Wild Card

by Stuart Woods

  “But I e-mailed and texted Harod about the cancellation. He did not answer his phone.”

  “Perhaps because he was already dead at your rendezvous point.”

  “If that is the case, I’m very sorry to hear it.”

  “Why? You canceled the contracts.”

  “Yes, but not permanently. Also, I have other work to be done.”

  “Before any work can be done,” Tigner said, “there is the matter of the two hundred thousand dollars.”

  “I am certainly willing to pay that, as our agreement requires.”

  “Then you will have to pay it before we can discuss other work.”

  “How can I contact you?”

  “Send an e-mail to the following address,” he said, and then dictated the address. “Then I will call you on this number.”

  “No, not this number. I will give you another.” Damien did so.

  “Then we will be in touch as soon as the headlines change,” Tigner said, then hung up.

  Damien hung up, too, feeling both weak with relief that he had a solution to the Box problem and afraid of this man Tigner.

  53

  Tim Tigner, as he had begun to think of himself, began to feel very comfortable in his world. He had the amassed funds earned from assassinations by himself and his cohorts, amounting to nearly five hundred thousand dollars, and another two hundred thousand dollars on the way, when he requested it. He let his hair grow and began to shave his face every day; he bought some new, rather fashionable clothes; and to sharpen his English pronunciation, used as models television newspeople, all of whom seemed to be from the same place in the United States.

  He attended lectures at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and went to the movies a lot. He was courteous and charming to his neighbors, who gathered at the cocktail hour in a lounge for tenants on the ground floor in his building, and in particular, a dark-haired, curvaceous young woman who seemed anxious to have someone to talk to.

  “My name is Karen Landis,” she said when asked.

  “I’m Tim Tigner,” he replied.

  “Do I detect a slight accent?” she asked.

  “I was born in Paris, to an American father and an Algerian mother, so my accent is a bit scrambled.”

  She switched to French, and he joined the conversation smoothly, French being one of his native languages.

  “You have a beautiful accent,” she said. “What do you do?”

  “I am an investor,” he said. “Or perhaps just unemployed.”

  She laughed. “I’m a registered nurse, at Lenox Hill Hospital,” she said.

  “Then you must care about others,” he said.

  “Yes, I do.”

  They talked on and agreed to have dinner, and by the end of that date, Tim felt that he had found his first girlfriend.

  * * *

  • • •

  Damien was at his desk when a secretary knocked and entered. “Yes?”

  “We have a request from our medical insurers for information about Elise Grant,” she said, handing him a form. “They just want to know if she was employed here and if she had any medical problems at that time.”

  “Let me see that,” Damien said, holding out his hand. She gave him the form, and he scanned it. Elise was now employed by the Barrington Practice, at a Turtle Bay address. “Ah, yes,” he said, handing the form back to her, “give them the information they want.”

  “Bingo!” he said aloud to himself, when she had gone.

  * * *

  • • •

  Bob Cantor sat on a bench in Central Park, with Sherry by his side. “It’s so nice to be out of the house,” Sherry said, “even if the house is awfully nice.”

  “Stone has been good to us,” Bob said, “but now it’s about time we move out. I’d like it to be together.”

  “I’d like that, too,” Sherry replied, squeezing his hand. “I’ve grown accustomed to having you around, day and night, and I like it. Do you think we’re safe now?”

  “I think we’re as safe as we can be until the Thomases are either out of the country or in prison, but I suppose that will take a while.”

  “The company has been acquired by that hedge fund,” she said, “according to the Times business page. So I suppose there’s nothing keeping them here.”

  “Not cell bars, anyway,” Bob replied. “They haven’t even been arrested.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Damien was feeling safer, too. The acquisition had gone smoothly, and he and the Thomases had been asked to stay on until the end of the year. He had begun to believe that Harman Wills liked him and might offer him something good soon.

  The sound of a distant cell phone ringing could be heard and he opened his desk drawer and answered the throwaway inside.

  “Good morning, this is Tim Tigner,” that voice said.

  “I hope you’re well,” Damien replied.

  “I think it’s time for us to meet,” Tigner said.

  “Where and when?”

  “There is a restaurant called Patroon, on East Forty-sixth Street.”

  “I know the place.”

  “They have an outdoor bar and lounge upstairs. Let’s meet there at six PM today.”

  “That will be satisfactory.”

  “And don’t forget to bring payment,” Tigner said, then hung up.

  * * *

  • • •

  At six sharp, Damien got off the elevator at Patroon and, carrying a briefcase, walked onto the upstairs deck, which was busy with the after-work crowd. He looked around and saw no one who might be Tigner. Then, across the deck, sitting on a divan, a young man raised a single finger.

  Damien crossed the deck and stood before the divan. “I can’t quite remember the name,” he said. “Mr. . . .”

  “Tigner.” He moved over to make room.

  Damien sat down, and a waiter came over. “A very dry vodka martini,” he said to the man.

  “Two,” Tigner added.

  Damien set down his briefcase between them on the divan.

  “Is that my payment?” Tigner asked.

  “It is. Exactly two hundred thousand dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills.”

  Tigner reached for the briefcase, then stopped. “Open it, please,” he said.

  Damien noted that the dark, friendly eyes had hardened. “Of course,” he replied. He rotated the case 180 degrees, reached out, released the locks, and, after a look around to be sure no one was watching them, opened the case.

  Tigner reached out, riffled through each stack of notes, then nodded and closed the case. “Very good.”

  The waiter delivered their martinis and they raised their glasses to each other.

  “To a useful and happy relationship,” Damien said.

  They clinked glasses and sipped.

  “And now, I believe there is the matter of Miss Grant, Mr. Barrington, Robert Cantor, and Sherry Spector,” Tigner said.

  “There is, but that contract has been put on hold for a while. There is a new subject, however, one that will require a new contract.”

  “Please continue,” Tigner said.

  “His name is Joseph Box. He’s a United States senator.”

  “Ah, yes,” Tigner replied. “I have seen him on the news shows. He is very articulate.”

  “That he is,” Damien replied.

  “Where and when would you like the contract executed?”

  “Senator Box is on the road at the moment,” Damien said, withdrawing several sheets of paper from an inside pocket and handing them to Tigner. “This is his schedule. I would like you to follow him and discern his habits, particularly with women. It would be good if he were found dead with a woman, particularly if it were a married woman. That’s something of a specialty of the senator.”


  “But no date?”

  “To come—sometime during the next few weeks. When it does come, you’ll be expected to execute within twenty-four hours.”

  “All right,” Tigner said. “A hundred thousand for Box, another fifty for the woman, and a thousand dollars a day for travel expenses.”

  “Done,” Damien said. “You’ll find another hundred thousand in the case, under a flap in the bottom, as a down payment; the rest, on execution.”

  “As you say,” Tigner replied. “I will leave first, if that’s all right.”

  “Of course.”

  Tigner handed him a throwaway cell phone. “This is to be used for all contacts.”

  “Right,” Damien replied.

  Both men rose, shook hands, then Tigner picked up the briefcase and walked to the elevator.

  Damien poured the remains of Tigner’s martini into his own glass, and made himself comfortable.

  54

  Tim Tigner took a one-week driving-school course, obtained a New York driver’s license, and bought a five-year-old, low-mileage Mercedes station wagon from an online ad, paying the grateful seller in cash.

  He rented garage space next door to his building, then removed the folding third-row seat from its compartment, installed a lock, and stowed his necessary weaponry, equipment, and cash there. He consulted a road map and Senator Box’s schedule and selected Kansas City, Missouri, as an interception point.

  * * *

  • • •

  Three days later, he checked into an old hotel across the street from Box’s Kansas City, Missouri, campaign headquarters, then dropped in and collected some pamphlets and position papers, while casing the premises. Box’s name was on a mezzanine office, overlooking a dozen desks, next to a plate-glass window. His hotel was in view, and the building next to it seemed a good point for a sniper, if the opportunity arose. He stopped at a desk and asked a young woman when the senator was due in town.

  “He’s already arrived,” she said.

  “Will he visit the headquarters?”

  “Yes, about five o’clock, for the rally this evening,” she said, “if you’d like to meet him.”

  “Thank you, I would,” Tigner said. “I’m with Nouveaux Temps magazine, in Paris. We have a worldwide circulation, and I’d very much like to interview him.”

  She consulted a schedule—without asking for his credentials. “If you could be here at six-forty-five, he has fifteen minutes free then.”

  “Perfect,” he replied. “Could you make a note of my name and publication for his schedule, so there won’t be any mix-up?”

  “Of course. We do that as a matter of routine.”

  He spelled everything for her, thanked her, and walked toward the front door.

  * * *

  • • •

  Ari Kramer and Annie Lee were credentialed for the campaign aircraft, an elderly Boeing 727, with the words SENATOR JOE BOX FOR AMERICA emblazoned on the side, and arrived in the early afternoon. They were in the campaign headquarters when a young man in a business suit, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and carrying a briefcase, walked past them, gaining Ari’s attention.

  “Something wrong with that man?” Annie asked him.

  “No, he’s just about the only member of the public I’ve ever seen in a campaign headquarters wearing a suit and tie, that’s all.”

  Annie took a good look at the young man. “It makes him more interesting,” she said.

  * * *

  • • •

  Tigner went back to his hotel, walked up the fire stairs to the third floor, and went out onto the fire escape, which hung slightly over the gap between the platform and the parapet of the building next door. He jumped down onto the roof, walked to the front of the neighboring building, and leaned on the parapet, which came up to his chest. There, just across the street, was the empty office of Senator Joseph Box, no more than fifty yards away.

  It occurred to him that, after he had taken the shot, this was the first place the police would search. So he walked around the roof of the building looking for a way to dispose of his weapon and found a large ventilator shaft with a curved top, opening onto the roof. He put his hand inside and felt hot air blowing out. He then returned to the fire escape at a trot, found an empty wooden box near it, set the box next to the parapet, then with one step to the box and another to the parapet, jumped across the gap between the buildings and let himself into the hotel. A short walk down the hall, then he took the elevator to his room on the second floor.

  He pulled away the velcroed inside flap of his suitcase and selected from a small array of forged documents a press pass issued by the Paris police with his photograph and name on it, giving him the title of U.S. correspondent and bearing an official-looking stamp. He also took out an international driver’s license, then resealed the flap.

  He got out his throwaway cell and called Damien.

  “Yes?”

  “Can you talk for a moment?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have intersected in Kansas City with the gentleman you wanted me to say hello to. There will be an excellent opportunity for me to complete the introduction in a couple of hours.”

  “Let me check a few things, and I’ll call you back,” Damien said, then hung up.

  * * *

  • • •

  Damien went to Hank’s office. “This may be sooner than we expected, but there’s an opportunity to take out Joe Box in Kansas City, in about two hours. What would you like to do?”

  Hank sat back in his chair and thought about it, then he tapped a finger on the newspaper on his desk. “Box is still moving up in the polls,” he said. “I think if we wait much longer he might become too big a thing, and they’ll give him Secret Service protection, and we don’t want to deal with that. I think this might be a good time.”

  “Then I will press the button,” Damien said. He went back to his office and called the number.

  “Yes?” Tigner asked

  “This is a perfect time for you to meet the gentleman,” he said.

  “I’ll be back in the city in a couple of days,” Tigner said. “I’ll call you then.” He hung up.

  Tigner walked down the stairs to the parking garage, where he unlocked and opened the rear of the station wagon. He put on a thin pair of driving gloves, took out a nylon carryall, and set inside it a military-style carbine, broken into two pieces, and a telescopic sight, along with a silencer/suppressor that was about eighteen inches long. He loaded the weapon with six rounds of ammunition, then he added a light black sweater and a ski mask and a pair of long latex gloves. He returned to his room and watched TV for a while, then he found a room service menu, picked up the phone, and ordered a strip steak, fries, beans, and half a bottle of cabernet.

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Tigner. That will take about thirty or forty minutes.”

  “Fine,” he replied. “I may be in the shower. Please ask the waiter just to let himself in and set up on the coffee table in my room and open the wine to breathe. Add a twenty-five percent tip to the check.”

  “Of course.”

  Tigner turned on the shower to a warm temperature, hung his suit jacket and tie in his closet, took the black bag, slipped on the light black sweater over his shirt, took the bag, and retraced his steps to the fire escape. He looked around and saw nobody watching, so he tossed the bag onto the roof, then jumped after it. Still looking for anyone who might see him, he walked to the parapet, put on the ski mask, pulled on the latex gloves over his sleeves. He assembled the rifle, affixed the scope, then took a peek over the parapet. Ten minutes passed before he heard a siren, and a police car pulled up at the campaign headquarters, followed by a short motorcade, which disgorged Senator Joseph Box and a dozen other people. They went inside, where the senator shook the hands of the campaign volunteers, then Box worked his way upstairs to his mezza
nine office, and there he came into Tigner’s view.

  Tigner took one more look around, then rested the rifle on the parapet, pulled back on the slide to move the first round into the chamber, and trained the sight’s crosshairs on the plate-glass window.

  Senator Box entered the office with two other people, one of whom closed the door behind them. Box sat down at the desk.

  “Perfect,” Tigner said, squeezing off the round. Box collapsed behind his desk. Tigner then disassembled the weapon, wiped it clean, and dropped it into the bag with the sweater, the ski mask, and, finally, the long latex gloves. Taking care not to touch anything but the handles, he trotted over to the ventilator, dropped it down the shaft, and turned toward the fire escape. He decided the box he had left there was too obvious, so he kicked it away a few feet, stood back, and ran at the parapet.

  He got a foot on the parapet, then jumped for the fire escape. Once inside, he closed the door behind him and ran down the stairs to his floor, down the hall, and let himself into his room. His dinner rested on the coffee table.

  He hung his clothes in the closet, got into the shower, and scrubbed his hands and body to remove any residue from the shots fired, then toweled down, got into a terrycloth robe, and went back into the living room. The TV was still on, and a news announcer was reporting, over a breaking news banner, that the presidential candidate, Senator Joseph Box, had been shot at his campaign headquarters; no word on his condition.

  Tigner left it on and began to eat his steak and drink some of the wine. He was still eating his steak when there was a hammering on the door. “Police!” somebody shouted.

  55

  Ari and Annie met Senator Box as he came into the headquarters. “Let me shake some hands, and I’ll be right with you,” the senator said.

  They watched him work the room, not missing a soul, and finally, he beckoned them to follow him up the stairs to his mezzanine office.