The Secret Service guard had opened the door, gestured to Kendrick to go inside, and then closed it, remaining in the hallway. Once the initial effect of the room wore off, Evan realized that a man was seated at a large desk, only the back of his head visible. Several moments after the door closed, as if to make certain they were alone, the man turned around in the swivel chair.
“We’ve never met, Congressman,” said Crayton Grinell in his soft, pleasant lawyer’s cadence, “and as discourteous as it may appear, I prefer to remain nameless.… Please, sit down. There’s no reason to be more uncomfortable than necessary. It’s why your clothes were returned to you.”
“I gather they served their purpose in a place called Balboa Park.” Kendrick sat down in a captain’s chair in front of the desk; the seat was covered with leopard skin.
“Providing us with options, yes,” agreed Grinell.
“I see.” Evan suddenly recognized the distinctive voice he knew he had heard before. It was on the blond European’s tape recording. The man in front of him was the vanished Crayton Grinell, the attorney responsible for wholesale death on Cyprus, killer of the Secretary of State. “But since you don’t want me to know who you are, am I to infer that one of those options might find me back in San Diego?”
“Quite possibly, but I must emphasize the questionable part. I’m being frank with you.”
“So were your friends at Bollinger’s house.”
“I’m sure they were and so were you.”
“Did you have to do it?”
“Do what?”
“Kill an old man.”
“We had nothing to do with that! Besides, he’s not dead.”
“He will be.”
“So will we all one day.… It was a gratuitously stupid act, as stupid as her husband’s incredible manipulations through Zurich. We may be many things, Congressman, but we’re not stupid. However, we’re wasting time. The Vanvlanderens are gone, and whatever happened is buried with them. The erstwhile ‘Dr. Lyons’ will never be seen again—”
“I want him!” Kendrick broke in.
“But we got him and he got the maximum penalty a court can impose.”
“How can I be sure of that?”
“How can you doubt it? Could the Vice President, could any of us, tolerate the association?… We deeply regret what’s happened to Mr. Weingrass, but we had absolutely nothing to do with it. I repeat, the doctor and the Vanvlanderens are gone. It’s all a closed book, can you accept that?”
“Was it necessary to drug me and bring me out here to convince me?”
“We couldn’t very well leave you in San Diego saying the things you were saying.”
“Then what are we talking about now?”
“Another book,” replied Grinell, leaning forward in the chair. “We want it back, and in exchange you’re free. You’ll be returned to your hotel in your own clothes and nothing’s changed. It’s morning in Zurich; a line of credit in the amount of fifty million dollars has been established in your name.”
Stunned, Evan tried not to show his astonishment. “Another book?… I’m not sure I follow you.”
“Varak stole it.”
“Who?”
“Milos Varak!”
“The European …?” His sudden recognition of the name unconsciously slipped out. It was the Milos.
“Inver Brass’s very professional, very dead lackey!”
“Inver who?”
“Your would-be promoters, Congressman. You don’t think you got where you are by yourself, do you?”
“I knew someone was pushing me—”
“Pushing? ‘Catapulting’ is more like it.… Meddling lunatics! They didn’t realize that one of them was also one of us.”
“What makes you think the European … that this Varak’s dead?” asked Evan, if only to gain moments to adjust to revelations that were coming too fast.
“It was in the paper—not listing him by name, of course, but unmistakable. But before he died, he was somewhere else, with someone else who worked for us. He had to be or he never would have come to the airport.… He stole it.”
“This other book?” said Kendrick hesitantly.
“An industrially coded ledger, meaningless to any but a selected few.”
“And you think I have it.” A statement.
“I think you know where it is.”
“Why?”
“Because in his zeal Varak would have mistakenly believed it should be in your hands. He couldn’t trust Inver Brass any longer.”
“Because he learned that one of them was also one of you.”
“Essentially, yes,” said Grinell. “I’m hypothesizing, of course. It’s a professional habit, but it’s served me well over the years.”
“Not this time. I don’t know anything about it.”
“I wouldn’t lie if I were you, Congressman. It would be futile in any event. There are so many ways of loosening minds and mouths these days.”
He couldn’t allow drugs! Under them he would reveal everything, signing Khalehla’s death warrant as well as giving the contributors all the information they needed to mount their individual smoke screens and in other cases disappear. The dying Manny deserved better than that! If ever he needed credibility it was now. He was back in another compound, not in Masqat but on an island in the waters of Mexico. He had to be every bit as convincing as he was among the terrorists, for these men, these killers from the boardrooms, were no less than terrorists themselves.
“Listen to me,” said Evan firmly, leaning back and crossing his legs, his eyes leveled on Grinell. “You can think whatever the hell you care to think, but I don’t want the vice presidency, I want a fifty-million-dollar line of credit in Zurich. Do I make myself clear?”
“Clear and recorded, naturally.”
“Good, fine! Run a full scam on me and put it on videotape—”
“But you see, it is,” interrupted the attorney.
“Excellent! Then we’re both in the same hot tub, aren’t we?”
“Same tub, Congressman. So where’s the ledger?”
“I haven’t the vaguest idea, but if this Varak sent it to me, I know how you can get it.… I’ll call my office in Washington and tell my secretary, Annie O’Reilly, to express it out overnight to wherever you like.”
The two negotiators stared at each other, neither wavering for an instant. “That’s a fair solution,” said Grinell, finally.
“If you can think of a better one, use it.”
“That’s even fairer.”
“Am I on board?”
“On board and on your way to Zurich,” replied Grinell, smiling. “Once you settle certain items on our agenda, like Chicago.”
“The telegram will go out in the morning. I’ll have O’Reilly send it from the office.”
“With a copy to our esteemed Vice President, of course.”
“Of course.”
The chairman of the contributors’ board of directors sighed audibly, pleasantly. “Oh, how venal we all are,” he said. “You, for instance, Congressman, you’re a bundle of contradictions. Your public persona would never accept our accommodation.”
“If this is for the benefit of your videotape, let me make a statement. I was burned and did my best to put out the fires in Oman because they had burned me, killing a great many friends. I see no contradiction of issues.”
“So recorded, Representative Kendrick.”
Suddenly, without any indication whatsoever, the quiet conference was broken apart by a combination of signals. A bright red light started flashing from the console of the radio telephone on the desk, and a muted siren came from somewhere in the stuccoed walls, probably from the mouth of a dead animal. The door crashed open and the tall figure of the deeply tanned captain of the boat, the laconic angry weed from the Town of Corruption, burst into the room.
“What are you doing?” roared Grinell.
“Get that fart out of here,” the yachtsman yelled. “I thought he was
a trap from the beginning and I was right! There are government people dispatched by Washington all over Bollinger’s place looking for him, questioning everyone as if they were in a police lineup.”
“What?”
“We’re handling that, but we’ve got a bigger problem. The ledger! Bollinger got a call. It’s with the bitch’s own lawyer!”
“Shut up!” commanded Grinell.
“He’s talking ten million, which she told him her Andy-boy promised her. Now he wants it!”
“I told you to shut up!… What did you mean that the federal men were questioning everyone?”
“Just what I said. They’re not only grilling them, they got search warrants. They won’t find anything, but not for lack of trying.”
“In the Vice President’s house? It’s unheard of!”
“They’re playing it smart. They’re telling Bollinger that they’re protecting him from his subordinates. But no one’s going to convince me.” The yachtsman turned on Evan. “That son of a bitch was sent in to trap us. The hero’s word against everybody else’s!”
Grinell stared at Kendrick. “There can’t be a hero’s word if there’s no hero.… Adiós, Congressman.” Grinell touched a button on the side of his desk and the door to the huge room of dead animals opened once again. The mafioso’s automatic waved back and forth as he entered cautiously. “Take him out,” ordered the attorney. “The Mexicans will tell you where.… You really fooled me, Congressman. I’ll remember the lesson. Beware the persuasive philosophical turncoat.”
The sound of the waves crashing against the island’s rock-bound coastline below grew louder as they walked down the amber-lit path. Up ahead the ground lights came to an end, and a white barrier was starkly in place between the final domed lamps, the amber wash illuminating the letters of the two signs on the white obstruction. The left was again in Spanish, the right in English.
Peligro!… Danger!
Beyond the barrier was a promontory overlooking the sea, the angry waters churning in the erratic moonlight, the sound of the crashing waves now deafening. Kendrick was being led to his execution.
41
Pockets of swirling vapor spewed up from the rocks of the promontory above the Pacific. Evan suppressed his panic, remembering his covenant with himself: he would not die passively; he would not be killed without a struggle, no matter how futile. Yet even last-ditch efforts presumed the outside possibility of survival, and he had spent his adult life studying the complexities of specifics. There were tropical vines all around him, thick and strong from the moisture and the winds constantly assaulting their trunks. There was lush overgrowth on both sides of the string of amber bulbs and loose wet dirt within that twisted foliage, mud that never knew a dry moment. The Mexican who had directed the mafioso to the killing ground was a reluctant partner to murder. His voice grew fainter as they approached the final steps toward the white barrier.
“Al frente, al frente!” he cried nervously. “Adelante!”
“Go over it or around it, Congressman,” said the Secret Service man, his tone cold, a professional doing his professional job, someone for whom life and death meant nothing.
“I can’t,” answered Kendrick. “It’s too high to step over and there’s some kind of barbed wire spreading out from the sides.”
“Where?”
“Here.” Kendrick pointed down into the dark overgrowth.
“I don’t see—”
Now! screamed the silent voice inside Evan’s throat as he whipped around, both hands surging for the large ugly weapon, gripping it and pushing it away as he bent the mafioso’s wrist back and crashed his shoulder into the guard’s chest, pulling the arm forward, and desperately, with all the strength that was in him, heaving the man off-balance and into the brush and the wet dirt. The gun fired, the explosion melding with the sounds of the crashing waves below. Kendrick shoved the weapon into the soft earth and, freeing his right hand, grabbed a fistful of mud and slapped it into the mafioso’s face, grinding it into his eyes.
The guard shouted garbled words of fury, trying simultaneously to wipe his eyes and yank the gun out of the earth and himself from Evan’s grip. Kendrick remained on top of the writhing, thrashing killer, repeatedly crashing his knee up into the man’s groin as his right hand continuously scooped up mud, crushing it into the mafioso’s eyes and mouth. His knuckles struck a hard, jagged object … a rock! It was almost too large for the panicked spread of his fingers, but nothing could, nothing would, stop him. Straining muscles he had not exerted in months, years, holding off the convulsive assaults beneath him, he pulled the heavy, jagged rock out of the mud, raised it, and crashed it down into the head of his would-be executioner. The killer-guard went limp as the man’s body sank into the wet brush and the soft ground.
Evan grabbed the gun and snapped his eyes up toward the Mexican. The Hispanic, waiting to see who would live and who would die yards away in the mist-laden, shadowed foliage, crouched, backing into an amber lamp, smashing it with his foot. Seeing the survivor, he spun around, digging his feet into the path to run.
“Stop!” yelled Kendrick breathlessly, leaping up and lurching out of the bordering overgrowth. “Stop or I’ll kill you! You understand me well enough for that.”
The Mexican stopped, turning slowly in the wash of light to face Evan. “I am no part of these things, señor,” he said in surprisingly clear English.
“You mean you don’t pull the trigger, you just tell them where they can pull it!”
“I am no part,” repeated the man. “I am a fisherman but there is no decent pay on the boats these days. I make my pesos and go home to my family in El Descanso.”
“Do you want to see your family again?”
“Sí, very much,” replied the Hispanic, his lips and hands trembling. “If this is what happens, I will not come back.”
“Are you telling me it’s never happened before?”
“Never, señor.”
“Then how did you know the way!” shouted Kendrick against the sound of the wind and the crashing waves. He was regaining his breath, gradually aware of the mud that covered him and the pain everywhere inside him.
“We are brought here and given maps of the island, which we must know completely in two days or we are sent home.”
“Why? For multiple executions?”
“I told you no, señor. These are drug waters—narcóticos—and very dangerous. Mexican and American patrols can be summoned quickly, but still the island must be guarded.”
“Summoned quickly?”
“The owner is a powerful man.”
“Is his name Grinell?”
“I do not know, señor. All I know is the island itself.”
“You speak fluent English. Why didn’t you speak English before?” Even gestured toward the dead mafioso. “To him!”
“I say it again, I wanted no part. I was told where to take you, and as we grew closer I began to understand.… No part, señor. But I have my family back in El Descanso, and the men who come here are powerful men.”
Evan stared at the man in indecision. It would be easy, so easy, to end his life and eliminate a risk, yet there was a glimmer of opportunity as well if the frightened Mexican was not a liar. Kendrick knew he was negotiating for his life, but there was another life involved, too, and it made the negotiation easier. “You understand,” he said, drawing closer to the man, raising his voice to be heard clearly, “that if you go back down to the house without him and he doesn’t appear or they find his dead body up here or washed up on the rocks, you’ll be killed. You do understand that, don’t you?”
The Mexican nodded twice. “Sí.”
“But if I don’t kill you, you’ve got a chance, don’t you?” asked Evan, raising the mafioso’s gun. The member of the staff closed his eyes and nodded once. “So, it’s in the best interests of you and your family back in El Descanso to join me, isn’t it?”
“Sí.” The Mexican opened his eyes. “Join you in what?”
“Getting out of here—away from here. There’s a boat down at that dock next to a gas tank. It’s large enough to handle the trip.”
“They have other boats,” interrupted the executioner’s guide. “They go faster than the government drug boats and there is a helicopter with powerful searchlights.”
“What? Where?”
“Down near the beach on the other side of the island. There is a cement landing ground.… Are you a pilot, señor?”
“I wish I were. What’s your name?”
“Emilio.”
“Are you coming with me?”
“I have no choice. I want to leave here and go home to my family and move to a town in the mountains. Otherwise I die and they will go hungry.”
“I warn you, if you give me any reason to think you’re lying, you’ll never see El Descanso or your family.”
“It is understood.”
“Stay at my side.… First I want to check out my hangman.”
“Your what, señor?”
“My friendly executioner. Let’s go! We’ve got a lot to do and not much time to do it.”
“To the boat?”
“Not yet,” said Kendrick, a vague, fragmented plan coming into abstract focus. “We’re going to disrupt this goddamned island. Not just for you and me but for everybody. Everybody.… Is there a toolshed—a place where they keep things like shovels, picks, hedge clippers, those kinds of things?”
“The mantenimiento,” answered Emilio. “For the gardeners, although we are often required to assist them.”
“We’ll make a stop first, then take me there,” continued Evan, awkwardly and in pain rushing back to the dead mafioso. “Come on!”
“We must be careful, señor!”
“I know, the guards. How many are there?”
“Two on each of the four passable beach areas and the pier. Ten for each shift. All carry radio alarms that set off sirenas—very loud sirens.”
“How long are the shifts?” asked Kendrick, bending over the corpse of the Secret Service man.