Ark Storm (20 page)

“Listen up, Jacobsen,” said Stack, straightening up, walking to the window, standing shoulder to shoulder with Jacobsen. The journalist had four inches and sixty pounds on the editor, who disdained all forms of physical endeavor, save sex, but felt safe, sublimely cosseted and enthroned by his editorship,

“I know there’re more stories you can get rooting around with the ARk Storm people,” Stack whispered with a sickening complicity. “Stories they don’t want the public to get. Stories of thousands of bodies rotting in the waters, in the ghettos, in the badlands, where the voters don’t vote. Make Katrina and the New Orleans rescue look fuckin’ textbook. No way they could get to everyone, or evac everyone out. So there’ll be a certain minimum collateral damage they’ll be prepared to accept. This is the shit they’ll be discussing behind closed doors.” He moved away, perhaps finally detecting the energy and the revulsion pumping from his journalist, who stood still, superficially unmoved.

Stack moved behind his desk, sat, spoke to Jacobsen’s back.

“Added to which, I am gunning for that bastard Gabriel Messenger. Christ, the guy’s a number. The custom house on Seventeen Mile Drive, the Ferrari, the backgammon tournaments, the tennis … In love with himself!” he spat. “I’ll just bet there’s some dirt there. No one’s that good without pushing the envelope, and my gut tells me he’s pushing it right over the edge. There’s at least two good stories going begging. So why do we have none of it?”

“I am using my journalistic skills, old school journalistic skills, legal ones,” replied Dan, turning to face him.

“You mean that you are not using any of your considerable technical skills?”

“Using listening devices to get stories, like
News of the World
in the UK, who incidentally had to shut down when they were caught.… That would be illegal, would it not?” observed Dan. He stood, hands in his pockets, and he smiled, the same smile that had been on a number of occasions the last thing the recipient had ever seen. The editor remained oblivious.

“Don’t get cute with me,” snapped MackStack. “There’s a queue round the block who can out-write you. You’re here because you can write, granted, but equally because you have skills that any editor would kill for. In-house skills.”

Dan walked forward, leaned over his editor’s desk, palms planted on the polished wood. His shirtsleeves were rolled back. The editor, in an instinctively male atavistic way, looked at the bulging forearms, felt the first flicker of uncertainty.

“You know what?” suggested Dan, voice low. “Why don’t you just round up that queue and go and have a group jerk off. Get them to do your dirty work.”

MackStack laughed. “Nice try. Do your job, Jacobsen. While you still have it.”

47

CALIFORNIA, WEDNESDAY EVENING

The Man listened to the recordings, care of his remotely downloaded store-and-forward device. Freidland was paranoid, though as was true for many paranoiacs, he had good reason. The Man would not have put it past Freidland to sweep his house for bugs, and so he had chosen a device that did not emit a signal that could be intercepted or tracked. It could be detected by very high-tech scanners that flooded the room with radio waves and analyzed the bounce-back patterns, but he doubted that Charles Freidland would have the seventy grand to spend on that or would know where to go to get hold of one.

The beauty of this device was that he could connect to it remotely at a safe time of his choice then download an actogram—a graphical picture which showed when conversations were taking place. This allowed him to download and listen to only parts of the actogram that were clearly conversations, not vacuuming or washing up. It was a time-consuming process, but it was a necessary insurance policy, one he was to become very glad he had taken out.

He had also—cleverly, in his mind—downloaded via the wireless LAN in Freidland’s house. As it worked over the GSM system, it could be monitored anywhere in the world. If he’d been forced to use Bluetooth or the radio link, its range would have been only fifty meters for Bluetooth and about five hundred meters for the radio link. He smiled to himself. The beauty of technology.

He sat in his office, swigging black coffee, putting in the hours. He couldn’t afford not to. The CDs which housed the recordings were stacked in a cascade system, allowing for days of recordings to be saved. When one was full, the next in the cascade took the recordings. He hadn’t listened in for over a week and now he paid the price: hours of recordings to listen to.

He sat up sharply when he heard a familiar name. He listened to the woman’s questions, to the man’s answers, listened to the woman as she made her bold and oh-so-foolish declaration, unwittingly tightening the noose around her own elegant neck.

The Man looked at his watch. Morning in the Middle East. If Sheikh Ali were there. With his fleet of boats and planes he could be anywhere.

He rang, waited, completed the encryption process while the Sheikh completed his side.

“Yes,” said the lightly accented voice a little while later.

“We’ve got a problem.”

“What kind?”

“Freidland’s been talking.”

“Old man’s crazy.”

“He’s convinced someone he’s not.”

“Who?”

“Someone who works for Falcon. The forecaster.”

“The Oracle?”

“Correct.”

“She knows all about Zeus. Deal with her. Immediately.”

“I have to be careful. As you said a few days back, the body count is climbing. We don’t want to attract attention. I need to make it look like an accident.”

“Do that. But if it looks like she’s going to talk to the cops, the press, anyone, then kill her as soon as possible, accident or no accident, just silence her.”

“I will. I’ll stick close, keep an eye on what she does, who she talks to.”

“Don’t make her suspect you.”

“Don’t worry. She has no idea who I really am, no reason to suspect me.”

48

HURRICANE POINT HOUSE, THURSDAY EVENING

Gwen stood outside on her deck, gazing into the night, looking for the solace it normally offered, waiting for an elusive calm to descend. She felt exposed, swimming in a sea of lies. Not drowning. Not yet. She blew out a heavy breath. Leo trotted out behind her. She reached down to stroke him, noticed that he was standing alert. He started to growl, a low rumbling. Leo never growled. Maybe at skunks. Only at skunks, and from a safe distance.

“What’s up boy?” Gwen asked, her neck tingling. Leo kept up his growling, eyes staring into the darkness.

Gwen felt a raw, instinctive fear. This was no skunk. Someone was there in the darkness, beyond her line of vision. She could feel an alien presence, almost as keenly as Leo now that he had alerted her. She imagined someone there, eyes fixed on her. Behind her, the house was all lit up, illuminating her and her dog like figures on a target.

She wheeled round, grabbed Leo’s collar, pulled him into her house. Leo did not stop growling as she closed and locked the door behind her, pulled shut the curtains she rarely used, closed and locked all the windows.

Shit, shit, shit. She never felt scared here. Cursing, she called Daniel on his cell. It rang and rang. No answer.

49

HURRICANE POINT, FRIDAY

Gwen left the Lab at three. The weekend couldn’t start early enough for her. On Tuesday morning, Messenger had forgiven her outburst, handed back the laptop with a sardonic raising of an eyebrow. She reckoned she’d managed to act the distracted and naïve academic as the week wore on, tapping away on the laptop, playing with Zeus, getting into the guts of the model, trying to offer up more rainfall. But she found out no more about Gabriel Messenger.

She hoped to rectify that this weekend at the Half Moon Bay with Dan.

She parked up outside her house, changed into her running kit, and set off with Leo. She walked down the hill, her dog windmilling his tail in sheer joy. No growling today. Had she imagined the threat last night? Had it just been a skunk or a fox? Lit by the sun the sloping grass, the cliffs, the sea beyond all looked peaceful, devoid of threat.

It could all change in an instant—she knew that—like a quiet sea ravaged by a rogue wave, like one car slamming into another.

One hour later, pouring with sweat, purged, Gwen knocked on Marilyn’s door.

Her friend pulled open the door with a smile. It seemed to Gwen that in the few weeks since she’d seen her, the old lady had become a tad more stooped. But the pale blue eyes were still as sharp and as warm as ever.

“Well
hi there
absent friend,” said Marilyn in her soft voice, pulling the door open, standing back to allow Gwen in.

“I have been, haven’t I?” said Gwen. “I’m sorry. It’s this job. When I get home I tend to just flake.”

“That’s all right, honey, long as it’s going well. Sit.” Marilyn gestured to a sagging but comfy sofa adorned with hand-embroidered cushions that sat in the kitchen, always for others to sit in while she baked and fussed around them.

Gwen knew the drill. She sat. Marilyn poured them both glasses of her homemade lemonade, then pulled out a straight-backed chair and lowered herself into it.

Gwen drained the lemonade with a sigh of bliss. “Still OK for Leo to come to you for a sleepover?” She’d rung to ask a few days ago.

Leo was already lying by Marilyn’s feet, as if he too knew the drill. Marilyn bent stiffly to ruffle the dog’s ears.

“’Course! He’s good company.”

Gwen wondered whether to tell Marilyn about last night’s fears, decided not to frighten the old lady so baselessly.

“So, where’re you off then?” asked Marilyn.

“The Half Moon Bay hotel.”

“Nice! With that very fine young man you went swimming with?”

The naked swim; Gwen almost blushed. “Yes, actually. God Marilyn, you didn’t look, did you?”

Marilyn planted her hands on her hips. “’Course I did. Don’t get to see sights like that at my age. Fine-looking man. Didn’t even need my telescope.”

“Marilyn!”

The old lady laughed in delight. “You go to that ritzy hotel with that handsome man and you have yourself a good time. “’Bout time you did.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“What’s to know? You’re both young, free, single I assume?”

“All true. And he is gorgeous, funny, intelligent, kind, a good surfer.”

“And your problem is?”

“He’s just too perfect. He arrived in my life like that”—Gwen clicked her fingers—“like magic. One day nowhere; next day, in my life.”

“Sometimes fate offers us a gift,” said Marilyn softly. “And the grateful and the wise take it.”

Gwen got up, walked over to Marilyn, and kissed her cheek. “You could be right,” she said, musing silently that all gifts, even from fate, still had a price.

50

THE RITZ-CARLTON HOTEL, HALF MOON BAY, CALIFORNIA, FRIDAY EVENING

The hotel was a huge crescent topping the high, wave-cut cliffs. Gwen and Daniel, driving from opposite directions, arrived within ten minutes of each other.

Gwen was sitting in the lounge drinking a chamomile tea when Dan walked in, long and lean in his jeans, an overnight bag slung over one shoulder.

“Hi.” She got to her feet.

“Hi back.” He kissed her, a quick flutter of lips to lips.

“Sorry I didn’t get here first. Was in San Fran doing an interview and the guy turned up forty minutes late. Threw out my timing.”

“No problem. It was good to just sit and people-watch for a while.”

They walked through to Reception.

“I booked two rooms, with sea views,” said Daniel to the receptionist.

Gwen filed that one away, gave him serious brownie points. They each handed over their credit cards for an imprint.

“When d’you want to meet up?” asked Daniel, outside Gwen’s door.

“Give me twenty.”

*   *   *

Unpacked, changed, made up, Gwen twirled before the mirror. The red jersey dress fit closely over her body, flaring out from the hips. She wore nude-colored heels that put her at a good six four. She spritzed on some scent, tossed back her hair, and went to answer the knock at the door.

Daniel stood there in chinos and a blue shirt. He just looked at Gwen.

“Wow! Gwen, you take my breath away.”

Part of her wished he’d said it in a flippant way.

“You’re not bad yourself,” she managed.

He smiled. “Let’s go hunt.”

*   *   *

It was ten fifteen when three women who just might have been hookers sashayed into the wood-paneled Eno bar. Gwen, lounging on a leather banquette, sipped her champagne. “Coming in, behind you. Three possibles.”

Daniel gave them a quick glance. “No.”

“No?” whispered Gwen. “Why not? They look like hookers in those minis and heels, all those erupting boobs and makeup and hair.”

Dan smiled. “They’re just girls out for a party. The hookers at a place like this don’t look like hookers, else they wouldn’t get in.”

“But those hooker look-alikes do?”

“Because they’re not. Because the doorman knows they’re not.”

“You know your subject.”

He laughed. “I just notice stuff. Hookers have never done a whole lot for me. I like more of a challenge,” he added slowly, eyes on hers, his own challenge unmistakable. Gwen felt the heat. It radiated out of her. She could feel his too, as he sat, just inches from her, carefully and cleverly keeping his distance.

“I can believe that,” said Gwen over the rim of her glass.

“Now those two over there,” said Daniel, glancing at two nicely turned-out women in pencil skirts and silk blouses. “They get my vote.”

“So what now?”

“Stay here. Try not to get picked up.”

“What, I look like a hooker?”

“No. You look like a goddess. That’ll do it.”

Gwen watched him saunter over, introduce himself with a smile. He had them laughing straight away. Gwen sipped her champagne, then glugged it as the minutes passed. Still the women laughed and tossed their hair and seemed to be on the verge of eating out of Daniel’s palm. She felt a twist in her stomach, recognized it, angrily, as jealousy when one of the woman evidently gave her phone number to Daniel, who input it into his cell. Then he raised his hand in farewell and walked back to her.