Stupid. I was stupid. And Bradley-Penta loved the chase. It got everybody involved and took all the heat off him. He could operate any way he wanted and all the blame would go in a different direction.
"How could it happen, Mike?"
"Maybe there was a genetic similarity, kitten. Both of them were cold killers. They made a damn study of the subject and killing became part of their lives. They just had different targets, that's all. DuValle went for the pleasure of killing. It was a sensual thing with him. He got off on each murder, enjoying the entire, senseless act. He was hard to run down because there was no motive except pleasure, like so many of the other serial killers."
"But Bradley, he made a profession out of it. Imagine the audacity of a man like that who could promote himself through the ranks to a position in the State Department. Damn!"
Velda couldn't quite comprehend it. She said, "But State would run a check on him, Mike, they don't simply-"
"Kid, his name most likely is Bradley. His early background could pass inspection, and no one knew about his current activities. He came in as an expert on Penta. Certainly he knew all about him. He could make his case histories look great, almost coming down on the guy, nearly nailing him and missing so closely they couldn't afford to let him go."
"You said he had a replacement coming in."
"Sure. He even arranged his own transfer as part of his cover. He was given an assignment to assassinate the vice president of the United States by an unfriendly nation because in his position he could work in those circles. He accepted the contract, probably made some deliberate errors on the Penta job that made State recall him, and got reassigned here."
"There was no attempt made on the vice president's life, Mike."
"No, because before he could lay the groundwork, they executed his brother and his mind went into one of those crazy turns that comes with being out of balance. He flipped, really flipped."
"For the first time he acted out of context. He was going to make his brother's promise come true. He knew about me, knew where I lived and where I worked. He had the whole scenario planned out and made arrangements to meet me that Saturday. His loose point was that he didn't know what I looked like. All he had to do was check a newspaper morgue, and he wouldn't have missed. My photo files are an inch thick. All that expertise he had developed went down the drain because he got emotional about a kill."
While I was telling her, I had jammed more paper under the logs. The matches were in a small cast-iron box on the mantel. I lit one and touched the papers off and we watched the fire take hold.
"Funny," I said. "In a way it didn't matter at all. That super ego trip he went on in leaving the Penta note got him right back in the business again. He was the only expert on Penta that State had and he was here, on the spot. Now he knew me. Now he wouldn't be careless again."
"What Bradley didn't realize was that his bosses overseas had a different way of thinking. They're fanatically nationalistic and had paid him for a political hit and instead he had opened himself up to a possible capture and interrogation which would disclose their scheme, and they wanted him dead."
She picked up the poker and stirred the fire. It was starting to catch, the dry logs beginning to crackle.
"There's no love lost in this crime business. Fells and Bern were old contemporaries of his. He had probably used them on his jobs, so they had a close-knit deal going for them for years. They were bound to know a lot about each other during those years. Now suddenly Bern and Fells get a contract offered them to hit Bradley for not going after his primary target."
"How would they know where to find him?"
"All they knew was what the newspapers mentioned about the note, but that was enough. I was their lead to Penta. They thought I would have to know something about him, thus the snatch."
"They could have killed you."
"No. They had too much professional in them. That would bring too much heat down anyway."
"They killed Smiley," she reminded me.
"Honey, those two were real jellybeans. They were in a hurry and used their old contacts on the job. When they got done with Smiley, they didn't want to leave any witness around so they snuffed him. Stupidly, they used an old place that was a safe house once without realizing Penta . . . or Bradley, knew about it too. Even Bradley's timing was great. He was always presumed to be doing something else."
"Scratch Fells and Bern," she mused.
"Two quick, accurate shots and gone. Too bad he didn't have time to shake the place down. Maybe he tried, but that house was set up by experts and those two had a clever hiding place." I let out a laugh. "I wonder if it's still owned by the government."
"Mike . . . when I was in the hospital . . ."
"That first orderly in your room was him. He wanted you dead, kitten."
"That's crazy!"
"Look . . . you might have had a quick look at him in our office."
"But I didn't."
"But you did have a tape of his voice. Someplace around there would be other tapes he made and a voice-print from yours would be another point of proof that could nail him. One thing. He wasn't dumb. He knew he'd made that call and wanted to double-check on it."
"Making that tape was almost accidental. I never thought . . ."
"He couldn't take the chance. Secondly, he wanted me to make myself vulnerable. He knew damn well I'd go ape if you got knocked off and come right out in the open. Luckily, Pat kept the cops on your door and stymied anything from him in that direction. Hell, he was getting plenty of openings on me anyway. He was there when I said I was going to the office and had plenty of time while I was there to get in position and damn near nail me from the car."
I stopped, looked at the fire and thought back to the way I'd kept sloughing off the motive. It was as though there had been none at all.
"You know what the pitiful thing is?" I said. "I was the one who couldn't see it. I got going on the DiCica bit and everything I did was a cover for Bradley. He was on top of the whole deal like the lid on a jar and everything was going his way in spades. If he could assist in nailing that drug cache, there would be no demotion . . . he'd go up another notch and be even more important to his employers than ever. He'd be able to pull off political assassinations almost at will."
"Look how he put himself into the middle of it. He didn't want any suspicion thrown on him now at all. He volunteers for the scout car with Candace, gives his report to our guys, but someplace he's stopped long enough to alert both federal agencies and get them in a political scuffle. He's supposedly off somewhere smoothing ruffled feathers while the bust is going on, and do you know where he is?"
"Where?" she asked. I could feel the tension in her voice.
"He's on the way back here," I said. "He can make his hit on us and still get back in the play in the city. Nobody will have missed him in all the excitement, or have bothered to look for him, since he would have already planted an alibi."
The fire was blazing away by now, but Velda shivered and I was getting that feeling again. I was computing hours and minutes and knew that what I had just said was true.
I gave Velda a yank away from the brightness of the fire, and we darted in the shadows where the phone was. I picked it up, listened and tapped the bar twice, then put it down.
"The line's cut, isn't it?" Velda asked.
"It would have to be at the main road. There are no poles around here so the wires must go underground out to Route Twenty-eight."