McAllen took his hand out of his pocket and placed them both on the table. Margaret saw large, tanned wrinkled hands with age spots. “Revenge, no, but I guess you’d think that. I was pretty steamed when I heard about the deaths of the Lafontaine’s and then Alisha and Kevin. But I saw how it transpired. The Lafontaine’s got greedy, tried to get some extra money. You know . . . when you think you know someone . . .” He paused. The waiter came by. He ordered a Cadillac margarita.
“I hear the margaritas are pretty good here.” He motioned to her glass. “You should try that. I ordered you the same, the Cadillac. They lace the top with Grand Marnier.” He smiled at her, showing excellent teeth.
Margaret looked at her glass. Beads of condensation dripped slowly down. One bead then another dropped onto the tablecloth. A small wet stain appeared underneath. She took both hands and raised the glass to her lips. She was conscious that this could be her last moment in life. She would enjoy the sunshine and the tequila as it paddled its way to her brain, and she would go out with a smile.
When she placed the drink down, she fixed her gaze on McAllen. “So, you were saying . . .”
“Oh yeah. I guess I should have been upset with you for taking out my people. But I realized why—you were cleaning up a bad situation, trying to save the mission. I respect you for that.” McAllen waved his large hands, as if there was absolution in the movement.
“You do?”
“Absolutely, I would have done the same. You know, I did spend some time in the military.”
“Yes, I did see that.” Margaret put her hands back on her glass; she felt the coolness on her hands. The tequila was ebbing its way into her brain—she was fascinated by McAllen.
“Well, we would go out on these patrols. We were mission oriented. Losing guys was secondary. Sure you didn’t want it to happen, but it happened. So I understand what you did. Now, I did take out a few of your people, and I wasn’t proud of that.”
The waiter came back. He placed a margarita in front of McAllen, smiled at them, and moved on.
“Why do you say that? You defended yourself.” Margaret took a second sip of the margarita. The conversation needed alcohol to make sense.
McAllen leaned forward. His eyes narrowed, his voice lowered. “But I didn’t have to. I knew your people were coming. I could have easily disappeared, gone into thin air. You’d have never found me. But my guys, well, they wanted a little retribution, a little action. I gave it to them.”
“I see. Something for morale.”
“Exactly, just like you are about to do with the Wall Street boys in New York.” McAllen leaned further over the table; his eyes wide open to heighten the surprise.
“You know about that?” Margaret took her hands off the table. They dropped to her lap.
“Margaret.” McAllen’s voice became very stern—commanding. “I’m going to ask you to put your hands back on the table; the little guy behind me has orders to shoot you if you drop your hands to your lap.”
“Yes, yes of course.” Margaret put her hands back on the table. She locked her fingers around the margarita glass for safe measure. She looked over McAllen’s shoulder. The strange little man had been about to get out of his chair. He sat down again.
“I hate accidents,” McAllen smiled. “Let’s drink to better understanding and morale, shall we?” He raised his glass to hers, clinked, and took a large swallow.
Margaret instinctively followed suit. She raised the glass again to her lips and let the tequila and Grand Marnier blend work its way to numbing her brain. The fact that McAllen knew of her intention to terminate Randall and Duncan was too much to handle.
McAllen hunched low, bringing his height down to Margaret’s eye level. “Margaret, I’ll get down to business, as I know you are a business woman. I am proposing a partnership.”
“A partnership—you and me?”
“Exactly.”
“But we’ve been killing each other’s people.”
“Well, again, I understand why. You know, the Arabs have this saying: ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ I know it’s odd, but you and I, we’re a lot alike. We get the job done.” McAllen picked up his glass, took a sip, and gave Margaret a wink.
“And what do you suppose we do in this partnership?”
“For one thing, we will make a lot more money than you have been making.” McAllen flashed that knowing wink again.
“You know how much money I make?” Margaret sat straight up in her chair. She almost took her hands off the table again. One look at the little man at the other table made her stop.
McAllen motioned over his shoulder. “That little guy back there has this amazing computer program. He can get inside just about any computer—all he needs is email then bingo, he gets in. His program sends him back all this good stuff. Now, you’re doing well, Margaret, about 3 to 4 million a year—nice income. But we could do better for you.”
Margaret was not sure if her ears were buzzing from the tequila or from what McAllen had just said. “How exactly would you do that?” She really did want to know. McAllen was now either the craziest or most fascinating man she had ever met. Her fear was melting away from either the alcohol or the conversation.
“Glad I have your interest. For starters, when you whack the Wall Street boys—”
“—whack?”
“Sorry, eliminate Francis and Stewart; we know they have 100 million in accounts and that all we need is a password and we can electronically transfer this money into multiple offshore accounts.”
“You assume that they’ll just give you the passwords to millions of dollars before we kill them? Or ‘whack,’ as you put it?”
McAllen motioned over his shoulder again and then leaned forward. “The little guy back there—”
“—the one who looks like Willy Nelson?” Margaret interrupted.
“That’s him. Back in Vietnam, he was the best interrogator we had. The Viet Cong would be singing show tunes by the time he finished with them.” McAllen smiled in appreciation.
“You propose my people take him on the mission?” Margaret looked hard over McAllen’s shoulder at Sebastian. The tequila had made her vision somewhat hazy. His long, gray hair with pigtails circled with a bandana made him look mystical. “How do you suppose we get him into the building looking like that?”
“Like what? Oh yeah . . . Look, he cleans up really well. There’s a Brooks Brothers just down the street. We put him in a nice blue suit, white shirt, pinstripe tie, his hair goes under a hat—that’s all the rage now—and bingo, he looks like a Wall Street analyst. All Wall Street analysts look a little weird, don’t you think?”
Margaret had a decision to make: accept his proposal and possibly gain great wealth, or reject the offer and deal with the funny-looking little guy with the gun at the other table. She decided to explore the offer. “So what’s in it for me, for taking your person in and getting the money transferred? Assuming that will happen.” She was skeptical that the Wall Street boys would hand over money, even on pain of death. She knew she never would.
“Twenty million dollars.” McAllen threw down the offer like he was dropping something on the table. The amount sat there, large enough to get her attention.
“That’s an eighty-twenty split, and I’m doing all the work.” Margaret could not believe she was saying the words, but her business instincts would not let go.
“Well, we did find the 100 million—your guys were going to take these guys out and leave the money,” McAllen countered. He loved negotiations. She could have asked for half.
“True, but still, I dislike eighty-twenty splits. You have to think of the morale of my people if they found out. I prefer seventy-thirty,” Margaret replied with just a tinge of implied indignation. She was hoping it was enough to get her the other 10 million.
“Ha, I love that.” McAllen’s face lit up with the words. “Okay, you got a nice 30 million for taking Sebastian in. We don’t want to mess with morale.”
“Margaret, I like you more and more. You ask questions. Too many people don’t ask enough questions.” McAllen leaned in closer. Margaret could smell his cologne, somewhat pungent with a little earthiness. “I have this vision. A vision that my polywater could knock the hell out of oil, coal, and nuclear power production.”
He paused and looked around to ensure they would not be overheard. “Now, I’m not totally crazy like some of these eco-terrorists freaks who wants to destroy everything and lay waste to industry—I just want to nudge them in the right direction.”
“A nudge. How do you nudge?” Margaret leaned in across the table.
“Again, I love your inquisitive mind. I plan to remove just enough oil, coal, and nuclear power to get the world to solar and wind power faster than we’re moving now. Now, I know there’s this big deal about renewable energy in the world, but from where I sit, these guys are dragging their feet. Look at Ford and GM; they still produce those big- ass fuel guzzling trucks because oil is too cheap. I intend to limit oil supply—and to profit by it.”
“How will you profit?” Margaret was not sure if she was listening to the craziest man on the planet or the Warren Buffet of eco-terrorism.
“Because I’ll know which commodity will be affected, just like the Wall Street boys did, only on a larger scale. Margaret, we will not only hand you 30 million for taking us in when we eliminate those guys—we can triple your money in the commodities markets in the next few months.” McAllen leaned back, his hand on the table. He watched her reaction.
“But the devices...you sabotaged your own devices. How will you affect anything now?”
McAllen reached into his shirt pocket. With two fingers, he pulled out a small, blue package and pushed it towards her on the table. The package was a condom with the tiny words “Her Pleasure” written underneath the Trojan name.
The last time Margaret had seen a condom in a restaurant was in her senior year in college. Her date, in a drunken stupor, had flipped one onto their table in a pizza joint and had added the romantic line, “Let’s get naked, Maggie.”
“I don’t see . . .” Margaret stammered. Her face flushed as her eyes fixed on the shiny, blue condom.
McAllen let out a low chuckle that emanated from deep within his throat. “Yeah, looks a bit strange. This is the actually the delivery device for polywater in Alaska and Canada. Those other radio-controlled devices were to please the Wall Street boys. We knew they liked gadgets. I have ten of these in both Alaska and Canada—and not one of them has been found yet.”
“How do you know that?” Margaret asked, visibly relaxing. The condom was now no longer an offer of romance but an item of commerce. The waiter walked by, looked at Margaret and McAllen, saw the condom, and moved away quickly. The waiter was Mexican by birth—he always thought the mating rituals of Gringos were confusing.
“Easy. My Native friend sitting back there has cousins in Alaska and Canada—all in place and giving us intelligence. She has them here to . . . ah . . . by the way, you might want to close your drapes early in the morning,” McAllen said as he motioned over his shoulder at Grace.
The information was coming too fast for Margaret; she needed to slow it down, break it into parts she could comprehend. “You mean there is polywater in these condoms in place in the water systems of Alaska and Canada oilfields?”
“Exactly,” McAllen said, his finger tapping the condom. “And they are ready to pop in about five days by my calculations. Each one full to the brim.. .well, to six inches by whatever width.”
“How can you be so sure?”
McAllen shrugged as if the answer were obvious. “I’m a chemist. I studied the thickness of the condoms and then forecasted the agitation that would occur once they were in the water. Also, you have to factor in the fact that there is some oil contamination in the water, and latex hates oil. I then worked out the ejection or ejaculation if you will, pardon the pun, and there you have it: a simple delivery device.”
“Did you plan this double-cross all along?” Margaret needed to know. She needed to know what kind of man she was dealing with. She executed enough sideways ventures of her own.
McAllen sighed, looked down at the melting ice in his glass, and then looked back up at Margaret. “You know, when I first met the Wall Street boys, I thought we might be a good fit. Then I realized they had no ideal greater than money—nothing greater than themselves. But they did lead me to you. You want money, but only for your personal security—I get that.”
“How do you know that?”
“Margaret, you have 20 million dollars in the bank and you drive a Toyota Camry. You didn’t even buy the deluxe model.”
Since McAllen knew everything about her, or so it seemed, she had a question of her own. The day was cooling, and a slight chill was in the air. Margaret leaned forward. “And you, Professor McAllen, what do you want this money for?”
“That is a reasonable question to ask, Margaret.” McAllen looked down at his hands and back up at her. “Money does little for me. I have simple needs. I do like a few fine things, like a good glass of wine, scotch, or a Cuban cigar, but I’d like to do some good with the money that comes out of the polywater capers, perhaps spread it around.”
“You want to be a Robin Hood?” The words popped out of Margaret’s mouth before she had a chance to reason with them.
McAllen just smiled. “Robin Hood? No, not really, just someone with a conscious mind who would like to see the world with less poison. Perhaps my boys and I can fund some alternative energy projects in Africa or Latin America. I would like to see a world without contamination. As a chemist, I helped develop a lot of shit that got put into the world. Now I would like to take a little out—sound fair?”
Margaret did not know if it was due to the earnest sound of McAllen’s voice or the tequila that was making a home in her brain, but his offer of partnership sounded good to her. She only made money to feel secure, as he had said. The idea of doing something more appealed to her. She looked at him and took her leap. “Professor McAllen, I think we’ll make a great team. I’ll put my people at your disposal.”
McAllen picked up his glass in a toast. “Margaret, I think you and I will have a wonderful time together.”
The waiter approached. McAllen ordered another round of margaritas. Margaret did not object.
29
Byron Slumped In His Chair at the Anchorage Daily Mirror office on Thursday morning. His cubicle was depressing. Gray fabric walls constricted a small desk and chair. A digital clock ticked over to 8:08 a.m. It was February 3. Byron had driven to work in the dark, and he would go home in the dark. Sunrise was at 9:17 a.m., and sunset would be at 5:10 p.m., and Byron hated that. His coffee was cold. He stared at a computer screen, at his Word document with three words written, his mind suspended in self-pity.
He was trying to get the sequence right: who shot whom first down in Homer, Alaska. Someone was dead, someone clinging to life. His brain was not aligning the words; his fingers sat motionless on the keyboard. The curser blinked on the screen. In the back of his mind was the story he had let slip. Terrorists in Alaska—it was his. He had given it away to the cute redhead.
He sighed deeply, realizing he was addicted to stupid. If there were rehab for people like him, who were addicted to stupid, he would be the first to sign up. Perhaps the rehab place might be on a warm South Pacific island with sunshine. He tried to focus his mind on the article.
His phone rang, and he picked it up without enthusiasm. He noticed the phone number was blocked. “Byron Jacks speaking, Crime News Desk.”
“Mr. Byron Jacks, I’m happy I got a hold of you.” The voice sounded happy.
“Who’s calling?” He wasn’t in the mood for happy callers. The other reporters had taken to calling and leaving rude messages about his screw-up on the terrorism story.
He wanted to find out who was on the phone, tell him to fuck off, and get back to his dour mood.
“This is Professor Alistair McAllen calling. Do you have a minute to talk?”
Byron stood up. He did a periscope maneuver, a complete 360, looking around at the other cubicles to see if someone was looking in his direction and on the phone with a sick idea for a practical joke. “Now why, if you are the Professor McAllen, would you be talking to me?”
“Tell you what, Mr. Jacks, I know you reporters need all kinds of proof—do you use Skype?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Good, give me your Skype account number and we can communicate, face-to-face, and you can record it. Would that be acceptable?”
Byron gave the caller his Skype address and slowly sat in his chair, still looking at the other cubicles to see if anyone was watching him. He wondered how far the other reporters would go to play out this practical joke.
Moments later, a Skype call buzzed on his laptop. He punched the connect key. McAllen appeared on the screen. It was him—Byron couldn’t deny it. He leaned forward into his screen.
“As promised, Mr. Jacks, it is I, Professor Alistair McAllen.” McAllen was calmly sitting somewhere in the world in front of his laptop with a blank wall behind him.
Byron cleared his throat, once then twice, and swallowed hard. “I’m happy to see you, Professor . . .”
“Look, I don’t have a lot of time. And I’m not doing an interview for you. I’m here to set something straight about polywater—are you recording this?” McAllen leaned into his laptop camera.
“Ah, yes, yes, of course I’m recording.” Byron quickly hit the record feature. The newspaper IT guys had only recently added Skylook, which allowed all Skype calls to be recorded. He was glad McAllen had reminded him.
McAllen focused himself as if addressing the world. “Here it is. The polywater devices are inactive—I deactivated them. There is no threat of polywater in either Alaska or Canada. Did you get that?”
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