Changing of the Guard

7

Natadze picked up his guitar and moved to his playing chair, a specially made stool with a footrest built in at precisely the right height for him. He was in a T-shirt and sweatpants, and he had a sleeve, made from a silk sock with the toe end cut off, over his right arm, to keep his skin from touching the instrument. The sweatpants were elastic — no buttons or zippers, nothing that might scratch the wood.

He did not wear a watch or rings, and the only things that might possibly damage the fine finish were the fingernails on his right hand, which were kept long and filed carefully for plucking the strings. The nails on his left hand were trimmed very short, so as not to cause buzzing on the frets.

Classical guitar was a strict discipline, and that had appealed to Natadze even when he had been introduced to it as a boy. It needed a certain position, the left leg up, the instrument’s waist on that leg, the lower bout just so, the left thumb always placed behind the neck, right hand relaxed here…

This guitar had been made in 1967 by the luthier Daniel Friedrich, one of the most renowned guitar makers of the late twentieth century. At his peak, there had been a tenor twelve-year waiting list for one of his new instruments, which was not that uncommon among the best makers. The top was German spruce, the back and sides Brazilian rosewood, the neck a standard 650-millimeter scale and 52 millimeters at the nut. The finish was French polish, the tuners by Rodgers, and it had been in almost mint condition when Natadze had bought it — paying forty thousand U.S. dollars for it.

A decent concert guitar could be had for a quarter of that. This was much better than decent, though. It was superb.

He was, he knew, not a good enough player to deserve such an instrument. Yes, he could play with sufficient skill so that he probably could have earned a meager living at it. He had a fair repertoire, several memorized pieces that ran more than twenty minutes, one that was almost half an hour without repeating sections, and he could manage a better-than-average tremolo when playing Fernando Sor, even though he was largely self-taught. But his music theory was only fair, his sight-reading still slow, and he resorted to tablature when he was in a hurry to learn a new piece.

Hard to justify the Friedrich, which had a powerful, almost haunting tone that would fill a concert hall, and was mostly played in Natadze’s living room. Such an instrument should be in the hands of a world-class artist, somebody who could coax from it degrees of subtlety far beyond an amateur such as himself.

He had more than enough room to grow into it — he would never be good enough to fully utilize the guitar’s capabilities, certainly not practicing just two or three hours a day as he did. But he had wanted it, and he could afford it, and so he had gotten it. He had owned beautiful instruments from other expert luthiers from around the world. He had Spanish, German, French, and Italian guitars locked away in a humidity- and temperature-controlled room in his house. The last few years, he had favored American makers — he had an Oribe, a Ruck, one by Byers, a particularly sweet-toned cedar-top from J. S. Bogdanovich that had been very reasonably priced — but this guitar had, in addition to its perfect craftsmanship and construction, a history. It had been played by some of the best guitarists ever. It had called to him the moment he touched it, he could feel the sense of history, and there had been no question that he would own it.

He settled himself upon the thin cushion on the stool. He did not need a back support, since he would sit completely upright throughout the session. One did not lean back while playing classical style.

He had his electronic tuner on the music stand in front of him, though he could tune to A440 by ear after all these years. He had experimented with various combinations of strings over the years, but found that medium-tension La Bella’s worked well, though some of the newer composites lasted longer.

He smiled. When you had a forty-thousand-dollar guitar, buying new strings was not a major expense.

He tuned the instrument, plucked an E-major chord, belled all six string harmonics on the twelfth fret, and was satisfied with the sound.

He began with his warm-up pieces, simple airs he had known since he had started playing: Bach’s “Bouree in E-minor,” the traditional Spanish piece, “Romanza,” Pachelbel’s “Canon in D.”

Then he played McCartney’s “Blackbird.” Hardly classical, but a simple way to be sure he wasn’t being sloppy and squeaking the bass strings. Besides, it was fun, more so than scales or barres up and down the neck. Now and again, he would play down-and-dirty blues, too, and while they sounded much nastier on a dobro steel body, it was amazing how well they came out of this guitar. Not as if it were sacrilege to play other kinds of music on such an instrument, though some classical players would argue that it was.

He smiled, and went to work on the new piece, one by Chopin. He hated Chopin, but he was determined to learn it anyway. A man had to stretch now and then.

All thoughts of work, of anything other than the music, left him as he became one with the guitar of which he knew he was unworthy.

Most of the time, Cox stayed in the city until the weekend; he had an apartment in Manhattan, an entire floor in an exclusive co-op overlooking the park. His neighbors there were senators and Broadway producers and old oil money. He also had his current mistress, a delightful woman of thirty-four, installed in a brownstone, and if he didn’t feel like going that far, could make do in what amounted to a small apartment down the hall from his office. But now and then, he’d have his chauffeur haul him out to the estate during the week, just for a change. Sometimes Laura would be there, more often not — she was active in a dozen different charities, ran a foundation that gave grant money to starving artists, and went to see the children and grandchildren with some frequency, most of whom lived within a couple of hours of here. She had her own place in the city, and, likely as not, she would be there during the week as well — as apparently she was this evening, for she was not home.

The house was much too large for just them — thirty rooms, not counting the baths, but when you were a billionaire in a mansion, servants were a given. Even when Laura was gone there would be a dozen people there — a butler, cooks, maids, gardeners, security and maintenance people, his driver.

Now, as he sat in his home office, a room paneled in half-inch hand-rubbed and waxed pecan, with a desk made from flame maple and a couple million dollars worth of paintings by various Flemish masters on the walls, Cox looked at what appeared to be a rubber stamp, and allowed himself to gloat a little.

The silicone stamp was that of a human thumbprint.

A man in his position made a few enemies along the way. When you sat at the top of the heap, the climbers who would take your place were always scrabbling their way upward, hoping you would fall, and willing to push you if you didn’t.

Among the business rivals were some fairly vicious men, and one of them, Hans Willem Vaughan, of Sansome Petroleum, was particularly nasty. They had clashed more than once over the years, and finally Cox had grown tired of allowing it to happen without a response.

To attack him directly would have been dicey. But Vaughan had a weakness. He was extremely proud of the fact that his best people were beyond reproach; they were morally upright, none of them had ever been arrested, all were absolutely squeaky clean, honest, and loyal.

That was about to change. Or at least, it would seem to change, which was just as good.

Eduard had obtained the fingerprints of a third-level functionary in Vaughan’s organization. The man was an assistant to an assistant, a nobody, but he had access to certain sensitive material, and, like Caesar’s wife, needed to be above suspicion.

In a few days, this functionary, a married man with children, was going to be revealed as a sex addict, and not only that, a bisexual one who slept with dozens of men and women on a regular basis, who had somehow managed to divert funds from somewhere into his personal accounts, and who was living much larger than he legally could.

It was a carefully crafted lie, of course; as far as Cox could tell, the man was as honest and faithful as the Arctic summer nights were long. To no avail.

Eduard would have seen to every detail — he was like that, niggling to a fault — and a trail would have been laid that, once seen, could be followed by a nearsighted blood-hound with no sense of smell. Large cash deposits to a secret account, hotel and restaurant bills, visits to private clubs wherein hetero- or homosexual liaisons were the main business, visits to known brothels, records at call-girl organizations, massage parlors, the works, would all come to light. Some of it might be explainable to sympathetic ears, perhaps, but the entry and exit records on security computers vouched for by the man’s own fingerprints? It would be hard to explain those away.

How is it, sir, that computer records showed you entered Fifi’s House of Pleasure at three in the afternoon and stayed until three in the morning? Does somebody else have your thumbprint, sir? Using your name? Fitting your description, right down to the mole on your thigh, sir? Sir?

The weight of the evidence would be very heavy.

Eduard had been very careful about faking this man’s attendance at these places only during times when the man had no reasonable alibi to show he had been elsewhere.

In the end, the target of these machinations would be ruined, and too bad for him, but that was not the point. He was within the group of Vaughan’s workers known as the Incorruptibles. And obviously as corrupt as all get-out.

At this level of the game, the appearance was more important than the reality. It would not be a fatal, or even particularly damaging, blow; Vaughan’s business would not be affected, save for a point or three dip in the price of his corporate stock for a few hours, if that. But that wasn’t the goal. The goal was to wound the bastard where he was the most smug. To show the world that he wasn’t infallible. A chink in the armor, however small, would do that.

Like a single drop of black paint in a vat of white, not even visible to the human eye, Vaughan’s organization would henceforth forever be ever-so-slightly gray. And he, Cox, would know that he had been responsible. He would never let on. Gloating over his rival’s misfortune? Never — not in public, at least. He would be sympathetic in the extreme if it ever came up. What a shame. Nothing is sacred anymore, is it? What’s the world coming to? Tsk, tsk.

Cox leaned back in his chair and smiled at the image of Vaughan being interviewed on national television, defending himself for the actions of an employee that he likely couldn’t remember, if he had ever even met him.

Of course, Cox had his own worry, and it was much worse than some flunky he employed being caught with his pants down, but Eduard was on that, and Eduard was his man, to the bone. Somehow, Cox had always won the day, and he was beginning to feel as if he was going to win this day, too.

Abe Kent found his way to the shooting range. It was late, but the range was open until 2200.

“Good evening, sir,” the range officer said. He did not salute — they didn’t hold with that indoors and uncovered unless the setting was deliberately more formal, but the man did straighten up to what might be called attention.

“At ease, Master Sergeant. I haven’t had a chance to get by sooner, but I wanted to introduce myself and see how your operation is set up here.”

“Sir. Pretty standard stuff. We have twenty lanes, back-stops are tank-grade armor plate behind fire-resistant treated polywood baffles, the armor angled to kick spent rounds down into a steel trench filled with fire-retardant. We can handle small arms, pistol, subgun, and rifles, as long as they are non-armor-piercing and in calibers less than.50 BMG. Our targeting computer system is an Ares Mark V, full-spectrum holographics with positional sensors. Runs pretty well most of the time. We use the Martin Ring system for all issue arms. Is that your personal sidearm, sir?”

Kent shook his head. “Not likely I would be hauling it around if it wasn’t, is it, Sergeant?”

The man grinned. “An old slabside like that, I know it’s not issue.”

“It was when my grandfather carried it.”

“Regulations say you have to keep your carry arm coded to the ring, Colonel. I can issue you a Beretta in nine or four-oh and a matching broadcast code-ring, or, if you want, I can convert the Colt for you.”

“I think I’ll stick with the forty-five.”

“Yes, sir. You going to shoot while you’re here?”

Kent considered that for a moment. “Yes, I believe I will. It’s been a while.”

“Sir.” The man produced a box of forty-five hardball. “You want headphones or the plugs?”

“Headphones will be fine.”

“Take lane five. It’s quiet this time of night, only a couple other shooters here. If you leave the Colt with me when you go, I’ll have it ready tomorrow. You can take a loaner — I’ve got a SIG in.45, if you like the caliber.”

“That would be fine, Top.”

“Everybody still calls me ‘Gunny,’ sir.”

Kent headed for the lanes, donning his headphones to block out the noise before he stepped through the soundproof door.

He walked down to lane five.

In lane six was Lieutenant Fernandez. The younger man saw him, nodded, and kept firing until his gun clicked dry.

“Evening, sir.”

“Lieutenant. You’re here late.”

“Sir. My wife took my son to visit an old friend, and she’s out of town for a few days. Since I got married, I lost interest in my own cooking, so I figured I might as well get some practice in before I stopped for Chinese take-out.”

Kent nodded. His wife had died six years ago, and he had never really thought about getting remarried. He’d had a few dates, but being single suited him okay — nobody would ever be able to replace Christine.

There was a pause. Fernandez said, “You pretty good with that old Colt, sir?”

“I manage to qualify passing scores now and then.”

Fernandez grinned.

“Something funny, Lieutenant?”

“Well, sir, in my position as General Howard’s good right arm, I had occasion to view the Colonel’s personnel file when it came through.”

“I see.”

“Just the public record stuff, sir.”

“And your point, son?”

“You and General Howard have something in common. He carries a sidearm whose design was old before he was born, too, though I finally managed to get him to upgrade a little. Your comment about your shooting ability sounds a lot like a pool hustler’s setup, sir, since I happen to know you qualified ‘Expert’ with that antique you carry.”

Kent couldn’t help but smile a little at that one. He said, “And as your new commanding officer, I also had occasion to read your file, Lieutenant — all of it, including the nonpublic material. I know you can shoot that Beretta at ‘Expert’ level, as well.”

“I guess that makes us even, sir.”

“Only on paper, Lieutenant.” He nodded downrange.

Fernandez grinned real big at that. “I wouldn’t want to embarrass the Colonel his first time at the range, sir.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that, son, not in the least. Let’s see what you got.”

“Yes, sir.”