang-bang night.’ ”
Burton’s eyes filled. His voice shook with emotion when he asked, “Can I talk to them?” Marie Therese nodded encouragingly.
“Of course,” the Stoner woman said. He heard her instructing the boys what to say.
Then his son’s voice came over the line, making him shudder with yearning for happier times. “Hello, Daddy. This is Rickie. I love you.”
Rickie’s words were flat and mechanical as a parrot’s. He was saying only what he’d been taught to say. But tears spilled over and ran down Burton’s cheek. “Hello, son. I love you, too.”
“I love you, too,” Rickie repeated.
“I’m fine,” Burton managed to say. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” said Rickie. “How are you?”
“Fine, son, fine. I—I’m sorry you had a bang-bang night.”
“No bang-bang night,” Rickie said with surprising emphasis. “No, no, no.”
“That’s right. No more bang-bang night. Not ever. Only nice nights from now on. Daddy loves you.”
“Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang,” Rickie said in a high, disturbed voice. “Bang-bang-bang-bang—”
He kept repeating the word until Burton felt like nails were being hammered through his heart. He bit his lip to keep from sobbing.
Then Laura Stoner was back on the line. “I’m sorry. I’ll let you talk to Trace now.”
Then Trace was on the line. “Daddy, dinosaurs sing and dance. Miss Piggy sings and dances. Miss Piggy is a puppet.”
“Sure, she is,” Burton answered with false heartiness. “That’s absolutely right. That’s one-hundred-per-cent correct. Miss Piggy is a puppet.”
“Kermit the Frog is a puppet.”
“Yes, yes. That’s true, too,” Burton said. “Listen, son. I’ll be coming home soon. I’ve had a little accident, b-but I’ll be fine. I’ll come to see you soon. Real soon.”
“The Cookie Monster is a puppet,” Trace said. “Kermit the frog rides a bicycle. Frogs ride bicycles.”
“I love you very much,” Burton said. “And I’m coming home soon. I love you, son.”
Trace said, “I love you, son. I love you, son.”
Laura Stoner was on the line again. “Hello?” she said. “Hello?”
Burton choked up. Marie Therese clung to his hand and wiped his cheeks with a tissue.
Burton was tight-throated when he spoke again. “Miss Stoner, I lay here in this hospital, and I couldn’t talk right. I hurt, but I couldn’t talk right. And I understood what my sons go through. I know what happens now when your brain won’t work, your words won’t work. It was a terrible experience. But I learned from it.”
She said, “They try. They work hard. They’re good boys, Mr. Fletcher.”
“What you’ve done for them,” Burton said. “I can’t thank you enough. Never. Whatever you want—it’s yours. A car. A diamond. Diamonds. Pearls and diamonds. You tell me what. It’s yours.”
She was silent a moment, and he sniffled unashamedly.
When she spoke, her voice was hesitant. “There is one thing I’d like. I’ve thought about it a long time. I’ve thought about it hard. Could you promise me something?”
“Anything,” vowed Burton.
She paused again. “I don’t want you to separate them—ever. They’re so alone, except for each other. I think they came into the world together for a purpose. Let them stay together. Nobody should have to be all alone.”
Burton, surprised at her request, almost lost all control. “Yes, yes. You’re right. Nobody should have to be all alone.”
“You promise?”
“I promise. I swear. Yes. I promise.” Burton dissolved into tears.
Marie Therese took the phone from him. “I’m sorry,” she said in her accented English. “He’s overcome. It’s very hard for him just now. Thank you and good-bye. We will talk to you again soon.”
She hung up and put her arms around Burton. He put his face against her breast and wept like a child. She held him and said, “Your sons are all right. You’ll be all right, too. Shh, now. Shh.”
Four more days passed. Laura was exasperated at being held in the hospital. The marshals wouldn’t tell her when she and the boys could leave or where they would go next.
“We’re working on it, ma’am,” was all t
hey would say.
They guarded the doors; they accompanied her and the twins outside when the boys took walks. They flirted with the nurses, and the nurses flirted back. They were kind to the boys and deferential to Laura, but they told her nothing.
All she knew was that Montana was no longer in the hospital. He’d been released. But where he had gone, she didn’t know; he’d sent no word, nor had anyone else. She was allowed to make no calls and could receive them only from Burton Fletcher. She felt isolated, abandoned, bereft.
“Where is he?” she kept asking the marshals.
Their reply was always the same. “We weren’t told, ma’am.”
Yet she had a tense feeling that things were happening, things she didn’t understand. Over a week had passed, but the twins’ tape had not been released. Hadn’t Sister Agnes Mary received it? Or had Montana contacted the woman and told her to suppress it, at least for the time being?
Laura didn’t know. She could only trust that Montana knew what he was doing.
By the time Laura and the boys had been in the hospital for nine days, it seemed like nine eons to her. She sat by the room’s metal desk, rereading yesterday’s newspaper and wondering what life was like in the real world.
The twins sprawled on Rickie’s bed, clutching their plastic lizards and watching cartoons on television. Their days had settled into routine. Mornings, they did lessons, took a walk, talked to the doctor. Afternoons, they did lessons, talked to the psychologist, took a walk, watched cartoons. After cartoons would be supper, and after supper another walk, then videos and bedtime books.
She often thought of a poem she’d read in high school. In the poem, a woman had been locked inside a tower and forbidden to look upon the world. She was only allowed to see its reflection in a mirror. Laura felt like that imprisoned woman, cut off from life.
But then, that ninth afternoon, there was a knock on the door frame, and she looked up, grateful for any break in the day’s tedium.
Montana stood there.
Her heart seemed to tumble down a long hill.
He wore a dark suit and tie and topcoat, just as he had the first time she’d seen him. His dark hair was slightly wind-tossed, his gaze steady. He was gaunt and solemn, but to her eyes he looked wonderful.
“Hello, Laura,” he said, not smiling. “Long time no see.”
She couldn’t speak. Another man stood beside him, a shorter, more compactly built man who looked Hispanic. He had graying hair and an expression as sober as Montana’s, but Laura hardly noticed him.
She rose from her chair as if in a dream, her eyes locking with Montana’s. “Look, boys,” she managed to say, “Montana’s here. Say hello.”
The boys, lost in watching a cartoon cat chase a canary, didn’t seem to hear her.
“Are you—all right?” she asked Montana. Her knees felt unsteady beneath her, and her heart banged crazily in her chest.
“Yes. Are you?”
“Yes. But I’m tired of being here. Are they sending us somewhere? Will you come, too?”
She wanted to throw herself into his arms, but she seemed incapable of moving and feared if she touched him he would vanish.
But he came to her, put his hands on her upper arms, and at his touch, her blood bolted through her veins. He was real and he was here and she was with him again at last.
But still he didn’t smile. He said, “Are you ready to go home? For good?”
Home, she thought dizzily. She didn’t really understand what the word meant any more. Home? She could go home? She stared at him in incomprehension.
“It’s over,” he said. “Finally. We can take the kids back to school. Now. As soon as you’re ready.”
“Do you mean it?” She was swept by a mixture of disbelief and rising joy. “Really?”
“Really,” he said.
“But how?” she asked. “How can it be over? Just like that?”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t just like that. It’s taken time. It’s taken red tape. But it’s done. Nobody’s after you. Or them. You’re safe.”
“But how?”
He handed her a copy of The New York Times, folded to an inside page. A neat circle in red ink had been drawn around one brief story.
Laura took the paper, not understanding what he meant.
“Read it,” he said with a nod. She dropped her gaze to the paper.
STARLET’S BEAU KILLED IN AIR CRASH
BOGOTÁ, Columbia—Reynaldo Comce, 18, the constant escort of U.S. television starlet Tori Byrd, was killed Saturday in a plane crash near Bogota, Colombia. Comce was the only grandson of Cesar Perez de la Garza, president of Colombia.
Comce, formerly a student at NYU, made gossip columns when he romanced Byrd, 16, an actress on the soap opera Days of Our Lives.
Authorities speculate that an electrical malfunction caused the crash. Also killed was the pilot, Mesius Estrada, 32, a family friend. Estrada was owner and manager of El Tesoro del Oro, a New York gallery specializing in South American art and antiquities.
Laura looked at Montana warily, unsure if she could believe the story. “Reynaldo Comce is dead? And Estrada, too?” she asked. “Isn’t that too much of a coincidence?”
“Not such a coincidence,” he said. “We wanted them both. This is how the Colombians gave them to us. We sent our own forensics man down to check. It’s Comce and Estrada, all right.”
She stared at him, bewildered. “They killed Reynaldo Comce? But his grandfather …”
“Laura, these guys’d kill their own mothers. Comce and Estrada both screwed up. Badly. The Cartel made them pay.”
The newspaper slipped from her grasp, and she let it. Her hands rose, shakily, and settled on his shoulders. The dark wool of his overcoat was rough beneath her fingers.
“What does it mean?” she asked him. “I don’t understand.”
“It means it’s over, Laura. Really.”
The other man spoke. He showed her his badge. “Miss Stoner, I’m Al Pastrana, FBI. We’ve been moving through unusual channels this last week.”
She turned back to Montana in confusion. “What about the leaks? We couldn’t trust anyone—what about that?”
“We’re plugging the leaks. And the worst one—that one we got rid of a long time ago, without even knowing it.”
He paused, the corner of his mouth turning down. “We were bugged. From the time we left the station house.”
“Bugged?” She was stunned. “Who did it? How?”
“The cop named Valentine,” he said. “He’s dirty. He’s been on the Colombians’ payroll for months. He called them from your phone when he went to pick up your things at the school.”
She remembered Valentine, a big, sarcastic man, with bulldog eyes and oily, thinning hair. It was as if he’d existed in another lifetime, one that seemed far more innocent than this. He’d helped destroy that innocence.
Montana’s hands tightened on her, and he drew her closer. “They told him exactly what to do. He picked one of the kids’ videos, and when he went out for an early supper, he took it. He left it in a restroom in a luncheonette. While he ate a man named Esdra Ibarra came in, ordered a cup of coffee, and pretended to use the restroom.”
Pastrana said, “The bug they used was minute. It could fit under the inside seam of the cardboard video box. Valentine went back to the restroom after Ibarra, picked up the video, took it back, and put it with the others. So, you see, you were electronically monitored from the first. But the tapes were lost in the shuffle after Valley Hope.”
Laura remembered Valentine sitting at her desk, smirking in superiority at her and the boys. A bitter, sick feeling flooded her. “Do you have him? Did he confess?”
“We’ve got him,” Pastrana said with a nod. “The man who was killed near the van—” his piercing dark eyes flicked her up and down “—was a high-ranking member of the Cartel. His name was Hepfinger. He specialized in information. In his suite at the Plaza we found transcripts of the tapes from th
e bugs. He labeled his sources. He was meticulous about keeping sources straight. We got the people who leaked that information and how they leaked it. Including Valentine.”
Montana’s mouth took on a cynical line. “And Valentine’s telling everything he knows so he can cop a plea. Singing like a bird.”
She shook her head. “That was the leak? A video box? The box for a child’s cartoon?”
“Right,” Pastrana said. “They were eavesdropping the whole time. They just didn’t want another hit in the heart of the city. So they waited till you were on the move to Valley Hope.”
“Jorge Hepfinger left a lot of sensitive material lying around that suite,” Montana said. “It led us to two major leaks in the task force. And two in the FBI. We’ve got the people in custody.”
“Everything tied into Estrada,” Pastrana said. “And we’ve got a material witness who’ll testify that Estrada conspired to murder. That he engineered Valley Hope and sent Hepfinger after you.”
“A witness?” Laura asked.
Montana gave a small, bitter laugh. “Dennis Deeds. He knew the Cartel was going to make him the goat in all this—a dead goat. With both the Cartel and the Mafia after him, he rolled over to our side. The irony is that he’ll testify in the cases against the informers. He’ll end up in the Federal Witness Protection Program himself. Probably wind up running a diner in Dubuque.”
Pastrana said, “We’ve pieced together the story. Estrada made one mistake. He told Deeds to hire three would-be assassins, nothing but kids. In turn, they made a mistake. They let Reynaldo Comce come along for the fun and pull the trigger. From there it snowballed into an avalanche. They all got caught in it.”
Montana raised his hand and stroked her hair lightly. “You and the kids are safe now,” he said. “I mean it. Really safe.”
Pastrana cleared his throat. “We’ve got a guarantee from Diego Lopez-Portilla Carmago that neither you nor the boys are threatened in any way. We have this in writing.”
See How They Run Page 33
