The American

by Andrew Britton

  He turned to his driver and said, with a hint of a smile, “You must get a kick out of driving this car, George. You have a hell of a job.”

  The other man, burly and stoic throughout the whole trip, couldn’t help but crack a smile of his own. “That I do, sir,” he said. “That I do.”

  It wasn’t long before the G-V had reached its cruising altitude of 41,000 feet, and they were streaking north at a little over 561 miles per hour. Ryan knew he should kick back and enjoy the ride, and he did, at first, but being all alone almost 8 miles up soon became a little unnerving.

  When he noticed that the cockpit was shielded by only a privacy curtain, he drifted up there to reassure himself that someone was actually flying the aircraft. Both men seemed to welcome the company, and it turned out that Steve Kearns, the pilot, had been flying jets for the Agency for almost seventeen years.

  “Where was the last place you flew to?” Ryan asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.

  Kearns grinned imperceptibly. “Can’t tell you that.”

  “Where are we going now?” He honestly didn’t know.

  “Can’t tell you that either.”

  The grin spread, but Reynolds, the navigator, laughed and said, “Portland International Jetport, sir.”

  That was good news to Ryan. Portland was much closer to Cape Elizabeth than Bangor was, which was where he usually flew in and out of.

  “I’m surprised they didn’t shut down the runway,” he observed. “That place isn’t really built to handle traffic in this kind of weather.”

  Reynolds nodded in agreement. “That’s true. Of course, we’re more than 10,000 feet over the worst of it right now. Things are getting pretty messy on the ground, though. Half the state is out of power, and they had to kick in the generators at PWM. The storm is pushing out a little bit due to the Canadian jet stream, but it’s still pounding the east side of the state. We’ll be okay, though the landing might be a handful. Hey, Kearns, you do know how to land, right?”

  The pilot shrugged. “I tried it on Microsoft Simulator ’98 once,” he said, smiling broadly. Ryan noticed that Kearns was one of those people incapable of keeping a straight face when telling a joke. “It didn’t work out too well.”

  Reynolds, surveying something on his myriad screens, looked up and said, “Well, I hope you learn fast. We’re about ten minutes out.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Ryan said, a little shocked. “We just took off.”

  The pilot smiled. “Welcome to the wonderful world of corporate travel.”

  The landing, as Reynolds had predicted, wasn’t fun at all, even though Ryan had tightly strapped himself into one of the soft leather seats just aft of the cockpit. He got up on shaky legs after they rolled to a stop, poking his head up front to thank his couriers. Kearns looked a little pale, but both men acknowledged his words, which were difficult to hear over the pounding rain on the fuselage.

  “Did you guys hear anything about my transportation on the ground?” Ryan yelled over the roar.

  Kearns said, “You’re going to Cape Elizabeth, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “It’s only about twenty miles,” the pilot said. He was grinning again, and the color had returned to his face with the landing out of the way. “That isn’t much of a walk. I have an umbrella if you need it.”

  Reynolds shook his head with a rueful smile and turned from his console to face Ryan. “You need to find Andreno in the security office, on the second level. He has a key for you. I guess you have the car for the weekend, but it’s due back at Langley on Monday.”

  “Andreno?”

  “That’s all I know.” The navigator shrugged. “How many can there be?”

  Ryan realized he was right. “Yeah, it’s not that big of an airport. Or jetport. Whatever.” Reaching in to shake their hands: “Thanks, guys.”

  “Not a problem. Drive safe.”

  The jetway had already been extended to the outer door with a resounding metal-on-metal clank. Reynolds came back to open the door from the inside, and then Ryan was in the elevated tunnel, nodding his appreciation to the jetway operators before moving forward to the bustling terminal.

  The open space was filled with stranded passengers, and Ryan reminded himself once again to thank Harper for cutting what would have been a severe headache out of his trip. Navigating his way through the occupied seats in the terminal, he quickly found the cramped office and asked for Andreno, who turned out to be the chief of airport security.

  “Yeah, I got your key right here,” the heavy man said with a grunt. “Mercedes… nice.”

  Accepting the key and some verbal directions, Ryan left the office and headed for the underground parking garage. The car that was waiting for him was very similar to the one in which he had ridden to Dulles. Sliding onto the cool black leather, he grinned like a little boy when he turned the key and the engine purred to life.

  Soon he was leaving the parking garage, the sound of the powerful engine ripping off the concrete walls like thunder, mixing with the hollow boom of the rain outside. With the wipers going full blast, he accelerated down International Parkway, the bright lights of the Mercedes cutting a swath through the dark swirls of rain, then turned left on Johnson Avenue before reaching I-95 South a few minutes later.

  As he drove, he couldn’t help but think about the upcoming argument with Katie. She would probably be furious that he was going back on his word, but he knew that he had to track down Vanderveen once and for all. It was an argument that she couldn’t win; he was going back to the Agency either way, but there were a couple of things that might make it easier for her. He had gotten her the ring, after all, and maybe he could dangle the use of his BMW in front of her to keep the argument as short as possible. He knew she loved that car almost as much as she hated her Corolla.

  Ryan had been thinking about that, too. At the risk of spoiling her, he knew that she had her eyes on a new Volkswagen SUV… Shit, he couldn’t remember the name. Tureg, or Tourag, maybe… something like that. It was pretty big, though, and solidly built, which was all he cared about. Katie was not very skilled behind the wheel, and while he teased her constantly about it, he secretly agonized over her frequent trips to and from Orono. He remembered how excited she’d been after seeing the latest model in the parking lot at the grocery store…

  Why not? he thought. It would be worth it just for the look on her face. Tomorrow, a Saturday, would be a good day for that. He’d slip away in the afternoon and go see the dealer in Augusta. He wondered if she would notice if he had a roll cage installed…

  The random thoughts began to fade as he left the highway in favor of the narrow side roads running along the coast. Harder going here, as the towering trees carried over the road and blocked out some of the rain, but also some of the light, which wasn’t all that much to begin with. The road was covered in fallen branches, too; some were almost as big as small trees, so that he had to brake a few times and swerve sharply once, which rattled him almost as much as the bumpy landing had back in Portland.

  The house came up fast on the left, the steep roof showing up now and then through the evergreens from a distance. He was pleased to see lights in the windows, which meant that Katie was there and they still had power.

  Ryan was glad she was home, and it took him a few seconds to realize how relieved he actually was. She had nearly broken his heart by walking out on him at the hotel, and they hadn’t spoken in the few days since that incident. He’d had a good idea how she felt, though, and had decided that the best thing was to give her some space. Surely it would have blown over by now. All he cared about was seeing her. He had wanted to call to let her know he was on the way, but she liked surprises, and he liked surprising her. The Volkswagen would top them all, he thought with a grin. Again he was reminded of his idea for a sunset ceremony on the Mediterranean. Lots of plans…

  The argument first, though. There would be no getting around that, but maybe it wouldn’t last to
o long. It was only fair to be up-front with her about it.

  Then he found himself thinking about what his profuse and heartfelt apology would most likely result in, and decided that the argument could definitely wait for one more day.

  The one disadvantage to the house on Cape Elizabeth, he thought, stepping out of the Mercedes and into the storm, was the fact that it didn’t have a garage, not to mention the fact that the distance from their improvised parking area to the front door seemed much farther on a moonless night during a torrential thunderstorm. Ryan finally made it under the awning, the raindrops beading and rolling from his thin leather jacket. Although his jeans were soaked around the ankles, his feet were still dry in his waterproof Columbia boots.

  Sliding the key into the door and turning the handle, he immediately realized when he stepped inside that the house did not seem as brightly lit from the interior. In fact, apart from a dim glow at the top of the stairs, the only light he could see was coming from the kitchen directly in front of him. Then he heard her moving around, and an involuntary grin crept up on his face as he silently moved down the hall to sneak up and scare her.

  Stepping through the doorway, though, he was surprised to find that she wasn’t moving anywhere. Instead, she was sitting at the dining room table and staring up at him with a terrified look on her face. Her bottom lip was trembling, and her dark blue eyes were filled with tears.

  And standing directly behind her, wielding a razor-sharp knife and a terrible smile, was William Vanderveen.

  He tried to tell himself that it wasn’t real.

  It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be real because it wasn’t rational; Vanderveen had the contacts to get out of the country almost immediately, but had decided instead to drive more than 450 miles, with every police officer in the country out looking for him, to come here? It just didn’t make any sense…

  And he didn’t look anything like Claude Bidault. That meant it must be a dream, because there was no way that he would have had time to drive all the way from Washington to Maine and remove the heavy beard and the tint from his hair. It just wasn’t possible… was it?

  He instinctively reached for his Beretta, then went cold when he realized that it was sitting on the passenger seat of the Mercedes.

  All the tools in the world, but nothing at hand when he needed them most. And no one to blame but himself.

  “Hello, Ryan.”

  Said conversationally, in the tone of voice that Ryan remembered from so long ago, and the same voice that chased away the last of his desperate hopes. This was not a dream.

  “Will.” He tried to keep his voice steady, but it was almost impossible.

  The smile grew wider. Vanderveen tilted his head and said, “It’s hard for you to call me that, isn’t it? You want to say March, don’t you?” The flat side of the knife moved slowly across Katie’s throat, but Vanderveen’s vivid green eyes never strayed from Kealey’s face. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, Ryan. You can call me what you like. It doesn’t make a difference. Not here. Not anymore.”

  The man’s gaze was almost hypnotic. Kealey broke it with a huge effort, forcing his eyes down to Katie’s. She was pleading with him, the tears finally breaking free and streaming down her cheeks. “Ryan…”

  Vanderveen looked down when she spoke, but his head came up very fast before Kealey could move. “She’s stunning, you know. I couldn’t have chosen better for you myself. Her eyes are so…” He put on a show of searching for the words, the knife doing little circles in his hand. “Expressive. So full of life. It can make an otherwise plain woman seem very beautiful indeed. And Katie here was never plain, was she?”

  Ryan noticed, with some strange clarity of vision, that the weapon Vanderveen was holding had come out of his own kitchen drawer, a 41?2-inch Kyocera paring knife, much like the one he had brought into the detention center. It was dancing in rhythm with the killer’s words, but never strayed more than 6 inches from Katie’s throat.

  He dragged his eyes away from them, searching for something, anything he could use as a weapon.

  It was useless. Three feet to his right, a slate-topped counter that had nothing to offer. He could charge, but it would never work, he would never get there in time. Vanderveen would start cutting her the instant he moved.

  And outside, pounding through the exterior walls of the house with its own incomparable rhythm, was the sound of the building storm.

  He had to say something. “Listen, she… You don’t need to…”

  The other man was watching him intently, but Ryan stopped, and something clicked in his mind. When he opened his mouth again, the pleading note was gone. Instead, he spoke the truest words he knew. “If you do it, you won’t be able to run far enough.”

  “There it is,” Vanderveen said, genuinely pleased. “That’s what I wanted to hear. It’s good to see you can still get your back up.”

  Ryan took a quick step forward. Before he could take a second, Vanderveen had pulled Katie out of the chair in a blur. He held her tight against his chest, his left arm wrapped like a steel bar around her slender waist. The tip of the knife was digging hard enough into her skin to draw blood.

  “No, Goddamnit! Don’t—” Ryan stepped hard on his rising panic. He snapped his hands up and tried to keep his voice level. “Just let her go, Will. She has nothing to do with this.”

  “Wrong!” Vanderveen snarled. “She has everything to do with this. You made her part of this when you decided to play hero today.”

  Ryan couldn’t find the words to respond. Katie was crying hard now, stricken by the helpless look she saw in his eyes, struggling to find words between her heaving sobs: “Ryan, don’t let him… hurt me… please.”

  “It’s okay, Katie,” he managed to choke out. “I’m here. I’m here.”

  “That’s very touching,” Vanderveen remarked. “But I’m getting bored now, so let me ask you something, Ryan: Was it worth it? Was it worth the fleeting gratitude of a few hundred people you’ll never even meet? If you could go back and let them die so she could live, wouldn’t you do it? Wouldn’t you do it in a heartbeat?” He waited for some kind of response, but Kealey couldn’t focus on anything but the look of sheer terror and desperation on Katie’s face.

  Vanderveen was visibly disappointed. “Let’s try it this way,” he said. “Do you remember the first time you ever saw her?”

  Ryan knew what the man was doing, but he couldn’t help what happened next. The image appeared in his mind before he could stop it: Katie, legs curled up beneath her, hair shimmering golden brown in the sun, a pretty smile and inviting blue eyes, sitting on the grass in Orono.

  Vanderveen’s gaze had become even more focused. When he saw Kealey’s eyes cloud over, remembering, he smiled again and said, “That’s it. Hold that thought…”

  Ryan snapped back in time to catch the last part of the sentence. “…and watch this.”

  Then, with a single, powerful thrust of his arm, Vanderveen pushed all 4 ½ inches of the blade into the right side of Katie’s neck.

  Before he could fully grasp what had just happened, Ryan heard an anguished scream and, not recognizing it as his own, broke forward across the wooden floor, completely focused on taking the other man’s life. He was oblivious to Katie’s reaction.

  Her eyes opened wide and her lips parted, but no sound emerged. She tried to pull away from her captor as her legs went out from under her. Then she crashed forward against the side of the table, her right hand coming up to feel for the source of so much searing pain.

  Suddenly she found herself on the floor, kicking out frantically, trying to find some air through the choking sensation of blood in her throat. She had sudden sparks of insight, brief bouts of lucidity that brought her the terrible truth. She tried to push it away, but the facts were fighting through… She had been hurt, seriously hurt, and the nearest hospital was 20 miles away, and she couldn’t breathe, and Ryan wasn’t looking, didn’t see how bad it was, and she couldn’t b
reathe…

  Kealey and Vanderveen were struggling for control of the gun that had materialized out of nowhere. Wrestling for control of life and death, one driven by rage and despair, the other by a hatred born of many years — a visceral evil that was the sum of many parts, traceable back to no single point in time.

  The .40 roared once, then came sliding across the polished wooden floor, pulling through a thin trickle of blood before coming to rest beneath the refrigerator. Vanderveen made a quick decision as Ryan went for the gun, getting to his feet and throwing his full weight at the back door once, then twice before the lock broke and he burst out into the storm, just as two rounds splintered the door frame where his head had been a second earlier.

  Passing the door, Ryan glanced quickly to make sure that the other man wasn’t lying prone in the mud, ready to spring back up and into the kitchen. He saw a distant figure merge with the dark, then disappear through the sheets of rain.

  With the door open, the sound of the storm was deafening as he went to Katie and kneeled, pulling her close. Her shoulders were over his thighs, the back of her head resting in the crook of his right arm. As he held her, he felt her left hand reaching out to find his, the long fingers gripping tight to squeeze out the pain.

  Ryan didn’t try to remove the knife; it only would have hurt her more and made the bleeding worse. Her lips parted as she tried to speak, and when she turned her head toward him, a thin trickle of blood ran down the side of her mouth. Although she couldn’t make any words, he knew that she was in agony because she was still kicking weakly and the tears had not stopped building.

  Worse yet, her luminous blue eyes were losing some of their animation, and when he put his face close to hers, he couldn’t feel her warm breath on his skin.

  “Katie.” He wasn’t sure if she could still hear him, and it was hard to tell because her face was blurred by his own tears. “Don’t go, Katie. Stay here. God, just… stay with me. Please…”