Shadow Wars, page 3
It was a rare morning, one seen only in ski movies, a day so perfect that it seemed a creation of the imagination. Almost two feet of powder snow, soft as a baby’s ass, had fallen the previous night with little wind to blow it away. It was something you were lucky to encounter once or twice in a lifetime—like a girl sculptured in pink who could ski circles around most men.
Chance never caught up with her until he reached the base of the Orient Express lift and saw her balanced casually on one hip against a wooden bar, her ski poles stuck in the snow to one side. Was she smiling? Perhaps at him? He couldn’t see her eyes through the sunglasses. It would make a difference—whether she was smiling at him or congratulating herself for that superb run.
“I came down behind you—“ he began.
“I know. I saw you before I took off.”
“… and I just wanted to tell you that was some of the most perfect skiing I’ve seen in years.”
“Thanks. You’re not bad yourself. I caught the last part of your run, and”—she pointed up the mountain—“you do a nice imitation.”
Chance glanced over his shoulder. His own trail crisscrossed hers above the tree line creating an almost perfect helix. “I’ve been doing this sort of thing in Europe. There aren’t many women who can—”
“I know,” she interrupted again, “I’ve heard that before—in Europe. There’re just as many men over there who show up with their tongues hanging out when they try to ski powder like that.” She removed the pink bandana and shook out thick blonde hair. Then she offered a brilliant smile. “Most of them don’t cut a trail like yours.”
“You look like you’ve caught your breath now. Shall we share a lift to the top?”
“Why not.” She pushed upright then bent down for her poles. “I’m game for another run before lunch. We can try the China Bowl this time. Have you ever been down Genghis Khan?”
He shook his head. “This is a first for me.”
She slid the Vuarnets down her nose and peered up at him through clear blue eyes. “How come you haven’t introduced yourself yet?”
“David Chance.” He extended a mitten in her direction.
She stared for the briefest moment as if she’d heard his name before, then reached over to squeeze his fingers through her own mitten. “Katherine Ellyson.”
“Kathy?”
“My stuffed-shirt daddy always calls me Katherine so I insist that my friends call me Kat,” she answered as they moved toward the lift.
“Then I’ll call you Kat, if you’ll consider me a friend.”
“So far, so good. And you? Are you a Dave or a more formal David?”
“A more formal David, even to my best friends. Never been a Dave,” he added as the chair scooped them into the air.
“Chance? … Sometime,” she said, “I’ll remember why your name sounds familiar.”
“That means you won’t forget it then,” he said with a cocky grin.
“Do you ski Vail often?” she asked.
“Hardly ever. I got the loan of a condo across the highway in the Redstone from a friend. You see, it never pays to bum your bridges behind you. It was a freebie flight from D.C., too.”
“I see—Washington. Maybe that’s where.” She slid the Vuarnets down her nose to glance at him with knit brows. “Are you a bureaucrat by chance? You don’t look it.”
“No, ma’am. Far from it. I came from the Norfolk area. Military, I’m afraid. I hope that’s not as bad as a bureaucrat.”
“Nothing could be, believe me,” she noted acidly. “Navy, right?”
“Good guess. That’s not bad, is it?”
“I guess not.”
“How about you?” Chance asked. “Is Vail a second home or are you just vacationing?”
“I don’t spend much time here, but I’m using my daddy’s condo in the village. And my trip here was a freebie, too, just like yours, because that same daddy paid for it. Right now he’s not too keen on the Navy. So let’s talk about skiing.” There was no doubting her tone of voice.
By the time Katherine Ellyson had finished explaining the places she’d skied around the world, Chance understood how she’d handled the powder in the bowl so easily. He also learned that even though she was willing to take another run with him, she had a lunch date with a friend in the village (a woman, she explained, when he looked hurt), and planned to shop that afternoon with the same individual, but she was willing to have dinner with him that evening if he didn’t mind that she was going to marry a friend of his.
“I can’t imagine you wanting to marry any friend of mine,” he retorted.
“If you still want to have dinner with me, I’ll tell you about it tonight. But it’s a big secret until then. I’ll even go halfsies with you because it’s not going to lead to anything.”
“My bad luck. Okay. We’ll argue about halfsies over dinner. Depends on the friend.”
There was little need for a car at Vail. Local buses operated constantly throughout the village transporting skiers to the lifts, returning them to their quarters at the end of the day, and moving them to the restaurants and night spots all evening. Without this, the narrow streets and lanes would have been gridlocked in the winter.
Chance was also relieved that neckties were a rarity in the village. Men with his build were never comfortable with a tie knotted around their neck. He was medium height with wide shoulders and a neck thick enough to require custom shirts that were also made to accommodate a barrel chest. He was a Navy SEAL and superb physical conditioning had been a fact of life for more years than he cared to remember. Now, closing in on forty faster than he cared to think of, those years were said to be gaining on him. There were even some who said his reactions weren’t quite the same. He’d been moved from an operational team to a staff position and one of the reasons for coming to Vail on his own was to decide whether he was going to remain in the Navy or resign.
When he stepped off the bus near Kat’s condo that night, few observers would have been concerned with his age. Perhaps his black hair was a little thinner but his tanned face, even darker from the day’s sun, was still a young man’s. Out of habit, his brown eyes covered the surrounding area, pausing for an instant on the shadows to see what might be moving there. Then he stepped out briskly through the lightly falling snow.
The Ellyson condo was in an older part of the village where the early buyers had settled. Their addresses were a distinguishing feature of a family’s longevity in Vail. Chance was surprised when he noticed that the windows were dark in Kat’s condo.
There was no answer when he pushed the button. He waited before pushing it again. Still nothing. Then he knocked gently on the door before impatiently banging on it when there was still no response.
The door behind him opened and a woman about Kat’s age said, “May I help you?”
“I was supposed to meet Miss Ellyson now,” Chance answered looking self-consciously at his watch. “I assume I have the right place.”
She frowned. “It’s Kat’s all right. You’re the dinner date she mentioned?”
“I thought so.”
“Strange. She told me earlier this afternoon she was looking forward to seeing you. You didn’t call first, did you?”
Chance grinned uncomfortably. “I’m afraid I never asked for her number. We were on the lift and I just made sure I remembered this address.”
“That’s no problem,” she answered with a smile. “A lot of dates are made that way in Vail. I’ll tell you what, let me try Kat on my phone just to make sure she doesn’t answer. Then I’ll use the spare key she gave me to make sure she doesn’t have some sort of problem.”
She was back in less than a minute and unlocked the other door. “Wait here until I make sure she’s not running around in the buff,” she said as she snapped on the hall light.
There was a quizzical look on her face when she returned. “There’s no one here. It’s almost like there never was.” Chance moved past her and stepped into the living room. There was no indication that anyone had even lived there recently. The cushions on the furniture had been puffed and there were still lines on the carpet from a vacuum cleaner. The kitchen was spotless, the dishwasher empty. The cupboards were neatly stacked with clean dishes. The bedrooms were freshly made up, the closets and drawers empty. The bathroom had been laid out with new, unopened toiletries for the next occupant, fresh towels neatly hung on their racks.
“I could have sworn she was here all this afternoon,” the woman said with concern. “We came back from shopping about three-thirty.”
“Did you see her again, or talk to her?”
“I napped after that. Haven’t seen or heard a thing since then.” She folded her arms and bit her lip nervously. “I’m scared … scared for Kat”—and then she glanced at Chance—“and for that matter, I don’t even know your name.”
“You know, that’s the strange part of meeting Kat. When I told her my name was David Chance, it was almost as if she’d heard it before.” His eyes scanned the living room again and came up with nothing more than the fact that not a thing was out of place. “She told me she was using her father’s place here. Do you know where she’d been before she came here?”
“If you can believe it,” she said shaking her head in wonder, “she came from Europe to ski here. Her father’s a bigwig with the State Department, an ambassador or something like that in one of those countries near Russia. Kat didn’t spend a lot of time explaining why she showed up in Vail, but I gather she and her father didn’t see eye to eye on something … just maybe some problem with a guy, but I can’t say that for sure. She lived in … Prague? Does that sound right?”
Chance nodded. “Thanks. I appreciate your help. Lock the place up tight,” he said, moving toward the door. Then he turned around. “Don’t let anyone else in here who doesn’t have a badge. I know someone in Prague—someone at the embassy—that I’ll be in touch with tonight.”
On a quiet night in the middle of the winter, the watch officer in the military attaché’s section in Prague was allowed to use a cot in his office. His responsibility was being available if the phone rang but there was no reason to remain awake between security checks. The last one had been made at midnight and it was assumed that the watch officer could sleep with one ear out for the phone.
“Military section, Master Chief Gannett speaking,” he answered sleepily. “This is not a secure phone.”
There was a pause, followed by the hollow echo of an overseas call. “This isn’t the famous Ben Gannett, the bald eagle of the Gettysburg, that lover of gin, women, and off-color song.”
“Who,” the chief growled, “is taking the trouble to wake me up just to slander my reputation? Do you know what time it is?”
“Not quite twenty hundred in Colorado. The evening’s just begun.”
“Which means it’s not quite”—Gannett squinted at his watch—“zero four hundred in Prague and morning hasn’t even started. Who the hell is this?”
“They call me Chance,” came the hollow answer, followed by an equally hollow laugh. “My friends call me David.”
“David! Son of a bitch but it’s good to hear your voice. Or should I say Captain Chance? It is captain now, isn’t it?”
Another chuckle. “I’ll be captain forever, but if we’re still friends you can call me David. Otherwise, it’s CaptainChanceSir,” he added, running the words together.
“How’d you know I was here?”
“I didn’t have the vaguest idea. What’re you doing out in the middle of nowhere? Don’t tell me they’re putting you out to pasture, too?” he asked.
“Hell, I hope not. I was told I could have any choice of shore duty I wanted because of a letter sent by a certain Commander David Chance, who I now know has since been kicked upstairs. Can you imagine a better deal than embassy duty? This is what I wanted. I could bore you for a week about the short hours, the lonely women, the cheap booze. There’s even a couple of bartenders in Prague who now know how to make a great martini.”
“I wouldn’t have expected any less from you. Now your voice just began to fade for a second, so before we lose this connection I need to get in touch with a friend of mine who I understand is your local attaché, Bernie Ryng. I need his phone number.”
“Captain Ryng’s mentioned your name before. You can’t believe how impressed he was that you and I are friends—even made me feel famous for about five seconds. But I’m afraid I’m not enough of a friend to give you his number. Right now I couldn’t even give it to the president of the United States. The captain came back here this evening and left strict orders that no one—and he said not even the president of the United States, to make sure I got the message—should get his address or phone number.”
“Any idea why, Ben? I’m not positive but this could be pretty important. I need to talk to him.”
“The best I can do is take your number back in the States and ask him to call you if I can get hold of him. Is it important enough to wake him up right now?”
“Do you know the ambassador?”
“Ellyson?”
“That’s the one.”
“I could say more if this was a secure line.”
“Does he have a daughter?”
“Now you’re talking about something I understand, Captain. She’s a lovely blonde, very nice to everyone on the staff. Her mother’s back home for some reason right now and Katherine was standing in for her at the embassy functions until she went back to the States unexpectedly the other day. Probably something to do with her father. I should add that she’s also a friend of Captain Ryng’s, probably more of a friend than her father liked.”
“Then I really need you to get a message to Bernie now, not later.”
Morning came slowly to the wintry outskirts of Berlin. The sun struggled to rise above the early morning clouds, struggled to penetrate raw ground fog depositing a thick hoarfrost on everything, struggled to warm the unmoving air. It was a city that never really slept but it was quieter in the winter and early morning sounds were more obvious in the cold, hollow air.
There were still more shadows than light when the chief justice of the Supreme Court was jolted rudely awake by a cold glove clamped over his mouth. A harsh voice snarled, “Don’t move, Herr Strauss, or your wife will be dead before you can count to three.”
The bedside light was snapped on and the judge’s chin was wrenched forcibly toward the adjacent form. His wife lay quietly, her eyes wide with fear staring up at a ski-masked individual with one gloved hand covering her mouth, the other pressing a knife to her throat. The judge’s head was snapped back in the opposite direction so he could see the two other people who had invaded his bedroom. They were also masked, tiny holes for eyes and mouth the only indication of life behind the frightful designs.
“I also have people outside your children’s rooms,” the muffled voice said. “They’re still sound asleep. I assure you they can remain so but they will also die if either you or your wife cause us to harm you. Do you agree it would be a shame to end their young lives so abruptly?” He motioned toward the man covering the judge’s mouth. “My friend is going to remove his hand, but remember that your wife dies first if you do anything other than answer me quietly and calmly. Now,” he said as the gloved hand was removed, “do you agree with what I said about your children?”
“Please …” The judge’s voice was barely audible. “… please … I promise not to—”
“Enough,” the man snapped. “We’re not here to listen to you make speeches. You will respond only with a yes or no when I ask you. You all will be left unharmed once you understand and agree to my message.” He leaned forward until the justice could smell the perspiration under the woolen mask. “You see, there is no other option—you understand, you agree.” He straightened and took a step backward. “Today, when you arrive at your chambers, you will place a call to Judge Schaude, who is presiding at the trial of Rolf Gerters. You will explain that Gerters’s case must be thrown out.” He extracted a piece of paper from a jacket pocket and held it up to be seen before placing it on the bedside table. “That is your reason. You’ll agree with it after reading it. I’m assured there is judicial precedent for your decision. And by the way, Schaude expects your call and will agree with you. When he announces his decision, he will quote your words for the newspapers. Is this all quite clear?”
“Yes.” A distinctly uncontrolled shudder ran through the judge’s body.
“Let me explain why you will be glad to comply. Before noon today, one of your associate justices will die. That is his fate. Any effort between now and then to protect any of them will mean the extermination of your family. Please make no effort to arrange protection for them because your phones both here and in your office are being listened to. No matter what you try, we’re always listening. Eyes will always be on you no matter where you are. You will be surprised to learn that some of my people work for you. There’s no way, absolutely none at all, that you can learn who they are. But they’ll be watching. The same is true for your wife and children. Their situation is no different so they might just as well go along as they normally would. Do you understand what I have said so far?”
The judge’s mouth opened and his tongue moved, but there was no sound.
“Please be more specific, Judge. If you act like this in public, someone is going to think there’s something wrong with you. Now, do you understand?”
The response—“Yes”—was a whisper.
“Now, let me explain the reason for the death of one of your colleagues. While it will appear to be an unfortunate accident, there are five of us right in this room who know better. My purpose in removing one of your associates is to convince you to continue to cooperate with me in the future. I need to have more of our people back with me again. If you hesitate in releasing them, then others will die, though not all of them will be members of your court. There would be too much cause for suspicion then. After all, I am a reasonable man. Mrs. Strauss,” the man asked, “you wouldn’t do anything to endanger your family, would you?”
