Severe Clear

by Stuart Woods

  Finally, they were driven down streets occupied by a mix of small office buildings and cottages, and the cart stopped in front of a traditional California bungalow with a wide front porch and a beautifully tended front garden. Goldman led everyone to the house and opened the front door with a key. “Peter,” he said, “this was your father’s . . . excuse me, your stepfather’s bungalow for more than fifty years. I’ve left it just as it was the last time he used it. It’s sentimental of me, but in fact, no one on the lot has had the courage to ask me for it.”

  They walked through the bungalow, which contained a living room, dining room, and kitchen, plus three other rooms, several utility rooms, and Vance Calder’s office, which opened onto a back porch that offered a good view of the entire lot from a small rise. Nobody said much of anything.

  Peter took a chair and waved to the others to gather around a table on the porch. “Leo,” he said, “Hattie, Ben, and I have been on an accelerated program at Yale, going to school the year ’round, and we’re going to graduate next year.”

  “What are your plans then, Peter?” Goldman asked. “I know you well enough already to believe that you have some.”

  “Our plan is to come to L.A. and make pictures for Centurion.”

  Goldman broke into a wide grin. “I’ll tell you the truth, I was hoping you’d say that. Your first film, Autumn Kill, has already grossed more than sixty million dollars, and we’re about to release it in Europe and Asia, where we project it will earn at least that much more. And a lot of people couldn’t understand why I paid so much for it! The quicker we have another film from you, the better.”

  “Thank you, Leo. Hattie, Ben, and I want to operate as a unit on the lot, drawing on the studio’s resources as we need them, and, of course, we’ll need a space to work in. Do you think you could keep this bungalow for our use?”

  “I’d be delighted to do that, Peter. Of course, you’ll want to bring it up to date, but we’ll have plenty of time to get it ready for you.”

  “I think the main things we’ll need are soundproofing, a piano, and recording facilities for Hattie’s studio, and an editing suite for Ben and me, and, of course, wiring for computers and wi-fi.”

  “Tell me which rooms you’d like to use, and I’ll get an architect started on some drawings for your approval.”

  “Let’s go take a look,” Peter said. They went back into the house, where the three of them discussed their needs in the space and Leo took notes. Half an hour later, they were done. They had a late lunch at the studio commissary, then resumed their tour of the Centurion lot.

  Late in the afternoon, after a look around the executive offices, Goldman walked them to the waiting hotel SUV, and they started back to the hotel.

  “That was a very exciting day, wasn’t it?” Ben said.

  “Nobody’s more excited than me,” Hattie said. “Immi is doing an all-Gershwin program at her concert, and Mr. Greenfield wants me to come back tomorrow and rehearse a number for her with me on piano.”

  “Wonderful! It was a very satisfying day for me, too,” Peter said. “I can see a future for all of us. It’s what Dad calls ‘severe clear.’”

  “What does that mean?” Hattie asked.

  “It’s a pilot’s term, it means a cloudless sky, ceiling and visibility unlimited.”

  “Severe clear,” Ben said. “I like it.”

  When they arrived back at the hotel the Cayenne was shunted into a parking area again.

  “I thought we wouldn’t have to go through this another time,” Peter said, “coming and going in one of the hotel’s cars.”

  “Something must have happened,” Ben said.

  After the search of the car had been completed, Hans drove them back to their cottage. They arrived simultaneously with Mike Freeman, who was carrying a briefcase.

  Inside, Stone was sitting with another man they hadn’t met.

  “Hi there, kids,” Stone called out. “I don’t think you’ve met Special Agent Rifkin, of the Secret Service.” Everybody shook hands.

  “Dad,” Peter said, “they put us through the big search again at the front gate. Has something happened?”

  “No, no,” Stone replied. “The security folks are just a little nervous, what with two presidents here and a lot of celebrities to arrive tomorrow. Will you excuse us, please? We have some things to discuss.”

  “Sure,” Peter said. “What about a swim, everybody?”

  The others nodded, and they all went to change.

  “Let’s go into the study,” Stone said when they had gone. The three men got up and walked into the next room, and Stone closed the door behind them. “All right, Mike, what’s up?” he asked.

  Mike sat down. “First of all, Agent Rifkin, I want to apologize to you and the Secret Service.”

  “For what?” Rifkin asked.

  “Late yesterday I got word from the NSA that they had located the geographical point from which the e-mails were sent by our friend Algernon. It was an apartment house in Palo Alto.”

  “Why didn’t you call me at once?” Rifkin asked.

  “That’s why I’m apologizing,” Mike said, “for that and my reason for not calling you.”

  “Which is?”

  “Frankly, I don’t think your people are sufficiently trained and experienced to work a scene as well as . . . well, some other agencies. Nor as well as our people at Strategic Services.”

  Rifkin thought about that, but didn’t contradict him. “Go on, what did you find?”

  “Not much,” Mike said. “The place had been cleaned and wiped down—very professionally, I might add. Except for one thing.”

  “Come on, Mike,” Stone said, “spit it out.”

  Mike set his briefcase on the coffee table and unlatched the locks. “We found these under a table.” He reached into his briefcase and removed a zipped plastic bag containing a pair of heavy gloves.

  “I’m sorry,” Stone said, “I don’t get it. Gloves?”

  Mike set the bag on the coffee table. “They’re lab gloves,” he said. “There’s good news and bad news about them.”

  “Go on, tell us,” Stone said.

  “The good news is, they’re not sufficiently protective for handling plutonium.”

  “And the bad news?”

  “They’re sufficient for handling enriched uranium.”

  “Oh, my dear God,” Rifkin said.

  38

  Mike waited for a moment before continuing. “On the way in here I ordered my people to redouble their efforts to search every vehicle and guest entering the grounds. They’re already at work. Agent Rifkin, I suggest you issue the same order to your people.”

  Rifkin produced a cell phone and pressed a single button. “This is Rifkin,” he said, then he gave orders to intensify the search routine.

  “Further good news,” Mike said when Rifkin had finished, “is that my people checked the gloves with a Geiger counter and got a negative reading, and we are not expecting a rush of guests until tomorrow. Further good news is that, if a nuclear device is being brought here, it will be too large to easily smuggle in. The suitcase nuclear bomb is a myth—even a small one would be much larger than that. We have to comb the entire hotel and inspect anything that came in a large package—a kitchen appliance, a piece of furniture. The bell captain can tell us by questioning his staff if anything like that was taken into a suite or room by one of his bellmen.”

  “I know what’s coming next,” Rifkin said.

  “Well, I don’t know,” Stone said, “so tell me.”

  Mike spoke up. “What Agent Rifkin means is, if a nuclear device is involved, it won’t have to be on the hotel grounds to destroy the place.”

  “How big an area are we talking about?”

  “The Arrington is in a canyon,” Mike explained. “Anyone who wanted to destroy the hotel would need to place the device in the canyon, not beyond it, where the landscape would deflect the blast.”

  “I’m going to have to call
my director,” Rifkin said, “and ask for more agents and the authority to search every house and building in Stone Canyon.”

  “I don’t think you’ll have to search every house,” Mike said. “It’s enough to talk to the occupants and see if a large package has been delivered to them. Most of them will not be suspicious characters, but we’re dealing with a Middle Eastern threat, so anyone with that appearance living locally should have his residence thoroughly searched. Can you get a broad federal search warrant?”

  “In the circumstances, yes,” Rifkin said. “The more immediate question is whether to get the two presidents out of here.”

  “I think it’s logical to assume,” Mike said, “that such a threat would be carried out at the time when it could do the most damage, and that would be on the night of the grand opening, when the place will be packed. And there’s always the concert to think about, too.”

  Rifkin left the room and walked out onto the patio with his phone.

  Stone looked at Mike. “Should I get my people out of here?”

  “Not yet,” Mike said. “We don’t want to start anything until we’ve searched the place. If we find the package, Rifkin will call in the various bomb squads to deal with it, but we’ll evacuate everybody first.”

  “And the two presidents?”

  “One minute after Rifkin’s phone call, the president will know, and he will make that decision, presumably in concert with President Vargas.”

  They were quiet for a moment.

  “Stone,” Mike said, “you have to remember that we’re talking about this because of a pair of gloves. We don’t even know if they were used for what we think they were. After all, they’re clean of any nuclear material.”

  Rifkin returned after fifteen minutes. “My director spoke with the president, and since there was no radioactivity associated with the gloves, his decision is to redouble the search of guests and vehicles, but not to canvass the neighborhood. However, he has authorized another one hundred federal agents from various agencies to be on standby, in case further evidence points to a nuclear device.” He picked up the gloves and put them into his own briefcase. “In the meantime, I have some people on the way over here with equipment to check the gloves further.”

  Mike nodded. “I think the response is at the correct level for the moment,” he said. He looked at Stone. “If I had a family here—which of course I don’t—I would not get them out at this time.”

  “That’s good enough for me,” Stone said. “I’ll say nothing to my party about this, not even Dino.”

  Rifkin left by way of the patio, and Mike and Stone returned to the living room. They could hear the kids laughing and splashing in the pool outside.

  “I don’t think it’s too early for a drink,” Stone said, going to the bar. “How about you, Mike?”

  Mike nodded. “Large scotch, please. Rocks.”

  39

  Hamish McCallister sat in a golf cart with The Arrington’s director of public relations, a lovely young woman named Clair Albritton, as she showed him the grounds of the hotel.

  “Vance Calder planted more than a thousand specimen trees around the property,” she was saying, “and we have preserved every one of them, although we had to move and replant a couple hundred of them.”

  “They are very beautiful,” Hamish said, and he meant it. “This is really an extraordinary property.”

  “Yes, Vance bought the first of it in the 1940s, and he continued to buy up neighboring plots to the end of his life. After his death his wife, Arrington, bought the final two plots, which he had optioned a year or so before. The total property now runs to twenty acres.”

  “Even larger than that of the Bel-Air Hotel,” Hamish pointed out.

  She smiled. “A fine establishment with its own clientele.”

  “And how many of them do you expect to steal?” Hamish asked.

  She laughed. “Oh, I’m sure there will be some, but Los Angeles attracts a worldwide army of regular travelers, and our initial market research indicated to us that there was room for another top-of-the-line property in Bel-Air.”

  Hamish saw a procession of unmarked white vans come through the front gate without being stopped and proceed up the hill to the reception building. “What are those vans about?” he asked. “They weren’t even stopped and searched like every other vehicle entering the property.”

  “Oh, they’re just part of the security for the weekend,” Clair said. “Don’t worry, their presence makes us all that much safer.”

  Hamish watched as they drove past the reception area. A couple of dozen men were unloading equipment, some of which appeared to be detectors of some sort. He couldn’t be sure if it was for detecting metal or nuclear material. He felt a light sweat break out on his forehead.

  Then they were underground. “One of the great features of the hotel is that we’ve been able to hide a great many parked vehicles down here. It helps keep the grounds so much more attractive, don’t you think?”

  “I do,” Hamish replied.

  “The landscape architects wanted a pastoral feeling about the place.”

  “They’ve done a wonderful job.”

  “I hope room service has been doing a good job of feeding you,” Clair said. “Our restaurants won’t be opening until lunchtime tomorrow, when our guests begin to arrive.”

  “How did you manage to get Immi Gotham to perform?” Hamish asked.

  “Centurion Studios and The Arrington share some important investors, so Centurion has arranged for most of its stars to be here, either as guests or performers. They’ve taken a quarter of our accommodations for the opening weekend, and Leo Goldman Junior, their CEO, arranged for Ms. Gotham to appear. I don’t think she’s ever done a concert like this before, preferring to appear in films and make recordings.”

  “I’m looking forward to seeing her,” Hamish said. “I’m a big fan.”

  “Who isn’t?” Clair said. “I’ll certainly be there, if I have to sit in a tree.”

  Hamish reflected that by the end of the concert, there wouldn’t be any trees.

  Clair pulled up to his cottage. “Now you’ve seen it all,” she said. “Please give me a call if there’s anything else I can do for you, Mr. McCallister, and we look forward to reading your reportage.”

  Hamish hopped out of the cart. He could think of a number of things she could do for him, but he imagined she was far too busy with her duties to provide them. He let himself into his cottage, went to the bar and poured himself a glass of San Pellegrino from the fridge. He pulled the curtains back in his bedroom and gazed down into the Arrington Bowl, imagining it at capacity for the concert.

  It was that concert that would be the cherry on the sundae of the event he had planned. Not only would he take out two presidents, he would cause to vanish virtually the entire roster of stars of one of Hollywood’s top studios, all in a single flash. The worldwide media would print and broadcast nothing else for weeks. It would be bigger than 9/11, he reckoned—a much greater loss of life and property in the heart of America’s most decadent community, with the possible exception of Las Vegas.

  And he would be alive and well to read about it, hear about it, and bask in its afterglow for decades to come. Then there would be London to deal with.

  40

  Kelli Keane got off a corporate jet at Burbank, followed by the photographer Harry Benson, his four assistants, and their luggage, plus many cases of photographic equipment. A very large van pulled up to the airplane and began stowing their bags, while Kelli and her team climbed into the seats.

  —

  When they arrived at The Arrington, the van was waved to a parking area and two men in dark blue jumpsuits approached. “Okay, folks, everything out of the van, we’re unloading your luggage,” one of them said.

  “Wait a minute,” Kelli said, holding up a hand. “We’re not unloading any of our stuff. We’re here from Vanity Fair to photograph this event.” She held up a letter. “Here’s my authoriz
ation from the director of public relations.”

  The man read the letter and handed it back to her. “Very nice,” he said, “now here’s my authorization.” He held up a badge.

  Harry leaned over and whispered in Kelli’s ear, “They’re Secret Service. Shut up, and let’s get everything unloaded.” Two bellmen appeared in a big cart and began removing luggage, while the two agents opened the black equipment cases and started taking out equipment.

  Kelli got on her cell phone.

  “Clair Albritton,” a voice said.

  “Clair, it’s Kelli Keane from Vanity Fair. I’ve just arrived with my team, and we’re being given a hard time by the Secret Service.”

  “Kelli, please remember we have two presidents and a lot of other important people in residence. Everybody is being given a hard time. Please do as they ask.”

  Kelli put away her phone and turned to find an agent pawing through her underwear. He closed the bag and started on another. She stood there, sputtering, while Harry relaxed in the van, looking through an L.A. Times.

  “Take a few deep breaths, Kelli,” Harry said, in his Glaswegian accent. “This is a little more than par for the course, but there’s nothing you can do to rush it. Just have a seat and relax.”

  Kelli leaned against the van and longed for a cigarette. She had quit, cold turkey, two years ago, but when she was annoyed about something the urge came back, and she was very annoyed at the moment. Now the agents started closing the cases, and two others began removing the seats from the van. Another one was lying on his back on a creeper, surveying its underside.

  “Okay,” somebody said finally, “you can reload now.” The bellmen got everything back into the van.