Measure of Darkness (13 page)

H
e always carries his own bag. No cart, no caddy, and the best part, today he's playing alone. Not quite a scratch golfer, but close, and perfectly capable of birdieing this, the seventeenth hole. Salt water on two sides, as blue as the sky above. Seagulls wheel like silent drones in the high summer air. Unarmed, he hopes, chuckling to himself. On this course, with so many ducks and seabirds in the general vicinity, members wear hats to avoid the splat.

Taylor Gatling, Jr., finds himself in an excellent mood, savoring life. It helps that he owns the course, and that he's arranged to have this part of it to himself. Nobody ahead, nobody behind. Could a man ask for more?

Oh yes, a chilled martini back at the clubhouse. That will make it a perfect day for bananafish, as his dad used to say, in reference to some silly story Taylor never bothered to read. Taylor has never cared for fiction. Why bother, when reality is so much more interesting?

With no other players pressing he can take his own sweet time, savoring the moment, imagining his triumph. Two hundred and fifteen yards to the pin, no problem, sir, consider it done. He selects his club, extracts it from
the bag. An easy three-wood will impart the necessary backspin, placing the ball tight on the green.

Taylor can feel the birdie, has it firmly in his mind. He's in the act of bending down to place the ball on the tee when he detects the putt-putt of an approaching tractor mower, and curses softly. He waits, assuming that the groundskeeper, upon seeing the owner himself poised to drive, will turn around and leave the area.

The tractor keeps coming, chugging up the slope. Oddly enough, the blades in the rig are not engaged. The damned fool isn't even mowing. Taylor focuses on remaining calm. The man must be a simpleton, don't let him ruin the moment. The tractor approaches a long bunker, one the machine can't possibly traverse, but instead of swinging around to leave, the groundskeeper sets the brake and climbs down from the little green bucket seat and strides up toward the tee.

Taylor can't quite make out the man's face—the sun is behind him—but he recognizes the type of wide straw hat often worn by those who maintain the fairways and greens. And then, jarringly, he suddenly recognizes the jaunty stride of a man who is most certainly not one of the groundskeepers.

“Hey, boss, how they hanging?”

“What the hell are you doing here? I told you never to—”

“Yeah, yeah,” says the man who insists on calling himself Kidder. “Never speak to you in public. Well, this isn't public, is it? This is a private course and you own it. Plus there's nobody here but us chickens. Or ducks or seagulls or whatever.”

“Son of a bitch,” Taylor says, scanning the area to make damn sure they're alone. “Are you out of your mind? What do you want?”

“I tried you at, what do you call it, your bad little boys club? Nobody home. And you won't give me a cell phone number, which is just a tiny bit insulting.”

“You were at the boathouse?” Taylor hisses, throttling his three-wood. “Were you seen?”

“I'm sure your security cameras clocked me, but you can erase that, right? The point is, we need to have a conversation, so I made it happen.”

“This is beyond the pale!”

Kidder chuckles. “Really?
Beyond the pale?
I always wondered what that means. I mean, what is the pale, exactly, and how do you get beyond it? I'll bet that's one of the things your father used to say.”

“Leave my father out of this!”

“Hey, no problem.” Kidder zips his lips. “Total silence in the father department. I could care less about fathers, if you want to know the truth. My concern is mother and child.”

“You're never to contact me. We communicate through an intermediary, that was the arrangement.”

“Yeah, well, there's always an exception, and this is it. The situation is getting to be a problem and needs to be resolved. Permanently, would be my preference.”

Taylor walks in a tight circle, tapping the ground with the heel of his club. “Not yet,” he says, jaw clenching. “Absolutely not. Direct order.”

“I don't get it,” Kidder says, as if bemused. “The operation is over. Time to tidy up.”

“What makes you think it's over?”

“Looks over to me. The evildoers are dead, if not quite buried, and the target is in custody, with enough evidence to plant his bony ass in jail for life. Done and dusted. Over.”

“It's not your call, damn it! And for your information the operation is not over. Not quite.”

“No? That's fine. I'm always up for more. So what happens next? Give me a clue.”

“You'll know when you get your orders.”

Kidder is amused. “My orders? We're no longer in the field, Captain. I'm an independent contractor.”

Taylor glares.

Kidder remains affable. “Okay, fine. I'll maintain status quo, await instruction. But I know what you're thinking, Cap. I always knew what you were thinking back in the day, and I do now.”

“What am I thinking?”

“You're thinking I need my ticket punched, once this is all over. Tie up the last of the loose ends. Bury me in a foxhole and move on.”

“You're wrong. I'd never—”

“Yeah, you would,” Kidder interrupts. “I get it, a man in your position. So much to lose. Thing is, I've taken precautions. If I go down, you'll be right behind me. That's a certainty, Cap. I'll be saving you a place in hell.”

“What have you done?” Taylor hisses, struggling to keep his voice down.

“Taken precautions. So put it out of your mind. And do please let me know what happens next. Provide me with a contact number. And soon, or I'll have to go all rogue, and you always hated that.”

Taylor waits until the smart-mouthed bastard is over the hill and gone, and then he takes a deep breath and swings at the little white ball.

And misses.

In his mind his dead father laughs and says,
strike one, my son.

I'
m updating the case notes into my personal shorthand when a blinking light on my desk indicates an incoming call on the secure line.

I lift the handset and announce, “Alice Crane, Secretary of Ambivalence.”

“Hey, Alice.”

“Hey, Dane. 'Sup?”

“Nothing earthshaking,” she says, way too casually. “Listen, I just remembered I left my lipstick in that little bathroom down the hall from Naomi's office? Could you check when you get the chance? Pale Peach.”

“Not a problem. Later, alligator.”

I grab my purse, give a shout-out to boss lady, letting her know there's an errand needs running, and leave the residence. The call for lipstick is a coded signal that Dane needs my ears to her lips, with no chance the conversation will be overheard, electronically or otherwise. Plus we never say “office,” always “command center” or “command,” so misuse of a common word underlines the importance of a request. She's staked out in Randall Shane's room at the hospital and won't be letting him out of her sight until the indictment comes down, so that
means hoofing it to Mass General and hearing whatever it is that's too important to wait for the evening briefing.

With all the talk of spies and secret security agencies, and what I know firsthand about hovering helicopters, you might say my sense of awareness has been heightened. Or I'm getting to be as paranoid as the late professor. Whatever, I hit the street with eyes peeled, after deciding to proceed on foot rather than bike or taxi. Figuring as a pedestrian I've got a better chance of spotting a tail, and a brisk walk will do me good.

All is serene for several blocks. Considering Back Bay is in the heart of the city, it's amazing how lush and varied the urban vegetation gets this time of year. There are places where the canopy of white ash trees almost entirely spans the narrower streets, and many of the tulip trees and dogwoods are still in full bloom. I'm striding east on Beacon, in the vicinity of Fisher College, when I finally spot her. A young, professional-looking female quickly exiting a black SUV half a block ahead of me, on the opposite side of the street. What gives her away is a telling glance—she's checking my precise location before pretending to wander along Beacon, as if looking for a particularly hard-to-find address.

My guru and mentor in the art of spotting tails is Jack Delancey, so I know enough to drop my purse—oops, how clumsy!—and get a slant on the block behind me. A young, casually dressed male wearing sunglasses and a Bluetooth ear set studiously ignores me and walks right on by without offering to help with the spilled purse. So there are at least two tails and probably a third somewhere, waiting to be dropped off by the roving SUV, as well as another vehicle running backup, assuming this is a standard tail job with a full crew.

Useful to know that I'm under surveillance—that
probably means all of us are, which means a big operation, lots of manpower—but there's not a lot I can do about it right at the moment, not without getting silly, not to mention sweaty. Besides, if they're any good at all they'll have already guessed that I'm heading to the hospital. Plus the trick with the purse will have confirmed my awareness of being followed.

They know that I know that they know.

Having established the mutual awareness, I give a friendly wave to the young lady dropped off by the SUV and carry on, speed-walking up Beacon. Take a left for six short blocks on Charles Street, and thence—as boss lady might say—into Mass General, and up to the secure floor where Randall Shane is being treated.

I'm not cleared to enter his room—that privilege has now been restricted to his attorney, no casual visitors allowed—so Dane meets me at the end of the hallway, near the nurses' station, where I make a show of handing over a tube of my own lipstick.

“What, no Pale Peach?” she says with a grin.

“Just so you know, I was tailed from the residence. A team effort.”

Dane seems not the least surprised. She links her arm in mine and says, “I think we need a trip to the ladies'.” Steering me farther on down the hallway, until we're out of sight of the uniformed officer stationed outside of Shane's room.

To my surprise, Dane walks us past the public restroom, and into a small utility closet, shutting the door and blocking it with her hip. Obviously a location she'd scouted for just this eventuality as a place unlikely to be bugged. The utility closet—a small room, really—reeks of Pine-Sol, with a distinct and recent whiff of illicit cigarette smoke. Custodians sneaking a puff, or maybe
nurses. Or doctors, for that matter. Whoever, it won't be long before some needy nicotine addict tries the door.

“Shortly after his giant girlfriend left, the big guy beckoned me.”

“Beckoned?” I say.

“With the hand that isn't cuffed,” she says. “Wanted me to bend down so he could whisper in my ear.”

“That's great,” I say. “What did he tell you?”

Dane, eyes lively with conspiratorial glee, puts her lips to my ear, quite literally, and imparts, in nine succinct words, an extremely important piece of new information.

 

Back at the residence, I confer with boss lady, who seems to be slightly peeved that I didn't mention the particulars of my errand before leaving.

“It's not the being followed, that's to be expected,” she says, giving me the cold eye of her disapproval. “It's that you could have been snatched from the street upon your return and interrogated, or worse.”

“I took a taxi back.”

Boss lady is not impressed. “These people smashed their way into this residence and dragged our client out in a net. You think they wouldn't stop a taxicab?”

I shrug and say, “Trust me, this isn't the same crowd. If a special-ops team had me under surveillance, I doubt I'd have spotted them. This was more like the FBI we all know and love. Could even be a local police operation, but I seriously doubt the locals have the resources to dispatch an entire surveillance team whenever one of us leaves the residence. Hence my vote for our pals at the Bureau.”

Naomi shakes her head. “Maybe, maybe not, but from
now on no one leaves without letting me know where they're going and why.”

“Fine, but tell me again why we can't be bugged? Why you're so sure they're not listening to us right now?”

She rolls her eyes but indulges me. “Intruders could well have placed bugs in the residence, but it doesn't matter because there's no way any bug can transmit from this location. When the building was gutted and renovated it was made secure against electronic surveillance of all types. There's no radio frequency or variable signal that can penetrate, meaning any and all bugs are inoperable or will fail to transmit. That's why cell phones have to be routed through the roof antenna. The same signal interference system is used in the shielded areas of U.S. embassies deemed vulnerable to espionage. London, Moscow, Beijing, Baghdad. So we're good. Speak freely.”

“I'm sure you're right,” I say, grabbing a pencil and a steno pad. “But I prefer to write this down.”

“If you must,” she concedes with a sigh.

Kendall Square. Behind Dumpster. Shane's laptop. Jack will know.

Naomi's big brown eyes are suddenly all aglow. This is potentially our biggest break in the case thus far, assuming that the hidden laptop can be recovered. When she gets like this, stoked by her keen intelligence with positive energy, I sometimes get the impression that she'd like to give me a hug, share the glow, but she never does. Touchy-feely is not part of her outward nature, or if it is she manages to keep it firmly under control.

“Okay, we'll play it your way, on the off chance,” she says, feeding the piece of paper into the shredder. Then she leans out the command center doorway and calls out,
loud enough to be heard at the FBI field office at One Center Plaza, with or without bugs. “Teddy! Stop whatever it is you're doing! Alice wants to take you shopping!”