Cut and Thrust

by Stuart Woods

  Once again, he stopped and listened. Nothing. He knelt beside the nosewheel, took a small but very powerful lithium-powered flashlight from his pocket, and carefully examined the well into which the nosewheel would be retracted during flight. Once again, he stopped, looked around, and listened. Still nothing to disturb him.

  He removed the explosive device he had built and, for the first time, connected the wire from the detonator to the cell phone that would activate it. He opened the clamshell phone and taped the top flap to the bomb, then he stuffed the bomb all the way up into the wheel well and taped it to the shaft of the nosewheel. He examined the installation carefully, then, satisfied that all was well, he switched on the bomb’s cell phone.

  —

  SEVERAL MILES AWAY, in a bar no more than a block from Harry’s Venice Beach house, a screenwriter named Aaron Zell sat on a stool and rattled the ice in his empty glass. “One more, Phil,” he said.

  “Coming up,” the bartender replied. He filled a clean glass with ice, then filled it with the twelve-year-old scotch that his customer had been drinking since three A.M. and set it in front of him. “What’re you doing here alone tonight?” Phil asked. “Where’s your girl?”

  “We had a fight,” Zell said. “I don’t even know what about.”

  “I’ve had fights like that with women,” Phil said, fulfilling his role as sympathetic bartender. “You never know what’ll set ’em off.”

  “Too fucking right,” Zell replied. He took his cell phone from his pocket and began to dial a number.

  “So you’re going to fix things by waking her up in the middle of the night?” Phil asked.

  “She never sleeps after a fight,” Zell said. “We once made a pact that we’d never go to sleep angry with each other.” The numbers on the cell phone were a little blurred, given how much he had drunk, and he got the number wrong. “Call failed,” the on-screen message said.

  “Shit, dialed it wrong,” Zell said. He tried picking out the number again, and put the phone to his ear. This time, the phone rang once, stopped. “Now what?” he said.

  —

  HARRY GREGG STUCK his head as far up into the Mustang’s wheel well as he could, switched on his flashlight, and made a final inspection of his bomb. Then he heard something he had not expected. The cell phone that he had just taped to the explosive rang once.

  —

  HALF A MILE AWAY, on the other side of the runway, at Santa Monica Airport, a sleepy security guard sat in his patrol car, smoking a cigar and watching the moon rise over Los Angeles. He was suddenly jolted fully awake by a brilliant flash across the runway, followed a millisecond later by the noise of an explosion.

  He started his patrol car, switched on the flashers and the siren, and stomped on the accelerator. He crossed the runway and drove down the row of aircraft parked there, stopping fifty feet from what seemed to have been a Citation.

  He got out his cell phone and dialed 911. When the operator answered he said, “This is airport security at Santa Monica Airport. An airplane has exploded, and I need the police right away. Hang on.” He had spotted something lying a dozen feet from the airplane and now illuminated it with his spotlight.

  It appeared to be most of a human body. “You’d better send an ambulance, too,” he said. “No, on second thought, make it a coroner’s hearse.”

  Then he hung up and pressed the speed-dial button that called his boss’s home number. It rang four times before it was answered.

  “What the fuck?” a sleepy voice said.

  “Floyd,” the security guard said, “it’s Roland. You’d better get your ass over to the airport right now. We’ve got an exploded airplane and a dead man on our hands.”

  At around seven-thirty, Stone, Ed Eagle, and Susannah Wilde were having breakfast out by the pool. Ann was sleeping in after an exciting night.

  The phone buzzed next to Stone, and he picked it up. “Yes?”

  “Is this Mr. Ed Eagle?”

  “No, please hold.” He handed the phone to Eagle. “It’s for you.”

  Eagle pressed the instrument to his ear. “This is Ed Eagle, how can I help you?” He listened thoughtfully, a frown on his face. “You’re sure it’s mine?” he asked. “Yes, that’s my tail number. All right, I’ll be there in half an hour.” He hung up and handed Stone the phone. “That was somebody with security at Santa Monica Airport,” he said. “Sounds like somebody has vandalized my airplane. I’d better get a cab out there.”

  Stone took his last bite of omelet and put down his fork. “I’ll drive you,” he said. “Are your bags packed?”

  “Yes, they’re in the front hall.”

  Stone buzzed Manolo and asked him to put Mr. and Mrs. Eagle’s luggage into the Arrington Cayenne parked in the driveway.

  —

  THEY WERE BUZZED through the gate at Atlantic Aviation, then met by a security car that, after ascertaining that Eagle was in the car, waved them to follow him.

  Stone followed the patrol car around a large hangar and down a taxiway where a long line of airplanes was parked. A hundred yards down the taxiway were a number of vehicles—security, police, and a medical examiner’s wagon. “That’s a lot of attention for a vandalism call,” Stone said. He pulled to a halt a few yards from the police car, and a sergeant walked over to meet them. “Mr. Ed Eagle?”

  “My name is Eagle,” he said, offering his hand.

  “I’m afraid there’s been a terrible . . . let’s call it an incident—we don’t really know what it is yet,” the officer said.

  Stone produced his NYPD badge that had been a gift of the police commissioner and that identified him as a detective first grade. “You mind if I have a look around?” he asked.

  “Go ahead but be careful where you tread—as you can see, we’ve marked a lot of airplane pieces and body parts.”

  “Whose body parts?” Eagle asked.

  “We don’t know yet. We’re about ready to search the body.” He beckoned them over to where a large lump was covered by a rubber sheet. “Those of you with weak stomachs better stay back.” He pulled away the sheet, revealing the torso of a good-sized man; it had only one arm and was missing a head. “Anybody any of you know?” the sergeant asked.

  Everyone shook heads silently.

  “Anything in his pockets?” Stone asked.

  “Okay, Ralph,” the sergeant said, “roll him over gently and check his pockets.” Ralph did as he was told, came up with a wallet, and handed it to the sergeant. “California driver’s license in the name of Harry S. Gregg. That ring a bell with anybody?”

  The Eagles shook their heads, but Stone was looking thoughtful. “I’ve heard that name,” Stone said. “Let me make a call.” He got out his cell phone and pressed a button.

  “Hello, Billy Burnett.”

  “Billy, it’s Stone Barrington.”

  “Good morning, Stone, what can I do for you?”

  “Isn’t there a guy working at the Centurion armory named Gregg? He helped the president and the first lady when they were firing rifles the other day.”

  “Yes, Harry Gregg.”

  “Where are you, Billy?”

  “I’m on the way to work.”

  “I think you’d better come to Santa Monica Airport and see what’s going on here. I’m with the police at Atlantic Aviation, around the corner of a hangar from the main building, where a lot of airplanes are parked. We’ve got a corpse. It doesn’t have a head, but a driver’s license has the name Harry S. Gregg on it.”

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Billy said.

  Stone hung up. “Someone is coming who may be able to identify the body,” he said to the sergeant.

  “I’ll be glad to see him,” the sergeant replied.

  “Tell me, from what you see here, what do you think happened?”

  The sergeant pointe
d at the wrecked airplane, which Eagle was inspecting.

  Stone and the sergeant walked over. “Ed, is that your airplane?” he asked.

  “What’s left of it,” Eagle said. The nose of the airplane had disappeared, and the fuselage rested on the two main gears and the tail cone. Bits of the aircraft were scattered all over the taxiway and other airplanes, some of which were blown askew.

  “Looks like the nose gear over there,” the sergeant said, pointing. Stone and Eagle walked over and looked at it. Stone squatted and pointed at some duct tape. “Something was taped to the nose gear,” he said, “some sort of explosive device, I should think. Sergeant, have you got anybody here from your crime lab or bomb squad?”

  “On the way,” the sergeant replied. They heard a vehicle approach and turned to see Billy Burnett getting out of a Mercedes station wagon.

  “Good morning, Billy.” Stone introduced him to the sergeant. “You know Ed Eagle, I believe.”

  “Sure,” Billy said. He pointed at the rubber sheet. “Can I have a look?” The sheet was pulled back, and Billy squatted beside the body. He pointed at the hand of the remaining arm. “That’s an army Special Forces ring,” he said.

  The sergeant showed him the driver’s license.

  “This is Harry Gregg,” Billy said.

  “Who was this Gregg?” the sergeant asked.

  “I hired him and trained him as an armorer at the Centurion Studios armory,” Billy said. “He was ex–Special Forces, a weapons and explosives expert.” He looked over at Eagle’s ex-airplane.

  “The nose gear had some duct tape on it,” Stone said, pointing at the mangled aircraft part.

  “Did the body have a cell phone on it?” he asked.

  “Two of them,” the sergeant said, holding up an iPhone and another device.

  “That one’s a throwaway,” Billy said, pointing at the non-Apple phone. “I think the idea was he made a bomb and attached a cell phone to it, then taped the device to the nosewheel, probably up in the wheel well. He could have set off the bomb by calling the phone taped to the device, probably after the airplane had taken off and was out over the water. My guess is somebody else called the number, probably by accident, when he had an arm and maybe his head up in the wheel well. Harry got a rude shock.”

  “That makes a whole lot of sense to me,” the sergeant said, looking at his watch. “There’ll be a couple of detectives here from our bomb squad, when they get around to it. I’d appreciate it if you’d talk to them when they get here, Mr. Burnett.”

  “Sure, glad to.”

  As if on cue, an unmarked sedan pulled up and two men in suits got out and looked around. “What a mess!” one of them said.

  Detective Sergeant Chico Morales and his partner, Stockton Croft, arrived at the Venice Beach home of Harry Gregg; no one answered the door. Croft picked the lock on the front door.

  “Very nice,” Morales said, looking around. The house was beautifully furnished, and there was a high-end stereo system in the living room, along with a large flat-screen TV.

  “He’s been out of the military how long?” Croft asked.

  “Less than a year, I think Burnett said.”

  “And he’s making less than a hundred grand at the studio?”

  “And driving a new pickup truck,” Morales said. “I checked the title—no liens on it, so he paid cash.”

  “Sounds like Mr. Gregg has a business going on the side,” Croft said.

  They looked into the two bedrooms and found nothing of interest. In a home office, however, they found a large safe.

  “We’re going to have to call Tech Services and get a safecracker,” Morales said.

  “That’s going to take a day or two,” Croft said. “On the other hand, I know a guy.”

  “What the fuck, call him.”

  —

  FORTY MINUTES LATER, a small man carrying a briefcase presented himself at the front door.

  “Hello, Manny,” Croft said. “Come take a look.” He led the man into the home office.

  “Fifteen minutes,” Manny said. “A hundred bucks, special police rate.”

  “Done,” Croft said, “but I’ll want a receipt.”

  Manny inspected the lock, then pulled a stethoscope from his briefcase and pressed it against the safe door while slowly rotating the dial. “That’s one,” he said, turning the dial in the opposite direction. In twelve minutes, he had it open.

  Croft gave him a hundred and accepted a receipt.

  “You think the captain will okay that?” Morales asked.

  “It’s cheaper than having the LAPD do it.” Croft pulled on a pair of latex gloves and opened the door. “Looka here,” he said. There were half a dozen handguns of different calibers and two silencers on the shelves. There was a briefcase on the floor of the safe that, when opened, revealed a sniper rifle, broken down into parts so as to fit in the case. There was also a hefty silencer.

  “It seems that Mr. Gregg offered a range of assassination services,” Croft said. There was a stack of money, secured by a rubber band, and he counted it. “Thirty-nine grand,” he said. There was also a plain white envelope containing only hundreds. “Twenty-five grand,” he said. “I’ll bet that’s the first half of the payment for Eagle’s airplane. We’d better check the envelope for prints.”

  Croft put the envelope into a plastic evidence bag. “You know,” he said, “it was a good plan. Gregg could have walked down to the beach, waited for the airplane to take off, then dialed the number. The airplane would have crashed into the Pacific Ocean and broken apart. It would have taken a major operation to recover it and check for evidence, and we would have found nothing useful. But somebody dials a wrong number, and blooey! The assassin is assassinated.”

  “I guess we better go talk to Mrs. Grosvenor,” Morales said.

  “Not until we see if we can lift a print from this envelope,” Morales said, holding up the evidence bag.

  —

  TWO HOURS LATER, they had a thumbprint and a name: Barbara Eagle.

  “She was tried for the murder of a Mafia-connected guy at the Bel-Air Hotel,” Croft said. “Thought it was Ed Eagle. She was acquitted. Weird thing is, she escaped from the courthouse while the jury was deliberating and later had to plead to the escape. Let’s go see her.”

  —

  THEY PRESENTED THEMSELVES at the front desk of the Bel-Air Hotel and identified themselves. “Mr. and Mrs. Grosvenor checked out at eleven this morning,” the desk clerk told them.

  “You got a home address for them?” Morales asked.

  The woman checked. “Twelve Eaton Place, London SW1,” she said.

  “London, England?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Was that their destination when they checked out?”

  “I assume so,” she said.

  “Has their room been cleaned yet?”

  “I’ll call housekeeping.” She made the call. “Yes, and a new arrival has checked in.”

  Morales thanked her, and they left. “You got the address of that house in Bel-Air that the Grosvenors made an offer on?”

  Croft checked his notebook. “Here we are—it’s over on Copa de Oro.”

  “Let’s see what we can find there.”

  —

  THE HOUSE WAS impressive without being ostentatious. Morales rang the bell, and a uniformed houseman came to the door. Badges were flashed. “Is the owner at home?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir, if you’ll come in and wait a moment. He’s on the tennis court, I believe.”

  “Just take us out there,” Morales said. “What’s his name?”

  “Simpson,” the man replied, then led the way.

  Two middle-aged men were banging away on the tennis court. One of them came over after a point. “What’s up?” he asked.

  Badges w
ere flashed again, and Morales introduced himself and Croft. “Mr. Simpson, I understand that you had an offer on your house from a Mr. and Mrs. Charles Grosvenor. Is that correct?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Did you accept the offer?”

  “I made a counteroffer. They wanted to think it over.”

  “When did you last see them?”

  Simpson looked at his watch. “About an hour ago,” he said.

  “Do you know where they went when they left?”

  “They said they were going home.”

  “Home to England?”

  “I assume so.”

  “Do you happen to know on what airline they were traveling?”

  “During our conversation, there was passing mention of a private jet,” Simpson replied.

  “Do you know what kind of jet?”

  “No, but it would have to be a fairly big one for an Atlantic crossing.”

  “Did they mention an airport?”

  “Yes, they said they were flying out of Burbank.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Simpson.”

  The two detectives left the house and headed for Burbank. Forty minutes later they were in the airport’s tower.

  “May I help you, gentlemen?”

  “I hope so,” Morales said. “Have you had a departure today of a flight to London, England?”

  The man went to a computer. “Nobody would file from here to London,” he said, tapping some keys. “It would likely be for a general aviation airport near London, like Cambridge or Biggin Hill.” He scrolled through the flight plans on file. “Nothing for England at all.”

  “Maybe they were refueling and filed for someplace in between?” Croft asked.

  “I’ve got half a dozen flight plans for Teterboro, New Jersey. That’s New York.”

  “May I have a list of the registration numbers?” Croft asked.

  The man printed them out and handed them to the detective. “There you go. I can check the registrations if you like.”