She blinked at him once more before the blacks of her pupils consumed the deep blue of her irises, and her eyes looked through him and beyond him and out toward the endless sea.
20
Georgetown, Washington D. C.
Tuesday, August 19
ANEILA KNOCKED ON the front door of a white rowhouse in Georgetown. From inside, a full-throated tenor urged her to, “Enter!” She decided not to go where fools fear to tread, and instead waited patiently, facing the closed door and the brass knocker placed just above eye level.
Some movement from within. Impatient rustling. Disgruntled mumbling. Stillness. She dropped her eyesight, searching the threshold for signs of an approaching shadow. None came. Either the guy was lazy or stubborn. Or both. Determined not to walk in on someone she didn’t know by sight, she waited. Patiently, at first. Then impatiently.
Even if he was the one to reach out to her, mentioning a mutual friend of theirs who wanted them to connect, Rupert Miller was a hard guy to get ahold of. It had taken several voicemails and text messages before he invited her over. His address was near the university, one of those classic rowhouses with an upstairs, downstairs, and converted garden apartment below.
After giving the occupant enough time to make himself presentable, she finally heard footsteps lumbering across the floor. The same tenor voice shouted out. “Yeah ... come on in ... door’s always open ... I won’t bite.” She reached for the doorknob.
The door pulled away from her and swung open with a loud bang against the vestibule wall. Before her stood a tall and lanky guy, sleepy-eyed, wearing a white T and baggy pants, his skin the color of whiskey. His African-American heritage was plain on his face along with the long limbs and lean body of his ancestors, made for running distances over open terrain. It was easy to imagine him soaring over sky-domed miles, spear in hand, barely breaking a sweat.
“Well, hello. So you’re Aneila.” Clearly appreciating the looks of his visitor, he nudged his head towards the adjacent parlor, where a quartette of roommates shared takeout pizza in front of a plasma wall screen, drinking beer, smoking weed, and zoning out. “If you’re worried about being alone with me, just ask my friends. They can vouch for me.”
“Vouch that you’re an asshole?” Her snideness took him by surprise. When the shock wore off, he honked with laughter, shaking his head, appreciating her gall but still insulted. She glared at him, making sure he understood she wasn’t terribly amused. Or impressed. Put in his place, he smirked with humor, shook his head, and nudged his head for her to come along.
He led her upstairs to his room. With a flurry of energy, he made a space for her on the bottom bunk, tossed laundry into a far corner, cleared away more of his junk, and finally took a seat at the corner student desk, swivel chair squealing beneath his weight, legs spread forward.
Tepidly she lowered herself onto the bunk bed, then made herself comfortable in the cramped quarters of a stranger, Jack’s trust in him be damned. The logical side of her brain told her she shouldn’t be worried. The emotional side told her she had every reason to be scared. She was entering new territory. Spying on her government, however well-intentioned her motives, was daft. Reckless. Ill-conceived. She had already made a thousand-and-one excuses against doing it, yet still went forward, a blind woman feeling her way in a spooky landscape filled with bogeymen. She lost sleep over it. Obsessively checked the lock of her apartment door. Trained binoculars down on the street. Drove alternate routes to work, but once settled at her desk, snooped into areas of the Firm far outside her official list of duties. While there were reasonable justifications to forge down this treacherous road, it didn’t explain everything. She wasn’t just helping Jack. Or feeding carefully filtered information back to her superiors. She was protecting her backside, slender as it was. If Milly had been killed and Jack was the prime suspect, she had to be a target too.
Sitting in a strange man’s room in the middle of the day was the least of her worries. Rupert didn’t look all that dangerous. In fact, almost harmless. He was leaning lazily back, his chair squeaking in response to his every tic and yawn. His hands were joined in a contemplative steeple. His drooling eyes gave her the onceover. And twice-over. A good-looking dude making a play for her wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to her.
“Did Jack tell you anything about me?” she asked. “Other than us being friends?”
He searched his memory before shaking his head. “Only to watch out for you.” Suggestiveness filled his voice, as if she and Jack had something going, which she had to admit they sort of did, even if there was no chance in hell of anything coming of it.
Even though it was steamy outside and sticky inside, she wore one of her classic cardigans over slacks and tank top, hair gathered into a clip off her neck. She flattened her hands onto the mattress, bolstering herself into an erect posture that allowed her to study Rupert from a safe enough distance while registering the distance to the door, the position of the knob, and the brass key fitted into an old-fashioned keyhole.
“Looks like our mutual friend attracts only the prettiest of co-conspirators, huh?” He laughed at his lame joke. She made him uncomfortable instead of the other way around, a new experience for her. “Have you seen him? Is he okay?”
It was hotter in the room than a thermostat would have registered. She paused to think about her response. “As best as can be expected.” She purposely kept her answer neutral. There was no reason for him to know she’d flown down to the Caymans.
“You worked with him, right? For the government? Must be a hacker. Like him. Like me.”
“Data analyst.”
“Sure. We’re all data analysts.” He chortled at his own humor. “Are you helping him out because you worked with him? Or because you have something going with him?”
“Everyone at HID worked with him. I’m no different.”
“Some other reason maybe.” His stare was unnerving. “Like maybe you’re in trouble, too.”
“Why did you help him?”
He slanted his head and thought about it. “He was in a jam. And I’m a bleeding heart. Like you. Or maybe you’re just a sucker for pretty faces.” His meaning was clear, his eyes intense. He wasn’t just looking at her. He was looking through her.
“He needs help.”
“Seems like the kind of guy who lands on his feet. Like me. Like you. We’re survivalists.”
“He’s out there on his own.”
“Like I said. Like me. Like you.”
“They want him dead.”
This hit a nerve. He nodded slowly. Once. And then a second time. “And we’re the only ones who can help him?”
“He doesn’t have many friends.”
“And you think me and you together can make a difference, be a team, something like that.” He chewed over the idea, wondering if he should get any more involved than he already was. “I’m no hero.”
“I’m being watched.” Even though she had never glimpsed a scary character or heard an ominous click on her phone or noticed a dark shadow stalking her, she sensed the presence of danger and the chill of menace, like a snake slithering in the grass. “Followed.”
He shifted his head and pointed a finger at the floor beneath his feet. “Here?”
She shook her head. “I made sure of that.”
The shadow of a smile crept up on his lips, followed by halting laughter. His head shook at the utter madness. And it was mad. He eyed at her with respect, practically in awe of her, possibly afraid of having her here. Then his expression lifted. The challenge fascinated him. It drew him in. If she was game, so was he.
He sprang to his feet. “What can I get you? A beer? Or ... I bet you’re hungry.” And off he went, his feet tapping out a rhythm down the stairs.
After they lunched off paper plates, their meals washed down with chilled beer, casual banter, and sexual signals coming from him but artfully deflected by her, they got down to business, setting out a plan to help Jack whereve
r and whenever they could. Rupert came up with a few tricks to trace the money to the source and track it back out to the players who pocketed the change. If he found anything, he would pass it on to Jack, who would scream and holler and protest for them getting more involved than they already were. He could lump it, for all they cared. They made a pact. This was just the beginning of a friendship forged out of conspiracies and contrivances and the hubris of amateurs entering the murky realm of espionage.
Done with their initial plotting, they joined his friends. Most had wandered outside, sunning themselves under the afternoon sun while gabbing and trading quips. Unlike many of the rowhouses, theirs had a centralized courtyard, ideal for picnics, midnight celebrations, or witches’ covens under the full moon.
A guy with sandy hair and a crooked smile introduced himself to Aneila, mentioning he lived down the street and took summer classes with Rupert. The tails of his plaid shirt hung over an army-olive t-shirt and baggy knee-length khakis. He idly scratched the sparse reddish beard glittering over his chin and neck. His sharp eyes were constantly roving while he fielded stray remarks and shot back retorts that drew guffaws and grumbles.
Rupert came over, slung his arm over his friend’s shoulder, and proclaimed, “Ray’s a good guy. None better. Works part-time as a contractor with a securities firm.”
Shrugging, Ray remarked, “Helps pay tuition.”
“Must be government work,” Aneila said.
“They tell me it’s for the Department of Education. But they’re lying, just like they all do. Most of them wouldn’t know the truth if it bumped into them on a sunny day.” He winked, brandished his beer bottle in a mock toast, and drank. After having his fill, he said, “Don’t tell anybody, but it’s CIA.”
She learned long ago that guys brag and girls flirt. She was one of the outliers, even if she probably transmitted suggestive signals just from her shyness. When a guy found out she was both brainy and intuitive, they ran for the hills and never looked back.
Ray swung his face around and sent her a winning grin. “What say you and me go out together sometime? Share a few drinks, have a few laughs.”
“I’m sort of seeing someone.”
“Shame. Well ... catch you next time.” He winked and moved off, promptly striking up a conversation with a cute co-ed.
21
Republic of Nauru, Micronesia
Tuesday, August 19
DEAD CALM.
In his mind, he is strong and invincible. He is wading through sudsy waves sluicing across clean white sands. He is alone on a beach. He is stretching his arms toward the bluest of skies. He is embracing life. He lies down on wet sand and allows the waters to wash over him. He is bronzed and trim and toned. He wants for nothing.
His first sensation of awareness is a gentle rocking motion. Time goes by like a distant dream ... until he feels the first twinges of pain ... miniscule at first ... then with increasing discomfort. With each breath and each flickering of awareness, the level of pain intensifies. He tries to will it away. When he can’t, he decides to embrace it. If he embraces it, it means he is still alive.
After making this conscious decision, he crosses an invisible line from one side to the other, from where to where he does not know. He is still unaware of what is going on around him. It is a defense mechanism to keep reality at bay.
The promise of youth is immortality. The reality of maturity is acceptance. He is a man after all. A fallible man. A man who came into this world wailing for deliverance and was bound to leave it the same way. A man who loves women but has already sent too many to their graves. And a man of his people, a proud descendant of the Chiracahua Apaches who lived in the mountains and deserts of the great American Southwest for time immemorial, until history caught up to them and marked them for extinction.
If he’s still in pain, he is too out of it to notice anymore. Or care. Instead, he is floating on a cloud, nothing above him but sky, nothing below him but earth. He is back home at the ranch. His aunt and uncle are sitting on the porch. They watch him as he rides his horse, hooting and hollering at the sheer joy of being in command of the poundage and stubbornness of the paint he calls Vegas. There are chores enough, but for now he is making Aunt Jacci laugh. It is good to hear her laugh. Her laughter is a melody that rises and falls in lyrical joy. It is also good to show off and laugh with her. He will stay here, in the only boyhood home where he was happy. No one can harm him here. Or taunt him. Or threaten him with a knife or a pistol or a fist.
The fist belonged to his father, a white-knuckled fist used to threaten but never to strike. For punishment, Jake Finlay used the palms of his workman hands, calloused to a hardened vibrancy that stung and often left bruises.
His first tangible sensation is the rim of a glass being pressed to his lips followed by a bitter taste. Beer. It must be a dream, he decides. He drifts back to the past. It’s safer there.
A voice compels him to wake up. An insistent voice. Baritone and growling like his father’s voice, but unlike his father, also reassuring. Cool water splashes onto his face. Insistent fingers press into his flesh. A strong arm props him up by the shoulders. The cries of seagulls fill the air. The voice returns, barking like a dog, ordering him to snap out of it. He doesn’t want to wake up. He lets the voice drift away to where it belongs, somewhere in the depths of hell. The cup is pressed to his lips once more. Beer stings his mouth. He coughs. Without warning he is sitting up and vomiting all over the teak deck.
Captain Ken stood, towering over him and blocking out the last rays of day. “Come. We have things to do.”
Jack peered at the skipper of the Annabel Lee. “Thought you were dead.” His voice was not his own. It was gravelly and sore, but it worked.
“As you see, I am not.” He nodded to a form lying on the deck and covered with a blanket. “But she is.”
Fear is unproductive. Fear cannot be traded for currency. Fear cannot protect you. Unless a tiger is growling at the door, fear is a waste of energy. Usually there is no tiger. Jack experienced fear uncountable times, usually when there was nothing to fear but foul-smelling winds and ghosts from the past. Because he could not change the past, he learned to dismiss the fear. But it was always there, lingering in the lizard part of his brain. He should not have channeled the fear away. He could have used it today. When he should have feared, it was not there to warn him. And for a third time, the tiger ripped open the door and left the mark of its claws on a woman of beauty.
Captain Ken nodded toward the pistol, positioned a hand’s grasp away from Jack. “Better wipe that down. Bastard tried to frame you for that poor lady’s murder.” Showing his contempt, he hurled spit onto the deck.
Jack crawled over to the body of Madelyn Gibbons and peered beneath her death shroud. Her lovely eyes were open to the citrus sky. Open but blind. He closed them with the edge of his palm. Nothing could hurt her anymore. It is the gentle people who go to their graves too early.
22
San José, Costa Rica
Tuesday, August 19
“MY DAUGHTER IS beautiful, no?” said the old man.
“Your daughter is beautiful, sí,” said the old man’s guest.
Luis Oliverios saw his daughter through a father’s loving eyes, a father who spawned his youngest child well past his prime, this his final offering to immortality. “A rare beauty is my Casta, my Catelina.”
In the opinion of Calhoun Walsh also known as Greg Wynton also known as Diavolo Bianco, an assassin-for-hire whose services went to the highest bidder, she was not a rare beauty but pretty enough. Shiny hair swept across almond-shaped eyelids before dripping past cocoa shoulders and settling just above the ripe peaches of her breasts, covered by a bare-backed dress held up by two thin straps. She was sugar candy begging to be licked.
The old man had invited him to his hacienda after dropping by a café in the village and sharing a drink ... or possibly two or three ... since it was difficult to keep track of such details amidst th
e raucous din, the heat, and the bugs. He took a liking to the strapping young Americano who appeared to be a man of means, demonstrated by reports of him doling out colones in exchange for fawning service and village secrets.
His voice roughened by advancing years, generous quantities of tequila, and fat cigars, Oliverios asked, “You left a wife back in the States?” He lived virtually alone on his coffee plantation. His third and final wife, it was said, succumbed of loneliness and dengue fever, but really of a broken heart from the inattentions of her husband, who preferred being with the town’s whores.
Greg chose not to answer the old man’s question, instead admiring Casta’s skimpy sundress that made the most of her slim body and wide hips. As she delivered platters of steaks swimming in blood and vegetables basking in steam, she stole shy glances at her father’s dinner guest.
Set high in the foothills of Heredia, the multileveled house was a feat of engineering, yielding panoramic vistas from every window. The formal dining room opened to a screened veranda. Beyond the veranda, a wooden-planked bridge spanned a water-lily pond stocked with goldfish. From there, a rambling lawn dropped off into an emerald jungle teeming with parrots, monkeys, iguanas, crocodiles, and one could only hope, the elusive quetzals of legend. An orchestral nocturne of birds and insects accompanied the tropical setting.
“Perhaps she is beautiful, perhaps she is ugly. Who’s to say?” The old man rocked his hand back and forth, the showy diamond on his index finger trapping sparkles of fading sunlight. “I see her through the eyes of a doting father.”
Luis Oliverios must have gotten wind of the strapping American from whispers. The invitation to dine at the Oliverios hacienda had come within minutes of their initial handshake. “I have a daughter to marry off. She’s ugly but lonely. You’ll come to dinner.” Having already received a rundown of the wealthiest man in town, a patrón who rode roughshod over his coffee fields but spoiled his comely ... and not ugly ... daughter, Greg instantly accepted the invitation.
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