Spain? He did not like to be tantalized.He walked into the Gardens some distance from the Memorial and tore open the smaller envelope.
America again! These Iranians were crazy! He studied the photos of the man he was to hit, a balding, thin-faced man with big
frightened eyes. He had quit his job and gone into hiding. But he had not wanted to be completely cut off, so he had subscribed
to oil industry journals. One of the journals had sold the computerized list of its subscribers to a protective clothing firm,
which existed only as a post office box number in Farmingdale, Long Island. Peter Ligeti had an address in Charleston, South
Carolina.
To play it safe, Richard Dartley flew Piedmont Airlines to Columbia, South Carolina, in the center of the state. He hired
a car from Hertz with an American Express card in a fake name at an address which Malleson had arranged. So long as the name
remained good, the bills were paid on time and Dartley continued to use the card. Experience had taught him not to take the
unnecessary risk of using counterfeit or stolen credit cards. Dartley did not regard himself as a thief. If he ever had to,
he would answer those who accused him of being a coldblooded killer. But he was not a thief.
Route 26 ran through flat pinelands all the way from the state capital to the low country. On the car radio, there were hymns,
country and rock in about equal proportions. Dartley tried a little of each and took in a fiery Baptist preacher who promised
him a hot old time if he didn’t mend his ways. A violent thunderstormcame as a fitting conclusion to the sermon. Dartley had to pull into a rest area because of the heavy rain.
Some miles before Charleston, he saw a roadside sign for a Knight’s Inn and exited for it. The place was ideal, an anonymous
motel of three separate two-story buildings off a highway lined by fast food outlets, secondhand car dealers and dozens of
other enterprises signaling with extensive neon displays. Sherman could have brought a whole regiment of Union soldiers in
here for burgers and they wouldn’t have been noticed.
He drove into Charleston an hour later and parked his car alongside the park at the Battery. He went to the wall and looked
out across the waters of the bay at Fort Sumter. The park displayed live oaks draped with Spanish moss, cannons and a World
War I Maxim gun. A horse-drawn carriage driven by a guide in Confederate uniform hauled a bunch of tourists by, pausing before
ante-bellum and Victorian mansions with white pillared balconies and lush gardens.
Dartley walked back along Meeting Steet and followed Tradd Street as far as Limehouse Street. The whole area was an impeccably
restored residential area, a sort of Confederate Beverly Hills. The address he had for Peter Ligeti was a big two-story house
fronted by plantation-style columns. The second-story floor extended beyond the building proper to the columns to create two
building-length porches, one over the other; fine-mesh wire was stretched between the columns to keep mosquitoes out, and
wood-bladed fans revolved slowly on the ceilings. The house stood on an acre of gardens,with a bubbling fountain and blooming azaleas, surrounded by a twelve-foot fence consisting of iron bars tipped with ornamental
spearheads. An elderly black man wearing a straw hat raked a gravel path.
Dartley walked along the railing until he was out of sight of the man in the garden. He looked up and down the tree-lined
street. It was deserted. After securing what he had in his pockets, he clambered up the iron bars of the fence, did a handstand
on the top and a back flip so that he landed ankle-deep in a flower bed inside the fence. It would have been easier to have
opened the heavy iron gate, but the gardener would have seen him—and Dartley had a point to make to Peter Ligeti: that if
he could enter undetected, so could any potential assassin.
He plodded through the soil, crossed
America again! These Iranians were crazy! He studied the photos of the man he was to hit, a balding, thin-faced man with big
frightened eyes. He had quit his job and gone into hiding. But he had not wanted to be completely cut off, so he had subscribed
to oil industry journals. One of the journals had sold the computerized list of its subscribers to a protective clothing firm,
which existed only as a post office box number in Farmingdale, Long Island. Peter Ligeti had an address in Charleston, South
Carolina.
To play it safe, Richard Dartley flew Piedmont Airlines to Columbia, South Carolina, in the center of the state. He hired
a car from Hertz with an American Express card in a fake name at an address which Malleson had arranged. So long as the name
remained good, the bills were paid on time and Dartley continued to use the card. Experience had taught him not to take the
unnecessary risk of using counterfeit or stolen credit cards. Dartley did not regard himself as a thief. If he ever had to,
he would answer those who accused him of being a coldblooded killer. But he was not a thief.
Route 26 ran through flat pinelands all the way from the state capital to the low country. On the car radio, there were hymns,
country and rock in about equal proportions. Dartley tried a little of each and took in a fiery Baptist preacher who promised
him a hot old time if he didn’t mend his ways. A violent thunderstormcame as a fitting conclusion to the sermon. Dartley had to pull into a rest area because of the heavy rain.
Some miles before Charleston, he saw a roadside sign for a Knight’s Inn and exited for it. The place was ideal, an anonymous
motel of three separate two-story buildings off a highway lined by fast food outlets, secondhand car dealers and dozens of
other enterprises signaling with extensive neon displays. Sherman could have brought a whole regiment of Union soldiers in
here for burgers and they wouldn’t have been noticed.
He drove into Charleston an hour later and parked his car alongside the park at the Battery. He went to the wall and looked
out across the waters of the bay at Fort Sumter. The park displayed live oaks draped with Spanish moss, cannons and a World
War I Maxim gun. A horse-drawn carriage driven by a guide in Confederate uniform hauled a bunch of tourists by, pausing before
ante-bellum and Victorian mansions with white pillared balconies and lush gardens.
Dartley walked back along Meeting Steet and followed Tradd Street as far as Limehouse Street. The whole area was an impeccably
restored residential area, a sort of Confederate Beverly Hills. The address he had for Peter Ligeti was a big two-story house
fronted by plantation-style columns. The second-story floor extended beyond the building proper to the columns to create two
building-length porches, one over the other; fine-mesh wire was stretched between the columns to keep mosquitoes out, and
wood-bladed fans revolved slowly on the ceilings. The house stood on an acre of gardens,with a bubbling fountain and blooming azaleas, surrounded by a twelve-foot fence consisting of iron bars tipped with ornamental
spearheads. An elderly black man wearing a straw hat raked a gravel path.
Dartley walked along the railing until he was out of sight of the man in the garden. He looked up and down the tree-lined
street. It was deserted. After securing what he had in his pockets, he clambered up the iron bars of the fence, did a handstand
on the top and a back flip so that he landed ankle-deep in a flower bed inside the fence. It would have been easier to have
opened the heavy iron gate, but the gardener would have seen him—and Dartley had a point to make to Peter Ligeti: that if
he could enter undetected, so could any potential assassin.
He plodded through the soil, crossed
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