Severe Clear

39

Hamish 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.”

Hamish saw a procession of unmarked white vans come through the front gate without being stopped and proceed up the hill to the reception building. “What are those vans about?” he asked. “They weren’t even stopped and searched like every other vehicle entering the property.”

“Oh, they’re just part of the security for the weekend,” Clair said. “Don’t worry, their presence makes us all that much safer.”

Hamish watched as they drove past the reception area. A couple of dozen men were unloading equipment, some of which appeared to be detectors of some sort. He couldn’t be sure if it was for detecting metal or nuclear material. He felt a light sweat break out on his forehead.

Then they were underground. “One of the great features of the hotel is that we’ve been able to hide a great many parked vehicles down here. It helps keep the grounds so much more attractive, don’t you think?”

“I do,” Hamish replied.

“The landscape architects wanted a pastoral feeling about the place.”

“They’ve done a wonderful job.”

“I hope room service has been doing a good job of feeding you,” Clair said. “Our restaurants won’t be opening until lunchtime tomorrow, when our guests begin to arrive.”

“How did you manage to get Immi Gotham to perform?” Hamish asked.

“Centurion Studios and The Arrington share some important investors, so Centurion has arranged for most of its stars to be here, either as guests or performers. They’ve taken a quarter of our accommodations for the opening weekend, and Leo Goldman Junior, their CEO, arranged for Ms. Gotham to appear. I don’t think she’s ever done a concert like this before, preferring to appear in films and make recordings.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing her,” Hamish said. “I’m a big fan.”

“Who isn’t?” Clair said. “I’ll certainly be there, if I have to sit in a tree.”

Hamish reflected that by the end of the concert, there wouldn’t be any trees.

Clair pulled up to his cottage. “Now you’ve seen it all,” she said. “Please give me a call if there’s anything else I can do for you, Mr. McCallister, and we look forward to reading your reportage.”

Hamish hopped out of the cart. He could think of a number of things she could do for him, but he imagined she was far too busy with her duties to provide them. He let himself into his cottage, went to the bar and poured himself a glass of San Pellegrino from the fridge. He pulled the curtains back in his bedroom and gazed down into the Arrington Bowl, imagining it at capacity for the concert.

It was that concert that would be the cherry on the sundae of the event he had planned. Not only would he take out two presidents, he would cause to vanish virtually the entire roster of stars of one of Hollywood’s top studios, all in a single flash. The worldwide media would print and broadcast nothing else for weeks. It would be bigger than 9/11, he reckoned-a much greater loss of life and property in the heart of America’s most decadent community, with the possible exception of Las Vegas.

And he would be alive and well to read about it, hear about it, and bask in its afterglow for decades to come. Then there would be London to deal with.