by David Wind
Steven saw the driver of the Ford was fighting the wheel. The man’s face was drawn, his eyes wide.
The silver car was thirty feet away when it veered toward the motel and reached the curb. The sharp explosion of a blowout echoed. The driver continued to fight the out of control vehicle. The car swerved and headed straight at Steven and Carla.
Steven stood still, his muscles tense, waiting to see what direction the car would take next. For the instant that he was rooted to the spot, he thought he saw the man stare directly at him. Steven shoved Carla away and dove after her, falling half on the ground, and half across Carla’s legs. He heard the whoosh of the car’s tires close by his ear, and the backwash of air on his neck as the car narrowly missed them. Before Steven could turn, the car sideswiped a parked car, and bounced off without slowing.
Lying on the ground and holding Carla close to him, Steven watched the car continue onward, hitting a man head on, sending him spinning over the top of the car.
It raced forward, speed unabated, mowing down everyone in its path until it jumped the high curb of the motel’s entrance and rammed into the lobby’s plate glass window coming to a stop.
Screams of panic and cries of pain filled the air. On the highway, traffic came to a halt. Steven pushed himself to his feet. He checked to make sure Carla was unhurt, and then ran into the mass of confusion.
To his left, Steven heard a man groaning in pain. He paused, turning just as one of the maids reached the injured man. The man’s blood covered face was twisted in pain, his arm bent at a place where there was no elbow. Ten feet farther on, another man lay silent in a pool of blood.
Steven looked at the vehicle that had caused this destruction. The car door opened. The driver stumbled out and sank to the ground next to the car. Steven watched the driver. The man was pale, his eyes wide and frightened. The motel desk clerk burst through the door and ran to the man.
The driver was staring out at the people. His face was rigid with shock. “I...The car just took off. I didn’t even touch the gas. It just took off. Then the tire blew out. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t...”
Steven turned from the helpless reaction of the man, and saw the older couple. The man was kneeling amidst broken glass. He was clutching the broken body of his wife, and rocking back and forth.
Bile flooded Steven’s mouth. He started toward the old man when Carla yanked on his arm. “Steven. No.”
Somewhere off to his left, a woman shouted for someone to call an ambulance.
He jerked his arm free from Carla’s grasp, but she grabbed it again and tugged urgently. “We have to get out of here.”
He shook his head, unable to take his gaze from the horror of the scene. “We can’t leave them...Jesus, Carla, that could have been us.”
Carla put her hand on his cheek to force him to look at her, and to break the morbid grip the accident had on him. Her face was pale, her eyes wide and pleading. “We can’t help them, Steven. We can only get hurt ourselves. Think about Ellie! Think about us! Steven, the FBI is looking for you. There’s going to be press here. If we’re here, we’ll be arrested; the press will pick it up. Then, you’ll be the lever that starts the scandal you think the President is rigging. We have to get out of here.”
Her words formed the catalyst that broke through his reluctance to leave. Reaching deep inside himself, he turned away. “Let’s go.”
They got into the car and drove away. He was sick to his stomach. As the motel faded behind them, the accident played repeatedly in his mind. He heard the muted thuds of bodies being hit, and the harrowing cries of the driver’s victims.
“That could have been us,” he whispered.
Carla put her hand on his forearm and pressed gently. “But it wasn’t. Steven, for both our sakes, let it go. We have other things to worry about.”
He was taken aback by her apparent callousness; yet, he knew that she was not speaking out of insensitivity, but rather with concern. “You don’t get it. What I meant was it should have been us. Carla, the accident was wrong.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw her head snap toward him. “Wrong? How?”
“It was out of sequence. Carla, the driver was trying to kill me—kill us.”
“Steven, you’re on the run. Everything seems directed at you. It was an accident.”
“Was it? Think about what happened. What was the first thing you saw?”
“The car weaved into the wrong lane.”
“And then it jumped the curb.”
“No,” she said, “there was a blowout. Then it jumped the curb.”
“That’s the way you would naturally remember it, because it’s the way it should have happened. That would be the logical sequence of events. But the blowout came just after the car jumped the curb and was already in the motel drive, headed toward us.”
“No, it...” He saw her eyes go out of focus. “Oh my God, you’re right. But Steven, how...No one knew where we were.”
“Grange could have had my call traced.”
Carla shook her head emphatically. “To what purpose? You’ve already agreed to meet him at some out-of-the-way place? Even if he thinks you’re the mole, why would he want you dead? No, he’d want to question you.”
He had no argument for that.
“What about Joshua Raden?” Carla asked. “No matter what he said about wanting to meet you, doesn’t it seem just a shade too coincidental that Joshua Raden has come into your life at just this time?”
Steven bit off an immediate denial, and thought about it. “No, it wasn’t Joshua,” Steven stated, intuition, not full knowledge, giving him his certainty.
“Someone had to have followed us.”
“Or followed Raden. Steven, pull over,” Carla said suddenly, pointing to a public phone on the corner. “I want to call Paul. He’ll be able to find out if what happened at the motel was an accident or not.”
Knowing Carla was right, Steven pulled over. He stayed behind the wheel while she went to the phone. As he watched her put a quarter in the slot and dial Grange’s number, he fought down the turbulence in his stomach. He was unscathed, but once again, innocent people had been hurt and killed because of him.
Within the rising wash of nausea, a new realization burst free. Until the attack with the car—if it was an attack and not paranoia—whoever was behind his troubles had been trying to frame him. But, now, something vital had changed and they wanted him dead. Why?
Carla finished the call and returned to the car before he could take the thought further. “He wasn’t there, but I left word about the accident.”
“Weren’t they curious?”
“To say the least. I told them to give Paul the message immediately. You’d be surprised what putting outraged authority into your voice can accomplish.”
“No, I wouldn’t.” Steven shifted the Bronco into gear and slipped into the stream of rush hour traffic. “We’re not going to Hagerstown. At least not until I’m positive we’re not being followed.” At the next red light, Steven swerved into the oncoming lane and made a quick left turn. He drove a block, turned left, and left again. When he got back onto the main street, he headed toward the Beltway.
Forty minutes and three direction changes later, they crossed the bridge into Alexandria. He left the highway at the first exit. “Your pistol. The one you left at my place. Where is it now?”
“In my apartment,” Carla said without hesitation.
“I want it—just in case.” Steven said as he drove toward Carla’s apartment. He continued driving erratically, making random turns and looking in the rear view mirror to see if anyone was following.
When he was secure they were in the clear, he drove to Carla’s apartment building. As he approached Carla’s street, she said, “Go to the next block. We can go in the back way.”
Steven followed her instructions and parked diagonally across from the building’s rear entrance. They stayed in the car, scanning the area to see if the Feds were anywhere a
round.
“It seems clear,” he said.
Once safely inside, they took the service elevator to her floor. The hallway was empty and quiet as they went into Carla’s apartment. “I’ll be right back,” she said, leaving him in the living room.
She came back with the nine-millimeter Browning. He took it, saying, “I want you to stay here. Grange is clearing you with the Bureau. I don’t want you in any more danger.”
“It’s too late for that. If you’re right about it not being an accident, then the driver was after us, not just you, Steven, but us.”
“Grange will set up protection for you,” he said, watching the stubbornness grow on her face.
“I’m not going to argue with you Steven: I am going with you.”
Steven saw his defeat in the determined set of her face. He cupped her chin in his hand and said, “I had to try one more time.”
“No, you didn’t,” she replied, her voice going strangely husky. Her eyes clouded, and she stepped back from his touch. “Let me pack a bag and change my clothing. Ellie’s clothes aren’t quite my size.”
While she was in the bedroom, and absently holding the Browning in his right hand, Steven looked around the apartment. On his first visit, he had not been interested in the apartment, only in Paul Grange.
He studied the paintings above the sectional. They were abstracts, crisp and sharp with a multitude of colors that flowed together nicely. He was familiar with the artist, and the recent fame the man had been gaining.
The furniture was all glove leather, soft, and expensive. The coffee table was marble, the carpet Berber wool. He walked to the far wall in the open dining room. On it were pictures of the Rogers family. Most of the pictures were duplicates of the ones in Ellie’s living room. Several were different. He paused to study one of the Rogers family pictures and then glanced at the photograph next to it.
The photo, framed in black and covered with glass, was a picture of Carla with Paul Grange. They were both a good ten years younger. Their arms were about each other’s waists, and they wore identical college sweatshirts.
Steven was still staring at the younger versions of Carla and Grange, again wondering about her relationship with Grange, when Carla came up behind him. “I want to try and call Paul again.”
“No,” Steven said, turning to her. Grange was a member of an intelligence organization, and would expect Steven to keep on the move, to avoid anything traceable, and to make sure he didn’t lead anyone to their meeting place.
“Steven, I think it’s important to speak with him.”
“The only thing that’s important right now, is for us to get out of here before someone sees us. We’ll speak with Grange when we see him.” Steven popped the magazine to check and the clip, which held eight nine-millimeter bullets. He loaded the clip into the pistol, slapping the butt solidly with his palm.
The hard jolt of metal against his skin made him think of how often he’d performed the same movements in Nam. He thumbed on the safety, slipped the automatic into his belt, and adjusted his jacket so it concealed the weapon.
“If we make it there.”
Chapter Eighteen
It took five hours to reach Hagerstown, three hours longer than if Steven had driven directly. To make certain no one was following, Steven took a misleading and circuitous route from the Washington area to Culpepper, Virginia, across Virginia, and finally back into Maryland, near Hagerstown.
Throughout the long serpentine ride, Carla kept watch to see if there were any familiar cars behind them. Not once during the drive had the same vehicle been behind them for more than a ten-mile stretch.
During the drive, Steven worked to sort his thoughts. So much had happened in the past few days that the events seemed to blend into one huge bubbling cauldron.
He turned on the radio, found a classical station, and let the music ease some of his tension. As he drove, he watched Carla, who faithfully kept track of all the traffic behind them as well as any cars that passed.
When they reached the outskirts of Hagerstown, Steven followed Carla’s instructions to bypass the city and go deeper into the mountains. They passed several sprawling farms, set peacefully amidst the rolling hills, before reaching the cutoff for Grange’s farm.
When Steven turned onto a well-maintained single lane road, he immediately noticed how different Grange’s uncle’s farm was from the others they’d passed. A high chain link fence separated the property from the road. A thick line of spruce pines prevented any view of the property or the buildings. No hunting and no trespassing signs hung every fifty feet along the high fence.
“He likes his privacy,” Steven commented.
Carla laughed. “It’s not a working farm. It’s more like a retreat. If the fence and signs weren’t up, the hunters would be all over the place.”
After driving another quarter of a mile, they reached the main entrance, an open wrought iron gate attached to two square brick pillars. There was an old fashioned gatehouse set five feet back from the gate. It appeared empty.
Steven drove through the open gate. Two hundred yards later, when the main buildings came into view, Steven saw the reason for the fence and the posting.
The main house, painted beige with brown trim and shutters, was a large and formal Victorian, at least a century old. There were two smaller residences set behind and off to the side of the main house. Fifty feet farther down the drive was a barn of classic structure. As he got closer, he saw the barn was a garage with three lift style doors.
Steven’s eyes were never still. He searched everywhere, looking for something out of place, something that didn’t feel right.
He stopped the Bronco in front of the house, the door opened, and Grange appeared. A second man followed. He wore a dark suit. There was a plastic earpiece in his left ear. A coiled clear wire ran into his suit jacket collar. He carried a thirty-eight in his right hand and a walkie-talkie in his left.
“Where the hell have you two been?” Grange asked, opening Carla’s door and motioning her out. “Let’s get inside, Morrisy.”
The second man stood five feet from them. He was not looking at Steven or Carla as they got out of the car; he watched the road behind them. Steven opened the back door and took out the two bags before following Grange and Carla toward the house.
When Grange passed the other agent, he nodded his head toward the car. “Put it away.”
The agent went to the Bronco and started it just as Steven entered the house.
“Just leave them there,” Grange said, nodding at the bags. Steven put them down and went into the living room with Grange and Carla.
The inside of the house was as perfect as the exterior. The floors were highly polished parquet, covered with oriental area rugs. All the moldings and trim were of dark stained wood. The furniture was antique, and the fabric of the curtains was coordinated with that of the furniture.
Belatedly, the chain link fence, the converted barn, and the farm itself clicked together in Steven’s mind. A sudden flash of anger turned quickly into a feeling of acceptance. He laughed, and said, “Your uncle has good taste and a lot of money. Sam, isn’t it?”
Grange’s reply was a pursing of his lips and an arm motion toward the couch. “Do you want a drink? Some food?”
“We had some lunch about an hour ago,” Carla said, sitting next to Steven.
“I’ll take a scotch,” Steven said, still looking around. “I imagine this is one of those infamous safe houses we’ve all read about, and pay a portion of our taxes for.”
“Yes,” Grange said after making Steven his drink. “What happened at the motel?”
Steven held the glass of scotch, but did not drink it. Letting himself fall back on his perfect memory, he went accurately over every aspect of the accident, from the first moment he heard the discordant sound of the loud revving engine. He finished with a detailed description of the trip to the farm.
Grange stared at Steven, his expression one of wonder.
“You have a remarkable memory.”
“It’s not something I asked for,” Steven said, shrugging. “Did you find out anything about the accident?” Grange glanced at Carla. “After you left the message for me, I had the accident checked out. It wasn’t.” He looked at Steven. “You were right. It appears to be a sanction.”
“A what?”
“A sanction. A hit. A contracted killing. What happened to you has professional sanction written all over it. Someone is trying to kill you.”
“I’ve worked that out myself,” Steven said, trying to ignore the morbid effect of Grange’s confirming words. “But what I can’t figure out is why.”
“Nor can I. But all the evidence points to it. When we checked the driver’s name and license number, we learned that the name belongs to a man who’s been dead for five years. The license was Californian, and phony.
“Because it was an out of state license, and a rented car, I doubt the police would have gone to any great lengths to check the driver out, especially if you’d been the accident victim. With the Federal warrant on you, the FBI would have been able to take jurisdiction from the local police, told them to forget the whole thing, and say a silent thank you to your killer.”
The all too casual way in which Grange reeled off the facts of what might have been, turned Steven cold inside. “The police aren’t supposed to be involved. Only the Bureau,” Steven said, recalling Arnie Savak’s promise.
“Oh, I know,” Grange said with a half-smile. “What happened was that the Bureau sent out a bulletin, and then rescinded it an hour and a half later. When we get the time, you can tell me just how you worked out that little trick. But getting back to the accident, if you had been killed, the Bureau boys would have known immediately.
“However, that’s history now. When we checked further on the driver, we came up with some very interesting items.” Grange paused to change position. “Following routine procedure, a policeman accompanied the ambulance to the hospital. While the driver was waiting for X-rays, the policeman took his statement. The last time the cop saw him was when the driver went into X-ray. The attendants left him alone in the room for a few minutes. He slipped out and disappeared.
