Gideon

When they asked him to be a ghost writer, he didn’t realize they wanted him dead.

Struggling writer Carl Granville is hired to turn an old diary, articles and letters – in which all the names and locations have been blanked out – into compelling fiction. For this, and for his silence, he will be paid a quarter of a million dollars. But Carl soon realizes that the book is more than just a potential bestseller. It is a revelation of chilling evil and a decades-long cover-up by someone with far-reaching power. He begins to wonder how his book will be used, and just who is the
true
storyteller.

Then – suddenly, brutally – two people close to Carl are murdered, his apartment is ransacked, his computer stolen, and he himself is the chief suspect. With no alibi and no proof of his shadowy assignment, Carl becomes a man on the run. He knows too much – but not enough to save himself …

RUSSELL ANDREWS

WARNER BOOKS

A
Warner Book

First published in the United States in 1999 by Ballantine Books
a division of Random House, Inc., New York

First published in Great Britain in 1999
by Little, Brown and Company

This edition published by Warner Books in 2000
Reprinted 2000

Copyright © by Peter Gethers and David Handler 1999

The moral rights of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved

A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.

ISBN 0 7515 2890 0

Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

Warner Books
A Division of
Little, Brown and Company (UK)
Brettenham House
Lancaster Place
London WC2E 7EN

Dedication:

To Bill Goldman, who deserves many things, but two above all: total credit for this novel and a Knicks championship season

July 8

Washington D.C.

Once again he woke up screaming.

It was the dream, of course. The same dream. The same overwhelming, inescapable dream.

But there was something different this time. There was no distance to it, no feeling of safety. It had crossed over and crystallized and become stiflingly, palpably, claustrophobically real. The colors were bright and the sound was crisp. He could see the faces, hear the voices. Feel the pain.

And he had to listen to the crying.

When he realized he was awake, that the sound he heard was real, was actually coming form inside him, he bit the scream off and the physical effort hurt his throat, as if the noise were being ripped out of him. He had to force himself to think about where he was, who he was, to stop himself from screaming again. And then he had to bite down on his lip so hard he drew blood. Otherwise he knew he could have howled and wept for minutes, for hours. Forever.

He was drenched in sweat, the sheets so damp beneath him he thought he’d wet the bed. But none of that was new.

He was used to that. No, it was the
end
of the dream that left him weak and trembling. That’s what was different.

This time he dreamed that he talked.

And because he believed in the veracity of dreams, he woke up terrified.

The reasons for his terror had dominated his thoughts ever since the moment she had come to him, the woman he loved so absolutely, shaken and subdued, ever since she had told him she had to talk to him in private. It had been sunny that afternoon, and he remembered the warm glow he’d felt, basking in the realization that everything was going perfectly, all their plans were coming together so smoothly. When she leaned over and whispered to him, he had never seen her look like that. So frightened. Pale and trembling. He couldn’t imagine what had done this to her. Then she told him about the package that had arrived. What was in it. And what the instructions were that came with it.

They had sat together, holding each other, for a long time after that. Saying nothing because there was nothing to say. Because everything he had worked for,
they
had worked for, was crumbling now. No, not crumbling. Exploding.

He had canceled all meetings, shut off all phone calls. They had locked themselves behind closed doors. Then she spoke, examining their options, going over every choice rationally and calmly. Analyzing. Probing. Until finally she had put her hand over his, her skin cool and soft. Her softness was all that kept him from bursting into tears.

“There’s only one thing you can do,” she said.

“That’s the one thing I
can’t
do,” he said sadly.

“There’s no other choice. Anything else is too risky, too terrible for you.” She touched his cheek. “What if they find out? Think what would happen.”

He didn’t have to ask who “they” were. And he didn’t have to think. He knew what would happen. He knew exactly what would happen.

He also knew that he could never accept the way out she was urging him to take. She could propose it only because she didn’t truly understand his power, didn’t know what she was really asking him to give up.

After all her rational explanations, after eliminating choice after choice, ultimately it was still impossible, what she was asking him to do.

So he’d thought of another solution. A far better one.

The latest dream showed him that it was right. And just. He knew better that anyone that it was just.

He sat up suddenly in bed, as if the quickness of his movement could shed the fear like an unwanted layer of skin. He blinked furiously, willing the night mare—and the night’s solitude—to disappear.

It was just getting light outside, the sun’s first rays filtering down so passively they didn’t seem to have strength to make it all the way through the windows of the bedroom. But neither the shadows of the dawn outside nor the icy air-conditioning inside—the best system money could buy—were able to disguise the brutal humidity of this Washington summer. His rapid breathing slowed somewhat, and he curled the clenched fingers of both hands. He tried to force himself to be still, to relax. To come back to life. But he could not.

He glanced to his left, where his wife slept soundly. He wondered how she could possible sleep, and yet he was glad she did. For the first time since he’d known her, he didn’t think he could face her, couldn’t talk to her, tell her what he was thinking. Yet despite everything it pleased him to hear her gentle, rhythmic breathing, so comfortably familiar to him, soft and delicate. And there was another marvel: In twenty-seven years of marriage she had never been anything but a comfort to him. Never anything but a tower of strength.

He swung his legs out of bed. They were not yet steady. Still sitting, his bare feet planted in the pastel Aubusson carpet, he ran his left hand over the smooth, hollowed-out top of the bedpost. He loved their four-poster bed. Built in 1782, dated and signed by Nathaniel Dolgers, the greatest of colonial carpenters. It was too short for them, really, and not all that comfortable. But he insisted they sleep in it. He looked at his wife, curled up in the sheets, and smiled. She thought his affection for the bed was because he’d always loved working with his hands, had always, above all, worshiped craftsmanship. But that wasn’t it at all. The real reason was that the bed had cost $175,000. A Bed! And every single night before he slept—if he slept—he thought about what his mother had done when he’d told her he was sleeping in a $175,000 bed.

She’d laughed. She’d thrown her head back and laughed and laughed until tears of wonderment flowed down her leather-tough cheeks.

His legs were steadier now, his heart no longer pounding. He stood slowly, padded over to the window. Directly before him he could see the square, deserted and still. To the right, below him, at the eastern side of the house, he could make out the garden, the silhouettes of her flowers. He glanced back at the sleeping woman and had to shake his head. They always referred to them as “her” flowers. And when she talked about them, she might have been talking about the children they’d never had. Put her before a Grant Thomas rose or a
Campanula lactiflora
and her face would soften, her eyes would glisten, her voice would coo in that tender, musical tone of hers. And when she
touched
those petals—what caresses, what love. Whenever he passed one of the arrangements she’d cut for the house, he couldn’t help but reach out and stroke the petals himself. He always felt as if he were touching her. And she were touching him.

He turned away now from the garden, walked quietly tot he bathroom. He stared at his face in the mirror above the marble sink counter. He looked good for fifty-five. Damn good. His face had served him well. The jaw was square, the eyes blue and confident. Sure, his hair had gotten grayer, particularly over the past three years. But he’d maintained his weight, maybe ten pounds above what he’d weighed in college, certainly no more. There were a few lines, particularly around his eyes; what the hell, he was entitled. And everyone said they made him look distinguished.

Now there was a description he’d never envisioned about himself when he was young.

It was time to shave his distinguished face, he decided. He picked up the electric shaver, wishing as he did every morning for an old-fashioned razor. But she would not allow him one. It was too unpredictable, she said. What if he cut himself? What if he showed up for his first meeting of the day with a bloody little wad of toilet paper sticking to his chin? He sometimes wondered if anyone would say anything. Well, he would never know. He was incapable of doing anything as unpredictable as using an old-fashioned razor.

When he was done shaving, unsatisfied as always with the result, he lay down on the cold tile floor and began to do his back exercises. He slowly brought his knees up to his chest, hugging them toward him. Then he rocked back and forth, stretching, feeling his muscles loosen up.

There was a gym in the house, of course. Being the perfect wife, she had converted one of the bedrooms on the second floor, put in all the latest equipment. He would use it sometimes, hop onto the treadmill for a ten-minute mile, even do some bench-pressing. But for morning stretching, he liked the bathroom. He was comfortable in there. It was quiet.

And, best of all, he could be alone.

The dream had begun to fade now. As it always did, morning brought him some relief. And today, a new clarity. For, in some sense, the dream had not ended with the sunrise. One part of it lingered, beckoned, seduced. The part that held the promise of relief. And of truth.

If there was anything that terrified him more than the dream itself, it was finding out that truth. What he was beginning to suspect
must
be truth. Yet he knew it had to be done. And he knew exactly how to do it.

There was a phone mounted on the wall to the right of the beveled, gold-framed mirror. He picked up the receiver, hesitated, drumming his fingers on the rose-colored marble counter that held the double porcelain sink. It was a call he made all the time, one that always brought laughter or caused him to glow with long-forgotten pride. But today he didn’t want to dial. He’d had a long time to think about what he needed to say and what he was likely to hear in return. He was fairly certain it would not make him laugh or glow.

He placed the call, and the voice on the other end cackled with humor and quivered with age and sounded as if it were being filtered through seventy years of gin, hand-rolled cigarettes, and ragged love affairs.

“Mother,” he said, keeping his voice low and even.

The old woman’s voice replied with enormous pleasure. “I’ll be a son of a bitch if this isn’t early even for you. Don’t tell me they’re keepin’ you busy up there.”

“No busier than usual.”

“Talk to me, lovey.”

“I’m talking, Mother.”

“No,
talk
to me. I hear that tone in your voice. It’s way too early for bullshit.”

“Have you looked in your safe lately, Mother?”

“My safe? Why in the world would I—”

She stopped. He waited for her to understand. It didn’t take long.

“Darlin’,” she said, “I haven’t opened that safe in a long, long time. The arthritis, damn it, it just makes everything so—”