XXXIII
The room was emptying. Clara stood up, feeling numb. She had given the notes she had made to Franklin Conran, who would have them typed up Monday in his office after the news of the assassination was made public. With the arrest of Michael Ball the nightmare she had been trapped in had finally ended. It was over.
“Clara Winston? That is you, isn’t it? What on earth are you doing here?” Senator Chandler walked around the table toward her, frowning and blinking as though he had something in his eye. A reddened circle on his left temple marked the spot where Michael Ball had struck him. Perhaps the blow was causing his eyes to water. “I thought I recognized you as soon as you sat down, but I wasn’t sure.”
“It’s a long story, Senator,” she answered with a sigh, shaking his proffered hand. He blinked again, rubbed his left eye, then looked alarmed.
“Is something the matter, Senator?”
“I—I seem to have lost my contact lens. I …” He was peering at her through one eye, presumably the one with the lens still in it, and looking slightly panicked.
“Oh, dear,” she said, looking down. Lena wore contacts, and Clara knew from experience what an annoyance it was when one got loose. A glint on the linoleum floor caught her eye. She knelt. Sure enough it was the contact. With a careful finger she picked up the tiny hard circle of plastic, straightened, and held it out to the Senator.
“Thank you,” he said, taking it from her and turning slightly aside as he popped it back in. Lena had always cleaned hers first. …
Over the Senator’s shoulder, Clara saw Jack head out the door with Davey Spencer.
“Excuse me, Senator, I have to talk to somebody,” she said quickly, almost running as she went after Jack. She was afraid, now that everything was over, he might vanish into the night like a ghost.
“Jack, wait!” Her heels clicked on the linoleum as she hurried after him. Dressed in the white-flowered yellow halter dress and heeled leather sandals she had charged at the Columbella, she knew she looked good. And she desperately wanted to look good for what she had to say to Jack. “Jack!”
“What is it?” He turned, his face stiff as she caught up to him, tugging on his sleeve so that he had to give her his attention. His green eyes were twin shards of ice. Clara hesitated, acutely conscious of the listening ears of Davey Spencer, who had stopped with Jack, and Senator Chandler, who had come out of the situation room and was walking toward them.
“I need to talk to you,” she said urgently.
“I don’t believe we have anything to say.” He started to pull away. She clung to the sleeve of his tweed sportscoat, her eyes pleading.
“Won’t you at least give me a chance to explain? I—I didn’t mean what you thought.”
“It doesn’t matter what you meant. The offer is withdrawn.” He let out an impatient hiss. When he spoke again his voice was low and rough. “Look, Clara, don’t you know enough to know when it’s over? It was good, baby, as long as we had the excitement of the chase to fuel it. But the chase is over, and we have to go back to real life. We’re not right for each other. Be proud that you had the good sense to recognize it first.”
“McClain!” General Ramsey’s voice called him from down the hall. “We’ve got something interesting coming from the wire. Come take a look at it.”
“Excuse me,” Jack said formally. Freeing himself from her grip on his sleeve, he turned on his heel and walked off. Clara, looking helplessly after him, felt her cheeks start to burn with angry embarrassment as Davey Spencer gave her a pitying look before hurrying after Jack.
“I’m sorry, my dear,” Senator Chandler said quietly, coming up behind her. “I couldn’t help but overhear.”
Clara shook her head. Tears were burning in her throat, but she would be drawn and quartered before she would make an even worse fool of herself by crying. If Jack didn’t want her … The thought made her eyes blur with tears despite her best efforts.
“Isn’t that the man who’s been in all the newspapers? The one they said was responsible for that hospital massacre? How did you ever get involved with him?” Clara had the impression that Senator Chandler was just talking to cover up the fact that she couldn’t. She sniffed and swallowed, and with a valiant effort managed to find her voice.
“It’s another long story, Senator.”
“I see.” He hesitated a moment, then said, “I have to be
back in Washington tomorrow in time for a luncheon in my honor. I’ll be leaving right away. You’re welcome to a lift home, if you like.”
Home. The word conjured up a picture of Jolly mead, of her mother who would be returning from her cruise and her manuscript which was unmailed and Iris and Amy and Puff, whom she would have to ask the general to send to her … Suddenly she longed to be at home more than anything in the world. It was, she acknowledged with a sad sniff, the place she always ran to when she had wounds that needed licking.
“Thank you very much, Senator, that’s very kind of you. I would like a lift,” she said. With a fatherly pat, he tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and they started down the hallway.
XXXIV
Saturday, September 17, 2:15
A.M.
Clara sat in the back of the limousine beside the senator trying not to think of Jack. She had blown it all around. If she had it to do over again she would have snapped up his offer of marriage so fast that he would have felt like a fly with a turtle after him. But she didn’t have it to do over again. Like the rest of the whole fantastic adventure her romance with Jack was over. They weren’t right for each other he had said. And she knew he was right. But oh, how wonderful being wrong for each other could be!
“There’s a chartered jet waiting for us at the Charleston airport. Once we get on it you can sleep. You look worn out.” Senator Chandler’s voice roused her from her thoughts. She smiled at him, though the smile took an effort. The inside of the limousine was dark. They were still on the island, heading for the bridge over the swamp that connected it to the mainland. Outside lighting was limited to right around the resort area.
“It’s very kind of you to offer me a lift, Senator,” Clara said again. “I really wanted to get home.”
“I guessed as much.” Senator Chandler leaned forward to pick up the receiver from the telephone built into the door as he spoke. Besides the telephone, the limousine was equipped with every conceivable luxury from a fully stocked bar to a
TV
. “But please don’t thank me. I’m glad of the company.”
Clara smiled at him. He smiled back. “I hope you’ll forgive me,” he said, holding up the receiver, “but I want to tell my housekeeper I’m on my way home.”
“Please go ahead,” Clara murmured, her eyes shifting to the darkness outside the window, an instinctive courtesy to afford him as much privacy as she could while he made his call. The phone made little beeping noises as the senator punched in a number. Without the distraction of conversation, her thoughts drifted back to Jack.
“Damn, I guess I’m getting old. Or maybe it’s my contacts that are getting old. I’d like to think so, anyway. I can’t make out the numbers on this thing.” Senator Chandler grimaced ruefully as he squinted at the receiver he held in his hand. “Would you be so kind, my dear?” He held the receiver out to her.
Recalled from her unhappy thoughts, Clara smiled at him. “I’d be glad to.”
With an answering smile he passed the receiver to her. “Thank you. Good eyesight is one of the first of the many advantages of youth to go.”
“What is the number?”
“Area code 301-244-3668.”
It was hard to see the numbers in the darkness. The tiny buttons were lighted, but Clara still had to hold the phone
close to her face and squint as she punched in the number. There was a busy signal. She told the senator so.
He frowned. “Try again, please. That’s the line to my private retreat, and it shouldn’t be busy, certainly not at this time in the morning.”
“Perhaps I got a wrong number.”
“Yes, that’s possible. 301-244-3668.”
Clara tried again, holding the phone close as she squinted at it. Above the little buttons the letters corresponding to the numbers danced, actually more visible than the numbers themselves because of the intensity of the light in the darkness of the limousine’s interior. She’d always played a little game with herself when she’d dialed a phone, checking to see if the letters corresponding to the number spelled anything in particular. Businesses especially seemed fond of numbers that spelled out a word. For example, the last four digits of a weight loss center she’d gone to once spelled out diet.
“2-4-4-3-6-6-8,” Clara muttered to herself, punching the numbers in with painstaking care. Suddenly her eyes widened with horror, and ran back over the sequence twice. There was no mistake. The letters that corresponded with Senator Chandler’s personal phone number spelled out Bigfoot. For a crazy moment she thought it might be a coincidence. But the hope died as she lifted her eyes to see the look on Adam Chandler’s face. As Jack had once said, in this business there was no such thing as coincidence.
“So you picked up on my little conceit. I always thought you were an exceptionally intelligent young lady. I’m pleased to have my opinion validated,” he said conversationally, taking the receiver from her limp hand and replacing it on its rest.
“But—they arrested Michael Ball,” she protested stupidly, staring at him with dawning horror.
He smiled. “They did, didn’t they? I’ve always been a lucky soul. My luck continues to hold.”
“Your eyes are too dark.” She was whispering. “My, my, you have been thorough, haven’t you?” he asked with a sneer. Lifting his hand, he cupped it under first one eye and then the other as he blinked. When he looked up at her again, she sucked in her breath. His bright blue eyes were blue no longer; they were an unusual light hazel, almost yellow.
“The contacts! They’re tinted green!” She had noticed that tinge of color when she had handed the tiny object back to him, she realized. It just hadn’t registered on her consciousness until now. At the time she had thought that the terrifying game was over. And she’d been thinking of Jack. …
“Pity I had to lose one back there, and you had to pick it up. That was unlucky. For you.”
The black hawk with the yellow eyes. That was how Rostov had described him. Clara stared at him with the fascination a rabbit must feel for a cobra.
“You’re Nikolai Bukovsky,” she breathed. “But how can you be? My mother knows your family. Adam Chandler isn’t an alias. He’s
real.”
“He was real,” the senator corrected. “He’s been dead these forty-two years, God rest his soul. He died in a Russian field hospital in 1944. He was on a secret mission behind enemy lines when he was captured and tried to escape. He was badly wounded in the attempt. But I, who escaped with him, was not, and I carried him on my back to the Russian front. We were your allies at the time, you know. The officer in charge of the field unit was veteran
KGB.
As I recovered from my wounds and Chandler expired of his, he took note of the similarities in our height, build, and coloring, and our friendship, which meant that I knew a great deal of Chandler’s life before he went off to war. Our features were different, as was the color of our eyes, his being dark blue and mine, as you see, being hazel, but the basic similarities were there. This officer had tremendous foresight: he guessed that the friendship between the United States and Russia would not long survive the war. He checked into Chandler’s background, found that he was indeed as wealthy and well connected as he had boasted to me, and decided that it might be useful to have such an operative in the United States when our relationship should once again grow distant. He put the proposal to me, I consented, and underwent the plastic surgery and training necessary to become Adam Howard Chandler
IV
. There was nothing they could do to change my eye color without damaging my eyes, however, and that I would not consent to. So I have been wearing colored contact lenses since 1944. They were made by Soviet scientists just for me, and have been replaced regularly over the years. Now, of course, colored contact lenses are available in every corner store, I’ve been quite a trendsetter.” This was accompanied by a small chuckle.
“Oh my God!” Clara breathed. The extreme danger she was in had just started to occur to her. This was Bigfoot. She knew it and he knew she knew it. He could not let her live.
“That I should be elected to the senate was a dividend not expected by my superiors. The chairmanship of the Senate Intelligence Committee was the icing on the cake, But as Adam Chandler, wealthy war hero, every door was open to me. I have been invaluable to my country; I will
continue to be so now that the search for Bigfoot has been successfully concluded.” He chuckled again. “To think I seriously considered fleeing the country when I received the president’s summons. I almost went back to Russia. One day I will. When I do, I will be greeted as one of the greatest heroes our country has ever known.”
He took a deep breath and released it with a sigh. His yellow eyes blinked regretfully at Clara.
“I’m very sorry that you got involved in this, my dear. I still don’t understand quite how it came about. I had hoped to be able to spare you. Indeed, if you hadn’t seen the contact … Ah, well.”
“What are you going to do?” Her lungs felt stifled, as though someone were pressing a pillow down on her face.
“Why, have you killed, of course. Don’t worry, I’ll give them instructions to make it painless.”
“I told General Ramsey I was leaving with you. I had to give him instructions about where to send my cat. They’ll know you did it.” She was clutching desperately at straws, instinctively shrinking into the corner of the luxurious leather seat as her body tried to put as much distance between the two of them as she could.
“Did you?” He frowned, sounding annoyed. “Well, no matter. I will of course see that you get home safely despite your despondency over the defection of your lover. Once there, I cannot be blamed if you take your life in an act of despair.”
Clara stared at him with horror while he appeared to work out the details of her demise. Her own brain revived from its state of frozen terror to work with lightning speed. The diver. Could he be involved in this, too? It was likely, or the senator—Bukovsky, she still had trouble equating the two in her mind—would not speak so freely. She could not
count on him to help her. It was a better than even chance that Bukovsky was not armed. He would have been searched before being admitted to the secretary of state’s little conference, and he’d had no reason to arm himself afterwards. Of course, he might have a gun in the limousine.
Bukovsky reached down to retrieve his briefcase from the seat beside him.
“It’s extremely fortunate that I am an insomniac, though I never thought so before now,” he remarked, extracting a pill bottle from the briefcase and closing it again. He removed a glass from the rack beside him, opened the refrigerator, and extracted a bottle of vodka, which he proceeded to open and pour into the glass. When the glass was full he recapped the bottle and put it back in the refrigerator.
“You don’t take Seconal, do you, my dear?”
Clara shook her head, her eyes on the two red capsules he extracted from the pill bottle.
“Excellent. Two of these and a shot of vodka and you’ll sleep like a baby. Such deep sleep that you must be carried onto the plane will be taken as another mark of depression. And it’s to your advantage, too, my dear. When the time comes for you to hang yourself, you won’t feel a thing.”
“I won’t take them.” Clara shrank even further against the seat as he extended the pills toward her in his outstretched palm. She looked around desperately in search of the door handle. Finally she found it, nestled deep within a shadowy recess. The car was moving along the dark curving road at about forty miles an hour. They were on the bridge now; beneath them, Clara remembered from her own trip over, was the swamp. It was said to be impassable. …
“You will,” Bukovsky answered positively, setting the glass down on the small table in the middle and reaching
town to pull off his shoe. Beneath Clara’s startled eyes, he twisted the heel until it turned at a ninety degree angle from the sole. Nestled inside was a small derringer.
“I really would rather not shoot you now, but I will if you force me,” Bukovsky said, picking up the derringer and pointing it at Clara. “Now take the pills.”
He held out his hand. Swallowing hard, Clara looked at the derringer. Meekly she allowed him to pour the pills into her palm.
“Take them.”
“Could I—have a drink of the vodka first? My—my throat’s so dry I don’t think I can swallow.”
“Very well. Get it.” The derringer followed her as she leaned forward to pick up the glass from the table. With a quick look at him, she lifted the glass to her lips and took a sip.
“Now the pills.”
Clara lifted the hand the pills were in to her mouth. Then, knowing it was now or never, she threw the contents of her glass in his face.
Bukovsky screamed, clawing at his face. The derringer went off, the bullet whistling over her head to crash with a tinkle of shattering glass through the passenger window. The driver, made aware of the altercation by the gunshot, stood on his brakes. Clara and Bukovsky were thrown forward. Even as she was scrambling from the floor, her hand was on the door handle. She jerked. It was locked.
The limousine was skidding sideways along the road, tires squealing in protest at the suddenness of the stop. She had to save herself… A hand was on her leg. Clara looked around, saw Bukovsky coming up off the floor of the limousine at her, murder in his yellow eyes.
Of its own volition, her hand thrust through the shattered
glass, not even feeling the pain as it was sliced in a dozen places. She felt for the doorhandle, found it, pushed the button, leaning her weight against the door at the same time, and then she was flying free, rolling down a steep grassy embankment as the car slewed past and Bukovsky’s head appeared in the swinging door.
She landed in three feet of icy water at the bottom of the embankment. Tall swaying reeds towered above her head. Gasping as she surfaced, half blinded by mud and slime that covered her, she lifted a hand to dash it from her face and dared a terrified look up toward the road. The limousine had stopped. Bukovsky was standing on the gravel shoulder, staring down at the marshy field where she lay. His driver was getting something from the trunk. Clara began to scramble away, half swimming, half crawling, the bottom of the swamp slippery ooze beneath her hands and feet. The water was black with an oily sheen on its surface. She was shivering already, teeth chattering. The horrible stink of swamp gas threatened to steal her breath away.
“There she is!” she heard Bukovsky cry. Instinctively she glanced back. The driver was lifting a rifle to his shoulder. Taking a deep, shaking breath she went under. As she went she heard a zinging sound overhead. Then another one. The rifle was equipped with a silencer. There was no chance that someone at the resort would hear the shots and come to her aid.