by Mark Parragh
She thanked him and headed forward.
It had been some time since she’d been aboard the Orion, but she remembered the layout. The yacht was an odd mix of cruise liner and battleship. She walked up the sweeping staircase that encircled the outdoor pool, passed by a spa and gymnasium and through a lavish entertainment space that was all white marble floors, glass, and rich brown leather. Forward of that was the signals intelligence bay, where a dozen crew members busily worked satellite connections. They listened to tapped phone calls, intercepted diplomatic cables, and fed an unending stream of data into a complicated computer model. She thought of it as a weather map for the end of the world.
Going up another grand staircase, she found herself on deck three. The gallery was an enormous space, the width of the ship. There was a huge circular opening in the center that looked down several decks onto the indoor pool. Hanging over the opening were two enormous sculptures, airy cylinders of brass made of huge numbers of small, individually engraved plates. Brass art deco statues overlooked the gallery, stylized swords held in front of them.
It was a space designed for intimidating billionaire industrialists and heads of state. Why did he bring me here? she wondered. Am I to be scolded?
Redpoll stood at the railing overlooking the central opening, beneath the glittering brass mobiles, looking down to the swirling water below. He wore white linen and leather sandals, and she noticed that his once jet-black hair was finally beginning to go gray. She knew he was considerably older than he looked. The olive skin at his temples was beginning to sag and wrinkle.
He turned, rather theatrically she thought, as she entered, and smiled. His piercing blue eyes had lost none of their impact. He was still ruthless, cunning, dangerous, as anyone who overestimated his decline would soon find out.
“Here you are!” he said, stretching out his arms to her. “How wonderful to see you. Come here and kiss me.”
She let him embrace her and kissed his cheek. Then he held her at arms’ length and studied her, smiling warmly.
“Too long,” he said, “too long.”
He released her with a mischievous smile. “But no bags? I’d hoped you’d stay awhile.”
“Well, you know how it is. The schedule is very demanding.”
He nodded. She was always struck by the difference between the doting father she visited here and the stern commander who ran her field missions. She honestly wasn’t sure anymore which she preferred.
“You know you’ve upset poor Turnstone again,” he was saying.
She made a dismissive face. Not everything is worth worrying about, it said.
“That may not have been wise, coming so soon on the heels of Buenos Aires. He wasn’t pleased that you took it upon yourself to kill Tamarind.”
Again, she said nothing. She knew that killing Tamarind had been risky, but he’d taken her side in the end. She suspected that had upset Turnstone more than the loss of Tamarind itself.
They strolled to one of the panoramic windows that looked out over the sea.
“You’re very quiet,” he observed.
“I’m letting you speak,” she said. “The sound of your voice comforts me.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Well, it’s a sweet thing to say anyway.” Then he added, “Turnstone is a dangerous enemy. If you were crossing him in service of some goal, that would be one thing. But it seems you just enjoy tweaking his nose.”
She shrugged. In fact, she had a very good reason for playing Turnstone the way she was, but she wasn’t about to discuss that here.
“He demanded a full trace on your movements and communications,” Redpoll said.
“Which you turned down, I assume.”
“I wouldn’t be so confident of that, my dear,” he said. “You know we have several other sector heads, and you don’t have these issues with them.”
She smiled sweetly. “I respect them.”
He sighed and looked out at the sea.
“I won’t always be here to protect you,” he said. “When I’m gone, if it hasn’t already happened by then, there’s going to be a power struggle. I installed each of them. They’re all of equal status in their eyes, each with a valid claim to the leadership.”
One way to handle that would be to announce his chosen successor and then step down, but she didn’t think he’d ever do that. He could never bring himself to walk away.
She put a hand on his. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“But I do!” he said. “I do. This tiff with Turnstone is obvious. But all of them have reason to distrust or fear you because of who you are.”
“That’s not the only option,” she said. “Vanga actually wants to marry me.”
He said nothing for nearly a minute, and she began to worry that she’d said too much. He always played half a dozen moves ahead.
“My point is, you should be making friends,” he said at last. “You should be building alliances. Instead you’re making powerful enemies of those who could support you.”
He strolled out onto a wing overlooking the sea, and she followed. He always took for granted that she would tag along wherever he led. But then she always had, she admitted. When it counted, at least.
“I have plenty of friends,” she said. “I’m making more all the time. I’m going to Mexico from here to meet someone. He might be a friend. I’m not sure yet. I told you about him. He was following Tamarind.”
He sighed. “And why do you think he’s important?”
“He keeps turning up. I want to know why. Whether he’s a threat or a usable asset. Just like you taught me!”
She leaned over, grabbed his head in her hands, and kissed his cheek.
“Don’t try to butter me up,” he said, but he was smiling as he said it. “And it’s just coincidence that you’re doing this in Turnstone’s backyard after he’s made it clear you’re to stay out?”
“The man’s in Mexico,” she said. “If I want a closer look at him, I have to go where he goes. Besides, you didn’t seriously think I’d comply with that absurd demand, did you? You’d never respect me if I did.”
He expected a degree of rebelliousness from her, she’d learned. The trick was to give him the kind he expected to see, the kind he was prepared to tolerate, while concealing the kind that would bring swift and brutal punishment. It was a delicate game, but a game he’d forced her to learn to play well.
“I don’t need drama with Turnstone right now,” he said after a pause. “Slip in and out, and try not to draw his attention.”
“Of course. He’ll never know I was there.”
That, of course, was a lie. If Turnstone didn’t notice her incursion on his own, she’d have to do something more obvious to get his attention. Drama with Turnstone was exactly what her plans required. When she’d started to cause trouble, it was Turnstone who’d taken the bait and come after her. Since then, nothing had gone quite right for him. Worse, Turnstone was becoming less discreet all the time, increasingly committed to a course of action that let her draw him out and humiliate him. Indiscretion was unforgivable to the sector heads. Soon, if they hadn’t already, the others should begin to notice that the universe tended to take a vague but potentially crippling dislike to her enemies.
“All right,” Redpoll said at last with a chuckle. “All right, go to Mexico and see what you can learn about this fellow. I’ll await your report with great anticipation.”
He drew her close, patted her back, and then shooed her away. “In the meantime, there are clothes in your cabin. Get changed and have a swim before dinner. I’ve told the chef to make your favorites. Keep me company, and you can go to Mexico in the morning.”
It was a reasonable compromise, she thought as she headed up yet another grand sweeping staircase to another sumptuous, showy deck of guest cabins. John Crane could wait another day. But then I’m coming for you, she thought, and we’ll see what you’re made of.
CHAPTER 32
Crane pulled into
the parking lot of a motel in San Mateo. It offered weekly rates and appeared to cater primarily to construction crews. Josh had called him from here an hour ago in a panic. It was hard to make out what had happened, but he gathered Josh’s bodyguard had made an attempt on his life. That was very bad, indeed.
Though he supposed they should have expected something, Crane thought as he walked up the concrete stairs to the second level. If they kept annoying powerful bad guys, sooner or later, one was bound to hit back. He assumed this was connected to the Tate empire. He knew Jason wouldn’t think twice about murdering someone who got in his way. He imagined Tate’s accomplices probably thought the same way.
He knocked at the door of Room 17, and after a moment, the curtain moved aside an inch. Then the door opened, and Crane cautiously entered. Josh had moved back from the door and now stood by a flimsy table with local shopping guides, a cheap pad of paper, and a standup room service menu. He was holding a pistol.
“Close the door!” Josh stammered.
Crane did, and then said, “If we’re going to do this, you’re going to have to give me the gun.”
Josh said nothing, but he also didn’t resist as Crane moved to him and gently took the pistol from his hand.
Josh stood, looking bereft. The bass thump of Chicano hip-hop leaked through the walls from another room.
“Sit down, and start from the beginning,” Crane said. “What happened?”
Josh sat down on the foot of the bed and told him the story. Once he’d gotten started, there was no shutting him up. Crane was used to seeing Josh confident and eager, the guy in charge, giving out mission briefings from thirty thousand feet in his private jet.
But this was a man who’d been shaken to his core. It became clear to Crane that it wasn’t even the danger itself that had unnerved him so much as the loss of certainty that it implied.
“It’s not safe,” Josh stammered. “Nowhere is safe. Tim drove me everywhere. He was in my house! I trusted him. I thought we were friends! How can I feel safe again?”
“Focus,” Crane said. “Breathe. Here’s what you do first. Step back. Focus on the details. You left him there? By the side of the road in Rancho Corral de Tierra?”
Josh shuddered. “I don’t even know if he’s alive or dead! That stuff you gave me, that does not mess around.”
“It won’t kill him,” Crane said. He checked his watch. “It should have worn off by now. Either he took off on foot, or maybe the people who sent him after you came looking when you didn’t show up, and they found him. Either way, he’s probably not there anymore. I don’t know what he’ll do next. My guess is we’ll never see him again. Either way, we’ll change all his access codes, revoke his badge, put security on alert to watch for him.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know all that,” said Josh. “That’s not the problem.”
“Okay, what’s the problem?”
“They turned him! They threw money at him and threatened his fiancée until he … what’s to keep them from doing the same thing to the next one? How do I trust anyone? They can have my secretary put a knife in my back, or have my chef poison me. How can I keep fighting them?”
He looked up at Crane with despair. “How do I just go on with my life now?”
Crane nodded. He unloaded the gun and set it on the desk, and then sat down beside Josh.
“When I was a kid,” he said, “we used to go to the beach. One time, my mom was still alive, so I was young, but I was old enough to swim by myself. And I swam out past the breakers. I was having a great time. Then suddenly I couldn’t stop thinking about what was down there. I don’t know—the water was probably ten feet deep where I was, but I thought it went down for a mile. And there were sharks down there. Giant, man-eating squid. Dinosaurs. Monsters. And I was terrified. I wasn’t afraid of drowning. I was afraid of those unspeakable horrors down there in the dark. And I almost did drown, I was so full of panic and terror. I barely made it back to shore. And after that, I wouldn’t go in the water for a long time. Suddenly I hated even to go to the beach.”
“How did you get over it?”
“I took up diving. I found out what was down there.”
“There’s still a lot more ‘down there’ than you can dive, John.”
Crane conceded the point with a gesture. “There’s always danger,” he said. “You do what you can to prepare, and then you try not to worry about the rest of it.”
“That’s the part I’m not good at,” said Josh.
Even so, Crane noted, his voice seemed calmer. They sat in silence for a minute or more. Finally Josh said, “I can always back off. Stop investigating. I can stop pushing them and hope they figure I got the message.”
“Does that feel right?”
“No, of course not.”
Crane nodded. “Because what that tells them is they can push you around. And if they can, so can somebody else.”
Josh stood up and walked to the window. He pulled back the curtains and looked out across the parking lot at the traffic rolling by on the highway.
“This is where I ran? This place sucks.”
“You can afford better,” Crane said with a smile.
Josh turned suddenly. “Tim didn’t want to do it,” he said. “This wasn’t his idea. He was minding his own business, trying to get married … They didn’t just come after me. They used him to do it. They ruined his life because of me!”
“Good,” said Crane. “That’s good. ‘Who else will they hurt?’ is better than ‘Who can I trust?’ That’s something you can use.”
“And that poor girl he wanted to marry. Son of a … I want to hit them, John. I want to hit them back. Hard.”
Crane grinned. “Okay. I have news on that front. Jessie called this morning. Sawyer’s mercs are assembled in El Paso. They’re ready. We can go in tonight.”
“And if you can bring in Jason, that should blow a hole in their plans,” said Josh. “Good. Good.”
“You ready to get out of here?”
Josh nodded. He took the room key from his pocket—an actual metal key on a bright plastic tab, Crane noticed with mild surprise—and tossed it on the bed.
As they were walking down the poured concrete stairs, a thought occurred to Crane.
“Why me?” he asked.
“Why you what?”
“Why did you call me when you didn’t trust anybody to not kill you?”
“Huh.” Josh took a few more steps, thinking. Then he said, “I guess none of that applied to you.”
“All right, then,” said Crane, “let’s go mess up Jason’s shit.”
Josh grinned back. “Yeah. Let’s get up in his areas.”
They headed down the stairs to the parking lot.
CHAPTER 33
Jason Tate was swimming laps in his pool when two men from the household staff brought him the wallet. They stood respectfully while he climbed out and someone brought him a towel.
“Two local men brought him, sir,” they said. “They say he was asking questions in Santa Catarina. About this place, and who lives here. They’re looking for the reward.”
Tate looked through the wallet. The ID belonged to a Christopher Stratton. Texas driver’s license, couple of credit cards. And a Texas private investigator’s license. He looked at that one for a long minute.
Another private detective from the States. It wasn’t John Crane under some other alias. The man in the license photo was older, with sandy blond hair and a different look in the eyes. But he was here. Crane had come because of the girl in Bahia Tortugas, and that one wasn’t even his fault. The last time he saw her, she’d been fine, if blasted out of her mind. It wasn’t his fault she’d wandered up on deck and fallen overboard. He’d been asleep.
But another one, and here in Tepehuanes, was worrying. Maybe he was here because of the other girl, the one in LA. Or maybe it was something else entirely. Whatever the reason, he had to find out. And he was in the mood for some adrenaline, if he was being honest. Not being
able to put his hands on Crane had him on edge, twitchy. Until he had Crane, Christopher Stratton would have to do.
“Yeah, pay them,” he said at last. “And take him down to the pump room.”
Simply because of where it was, the hacienda had to be almost entirely self-sufficient. Part of that was providing water. There were two different well shafts on the property, sunk deep into the mountainside. Down in the hacienda’s sub-basement, electric pumps drew water from both wells, put it through ceramic filters, dripped it through tanks full of special resin beads that softened it somehow, and stored it in huge cisterns.
Tate found the pump room calming and peaceful. It was cool and dark there, with the whirr of the pumps, the sound of dripping water. And the walls were heavy cement, so sound didn’t carry up to the house.
By the time he dried his hair, got dressed, and made his way down to the pump room, the detective from Texas was zip-tied to the metal chair in the middle of the room. They’d laid down the plastic sheets around the chair, and a couple of men were watching him. He looked up as Tate came in, trying to keep cool, trying not to look afraid. Tate liked that. The local boys had roughed him up a little bit; he hadn’t gone down without a fight. There was a cut over his eye already, bit of blood. But not too bad, really. Plenty left for him.
“So you’re a detective,” he said. “Interesting job, I bet. Go places, meet new people.”
He opened a metal locker and took out a white Tyvek coverall. He caught a bit of a tremble from Stratton as he stepped into it.
“Ever want to do anything else?” he asked as he zipped up the suit and pulled on the little elastic booties over his shoes. “Was there a moment when you might have ended up selling insurance, say, or being assistant manager of a plant that makes those little French toast sticks they serve at IHOP? Something like that? Is there a moment you can think of when you turned onto this particular path? Because that was a really lousy day, and you didn’t even know it.”
“Look, man, I don’t know what’s going on here,” Stratton said, trying to control his voice. “My client’s a Hollywood guy. Big producer. He’s looking for a place to buy in Mexico, right? Out in the country, but he wants all the luxuries. So I’m looking for him. He just heard this place was out here, and he wanted to find out who owns it to maybe make an offer. That’s it!”
