The Shadow Man (13 page)

Ellen Andrews awoke to the sound of the sea. The windows were open, squares of speckled starlight between gently swaying sheer curtains. The open windows were the room’s only source of illumination; it was much darker inside than out.

It was pleasant, Ellen thought, to lie comfortably in bed and be lulled by the primal rhythm of the surf. This was one of those crystallized instants of perfection in one’s life. Ellen felt an almost sexual security and awareness. Here she was remote from her problems, warm yet with a gentle, caressing breeze playing over her thinly clad body, content for the moment, protected by the man who slept in the bed along the opposite wall, installed in the midst of starlighted beauty and soothed by the whispering rush of the sea.

But what had awakened her?

As Ellen lay in the darkness with her back molded to the mattress, she slowly became aware of another sound. It was a sighing, low gurgling, like yet unlike the sound of the surf that gently almost overrode it. Was it coming from outside?

Completely awake now, Ellen lay motionless and listened intently. She couldn’t be sure of the source of the sound that persisted between the breaking of waves on the sand.

Then the sound stopped.

Ellen realized that the sound could have been made by Millikin. It had come from the direction of his bed. It was possible that he was sick. She decided to check on him to make sure he was all right. She was sure he would be, and that she would stay the rest of the night in his bed.

Carefully, gropingly, she crossed the dark wood floor and felt her right leg come in contact with Millikin’s mattress. With outstretched arms, she reached like a blind woman, splayed fingers raking the down-turned sheet, the soft cool pillow. The bed was empty.

Ellen straightened and the darkness seemed to converge on her, bringing with it sudden fear that caused her heart to create the loudest sound in the still room. Or was the room quaking gently in time with her heart? She decided to call Millikin.

“Lawrence?” Her own voice was like the shock of cold water.

Millikin didn’t answer. If he were anywhere inside, he’d have heard her. Ellen told herself without conviction that he might have been unable to sleep and stepped out for a smoke or a walk on the beach. But, to her knowledge, he’d never done such a thing before. Slowly, her arms extended forward like exploring antennae, she began traversing the dark room toward the light switch. Her bare feet were aware of every splinter or irregularity in the plank floor.

Her right big toe struck something soft, seemed for an instant that it might penetrate. She shrieked and leaped back.

Then, unable to do anything else in the blackness, Ellen forced herself to bend down and feel what it was she had prodded with her toe.

Her fingertips pressed into the flesh of a human midsection. She moved her fingers, felt coarse hair on the chest, was immediately aware of the stillness beneath her hand. “Lawrence!” she whispered.

She straightened when she heard movement behind her.

Someone was here in the room with her! God, someone was here!

“Who is it!” Her words were a stranger’s choked sob.

Only the calm voice of the surf answered.

“Please! Who’s there!”

In panic, she sprang toward the opposite side of the room, toward the light switch.

He was waiting for her there.

As her hand reached out and flipped the switch that transformed darkness to brilliance, something closed on Ellen’s throat with unbelievable force. Her scream was inward, soundless, burning through every nerve in her body. The pressure on her throat loosened, tightened, allowing only a low, sighing gurgle. The writhing, weakening struggles of Ellen’s body were involuntary, the reflex protest of a dying organism. She wanted it to end.

She died staring up with bulging, distorting eyes at a face she’d never before seen.

No one from the village knew where the Americans had gone. But then no one knew from where they had come. They simply had arrived, then left again without notice.

Antonio Biagio, the deliveryman who went for the regular grocery order, found that the tiny pink villa was empty, the American couple’s few possessions gone. The next day, too, the villa was vacant. Antonio shrugged, and when he returned to the village he mentioned the Americans’ absence to a few people at the cantina. Then he forgot the matter. There was nothing to be done about it.

Months would pass before the bodies would be found and identified.

The flight to Denver was no more eventful than any other flight Andrews had taken. The stewardesses smiled, the pilot soothed, the food was reprocessed plastic.

After retrieving his luggage, Andrews took a cab to a car-rental agency he usually dealt with when in Denver. The agency specialized in rough-terrain vehicles, four-wheel-drive Jeeps advertised able to go anywhere.

Al Kramer, the agency owner and operator, greeted Andrews and informed him that all but a few of his vehicles were rented. The only ones he had left were the high-powered, high-rental-fee Jeeps with cold-weather remote-control starting. Remote-control starting was a luxury feature that enabled the driver to stay in bed in the morning, start the Jeep with the press of a button, then later enter a nicely warmed-up vehicle that was comfortable and ready to go. The weather really wasn’t all that cold in the mountains this time of year, so Kramer was stuck with these Jeeps until winter moved in seriously.

Andrews momentarily considered leasing a regular passenger car somewhere else. Reaching the cabin was no problem, but he and Pat liked to take a Jeep into rough country higher up the mountain, where they could climb and ski in total isolation. He told Kramer he’d take one of the remaining Jeeps and arranged for payment with his American Express card. He would drive the seventy-five miles to the little town of Perith, where he would meet Pat, rent skis and buy supplies. Then they would drive up the winding mountain road to the cabin.

The Jeep was rough on the highway, and one of its headlights jiggled and was aimed at too steep a downward angle. Andrews kept his speed slow so he could see. He didn’t mind the bouncing. It helped to keep him awake.

It was almost eleven o’clock when he turned the Jeep onto Perith’s main street.

Perith wasn’t much of a town, a section of ancient brick stores, a newer shopping strip built to resemble old brick, a corner where all four of the town’s service stations (one of them boarded up) were located, a few taverns that catered mostly to natives. It was a town that lived in the shadow of the mountains, subsisting on faltering lumber and mining industries until, with the blossoming popularity of skiing, new money began to trickle in. When the snow was right, the mountains above Perith were excellent ski country.

Though Andrews skied, he regretted the increasing influx of tourists. He valued the cabin for its isolation, for the privacy and surcease it provided. And it had become, for Pat and him, one of those places that lovers make special.

He saw her red MG convertible parked in the lot of the Snow King Motel, a recently constructed U-shaped, two-story building with a restaurant, coffee shop and souvenir shop at one end. As Andrews parked beside the sports car, he saw Pat sitting near the window in the coffee shop. The Jeep’s headlights had caught her attention. She waved to him as he leaned forward to switch off the engine.

The chill in the air surprised Andrews as he stepped down from the warm interior of the now mud-spattered gray Jeep. Perith was high above sea level, but usually warmer this time of year. Probably there would be plenty of snow up in the mountains.

Andrews kissed Pat lightly on the lips as he sat down opposite her. A white-aproned teen-age boy sauntered out from behind the counter and took his order for Nestlés hot chocolate. Pat was drinking hot chocolate topped with a swirl of whipped cream that rose to a point.

“I rented us a room here,” she said. “Everything’s closed, so we can’t get supplies or skis until morning. Anyway, I didn’t want us to have to drive that narrow mountain road in the dark.”

Andrews told her that was fine, told her he loved her. His hot chocolate came and he sipped it tentatively, found it scalding. “Been here long?” he asked.

“About an hour. I didn’t mind waiting.”

Andrews let himself relax, realizing that for the past week he’d never been fully free from tension. The presence of Pat Colombo was working its customary white witchcraft, exorcising whatever demons plagued him.

“Want to tell me what’s happened since you phoned?” Pat asked.

“Christ, not now. I don’t even want to think about it.”

“Then you shouldn’t,” Pat told him. “There’s no need to.”

“Oh, there’s a need. I just don’t want to face it for a while.”

Pat lifted her hot chocolate and slowly but deftly licked some of the cream from the rim of the mug. It was not a deliberately seductive gesture, but it sent a persistent pressure along Andrews’ groin and quickened his heartbeat. Pat’s face was slightly flushed from the cool air, her dark eyes bright and alert despite the long drive and late hour. She was one of those women in whom health and sexuality are almost synonymous.

“It’s you I want to think about now,” Andrews told her. “And nothing else.”

Pat stared directly at him with eyes that held no deviousness, no inhibition. “Do you want to finish your chocolate?” she asked.

“Not.”

“Good.”

Andrews signaled the teen-age boy for the check.

She was a revelation and a renewal. She always was. Andrews lay next to Pat Colombo and wondered if in their lifetime he ever could become bored with her. He doubted it; he really did.

In the motel’s king-size bed, by the light of the flickering and silent TV, he was comforted by the pressure of her sated, warm body against his as he brought her up to date on what had happened in Manhattan. It all seemed so far removed now, a madness that involved other people.

“Suppose you were followed here,” she said, when he’d finished talking and dropped his head back onto the soft pillow.

“You have to assume that the CIA knows what they’re doing,” Andrews said. “That’s not so difficult to do if you know Underwood.”

“But you said a man named Graham was in charge of the... operation.”

“That’s what the CIA calls it,” Andrews said. “Real-life spy terminology. Graham’s in charge of details; he’s Underwood’s man.” He turned onto his side and kissed her, running his hand along the silken arch of her back.

“Have you ever read the theory that successful men in politics are supposed to have overdeveloped sexual libidos?” she asked.

“Yes, and it’s true,” Andrews said.

“It’s also true that I’d like to be able to get out of bed and walk tomorrow.”

Andrews laughed and released her. He got up, put on his underwear and pants and walked to the bucket of ice cubes they’d gotten from the machine in the hall. He dumped the diluted remains of his last drink from his glass, then put in fresh ice and two fingers of the Chivas Regal that Pat had brought for him.

Then he turned to face her, watching the soft play of light from the TV screen cast varying shadows over her smooth flesh.

“There’s something else,” she said, before he could speak.

Andrews nodded, sipped his drink. “The CIA knows about us.”

Pat’s expression was unchanged, placid yet aware. “Are you surprised?”

“Not really,” Andrews said. “And I don’t think it matters.”

“I’m glad they do know,” Pat said. “It bolsters my confidence in them.”

Andrews smiled and tossed down almost all of his drink, not because he craved it, but because suddenly he wanted to get back to bed and sleep. The high tension of the last week had broken down to a relieved weariness. His arms and legs were weighted.

He checked the lock on the door, turned off the TV and got beneath the covers beside Pat. He knew she would sleep the rest of the night nude, as she always did after they’d made love. In the morning, perhaps they’d make love again. Or simply lie talking and watch the day brighten on the other side of the closed drapes. Right now, Andrews looked forward to one possibility as much as the other. Maybe Pat was wrong about his libido.

Within less than a minute, Andrews felt himself dropping into the soft, secure blackness of sleep.

Pat Colombo lay with her head resting in the crook of his arm, not remembering the blond man in the supermarket.

In the morning they bought groceries at a store in the old shopping area of Perith, and they rented ski equipment at one of the new sports shops in the strip shopping center farther down the street.

They set off up the mountain, taking both cars so Pat could leave alone if it was decided that Andrews should stay longer. Andrews let Pat drive ahead of him up the treacherous winding road. If her low-slung sports car became stuck on a steep grade, he could easily prod it along with the powerful four-wheel-drive Jeep.

But the road was clear and dry until they’d driven high enough to be into snow. Pat’s car negotiated the upper road with surprisingly little difficulty and had to be rescued by Andrews only once.

When at last they reached the cabin, snow was falling in fine, brittle flakes that were almost small hail pellets. Andrews carried in the groceries while Pat got the skis down from the Jeep’s top carrier.

The cabin was small, but modern and conveniently appointed. On one wall of the main room was a huge stone fireplace flanked by well-stocked bookshelves. Off the other side of the room, beyond a grouping of a black-leather sofa and two matching chairs, was a small but complete kitchen equipped with a freezer and a microwave oven. In the loft above the main room were two small bedrooms, each with a double bed. If more heat was desired than was furnished by the oversized fireplace, a propane gas heater was concealed in the wall between kitchen and main room. On a table near the sofa was a telephone, but Andrews couldn’t remember it ever ringing.

He checked the supply of firewood on the front porch and found it dry and plentiful. While Pat put away the groceries, Andrews built a loudly crackling fire in the stone fireplace. Within an hour the cabin was comfortably warm.

The rest of that day they read, skied, ate, made love. Felt safe.