THE ST. PAUL CONSPIRACY (McRyan Mystery Series - Excerpt)

Chapter 1: "I'm in."

Chapter One

“I’m in.”

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 blonde 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, DC.

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 dead bolt, 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.