Whirlpool

by Elizabeth Lowell

  If Davinian was named as a Soviet operative in an article about Damon Hudson, an investigation would surely follow. A good counterintelligence investigator would dig until the whole network was uncovered. The men Davinian had worked for were still in place in Moscow, if not exactly in power. Their interests were the same as Hudson’s. Which meant that, for now, Davinian’s and Hudson’s interests were the same.

  “No one on our side is betraying you,” Davinian said, wondering as he spoke if it was true. “Russia would gain nothing by it, and we would lose a great deal.”

  “Not as much as I would,” Hudson shot back.

  “I will make you a promise. I will make some inquiries about the Toth woman.”

  “There’s no time for your usual inquiries. She’s coming to see me tomorrow morning.”

  “So soon? Why?”

  “To show me the proof she intends to use in her article.”

  Davinian rested his hand gently on Hudson’s. Part of the Armenian’s mind noted the vast differences between their flesh. Davinian’s skin was loose, thin, and marked with liver spots. Hudson’s was thick, firm, and clear, the skin of a healthy man in his forties.

  In an odd way, Davinian realized that he had an advantage over Hudson. Davinian knew he was nearing the end of his life. No matter what happened, he had little to lose. Hudson was frightened, for he believed that much could be taken from him. Davinian wondered if the other man knew his life could easily be one of the things that was taken.

  But all Davinian said was, “I will have something for you before the journalist returns.”

  13

  Over Karroo

  Monday evening

  Shutting out the lingering twilight, Cruz Rowan studied the dark, rumpled desert landscape below Risk Ltd.’s plane as it lifted off the runway into the gathering darkness. Not only had he wasted too much time dancing with Novikov, but it had taken much longer than expected to finally get airborne. The pilot was a fussy bastard when it came to having everything about the plane just so. One light blinking, or one dark that should be lit, and the plane was grounded.

  Not that Cruz really objected. Better an overzealous pilot than a landing nobody walked away from.

  As the plane climbed, the Karroo compound shrank rapidly in size. The power was strong, steady, and smoothly applied. Though sunlight was all but a memory, Cruz could just make out the dark slot canyon where he’d been digging only hours ago.

  For an instant he allowed himself the luxury of real irritation. He’d been damned close to solving the mystery of the new fault. He’d sensed it in the same way that he sensed danger. It was simply the way his nervous system was organized.

  He suspected that the isolated fault was the first clear surface sign of an entirely unknown subterranean system. There were even tantalizing hints that the fault represented the earth’s efforts to ease the tension that had been building for centuries along the infamous San Andreas Fault.

  To Cruz the thought of discovering such a network of faults was like a shot of 180-proof scotch. The network would be something new and unique under the desert sun. Such a collection of cracks in the earth’s thick skin might have broader meaning. It might even be proof that chaos could really be a self-righting system.

  That was what fascinated him—chaos and order and the exhilarating, dangerous zone between.

  That zone was the only place in the world Cruz Rowan truly loved, both in his profession and in his avocation. That dangerous zone was always present, always elusive, always compelling, and never the same twice.

  For a few minutes longer he studied the gaunt, familiar face of the desert. Then he drew a deep breath and shifted his mind to the chaos more immediately at hand. He pulled a palm-sized color photo of the Ruby Surprise from his pocket and studied it. The picture and the name of the air freight company responsible for shipping the Russian exhibit were all that Novikov had been able to contribute to the investigation.

  Or all he’d been willing to contribute. Big difference.

  As investigative leads, the photo and the name were just slightly better than nothing. All the same, Cruz’s pale blue eyes studied the photo intently. From what he could see, the Fabergé egg was intricate, ornate, expensive, and had no purpose except to please the senses.

  What an odd and useless thing, he thought. Like too many women—decorative and without real function. But then again, maybe beauty is supposed to be its own reward, its own function.

  Lots of beautiful women sure seem to think so.

  There were even times when Cruz agreed. There was nothing quite like waking up hard and sliding into a soft, warm woman.

  I’ve been out in the desert too long. Next thing I know, I’ll start believing that the fucking I get at the beginning is worth the fucking I get at the end.

  Beneath the starboard wing, a blacktop highway snaked toward the multilane interstate that led toward Los Angeles. Cruz glanced at the narrow, twisting blacktop and smiled thinly. He hoped Novikov was enjoying being chauffeured by Gillespie. The sergeant-major had once made the drive in a few hours. Once he’d taken seven. It depended on how pissed off he was.

  The more angry he was, the slower he drove.

  At least Novikov was out of the way for the moment. Sometimes the client was more a problem than a help, particularly when he couldn’t be trusted. Still, there were questions Cruz wouldn’t mind asking Novikov. Maybe the Russian would even answer.

  Maybe.

  Cruz reached for the cellular phone on the bulkhead wall in front of him and punched in a number.

  Gillespie answered from the Mercedes somewhere on the desert below.

  “Gillie, ask your passenger if he can get a waybill number for the missing crate on the shipment from Tokyo.”

  The sergeant-major relayed the question. The cellular connection was hollow and silent for a time. Then Gillespie came back on.

  “We’ll call you in five.”

  “Affirmative.”

  Five minutes later by the clock, Gillespie called the plane and gave Cruz a ten-digit number.

  “Anything else?” asked the sergeant-major.

  “Not yet.”

  Cruz rang off and dialed Los Angeles information. Two minutes later he was talking to the firm’s international traffic manager. It took a few more minutes to reach the air freight manager.

  “Sam Harmon,” the man said. “Make it quick.”

  Cruz smiled. The accent was military. Probably recently retired and not yet used to the fact that people didn’t have to obey him or get court-martialed.

  “Harmon? I knew a Harmon in the air force,” Cruz said. “He was a loadmaster in Starlifters.”

  “I was a marine officer,” Harmon said curtly. “Thirty years and four months.”

  “Combat?”

  “Logistics. How the hell else you think I’d land a job like this?”

  Cruz smiled to himself. A retired marine logistics officer. If anyone understood the system, he would.

  “I’ve got a logistics problem,” Cruz said, “and you’re probably the only man in the world who can help me.”

  “Fire away.”

  Gotcha, Cruz thought. Nothing like being needed to get a retired man’s full attention.

  “I’ve got a client who lost a package,” Cruz said casually. He didn’t describe the contents of the shipment. He didn’t want to panic Harmon unless he had to. “Someone told me you have a computer system or something that could help us to backtrack.”

  “We’ve got computers, bar-code scanners, locator beacons, and Global Positioning System monitors,” Harmon said. “I can track any package anywhere in our system anywhere on earth. If it’s in a warehouse or an airplane, I can tell you. If it’s on a truck, I can let you talk to the driver who’s delivering it. We’re squared away around here.”

  Everybody believed in something. Sam Harmon believed in his system.

  “Great,” Cruz said enthusiastically. “Where do we start?”

  “You g
ot a waybill number?”

  Cruz read the number and heard the hollow clacking of a computer keyboard. He held his breath, wondering how much information would come up on the shipment.

  “Negative on that number,” Harmon said quickly.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s a null. The number isn’t in our system.”

  Cruz thought for a moment. There was no reason for Novikov to lie about something that could be checked so easily.

  “It’s a good number,” Cruz said.

  “Not here it ain’t. Unless it was part of a larger shipment?”

  “It was.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?”

  More hollow clacking sounds came over the cellular.

  “Got it on the scope,” Harmon said. “It was with that bunch of art that came in on the seven forty-seven yesterday from Tokyo.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Motherfu—er, damn, don’t tell me we lost one of them.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Cruz said. “But relax. Even if it’s AWOL, it’s not the Mona Lisa.”

  Harmon made a noise that sounded like relief, but he was already punching the keyboard again. Fast.

  “I’ve got the shipment on the screen,” Harmon said after a few moments. “Fifty-five pieces.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “They all passed through Customs inspection and then were logged by the scanner before they went to the Customs broker. From the broker, they were trucked directly to the museum.”

  Harmon’s fingers rattled on over the keys, then stopped.

  “That’s funny,” he said.

  Cruz felt a little tingle. It told him he was entering the zone where neither chaos nor order ruled.

  “What do you have?” he asked softly.

  “I just displayed the manifest for the entire plane,” Harmon said. “Sometimes a single piece will get separated from a shipment in Customs and be held up for a day or two for secondary inspection. Everything passed on that flight, though.”

  Cruz made an encouraging sound.

  “But,” Harmon said, “I’m getting this anomalous number all of a sudden.”

  “What kind of number?”

  “It’s a domestic waybill all mixed in with a bunch of overseas ones. It’s not in the plane’s manifest, but it shows up in the return from Customs.”

  “Like somebody misread a number?” Cruz asked.

  “More like somebody plastered a domestic waybill over the international paperwork.”

  Cruz leaned back and laughed silently. This was going to be fun.

  “The sorting process is pretty much mechanized,” Harmon explained. “The machine might have kicked the domestic number into a local delivery line by mistake.”

  Or on purpose, Cruz thought, if the switch was performed by a clever thief.

  “Okay, we’ve got a number for the domestic waybill,” Cruz said. “What now?”

  “Wait one.”

  There was a machine-gun burst of keystrokes, then another. Fifteen seconds later, Harmon made a relieved sound.

  “Nailed it. Package was delivered today up the coast a ways, a place called Cambria. Stand by for the number.”

  Cruz memorized the address as he heard it.

  “Got that?” Harmon asked.

  “Yeah. Did somebody sign for it or did they just leave it on the porch?” Cruz asked casually.

  “Laura—no, Laurel—Cameron Swann signed for it.

  Sierra Whiskey Alpha November November on that last name,” Harmon added, spelling it in the international radio alphabet.

  “Your machine tells you all that?” Cruz said. “Hell of a system.”

  Harmon made a gratified sound.

  “I’ll put a tracer on the package right now,” Harmon said. “Somebody will go out and pick it up tomorrow morning. It should be back in Malibu at the museum by tomorrow at the latest.”

  “My client will be thrilled,” Cruz said. “Thanks a lot.”

  He hung up and hit the intercom that connected him with the pilot. “Set me down as close to Cambria as you can, and don’t spare the fuel.”

  He switched back to the cellular and punched in Redpath’s private number.

  “Yes?” Redpath said.

  “Cruz here. I’ve traced the egg to an address in Cambria, California. See if we have anything on it or on a Laurel Cameron Swann.”

  14

  Cambria

  Monday night

  The Shrike touched down at the Paso Robles airport just after nine. Even though there was a rental car waiting for Cruz, it was almost ten-thirty when he drove into the quiet seaside village of Cambria.

  He wasn’t in a good mood.

  All Risk Ltd.’s computer had come up with on Laurel Cameron Swann was that she was twenty-nine, unmarried, no debts, no brothers or sisters, parents divorced, mother dead, father a decorated military man, also dead. No grandparents. Some uncle or another rumored in the background, but could have been the mother’s lover.

  Not one thing in Laurel’s record pointed to a person who had the skill or the contacts to pull off the theft of the Ruby Surprise.

  The oceanfront street at the south edge of town where the package had been delivered looked as innocent as Laurel’s record. Finding the residence itself was no problem. The old A-frame sat alone on a steep little bluff.

  From what Cruz could see, the residence was a small well-kept property with a clean Ford Explorer in the open garage. If there were any lights on, they weren’t visible from the street level. The nearest neighbor was fifty yards away. Like Cambria itself, the house was well out of the fast lanes of California living. There was a quality of serenity about the setting that made him wonder if Laurel Swann might not be every bit as innocent as she seemed.

  Maybe the package went astray by mistake, Cruz thought. Maybe this is all a false alarm.

  Then again, probably not.

  When it came to human nature and coincidence, he was a skeptic to the marrow of his bones. That was why he made a quick pass to reconnoiter the sleepy town before he went back to Laurel’s home.

  Nearly everything in Cambria was closed or deserted or both. The only exception was a beer bar set back on one of the side streets, its sign crooked and blinking erratically. A handful of vehicles were parked around the bar. There was no reason to believe that anyone was leaving anytime soon.

  Farther on, a gas station squatted at the north edge of the business district as if apologizing for the very fuel that drove the modern age. Though the station was open, there were no takers. The night manager was so old that Cruz doubted he could tell a car from a truck.

  A sheriff’s department substation next to the volunteer fire department was dark. Cruz guessed there was a patrol car somewhere in the area. It didn’t worry him too much. Cambria wasn’t the kind of town that kept beat cops alert at night.

  Satisfied that there was little chance of being interrupted at an inconvenient time by edgy cops, nosy neighbors, or random pedestrians, Cruz turned onto a road that ran parallel to the beach. He parked in a small cul-de-sac a quarter mile past Laurel Swann’s house, shut off the headlights, and got out of the car like a man who wanted to enjoy the smell and sound of the ocean at night.

  No house lights came on around him. No doors opened, letting light out into the night. Nobody was walking the dog or putting the cat out or sneaking off to jump into a neighbor’s bed.

  Cruz walked beyond the streetlight’s illumination and vanished into the night. Very quickly he found a path down to the narrow, rocky beach. Soon he was looking up at the modest cottage that held, innocently or not, a priceless Fabergé egg.

  The surge and roll of the surf was loud. It made a perfect cover for any sounds Cruz might make in his approach. Even so, he made no unnecessary noise as he climbed up the wooden stairway that clung to the bluff. A large weathered boulder gave him cover while he studied the little house.

  No water bowls for pet
s, no fenced run, no sign of dogs. No night-light burning outside, no alarm box, no barred windows or deadbolt locks on the doors. From all outward appearances, Laurel Swann had nothing to hide and no fear of her fellow man.

  She must be as willfully naive as the town itself.

  Despite the sleepy, unguarded appearance of the cottage, he waited until a cloud blocked the half-moon in the western sky. Only then did he leave his cover and cross the rocky stretch to the side of the house.

  There was no sound coming from inside, no flickering glow of a television in any of the windows he could see. Laurel Swann was either asleep or out on a date. From what he’d seen of the town, Cruz decided she was probably asleep.

  He circled to the back, made mental note of the license plate on the Explorer, and waited in the dark garage. It would take a little time for his eyes to adjust to the interior darkness after the relative brightness of the moonlight.

  The garage was neater than most but otherwise unremarkable. It held a washing machine and a dryer, storage cabinets on the wall, something piled where a second car could have fit, the Ford station wagon masquerading as a four-wheel drive utility truck, and a new metal trash container just inside the open garage door.

  As his eyes completed their adjustment, Cruz looked more closely at the stuff piled in one half of the garage. He discovered a pair of large, refillable butane cylinders, an old scarred workbench, and a stack of boxes.

  The boxes intrigued him. He pulled out a tiny pinpoint flashlight to inspect them. Each box was marked with a clear, legible hand, probably female: CASTS. MOLDS. STONE-HOLDERS. MOUNTINGS.

  Jewelry maker’s terms, Cruz thought.

  He shut off the light and stood in the darkness, putting together what he’d seen.

  A woman, a jeweler or jewelry dealer, apparently living alone. Neat without being fussy, reasonably well off, unafraid.

  Something is wrong about this setup, he thought unhappily. This isn’t the home of a thief or a fence. Crooks are paranoid. Crooks have guard dogs.

  Crooks at least close their garage doors at night.