Twenty-nine

T revalian arrived at the mansion’s front door sweating, bleeding, and out of breath. A man on the run. He pounded hard on the twin doors, pushed the intercom button repeatedly, and then pounded on the door again. He looked behind him, back toward the gate, then returned to pounding on the door.

A man came from the side of the house. He wore a blue blazer and a scowl. He held a gun and was backed up by a second man behind him. Who now appeared to Trevalian’s left.

“Hands on your head. Step away from the door. Good. Hands where I can see them. Okay…on your knees-”

“I can’t. My knee…Listen,” Trevalian said frantically, “you gotta get me out of here. We’ve got to do this someplace else. You know who I am? I’m being pursued.” He lay down on the driveway. “We have to hurry, fellas. The owner of this house…Ask him. But make it quick.”

Less than a minute later he was loaded into a golf cart and driven around back-through a gate in a ten-foot-high fence-and escorted into what appeared to be a guesthouse. It was all hardwood floors and Stickley furniture. Indirect lighting and lots of glass. The city of Ketchum spread out below, just past the silhouette of the helicopter sitting on its concrete pad on the edge of a vast lawn. Four security guards kept their distance. The man to speak to him wore a Tommy Bahama floral shirt and pale trousers. He offered Trevalian a bottle of water. Trevalian gulped it down.

“So talk,” this man said.

“Not to you,” Trevalian said. “With all due respect. Him, or nobody. And if you kill me, then the three letters that are in a mailbox in town get picked up in the morning and go to the sheriff, the newspaper, and CNN. They contain all the details about this job-the e-mails, the payments. You think anything is totally untraceable? You want to take that chance? I get what I want out of this, and I give you the location of the mailbox and you put a little lighter fluid down it, and no one’s the wiser. And if you think you’ll beat the mailbox’s location out of me-give it your best shot.”

He chugged some more water, draining the bottle.

Tommy Bahama left the building. He returned more than ten minutes later with yet another security guard-that made five-and a man in his sixties wearing a white terrycloth robe and leather slippers.

“Mr. Holms,” Trevalian said. “I’d stand, but the knee’s a little worse for wear.”

“I believe you’ve made a mistake,” Stuart Holms said, waiting as Tommy Bahama helped him into a seat.

“The mistake was yours-or whoever called me back. The package was not at home. You had bad intel. There was a mannequin in her bed.”

“You’ve got the wrong man,” Holms said.

“I’m a little short on time, Mr. Holms. The sheriff is out there looking for me. Secret Service. Police. We haven’t got long. Elizabeth Shaler cost you. Payback is payback. I understand that. If I’ve made a mistake, then turn me over to them. If, on the other hand, I’ve not, then we should be talking about me spending a few days in your panic room, or catching a ride in your helicopter.”

Stuart Holms regarded him with contempt. “Then we wait for the police.”

“Hide me until they drop the roadblocks,” Trevalian said. “Use your position, your power, your attorneys-whatever you’ve got-to keep me well hidden. Get me to someplace like Reno or Portland. That’s it. No money. No extortion. I have a reputation to protect. We both do.”

Holms exchanged a look with Tommy Bahama-impossible to read.

“The location of the mailbox,” Tommy Bahama said.

“Not yet,” Trevalian said.

“How do you know we won’t kill you once you’ve given us the location of the mailbox?” Holms asked.

“How do you know I’ll give you the right mailbox? What if it’s a UPS drop box that doesn’t get picked up until six P.M. tomorrow night? They can’t keep roadblocks up indefinitely. I don’t intend to be here past six P.M. tomorrow.”

“You didn’t post any letter,” Holms said.

“You can play that card if you want.”

“Thought it all through, have you?” Holms could no longer sit still. He came out of his chair and paced.

“That’s what you hired me for. Tell me otherwise.”

He stopped in front of Trevalian, glaring.

“It was the helicopter that got you,” Trevalian explained. “I heard the helicopter over the phone. How many guys have their own helicopter in this town?”

“More than you’d think.”

“Six P.M. tomorrow, and then you’re gone,” Holms stated. “And I’ll want those letters.”

The security guys all touched their ears at once.

“Perimeter alarms,” one of them said.

With his finger to his ear, Tommy Bahama nodded. “It’s a fucking army.”

Stuart Holms growled at Tommy Bahama. “Tell me you searched him for a wire.”

Bahama grimaced and looked over at the lead security guard, who stared back vacantly, dumbstruck.

Trevalian casually unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt, revealing the tiny microphone taped to his shaved chest. “I was a little slow on this bum leg. Business is business. Am I right, Mr. Holms?”

“Shoot him!” Holms shouted to the paralyzed Tommy Bahama.

The door crashed open and in charged a SWAT team, all shouting at once for hands in the air.

The third man through the door was Sheriff Walt Fleming. He was grinning.

MONDAY

1 A.M

One

T hey separated the suspects. Stuart Holms was confined to the Situation Room, the small conference room down the hall from Walt’s office. Emil Guyot, Holms’s director of security, a man outfitted in Tommy Bahama casual wear, was given the coffee room, a closet-sized kitchen that held a beat-up aluminum-legged table for two in the corner.

Adam Dryer had no jurisdictional authority to question anyone, and with the general consensus being that Stuart Holms and his attorneys would find some way to get him out of lockup within the next few hours, and certainly by morning, for Walt it all came down to these two interviews.

He sucked down what remained of lukewarm coffee. Dryer nursed a milk tea, but kept looking into the cup, his acne-scoured face snarled in disapproval. They occupied Walt’s small office, overcrowded with stacks of journals piled on the floor and some backcountry gear crammed into the far corner. Dryer sat facing Walt’s desk.

“ Brandon!” Walt called out, his voice echoing down the hall.

His deputy arrived promptly, the only person in the office who didn’t look completely exhausted at 1 A.M. “Sheriff?”

“Shut the door,” Walt said.

Brandon closed the office door and stepped inside. Walt did not offer him the only remaining chair. He lowered his voice, despite the fact that both Holms and Guyot were down the hall behind closed doors, each being guarded by a deputy. “I want you to find me a plaster cast, a boot impression, in the evidence room. I’m thinking the Thompson case, or maybe the Ramone arson. Adult shoe size, no matter what. I want it in an evidence bag marked ‘Hill Trail, Adams Gulch.’ Date it yesterday: Saturday.”

“Got it,” Brandon said.

“And I need a contact lens. Find someone out there who doesn’t mind making a sacrifice for the cause. The office will buy ’em a new one. Now here’s the important part: Julie has a whole rainbow of highlighters in her desk. I want to use the blue highlighter to make a small dot on the side of the contact lens. Not too small, not too big. You got all that?”

“Shoe impression. Contact lens,” Brandon repeated.

“Go on. And close the door behind you.”

Brandon left them alone.

“I don’t follow,” Dryer said, once they were in privacy.

“The AUSA out of Boise isn’t going to get up here until tomorrow around noon,” Walt said, referring to the assistant United States attorney. “You and I both know that Stuart Holms will have four or five attorneys around him by that time-most from out of state-and that what we caught on Trevalian’s wire, while incriminating, and enough to give us probable cause, may not carry the day in court.”