Glass Tiger
- Автор: Горес Джо
- Год: 2007
- Язык: английский
- Год: Quercus
- ISBN: 978-1-84724-072-9
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «Glass Tiger». Краткое содержание книги:
27
Thorne rolled out at four a.m., silently tore up the bed, laid a lamp on its side, and tipped over a chair. His cash was in his money belt, his money clip was on the dresser with a few bucks in it, along with his keys and watch, the FBI badge, and the wallet that held his i.d. and driver’s license. His passport was hidden in his suitcase where they were sure to find it.
He left the clothes he had worn the day before tossed over the room’s still-upright chair, left his shoes with yesterday’s socks stuffed in them under it. He also left all his old clothes in the dresser right where they were, and left his suitcase in the closet. He would carry no miniature bugs away with him.
He put on new socks and the new boots, then dropped the shopping bag with his new shaving kit and his extra new clothes on the grass below the rear window. With gloved hands, he quietly broke the glass inward and artistically scattered shards of it around on the floor.
Only then did he draw the wood rasp across his forehead and let blood splatter around the room and on the window sill. After he disinfected and bandaged the cut, he put on his money belt and dressed from the skin out in his new clothes.
A two-step run, and he dove through the glassless window, tucking and rolling as he hit the grassy slope behind his room. He waited. No window opened, no lights went on, no pale blob of face looked out at him. When they came to clean the room the following morning, they would find what looked like a murder scene, and call the cops, who would be all over the crime-scene before Hatfield could close things down.
Thorne went through the woods to Andy’s Dakota four-by-four parked two blocks away. In his waterproof pouch was his new i.d.: driver’s license, social security card, library card (expired), and three unemployment benefit payment stubs. All of them legal and valid, all identifying him as one Benjamin Schutz: Benny the Boozer’s full and real name. Also in the pouch was his FBI commission card. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. Not because someone would challenge it — how many civilians knew what FBI credentials looked like? — but because eventually it would get back to Hatfield that the card was in play. Once that happened, the noose would tighten.
The wood rasp, bandaids, disinfectant, and surgeon’s gloves went into three different dumpsters on his way out of town.
An hour later, he ran Andy’s Dodge Dakota in under the firs at the mouth of the valley, and left the keys on the tire. Carrying his shopping bag, he walked northwest on the national park service road Andy had pointed out, checking out the dirt tracks going off on either side. No vehicle passed him, not one.
Four miles north of the valley, he followed a barely-visible abandoned logging trace. A quarter-mile in, he found a single truck tire track in a patch of hardened mud. No more tracks, but a heavy vehicle’s passage was marked by broken twigs and matted-down grass for another quarter-mile.
In the thick underbrush under the pines, where it would be well-hidden from the road and invisible from the air, was a dark green 4-Runner. He pulled away the fragrant fir boughs and checked the license number: California 5 CWD 046. A current registration-month sticker on the license plate, a previous year’s sticker under that. It was Corwin’s car.
The keys were stashed in front of the left rear tire. It had a full tank of gas and fired up immediately. He rifled the glove box. Maps and a flashlight, the manual, paper napkins. Then he remembered that in California, a vehicle’s registration and insurance papers were usually stowed behind the sun visor on the driver’s side. They were there, and they were electrifying.
The truck was registered to a Janet Kestrel, c/o Mrs. Edie Melendez at an address in an LA suburb. A woman could explain the months when Corwin dropped out of sight. A lover, travelling with him? An assassin who helped him plan the Delta murders?
Whoever she was, she was the real, solid lead Thorne had been hoping for. If he could find her. He got back to Highway 93, then drove north toward 1-20 to get out of Idaho as soon as possible. At Spokane, Washington, he would get another interstate that would take him south toward California.
Crandall laid the Hamilton Daily News on Wallberg’s desk in the Oval Office, folded so the pertinent below-the-fold headline was prominent: MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE FROM LOCAL HOTEL
Wallberg read the article as if the newspaper were a poisonous viper writhing toward him across his desk.
‘When did this happen?’
‘Two days ago, Mr. President. It cycled routinely to Shayne O’Hara because of the town’s proximity to the attempted assassination site, then routinely from his office to us.’
‘Set up a meeting with Hatfield, ASAP.’
‘Talk to me,’ snapped the President.
Hatfield was literally on the carpet, standing at attention in front of the President’s massive hardwood desk in the Oval Office. He had not been asked to sit down.
‘Mr. President, as you know, when we dismissed Thorne at Camp David he was to await further orders at the Mayflower Hotel. Instead, he left word that he was going to Fort Benning, Georgia, to spend a couple of days with an old Ranger buddy.’
‘Did he know his return to Kenya was all arranged?’
‘I sent the ticket to the Mayflower myself.’
‘You checked on the Fort Benning angle, of course.’
‘A room had been reserved in the BOQ by his buddy, but Thorne never showed. Victor Blackburn is career Army, he would not jeopardize his pension by covering for Thorne. They haven’t seen each other for ten years. In fact, he’s just pissed off.’
Wallberg frowned. ‘What have we learned in Montana?’
‘Franklin and Greene have taken over the investigation from the locals. Everything of Thorne’s was left behind. Everything. Rental car, keys, his FBI badge, his money clip with cash in it, his wallet, shaving gear, i.d., clothes, luggage. We found his passport hidden behind the lining of his suitcase. The room’s rear window was broken inward, and a great deal of blood was splattered around. Our lab is rushing the DNA testing, but it almost certainly is Thorne’s blood.’
‘Could it have been... Corwin?’ It was a half-whisper.
‘Mr. President, Corwin is dead.’ Hatfield leaned across the desk, ebony features intense. He had practiced this move in the mirror. ‘But Thorne is alive. It was a non-lethal amount of blood spattered around. Non-lethal, Mr. President. And one vital piece of identification was not recovered from that room.’
Wallberg was staring at him. ‘Which is?’
‘His commission card with the FBI seal on it. Don’t you see, sir? He left his badge behind but took the card.’ Hatfield let the tension build, then sat down abruptly, unbidden. Franklin’s quick work had given him time to force his tame psychiatrist, Sharon Dorst, to give him the ammunition he needed. ‘The psychiatrist who did Thorne’s initial fitness evaluation noted a strong identification with Corwin. They are a generation apart, but as you know, their profiles are extremely similar.’
Wallberg was shaken. ‘Meaning that the identification is so strong that Thorne is going to start stalking—’
‘No chance, Mr. President. His aversion to killing is too deep, based on a devastating personal loss for which he feels responsible. But he feels a need to understand Corwin. He couldn’t do that from Kenya, so he went to Montana instead.’
Thorne tunnelling back into Corwin’s life might be almost as dangerous for Wallberg and his ambitions as another sniper stalk. He slapped his hand on the desk in time with his words.
‘Find him. Corral him. Rein him in. Shut him down.’