Ruth scooped fried potatoes and eggs from the pan onto Ike’s plate and then hers. Breakfast any time of the day saved more marriages than sex, she thought. She hitched the flannel robe she kept at the A-frame tighter and sat. She had no idea why this breakfast epiphany occurred to her at that particular moment. It certainly did not carry much in the weighty intellectual department and she wondered if it were even true. Another thought popped up to displace it.
“What did you do with what’s-his-name…Holloway’s…car?”
“It’s under a tarp parked in front of the Jeep. I was waiting for you to get here for a chance to get rid of it.”
“You said one of the goons who wanted you dead was here. Wouldn’t he have seen it?”
“Figured that was a possibility, too, and rigged it, just in case.”
“Rigged it? How?”
“I shook the vacuum cleaner bag on the dash and seats and then all over the car. I switched the tags to some old ones that used to be on one of my father’s old clunkers, covered it with the tarp and emptied the remainder of the dust on top. It looks like that buggy has been in storage for years.”
“Jesus, Ike. Are you always this devious?”
“Only when someone with real chops tries to kill me.”
“Okay, we get rid of the car. How and where? Wouldn’t it attract a lot of attention, no matter where you put it?”
“Not necessarily. I thought that tonight we would drive down to Roanoke Airport and I would put Holloway’s plates back on and leave the thing in Long Term Parking. It’s where it would be if he was off somewhere. You would follow in your car or the Jeep. Are you up for a midnight ride?”
“I don’t know, Paul Revere. Let me get this straight. You are proposing that we drive down to the Roanoke Airport in two cars, dump the dead man’s Buick in a parking lot, and drive back here tonight?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“At midnight?”
“Or thereabouts, yes. We’d be less likely to run into state cops.”
“Ike, I am beat. Three days of unending chaos and then finding you. Can we do this tomorrow night? What I really want right now is a hot bath and a cuddle until I drop into unconsciousness.”
“That bad? Okay, tomorrow then. Go take your bath. I will light a fire and we can sample some vintage vintage.”
“A classic redundancy. Great. I will prepare my ablutions. You are not…repeat…not invited to join me. Tub’s too small and I am too tired to engage in soapy intercourse, verbal or otherwise. Do you like breakfast for supper?”
“I do. Every man does. Why do you ask?”
“It occurred to me that you might.”
“I see, I guess. Okay, give me a five-minute heads-up when you’re about to de-tub so I can have the wine open and breathing. White or red?”
“Your choice.”
Ruth retreated into the bedroom with its adjoining bath. Ike retrieved a bottle of white he’d been assured was indeed “vintage.” He heard the water running. Ruth’s hot baths, the sort needed to un-kink muscles and untie mental knots, required no less than a half hour. He laid a fire and got it going and settled back to wait. He must have dozed off because the next thing he saw was a wet and naked Ruth pointing at the land line telephone which was ringing.
“I thought that thing had been disconnected,” she said and wrapped a towel around her waist.
“It was, over a month ago. Crap.”
“It’s ringing, Ike.”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to explain?”
“I’d rather pull the towel off you.”
“I mean it, Ike. The damned phone is ringing. It’s supposed to be dead. What’s going on?”
Ike sighed, resisted the urge to yank at the towel, and stood and stared at the phone. “I know of only one person that could be on the other end of that line.”
“Someone is there? Oh, crap, it’s Charlie Garland, isn’t it? The bastard has found us—found you.”
“Charlie, I don’t know.” He hesitated. “Either him or there is another group with the same capability of remotely reconnecting a telephone. Considering the magnitude of that bomb, I’d guess my man with a hard-on for me might be able to.”
“What do we do?”
“We listen.” He stood staring at the phone and seemed to count. “Okay, it’s not Charlie.”
“You know that, how?”
“Tell you later. So consider, it’s entirely possible that you did not know the phone was disconnected. It is possible that other people did not know that either. They may have discovered or guessed that you are here. If you answer, it will not seem unusual. If you don’t answer and it is an innocent mistake by someone thinking the line is live and expects you to answer, that might cause alarm. So, we don’t have many choices here. You’d better answer. Be the grieving widow and get rid of whoever is on the other end. Oh, and either wrap up all the way or drop it. You are driving me crazy.”
“Wow, decisions, decisions…drop or rearrange, drop or rearrange…what to do? Okay.” Ruth rearranged the towel in a marginally more modest fashion and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
***
The last person to see Felix Chambers alive, albeit through a shattered bathroom window, listened to the woman’s hesitant voice. The wife?
“Hello?”
“Hello. Yes,” he glanced at the script he’d memorized earlier. “This is Bill Montgomery calling from the Washington Post. Could I speak to Sheriff Ike Schwartz?”
There was a pause. Was she alone and consulting someone?
“Excuse me, Mr. …?
“Montgomery.”
“Montgomery…how did you get this number?”
“It’s in the book.”
“Sorry, but it is not. Why are you calling?”
“I want to speak to the sheriff.”
“You obviously have not heard.”
“Heard?”
“My husband is dead. Killed in an explosion. This is a very bad time to call. Since this is an unlisted number, I insist you remove it from your files.”
“I am sorry to hear about your husband’s death. Can you tell me any…?” The line went dead.
He turned to his companion. “She hung up.”
“Did she say anything?”
“She confirmed that Schwartz is dead.” He snickered at his words.
“What’s so funny?”
“The old joke. You know…‘Schultz is dead…’ only now it’s, Schwartz is dead.”
“I don’t get it. What old joke? Never mind. Anything else? Did you get the impression someone else might have been in the room?
“Nothing certain. There was this hesitation like she might be looking at someone or something. But then, she might have just been caught off guard, you know.”
“Nothing else? Maybe a click on the line like another person picked up an extension to listen?”
“The sheet says there’s no extension in the house.”
“Doesn’t mean shit. Any jackass who isn’t color blind and owns a screwdriver can install an extension nowadays. Did you hear anything?”
“Maybe a click. I don’t know. If there was someone else there, it don’t mean it was Schwartz. Cops could have tapped the phone.”
“The cops don’t tap phones that are disconnected, Manny. There’s no reason to. They would do her mobile.”
“Well, at least we know where she’s at now. I’ll pass that on.”
“Yeah. Jack said the guy in town lost her and the people at the top weren’t too happy about that. So, confirmation Schwartz is dead, but still need to see a corpse.”
“The boss sent Brattan to the ME’s office. He should call in soon.”
“Yeah, still…see, the car wasn’t going in the right direction and that got the boss thinking. You know how he is with details.”
“You and me both…and what’s-his-name…Chambers.”
***
Ruth dropped the phone’s handpiece back into the cradle and turned to Ike. “What do you think?”
Ike shook his head. “I don’t like it. That wasn’t Charlie. I’d bet my firstborn that it wasn’t the Washington Post either. Someone with the same kind of resources as the CIA managed to reconnect the phone. I guess that just confirms it. I thought the guy watching the house—”
“He just watched?”
“Actually, he came in and searched the place. Before you ask, I was in the rafters. I have a way to get up there and—”
“Of course you do.”
“Right. Anyway, something has got them doubting. I don’t know what or why. The damned bomb was big enough to have qualified as one of Bush’s ‘Bunker Busters.’ Surely they don’t think I survived it. What’s bugging them?”
“I guess they tried the phone for the same reason Charlie would, don’t you think? They were hoping the fact that the phone rang would lure you into picking up. Since they had already been here, they were double-checking.”
“Yeah, probably. There is another possibility, of course.”
“Another…what?”
“Could it be that they, whoever they are, might be looking for you, not me?”
“Me? Why would he/they care about me?”
“I don’t know. But if they were convinced I was dead, there is no other reason to open this line and call. If it is you they are after, now they know where to find you. Either way it is definitely not good news, but useful news nevertheless.”
“Not good, but useful how?”
“Not good because if it’s me they are looking for, they must still have doubts. Useful because it means we know that whoever it is that wants me dead is not your garden variety mook. That fact clears Charlie and his playmates at the Agency. This guy has resources and power. Finding him won’t be easy, but at last we can eliminate all of the bottom-dwellers with a grudge. So, who the hell, with that kind of power, did I piss off enough to bring this on us?”
“Don’t look at me. Piss me off and you sleep alone. I am definitely not into bombs.”
“That is very reassuring.”
“I don’t rule out castrating shears in extreme circumstances.”
Ike was about to reply when the phone rang again.
“What do I do, Ike”
He held up his hand and mouthed numbers—one, two, three. Silence. He kept counting. Four, five, six, ring, pause.
“I’ll take this one.” Ike reached for the phone.
Ruth passed him the receiver. “What just happened here?”
“Hello, Charlie. Before you say anything, put a trace on the last call made to this phone and call me back.” He hung up. “That was Charlie.”
“How did you know that before—?”
“Three rings, a three-second gap, and one more ring equals Charlie. It’s something we worked out back in the day.”
“And he can control the rings?”
“If you know how, anyone can.”
“Really? How?”
“NTK.”
“Oh, ‘need to know.’ What? I don’t need to know? I think I do. Listen, we’re in this together or not at all, Ike. Anyway, I think I need one of those secret code ring things too.”