“And I reiterate: I can take care of myself.”
Keep thinking that.
Max wasn’t fucking around anymore. In addition to his silenced Glock 21 beneath his sport jacket, he wore a .22 long rifle holstered at his ankle and a combat knife clipped at the small of his back.
They walked to the open door. Baptiste expected Heat, so Max allowed her to enter before he filled the doorway behind her.
His presence erased the gleaming smile from the cop’s face. Baptiste reached a hand beneath his jacket, then Heat said something to him in French that made him retract it. He smiled at Heat as he moved forward to greet her, but his dark-green eyes kept jumping back to Max.
They stood in an employee break room, the right-hand wall lined with lockers, a time clock in the far corner next to another door, a couple of round tables littered with crumbs and smeared with a variety of food stains.
Max got his first look at the map curator, a white man who wore a white linen suit, a panama hat, and a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles. Pudgy, slightly stooped, and well into his fifties, he looked the part of a professional civil servant. Seems harmless enough. The curator flinched slightly in surprise when he saw Max, his glance lasting barely an instant.
Baptiste said something in French to Heat, who responded in kind. Max recognized the word Anglais but nothing more.
“Of course,” Baptiste responded. His light French accent lent his English a musical lilt.
“Inspector, this is Michael Adams,” Heat said. “You were to meet him at ten o’clock.”
“Ah yes... I was unaware you knew each other.” The look in his eyes told Max he spoke truly and that he did not approve of this surprise. Baptiste moved forward and offered his hand.
Max shook reluctantly, a perfunctory gesture on both parts.
Baptiste introduced the curator as Louis, no surname for the obvious reasons. Louis spoke with a far soupier French accent that Max had trouble comprehending. On the grimy table before them lay a capped tube of leather roughly three feet long, presumably a map case.
Max cut the pleasantries short. “Let’s see the maps.”
“Tout de suite, Monsieur Adams,” Louis responded, unbuckling the leather clasp on the map case.
“Not so fast,” Baptiste said. “I will need to see your money first.”
“How much would you like to see?” Max asked.
Baptiste glanced dreamily at the ceiling for a moment, then said, “How much do you have?”
Max shook his head. “I’m not playing this game. How much?”
Baptiste stared at Max with a dead neutral expression. “Five thousand American dollars.”
Max reached slowly into his trouser pocket and extracted a full stack of hundreds, ten thousand dollars. You should have asked for more. He flashed the bills at Baptiste before palming them. “Now can we get on with it already?”
“Oh certainly,” Baptiste said with a smile of obvious contempt.
Max envisioned him in the chair. I’d kill you just for fun. His assessment of the man rang true—Max’s well-seasoned nose detected authentic cop-on-the-take.
He’s suspicious of me too. But he wants that cash, probably all of it.
Before Max could further contemplate Baptiste and his motives, Louis pulled the maps free. Heat dusted off the table with her hands before he laid them out.
“What you requested, Monsieur Adams... Mademoiselle. Prepared six years ago by the Institut Géographique National using both aerial and satellite photography. As you can see, they are quite detailed.”
Max and Heat looked the maps over: five poster-sized sheets drawn at a scale of 1:25,000. A mere glance showed more islands on these maps than he had seen on Google Earth, particularly up the coast to the northwest. Some appeared large enough to hold a research facility and hunting club.
The maps looked pretty legit to Max.
“Hmm...” Heat examined the map covering the furthest portion of the southeast coast.
“What’s up?” Max asked.
“Is there a problem, mademoiselle?” Louis asked.
Heat didn’t respond. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her digital camera to compare the maps to her pics. After a few moments she asked, “Monsieur, care to explain this discrepancy? These photos, taken from A Modern Geographical Overview of French Guiana, show a sharp rise in ocean floor relief here.” She pointed to the edge of a picture at a patch of blue turning quickly to bluish white as the ocean depth decreased, indicating that an island might be on the next page, though she hadn’t been able to photograph it. The corresponding paper map showed no such bottom relief.
With a perplexed twist to his lips, Louis examined the camera photo and compared it to the paper map. “I could not say, mademoiselle, for as you can see there are no islands in that area. The Geographical Overview was published long ago—”
“Explain,” Max said. “Islands don’t just disappear.”
“There is no island,” Louis said. “The relief you see in your photos likely gives way to a reef or offshore hump, not an island.”
Heat glared at him. “I don’t see any bottom relief at all in that spot on your maps.”
“It... It could have been dredged up to provide a shipping channel.”
“The maps are accurate,” Baptiste sniped. “We have sold the same set to many relic hunters and have never received complaint.”
“Would you listen if they did?” Max turned back to Louis. “She asked a fair question. Now explain what happened to the bottom relief at that spot.”
Louis turned to Max and spread his hands in a placating gesture. “Monsieur Adams—” One of his sweeping hands brushed the map off the table. Perturbed at his clumsiness, Louis retrieved the fallen map, placed it back on the table. He wore no tie, and a gold chain with a cyclopean owl pendant slipped from his shirt when he’d bent over.
Max drew his Glock in a heartbeat and leveled it at the curator’s head. “Nice necklace. Where’d you get it?” He snatched the chain at Louis’ neck and yanked hard. The gold owl twinkled in his palm.
“Oh fuck,” Heat whispered.
Frightened and hyperventilating, Louis shot his hands into the air. A wet, greasy fart heralded him dumping his bowels in his white suit pants. “Monsieur Ahl—Adams, I—”
“Oh, you know my name too? I wonder how.”
Cleghorn. The wormy Agency fuck had known who he was and leaked it to Baptiste. Heat might have been destined to survive her meeting, but Max had been marked for death at his.
Max sensed Baptiste come from the right. He pivoted and swung his pistol, the silencer cracking Baptiste square across the cheek, opening a nasty laceration.
Baptiste stumbled a couple of steps to the side and fell.
“Shit!” Heat yelled.
Max turned. A suddenly composed Louis pointed a pocket pistol at her. Max shot him in the head just above the left ear. The bullet exited his skull on the other side in a blast of blood and gray matter that befouled the maps.
Then Max hit the floor, square on his back, and smacked his head on the tiles. Though dazed, he realized Baptiste had swept his feet out from under him. The bald inspector towered above him. As he straddled Max he began punching away. Max flailed with his right arm to bring his pistol up, but he must have dropped it when he’d fallen. The weight of Baptiste and his relentless blows made it impossible for Max to draw his combat knife. Baptiste drove his knee into Max’s groin, and the world exploded into twinkling, excruciating stars.
The sound of a single gunshot cracked off the walls of the small room. Screaming in sudden and utter agony, Baptiste fell forward onto Max, who grabbed Baptiste’s throat with his right hand and squeezed. Another gunshot—Heat stood over the two men holding a smoking pistol. Baptiste screamed even louder, trying to scramble away. Max rolled to his left and cast the flailing man
onto the floor. The reason for the inspector’s pain became quite evident—Heat had shot him in the back of both knees at point-blank range.
No one in this neighborhood was likely to care about the sounds of violence after dark, even gunshots. But Max had to put a stop to Baptiste’s wailing before he drew attention. He got to his knees, grabbed Baptiste by his bald head, and smashed it into the floor three times before he finally shut up.
Max turned to Heat. “Nice job, but I thought you fought with this.” He pointed to his head.
“Yeah, this?” She pointed to her head. “It told me to use this.” She raised Louis’ pistol, then tossed it at his corpse. She appeared remarkably composed, but her shaking hands told the true story.
Max picked up his pistol, stood, and considered the situation—one man dead, another unconscious and bleeding profusely. Will they be missed? That depended mostly on whether Baptiste was actually a cop. Max rifled his pockets, found a cell phone, badge, and police ID. Authentic-looking badges were easy to make; forging police IDs was not quite as simple, and Max spotted no discrepancies in the printing or lamination. The card had a magnetic strip on the back, and the recent-looking photo of smiling Baptiste had no obvious signs of tampering. The inspector’s police-standard 9mm Beretta had an armory number etched into the receiver.
“Is he really a cop?” Heat asked, dread in her voice.
“Looks like it, unfortunately. Let’s see what else he is.”
Baptiste groaned, so Max kicked him in the head and knocked him out cold. He then rolled up Baptiste’s left sleeve and found the cyclopean owl tattoo he’d expected. “Well imagine that.” Louis had a French government civil servant ID but no tattoo.
“Fuck,” Heat said, still shaken, “authentic and phony at the same time.”
“Yeah, but I think we know where to look now.”
“What about them?” she whispered. “The police will tear this country apart looking for one of their own.”
“And one day they might find him. We’ll be long gone by then.”
“Where will we take him? You’re not gonna kill him, are you?”
“The guy saw me kill someone, and I have no intention of spending my retirement in a French prison. Now turn around.”
“Max, don’t—”
More forcefully he reiterated, “Turn around or go outside. Either or.”
Heat turned her back and winced as Max worked his combat knife between Baptiste’s ribs, piercing the inspector’s heart.
“So what do we do now?” Heat asked as she paced the floor. “Shit, I got blood on my shoes.”
“Don’t sweat it. Stay here and man the fort. I’ll be back.”
“You must be fucking joking.”
“You wanted to tag along on this mission, so do what the fuck I say. I’ll get us out of this, but you have to trust me. Close the door and keep Louis’ pistol trained on it. Don’t touch anything else, and do not leave this room. I promise not to have any fun without you.”
Heat gave him a dubious glare.
Max went to the interior door. His head and balls began to ache as his adrenaline rush subsided. He grabbed a napkin from a dispenser next to the microwave oven and used it to turn the knob. In the next room, a spacious garage bay, he found Baptiste’s car. We’ll have to take care of that. He moved on into the marine supply shop, which as he’d suspected also performed light engine repairs. He gathered what he would need from the store—latex gloves, a pair of disposable coveralls, duct tape, nylon rope, plastic tarps, and a couple of sixty-pound anchors—before returning to the break room.
“Put these on.” He tossed a pair of latex gloves to Heat. “Now here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m gonna drag these bodies out and wrap them up. Meanwhile, you’ll take the hose from outside and blast this place from ceiling to floor and right out the door. All of this blood has to be washed away, and that’s the quickest way to do it.”
“Don’t you think the employees will notice tomorrow morning?”
Max shrugged. “They’re more likely to notice blood stains than a little water on the floor. They’ll probably think the roof leaked.”
“And after that?”
“The boys and I are gonna take a little cruise upriver in that fishing boat parked outside, while you take Baptiste’s car and park it.”
“You mean ditch it?”
“Not at all. I want you to park it in front of his house. Wear the coveralls and gloves when you drive. Make sure you don’t leave any blue hairs behind.”
“Why park it there?”
“It’ll confuse the cops for a little while.”
“Yeah, maybe for a day or two.”
“That’s all the time we need.”
She snorted. “Need a place to lie low too.”
“I think I can get us that. Now stop debating and start hosing. We have a long night ahead of us.”
7
After using the anchors to sink the bodies of Baptiste and Louis in the deepest river hole he could find on sonar, Max returned the boat. He and Heat then walked to Cleghorn’s apartment. He put his shoulder into the door and barged in without preamble, gun drawn, only to find that Cleghorn had fled, leaving behind a gay porno flick playing on the television.
Nice touch, asshole.
Max didn’t like the idea of leaving a loose end like Cleghorn, but he didn’t have much choice as the clock was now ticking. The cops would search for Baptiste and Louis when they failed to report to work. He and Heat had cleaned up after themselves pretty well, so the police would likely be baffled for a little while. But agents of the mysterious organization would be after them sooner.
Max called on Chester Weems. “I’ve decided to stay in country a bit longer, and I need an apartment. Can you help with that?”
“We do house citizens from time to time in our State Department condos,” Weems replied, as Max had hoped. “Mostly college kids who come down here to party and wind up getting mugged.”
“How much to rent one of those condos?”
“They are provided strictly free of charge, but only for those in need or on official business.”
Apparently wealthy Michael Adams didn’t qualify in either case. “Senator Pierce is a close, personal friend. I’d hate to tell her you were inhospitable while her son is missing.”
With Weems’ dawning realization, clout purchased what money couldn’t buy. Sweet guy that he was, Weems even threw in an automobile to boot.
Max’s thoughts returned to Cleghorn, a double agent without question. How did he know who I was? Could he have been one of Jarvis’s men? He’s definitely the sort of slimy fuck who wouldn’t think twice about killing women and children. Max would call Marklin upon their return and run Cleghorn’s name past him. Maybe he knows something regarding this Illuminati sect as well. Max didn’t expect much help with the latter, however. You might luck out anyway. Marklin is full of surprises.
Legitimately renting a yacht for the day would attract attention, so they visited a marina and walked the docks. Despite her arresting looks, Heat hadn’t been able to cajole any of the local skippers into renting their yachts out for the day, even for five thousand cash, about triple what they would earn for a fishing or diving charter. Max wound up making a deal with an American captain of a forty-two-foot Viking sportfishing yacht named Bite Me! The captain was, of course, reluctant to hand over a several-million-dollar boat left in his care, but five Gs changed his mind in a hurry. The rich owner back in the states, who’d bought the boat as a losing investment for tax purposes, would never learn of their transaction.
All the ingredients of a beautiful day—azure sky, cobalt sea, brilliant sunshine—conspired to convince Max that all was well as he piloted the yacht southeastward down the coast, running a few miles offshore. Though things hadn’t gone well the previous night, he thought their luck might be about to change
.
We’re still on the loose and closing in. Or so he hoped. The next couple of hours would be telling. In the meantime, he tried to relax, easy enough after his ordeal last night.
“I guess you really do know how to drive this thing,” Heat said from behind him as she stepped onto the bridge. She’d climbed the ladder while holding two bottles of Mexican beer with limes sticking out of them.
“’Bout time you brought me one of those,” Max teased.
Drinking her body with his eyes, he accepted the beer. She’d removed all of her piercings and died her hair jet black in order to appear less conspicuous. Now she wore a black two-piece string bikini, a lot of ink, and precious little else. He supposed she was too old to be considered nubile, but lithe summed her up perfectly. She sported at least two dozen tats, most gothic and morbid. I might have to count them out of sheer curiosity.
“Shouldn’t drink and drive, you know. The captain wouldn’t like it.”
Max laughed. “That dope fiend is lying on a bed in his dive apartment, off in another world.” He stuffed the lime into the bottle and drank. Never had a beer tasted so damn good.
“So how much farther?” Heat took the other chair on the bridge.
Max pointed through the windshield at a lengthy dark hump visible on the horizon. “Not very, maybe another five or six clicks.”
Heat stared at the island. “Looks sizeable enough. Whatever’s there, I hope to hell it’s what we’re looking for.”
Max nodded. “Same here.” He was tired of investigating, ready now to do what he did best. “We’ll shut off here and drift the rest of the way. The current should take us right by.”
“Little far away for that, don’t you think?”
“No. Bad enough we’re so visible out here on the open sea. If Wilde is on that island, his security measures might include marine radar and sensors to pick up heat signatures. Best we go in cold. Besides, we’re supposed to be fishing.”
“Gotcha.”
Max rigged up a couple fishing poles and cast them out to look the part. They sat and drank a while, the slap of low waves against the hull the only sounds.
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