The Legacy Page 8

The temperature turned chilly over the calmer water, and Cole zipped up his wool jacket, then took a tired breath as he gazed into the dark pine forest rising from both banks of the river. The New York City Fire Department had officially ruled the explosion that had killed Maria Cooper an accident, but Cole knew the truth. “Dammit!” Cole’s voice echoed through the pines. Maria was dead and it was his fault.

  He had comforted Nicki all the way out on the flight from New York to Minnesota. But she was inconsolable, believing that Maria’s death was her fault because she had left the key for Maria at the front desk. Cole had assured her over and over that there was no reason for her to feel guilty, that nothing she could have done would have prevented the accident. He hadn’t yet told Nicki of the Dealey Tape and the frantic chase through Manhattan two nights ago—let alone how the man with the scar, as he stood in front of Cole with a smug smile on his face and the Dealey Tape in his hand, had boasted about the apartment being set to explode. Cole didn’t want to scare Nicki any more than she already was. More to the point, he realized that Nicki might want nothing to do with him if he told her the whole story. If she found out that he had been withholding information from her before he left Emilio’s to retrieve the Dealey Tape from the Gilchrist screening room, she would blame him for Maria’s death. And rightly so.

  Cole shook his head. He should have contacted someone at the apartment building and ordered the doorman not to allow anyone into his place before leaving Emilio’s. He slammed the side of the fiberglass canoe with his fist, and noise reverberated through the trees again, this time frightening a flock of sparrows from a branch hanging over the quiet water. He watched the birds fly away, wishing he could turn back time.

  As the birds disappeared into the distance, Cole picked up the paddle and headed slowly toward shore. He and Nicki had rented a car at the airport yesterday after the morning flight from New York to Minneapolis, then driven four hours north up Interstate 35 to Duluth. He wanted to get Nicki out of Manhattan for a while, and he needed time for himself too. He needed time to deal with the death of his father, the loss of the Dealey Tape, and his guilt about Maria’s death. He couldn’t do that on a crowded trading floor with Lewis Gebauer hassling him and the trading losses hanging over his head. He was fairly certain he would have been safe in New York now that he no longer possessed the Dealey Tape, but he wanted to leave all that behind for a few days and convalesce on a river he adored rather than in a city he endured.

  The canoe slid into a small cove and he guided the bow between two large rocks protruding from shore. Fifty feet into the forest was a campsite consisting of a crude stone grill and an old picnic table constructed by the family who owned this stretch of the Lassiter. The uninitiated would have paddled past the campsite without seeing it, but Cole had used this place many times on previous trips.

  He jumped from the small craft onto the shore and looped the bow line around a low branch, then knelt down, picked up a stone, tossed it into the calm water and watched the waves move outward in growing concentric circles. Last night Nicki and her parents had eaten a somber dinner at his aunt and uncle’s house. Afterward he and Nicki had taken a short and mostly silent walk through the neighborhood. She was still too grief-stricken about Maria to say much. Then he had seen her home and given her a quick kiss on the cheek as her mother, who had come straight home after dinner, spied on them from the living room window. For several minutes he had stood outside the door after she disappeared inside, staring at it, wondering if he would ever be able to tell her what had really happened in Manhattan.

  At six o’clock this morning he had secured the canoe to the top of an old corroded Suburban his uncle kept behind the garage and driven from Duluth to the Lassiter’s headwaters. He wanted to be alone, as he had sometimes in his youth when the realization that his father had abandoned him became too much. The Lassiter would be the perfect refuge from the world, as it had been years ago.

  He had navigated the upper half of the river today and would paddle the lower half tomorrow after camping in this spot overnight. In a few days, when the solace of the Lassiter had helped him gather his strength, he would return to Duluth and tell Nicki the truth—if he could bring himself to do so—then fly back to Manhattan to face his gambling debts and trading losses. But for now he simply wanted to be alone.

  He gazed into the dark forest. This was his only reliable sanctuary, yet he couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that something was out there and that it was closing in on him.

  He turned toward the canoe, bent down and pulled out a nylon bag containing a tent, then slung the bag over his shoulder and headed for the clearing where he would make camp for the night.

  * * *

  —

  The .44 lay on the wooden picnic table in front of the blond man, pointed directly at the tent. Gray morning light was just seeping down through the pine branches as the sun climbed above the eastern horizon. The man looked up through the pine trees at the lightening sky. God, it was desolate out here. There probably wasn’t another human being within ten miles. He rubbed his hands together to warm them, then ran them through his curly blond hair and smiled. Cole Egan was in for quite a surprise.

  “Don’t move.”

  The blond man froze as he heard the calm voice and felt cold steel pressed against the back of his neck.

  “Raise your arms.” Cole cocked the .22-caliber pistol. “Get them up, I said.” He had carried the gun with him on these trips since he was a teenager, but this was the first time he had ever actually aimed it at anyone. “Now!”

  “Easy, son.” The man raised his arms slowly. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “I think you’re the one who better not do anything stupid. You’re the one with a gun pointed directly at the back of his head. Make a move and I’ll have no problem painting those trees across the way a bright red, believe me. Shoot first and ask questions later is my attitude right now.”

  “All well and good,” the blond man replied evenly, “but the only gun with ammunition in it is lying on the table in front of me. I took all the bullets out of your little popgun last night. While you were visiting the sandman.”

  Cole moved the end of the .22’s barrel slowly down until it came to rest between the blond man’s shoulder blades. “Is that so?”

  “Yes. Now put away your toy before you get hurt, and we’ll have ourselves a nice friendly chat. All I want to do is chat.”

  “Three nights ago you were chasing a man with a scar on his face down Thirty-ninth Street in Manhattan. That was right after you had shot a woman in the head. Before that you were chasing me down Fifth Avenue. You’ll understand if I don’t just give up my weapon, shake your hand and introduce myself.”

  “There’s no need to introduce yourself. I know more about you than anyone else on earth except yourself, Coleman Sage Egan.” The blond man glanced over his shoulder. “Throwing yourself in front of that bus on Forty-second Street was unnecessary. Dramatic, I’ll grant you, but totally unnecessary. You would have saved yourself a lot of pain and anguish if you had let me talk to you.” He rubbed his chin for a moment. “And you might have saved a few other people some of the same.”

  Cole closed his eyes and allowed the barrel of his gun to drop. Maria was dead and Nicki might never forgive him if she knew the truth.

  The blond man felt the gun fall away from his back. It was a tiny lapse in concentration on the part of his adversary, but that was all he needed. In one swift motion he grabbed his .44 from atop the picnic table, spun around and pressed the end of its barrel roughly against Cole’s cheek. “Son, I’m a professional. I kill people for a living. Don’t fuck with me,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Now drop your gun.”

  Cole swallowed hard. The man was cobra-quick. “You may be a professional,” he said quietly, “but you aren’t very good at following a person through the woods. I knew someone was behind me yesterday when all the b
irds kept getting agitated. You should learn a little river etiquette. Paddle in the middle of the river, then you won’t bother them so much. And you won’t give yourself away.” Cole glanced down at the man’s .44. “There aren’t any bullets in your clip and you know it. You can feel the difference between a loaded and an unloaded gun, at least you ought to be able to. My gun is the one that’s loaded.” He brought the barrel of his .22 up against the blond man’s chest, then pointed it skyward and fired to prove his point.

  “Holy Jesus!” The blond man fell back onto the picnic table bench, taken completely off guard.

  “You bedded down last night above Devil’s Run in that little clearing on the west side of the river,” Cole continued as the sound of the shot echoed through the trees. “You couldn’t have been more obvious. I’m the one who removed ammunition last night. I took all yours while you were snoring away, and not just what was in your gun.” Cole laughed as he reached down, pulled the .44 from the blond man’s grasp and tossed it toward his tent. “But I don’t think you’re here to kill me. If you were, you would have tried to shoot me last night while you thought I was in my tent. But you never made a move downriver to my camp.”

  “Very good.” The blond man clapped several times. “A chip off the old block. I like your style, son.”

  “Thanks, but who the hell are you?”

  “Bennett Smith.” Smith extended his right hand.

  Cole didn’t take the man’s hand. Instead he moved to the other side of the picnic table and sat down

  “I remember you,” Cole said as he stared at the man. “You were sitting in reception three days ago reading the Wall Street Journal when I came through the trading room door. You delivered the envelope to the receptionist, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Cole noticed that Smith was missing a lower front tooth, which caused him to lisp slightly. It was a lisp Cole hadn’t heard over the trading room line when Smith called demanding to know his middle name. “Did you deliver it for my father?”

  “Yes, for your father.” Smith talked quickly, in a low voice.

  Cole also noticed that Smith stared straight at him whether Smith was listening or speaking. It was Cole’s experience that most people locked eyes as they listened, but constantly looked away as they spoke, a certain indication that they were accustomed to bending the truth, whether or not they actually were at that moment. Smith always stared directly into the eyes, except that every few moments he would casually glance first to the left, then to the right, whether he was speaking or listening, performing a continual reconnaissance of the immediate area. It was always the same. First left, then right, as if he expected to see an enemy out there in the trees.

  “How do you know my father?” Cole asked.

  “I worked with him. Over the last thirty-six years we saw each other almost every day of our lives.”

  Cole felt a sudden rush of excitement. Bennett Smith would be able to answer all those plaguing questions he had about his father. “You just told me you delivered the envelope to the Gilchrist receptionist desk for my father, but when you called me on the Gilchrist line, you said you were delivering the message and the envelope for ‘the agency.’ What did that mean?”

  Smith smiled. “You have your father’s memory for detail, in your eye and your ear.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “And his patience.” Smith shook his head. “Or lack thereof. Christ, if you aren’t one for the genetic scientists, I don’t know who is.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You probably remember meeting your father only a few times in your life, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet you’re his spitting image—demeanorwise, I mean. You’re better-looking than he was, but I feel like I’m staring at his personality twin.” Smith paused as he performed his reconnaissance ritual again. “You never really knew him, yet you’re just like him. It’s eerie.” Smith turned his head slightly to the side. “Do you like to gamble?” He was grinning. “Ever feel the urge to bet on things?”

  Cole said nothing.

  “I knew it.” Smith slammed the picnic table with a huge fist as he saw the answer in Cole’s expression. “Your father was the same way. It was his only weakness. Like I said, you’re one for the genetic scientists.”

  Cole placed his pistol down on the picnic table bench. “Mr. Smith, you keep alluding to my father in the past tense. Is he really dead?”

  “Yes, he is, son,” Smith answered matter-of-factly.

  Cole felt a pang of sorrow in his chest, and heat rushed to his eyes. “When?” he asked hoarsely.

  “Forty-seven days ago. Back in the beginning of October.” Smith could see the pain in Cole’s face.

  “Where did he die?”

  “In the mountains outside Zaraza, Colombia. It’s a small town in the southern part of the country.”

  “Are you absolutely certain he’s dead?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Cole winced. He’d just have to accept the fact that Jim Egan really was dead. Still, he wanted answers. “Tell me about my father. Who was he? What did he do?”

  For the first time Smith looked away without performing his reconnaissance. He simply stared down at the table. “That’s classified.”

  “Did he work for the government?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you aren’t going to tell me about him.”

  “I really can’t.”

  “Then why the hell did you follow me here?” Cole asked, suddenly furious.

  Smith grimaced, and the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes and mouth became more obvious. “I wanted to know what was in that Chase safe-deposit box.”

  “Why didn’t you take the key and go to Chase yourself?” Cole asked angrily. “You probably put the death certificate inside the envelope. You must have read the note. Maybe you even wrote it. The key was right there.”

  “I might have done that, except Chase would have required identification and a signature. Your father appointed you as the only person allowed access to that box other than himself. He got your picture and your signature from your aunt.”

  “You seem like the type who could overcome a little detail like that fairly easily,” Cole shot back.

  “Maybe, but—Cole, I respected and admired your father a great deal. Despite what you have reason to believe, he was a man of character, a man of courage and conviction. We went to hell and back together and he saved my ass more than a few times along the way. He was my best friend. He wanted you to go to that Chase box, not me. I promised him I would deliver the envelope to you in case he died, and I kept my promise.”

  Cole heard emotion in Smith’s voice for the first time. “Why didn’t you just hand the envelope to me in reception? Why all the intrigue?”

  “Again, because it was your father’s request.” Smith looked to the left and right twice this time. “He asked me to deliver the envelope to you with as little noise as possible. I knew what that meant.”

  “But then you stuck around.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Your father guessed you might need help after you took possession of whatever was in the safe-deposit box.”

  A right-on-the-money guess, Cole thought to himself. “He never told you what was in the box?” he asked skeptically.

  “No.” Smith pushed out his chin defiantly. But Cole thought he saw the man flinch.

  “Why did he want you to deliver the envelope after he died?”

  “I don’t know. As I said, I have no clue what was in the box.”

  “Who were those other two people back in New York? The woman you shot and the guy with the scar on his face.”

  “I don’t know,” Smith said again. But it seemed to Cole that Smith’s rosy cheeks flushed a brighter red as h
e answered.

  “I don’t believe you! What kind of game is this?”

  Smith held his hands up, palms out. “Easy, son. It’s no game. I have an idea who those people were, but I really don’t know for certain.” He stared into Cole’s eyes. “If my guess is correct, it would confirm what your father and I believed all these years. Now, what was in the box?”

  Cole was becoming exasperated. “Tell me about my father.”

  “Even though I shouldn’t, I will. But first tell me what was in the box.”

  For several moments Cole said nothing. He had every reason not to trust this man, but Bennett Smith might be the only person in the world who could shed light on the mysterious life of Jim Egan. A life Cole wanted to know about very badly. “A videotape,” he finally admitted.

  “Of what?”

  Cole hesitated again. “President Kennedy’s assassination.”

  “Are you familiar with something called the Zapruder film?” Smith asked.

  “Yes, I’ve seen that recording of the assassination and this wasn’t it, I promise you.”

  Smith raised one eyebrow. “Did the tape in the safe-deposit box shed any new light on the assassination?”

  “Yes,” Cole responded quietly.

  “There was another gunman.” Smith was stating, not asking.

  “Yes,” Cole confirmed.

  “Behind the fence on the grassy knoll?” This time it was a question.

  “Yes.”

  “Jesus H. Christ,” Smith whispered. “No wonder they came after you with everything they had. You’re lucky to be alive, son. Lucky they got the tape without killing you. Lucky I got there when I did. I assume that’s what the man took from you on Thirty-ninth Street—the tape, I mean. You don’t have it anymore, do you?” he asked.

  “No,” Cole admitted dejectedly. “So who were they?”

  Smith pushed his tongue into the gap formed by the missing lower front tooth. “God, it all makes so much sense now.”

  “What makes sense? Dammit, I want answers.”