Dog Tags

CHAPTER 50

ALAN LANDON WAS GETTING WORRIED. Ever since he’d received the call from M while listening to the mayor’s speech, things had not gone nearly as smoothly as he wanted… as he demanded. Perhaps he was spoiled, since the previous operations had gone off without anything resembling a hitch.

Anxiety was a sensation so unusual for him that he was actually struck by it. Landon had spent his entire life being smart enough to think two steps ahead of anyone else, and rich and ruthless enough to deal with any impediments to those steps. The occasions where worry was called for were few and far between.

From the beginning, he wanted the envelope that Erskine had, and that the dog had run off with. But he had always been a patient man, and he was willing to let matters unfold, and wait to make a move when it presented itself.

Landon prided himself on that willingness to be patient. Back in his basketball-playing days as a point guard for Dartmouth, he had learned the wisdom of what coaches referred to as letting the game come to you. The trick was to see the entire court, to know the game well enough to anticipate, and to take advantage of openings when they presented themselves.

And until now, the game had always come to Alan Landon.

But this situation was different. So far his patience had not been rewarded, and outside pressures were getting greater. He couldn’t pull this operation off on his own; he literally did not have, and could not get, the necessary device to do the job. And the person who did have it was getting worried, and threatening to withhold it.

It was becoming clear that the only way to eliminate that pressure was to get the envelope, and the time left to get it was decreasing.

Landon knew that M was getting impatient as well. M was a man of action, they had that in common, and he was disenchanted with the lack of momentum to this operation. But M knew very little of what was really going on, and Landon had no desire to fill him in. M would have a very specific role to perform, and when Landon gave him the go-ahead, he would perform it in devastating fashion.

The truth was that Landon was right in assuming that M was frustrated, but if anything he was underestimating that frustration. M thought that Landon was getting indecisive, perhaps even soft, and it surprised him. With what they were doing, and with what they had already done, there was no room for that.

M knew that the dog was at Carpenter’s house. He hadn’t seen him, but he knew it as certainly as if he had. And he knew he could go in and get him whenever he wanted to. It wouldn’t be the easiest thing to do; M was aware that Marcus Clark was lurking around, guarding the place. He had checked out Clark, now knew him by reputation, and respected him as a force to be reckoned with.

But not as much of a force as M.

Clark could be handled, especially since M had the advantage of surprise and timing. He could take him out whenever he wanted. And then there would be nothing to stop him from walking in and taking the dog.

After that M knew that Landon was on his own. M knew nothing about dogs, other than the fact that he didn’t like them. If they were going to get the mutt to lead them to the envelope, Landon would have to figure out how.

So M was frustrated that he wasn’t taking action, and he was frustrated that he could do nothing to change the situation. Landon was calling the shots for the time being, because Landon had the money, and if there was one constant in life it was that money ruled.

When it came time to kill Clark, and Carpenter, and Carpenter’s girlfriend, none of it would be personal. It was simply about getting the dog, because getting the dog meant getting the money.