Philip Kerr - The Shot

Struggling through the open door of Hollis South, Tom found himself facing a man of about the same age as himself and, but for the Yale tie, similarly dressed, too.

‘Hi there,’ said the man. ‘Can I help you carry any of that?’

‘It’s okay,’ said Tom. ‘My son must be somewhere around, so please don’t trouble yourself.’

‘It’s no trouble at all.’ The man looked about as clean-cut as a dentist from Salt Lake City. ‘Here,’ he said, grabbing hold of one of Tom’s green bags. ‘You’d better let me take one of these.’ Having taken the bag, he now held out his hand. ‘By the way, the name’s Wallingford. Buckner Wallingford. My son, Buck junior, is in room one.’

Tom stretched his cold face into a rictus of a grin and took Wallingford’s outstretched hand. ‘Farrell,’ he said, hoping that the two men had never met. ‘Chub Farrell. My son, Chub, is in room fifteen. I’m afraid that’s right at the top. But really, I can manage.’

But Buck Wallingford was already headed up the stairs, complaining good-naturedly about young men, and how much stuff they seemed to bring with them back to the dorm, and how he thought they were probably in for some more snow. At the top of the stairs, Wallingford put the green bag down and nodded at the ski-bag over Tom’s shoulder.

‘Where does your boy ski?’

‘Franconia,’ said Tom. ‘I’d introduce you to him, if I knew where the hell he was. Chub? You there?’ They waited in silence for a second, and then Tom shrugged awkwardly.

‘Probably in someone else’s room,’ said Wallingford, and started down the stairs. ‘Well, I’d better go and find Buck junior. I imagine he’ll want some money.’

‘Yes, don’t they all?’

‘Nice meeting you, Chub.’

‘You too, Buck. Thanks a lot for your help. Saved me a heart attack.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

Tom watched with relief as Buckner Wallingford disappeared from view. Seconds later, he was fitting one of his keys into the lock on the door of Hollis Fifteen. The key went in easily enough, but to Tom’s momentary horror, it did not turn. Quickly he pulled the key out and dripped some oil on to the blade from a small can he had brought along in his coat pocket, along with a small locksmith’s file, for this very possibility. Then he tried again, only this time he pulled the ancient door toward him experimentally, and this time the lock clicked loudly open. In a matter of seconds, he transferred the bags from the floor of the hall into the room, and, closing the door behind him, locked it again.

Tom breathed another sigh of relief. The room was cold. Almost as cold as it was outside Hollis, but Tom was already covered in sweat. He sat down in one of the library chairs to collect himself and to remind himself of the room’s topography. Since arriving in Cambridge, Tom had read several books about Harvard and was aware that most of the freshmen dormitories in the Yard were pre-revolutionary. Hollis Hall had been built in 1763, at around the time when most Americans who called themselves Americans were chafing under the Stamp Act, and Tom could not help wondering what people like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, not to mention his own namesake, would have thought of Cuba’s struggle for freedom.

Leaning forward in the chair, Tom unzipped the ski-bag, the length of which had been kept straight by two six-foot pieces of dowel to help disguise the fact that the bag contained not a pair of skis but a .30-calibre Winchester rifle, matt black, and fitted with a Unertl scope. Tom snapped the dowel into smaller lengths and tossed the pieces into the empty ski-bag. Then, wearing gloves, he picked up the rifle and went over to one of the closets. These were large, heavy pieces of mahogany furniture that looked as if they had been in Hollis since the time of Thoreau. At the top of the closet there was a gap of at least two inches between wood and wall, which narrowed to less than half an inch at the level of the skirting board. Tom poked the rifle into the gap, barrel first, and let it slide comfortably into the space.

Pressing his head against the wall, he looked into the crack, but the black rifle was all but invisible.

Next, Tom drew open the string at the neck of one green cloth bag, and slipped away the material to reveal the Hallicrafter short-wave receiver he had purchased in New York. By tuning the radio to whatever frequency the Secret Service might use on their DCN handsets, he and Alex Goldman, who was familiar with presidential detail codes, might easily follow the Senator’s progress during his entry and exit from Harvard Yard. But hiding the radio, an object the size of a shoe box, was not so easy. Which was why he had brought the second green cloth bag, containing a hand-drill, a jimmy, a screwdriver, a hacksaw, and a tin of antique floor polish.

During the reconnaissance visit he and Goldman had made to Hollis Fifteen, Tom had noticed that there were some loose boards on the old and uneven floor and, pulling back the rug, he inspected these more closely. It took very little effort to jimmy two of the loose boards up, revealing a space between the joists that was big enough for the radio, the ski-bag, the pieces of dowel, the tools, and, for that matter, the rifle too. It was almost a cause of regret to Tom that he had not thought to inspect the space underneath the floorboards before hiding the rifle behind the closet. Finally, Tom put back the floorboards using screws instead of nails, so as to facilitate their silent replacement and removal. But he was careful not to screw the boards down too tight, in case Chub or Torbert noticed anything different when they walked across the room. Then he covered the screw heads and the edges of the boards with polish, so as to disguise the fact that they had ever been removed. Last of all, he drew back the rug. Only when he was quite sure that everything looked and felt the same did he leave the room, lock the door, and exit Hollis Fifteen.

The next four days passed slowly for Tom. Each day Edith called the Cambridge apartment to report on her own daily conversations with Chub Farrell. Tom figured that if Chub, or Torbert, found out what was hidden behind the closet in Hollis Fifteen, Chub would certainly inform the woman he loved.

He went to the movies again, to see Tunes of Glory , which he liked a lot, and Exodus , which he didn’t. He watched a lot of television, too. News mostly, but also junk like Maverick, Mister Ed, Rawhide , and Route 66. Only Eyewitness to History seemed worthwhile. Often, he went out to dinner in Cambridge, usually to the Coach Grille on Harvard Square, which was his favourite. He finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird , by Harper Lee, and started Advise and Consent , by Allen Drury. But more frequently he read the newspapers and watched the television news. On Monday, 2 January, the start of the Harvard term, President Eisenhower ordered a military alert because of the situation in Laos. But Tom just wondered if that was merely a smokescreen for an invasion of Cuba — an idea that became more persuasive in his mind when, on the afternoon of the following day, Ike announced that he was breaking off diplomatic relations with Cuba.

‘There is a limit,’ Ike declared, ending the sixty-year tie between the countries, ‘to what the US in self-respect can endure. That limit has now been reached.’

Tom was stunned. A Cuban war now seemed imminent. By Thursday, US officials were warning Cuba not only that they intended to keep the naval base at Guantanamo, but also that Fidel Castro would have to be removed from office if Cuba ever hoped to heal the rift in Cuban-American relations — this a response to the diplomatic peace feelers Cuba was apparently extending to President-elect John Kennedy.