The Fury and the Terror (54 page)

But now she had to know.

It was a good lock, but Sandi had worked better ones, with whatever tools were at her disposal. She needed forty-three seconds to open the lock. She took it off and raised the heavy lid, saw at once why the box weighed so much. It was sheathed with lead inside, quarter-inch thickness, and within this lead casket was a Russian-made yellow carrier bag, property of the Strategic Rocket Forces. She didn't touch the sealed bag. She had a strong hunch about its contents: a plutonium-implosion bomb. Given its size, Sandi estimated the bomb to be a KT'er. Assuming a surface blast, forget survival up to four-tenths of a mile from ground zero. Serious damage to exposed human beings as far as seven and a half miles away.

Her first reaction was alarm, her second total confusion.

If Randy and Herb were MORG agents, what were they doing with—

Portland.

And now Nashville?

Good God. The company she'd worked twelve years for. Why?

Sandi closed the lid of the tackle box and, hunkered down with gooseflesh rising on her thighs and forearms, she tried to replace the padlock with shaky hands.

Get out of here!

Sandi felt an inquiring touch on one shoulder and jumped up with a shriek. She had a glimpse of Randy, socks and bare ass, reacted by throwing a karate fist at his chin. He moved his head two inches with the reflexes of a mongoose and the short blow only grazed his jawline. He struck hard to her solar plexus with stiffened fingers and Sandi's big body sprawled on the galley floor. Wind knocked out of her. Randy was on her immediately, seizing the hand that held the padlock, stepping inside her elbow with his right foot. He twisted her fist sharply toward her body; her arm couldn't move and the torque snapped both wrist bones. She dropped the lock and lost control of her bladder. All of the fillings in her back teeth were visible but Sandi couldn't breathe, couldn't scream. He backed away from her and looked around as Herb came out of his stateroom towing fumble-footed Cheryl. She still had sleep in her eyes and wasn't resisting him. But she balked at the sight of Sandi writhing on the deck.

"Whatever this is about," she said, "I d-d-d-d—"

Randy glanced from Herb to Sandi and said, "Sweet Patootie had herself a look at
Babycakes
. I'll take care of it."

Herb clamped a hand over Cheryl's mouth as she struggled, terror bolting into her eyes.

"What about this one?"

Randy allotted Cheryl a few seconds' thought, then nodded.

"Don't make any more mess," he said. "It's a fuckin' rental."

MADISON, WISCONSIN • JUNE 7 • 2:35 A.M. CDT

W
ith her nervous system hotwired from all the caffeine she'd swallowed—pills and colas—in order to stay halfway alert, Eden Waring pushed her chair back from the desk where she'd been staring at the screen of a laptop computer and said quietly, "Found it."

Bertie Nkambe was curled up asleep on a sofa. Tom Sherard put down the book he was reading, walked over to Eden, and stood behind her chair looking, from her angle, at the active matrix screen.

"Sure?"

"This is definitely the school I saw when I was dreaming. The same style of buildings, either old-time collegiate or boxy-modern. Vandy has an observatory too, but it's smaller than Wisconsin's."

"Vanderbilt University?" She had tapped into their Web site, which featured an introduction to the school, a tour of the campus. "Where is it?" Sherard asked.

"Nashville. Another state capital, like Madison. Let's see if they have a Web site. We'll find out what the city looks like and hope there's a big lake in the neighborhood. Then I'll know for sure."

The best source the search engine found for Eden was the Tennessee Film Commission's site, which provided information and photos for Hollywood production managers looking for locations in the area. She printed out a photo of the Greek-revival capitol building near downtown Nashville, studied it, walked outside onto the balcony to get some fresh air and have another look at the city of Madison, lucent but nearly motionless at this hour against a dark-bodied lake.

"The capitol buildings are different," she said, looking at Sherard with reddened, transfixed eyes in the hush of night. "Madison's capitol has a dome. Nashville's doesn't. There are big stadiums in both cities. The lake I saw must be Old Hickory. Okay. Now I'm sure. It's Nashville. But that's all I know. God help those people down there. I don't think I can."

SAN FRANCISCO • JUNE 2-6

T
he assassin who now called himself Corey DeSales had spent the better part of the week making himself available in the San Francisco area. Days and nights on the move, taking little time to sleep in his hideaway in Sausalito. Riding BART across the Bay. Strolling through Berkeley by the university, browsing in the bookstalls on Telegraph. Making his way through the summer crowd around the street-cart bazaar fronting Sproul Plaza. Always alert for the contact he was confident would come now that he was available again. The assassin had a new identity, but They would know him. Although he had prudently changed his face his vibes hadn't changed; they were as individual as fingerprints. Impact Sector, he knew, had his vibrations on file. They had developed a machine, now scanning the earth from a proprietary spy satellite, that could locate him in a matter of minutes.

In San Francisco he rode cablecars, hung out at the Marina and Ghirardelli Square, the Embarcadero and Golden Gate Park. The weather was fair most days after noon, the nights mild until the fog returned.

At least once a night he made it over to Chinatown. For one thing, he liked the food. For another, he liked to shop for little things to brighten up his digs. And then there was the girl who sold watercolors down the block from the Ya Lin restaurant—the "Elegant Forest"—in that part of Chinatown known as the Alleys.

She'd always had a smile for him, even before he bought a couple of her works—an impressionistic view of Grant Avenue; three grinning effigies, Chinese household gods. The assassin thought she had talent. Her name was Lu Ping, and during the day she studied to be an architect. He didn't know much else about her. They talked mostly about art. On his fourth or fifth visit she recommended, because he appeared to be very interested in Chinese
objets
, that he not miss a new collection in the Chinese gallery of the Asian Art Museum.

Then she looked him in the eyes for one of the few times since he'd taken to dropping around her sidewalk place of business, and suggested when. Four-thirty on Saturday, half an hour before the museum closed and the crowd would be thinning out. She turned to smile at a potential new customer, who had a question about the subject of one of her watercolors.

The assassin reacted with a slight nod following Lu Ping's suggestion. He didn't linger. He walked down the alley and turned right on Clay Street. There was a restaurant near Stockton he favored. On his way up to the second floor in an atmosphere heavy with wok oil and sizzling rice, he encountered a blind old man with a cane making his way down the rubber-treaded stairs. The assassin moved aside to let the old man pass, not taking his eyes off him. The assassin carefully watched everyone, blind or not, he encountered in close quarters.

The Chinese man, sensing his presence, paused and nodded, a smile adding new creases to the fragile paper lantern of his face.

"Chinese music developed from a five-note scale," he said, speaking slowly.

The assassin didn't reply and resumed climbing the stairs. He heard the old man's cane lightly tapping the wall on his way down.

Sometimes it happened that way. A young woman selling watercolors in a Chinatown alley. A blind man with a cane. He had been contacted. Impact Sector was putting him back to work. Afterward he couldn't remember what he'd eaten for dinner, but he slept deeply in his aerie on the barge above Poppa Too Sweets', oblivious of the bistro's hull-rocking tempos that lasted until three A.M.

L
u P
ing drank from a second cup of the Shu Mal White Ebony tea prepared by Chien-Chi in the antique-filled apartment her uncle maintained on Jackson Square. Then she rubbed her temples and said, "What an ordeal. I hope he couldn't tell I was shaking inside."

"You did good," Danny Cheng assured her.

"I couldn't begin to tell you what it's like peeping that mind. I have been like weirded-out for days. If rattlesnakes had memories—"

"It's over now. For you, kiddo. But I want you to stay away from the Alleys for a week or so. Until we know he's out of the Bay Area." He peeled off fifteen one-hundred-dollar bills from the inch-thick billfold in his pants and handed them across the table to Lu Ping. "Buy yourself something pretty." He added a one-ounce gold panda coin. "This is for luck on your exams."

"That is so sweet of you, Uncle! Did I tell you he's carrying a gun? I can't think of anything else that might help. What do you want with this turdball? A cross-dressing government hit man? I mean, like I already told you. He is totally insane."

"That's what makes him so wonderful," Danny said, glancing at the screen of his ever-present laptop. Fingering the keys. Adding to his storehouse of knowledge. Danny Cheng, the information man. "Even madmen have their motives."

"Chinese music developed from a five-note scale," Chien-Chi said, chuckling softly to himself.

A
t 4:34 Saturday afternoon Danny, wearing one of his gray shantung suits that swarmed with flash like an aquarium tank, walked into the hall of the Chinese gallery that housed the latest exhibit, a donated collection of old Chinese musical instruments from the estate of a San Francisco lawyer with Mob ties. Danny was studying the catalogue through glasses as black as the enameled ornamentation on a T'ang dynasty guitar. There were a dozen other browsers in the gallery, including a thirtyish young man whose thatch of brown hair, brown mustache that hung over his upper lip, and brown eyebrows seemed too perfectly toned to be natural. He also wore glasses, a heavy horn frame resting on a high-bridged nose.

The assassin glanced at Danny Cheng, and didn't look at him again. Danny kept his nose down to his catalogue as he circled the display cases on the floor. A fifteen-minute warning was sounded. Only four other visitors and the guards remained.

Danny glanced up at the reflection of the assassin on a thick sheet of glass protecting fragile gongs and drums. He didn't look around at him.

"Chinese music developed from a five-note scale," the assassin said in a conversational tone.

"Without semitones," Danny added, giving a slight nod of approval. Then he folded his program, put it under one arm, glanced at the blue face of his Breitling wristwatch and said, "Tan limousine on Tea Garden Drive. Five minutes."

He walked briskly out of the gallery while the assassin remained in contemplation of the tall case containing gongs and drums.

F
ive minutes later he emerged into the sunshine and breezy chill of Golden Gate Park. Temperature in the mid-sixties. The limousine was where he had been told to expect it. A chauffeured driver stood beside a rear door, looking at him.

The assassin had never been contacted in this manner before, by someone obviously of rank in the Bureau's Impact Sector. Perhaps The Man himself. He was both excited and wary. This change in routine could be about his approval rating. Or else he was wanted for something extremely important, unprecedented in his career.

He walked to the limo. The door was opened for him.

Danny Cheng waved the assassin to a jump seat. Danny watched him for a few moments behind the impenetrable dark glasses. Then he held out a hand, palm up, a request.

"Current identification."

The assassin handed over his wallet without hesitation. Danny looked at a driver's license, credit and business cards, put them back, and returned the wallet.

"Those will be okay, Mr. D. But we'll need photos for additional documentation that may be useful. Hold still, please, keep your chin up, and continue to look this way."

There was a bright flash, from a concealed camera in the back of the limo. The assassin blinked afterward. When he could see again, Danny Cheng was holding out a letter-sized envelope, sealed with tape.

"Five thousand in cash," he said.

The assassin nodded, took the envelope, and put it away. He smiled slightly, at ease now, his pulse rate down. He waited.

"Anxious to get back into show business?" Danny Cheng asked. He pressed a button on a console under his left hand. The door of a cabinet beside his knee slid back, revealing a small television screen. The assassin turned slightly on the jump seat to see it better. "Here's the show," Danny said. "And here's our star."

The tape ran for only a couple of minutes. More than enough time. The assassin was stunned as the tape began; then he experienced a cold wave of exhilaration. The audacity. He stopped watching before it was over. He was already thinking, not about what They were asking him to do, but how it might be done. He could refuse, of course. Step out of the beige limousine without another word. The limo would drive away. He was in Golden Gate Park. The sniper might be anywhere—on a roof of the museum or atop the California Academy of Sciences Building on the other side of the Music Concourse. On a wooded knoll nearby. He would be killed before he took a dozen steps.