Remote Control ns-1 Page 6

  "I'm going to put my head around the corner now, Kelly."

  I took a deep breath and moved my head around the back of the box, smiling away but ready for the worst.

  She was there, facing me, eyes wide with terror, sitting curled up in a fetal position, rocking her body backward and forward, holding her hands over her ears.

  "Hello, Kelly," I said very softly.

  She must have recognized me, but didn't reply. She just kept on rocking, staring at me with wide, scared eyes.

  "Mommy and Daddy can't come and get you out at the moment, but you can come with me. Daddy told me it would be OK. Are you going to come with me, Kelly?"

  Still no reply. I crawled right into the cave until I was curled up beside her. She'd been crying; strands of light brown hair were stuck to her face. I tried to move them away from her mouth. Her eyes were red and swollen.

  "You're in a bit of a mess there," I said.

  "Do you want me to clean you up? Come on, let's go and get you sorted out, shall we?" I got hold of her rigid hand and gently guided her out into the garage.

  She was dressed in jeans, a denim shirt, running shoes, and a blue nylon fleece. Her hair was straight and just above her shoulders, a bit shorter than I remembered it; she was quite lanky for a seven-year-old, with long, skinny legs. I picked her up in my arms and held her tight as I carried her into the kitchen. I knew the other doors were closed; she wouldn't see her dad.

  I sat her down on a chair at the table. "Mommy and Daddy b said they had to go away for a while but asked me to look after you until they come back, OK?"

  She was trembling so much I couldn't tell if her head was nodding or shaking.

  I went to the fridge and opened it, hoping to find some comfort food. I found the world's largest Easter egg.

  "Mmm, yum do you want some chocolate?"

  I'd had a good relationship with Kelly. She was a great kid, and that wasn't just because she was my pal's daughter. I smiled warmly, but she just stared at the table.

  I broke off a few pieces and put them on one of the side plates that she'd probably been setting earlier with Aida. I found the Off switch on the radio; I'd had enough relaxing soft rock for one day.

  As I looked at Kelly again I suddenly realized I'd fucked up. What was I going to do with her? I couldn't just leave her here: her family was lying dead all over the house. But more important, she knew me. When the police arrived she'd be able to say, "Nick Stone was here." They'd soon find out that Nick Stone was one of Daddy's friends; the house was littered with photographs with me in them. And if they did arrest the grinning drunk in the barbecue shots, they'd find that for some strange reason he wasn't Nick Stone at all he was Mrs. Stamford's little boy.

  Kev's jacket was hanging over one of the chairs. I said, "Let's wrap you up in your dad's coat; that'll keep you nice and warm." At least she'd have something other dad's; with luck it would cheer her up.

  There was just a little bit of whimpering in reply. She was almost in rigor mortis with shock, though at least she had turned her head to look at me now. This was where normally I would have let Marsha take over, because a child's mind was far too complicated for me to work out. But I couldn't do that today.

  I wrapped the coat around her and said, "Here you are; get this around you. Look, it's your dad's! Don't tell him, eh, ha ha ha!" I felt something solid in one of the pockets and checked.

  "Oh good, look, we can phone him up later."

  I looked out the window no movement. I picked up the trash bag, grabbed Kelly's hand, then realized that to reach the front door I'd have to come out of the kitchen and into the hallway.

  "Just sit there a second," I said.

  "I've got to do something."

  I had a quick look to make sure the doors were closed. I thought again about fingerprints, but if I'd missed a set, there was nothing I could do about it now. My only thought was to get out of the area and keep Kelly away from the cops until I'd sorted things out.

  I went back and got her and checked the front of the house again for movement. She seemed to be finding it hard to walk.

  I had to grip Kev's coat by the collar, half-dragging her toward the car.

  I put her in the front passenger seat and smiled.

  "There you go; that's nice and warm. Better look after your dad's coat for him. Keep it nice for when you see him."

  Then I threw the trash bag in the back, settled into the driver's seat, put my seat belt on, and turned on the ignition.

  We drove off at a really sensible pace, nothing outrageous, nothing likely to be noticed.

  We'd gone only a few hundred yards when I thought of something; I looked across at her and said, "Kelly, put your seat belt on. Do you know how to do that?"

  She didn't move, didn't even look at me. I had to do it for her.

  I tried to make small talk.

  "It's a nice day today, isn't it? Yep, you'll stay with me a while; we'll get everything sorted out."

  Silence.

  My mind switched back to the matter in hand. What was I going to do? Whatever I decided, I knew it was no good where we were at the moment. We needed to lose ourselves in a crowd. I headed for Tyson's Corner.

  I turned to Kelly and smiled, trying to be the happy-go-lucky Uncle Nick, but it just wasn't happening. She was staring anxiously out the window as if she was being wrenched away from all her familiar landmarks and seeing them for the last time.

  "It's OK, Kelly." I tried to stroke her hair.

  She jerked her head away.

  Fuck it, just let her get on with it; with luck I'd be able to drop her off somewhere before too long.

  I turned my thoughts to Kev. He'd said he had a bit of a problem with my "friends over the water." Could it have been PIRA that'd killed him? What the hell for? It was highly unlikely that PIRA would start messing about like that, not in America. It was too professional to bite the hand that was feeding it.

  Other things weren't adding up. Why wasn't there a struggle? Both Marsha and Kev knew where the weapons were. Why weren't they used? Why was the front door ajar?

  There was no way that would have happened. People didn't just wander in off the street into Kev's house; they had to be invited in.

  I felt a rush of anger. If the family had been killed in a car crash, that would have been one thing. If the killers had come in and maybe shot them, I'd be upset, but, at the end of the day, if you live by the sword, you must be prepared to die by the sword. But not like this. They'd been hacked up for no reason that I could see.

  I forced myself to think rationally. There was no way I could phone the police and explain my version. Although I'd been lifted off, I was still operating in another country without its consent. Getting caught would be a big no-no. The operation here would be seen as a sign of betrayal and would create distrust between the two security

  communities. There was no way the Firm would back me up; that would defeat the whole purpose of deniable ops. I was on my own.

  Looking at my passenger, I knew I had a problem. As we drove toward Tyson's Corner I realized what I had to do. I saw a Best Western hotel on the left and an open-plan mall on the right. I had to dump the car, because that was one of the connections between me and the house. I needed somewhere to leave it that wasn't isolated, somewhere without video cameras.

  As well as the shopping mall and its massive parking lots, on the outskirts was a drive-thru Burger King with its own parking.

  It was all very well abandoning a vehicle in the middle of hundreds of others in a parking lot during shopping hours.

  But at night, it might be the only car left there and was going to stick out, and it would be checked out by police patrols.

  What I was after was an area that was really busy, day and night. Streets or multilevel parking garages were out, because nine times out of ten they have video cameras to stop muggings and car theft. Many multi story parking lots have a camera that takes a picture of the license plate and driver as you enter. A
t any major junction and along most major thoroughfares, there are traffic video cameras. If my car had been found outside Kev's house, the first thing they'd do was study the traffic videos and parking lot photography.

  "Shall we get a burger and some shakes?" I suggested.

  "Do you like milk shakes? I tell you what, I'll park and maybe we'll even go shopping."

  Again it would be no good driving into the Burger King parking lot, stepping out, and then walking a few hundred yards to the shopping mall that isn't normal behavior. It might stick in people's minds and be recalled at a later date, so I wanted to make the two of us look as natural as possible.

  "Strawberry, chocolate, or vanilla which one do you want?"

  No reply.

  "Strawberry? Go on, I'm going to have a strawberry."

  Nothing.

  I parked. The place was pretty full. I cupped my hand under her chin and gently turned her face so that she was looking at my big smile.

  "Milk shake?"

  There was a faint movement of her head, or maybe it was a nod of appreciation. Not much, but at least it was a reaction.

  I carried on with the bullshit.

  "You just sit here then; I'll get out, I'll lock the car, go and get the milk shakes. And then I tell you what, we'll go into the shopping mall. How about that?"

  She looked away.

  I continued as if she'd given me a positive response. I got out of the car and locked her in. I still had the pistol tucked down in my waistband, concealed by Kev's jacket.

  I went into the Burger King, got two different flavor milk shakes, and came straight back to the car.

  "Here we go then, chocolate or vanilla?"

  She kept her hands by her sides.

  "I tell you what, I'll have the vanilla; I know you like chocolate."

  I put the shake in her lap. It was too cold for her legs; as soon as she lifted it up I said, "Come on, then, let's go to the shops. You can bring that with you."

  I got her out, closed the door, and locked up. I did nothing about our fingerprints; no matter how hard I tried, I'd never get rid of them all, so what was the point? I opened the trunk, pulled out the bag with the bits and pieces I'd bought at Shannon, and threw in the trash bag full of bloodstained clothing.

  It looked like rain. We walked toward the shopping mall; I kept on talking to her because the situation felt so awkward.

  What else do you do, walking along with a kid who doesn't belong to you and doesn't want to be with you?

  I tried to hold her hand but she refused. I couldn't make an issue of it with people around. I gripped the shoulder of the jacket again.

  There was everything in the shopping center from a computer discount warehouse to an army surplus store, all housed in long one-story units that were like islands in a sea of parking lot.

  We went into a clothing store, and I bought myself some jeans and another shirt. I'd change as soon as I'd had a shower and got Aida's blood off my back and legs.

  At an ATM I drew out three hundred dollars, the maximum allowed on my credit card.

  We came back out to the parking lot but didn't return to the car. I kept a firm grip on her as we walked toward the hotel across the road. As we got nearer I could see that the Best Western was in fact farther away than I first thought, separated from the main drag by a row of single-story office buildings. Our view was of the rear of the hotel.

  Looking each way, it was obvious that the junctions that would lead us around to the front of the hotel were miles away. I decided to take a shortcut. The traffic was heavy, and the road system hadn't been designed for people on foot. I gripped Kelly's hand as we dodged to the median strip and waited for another gap. I looked up at the sky: it was very overcast; rain couldn't be far away.

  Drivers, who had probably never seen pedestrians before, beeped furiously, but we made it to the other side and scrambled over small railings onto the sidewalk. More or less directly in front of us was a gap between two office buildings. We went through and crossed a short stretch of vacant ground that brought us into the hotel parking lot. As we walked past the lines of vehicles I memorized the sequence of letters and numbers for a Virginia plate.

  The Best Western was a large four-story rectangle, the architecture very 1980s. Every elevation was concrete, painted the world's weirdest off-yellow. As we walked up to the reception area, I tried to look inside. I didn't want them to see us coming from the direction of the parking lot, because it would be odd to walk all that way without first checking that they had a room, and then unloading our bags. I hoped Kelly would stay silent when we were inside; I just wanted to do the business and walk out again as if we were going to see Mommy back in the car.

  Inside the lobby I got hold of Kelly and whispered, "You just sit there. I'm going to get us a room." I gave her a tourist brochure that was lying on one of the chairs, but she ignored it.

  In one corner, by the coffee machine and cream, was a large TV. A baseball game was on. I went over to the receptionist, a woman in her mid-forties who thought she was still twenty-four, who was watching the screen, probably fantasizing about her chances with one of the pitchers.

  All smiles, I said, "I need a family room just for one night, please."

  "Certainly, sir," she said, an honors graduate from Best Western's charm school.

  "If you'd like to fill out this card."

  As I started to scribble I said, "How much is a room, anyway?" "That's sixty-four dollars, plus tax."

  I raised an eyebrow to make it look as if that was a lot of money to a family man like myself.

  "I know," she smiled.

  "I'm sorry about that."

  She took my credit card and I filled in the form with crap.

  I'd been doing this for donkey's years, lying on hotel forms, looking relaxed as I wrote but in fact scanning about four questions ahead. I filled in a car registration, too, and for number of occupants put two adults and a child.

  She handed back my card.

  "There you are, Mr. Stamford, it's room two-twenty-four. Where's your car?"

  "Just around the corner." I pointed vaguely to the rear of the hotel.

  "OK, if you park by the stairs where you see the Coke and ice machines, turn left at the top of the stairs, and you'll see room two-twenty-four on the left-hand side. You have a nice day now!"

  I could have described the room even before I ran the key card through the lock and opened the door. A TV, two double beds, a couple of chairs, and the typical hotel designer's obsession with dark wood veneers.

  I wanted to get Kelly settled quickly so I could use the phone. I pressed the remote and flicked through the channels, hoping to find Nickelodeon. Eventually I found some cartoons.

  "I remember this one; it's good--shall we watch it?"

  She sat on the bed, staring at me. The expression on her face said she didn't like this outing too much, and I could understand that.

  "Kelly," I said, "I'm going to leave you for just a couple of minutes, because I've got to make a phone call. I'll get a drink while I'm out. What would you like. Coke? Mountain Dew?

  Or do you want some candy?"

  There was no reaction, so I just went on.

  "I'm going to lock the door, and you're not to answer it for anybody. Nobody at all, OK? I'll use the key to get back in again. You sit there and enjoy yourself and I'll just be about five minutes, OK?"

  Still there was no reaction. I hung the do not disturb sign on the door handle, made sure I had the key card, and left.

  I was heading for a phone booth I'd seen in the street because I didn't want her to hear the telephone conversation I was about to have. I didn't know much about kids, but I knew that when I was seven nothing had gone unnoticed in my house. On the off chance that it wasn't PIN-protected, I took Kev's mobile from his jacket pocket. I pressed the Power button and it demanded a PIN number. I tried two basic ones the usual factory default, four zeros, and then 1234.

  Nothing. I couldn't try anymore; wit
h some phones you can try me wrong PIN only three times and then it automatically cuts out and you need to go back to the dealer to get it rectified. I turned off the power and put it back in my pocket. I'd ask Kelly about it later.

  I turned left through the parking lot and headed for the phone booths out on the street. I spent a few moments sorting out in my mind what I wanted to say, and then I dialed London.

  In veiled speech I said, "I've just finished work and I'm in Washington to visit an old friend. I used to work with him ten years ago. He's now working here for the US government." I outlined the problem and said that Kelly and I both needed help.

  Veiled speech is not some magical code; all you're trying to do is intimate what is going on, yet at the same time throw off a casual listener. You're not going to fool any professional eavesdroppers that's what codes and onetime pads and all the rest of it are for. But all London needed to know was that I was in deep shit; I had Kev's child, and needed sorting out. ASAP.

  "Fine, I'll pass that message on. Have you a contact number?"

  "No. I'll call back in an hour."

  "OK, goodbye."

  These women never ceased to amaze me. They never ever got worked up about anything. It must be hard work being their husbands on a Saturday night.

  I put down the phone and felt a bit better as I strolled over to a gas station. I knew the Firm would work everything out.

  They might have to call in some big-time favors in the US to detach me from this shit, but what are friends for? They'd pull out all the stops, not so much to get me off the hook, as to make sure their operation was covered up.

  I was trying to look on the bright side, which was more than the weather was doing. It had started to drizzle when I left the hotel, and that had now turned to light rain. With luck the Firm would pick up both of us tonight. Kelly would be taken care of, and I would be whisked back to the UK for another interview without coffee and cookies.

  I bought some food and drink at the gas station to keep us out of the public eye in restaurants, and a few goodies to pass the time, then crossed the road and went back to the hotel. At the Coke machine I went up the stairs, turned left, and knocked on our door.