Trevayne (36 page)

“There’d be no reason for Callahan to lie. On the other hand, he couldn’t have been released unless the call came from here. He
couldn’t
have—”

“Why not?”

“Well, routine procedures … you know. I.D. codes change every twenty-four hours. Those words are locked tight. He’d have to be given a code phrase before he accepted any instructions.
You
know …”

“Then somebody’s got your words, buddy, ’cause the boys have gone.”

“That’s just
crazy!
”

“Look, I don’t want to argue; get the next team over.”

“They’re due at two—”

“Now!”

“They’ll be pissed off; I may have trouble finding—”

“Then use locals! Get this post covered within fifteen minutes! I don’t care if you have to use the Darien Boy Scouts! And find out who called Callahan.”

“Take it easy, Major. You’re not running this office.”

“You may not be either if a foul-up like this can happen!”

“Hey, wait a minute! You know who could have released them?”

“Who?”

“Trevayne.”

“He was upstairs with his wife when the call came.”

“He could have told them
before
, you know. I mean Callahan’s call could have been personal. Those guys
do
have wives and families, you know. People don’t think of that.
I
have to.”

“You sound just dandy, buddy. Do as I tell you; I’ll have D.O.D. Security check up on you.” Bonner replaced the phone with irritation. And then he thought about 1600’s suggestion.
If
Andy had spoken to the Patrol, it was
conceivable that he wasn’t giving them time off but, instead, sending them somewhere else. It was remote but possible. And if it was possible, it meant that Andy expected an emergency somewhere else. Otherwise he wouldn’t leave Phyllis exposed for even a short period.

But if he hadn’t released the Patrol, it meant someone else had. Without authorization.

Andrew Trevayne was either setting a trap or the object of one.

Paul walked back through the door to the admissions desk. The nurse greeted him.

“Hi. Everything okay?”

“I think so. You’ve been a great help, and I’m going to have to burden you further.… We’re security people, and we always make errors on the side of caution. Do you have a night watchman or a guard?”

“Yes. Two.”

Bonner calmly requested that the men be stationed, one outside Phyllis’ door, the other in the lobby, which, he presumed, would cover the man’s normal duties. He explained that a simple scheduling mistake had taken place, and it was necessary—formally, if for no other reason—that men be posted. Others would be sent shortly to relieve them.

“I understand, Major,” said the girl, with equal calm. And Bonner believed she did.

“You said room two-twelve. I assume that’s the second floor? I’d like to see Mrs. Trevayne. May I?”

“Of course. Up the stairs to the left. It’s the room at the end of the corridor. Shall I ring through?”

“If you have to, by all means. I’d rather you didn’t.”

“I don’t.”

“Thank you.… You’re very kind. But I said that, didn’t I?” As Paul Bonner looked at the assured, lovely face of the girl, he recognized a professional; as he was a professional. He felt that she knew it, too. It happened so seldom these days.

“I’d better go up,” he said.

Bonner raced up the stairs and into the second floor corridor. He ran to the end. Room two-twelve was closed;
most of the others were open. He knocked rapidly, and the instant he heard Phyllis’ voice, he opened it.

“Paul! My God!” She was sitting in the chair reading a book.

“Phyllis, where’s Andy?”

“Just calm down, Paul!” Phyllis was obviously afraid for her husband. Paul Bonner had a wild look about him. She hadn’t seen that look before. “I
knew
it; but you don’t understand. Now, close the door, and let me talk to you.”

“
You
don’t understand, and
I
don’t have time. Where did he go?” The Major saw that Phyllis was going to stall him, stall for her husband. He didn’t want to tell her about the removal of the patrol, but he had to get his message across. He closed the door and approached the chair. “Listen to me, Phyllis. I want to help Andy.… Sure, I’m mad as hell about this whole hospital bull, but that can wait. Right now I’ve got to
find
him!”

“Something’s happened.” Phyllis’ fear took another turn. “Is he in trouble?”

“I’m not sure, but he could be.”

“You didn’t follow him all the way from Boise or Denver unless you
were
sure. What is it?”

“
Please
, Phyl! Just tell me where he is.”

“He drove back to Barnegat.…”

“I don’t know the area. Which road would he take?”

“Merritt Parkway. It’s about a half-mile away to your left as you leave the hospital. On Calibar Lane.”

“What exit on the parkway?”

“First Greenwich toll. You turn right out of the ramp and get on Shore Road. Stay on it for about six miles. There’s a fork; the left is Shore Road, Northwest.…”

“That’s the one that becomes dirt?”

“It’s our property line.… Paul, what
is
it?”

“I … I just have to talk to him. Good-bye, Phyl.” Bonner opened the door and closed it rapidly behind him. He didn’t want Phyllis to see him running down the corridor.

The exit ramp at the first Greenwich toll station had a speed limit of twenty-five miles an hour. Paul Bonner was going over forty, although making sure the tires gripped
the wet pavement. On Shore Road he passed car after car, scrutinizing each one as best he could while the speedometer crept toward seventy.

He reached the fork, traveled about a mile and a half, and the road became dirt. He had entered the property of High Barnegat.

He slowed down; the snow was falling heavier now, the reflection of the headlights creating thousands of dancing white spots. He had driven the road perhaps three or four times during the weekend he’d spent with the Trevaynes, but he wasn’t sure of the turns.

Suddenly he had to stop. A flashlight was waving in small circles about a hundred yards ahead. A man came running toward the car. Bonner’s window was open.

“Mario. Mario.… It’s Joey.” The voice was urgent but not loud.

Bonner waited in the seat, his hand gripping his pistol. The stranger stopped. The car was not the car he expected. The night, the wet snow, the glare of the headlights on the private back road, had caused the man to see what he anticipated, not what was there. An Army vehicle with its unmistakable dull-brown finish. He reached into his jacket—to a holster, for a weapon, thought Paul.

“Hold it! Stay where you are! You move, you’re dead!” The Major opened his door and crouched.

Four shots, muffled by a silencer, was the stranger’s reply. Three bullets embedded themselves in the metal of the door; one shattered the windshield above the steering wheel, leaving a tiny hole in the center of the cracked glass. Bonner could hear the man begin to back away on the soft, snow-covered road. He raised his head; another puff of the silencer was heard, and a bullet whistled through the air above him.

Paul whipped to the rear of the car, protected by the open door, and flung himself on the ground. Underneath, between the two front tires, he could see the man running toward the woods, looking back, shielding his eyes against the glare of the lights. The man stopped at the edge of the trees, his body in shadows about forty yards down the road. It was obvious to Bonner that the man wanted to come back to the Army car, to see if he’d hit Paul with his
last shot. But he was afraid. Yet for some reason he couldn’t leave the scene; couldn’t run away. Then the man disappeared into the woods.

Bonner understood. The man with the gun had first come out with his flashlight to stop a car he was expecting. Now he had to get around the Army vehicle—with its alive or dead driver—and intercept the automobile he’d been waiting for.

That meant he’d make his way west through the dense forest of High Barnegat to a point behind Paul on Shore Road.

Major Paul Bonner felt a surge of confidence. He had learned his lessons in the Special Forces, in the scores of remote fire bases in Laos and Cambodia where his life and the lives of his team depended upon the swift, silent killing of enemy scouts. He knew the man with the gun who shielded his eyes from the headlights was no match.

Paul quickly estimated the man’s distance—the distance to the point at which he’d entered the woods. No more than a hundred and twenty-five feet. Bonner knew he had the time. If he was fast—and quiet.

He dashed from the car to the woods and bent his elbows to fend the branches in front of him—never letting them slap back, never letting them break. He assumed a semicrouch, his legs thrust forward, his feet nearly balletic as he tested the dark earth beneath him. Once or twice his foot touched a hard object—a rock or a fallen tree limb—and like a trained tentacle, it dodged or went above the object without interrupting the body’s motion. In this manner Bonner silently, rapidly made his way thirty feet into the wet, dense foliage. He angled his incursion line on an oblique left course so that when he had penetrated as far as he wished, he was directly parallel to the beams of the headlights out on Shore Road. He found a wide tree trunk and stood up, positioning himself so that whoever crossed between the trunk of the tree and the lights on the road would be silhouetted; Paul would see the man without any chance of being seen.

As he pressed himself against the bark and waited, Bonner recalled how often he had employed this tactic—using
the light of the sun at dawn or a low moon at night—to singularly ambush a scout or an infiltrator.

He was good. He knew the jungles.

What did the beavers know?

The man came into view. He was awkwardly sidestepping his way through the woods, shouldering the branches, his eyes on the road, his pistol raised, prepared to fire at any moving thing. He was about fifteen feet from Paul, concentrating on the obscured outline of the Army vehicle.

Paul picked the least obstructed path between himself and the man with the gun and prejudged the timing. He would have to divert the stranger for a second or two; do it in such a way as to cause him to stop at precisely that spot where their paths would meet. He reached down and felt the ground for a rock, a stone. He found one, rose to his feet, and silently counted off the man’s steps.

He threw the rock with all his strength just above the heavy ground cover toward the car on the road. The sound of the rock’s impact on the automobile’s hood caused the man to freeze, to fire his reloaded pistol repeatedly. There were five puffs from the silencer, and by the time the man crouched instinctively for protection, Bonner was on him.

He simultaneously grabbed the man’s hair and right wrist, crashing his left knee into the gunman’s rib cage with enormous force. Paul could hear the crack of the bone tissue as the man screamed in anguish. The pistol dropped, the neck wrenched back, blood matted the scalp where the hair was torn from the flesh.

It was over in less than ten seconds.

The man with the gun was immobilized, pain wracking his entire body—but, as Bonner had planned, not unconscious.

He pulled the man out of the woods to the car and threw him into the front. He ran around, got in the driver’s seat, and sped down the remaining dirt road to the Trevayne driveway.

The immobilized gunman wept and groaned and pleaded for aid.

Paul remembered that the drive in front of Trevayne’s house had an offshoot that led to a large, four-car garage to the left of the main building. He drove into it and pulled
the Army vehicle up to an open garage door. There was no automobile inside, so he entered, and as he did so, the man beside him began moaning again in pain. Bonner parked the car, grabbed the man’s coat so that the head fell forward, and clenched his fist as tightly as he could. He then punched the anguished man just below the chin line so the blow would render him instantly unconscious, but with no danger of death.

In a way, the Major reflected, it was a humanitarian gesture; there was nothing quite so painful as broken ribs. He turned off the lights and got out of the car.

Running back toward the front entrance, he saw that the door was open. The maid, Lillian, was standing in the light.

“Oh, Major Bonner. I thought I heard a car. How are you, sir?”

“Fine, Lillian. Where’s Mr. Trevayne?”

“He’s downstairs in his study. He’s been on the phone since he arrived. I’ll ring down and tell him you’re here.”

Paul remembered Andy’s soundproof study that overlooked the water. He wouldn’t have heard the car. Or anything else, for that matter. “Lillian, I don’t want to alarm you, but we’ve got to turn off all the lights. We’ve got to do it quickly.”

“I beg your pardon.” Lillian was a modern servant but retained the old traditions. She accepted orders from her employers, not from guests.

“Where is the phone to Mr. Trevayne’s study?” asked Bonner as he stepped into the hallway. There was no time to convince Lillian.

“Right there, sir,” answered the maid, pointing to a telephone by the staircase. “Third button, and press ‘Signal.’ ”

“Paul! What are you doing
here?
”

“We can discuss that—argue it, if you like—later. Right now I want you to tell Lillian to do as I say. I want all the lights off.… I’m
serious
, Andy.”

Trevayne didn’t hesitate. “Put her on.”

Lillian uttered four words. “Right away, Mr. Trevayne.”

If she hurried, thought Bonner as he looked through to the living room and recalled the few lights on upstairs,
it shouldn’t take her long. He couldn’t take time to help her; he had to talk to Trevayne.

“Lillian, when you’ve finished, come downstairs to Mr. Trevayne’s study. There’s nothing to worry about. I just want to make sure he doesn’t have to meet with someone … he doesn’t wish to see. It would be embarrassing for both of them.”

The explanation worked. Lillian sighed, half-humorously. She would be calm now; Paul had eliminated the essential fear. He started for the lower-level staircase, which was at the rear of the hallway, careful to keep his walk relaxed. Once on the stairs, he took them three at a time.