Hot Ice (32 page)

A sharp elbow from Judith dug into his ribs. “And I spent some time in the military. I have a good idea what a potentially explosive device might look like.”

Franklin opened his mouth just as the bomb squad emerged from the garage, signaling for their truck to move up. Both Johnson and Franklin turned away.

“Stay put,” Johnson said in what could be construed as a command. “We’ll want to talk later.”

Judith watched them go. “Do you always smart-ass federal agents?”

“Only when they ask stupid questions.”

She took a step back, looking him up and down. “Just who are you, Jason Peters?”

“You know who I am.”

She shook her head. “I thought I did. Oh, I know what your service jacket says and that you work for a ‘private contractor’ who does jobs for the government. But what kind of work? I had to kill a man to save your ass and I almost got killed myself in San Juan. Now people are putting bombs under my car. What next, I get machine-gunned down on the street? I like you, Jason Peters, maybe even a little more than that. And I appreciate the excitement you’ve brought into my life. Oh, man, that scene on the George Washington campus was a total rush. But enough is enough. Whoever you are, I’m not willing to die for you.”

Jason had the distinct feeling he was being told good-bye in much the same manner he had departed from a dozen or so women. He didn’t like the feeling of being dumped.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I don’t like the odds of my reaching retirement while I’m around you. Looking over my shoulder the rest of my life isn’t what I intend to do.”

“I told you, once GrünWelt is exposed as a criminal organization, you have nothing to fear.”

“And in the meantime? And what about whatever is involved in your next ‘contract’? I’m getting nothing but negative vibes here. Either I’m with you, risking my neck or I’m sitting home wondering if you’re coming back. Not very attractive options.”

Jason started to say something but she put up a hand and continued. “It would be all too easy to fall in love with you, Jason. Then I’m hooked, really hooked. Let’s say I’m cutting my losses here.”

“I understand.”

The hell of it was that he really did.

He backed away slowly. “Tell our two federal friends whatever you want when they come back. In the meantime, I’m outta here.”

“Leaving me holding the bag to explain everything?”

“Your idea, not mine.”

“But they have your business card; they’ll track you down.”

“Better men have tried. It’s been great.”

By this time, Jason was at the periphery of light from the condos and the emergency vehicles. Another step and he disappeared like a phantom, leaving Judith to wonder if she had done the right thing.

Phineas Simpson rarely came to work this early but a client needed a current balance sheet in a hurry to satisfy a potential purchaser. So, here he was, pulling his Prius into one of the dozen empty parking places in front of the three-story, black-glass office building that was the twin of a dozen such structures, each on its own eighth of an acre of manicured lawn, grass now shining in the early morning light with the rainbow colors of water supplied by a sprinkler system.

At the moment, Phineas’s interest was not in the grass, the sprinkler system, or even the day’s work ahead. He was watching as a huge black Lincoln Town Car slid silently into a parking place in front of the building next door. In the three years he had worked here, that building, or rather, its occupants, had been the subject of speculation. There was no flow of workers, only an occasional visitor, most of whom arrived in that same car, or one just like it, visitors who uniformly had coat collars turned up or hats pulled low and who inevitably looked around before walking swiftly inside as if fearful of being recognized.

This morning’s arrival was different.

The driver, a black man in a black suit, opened the passenger door. Out climbed the largest woman Phineas had ever seen. A brightly patterned cloth was wrapped around her in a manner that matched the turbanlike headgear she wore. Phineas had never seen her before, although several of his coworkers had reported sighting such a creature. She had, of course, been the subject of wildly divergent speculation. An African ruler of some sort in exile? An extension of an African embassy?

The small plaque beside the front door was no help. It only bore the street number and a single word: “Narcom.”

Whoever she was, she exhibited none of the furtiveness of her infrequent visitors. Instead, she waved a cheery good morning to Phineas as he sat in his car and walked in no particular hurry to the building’s front door, leaned over presumably to insert a key, and let herself in.

Phineas’s curiosity would have taken a quantum leap had he known a little more about what he was looking at but could not see. First, the golf-course quality of the lawn concealed dozens of buried weight sensors. The step of anything larger than an average dog would set off an alarm as well as show up on an electronic map. The smoked glass standard in the office park was absent here, replaced by darkened glass reinforced to withstand any projectile smaller than an artillery round. She had used no key. She had exposed her right eye to an iris-recognition system that automatically opened a locking mechanism that would have done credit to Fort Knox. Once she was inside, it locked itself again.

Momma passed through the indirectly lit lobby, treating the man behind the 24/7 reception desk to a smile. The desk itself served to conceal both a small armory of automatic weapons and an elaborate silent alarm that could be activated by a single button.

In her office on the third floor, a timer-activated pot yielded a single cup of black Haitian coffee. She took the cup to the sofa opposite a fruitwood-inlaid French desk from which she took several newspapers. She sipped as she read, nodding her approval.

The New York Times

August 3

BERN — In a surprise move, Swiss authorities have frozen bank accounts of GrünWelt, the international Green and anti–global warming organization, under international treaties waiving Swiss bank secrecy laws where international criminal activity is suspected.

The Swiss police, Interpol and unnamed law enforcement agencies have so far declined comment but a source who spoke on the condition of anonymity speculated the action was taken as the result of the discovery of an arms cache in the headquarters of a heretofore unknown branch of GrünWelt in San Juan, Puerto Rico, along with seizure of both written and computer records that implicate the organization in a number of violent acts directed against institutions and persons not subscribing to the concept of man-caused global warming.

Ivor Klingov, CEO of GrünWelt, denied any connection with the San Juan group and was quoted as saying …

Momma folded the paper, placed it back on the desk, and exchanged it for another.

The Washington Post

August 5

SAN JUAN, PR — Heime Norriaga, spokesperson for the Puerto Rico office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, announced today that records of an alleged branch of the international conservation and anti–global warming organization GrünWelt seized in a raid days ago reveal a course of extreme and violent action against those with whom the organization disagreed as to the source of global warming or the fact of warming itself, as well as possible worldwide industrial sabotage and possible ties to a Chinese-owned company.

Although declining to make public the names of those arrested, Mr. Norriaga stated the charges included weapons possession and possession of false identification, including forged passports. He also stated six of the men had international criminal records, as well as connections to the former Soviet special service.

It is unclear what other charges …

“Go gettum, Jason,” Momma said to no one in particular, again swapping papers.

Chicago Tribune

August 6

LYON — At its headquarters here today, Interpol announced that records seized in Bern earlier this week definitely demonstrate the international anti–global warming and conservationist organization GrünWelt subsidized a secret branch in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and was, in turn, owned by a company suspected of having ties to the Chinese government. The duties of the San Juan “office” were not the slogans and peaceful advocacy of ecological “green” causes for which GrünWelt is known but intimidation, violence and, in at least one instance, murder.

Additionally, Interpol claims to be decoding special computer programs that may link the organization to a number of unexplained mine disasters, oil leaks and spills, gas explosions and other catastrophes of which GrünWelt seemed to have knowledge before the events occurred.

Interpol has posted names and photographs of suspects not in custody in all 29 participating nations. A spokesperson for Greenpeace and other “green” organizations denounced GrünWelt as …

Momma drained the last drops of coffee as she dropped all three papers into a magazine rack. Sitting behind the desk, she picked up the phone, the only object other than a computer monitor on the leather-inlay surface.

A response was almost instant. “Yes, ma’am?”

“Our man Jason Peters, find him.”

“How soon do you need that information?”

“No rush,” Momma replied. “But somewhere down the line we gonna need him again an’ I ’spect he don’ wanna be found.”

Painting the placid blues and greens of the Tyrrhenian Sea upon which Ischia floated so placidly was very different from portraying the gray violence of the English Channel. The wind was as native here as the rock outcroppings, the fields of yellow sea oats, and the universally unpaved lanes from which almost all motorized traffic was banned. The wind hummed, sang, or howled. It was rarely silent.

And it changed the seascape from second to second. As Jason set up his easel—he had learned the hard way to make sure it was secured lest it take flight—the dove-colored waves were frothing against the rocks below in rhythmic surges. By the time he had mixed his pigments, the water had become a darker gray, spitting angry foam.

It had all been very frustrating until he had learned how to approximate the shades of dun color and premix them.

Standing on a naked cliff, Jason paused long enough to watch Pangloss in his perpetual exploring expedition, although the dog had covered almost all the tiny island’s three by one and a half miles, including the unfortunate excavation of a neighbor’s flower garden.

The smallest of the inhabited Channel Islands, Sark bore the footprints of stone-age men, Roman conquerors, Vikings, Normans, and invading Germans during World War II. Since the grant of a fiefdom by Queen Elizabeth I and the lord’s right of first night with the island’s brides, all unobserved since long before living memory, were finally abolished, no one was certain if the feudal lord was still required to keep a musket at hand for defense of the island. That was the major change of the century. Or the last several centuries, for that matter. Under elected council or feudal lord, horses and cows still outnumbered the five hundred or so hardy souls who called the hilly, rocky island home. Except for the advent of the bicycle, transportation along the dusty lanes was the same as it had been in the days of Good Queen Bess, lanes that became quagmires with the winter rains. Transportation to and from the island was pretty much the same, too. The Isle of Sark Shipping Company’s vessels were now turbo-powered and steel-hulled rather than wooden sailing ships, making two or three trips a day, but Guernsey was still Sark’s only destination. People still greeted both friend and stranger with cheery hellos.

Here, Jason felt relatively safe. Anyone approaching his house would be on a bicycle, in one of the island’s two-wheeled horse carts, on the back of one of the shaggy ponies, or on foot. True, they would be concealed by the lane being sunken between two rock outcroppings, but it was a good hundred yards from the road to the house, ample time to mount a defense when warned by the sophisticated system of weight and motion detectors.

He had kept this in mind when he had leased the three-hundred-year-old Norman stone cottage on the edge of an apple orchard. The relentless wind had shortened and bent the trees like the rank and file of arthritic old men. Behind the house was the promontory from which Jason was painting today. He had wanted to buy the building, but the Channel Islands’ peculiar real estate laws made purchases by those not living there year-round difficult, in addition to the fact that only about twenty percent of land for sale was on the “open” market—that is, available to nonresidents.

So, he had leased it, moving his entire household from the sun of the southern Italian coast in summer to the gloom and chill of the English Channel in fall. The furniture had survived largely intact, due to Gianna’s close supervision of the packers and movers, all related to her in some fashion no doubt.

Gianna had not fared as well. After ten days of English cuisine and weather, she had begged Jason to forgive her but she needed to leave this place where the fish was salted, meat was cremated, and vegetables were reduced to tasteless mush. And it rained for days on end. Nowhere, she wailed, could one find oregano, cumin, bay, or the other seasonings of her native land. The single store’s selection of wine was a meager and seemingly random selection of French bottles most probably rejected by the better shops in Le Havre, an hour’s airfoil ride from Guernsey. Besides, the grass-fed meat was too stringy to be considered fit for human consumption and the sole butcher had never heard of veal. Admittedly, tomatoes were plentiful, but somehow they were inadequate when compared to those of Italy. Besides, the perpetual damp aggravated her rheumatism, a malaise of which Jason had never before heard her complain.

Jason had summoned one of the island’s two-wheeled horse-drawn carts, onto which he had loaded Gianna along with such possessions as she had wished, including a generous severance check. He followed behind on his newly acquired bicycle until they reached La Maseline Jetty from which all island departures took place. Tears running down her cheeks, she had waved farewell from the deck as the boat pulled out into the Channel, rounded a huge jutting rock, and disappeared.