Never Trust A Lady

Chapter 3

Hawk tucked his lighter away and continued up the ramp without looking back. He didn’t need to look to know that the blue van was pulling away from the curb, or that the man named Campbell was already behind the wheel of his black rental sedan, set to follow. He’d be doing the same, of course, when the time was right, and in the meantime, he wasn’t concerned about losing sight of the van. The small electronic device he’d planted on the top edge of the back door would make the vehicle easy enough to locate.

In the shelter of the loading bay’s overhang he lingered a while to smoke his cigarette, to any interested observer just a poor nicotine addict enjoying his fix. But while he waited for the calming effects of the drug to take the edge off his adrenaline high, his eyes were busy scanning the parking lot and nearby streets and alleyways. When he was satisfied that no one else besides Campbell was taking any particular interest in the two middle-aged ladies in the dark blue van, he drew on his cigarette one last time and dropped it to the concrete, squinting against a lingering tail of smoke as he ground the stub beneath the toe of his shoe.

He dusted his hands together, then shoved them into the pockets of his charcoal-gray overcoat and moved to the steps, moving quickly now and with purpose, taking the short way to the parking lot. God, he could still feel the tingle. Feel it in the palms of his hands, feel it crawling all the way up his arms and across his shoulders, along the back of his neck and into his scalp. As he’d felt it a few days ago outside Loizeau’s shop in Marseilles, and again just moments ago, holding that damn painting in his own two hands. The tingle of excitement. The thrill of the game.

As he zigzagged his way through the busy parking lot, in a midafternoon gloom that was only partly mitigated by the premature illumination of mercury vapor lamps, it occurred to him that he might be in danger of becoming addicted to the tingle.

And why not? Why not, when it was one of the few real pleasures he allowed himself these days. No risk of emotional involvement attached, a helluva lot safer than sex and probably only marginally more hazardous to his health than cigarettes or booze.

Besides, holding that painting, knowing what was hidden inside it-hell, it would give any man a thrill to realize that right there in his hands was the key to the future of civilization as we know it, the beginnings of the next holocaust, the fate of millions of innocent lives. Wouldn’t it?

But Tom Hawkins acknowledged and accepted the truth about the man he’d become, which was that the wildfire racing along all his nerves hadn’t been ignited by any of those things. No…he knew that what he’d felt, standing in the rain with that painting in his hands, was more like what a fighter feels with the throat of a vanquished foe pulsing in his grasp. The elation of a poker player who’s just been dealt a pat hand. The emotion that had surged through him then was the same one that fills the breast of the chess champion just before he utters the words, “Checkmate.”

No…for a man to think about the fate of children and nations at such a time, he would first have to care about those things. But Hawk had learned the hard way that caring bears a terrible price. And that it was one he no longer cared to pay.

He spotted his rental car in the next row over, went straight to the trunk, unlocked it and took out his briefcase. He tucked it under his arm while he relocked the trunk and let himself into the car, then placed it carefully on the seat beside him until he’d gotten himself settled in behind the wheel and relocked the doors.

After a quick but thorough check of all neighboring vehicles, he punched in a number combination and opened the briefcase. Inside was a smaller case that resembled a laptop computer. This Hawk turned toward him, flipped up the screen and began to touch keys. When he had the monitor screen green and glowing, he selected a disk from a small assortment in his briefcase and inserted it in the laptop. A moment later a map of eastern Virginia appeared on the screen. A few minor manipulations gave him Arlington and its environs. Close enough, for now. He marked his own waypoint, then sat back and lit a cigarette while he studied the screen through narrowed eyes.

Generally speaking, Hawk disliked high-tech toys, especially anything that relied too heavily on computers. It was his firm belief that they couldn’t be trusted. Also that they were short on flexibility and utterly lacking in imagination and loyalty. He wouldn’t like to have to count on one in a crisis. The Global Positioning System was an exception, probably because he’d had one on his boat for a good many years now and had gotten used to it. These days, he considered a GPS unit an indispensable modern convenience, rather like a microwave oven.

But he still knew how to boil water the old-fashioned way, if it came to that.

The rapidly changing numbers on the LCD screen told him that the van was still moving, albeit slowly. He glanced at his watch. Rush hour-small wonder. No need to follow just yet.

He turned on the car’s engine, adjusted the heater and ran the windows down a crack to let out his smoke, then took the cellular phone from its box in the center console and punched in a number he knew by heart. While he waited for the connection, he parked his cigarette between his lips and reached inside his coat, searching for the small piece of paper he’d tucked away in his shirt pocket.

He was squinting at it when a familiar, French-accented voice snarled in his ear. “Interpol-Devore.”

“Hawk, here. I’m on the cellular. Better scramble.”

There was a short pause before the U.S. bureau chief spoke again, with tension crackling in every syllable. “Go ahead. Have you got it?”

Hawk chuckled, though no one hearing it would have mistaken the sound for humor. “Not yet. Working on it. Listen, I need for you to call in a favor from our friends at Quantico.” He paused, smiling darkly to himself, for Devore’s rumble of discontent; there was nothing one law enforcement agency hated more than having to ask another one for help-especially when one or the other was the FBI. “Don’t worry, it’s just a little one. I need anything you can turn up for me on a Jane Carlysle-that’s Carlysle with a ‘y’ and an ‘s’-address, Cooper’s Mill, North Carolina.”

He read off the driver’s-license number he’d scrawled on the back of one of his bank deposit slips, waited until Devore gave it back to him, then rolled the paper into a slender tube and held it to the glowing end of his cigarette. He watched it sprout flame while he listened to Devore’s inevitable questions-questions he didn’t have any answers for. Yet.

“Hold on a sec,” he said, interrupting Devore in midsentence, and dropped the burning paper into the car’s ashtray. “Time to go. I’ll get back to you.” He’d just observed that the coordinates on the GPS monitor screen had remained unchanged for a significant length of time, which meant, in all probability, that the blue van had reached its destination. He broke the connection on Devore’s tinny protest, stashed the phone in its box more abruptly than was probably good for a delicate piece of electronic equipment and reached across it to tap keys on the laptop.

When he had the van’s location pinpointed on his street map, he sat back with an audible “Huh!” of surprise. He didn’t need to look up the address in his directory; it was one he knew well. He’d stayed in that hotel himself, a time or two. Had a nice view of the river, the tidal basin and the Washington Monument. In a few weeks, when the cherry trees were in full bloom, it would be downright spectacular.

And what the hell, he wondered, were those two women doing back in the middle of town? It didn’t make sense. If he’d just gotten his hands on one of the most devastating and sought-after pieces of information since the A-bomb blueprints, he’d be hightailing it out of town with the goods as fast as he could.

The more he thought about it, the more he had to wonder about the Carlysle woman’s role in all this. In fact, he couldn’t get the woman out of his mind. As he backed out of the parking space and circled the lot to the exit, nosed into traffic and set a course toward the Potomac, her name played in his memory like a phrase from a song, a bit of melody sung in her own gentle voice: “Hi, I’m Jane Carlysle.” He saw her face floating above his head like a loopy white cartoon balloon.

The weirdest thing was, he could still recall the way she smelled. It wasn’t even anything he could put a name to-not a particular scent, or a certain brand of perfume, but rather an elusive combination of things, like soap and bath powder, deodorant and hand lotion and shampoo, a smell that was uniquely her own, and at the same time achingly familiar to him. It had come wafting out of his past, from the depths of forbidden memory, calling to mind not just a particular woman, but a particular kind of woman.

He spent some time thinking about it before he came up with the word ordinary, but he wasn’t happy with it. The way that word was used, it usually meant nothing special, and that wasn’t what he meant at all. What he meant by the word ordinary, as applied to a woman, was, well, nice. The nice, everyday kind of woman, the moms, the sisters and sweethearts. The kind of woman a man gets married to, the one he wants nursing his babies, humming in his kitchen. The kind that puts a smile on his face every day of his life when he sings out, “Hi, honey, I’m home.”

That’s what Jane Carlysle smelled like. A nice…ordinary woman. So how come that nice, ordinary woman had just walked off with a package people were killing one another for?

He was beginning to have a bad feeling about this. A very bad feeling.

“Are you sure you don’t mind my staying?” Jane asked, turning reluctantly from a breathtaking view of the Washington Monument.

Connie closed the lid of her small ovemighter with a snap and glanced at her in surprise. “Heavens, no-are you sure you don’t mind my going? I feel as though I’m abandoning you.”

“You’re not,” Jane protested. “Please don’t think that for a minute. I’ll just catch a shuttle to Raleigh-Durham, and one of the girls can pick me up there. I did say I might like to stay over, spend a day or two in Washington-I’ve only been once, and it was such a long time ago.”

Connie sighed. “I know, and it’s a lovely idea. I’d stay on with you, dear, but to tell you the truth, I’m about all tripped out. I’d barely unpacked after my last jaunt, you know, and it was hi-ho, off to the auction.” She chuckled, pausing on her way to the bathroom to give Jane’s arm a comforting pat. “Believe it or not, even an old globe-trotter like me develops a longing for her own bed and cozy slippers from time to time.”

“That’s right,” Jane said with just a touch of wistfulness, “I’d forgotten you’d just come back from a trip. You were in Europe again, weren’t you?”

Connie’s eyes rolled expressively. “Oh my, yes, and not a very successful trip, either, I’m afraid. The weather was positively dreadful.”

Jane had no reply to that, since she couldn’t imagine any weather terrible enough to take the thrill out of Europe. She murmured inanely, “Well, I guess spring is late everywhere this year,” and turning, gazed again at the shimmering city beyond the window. The Washington Monument’s floodlit column had been rendered somewhat fuzzy by all the mist in the air, so that it seemed to glow in the lavender dusk like a ghostly candle.

Disneyland for adults-that’s what David had called Washington. He’d promised to take her there, someday, but as with most things where Jane was concerned, it hadn’t been very high on his priority list, and he’d never quite gotten around to it. So, of course, one of the first things she’d done after the divorce-right after covering up the gray in her hair and having her crooked front teeth capped-was take the girls to see the Capitol. Three days, that was all the time she’d felt she could afford to take off work, those first uncertain, terrifying months on her own. The girls, too young to fully appreciate the experience, had complained about the heat and sore feet. Jane had gotten blisters on her feet, too, but she hadn’t minded.

She’d promised herself then she’d go back when she had more time and see everything she’d missed. Why hadn’t she? After all, there’d been nothing-and no one-to keep her from it. Time just seemed to go by so quickly.

“That’s it, I believe,” Connie announced, giving her hands a brisk dusting as she emerged from the bathroom. She hoisted the strap of her overnighter to her shoulder and turned to survey the room once more. “Don’t believe I’ve forgotten anything. Now, dear, did you bring up everything you wanted from the van? Anything to go down? Are you sure you don’t want me to carry your painting home with me? I should think it might be rather a nuisance, especially on one of those dreadful little shuttle planes.”

“The painting isn’t really all that big,” Jane said. “I think it’ll fit in a shopping bag. Anyway, if not, I’ll wrap it and ship it home. I’m going to take your suggestion, though, I think, and have it appraised while I’m here. That man, Campbell, being so interested in it-and I didn’t buy his story about his fiancée being wildly in love with it, not for a minute, did you?-it just makes me wonder.” She hitched a shoulder and added defensively, “Well, stranger things have happened. You read about them all the time-priceless manuscripts turning up in an attic. some old master bought at a yard sale for pennies.”

Connie had the grace not to smile, but merely said solemnly, “Quite so, dear. As I said before, if you’re at all uneasy about it, it can’t hurt to be sure, can it? Let’s see, now, did I jot down the address of that art dealer friend of mine in Georgetown for you?” Muttering to herself over Jane’s grateful demurrals, she planted her half glasses on the end of her nose, produced her little jeweled pen and scrawled a name on a piece of hotel stationery. “There you are, dear. I’m sure there are any number of good dealers in the area, but this reference might save you some time. And let’s see…where’s your little popgun?”

“Oh, damn,” said Jane. “I guess it’s still in the van.” With all the fuss over the painting, she’d all but forgotten the Roy Rogers cap pistol she’d fought so hard for. “I’ll walk down with you and get it. I need to buy some things downstairs, anyway… oh, wait, that reminds me-your toothpaste.”

She detoured into the bathroom to get the tube she’d been sharing with Connie since the evening before. Such a ridiculous thing to forget, toothpaste! But then, she’d be the first to admit she wasn’t very experienced at this traveling business.

Connie waved away the tube of toothpaste with a breezy, “Oh, heavens, dear, keep it. I have plenty at home. Well, that’s it, then-I’m off.”

“Wait, just let me get my purse.” She planned to stop in the gift shop and pick up a map of Washington with a Metro schedule, and maybe a paperback to read. She’d already planned to order a light supper from room service and spend the evening planning the next day’s sight-seeing.

Having retrieved her purse, Jane followed the other woman through the door and pulled it firmly shut, pausing for a moment to make sure it had locked securely behind them.

Hawk lit his third cigarette and told himself it was to ward off the carbon monoxide fumes in the parking garage. God, he hated stakeouts. Too much dead time. Too easy, in those long, lonely hours, for the mind to slip its leash and run untethered into shadowed corners, sniff out forbidden tidbits and drag them triumphantly into the light. He was forced, at times like that, to be doubly vigilant, his concentration divided between making sure he missed nothing that was going on around him, while at the same time making himself deaf and blind to the images that flickered unbidden across the blank screen of his mind.

Mentally reciting poems or lyrics helped, as long as he was careful not to pick the wrong song. He was trying to remember the third verse of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” when he heard the ding of the elevator bell, and then voices and footsteps coming down the row.

He sat very still in the shadows, making no sudden moves that might draw their eyes his way, and watched the two women approach the back of the blue van. The shorter, gray-haired one had a piece of carry-on luggage slung over one shoulder and a set of keys ready in her hand. The Carlysle woman carried only a handbag and wasn’t wearing a coat.

Hawk waited until the older woman had the back door to the van unlocked and both women had turned away from him, then sat up straight and adjusted the earpiece he’d already inserted in his left ear. He propped the directional microphone on the dash, aimed it like a pistol and thumbed it on, wincing at the swish, crackle and resonating thump the shoulder bag made as it settled onto the floor of the van next to a pile of paper-wrapped parcels.

He thought, as he adjusted the volume, that of all his electronic toys he probably disliked listening devices most. Necessary as they might be, to him there was something sleazy, something nasty and voyeuristic about eavesdropping on people’s private conversations. And sometimes the worst moments were when there wasn’t any conversation at all.

“Drive carefully now.” That was Carlysle. The two women were hugging each other.

“Of course, dear.”

“I just wish you weren’t getting such a late start.”

“Oh, never mind that. Actually, I rather like driving at night. And if I do start to nod off, well, then I’ll just pull off somewhere and take a room for the duration. Do stop worrying, Jane. I’m an old hand at this, you know.”

“I know.” The Carlysle woman was laughing. The effect was unexpectedly intimate, so close in his ear. “I suppose you’re the one who should be worrying about me.”

“Oh, you’ll be fine, dear.” The back doors of the van slammed shut, making Hawk wince again. “Just keep your door locked, and a good firm grip on your handbag at all times.”

The woman was climbing into the driver’s seat now, getting ready to leave. Carlysle was obviously staying. But where was the damn painting? He hadn’t seen it in the van, but he hadn’t gotten a very good look, and he couldn’t be certain…

“Oh, and do give that art dealer friend of mine a ring. I’ll be most interested to hear what he has to say after he’s had a look at your little picture. As you say, one never knows…”

Okay, that answered that.

“I will-first thing tomorrow. I’ll call…” The van was backing out, Carlysle standing back, waving goodbye. She watched a moment while the blue van rumbled off toward the exit. then turned and walked purposefully back the way she’d come, toward the elevators. He could see that she was carrying something in a small plastic bag, the kind supermarkets give you to carry your groceries home in. Whatever was in it, Hawk noted with amusement that she was making sure to keep a good firm grip on it, as well as her handbag.

While Mrs. Carlysle was waiting for the elevator to arrive, Hawk did another visual check of the parking garage. Still no sign of Campbell. So either the two women had managed to lose him, or the man was pro enough to stay out of sight. Hawk was betting on the latter.

The ding of the elevator bell finally came while he was in the middle of stashing the GPS and other toys into his briefcase. He had to slam it shut, quickly spin the lock and drop it into the back seat, then almost dive out of the car and sprint for the closing elevator doors. When he got close enough to see the “L” on the indicator panel light up and stay lit, he changed direction and made for the stairs instead.

By taking them two at a time, he managed to get to the lobby just in time to catch a glimpse of Mrs. Carlysle crossing from the elevators, heading toward the row of shops near the main entrance. She had her back to him, still walking with that purposeful stride, still keeping a death grip on her parcel and purse.

Hawk watched her for a moment longer than he probably should have, just liking the way she looked from that angle. She had a sexy walk, he decided, mainly because she so obviously had no intention whatsoever of being sexy. Unbidden, the thought came: A nice lady…

After a moment, he hitched his shoulders, stuck his hands into his overcoat pockets, focused his gaze somewhere off her starboard bow and followed.

He had a bad moment when she paused to window-shop at the ladies’ boutique, and he had to take evasive action by popping into the nearest handy open doorway. It happened to be the florist’s shop, which he later decided must have been Providence, or perhaps just pure dumb luck.

He could feel his hunter’s senses coming alive as he browsed among the silk-flower arrangements in the front window, all the while keeping a close eye on Mrs. Carlysle as she made her slow, oblivious way down the row of glitzy little hotel shops. This was the part of the game he liked best. the stalking game, the cat-and-mouse maneuvering…no toys required, just skill, finesse, a cool head, steady nerves and quick wits. He was good at it, maybe because to him it was a game. A dangerous game, to be sure, and sometimes the stakes were life and death. But then, Hawk didn’t place a whole lot of value on the one, and wasn’t afraid of the other, so he didn’t worry overly much about the odds.

When he saw his quarry go into the gift shop, he decided it was probably now or never. He opened the refrigerated display case in the florist’s shop and plucked out the first thing at hand, an arrangement of spring flowers in a vase, some tulips and daffodils, a few pink roses and some lilacs. He could have done without the lilacs-too many memories associated with lilacs-but there wasn’t time to be fussy. He paid for the bouquet with cash.

After a quick detour to check on the Carlysle woman-she was browsing the paperback-book racks now, and if she was anything like most of the women he knew, that meant she was going to be there a while-he marched up to the front desk, presented his flower arrangement and growled in a weary it’s-past-my-dinnertime-and-I-wanna-go-home t one of voice, “Flower delivery for Jane Carlysle?”

The snappily dressed and frighteningly perky young woman behind the counter tapped computer keys, jotted a note to herself, then gave him a radiant smile and chirped, “Thank you. sir, we’ll have the flowers sent right up.”

Damn. Hawk muttered, “Right…thanks,” and turned away. What else could he do? Hotel security these days was a pain in the butt.

He dawdled toward the main entrance, thinking hard and pretending to browse through the rack of brochures near the concierge’s station while he kept an eye on the front desk and his expensive and futile bouquet.

It must have been a slow night, because it was only a few minutes before he saw a bellman approach the desk. The perky clerk handed him the handwritten note, after which the bellman picked up the flowers and headed for the elevators at a brisk clip. Hawk made a show of looking at his wristwatch as if he’d suddenly changed his mind about an appointment, and followed.

The bellman was lucky; an elevator opened right up for him. He stepped on and the doors whooshed shut just as Hawk, timing it perfectly, arrived to punch the Up button. While he waited for the next elevator, Hawk watched the floor indicators above the one the bellman had taken light up in slow and steady sequence… two, three, four, five, six…seven. Seven it was, then, unless-but no, the numbers were lighting up in reverse now. A few moments later, there was a ding, and those same doors opened invitingly for him.

Hawk rode to the seventh floor in a tense, anticipatory calm, cocooned in a cottony silence. Everything seemed to be moving much too slowly, though he knew mere seconds had ticked by before the elevator doors whisked open at last on an elegantly furnished foyer, lit by wall sconces and decorated with fresh flowers.

He spotted his flowers sitting on the floor in front of a door about halfway down the long, softly lit corridor to his right. There was no sign of the bellman, or anyone else.

Hawk glanced at his watch. Incredible as it seemed, no more than ten minutes had passed since he’d left Mrs. Carlysle perusing the racks of romance novels in the hotel gift shop. How many more minutes did he have? He didn’t need many-with the small device he carried in his pocket, he’d have the security lock open in a matter of seconds. Seconds more to nip inside, grab the painting and get back out again, then pray she didn’t catch him hightailing it down the hall toward the stairs. Piece of cake.

Please, God, he thought, just let her give me two more minutes.

Under the circumstances, he didn’t think it unreasonable to assume that in this case, at least, God might be on his side.

At first it seemed his assumption might be correct; his nifty little electronic decoder worked exactly the way it was supposed to, unlocking the door without a hitch. Soundlessly, he eased it open, slipped inside and pulled it shut after him.

He barely had time to register the fact that the room was in total darkness, and that it was odd, because in his experience, women almost always left a light on when they exited a hotel room they expected to return to alone. That insight only took a split second. But by then he already knew the reason for it.

He wasn’t the only person in the room.

His sixth sense told him first, before the faint stirrings in the air currents, before the furtive but unmistakable rustlings of a body diving into cover. Grateful now for the total darkness, Hawk felt for the opening that would be the bathroom doorway, found it on his right, as he’d guessed, slipped into it and crouched low, listening with held breath for the whisper of other respirations. Silently cursing his own thundering pulse as he tried to tune his radar to another heartbeat.

The sound he heard instead was deafening by contrast: the swish and click of a plastic key card going into, then out of the lock.

He hardly had time to swing the bathroom door to and flatten himself behind it before the outer door opened. He heard a soft gasp, then a thud and a rustle.

What now? No choice-he had to risk a look through the crack he’d left in the bathroom door. What he saw nearly stopped his heart; he had to bite down on his lip to keep from groaning. There was Mrs. Carlysle, dead center in the damn doorway, bathed in light from the corridor, a perfect target. And in her two outstretched hands, what was astoundingly and unmistakably a handgun.

Two thoughts flashed into Hawk’s mind, following each other with the speed and clarity of electronic pulses. The first, with a surge of gladness he didn’t wonder about until much later, was, Thank God! She has to be an innocent-no professional would be so stupid.

The second thought was, if the other person in that hotel room was the same one who’d put a bullet between Loizeau’s eyes, Jane Carlysle was a dead woman.