The Cassandra Conspiracy (29 page)

CHAPTER 30

“What do you mean, you lost them?” Parker screamed into the phone. “They’re goddamned amateurs.” 

Parker’s man tried to explain, but his heart wasn’t in it. “Our guy got trapped on the damned subway. His two-way unit was useless that far underground, and by the time that he got to the next stop, Payton and the woman were gone.”

“You mean you didn’t have a man on back
-up watching them from the platform?” Parker yelled into the phone.

“It looked like they were going out to eat, or sightseeing. I didn’t think. . . ”

“You’re damned right you didn’t think,” Parker interrupted. “Scour the city until you find them. Before you hit the streets, check the hotel and see if their stuff’s still there. All I need is to find out that they’re not out for a quiet lunch for two!”

Parker slammed down the phone and yelled for the Wizard. “Get on the computers and see if you have any plane tickets booked against any of those credit card numbers. Do it now.”

While the Wizard was typing in new program changes to his search routine, Parker paced the room, pondering his predicament. Maybe the couple had simply changed their minds, and what appeared to be a sophisticated attempt at shaking their surveillance wasn’t.

On the other hand, Payton had pulled the rug out from under him before. No, he definitely didn’t like what had gone down in London. His carefully watched
as his chickens had flown the coop. Wingate would be apoplectic. Parker decided to wait until his men in London confirmed what he already suspected. They were gone, but where?

Parker went back to his desk and sat down. If the couple did blow off the surveillance team, where we
re they headed now?  With Albright dead, there wasn’t anyone in England, or for that matter anywhere else, that could give Payton the information he needed to complete the puzzle. If they had disappeared, then it was a good bet that they were heading back to the States.

A few minutes later, Parker noticed the Wizard waiting at the door. “I’ve got something, Mr. Parker. I show reservations booked and paid for today on a flight to Dulles.”

“For when?  Today?”

“I don’t know, but I can find out. It’ll take some time.”

“Do it!”

A half hour later, the phone rang, London calling. “We checked the hotel, and all their clothes are still in the room. I called down to the desk, and the desk clerk verified that Payton had paid his account through tomorrow. My guess is that they’re still here. What do you want us to do?”

“Keep everyone watching the hotel. We’re checking the airlines here.”  Parker slammed down the phone.

Wingate’s head of security walked over to his office and closed the door behind him. He sat at his desk, propped up his feet on the corner of the desk, and leaned back in the chair.

Maybe his man in London was reasonably sure that Payton and the woman were still in England, but he wasn’t. So far they had grossly underestimated Payton. It seemed that no matter what he expected him to do, the man did the opposite.

Parker’s gut feeling told him that Payton and the Phillips woman were headed back to the States. Sure everything pointed to another day in London, but then why try to lose the tail?  It didn’t make sense.

A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts. When Parker looked up, the Wizard walked in. “Mr. Parker, the computer has a reservation for them to Dulles on tomorrow’s flight.”

I knew it, Parker thought. Payton was making a break for it. They knew they were under surveillance. Well, Payton was coming home, and Parker’s people would be at the airport to meet them. There wouldn’t be any more screw-ups. He’d put round
-the-clock surveillance on the gates at Dulles. As soon as they got the two of them to a nice quiet place, they’d both be history.

.   .   .   .   .   .

The objects of Parker’s wrath had booked first-class seats for one very good reason: Payton didn’t want to be seen, and there were more people in the coach section than in first class which increased the odds that someone might recall seeing them. He didn’t put it past Wingate’s security men to interview the arriving passengers. They’d  have to talk to someone booked in first class before knowing for sure that Payton and Janet were aboard the flight.

With the air
fares high even for coach class, he didn’t figure the first class section would be crowded It wasn’t. Most of the seats were empty. Once they were airborne, the stewardess brought the drink cart down the aisle, stopping where Payton and Janet sat.

Payton smiled to himself.

“Would you care for a drink before lunch?” the stewardess asked.

He turned to Janet. “Do you want a drink?”

“I’ll have a Bloody Mary,” Janet said

Payton ordered a Martini.
He thought that after everything that had happened in London, it was a fitting end to their trip.

.  .  .  .  .  .

Their flight followed the great circle route across the North Atlantic, landing at Quebec on schedule. By the time the plane touched down, Payton had worked out the details of his latest plan.

They would drive from Canada into the United States, and go directly to the Secret Service’s Washington office. Simple, straightforward, and unless Wingate had men covering every major North American airport, there shouldn’t be any problems.

His decision to get in touch with the Service was borne out of desperation. Time was running out, and Payton didn’t have any other leads to follow. It was the Secret Service or nothing.

After they cleared Canadian customs and immigration, Payton rented a car. They’d enter the United States in Maine, and then head south through Maryland into D.C. But Payton was still concerned about the extent of Wingate’s reach.

“I think it’d be a good idea to spend the rest of the day and tonight on this side of the border,” Payton told Janet after they left the parking lot. “I doubt Wingate can find out when we cleared U.S. Immigration, but I don’t want to risk it. So far, whenever I’ve underestimated Mr. Wingate, someone’s paid the price.”

Payton's thoughts were on Mark Albright. “As long as we make it this week, I’ll be satisfied. Besides, it’s better to get there a day later than not at all.”

The couple checked into the airport hotel for the evening.

CHAPTER 31

October 24th

The next morning, Payton took Route 173 south, stopping only for U.S. Customs and Immigration at the border. They were cleared through without a problem.

Payton crossed the border and picked up Maine’s Route 201. It would take them diagonally across the state, intersecting with Interstate 95 north of Augusta. As they passed through the towns along the way, Payton seemed to be looking for something. Janet, tired from the flight, didn’t pay much attention to him. She figured that he was just being careful. After all they had been through, who wouldn’t be?  In Jackman, Payton found
exactly what he was looking for.

“I need to make a pit stop. Why don’t you wait in the car until I get back?”

Janet nodded, then made herself comfortable. She had no idea what Payton wanted, but was fine with a nap.

Payton strode across the street and into the sporting goods store. Hunting season had opened all over the northeast, and the store obviously catered to  the hunters’ needs. Equipment and accessories had taken over most of the display area.

One whole section was devoted to making sure that only the best-dressed people would be out in the woods surrounding Jackman. Iridescent jackets by the dozens hung from clothes racks next to camouflage pants and Maine hunting boots.

Payton walked past the clothing area to the middle of the store, where a row of waist
-high glass display cases marked the beginning of the gun section. The first case he came to contained hunting knives of all shapes and sizes. Buck knives with names like Woodsman, Woodsmate, and Lancer Executive adorned the felt covered shelves.

The next four held the store’s stock of handguns, although Payton couldn’t figure out what kind of
four-footed game you hunted with a snub nose thirty eight. There must have been well over a hundred handguns for sale. But Payton’s interests didn’t lie with a handgun or knife.

All along the side
wall, in two wooden racks, one above the other, stood the rifles and shotguns. Payton bought a Remington 870 twelve-gauge shotgun along with several boxes of shells, and then left the store. He went back to the rental car and put the packages in the trunk.

Then he walked over to the town’s hardware store. There he bought two C
-clamps, a hacksaw, some emery cloth, a package of sandpaper, a file, and a keyhole saw. When he got back to the car, Janet was there waiting for him.

“Did you get what you
wanted?” she asked. She had seen him come out of the hardware store and couldn’t imagine what it was that he had been looking for. “Planning a major home renovation project?”

“No, actually some minor modifications.”

A few miles out of town, Payton pulled the car off the road. The wayside rest area had the usual complement of four heavy wooden picnic tables, a large metal trash can securely chained to the nearest tree, and restrooms. He went back to the trunk, and took out the shotgun.

Payton made a pencil mark on the barrel above the end of the tubular magazine. He unthreaded the steel cap the way the salesman had shown him, and slid the barrel away from the receiver.

With that done, he clamped the receiver to the nearest picnic bench, and using the keyhole saw, cut away most of the stock, leaving only the curved portion. This he filed until the wood was rounded and smooth almost in the shape of a pistol grip. The final touch-up, Payton did with the sandpaper. Payton threw the piece of wood he had cut off into the trash can.

Janet watched him, unsure of exactly what he expected to accomplish
, or even why he would go out and buy a brand-new shotgun only to virtually destroy it fifteen minutes later.

Payton wrapped the barrel in his handkerchief, then secured it to the table using the two C
-clamps. Once he was satisfied that the barrel couldn’t move, he cut it off at the pencil mark.

He wiped his fingerprints from the scrap steel, and tossed it into the trash can. Using the emery cloth, he took off the burrs that resulted from his modifications. He then reassembled the shortened Remington 870. Finally, Payton took the clamps off the table, and placed them and the tools back into the trunk, which he closed only after removing the two boxes of shells. He took the sawed off shotgun with him.

As soon as he was back inside, Janet was full of questions. “What are you doing?”

“We’ve been chased, bugged, tapped, watched, assaulted, and nearly killed. The final act of this play is just beginning, and I want to be sure that you and I get out of it intact. This,” he said holding up the shotgun, “will help us do that.”

Payton didn’t for believe a minute that he could handle anything that Wingate threw at him. Right now he felt like a swimmer pursued by a great white shark. So far, he had eluded the shark a few times, but it was only a matter of time before the creature decided to stop toying with him. Then the game would be over.

In the meantime, Payton decided to practice what he had always told his clients. There was a time when it made sense to stop reacting,
and start taking matters into your own hands. He had finally reached the point where he wasn’t going to be a passive player in Wingate’s game.

Payton remembered a saying that his father used to tell him. It went something along the lines, “God made all men equal; Sam Colt made some more equal than others”. The twelve gauge wasn’t going to even the sides much, but it might give him the element of surprise that had worked so well for them until now.

“You bought a brand new shotgun, then butchered it?”

“I wanted a gun that packed a lot of power, and the twelve gauge fits the bill. But I also wanted something I could hide under a long coat. Cut down, it’s as illegal as hell, but a damned effective close range weapon.”

Payton opened the box of shells and shoved six rounds into the gun. He jacked one into the chamber. With five rounds in the magazine and one ready to go, he switched on the safety before shoving another shell into the tubular magazine under the barrel. Now that the shotgun was fully loaded, he carefully positioned it and the two boxes of shells on the floor of the back seat on the passenger’s side, within reach if he needed it–covering it with his jacket.

Right after they left the rest stop, Janet loosened her seat belt and curled up alongside Payton. The steady drone of the engine soon lulled her to sleep. As the miles slipped by, Janet slept the sleep of the innocent.

Halfway between Bangor and Augusta, they intersected I95. Payton glanced at the dash mounted digital clock. It had taken them a little over three hours to make the trip from the Canadian border. They stopped for gas and a bite to eat, then took the interstate south.

It took him another three hours to get to Boston. He asked Janet if she wanted to stay in the city overnight, but she told him that she’d like to keep going. It was only seven in the evening, but both of their internal clocks were tuned to London, where it was nearly midnight. In Connecticut they exited the turnpike and found a motel in which to spend the evening. It was nothing fancy, but sleep was the only thing they wanted.

.   .   .   .   .   .

Bill Parker’s continuous surveillance of Dulles Airport hadn’t picked up any trace of the couple. His men met every international flight coming in from the United Kingdom, regardless of where it originated. Parker didn’t put it past Payton to take a flight to Edinburgh or some other UK city and then hop the transatlantic flight west. Being outmaneuvered again by a rank amateur grated on his nerves. He was keeping Wingate apprised of what was going on, but in spite of his failure to locate the couple, the old man still hadn’t pressed the issue.

As a last-minute measure, Parker sent backup teams to both Baltimore-Washington International and Washington National airport’s–cheap insurance against Payton’s deciding to enter the States at an alternative point. What he didn’t count on was Payton’s flying to Canada and then driving south. Payton's resources were limited. Parker placed his bets on the three airports nearest the nation’s capital. He was wrong.

Parker’s gut feeling kept gnawing away at him, saying that Payton was either on his way out of England or on a plane back to the States. He decided it was again time to share his thoughts with Wingate. Parker picked up the phone and called the mansion. Wingate’s secretary told Parker to come right up. The old man would see him right away.

“No matter how I cut it,” Parker told Wingate, “it comes up the same way. Payton's figured out what’s going down and he’s headed home.”

Wingate paced the library floor, fuming. “I agree, Payton's got it figured out. They may not know how, but from the looks of things, they know who. That’s too damned much.”

Parker didn’t say a word. There was a time to talk and a time to bite your tongue. This was the latter.

“Reach out to our people in Washington, and let’s see if Payton does what I expect him to do.”

“What’s that?”

“I think our Mr. Payton is plenty scared. He’s somehow found himself smack in the middle of something that’s too big for him. He’s in way over his head. Payton will most likely contact the Secret Service. With any luck at all, we’ll find out where they’re staying. Stick with it.”