Severe Clear (19 page)

“Yes, Mr. Greenfield.”

“Get me a copy of the piano part, please,” Greenfield called to an assistant.

“What arrangement are you using?” Hattie asked.

“The Previn,” Greenfield replied.

“I won’t need the music, I know it,” she said.

He stood, staring at her.

“I recorded it with the Manhattan Youth Orchestra two years ago,” Hattie said.

Greenfield turned back to the orchestra and raised his arms. “All right, everybody, this is a rehearsal, but I’m not going to stop. Let’s see if you can all get it right the first time.” He raised his arms and cued the clarinetist, who played the opening trill, then the glissando, the entire orchestra came in, and Hattie played her first phrases.

—

A
t the end of the piece, the orchestra gave Hattie an ovation, and Greenfield simply beamed at her, shaking his head. Then Immi Gotham entered from the control room where she had stood at the rear, listening. She was applauding, too. She hugged Hattie and introduced herself.

Hattie was flushed and smiling. She thanked everyone. “And thank you, Mr. Greenfield, for allowing me to . . .”

But John Greenfield was on his cell phone. He finished his conversation, then hung up. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said to the orchestra, “I’ve just been told that Andrei Serkinoff was in an automobile accident on the freeway an hour ago, and I’m told he’s now in the emergency room at Cedars-Sinai, having a broken left wrist set. We are without a soloist.”

There were sympathetic sounds from the orchestra.

“John,” Immi Gotham said, “I’m sorry to hear of Mr. Serkinoff’s accident, but you are
not
without a soloist.”

Greenfield turned to Hattie. “Are you doing anything Saturday evening?” he asked.

 37 

T
he group left the music department, Hattie with two DVDs under her arm, and got back into the electric cart to continue their tour. They visited set design and the props warehouse, the motor pool where a collection of vehicles, some of them going back decades, was kept, ready to be used in scenes, and the costume department, where they watched Immi Gotham being fitted for her concert gown.

Finally, they were driven down streets occupied by a mix of small office buildings and cottages, and the cart stopped in front of a traditional California bungalow with a wide front porch and a beautifully tended front garden. Goldman led everyone to the house and opened the front door with a key. “Peter,” he said, “this was your father’s . . . excuse me, your stepfather’s bungalow for more than fifty years. I’ve left it just as it was the last time he used it. It’s sentimental of me, but in fact, no one on the lot has had the courage to ask me for it.”

They walked through the bungalow, which contained a living room, dining room, and kitchen, plus three other rooms, several utility rooms, and Vance Calder’s office, which opened onto a back porch that offered a good view of the entire lot from a small rise. Nobody said much of anything.

Peter took a chair and waved to the others to gather around a table on the porch. “Leo,” he said, “Hattie, Ben, and I have been on an accelerated program at Yale, going to school the year ’round, and we’re going to graduate next year.”

“What are your plans then, Peter?” Goldman asked. “I know you well enough already to believe that you have some.”

“Our plan is to come to L.A. and make pictures for Centurion.”

Goldman broke into a wide grin. “I’ll tell you the truth, I was hoping you’d say that. Your first film,
Autumn Kill
, has already grossed more than sixty million dollars, and we’re about to release it in Europe and Asia, where we project it will earn at least that much more. And a lot of people couldn’t understand why I paid so much for it! The quicker we have another film from you, the better.”

“Thank you, Leo. Hattie, Ben, and I want to operate as a unit on the lot, drawing on the studio’s resources as we need them, and, of course, we’ll need a space to work in. Do you think you could keep this bungalow for our use?”

“I’d be delighted to do that, Peter. Of course, you’ll want to bring it up to date, but we’ll have plenty of time to get it ready for you.”

“I think the main things we’ll need are soundproofing, a piano, and recording facilities for Hattie’s studio, and an editing suite for Ben and me, and, of course, wiring for computers and wi-fi.”

“Tell me which rooms you’d like to use, and I’ll get an architect started on some drawings for your approval.”

“Let’s go take a look,” Peter said. They went back into the house, where the three of them discussed their needs in the space and Leo took notes. Half an hour later, they were done. They had a late lunch at the studio commissary, then resumed their tour of the Centurion lot.

Late in the afternoon, after a look around the executive offices, Goldman walked them to the waiting hotel SUV, and they started back to the hotel.

“That was a very exciting day, wasn’t it?” Ben said.

“Nobody’s more excited than me,” Hattie said. “Immi is doing an all-Gershwin program at her concert, and Mr. Greenfield wants me to come back tomorrow and rehearse a number for her with me on piano.”

“Wonderful! It was a very satisfying day for me, too,” Peter said. “I can see a future for all of us. It’s what Dad calls ‘severe clear.’”

“What does that mean?” Hattie asked.

“It’s a pilot’s term, it means a cloudless sky, ceiling and visibility unlimited.”

“Severe clear,” Ben said. “I like it.”

When they arrived back at the hotel the Cayenne was shunted into a parking area again.

“I thought we wouldn’t have to go through this another time,” Peter said, “coming and going in one of the hotel’s cars.”

“Something must have happened,” Ben said.

After the search of the car had been completed, Hans drove them back to their cottage. They arrived simultaneously with Mike Freeman, who was carrying a briefcase.

Inside, Stone was sitting with another man they hadn’t met.

“Hi there, kids,” Stone called out. “I don’t think you’ve met Special Agent Rifkin, of the Secret Service.” Everybody shook hands.

“Dad,” Peter said, “they put us through the big search again at the front gate. Has something happened?”

“No, no,” Stone replied. “The security folks are just a little nervous, what with two presidents here and a lot of celebrities to arrive tomorrow. Will you excuse us, please? We have some things to discuss.”

“Sure,” Peter said. “What about a swim, everybody?”

The others nodded, and they all went to change.

“Let’s go into the study,” Stone said when they had gone. The three men got up and walked into the next room, and Stone closed the door behind them. “All right, Mike, what’s up?” he asked.

Mike sat down. “First of all, Agent Rifkin, I want to apologize to you and the Secret Service.”

“For what?” Rifkin asked.

“Late yesterday I got word from the NSA that they had located the geographical point from which the e-mails were sent by our friend Algernon. It was an apartment house in Palo Alto.”

“Why didn’t you call me at once?” Rifkin asked.

“That’s why I’m apologizing,” Mike said, “for that and my reason for not calling you.”

“Which is?”

“Frankly, I don’t think your people are sufficiently trained and experienced to work a scene as well as . . . well, some other agencies. Nor as well as our people at Strategic Services.”

Rifkin thought about that, but didn’t contradict him. “Go on, what did you find?”

“Not much,” Mike said. “The place had been cleaned and wiped down—very professionally, I might add. Except for one thing.”

“Come on, Mike,” Stone said, “spit it out.”

Mike set his briefcase on the coffee table and unlatched the locks. “We found these under a table.” He reached into his briefcase and removed a zipped plastic bag containing a pair of heavy gloves.

“I’m sorry,” Stone said, “I don’t get it. Gloves?”

Mike set the bag on the coffee table. “They’re lab gloves,” he said. “There’s good news and bad news about them.”

“Go on, tell us,” Stone said.

“The good news is, they’re not sufficiently protective for handling plutonium.”

“And the bad news?”

“They’re sufficient for handling enriched uranium.”

“Oh, my dear God,” Rifkin said.

 38 

M
ike waited for a moment before continuing. “On the way in here I ordered my people to redouble their efforts to search every vehicle and guest entering the grounds. They’re already at work. Agent Rifkin, I suggest you issue the same order to your people.”

Rifkin produced a cell phone and pressed a single button. “This is Rifkin,” he said, then he gave orders to intensify the search routine.

“Further good news,” Mike said when Rifkin had finished, “is that my people checked the gloves with a Geiger counter and got a negative reading, and we are not expecting a rush of guests until tomorrow. Further good news is that, if a nuclear device is being brought here, it will be too large to easily smuggle in. The suitcase nuclear bomb is a myth—even a small one would be much larger than that. We have to comb the entire hotel and inspect anything that came in a large package—a kitchen appliance, a piece of furniture. The bell captain can tell us by questioning his staff if anything like that was taken into a suite or room by one of his bellmen.”

“I know what’s coming next,” Rifkin said.

“Well, I don’t know,” Stone said, “so tell me.”

Mike spoke up. “What Agent Rifkin means is, if a nuclear device is involved, it won’t have to be on the hotel grounds to destroy the place.”

“How big an area are we talking about?”

“The Arrington is in a canyon,” Mike explained. “Anyone who wanted to destroy the hotel would need to place the device in the canyon, not beyond it, where the landscape would deflect the blast.”

“I’m going to have to call my director,” Rifkin said, “and ask for more agents and the authority to search every house and building in Stone Canyon.”

“I don’t think you’ll have to search every house,” Mike said. “It’s enough to talk to the occupants and see if a large package has been delivered to them. Most of them will not be suspicious characters, but we’re dealing with a Middle Eastern threat, so anyone with that appearance living locally should have his residence thoroughly searched. Can you get a broad federal search warrant?”

“In the circumstances, yes,” Rifkin said. “The more immediate question is whether to get the two presidents out of here.”

“I think it’s logical to assume,” Mike said, “that such a threat would be carried out at the time when it could do the most damage, and that would be on the night of the grand opening, when the place will be packed. And there’s always the concert to think about, too.”

Rifkin left the room and walked out onto the patio with his phone.

Stone looked at Mike. “Should I get my people out of here?”

“Not yet,” Mike said. “We don’t want to start anything until we’ve searched the place. If we find the package, Rifkin will call in the various bomb squads to deal with it, but we’ll evacuate everybody first.”

“And the two presidents?”

“One minute after Rifkin’s phone call, the president will know, and he will make that decision, presumably in concert with President Vargas.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“Stone,” Mike said, “you have to remember that we’re talking about this because of a pair of gloves. We don’t even know if they were used for what we think they were. After all, they’re clean of any nuclear material.”

Rifkin returned after fifteen minutes. “My director spoke with the president, and since there was no radioactivity associated with the gloves, his decision is to redouble the search of guests and vehicles, but not to canvass the neighborhood. However, he has authorized another one hundred federal agents from various agencies to be on standby, in case further evidence points to a nuclear device.” He picked up the gloves and put them into his own briefcase. “In the meantime, I have some people on the way over here with equipment to check the gloves further.”

Mike nodded. “I think the response is at the correct level for the moment,” he said. He looked at Stone. “If I had a family here—which of course I don’t—I would not get them out at this time.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Stone said. “I’ll say nothing to my party about this, not even Dino.”

Rifkin left by way of the patio, and Mike and Stone returned to the living room. They could hear the kids laughing and splashing in the pool outside.

“I don’t think it’s too early for a drink,” Stone said, going to the bar. “How about you, Mike?”

Mike nodded. “Large scotch, please. Rocks.”

 39 

H
amish McCallister sat in a golf cart with The Arrington’s director of public relations, a lovely young woman named Clair Albritton, as she showed him the grounds of the hotel.

“Vance Calder planted more than a thousand specimen trees around the property,” she was saying, “and we have preserved every one of them, although we had to move and replant a couple hundred of them.”

“They are very beautiful,” Hamish said, and he meant it. “This is really an extraordinary property.”

“Yes, Vance bought the first of it in the 1940s, and he continued to buy up neighboring plots to the end of his life. After his death his wife, Arrington, bought the final two plots, which he had optioned a year or so before. The total property now runs to twenty acres.”

“Even larger than that of the Bel-Air Hotel,” Hamish pointed out.

She smiled. “A fine establishment with its own clientele.”

“And how many of them do you expect to steal?” Hamish asked.

She laughed. “Oh, I’m sure there will be some, but Los Angeles attracts a worldwide army of regular travelers, and our initial market research indicated to us that there was room for another top-of-the-line property in Bel-Air.”