Roger Stelljes - The St. Paul Conspiracy

Halloween.

The van turned left off of Grand Avenue and northbound onto Grotto, stopping mid-block at the alley. A man jumped out, quickly ducking between the back of a dumpster and a building on the right side.

Ten-fifteen p.m., no moon, nothing but the stars. Fifty-seven degrees with a light breeze-balmy for the last night of October in Minnesota.

He looked east down the alley between Summit and Grand avenues. The left side was residential housing, early twentieth-century Victorian mansions converted into condominiums-a fashionable trend in St. Paul. To the right was a combination of alternating businesses and red and brown brick apartment buildings, hip because of their location along the popular Grand Avenue. At the far end of the alley to the right was a hot nightspot, Mardi Gras, which specialized in Cajun food and Creole music. Revelers in costumes of all kinds would be in and out all night.

The van pulled away, turning right on Summit and disappearing from view. Dressed head to toe in black, the man invisibly picked his way through backyards, around garages, over fences and under trees to the other side of the block. Within five minutes he was looking through a gap in a hedge at the backside of the condo.

He had done this many times, for many years, but rarely in his home country. He worked alone, although there was the usual need for technical assistance. When he did this for the government, he stalked his prey for weeks or months at a time, getting to know their every move, learning about the people they saw and when they saw them, getting the layout of where they lived and worked. Did they have pets? Lovers? Family? He would probe, follow, observe, determining the perfect place to strike. That had not been the case this time.

There hadn’t been weeks; there had barely been three days.

The mitigating factor in his favor was that his target, unlike most in his career, didn’t consider herself one. In fact, she wasn’t concerned about security at all. She had no security system. She left a key under the front steps mat and followed a routine schedule, always working at night and never home until after 11:00 p.m.

Claire Daniels, investigative reporter for Channel 6. She was good, the best in town and would be until she left, which was to be soon, a network job in the offing. Having watched her on television for the last few years, he understood why.

And then there was her beauty.

Like many female television reporters, Claire was stunningly attractive. She had blond hair, blue eyes and a curvaceous body she worked on relentlessly. The man had watched her workout at the club three times now-aerobics, treadmill, Stairmaster, bike, weight machines. There was no messing around as she worked with feverish intensity, excellent technique, sculpting her body to absolute perfection.

Claire was the desire of every man in town. She had desires of her own, and currently it was Minnesota’s senior United States Senator, Mason Johnson. The two were dating, in the loosest sense of the term, meeting late at night, usually at her place, usually when the senator’s wife was in Washington, D.C.

Even if he had only three days to prepare, the whole situation provided the perfect cover.

Through the gap in the hedge, he could see her place, which was part of an old mansion, now subdivided into expensive condos. She had the last condo to the north. He was looking at the rear entrance, across the narrow driveway and through the side door of the one-car, tuck-under garage.

The man darted across the driveway to the side door and quickly pulled out a key, a duplicate of the one left under the mat on the front step. The key slid smoothly into the deadbolt, giving a light click as the door unlocked. He slipped inside, quickly removed the key and quietly shut the door. Fetching a towel out of his small backpack, he cleaned and dried his shoes. With the towel again stashed in the backpack, the man moved through the garage to the back door and up the stairs, which took him into the kitchen. At the top of the stairs, he stopped and listened. Silence.

Moving through the kitchen took him to a hallway that led into the living room. The drapes were pulled over the large picture window that looked out to St. Albans Street. Just before the front door he turned right and took the steps up to the second level.

There were four rooms on the second floor. Along the back was a spare bedroom that Claire used for storage, a bathroom, and a second bedroom she used as an office down on the end. The front was a single open bedroom, thirty-five feet by fifteen according to the blueprints filed with the city. An arch divided the bedroom from a sitting area.

He went into the first spare bedroom, directly into the closet that faced into the hallway. Hiding in the left side of the closet, he kept the door open enough so he could get out without having to open it further. Through the opening he could see across the hallway into the master bedroom. Thin streams of illumination from the street light fought through the window shades to provide a dark outline of the king-sized bed and flanking nightstands.

In the closet, he checked his watch, 10:25 p.m. He tapped his throat mic. “Eagle Eye, this is Viper. I’m in.”

“Copy that.”

Eagle Eye was parked in the Mardi Gras parking lot across the alley from the condo with a view of both the back and front of the condo.

Viper. He’d used this code name as an assassin for the agency. It gave him a certain comfort level, put him in the right mindset for this little operation.

He sat sideways, so he could peer around the sliding door. If Daniels and the senator held to their schedule, they’d arrive within the next hour.

Forty minutes later his earpiece came to life. “Viper, Lexus in the alley, just turned in. It’s her.” Viper heard the garage door hum to life. The senator wouldn’t be far behind. He shut off the mic and took out his earpiece, securing it inside his collar.

He could hear Claire as she came up the backstairs from the garage and walked quickly through the kitchen to the front door. The front door opened. Viper heard quiet talking. The door closed and then silence for what seemed like five minutes. Then he heard movement up the stairs, rough and halting, as if only a few steps at a time. There was heavy breathing, and Viper imagined them slowly working their way up the stairs, warming up for what was to come.

Suddenly, they appeared in the doorway to the bedroom, Claire already down to her bra and panties. The senator stripped down to his dress pants. As they moved into the bedroom, she reached with her right hand and hit the light switch, turning on the left nightstand lamp.

Viper could see their profiles, as they finished undressing each other and fell into bed. He looked away, as a professional should. But he could hear them, especially Claire, and he couldn’t help himself. Daniels had the effect on him that she had on others. She was intoxicating, making love to the senator in a hushed breathy moan, the vertebra in her back visible as she arched, moving in perfect rhythm. He envied the senator, his hands on her small buttocks, moving with her in stride, making love to the incredibly beautiful reporter.

Hidden in the closet, invisible, Viper watched as Claire became the aggressor. She picked up the pace, moaning louder, back arched more, moaning louder, head leaning further back, moaning louder, writhing passionately.

And then she came, exhaling loudly.

Half an hour later, the lovemaking long complete, they lay on the bed, enjoying a little pillow talk about nothing in particular. She talked about the live report she had from in front of some local government building; something about a city spending a little too lavishly on its employees. The senator related a story about how he had just managed to avoid the check scandal when he was in the House of Representatives.