Time to Kill (7 page)

‘I'm not arguing. I just want to get things straight.'

‘He said four or five weeks.'

‘Where will he go?'

‘Peebles said he didn't know. That he wouldn't have told me, even if he had known.'

‘There has to be a reason for their warning us.'

Slater couldn't criticize Ann for echoing his own first thought. ‘That's not so! It's a statutory obligation, a legal requirement, nothing more than that.'

‘That's just what Peebles said,' insisted the woman, disbelievingly.

‘It's what I checked out and confirmed at the Library of Congress.'

‘Is Peebles going to keep in touch?'

‘Ann, stop it! There's no reason for him or anyone else to keep in touch. Forget it.'

‘How the hell can I forget it?'

‘You have done, for the past fifteen years!' They were definitely arguing now.

‘No I haven't,' she denied. ‘I've
waited
for the past fifteen years. I think I need a drink.'

‘It didn't drown anything out before.' She'd been very good at disguising it, Slater remembered. He hadn't even guessed when they'd started their affair, although they'd both had too much to drink the first time, and afterwards agreed it had been a bad mistake; Ann remorseful for cheating on a husband despite his so consistently and blatantly cheating on her, actually financing his womanizing with Moscow's money, and Slater – or Sobell as he was then – personally horrified at breaking every KGB rule as the control of a major American spy source. Neither had been drunk the second time. Or the third.

‘I want a drink,' Ann demanded.

It had once been a bottle a day, Slater recalled, pouring the measure he knew Ann had liked then, adding ice, lime and tonic to the gin. He didn't make one for himself.

‘Not joining me?'

‘I don't need it.'

Ann remained staring at the full glass on the table between them, like a fairground fortune-teller trying to predict the future from a crystal ball, making no attempt to pick it up. Slater remained silent.

At last Ann said, ‘I don't need it either. Throw it away.'

‘Well done,' praised Slater, who'd only just stopped short of trying to persuade Ann to enrol in Alcoholics Anonymous all those years ago.

‘There's something I do want, though.'

‘What?'

‘Better alarms and security.'

Slater opened his mouth to say it wasn't necessary but decided against it.

Tension remained between them. Each was aware of the other working hard to keep any indication of it from David, although Slater was discomfited driving the boy back from basketball practice when David said, ‘I thought you were a bit hard on the guys tonight, Dad?'

‘They weren't all trying their best,' said Slater, defensively. ‘A team only works as a unit. One or two lay back and everything gets put out of synch.'

‘You actually yelled at Steve and Paul.' ‘Let's hope they pull their full weight next week.' When he tried the door that night, Slater discovered Ann had put the security deadlock on – a matching deadlock she'd insisted he have installed the day after the letter arrived, on the art gallery she ran on Main Street, as well as CCTV cameras on both – and when she answered the door, after assuring herself who it was, Ann said, ‘I thought you'd come in through the garage. You think it's a good idea to leave the car out?'

Saying nothing Slater went back to the car, triggered the garage door lift and put the vehicle away, entering the house through the inner connecting door. Finally inside the house he saw she'd slipped the bolts, as well as resetting the deadlock. The following morning, the episode in his mind, Slater found himself instinctively checking for surveillance as he drove into Frederick. There was a quick flare of irritation, just as quickly dispelled. What was wrong with that? he asked himself.

According to Peebles' schedule Mason would still be in the penitentiary and he genuinely believed what he'd told Ann, that there was no conceivable possibility of Mason ever locating them, even if her former husband attempted to do so, which Slater doubted just as strongly. But he'd had the specialized training and attained the expertise, an expertise he still utilized to a limited extent in the business he now ran. He'd even taken that expertise – or caution – into his business. To avoid the need for a large, potentially curious work staff Slater designed the security, but subcontracted the actual fitting and installation to others.

Why not maintain – or rather recover – all his other expertise, Slater now asked himself? There was no excuse for letting that craft wither out of shape, as he'd acknowledged from the most recent camping weekend that he'd neglected the physical fitness he'd once so strenuously kept up. Hadn't one of his personal, professional mantras been that an all important edge should be constantly honed, to remain sharp, not allowed to become blunted? It shouldn't be difficult, to bring it all back. Everything was still there, except for the back-up of the omnipotent KGB. His skills were just dormant, like a learned language was initially difficult to recall to fluency if it wasn't regularly spoken.

It wasn't a decision he'd tell Ann: wasn't sure, even, if he'd keep to it himself. Despite their solemn mutual undertaking always to be honest with each other, Ann had kept things – far more relevant things – from him:
I've waited for the past 15 years!
echoed in Slater's mind, not just the words but the virulence with which she'd said them. He wouldn't be withholding as she had withheld from him, for so many years. To tell her, to hint even, what he was only vaguely considering would cause her much greater worry than the letter had.

Hadn't he been waiting for the past fifteen years for Mason's release, complacent until now that he still had another five years to go until he needed to confront the possible repercussions? No! Slater determined at once. Mason wasn't a physically violent man. He'd looked capable of it but it had been a pretence, like so much else about Jack Mason was pretence; the way he'd convinced any woman under the age of sixty with a faint pulse that he was the stud upon whom James Bond had been modelled. At the man's trial it had emerged that almost invariably Mason intentionally let slip to any woman he was trying to seduce that he was a CIA agent who'd risked his life in Moscow and Vienna and Prague, although not that it was in the Russian capital that he'd been photographically entrapped, literally with his trousers around his ankles, by a planted KGB seductress. Nor that while he had been stationed in all three cities, he'd never been exposed to or experienced any danger. Mason's greatest intelligence coup was manoeuvring a recall from Moscow to the CIA's Russian Desk at Langley, and that was for his KGB masters.

He still might amuse himself recovering all the old, perhaps even outdated and superseded tradecraft, thought Slater. It could conceivably be a selective re-learning process from which he'd isolate things to teach David.

Jack Mason wouldn't have recognized the attorney who'd represented him at his treason trial: their association over his mother's estate had been entirely by letter. Since 1986 Patrick Bell had lost virtually all his hair, put on at least 281bs and needed thick-lensed spectacles. His breathing was strained, too.

‘Sorry I couldn't make it until now,' apologized Bell. ‘I'm pretty busy.'

‘Not a problem,' assured Mason, who'd actually wanted the meeting pushed back as close as possible to his release date. He looked around the interview room assigned to them and said, ‘You sure this place isn't wired?'

‘It's against the law,' said Bell.

‘So's murder, rape and sexually molesting children. Still happens all the time.' It was irritating having to go through the prison complaint charade before getting to what was really important to him, but he'd been patient for fifteen years and the delay now was going to be about fifteen minutes.

‘We're OK. Trust me. What's the complaint?'

Bell made no attempt to take notes as Mason recounted what had happened during the Washington visit. He didn't once look at Mason, either, but sat head bowed on the other side of the interview table. Nor did he interrupt.

It seemed several moments after Mason stopped before the lawyer said, ‘Why should Howitt try to set you up?'

‘I told you, to screw my maximum remission.'

‘Why'd he want to do that?'

‘Because I haven't kissed his ass, like everyone else.'

‘That serious enough to him, to try a stunt like this?'

‘He's a bullying bastard. Wants everyone frightened of him.'

‘But you're not?'

‘And he knows it. There's going to be an internal prison enquiry. It's on hold until we were able to talk like this.'

‘You're alleging conspiracy. Who else was involved, apart from Howitt?'

‘An ass-licking guard named Gerry Garson.'

‘What producible evidence have you got?'

‘I wasn't officially signed out. Which I understand I should have been, according to prison regulations. And I wasn't taken in a secure prison van, which I also understand is covered by prison regulations. I was taken to the airport in Garson's private car – I've got the number – and paraded in handcuffs until we approached Washington. They weren't put back on, definitely not on the return trip, when I was under FBI escort. Shouldn't I have been taken by the US Marshall's office?'

‘Technically, perhaps.'

‘That's what technicalities are for, rules to be observed.'

‘The moment Howitt disappeared, you handed yourself over to airport police.'

‘They could be called as witnesses. The FBI who got called in didn't believe Howitt's story. And there's to be an internal enquiry, like I told you.'

‘When you went into Reagan terminal it was just the two of you – you and Howitt?'

‘Yes.' Come on, let's get it over with!

‘No other witnesses?'

‘There's the airport policemen.'

‘Who weren't involved until you went up to them? No one actually witnessed Howitt ducking away?'

‘No.'

‘It's your word against his. He's a senior prison guard, you're a convicted felon. I'd take a bet the records show you properly signed out.'

‘Who's got maximum, good behaviour remission. Why should I risk screwing it up trying to escape less than a month before I was going to be released anyway!'

‘Your release being delayed, because of what happened?'

‘Not that I've been told. I think that's something you should establish.'

‘At the moment you haven't lost anything?'

He could have predicted the conversation, thought Mason, who had no intention of pursuing any sort of claim to its end. ‘Not for Howitt's want of trying.'

‘You looking for financial compensation?'

‘Don't I deserve it, having had five years of freedom put in jeopardy?'

‘Which isn't going to be jeopardized. You beat the bastard, if indeed it was a set-up.'

‘He should pay! Someone should pay.' And you're the key to a lot of money you don't even know about, thought Mason.

‘It could take a long time.'

‘I'm used to long times, like fifteen years within the same walls. All I'm asking you to do is look into it. Decide if there's a case.'

‘I'm just pointing up practical, legal difficulties, that's all,' insisted Bell.

‘Will you look into it, at least?'

‘I'll look into it,' begrudged the lawyer. ‘It won't be quick, though.'

The last thing he wanted was for it to be quick, thought Mason. ‘I'm initially going to be under Washington parole, right on your doorstep. And we need to meet about other things, don't we?'

‘Everything's in order, waiting,' assured the lawyer.

‘How much money is in the account?' Bell had held power of attorney over his mother's estate for the past ten years.

‘I checked before I left Washington,' said Bell. ‘Your mother's house sold for $120,000 and there was $80,000 after the sale of the disposable assets and the money that was in the account. It's all been on the highest interest deposit, in the First National. In round figures you're looking at close to $300,000.'

‘I'd like you to move, say, $50,000 into a checking account. And arrange a chequebook and cash card to be ready for when I get out.'

‘Of course.'

Mason hesitated. ‘There was a strongbox in which my mother kept things she thought important?' And which is even more important to me, he thought.

‘That's in a safety deposit box, at the First National. Those were your instructions.'

‘I'm hoping there'll be some things, momentos, that I'd like to have. Photographs, stuff like that.'

‘I can understand,' smiled Bell.

‘I'll get in touch, as soon as I get out.'

‘Of course. It's going to take some getting used to.'

More than you could ever guess, thought Mason. ‘I'll admit to being a little nervous.'

‘It wouldn't be natural if you weren't. Everything will be ready for you.'

‘And by then you'll have thought about this claim?'

‘Absolutely.'

Mason hadn't expected to encounter Gerry Garson until the following morning at least but found the man at the far end of the library corridor later that afternoon when he closed up. Mason was within yards of the man before Garson saw him, immediately trying to hurry away.

‘Gerry!' stopped Mason. There's something you need to hear. Something important.'

The prison guard halted, trying – but failing – to appear surprised at Mason being there. ‘I didn't see you.'

‘Good job I saw you then. I had an interview with my attorney today. You might know about that, as you know there's an internal enquiry about you and Howitt trying to pull that escape stunt. My lawyer thinks I've got a guaranteed compensation claim. Big bucks for me, goodbye job and pension for you and Frankie. I haven't decided yet whether to go ahead with it. If anything bad – anything at all – happened to Chambers after I get out it might make my mind up for me. I could call him as a witness. You tell Frankie that, OK? You let him know just how much his fat ass is on the line. And yours, too. You understand what I'm telling you, Gerry?'