by Tom Clancy
Gordian nodded, smiling a little.
“I remember,” he said. “You’ve never been shy about your opinions.”
Julia gave him smile of her own.
“Or you about your opinion of my opinions,” she said. “I can still see the annoyed look on your face. And hear you explaining that the name was a sort of play on words. That it referred to the legend of the Gordian knot, and how Alexander the Great was supposed to have solved the problem of untwisting it with one swift hack of his sword, and how that perfectly described the approach your people would take to solving problems. Realistic, direct, practical, determined . . . those were the exact words you used.”
Gordian looked straight into her eyes.
“We don’t forget much,” he said.
“No,” Julia said. “We hardly forget anything.”
Gordian nodded, and for a while the only sound was the rattling of rain on the windows.
“If your point is that the actions Ricci took are somehow in keeping with the premise behind Sword’s formation, I don’t think I’m able to bite,” he said then. “It’s based on taking that premise to a reckless extreme. And it’s judging those actions by results that could very well have been calamitously different.”
“That’s what I keep hearing, but where’s the proof?” Julia said. “Think about it a minute, Dad. Somebody infects you with a germ hatched in a lab, almost kills you. A year later this head case has me kidnapped. And then another psychopath with a mission tries to wipe out New York. What situations could be more extreme? How do you deal with any of them without taking risks? Tom Ricci’s always been ready and he’s come up a major stud every time.”
Gordian looked at her again. “A major stud?”
“Blame them.” Julia nodded at the dogs. “You live in a house full of animals, you start thinking in animalistic terms.”
Gordian’s brow had crinkled with amusement.
“If you say so,” he said.
They spent a few minutes quietly drinking their hot chocolates. Then, his cup emptied, Gordian pushed it slightly to the side, leaned forward, and massaged the back of his neck.
“You make a better case for Ricci than I could,” he said. “Unfortunately his attitude doesn’t help. Because of him UpLink’s under pressure from all sides, and from what I hear he’s dropped out of contact. If he wants trust, he’s got to show some. In somebody. How can Megan and Pete go to the mat for him, buy him a chance, when he won’t give himself one?”
Julia considered that and realized she didn’t have an answer. She sighed, finished her own drink, and glanced at the clock on the wall.
“It’s after midnight,” she said, and stretched. “Suppose the dogs ought to be getting in their Z’s.”
Gordian nodded.
“A little sleep wouldn’t hurt us, either,” he said.
A moment later Julia rose, pushed in her chair, and gathered their cups and spoons onto a tray. She was carrying it between three wet, sniffing black noses toward the sink when she turned back to face her father.
“Do we do anything for him?” she said.
Gordian looked at her from the table, smiled gently.
“We’re thinking about it,” he said.
LOS RAYOS DEL SOL, TERRITORIAL TRINIDAD
Pete Nimec hadn’t been able to fall asleep and that puzzled him. It should have been easy, he thought. Certainly easier than staying awake. He ought to be dead tired after everything he’d done in the past forty-eight hours or thereabouts, starting with having to pick up his mother-in-law at the airport, then practically turning right back around in the car with Annie to catch their flight to the Caribbean, followed by the trip itself, and the dinner invite by Henri Beauchart that had barely given them time to settle into their villa before drawing them out again. And all that rushing only accounted for last night, the first they’d spent here at Los Rayos. Up with the sun today, Nimec and Annie had climbed onto a pair of silver Vespas they’d discovered along with a Mustang soft-top in their villa’s attached garage—the transportation provided without fanfare by their hosts—and then zipped off to see about getting him signed up for kiteboarding instruction at a beachfront water sports shop Annie had highlighted in her resort guide.
The shop owner was a jaunty bronze-skinned titan from Australia named Blake. As advertised, he offered a beginner’s course and a full assortment of gear rentals. Prominent on the wall behind his counter was a certificate that declared him an “official skyriding instructor” but failed to particularly impress or encourage Nimec. How, he’d wondered, did somebody become an official skyrider, instructor or otherwise? What standards were applied to earning a cert? And by whom?
Nimec hadn’t had the foggiest notion. On the other hand, Blake was enthusiastic enough and seemed to know his stuff. And Annie was determined to get Nimec airborne. Urged on by her along their way to the beach, he’d acquiesced to possibly scheduling a session toward the middle of the week, but as it developed Blake was booked solid—except for a slot which had opened that morning due to a sudden cancellation.
Not quite feeling ready, Nimec had started to decline.
Before he could, Annie accepted on his behalf.
Minutes later, Nimec had been rushed into a dressing room and suited up in a board shirt and shorts, water booties, a buoyancy vest, and an impact helmet with a molded foam liner that made it hard for him to hear his own grumbled complaints. A couple of hours and several dry runs over the sand after that, he was floating on his back in the warm ocean shallows with a harness around him, his feet in the straps of a plane board, and his hands on the control bar of the rig that connected him to a bright red-and-white foil hovering in the air overhead. And then the kite had scooped wind, and Nimec had been pulled to his feet by the tautened lines, and the next thing he’d known he was airborne, swept into an updraft, looking some fifteen or twenty feet down at Blake the Bronze astride the jet ski they’d ridden from shore.
Blake had shouted a few words from below and behind him that sounded like: “You’re blowing away!”
Asked about it when their session was over, however, he had only recalled praising Nimec for “doing great.”
Whatever he’d said, it had proven to be a lasting thrill for Nimec. Between the six or seven dunks he took—each of which had brought Blake to his rescue on the fleet little jet ski—he had spent about half an hour soaring above the flat blue water in defiance of gravity. Nimec would remember his periods of flight seeming longer, and the heights he’d reached feeling higher, than they actually were. He would remember having an incredible, dizzying sense of mental and physical lightness. Perhaps most of all, he would remember looking back toward Annie on the beach, where she had stood watching him ride the wind, repeatedly raising her arms high above her head to wave from the edge of the lapping surf. Though he hadn’t been able to see her face from his distance, Nimec had known she was smiling at him, felt her smiling at him, and taken an undeclarably boyish pride in having evoked that smile.
Back at the villa that afternoon they’d decided to scrub up, change their clothes, and then grab some lunch at a restaurant. As Annie prepared to run her shower, Nimec had found himself looking quietly out a large bay window at the exotic flowers planted one story down in the courtyard, cruising along in a carefree and contented mood that had seemed almost foreign to him.
“You know,” she’d said, poking her head through the half-open bathroom door, “that seat in the shower stall makes kind of a handy perch.”
Nimec had turned to look at her, noticed the swimsuit she’d worn to the beach dangling from a hook on the door. Then he’d noticed that faint sort of blush she would get above her cheekbones.
“Handy,” he’d repeated.
Annie nodded.
“Bet it would be sturdy enough for two,” she’d said. “The shower seat, I mean.”
Nimec had looked at her.
“I know what you mean, Annie,” he’d said. “And I’m getting lots of ideas.”
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The color on her cheeks had spread and deepened.
“Me too,” she’d said. “Want to try some of them out together?”
Nimec had nodded that he did, and pulled shut the louvers, and they had spent a long, leisurely while trying out quite a few of their ideas, and coming up with some new ones besides, before finally driving off for a much heartier meal than either had anticipated.
Now, at half past eleven that night, Nimec was in the chair by the bedroom window again, his robe belted around him, wondering what had happened to the blissful guy with his face who’d sat in that spot not too many hours earlier. He’d tried referencing the various thoughts and events that had brought about his calmly untroubled state of mind, but they hadn’t helped him settle back into it. And, most irritatingly, he just couldn’t get any shut-eye.
Filled with tension, Nimec had briefly considered a stroll through the villa’s sculpted gardens, then decided against it—walking without a clear sense of purpose and destination never relaxed him. He thought about taking a swim in the big tiled pool across the grounds, but bumped the notion for similar reasons. The reality was he felt derelict. A splash under the full moon would only compound that feeling and frustrate him with more self-disapproval.
Nimec shifted restlessly, thinking he could use something to help him unwind. Roaming about downstairs yesterday on a minor expedition of discovery, he’d stumbled upon what he supposed was called an entertainment room, with a high-def flat-screen television and a wet bar. The bar had a refrigerator that he’d found stocked with beer, wine, and soft drinks. A beer would go down nicely, he concluded. If all the amenities went to type, there might be satellite TV feeds from the States. The difference in time zones between Trinidad and California made catching a West Coast baseball game a distinct possibility . . . some late innings, at least. Maybe the Mariners were pounding Oakland tonight. Or better yet, Anaheim. Though, given the injuries they always got from plowing into bases, walls, and opposing players like fools, Nimec figured it might be best leaving the Angels alone to pound on themselves.
He stood in the darknened room, turned from the window, and carried his chair over to the little table nook from which he’d taken it. Then, as he was starting toward the door, he saw Annie sitting up in bed.
Nimec looked at her with mild surprise in the moonlight coming through the parted blinds.
“Didn’t know you were awake,” he said.
She shrugged, leaning against a mound of pillows, her shoulders bare, the covers pulled just above her breasts.
“I haven’t been for very long,” she said in a quiet voice. “You?”
“Awhile,” he said.
Annie was watching him.
“I kind of guessed,” she said. “Can you tell me why?”
Nimec hesitated, produced a breath.
“You know,” he said.
“Work,” she said.
He nodded.
“I’ve been having a great time here, enjoying every minute of it,” he said. And paused. “I love you, Annie.”
She watched him another moment and suddenly chuckled.
“Something funny?” he said.
“Remembering our shower this afternoon,” she said, “I was left with the distinct impression that you might like me some.”
Nimec massaged his chin, feeling a little stupid.
“Is it still Ricci?” Annie said.
“No,” he said. “I promised myself I’d put that away for a while, and I did.”
“So it’s about Megan’s tipster.”
He nodded.
“I’m supposed to be finding out about it,” he said. “And I feel I’m losing time.”
Annie was silent.
“What is it you want to do?” she said.
Nimec rubbed his chin thoughtfully again.
“I want to head over to that main shipping harbor we passed on the way in from the airport,” he said. “And I want to have a look around.”
Annie was silent again, her eyes steady on him. “Go,” she said. “Do what you have to.”
Nimec stood there near the foot of the bed for perhaps a full minute.
“You sure you’re okay with me leaving?” he said at last.
Annie looked at him from where she sat against the headboard, then gave him the slowest of nods.
“As long as you always make sure to come back,” she said.
Out in the garage, Nimec opened the front door of his Mustang loaner, but stopped himself before climbing inside. He’d recalled something Beauchart had told him over their dishes of curry duck and roti at the previous night’s dinner reception.
A thin, hatchet-faced man with a broad expanse of forehead and smoothly combed gray hair, the onetime GIGN chief had, as advance-billed, matched Nimec’s fondness for vintage cars and shown a keen interest in discussing them. He’d also been quick to talk shop about how the expensive vehicles in his fleet were adapted for extreme high security usage.
“The Jankel Rolls you sent to pick us up almost had me fooled,” Nimec had said. “I wouldn’t have known it was armored except for the weight of its door. Then I noticed the flashers, and the extra buttons on the rear consoles, and those speaker covers for the P.A. And I guessed it had a full package.”
Beauchart had nodded.
“For me, retrofitting the older model passenger cars is an enjoyable challenge,” he’d said. “As an enthusiast I don’t want to compromise their luxury and style. Even so, I insist they meet or surpass NATO Level Seven standards of protection.”
“Hard to improve on armor that can stop AP rounds and take the brunt of a mine or grenade blast.”
Again Beauchart had nodded.
“I admit to being a compulsive tinkerer,” he’d said.
“All the work is done at our own armoring plant on the mainland. And with an open-ended budget, which is far too great a temptation.” Beauchart had smiled. “The first question I’ll ask myself about a vehicle is,
‘Would I be at ease having a Forbes Top Ten business leader ride in it?’ Then I ask, ‘What about the American president?’ Last, I ask, ‘What about the bloody pope?’ ” Beauchart’s smile had grown wider. “If there’s any hedging in my mind, I’ll order added upgrades that cost a small fortune . . . and will be unnoticeable to the casual eye.”
He had eagerly compared notes about specific shielding materials, and Nimec had found his preferences not unlike UpLink’s standard high-sec configuration, a multilayered system of ballistic laminate inserts and flexible nylon floor armor, coupled with steel panels and anti-explosive engine, radiator, and fuel tank wraps. Beauchart had also gone on to mention loading his VIP sedans with options such as automatic fire controls, run-flat tires, hidden ram bumpers . . . and real-time satellite tracking units with remote door lock and ignition disconnects.
Now Nimec couldn’t help but look at the Mustang and wonder. A sports convertible was too light to be armored without having its balance thrown dangerously out of whack. But there wasn’t much of a trick to putting in GPS acquisition hardware its driver couldn’t see. Assuming for a moment that was somebody’s goal. Even if it was just hidden for aesthetic reasons.
Was he too suspicious? Could be, he decided. But what was the harm in playing it safe?
Nimec turned to the Vespa. Less likely that it would have a built-in tracking device. The object of installing one on this island would not be to locate a stolen vehicle, which couldn’t go further than the island’s shores without being loaded onto a boat, but to get a bead on a person who’d been snatched when driving or getting into or out of it. In the case of a grab taking place while somebody was out with the little scooter, the abductor would want to ditch it as fast as he could and then make a getaway with his victim, eliminating any use in having a tracker aboard.
Or so Nimec figured his good hosts would figure. Unless, of course, their goal was to keep tabs specifically on him, which would leave his feet as his only safe mode of transportation. Except that the h
arbor was miles away . . . twenty or thirty miles, he guessed.
A bit much for that midnight stroll of his.
Nimec sighed. In the absence of any other ideas, it looked like the scooter was his best bet.
He got on, pressed its electric starter, and sped from the villa’s grounds into the tropical night.
Just under two hours later Nimec was looking out at the harbor with a pair of high-magnification Gen 4 night vision binocs, the Vespa leaning on its kickstand where he’d stopped it in the roadside darkness. He had been wishing that nothing out of the ordinary would turn up. When you saw a single unusual sighting or occurrence, it was often a strong hint that other oddball things were happening out of sight—once these affairs got going, there hardly ever seemed to be a simple explanation. The further you went beneath the surface, the more you seemed to find that begged closer inspection. And like bugs and rodents lurking under the floorboards, they tended to be the sort of discoveries you would rather not have made.
Right now Nimec wasn’t optimistic about tonight’s foray being an exception to that unhappy rule. When he thought about it, though, it had really started with those e-mail messages to Megan. He’d viewed Rayos del Sol with a probing eye from the moment of his arrival yesterday, already one layer deep into a mystery. What he was doing here at the waterfront was just following through. Burrowing down to the next level, you might say.
From the little he’d seen thus far, Nimec got the sense he might be in for some nasty business.
He stood in the shadows amid a grove of tall royal palms and gazed steadily through the lenses of his binoculars. They represented five thousand dollars’ worth of sophisticated viewing power, their filmless, auto-gated electron plates channeling and amplifying the ambient light through thousands of fiberoptic tubes to give their image greater clarity than any previous generation of night vision device had afforded . . . and there was plenty of light available, between what was emanating from the harbor’s terminals and berthing areas and the full moon and stars shimmering in the sky.
