When The Devil Whistles

by Rick Acker

  11:40.

  He called her apartment. The phone rang once. Then a woman’s voice said, “The number you are trying to reach is no longer in service. Please hang up, check the number, and dial again.”

  Connor hung up, checked the number, and dialed again. Same message.

  He hung up again and stared at the phone, mind whirling.

  37

  MITCH PEERED DOWN THE HALL. NO ONE THERE. HE WALKED UP TO MR. Lee’s cabin and took a deep breath. This had seemed like a much better idea when Ed suggested it two days ago. He’d give Mitch a skeleton key he “happened to have” and distract the Koreans while Mitch did a little sleuthing. Sure, it was a little risky, but life was full of risks, right? Besides, they really needed to know more before they could decide what to do.

  Another quick glance down the hall. Still clear. He pulled a pair of canvas work gloves from his pocket and slipped them on. “Okay, Mitch,” he said under his breath. “Here we go.”

  He pulled out the key and walked to the door of Mr. Lee’s cabin. The key fit into the lock on the doorknob but didn’t turn. Mitch’s heart stopped and he silently raged at Ed, who had promised this would work.

  He jiggled the knob and tried again. No dice. The key bent, but didn’t turn. He could feel himself sweating.

  In desperation, he tried turning the knob hard. Maybe he could pop the lock. The knob turned smoothly.

  So it hadn’t been locked after all. He pushed inside and shut the door behind him.

  Gray half-light leaked into the cabin through two shaded windows, casting thick black shadows that seemed to reach for him. The room would be a small and Spartan hotel room on land, but it was luxurious by the standards of a working ship. The cabin had a bed, a small chest of drawers and a desk. All were bolted to the floor to prevent damage or injuries during rough seas. A half-open door led to a tiny private bathroom.

  Everything was as neat as if Mr. Lee expected an inspection. Bed made, no drawers hanging open, no dirty laundry scattered on the bathroom floor or shoved in a corner. Mitch pulled open the top drawer and found crisply folded undershirts and socks.

  He felt around in the drawer, careful not to disturb its contents. Nothing. He shut it and tried the next drawer. It contained only pants and a coiled belt. The third drawer held shirts. Extra bed linens filled the bottom drawer.

  He turned to the rest of the room. Quick glances around the bathroom and under the bed revealed nothing unusual. Same thing for the closet.

  He turned to the desk. Nothing on the desktop except a leather blotter. It had one drawer—which had a lock. He winced. Nuts! Why didn’t we think of that? He tried it—and to his surprise it opened.

  Inside lay a stack of documents written in something that looked vaguely like Chinese or Japanese. They had an official looking letterhead that included a blue and red striped flag emblazoned with a wreathed red star in the center and “4.25” near the upper left corner.

  He took the papers out and flipped through them, looking for pictures or anything that might give him a hint what he was looking at. He reached for his cell phone to take pictures for later review—and then remembered that he’d had to give it up when he boarded the ship.

  He heard a noise in the hall and froze. Footsteps. He dropped the papers back into the drawer and shut it. He looked around for someplace to hide and his eyes lit on the half-open bathroom door. He tiptoed over and stood inside, holding the door almost shut and watching the hall door through a crack.

  The footsteps grew louder. Shadows moved in the sliver of light under the door leading to the corridor. They paused. Mitch held his breath.

  The shadows vanished. The footsteps passed and faded into silence. Mitch exhaled and opened the bathroom door. Time to get out of here.

  He took one last look around the room. He put his ear to the door and listened. He heard nothing except the faint sound of the printer humming and clicking at the end of the hall.

  He opened the door a crack and peered out. The hall was empty. He jerked the door the rest of the way open, stepped into the corridor, and yanked the door shut behind him. He looked both ways. Still clear.

  Giddy laughter welled up inside him as he walked down the hall. He’d done it! He had penetrated the inner sanctum of the boss of the Korean commandos!

  He took off the work gloves and shoved them in his pocket as he skipped down the steps to the lounge, where Ed was playing Super Mario Bros. with some of the Koreans as a distraction. Ed was teaching Cho how to play the game when Mitch walked in and poured himself a cup of coffee.

  A moment later, Ed clapped Cho on the back. “Okay, I think you’ve got it now.” He walked over to Mitch. “Hey, could you give me a hand? Let’s see if we can fix that forward thruster.”

  Mitch followed him to the ROV. The two of them crouched down in front of the damaged thruster. One of the propeller blades was bent and the shaft was slightly out of true. “All right, let’s get that thing out of its housing and see what we can do,” Ed announced loudly. He looked around, then said more softly, “So, did you get in?”

  “Yep. No thanks to you—that key didn’t work.”

  Ed stopped working. “The door was unlocked?”

  Mitch nodded.

  Ed went back to taking apart the damaged motor. “Huh. Not sure what to make of that. So, what did you find?”

  Mitch described the documents in the desk. “They had this red and blue flag on them. I hadn’t seen it before. It had some numbers too.”

  Ed picked up a socket wrench and started removing bolts. “Numbers? What kind of numbers?”

  “Like a price—four point something.”

  Ed put down the wrench. “Four point two five?”

  “Yeah, that was it.”

  Ed looked up at Mitch, his face pale beneath the grime. “Mitch, that’s the flag of the North Korean Army!”

  38

  I HOPE YOUR COMPANY LETS YOU VISIT THEIR INVESTMENT EVERY NOW AND then, Jenny.” The real estate agent winked at Allie, who had left her name in California and was going by Jenny Jackson here in San Salvador, Bahamas. The realtor was about sixty, very tan, and seemed to always unbutton his shirt one button too far. He probably considered himself a roguish flirt, and he may even have been one twenty years ago.

  “San Salvador is a beautiful island.”

  “You’ll fit right in.” Another wink. “It’s known for its beautiful women.”

  She smiled. She hardly felt beautiful. As part of a comprehensive effort to change her appearance, she had cut her hair short, dyed it red, and gotten rid of her cat tat (which had hurt way more than the tattoo removal place had promised). She felt like she should be driving a minivan to soccer practice.

  “Well, here you go.” He handed Allie the keys to the small, white beach bungalow in front of them.

  “Thanks.” Allie took the keys and weighed them in her hand. She wondered how long she’d be living in the Bahamas. A year? Ten years? Forever? How long would it take for Blue Sea and the Kansas police to forget about her? She suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to be alone.

  She shook his hand quickly and grabbed the handle of the larger of her two rolling suitcases. “Goodbye, Mr. Thornton.”

  He took the handle of the other suitcase and began to follow her. “Not so fast, Jenny. Let me help you get these inside.” He grinned. “Also, I left a little house-warming gift in the refrigerator. What do you say we open it and toast your first night in your new home?”

  Allie retrieved her other suitcase from the arthritic lothario. “Thank you, Mr. Thornton, but I’d like to be alone. Besides, it’s the company’s house, not mine.”

  He shook his head. “There’s nothing sadder than a pretty woman drinking champagne by herself.”

  Allie could think of a lot of sadder things. Drinking champagne with him, for example. “Goodbye, Mr. Thornton,” she repeated.

  She opened the door and walked in, pulling the bigger suitcase over the threshold after her.

  M
r. Thornton didn’t follow her, but he also didn’t walk away. “Well, you know you’ll never need to buy a drink when you’re in Nassau, Jenny.”

  “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.” She pulled in the second suitcase. “Goodbye, Mr. Thornton,” she said a third time.

  She shut the door and took a deep breath. A window was open and she could hear Mr. Thornton’s footsteps finally retreating toward his rental car.

  The last time she had seen the bungalow, it looked like the set of an early 1960s period movie. Wicker furniture, a fondue set, framed Mondrian prints, black rotary dial phone, the works. It even had a record player and a stack of dusty jazz albums. She could almost smell the Brylcreem.

  Now it was bare and empty, except for a few major appliances that she insisted stay behind. She walked over to the fridge and opened it. As promised, it held a bottle of champagne. Good stuff too—Taittinger. It had probably set Mr. Thornton back forty dollars. She felt a little bad about not letting him come in for a glass. Not bad enough that she actually regretted her decision, though. Not even vintage Dom Perignon would have done that.

  She looked around for a glass and saw two plastic champagne flutes on the counter. She popped the cork and filled one. She took a sip and the taste suddenly and powerfully evoked the memory of the last time she had tasted wine. At Wente. With Connor.

  She closed her eyes and saw him at the airport—bright white shirt and smile, oh-so-professional brown hair mussed by the wind, intelligent gold-flecked brown eyes lingering on her. She remembered the feel of his hand in hers as he helped her out of the plane and the smell of Armani mingled with old leather when she stood next to him on the plane’s wing.

  The scene in her mind switched to dinner—his easy grace, how he lit up when she liked an appetizer or a wine he’d ordered, the candlelight reflected in his eyes. She’d never thought of him as stunningly good-looking, particularly not compared to Erik. She would have put him against George Clooney that night, though. And not just his looks—he was the whole package in a way no other guy she’d dated had ever been.

  And then she remembered the surprised look on his face when she kissed him. Well, that had surprised her too.

  The plan had been to have a fun evening, nothing more. They’d go flying, go to dinner, and maybe flirt a little, but that was it. A nice last memory for both of them.

  But then the thrill of flying—really flying, not just sitting in an airborne bus—got into her blood, coloring the rest of the evening with a sort of reckless exhilaration. Then she’d had a little too much wine because he kept insisting that she taste this or that reserve vintage.

  After that, she’d found herself telling him her deepest, darkest secret. She hadn’t realized how much she wanted to let it out—how much she needed to. Confessing it had been such a relief. She’d never been able to before, but the wine and the fact that it was her last night brought the words gushing out.

  Then when she’d finished, he told her she was a good woman. Just like that.

  All of a sudden, she had been on the cusp of telling him everything. Erik’s drug dealing and her complicity in it. The dead boy in Kansas. Blue Sea’s blackmail. Even the fake invoices she had planted at Deep Seven to buy time while she planned her escape strategy.

  Fortunately, she had stopped herself. Once he knew, he’d never let her disappear to the Bahamas. He’d insist on doing all sorts of impossible things: fighting the good fight against Blue Sea, talking to the Kansas police, and confessing her fraud on Deep Seven.

  She smiled and shook her head. Then she lifted her flute. “To Connor. You’re too good for my good.”

  She drained her glass and refilled it. The bungalow suddenly felt stuffy and dead, so she walked to the sliding glass door that opened onto a spectacular beach. She slid it back and stepped out into paradise.

  She slipped off her shoes and socks on the small wooden deck behind the house and walked down to the ocean. The wet sand was cool and fresh on the soles of her feet and between her toes. A breeze blew in over the pale blue sea, bringing a wild salty scent and scraps of conversation and laughter from a boat of tourists in snorkeling gear about a hundred yards offshore. “This is heaven. I love being here,” she insisted to herself.

  39

  CONNOR TOOK A SIP OF HIS COFFEE AND TRIED TO IGNORE THE EMOTIONS roiling inside him. He set the mug down onto the black granite conference room table with a dull thunk. He was alone, but that would change soon.

  A plate of saucer-sized gourmet cookies sat in the middle of the table and an assortment of drinks rested on the credenza, courtesy of Doyle & Brown’s omnipresent office services. He realized that he’d skipped lunch and picked up a chocolate-macadamia nut confection. Then he changed his mind and dropped it onto a napkin beside his coffee.

  He could have waited for his guest in his office, but he wanted to be away from his phone and e-mail for a few minutes. He needed to think, to sort things out some before the meeting started.

  Allie had disappeared on purpose. That much was clear, at least. Her phone was disconnected, all the corporate bank accounts had been drained in the past twenty-four hours, and her landlord said she had canceled her lease.

  She hadn’t told him where she was going. No address, no phone number, not even an e-mail address. She wasn’t just hiding from the world, she was hiding from him.

  That hurt. They had worked together closely for three years. They had been more than business colleagues, they had been friends who trusted and respected each other. Then last night they had opened the door to becoming much more.

  And today she was gone without a word. She kissed him, said good-bye, and walked away.

  He got up and looked out of the window. The fog was flowing in through the Golden Gate, cloaking the bay and shoreline with dank chill. He’d been on the water once when the fog rolled in. The sun vanished, the temperature dropped twenty degrees in less than a minute, and every boat near him vanished. A gray and lonely cocoon surrounded him. That’s how he felt now.

  “Do I even want to find her?” he murmured to the empty room. “What would I find?”

  A dark possibility began to take form in his mind: Allie disappeared because she had been setting up a scam and she had just pulled it off. From whom? Him? His family? His firm?

  He remembered her probing for financial information last night. Did his family have accounts at Citi or B of A? Nope, he had told her, just Morgan Stanley.

  Cold knifed through him. He grabbed his Blackberry and dialed the family’s private banker. “Joel, it’s Connor Norman. I need you to run an emergency check on all our assets. Look for any unusual activity, especially large withdrawals in the last forty-eight hours.”

  “I’m on it. One sec.” Connor could hear typing in the background. “Nothing big in any of the main cash accounts. Just some autopayments. It’ll take a little longer to check the other assets, especially the stuff with outside investment managers. What’s going on? Anything in particular I should look for?”

  Connor relaxed, but only a little. “One of my… colleagues disappeared suddenly, and I want to make sure she didn’t take anything with her. Check my portfolio first, then the family’s, and then the foundation’s. Liquid assets, then illiquid.”

  “Understood. And don’t worry—we’ll be very discreet.”

  Connor reddened. “She’s a professional colleague. I’m about to go into a meeting. Text me the results.”

  He hung up and shook his head. His stomach felt like it was full of cold gravel.

  The phone on the credenza rang. The caller ID showed the reception desk. “Hi, Janet.”

  “Hi, Connor. There’s a Mr. Clayton here to see you.”

  “On my way.”

  Connor walked out of the conference room and down the long hallway to the reception area. He walked fast and the air seemed to clear as he went.

  It would be good to talk to Julian Clayton. He was a good detective and a good friend. He also went to Connor’s church and share
d his interest in World War II planes, which didn’t hurt.

  Connor walked into the lobby and Julian rose to meet him. He always reminded Connor vaguely of Charles Barkley. He had the same intense eyes and perfectly spherical bald head. “Thanks for coming in on such short notice, Julian.”

  They shook hands warmly. “Not a problem, my friend. How are you?”

  “Been better, been worse. How about you?”

  “Same. So, what’s the emergency?”

  Connor took his friend by the elbow and guided him toward the conference room. “Let’s save that for the meeting. How was the Giants game last weekend?”