by Taylor Smith
Chaney moved to block her path and put his hands on her shoulders. “Please. This is important. I need to talk to you about what really happened in Vienna. About the people who did this to David—and to your daughter.”
“What are you talking about? Nobody did this. It was an accident.”
“I don’t think it was. I think it was deliberate. I’m not sure about some of the details, but I’m trying to find out.”
“Oh, no,” she said, shaking herself free of his grip. “I know you. You’re trying to come up with some sensationalist news item—Chaney’s exposé of the week. Well, forget it. There’s no story here. What happened to David and Lindsay was nothing but a horrible, ugly traffic accident.”
“Give me a break, will you? David was my friend. I wouldn’t say something like this if I didn’t believe it was true.”
“Give me a break, Paul! Do you believe you’re the only person that this thought might have occurred to? I was working in the embassy. Don’t you think I insisted that every effort be made to find out exactly what happened? We had people breathing down the necks of the Vienna Police every step of the way during that investigation. But it was an accident—so drop it, please. We’ve been through enough.”
She started down the path to the parking lot. Chaney never actually raised his voice, but it seemed to ring through the night. “It wasn’t, Mariah. And I think you know it.”
Mariah turned her head slowly to look at him over her shoulder, fixing him coldly in her gaze. “Stay away from me, Chaney—and from my family. I’m warning you.”
Across the lot, Rollie Burton watched from his vehicle, his eyes narrowed. The woman drove off, tires squealing as she pulled out. Only then did the man walk over to another car—a new white Ford that looked like a rental—and disappear in the opposite direction.
Burton pocketed the ivory-handled blade, then drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. He knew who that guy was—couldn’t remember his name, but was sure he’d seen him on TV. The news, that was it. She obviously knew him, too, although she hadn’t looked thrilled to see him. Maybe there was more to this job than he’d thought. For sure, he wasn’t happy about doing his work under the nose of some media hack. He was going to have to tread carefully.
Burton flipped the key in the ignition and put the car in gear, turning his grungy Toyota right as he headed out of the parking lot, following in the direction she had taken.
3
Mariah spotted her daughter as soon as she pulled up in front of the school. Lindsay was sitting at the top of the wide staircase at the main entrance, her mass of hair a burning bush under the overhead lights. She was deep in conversation with another young girl, and the two of them were feigning indifference to the group of boys nearby. The boys, falling over themselves in their rush to impress the girls, were performing death-defying skateboard tricks up and down the staircase. Their only reward was, alas, two pairs of pretty thirteen-year-old eyes rolled heavenward each time one of them tripped over his own gangly legs. In spite of the dread that clung to her like soot, Mariah grinned. Some things never change.
When Lindsay spotted the Volvo, she stood and waved goodbye to her friend, then started carefully down the stairs. Her arms were laden with books, and her pace stopped and started as the damaged left leg followed the stronger right, one step at a time. Mariah gripped the wheel, suppressing the urge to jump out of the car and run to take the books and offer a supporting arm. But Lindsay had thrown away her crutches a few weeks earlier and reacted angrily on those rare occasions when Mariah forgot her determination not to hover and fret. The ache in her mothering heart was less easily suppressed, however.
She leaned over and opened the passenger door. Lindsay dropped heavily into the seat, weighted down by her books. Mariah took them from her and placed them on the back seat while the girl lifted her left leg with her hands and settled it into a comfortable position before pulling in the right and shutting the door. Mariah watched her buckle up, then passed her fingers gently over Lindsay’s damp red curls, pushing the perpetually unruly mass back over her shoulders. The color was a throwback to ancient Bolt and Tardiff ancestors, it seemed, but the curls were pure David.
“Hi, kiddo. Sorry I’m late. I got held up at the home.”
Lindsay’s head snapped toward her mother, her expression shifting instantly from adolescent lightheartedness to all-too-adult anxiety. “Is Daddy all right?”
Mariah was putting the car in gear, but she paused and patted her daughter’s arm. “He’s fine, Lins. He loved your cookies.” Lindsay settled back into her seat, a smile replacing the fear in her eyes. “I was running late, that’s all.”
Lindsay shrugged. “It’s okay. Our practice went a little over. I just got out.” Mariah pulled the Volvo into the road, turning right. “Mom? Where are we going?”
“Home, of course.”
“Why are we going this way?”
Mariah glanced around, noticing where she was and realizing with a start that she had made a wrong turn. “Oh, for—”
“Hello-o! Earth to Mom—come in, Mom. Are you with us?”
“All right, all right. Sorry. I’ll pull a U-turn at the next light.”
Lindsay shook her head and then promptly launched into a long and detailed report on recent developments in the ongoing drama of thirteen-year-old social politics. Today, it seemed, two girls had decided to ostracize a third for some perceived infraction of teenage standards of decorum.
Like anyone who read all the parenting books, Mariah knew that teenagers lived in a parallel universe of strange customs and even stranger preoccupations. Still, she hadn’t quite been prepared when Lindsay suddenly turned into one of those hormone-tossed creatures.
After observing her daughter’s friends, though, Mariah had concluded that Lindsay was different, old beyond her years, more given to sober reflection. Mariah put it down to the accident and its awful consequences. Most youngsters were certain that they were invulnerable. Lindsay had learned early—too early—what a fragile illusion that was. Under the circumstances, it was probably a good sign that Lindsay could get caught up in the same trivial issues as her friends.
“Isn’t that mean, Mom?”
Mariah had only been half listening, waiting for a break in the on-coming traffic so she could turn around, thrown off by meeting Chaney again.
“What? Oh—for sure,” Mariah said, snapping back into focus. “So what did you do about it?”
“I told Megan I thought she wasn’t being fair and that I didn’t care what she said, Jenna was still my friend. Boy! It makes me so mad!” Lindsay folded her arms across her chest, eyes flashing.
Mariah smiled. “Good for you, kiddo. You’re a loyal friend. Don’t let the mob mentality rule.”
“Yeah,” Lindsay said, her lower lip jutting out as she nodded. “Some people think they know it all—like the rest of us should just sit back and let them rule the world!”
Dieter Pflanz knew something about what it took to rule the world—or at least, manage good chunks of it. And he knew how easily that control could be lost if you didn’t pay attention to details.
He glanced at his watch, calculating the time back East. Ignoring the sleek designer telephone on his desk, Pflanz reached into a cabinet behind him and pulled out a sliding shelf on which sat a bulkier unit. He turned a key next to the number pad and punched in a series of digits. Spinning his chair to face a big plate-glass window, he leaned back and propped his feet on the sill. A digital click in his ear traced the signal of the long-distance call. Crooking the telephone receiver against his shoulder, Pflanz picked up an India rubber ball from his desk, powerful fingers compressing the dense sphere as he watched the scene below him.
The California sun was still well above the western horizon. From his eighteenth-story aerie in McCord Tower, at the heart of Newport Center, Pflanz could see the late-afternoon surfers heading toward the beach, the diehards braving the cold December surf in wet suits. He shook his h
ead as he watched all the cars with surfboard-laden roof racks wending their way along the Coast Highway. Despite the fact that he’d been based here for a decade now, he had never gotten used to the southern California life-style. “Laid-back” was not in Dieter Pflanz’s vocabulary. The daily sight of beaches packed with strapping young surfers and volleyball players only filled him with contempt. It was symptomatic of a society gone soft.
The telephone at the other end of the line began to ring as the connection was completed. Halfway through the third ring, it was picked up. “Hello?”
“It’s me. Going to scramble.”
“Roger.”
Pflanz punched a button under the telephone keypad. After a brief delay, a light began to flash on the unit. At the other end of the line, he knew, a similar light would be flashing. A long beep following a series of short ones confirmed that the scrambler was operational. From here on in, anyone trying to monitor the call would hear nothing but a piercing whine. Only the synchronized software of the two machines was capable of decoding the electronic gobbledygook passing across the connection.
“Okay,” Pflanz said. “We’re set.”
“I’ve been expecting your call. How’s it going?”
“We’re coming in tomorrow. There’s one stop en route—a charity thing. We arrive in D.C. in the evening. McCord sees the President on Friday.”
“I heard. He’s up to speed.”
“Good.”
“What about New Mexico?”
“It’s on for tonight.”
“Tonight? Jesus, Dieter! So soon?”
“We have no choice. Everything’s in place. Either we do it tonight or we miss the window of opportunity.”
“Are you sure about this? If anything goes wrong, this could blow up in our faces.”
Pflanz squeezed the rubber ball tighter. “Nothing’s going to go wrong, George. Not,” he added pointedly, “like that mess in Vienna.”
There was a long sigh on the other end of the line. “Hell, don’t talk to me about that. We’re still cleaning up.”
“What about the woman? She’s back in operation now?”
“She’s nothing to worry about.”
“She hasn’t made the connection?”
“No. She’s off the file and preoccupied with her family. Trust me—Mariah Bolt poses no threat to us.”
“She’d better not,” Pflanz growled. “All right, look—I’ll call you when I get in tomorrow.”
“No. Call me tonight, when you hear from New Mexico.”
“It’ll be late.”
“You’ve got my home number. Call. I’ll be up till I hear.”
“Roger.”
Pflanz cradled the receiver and closed the cabinet housing the secure phone. Then he leaned back and watched the sun sinking lower toward the Pacific.
A big man, with a hawk’s beak for a nose and hands like bulldozer shovels, Pflanz still looked at forty-nine as if he belonged in jungle fatigues instead of the corporate uniform that he mostly wore these days. Despite the suit, though, no one would mistake him for anything but a security man—the ever-watchful, hooded eyes missed nothing. His massive shoulders hunched forward, giving him the appearance of a bird of prey poised for takeoff.
He had spent a quarter of a century mounting complex security operations, first as a CIA covert operative, then as chief of security for McCord Industries. McCord’s head office was in Newport Beach, California, with subsidiaries in eleven American cities and fourteen other branches worldwide. It was a multifaceted business with diverse interests ranging from electronics to construction engineering, with dozens of difficult foreign projects that sometimes demanded special arrangements to ensure the safety of the employees. And the extracurricular activities of the company’s president and CEO, Angus McCord, added yet another dimension to Pflanz’s security duties.
You have to pay attention to detail, he told himself again—even the tiniest. That’s the key to success. You can’t leave anything to chance because it’s the little things, the loose ends, that are sure to foul you up. Despite the assurances on the other end of the line a moment earlier, he’d been convinced all along that the Vienna episode had left too many loose ends—loose ends that he himself had already begun to tidy up.
Rollie Burton’s battered green Toyota was parked across the road and down the street a little way from Mariah’s condo in McLean, but the town house was still dark. He had lost her in heavy rush-hour traffic outside the nursing home, but from the look of things, he had beaten her here. When he finally spotted the Volvo coming up the street, the sight of two figures in the front seat gave him a jolt. He peered closely as the car passed under a streetlight. Oh, shit, he thought—she’s got a kid. The voice had conveniently neglected to mention that.
The garage door began to rise as the Volvo approached the driveway. Burton slumped in his seat, tugging a baseball cap low over his eyes, watching the car pull into the garage. The brake lights flashed and then went dark as she killed the engine. Inside the lit garage he could see an interior door leading into the town house. When the automatic door began to drop, Burton glanced at the sweep hand on his watch: It took about five seconds to close.
The garage was on the side of the house facing the street, he noted, taking careful stock of the landscape. There was a cedar hedge running along one side of the driveway, with open lawn extending down to a cross street on the other. No prying neighbors. He nodded in satisfaction—good cover and a quick escape route.
The front door was around the corner of the town house, facing a footpath. It was part of a network of well-treed walkways and ravines that ran throughout the parklike condominium complex, radiating like a spiderweb from a recreation center at the hub. The trees were mostly evergreens, pine and spruce, casting deep shadows. Good possibilities there, too, he thought. Maybe she was a jogger. Burton loved joggers.
Then he pursed his lips, weighing the problem of her daughter. Nobody was paying him for the kid, and he had no intention of getting caught. But if he ever was—God forbid—he knew what happened to prison inmates who offed kids. On the other hand, he could wait forever to catch her alone at home.
First the reporter, now this—I don’t need this kind of grief, he thought, exasperated. Why can’t things ever be as simple as they seem?
Gathering up her briefcase, Mariah again resisted the temptation to carry in Lindsay’s books, walking ahead into the house as her daughter reached into the back of the car for her things. By the time Lindsay came into the kitchen, Mariah had already opened the freezer and was examining the neat piles of plastic storage containers, their contents labeled and dated, part of the determined effort she had been making in recent months to try to get the chaos of her life under control. She withdrew a chicken cacciatore left over from one of the double-size recipes she prepared on weekends, put it into the microwave and shrugged out of her coat. She fixed Lindsay with a frown as the girl stood poised to drape her own jacket over a kitchen chair. Lindsay sighed deeply, rolling her eyes. Mariah pursed her lips, then held out her hand for the jacket that Lindsay handed over with a winning smile.
The rewinding hum of the answering machine greeted Mariah when she returned from the hall closet. Lindsay was hunched over the kitchen counter, pen poised as the machine began to play back messages. Typically, they all seemed to be for her. It was a mystery how, after a full day spent together, so much urgent business could accumulate among a bunch of thirteen-year-olds in the two short hours since junior high had been dismissed. Mariah set a pot of water to boil for the pasta as a string of disembodied adolescent voices crackled across the kitchen. Just as she began chopping vegetables for the salad, the machine beeped again and Mariah froze at the sound of a deep, professionally modulated voice.
“Mariah? It’s Paul Chaney. I’m staying at the Dupont Plaza. I’m only in town for a few days, but we really do need to talk. Call me, please.” He gave a room and phone number before ringing off.
Lindsay was madly
writing down the numbers as the message ended and the machine rewound itself. “Mom! That’s the TV guy who used to play hockey with Daddy in Vienna, isn’t it?”
Mariah nodded, then turned back to chopping vegetables. It was the last message on the machine—he must have headed straight for a phone as soon as she left him at the nursing home. The knife came down hard as she slashed at a piece of celery. “Time to wash up for dinner,” she said.
“Are you going to call him, Mom?”
“I doubt it. Can you set the table, please?”
“Why not?”
“The table, Lindsay.”
“Okay, okay. I’m setting.”
Lindsay limped over to the cupboard and began taking out dishes. Mariah watched her daughter’s slim shoulders as she reached for plates. Coppery curls tumbled down the back of the girl’s gray sweatshirt. During the ten months Lindsay had been recuperating—first in a wheelchair, then, until recently, in a leg brace and hunched over crutches—she had grown phenomenally. Now that she was upright again, it came as a shock to Mariah that this child—her baby—had already surpassed her own five foot two and might even overshoot David’s five-eight.
She’s no baby anymore, Mariah thought—not after everything she’s been through—and she doesn’t deserve this dismissive exercise of parental authority. She closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath. “I’ve got a ton of work at the office, honey. I just don’t think I’ve got time for Mr. Chaney this week, that’s all.”
“It sounds kind of important,” Lindsay said, setting out plates and cutlery. “I mean, he seemed really anxious for you to call.”
“I hardly know the guy. And to be perfectly honest, I never thought much of him when we were in Vienna, even if he was your dad’s buddy. Anyhow, he’s probably just calling to be polite. Reporters,” she added scornfully, “they make everything sound like a national crisis. I’ll call if I get a minute, maybe.”
Lindsay shrugged and Mariah changed the subject as they moved to the table.
