Call Me Joe (14 page)

"Well, trust me," I smiled. "This is very fine juice."

"I love it," Jack smiled. "Don't get me wrong; I do know good from great. Push comes to shove, though, I'll drink my little house red as soon as anything else."

"What's your house red?" I asked.

"This stuff by La Carraia called 'Fobiano,' Jack said wistfully. "I love that stuff and it's cheap enough to drink everyday…I mean, I guess it is. I don't know what Franco is charging me for it."

"Jack," I sighed, "again, trust me. We should all be so lucky as to have Fobiano as our house red."

"Wanna case?" he grinned.

"Jack…" I groaned.

"You wrap this business up within a week and I'll give you two cases of Fobiano and two of Screaming Eagle."

"Sold," I gasped. "Are you sure?"

"It's just wine," he laughed. "Boy, I certainly found your hot button, didn't I?"

"Damn straight," I grinned. "Better have somebody pack up that wine, ace. Styrofoam shippers, please."

"Hey, I'll fly it out," Jack chuckled. "If I get this think back on track in a week it'll be a very small investment."

"Did the press releases go out today?" I asked.

"Right after lunch," he nodded. "With a little luck, I might have made some of the online editions already."

"Keep your cell on," I sighed, stretching and yawning. "Big time difference between London and here."

Fifteen

The left-side-of-the-road thing was always difficult for Joe, so he took it slow, checking the map every few minutes and annoying several hundred early-morning commuters in the bargain.

He parked a quarter mile away from Kensington's house and pulled in close to an overgrown boxwood.

He slid across to the left-hand seat, opened the door into the bush, and slid the chair piece by piece onto the ground.

He stepped out into the bush and took a folding leatherman multi-tool out of a case on his belt. Using the ripper blade, he took out six of the interior limbs of the lower trunk of the boxwood, sat carefully, and assembled the chair.

He checked up and down the quiet, misty lane and then slid back into the car. He released the brake gingerly and rolled the car back past the gap in the hedge. He set the brake, pulled out the chair and reassembled the loose foliage until the damage was barely noticeable.

He stripped off his coat and pants and put on the cap, gloves, and goggles. He got into the chair and set off down the small hill, just a solitary wheelchair athlete, up for an early morning workout.

He used Katja's third position, a large elm in a line of other trees along a street bordering Kensington's property. He pulled the chair into a narrow space between a line of forsythias and Kensington's elaborate brick and iron fence.

Crouching behind the bushes, Joe removed the chair's backrest and a small, flat box attached to the seat bottom.

He unscrewed the backrest into four sections and removed the contents from the box. He loaded the magazine and quickly snapped the parts together. The chair's left footrest became the shoulder piece.

He was up the tree and into position in just over ten seconds.

7:48. According to Katja's source, Kensington left the house at precisely 7:50 everyday.  Just about now, Joe thought, the e-mail would be going out from a train somewhere in the Swiss countryside.

It would be short and sweet and if it were ever traced at all, it would be found to have originated from a laptop lying in a hundred pieces at the bottom of a deep alpine gorge.

Joe adjusted the scope and sighted in on a narrow corridor between Kensington's side portico and his massive garage—a building more than half the size of the main house.

The trick, Joe knew, was to make it clean enough that he could get back to the chair, back to the car, and back to the Regent before anyone knew what had happened.

The air was, mercifully, dead still, but heavy with that trademark London pea-soup funk. He'd have to adjust upward a degree or so, he knew, as the track would decay quickly in the muggy dawn.

7:50. Kensington steps out.

Squeeze, no breathing.

Silencer makes a soft, dry 'fttt,' like air escaping from a coffee can.

Kensington lies in a heap on the dewy gravel.

Down, crouch, check the street.

Break it down. Quietly, no clanking or scraping.

Back into the street. Into the chair. Steady, not too fast. No hurry. Nice and easy. Wave to the passersby.

Just a solitary wheelchair athlete up for an early morning workout.



Sara Beth Haller had a ritual that was as enduring as the Catholic liturgy: single, short latte from Starbucks (tea is for geezers, as she liked to say), scone from Canning's, news from old Donald in the lobby, stairs—never the elevator—to the fifth floor, in the chair promptly at 8:00, computer on before anything else. Basics completed, the workday now begins.

Next, spread out the napkin, with Canning's crest always at the far edge, face up. Remove sippy lid from latte, place scone on napkin. Break off pointy corner of scone. Place in mouth. Sip coffee slowly through the bit of scone, letting the buttery crumbs dissolve on the tongue.

By this time, the computer arrives at the Pembroke & Hawkes' homepage. She clicks once, into the mail and clicks again for the box marked "P. Kensington." Enter password, click on "go," open inbox.

Another pinch of scone, more latte. Savor each bite, finish scone and latte at exactly the same time.

This routine gave her a satisfaction she was quite unable to explain. As it progressed, she would open each e-mail, scan it briefly, forward it to Percy if it was personal or prepare an acknowledgment if it were business.

It was a life without surprises or major cataclysms—the life she'd engineered when she left Kent for London twelve years ago.

Percy was her ideal employer and, she felt, the ideal role model: a ship with well tended rudder and full sails, cruising calm waters under a perpetual sun.

So the job was hardly a job at all. It had become more like a pleasant succession of habits, void of unseemly peaks and valleys, with a thoroughly satisfying check every fortnight.

Perfect she thought, and this she thought every morning at 8:06.

The e-mail bore an odd sender line: "The grievous angel."

She frowned and clicked it open. The message was two lines with no signature.

"A lesson for those who bespoil the earth. The Washington project stops here or more will follow. 46 Kentish Lane."

The earth tilted slightly. What lesson? What 'Washington project'? "Bespoil the earth?'"

The only clear part of it was the address--Percy's address. He always left home she knew at 7:50. Always arrived at 8:15. He'd be in his car now, just about three blocks away.

She dialed his cell. It rang an unprecedented five times. His voice mail came on. She had never heard it before. She had recorded the greeting because he was so clueless with electronic gadgets and now the sound of her own voice filled her with dread.

She rang off and dialed his home phone. The staff didn't come in until 9, so he would answer his own phone as he always did.

It rang endlessly, 10, 11, 15 times. She slammed down the handset and rose from her chair to…do what? She began to pace, clenching her fists in frustration. If he were en route, he'd answer. If he were home, he'd answer. He had, therefore, to be neither, and that was simply unthinkable. This was Percival Arthur Kensington, after all: Percy the responsible, the steadfast, the wholly predictable. A man who kept appointments at the appointed time, kept schedules and remained on course.

She called Derek Robbens, head of corporate security.

"Come to Mr. Kensington's office, now!" she sputtered. Before Robbens could even say his name, "I fear something dreadful has happened."

Within a minute, Robbens was reading the e-mail over her shoulder; within two, he was talking with Scotland Yard. Within ten, agents were in cars, bound for 46 Kentish Lane.

Within 20 minutes, Ragnar Torgesen was in a cab with his bags, headed for what he had said was a sudden trip home.

No one at the hotel took any note that the cab turned right out of the Regent's Drive, the opposite direction from Heathrow.

Sixteen

As Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard, John Calvert always took the lead when a call involved a prominent address. A tall, handsome, gracefully-graying 48, Calvert possessed the sort of cultivated diction and well-bred manner of an Eton grad, which he surely was, coupled with the ability to shift, in mid sentence, to the gutter slang and malevolent stare of an east-end loan shark, which he surely was not. The gentility was real. The hard edge was a flawless and well-tended disguise that he was alarmed to find, in recent years, easier and easier to maintain.

As his car turned up the drive at 46 Kentish Lane, he spotted the body instantly; a bulky worsted-wool, navy-pinstriped heap lying at the curve of the drive.

Calvert knew from 15 feet away that the guy was dead—no breathing, two-foot bloom of blood ringing the head like a lopsided demonic halo.

Calvert gave a quick hand signal that everyone on his team read instantly:  fan out and search. The agents drew pistols and melted away into the shrubbery and the improbably unlocked house.

Calvert drew on exam gloves and gently pulled back the collar of the man's blazer. A red hole about the size of a dime revealed itself, just at the base of the neck. Directly under that, Calvert knew, would be a nearly severed carotid artery and a much larger exit wound, the source of the cooling puddle beneath them.

"Bullet?" Calvert barked.

"Divot in the stonework over here," Atkins called out.

Calvert looked at the position of the body. The carotid wound would have dropped him in his tracks, Calvert knew. Door unlocked there, garage door ajar…

"Atkins," Calvert shouted. "Check the gravel next to that brass thing, the hitching post, there. Go a couple of feet into the grass behind it, too, if you please."

Calvert lifted the vent in the expensive Saville Row suit coat and worked a kidskin wallet from the left rear pocket of his trousers. Worst fears realized, Calvert thought. Percival Arthur Kensington, 72. Never to see 73.

"I.D.," Calvert sang out. One of the agents watching the cars peeled off and brought over plastic evidence bags. The wallet went into one and was labeled.

"Got it, sir!" Atkins shouted. "Badly deformed but I think the labs can work with it."

"Bag it," Calvert replied.

"We'll need someone for a positive I.D.," the agent with the bags observed.

"I can do that," Calvert sighed, peeling off his gloves.

"You knew him, sir?" Atkins asked, completing the label on the bullet.

"He used to be my father-in-law," Calvert said quietly. "I'll need to call Elizabeth…and the kids."

Calvert drew out his cell and turned to face his troops.

"All communications on this will be by cell or land line until further notice. We've caught a break, what with on the foliage and fences, but some of our press brethren, like ants to a picnic, will show up eventually. I'd like to buy as much time as possible. This was a good old fellow, Mr. Percy Kensington, Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Pembroke & Hawkes, Inc. Many people will mourn his passing and I prefer that all of them hear about it from each other, rather than the telly. Clear enough, chaps?"