“It’s not time for a rotation,” she reminded.
The nearest town was across three miles of lake, around a bend to the southwest, about a twenty-minute boat trip. Provisions were delivered twice a week. Two marshals remained on the island 24-7, rotating in three shifts a day.
“Just bear with me, would you?” Larson asked.
She slung the binoculars around her neck, crossed her arms defiantly, and joined him in the walk down to the dock. “I thought you were leaving us,” she said.
“Yeah, right.”
Hope said nothing on the way down the path. Larson drank in the sounds, the sights, the smells. “This is a special place,” he said.
“Only because we’re sharing it,” she said.
“Damn right.”
“Are we going to talk about it?” she asked.
A pair of squirrels cackled and chased each other overhead, their running up the trunk scratching against the heavy bark.
She said, “Laena? Your all-important list.”
Sworn to secrecy, Larson nonetheless owed her an explanation, even if lacking in detail. He’d put it off until she’d asked; and now she had.
“The disk that was being auctioned took a bullet. It was in Philippe Romero’s breast pocket.”
“Seriously?”
“Swear to God.”
“The sheriff with the Bible in his coat?” she questioned skeptically.
“Only it didn’t save him,” Larson pointed out.
“But the list itself?”
“Katrina Romero’s computer was seized. She had compiled the list for Philippe. It was her e-mail that Markowitz had been sending it to. She was convicted on a number of counts, but to my knowledge hasn’t been sentenced.”
“And the witnesses?”
“We’ve lost some. Fewer than we’d feared. Justice has relocated something like five hundred prime targets. A huge undertaking. There have been some early retirements, transfers within WITSEC itself.”
The water came in and out of view. He never got tired of looking at it.
He said, “The computerization of the list is under review. There’s no way they’ll go back to paperwork, so it’s only a matter of encryption and how they prevent something like this from happening again. It’s the government, don’t forget. It’ll take them a couple years to come up with a plan, and by then it will be outdated. The list will always be vulnerable to some extent.”
“What about the children? Katrina’s children?”
He stopped on the trail, turned and faced her.
“I don’t have an answer for that,” he said.
“They shouldn’t end up the victims.”
“No. No one should end up a victim.”
“But children!”
“I understand.”
There was no mention of Paolo. No mention of Larson’s having attended the cremation because he had to see the man reduced to ashes. Seventeen members of Ricardo Romero’s former “family” had been captured and imprisoned. Like Paolo, Ricardo’s empire was ashes.
Larson led her down the trail to water’s edge.
They reached the dock and Hope used the binoculars to confirm the launch driver, passing the opticals to Larson so he could do the same.
“It’s Neville,” he said.
“I have to tell you I did not like it one bit. Seeing that launch.” She didn’t look at him as she said, “I don’t want to lose you, Lars.”
“We’re going to rejoin the world. You realize that, don’t you? Six months, a year? We’ve talked about this, I know, but don’t lose sight that it’ll be different when we’re shopping for our own groceries, and taking the dry cleaning, and driving Penny to soccer games. As awkward as it is to be this isolated, we’ve been pampered. It’s going to be a whole hell of a lot different.”
“And I, for one, can’t wait.”
The launch slowed, the wake lessening, and putted in toward the dock, taking longer than either of them would have wanted.
“So this is some kind of surprise, I take it?” she asked Larson.
He said, “A promise made is a promise kept.”
She viewed him curiously.
Neville, the boat’s driver, coaxed the vessel into reverse, foaming the water, as Larson snagged the bowline and tied it off to the dock.
“Special delivery,” Neville announced, as he then secured the sternline as well. He moved forward and opened the cabin and descended a steep set of steps, disappearing. He reappeared a moment later with a sand-colored puppy under his right arm.
“Oh, Lars!” Hope said enthusiastically.
“She’s a mutt. Part shepherd, part hound dog.”
“Looks part Afghan.”
“That’s the hound dog: Saluki is the breed.”
Neville passed the pup to Hope, who then cuddled it and brought the dog’s nose to her face, and was generously licked. She laughed and the dog licked some more.
“Meet Cairo,” Larson said.
Hope looked up with tears in her eyes.
Neville handed Larson several copies each of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Detroit Free Press, and Larson thanked him.
“Covers the past four days,” Neville informed him. He brought up a large bag of Puppy Chow and several shopping bags of accessories including two books on dog training.
There was no mail to be delivered, even for Larson. For all the world, he’d disappeared after that night north of Seattle. Even Hampton and Stubblefield did not know his whereabouts.
“See you Thursday,” Neville said as Larson untied first the bow- and then the sternline.
Larson pushed the stern away from the dock, and the boat’s motor gurgled. Larson offered a small wave of thanks. Neville mocked a salute, and the launch motored off.
Larson left the food, but got the bags.
“She’s going to flip out,” Hope said.
“I hope so.”
Larson switched hands with the bags and threw an arm around Hope. He was going to hate leaving this place, though not what it represented. He planned to ask Rotem if there might be a way to buy it from the government someday, if his finances allowed. No law against dreaming.
“Isn’t she cute?” Hope bubbled.
Larson held her just a little bit closer. “Yes, she is,” he said.
And the two walked back up the trail toward the cabin.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ridley Pearson is the author of more than twenty crime novels and several books for younger readers. He and Dave Barry cowrote the award-winning children’s novels Peter and the Starcatchers and Peter and the Shadow Thieves. In 1990, he was the first American to be awarded the Raymond Chandler Fulbright Fellowship at Oxford University. He lives with wife, Marcelle, and their two daughters, dividing his time between St. Louis and Hailey, Idaho.
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Cut and Run Page 30