by Gayle Lynds
The sentry poked his head out above the kiosk's Dutch door. Sam rolled down his window. Now was not the time to ask questions and be polite.
Sam offered one of his best, most charming smiles. "How you doing tonight?" Before the guy could answer, Sam grabbed him by the back of the neck, yanked his head forward, and slammed it down into the edge of the door. Immediately he slammed it again. With a single grunt, the sentry collapsed.
Sam skidded the Durango ahead six feet so he could open his door. He jumped out and looked all around at the stark grounds. The frigid air seemed to suck the heat from him. No one was nearby to see what he'd just done, at least for the moment.
He tore back and opened his trunk. He took out rope. The sentry was draped over the Dutch door, beginning to groan. Sam tied his hands and feet, then tied them together behind. He was trussed like a pig for market. Sam gagged him and left him on the kiosk floor.
Back in his Durango, he drove warily ahead toward his parents' Chevrolet and the nursing home's main building. His gaze scrutinized everywhere, looking for movement, signs of danger. . . and Julia. Worry for her was his constant companion, but there was something else there, too. It was some emotion that made him restless and want to smash his fist through the windshield with frustration. He couldn't quite identify it . . . or maybe he didn't want to . . . but it was driving him on. Julia.
9:40 PM, SUNDAY
As John Reilly stood alone next to her, her pistol rammed into his belly, his pale eyes narrowed with rage. "Drop the gun, Austrian. You can't beat me."
"Maybe not." She grabbed his pistol away and told herself she'd been a performer most of her life. Now she called upon that skill to force her voice to remain cool. "But I've killed one man, and if I have to I'll kill you, too." The shock of what she'd threatened washed over her like a chilly bath. But she knew she meant it.
"I wouldn't want to be you, lady. No way can you get out of here alive."
She rammed the gun in harder, and he grimaced. This time she didn't have to manufacture her hard voice: "Let's go." She pushed him toward the lobby. Her car was out front. Her best chance to escape was in that car. And the most direct route was through the lobby. "We're going for a ride—"
Reilly stumbled and almost fell. She reached to support him. But it'd been a ruse. Firmly on his feet, he twisted away and lunged back toward her. It all happened in seconds, but her reaction was instinctive. Almost as if the confidence she'd been developing over the years coalesced in that moment. As Reilly lunged, she swung his own big pistol and clubbed him on the head before he took a step. He went down to his knees, but the two men from the far end of the corridor had seen it. They sprinted toward them with their guns up and ready.
She ran. With all the strength and speed she'd built up over the years, her feet ate up the distance to the opening that led into the lobby. She remembered Sam had told her whenever you can, run! Behind her they shouted.
"Stop!"
"Stop her!"
She heard them pounding after her.
A patient's door opened and quickly slammed closed. Then another. Then. . . the hall was ominously quiet, except for the thundering feet. She started to turn into the lobby. Her stomach lurched. Two armed guards were there, chatting with the receptionist and a nurse.
"Get her!" It was Reilly's voice behind her. She hadn't hit him hard enough.
Instantly she changed direction and accelerated left down a cross corridor away from the lobby. She turned left again into the parallel corridor. One more turn and the unlocked service door where old Lyle had escaped should be in front of her. If it was still unlocked, and if she could reach it.
A bullet burned past her ear and slammed into the wall to her right. Plaster exploded out in a white puff. Another shot quickly followed. It tore through the side of her flapping coat. The odor of singed wool filled her head. They were trying to run and fire at the same time, a bad combination. She still had Reilly's gun. A good thing. He might've had the sense to stop and aim.
Behind her his voice barked out. "Lobby! She's heading for the service entrance! Head her off!"
Running frantically, she made the final turn at the end of the corridor and put on all the speed she could. She was breathing hard, and her legs felt heavier and heavier. The door was only a few yards away. She slammed into it, praying. . .
Shouts and shots to her left.
And behind her.
. . . and she burst out into the freezing black night. Cold struck her hot face and panting lungs like ice to a searing flame. She had no time to feel relieved.
A barrage of bullets spat around her. Razor-sharp pieces of concrete exploded up into the air. She hurtled across the parking lot.
9:46 PM, SUNDAY
Sam had just jumped out of his Durango at the nursing home's front door when he heard the gunfire. Julia? He leaped back into his car, laid rubber doing a U-turn, and sped toward the noise.
Julia's lungs burned. Sweat drenched her. Still she pushed herself to run faster across the bitter-cold parking lot. Ahead through the inky night she spotted a gate in the tall metal fence that surrounded the grounds. She thought it might be where she'd seen the headlights as she'd driven up to the nursing home. That meant there could be a road over there and maybe houses and people.
She gasped for air. Her pulse hammered. But she thought she might make it—
Until a bullet creased her leg.
Suddenly she flew forward onto the concrete. Part of her brain told her the bullet had to have been a large caliber to knock her flat so suddenly. As she fell, Reilly's gun soared from her left hand and skidded ten feet across the dark concrete. But in her right she still held her little Walther.
She didn't even feel pain in her leg. Feet hurried toward her. She jumped up. Too late. A man wrenched back her arm and took her pistol. Five others, panting and gasping, surrounded her with enraged faces.
"Bitch." John Reilly heaved air. "Just like your fucking grandfather. Arrogant. Stupid! Drag her inside until they come for her."
Their weapons focused, they closed in.
"Who's coming for me?" she fumed. "My uncle Creighton? Cousin Vince?"
"That's nothing you have to know—"
Suddenly headlight beams swept over the intense group. Some kind of large vehicle—its headlights high off the ground, the beams on high—bore down on them. Julia's heart leaped. Excited, she instantly thought of Sam and his big Dodge Durango, whose headlights were also high off the ground. She remembered them clearly from the alley beside Brice's mansion. These seemed identically placed. She listened carefully to the motor's shuddering growl, the rhythm, the idiosyncratic sounds. She'd listened for hours over the past day to Sam's Durango, and she was positive this was the same engine.
"Who the fuck is that?" one of Reilly's guards raged, shading his eyes.
Inside the Durango, Sam felt a relief that was more like euphoria—Julia was alive. Thank God! She stood in the dark parking lot wearing his mother's long coat, her severe gray hair almost silver in his headlights.
Instantly he took in the five armed men around her, and the euphoria dropped into an abyss.
He wanted to ram the Durango forward to crush all the assholes. But if he did, he could kill Julia.
It was a Company rule never to abandon the only means of exit, which meant by all normal standards he should stay put and let Julia come to him. But she was untrained. Every cell and nerve demanded he jump out and save her.
With one hand he grabbed his gun, and with the other he yanked open his door handle. Holding the door with his left hand, he drove forward with only his thumb and the heel of his gun hand on the wheel. He screeched to a stop just five feet from Julia and her captors. They'd be blinded by his beams. He flung the door open to jump out.
The brilliant headlights were just feet from the compact group in the parking lot. The light wiped away the night and left the parking lot with a radiant illumination that stunned the eyes even when not looking directly at the car
.
"Jesus Christ!" Reilly raged and shielded his eyes. "The guy's a fucking idiot. Mack, go grab him. The rest of you get Austrian inside. Hurry!"
Reilly groped toward the building, with the other four pushing and herding Julia along behind him.
Then two events happened almost simultaneously:
Mack closed in on the Durango's driver's side just as Sam leaped out. "What the fuck are you doing!" Mack roared.
Sam took in the guard with one swift glance. The guy had just come out of the overwhelming light and was obviously still blinded because his pistol was pointed uncertainly ahead. With smooth, polished movements, Sam used his right elbow as a spring and slammed a shutō uchi right sword-hand strike onto the guy's forearm.
The man grunted, and before his gun had clattered to the concrete, Sam leaned back, bent his left knee for balance, and shot out his right foot in a powerful mae-keage front kick straight into his chin. The guy's neck gave a sickening snap, and he collapsed, ominously silent.
At the same time Julia attacked. With so much light, she knew they were as blind as she. She yanked Sam's mother's pepper spray out of her pocket. With her other senses she searched for the four blinded men who were trying to herd her. A clear image sprang into her mind: She could see them—the four arrayed less than three feet behind her and on either side.
Without hesitation, she turned, pressed the button on the canister, and swung the spray across where their faces had to be. They screamed with the fiery pain.
Instantly Reilly turned on her. He reached out blindly to grab her arm. She could feel his movements—waves of warmth turbulent on the icy air. There was no way he could really see her.
She smiled and swung her arm again, dousing Reilly with the pepper spray. He bellowed and tore at his eyes. He swore and howled her name.
Sam saw Julia's attack, and the five men yelling and frantically clawing at their eyes as they tried to locate her again. He leaped back into the Durango and gunned ahead to screech to a shuddering stop. He flung the back door open beside her.
"Get in!"
Julia dove into the backseat, and the Durango burned rubber away.
43
MEMOIR ENTRY
Zurich was a hotbed of spies and freedom fighters in those days. Maas could not help but be caught up in the glory and the frenzy. He was not just a banker, but a romantic. When he uncovered the treasures Heinrich Himmler had shipped for deposit, he knew his duty was to return them. But he could not do so if they were still in Himmler's name. After all, Himmler had children, who, according to Swiss laws, were entitled to inherit.
So Maas signed the treasures over to himself under a pseudonym, Roger Bauer. He went out that night to celebrate with a new American friend, an army officer, who had promised to help Maas find the artworks' proper owners wherever they might be. That was when you murdered him. . . for trying to do this great and good deed.
7:01 PM, SUNDAY
ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA
The spicy aromas of tri-tip drifted from the elegant ballroom where the dinner and speeches would soon begin at the imposing Hyatt Regency in Anaheim. In the reception room next door, Creighton Redmond shook hands, nodded soberly, and chuckled appropriately as well-wishers stood in line to own his attention for a few moments. These were the big Orange County donors—the megamillionaires of software, hardware, financial services, business services, creative services, and car dealerships. Wealth and self-interest seemed to flow from their pores. Creighton stood in the draft and paid off with a charismatic smile for every promise of a vote and a pledge of greenbacks.
"What're the poll numbers now, Judge?" asked a woman from Irvine, home of steel-and-glass business parks that towered fifty stories above the citrus groves.
"We're up to forty-five percent," Creighton said soberly. "Been sitting there now for about four hours."
"Hey! Forty-five percent!" exclaimed a man from Huntington Beach, where movie stars bought expensive homes to tear down so they could erect more expensive houses so enormous they were called lot hogs. "That's really something. I heard you were only at forty percent this morning. We're going to win this thing!"
Creighton accepted their congratulations with grace, but inwardly he was cautious. Like the superb campaigner he was, Douglas Powers had immediately lashed back at the charges. "Baseless," he'd claimed. "Lies! Nothing but lies!" His wife and children had taken to the airwaves to deny he'd ever do such an unconscionable thing as molest children. The power of their belief in him, the passion of their denials was so convincing they'd at least momentarily stopped the plummet of Powers's poll numbers.
Creighton seemed frozen at forty-five percent. "We'll win because our programs are better for America," he told them earnestly. "Not because of a scandal."
As one group moved on and another took its place, he felt his cell phone vibrate against his rib cage. He ignored the summons, intent on solidifying his support in this all-important state. Tirelessly he pumped hands and accepted congratulations until Mario Garcia appeared at his side.
"Time for dinner, folks," Garcia announced with a smile on his thin face. "I need to borrow the candidate for a few minutes."
Rumbling with enthusiasm, the partygoers filed away into the warehouse-sized ballroom. Creighton paced. He should be weary, but the excitement of the campaign made him feel more alive than ever.
"What's up, Mario?"
Mario described the new TV ad his team wanted to air tomorrow. "We've spent hours on the research just to make sure, and it all checks out." His voice was low, but it resonated with a deep thrill. "Powers was in every city on the dates the documents from the Sunday Times and the Scotland Yard chief superintendent claimed." His voice rose. "Amsterdam. Belgrade. Monaco. Prague. Powers can't dispute it. Short of a court trial, we've got the bastard nailed!"
Creighton grabbed Mario's shoulder. "You're telling me it's . . . it's all truer?" With just the right break in his voice on the right word, he injected into his tone surprise, awe at this turn of fortune, and a touch of horror.
"Yes, Judge. Every last fucking piece of it looks like the God's truth."
Because of Vince, Creighton had known Mario's staff would find the data and it would all check out. Witnesses had been bribed. Facts planted. Powers had traveled Europe constantly for nearly twenty years as a businessman for U. S. canned goods, and many of his trips had been reported in Business Week, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and other outlets. They were a part of the public record because he'd been a star in a ferociously competitive business. After a while, where Doug Powers went, investors knew profits would follow. Eight years ago he'd won his first senate term and had continued his globe trotting, not always for very clear reasons. He tended to be secretive until he'd made some deal good for America, and therefore his failures were never known. That was what had given Creighton the idea of where he was vulnerable. What had he been doing on some of those junkets without results?
"Make the ads," Creighton told him. "Can you have them ready to air early?" It was time to begin to show doubt, to reluctantly let the public know—not directly from him, but from his campaign—that considering the allegations might be prudent for a nation Douglas Powers wanted to run for the next four to eight years.
Mario's face was transported. "We'll stay up all night. Nothing will stop us." Just twenty-four hours ago he'd believed he was working on a futile campaign for a great candidate unappreciated by the public. His voice softened with awe. "This has got to be that miracle Anwar Sadat talked about. We're going to win. You're going to be the next president. You were right about everything!"
Inwardly Creighton glowed. His body felt light, and his mind was the most precise he could recall. There was still time for everything to fall apart and for him to end up in jail instead of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but the odds were in his favor now. He grabbed a glass of champagne, sent Mario back to his staff, and turned to the door that led to the ballroom, the dinner, the speeches, and—most of all—the adulation.
His cell phone vibrated again. He crooked a finger at the Secret Service agent closest to him. "Jason, let them know at the head table I'm going to be a few minutes longer. I've got to take a call. Tell them to start eating."
He sat in a chair in the corner where he could have some privacy. It was Vince on the phone, and Creighton knew instantly from his tight voice there was trouble.
"What is it?" he demanded.
"Julia's got away again." Vince described the nursing home debacle. "Damn it, she's tougher and smarter than we thought. But it's even worse than that. The goddamn old man's gone, too. It looks like the priest helped him to escape."
Creighton felt a blind fury building inside. They weren't going to stop him now! "Tell me."
"Reilly has the crew out looking for the priest, but so far they've found nothing. Reilly says the priest's been counseling Granddad for months, so he thinks a church is the most likely place they'd go. They're checking all the Catholic churches in the vicinity. I've got everyone searching for Julia and Keeline, too. It doesn't look good."
Creighton stared around the room at the expensive furniture and wall coverings, at his discreet tuxedoed agents, at the airy crystal chandelier, and at the white-coated waiters picking up glasses and wadded napkins. For a moment it all seemed surreal.
Then his brain kicked in. He'd been through too many disasters to let a couple of minor setbacks stop him. "There are a finite number of churches where the priest could take him. If they're not at a Franciscan church, they've got to be somewhere a Franciscan priest would be likely to go, or where Granddad would. Think hard, you'll find them. And on Keeline, we still have all that financial information. It's time to bring in the NYPD on him. I didn't want them on Keeline up to now, because of how convincing he could be, but we have no choice. Call the commissioner. Tell him Keeline's a renegade who's already on disciplinary leave. Then change your records to reflect it. Everyone knows he's a womanizer, so it's believable he'd latch onto Julia. Give the commissioner a photo of Keeline. You can officially pull in your Company contacts, and send the Janitors up there right away, too. Everyone thinks Dad's senile. No one's going to believe anything that crazy old man says anyway."
