by kps
Webb shrugged. "It isn't any good anyhow. Got wet, like the rest of me." He pulled it out of his waistband and dropped it, keeping his eyes on Hyatt. "Would you mind telling me which side of the fence you're on?"
Craig's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Like you, I'm straddling the fence right now. But you see, I have the gun, so you'll follow orders. My orders this time. Walk over to that wall and press the button. When the doors open, get in your car and start it up.
You're going to take our late friend for a ride and dump him. I'll leave the 'where' to your imagination."
"And after that?"
"After you've proved your loyalty and your-sincerity, I really don't give a damn. You can keep going, or join the others upstairs. In any case, the last radio message I got said the coast guard is on its way in. I read that to mean
our mutual employer. And he doesn't like untidy messes,does he?"
The Ferrari roared out of the garage like a bat out of hell, the sound of the powerful motor reverberating off the walls.
Lying where Webb had left her, with her head throbbing and her whole body a mass of bruises she hadn't even begun to feel yet, Anne heard the sound, not quite understanding what it meant. And then the explosion of gunfire as Craig, taking careful aim, shot out the two rear tires.
The car seemed to take off into the air before it flipped over. He thought, with satisfaction, that he heard a scream of pure anguish before the dull whoosh of an explosion as it burst into flames. So much for Webb Carnahan. He hoped he'd had time to suffer before he died. But the screaming continued, and it came from a different direction.
Anne! So far he'd guessed right and calculated right. Now he had to find her. He hoped that at last she'd appreciate his cleverness.
Anne had managed to pull herself up into a sitting position with her back against the rock wall. She put her hands against her ears when the gunfire came.
They had killed him! She started to scream without knowing it, keening shrieks of pain and anguish that bent her double.
She rocked with agony until her throat closed up and she could only moan, like a mortally wounded animal.
Dead-he was dead. She wanted to die with him, she should have been beside him.
She felt as if her heart had been tom out of her still-living body as she sobbed dryly.
"Anne?" Everything stilled inside her at the sound of the softly questioning voice. She lifted her head, very slowly; it felt as if it were bursting when she saw the tall silhouette framed against the light. Shattered pieces falling slowly into place as the long-buried memory came back. . Very long time ago . . . the same voice calling soft and cajoling, "Anne? Come out, I know you're there hiding. You shouldn't do naughty things like spying on your own mother ..."
She'd stayed hidden in one of the little caves, curled up inside with her knees against her chin, her arms wrapped around her cold legs as she closed her eyes and pretended not to hear. It was the same voice that used to say, "Helen?" when her mother slipped out to meet him.
The survival instinct had been strong in the child she had been then. Strong enough so that her mind had blacked out certain memories. Now she didn't want to live because her life had no more meaning. If she'd had a gun herself she would have shot and killed him-the arch-traitor, her mother's lover who had made her his wife, who had killed the man she loved.
"Anne, you're safe now, my darling. You don't have to hide from me." Soft Judas voice behind a gun. Had he saved a bullet for her?
A strange calmness overtook her. With the backrush of memory, her sobbing had stopped. She was dead inside-the only thing still alive in her mind was hate.
"I-I'm right here Craig." She had to force herself to pronounce his name; her voice sounded husky and strained. "I've grown too big to hide away in little caves, you see."
Craig Hyatt felt a sudden tightening of his muscles. Her words gave him an unpleasant shock, coming out of the darkness, sounding exactly like Helen's voice.
He took the flashlight out of his pocket and shone it ahead of him as he stepped forwards into damp darkness. She was sitting down, her back against a wall, looking at him, her eyes blue discs that didn't flinch at the light. Her face was bruised-Helen's face, bruised by her husband's slap. And time slid back in that instant as he heard her voice again, and was eighteen again.
"I'm sorry, darling, but don't you see? If he actually hit me, it means that he still cares.
And I married Richard because I was in love with him-now I know he isn't quite as cold and detached as he pretends to be. You're sweet, but you'll get over me, you know! This has been a kind of experiment for both of us, hasn't it? And I'm sure you'll find someone else ..."
Cheating, patronizing bitch! But he'd shown her, hadn't he? Anne looked like Helen, but she was a ghost, a paler, washed-out version of Helen who had smiled pityingly when he'd pleaded with her. He had loved her, been obsessed by her with all the fervor of an eighteen-year-old. Until she'd shown him what she really was; and once he'd seen, she'd soon stopped smiling. He'd held her face underwater, waiting patiently until her body had stopped its futile thrashing before he'd let her go; giving her up to the ocean tides for their plaything.
Now Craig looked at Anne, who looked like Helen but hadn't any of Helen's warmth and sexuality. Not with him, anyhow, and that was the most unforgivable thing of all.
She had been his revenge-his precious, ironic revenge on Helen and on Reardon, Helen's husband, his father's friend. Marrying Helen's daughter-possessing Helen all over again. But Anne, like Helen, had betrayed him. He'd tried, but she'd rejected him for other lovers-like Webb Carnahan, like Harris. And they were both dead. He wanted her to know that before he killed her, too. But, above all, he wanted to see her frightened, begging and groveling, before he took her back to the ocean and held her face under the water, shallow water. Just as he had done with Helen. And no one would knowl He was cleverer than all of them-even Reardon himself. No one had known, no one had guessed. How could they? He had been eighteen, a college freshman on vacation. Shy and rather serious until Helen had seduced him. Bored, beautiful Helen with a husband who stayed away too long. But he would have given her everything and anything she desired if she hadn't rejected him. Anne could have shared in his final triumph if she hadn't turned out to be too much like her mother.
Poor Anne! That was what they would all say afterwards. They would believe that it was Webb Carnahan who had killed her. Another beautiful irony, that. And only he would appreciate it. Too bad!
He moved forwards, and the flashlight at waist level, shining upwards, made his face look like a death's-head to Anne. He was smiling strangely, his voice still soft and meant to soothe and disarm.
"My poor darling! What did he do to you? But you mustn't worry, I got rid of him for you. They died together, Webb and Harris. They were both bad for you, surely you can see that now? You should have trusted me and let me look after you."
He was standing over her now. He had turned off the flashlight and was a silhouette again with the light from the garage behind him, reflecting dully off the gun he held.
"Get up, darling, you're safe now. You have to come with me, I'm going to make sure the others don't find you."
I got rid of him for you ... they died together, Webb and Harris. Each word a spike driven deeper and deeper like hammer blows. The agony in her voice was real. "I –I can't move. I think I've broken my ankle. You'll have to help me, Craig."
Whimpering bitch! He hesitated, annoyed; but he believed her. He prided himself, as he always had, on being clear-headed. Better that she die without a bullet wound in her. He came closer, reaching out his hand, and she grabbed for the gun, screaming like a wild thing as she did.
The gun went off, sound splintering into a million echoes in the hollow space. At almost the same instant Webb Carnahan, looking like an apparition out of hell itself, threw his knife. It caught Craig Hyatt between the shoulder blades, and his body poised and leaped like a dancer's before it started to sl
ump forwards. He screamed once as the knife was pulled out to rise and fall again and again.
When he'd gunned the motor to drive out of the garage Webb had expected Hyatt to pull something. He'd had the door on his side unlocked, holding it with one hand while he'd pressed his foot down on the gas pedal. Just beyond the garage doors there was an embankment blanketed by ice plant, and he'd counted on the soft resiliency of the succulent to break his fall when he threw himself out of the car at about the same instant that Hyatt shot the tires. He'd fallen and let himself roll, arms over his head, as pieces of burning metal had scattered all around him. And then, when he'd got his breath back, he'd gone to find Craig, crawling part of the way because his legs felt like rubber under him.
Anne-waiting for him, trusting him. He'd known Craig would try to find her, he'd prayed he wouldn't be too late. The door leading to the caves had been open and he'd begun to run, stumbling; not knowing how he managed to stay on his feet. The sound of the gunshot slammed into his ears, and Hyatt's back made a blurred target as he threw the knife he'd carried strapped to his calf. Anne-he thought of what she must have gone through before the rotten bastard had fired his gun at what must have been point-blank range and he was driven by cold, killer rage that made him want to stab and slash at the man's body long after he was dead. He'd killed before-in war, to defend himself. But never like this, out of a blind urge born of despair and hate and frustration. Hyatt's body lay on its back now and he slit his throat. If he had lived a century ago, he would have taken the scalp as well, as a symbol of bloody vengeance.
Sweat poured from him, dripping into his eyes. Anne was a still, huddled heap on the floor of the cave. Sickly, in the light that poured in from the garage, he saw the stain of blood trickling down her outstretched arm.
When he dropped to his knees and took her in his arms, Webb didn't know if he was praying or cursing. "Oh Christ! Annie-"
Her face was cold and damp, her lips were like ice. But they parted under his urgent, despairing kiss, and he felt the faint flutter of her breath, as warm as life and hope.
PART SIX
CURTAIN CALL
Chapter Forty-nine
"IT'S ALL FINALLY wrapped up then?" General Tarrant questioned. An inveterate golf addict, he owned a ten-room "cottage" overlooking the golf course at Cypress Point, where he was a member. The question was almost rhetorical. Richard Reardon had flown down this morning, and of course that had to mean that everything was settled. But he was still curious about certain rather puzzling things.
The loose ends.
Reardon turned away from his contemplation of the view. "Quite. No scandal, no publicity. Randall-and the others-proved extremely cooperative, as we had expected.
And by the way, l owe a great deal to your idea that we use navy frogmen to get into the house through the caves." He almost smiled. "A good thing your friend Admiral Stuyvesant feels the same way we do."
"Well ... I" Tarrant cleared his throat to cover his pleasure. Reardon seldom paid anyone a compliment. And, damn him, right to the end almost, he'd been too damned secretive. Almost too slow to take action. If anything had gone wrong ...
He looked at Reardon with his bushy eyebrows shooting together as he said gruffly,
"Well? I've been patient for a long time, you've got to admit. And now, dammit, I think you owe me some answers."
Reardon moved away from the window, turning his back to the view of rocks and blue water. The sound of seals barking filtered through the heavy glass. Almost absentmindedly he took the glass his old friend proffered him and began to turn it around in his long fingers.
Tarrant couldn't understand how the man could remain so calm and coldly rational while his daughter was lying in the hospital suffering from the collective effects of exposure, concussion, a gunshot wound and God knew what else. She'd been in pretty bad shape, he'd understood. He wondered, as he often had, how a man like Reardon could once have been married and had a child, like any ordinary man. If he'd ever felt with his gut instead of his head.
Craig Hyatt-now there was the most puzzling piece of all! Bringing his mind back to the facts he wanted to hear, Tarrant leaned slightly forward. He said almost querulously, "What I can't figure out is what Hyatt hoped to gain-and how you got on to him."
"I'd begun to wonder about him," Reardon said obliquely. "That business in London, for instance. Too many coincidences there."
Hyatt had been responsible for that nasty business. He'd romanced Violet Somers for the information she passed on to him, which in turn was passed on to the unfortunate Karim's uncle, who headed a league of the smaller oil-rich states. When the Majco
"cover-up" story was deliberately leaked to the British press in order to implicate Anne and make her more amenable to Harris Phelps's plans for her, Violet had to be eliminated. And Duncan Frazier in his turn, because the poor devil had been in love with Violet and was beginning to have suspicions. After that Hyatt had laid low and been extra cautious, although he had been the one to keep Phelps informed of Reardon's moves. They'd known all along that Webb Carnahan had been coerced into working for his old organization, and if Carnahan hadn't been smart enough or desperate enough to have some cards of his own to play ...
Tarrant let out a gusty sigh. He was frowning. "We were just plain lucky, weren't we?"
he grunted. "Why did you let Hyatt go down there at all?"
"To make sure." Reardon said it without inflection. "Making sure" had almost cost his daughter's life. Tarrant wondered grimly if he'd taken that into account.
"What about the rest of them? We know what happened to the Egyptian and Phelps, and that Cuban woman-Carnahan's wife, or ex-wife, eh? Must have been quite a little Peyton Place there, what with that fun machine Danny Verrano had set up to spy on his friends at play."
"The de Leone woman had all the really incriminating tapes with her-that's what she killed Harris Phelps for. We've just learned she was a Red Army member. It's just as well the helicopter she took off in was headed off by our own men."
Anna-Maria had almost spoiled all their plans. Palumbo, who owed his first loyalty to Vito Gentile, was supposed to have taken care of that angle. When he landed the helicopter at Monterey Airport so that Phelps could transfer himself and his briefcase to his Lear jet, those tapes were to have been taken over by Reardon's own men. But Anna-Maria had shot Palumbo and taken off in the copter herself. When she'd headed away from the coast guard planes that came after her, she'd gone straight for the smokescreen that the fire provided, taking a chance that had failed when a downdraft sucked the small craft into the maw of the flaming forest.
Espinoza and Pleydel, as soon as they realized what had happened, had shown nothing but surprise, concern, and a desire to help. In private, Espinoza had been more talkative.
"So . . ." Tarrant flexed his shoulders, already eyeing the trimmed greens over Reardon's shoulders while he calculated how many hours of play he might squeeze in before it became too late. "I guess with Randall deciding to play it cool and cautious, everything is damn well sewed up,eh?"
He wondered how Richard Reardon could manage to look so detached, just as if it.
had been a successful chess strategy they had been discussing instead of a clever plan that had almost been pulled off, that would have involved and changed millions of lives-not to mention the delicate balance that now existed between the international powers. Reardon was an enigma, and always would be. The man was almost inhuman. There were people who whispered, although never in his hearing, that he had not been born but manufactured.
He also seemed to have an uncanny knack for reading minds, and catching his rather quizzical look, Tarrant could feel his neck reddening. He stomped off to his elaborate mahogany bar to pour himself another drink, muttering over his shoulder,
"Well, thank God that's that! What about the movie people? Suppose they start spreading stories around ... ?"
"I had a talk with Randall this morning before I came down. They're going to finis
h shooting the movie at a later date. In Spain, probably. He thought it might be released as a rather toned-down version of what had originally been planned. And, of course, there'll be hints of a jinxed production-Pleydel seems to think that might prove good publicity. In any case"-his voice turned bland; the general turned around sharply. "-the upcoming election is what's on most people's minds right now. Randall and I agreed that James Markham is almost certain to win."
"Huh!" Tarrant's bushy eyebrows flared as he waited for the rest of it.
"I think he'd make a good president," Reardon went on in his quiet voice. "He's young, of course, and-to quote the press -charismatic. He's also quite intelligent, I understand. With a Democratic majority behind him in both the House and the Senate, I'm sure he'll achieve a lot of good things for this country."
Reardon never underscored his words, but to Tarrant the meaning behind that enigmatic little speech was implicit. Jimmy Markham was intelligent enough to conform, especially since he had been rather indiscreet.
Anne saw the headlines on a two-day-old newspaper:
TRAGIC HELICOPTER ACCIDENT TAKES LIVES OF THREE
Multimillionaire movie producer Harris Phelps and two companions were killed last night when the helicopter which Phelps was piloting himself went down over the fire.
Phelps's companions were identified as Craig Hyatt, prominent Washington, D.C., attorney and Anna-Maria de Leone, constant companion of racing driver Sal Espinoza ...
The letters danced and blurred before her eyes before she closed them again, not understanding why she felt so sleepy, still so numb all over. The nurse must have been reading the paper ... she vaguely remembered someone sitting in the chair by her bed, she had thought hazily it might be Webb, but of course it couldn't be because he was-was ... her mind closed itself against the thought and she slept again, unwillingly slipping back into a black box--or was it a cave?
