Dead and Gone (39 page)

One day Gem came into the stateroom where I spent most of my time. “I am going to give you a manicure,” she announced.

“What the hell for?”

“Because a rich old man would not have hands like yours. I cannot do much about the …”

She let her voice trail away. My hands are like my life: some of the breaks hadn’t healed straight. And the scars spoke for themselves, if you knew how to read them.

“It doesn’t matter,” I told her. “Once he—”

“It is part of your role,” she said, solemnly. “Another tenth. Besides, you know how much I love your thumb in my mouth. It would be nicer if it was manicured, perhaps?”

“Sure,” I said, letting it go.

“If you wish, I can easily teach one of the children to do it, too. That would be right in character.”

“No!”

“Burke, what is so wrong? It would just be part of the—”

“I said no. That’s the fucking end of it.”

Gem got to her feet, a thoughtful look on her face. Then she turned away from me, sticking her thumbs in the waistband of her shorts. She pulled them down and bent over in one smooth movement.

I smacked her bottom half-heartedly. “More,” she said. I did it again, a couple of times, the cracks loud in the closed space.

She straightened up, adjusted her shorts. Turned around and knelt next to me as she had been before. “I have been punished now, yes?”

“Sure.”

“It is not enough?”

“It’s plenty, Gem. It’s not your fault. There’s some things I just can’t—”

“It
was
my fault. I know you. I never should have suggested what I did. I apologize. Do you accept?”

“Yes, baby girl. Just forget it, okay?”

“I have been punished, so my debt is paid. I will forget it. But … now may I give you that manicure, please?”

T
he next evening, Levi sat down next to me. “It’ll work,” he said, confidently. “I wasn’t sure at first. But I’ve been practicing. Every time there’s no other ship in sight, I toss one of the flotation devices overboard, wait till we’ve got some distance. If I can hit something that small at a hundred yards, what you’re talking about, I can handle it three, four times that distance, no problem.”

“And you can’t beat it for silence.”

“That’s for sure. Even over water, you can’t hear a thing.”

“We’ll probably never get to use it, you understand?”

“I understand. But if I have to go with the other option, you could double that distance and it’d be no big deal.”

W
e made even better time than Flacco had estimated. When he pulled in for the last refueling, I called the Chancellor.

“Please write this down very carefully,” he said, his voice more cocksure and commanding than it had been when he thought the old man was a long distance away. “Starting from the mouth of the Chetco River, from Red Buoy No. 2, proceed on a course of 238.5 true. This will take you out to 124 degrees, 31 minutes west; 41 degrees, 51 minutes north. Repeat: course is 238.5 true, heading to 124 degrees, 31 minutes west; 41 degrees, 51 minutes north. Please note, that point is slightly more than twelve-point-five nautical miles from the United States coast. If you would please read that back to me …”

I did that, except for the twelve-mile-limit part.

“Precisely,” he said. “Please tell your pilot that Red Buoy No. 2 has a flashing red light with a four-second interval. It also has a bell.”

“I’ve got it.”

“And the last buoy out, ‘CR,’ which marks the start of the Chetco Channel, is red-and-white-striped. This one flashes white in morse code the letter ‘A.’ And it is equipped with a whistle, not a bell. Are you still with me?”

“Yes,” I told him. And repeated what I’d written down, word for word, to prove it.

“Tomorrow morning at oh-seven-hundred.”

“I’ll be there.”

“If fog proves a problem, we will radio—”

“Fine.”

“Very well, sir. I look forward to meeting you.”

“W
hat’s he mean, ‘pilot’?” I asked Flacco. “Guys who drive ships’re captains, right?”

“Right. When you drive, you’re the captain. But the guys who take the boats—the big ones, I mean, like the liners—the guy who brings it in or out of port, they call him the pilot. That was me, through the Canal. Got to have a pilot’s license to work those locks.”

“And you understand what all this stuff means?” I asked, showing him the directions I’d written down.

“Sure,” he said. “Just means he wants us to stay with the gyro compass. See where he says
true
north? That’s different from
magnetic
north. Could be ten, maybe even twenty-five degrees of difference.”

“And the true one is the more accurate?”

“That’s right,” Levi answered. Flacco and Gordo turned to look at him. “That’s working off the GPS, so it’ll be right on the nose, every time. You just dial in latitude and longitude, and it’ll tell you how to steer, stay right on course. But ships have to carry both. Even if we lost electrical power, the magnetic compass would always work.”

The Mexicans nodded approval. “That’s the truth, man,” Gordo said. “You ever drive?”

“No,” Levi said. “I was just on board a lot while I was in the Corps. But I’m a good listener.”

H
e was a good watcher, too. It was just getting light as Levi stood at the rail, a pair of binoculars to his eyes. “Christ,” he said, softly, “that’s a fucking Zhuk.”

“A what?” I asked him.

“A coastal-patrol craft. The Russians started making them thirty years ago. For export only—who’d try and patrol the
Russian
coast?”

“Where’d they find buyers? Something like that must cost a few million bucks, right?”

“Maybe once. Now one, one and a half max. The mobs in charge over there have been selling off the military surplus for a long time now. Hell, you could probably pick one up for half what I said, if you knew where to look. Nicaragua was a big buyer.”

Russian surplus
, I thought to myself. Another piece falling into place. “So it’s nothing like … this one?”

Levi made a snorting sound.
“That
one’s packing enough horsepower to fly a good-sized plane. Probably has a crew of fifteen, twenty men. She can make thirty knots and cover over a thousand miles if they go to half-throttle. And that’s if it’s nothing but refurbished stock. If they replaced the original diesels with General Motors or Volvo Penta jobs, it’d be a lot stronger.”

“So it’s
much
faster than—”

“That’s the least of our problems,” he said. “You look close, you can see the fixed machine guns. Those they
had
to have replaced. We’re probably looking at .50-calibers. Enough to turn this barge into shredded wood.”

“How could they just run around with stuff like that? They’ve had to dock it somewhere.”

“Each gun’s on a tripod,” Levi explained. “They could just remove the guns and stow them below when they have to enter a port.”

“How are they going to get him on board?” I asked, watching the gray metal gunboat slice through the water toward us.

“When they get close enough, they’ll cut their engines. So will we. After that, we can just orbit—you know, make minor position adjustments—so we’ll be close enough to make the transfer. But I don’t think they’ll come alongside, not with the firepower they’re packing. It’d be like coming down to handgun distance when you’re holding a rifle—makes it harder to use it right.

“Besides, it’s real calm now and … There! See how their wake is disappearing? Their engines are off now. Go down and tell Flacco to cut ours, too.”

B
y the time I’d gotten belowdecks, Flacco had already cut our power. And when I got back up top, Levi handed me the glasses, said: “What did I tell you? Here comes their Zodiac.”

“That little rubber thing?”

“It’s not rubber, it’s … never mind. There’s four men on board, three of them openly packing. I’ve got to get into position. And you better get out of sight, quick!”

W
hen only one man came down the steps, I knew the others were still waiting in that Zodiac. If they’d tried to board, any of them Levi didn’t pick off would have met Max in the shadows where he waited. And our boat would be flying as fast as it could.

I’d expected a military uniform of some kind, but the man Gem ushered into the stateroom was dressed in a dark-blue suit over a white shirt and wine-red tie. Very presidential.

Gem ordered the two stick-thin Cambodian girls in matching schoolgirl outfits out of the room in a harsh, commanding tone. Then she escorted him over to where I was sitting in the wheelchair, the oxygen mask in place over my nose and mouth.

He shook my extended hand, then took a seat in the deep white leather armchair right across from me.

“May I offer you coffee? Or tea?” Gem asked him, bowing at the waist like a stewardess. Or a geisha.

“No, thank you,” he answered, politely.

“Then perhaps—?”

“Nothing,” he said, dismissing her. He turned his full attention to me: “So, Mr. Preston, we finally meet.”

“It is my honor, sir.”

“I am honored that a man of your stature would consider becoming one of us.”

“If we can come to agreement,” I wheezed through the mask, “it can be done today, as I promised. Surely you have a means of confirming a currency transfer on board your vessel?”

“Certainly.”

“I have people standing by,” I told him. “A transfer could be completed in minutes.”

“Very well. Then let me take this opportunity to answer whatever questions and concerns you have.”

I pulled the oxygen mask off my face and stared at him, making sure. Dead sure. It was him, no question. The only change was that his remaining hair was cut very short.

He regarded me calmly, not a flicker of recognition showing in his own eyes. But when I asked, “Why did you try to have me killed?,” my voice penetrated right to his core.

“You’re—” he gasped.

“Right. You remember me now, don’t you? I’ve got a new face, but I’m the same man you met with in that fancy townhouse of yours.”

“Burke,” he said. Just a statement of fact. If he was frightened, it didn’t show.

“Yeah. And now maybe you’d like to—”

“I don’t know why you went through this incredibly complicated ruse,” he said, unruffled, the semi-British accent I’d remembered now completely erased from his voice. “But I’m sure you understand that you can’t do anything to me without fatal consequences to yourself. And to everyone on board this vessel. My ship—”

“Yeah. The Zhuk. I know. We’re outgunned. I didn’t bring you here to kill you. It’s all about some answers.”

“Answers?”

“Yeah. Answers. To the question I just asked you.”

His answer was to laugh.

I waited, as calm inside as the sea around us, gentle waves lapping at my insides. But not touching them.

“Here’s your ‘answer,’ ” he said, still chuckling. “And it’s not the one you think.”

I said nothing, waiting.

“I realized I had you to thank for my prison sentence—you and that cunt Wolfe—before I ever started doing it. But I am a professional. I wouldn’t spend a fortune on petty revenge.”

“A professional pedophile.”

“Yes,” he said, chuckling again. “That’s the problem.
Your
problem.”

“I don’t get it.”

“You want to know the truth? Here it is. You called me a professional pedophile. That’s only half right. I am a professional. A true professional. And you, you’re a rank, incompetent amateur. The reason for the assassination—which I now see failed—is not because of what I do, but because of your delusions about it.”

“It’s your story. Tell it.”

“Oh, I’ll be happy to. And when I’m done, I’ll be able to tell something else. I’ll be able to tell if you truly understand.”

“Why is that important?”

“You’ll see. The man you met in that townhouse was a fiction. The Israelis knew it, but, apparently, they didn’t see fit to share their knowledge with you. I was playing a part. A role. Espionage can’t make much use of certain … information as it once could. At least not in America or many European countries. Homosexuality, a mistress—even the most bizarre sexual preferences—those are not good blackmail tools anymore. At least, not reliable ones. But pedophilia … ah,
that
one is an ironclad guarantee.”

“You’re telling me you didn’t deal in kiddie porn?”

“Of
course
I did.
I
was that horrible ‘commercial element’ I described to you,” he said, switching back to the slightly effeminate, semi-British voice he’d used when I’d first met him. “The market for such product may not be broad, but, I assure you, it is astoundingly deep. And the profit margins are truly incredible … virtually infinite.

“Look,” he said, his voice shifting again, letting me feel the steel beneath the froth, “use your fucking head, all right? If I was a child molester, when City-Wide popped me, how long do you think it would have taken me to rat out every single person I’d ever dealt with?”

“About thirty seconds.”

“Yes. And that’s the way you figured it, didn’t you? Only problem is, you never bothered to check. I didn’t drop dime-fucking-one, pal,” he said, hard-voiced. “And the people I
didn’t
rat out, well, they were very grateful. How much time do you think I
actually
did?”

“Six to eighteen, with the judge’s recommendation that you do the max.”

“Ah, so you at least followed the proceedings
that
far. What happened after that was an appeal—”

“You pleaded out. What kind of bullshit appeal could you put up?”

“Oh, that the guilty plea was coerced by use of improperly obtained evidence, what else?” he said, switching voice again, showing off his chameleon moves. “And, of course, there was a sealed brief submitted by the State Department in support of my application. I understand it was quite persuasive. Bottom line? I did a little less than a two-year bit.”

“Beautiful. And now you’re setting up a paradise for freaks, not because you’re one yourself, but for the money?”

“You mean Darcadia? I’m surprised at you, Mr. Burke. You have a reputation for utter insanity when it comes to child abusers, I grant you. But, in some circles, you are also known as a very clever confidence man. And not above playing some roles yourself when there’s enough money in it.”