Critical Space (45 page)

Finally, with all of my groundwork laid, I returned to my room and loaded the Browning, then stuck it in my coat. I unwrapped my new gloves and stuffed them in another pocket, along with the roll of duct tape. I took the binoculars, and then I headed out again, this time behind the wheel of a rented car, and went to see the villa of M. Laurent Junot.

If I'd had time, if Oxford hadn't been breathing down our necks, I would have hired five people through Moore and put everything under a magnifying glass, would have worked the whole thing up as if I'd been preparing the advance for someone like Antonia Ainsley-Hunter. I'd have put Junot under surveillance for at least six or seven days, watching him while he went from home to work to play, noting who he met, where, and when, and why. I would have invested in some pricey electronics and tried to tap the phones and bug the house, and I certainly would have devoted a fair chunk of time and resources to learning the details of the alarm. I'd have taken a small mountain of photographs. In short, I'd have been very careful.

But I didn't have the time, and as I sat in the rental car, peering at the house through the binoculars, I could feel the nervousness rising. It wasn't just what I had to do next that was causing it; it was the knowledge that the clock was running, that Oxford was certainly in New York, and maybe closer to Mahwah than I wanted, that perhaps he was already doing all of those things I didn't have time to do myself. Another city across the world, another man was marking another target, and if I didn't hurry things up, there wasn't going to be anything I could do to stop him. I was beginning to regret having told Scott to wait for me before approaching Gracey and Bowles.

I was running out of time.

I started with a drive around the area, then abandoned the car half a mile up the road and moved in on foot for a closer look. It was late afternoon by the time I actually stepped onto the grounds, and there was a chill breeze coasting off the lake. I put on my new pair of gloves and took in as much as I could.

The villa was stately, with grounds that wound down to the shore of the lake. A boathouse rose beside a private pier, and moored to it was a boat the size of the
La Petite Marie,
but of a quality to suggest it would rather sink than be tied near its lesser cousin. The grounds were pristine, and even with winter closing in, looked capable of withstanding nature's entropy for a while longer. There was a back door that led onto a small patio for summer dining and, farther along, another door, smaller, that looked to be the servants' entrance.

The structure itself was built of gray stone with dark wood framing its portals, and all of the doors looked heavy enough to withstand gunfire, although I doubt that had ever been a consideration of the owner. Twice I saw people moving around inside the house, once a man, wearing a black suit, and once a woman, also in black, though this time in a dress.

At seven-nineteen, a black Bentley pulled up in front of the house, and I watched as the driver let M. Laurent Junot out of the car. If the photographs from Moore's file were to be believed, I had the right man, white, in his mid-forties and balding. Junot's shoulders were rounded and his back was straight, and he walked like a man who spent all of his days and perhaps the majority of his nights sitting at a desk. Nothing about him struck me as out of the ordinary, and I thought that if I was Oxford, that would be just as I wanted it.

When Junot reached the house, he was greeted by the man in the black suit, and apparently whatever words they exchanged were brief, because Junot barely broke stride as he continued inside. The driver then brought a black barrister's case from the car to the other man, and they spoke for a while longer before the driver returned to the Bentley. The woman came outside, spoke to the man who now held the case, and then headed for the garage. The man with the case went back inside as the driver moved the Bentley out of the drive and into the garage. I caught a glimpse of a Porsche also parked in the garage before the door shut. Beside the garage were two other cars, an older Audi and a Peugeot.

The woman followed the driver, and when he emerged again she gave him a kiss on the cheek. He opened the passenger door on the Audi for the woman, then got in himself. They drove away.

Lights continued to burn on the first and second floors of the house, and I retreated to the cover of some red spruce and pines that formed a privacy screen along the south side of the estate. If my surveillance so far had worked, there were only two people in the house, and one of them was my target. That was manageable, but I needed to be sure there were only two of them inside. For a few seconds I toyed with retreating to a phone, trying to reach Alena to talk it out with her.

I knew what she would say, though. I knew exactly how she'd get inside if she were in my place, if the clock was pressing for action. Not liking what I would have to do wasn't going to change anything, and the sooner I accepted that, the easier it would be to do the rest. It was a question of efficiency, and I knew the value of that -- it had been Alena's guiding principle; if Bequia really had been -- as Bridgett had told any and all who would listen -- my indoctrination, then that lesson had indeed taken firm hold.

For another hour and a half I watched the house from the perimeter, catching glimpses of silhouettes moving past windows. It grew into full darkness, and my hands and feet began to ache with chill. No exterior lights came on to illuminate the grounds. I hadn't seen any security lights mounted on or around the house, although if that was because they'd been deemed unnecessary by the occupant or rejected out of a sense of aesthetics I would never know. Shortly before nine-thirty I crept onto the grounds, trying to get a closer look.

As I was working my way around to the back of the house, lights began going off on the first floor. I stopped and listened, and my heart began to race. Perhaps twenty seconds passed before I heard the service door open, and I ducked low. The man in the black suit had emerged, was now turning in the doorway and calling out "good night" in German. I heard the electronic sound of an alarm arming, and that was what spurred me, finally, told me that there would be no better time than the present.

I was on him before he'd closed the door, pressing the barrel to the back of his head with one hand, grabbing him by the throat with the other. With my index finger and my thumb I squeezed either side of his larynx, keeping him silent, and before he had begun to respond I had him back through the door, pulling him up at the threshold, and I was inside the villa.

The sounds of running water stopped as I left the kitchen. I emerged in a room with an elaborate sideboard and a crystal chandelier suspended over the polished rectangle of the table. Light filtered in from the main hall, and I could see the edge of a flight of stairs running to the floor above. I moved quietly and quickly, the sound of my feet disappearing into the layers of carpet, halting at the foot of the stairs to see Junot passing above me. He was in silk pajamas, a book in his hand, and he didn't break stride and he didn't see me. Forty seconds later I heard a switch being thrown, and another light went off, dropping darkness down the steps.

The grandfather clock in the hall chimed the hour. I started up, hearing the stairs squeak beneath me, and I shifted my weight and tried to stay light on my toes, and the noise continued, but wasn't as loud. Coming around the landing at the top, I saw another spill of light, this flowing from beneath a closed door, probably the bedroom. I waited and didn't move. The last chime of the clock striking ten echoed and faded.

I heard the sound of paper brushing paper, pages turning in a binding. The ticking of the clock below seemed to grow louder.

I kept waiting.

The grandfather clock marked a quarter past, and then half past. The light stayed on. When the clock chimed a quarter to, as the last tone vanished from the air, the light beneath the door went out.

The grip of the Browning had grown warm in my hand. An ache crawled across my shoulders, tracing a line from the trapezius on down. I began marking the time in my head, counting the ticks of the clock. There was no noise coming from the bedroom.

The thought struck me that I could well be wrong, that Junot wasn't who I wanted at all, that I should be in the house of some man in South Africa instead. I didn't like that thought, but it persisted, and I wondered if I had missed something, wondered what else I should have done.

When the clock chimed eleven, I moved to the bedroom door and put my hand on the knob, and again settled my weight.

I spent the next six minutes opening the door, moving the handle from its position parallel to the floor to perpendicular to it, applying constant pressure until I felt the latch slip from its housing. The door opened silently, from a fraction to a sliver to an inch. My eyes had long since adjusted to the darkness, and through the gap I could see a portion of the bed, the shape of a form in it. Just from the sound of him I knew he was asleep, I knew he had no idea I was there.

The sensation of power in that instant was acute and absolute, the feeling of control so complete it seemed to radiate from my body outward, to everything I could see, everything I could touch. In my chest I felt something else, something that reminded me of grief.

It was easy to reach the bed, to stand beside him and look down on him sleeping, and just as easy to raise the gun in my hand. The lamp beside the bed was an orb seated on a pyramid base, with a digital clock glowing at its center. A push-button at its side brought it to life, the bulb increasing in strength like a rapidly rising sun. As color began to bleed into the room I brought the barrel down across his nose, not swinging hard, not needing to.

M. Laurent Junot awoke bleeding, crying out and starting up, then crying again in horror at the slick of blood running over his lips, and the sight of me, in his home, with the Browning pointed at his face. His mouth worked, then shut, and another noise escaped him like distant tires squealing around a turn. His eyes, blue and wet, searched me first for recognition, and failing that, for understanding.

"I'm not him," I said in English. "But you know that already."

There was comprehension in his face, and then he tried to conceal it, backing up beneath his sheets until his pillows parted behind him, one of them thumping to the floor. His tongue stabbed out over his lips, then retreated.

When he began to open his mouth again I pounded my left hand into the softness of his stomach, once. The pain and the pressure sent him lurching forward, mouth gaping, breath coming free in a rushing gasp. With my left I grabbed him by the collar of his pajamas, feeling silk threads pop as I yanked him out of bed, pushing him onto the floor. He sprawled, hands scrabbling at yet another Oriental rug, and when he got his middle off the ground, I kicked him in the ribs, putting him on his back, then immediately bending over him and pulling him to his feet once more. He couldn't support his weight, and I shoved the Browning into his stomach and with it pushed him against the wall, my left hand going to his forehead, forcing his face back and level, forcing him to look at me.

"I'm not him," I said again. "Do you understand?"

Junot tried to nod, realized he couldn't. He coughed, and it was painful for him, because the spasm of his muscles made him need to move, and I wouldn't let him. He forced out enough air to say, "Yes, yes. I understand."

"You're going to give me all of his money," I said, and I took the gun from where it was pressed against his belly and rested it instead against the lower orbit of his left eye. "You're going to do it now, or we'll repaint your fucking bedroom in an interesting new shade called Hint of Banker's Brain."

He sagged and I put more pressure on the bone beneath his eye, and he scrabbled and found his footing and straightened again. The blood from his nose was staining his pajama top to the hem.

"Say you understand," I told him.

"Yes, yes, I understand," he said.

I shoved both the gun and my hand against him, then pushed off, and he slid down the wall partway before he could catch himself, his legs working on the rug to find traction. He got upright once more, nodding at me, raising his hands.

"I have a computer in the study," he said. "My computer -- I can access accounts from there."

Again using my left, I grabbed the pajama collar and twisted it so he would turn. The collar was wet with his blood. With the Browning against his skull I marched him to the door.

"Lead," I said. "And nothing for nothing, asshole, but you're not quick enough to get any ideas."

"No, no ideas," he echoed, his voice meek.

We crossed the hall at the head of the stairs, leaving the light of the bedroom behind us. Another door was ahead, and he reached for the knob, opened it, moving slowly. The caution wasn't simply for my benefit, I knew; he was trying to think of an advantage, a plan, any way out of this that would keep him from doing what I was forcing him to do.

"Turn on the light," I said.

The switch was to the left of the door, and he fumbled for a moment before finding it. A lamp in the corner came on suddenly bright, and I tightened my grip and reapplied pressure with the gun to keep him from moving. He tensed when I did, but didn't try anything.

The study was less ornate than I'd have thought, but just as perfectly appointed as every other room I had seen. Bookshelves covered three walls, floor to ceiling, like wallpaper, broken only at one point by a large display case of wristwatches by Patek Philippe. The case was ornate, as detailed as the timepieces inside, and turned slowly, keeping each watch wound. The desk was modular and black, and it should have been out of place, but wasn't. The computer on it was black, too, the monitor thin and sleek.

I pushed him toward it, and when he tried to sit in the chair, I hooked it with my right foot and shoved it out of the way.

"Stand."

He began to nod twice, then switched the computer on with a slow and deliberate press of his right index finger.