The Bannerman Solution (The Bannerman Series) (66 page)

His eyes were becoming distant again. “Paul?” she
asked. “What's on your mind? It's still that phone call
you got, isn't it?”

He shook his head.

“What, then?”

“You.”

“What about me?”

“You were terrific back there.”

She studied him curiously. There was something else
behind those eyes. Coming down the mountain he was
skiing as if
...
she wasn't sure what. At the start he
seemed to be testing her. Then he'd changed his mind.
Eased up. But on that last run
he was attacking that
mountain with all he had, taking foolish chances, plung
ing through those trees like a frightened deer. She
wanted to ask him about that. It seemed so unlike him.
But all she said was, “Thank you.”

She was asleep, on their living-room couch, not ten minutes after squeezing off her boots and leaving them
where they tumbled. She'd needed both hands to lift
her legs to the cushions. A glass of wine remained un
touched at her side. Paul fetched the bedroom quilt and
gently draped it over the woman he had deliberately
exhausted. He needed time to be alone with his
thoughts and the deep, gnawing anger that he'd fought all day to control.

He'd lied, of course, about the effect of Anton's call.
What bothered him most about it was not the news of
Palmer Reid's people, the Scarsdale killings, the grant of
sanctuary to two of Reid's agents. It was not even,
though he hated to think of it, that Anton had gone
against his wishes and dispatched Carla Benedict and
Gary Russo to Davos. He knew he would have done the
same in Anton's place. It was the insanity of it all that he
despised. People were dying because of a plot that did not exist—between himself, Susan's father, whom he'd
never met, and some woman in Zurich whom he hadn't
even known existed before this morning.

Palmer Reid.

In Paul's dark mood he almost wished he'd listened
to the others and let them finish Reid at the outset.
They'd all urged it except Anton. Most of them volun
teered. Even Molly. But Paul knew, as Anton knew, that
Reid would soon have been replaced by someone very
much like him. Perhaps by someone younger, more
clever, more
stable, whose powerful friends had not all died or had not yet been betrayed. Better the devil you
know.

And in Paul's heart, though he never spoke of it to anyone but Anton, he could not help feeling a certain
sympathy for Reid. There had been a time when Reid
and others like him probably served their country well.
During the war years. Then the Cold War years. But,
like Hoover, he'd stayed too long. Too many moves and
countermoves. Too many lies. A conspiratorial mental
ity taking permanent hold. Then, inevitably, a growing
contempt for any elected official who embraced a world
view other than his own. They'd tried to get rid of him,
retire him, and in doing so they marked themselves as
dangerously naive at best, or communist tools at worst.
Like Hoover, Reid began to gather files on them. As with Hoover, his files, real or imagined, kept him in
service long after his time had passed. Like Hoover, the
actions of his later years blotted out all else that might
have been admired. But sympathy, like love, has its
limits.

Susan.

What to do about Susan?

He was so proud of her today. Staying with him. Not
complaining. Even during that last stretch through the trees when he himself had almost panicked. When an
hour of brooding over Anton's call left him wondering
whether Reid might actually make an attempt against
him here. When his mind ruled out all the ways in
which it might be done except for on a narrow, lonely
ski trail during a snowstorm where he and anyone
with
him could be quietly and quickly killed and their bodies
pulled off the trail, and many days might pass before
they were found.

It was not a reasonable fear. He knew that. If he'd
been alone it would have been a fleeting thought at
most. Nor would he have stuck to marked trails. But he
was with Susan. So he
’
d raced on, straining to keep no less than twenty yards between them in open stretches
and shielding her body with his own in places of possible
ambush. But Susan didn't know the game. She thought
she was being tested. She would stay with him if it killed
her. And that was the problem, he thought sadly.
Sooner or later, it very well might.

At Windermere, and again on the train from Lon
don, he'd almost managed to make himself believe that
a future with Susan was possible. Even a future mea
sured in months. But each time, something had hap
pened to slap him back into reality. At Windermere, it was Reid's visit. Here it was Anton's phone call.

There would be other women. But from now on he'd
pick them more carefully. They'd be closer to his own
age. Women who've been around the track a few times.
Less trusting. Less vulnerable. Easier to let go when
they began to ask questions. Or will he and Molly Farrell, God bless her, look at each other one day and say
, ”
We might as well face it. You and me. Like it or not.
We're all we're going to get.
”

Apologies to Molly, the thought made him sick.

“Ask me,” yawned Caroline Bass, “those two have
called it a day.”
She passed the binoculars to her husband who
slouched behind the wheel of the black Saab sedan.
They'd rented it at Zurich that morning after slipping
off the train. A blue plastic ski pod, empty, was mounted
on its roof.

“Which shows they got more sense than us,” he
sighed. Ray Bass raised the glasses and focused them,
through Caroline's side window, upon the outline of
Paul Bann
e
rman. The better part of an hour had passed
since they watched him gently drape a quilt over Susan.
Now Paul was outside, on his second-floor terrace,
sometimes pacing, mostly sitting, oblivious to the snow-
flakes swirling around him, staring into the night. “Old
Paul looks like he has a thing or two on his mind.”

Caroline nodded. “I still have a funny feeling about
him. Just can't put my finger on it.”

“Well,” Ray Bass shrugged, “as far as I can tell, he's
exactly what he says he is.” He'd placed a call to
Westport, mostly to satisfy Caroline, getting the number
of Paul's travel agency and asking to talk to the head
man. The lady who answered was real talkative, real
friendly. If Mr. Paul Bannerman and his travel agency
were anything but the genuine article, no question it
was news to her. “Anyhow, look at him.” Ray gestured
toward the terrace, “sittin’ up there all wide open and
back-lit like he is. Where are those ‘careful moves' of
yours now?”

“No harm in wonderin', sweetheart.”

“About all he's got on his mind is how much it's
going to snow and whether to wake her up and go to
supper. See the way he keeps peekin' in at her? Be nice
if he'd decide to go eat by himself. We could be done
here and back up to Zurich before midnight.”

Ray Bass
was silent for a moment, then he chuckled. “Might have
been a real feather in our caps if we did her on that
fancy train. Wasn't much chance, I realize, but it sure
would have been fun to brag on doin' a real-life murder
on the Orient Express.”

“It might
be
new but it wouldn't
sound
new, darlin'.
You want to brag on somethin’,” she chuckled with him,
“figure a way to do grand theft-auto on the Orient Express. Now that would be a whole new wrinkle.”

Ray made a face. “I'm not sure people would line up
to hear about that one. Might as well do insider trading
on the Orient Express.” He clapped his hands gleefully,
“Or how ‘bout
Revenge of the Nerds
on the Orient Ex
press? Wouldn't that be a stitch?”

“Steady, sweetheart.” She patted his thigh. “Let's
think about how we're goin' to get the girl alone real
soon. A town this little, one of them's like to spot us
sooner or later.”

“That happens, we just whoop and holler and act
like we been lookin' all over for ‘em. Say we lost the
paper with their address but came down anyhow. Then,
if we can't get 'em separate, we'll just have to get'
em
together.”

“Paul's not on the list, sweetie. Ain't no bonus money
in him.”

“Well, don't you worry.” Ray Bass took her hand.
“Tomorrow, next day for sure. Susan's going to go off to
get her hair done, or to shop, or to go to the food store.
We'll have her stretched out in that ski pod before she
knows it.”

“Speakin’ of food . . .” Caroline held her wrist-
watch up to a streetlight.