Mistress (6 page)

Night falls, and, as if on cue, as if the weather is being controlled by Edgar Allan Poe, the winds kick up and a healthy rainfall follows. The windows rattle and the cabin groans. Outside is nothingness, black as ink, interrupted only by dramatic strikes of lightning.

Dark thoughts invade my brain as I settle into bed on the second floor with my laptop and a bottle of Absolut, in pitch darkness save for the illumination of the computer screen. Someone tried to kill me but wanted it to look like an accident. And they followed me to Wisconsin, a place they couldn’t be sure I’d go—it was no foregone conclusion that I’d attend Diana’s wake—so they had to be watching me and be capable of moving fast. Which means they’re smart, and they’re sizable in both resources and numbers.

Which means money. And Jonathan Liu stands behind plenty of it. A reporter in DC knows how to access the lobbyist database, and that told me part of the story—the amount of money Jonathan Liu spread around, either through his own firm, Liu Strategies Group, or through his clients. Jonathan Liu represented BGP, Inc., the Chinese national petroleum company; Tongxin, Inc., an international telecommunications giant; Huò wù Global, a Chinese shipping company; and Jinshu Enterprises, one of the world’s largest producers of steel. The annual earnings of those four companies alone are larger than the GDP of most civilized nations.

When you talk about Chinese influence in Washington, you talk about Jonathan Liu. Each of the companies Jonathan Liu represented, plus Jonathan Liu’s lobbying firm and then Jonathan Liu himself, maxed out their donations to the political action committees of every major player in Congress, then tripled it in “soft” money to the noncandidate PACs. And that’s to say nothing of the gifts—

What was that?

I rifle forward in bed and hold my breath. There’s not much activity on Lake Anna this time of night, at least not in the remote area where I am now. On an ordinary evening, you could hear a car approach from a hundred yards away. But the swirling wind and the slapping rain would conceal that tonight.

It sounded like…a scraping sound. Metal on wood. The sound of a piece of patio furniture moving across the wooden deck a foot or two.

The rain and wind could have moved the chair a bit.

So could a person who accidentally bumped into it.

My bare feet land softly on the rug. I tiptoe across the bedroom and peer into the hallway. I’m at the far end. Between me and the staircase to the ground floor are three doors on the left—two bedrooms and a bathroom. To my right is a partial wall that ends about ten feet before the staircase, and then it’s just a railing and a view down to the ground floor. A partial loft, Father called it.

I move with caution, stopping and listening for anything unusual. The rain smacks the cabin with such ferocity, the wind whips so feverishly, that it’s hard to hear anything else. But there’s usually a muted quality to it, given the shelter enclosing me, and this is different. It sounds…closer. Not muted.

Then I remember the kitchen window and relief floods through me. After I broke into the cabin, I put a makeshift cardboard cover over the window, and that was probably it—it blew off in the storm, so now the outside sounds are streaming into the cabin. Sure. That must be it.

Still, I move on, inching along the wall until it ends. Now it’s just the railing, which will do just fine preventing you from falling to the ground floor, but it won’t conceal you.

I listen. Nothing but the storm, a loud crack of thunder, the wind crying out to me in a plaintive wail, and the urgent drumbeat of the raindrops overhead.

My heart in my throat, I steal a quick peek down below, then retreat to the safety of the wall. Not long enough for anyone to see me.

But long enough for me to see, very clearly, that the sliding glass door to the deck is wide open.

My heart thumps so fiercely it robs me of my breath. Someone is in the cabin.

He’s downstairs, probably checking the single bedroom and bathroom down there. But it won’t take him a minute to realize they’re empty and that, other than the living room and kitchen, everything else is up here.

Think.
Think think think.
What does he know? He knows I’m in the house. But he doesn’t know where. Every light in the house is off. I could be anywhere.

I move on the balls of my feet down to the bathroom adjacent to my bedroom. I tiptoe in, flip on the light, and turn on the shower water. I get back out, sure that he’s heard me, absolutely certain he’s already in the hallway waiting for me, that I’m going to walk into a bullet, but I don’t have a choice, so I move back into the hallway and duck into the next bedroom and I don’t think he saw me. I press myself flat against the near wall and silently name the presidents in order and try to control my breathing. I need to stay near the door.

When I get to Van Buren, I hear the stair groan, that third stair up that I’ve always meant to fix.

Then I hear it groan a second time.

Two people.

They’re up here now, in the hallway. By now they’ve noticed the light emanating from the bathroom and have probably heard the soft, consistent hum of the shower water. Their footfalls suggest they’re not being as cautious now, that they’re moving with more purpose. They’re headed my way, which means they didn’t stop at the first upstairs bedroom.

I’m in the second one.

I can feel their body heat now and pray they can’t sense mine. If I spun around to my right, I could reach out and touch them. Sweat drips into my eyes and I squeeze them shut and hold my breath.

They pass me.

They move to the next door down, to the bathroom, where they’re sure I’m taking a shower.

Then there’s a burst of rapid-fire gunshots, automatic weapons unloading.

That’s when I race out of the bedroom to the staircase.

The
rat-a-tat-tat
of the gunfire provides me with audio cover. I’m bounding down the stairs before I hear the first sounds from them.

“Shit!”

“Staircase!”

I take the stairs in twos, all my weight forward, barely able to keep my balance as I bound toward the ground floor. I feel the bullets whiz past me in the dark, hear the sounds of them penetrate wood and cloth in staccato thumps. The wall of windows shatters in a violent crescendo, raining glass on me as I duck my head down and blast through the open sliding glass door onto the deck. Time is not on my side, so I don’t turn for the stairs on either side. I meet the outer railing without breaking stride, jump onto the top plank, and vault over it and down, fifteen feet, to the grass.

I land hard on the ground and feel sure that I’ve damaged myself in various ways, but now is not the time for assessment. I pop up and sprint for the boathouse and the dock. The men are shouting behind me, but it’s white noise to me, drowned out by the furious adrenaline rush.

They can’t see you
.

But surely they know the direction I’m headed. The bullets blasting into the beech and pine trees all around me confirm it. I don’t have a choice. I don’t know what I’m up against on land. Lake Anna at least evens the playing field. But the water’s still half a football field away.

My legs burn. The undergrowth tears my ankles and calves. My bare feet take a beating over the terrain. And I’m making too much noise. I’ve always been a noisy runner. In high school, I would come home from a thirteen-mile tempo run, and our housekeeper, Dominga, would say,
Lord above, Mr. Ben, you breathe like a cow.

Glass shatters in front of me, by the water. The boathouse windows. They must be running and shooting at the same time.

Well, Dominga, you should hear me now. I’m gasping for air, filling my lungs down to the bottom, and clearing them out with a giant
wheesh
before breathing in again, intentionally hyperventilating to maximize the oxygen in my bloodstream. I’ve never tried it while running, but I’ll need all the air I can get for what’s coming.

I tear off my T-shirt just before I hit the dock and pound out the last one, two, three, four, five steps, just as I did when I was a kid, count out the five steps and leap, arcing up first to look across the water at the lights of Anna Cabana, and then down to the water, tucking my head between my arms in a tight streamline to get as much distance from the dock as possible.

I slice into the water and keep it deep and flutter-kick like mad. I’ve got to make it to the neighbor’s dock without coming up for air.

I wait until I just start to slow down, then I start the pull-kick-glide of the underwater breaststroke, just as Matt Damon did at the end of
The Bourne Ultimatum
,
when it looked like he was dead in the water, like he’d been hit by a bullet before he jumped off the building, but then he started swimming and the music kicked in and we were all relieved that he’d survived.

When Nicholas Cage jumped off that building into the ocean while escaping from prison in
Face/Off
,
they just presumed he was dead and didn’t search for him. That seemed like a stretch to me, but I guess when you’re watching a movie premised on the idea that someone could have surgery done overnight to transplant another person’s face onto his without any scarring or recovery time, then you’re already on board with the suspension-of-disbelief thing.

Pull. Kick. Glide. I need oxygen. Johnnie Shaw from the tri training club could make it fifty meters in one breath. That’s just crazy, though. Thank God the dock isn’t that far. I hope.

My lungs are already begging for air. I let small puffs of air out through my nose with each stroke to help stop the spasms of panic from my lungs.

Was your mother breathing when you found her, Ben?

My son won’t be answering any questions, Detective.

My son won’t be answering any questions.

I open my eyes underwater, but it makes no difference. I can’t see a thing. Utter blackness. There’s no horizon to reference, no way to know if I’m swimming in a straight line. All I know is that I was pointed toward the dock when I jumped. Every part of my body is on fire. My legs, arms, back—everything screams for air. All that time training for triathlons, training to get away from my father, I never did a workout with sprints first and swimming after. Hundreds and hundreds of brick workouts over the years, jumping off the bike after a fast ride and then running, to get used to the transition. But why would I need to transition from sprinting to swimming? So I never did. Until now.

Pull. Kick. Glide.

Pull. Kick. Glide. I don’t think I can make it much farther. My fingers and toes are buzzing and my chest is throbbing, struggling for a great racking sob of inhalation. I must be getting close. I hope I’m getting close.

The police are going to try to blame you, Ben.

Don’t ever talk to them, son. They can’t make you.

Pull. Kick. Glide. I can feel my feet brush the surface of the water. Oh, I’ve never wanted anything so much as the sweet night air just inches above. But bullets travel remarkably well through water, no matter what the movies say.

I fight every instinct to breach the surface. I pull back down, away from precious oxygen, and I want to die.

Did your mother ever talk about wanting to die, Ben?

My son won’t be answering any questions.

Pull. Kick. Glide.

My arm brushes something solid. I reach out and feel it. All the mermaids in the sea never sang a song as beautiful as my heart sings to the solid wooden pylon of the dock. I scramble up the post and my head breaks the surface of the water. The air sears into my lungs and I gasp delicious, choking breaths of oxygen while trying to avoid too much rainfall in my mouth. I’m alive. I’m still alive.

But whoever was chasing me can’t be far behind.

After a minute or two of panting like a desperate animal while I regain full consciousness, I pull myself onto the dock and lie flat. The rain’s lightened up a little, but it’s still coming down strong. I listen and hear nothing, but then again, the rain might be drowning it out.

I slither along the dock toward the boathouse and silently thank Steve for not having the light on. Maybe he’s not even at the lake right now.

Steve Sykes used to let me escape to his house whenever I could get away. I would assure Father I was training again, on a nice century ride somewhere—a hundred miles can take hours—and I’d sneak over and watch old movies for the afternoon. Steve would always leave the side door unlocked. But it’s been years. With any luck, old habits die hard.

I try the handle. It’s locked. It’s a glass-panel door, so I grab the canoe oar engraved with
SYKES
from over the top of the door and break out the windowpane by the door handle.

Sorry, Steve. Getcha back for that one.

I carefully reach in through the broken pane, unlock the door, and sneak into the quiet house. The side door opens onto the laundry room. I rummage quickly through the basket by the dryer and find dry clothes and slip on the flip-flops by the door. I peer around in the kitchen. The fridge is still right there by the door, and it looks like his old off-roading Jeep keys are still hanging there. At least that habit stuck around. I take the keys and creep back out the side door.

I don’t hear anything from outside except the rush of the wind and the beat of the rain, so I dash quickly over to the old Jeep, a 1986 CJ-7 with
THIS END UP
in big yellow block letters across the top of the windshield. Steve liked extreme sports before they were called extreme sports.

It’s been a long time since I drove a stick shift, but she roars to life, along with Brian Johnson of AC/DC singing “Back in Black,” and I have no trouble remembering how to crank up a manual transmission and let her rip. I floor it out of the driveway, kicking up gravel behind me. Thank God for the hardtop in this rain.

What are those guys with automatic weapons thinking right now? They don’t know, that’s what they’re thinking. Maybe they hit me and I died in the water. Maybe I’m still in the water, swimming somewhere, could be anywhere, they have no idea. Lake Anna’s an enormous lake. Probably they’ve given up on me.

I take Halls Drive up to a fork. The soft left will take me west. I slow down only slightly and follow the fork west, just as I see headlights to my right, the east—the direction of my cabin.

It’s them.

(This is when Mel Gibson, in some action flick, would say,
We’ve got company
. I always wanted to say something cool like that.)

I floor the gas and kick the old Jeep as hard as it can go, but now the headlights behind me have negotiated the fork and are bearing down on me. The beams are high. It’s probably an SUV. I can’t outrun it. I hear a staccato burst from behind me and see the flash of light from the automatic weapon, but the first round misses completely. I weave along the road, trying to be as unstable a target as possible while drilling the gas pedal to the floor.

The SUV closes ground on me and then my back window shatters and bullets rip into the passenger seat,
thump-thump-thump,
and the radio blows out just as Angus Young was starting into his guitar solo and the windshield takes two or three pops as well. I’m ducked as low as I can go and the wind is whistling in through the holes in the windshield and another staccato burst,
rat-a-tat-tat,
drums into the body of the vehicle and I know it’s any second now, any second, and the SUV is getting so close that they probably think they’re going to ram me and force me off the road and I veer left, to the far left of the road, and they’re staying along the right side, probably because the shooter needs a steady ride so he can aim and they probably like the angle, with them all the way on the right side of the road and me on the left, it makes it easier to shoot at me but guess what? it’s about to create a serious problem for them because—

This road is about to veer sharply to the right.

Bullets rip across my windshield and tear through the dashboard and I cut the steering wheel hard right and navigate the turn and pray that this Jeep doesn’t topple over, especially on a slick road, praying that the angle I’ve given myself will make up for the centrifugal force and the SUV behind me is completely out of position and I make the turn but the SUV slams on the brakes and it’s too little too late and I look in my rearview mirror but I don’t
have
one anymore so I crane my neck around while I keep driving forward and the SUV has…

Yes,
it’s gone off the road, missing the curve and sending it into underbrush and, if there’s any justice, an unforgiving tree.

I let out a breath. You narrowly escaped again, Benjamin.

But the bell tolls for thee.