Time to Kill

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘You got the cleaning things?’

  ‘You saw me pack them this morning, before we left the house.’

  Ann’s hand was back supporting her wrist, Slater saw. He’d definitely make contact with Potter tomorrow. This really couldn’t go on any longer. ‘I’m going …’ started Slater, but then stopped.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Slater. He’d gauge the FBI supervisor’s reaction before beginning the battle with Ann about relocation.

  There’s the cemetery up ahead,’ she said, unnecessarily.

  Battle was very definitely going to be the apposite word, Slater knew.

  Surveillance – remaining invisible while always keeping a target in sight – had always earned the highest grades in Jack Mason’s tradecraft training; he’d never blown a genuine field operation, which was how he regarded the killings he was about to carry out. He’d be unseen in the most perfect ambush position at the precise moment Slater and Ann were at their most vulnerable, emerge, strike and be gone, the contemptuous flowers strewn about them, the perfect, unsolvable crime committed. It would probably be listed as that in crime textbooks, as he knew both from his Internet surfing and time as the penitentiary’s librarian that his treason was listed as one of the most serious as well as the most humiliating spying episodes in the CIA’s history. He wished he could be publicly acknowledged for the second as well as the first memorable acts.

  Mason used the discreetly small side gate from which the boy’s grave was completely hidden and approached the privet hiding place along a path that gave him the most extensive view of the area beyond it. There was a scattering of mourners, all of whom he judged far enough away not to connect his firing of the Glock with bullet shots. If Slater and Ann were on time, the funereal tolling of the church bell would help cover the noise, as well. Much closer, though, were two separate gangs of cemetery gardeners, weeding and border edging and grave tidying. Slater and Ann always knelt, as if they were praying, which they probably were. That’s what he had to do, come in low like someone else praying with them in a grieving huddle if any of the workers abruptly looked up, attracted by the sound. That was the trick of being invisible, merging in with the background. Slater and Ann would be prostrate by death, not grief by then, unable to shout for help. It was a delicious irony that briefly, as he stayed crouched low over them, they would be providing cover for him. They’d deserve their flowers.

  They were coming! He could see them, walking as they always walked, Ann leaning heavily upon Slater’s arm as if she needed his physical support, her head bowed. In her free hand she carried a bouquet of red flowers the names of which Mason didn’t know. Slater, by comparison, was not bow-headed, but gazing about him, once even turning to look behind them. Slater was carrying a bucket, a broom handle protruding above its rim. At a standpipe faucet about five yards from the grave they separated. Ann took out the broom, as well as a trowel and a dust tray. Slater splashed some water into the bucket, which Mason saw had a funnelled rim. Perfect, Mason decided; they’d be distracted, engrossed, in their grave tidying. They wouldn’t be aware of him until he was upon them, too close – too ready – to miss.

  Momentarily they went out of Mason’s view, obscured behind his protective hedge. Mason gently parted the thicket, giving himself a disguised peephole, breathing in sharply at what he immediately saw through it. They were at the graveside, Slater brushing and sweeping, Ann changing old flowers for new and adding fresh water from the bucket. But not positioned as he’d expected. Always before they’d knelt side by side, their backs to the privet hedge from behind which he’d approach. Today they were either side, Ann with her back to him but Slater opposite, facing him. He had to go ahead, couldn’t put it off. Slater was engrossed, head bent. He had to move slowly, Mason knew, do nothing to attract Slater’s attention. Do it now, while Slater was hunched forward! Move now!

  Gently Mason squeezed the trigger, unlocking the bar, as he rose and stepped from behind the hedge, treading as lightly as he could, needing to concentrate upon them and not able to look down to avoid any twig-snapping alert. He could hear the thump of his own heart, sounding in his ears, glad that the gloves stopped the butt feeling slippery in the sweat of his hands.

  The other noise was startling, stopping him, although he couldn’t distinguish the megaphone words. He only heard his own name when it was repeated but heard it all the third time.

  ‘MASON! DROP THE GUN! ON YOUR FACE! ON YOUR FACE OR WE’LL SHOOT! NOW! ON YOUR FACE NOW!’

  Everything kaleidoscoped. Mason saw some of the cemetery gardeners running towards him, although they had guns in their hands. Beyond them three marksmen were spread out, sight-fitted rifles trained upon him. At the grave Slater was snatching inside his jacket and as he did so Ann screamed, throwing herself forward but turning at the same time to look behind her. Mason ran at them, firing as he did so, crying out at what felt like a punch that abruptly stopped him, and at not seeing Ann, at whom he’d fired, crumple forward. Mason tried to bring his arm over, to steady his right wrist but he couldn’t move it because of the numbness. Slater had a gun in his hand now and was crouched but when he tried to fire nothing happened. There was the noise of two faraway shots, from the marksmen, but again Mason didn’t feel any immediate pain at the punch of impact.

  But then he did, taking his breath, and saw Ann, still on the ground but with a gun now and as he tried to train the Glock on her she fired again and he was falling, not able to stop himself but still not feeling any pain, and then she was standing over him shouting words he couldn’t hear. The jerk of the gun as Ann fired for the third time was the last thing that Mason ever saw because she shot him full in the face.

  Thirty

  ‘You pig fucking son of a bitch,’ exploded Slater, the fury as well as the lingering terror shuddering through him. ‘Ann could have died, set up as bait like that! I could have died!’

  ‘But you didn’t,’ said Potter, dismissively. ‘We had everything covered and my guys stopped him.’

  ‘Ann stopped him after your guys missed him being anywhere near the cemetery because you had fuck all covered. You didn’t even know he was here until he came out from behind the most obvious concealment so close to David’s grave; the most obvious place to watch, not the main entrance where you all were,’ accused Slater, sweeping his hand around the large cemetery administration office which the FBI had taken over for what had clearly been a long established surveillance operation. There were two scope-equipped sniper’s rifles mounted on stands overlooking the parking area and three still flickering screens connected to temporarily installed CCTV cameras showing the three major paths leading to David’s resting place. Incredibly the actual grave was only shown in the top left-hand frame of one. Even more incredibly the hedge behind which Mason had hidden wasn’t shown at all. Mason’s body had been removed but the grave was trampled and a lot of earth scattered by the stampede of agents that had followed Mason’s sudden appearance. The doctor who had given the near hysterical Ann the calming sedation had gone and only Denver and Potter remained with them in the room, Ann seemingly oblivious to the argument.

  ‘What are you more pissed off about, the fact that you lost your professional edge and didn’t see what was going down or that you forgot to slip the safety on the gun we fast tracked a carrying licence for you?’ demanded Potter, belligerently.

  He had realized what was going down, thought Slater, had intended confronting Potter the very next day. They wouldn’t believe him if he admitted that now. And he didn’t want to anyway because it made him look a wimp and destroyed his own argument against them. And he was pissed off, totally humiliated, by his ineffectiveness at the very moment he’d been called upon to protect Ann. He said, ‘I’m pissed off at being treated like an idiot,’ and knew he sounded like one.

  ‘It all turned out fine, no one hurt except the guy who was intended to be,’ intruded Denver, the peacemaker. ‘You and your wife have nothing more to worry about, ev
er again.’

  Except rebuilding their lives and spending the rest of it without David, which Slater knew they could never completely do. ‘How’d you know for sure that Mason had found us?’

  ‘He wore latex gloves when he torched the stolen car with which he killed David; tossed them in after soaking everything in gas. The explosion blew one of them a long way from the car. The FBI wonder men at the Hoover building found enough of a print inside one of the glove fingers to match with Mason’s records. And the sap, or whatever the hell it is in a tulip stem, held enough under a scientific test too technical for me to understand to confirm another print. And we got a little help from California, where he tried to set up an alibi.’

  ‘So what happens now?’ asked Slater.

  ‘We did have the scene covered,’ insisted Potter. ‘We controlled enough of the cemetery to keep everything totally under wraps. David’s murder, which it really was, will officially remain an unresolved accident, never to become public knowledge as a planned killing. You’ll never be identified for whom you really are. Like Pete says, you and your wife can get back to living your lives.’

  ‘It was the Witness Protection Programme, wasn’t it?’ demanded Slater, disgusted by the cynicism. ‘You really didn’t give a fuck about Ann or me, did you? You’d have covered up who I am, if we’d got killed, just as long as you’d got Mason to keep everything tidy.’

  ‘You might have forgotten most of them, but you know the rules, Mr Slater,’ said the fat FBI man.

  ‘Motherfuckers!’ said Slater.

  ‘On behalf of the United States Government, the CIA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation I have to thank you and your wife for your co-operation,’ said Denver. ‘I can’t imagine you having the need again, but if you do, you have the numbers.’

  ‘No,’ said Slater. ‘I won’t ever have the need to speak with you again.’

  ‘You didn’t shoot when he came up behind me!’

  Slater jumped, startled by the quiet-voiced accusation. Ann had slumped against him, needing his support to get from the cemetery office to his car. ‘My gun jammed.’

  ‘He said you forgot to release the safety catch.’

  ‘It jammed,’ lied Slater. In his terror of Mason he’d frozen, like a rabbit caught in headlights. And Ann knew it. She was established with the gallery; had a reputation. She could survive on her own, now that Jack was dead, now that he didn’t have a face any more. ‘It was me … me who stopped him. Killed him. Not you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Didn’t protect me, as you should.’

  Slater didn’t have a response.

  ‘That’s why I stopped drinking again. I knew I had to stay sober, to look after myself. That no one else would.’

  ‘My gun jammed!’ persisted Slater.

  ‘Jack’s face will never haunt me again. I shot his face off. He always said that’s what he’d do to me, if I tried to leave him, take away my face. I took his off instead.’

  ‘We’re almost home,’ said Slater. Ann was definitely going to need help now. He’d call Hillary Neslon in the morning.

  ‘We won’t be able to, will we? Go on living our lives. Not now.’

  ‘Yes we will,’ said Slater, knowing she was right.

  ‘No,’ refuted Ann. ‘It’s changed now. Nothing’s the same. All over.’ She was established with the gallery now, had a reputation. She could survive now that Jack was dead, now that he didn’t have a face anymore.

  They lay naked and uncovered on the bed of the Santa Barbara cottage as Beverley remembered she had twice lain with Jack Mason, the perspiration of their lovemaking drying on them. She said, ‘That was wonderful.’

  ‘It always is, with you. It’s going to be a great vacation,’ Glynis Needham answered.

  ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

  ‘I want to be here a lot more,’ said the DC-based parole officer, stretching out a hand to touch Beverley. ‘You know what I’d like?’

  ‘I thought you’d just shown me,’ Beverley sniggered.

  ‘I’d like to show you a lot more often. Settle in together. Either I relocate out here or you come east.’

  ‘It’s something to think about,’ hedged Beverley.

  ‘You’ve got a whole lot of federal brownie points over the Mason case. How’d you get on to him like you did, realize things weren’t right?’

  ‘A hunch, I guess. He told me he wasn’t surprised his wife divorced him and that he hoped she was happy, that he still loved her in some ways. But in all those documents you sent me there was her statement that was never produced in court that he beat her a lot. And when he was here in California, he kept moving around, claiming to be trying to get work but nothing ever materialized. When you called and told me of the FBI enquiry I checked at the firms he told me he’d approached. Some had never even heard of him.’ She’d been lucky, getting away scot-free. She was sure now that he’d have done his best to destroy her if he’d been caught, not killed.

  ‘He was a cheating, lying motherfucker,’ said Glynis.

  ‘And then some.’ The sex had been fantastic and she’d actually thought he was the man with whom she could have gone straight, after swinging both ways for so long and failing with the man she’d married. Maybe setting up home with Glynis wasn’t such a bad idea. It would settle the uncertainty.

  ‘I want you to kiss me, like you did just now.’

  ‘I want to, as well,’ said Beverley.

  Postscript

  ‘You sure you had the right date?’ asked the New York parole officer.

  ‘Positive. And the place.’ Peter Chambers hadn’t told the other man it was Jack Mason for whom he’d been waiting to set up a business arrangement and was glad now that he hadn’t. He felt stupid, worried the guy would think he was a fantasist, weak in the head.

  ‘Guess he’s not going to show, Pete.’

  ‘I guess not,’ said Chambers, who hated being called Pete. Mason had never shortened his name. Always properly, Peter. Why hadn’t he been there at the hotel, like he’d promised? He’d have abandoned New Orleans for California, if Jack had demanded it.

  ‘Guess that puts you on your own.’

  ‘Yes,’ conceded Chambers, confronting the loneliness that terrified him.

  ‘You know the conditions of your release?’

  ‘All of them,’ assured Chambers.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m not sure, now that I’ve been let down like this.’

  ‘We need to keep in close touch. Your conviction isn’t going to make it easy getting anything like a bookkeeping job.’

  ‘I might look at something else. As I said, I don’t have anything definite in mind, not now.’

  ‘You’ve got to find some gainful employment,’ said the parole official, formally.

  ‘I know, sir,’ assured Chambers. Why hadn’t Jack been waiting for him! Maybe, Chambers thought, he should have told Jack he definitely had three million dollars squirreled away, instead of implying it. He’d go on living at the Sheraton, Chambers decided, just in case. There could be all sorts of reasons why Jack was delayed.

  A Biography of Brian Freemantle

  Brian Freemantle (b. 1936) is one of Britain’s most prolific and accomplished authors of spy fiction. His novels have sold more than ten million copies worldwide, and have been optioned for numerous film and television adaptations.

  Born in Southampton, on the southern coast of England, Freemantle began his career as a journalist. In 1975, as the foreign editor at the Daily Mail, he made headlines during the American evacuation of Saigon: As the North Vietnamese closed in on the city, Freemantle became worried about the future of the city’s orphans. He lobbied his superiors at the paper to take action, and they agreed to fund an evacuation for the children. In three days, Freemantle organized a thirty-six-hour helicopter airlift for ninety-nine children, who were transported to Britain. In a flash of dramatic inspiration, he changed nearly one hundred lives—and sold a bundle o
f newspapers.

  Although he began writing espionage fiction in the late 1960s, he first won fame in 1977, with Charlie M. That book introduced the world to Charlie Muffin—a disheveled spy with a skill set more bureaucratic than Bond-like. The novel, which drew favorable comparisons to the work of John Le Carré, was a hit, and Freemantle began writing sequels. The sixth in the series, The Blind Run, was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best Novel. To date, Freemantle has penned fourteen titles in the Charlie Muffin series, the most recent of which is Red Star Rising (2010), which brought back the popular spy after a nine-year absence.

  In addition to the stories of Charlie Muffin, Freemantle has written more than two dozen standalone novels, many of them under pseudonyms including Jonathan Evans and Andrea Hart. Freemantle’s other series include two books about Sebastian Holmes, an illegitimate son of Sherlock Holmes, and the four Cowley and Danilov books, which were written in the years after the end of the Cold War and follow an odd pair of detectives—an FBI operative and the head of Russia’s organized crime bureau.

  Freemantle lives and works in London, England.

  A school photograph of Brian Freemantle at age twelve.

  Brian Freemantle, at age fourteen, with his mother, Violet, at the country estate of a family acquaintance, Major Mears.

  Freemantle’s parents, Harold and Violet Freemantle, at the country estate of Major Mears.

  Brian Freemantle and his wife, Maureen, on their wedding day. They were married on December 8, 1956, in Southampton, where both were born and spent their childhoods. Although they attended the same schools, they did not meet until after they had both left Southampton.

  Brian Freemantle (right) with photographer Bob Lowry in 1959. Freemantle and Lowry opened a branch office of the Bristol Evening World together in Trowbridge, in Wiltshire, England.