Never Say Die

Chapter 6

Brandenburg, Kentucky, is a peaceful town on the Ohio River, twenty miles southwest of Louisville. Two thousand residents call Brandenburg their, home, and most of them are law-abiding citizens who work or go to school five days a week, reserving Saturdays for sport or chores around the house, and Sundays for the Lord. The children tend to leave home after high school—college or the military, jobs or travel, anything to glimpse the world outside Meade County. Later, if they come back home to stay, at least they know what they are giving up.

Few residents of Brandenburg knew Dr. Quentin Radcliff. Possibly a hundred would have recognized him passing on the street, but less than half that number could have put a name together with the face. Of those, perhaps two dozen could lay claim to having spoken with the man. No more than six or seven would have said they knew him well.

And they would all be wrong.

How could they hope to recognize his genius? Small towns enforce a kind of intimacy that the natives take for granted. Everyone knows everybody else’s business. It is neither good nor bad, a simple fact of life. Tongues wag, and in the finest Biblical tradition, every secret thing is finally revealed. In Dr. Radcliff’s case, however, no one knew enough to talk with any kind of credibility. His few employees were outsiders, and they were good at keeping quiet. Dr. Radcliff and his daughter mostly shopped in Louisville, or had their things delivered from away. No one in town had ever called them rude, exactly, but they loved their privacy, and no mistake.

Back in the good old days, a nosy operator might have eavesdropped on their calls and spread the word that way, like on Green Acres or The Andy Griffith Show, but that was ancient history. There was no one to listen in when Dr. Radcliff took a call at half-past midnight, no one to remark on whom the doctor called five minutes later;

It was 1:05 a.m. before a jet black Buick Skylark pulled into the broad circular driveway of Radcliff’s home. The new arrival had a stunning, moonlit river view as he stepped from his car, but he paid no attention. He had seen it all before, and there were chestnuts to be rescued from the fire.

Radcliff observed the new arrival’s progress on closed-circuit television in his den. Six compact monitors were mounted in a cabinet on Radcliff’s left, against the wall, allowing him to swivel in his high-backed chair for a fragmented view of house and grounds.

Security was critical. The doctor had too much at stake to let his guard down now.

A trusted servant brought the visitor to Radcliff’s study, showed him in and closed the door behind him, leaving them alone. The doctor didn’t rise or offer to shake hands. No social visit, this. They had important business to discuss.

“What’s so important, Quentin?” Warren Oxley sounded curious, a bit concerned but light years away from panic.

“I received an unexpected call this evening,” Radcliff told his second-in-command.

“You told me that much on the telephone,” said Oxley.

“It was relayed from Nevada. Carson City.”

Oxley blinked at that. “I don’t believe it. After all this time?”

“Indeed. It seems he had a visitor, some kind of federal agent asking questions.”

“Jesus, Quentin!”

He had Oxley’s full attention now. Radcliff felt better, seeing the fear behind the sky blue contact lenses Oxley wore. The nonchalant facade was breaking down before his very eyes.

“We always knew that it might happen sometime.”

“Sometime, right. But after thirty-plus years? The Feds are asking about Hardy?”

“Why else would they be in Carson City?”

“Well…”

“It has to be the fingerprints,” said Radcliff. “Someone’s checked the older files. I was afraid they might.”

“We’re screwed,” said Oxley.

“I’m inclined to disagree. The prints create more problems than they solve,” said Radcliff. “Think about it for a moment. If they get an exhumation order, all they’ll have to show for it will be an empty casket. There’s no paper trail of any kind. The slug in Carson City has no names to pass along.”

“The contact number—”

“Has been canceled,” Radcliff said. “He’s on his own.”

“Still dangerous,” Oxley argued.

Radcliff sighed. His chief lieutenant would not be mistaken for a man of vision. “We can deal with that, don’t you suppose?”

“Of course. But if the FBI—”

“Let’s take a look at the worst-case scenario,” said Radcliff, interrupting him. “Suppose they manage some connection on a thirty-year-old body-snatching case. The subject had no family—he had been executed by the state. We could have dumped his body on the street, and it would only be a misdemeanor. After thirty years, they have no case at all.”

“But, Quentin—”

“They can only get to us through us! If you believe that, Warren, then we’re covered.”

“Right. Okay.”

“It wouldn’t hurt, however, to dispose of some deadwood as expeditiously as possible.”

“I understand.”

“You’ll get right on it, then?”

“Of course.”

“Let our associate cope with the details. He has specialists on staff.”

“I will.”

“You have the necessary information?”

“Certainly.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then.”

“It’s done.”

Not yet, the doctor thought, but soon. And when the deadwood was eliminated, any chance of drawing an indictable connection would be gone forever. Let the FBI match fingerprints from how till Judgment Day, for all the good that it would do them. What fools they were, to think they could match wits with genius and emerge with anything but absolute frustration and humiliation as their just deserts.

Radcliff poured himself a double Scotch and drained half of it in a single swallow, feeling liquid heat spread through his body, calming him.

Another crisis narrowly averted. Such is life, he thought.

And life goes on.

For some.

It was a thirty-minute drive across the river, back to southern Indiana and his home, but Warren Oxley shaved ten minutes off the normal time by speeding, watching out for cops and taking full advantage of the empty roads. There was no on the highways at this hour, and the raw demands of driving at top speed distracted Oxley from his larger worries.

Christ! The fucking FBI!

The risk had been there from Day One, of course, but he had. slowly come to think of it as ancient history. Each passing year had seemed to make the prospect of exposure more remote. Two losses in the past twelve months were troublesome, of course. They gave the Feds more raw material to work with, but you had to know the secret, starting out from scratch, before it all made any sense. If they were onto Hardy now…

Radcliff was right, actually: there was no Hardy anymore. His pitiful remains had been consumed, the dregs cremated, decades earlier. The undertaker in Nevada didn’t know enough to really hurt them, even if he lost his nerve and started talking to the Feds.

Had he already talked?

No matter. He had been a child when it began, and even knowing the preliminary steps still left him miles away from any logical conclusion—much less the astounding truth.

If the investigation should proceed, and it came down to an interrogation, Oxley was prepared to lie his ass off for the cause. To save himself. He had been on the job too long to even think of working out a deal, betraying Radcliff or the project that had been his life.

He still believed, in spite of everything. The doctor was a genius, and a man of vision. He was working miracles.

I’m getting old, he thought. Ten years ago, I would have shrugged this off like it was nothing.

But he wasn’t forty-five today, and never would be. He was coming up on sixty in a few more years, and it was all downhill from there. Before he knew it, in the twinkling of an eye, there would be nurses, rest homes, maybe a dialysis machine.

Unless he kept the faith, hung tight with Radcliff and was born again. The ultimate reward for faithful service to the cause.

The house was dark when Oxley pulled into the driveway, parked the Buick, killed the engine. There was no one home to greet him. He had never married, never learned to nurture a relationship beyond the “fuck ’em and forget ’em” stage, had never been much good with pets. A moody type might have called the empty house symbolic of his life, but there were many different ways to live.

Right now, for instance, Oxley had a chance to save himself some grief, refer his problem to an expert who could make it go away—or minimize its repercussions, at the very least. This time tomorrow—or the next day, at the latest—they would have it made.

He made a point of checking out the house before he went inside. A simple thing, but he felt better having done it, knowing that the Feds were out there somewhere, sniffing inch by inch along his trail. They couldn’t be this close, not yet, but Oxley had a flair for anticipating and taking care of details.

Once inside, he poured himself a drink and took it with him to the bedroom, shed his jacket and the tie that he had worn to Radcliff’s house from force of habit. Always put your best face forward, even in a crisis.

Oxley didn’t have to look the number up. He had it memorized. Long distance, with the prefix for Miami, even later there than where he was.

Tough shit.

With so much riding on the line, he didn’t give a damn if Lasser got pissed off about the loss of sleep. He could catch up on sack time later, when the job was done, and take a couple of his pricey bimbos with him.

Thinking of the women, with their year-round tans and supple bodies, Oxley wondered if it wasn’t time for him to take a short vacation of his own. There was a little village south of Manzanilla, on the coast of Mexico, where he was well received. At least his money was, and it came down to the same thing. The women there were most accommodating. Sometimes, he could hear them laughing in his dreams.

But it would have to wait. Before he started planning any getaways, he had to deal with business, wait and see it through. When they were home and dry, there would be ample time for Oxley to congratulate himself and take his just reward for one more job well done.

Eleven digits. Oxley waited while the distant telephone rang once, twice, three times. Lasser picked it up at last, his voice a groggy snarl.

“Hello!”

“It’s me. No names.”

“Do you have any fucking clue what time it is?”

“We have a problem.”

“Oh?”

“It could be serious. I’ll call you back in fifteen minutes, at the other number.”

“Make it twenty, will you? Give me time to put some clothes on.”

“Hurry!”

Twenty minutes later, Oxley tapped another number out from memory and waited for his man in Florida to pick up on the secure phone.

“I’m here. Get to it.”

Oxley spelled the details out, told Lasser what he had to do. He got no argument.

“The three of them. Is that all?”

“For the moment,” Oxley said. “Take care of that, and I’ll get back in touch.”

“Okay. Will do.”

He felt immeasurably better as he cradled the receiver, slumped back on the bed and heaved a weary sigh. He had done all that he could do, for now. It would be Lasser’s job to take care of the dirty work.

And if he failed?

Forget it.

Lasser’s specialty was solving problems. It was what he did, and it had made him rich. He wouldn’t fail this time, because his own head was among those on the chopping block, if anything went wrong.

He would not let them down.

It would be all his life was worth to drop the ball. The chairman of Security Unlimited was thirty-eight years old. It was ironic, he supposed, that the events that shaped his adult life had their beginning in the days when he was still a third-grade student, but the normal course of any life was filled with ironies. It took a sense of humor to survive, much less succeed and prosper in this crazy world.

As for Morgan Lasser, laughing at the world had never been a problem. He enjoyed life’s little challenges, the rush that came with ironing out a sticky problem, whether it involved some piece of new technology or human obstacles just waiting to be forcibly removed.

Security Unlimited was Lasser’s brainchild, one of several companies he had created out of piss and vinegar, with other people’s money, using sheer audacity in place of ready capital from time to time. The other companies had folded, but they always left him better off than when he started. This time, Lasser was convinced, he had it right.

The call from Indiana was a problem, no doubt about it. Feds meant trouble, and he didn’t relish dealing with the FBI, but there were ways around that difficulty if he only kept his head. The plan that Warren Oxley had suggested to him sounded feasible, though Lasser had some private doubts about whether it went far enough.

Three names, and that was all. There had to be more loose ends somewhere out there in the ozone, waiting to snap back and sting his two esteemed associates—sting him—if he wasn’t prepared to deal with trouble as it came. The good news was that he could try to sniff around, elicit more details from Oxley and initiate the necessary corrective measures.

No sweat.

But he would take the three names first, and deal with them. They were the obvious weak links, and two of them should have been dealt with years before, in Lasser’s judgment. It was not his call, of course… until tonight.

There was a saying, source unknown—though many gave the credit to Hell’s Angels—that three men can keep a secret, provided two of them are dead. A corporation obviously couldn’t run on strict enforcement of that rule, or there would be no corporation, but the sentiment was sound enough. The best way Lasser knew to eliminate the weak links in a chain was to remove those links, forge new ones, or maybe settle for a shorter, stronger chain.

He rose and padded naked from the bedroom, hearing Debbie mutter something on the edge of sleep, ignored her in his concentration on the problem.

There was only one man Lasser trusted to coordinate a job like this. As for the hands-on labor… well, his business partners could help out in that regard.

It was, in fact, what they did best.

He would consider it a gesture of good faith.

Security Unlimited had bankrolled Dr. Radcliff’s labors for the past eight years, the latest in a string of sponsors who had recognized his genius and pursued it with a profit motive. There was nothing wrong with making money, after all. In fact, it made the world go round…or was that love?

No, it was money. Absolutely.

You could always purchase love, or its facsimile, if you had ready cash on hand.

In Lasser’s private study, on the spacious teak-wood desk, there were two telephones. One was the businessman’s special, with a dozen buttons for the different lines; its mate was something else entirely, boxlike in appearance, mounted with a row of colored lights.

He used the second telephone to dial a local number, frowning as he stood there, naked, waiting for his party to respond. Four rings and counting. Damn it all, if he was out—

“Who’s this?” said the gruff, familiar voice. “Turn on the scrambler.”

“Right.”

As Lasser spoke, he reached down with his free hand, pressed a button on the flat face of the chunky telephone. At once, a green light glowed to tell him that the scrambling device was functional, no defects in the hardware, no third party tapped into the line. A winking red would tell him they had company, while steady amber pointed to a technical malfunction jeopardizing the integrity of conversation on the unit.

Green was cool.

The static whisper in his ear dissolved as Tilton switched his own scanner on and closed the circuit. They could both speak freely now, assuming there were no bugs in the room itself—and Lasser swept the whole house daily to ensure precisely that.

“You there?” asked Tilton.

“Yes.”

“It’s early.”

“We’ve got trouble.”

“Tell me.”

Lasser spelled it out in simple terms, no frills. His strong right arm was less concerned with motives than with, method. How was always more important than the abstract why.

“It should be simple,” Lasser said when he had finished ticking off the list of names, addresses and descriptions for his chief of physical security. “The undertaker’s sitting tight, scared shitless, waiting for instructions.”

“Good.”

“As for the others…well, just do the best you can, but get it done.”

“No problem,” Tilton said. “I’m clear to use the drones?”

“Nobody’s given me instructions to the contrary,” said Lasser. “Hell, it’s what they’re meant for.”

“Right. Okay.”

“I’ll talk to you again when you have something to report.”

“Affirmative,” said Tilton, breaking the connection.

Lasser switched his scrambler off, then cradled the receiver. It was done—his part, at any rate. The delegation of authority presumed a modicum of trust, and Tilton had not failed him yet.

He felt a stirring in his loins and knew it was the warm excitement of a brand-new hunt. He missed the trigger-pulling days sometimes, but it was safer this way. He could have his cake and eat it, too.

The thought of sweets brought Debbie back to mind, and Lasser walked back to the bedroom, smiling in the darkness as he pulled the covers back, exposing her.

“Hey, babe, wake up. I brought you something.”

Garrick Tilton read the list of names once more, as if he might learn something of his quarry from the letters scratched on paper. He gave up the exercise when nothing happened.

So he wasn’t psychic. Screw it.

Illinois, Nevada, Florida.

Ideally Tilton would have liked to catch them all together, but solutions seldom came that easily in life. At least the targets weren’t professionals. An undertaker, an old woman and a fat cat who believed his worry days were over.

Guess again.

The one thing Tilton knew for sure was that a mess you left behind would catch up with you someday, when you least expected it, and fuck you up. He took great pains to clean up as he went along, no loose ends dangling that could mutate into snares and trap him somewhere down the line. Even if that meant burying a one-time business partner or a former friend. Garrick Tilton’s loyalty was restricted to himself and those who paid his salary right now, this minute. If he got a better offer, and the risks were not extreme, he had no problem switching sides, exchanging masters. Anyone who didn’t like it could be dealt with swiftly and decisively.

The best thing, he decided, was to deal, with the most distant targets first. That meant the undertaker, then the woman, shooting for the fat cat last of all. Surveillance would be simple, making sure he didn’t bolt or spill his guts before the drones caught up with him. They could be finished with the whole list in a day, if Tilton got a move on, sending out his troops.

Okay.

The drones were testy sometimes, when they had to take a briefing at peculiar hours, but they always came around. It was the breeding, Tilton thought, and smiled.

Sometimes it helped to keep things in the family.

He wondered idly if the Feds were making any progress, and the question made him think, in turn, of the escape fund he had started building up the day he took his present job. A true professional was never taken absolutely by surprise. He always had some kind of fallback option waiting, just in case the game unraveled on him and his sponsors started bailing out.

The one thing Garrick Tilton wouldn’t do for money was play scapegoat for a bunch of self-important bastards who regarded him as nothing but a button man. He had experienced enough shit back in school, then in the military, finally on the streets, to know that only suckers went down with a sinking ship.

Things hadn’t come to that point yet, weren’t even close, if he believed what Lasser had to say, but Tilton wasn’t taking any chances, either. He could always sniff the wind himself, see which way it was blowing, smell the pigs before they moved in close enough to bag him.

What could Lasser and the others do if he bailed out one day and let them take the heat? Complain to the authorities that their chief executioner had left no forwarding address?

Get real.

They couldn’t say a fucking thing about the work he’d done for them, without admitting guilt themselves. Plea bargains would be risky, since the Feds were more inclined to deal with trigger men to nab their sponsors than the other way around.

And if the day came when he thought that someone on the team had sold him out…well, Garrick Tilton always paid his debts, with interest. In the meantime, though, he had a job to do. Nevada, Illinois, then Florida. He was excited, thinking of it.

It was time to call the drones.