by Tom Clancy
Just what he needed.
Arlington, Texas
As they came out of the Indian restaurant, Junior said, “I spotted a liquor store down the road a piece. You want to get a fifth of Southern Comfort to take to the house?”
“Sure, why not?” Joan said.
She wore a disguise to match Junior’s, just like he’d told her to — cowboy boots under a long blue denim skirt, and a shirt with mother-of-pearl buttons under a white cowgirl hat.
Even so, the clerk in the restaurant had looked at him like he was some kind of pervert, since Joan did look young enough to be Junior’s daughter.
“So tell me more about this gig,” she said, after they had collected the bottle and gotten back into the rental car.
He shrugged. “It’s just like the last couple,” he said. “This one is a fat, rich Texas oilman who got into politics. You’ll be working as a temp secretary in his office, romance will blossom, we’ll set up a photo shoot at a motel, the usual.”
“My fee?”
“Same as last time.”
She was silent for a moment, only the deep drone of the car’s AC to break the quiet.
“What?”
“I was thinking, maybe I need a raise.”
A cold wind seemed to blow across the back of his neck. That wasn’t like Joan. “Why?” he asked. “You’re making good money for not much work.”
“Well, I heard on the news about that guy out in California. The Democrat? Turned up dead in a park a couple days ago?”
He managed not to react to that. Ames had been right after all. “What’s that got to do with you getting more money, cher?” he asked.
“Come on, Junior, do I have ‘Stupid’ tattooed on my forehead? We caught him with his pants down. You went and had a talk with him, he flipped out, and you capped him. At least that’s how I figured it, unless it is just one huge monster coincidence, which I don’t believe it was.”
He made a show of thinking about it. After a moment he said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but okay, maybe I could come up with a little bonus.”
She smiled at him, a big, happy grin. “How much?”
“What you think is fair?”
“Ten thousand. Since people are getting dead and all.”
“No way. I maybe could go three thousand.”
“Eight.”
“Five.”
“Seventy-five hundred.”
Junior pretended to consider it. It didn’t matter how much he agreed to, she wasn’t going to get any of it anyhow, but he had to make it look good. If he’d just rolled over and agreed to the ten, she’d have been suspicious.
He sighed and shook his head. “All right. Seventy-five hundred.”
She reached over and laid her hand on his thigh. “Always a pleasure doing business with you, hon.”
26
Just off the Kona Coast
Big Island, Hawaii
Jay breathed in, and the scuba tank strapped on his back fed him air with a cold, metallic taste. The regulator clicked and he exhaled, bubbles of carbon dioxide hemisphering and heading for the ocean’s surface, thirty feet straight up.
Ahead of him, a gray green moray eel peered from within a small opening in a reef of dying coral. The eel was as big around and as long as Jay’s arm. One beady eye watched him above needle-sharp teeth. It didn’t seem disposed to venture out, though, and Jay flippered past him a good fifteen feet away, staying wary. He had a speargun, one of those air-powered jobs with a trident point, but he’d just as soon not waste one of his two shots on the moray. There were more dangerous predators lurking in the warm Hawaiian seas.
There was a little water in the bottom of his face mask, not enough to worry about clearing, and the glass itself was unfogged. Jay had learned the trick of spitting into the face mask and rubbing it around with his fingertips to keep it from misting up. Worked pretty well, too.
He cruised along slowly, waving his legs, driving himself along with the stiff rubber flippers, only using his hands to hold the speargun. The water was warm enough that he didn’t need a wet suit. He wore regular bathing trunks, a diver’s knife strapped to his right calf. It had a long, thick, stainless steel serrated blade with a black rubbery handle. He wore a watch with a depth gauge, an extra spear for his gun Velcroed underneath the barrel, and, around his waist, a webbed nylon belt strung with lead weights. As he used up the compressed air in the tank, he would start to get more buoyant, and the weights would help compensate for that.
The water was a clear, gorgeous blue, visibility easily a hundred feet, and all manner of tropical fish schooled back and forth in his panoramic view. The sunlight dappled the bottom, shifting with the currents, and the clean sand was only forty-five, fifty feet from the surface here, but sloping away deeper as he moved seaward. The fish were bright with all the colors of the rainbow, from minnows shorter than his little finger, to angelfish, platys, and groupers as big as his leg.
Jay wasn’t looking for fish, though. He was after a different kind of prey.
Ahead, just barely visible in the distance and under an overhang of coral, was the wreck of the pirate cabin cruiser Elise Matilda, a mid-twentieth-century vessel that had made herself infamous by attacking tourist boats in the islands during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Manned by a gang of cutthroat Australians and a couple of New Zealand Maoris, the Elise Matilda was a seventy-foot diesel craft that had, for two years, managed to avoid the authorities while its crew boarded and robbed more than a dozen vessels in the warm waters, collecting, it was estimated, more than four million dollars in cash and jewels. Late in the summer of 1961, during a storm that blew in unexpectedly, the U.S. Coast Guard had spotted the Elise Matilda, fresh from an attack on a tourist steamer that had been running for shelter to escape the storm. The winds were already above gale force, the rain slashing down and turning the world gray, when the cutter gave chase. As the cutter drew near, she was fired upon by a.30-caliber machine gun mounted on the cabin cruiser’s aft deck.
This was a tactical error on the part of the pirates, because the Coast Guard gunner was a crack shot. From a thousand yards, he hit the pirate vessel with his first round from their five-inch gun, holing the hull. His second round blew away the Elise Matilda’s steering wheel and most of the man holding it. Without any control, the cruiser turned broadside to the wind and was rolled hull-up by a big wave.
The Elise Matilda began to sink quickly. Some of her crew might have made it off, but it was dark, and nobody on the cutter spotted them in the choppy waters if they did.
The pirate ship remained afloat in the heaving seas no more than five minutes after the shelling, then she went down. The cutter stayed for as long as they could before heading for port.
As it turned out, the Coast Guard cutter stayed too long hunting for survivors. They didn’t make it all the way back. Under the storm’s pounding, the vessel lost power, foundered, and began to sink. By some miraculous luck, the sinking happened close enough to land that most of the crew made it back ashore, despite the huge surf. The location of the pirate vessel’s sinking had, however, been lost. None of the survivors seemed to be able to remember, in the dark and foul weather, exactly where they had been, and the ship’s navigator and the commander were two of the six men who had gone down with the cutter.
However, Jay “Sherlock” Gridley had managed to find a survivor of the cutter, and with peerless investigative techniques had gotten enough of the old man’s memory working to determine where the pirate ship had gone down.
Jay grinned at himself. Hunting for sunken treasure might be a bit florid as a metaphor, but it worked for him, and when it came to virtual sleuthing, he was the only person he had to please.
On board the sunken ship, aside from the bones the fish and crabs didn’t get, was a treasure chest of money and jewels. The chest represented the hidden bank account belonging to the Supreme Court justice’s clerk. Once Jay located it for certain and determined its worth, the c
lerk was going to be cooked.
If it contained as much money as Jay suspected, there was no way the man could have earned that much honestly. His family didn’t have any money to speak of, he’d gone to school on scholarships, and he was going to have some tall explaining to do. And the way they’d do it would be via the IRS. Unpaid taxes had brought more than one criminal low.
Jay grinned into his mouthpiece and moved toward the wreck.
He caught movement from the left.
A shark, bearing right at him. Great white, a good thirty feet long.
Now there was a firewall metaphor. All he needed now was the theme music from Jaws.
He swung the speargun around and pointed it at the shark…
Arlington, Texas
Junior lay naked on the bed next to Joan. She was wearing a long T-shirt with a picture of Albert Einstein on the front. She was asleep, on her back, the shirt reaching only a little way down her thighs.
It had gone pretty much as he had expected it to go. They had gotten back to the house and had a few drinks, talking about old times, and also discussing the fake “plan” a little more. After a little while they had gotten undressed and gone to bed. When they were finished, Joan took a quick shower, came back in the T-shirt, and dozed off.
Once she was asleep, Junior’s next move was clear: Grab the pillow, lean on her face with it, bye-bye, Joanie, au revoir, sorry it had to be this way, kiddo.
But: He couldn’t do it. Not yet, anyway. He had curled up next to her, intending only to let her breathing deepen and even out, letting him know she was sound asleep. He didn’t want her waking up too soon. He knew from experience how strong she could be.
The thing was, he fell asleep himself, lying there all relaxed and cozy and thinking warm thoughts about the woman he was about to kill.
He woke up around six A.M. cursing himself for a fool.
He couldn’t delay any longer. Joan would be waking up soon, and he would have lost his chance to do this the easy way — and for her sake he wanted it to be easy.
Picking up his pillow, he moved to straddle her. He planned to sit on her hips so she couldn’t move, lean into the pillow, and just do it. Couple, three minutes, she’d be choked out, and once she stopped struggling, he’d hold the pillow there another five minutes to be sure.
But as he swung his knee up and over Joan’s hips, she woke up. Her eyes went wide as she saw the pillow, and she must have somehow realized what he was doing. Before he could get set, she screamed like a fire truck siren and kneed him in his exposed crotch.
The pain made him want to puke it was so hot and sudden. He couldn’t even breathe it hurt so bad.
Joan scrambled and slid out from under him before he could catch her. She fell off the bed, hit the floor hard, but was up in a second.
He started after her, slowed by the blinding pain. Before he could do more than scoot toward the edge of the bed, however, she grabbed the bedside table lamp and smashed him over the head with it.
Pieces of the ceramic lamp base shattered all over him.
Junior’s vision flashed red, then filled with sparkling stars.
Stunned, he fell back. He wasn’t out, he didn’t dare lose it that way, she’d probably kill him if he did.
His guns were under the mattress. He lunged for them, but Joan picked up the television set, a little portable on the chest at the foot of the bed, and threw it at him.
The TV came at him in slow motion, and Junior swung one arm to try and block it. He didn’t have any choice, he had to bat it aside or it would bash his head in. He connected with it all right, but his arm was bent, and his elbow hit the glass. The screen popped! and spewed glass everywhere.
He felt a shard slice open his arm above the elbow, and worse, his elbow was caught in the busted TV.
While he was prying his bleeding elbow out of the TV and cutting himself more, Joan vanished. He finally jumped up, blood slinging all over the place, and lurched after her. Before he cleared the bedroom, though, he heard the front door open, and the screen door slam shut behind her. He ran, started outside, then realized he was naked.
It pulled him up short. A naked, bleeding man running after a half-naked woman? That would draw attention in any neighborhood, even this one. He could not have somebody calling the cops before he shut Joan’s mouth for good.
He ran back for his pants. He could take a few more seconds. She wouldn’t get far on foot.
He sprinted into the bedroom.
His jeans were gone.
Joan must have grabbed them on the way out.
He cursed, then grabbed a hand towel and wrapped it around his bleeding arm. He took another one from the floor and pulled it around his waist. Then he ran for the front door.
The rental car was gone, too.
He stood there. The keys had been in his jeans’ pocket. So had his wallet, with most of his ID and cash, plus a couple of bogus credit cards. She was dressed, at least partially, in a T-shirt, and she had his pants. He was bleeding like a stuck pig wrapped in nothing but a towel. He couldn’t go out like this.
Oh, man. He was well and truly up the creek now. What was he going to do? He had to find her!
But, how?
The Roosevelt Hotel Washington, D.C.
There had been a few hotels in the area named after the two U.S. Presidents who’d worn the name “Roosevelt.” This one was new — actually, it was an old hotel that had been called something else and refurbished a couple years back, and as a result it had the old elegance, but with clean new furnishings.
Toni and Alex arrived and went to the bar. He didn’t see Cory Skye, but they weren’t there twenty seconds before a tall and skinny bellhop appeared and approached them. “Are you Commander Michaels?”
“Yes?”
“Ms. Skye begs your pardon, but she has to pack and leave earlier than she expected. She asks if you would meet her in her room.”
Alex glanced at Toni. The bellhop hadn’t seemed to notice her, or at least hadn’t been bothered that she was there.
“She’s in three-sixteen,” the bellhop said.
Alex turned to Toni. “What do you think?”
“I think your suspicions were right,” she said.
Alex nodded. “Let’s go home,” he said.
Toni frowned. “What? Why? I mean, seriously, Alex, how does this change anything?”
Alex glanced at the bellhop, who was still standing there, apparently waiting for a tip. “Would you please convey my regrets to Ms. Skye,” he asked. “Tell her I was called away on an emergency, and ask her to call me when she gets back into town.”
The bellhop, who was maybe twenty or so, said, “Are you sure about that, sir? I, uh, got the impression the lady was really looking forward to seeing you.”
“I’m sure.” Alex pulled a twenty from his wallet and handed it to the bellhop.
“Yes, sir. Have a nice night.”
Alex turned back to Toni. “I’ve been thinking about what Tommy Bender says about this guy, Mitchell Ames. The thing is, hon, he deals in suggestion and innuendo every bit as much as he deals in facts. With you along, I had no problem meeting her in a bar. No one, not even this shark, could twist that into anything that could be used against us.”
“I know, Alex,” Toni said. “That’s why I came along. What I don’t understand is how it’s different now.”
“Because it’s not a bar anymore. It’s her room. Can you imagine him putting her on the stand and asking her, ‘I understand, Ms. Skye, that Alex Michaels, the commander of Net Force, came to your hotel room.’ Can you see what that would plant in the jury’s mind?”
“But we’d have the chance to set it straight,” Toni said.
“Yes, but by then it would be too late. Tommy wouldn’t have the right to protest the question, so he wouldn’t have a chance to clear things up until he got to cross-examination, and by then the idea would have sat in the jury’s heads for too long. It’s kind of like the judge instructing them
to ignore something they’ve heard. They can’t do it. You can’t unhear something, and you can’t forget something just because the judge tells you to.”
“Suggestion and innuendo,” Toni said.
“Exactly. If I had come alone, nothing would have happened. You know that. But for him to say that we met for a drink would have been enough. It would have damaged me in the eyes of the jury, made it easier for them to believe the other things he’ll say about us. Going to her room, even with both of us there, does the same thing.”
She nodded. “You’re right,” she said.
Alex sighed, suddenly feeling very tired of all the political maneuverings. “Let’s go home,” he said.
27
Long Meadow Pond, Connecticut
Ames was tooling along in his new chocolate-colored Mercedes, pushing it a little. He was doing seventy-five and was still a dozen miles or so south of Waterbury on I-84, on his way north.
He was driving up from the city for an estate sale in Wolcott, just north of Waterbury. A rich old lady he had met a couple of times, Marsha Weston, had recently passed away, leaving a medium-sized fortune and some outstanding antiques. She had owned a grandfather clock brought over from Europe a couple hundred years ago that he thought would go perfectly in his entry hallway, and he didn’t expect there would be anybody showing up for the sale who could outbid him for it. The Westons were old money, though the younger ones had gone into computers and had a fair amount of stock in several of the larger hardware companies. It was his hope that they didn’t have any interest in Granny’s moldy old furniture. But he figured if they had, the clock would never have been put up for sale.
Thinking of computers, he remembered he was going to call his pet hacker today to make arrangements for another payment.
Ames reached into the center console and removed one of the four throwaway cell phones he had there. He used a memory trick he’d learned in med school to bring the hacker’s number to mind, thumbed it in as he passed a refrigerated tractor trailer hauling frozen fish sticks, and waited for the connection.