The Tangled Webb (3 page)

CHAPTER 7

G
reenwich, Connecticut was a community where old money lives alongside the nouveau riche in some very expensive real estate. The town’s ideal location—forty-five minutes from New York City—attracts bankers, hedge fund managers and a collection of players in the world of big capital. The most affluent residents living on large estates along Long Island Sound and in the hills north of town spend millions, for seclusion and privacy.

Many seek it.

Some
need
it.

Among the latter group was Alec Specter, the ruthless powerbroker at Wolfe & Hunt. Specter lived with his wife and young son on a two-acre estate in the hills above town. The 8,000 square-foot house was situated on a quiet lane named Hidden Creek Road. The huge price tag for the project was necessary to satisfy the appetites of a man who played God with other people’s lives.

He had harnessed the legal system and swung it around like a blunt instrument, destroying lives. And he did the bidding for many of the nation’s most powerful criminals, and some “respectable” clients as well.

And who could do anything about it?

Kate and James Webb boarded an Amtrak train bound for New York City, carrying duffel bags stuffed with cash in small denominations and an assortment of gear. Disembarking at Penn Station, they caught a taxi north of the city to within a half-mile of a house in Bronxville. Here, James bought a non-descript Chevy sedan advertised online.

Kate waited as he slipped on a disguise; a neatly shaven beard, tinted glasses and a baseball cap. He walked to the house where the seller eyed a wad of cash, relieved James did not quibble about the price.

Along Interstate 95, they stopped and purchased a road bike at a bicycle shop. Back on the freeway, a few miles ahead, a sign near an exit ramp displayed the name of a town.

OLD GREENWICH

Densely wooded, the enclave afforded privacy; narrow alleyways separated the backyards of traditionally styled homes. James turned into one of the alleys, passed fences and garages of several homes and came to a stop next to a secluded wood line. He wore a disguise and presented himself to the owner; an elderly man whose property Kate had discovered in her research had been in foreclosure for eight months. He accepted a year’s rent in cash, agreeing to respect his new tenant’s privacy. A vegetated area separated the main house from a small cottage that sat above covered parking along the alley.

Having left the Chevy beneath the cottage, James inspected the gear and Kate booted up a laptop, studying a file on Alec Specter she had put together. First, there was the photograph; mid-fifties, cruel eyes and a sharp, useless look about him.

Then there was a newspaper article describing in detail how Specter had nearly trampled a woman to death while escaping a mob of angry homeowners gathered outside his office building in New York. As he ran the gauntlet, Specter had used his briefcase as a battering ram. He pushed the woman to the ground and, stomping across her, broke her wrist and a collar bone while running for safety in an awaiting limousine.

Kate felt a chill run along her spine.

James studied maps and aerial photos of Specter’s neighborhood, laying out the best routes for getting in and out—and avoiding detection. He packed his gear and the maps into a backpack, went into the bedroom, kicked off his shoes and sprawled on his back.

In the kitchenette, Kate jotted some grocery items on a notepad.

“I’m going to head over to the market.”

“Good idea.”

He heard the door close as she left for the store, then set an alarm clock for midnight and began to stare at the ceiling, lost in his thoughts.

When Kate returned to the cottage, James had fallen asleep. She put the groceries away and fell into bed herself.

James woke a few minutes before the alarm clock and then he woke Kate. Fifteen minutes later, they jumped in the Chevy with gear in tow. Kate drove them through the winding roads of Greenwich, slowed and stopped.

A quarter-mile away the Specter estate, she dropped James off. He walked the remaining distance as she returned to the cottage.

Dressed in black clothing, James walked to the center of the street, observing the Specter property; an imposing facade, security cameras hidden beneath small black domes at the corners of the upper level, new landscaping and a gated driveway. As seen from the road, the house itself was almost completely visible. He probed the entire perimeter of the property.

Then he waited.

Given there was no police response, he assumed the security cameras reached only to the property boundary. James enjoyed this aspect of a covert operation: he felt as though he owned the night. He closed his eyes, trying to get his mind to relax. In the stillness, even the faintest sounds could be heard—a dog barking in the distance, a neighbor’s garage door opening down the street, a car moving nearby along the pavement. He moved as a panther does, quietly and stealthily. Circling the estate, he made mental notes, scrutinized the smallest details. He peered through night-vision binoculars, scanned adjacent homes, memorized window locations and sightlines.

Recalling a section in the file Kate had prepared, he drew closer to inspect the home next door, occupied by a single woman in her seventies who lived alone and had no relatives living in the area. None of the windows faced the street, and the bedrooms were situated in a rear wing. Judging from an overgrown landscape, the woman was a recluse.

Set between Specter and the woman’s property, a narrow strip of woodland ran beside the two driveways, extending out to the road. Twenty feet in from the edge of the road, James discovered an ideal hiding spot. It was nestled beneath a canopy of trees, the underbrush sufficiently thick for providing cover. From this vantage point, both the Specter estate and the entire street could be seen. But the “hide” wasn’t risk free. If any of the neighbors detected a presence here, the operation would have to be aborted.

He broke into a grin.

Specter’s decision to settle in beside the recluse had been a mistake.
A fundamental rule of battle: never leave a flank unprotected. He should have bought her property and combined it with his own. Unwittingly, Specter has created an opportunity. This hiding place is only fifty yards from where he sleeps. A blunder.

Satisfied his reconnaissance was done, he embraced the crisp night air, jogging back to Old Greenwich and the cottage. He set his backpack inside the door and glanced at his watch: 2:30 A.M. Kate was asleep in the bedroom, and he went over the plan in his mind one more time before setting the alarm. As he drifted off to sleep, a thought persisted.

In a few hours we roll.

6:30 A.M.

James woke in a restless state and roused Kate. With some last-minute details refined they scrambled out to the carport. Kate got behind the wheel of the Chevy, switched the headlights off and quietly drove along the narrow strip of blacktop. She headed to a bridge overpass above the Merritt Parkway, ten minutes from Specter’s estate and along the route the lawyer drove on his way to work in Manhattan. Kate rolled to a stop in the darkness and James got out.

They checked the communications equipment to be certain of its working order.

“Be careful,” she said.

“Remember. Be calm and stay focused.”

“I’ll try.”

She watched him disappear into the woods by the edge of the road, which led him under the concrete overpass to a spot he had scouted out yesterday.

Kate drove to a private school in the foothills—a mile from Specter’s house, parked the Chevy in the lot, removed the road bike from the trunk and peddled to the hiding place next to his estate. Here, she removed a camouflage tarp from her backpack and covered the bike.

An hour passed before a blanket of night gave way to dawn. Sunlight cut through a canopy of towering oak trees, and for Kate, it seemed like a switch had been turned when the neighborhood came to life: birds chirping in unison, an elderly woman walking along the road, shiny cars zipping by—neighbors dashing off to busy lives.

Suddenly Kate heard a noise behind her: a garage door opening at the Specter house. Scooping up her binoculars, she quickly raised them to her eyes, adjusted the focus dial. Between the trees, the form of an automobile began taking shape, backing into the motor court and moving along the driveway.

A few seconds passed.

Behind a veil of underbrush, a black sedan rolled to the gate, tires rumbling on top of brick pavers.

A Mercedes came into view and stopped at the driveway gate, the driver waiting as the gate swung wide. The distance to the car was not more than forty feet, the driver’s window open.
Bingo.

ALEC SPECTER

His expression was clear: arrogant, smug.

Kate’s research had paid a dividend. She had found a pattern. A common trait among successful people: an adherence to schedules and routines. These made for productive lives, though predictable. In the world of covert operations,
predictability
means
vulnerability
.

Specter swept the road with his eyes, apparently seeing nothing out of the ordinary as he turned and drove away. Kate remained still, waiting for another vehicle to leave the estate and follow Specter, but none did so.

She spoke into a small microphone near her chin.

“He’s on his way.”

A response.

“Copy.”

Then Kate spun around, horrified. In a full sprint, a canine was charging toward her.

Her heart raced. She froze.

Oh, no!

Barking ferociously, the dog halted just a few steps away.

Now what?

Seconds later, a teenage boy shouted from across the street.

“Rex! Come on boy. Come here Rex.”

Abandoning instinct to obey a command from his master, the dog turned his head sharply and trotted off.

Kate sighed in relief as the boy ushered the canine inside the house and left for school.

When James had been doing his reconnaissance a few hours earlier, he stood in the boy’s driveway across the street, observing the Specter estate while his body scent settled on the ground. Unfortunately for Kate, the olfactory glands of canines give them a sense of smell two hundred times greater than humans. When the teenager opened his front door, the dog picked up the scent James had left at the “hide” and made a beeline for the spot in which Kate was hiding.

Kate wiped beads of sweat from her forehead.

That was close.

A moment later a second Mercedes—this one an SUV—backed out of the Specter garage and came down the driveway. When the car stopped at the gate, Kate looked into her binoculars and saw a woman, and a young boy seated beside her.

She’s driving her son to school. No bus for this child, too risky.

Seemingly from nowhere, an engine roared and a car raced by on the road.

Just some teenagers.

But as Kate studied the woman’s expression, it told a different story. Fear and terror in her eyes.

This poor woman is imagining assailants pulling her and the boy into a vehicle and stealing away. What an awful way to live. She lives in a gilded cage, the bars forged by her husband’s grasping hands.

After the Mercedes disappeared, Kate removed items from her backpack and changed into a Polo shirt, cap, khaki shorts, sunglasses and shoes. She stuffed the tarp into her pack, glanced up and down the street, pulled the backpack over her shoulders and emerged from the woods on the road bike. As she rode away casually, she appeared as an everyday Greenwich resident, out for a morning ride.

She peddled toward the private school and the Chevy, thinking of the role James would play in the next phase of the operation.

A crucial one.

CHAPTER 8

A
bedside telephone was ringing high above the pre-dawn traffic in Washington, D.C. as the city lights cast a dim radiance on the dark interior of a penthouse in the Watergate Complex beside the Potomac River. Deep in slumber, Senator Benjamin Cohen’s first believed the ringing was part of a dream, but then his hand began fumbling near his bedside table and picked up the phone.

“Hello,” he mumbled.

“Senator Cohen,” a voice said. “Please accept my apology for this intrusion.”

Emerging from his stupor, the Senator thought he recognized the caller’s voice. He glanced at the clock: 4:16 A.M.

“Do you
know
what the time is?”

“I do.”

The voice had become unmistakable, and based on prior experience, the Senator knew the caller did not adhere to standard conventions: it seemed as though he was in every place, twenty four hours a day.

“We have to talk.”

Cohen cleared his throat.

“Okay, I’m listening.”

“I need your decision. Tonight.”

“I need more time, Deacon.”

“Unacceptable. Do you want to avoid the fate of the others?”

Senator Cohen needed no clarification; he had two choices:

Silver or lead, accept a bribe from the Deacon or face death.

He felt torn. To let his office, and his principles, be bartered for money ran contrary to everything he believed in. But things had not been easy in the past couple of years. The passing of his wife had left him alone to care for a young son who suffered from Down syndrome. The boy required constant care, depending completely on his father. The Senator loved him dearly, and he could not bear any thoughts of leaving the boy adrift. As he saw things, he had no good options. With much reluctance, he gave in.

“You’ll have my vote.”

“You are a sensible man,” replied the Deacon.

“I want to make this clear. There will be no trail.”

“Understood, the funds will be deposited in an offshore account of your choosing.”

Cohen hadn’t any interest in the money, even if the $10 million the Deacon would pay was a huge sum. His investment portfolio had grown beyond his needs, and extravagance wasn’t his style. He could think only of his son, and he was determined to be there for him.

And if he didn’t go along? The Deacon would question his motives, and he might wind up in the bottom of a ravine.

“Okay,” the Senator managed to say.

The Deacon’s voice was almost a whisper. “Goodnight.”

And the line went dead.

Alone in the dark with his thoughts, Cohen sat upright and a silence fell as he looked out the window. Even at this early hour of the morning, the headlights of cars flickered off in the distance as commuters drove across the Key Bridge and into the nation’s capital.

Senator Cohen couldn’t believe what he had just done. Feelings of regret washed over him, and he lamented his earlier decision to run for reelection to the U. S. Senate.

He slid out of bed and into his slippers before walking along a dark hallway and to his son’s bedroom. Here, the child seemed peaceful in his sleep. Cohen moved from the doorway to the bed, and leaning in, gently brushed the boy’s cheek with his hand.

Ignorance is bliss, my son will always have his innocence.

A cool breeze whistled lightly by the window as he pulled up the covers and tucked them beneath the boy’s chin. He thought of his son’s caregiver who would be here in less than three hours, but for a while it would be just the two of them. He didn’t move for a long time.

But eventually, he slowly retreated and went into the living room, sat on the sofa, hung his head low, and wept.