Close Call

by Laura Disilverio

  The forest grew denser. Trees pushed in on all sides and brambles scratched her exposed skin. She’d been jogging for ten minutes when it occurred to her to put on her shirt. She was too scared to laugh at the picture she must present, hair straggling down her back, topless except for a flesh-colored bra, ripped jeans. Thrusting one arm into her sleeve, she was struggling with the other one when an arm snaked around her waist and a hand clamped over her mouth. Sydney instinctively wriggled and stamped, trying to kick back at whoever held her.

  “Ssh!” a voice hissed in her ear.

  She recognized her sister’s scent. If she’d been asked what Reese smelled like, she couldn’t have answered, but her unconscious brain identified her.

  “Okay?” Reese asked.

  Sydney nodded, and the hand dropped from her mouth. Reese was stronger than she would have expected, even knowing she was a workout fiend. She leaned toward Reese and sniffed, picking up hints of gasoline and smoke. Her eyes widened.

  “You started that fire!”

  Even though she’d whispered, Reese held a finger to her lips. “Molotov cocktail. Gas, a bottle, some rags … break out the marshmallows. Let’s go.”

  Reese took off through the woods and Sydney followed, saplings slapping at her face and thorny weeds dragging at her hems. After another ten minutes, Reese ran as easily as before, and Sydney’s breath came in painful gulps but she couldn’t hear sounds of pursuit.

  “We’re clear, I think,” Reese said, pausing beside a gnarled oak. She raked her short bangs back. A leaf fluttered to the ground.

  “Where’s my car?”

  Reese pointed back the way they’d come. “We’re leaving it.”

  “What?”

  “We can’t risk walking into an ambush. My Highlander’s five minutes this way.”

  “But my car—” Sydney cut herself off. If the Imminent Revelation had been planning to brand her for sleeping with a Jew, what would they do to a woman who’d burned down part of their complex? “Lead on.”

  Not more than three minutes later they burst out of the woods fifty yards south of Reese’s SUV. Parked on a grassy verge, it looked untouched. Reese motioned for Sydney to stay back as she approached it. After a brief inspection, she beckoned. Was she looking for bombs? Another habit she’d picked up in Kabul or Darfur, Sydney guessed, scrambling into the front passenger seat. Reese thunked the locks closed.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Sydney said, looking anxiously over her shoulder. No sign of Fisher’s gang.

  “I’m way ahead of you.” Reese threw the car in gear, wrenched it onto the road, and floored the accelerator.

  30

  Fidel

  Fidel Montoya exited the limo at the high school in Fredrick, Maryland, smiling and waving, his narrowed eyes scanning the crowd assembled for the state-wide track meet. Jimmy emerged from the car after him, straightening a tie that was too damn loud. It looked like a box of Crayolas had vomited on it. Montoya averted his gaze. Teachers and students, some with signs reading Vote for Montoya or A Vote for Montoya is a Vote for America crowded to the edges of the sidewalk at Lee High School, hemming him in. Ragged cheers flared up as his supporters caught sight of him. He ran a finger around his collar. Damn it. He wasn’t going to be scared away from campaigning by his close encounter with an assassin’s bullet. The vote was just days away and polls showed him neck-and-neck with his opponent. And this was a high school, for God’s sake, not a meeting of the John Birch Society. Sure, high schoolers went postal now and then and shot each other or their teachers, but he’d never heard of one assassinating a political figure. The tension in his shoulders eased and he waved again, striding confidently forward to shake hands with the principal. Not a bad-looking woman, for someone his own age. Playmate-of-the-Month tits under a straw-colored suit jacket and a full lower lip he could suck on for days. And she found him attractive. Montoya held her hand a moment longer than necessary, looking deep into her eyes. Jimmy coughed behind him.

  In his peripheral vision, Montoya glimpsed a student approaching on his left. At least he looked like a student, with lank hair brushing his shoulders and a pimply face. He wore a black T-shirt and cargo pants with a heavy chain threaded through the belt loops. Two silver hoops pierced his eyebrow, and an earring with a grinning skull dangled almost to his shoulder. A backpack hung from one hand. A tattoo of a black widow in a web crawled up his right forearm and disappeared under his sleeve. Loser, Montoya thought, then made himself think of the kid as a voter. He might be eighteen. He released Principal McDermott’s hand to follow her into the auditorium, thanking God that Jimmy had never gone in for that Goth look. He’d dyed his hair green once, and he wore butt-ugly ties, but—

  “Congress-dick Montoya!”

  He turned involuntarily at the sound of his name. The loser was within feet of him, digging a hand into his backpack. Montoya froze. Jimmy, several steps in front, turned to cut off the teen, but it was too late. Even as Montoya broke free of his trance and moved toward the building, which was only steps away, the kid hurled something.

  God, not a grenade! Montoya grabbed the principal’s arm—was he going to use her as a shield or thrust her behind him?—and ducked.

  Splat.

  “Gross, dude” and “totally putrid” drifted from the assembled students and teachers as the rotten egg smacked into Montoya’s back. A hideous stink fouled the air. The assailant was hightailing it off school grounds, backpack thumping against his leg as he ran. He bumped into a nondescript man watching from the sidewalk and then disappeared between two houses.

  “Randall Eubanks, one of my problem children,” Principal McDermott said into Montoya’s ear. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure,” Montoya said, forcing himself to smile although a murderous rage was hammering in his skull. The kid had made him look like a coward, a clown. He took a deep breath and shrugged out of his Hugo Boss jacket, holding it at arm’s length. Jimmy took it without being asked, his face paler than usual. “But I think I’ll need a new jacket. Maybe you have an LHS letter jacket I could borrow? I lettered in basketball, back in the day.”

  Laughs and cheers greeted his attempt at humor and Montoya smiled through his anger. He didn’t know who made him madder, the real assassin or the punk kid who’d made him look like a fool. He tried to figure out when he might have a five-minute hole in his schedule to call Sydney Ellison and find out what she’d learned.

  31

  Sydney

  “It’s not the Imminent Revelation,” Sydney told Fidel Montoya when he got hold of her ten minutes after she and Reese arrived home from the compound. She hadn’t yet had time to change or think about her next move.

  “How can you be sure?” Montoya asked in a whisper, and Sydney imagined he’d ducked into a hallway or restroom to make a quick call between campaign stops. “Those letters —”

  “Take my word for it, Fidel. If these guys wanted to kill you, they’d do it themselves.” She gave him a quick rundown of her encounter with Fisher.

  “Jesus!” Montoya was silent for a moment. “What are you thinking, then? Who will you talk to next?”

  “I’ll be fine. Thanks for asking,” she said drily. “And my car was two years old, after all. I might as well get a new one.”

  “Hey, get off my ass, Syd,” Montoya snapped. “I’m sorry they roughed you up, but it’s my life we’re talking about here.” His voice softened. “Look, fax the map to my aide and I’ll have one of my guys pick up your car. Okay?”

  “Thanks.”

  “So, what’s your plan? Make it snappy … I’ve only got thirty seconds before my interview.”

  Maybe she’d tune in to the five o’clock news and see what he had to say, Sydney thought. She’d bet he wasn’t this peremptory with the reporter. “Has anyone close to you died this year, in mysterious or unexplained circumstances?” She explained the logic behind
the question.

  “You think someone’s got it in for the Montoya clan, that someone’s killing us off one by one?” The congressman snorted with disbelief. When she didn’t rise to the bait, he was silent a moment and then said, “My mother died in March, but since she was ninety-four and had been in a nursing home for a decade, I don’t think we can call that a suspicious death.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “No. My brother’s got colon cancer, but he’s not dead yet. No relative that I know of has tumbled off a convenient cliff, dropped dead of some unidentified poison, or drowned in the bathtub. You’re thinking this is personal?”

  Was that skepticism or worry in his voice? “It’s certainly possible. I’d been thinking the hit must be a political thing, but now I’m wondering. I’m going to talk to Jimmy.”

  “Jimmy? My son?”

  “Yeah. I understand he owes some people who might like to see him come into his inheritance sooner rather than later.”

  A ten-second pause followed her comment, and Sydney wondered if Montoya was trying to assimilate a new and unpalatable idea or if he was thinking of a way to head her off. “He’ll be at the stables tomorrow morning early if you want to catch up with him,” he surprised her by saying. “Sambrano’s. Off 97.”

  “Thanks. Did you know Senator Fewell?”

  She sensed his confusion. “Armand? Of course. Tragic, what happened, a great loss for Amer—wait. You think his death is connected to this?”

  She gave him points for catching on quickly. “Maybe. Were you close?”

  “Not really. He batted for the other team, you know. Republicans. He was a leader in the Black Caucus, more honest than most, I hear. He died in a hunting accident. How could that be connected to someone trying to shoot me?”

  It really was all about him. Jason didn’t count. “I don’t know that it is, but I’m checking all the angles I can think of,” she replied. “I want to talk to Fewell’s wife and his hunting buddy.”

  “I can call Emma for you, pave the way. I’ll try to set it up for tomorrow—the Fewells aren’t far from the stable.”

  “Did you sleep with her?”

  Sydney’s suspicion seemed to amuse or flatter Montoya, although he expostulated, “For God’s sake, Syd. I don’t sleep with every attractive woman who crosses my path. Besides, Emma Fewell’s not my type.”

  “Too smart?” Sydney couldn’t resist the barb.

  “Too old. Too religious.” A murmur of voices suggested someone had claimed his attention, and his tone was more curt when he spoke again. “Who else are you going to harass?”

  “Your wife. Your uncle-in-law.”

  If she’d hoped to push him off-balance, she failed. “Matvei Utkin? Why? I hardly know the—ah, you’re thinking he has a crew of contract killers. He might, at that.” Montoya’s tone was thoughtful. “Be careful with Utkin. He’s the real deal. Katya sees him on occasion, but the guy makes me want to sit with my back to the wall. Don’t go alone, and let someone know where you’re going to be.”

  “This sudden concern for my welfare is touching,” Sydney said acidly.

  He laughed. “I like you, Syd, I do. I don’t want to hear they’ve fished you out of the Anacostia with a bullet hole between your beautiful eyes. Besides, you’re my best hope of finding out who’s behind this. Don’t get yourself killed.” A ghost of a laugh echoed as he hung up.

  Sydney lowered her cell phone, frowning. Fidel Montoya was something of an enigma. She couldn’t afford to forget that he was, at heart, a politician, experienced at spinning six or seven different versions of a story depending on what he wanted from his audience. It looked like he wanted her to find the person or organization that had hired a hit man to kill him. But was that all he was after?

  32

  Paul

  Fixed habits could be fatal, as anyone who’d ever been through a counter-terrorism or counter-kidnapping course knew, but people fell into them as easily as rolling out of bed. Even if they’d been trained, they tumbled back into their ruts after a week or two of mixing things up. Habit was a force on par with gravity, in Paul’s opinion. And he could tell that Montoya had never been encouraged to vary his routine. Tonight would be no different. After the congressman gave a speech at the American Bar Association’s banquet, Montoya would walk back to his tiny apartment, a converted garage near the congressional offices where many congressmen, senators, and staffers rented apartments or rooms. Many of them shared. Thankfully, Montoya didn’t have a roommate, although a cute blonde slept over from time to time. It was only six blocks from the hotel ballroom and the weather was good.

  Paul waited in a stinking alley along Montoya’s route, behind a restaurant and a dry cleaner. The smell of putrefying enchiladas wafted from the dumpster behind Tres Hombres. Just his luck the dumpsters hadn’t been emptied in a week and the sun had baked their contents to a toxic sludge. He might never eat Mexican again. But he’d reconnoitered the terrain between the hotel and the apartment that afternoon and selected the alley as the best spot for an ambush. With any luck, Montoya’d be a bit drunk, easy to accost and shoot. The newspapers would write it up as another mugging and the cops would waste time bringing in the usual suspects. It might not be an “accident” in the sense the client intended, but it was close enough for government work. No one would think to call it an assassination. With small, precise twists, he fitted the silencer onto his weapon’s muzzle.

  A scuffle from his right caught Paul’s attention and a scrawny tail slipped between two dumpsters. Rats. In Bangkok, they’d literally crawled over his head as he infiltrated the home of a rich VC sympathizer by wading through the khlong, breathing through a reed-like tube. Rotting fruit and God knows what else had bobbed around him on the dark water the locals used as both toilet and wash tub. The rats’ claws had scraped his scalp as they’d leaped from his head to a pier littered with droppings from the morning’s market. Paul shook his head sharply. He’d been thinking a lot about ’Nam lately, more than he had since his first couple years back, and it was distracting him. His pop’s situation was distracting him. The gunshot wound—swollen and aching—was distracting him. Distractions landed you in prison. He needed to goddamn focus. He glanced at his watch. Any time now.

  Footsteps approached. Paul tensed, holding his gun ready against his thigh. The steps stuttered to a halt and a shadow appeared at the mouth of the alley. Backlit by a streetlamp, the figure lifted a bottle to its mouth and guzzled. Not Montoya. Paul pressed himself back against the bricks, wincing as he jarred his injured shoulder. The clink of glass on concrete and a slurred curse told him the bum’s bottle was empty. Good, maybe he’d wander off in search of more oblivion. On the thought, the man slumped to the ground, half in and half out of the alley, and began to snore, one hand reaching toward the empty bottle.

  Shit. Paul eased away from the wall and paced silently toward the man. Maybe he could roust him, get him to move along before Montoya showed up. Wet snores issued from the drunk’s slack mouth, and he didn’t stir.

  As he studied the man, Paul felt his irritation drain away. Jug ears stuck out from beneath his navy watch cap, and a half inch of grizzled stubble roughened his jaw and concave cheeks. He looked about seventy but could have been as young as fifty, Paul figured. Life on the streets was no fountain of youth. The sour-sweet odor of cheap bourbon floated off him, reminding Paul of the one time he’d seen his pop drunk, the day after they buried Paul’s mother. Let the old guy sleep it off, he told himself. He wasn’t any threat as a witness. As quietly as he’d crept forward, Paul melted back into the shadows.

  Taking slow, deep breaths, he slowed his heartbeat and respiration, sliding into the meditative state that enabled him to wait for hours, when necessary, to ambush a target. He wasn’t sure how many minutes had passed when more footsteps sounded. His abdominal muscles clenched as he became fully alert instantaneously. Montoya? No. At leas
t two people, maybe three, moving faster than Montoya was likely to walk. Paul relaxed but held himself still, secure in the alley’s shadows. They’d pass by and—

  “He’s here.”

  The voice, young, taut with excitement, jarred Paul. Were they looking for him? How had they known—? His hand tightened around the gun.

  “Fucking drunk.” This voice was higher-pitched, also buzzing with anticipation.

  They weren’t looking for him; they were after the bum, for some reason. A meaty thunk was followed by a groan and a confused, “Wha—?”

  The pallid slap of flesh on unresisting flesh told Paul that the teens—he could discern two figures dancing around the homeless man—were beating the man. Before he could decide whether or not to intervene, the first voice said, “You got the lighter fluid?”

  “Oh, yeah.” A sloshing of liquid and the scent of kerosene drifted to Paul. A giggle.

  “No, no!” The terror-stricken denial came from the drunk, struggling to cover his head with his arms as the teenager directed a stream of fluid at him from a rectangular can.

  Paul’s mind flashed to the water buffalo his squad had set alight one morning at dawn. He’d only been in country two weeks and they’d lost three men overnight, including their lieutenant, when VC jumped them outside a small village. Daylight and a two-ship of A-10 Warthogs flying CAS had chased away the VC, and Paul had never been sure whether the buffalo was revenge or celebration. All he remembered was the sting of the gasoline in his nose as Dawson—he’d bought it only two days later, torn in half by a Bouncing Betty—doused the dumb animal with gasoline stores from their Jeep and Manny tossed a lighted match. The agonized bellows as the buffalo went up in a sheet of flame, stumbled to its knees, and then staggered, lowing, into a rice paddy with a hiss of steam still haunted him. As did the laughter.