by Tom Clancy
Jarvis had to smile grimly at the thought. And right so. The bird might be whipping over that southern shore for some purpose other than to track him down. Just as the Sunglasses might’ve come poking around the employee commons for a reason besides his connection to poor Udonis. If he were to give his imagination a stretch, Jarvis supposed he could come up with an explanation that didn’t involve his cousin for the Sunglasses having asked about him in that menacing way of theirs, wanting to know this and that and the other thing from anyone they could seek out that knew him. Surely he could, and no doubt his words would find an accepting ear . . . but the truth would remain the truth all the same. His mother hadn’t raised any fools under her roof, and it was too late in the day to eat a plate full of lies and nonsense, especially those served up raw by his own brain. Not after hiding for almost a week in the bush with only the few supplies he’d taken from his cabin. Not since spending every dollar he’d saved over these past years, every dollar and more, to grease the hands of a bald hair parasite for use of his flimsy little seventeen-footer. And most especially not at this moment, while he was shooting along the channel at—what was his speed just now?—Lord Almighty, sixty miles an hour, sixty on a moonless night, heading out to the open sea.
The truth was the truth. Right so, right so. It was there in the sky above that Jarvis Lenard had his evidence.
The copter was out prowling the night for him. The Sunglasses never gave up. Sinister, menacin’ bastards, yeh. Weren’t going to quit until they found him, caught him trying to reach the mainland. And Jarvis knew that if they did, he would come to the same bloody end as his cousin Udonis and those men out of Point Hope he’d hired to bring him away safe.
Jarvis glanced over at the left side of the channel, where a forest of mangrove trees had crept toward the water’s marshy bank, their air roots groping out over the mud and rushes like slender, covetous feelers. Though the helicopter was not yet in sight, he could tell it was close upon him from the loud knocking of its blades, and didn’t need to check the GPS box on the motorboat’s control console to know there was a long way to travel before he reached the inlet. Probably his bow lights would be enough to guide him—bright new kryptons, they were, he’d received that much good treatment from the bloodsucking waterfront leach in exchange for emptying his wallet—and Jarvis supposed he could have found his course through the river’s many twistings and turnings by second nature after having lived his whole thirty-five years on earth near its shores. But say he reached the Serpent’s Mouth before daybreak? What lay ahead of him then? A journey of many miles around the cape, with a chance he would be coming into Cedros Bay against the tidal current, all depending how fast he could navigate.
Could be it would have been none the worse if sweet Nan hadn’t given him a heads-up and he’d stayed put, just waited for the Sunglasses to come for him. Could be. But why bother his mind with second guesses, eh? There were times when you had to make your choice and to stick to it whatever the outcome.
Jarvis darted along the curving waterway, his bow high, heavy sheets of spray lashing against the outboard’s windscreen as he breasted the surface. Still he was unable to leave the noise of the chopper behind . . . indeed the sound of its blades seemed closer than before. Holding steady as he could, he once again flicked a glance over his shoulder toward the south bank.
That was when he got his first fearful look at it, a sleek black shadow which might have blended seamlessly into the night except for the tiny red and blue pricks of the running lights on its sides and tail. The helicopter whirred in over the mangroves he’d just left behind, a spotlight in its nose washing the treetops in sudden brilliance. Jarvis saw them churn from its rapid descent, their interwoven branches beaten into wild contortions by the downdraft of its rotors.
The long shaft of the beam sliced ahead of the oncoming bird, roved over the trees and across the reeds to the water. It made a quick sweep over and past Jarvis, and then reversed direction and locked on his speeding craft.
Jarvis kept his eyes raised for only a moment before he brought them back to his windscreen, blinking as much from fear and agitation as the somehow otherworldly glare. His hands clenched around the butterfly wheel, he shot into high gear and poured on speed, pushing the outboard to its max, holding onto that wheel, feeling its jerky resistance and holding on tight, certain the wheel would tear free of his grip if he loosened it the slightest bit, spin right out of his fingers and send the boat careening onto its side.
The helicopter attached its trajectory to him even as he struggled to retain control. Cutting across the shoreline to the river, it veered sharply west and then swooped down low at Jarvis’s back, came down in pursuit like an enormous predatory nighthawk, the fixed, fierce eye of its spotlight shafting him with brightness. And the noise, Jarvis had never heard anything like it. The knock-knock-knock of the copter’s rotors beating the air had transformed into a deafening roar as it drew closer and closer, and the sound that assaulted him now seemed to outwardly echo and amplify the accelerated pounding of his heart.
And then, out of that clamor, a voice from the bird’s public address system: “Bring the boat to a halt! We mean no harm! I repeat, Jarvis Lenard, we mean no harm!”
Jarvis raced around a looping bend in the channel, hoping to buy whatever thin slice of time he could, aware that separating himself from the helicopter would be almost impossible.
He felt no surprise when it stuck to his tail as he took the turn, then gained on him, pulling practically overhead, its spot blazing down like the noonday sun.
“We want only your cooperation!” the voice blared over its loudspeakers. “I repeat, we want only—”
Jarvis squinted, trapped in the lights, struggling to stay his course while barely able to see what lay ahead. Cooperation, no harm, was that what they’d told Udonis and the rest when they caught them? As if the Sunglasses would find someone like him worthy of their attention, bother to dig up his name, ask his whereabouts of every acquaintance whose path he might have crossed lately, and then send a helicopter into the air after him—a search helicopter in the hours between midnight and dawn—without harmful intent. And was there any chance they had sent the bird up alone?
No, no, Jarvis thought. The Sunglasses, they did not operate so. Others from the fleet would be headed his way, he knew. Closing in at that very moment, launched off their pads or turned from patrols elsewhere on the peninsula, all of them summoned over their radios by the helicopter that had picked him up. And while no proof had ever been given to him, he’d heard talk among the employees that they carried electronic eyes that could penetrate the darkness, guide them straight to him in the night, make an image of a man by reading the heat that came off his body.
Cooperation. No harm.
Jarvis again considered those words with a black and stinging sort of amusement—and all in an instant had an idea. Perhaps it wasn’t so bad that they expected him to give up trying to scram with a simple, trusting smile on his face. Jarvis Lenard’s mother hadn’t raised any fools, no she hadn’t. But if the Sunglasses were expecting to find one tonight, he would be right glad to oblige and give them a peek at what they wanted.
A peek and nothing more, though.
His hand on the shift, Jarvis throttled back hard, cutting the engine with a jolt that nearly sent him overboard. He held onto the wheel, swaying to and fro, afraid the lightweight boat would capsize from its abrupt power-down.
The helicopter, meanwhile, came gliding straight on from behind and pulled to a hover not thirty feet above his head, hanging there almost like a toy dangled on a string, its blades churning the water to make the boat pitch even more violently. A hand over his eyes to shield them from the aircraft’s bright light and blasting wind, Jarvis craned his head back and saw two helmeted crewmen behind its bubble window.
“Remain calm, Mr. Lenard, you’re doing fine,” the voice from inside the chopper called out. “We’re sending down a rescue basket, and will give you inst
ructions on how to exit the boat once it’s lowered.”
Bathed in the unremitting brightness of the spots, Jarvis finally had to break into a grin. He could not help himself, ah no, not after having heard that voice speak the word rescue. The men up there had gotten a look at a fool out here, surely he’d given it to them . . . but looks could deceive, as the old saying went.
Jarvis saw a hatch open in the belly of the chopper, watched the basket begin to descend at the end of its line, took a very deep breath, and held it.
Then, his lungs filled to capacity with oxygen, he tore his knitted dread bag from his head, cast it into the wind of the blades, and plunged headlong over the side of the boat into the river.
POINT FORTIN, TRINIDAD
Jean Luc watched Tolland Eckers emerge from the field office and knew he was about to receive word that wasn’t good. The security man’s stiffly erect walk and hiked up shoulders said it all; he seemed to be overcompensating for the urge to hang his head as he approached.
“I’ve got that update you ordered from Team Gray-wolf, sir,” Eckers said, his voice raised above the thrum of the oil pumps. “It’s disappointing, but their search operation is still at an early stage.”
Jean Luc leaned back against the Range Rover, holding the protective helmet he’d worn for his inspection at his side. Besides the doffed hard hat with its goggle and earmuff attachments, he had on jeans, tan mocs, and an open-collared indigo linen shirt that was perhaps a half shade darker than the strikingly blue eyes that regarded Eckers from under his tanned brow.
“I want the simple details, Toll,” he said.
“Would you prefer hearing them now or on the drive back—?”
“Start right here,” Jean Luc said. “Just be kind enough to spare me the excuses.”
Eckers took a cautious look around from behind his Ray-Bans while a truck rumbled slowly past on the dirt road to their left, ferrying a group of roughnecks toward the wells.
“The man in that boat’s been positively identified as our groundskeeper,” he said after a moment. “It took a while to confirm this from our photos—bad angle. The bird didn’t pull overhead until right at the last minute, and he was wearing a dread bag that made it difficult to see his features.” He paused. “A dread bag, that’s one of those knitted caps some of the locals wea—”
“I was born and raised on this island,” Jean Luc interrupted. “My time away didn’t result in severe loss of memory.”
Eckers didn’t speak. A warm mid-morning breeze ruffled his loose-fitting guayabera shirt.
“I think we were already clear about who was out there,” Jean Luc said. “A man doesn’t head full-tilt for the open sea at two A.M. without some pressing reason. Not from where he did, and not on a crap motorboat.”
Eckers stood there uneasily another moment, then nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “Of course.”
“We know it was Lenard, and we know he took a dive out of the boat . . . to everybody’s surprise but mine,” Jean Luc said. “The question is, Toll, can we say what happened to him afterward?”
Eckers shook his head.
“I’m sorry, sir, we can’t with absolute certainty,” he said. “Our general feeling is that he drowned, though. The current’s pretty strong over near the lower tip of the peninsula. There’s soft riverbank—a mix of clay and sand—for a stretch that runs several miles up and down the channel from the point where Lenard abandoned the outboard. Vegetation’s weeds and cattails, some scrub growth. Our trackers are familiar with this kind of surface geography, and they’d have likely discovered evidence if he made it ashore. Footprints in the mud, bent or snapped rushes, something of that nature—”
Jean Luc cut him off. “I assume the scuba teams are on this.”
“Since last night.”
“And they’ve found nothing? No sign of him?”
Eckers hesitated. Jean Luc looked at him, waiting.
“The dread bag was retrieved from the water about a half mile down from where the son of a bitch took his plunge,” Eckers said. “That’s it.”
“The dread bag.”
“Right.” Eckers inhaled. “Again, the search is in its initial stages. We’ve got experience with this sort of thing and the resources to back it up.”
There was a brief silence. Jean Luc’s eyes remained steady on Eckers.
“Lenard’s from that village,” he said.
Eckers nodded.
“I see what you’re thinking,” he said. “Those people know their way around the island. And they’re protective of their own.”
“Aren’t they?”
“As far as that first goes, without a doubt,” Eckers said. “They’ve been there for generations. But a lot of them live in poverty or near poverty and won’t need much incentive to give up what they know.”
Jean Luc watched his face another moment. Then a smile crept across his strong, full-lipped mouth.
“Take me back to Bonasse,” he said, and reached behind him to open the Rover’s passenger door. “We’ll talk more on the way home.”
They got in, Eckers behind the wheel, and drove along the dirt vehicle path across the production fields to the Southern Trunk Road. On their left, pump rods moved up and down over the established wellheads in steady rhythmic fashion. On the right, enormous derricks soared above the newer drill sites, their various mechanical systems powered by humming diesel engines and generators. Beyond these were the storage and refinery tank farms, and further to the northeast the delivery terminals on the Gulf of Paria, barely visible now in the bright blue-green reflectiveness of Caribbean morning sunlight and seawater.
Jean Luc sat in the Rover’s comfortable air-conditioning and waved a hand toward the fields as they bumped along.
“You know, when I look out at all this, it would be easy to see two hundred and fifty years of family accomplishment,” he said. “But it isn’t my perspective. It wasn’t my father’s, or my grandfather’s, or great-grandfather’s. I’m a now kind of person. I focus on each opportunity as it’s presented. That’s how I was raised, a sensibility that’s been instilled in me. It’s how I run my life and business.” He gestured out the window again. “What I see out there are separate parts of a whole, individual projects at distinct, ongoing stages of development. I look at a well that’s ten, fifteen years old, ask myself whether it’s almost tapped out, or peaking, or somewhere in between, and then ask whether its efficiency can be improved. I see a thumper rolling over a particular location, or possibly a rig going up, and make a mental note to have the latest seismological and core sample data on my desk toot suite . . . Can you appreciate where I’m coming from, and how it relates our current problem, Toll?”
Eckers made a quick turn to put them on the main route.
“You’re saying not to lump sum it,” he said, nodding.
Jean Luc looked across the seat at him and grinned.
“Nicely put,” he said. “And right on. Experience is always helpful, but you can be lulled by past success. What we need is to reset our priorities, focus on today instead of”—his grin widened—“our master plan, if you’ll pardon my being cute.”
Eckers gave another thoughtful nod.
They rode in silence for the next forty miles, crossing the peninsula on the Trunk, a smooth multilane blacktop that dipped inland from the constellation of industrial towns around the petroleum fields and then swung southwest through undisturbed woodlands toward the beaches, sugar plantations, and fishing villages of Cedros.
Just short of an hour after they had left oil country behind, Eckers made the long, curving turn off the road that brought them within sight of the estate grounds and, high on a hill behind a spread of cedar copses, topiary, and ornamental gardens, the grand Colonial mansion with its witch’s hat turrets wrapped in balconies of stone.
“I’ll reset and reorganize the search,” he said, passing through the electronic entry gate. “See that our men—our assigned specialists—understand Lenard has to
be their first priority.”
“As if our world stands or falls on finding him,” Jean Luc said. “In the meantime, I’d better massage our partners at Los Rayos. With their having gotten confirmation that the visitor from UpLink will be coming, this episode’s bound to have made them uptight.”
“Beauchart’s given them his reassurances.”
“They’ll want to hear from me anyway,” Jean Luc said. He paused. “Suppose I might as well make a call to Washington while I’m at it.”
Eckers glanced at him.
“Are you surprised?” Jean Luc said.
Eckers shrugged a little.
“Some,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you’d need to do that.”
“I don’t. Not absolutely. Not yet. But there’s the history. The connection between our families. Respecting it’s another of my ingrained traits.” Jean Luc paused again; Eckers’s silence betrayed his reservations. “No fear, Toll, I haven’t contracted the honesty bug . . . I suppose you could say fair’s fair between Drew and myself, though,” he said. “If I expect him to play by my rules of the game, I have to respect his.”
Eckers looked as if he was about to say something, but then moved on without another word. He went up the drive to where it rimmed the mansion’s front court, pulled over to the low curb, and stopped the vehicle.
“Do you want me to stay on the grounds?” he said as Jean Luc got out.
Jean Luc leaned his head back in the door and shook it once.
“That’s okay, I’d prefer you get back to the hunt,” he said. “And don’t forget our chat. Take one thing at a time, Toll. One thing at a time and we’ll be fine.”
Eckers nodded and became very still, staring out the windshield through his dark lenses again. Jean Luc studied him a moment, withdrew his head from the Rover, pushed the door shut, and turned up the courtyard toward the house.