Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen : A Novel (9781101565766) (2 page)

Chapter One

Wilhelm Claussen had taken
possession of his Bentley Continental Flying Spur six days before, but this afternoon was the first time it had left Mission Hills. Until now, when it wasn't garaged, it had graced only the well-tended driveways of his neighbors and, of course, the Kansas City Country Club. There the car jockey routinely awarded it pride of place, the first car anyone saw from the portico. Billy, as he was known to everyone (and, as CEO of one of the world's most important contractors, he
was
known to everyone who mattered) had almost bought the Mulsanne instead. The Mulsanne was bigger and more expensive; it, too, could be tuned in the aftermarket by a German specialist firm. Yet the Continental Flying Spur had youth on its side. And the insouciance of youth, Billy had come to fear, was the very currency with which he had paid for his success. He needed, somehow, to get it back.

“Have you read the papers?” the salesman had asked.

“That's been my habit. What in the papers?” Billy had replied.

“Well, it seems it's finally been proved that certain mechanical devices
are
effective at sexually stimulating women,” the salesman had assured him dryly, then paused. “Chief among these is the Continental Flying Spur.”

Billy Claussen had laughed. Even though he'd heard the joke before, invoking a different marque and model, he had to admit it made its point and very likely clinched the deal. Without it the stuffed shirt in him might have decided for the stodgier car or put off the purchase entirely. Times were not as good as they had once been, and no matter how well one's luck had held up, at least in comparison to others', it no longer felt quite so seemly to display the fact.

Still, a man only lived once, besides which, Billy had liked the salesman, appreciated his moxie and just how important the sale was to him. As he thought back to that day in the showroom, he smiled to himself. Jokes, unlike numbers, he could no longer remember. Too often he found himself lost or stumbling halfway through one. There had been a time when he'd been ready with punch lines—he, too, had been a hell of a salesman, after all—but those vivid days when he had gathered in rather than begun to dissipate his fortune felt long ago and irretrievable.

It was four days before Christmas, a time, if ever there was one, to put the stresses of life on hold. Waiting by the curb for his car to arrive, he could still hear the tinned Christmas carols of the shopping center's sound system. Considering the abnormally balmy weather this year, they sounded out of season, but the great spruce and the store windows were decorated and the Salvation Army soldiers—one man, one woman—were watching over their kettle, taking turns ringing their handbell. After withdrawing a five-dollar bill to give to the attendant, Billy Claussen noted that there were only twenties left in his old crocodile wallet—not counting, of course, the crisp hundred he habitually secreted there. He had already closed the billfold and begun to slide it back into his left hip pocket when he thought better. The speakers were issuing a bland choral rendition of “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” of which, having been a choirboy at his first school, he knew all the verses by heart.

 

Where charity stands watching

    And faith holds wide the door,

The dark night wakes, the glory breaks,

    And Christmas comes once more.

What the hell, he thought. Whoever had taken it with him? Even nearby there were people on hard times. He removed a crisp twenty, creased it smartly in the middle and, with a smile that begged no recognition, deposited it in the Salvation Army kettle. At precisely which moment his precious Bentley arrived.

As he pulled away from the Oak Room and onto Ward Parkway the afternoon was escaping. He and Wendy had had a good lunch, two margaritas each, blackened salmon for him, sesame-grilled chicken for her. It was part of their routine when she was in town from New York: dinner somewhere very quiet, a night of lovemaking (and ferreting out each other's motives) in her hotel near the Plaza, then lunch out in the open for the world to see. Why not? They had met through business after all. Wendy had been his occasional mistress for not quite two years, since his vice president for strategic planning had hired the consulting firm she worked for to do a comprehensive review of Claussen Construction's operations. That review was long over. The contract for it had expired a few weeks before she'd first propositioned him. Now when she came to Kansas City, it was, nominally, to serve other clients.

Wendy was his son's age, but if that didn't bother her, it didn't bother him. She wasn't a kid. She had an M.B.A. from Wharton. He had been married three times, had left his first wife and been left by the two who'd followed her. Emotions perplexed him. He had walked out on the only woman he'd ever felt he couldn't live without, not because she'd changed but because he had. They had married at twenty-one, when he was already in a hurry and she was beginning to be satisfied. Their sex had been inexperienced but joyful. She had not known, wouldn't have thought to acquire, Wendy's tricks, nor had he required them in those days.

He guided the car into the traffic and accelerated as he waved good-bye. He didn't know when he would next see Wendy. He had no plans to go to New York before spring, but things came up suddenly or, if the urge struck, could be manufactured. Never mind all that now! He wanted to play with his car. A firm called Mansory, somewhere near Bayreuth, had fitted it out with an aerodynamic package, including a Pur-R-Rim integrated spoiler system, Hella daytime running lights, stainless-steel side and rear skirts and flank. The V-12 engine had been modified to provide 630 horsepower. It would accelerate from zero to sixty in 4.7 seconds, evolving in a tremendous peak torque of five hundred pounds even from low speeds. All this to be controlled from the luxury of a perfectly stitched Nappa leather and Alcantara
interior with the latest genuine carbon-fiber fittings.

In the rearview mirror, as he headed southwest, he watched the silhouette of Country Club Plaza disappear and thought again of what a pleasant, desirable place this part of this city was. People he encountered elsewhere seldom appreciated the unexpectedly cosmopolitan nature of Kansas City, much less for how long it had prevailed. Take the Plaza, for example, which old man J. C. Nichols had developed in 1922 as America's very first suburban shopping center. Its Spanish architecture—towers, fountains, and sculpture—still cast an enchanted spell over the Brush Creek Valley. And the stores it housed were the equal, often the sisters, of those on Madison Avenue and Rodeo Drive. This was a confident but curious town, to which some came and from which others, such as Billy himself, traveled forth. And it was as nice a place as any he'd seen to call home: the United States still as it had been at its zenith.

As aware of his own moods as he was of the temperature, Billy wondered what had made him so suddenly wistful. He supposed there were any number of possible causes but gradually came to focus on two. The first was that he really did not like being recognized by complete strangers. Restaurant and hotel staff were one thing, but the general public was quite another. Ever since he'd agreed to appear in an advertisement meant to instill confidence in a large, abruptly faltering bank of which he was a major shareholder, he'd had the sense that his familiar, comfortable cloak of anonymity had been at least partially shed. A billboard version of that ad had forced this reservation to the front of his mind, and as he sped past it, he looked away.

The second reason, which had continued to unsettle him long after it should have, was a deal from which he had recently and precipitously pulled out, on the basis not of careful analysis but of instinct. For a time it had seemed to offer the promise of huge and quick rewards as well as a hard-to-come-by opening to an all-but-limitless new market. The man with whom he had struck his bargain was a friend, or rather they had for years shared what passed for friendship among people at their level. It was the others, the ever-changing operational people, the Russians themselves, who had eventually given him pause. The more he'd seen of them, the more suspicious he had become that, for them, lucre trumped judgment. And this had cut against his grain. The last of the developers he'd met had particularly irritated him: a patronizing, odious Cossack, whose skin all but swallowed his sweat. “How can we be sure you will deliver what you say you will?” the man had asked. What a question! Claussen Construction spanned the globe. It was number one because it was never late, never over budget, never anything but straightforward and professional. Surely, no one could say the same of any of the other partners in the deal. Nor could Billy even be sure what those men's true motives were, except that very likely there were more of them than they were letting on.

It was surprising how many suspicions could be pricked by a single, stupid question. Claussen Construction had been brought in to repurpose an about-to-be-abandoned Cold War military installation, perched along some godforsaken Russian seaside, as a five-star resort. Could the Russian syndicate already be angling to renegotiate Claussen's fees, or was something even more sinister afoot? Was it mere happenstance that the property being let go belonged to the army, or were they and the security services with which they worked somehow to remain involved as silent partners? Anything was possible. Billy had called the man who'd brought him into the deal in the first place. “I can't get a straight answer from any of them,” he'd protested. “The same goon is never in the same place two days running. Hell, I'm used to playing on foreign fields, but not with a tribe as foreign as this one. They go way beyond anything I've seen. How can we be ready to do what they want us to do in the spring, which will be here before you know it, if we don't make a definite plan now? We can't. There's no way. We're late as it is. I shouldn't have to step in. My job is to deal with principals, not line men. And I don't know a genuine oligarch from a fake, or their military from their mob. What I do know is that there is all the difference in the world between extensive resources, which, thankfully, we have, and infinite ones, which we most assuredly do not. So, as alluring as this project once seemed and the whole Russian market may be, I can't let us become subject to the kinds of delays we've been experiencing and that now look to be downright inevitable. I can't sacrifice cranes and ships and men that are committed elsewhere—China, for example—to it, not when the boys in charge are going about things in their half-assed way, everyone shifting responsibility onto the next son of a bitch, but with his hand out.”

“Let me try to sort it out for you,” his friend had suggested, calm certitude in his voice.

“Too late for that,” Billy had replied.

“As I recall, your contract commits you—”

“Through the end of this year,” Billy had interrupted. “The first day of January, we're done.”

“Have it your way,” his friend had told him, “but until then don't do anything rash.”

“I never do anything rash,” Billy had said, wondering if the advice he'd been given was a friendly admonition or a threat.

You're judged by the company you keep
—how often had his father drummed that lesson into him? Often and forcefully enough that until he'd allowed himself to be seduced into the Russian deal, he had never made a serious mistake, at least in his business relationships.

Oh, well, let it go
,
he thought as he caressed the steering wheel. He had cut his company loose from the operation at the first instant he could, the end of Stage One as defined in their agreement. It would only be days now before he would see the backs of these characters, wish them luck to be on the safe side, and preserve his self-serving friendship with the ordinarily useful fellow who had brokered the arrangement. Then he would smile, but he wouldn't give a rat's ass what hand fate dealt the others or their improbable, grandiose project. By his age, Billy thought, life had left him with a pretty good danger detector. When it went off, it was only prudent to step back.

He had just turned off State Line Road and was nearly home when something ominous appeared in his mirror and altered his mood: the flashing blue lights of a Kansas Highway Patrol car.

“Shit!” He should have expected it. The state police liked to take up positions near the Missouri line. He slowed down and, as soon as he was able to, pulled onto the shoulder of the leafy suburban road. When by reflex he reached toward the glove compartment for his registration, he suddenly tasted a crystal of salt on his lips and recollected the margaritas he and Wendy had savored before lunch, less than two hours ago. Immediately he tried to do the calculus, but he could not recall the rate at which alcohol departed the bloodstream. Hadn't he known it by heart at Stanford? He was positive he had, but that was thirty-five years ago. Whatever, there was one thing he did know: He would be damned if he'd lose his license so soon after taking possession of this car.

In the old days, troopers had been figures to contend with. Tall, square-jawed enforcers, their faces disguised by helmets and dark aviator glasses, they'd held the saddles of their souped-up motorcycles around the steepest bends, coming at you like hornets and always by surprise. Now they were pussies, bureaucrats barricaded in their sedans. Sure, they kept their lights flashing as they called or typed in your tag number, checking to be sure you weren't certifiably dangerous before they dared to approach. It was all by the book. Like so many touches of the modern world, it was one Billy Claussen found pathetic, although fortunately in a way he could contrive to his own advantage.

He took a deep breath, snapped shut the glove compartment he had already opened, released his seat belt, slid his left hand to the recessed carbon-fiber door handle, and squeezed it gently. That almost inaudible click—how he relished it! Billy grinned to himself, then wiped any residue of a smirk from his face. He hadn't much time. There was still a folded copy of that morning's
Wall Street
Journal
in the center of the passenger seat. He sent it flying into the rear, using a low toss that would not be apparent from outside. In a second's glance into his rearview mirror, he observed the cop still writing, perhaps even still on his radio. So Billy decided to take the chance. His cover story, if he needed one, would be that he'd been looking for his documents. He doubted it would be believed. As if a child again, in a near somersault, he bolted over and between the front seats into the rear.