LACKING VIRTUES (14 page)

“Okay, okay,” Stein said. “You don’t have to stare at me. You were right about the speed. It doesn’t make you God. Are you going to tell me about the document or not?”

“What’s happening to your nerves, Karl?”

“Fuck you. My nerves are fine. If you don’t want to talk, don’t talk.”

“I had planned to fill you in. I believe we’re on the same team.”

“We’d better be. For both our sakes.”

“Precisely.”

“So let’s hear about the goddamned document.”

“Seven years after the Gulf War, Karl, the Iraqis came up with a plan to heist parts from Boeing. The US embargo, by ’98, was starting to cripple their fleet of jumbos. Hussein didn’t intend to take it sitting down. It was a decent plan, considering the limitations of their intelligence network. Decent but not perfect. The Americans, as usual, were in the dark. Unfortunately for the Iraqis, they chose to consult Volkov for his professional opinion.”

Stein switched on the radio, and Claussen switched it off.

“Try to relax, Karl. It will be over soon.”

“It’s not me who’s up tight. Go on. I was listening.”

“Obviously, any attempted theft of aircraft parts by foreign agents which was discovered would have led to tighter security at Boeing and elsewhere. This would not have served the best interests of Operation Litvyak. Volkov asked me to make certain the Iraqi plan never got off the ground.”

Stein started to reach for the radio dial, then jerked his hand back as if he had touched hot metal. “Go on, will you? You don’t have to stop talking every time I move.”

“There were two Iraqi agents involved. When I entered their hotel room in San Diego I found a faxed list of maintenance parts for Iraqi Airways’ 747s. I filed that list away as I would have any intelligence-related document.”

“Did it stink in the hotel room?”

“No, Karl, it smelled of expensive cologne.”

“So what did you do to those guys?”

“That’s unimportant.”

“I hope you castrated them.”

“You’re up to fifty-eight.”

“Okay, all right. Fill in the blanks, would you?”

“Of course, Karl. Tonight, in addition to our primary job, we are going to be selecting and loading 747 parts from my copy of that list. The document I planted this evening was the original list. When the FBI finds it buried among Hassan Aziz’s notes on political economy, the criminal investigation of the Atlanta crash and any others occurring in the meantime will move  to the trial stage. In the minds of the authorities the crimes will be solved, irrespective of whether a conviction is won. I hope this explains the importance of the break-in.”

Stein gave a hoarse, truncated laugh. “Smart, Walter. It’s comforting to know that you’ve been thinking about my future.”

Claussen craned his neck and looked at the speedometer again. Stein was driving exactly 55. “Our future, Karl.”

“What about this van we’re driving? Feel like telling me?”

“If you’re interested. It belonged to Operation Litvyak. I loaned it to one of our insider friends when I returned to Germany. He put the title in his name for licensing and insurance purposes. He of course had no objection to my using it for a couple of days.”

“Yeah? I’d like to see his face when he gets it back with COLE DEHUMIDIFICATION SYSTEMS stenciled on the sides.” Stein slapped his thigh and laughed like a Bavarian.

Claussen watched him, silently, sternly.

Stein said, “Knock it off, Walter. I’m not an idiot. It was just a thought. A funny thought. Sort of like the one I had when I heard about your car wreck.”

They were ten minutes from the facility. Stein was growing more nervous by the second. Claussen wanted to keep him talking until they arrived. “Well?”

“Well, I thought of this man who loses control of his Mercedes on a stormy night and runs head-on into a concrete bridge abutment. His wife is killed. She’s the passenger, and she’s always refused to wear her seat belt.”

Stein’s hoarse laughter vibrated over the noise of the road. He sounded half insane.

Let him talk, thought Claussen,
let him talk
.

“Anyway, Walter, I’m sure you want to know about the driver. He gets out and walks away, not even scratched. This is because his Mercedes has a driver’s side air bag. That’s the best one I’ve heard yet. A driver’s side air bag! You even fooled Volkov. He told me he was worried you might crack up after she died.”

Stein chuckled to himself. “He thought you loved her, Walter. Did you ever tell him what really happened? Did you ever tell him you were just tidying up?”

Claussen checked the side-view mirror and smiled thinly. He had guessed right: Stein suspected he might try to tidy up again.

He said, “I don’t believe I would have risked it if I had been in a Chevy van. Please drive safely, Karl. We’re almost there.”

***

At 2:08 a.m. they stopped at the checkpoint to Boeing’s huge commercial parts depot north of the Sea-Tac airport. A persistent drizzle misted their windshield and glistened on the barbed-wire fence. Wind rippled puddles in the deserted parking lot.

Two guards were in the ultra-modern security hut, alert and robust young men. One of them stepped outside. Stein rolled down his window.

“Thanks for coming,” the guard said. “The super thinks we’ve got a Freon leak. Sent the third shift boys packing almost before they clocked in.”

“He probably did the right thing,” Claussen said. “We’ll have it fixed in a couple of hours.”

“You’d better. The morning shift’s coming to work at eight, leak or no leak. Sign in while I have a look in back.” The guard passed his clipboard to Stein, and walked to the rear of the van.

While Stein signed the name of one of the two Cole Dehumidification Systems employees they had researched, Claussen kept his eye on the guard in the booth. The man was watching them with more than casual interest.

“Hey, nighthawks!” shouted the guard at the back of the van, “it’s locked.”

“I’m coming,” Claussen said. “Just a minute.” He signed the clipboard, took the keys from the ignition and jumped down.

The man in the guard booth stiffened when Claussen came toward him. Claussen held up the clipboard. “Want it?”

The guard looked around suspiciously, then opened. Claussen handed him the clipboard and slipped the stiletto into his sternum in the same motion.

The guard looked down, wide-eyed, then slumped silently to the floor.

Stein climbed down from the other side of the van and patted his breast pockets. “Jesus Christ,” he grumbled loudly. “Did you bring the work order, Mack?” 

The other guard looked around from behind the van. “Hey, get your butt back here and open the door. It’s raining.”

“Take it easy,” Claussen said, strolling up to him. “This isn’t New York.” He put his key in the lock and pulled the door open.

The guard shined his flashlight into the luggage compartment, presenting his back while he stared, perplexed, at a small load of aircraft parts.

Claussen struck quickly, burying the stiletto between his shoulder blades and giving it a precise upward twist to cut the aorta. When he shoved the guard inside, the man writhed forward on his stomach.

Claussen closed the door and tossed the keys back to Stein. “Pull up to the white line and wait.”

While the van idled at the entrance gate, Claussen ducked into the booth. He stepped over the swelling pool of blood, pulled the first guard inside, took a moment to get his bearings, then sat at the security control panel and typed the codes he had reviewed during the drive: dock alarms off, internal alarms off, bay doors unlocked.

Minutes later they were inside the massive facility. It took them less than half an hour to exchange the bogus parts for their same-numbered twins. The rest of their allotted time, until 3:15 a.m., they spent loading 747 parts, the decoy, from the old Iraqi list.

From the parts depot, they drove on dark, rain-slick secondary roads to the university district. When they arrived in front of Hassan Aziz’s apartment, Claussen moved his rental Buick and Stein parked the van in the space.

Working in the blustery night like stevedores accustomed to each other’s rhythms, they loaded the Boeing parts that they had replaced with counterfeits into the trunk of the Buick. The much larger quantity of 747 parts – the diversion – they left in the van.

At 4:22 a.m., eight minutes ahead of schedule, they drove into the loading bay of Stein’s Tool and Die and carried the untainted Boeing parts from the exchange, scheduled to disappear forever, to the second basement. When they had finished, Claussen opened the Buick door and started to get in.

“Hey, just a minute,” Stein barked. “Just a minute. When are you coming back here with the rest of my money?”

“I told you, Karl, I’ve got four people to pay off ahead of you. It won’t be later than seven thirty.”

“Yeah, well don’t get tied up. The cement trucks’ll be here at eight, and the wops want payment in advance. Let’s be clear on one thing. You’re not going to pull Volkov’s trick on me. If you aren’t here, we don’t pour.”

“I’ll be here.” Claussen got in the car and gently closed the door.

Stein banged on the window. “Goddammit, Walter, give me back my garage door opener. You don’t need it anymore.”

“On the contrary, Karl. If you fall asleep, I don’t intend to be stranded in the alley. I’ll see you shortly.”

Claussen pressed the button on the opener while Stein glared at him. The gray metal door with the spray-painted windows clanked open, and he drove into the wet night.

Chapter Fifteen

Squinting over his sleeping wife, Wayne Jenkins tried to read the dial of their alarm clock. It was 4:53 a.m. and he hadn’t slept a wink all night. He felt miserable. His mind had trapped him in a maze of useless mental activity he could only escape by getting out of bed. Easier said than done. He was exhausted. He dreaded the thought of a day on the job with too little sleep.

Maybe he should give up the fight and take a couple of Lori’s Halcion sleeping pills. He’d struggled for months to get off the stuff after Ingrid and Mr. Hecht had disappeared. His doctor told him that if he started again he would get hooked immediately, and the withdrawal would be even more painful the second time around. But what was he supposed to do?

Decided, then. He would take two Halcions and leave Lori a note asking her to call his secretary at Boeing when she got up. If he went to work at eleven, rested, he would accomplish more than he would in his present state in a month.

Lori was breathing deeply, evenly. He slipped quietly out of bed and walked to the bathroom, trying to convince himself he was being reasonable rather than weak. He knew where the pills were: he had scouted the medicine cabinet the night before. He took two, plus a sliver his wife had shaved off a third. 

When he turned on the light in the kitchen, there was a nearly simultaneous crash in the living room. It sounded as if someone had tripped over the coffee table. He froze. Was Sean up already? No, he wouldn’t be sitting out there in the dark.