The Sandler Inquiry Part 110

"Doubt that we'll hear a shot fired in anger,"

he said, forcing a smile. Thomas could see. Hammond, the fading professional, was seeking to rea.s.sure himself

"Promise me this," he said, "don't tell anyone how this ended. You know, arresting a wasted old man in his pajamas, pulling him out of bed at this hour of the morning."

"It hasn't ended yet" Leslie reminded him.

d.a.m.ned amateurs, thought Hammond. Always rooting for excitement.

"Soon," he offered.

"Why don't you two cover the back. I'll knock on the front door."

It seemed logical, a routine procedure to make what was now a routine arrest. Thomas and Leslie walked quietly around the side of the house, noting that each shade was drawn. They then stood to the side of the back door, their backs to the ocean and the waves.

Thomas glanced upward. The sky was undecided: It didn't yet know whether to be blue or gray that day.

A minute pa.s.sed. Then another. Thomas felt like squirming within his clothes. He exchanged a glance with Leslie as if to ask, Hey? What's keeping Hammond? Has he knocked yet?

Thomas felt his hands wet within his gloves. He was conscious of the pistol in his coat pocket and he begged the fates that he'd not have to draw it, much less pull a trigger against a human being.

Both of them fixed their sights on the doork.n.o.b, waiting for the slightest movement of it to indicate a hand on the opposite side.

The force of the explosion was so intense that it rocked both Thomas and Leslie off their feet and onto the ground. Gla.s.s shattered somewhere in their presence and they could feel the shards and splinters flying to the hard ground around them.

They landed on their backs, stunned and severely jolted. They looked at each other as if in a daze. Then they realized. The explosion had been at the front door.

Where Hammond had been.

They staggered to their feet and ran. Leslie's hand had already wobbled to the pistol she carried. She'd released the safety catch, but it was meaningless now. The target had already fled, leaving only a trap for those who followed.

They rounded the house and saw Hammond, or what was left of him. It was immediately clear what had happened.

The career man, in his fatigue, had tired of knocking at the door and had tried the doork.n.o.b. Yes, the door had opened, but the -reception had been warmer than Hammond could have ever expected.

The front door had been b.o.o.by-trapped, the last vicious act by a man of malice and deception. Zenger had fled, knowing that it was now a matter of time before others came for him. He had left his calling card.

The body of Hammond was thrown pathetically fifty feet from the front door. It lay broken and bleeding, the clothes on the front torn away, the skin roasted and seared by the force of the explosion.

Mercifully, he lay face down, his arms and legs twisted into impossible contortions and splintered at the limbs.

For the first time, Leslie showed signs of breaking, repeating

"No, no, no," over and over and pleading with no one in particular,

"It was meant for me, it was meant for me!"

Thomas looked at the appalling sight, Hammond dead without question, Leslie standing, holding the pistol at her side, seeing what the years had brought her to, and the picturesque old house now starting to burn.

A rage built within Thomas, overcoming his fear. He was gripped with a sense of the unfinished, of wanting to add finality to this case.

He gripped the pistol in his pocket. He turned toward the house.

He ran through the burning doorway.

The wind, fortunately, was sweeping the smoke outside, though feeding the flames at the same time. He envisioned himself trapped in the burning house, dying of smoke and flames just as his office had died weeks earlier. Every streak of common sense told him to leave the house. His anger pressed him onward.

He wanted the man who'd inhabited Zenger's ident.i.ty. Face to face, he wanted him. It was, of course, just what the quarry would never have allowed.

He barged through the hallway, feeling the heat of the flames behind him. Into the dining room where the table had been rocked against the walls and where the picture windows had now been blown out, along with the curtains. Every piece of china from the antique cabinet lay in particles on the carpet.

"Come on out!" Thomas roared to the man who'd creased his skull with a cane.

"Come on out, G.o.d d.a.m.n you!"

In return, silence. There was no one there.

How brave you are! Thomas thought to himself. You know he's long gone. Failure again! You're used to it! You must like it!

He pushed through another doorway, the doorway to the den.

The door had been half unhinged by the explosion. Thomas stood by the old man's chair. (How old? No one knew now!) He recalled the old man's pontifications on the Sandler case.

Don't get involved! You'll get everyone killed! She's an impostor!

He looked around. The curtains in that room had been blown out the shattered window, too. Thomas looked at the sea.

Beneath the waves, the old man had ranted. A long trip. And I won't be coming back.

Thomas stared at the gaping hole where a window and curtain had been.

He stared at the sea beyond.

He saw the speck in the ocean. He knew what it was.

He ran to the window and glared down to the pier. One of Zenger's two boats remained.

The other was the speck. Zenger was on his way. His way where?

Home. After all these years. After decades in America, the master spy was on his way home. To his rendezvous beyond U.S. territorial waters.

The smoke was thicker. Thomas wondered whether he still had a way out.

He turned. He ran, stumbling over anovertumed rocking chair, coughing as he ran through the smoke of the hallway.

He could hear Leslie calling to him, pleading just as he suddenly emerged from the flaming front doorway. She was on her knees, uselessly, by the side of Hammond's scorched corpse.

"Get the rifle!" he yelled.

-What?- "He's already escaping. By boat! Get the rifle!"