by Dean Ing
She saw that the traffic on Waterman wasn't heavy yet, and calculated she could make good time heading north along Elmgrove. To pull that all-nighter, or to snack from her apartment fridge and then meet Randy and Jason and Bev to parboil Hsia over pitchers of beer: that was what Petra thought about as she pedaled hard, giving a workout to thighs she imagined were too chunky. Jason might come on like the Western world's most dedicated grad student, but she knew his interest in curves went beyond bridge catenaries. If she expected to pick his formidable brains next term, it was time she got him thinking about her as worthy of picking, too. What's the reciprocal for Petra? One over Petra, she recited the engineering joke to herself. She probably wouldn't let that happen. Jason was sweet, though still a boy in some ways...
She noticed the black Ford Tempo only as one of several cars that jiggled in her helmet's tiny rearview. The Ford fell back, but never more than a hundred yards behind her during the twenty-minute ride to her place.
She locked helmet and bike together, noting that only one other bike leaned against the porch rail of the fine old clapboard house which was, in Petra's opinion, going to simply collapse one of these days from the sheer weight of students and books. Her room with its shared bath was on the first floor, and Petra knocked a quick tattoo on Bev's door as she passed it, getting no response, expecting none. She was visible from the street as she continued past the stairs and unlocked the door to her room.
That decision over the all-nighter was still to be made, or so she thought, as Petra popped a cassette into her player. The new-age synthesizer music of Kitaro, otherworldly and abstract, often helped her concentrate. She dunked a sprig of broccoli into Cheez-Whiz, began to nibble, and flopped her project notes open to Hsia's marginal comments. Their gist was that she must walk flawlessly before she could fly over conventional stuff. But God, traditional engineering practice could be dull, dull, dull! Two stodgy approaches occurred to her immediately; she grabbed a pencil and jotted them down, with tiny draftsman's numerals below, 0:45' and 0:30'. It should take her no more than an hour and a quarter to dispose of both those silly exercises.
She heard the knock at the front door as it echoed down the hall, and ignored it. The knock at her own door, a minute later, made her jump. Bev never knocked like that. "Randy? Come on in, I don't think I can—" The door swung open, but it wasn't Randy.
"Miss Leigh?" The man was tanned, wind-burned, and middle-aged, reminding her of a slightly overweight Marlboro man, with graying hair that could use a trim, dressed casually in tan gabardine pants with an Indiana Jones leather jacket over a plain sportshirt. Petra's first impression was that she had seen him somewhere before, but he did not come in. He held a flat plain-wrapped package in his free hand. "Miss Petra Leigh." His tone said he was certain.
"That's me," she said, pushing away from the rickety table, faintly embarrassed to be caught with a mouthful of Cheez-Whiz.
"For you," the man said in a gravelly voice that registered from somewhere, sometime. His smile seemed diffident but businesslike.
Petra walked to the door, knowing it was not smart to allow strange men into her room, seeing that this one did not seem anxious to enter anyway. She took the slender package, smiling her question instead of voicing it.
"I'm supposed to wait," was all he said, nodding at the package as he handed it over. "If there's not a note in there, somebody goofed." Then he stepped back into the hall and pulled the door shut.
Petra tore the wrapping off to find a pound of See's candy, the soft centers she'd loved since she was old enough to ransack a dresser drawer. For every special occasion in her life, Uncle Dar had given her a pound of See's. She smiled and opened the note, typewritten on plain paper, and then the smile began to fade.
Pets: everyone in the family is fine, and John Smith will see to your safety. He will bring you to us in an unmarked black Ford (sorry, no spare Javelins) but don't expect him to tell you why. Phil and I will explain later, and there is nothing to worry about if you hurry. Pack for a weekend outing. If you have any problem with this, call my secretary, but for your own safety, waste no time. Smith knows his business. He has watched over you before this!
Somehow, those mentions of "fine" and "safety" made her feel less than fine and not awfully safe even with a man who was obviously a bodyguard standing right on the other side of that door. Then she had seen Mr. Smith before. Never until this instant had James Darlington Weston's occupation seemed entirely real to Petra, and images from the "Spy v. Spy" cartoons in Mad magazine fled ludicrously through her mind. The candy was right, the nickname strictly family, and she could see a black Ford parked outside, but Uncle Dar's initial had been scrawled in a hurry. She opened the door again. "I'll need a few minutes," she said to the man's back. "You'd better come in. Have some candy," she added as she tossed the box on the table.
He closed the door softly, then strode to the window as Petra began to stuff extra clothing into a TWA bag. "Want me to put the food into your refrigerator?" His attention to such a homey detail lessened Petra's attack of nerves.
"If you would," she said, folding a fresh bra, selecting a pair of medium-heeled wedgies, remembering her hand calculator almost too late. T-shirt, two pairs of L'Eggs, a skirt that didn't show wrinkles, and a blouse that did, but whatthehell... "Do you know how long I'll be gone? This is going to play absolute havoc with my schedule, Mr. Smith."
"Just a day or two, I think," said Smith, closing the refrigerator door. "It's only a precaution, Miss Leigh. I'm sure you'll be laughing about it by Monday. You might bring a book. I'm not the world's greatest conversationalist."
"I suppose you do this all the time," she said, trying to keep the tremor from her voice.
"Not often," he admitted, watching her zip the bag over Roark's book on stress and strain, checking the expensive watch on his wrist. "Ready?"
"I hope so." She hefted the little bag.
"Where's your phone?" His smile was easy. "I need to set someone at ease about you."
Blushing, she hauled a small pile of dirty laundry off the windowseat to reveal the Princess phone with its long curl of cord. "You never would've found it," she said.
He grinned back, lifted the receiver, began to punch at buttons. But when he put the receiver to his ear, something shifted in his expression. He held the receiver out. "Is your phone bill current?"
"Of course," she said in irritation.
He tried the operator, but had no joy. "Then we could have a problem," he muttered. "There's a back entrance from here, I believe." He reached out toward her stereo, and Kitaro faded with the set's power light.
Petra snatched the receiver, heard nothing, not even a dial tone, and felt the blood draining from her face. "What does it mean?"
"Probably nothing," he shrugged, not very convincingly, and now a little charcoal-black automatic was in his right hand as he stood near the window. He spoke slowly and distinctly. "See that black Ford? Wait until I drive it away from the curb and to the alley. Then you go out the back way to the car, and don't stop for anything or anybody. Is that clear?"
The gravel in that voice was now sharpened flint. It prodded, and you obeyed. She nodded, her mouth suddenly dry.
He copied her nod, reseated the handgun in his left armpit, and headed for the front entrance. Petra heard the door slam and punched nine-one-one, the first number that came to mind, into the phone. She might as well have been holding a hunk of broccoli to her ear.
Petra checked the inside lock, wishing she had time for a note to Bev, seeing John Smith through the window as he sauntered to the black Tempo. Like he hadn't a care in the world, she thought, but that just means he's good at what he does. I wonder if he checked the upstairs hall. She looked quickly into the hall, then saw the black sedan pull away outside and, with what she hoped was perfect timing, felt the deadbolt snap as she backed into the hall. An instant later she was pelting out the back, down wooden steps, and through a back lawn that had once known tender care, leaping over
someone's rusted hibachi, the TWA bag overbalancing her so that she almost fell before reaching the back gate.
The Ford was waiting in the alley. The man's only comment as she dropped her rump into the seat was, "Buckle up," and she did, letting her head fall back against the headrest, trying to take long breaths because that was supposed to help when you felt like fainting or, worse, blowing chunks of Cheez-Whiz and broccoli into your lap in a back alley in Providence, Rhode Island.
He said nothing more until they were on the turnpike, attending to his rearviews, driving wonderfully well with a fine sense of what traffic ahead was doing, or about to do. Then, "It's a no-sweat run now, Miss Leigh. We'll pick up Route Ninety at Worcester. Relax. Listen to the radio; read a book."
She shook her head, aware that his peripheral vision was so practiced he could study her while looking straight down the turnpike. "I'm too wired, Mr. Smith. You are Mr. John Smith," she said with exaggerated coolness.
"Yes and no; why kid you? Call me John. Johnny if you like it better."
"Then you'll have to call me Petra, if that's allowed."
For the first time he laughed, and that was unsettling because, dammit, now she knew the man was familiar. "Sure," he said, "so long as we remember you're my boss's boss's boss, once removed."
It began to seem as if the Cheez-Whiz would stay down, after all. "Is there anything about this that you can tell me?"
"Not a lot, M—Petra. There are several ways to zap a phone line. I'm surprised they didn't just monitor it; that's what I would've done."
Unable to keep the edge from her voice: "How many times have you tapped my telephone, John Smith?"
"I never have—but if I had, I'd have to lie about it."
"That's no answer."
"Bingo," he said, and pointed to a sign: Worcester 12 mi.
Petra rummaged in her bag, but left the Roark book where it was. There was simply no chance that she could concentrate on engineering stress when her own internal stresses remained so high. You've always thought intelligence work must be wonderful and exciting, idiot. Nobody ever told you a simple ride in a car could turn your knees to silly putty and your stomach into a butterchurn. But the ride couldn't be all that simple. She had been in danger—might yet be in danger. Petra sighed and closed her eyes, reclining in the seat a bit, willing herself to breathe regularly, think and act regularly.
After ten minutes or so, her eyes snapped open. "Why don't you just call on your radio and tell someone about my telephone? Don't you guys carry some scrambler gadget?"
"When we have a transmitter," Smith agreed. "I'm not carrying one. Nobody backing me up, so it'd be pointless."
"We could stop and phone."
"Affirmative, we could phone, if we could stop, but negative, we can't stop. Orders," he shrugged.
"Stopping must be a high-stress point," she guessed.
"You could put it that way. It's a window of very high vulnerability, is how we'd put it."
Petra chuckled. "That must make life interesting when you have to go to the bathroom."
"Life is always interesting. And yes, we'll make a rest stop in Albany."
"And after that?"
"I'll call from there and find out," he said, and saw her head jerk in surprise. "Hey, they don't tell me everything either." He yawned, a deep inhalation that pushed his chest and belly against the restraint belts. "Can't afford much of that," he said, and fumbled into the footwell behind her seat for a moment, bringing out a cheap plastic thermos canister which he thrust between his knees to unscrew its cap one-handed. "You a coffee drinker?"
"Show me an engineer who isn't," she snorted.
"I've got this down to a science," he said, "but you might hold the cup for me."
She did, watching him pour a half cupful. Then he put the thermos between his knees again. "Some of those packets of sweetener in the glove box, I think," he said. Holding the cup of hot coffee in one hand, Petra began to poke with the other into the little storage compartment.
She did not see what he was doing with his left hand at the lip of the thermos, but when she turned back to him, he was turning onto Route Ninety. "You must've used it all," she said.
"Oh, well." He took the cup from her and sipped, squinting into the late afternoon sun as the Ford's nose turned westward. "Gaah. I've tasted better," he said, but went on sipping.
With the last sip, he stifled another yawn in his teeth and handed her the cup. "You'd best have some too," he said, "in case you have to drive awhile. I haven't had much sleep," he added.
Without apology, Petra pulled a Kleenex from the packet in her bag and swabbed the cup clean as she'd been taught by her mother when drinking after strangers. It did not occur to her, when pouring from that thermos, that she was trusting this stranger in ways far more intimate than a shared cup.
Her face a parody of itself, Petra stuck her tongue out after her first sip. "Gaah is right, John."
"Call it insurance and drink the lousy stuff. We can get a refill in Albany," he said. She sipped slowly and obediently, and all too trustingly. And somewhere between Worcester and Springfield, she began to nod, only faintly aware when he lifted the cup from her indolent fingers, and the sun was in her eyes and the muted thrumm of the Ford lulled her into complete lassitude.
Petra was snoring lightly when the Ford stopped for fuel in Rotterdam, west of Albany. She did not wake when it turned southwest in the dusk on Route Eighty-eight, nor when the headlights first began to reflect from signs mentioning Elmira. She did not even open her eyes when, sometime later, the adhesive tape began to encircle her wrists and ankles.
ELEVEN
Gary Macallister didn't mind the Snake Pit graveyard shift, not even when he drew gate duty. There was so little to do, he could pull a paperback from his lunchbox and read maybe six chapters of Stephen King before first light. When a car did come through after midnight it was usually Ullmer's old Volvo. Not this time, though.
Gary laid the book facedown under the counter as he spotted lights heading his way, and stepped outside standing tall, tugging at his guard uniform coat. Wickham, the shift captain, had long ago pointed out that when anybody came onto the grounds this late, it was most likely NSA brass on some level. Not this time, though.
The black Ford flicked its lights as if waving for attention, turning aside instead of stopping with its nose at the gate so that Gary had to walk around the corner of the guard shack. Wickham had also said, though it did not yet occur to Gary, that this maneuver kept the video monitor, steadily swiveling to scan the gate area, from seeing past the shack. Gary sighed; probably the driver was lost. It had happened before. Not this time...
Gary saw a girl asleep in the front seat but, as he strode around the front of the car, did not see the driver clearly until he emerged, and thanks to the lingering spell of Stephen King, Gary nearly fainted. Above a worn, zippered leather jacket the driver's face was the face of a monster, puffed and grotesquely flat, and then Gary realized the man was wearing pantyhose stretched over his head. Gary would have pulled his sidearm but the man had beaten him to it, pointing what might have been a Glock automatic pistol at belt-buckle height.
"Hands on your hips," said the gravelly voice, not a voice he recalled and not one he enjoyed hearing. Gary complied and swallowed hard. The man glanced quickly at the shack, perhaps judging the location of the video camera. Then he gestured with the pistol. "Turn around and sit down. Give me your coat and hat."
Gary did it, knowing he had to stay calm enough to memorize the car's license number and a hell of a lot of other things, having trouble because he was trembling with a rage that was tempered by fear. He felt the muzzle of the handgun behind his ear as he dropped his coat on macadam. "Behave and you'll be okay. Get cute and I blow your head off. Understood?"
Gary managed to say, "Yeah," on his second try. He felt his sidearm slide from its holster, heard the rattle and click of its ammunition falling into the man's hand, knew the weapon was useless as it was
thrust back into place. He clasped his hands behind him on command and heard a zipper whine, then felt wide tape binding his hands tighter. At another command he lay prone, wondering if he should try kicking as the tape circled his ankles, knowing damned well he wouldn't, realizing as his legs were forced back with tape connecting his belt to his ankles that he couldn't even crawl, now.
"You're doing fine," said the voice he couldn't see, but he doubted it because the last silver strip of duct tape went across his mouth. Gary figured then that the man intended to kill him.
But maybe not yet. From the tail of his eye, Gary saw the man drop the old leather jacket, then don the uniform coat and hat, backing around the edge of the shack now, facing Gary and waving cheerfully as he disappeared toward the shack's door. And Christ, but it was cold lying there at one o'clock in the morning! A moment later, just as Gary began to test his bonds, the man was back, hatless, cutting the tape from Gary's belt and ankles with a clasp knife that could have been used for shaving.
The man's arms were short and thick, and hauled Gary upright as if he weighed nothing. "Open the gate," he demanded, and Gary had a flash of hope as he rounded the shack with his captor on his heels until he saw his own hat hanging from the video monitor. Wickham might still get curious about that, if he was watching the monitors. Or he might not.
That pantyhosed son of a bitch was sure good with tape, Gary thought, feeling fresh tape link his left wrist to the back of his belt before the clasp knife freed his right hand. Another flash of desire, this time to use the alarm signal, until the man said, "By the way, the woman is a hostage. I want to see something in there, that's all; then I leave. Punch the wrong access code or get me into a gun-fight and she dies. But not before you do."
