Legends

The security arrangements were clearly casual; the bodyguards were going through the motions but there was no urgency to their gestures, which is what often happened when the individual being protected has been squirreled away and the people responsible for his safety assumed that potential enemies wouldn’t be able to find his hole. Back at the BMW, the two bodyguards and the driver were making small talk. One of the bodyguards must have detected a signal on his walkie-talkie because he hauled it from a pocket and, looking up at the closed venetian blinds, muttered something into it. Several minutes went by. Then the front door of 621 swung open again and another bodyguard appeared. He was straining to hold back two Borzois attached to long leashes. To the amusement of the men waiting near the BMW, the dogs practically dragged the man into the gutter. Behind him a stubby hunch-shouldered man with a shock of silver hair and dark glasses materialized at the front door. He had a cigar clamped between his teeth and walked with the aid of two aluminum crutches, thrusting one hip forward and dragging the leg after it, then repeating the movement with the other hip. He paused for breath when he reached the end of the walkway in front of the building’s entrance. One of the bodyguards opened the back door of the car. In the corner room across the street, Lincoln rose to his feet and in one flowing motion jammed his left elbow into his rib cage as he steadied the rifle on a window sash. Closing his left eye, he pressed his right eye to the telescopic sight and walked up the muzzle of the Whitworth until the cross-hairs were fixed on the target’s forehead immediately above the bridge of his nose. He squeezed the trigger with such painstaking deliberation that the eruption of flame at the breech’s nipple and the bullet rifling out of the barrel and the satisfying recoil of the stock into his shoulder blade all caught him by surprise. Sighting again on the target, he saw blood oozing from a ragged-edged tear in the middle of the man’s forehead. The bodyguards had heard a sound but not yet associated it with gunfire. The one holding open the back door of the car was the first to notice that their charge was collapsing onto the pavement. He leapt forward to catch him under the armpits and, shouting for help, lowered him to the ground.

By the time the bodyguards realized that the man they were protecting had been shot dead, Lincoln, oblivious to the spasms in his game leg, was well on his way to the breach in the chainlink fence.

1997: CRYSTAL QUEST COMES TO BELIEVE IN DANTE’S TRINITY

DANTE PIPPEN, A MAESTRO OF TRADECRAFT, HAD POSITIONED himself in a booth at the rear of Xing’s Mandarin Restaurant with his back to the tables, facing a mirror in which he could keep track of who came and went. He sized up the two figures in trenchcoats who entered the restaurant at the stroke of noon. Both had the deadpan eyes that marked them as flunkies for the CIA’s Office of Security. The one with the cauliflower ears of a prize-fighter ducked behind the bar to make sure that Tsou Xing, who was holding fort on his high stool in front of the cash register, didn’t have a sawed-off shotgun stashed under the counter. Ignoring Dante, the second man, who had the shoulders and neck of a weight lifter, pushed through the swinging doors into the kitchen. Moments later he reappeared and planted himself in front of the doors, his arms folded across his barrel chest.

It wasn’t long before Crystal Quest turned up at the door of the restaurant. Coming into the murky interior from the dazzling sunlight of Albany Avenue, she was momentarily blinded. When she could see again, she spotted Dante and started toward him, the thick heels of her sensible shoes drumming on the linoleum floor. “Long time no see,” she said as she slid onto the banquette opposite him. “As usual you look fit as a flea, Dante. Still working out on that rowing machine?”

Dante managed a half-hearted laugh. “You’re confusing me with Martin Odum, Fred. He’s the one with a rowing machine.”

Quest, who knew a joke when she heard one, grinned nervously.

Dante said, “How about treating your bloodstream to a shot of alcohol?”

“Alcohol’s just what the doctor ordered. Something with a lot of ice, thank you.”

Dante called for a whiskey, neat, and a frozen daiquiri, heavy on the ice. Tsou waved his good arm in acknowledgment. Waiting for the drinks, Dante watched Quest toying absently with the frills down the front of her dress shirt. He noticed that the jacket of her pantsuit, like the skin around her eyes, was wrinkled; that the rust-colored dye was washing out of her hair, revealing soot-gray roots. “You look the worse for wear, Fred. Job getting you down?”