Masquerade (15 page)

He ignored the outrage in her voice and plunged ahead. “I want to marry you, Leslee. I can't think of anything that would make me happier. I love you. Please say you'll marry me.”

She sat up in bed and studied him. “Do you love me enough to tell me the truth?”

The question hung in the air.

The time had come at last. He'd known that, really, before he'd begun the conversation, known his greatest fear was not of what Hughes Bremner would do to him, but of losing Leslee. He couldn't live without her. There was nowhere left to hide.

His voice was low and passionate as he related the long story—his hopes of serving his country when he was young, the painful disillusionment of his middle years, the feeling of betrayal that had made so many fine, seasoned Langley officers grow lazy or quit, and finally the birth of Sterling-O'Keefe and M
ASQUERADE
.

“Our division chief, Hughes Bremner, decided to stay on, make the Company pay for all the years he'd sacrificed. He recruited his four top deputies in Mustang—me, Adam Risley, Tad Gorman, and Ernie Pinkerton. We were all old cold warriors, we knew Washington's putrefaction firsthand, and we felt betrayed.

“It was so easy it seemed almost as if we had Langley's blessing. We skimmed millions from Iranian arms sales and U.S. drug sales. We called in IOUs from BCCI, the mafia, weapons traders, congressmen, several S&Ls, and some entrepreneurs we'd been keeping tabs on who'd been skating on
some thin but profitable ice. From the beginning we had all the right contacts. Once we were bankrolled, we set up our corporation, Sterling-O'Keefe Enterprises.
Sterling
to give the sound of quality, and
O'Keefe
in honor of our old mentor at Langley, Red Jack O'Keefe. He's retired now, at least ten years.” Maynard allowed himself a grim smile. “He used to tell us, ‘The speed of the leader determines the speed of the pack.' ”

He glanced at her. She said nothing. Her face was a mask.

“It was totally secret,” he continued. “We bought up legitimate businesses. Eventually Sterling-O'Keefe owned OMNI-American Savings & Loan and the Presidents' Palace hotel-casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. We got control of Gold Star Credit Resources, the nation's biggest credit-check company, and Gold Star Rent-a-Car, one of the biggest international car rental agencies. Nonpareil International Insurance—that's ours, too. Lots of our corporations own other companies. I don't even know all the holdings, maybe I didn't want to. Sterling-O'Keefe is one of the fastest-growing companies in the world.”

Maynard waited, but Leslee's only response was silence in the dim light of the bedroom.

Uneasily he continued, “The company is fronted by one of Bremner's blue-blooded cousins, Leland Bremner Beaver, but it's owned and operated by our secret board of directors. Hughes is chairman. He owns fifty-one percent. Tad, Adam, Ernie, and I divide the remaining forty-nine percent.”

“How nice,” Leslee said. “A sweet deal for everyone.”

“It was,” he agreed. “But now there's trouble that could blow Sterling-O'Keefe and M
ASQUERADE
out of the water.”

He told her about the international assassin, the Carnivore, who could ruin it all, but who didn't know what he knew. Maynard didn't give her the details, he couldn't bring himself to go that far even now. He rationalized to himself it would be too dangerous for her to know.

“But I'd already decided to get out anyway, Les, because of you,” he told her earnestly. “I fell in love with you, and you changed my life.”

She reached for a cigarette and sat unmoving against the
headboard. Her voice was frosty. “So I've made you see the error of your ways? Funny, but I don't see this so-called change you're so proud of. What I see is a criminal . . . a coward . . . running for his life.”

He flinched, but she went on, her voice rising. “If you run away now, Sterling-O'Keefe will continue to rape the country, and you'll get out with a fortune and your girl friend, if you can talk her into it. And you say you've changed?” She clutched the sheet to her thin chest. “You sicken me!”

“I tried—”

“You got the undersecretary killed!”

“Maybe it was just a mugging.”

“You'd like that, wouldn't you? You think it would let you off the hook!” Her small upper lip curled in disgust. “What are you keeping in that safe under my bed?”

“Papers and notes about Sterling-O'Keefe and M
ASQUERADE
.”

“That's where you got the information you copied for the undersecretary?” When he nodded, she continued, “This is where you've hidden the evidence that could destroy Sterling-O'Keefe and M
ASQUERADE
?”

When he nodded again, she slapped his face. Hard.

The sound was like a thunderclap in the quiet bedroom. He didn't touch his face, although he wanted to. It didn't hurt all that much, but the pain he felt from her just rage slashed through him like a hot knife.

“You could get me killed!” Her eyes blazed. “If Bremner murdered an Undersecretary of State for a few account numbers, imagine what in hell he'd do to me for what's under my bed!”

Now Maynard was angry. “I protected you! No one knows my connection to you. No one ever followed me here. Unless you told someone, we're safe. I guarantee it!” He liked the firmness in his tone. He still knew a thing or two.

“You just don't get it, Lucas. Take your crap and get the hell out. I've been wasting my time.”

She turned on her bedside lamp, flooding the room with light. She walked naked to her closet. Her small buttocks trembled as
if from outrage. She took her white terry-cloth robe from the closet and wrapped herself up as if she were ice cold, as if this weren't a night so hot the air conditioner was up full blast and the bedroom was still too warm.

“What don't I get?” he asked faintly.

Her pale hair was almost white in the lamp light. With the white robe and her rosy-cheeked, heart-shaped face, she looked like one of the angels from his mother's Christmas tree back home in Terre Haute.

She lighted another cigarette and stood in the doorway. “You don't exist. You created some idea of who you thought I wanted you to be, and that's who you pretended to be, and that's who I fell in love with. But then, charm and empty values are your ‘profession's' stock in trade, aren't they? How arrogant of me to think I could tell the difference!” She laughed bitterly. “And you say you've reformed? What a joke. You couldn't even turn in your evidence without first cutting a deal, a golden parachute to immunity. And the poor undersecretary—your
friend!
—got killed for it.” She headed down the hall. “You're a joke, Lucas. Take your shit and get the hell out.”

Naked, he followed her to the kitchen. Without her, he had nothing to live for. “What else could I do?” he tried to reason. “Me against Bremner and the clout he's got? The network? Jesus Christ, Les, that man has people working for him privately all over the globe! I know enough to destroy him. Yesterday his goons were waiting at my house. He's already ordered me dead!”

Leslee measured Salvadoran beans into her coffee grinder and pushed the button. The noise was loud, jarring. She released the button, dumped the grounds into the percolator, and turned it on. The red light flickered, and soon the comforting smell of brewing coffee filled the kitchen.

She put out her cigarette, turned, and leaned back against the counter. She crossed her arms over her chest and said nothing, just looked at him and his nakedness, her pale blue eyes brimming with betrayal. There was no room for love in those wounded eyes.

“You want me to pull down Sterling-O'Keefe and M
ASQUERADE
? In the open? Publicly?” His voice said it wasn't a question but a death sentence.

With two fingers she lifted another cigarette from the pack in her pocket. She smoked Pall Malls, unfiltered. She liked the taste, she'd told him, the polish on the big, rough tobacco. He'd told her the same thing a hundred times, and now it sounded as if he were telling himself, too: “Those things are going to kill you, Les.”

She lit the cigarette, inhaled deeply, and blew out a stream of smoke. “With cigarettes at least I get a warning label.”

They remained that way, staring at each other, through a long silence. He naked, defenseless; she wrapped tight in her angel robe, smoking.

At last he sat down, facing her. “I could go to State myself. I could take the secretary my documentation. That would mean you and I couldn't fly to Europe right away. I'd have to stick around to testify against the others, probably face charges myself. Prison. It could be years.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Is that what you want?”

“I want the truth to come out for all of us.” Then she smiled. It seemed to him the harsh fluorescent kitchen lights turned soft and forgiving. “I'll wait for you,” she said. “I love you.”

He smiled, gazing into her eyes. The future was still within his grasp. Naked, he stood up, walked around the table, and crushed her to him. He smelled her face, her throat.

“I'll go to the Secretary of State tomorrow,” he whispered.

Chapter 17

Liz Sansborough felt trapped in a black pit. Her fingers bled as she scrambled up walls of ice. She sensed movement and flailed out. A voice ordered her down. She fought, tried to keep climbing. More noises assaulted her. There was terrible, blinding light, but she longed for it.

Something about the light meant safety.

Her eyes opened. White walls. Two rows of white cots with an aisle down the middle. A hospital? The air smelled of antiseptic and laundry soap. It took her a moment to realize she was in the Ranch infirmary. Her cot was beside a window. Outside, a ponderosa pine climbed toward the Colorado sun.

An orderly tried to push her back down onto the cot. “Quit fighting it, lady. You're going to be all happy again.”

He turned and lifted his gaze as he worked to replace her IV bottle. He must be late changing it, because the drugs had worn off enough for her to awaken. The new bottle would contain more of the chemicals that poisoned her. He had a nice face, but it was also dog-dumb. He'd follow orders to the bitter end. She had no time to convince him differently.

While he was distracted, she summoned all her strength and moved awkwardly but swiftly up onto her knees. He turned to look at her.

“Hey! What are you—?”

With her right fist, she socked him square in the jaw. He staggered back. Grasping the IV tubing attached to her left
wrist, she followed with a second punch. He crashed sideways against an empty cot. A patient down the row of cots moaned.

She cradled her aching fist and listened. Silence again. She forced the fogginess from her mind and pulled the IV from her wrist. Her clothes had been tossed in a corner. She peeled off her hospital gown and dressed in her camos, buckled her belt, put on her boots. The orderly must have been the only attendant in the infirmary, or the crash would have brought someone to investigate. Eventually a doctor, a nurse, or another orderly would show up. By then she'd be gone.

She tied and gagged the orderly. She found her day pack in a locker next to her bed. Her Beretta and Gordon's wallet were gone. Damn. She'd have to stop in the cabin to get Gordon's Beretta.

She opened the window, surveyed her surroundings, and dropped down onto the grass.

Asher Flores headed out of personnel with the thick folder of dossiers under his arm. He debated whether to hijack a helicopter or simply take his car. Then a sane voice warned him he was about to go too far. The Carnivore was hot stuff all right, and Gordon Taite was mastodon puke, but Hughes Bremner was his boss, and Bremner had always been a straight shooter.

Maybe Bremner and Taite had a fool-proof plan to grab the Carnivore, using the Colorado Sansborough and bypassing the assassin's offer to come in. If Asher screwed this up, then that remote island in the Arctic might look like paradise. Langley had some pretty strict ideas. It was okay to bend the rules a little, as long as you produced. But if you broke the rules and failed to produce, you could be out on your ass. Asher reminded himself to try to call Bremner again. Maybe he could talk the chief into letting him in on the Carnivore operation.

As he mulled this latest idea he noted the camp trash truck making its rounds. It was a great piece of equipment, and to Asher, its very cumbersomeness was divine.

Then he saw shadowy movements to his right. Without
turning his head, his peripheral vision honed in. Stunned, he slowed to study the figure more closely.

It was Sansborough!

She was dressed, had her day pack on, and was trying to reach the parking lot. She was one gutsy broad. Asher took ten seconds to absorb this latest development. It looked as if he was going to be in on Gordon Taite's big, secret deal by default.

Sansborough had escaped. Gordon Taite had screwed up. Asher grinned. This could be a way to get out of Bremner's doghouse—and stick a knife into Taite at the same time.

Asher trotted over to the trash truck.

“Hey, Asher.” Bernie was Asher's pal. Bernie loved the trash truck as much as Asher did.

“Hey, Bernie. Ready for a break? How about I take her into town for you?”

“I don' know.” Bernie wiped his forehead. “We're pretty full today. You got to mind the worst grades when she's full.”

“You taught me. You know you did.”

“You're right.” Bernie beamed. “An' I sure could use a break. Okay, take her on in.” Bernie patted the bulky truck's fender, and the deal was done.

Asher hopped behind the wheel, released the brake, and barreled away.

At the officers' club Asher unloaded the last Dumpster into the garbage truck. Then he headed for his cabin. He threw his gun, ammo, clothes, money, credit cards, and several I.D.s into a gym bag. He had a hunch he might need to be someone Gordon Taite didn't know about before this was over. He tossed the bag into the truck's cab and thundered over to the parking lot.