Five-minute Mysteries 2. Ken Weber

Mr. Peevey back at the drug store, telling him about the horrible scene he had just walked into. This part of the plan was something Linc had worked on very carefully.

      For the past several years, long before Linc came on the scene, Mary had been getting her medications delivered from Mr. Peevey’s pharmacy on Thursdays – Thursday afternoons. That was an important coincidence, because the people in two of the other apartments in the little brownstone were always at work then. Linc had taken a while to confirm this after he had first seen Mary put the jewelry into the roll-top. As for the one remaining apartment, it was empty for the month, as the couple renting it was away on a summer vacation.

      The other part of the Peevey Plan – he liked calling it that – was the delay strategy. Mr. Peevey knew how long it took to get to Mary Majeski’s and back, but Linc had been stretching that a bit each time, telling Peevey that the old lady always seemed to have a bit of fetch and carry to ask of him when he showed up with her weekly package. The druggist didn’t seem to mind that. She was a long-time, faithful customer, and good public behavior like that sure wouldn’t harm the business if he ever needed to call attention to it.

      Linc had wondered how he’d keep the call short – Mr. Peevey was a talker and would want all kinds of detail, but, again, being genuinely upset made it easy to just hang up.

      After the call to his boss, there were still crucial things left to do. First, Linc pushed over a chair and jolted a knick-knack table off its accustomed site hard enough so that a cup and saucer fell to the rug. Yes, the rug. He almost forgot about that! Linc took a big, firm cushion and wiped out his Nike tracks, leaving those areas where they’d be reasonably expected.

      Finally, he went out into the main hallway, closed the door, then forced it open with a screwdriver. This would be the final, clear indication of a B&E, the cap to his story: Linc Dennebar, delivery boy for Peevey’s Pharmacy, arrives at Mary Majeski’s apartment same as always; sees the open door; sees the old lady on the floor; calls the police. Straight and simple.

      By now he could hear a siren – then two. Linc sprinted to the back of the hallway, secretly blessing old buildings, and dropped the screwdriver down a cold air register. Moving quickly, for the sirens were coming from the street below now, he pulled off the surgical gloves he had been careful to wear the whole time, stuffed them down after the screwdriver, and sprinted back to the door. Here, he hesitated for several long and agonizing seconds. This was a part of the plan that he had never been able to finalize with confidence. Should he wait for the cops at the door? Too cool. Go to the top of the stairs and shout? They might shoot him! Run down the stairs to the street? A little too freaked out. Or should he stay in the apartment with old Mary? Might look loyal and concerned, but ...

      At the last second he opted for running down the stairs. It would look better, he figured. “Upstairs! Quick, quick!” he yelled.

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      What was Linc Dennebar's one big mistake

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      3

      Recovery at Dusk

      The place was easy to find. After all, a pink-stucco villa in the middle of a rainforest is not easy to hide. Not that Selim and his band of cutthroats would even have tried to hide, for in this remote part of Sumatra they were in total control. What had been difficult, however, was getting to it. And getting to it unseen. Salah Selim and his people used a helicopter. There was a landing strip, too, for fixed wing aircraft, but Stan Livy and his recovery team had to come in the hard way, first by boat and then on foot.

      They’d done it, though. Two days on the river and then a week of slashing through the undergrowth had brought them to the opposite edge of the valley, where they had hidden all day with binoculars fixed on the villa. Now getting out. That would be a different story! On the way out, they’d have the little girl with them, assuming the recovery went well. Timing would be crucial. On the way in, there had been some stretch to allow for things to go wrong, things that escaped their careful planning. But on the way out, they had to coordinate with the aircraft that would pick them up.

      Be that as it may, Stan Livy thought to himself, that was then. This was now and, so far, everything had gone without a hitch. He was certain they had come in undetected. The four of them took turns all day watching what they could see of the activity at the villa and Stan had concluded that everything was what he called “site-normal.” With the exception of one new member, this team had worked together many times recovering kidnap victims, and they could tell when a site was anticipating a rescue. Stan, in particular, had studied the villa with great care through the glasses. He’d wanted desperately to get closer, but a single glance from the valley side where the team had stationed itself made it clear that they dared take only one chance to get close, and that would be when they went in to recover.

      Yes. So far without a hitch. Stan didn’t like thinking that way, for overconfidence could jinx an operation. Still, it had gone smoothly. The new team member, the Dutch woman who spoke such precise, textbook English, had worked out just fine. She’d paddled against the current and hacked at the vines as hard as any of them without a sign of slacking. And her presence was a huge benefit. Crucial, in fact, for she had actually spent time at the villa working as a domestic, undercover for the Indonesian police. More important, her information was proving very accurate.

      “The security system,” she’d told them before jump-off back in Jakarta, “is comprehensive, but it can be penetrated. The compound is surrounded by a masonry wall, as you might expect, on top of which are motion-response cameras and barbed wire. The wire is electrified at key points – around the generator, for example. Guard patrols are somewhat haphazard during the day. After dark, however, they’re frequent and regular. No one has ever tried to breach the security, and Selim has no reason to believe that anyone ever will. For all intents and purposes, he is the warlord in that part of the island. That might explain why he has the girl there instead of out in the rainforest, where he keeps the businessmen he takes for ransom.”

      Stan looked up at the sky and then back over his shoulder. Although the day still had enough brightness to hold the compound in its fading light, the jungle growth behind him was now completely dark. At this moment he was within a two-second dash of one of the entrance gates in the wall. The team had crossed the valley at early dusk, and everyone was in place. Getting close had worried Stan considerably, but, like everything else, the approach had been smooth as silk. What had concerned him most, naturally, was being seen, and for just a second his stomach had lurched when the sound of a horse’s hooves came from along the wall to his left as he reached his pre-planned spot. It was not a guard, though, but an old man on what looked like an even older pony, accompanied by a pair of scrawny dogs. The quartet plodded slowly across the road that led out the gate, and on down along the wall.

      Stan keyed a button twice on his handheld radio and whispered, “Sully! The noise coming at you! Not security. Repeat, not security!” Then he keyed the button once and whispered, “We’re go! On my signal. Wait for it!”

      He looked over his shoulder again, then rose slowly to his knees, one eye on the camera above the gate to see if it was picking him up but it was pointed across the valley. For a second he wondered if it could have ... no, not possible; they’d kept well hidden in the trees. He looked one more time at the ink sketch on the back of his hand, where the Dutch woman had drawn a layout of the villa. With his right index finger, he stroked the pair of stun grenades clipped to his vest, and with his thumb checked the Uzi. He took a deep breath, waiting for just a bit more adrenaline. It was time.

      That brief pause, as it turned out, was what saved Stan and made him call off the operation, for in that pair of seconds he realized that for the first time in the operation – the first time he knew of – there was a hitch.

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      Stan Livy has become