“There’s a sealed envelope in this packet. Open it, please.” As Jackie tore open the envelope, Esther went on, “Your first payment, as promised.”
So much money. The slip of paper should have weighed a ton, pulled earthward by the ballast of temptation. “Why pluck me out of the unknown?”
“Your questions are becoming repetitive, Ms. Havilland. I wish to hire someone who will remain utterly bought and utterly secret. Have you signed the contract?”
“Not yet.”
“Time is of critical importance here.”
“I’ll decide today.”
“Very well. There is a handwritten slip in the envelope.”
“I have it.” A foreign sounding name and a number. Washington area code.
“A second contact, in case I can’t be found. To be used only for matters of critical urgency.” A pause, then, “I suggest you move on this while you still can.”
Jackie dithered for a time, cleaning her cramped three rooms while struggling with an already tumultuous day. Her garage apartment was carpeted in a ferocious orange shag. The wall air-conditioning units banged and wheezed, the plumbing clattered, and her refrigerator belonged in a museum. But her tiny back porch was a roofline haven, as far from her dead-end world as she nowadays expected to travel. She moved back to her dinette table, its scarred surface lost beneath the Hutchings papers. But she had no stomach for further work, not with the go/no-go decision swinging like a pendulum blade. Her eye was caught by a printout she had made the previous evening. The region’s loose-knit clan of wind surfers had circulated a map of the present storm with a time and place to meet. Jackie rose from the table and dressed for a day that might have some meaning after all.
TAKING THE BEELINE EXPRESSWAY from Orlando to the coast, Jackie crossed I-95 and the bridges splitting the Florida mainland from Merritt Island, then pulled onto a tiny spit of sand and saw grass. A half-mile across the northern waters, cruise liners rose from Port Canaveral like clownish mountains. Beyond them, a shuttle had been pulled from Kennedy’s Vehicular Assembly Building and was settled onto the launch gantry nearest the Intracoastal Waterway. The shuttle’s stubby wings stood in resolute serenity, ready to defy all the elements and arguments as to why it could never fly.
As she unloaded her gear, a cluster of storm jumpers pushed shouts and invitations her way. Jackie knew all their first names, but few details more beyond cars and boards. The pirates among them had hit on her once or twice, then accepted her turndowns with buccaneer grins and the shrugs of those with more chances than time. She was respected because she came for most of the heavy blows and handled herself with the fanaticism of one who lived for such events. Jackie waved at the group but did not approach. Today was not one for their clubby atmosphere and single-minded tales of flight. She wanted nothing more than abandon.
She rigged her sail, tied the boom storm-taut, and stepped her mast. She went back to the car for the storm harness, which she slung about her shoulders and cinched between her legs so that the hook dangled just below her rib cage. She drew her hair tightly into a band, pulled the daggerboard from her trunk, locked the car, and dragged the board across the shore.
Jackie smiled at the hoots from those already back and standing weary along the roadside, and pulled her board into the kicked-up bay. The water was warm as a brackish bath. Even at knee depth the wind pushed up sparkling froths, which her blood answered with an adrenaline champagne all its own. She slid the daggerboard home, hefted the boom, tested the fore foot strap. She took a couple of little ready-jumps, feeling the wind impatient to pluck her away. She gave all her weight to the boom and the board, then rose up so swiftly she had to shout, knowing it was a day of promise and speed. She slipped her back foot into place, felt the swooping rush, and gave into the only oblivion that had ever worked for her.
The board was no longer clunky and two generations out of date. It was a chariot pulled by spendrift stallions, and she a woman who knew no earthly bonds. She flew so fast the board scarcely touched the wave crests, her solitary wing searching for that last tiny thrust that would break her free entirely and send her shooting away from all the impossibles of a life she had been forced to call her own.
Mainland to her right and Merritt Island to her left, she accelerated until passing homes and stands of water-bound green all became shades of speed. She hooked the harness ring on to the boom and leaned farther back until her body was as billowed as the sail, two arcs joined by impossible balance. With each little wave jump she was drenched anew in water warmer than the wind. She felt her fingertips and the tip of her ponytail trace across the wave tops, and became more intimately connected still to her partner in this dance. From behind there came a hooted shout of approval. Glancing around, she saw an upside-down mate leaning upon his mast rope with one hand, trying to right himself from a spill, his other hand a fist over his head as he screamed to her an instant’s fame.
Downwind where the island ended and the water broadened, the waves became frothy sloping catapults. Jackie raised herself back up, unleashed the harness hook, and began steering with body movements and fractional adjustments of the sail. Her clenched fists searched through the boom for the faint quiver of coming gusts. She took the measure of each blow, reaching for the invisible fist. Abruptly a new feather of strength pressed against her sail and her cheek. She angled slightly east, aimed for the highest of the waves ahead, crouched further, timed the approach, then jumped and shouted with the effort. The wind joined with her own cry, shrieking up almost a full octave, willing her into the wild gray sky.
She flew. Time halted then. Her cry became a silver thread reaching out with the raucous force of a gull, weaving its way into the heart of the storm, a call of hope and thrill and pain. She willed the moment to go on forever, never to return her to a waterborne world. She splashed down in a hard landing, the sail dipping and drenching, which meant she had to sail on long enough to lose the water-weight before searching again. Then she found another invisible fist and aimed for the clouds and the universe of eternal storm.
Jackie flew as far as the next causeway, which meant a two-hour push tacking back upwind. The water was largely empty, save for a few other lightning-fast storm jumpers, several sailboats throwing heavy wakes and rigged for blow, and one motorboat. She circled back behind one of the uninhabited marsh islands and took shelter in a cove overhung by palmettos and wild palms. A trio of stalking herons watched from the white-sand beach, gray heads turned so they could all give her a resentful one-eyed glare. She lowered the sail to the water, seating herself so she could watch the waves be trimmed and topped by the blow. She dropped her eyes to her board, inspecting the frayed seams along the daggerboard and the rusty repair screws she had put in herself to reinforce the foot straps. The check on her dinette table represented the first money since her brother’s death not marked before it arrived for meeting the day-to-days. But in this haven of wind and light, she knew it was not the lack of answers that worried her. It was the fear of finding nothing more than another false freedom.
A pod of dolphins swam into the tiny cove. The surrounding green offered a sliver of calm water not more than fifteen feet wide. Breezes filtering through the mangrove and palmetto and silver palm sent tiny shivers across the sheltered waters, out to where the bay joined with a froth-covered sea. The dolphins lumped up and wheezed their gentle breaths, circling around two tiny fins that signaled the presence of babies. The bayside species was smaller than their ocean kin, and more comfortable with humankind. They nosed about, rubbing bellies upon the soft white bottom sand, whistling their shy chirrups, offering quick notes of water-borne inquiry. How was she? Confused, was the answer. Frightened by the prospect of waking up again. Awash in memories of former times.
There had indeed been other chances, given only to be stripped away. A father who let his wife drive him off, leaving little Jackie screaming for him to stay, or else take her with him. Those pleas had resulted in years of vicious torment fro
m a hyperjealous mother who prized her wounds like medals. Jackie had survived by living to protect her little brother, a golden-haired seraph too sensitive for the best of this world, much less able to survive alone their mistake of a mom. Preston had prevailed because Jackie had sheltered and bolstered. He had never been one for people or words, but his mind had gobbled math the way another might devour mystery novels. In school he had thrived on calculus and uncertainty theory, subjects that left Jackie utterly cold.
When Preston accepted a job with the Hayek Group, she had worried without understanding why. When the money had started pouring in, she had grown truly frightened. But Preston had found a place that justified his talents, one so all-consuming he could ignore the past they both loathed. Preston had risen among the ranks of traders until she could no longer argue against his choice. She had finally given in to his enthusiasm, accepted his money, and revived her own dream of returning to graduate school. All the while, she remained troubled over the waters where Preston now swam. She studied international finance in hopes of delving the tides and the currents and identifying the sharks before they devoured him.
And then Preston had introduced her to Shane Turner.
Jackie was in the process of tossing that particular memory to the wind when she noticed the motorboat. It was the same one she had seen earlier, and now that she was focused upon it she had the impression this was not its first pass around her island. The man at the wheel fastened upon her with a pair of binoculars, a ludicrous act considering the turbulence. Jackie rewarded him with an appropriate gesture, then rose uncertainly to her feet as the boat veered and headed straight for her. The dolphins whistled a warning and disappeared.
Apprehensive and utterly isolated, she began pulling her mast from the water. Her position in the cove was suddenly very hazardous, out of other storm sailors’ sight, in a wind strong enough to drown out her screams.
Jackie gripped the boom and swept the sail about, seeking a pocket of wind to cast her away. But the trees and untamed shrub were too effective a wind block. She was about to give up and fling herself into the water when the motor craft swung broadside and the man shouted across, “Are you JackieH at Juno.com?”
The query was so ludicrous she let the boom fall without thinking. “What?”
“JackieH at Juno.com!” He was young and his voice high-pitched. More than that she could not tell over the motor’s idling roar. He was ridiculously muffled in a floppy fishing hat pulled low, sunglasses, and a windbreaker with the zipper pulled up to his chin. All she could see clearly were his pale nose and mouth. And bone-white hands that knew nothing about holding a boat steady. “Is that you?”
When she gaped and nodded in response, he cut the motor with the boat still broadside to the chop. It was an expensive rental, an overpowered OMC inboard-outboard. He was far enough beyond the cove’s shelter for the next wave to almost pitch him headlong over the side. Jackie found herself relieved by his evident alarm. “Start your engine and put it one notch above idle, then steer directly into the wind.”
As he fumbled and struggled to follow her instructions, she settled back onto her board. “Now back into the cove, no, don’t turn the boat around, just put the boat into reverse.”
But the young man showed no desire to approach any closer than where he was. Instead he left the motor running, oversteering and unsettled by the chop. Over the wind and the motor he called, “Why are you interested in certain people and companies?”
Again she had no choice but gape in reply. The young man expected nothing more. “You’re already in danger! There’s only one way to survive, are you hearing me, JackieH?”
“Yes.”
“Keep searching under your current internet address and find nothing. Then take on a second name with a different server system and use another name as both ID and payee.”
She thought she detected an accent but couldn’t be certain. “Why?”
“Use a secure phone for your hookups. Your home line is either tapped or will be soon. When you’re established, go to the website Trastevere.” He spelled it out. “Can you remember that?”
“Who are you?”
“This is vital!” His shriek carried the strain of more than the present tempest. “Trastevere website. Leave me a message.” He paused for a moment, pressed the sunglasses up tight to his nose, continued, “Address it to the Boatman.”
“Wait. I need to know—”
But the young man revved the motor and blasted away, almost tumbling over the back of his seat in the takeoff. Jackie was left to the isolation of a confused and storm-tossed day.
4
Wednesday
WYNN ARRIVED at Senator Trilling’s office still fuming over his meeting with Jackson Taylor. It did not help matters to find the ranking senator from California housed in chambers that were positively palatial compared to his own. “Congressman Bryant?”
“That’s right.”
“Kay Trilling. Are you alone?”
“Is there a problem with that?”
“As far as I’m concerned, no. But few people in elected office go anywhere around here by themselves.” Her tone was so clipped the words sounded razored. “There’s always the risk of being caught and compromised, or having the press claim you said something you can’t deny.”
“Which means I’ve just made another beginner’s blunder.” Not bothering to keep the bitterness from his voice.
She bobbed her head, perhaps to hide a smile. “This way, please.”
Trilling was black, rail-thin, extremely well dressed, and tough. She led him into her private office, shut the door, and continued, “I miss Graham Hutchings terribly. Personally as well as politically. We were in a prayer group together. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in joining us.”
“Excuse me?”
“Never mind.” She gestured to her associate, a handsome silent man with the aquiline features of an Arab or North African. “This is Nabil Saad, an intern seconded to my office by the World Bank.”
Evidently the senator commanded a more senior staff than a mere congressman. “I had the impression you wanted to speak to me about something urgent.”
“That is correct. Hutchings and I were to have worked together on a Conference Committee. I don’t suppose you know anything about this.”
“Not a thing.”
Little worry lines invaded her polished image, creasing out from her mouth in rays of subsurface strain. “This is not good. The committee is a joint House-Senate group intended to reconcile two conflicting versions of the same legislation. There is a big appropriations bill coming up, very critical to both sides, over a thousand pages to cover.”
Wynn sensed the room’s tension converging about him. Two pairs of eyes, one feminine and Western, one dark and very Arab, carefully measured his reaction. Trilling went on, “One of the issues we intend to cover is known as the Jubilee Amendment.”
“Right.” So this was more of the same. Everybody probing, looking for the deal. Making sure he was bought and paid for. “Of course.”
“You’ve heard of it, then.”
“All I know is, a lot of people want to see this thing dead and gone.” Wynn rose to his feet. “Whoever appears next on your list, tell them I’ve already gotten the message.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Oh, I think you do. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a lifetime of catch-up waiting back at the office.”
Trilling did not rise so much as uncoil, her lips pursed so tightly now the creases ran up both sides of her nose. “Quite frankly, Congressman, I find your manner disappointing. This is a critical issue.”
“Aren’t they all.”
“Don’t you even want to know where we stand?”
“Couldn’t care less.”
She moved swiftly, blocked the door with her body, and hissed, “I don’t know who you think you are, mister, but a warning to the wise. I’ve dined on upstart freshman from both chambers for years.�
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Wynn jerked on the doorknob, giving her a choice to move out of the way or be knocked flat. He said in parting, “I’ve always despised politicians who’ve grown slick as bazaar salesmen.”
“I’ll make sure you regret your attitude and your words both.”
“Not near as much,” Wynn replied, already crossing the outer office, “as I regret being here at all.”
WYNN REENTERED THE SUNLIGHT, still smoldering. He searched his pockets and pulled out his cellphone, then grew angrier still at how natural the action was. He had not used one since his wife died, not since the sale of his company, not since his last day in court. All three soul-wrenching blows had come in the same month, and in that order.
He and Dianne had been filing the separation papers when she was taken ill. Wynn had returned home and played the dedicated husband for eleven grueling months. Esther Hutchings, Dianne’s closest friend, had been one of the few who had not approved of his actions. Of course, nothing Wynn could do would ever have been proper in Esther’s eyes. She had loathed him with undisguised bitterness, and at Dianne’s funeral had publicly accused him of causing his wife’s death. Two weeks after the funeral, Jackson Taylor had finally made a firm offer for Wynn’s company. Wynn had never thought making money could be so hard, never understood all the warnings about the price of success. Not until the day he had signed the documents, then turned up in court to hear his attorneys announce they were dropping all charges. Wynn had found himself wishing there were some way to shout his denial. He had walked away from the courtroom a free and solitary man, with utterly nothing to fill his days or his soul’s gaping wounds. Swearing then and there he would never care so much for anything ever again.
“Congressman Bryant’s office.”
“It’s me. Wynn.” He stepped back into the shadows of the Senate office building. “Who in our office is handling this Jubilee Amendment?”
Drummer In the Dark Page 4
