The Target f-3

by Catherine Coulter

  "As best I can make out. They're being really careful to hang back. I can't tell yet if it's the same two guys. My cell phone is at home getting recharged."

  "That's all right. We'll call in the number as soon as we get home." If we go home hung silently in the air between them.

  Emma said, "Ramsey, I can make out an A and an R in the license. I remember those letters really well.

  They're in our names. I need another reading lesson."

  He looked at Molly, who just said, "That's great, Em. I got the A and the R, too. F and B are tougher letters. We'll make up words this evening so you can learn them."

  "We shouldn't have gone out for my piano. That's how they got us. It's all my fault." Her small face was pale.

  Ramsey said clearly, "Nothing is your fault. Don't say that again or I'll have to keep you away from hot dogs for a week. Don't be afraid, Emma. We'll take care of you."

  "Listen to me, Emma," Molly said, turning in the front seat to face her daughter. "If anyone tries to get you again, I'll shoot them, even if it's the president. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, Mama."

  "Make sure your seat belt's tight."

  "Yes, Ramsey."

  They turned right onto Alpine Meadows Road. The River Ranch Motel was sprawled out on the left-hand corner, a landmark for some time, a ski shop of nearly equal age on the right. It looked closed down. There was still some spring skiing, but not enough to lure more than half a dozen cars into the parking lot of the River Ranch Motel. He prayed the car wouldn't turn right after them.

  The day was bright and would warm to about sixty degrees. Ramsey said, "Hey, Emma, you want to go hiking with me this afternoon? We might get lucky and see some neat wildlife-foxes, deer, lots of birds, rabbits."

  The clothes he'd bought her were perfect. He was trying to distract her, but it wasn't working. "You game, Molly?"

  "Maybe. We'll see. Are you hungry, Emma?"

  "I don't know, Mama. I'm still trying to see the men in that car. Do you think they're the same men who were in Colorado, at that restaurant?"

  "I don't know," Molly said. "They're not close enough to tell yet."

  Ramsey looked behind him. The car had turned, dammit. There wasn't another car between them now.

  They were hanging back about forty yards. "Okay, they're after us. I'm going all the way down to the ski resort. There's a big turnaround. Then we'll head to Tahoe City. It's only a couple of more miles east. I'm not about to let them get anywhere near our house."

  He saw that Molly had taken her Detonics out and was holding it loosely by her leg. He'd put his Smith

  & Wesson underneath the front seat, loaded and ready to go. There were only about fifty cars at the ski resort and a couple of dozen four-wheel-drive vehicles parked up close to the ticket windows. The snow already looked slushy. The people who were here were either really serious skiers, or didn't know better.

  He slowly drove by the front of the resort, making the large lazy circle back onto Alpine Meadows Road, heading back toward the main road again.

  The Honda Civic paused at the row of ticket windows, but didn't stop. He knew they wouldn't stop. He wondered if they knew they'd been spotted.

  He gunned the Toyota as soon as they got back onto the road. When they got to the intersection with Highway 89, he took a right toward Tahoe City. No one had said a word.

  He was thinking about how the hell he could lose the Honda behind them in very small touristy Tahoe City with its endless restaurants, ski rental shops, and souvenir kiosks. There was a shopping center. It was good sized. There were walkways all around the indoor center. He didn't know where most of them led, but he was fairly certain he could get them lost there.

  It was on the right, he remembered, as you drove into town. He'd have to get rid of the Toyota. Pity, but no choice now. He didn't see them behind him for the moment. He turned into the huge parking lot and eased the Toyota right up front.

  "Out. Quickly!"

  He grabbed Emma's piano and they were through the shopping center doors in five seconds. "Go directly out the back, Molly. There's a walkway out there. Take the nearest one to the back door. I'll be with you in just a second."

  There were just a handful of people in the shopping enclosure. He saw Molly weave her way through, Emma pressed against her side, moving as quickly as they could.

  He didn't need to wait long before the Honda pulled around. They saw the Toyota and stopped. It was all he needed to know. He was out the back door in ten seconds, several unhappy people behind him.

  He took the nearest walkway and started running. He caught them behind a small Louisiana-type restaurant.

  "Molly, you and Emma go into this restaurant and stay in the bathroom. In five minutes, I'll pull up out front. Be there. Five minutes, by your watch."

  He ran back toward the shopping center. He didn't see them. He walked quickly around the north side, into the parking lot. There was the Honda, double-parked right out front. It was empty.

  He smiled.

  Four and a half minutes later, he was in front of the restaurant, and Molly was opening the passenger side.

  "Excellent. Emma, you all set back there?"

  "Yes, Ramsey. My piano's okay, too." She was hugging that box so tightly her knuckles were white.

  It was hard to smile, but he managed it. "Hold on, kiddo. We're outta here."

  "Will they follow?"

  He looked over at Molly as he pulled back onto 89. "No, they're going to be a while. I took the distributor cap. They probably have a cell phone and will make some calls. Since they know where we are, we can't take the chance of going back to the house."

  They were on Highway 80 ten minutes later, heading west.

  "We never got to hike, Ramsey."

  "We will, Emma, we will."

  THEY drove over the Golden Gate Bridge three hours and thirty-five minutes later. The day was sharp and clear, a picture-postcard day. The fog was just beginning to curl through the arches of the bridge.

  "Are you sure this is a good idea, Ramsey?"

  "I don't know, but I'm tired of running. My base is here, Molly. It's time we got help. We discussed this before. You didn't disagree."

  "But the men who are after us, surely they'll find out who you are very soon. When they find out, they'll be on us like a shot."

  He cursed under his breath. "You're right. I'll just bet they already know what I like to eat for breakfast.

  Okay. Let's just stop at my house so I can change, pack, and make arrangements. We'll fly to your father this afternoon. Sorry, Molly, but I just can't see any other choice unless you want to go to the cops right here in San Francisco."

  "No." Molly cursed under her breath. "There's just no good alternative, is there? Let's go to Chicago, then. I'd still rather have her with me than being questioned by police psychologists, hordes of cops, not to mention the FBI. If Special Agent Anchor is representative, then the FBI is scary."

  "He's not representative. All right, let's go to Chicago. When the time is right to bring in the cops, we can call them from there."

  "I probably should have gone to him sooner. My old man's got more ability to protect Emma than the cops and the FBI. He may be a big criminal, but he'll do his best to keep Emma safe."

  "All right, then. Let's use your father, if he'll let us. We'll let him keep Emma safe."

  She closed her eyes a moment, then nodded to herself, coming to a decision. Then she smiled as she said to Emma, "Look over there, Em. It's Alcatraz Island. It was a prison for really bad guys until sometime in the 1950s."

  "It's pretty. I wouldn't mind being a prisoner there."

  "I read they fed the prisoners about six thousand calories a day, to make them fat, so they'd be less likely to try to escape and swim to shore. I think it was a whole lot of hot dogs and beans. They didn't let them exercise much."

  Emma's eyes brightened.

  He grinned at her in the rearview mirror. "They didn't cook them on hangers in
a fireplace, Emma. They were boiled."

  "Yuck."

  Ramsey turned onto Scenic Drive in a beautiful old section bf the city called Sea Cliff. "We're the closest houses to the bay. My house is number twenty-seven, right there on the end."

  "I knew federal judges must be paid pretty well, but not that well. This place must have cost a bundle, Ramsey."

  "It's worth quite a lot, but I didn't buy it. It was bequeathed to me by my grandparents along with a nice inheritance. I'm not as rich as you, but I won't starve. The views are incredible. We'll come back, Emma, and barbecue. We can sit in the backyard and watch the fog roll in. It floats through the Golden Gate Bridge like soft white fingers. I've always loved the fog. I've even got a piano for you, an old baby grand that my grandfather played. He was a great old man."

  Ramsey's nose twitched the instant he unlocked the front door and stepped into the tiled foyer. It smelled like rotten food, but that didn't make any sense. He stepped into the living room and quickly stepped back.

  The room had been trashed. His high-tech stereo equipment was ripped open and stomped on. CDs were strewn all over the hardwood floor. All the furniture had been slashed. He walked numbly into the kitchen. The stench was pretty bad.

  The refrigerator door stood open. Someone had flung food all over the floor, not that there'd been very much. Dishes were smashed, in shards everywhere. Drawers were pulled out, silverware all over the floor. A violent hand had simply swept everything out of the cabinets.

  "Don't come in here, Emma," he said.

  "Oh no," was all Molly said from the doorway, holding Emma back.

  It took him only minutes to see that whoever had done this hadn't forgotten a single room.

  He walked into his study, a magnificent dark oak-paneled room that looked toward the Marin Headlands. His antique rolltop desk had been gouged, the drawers pulled out and smashed, all his papers in shredded heaps everywhere. Books lay in broken piles on the Tabriz carpet. His favorite leather chair had been ripped open with a knife. His grandfather's baby grand piano had its legs sawed off. It lay drunkenly on its side, most of the keys stomped in. Someone had even cut the piano wires.

  Devastation everywhere.

  What had they been looking for? Something to tie him to Molly and Emma?

  "I'm sorry, Ramsey," she said at his elbow. "I'm really very sorry. We brought this to you."

  He realized then what she'd said, the full impact of it. He turned slowly, took her upper arms in his big hands, and said, "I was feeling equal parts enraged and sorry for myself. But now, after what you just said, I realize that this place, no matter how nice, is still just a place. When we get the person responsible for this, I look forward to kicking his butt, but Emma means more to me than a pile of stupid possessions.

  There's no contest. Do you understand me, Molly?"

  She nodded. "I just don't understand why someone would do this. They could have just searched, if they wanted to find some sort of connection between us. They didn't have to destroy everything."

  "I don't understand either, but we're going to find out."

  "I hope so." She leaned down and picked up an atlas, its pages ripped, the spine broken. She tried to smooth the pages. She looked numb.

  He gently took the book from her. "Help me pack, then we're out of here. I'll make some phone calls from a pay phone." But there weren't any undamaged clothes left. Even his leather luggage, a Christmas present from his folks, was mutilated.

  Ramsey made four calls from a public phone on the corner of California and Gough. The first was to a cleaning service, the second was to Dillon Savich, the third was to an airline, and the fourth was to Virginia Trolley of the San Francisco Police Department. He made one stop: his bank.

  "Let's go," he said, grinning at Emma as he came out of the bank. "This is going to be exciting, kiddo. At least now I'm as rich as your mama." He handed her a twenty-dollar bill. "Keep this, Emma. Tuck it away somewhere safe."

  Molly gave him a quizzical look but didn't say anything, just watched her daughter very carefully fold the twenty-dollar bill and slip it inside her piano.

  "I think I've had enough exciting things happen, Ram-sey," Emma said and hugged her piano to her chest.

  Molly said, "Maybe we can buy her some more clothes at the airport."

  Ramsey frowned. "I'm thinking. I don't remember any kids' clothes there. T-shirts, but that's about it. We don't have time to stop. We'll get her a new T-shirt at the airport, and work on her wardrobe in Chicago.

  Ours, too, for that matter."

  13

  THERE WASN'T A sound, just the slow movement of a finger, a gentle silent stroke, and an instant later, the whoosh of rending paper. The man's chest exploded outward, the sharp, jagged edges fanning out from a huge hole, smelling of char.

  Gunther nodded to himself, turning away. He said under his breath, "Not bad."

  "What do you mean, 'Not bad'?" she said, staring at the target as she walked closer. "How about perfect?" She watched Gunther blow on the muzzle of his Spanish Star Ten, one of the very few European 10mm auto calibre pistols, Gunther had told her in an unusual show of pride. Of all his acquaintances he had the only one, he'd said, which was just as well since he'd also be the only one to shoot it right. She watched him blow on the muzzle again. Naturally there was no smoke to blow away.

  She imagined he did it because it was symbolic, a move reminiscent of the gunslingers in the Old West.

  He gave her an irritated look but didn't say anything.

  "Don't you like to be perfect, Gunther?" She came closer, running her fingers down his forearm, over his hand, to stroke the barrel of the gun.

  He stayed silent. She was doing this just to make him crazy, he knew that, but it was tough not to respond in some way, just a small push, just a tiny shove away from him. But he wasn't stupid. He couldn't lay a finger on her, no matter what the provocation. No, he wouldn't even acknowledge that she was playing a game with him.

  He had a feeling that Mr. Lord enjoyed these games of hers, even encouraged her. Maybe he was standing in the shadows at the back of the gallery, watching, chewing on an unlit cigarillo, a habit he'd developed since he'd stopped smoking the year before. Gunther slowly pulled away, cradling his gun in his big hands. He liked the feel of the cold smooth steel against his warm palm.

  She shook her head, laughing at him. "The way you hold that gun of yours. What is it with you, Gunther?

  You think that gun is a woman?"

  "No," he said very precisely, "I think this gun is a tool to get my job done." He nodded to her, politely, as always, and turned away from her. He said over his shoulder, pausing just a moment in the gallery doorway, "Mr. Lord appreciates my tool."

  She stared at him an instant, then doubled over, hooting with laughter. "I sure hope not," she said. "I sure hope you're wrong about that."

  His jaw locked. He felt embarrassment flood him, from inside out, as if his guts had turned red before his face. He hated the feeling. A soft voice said, "Yes, Gunther, I do appreciate your tool. Why don't you go clean your gun. You've used it a great deal today and with excellent effect."

  "Yes, sir."

  Mason Lord watched his man leave the gun gallery before turning to his wife. His look was indulgent, his voice amused as he said, "You torment poor Gunther."

  "Yes, but he's really too easy, Mason. Did you bring my Lady Colt?"

  He nodded. "I wish you'd let me teach you how to shoot a real gun, not this ridiculous toy."

  Her voice hardened. It was disconcerting in that she looked like an angel, from that smooth thick pale blond hair of hers to the soft blue eyes, the fragile blue of a summer sky. "If I'm close enough, it'll get the job done. I don't want a tool like poor Gunther's. It's not elegant."

  He had to agree with that. The recoil from the Spanish Star Ten would also knock her on her butt. He handed her the Lady Colt, stood back, and watched her put six bullets straight through the chest of the target.

  She t
urned, her eyes sparkling, removed her earmuffs, and said in a wicked voice, "And I didn't even have to fondle it."

  "No," he said, drawing her to him, "I'm the only thing you fondle."

  But though he spoke the words, he wasn't responding to her the way he usually did. Usually she would have been on her back by now. She stepped back, laying her Lady Colt on the counter. "I wonder what your daughter is doing?"

  He shook his head. "I called Buzz Carmen in Denver just a little while ago. He said the cops are still acting like idiots, mad at her for saving her own daughter, trying to track her down and this man with her.

  Buzz and three others have fanned out now, looking for her. Molly's an amateur. Buzz and his people aren't. They'll find her. He admitted he hadn't known she'd left Denver. He said they'd kept their distance because the cops had hassled them."

  "No one's found her except whoever did this. Maybe the bad guys got them, Mason. You have to consider that."

  "Molly's smart. She may be an amateur, but she's smart."

  "I thought she was like your wife."

  He stared at her, then laughed. "Like Alicia? Molly thinks of herself as the ugly duckling compared to my former wife. No, Molly might look like a railroad tie, but she's smart." He frowned a bit. "I suppose she's like me in that. I wish she'd just admit she needs me and get over here. She knows I can protect her and Emma."

  "I'll bet this guy who's with them is calling the shots. Don't you think?"

  "I don't even have an idea yet who he is." He took her arm. "Let's have one of Miles's margaritas."

  It was during that first delicious margarita that Miles said from the doorway, "Sir, Molly's here. Emma too, and a man I don't know."

  "It took her long enough to come," Mason Lord said, rising slowly. He set his glass on the marble tabletop as Miles went back out. Then he heard a child's voice, soft, high, not frightened, but wary?

  "This is a very big house, Mr. Miles."

  "Yes, Emma, it is."

  "It's even bigger than the one we had with Daddy. This ceiling just goes up and up."

  Then the three of them were standing in the open doorway, Miles behind them, his look questioning. "It's all right, Miles. I'll call if I need you."