James Patterson (21 page)

Damian Rose passed the first three hours of the morning struggling to fix a badly misused twenty-five-foot Bertram Sportsman.

Naked to the waist, dressed only in striped cotton pants, he worked on the speedboat’s trimplanes first; then replaced all the plugs; then did what he could about the engine’s timing.

The Caribbean was a pretty dark blue in the early morning. The cove where he worked was A Techni color blur. Fuzzy blue-and-gold-and-white brilliance. Like movies shot through a Vaseline-covered lens.

The cove was also neatly hidden from passing sea traffic; a little dogleg right behind a hill thick with palmettos.

Tucked up in the hills behind the cove was the home of a famous Caribbean landscape painter, the old recluse Eric Downes. Hidden in a closet with stacks of bare canvases, Downes now lay dead.

As he tuned the boat’s engine, Damian’s mind slipped back and forth between the Caribbean and France. Between the start of this working year and the end of it…. He remembered walks with Carrie through the Luxembourg Gardens; whole afternoons wasted in the Tuileries, the Place des Vosges, cafe sitting around St.-Germain-des-Prés.

After he finished the engine work, Rose took an extra gas tank and two M-21 rifles down below into the cabin. He left the new field machete up in the cockpit.

When he finally looked at his watch, he was surprised to see that it was nearly nine. That meant Carrie ought to be on her way to Morocco.

As he settled down to wait, Damian began to whistle sweet “Lili Marlene.” A truly great song. A tune that never failed to remind him of Carrie.

Zurich, Switzerland

Wearing a blue-gray shift and gray Valentino turban, she sat across from a red-mustached, very fat munchkin, S. O. Rogin, in the Schweizer Kreditverein in Zurich.

A soft leather HermÈs attaché case lay on a heavy marble table between them. Over their heads a crystal chandelier provided adequate light, though filled with a blizzard of dust motes.

Rogin spoke English with a thick German-Swiss accent with one bushy eyebrow curiously arched. “You wish to withdraw all six hundred twenty-nine thousand?”

Carrie considered the question for a moment. “Yes. All of it,” she then said. Very businesslike.

“Very well, then. All right. How would you like your money?”

The American woman took out a blue pack of cigarettes—Gauloises. The banker produced a klunky silver lighter. As Rogin lit her cigarette, a strong smell of kerosene wafted up. Then the lighter clicked shut like an aspirin tin.

“What would you suggest?” Carrie asked.

The fat munchkin began to grin. “What would I suggest? For starters, I would suggest we transfer the funds directly to your new bank.
Tout de suite,
Mrs. Chaplin. Easy as apple pie. No suitcases.”

“No. I’m afraid I must have the cash in hand, Herr Rogin.”

“Hmmm. Of course.” The redheaded man nodded. “Will madame be needing a security guard, then? I will explain to you the simple procedure for—”

“I’ll be fine.” Carrie smiled, effectively cutting off the man. “If you read in
New Zurchen
about someone murdered in the streets downtown,” she went on, “you’ll know that someone tried to take away my money.”

The munchkin—an American and British detective fan—laughed with genuine good humor. “No one is ever murdered in Zurich, madame. Not in that manner, anyway.” The banker laughed once again. Then he left to arrange for the six hundred twenty-nine thousand—one million five hundred thousand in Swiss francs.

As he walked through the elegant bank, S. O. Rogin wondered if the pretty lady was running away from her husband. He viewed Mrs. Chaplin as a sort of … Faye Dunaway type. The fat man recalled Miss Dunaway in a scene from
Windmills of the Mind.
No, no. From
The Thomas Crown Affair.
A wonderful escapist movie. All about robbing the banks of Boston.

Forty minutes later Carrie Rose walked out of the Kreditverein with the HermÈs briefcase full of Swiss francs. She was beginning to perspire now; her skin was prickling. She was paranoid about strangers on the Zurich streets.

The tall, long-haired American woman went just one block across the Stampfenbachstrasse, however. She entered the impressive Union Bank of Switzerland and redeposited the cash.

All part of the master plan.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-EIGHT

Sooner or later, we were certain they would throw Macdonald to us. Harold Hill was an executive: good executives are executors. Predictable because they try to be so logical…. Damian never tries to figure out the mazes, just the mice….

The Rose Diary

Wahoo Cay, San Dominica

Friday Afternoon.

At two in the hot, hot of the afternoon, Damian floated over an exquisite range of shallow barrier reefs.

Sunbathing in the twenty-five-foot Sportsman, watching mullets and snipe eels forage and dart through the bottle green waters, he was beginning to let his mind drift to thoughts of meeting Carrie. Seedy Morocco. Casbahs. A perfect ending for this crime. The two who got away with it.

Damian was convinced that San Dominica represented the best freelance work done since John Kennedy was hit in Dallas. He knew it.

Just a few more hours to go now. All of it heading helter-skelter yet inevitably toward a small pinprick in time and space.

Actually, the end began in a most understated manner, a curious contrast to everything that had gone before it.

At 3:15 Dr. Meral Johnson and Brooks Campbell escorted Peter out of the Dorcas Hotel.

The young American man was wearing gray cotton pants with a loose-fitting gray zipper jacket. Underneath the jacket was a German semiautomatic pistol. The Walther was a neat, tough gun. Compliments of Great Western Air Transport, of Harold Hill in particular.

The three men got into a wide Dodge Charger idling in the hotel carport. Campbell looked around for rooftop snipers, and that seemed almost funny to Peter. “Uh, that’s
our
fort,” he finally had to say.

From the hotel they drove to a secluded villa owned by the Charles Forlenza Family. A big flamingo pink Hollywood-style house.

Both Campbell and Harold Hill had hopes now that the man staying at the villa—Duane Nicholson—would either contact, or be contacted by, Damian Rose. They’d put a five-car stakeout team on the house.

Officially, Peter was along to make any necessary identification. Officially, he didn’t have a gun.

Unofficially, Harold Hill was beginning to troll bait for Rose.

In some ways he too was reminded of the November of 1963. Very messy stuff. A marvel how you could smooth out these things in the end—national security matters.

At six o’clock in Washington, a Mrs. C. Rose checked into the St. James Hotel. Some mail was waiting for her—letters from Damian. Very mushy and adolescent, Port-Smithe thought.

At seven o’clock in Zurich, Carrie waited in her hotel suite. She watched swans glide over the lake of Zurich, made casual notes for the diary, tried to take care of all the final details the way Damian would….

At a quarter to eight, a chip of burnt-orange sun sank without a trace behind the Forlenza villa.

His heart started to thump out strange warnings as Peter watched Isadore Goldman’s expensive lackey walk outside the big stucco house. He considered that Isadore Goldman was just a name to him; considered that he really didn’t want to die. He wanted to shoot the tall blond mercenary somehow; wanted to go home to Michigan again. Like thriller-chiller novel endings.

“Blue. This is White Flag,” Brooks Campbell whispered into the car’s crackling shortwave radio. “You guys all awake?”

“Peter?” Meral Johnson winked into the car’s rearview mirror. “Awake?”

“He’s just going out for a roast beef on rye,” Peter said, feeling electricity, anyway. “I’m wide-awake, Meral.” He grinned at the fat policeman. Neither of them talked to Campbell.

Easygoing and, to Peter’s eyes, unconcerned, Duane Nicholson shuffled across the villa’s front lawn in Indian moccasins, casual slacks, some sort of sky blue surfer’s shirt. A very expendable type, Peter couldn’t help thinking. The kind of guy who always got shot first in adventure movies. Having walked the length of the house, the curly-headed hood disappeared into a dark three-car garage.

Minutes later a dull-white Corvette rolled out onto the driveway. Low slung on the driver’s seat, resting comfortably behind a stained pigskin steering wheel, the Las Vegas mobster wheeled the powerful car out to the dirt access road. Then bolting and roaring like an animal that wasn’t used to restraints, the Corvette chugged toward the Shore Highway.

Izzie Goldman’s man was heading into Coastown.

Sitting on the backseat of one of five surveillance cars, Peter had already clicked his mind into combat readiness. Just in case. He figured the punk hoodlum was going to dinner, though. Everyone in the surveillance cars figured the same thing.

Tryall, San Dominica

A shadowy figure thrusted itself up a long sliver of dock due west of Coastown’s twinkling pocket of electric lights.

To the running man’s back, dark tuna boats lay on the horizon of the Caribbean. Beyond the fishing boats were several thousand miles of open sea. Then the southern extremes of Europe.

For this last night on San Dominica, Damian Rose had chosen a beige security guard’s uniform. Pitch black makeup was smeared on his face and hands so that from a distance he looked like a native. An M-21 with a complicated-looking sight was slung over his left shoulder; a heavy sugar-cane machete was tied to his waist.

Looking both ways and back over his shoulder first, he started across a wide field toward a distant, narrow road.

Peter glanced at his watch: 8:35.

The Chevrolet Corvette and three surveillance cars were creeping slowly down Charles Henry Street on the northern outskirts of Coastown. The cars slunk up a crowded side avenue with old wrecks of American autos lined along both sides. Black children in colorful rags darted in and out of the parked cars. Slouch-hatted Rude Boys whacked the hoods of the passing night traffic.

The dusty Corvette swept up a dark, crowded lane that looped around and then ran alongside Queen Anne’s Park. The park was still jam-packed with laughing, running blacks practicing for Labor Day Carnival, the official end of the tourist season.

“He’s on to us,” Brooks Campbell whispered inside the white Charger. “What the fuck is that bastard doing?”

On the side of a damp, grassy hill, Damian Rose waited calmly with his M-21 and machete. Not sixty yards away, completely unaware of Rose, Clive Lawson stood with an Uzi submachine gun resting on his hip. He too waited.

On the backseat of the Charger, Peter was absorbing flashing pieces of Queen Anne’s Park. Nearly subliminal stuff. Men and boys in flowing white shirts. Dancing bonfires. A few purplish clouds moving fast in a high wind…. It was a little like being on patrol—a strange, worthless night patrol dreamed up by the usual morons. Shoot anyone who doesn’t answer to the name
Carl Yastrzemski.

“He’s leading us to the tall blond man.” Peter answered Campbell’s earlier question. “He’s doing exactly what you wanted him to do…. All we have to do is figure out why.”

Just then the Corvette swung wide around a big City of Coastown truck. The Corvette took an impossibly sharp, skidding left—then the low-slung car started to accelerate up a hill as if it were flat ground.

“Brace yourselves, gentlemen,” Meral Johnson yelled out.

The steep hill came and went—then swept down roller-coaster style on quiet, narrow side streets.

An unofficial Grand Prix race was beginning. People along the sidewalks were screaming at the fast-moving, souped-up cars.

Eight thirty-nine. Damian checked the M-21 carefully. Checked the ammo
.

Clive Lawson still had the submachine gun on his hip.

His stomach floating up in his chest cavity, his heart pounding like a tight bass drum, Peter watched Isadore Goldman’s man shoot down a narrow, unmarked driveway.

“White flag” nearly missed it.

A green Mazda missed; spun off into berry bushes. Harold Hill’s blue Cougar made the hairpin turn in the middle of the road.

Another quick right turn followed in unfair progression. An immediate impossible left. Then a frightening straight, four-block-long speedway appeared out of nowhere.

One catch: the speedway was blanketed with people.

From the bouncing rear seat, Peter watched a blur of panic-stricken blacks running wildly. They’d been loitering around the street, catching the cool breeze…. Now they were diving onto the dirt sidewalks. A few crazy ones seemed to be imitating toreadors, flapping shirts and sweaters at the passing, weaving cars. A woman was hit—
bang.

Eight forty-three.

Inside the white Charger, Brooks Campbell unholstered his revolver. Dr. Johnson was sitting on the car horn—creating one sustained scream.

The Corvette twitched into third. Then up into fourth gear.

Peter took his gun out of his shoulder holster. Semiautomatic Walther. Tough gun.

The low-slung sports car opened up nearly a two-block lead on the others. It was getting small fast. A white box and flashing taillights—hugging the road—leaving the city like a ground rocket.

Then Brooks Campbell was screaming, pointing at the Corvette, which was suddenly way over on the right.

The Corvette was jetting down a dark country road. Opening up a quarter-mile lead.

Clive Lawson was getting the Uzi ready now. He
planted his feet in the soft dirt of the hillside. He stretched his arms, right first, then left.

“We’re losing him, goddammit. We’re losing him!”

The fat, sweating police chief twirled the steering wheel. The white Charger spun. Turned. Just missed turning over. Peter was thrown across the backseat. Felt his head crack against a side window.

They were accelerating down the dark back road with the Corvette completely out of sight now. Brooks Campbell radioing for reinforcements, armies. Asking where the Tryall Road came out….