by Tim Green
"You cannot see Jamir the way you are," the man said with a look of disgust.
He was of course referring to her elegant dress and her made-up face. Striker had informed her that this would certainly fluster whichever of Jamir's minions he sent to make contact with her. Striker told her it was important to treat anyone less than Jamir himself with disdain. That would ensure that they took her seriously and that they respected her.
"I know this," Jenny said. "I will change into something appropriate when the time comes."
"Are you ready now?" the man said as he rose from the table.
"No," Jenny said, her stomach fluttering. "I will eat first. Then I will join you."
Striker told her to have dinner and then go with the man. That was how he would do it, so that was how she should. Of course the man would not have minded at all sitting through dinner with Striker. He was a man. But for a devout Muslim to be expected to subject himself to the presence of a western whore was too much of an insult to bear.
"I will be waiting for you on the end of the seventh dock," the man said, then turned abruptly and walked away.
Jenny ordered and sat through a five-course dinner. She didn't do much more than pick at her food. She drank only water, despite her urge to gulp down some champagne. Striker had warned her to be stone-sober for her meeting with Jamir.
When the meal was over, Jenny went to her room and changed into a shapeless gray dress and a white veil that covered her head and all of her face except her eyes. As much as she hated to do it, she left the gun and its holster in her closet. Striker had insisted that to do otherwise would be a deadly mistake. She put the pit, still in its box, in her bag and slung it over her shoulder. She was almost out the door when she remembered to go back into the bathroom and wipe the mascara off of her eyes. That done, she went downstairs and outside to the docks. At the end of number seven, the tall turbaned man stood smoking a Camel. When he saw her, he pointedly looked at his watch and began untying the ropes that moored a small Scarab to the end of the dock. Jenny made her way unhurriedly through a row o.' t:i! sailboats that were berthed on either side of the main dock. She stepped down into the boat without the aid of the man and sat beside him in a bucket sejt tucked up under the windshield.
She didn't know if it was to shake her up or because they were late, but the man raced out of the bay and out into the ocean at an amazing speed. They jounced across the rough, dark water, and Jenny had to hold on with all her strength to keep from flying out of the boat. Soon the dark shape of the island, dotted with hundreds of twinkling lights, disappeared behind them, and they were left to the ocean and the brilliant clear night filled with stars. Jenny made herself think of Striker. She pretended he was sitting right behind her or down in the hold. Waiting there like a deadly cat to pounce out and protect her if she needed him. Of course Striker was hundreds of miles away, and Jenny had the sinking feeling she would never see him again. And she had no doubt that the man beside her would gladly slit her throat and toss her into the ocean with a weight belt around her middle.
The great white form appeared on the dark horizon, and thirty minutes later they slowed down for the first time, easing up alongside the enormous snow-white vessel. Jenny guessed it was about three hundred feet long. The man next to her scrambled out onto the bow of the rocking boat like a trained monkey that had performed the same trick a thousand times before. He hooked a line from one of two separate cranes to the bow of the boat before scrambling back to do the same to the stem. The boat was hoisted smoothly up alongside the larger vessel until Jenny and the man could actually step right out of the Scarab and onto the deck of the yacht. Her bag was taken from her by a sailor. Another man ran a metal detecting wand thoroughly up one side of her and down the other.
Without a word she was led into a spacious cabin that more closely resembled the inside of an English drawing room than the room of a ship. Dark wood panels with ornate trim adorned the walls, and heavy timber beams crisscrossed the ceiling above. Plush oriental carpets sat under three separate seating arrangements. In front of the largest couch in the middle of the room bumed a fire. She could see the back of the head of a man who was seated before the fire with his feet up on a coffee table. He was holding a cellular phone to his ear, and he seemed not to even notice her. She stood in front of an overstuffed chair to his right, unsure if she should sit. Jamir finished his conversation in a language she did not recognize, then he shut the phone and turned to her. He leaned forward and stared up at her intently.
"1 am Jamir," he said in a heavily accented English. He had dark skin, and his jet-black hair was slicked back with gel. He wore a maroon silk shirt and matching slacks. The shirt was open at the neck and exposed a hairless and muscular chest. He wore only a thin mustache, and unlike the driver of the Scarab, his teeth were brilliantly white and perfect. He wasn't handsome in the least, in fact he had the rather ugly visage of a nineteenth-century pirate but with an aura of power that made him attractive.
Jenny looked down, careful not to stare or even catch a glimpse of his bottomless brown eyes.
"I am Lucy Meara," she said quietly. "Mr. Moss sends his deepest apologies and humbly asks that you accept me as his temporary replacement."
Jamir seemed to relax. He sat back on the coach and gazed at her. She knew he was imagining what she looked like beneath her shapeless clothes. For the first time she felt glad to have them on.
"You have the eyes of a Bengal tigress," Jamir said, studying her carefully.
Instead of looking down, Jenny gazed right back at him. If he was going to come on to her, she wasn't going to put him off.
"Yes," he said, "a tigress. I wonder, is the rest of you just as enticing?"
Jenny said nothing but continued to look boldly into his eyes. She was telling him, without speaking, that she was more than he ever dreamed of.
"I think," he said as he stood, "I would like to find out
"
Jamir walked to the fireplace. Above it, on the mantle, was a small golden chest intricately decorated with sapphires and emeralds. Jamir opened it and took something out.
"Not now, of course," he said. "Not here. I have pressing business, and so do you. But someday."
He handed her what looked like a coin. She took it and turned it over in her hand. It bore the same royal crest on either side.
"One day I would like very much for you to go to a hotel in Paris called Le Muerice," he said. "If you do, there is a man named Cerrod, he is the concierge. Give this to him. He will contact me, and I will send a comfortable jet for you that will take you to a beautiful place. I will meet you there, and ... well, we will see."
Jenny held the coin tightly in her hand and bowed her head in acquiescence, suggesting that someday, maybe, she would do as he had asked. It was certainly a nice option to have.
Jamir smiled and said, "Very good."
He sat down, and so did she. Their eyes locked, and Jenny continued to calmly hold his gaze. They waited for what Jenny knew was Jamir's chemis1. to measure the mass of the pit to make certain that it was indeed Pu 239 and not just a worthless ball of lead. It didn't take very long. Another man entered the room after a few minutes and whispered something in Jamir's ear. Jamir's face showed no expression.
"Please tell Mr. Moss," he said to Jenny, "that I look forward to seeing him soon to conclude our business."
The man who had entered the room waited for Jenny to stand. She nodded briefly at Jamir and followed the man out of the room. Jamir was back on the phone before she had gone.
Jenny climbed back into the Scarab alongside the same thick-bearded man that brought her. The boat was lowered alongside the yacht, and they sped off into the clear Caribbean night. When the large white ship was out of sight, Jenny began to strain her eyes for the lights of the island. She was afraid of being alone with the man beside her.
Suddenly the boat slowed down. The driver decelerated until the only motion was the boat's steady rocking on the waves. Jenny looked at the
man, who turned to her with a malicious smile. From within the folds of his robe he took out a pistol and pointed it at her face. Jenny stood, but her knees buckled from fear. In that second a million things raced through her mind, but what was happening was instantly obvious. These people didn't care about three pits. They only needed two for a bomb, and that was all they wanted. They gave Striker two million for the first one. Now they had the second, and instead of giving her two million more as had been arranged, they would eliminate her and make off with a bargain.
The thing that bothered her most as she prepared to die was whether or not Striker had known, or guessed, and simply sent her as a guinea pig to test the veracity of these people. She had told herself a million times that Striker was not to be trusted, but here she was, at the end, and she found herself wishing more than anything that he had not betrayed her. The man said something to her, but she wasn't sure what it was.
"I said," he snarled, jabbing the gun closer to her face, "don't move an inch."
Jenny choked back a whimper. Then the man was gone. He disappeared into the hold.
Jenny's hand went absently between her legs to feel if she'd peed in her dress. A burst of noise escaped her throat that sounded like a demented giggle. She thought how strange the sound was and how foolish she had been. The man thumped about below, obviously doing something mechanical, before he reappeared without even a glance in her direction and restarted the boat.
Jenny endured the same rough ride back to the hotel, thinking all the while how wrong she was about Striker. It made her love him in a way she hadn't realized until now. The driver unceremoniously dropped her off and tossed a black leather bag out onto the dock before he raced back out into the night. Jenny picked up the bag and lugged it up the back stairs and into her room. She unzipped it when she was in her bedroom, with the doors shut and locked. Inside were bundles of American dollars. Jenny undressed and showered, then strapped her holster and gun back around her waist before she lay down to try and rest.
She couldn't sleep. Though irrational, she imagined that every noise she heard was the Scarab driver coming back to kill her in her bed and make off with the money. At five-thirty Jenny got up, pulled a light robe around herself, and went out onto the tenace to watch the sun come up. She was glad for the light. She ordered breakfast and coffee and ate outside. Ten o'clock came slowly. When it was time, Jenny was ready with her leather bag and on her way into Phillipsburg, the town on the Dutch side of the island. Kroner Bank sat on the road through town. Jenny walked in with the bag as the doors were first opened and asked to see the manager. She showed him a key, and he led her into the back of the bank and inside a high-ceilinged vault. The manager left her to herself, and she opened a large safety deposit box and put the leather bag inside. Carrying American dollars through customs was as dangerous as transporting raw heroin. As an afterthought, she reopened the vault and tossed her three clips into the leather bag with the money.
When she sat down in her first-class seat on Delta flight 077 for Dallas, Jenny breathed a sigh of relief. She slept nearly the entire flight. By seven- thirty that night, she pulled into her own driveway. She had the terrible urge to see Striker, but that wouldn't happen for three more days. Jenny went to the wine rack and chose a good Pinot. She was giddy with the success of her first mission. She wanted to talk to someone about it, but she couldn't. She wanted to call him, but she couldn't. Instead, she drank two glasses of wine and went to bed, dreaming about the moment she would be back in Striker's arms.
Chapter Thirteen
San Angelo State is a small college in the town of San Angelo in central Texas. Any player who had ever been an Outlaw could never think of San Angelo without thinking of heat and pain. It was to San Angelo that they would go in late July and stay for five weeks of training camp. Days began at seven and went until ten at night. Exhaustion was the rule, and no player could prepare himself for the rigors of camp. There was no off-season training program that could ever subject the joints to the constant pounding, day after day, of training camp. It was a dangerous five weeks, and no one but a quarterback could get through camp without being battered, cut, and bruised in a way that would leave most people convalescing for a month.
Cody wasted no time in taking advantage of living better through modem medicine. Once his contract was signed, done a week before at the Outlaws' offices with Marty by his side, he was a season-long investment for the team. Even if he was hurt, they had to pay him for the remainder of that season,- and on injured reserve, his salary would count against the salary cap the NFL imposed on every team. Now he could go to the medical staff and get the drugs he needed without worrying about sending up red flags that would keep them from offering him a contract. He already had it.
Cody walked alone down the path that led from the dorm he was staying in to the locker facility just off the practice field where the trainers and doctors did their work on the hurt Outlaws players. The sun was just coming up. His calves and head were sore. Tomorrow his hamstrings and neck would join in the symphony of pain. His head would get worse before it got better. It would continue to swell and he would be forced to grease his helmet with Vaseline just to get it on his head. Soon his entire body would be covered with bruises, welts, and cuts. Today was only the beginning. But all that was normal. The knife wound in his shoulder had healed so that it was no more than an annoyance. It was the gnawing pain in his knee that he had to remedy.
Cody was the first player in the locker room. His teammates were wisely getting as much sleep as they possibly could. They would need it. Cody wanted to get what he needed and get out before the rush of players began. Even after only the first day of practice, there would be plenty of guys who needed medical attention. Before seven-thirty, each of the ten training tables would be covered with players packed in ice or hooked up to electronic high- volt machines to reduce their swollen body parts. The rest would spill out over onto the floors where the trainers would lay down clean white sheets for the injured. It would be a madhouse.
Dr. Burlitz, the general practitioner who the players saw for their everyday ailments, was on his first cup of coffee and still rubbing the sleep from his eyes when Cody walked into the training room.
"Cody Grey," the doctor said in a heavy southern drawl, "how are we today?"
Cody never liked the way the doctor referred to everything as if they were two men alone in a lifeboat, suffering through the same hardships together. No doctor Cody had ever known played an entire NFL game with broken ribs,- got their knee drained, got drugged up, and then went running out onto the field. But that was about all Cody didn't like about the doctor. He was a good man with a hard job, a physician whose loyalty was to the patient and the team that paid the bills.
"Knee's not too good," Cody said, entering a separate, closetlike examination room.
"Our bad knee, I assume," said the doctor.
'Yeah," Cody said. "I twisted it yesterday, and this morning it swelled up on me."
He was lying through his teeth. The knee was always swollen, but this was the first time since last season that the team was responsible for the bad joint. Without a contract for the coming season, if Cody had failed the initial physical, the team could have simply discarded him like the cardboard tube from a roll of used up toilet paper. But now, with a contract in his pocket, and the season having officially started, Cody was in the driver's seat. In the past twenty-four hours. Dr. Burlitz had gone from Cody's worst enemy, because he had the power to fail him in the team physical, to his best friend, because he would do everything within medical reason and beyond to keep him on the playing field. At least for now, that's what Cody thought a best friend would do.
Marty had finally settled with the Outlaws on a one-year, two-hundred- thousand-dollar contract, one-seventh of what Biggs would be making whether he recovered or not. More important, though, were Cody's incentive clauses. Marty had insisted that the team pay Cody some six-figure incentives if he ended up replacing the i
njured Biggs for the entire season. He got them, and now Cody needed to do his part by staying healthy enough and playing well enough to make sure that if Biggs couldn't come back, Cody would be the man in the middle of the Outlaws defense.
Burlitz fussed with Cody's knee for a few minutes, twisting and turning it painfully about. Cody wanted to box the old doctor's ears. He was not an orthopedic surgeon, and he really had no business messing around with his knee. But they both knew why Cody was here, so the doctor could pretty much do what he wanted to satisfy whatever ethics he had to wrestle witii before he gave Cody the drugs he needed.
"How about some Motrin for a few days and see how this comes alon
Cody shook his head and said, "You've got to give me some good stuff, doc. I'm not gonna make it through this camp without some Butazolidin."
The doctor raised his eyebrows as if it were the first time he had ever heard the word. Butazolidin was a strong anti-inflammatory drug that worked wonders on race horses and near miracles on human joints. Everyone in the NFL knew about Butte. The only problem was that it also worked wonders on your liver and kidneys. Sometimes you had to pay the price if you wanted to play in the big leagues.
"Well," Burlitz said with perfunctory hesitation, "I guess you know this knee by now. We'll have to monitor our red-blood-cell levels once a week; as long as you don't mind that, I can give you some and we'll see how we respond."
Cody nodded solemnly. Now he was getting somewhere.
"Have the trainers get some ice on that this morning. You'll have to see Dr. Cort this afternoon," Burlitz said, scribbling out the instructions for taking the drug on the face of a small white box.
"Can we practice?" the doctor said, looking up from the pills he was dispensing into the box.
"Yeah," Cody nodded. "This stuff will help."
"Well, I know we've used this before," Burlitz said, "but don't forget to make sure you eat something before you take one of these. I'd hate to see you rip up your stomach with one of these devils."