The Fraternity of the Stone (47 page)

"But if you're right... " She nodded soberly.

"There's no more time," Drew said. "Ray's expecting my call. I don't dare let him wait."

Drew set the tape recorder next to the phone. His hand trembled as he set the cage beside the tape recorder. Inside the cage, the white mouse kept eating greedily, its sides bulging, mouth full, chewing ecstatically.

"I hope you're as happy as you look," Drew said. He turned to Arlene. "You'd better go out to the hall."

She went through the swinging door.

He stared at the slip of paper, put his index finger into the first digit's slot, and dialed.

He waited, hearing the phone ring at the other end. Ray was playing this cool, not answering right away. But after the fourth ring, Drew wondered if anyone was going to answer at all.

Halfway through the fifth ring, the phone was picked up. "Hello?" a voice said.

Drew didn't reply.

"Hello? Drew? Come on, sport, talk to me. I've been waiting for you to call."

No question now. The voice belonged to Uncle Ray.

As gently as possible, he set the phone down onto the counter, making no sound. The speaking end was next to the tape recorder, the opposite end next to the mouse.

Faintly from the receiver, he heard Ray's voice. "I'm anxious to talk, Drew. To get this settled."

But Drew left the kitchen. Outside in the murky hall where Arlene waited, he picked up the tape recorder's remote control and pressed the play button.

The door was solid enough that he barely heard his recorded voice. No matter. It would be sufficiently loud against the phone.

"Uncle Ray, I want to arrange a meeting," the recorder said. "I could blow up everything you own, but that won't get me the answers I want. I need... "

Staring through the window in the kitchen door, Drew didn't concentrate on the tape recorder. Or on the phone.

He focused all of his attention on the mouse.

"...to see your face, you bastard," Drew's recorded voice said, "to watch those damned lying eyes of yours when you try to justify - "

With frantic, speed Drew pressed the stop button, cutting off his recorded voice. Because a jet of blood had burst from the mouse's ears. The mouse toppled, trembling, the white fur around its neck turning crimson.

Drew stooped, tugging at the cord that led from the remote control to the tape recorder. He pulled the cord, feeling pressure against it now. "Come on," he whispered urgently. "Come on."

He slumped in satisfaction as he heard a clatter from inside the kitchen.

"Did it fall?" he asked Arlene.

Peering through the window in the kitchen door, she nodded.

His knees felt weak as he stood. Through the window, he saw where the tape recorder had been pulled off the counter to crash on the floor.

"That's it, then," he murmured. "We did it. When that recorder fell, Ray must have heard it."

"And now he hears nothing," she said, her voice low.

"He thinks I'm dead." His tone matched hers. "The clatter of the tape recorder falling - he'll figure it was me when I fell, still clutching the phone."

The tactic that Hank Dalton had taught Drew in Colorado in 1968 was a way to kill a man remotely, using the phone. If the target was sufficiently distracted, if the arrangements were properly made, the man would never suspect the means of assassination.

Dalton had called it a supersonic bullet. With sophisticated electronics equipment, a super-high-pitched tone could be transmitted through the phone line, rupturing the victim's eardrum, piercing his brain, and killing him instantly.

As the mouse had been killed, its cage against the receiving end of the phone.

Customarily, the assassin would then hang up. But Drew suspected that Uncle Ray planned to add a variation to this tactic. He imagined Ray hearing the sudden interruption of Drew's voice, the clatter as Drew in theory collapsed, still holding the phone.

But what would Ray do after that?

Keep listening, Drew guessed. If I had someone with me, Ray knows he ought to hear shouts, cries for help.

But if there weren't any shouts? If Ray heard only silence on this end of the line?

Drew concentrated. He'll have to assume that I was alone when I made the call.

And in his place, I'd want to make doubly sure that my hunter, my enemy, was really dead.

Drew brooded about the final step. For the past two hours, he'd been analyzing the conclusion he'd reached, testing it for flaws. But it still made sense. Excitement jolted him.

If my end of the line stays open, Ray can trace my call. He can find out where I was phoning from. Provided he doesn't hear any sounds from this end of the phone, he'll think it's safe to send a team here to verify that I'm dead.

And just as important, to get my body.

The authorities think I'm Janus. If he wants to continue using Janus as a cover for his other assassinations, he can't let my corpse be found.

With painstaking care, Drew opened the swinging door, making sure it didn't creak. Gently, he stepped toward the phone.

"It's been five minutes. Any sounds yet?" Drew recognized Ray's voice.

"Nothing."

"Okay, keep listening, just in case. But I think it's worth a try. Start the trace."

Drew silently left the kitchen. In the murky hall, he gestured for Arlene to follow him. They walked a safe distance, stopping at the stairs.

"Here's the slip of paper with the second number I called. Find a pay phone outside and call the town-house. Tell Father Stanislaw's contacts to learn where this number's located."

She took the paper. "And you?"

"I think I'd better stay here. In case Ray's people arrive sooner than we expect."

"If they do?"

"I'm not quite sure how to play it. For starters, I want to take a look around this hall and find a good hiding place. As soon as you get the address, come back. But be careful. And make sure Father Stanislaw's contacts go to that address."

Her eyes were frightened. "Drew."

"I know," he said. "From here on in, it gets dicey."

He didn't reconsider his impulse but simply obeyed it. He kissed her.

In the gloom, they held each other for a moment.

Her voice sounded thick. "I'd better get going."

He felt hollow. "See you."

"God, I hope so."

She paused once halfway up the concrete stairs,

looking back at him. Then she went up the rest of the way and out the door. In a moment, the hall again was silent.

To his amazement, what he experienced now was disturbingly unfamiliar. Loneliness. Inexplicably, his eyes felt warm. What if he never saw her again?

Chapter 17.

Just before six, the autumn sun now almost completely gone, the basement hall in deeper gloom, Drew heard the door at the top of the stairs creak open. From where he hid, between rows of stacked chairs against the middle of the left wall at the bottom of the stairs, his first thought was that Arlene had returned, and he felt a wave of joy. But as the door snicked shut, whoever had entered didn't come down.

Drew waited. Still, no one descended.

Arlene would be careful when she came back, he knew. She might be taking the time to sense if something was wrong. Or she might be waiting for Drew to call her. But he couldn't allow himself to do so.

When sufficient time had passed that the memory of the sound of the door seemed a fantasy, Drew heard another sound. Softly - so softly that it too might have been imagined - a shoe touched a concrete step.

And stopped.

Drew's position between the stacks of metal chairs was comfortable. Hank Dalton had always insisted that his students should take that precaution. "You don't know how long you might have to wait. So make sure you like where you're hiding. Otherwise someone might hear you stretch your leg to relieve a cramp."

Yet despite Drew's comfortable position, tension had made his body stiff. He strained to keep silent as he listened for yet another soft footstep on the stairs to his right. He breathed imperceptibly.

Yes! A sound. But not from the stairs, as he'd anticipated. Instead, the sound came from the opposite end of the hall, from the darkness across from him on the left. It could have been anything, the brush of wind against a window at the top of the wall over there, or the settling of a joist in the ceiling.

But he heard it again and now identified it - the subtle easing down of a sole on the concrete floor.

Not one, but two intruders were down here. Earlier, after Arlene had gone and he'd scouted this basement, he'd found a set of stairs in that other corner. Unlike the stairs that he and Arlene had used, to his right, those other stairs didn't have a door at the top, so he'd felt secure. Now he realized, his pulse hammering, that he should have followed the stairs where they turned to go up to ground level. He should have checked the main floor. Because it was clear that the second intruder had entered through an upstairs door Drew had not discovered. While Drew had been distracted by the door at the top of the stairs to his right, the other intruder had crept down the stairs on the far side of the room.

Two of them, Drew thought. Okay, as long as I know where they are, I can deal with them. He directed his attention back to the stairs on his right, seeing a shadow reach the bottom.

He understood. This first intruder's a decoy. He's supposed to attract attention. If somebody moves against him, his partner's across the room, ready to protect him.

The light through the kitchen door's window beckoned the shadow. Across the hall, the subtle sounds of the second intruder stopped. Drew watched from the dark between the stacks of metal chairs as the shadow on his right crept toward the window. A man, he saw now. Holding a pistol with a silencer on the barrel, the shadow paused at the side of the swinging door.

Before Drew had chosen his hiding place, he'd returned to the kitchen, and silently, terribly conscious of the telephone receiver lying on the counter, he'd picked up the dead mouse in its cage and hidden it outside in the hall. He'd done the same with the tape recorder. As a final precaution, he'd set the open tape recorder box over the telephone.

Now, when the intruder went into the kitchen, he wouldn't see anything to alarm him. He'd decide that the phone - and the body - had to be somewhere else down here. He and his partner would continue searching.

But I don't dare try anything, Drew thought, clutching his Mauser, unless I've got them both together.

The shadow next to the kitchen door risked a furtive glance through its lighted window. He ducked back. Ten seconds later, he risked another glance.

On the opposite side of the hall, the other shadow moved, creeping forward to join his partner beside the kitchen door. This second shadow, too, had a pistol with a silencer. They flanked each side of the door. One man charged in, the second lunging directly after him. Before the door swung shut, Drew saw them standing back to back, their pistols aimed at opposite sections of the kitchen.

Now!

He shifted from his shelter between the stacks of metal chairs. Mauser ready, he braced himself, crouching in the darkness. As he'd expected, he didn't hear any conversation. Until the men were confident of their safety, they'd remain as silent as they could.

I'll have to shoot them both, Drew thought. While I've got them together.

But not to kill. I need them alive. I need them to tell me where Ray is. When I'm through with them, they'll talk. They'll beg me to ask them more questions.

The kitchen door swung open; the two men slipped out, silhouetted by the glow through the kitchen window. Facing the hall, one gestured to the other to check the left side while he took the right.

"Don't move!" Drew shouted. Prepared to fire, he meant to order them to drop their guns. He didn't get the chance.

A shot filled the darkness. But not from the men. Deafening, it came from the opposite end of the hall. Drew dove to the floor, the concrete jolting his chest. A second roar walloped his ears. He fired, but not toward the sniper across the room, rather toward the targets he could see - the two men in front of the kitchen door. As they darted for cover, still exposed by the light through the window, he shot again and again. Screaming, both went down.

He rolled, afraid that the muzzle flashes from his Mauser would attract the sniper's aim. Sprawling on his stomach, he glanced back and forth from the shadows of the two men he'd shot toward the unseen gunman on the other side of the hall.

He blinked, his eyes in pain, as the overhead lights blazed. Blinded, he firmly closed his lids as he'd been trained to do, then barely opened them, allowing his corneas to adjust to the sudden illumination, opening his lids a little more now, desperate, aiming.

He found himself peering beneath rows of tables toward the body of a man on the floor near the opposite stairs. The man wasn't moving. Blood poured from his chest. A pistol lay near his hand.

But how the hell - ?

His spine cold, Drew glanced toward the two men on the floor outside the kitchen. One lay still. The other clutched his stomach, moaning.

Drew stared back toward the man on the floor across the room. Two shots had come from that direction. But who had killed the sniper?