David Dun: Unacceptable Risk

Sam climbed out of the Blue Hades, his rebuilt and en hanced Corvette, stretched his legs, and walked Harry across the warehouse and into a beige Ford Taurus. Harry sat on the floor of the passenger's side, having long ago learned the drill. On the passenger's seat lay a black leather bag that had originally belonged to Sam's son. Sam reached inside and removed something that looked vaguely like a Halloween mask but much more sophisticated. He pulled it on, smoothed it, used makeup around the edges, and brushed up the silver gray hair on top of his plastic pate. Then he donned an old hat with a broad brim and heavy black glasses.

"How do I look?"

The dog whined.

Sam pulled out of the warehouse, checked the sky for he licopters, and drove a twisty route through the commercial area, constantly checking for tails. It had been a week since they tried to kill him at the cabin. There was evidence that Gaudet had gone to Mexico and on a long shot Sam had tried to catch him.

He picked up the phone and called Jill.

"I'm back."

"How was Baja?"

"Big. Are we set to travel?"

"Grady's on the research. The arrangements are made. But you gotta rest, Sam."

"I would if I could, believe me. The way to find Gaudet is to beat him to Michael Bowden."

"We lost Paul. You're shaken. We all are. The only way to get your edge back is to rest, reflect, all that."

"A mental-health discussion in the middle of a war?"

"Maybe more than one."

"Where's Anna?"

"You have good instincts."

"Is she there? I hope she did the whole procedure for tails."

"She's not here."

"Where?"

"The show condo."

"Why is she there?"

"That's where she thinks you live, Sam. And she's very proud of her sleuthing. She wants to comfort you. It's normal after what has happened."

Sam said nothing while he considered his options.

"Your mother and I think you should come clean. Let Anna in, for God's sake."

"Go get her, if you can. If she'll go, take her out for lunch and-"

"Sam."

"I'll sort it out and call you right back."

There was a long pause, followed by a sigh that meant "yes."

He hung up. Jill would think of something truthful to say while he decided how he wanted to handle it. Anna Wade was his girlfriend and a mega-movie star. His anonymous life and her celebrity caused them nothing but grief. He wondered if Anna could ever be happy with him. All she knew of him really was the outer layer, the tough anti-terror ist expert, the man of the shadows. Sometimes he asked himself how someone with her fame and wealth could be happy with a more or less ordinary person. A half Indian person. He had never uttered his concerns to Anna and he doubted that he would. For the moment, he shoved it out of his mind.

He'd taken the transmitter off Blue Hades several days ago and had his mechanic check for others. It would be like Gaudet to install two of them-the second one much less conspicuous. After making sure that nobody was following him, he proceeded down along the waterfront to a two-story house. This was a terrible time to have his situation with Anna come to a head. The nature of the problem was that she didn't know where he lived but thought she did. Actually, it was slightly more complicated than that. She knew the place he lived now and then, the place he had taken her when they wanted to go to "his place."

The house that actually contained reflections of his life, aside from his now-ruined mountain cabin, stood just across the street from the ocean. The mask he wore wouldn't fool anyone within ten feet into thinking it was natural skin and a real beard, but then he never stopped outside the garage and he had never met his neighbors. They had taken to peering out their windows in curiosity, but that was about it. He was in the place at most two or three nights a week, a function of traveling and the fact that there was a sleep room at the office. No one but his closest family members and Jill, his ex-lover and office manager, and the occasional maintenance man that she hired had ever been inside this house.

The condo known to Anna was tastefully decorated by a professional and it took some doing to make it appear lived in, but it really contained nothing of himself. Walking through, a person could learn only about the fictitious man the deco rator had in mind. Sam felt slightly guilty that Anna had never seen his real home, though she knew his real name and had regularly been inside his offices-something few people had done. The current focal point of their relationship was his in sistence on anonymity. Whenever they went someplace to gether in pubic, which was rare, he played the contract security man, an Anna Wade bodyguard, and seldom looked much like himself. The secrecy his work required was becoming a serious irritation for Anna, but Sam didn't have a ready solution.

At the heavy metal front door to his house Sam placed his finger on a small opaque window and his eyeball before another. It was the same security he had at the office. With a slight buzzing sound heavy bolts opened and he entered his house. When he was inside, he repeated the process to reset the alarm to the "stay" mode.

Indoors it was the usual 68 degrees Fahrenheit, cool enough to work out. He waved at Jill through the closed-circuit TV monitor in his living room, then turned it off. The place was comfortable but decidedly male. The furniture was soft leather with the exception of one embroidered rocker with a handwoven outdoor scene.

A stand with seven pipes stood on a small coffee table be tween two chairs and one cigar humidor. Once in a while he filled a pipe but usually preferred cigars.

A wooden case the size of two large refrigerators held photos, mostly of his late son, Bud. One showed Bud alive and athletic and triumphant on the face of a mountain of rock known as El Capitan in Yosemite; others were of him climbing at Castle Crags, parasailing in Mexico, and taking part in quieter activities, many with Sam. Most of Sam's past girlfriends were there, including Suzanne, now also dead, and Jill. The shots of Jill and him were hugging-and-giggling shots that told of a different day and a different relationship. But Jill was still important to him, so he left the photos in their place, figuring that they didn't need to go in a box until a permanent companion came along-an event that probably wasn't too far off. The tough decision would be whether to leave them in their place the first time he brought Anna Wade here.

But there were some photos that would definitely remain. They included photos of Chet, Jill's high-school boy, whose father was her ex and was now dead from alcoholism. Chet had suffered from a nerve disease, but aside from an impediment to running, the boy was all there. Chet was smart and an encyclopedia when it came to weapons. Sam wasn't much interested in guns except as an occupational necessity, but he was interested in the boy.

Sam picked up the portable phone and pushed memory.

"Hey, Chet, how's it goin'?"

"Sam."

"You haven't told anybody about me, have you?"

"You ask me that every time. Of course I haven't."

"I'm obsessed. You wanna go shooting on Christmas break?"

"Yeah. I wanna try the Desert Eagle Fifty caliber."

"Huh?"

"It's all in the grips. You said so yourself. I can do it."

"What are we gonna do? Tie you to a refrigerator?"

"It has ports to reduce the kick."

"My arms are an inch shorter since I shot that. You want arms an inch shorter?"

"I've already got short legs, might as well have arms to match."

Sam laughed.

"Okay. But if I go shooting, you gotta promise to go fish ing."

"Fishing? You mean it?"