Severe Clear sb-24

by Stuart Woods

  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 authorization 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.

  “You see,” Harry said, “that took only forty minutes. It’s not like we have to be somewhere. There’s nobody to photograph until tomorrow.”

  “There’s the grounds,” Kelli said.

  “Somebody else is doing that,” Harry said. “I’m not a landscapist.”

  Kelli finally wilted before the wisdom of one of the world’s great photojournalists. “All right,” she said, “I’ll settle for a cold beer.”

  The van moved off up the hill and finally stopped in front of the reception building. Clair Albritton was there to meet them. “Hello, Kelli, sorry about security. A warning: if you leave the grounds, you’ll have to go through all that again when you return.” She spread a map on the hood of the van and gave Kelli and Harry a briefing on the layout of the hotel.

  “Where are you going to want to put the lights, Harry?” Kelli asked.

  “Lights? We’re not going to need any lights that aren’t handheld. This place is too big, and there are too many people to do setups. I’m going to be working on the fly. Don’t worry about it, dear, it’s not my first time.”

  Everybody got back into the van, and they followed a cart with Clair and the two bellmen down the hill to a two-story building. Clair got out and began instructing the bellmen. “Kelli, you and Harry have the two ground-floor rooms. Your assistants are upstairs in two other rooms.”

  “We don’t have suites?” Kelli asked. She had become accustomed to suites.

  “The suites are all reserved for the people you’ve come here to photograph and interview,” Clair said. “We could have let them all three times over.”

  “It’s fine, Kelli,” Harry said. “We could be in a motel somewhere, you know.”

  “What about interiors?” Kelli asked.

  “ Architectural Digest is already here, photographing some suites, the restaurants, and the rest of the grounds,” Clair said.

  “How many other journalists are here?”

  “A dozen or so. A fellow from a London paper is next door to you. Most of them are nearby.”

  “Why do I feel we’re being quarantined?” Kelli asked.

  Clair laughed. “Kelli, you have free run of the grounds and the public buildings. What more do you want?”

  “A suite,” Kelli muttered. “Where is Stone Barrington staying?”

  “He has his own house,” Clair replied. “And all the rooms are full.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Through the reception building, out the back door, and around the pool. But don’t go up there unless you call first-it’s next door to the presidential cottage, and the Secret Service will be all over you.” She handed Kelli a thick envelope. “Here are your hotel press passes. You and your people must wear them at all times.”

  Kelli opened the envelope and found hers, with the word MEDIA emblazoned across it below her photograph. “You’re belling the cat, are you?”

  “Our guests have the right to know when they’re talking to a reporter,” Clair said. “Remember, you’re to wear that, prominently displayed, at all times, otherwise we’ll have a problem.”

  “Got it,” Kelli said. “Thanks for all your help, Clair.”

  “Your bar is fully stocked,” Clair said, “compliments of the house.” She got into a cart and drove away. As she did, another cart came down the path, stopped, and a man got out. He was immaculately dressed and quite handsome, even if bald.

  “Good afternoon,” he said. “If you’re bunking here, I take it you’re press.” He offered his hand. “I’m Hamish McCallister. I’m just next door.” He pointed at the door next to Harry’s. “Hello, Harry, how are you?”

  “Good grief, Hamish, you came all this way?” They shook hands and embraced.

  “Good God, I’m surrounded by Scots!” Kelli said.

  “Lucky girl,” Hamish replied. “Can I buy anybody a beer?”

  “Sold,” Kelli said, following the two men into Hamish’s quarters. She looked around. “It’s a fucking suite,” she said. “How’d you do that?”

  “Charm,” Hamish replied.

  “You didn’t think of that, did you, Kelli?” Harry asked.

  Kelli peeked into the bedroom. “My word!” she said. “You travel with a steamer trunk?”

  Hamish closed the bedroom door and handed her a
drink. “Wardrobe is so important, don’t you think?”

  Kelli took the beer. “I’d be a happy woman if I could travel with a steamer trunk,” she said.

  41

  Late in the afternoon, Stone and Mike were having a drink in Stone’s study, when Special Agent Steve Rifkin appeared.

  “The search is still under way,” he said. “I’ve got seventy men combing every nook and cranny of this property.” He set his briefcase on the coffee table and took out a stack of paper. “One good thing: the bell captain keeps a log of every piece of luggage that his men have delivered to any suite or room. It’s meant to resolve lost luggage issues, but it’s a stroke of luck for us.”

  Stone and Mike each took a sheet from the stack. “And this is accurate?”

  “It is, and here’s the good news. There’s not a single piece of luggage bigger than a large suitcase, and we’ve checked every one of those so far. There are no large boxes and no trunks, and from this point on, every piece of luggage arriving here will be opened and hand-searched, and if there are any trunks, they’ll be subject to radiation checks before they’re opened. We have a very well-equipped bomb squad on site, and they’ll stay through the entire weekend.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” Stone said.

  Rifkin’s cell phone rang, playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” “Special Agent Rifkin.” His face drained of expression, and he hung up. “They’ve found a bomb,” he said.

  Stone and Mike stood up.

  “Not you, me,” Rifkin said.

  “I’m in charge of hotel security,” Mike reminded him, “and Stone is a member of the board. Let’s go.”

  Rifkin shrugged and led the two outside to a cart, and they were driven away.

  “Where is the bomb?” Mike asked.

  “In a wine and liquor storage area behind the restaurant,” he said. After another minute’s drive the cart stopped, and Rifkin led the way past a dozen agents into the building, then into a large room with wine racks on three sides and shelving on the other. Thousands of bottles of wine and spirits were in the racks and shelves, and there was a large pile of cardboard boxes in the middle of the floor, all opened. A man in a heavy, helmeted suit was examining a small suitcase on top of a stack of boxes. He did something to it, and the lid fell open, exposing a metal panel.