The Magdalene Cipher (28 page)

Which meant that there were only a few ways out for Dunphy and Clem. One: they could be
carried
a out in body bags. (Unacceptable.) Two: they could find a place to hide, and spend the rest of their lives walking back-to-back. (Also unacceptable, and probably ineffective, as well.) Three: they could destroy the Magdalene Society before it destroyed them
.
(Good idea, Jack, but? . . .)
a In the last analysis, going to ground was the only reasonable course of action. It was, after all, a big planet—just as it was a big CIA—and there was at least a chance that they'd survive
.

Turning back to the reports, he saw that they were all of a piece. They gave the date of each flight, with the times of departure and return. Crew members' names were listed, and meteorological conditions noted. Finally, there was a brief account of each mission
.

There were dozens of such reports that, when read alongside the photographs, became an adventure in nausea. When Clem returned with a copy of
The Independent
,
Dunphy closed the file and pushed it aside
.

“Happy reading?” she asked
.

“No,” Dunphy said. “It's pretty awful.”

Reaching across the table, she picked up the file and began to page through it, lingering over the photographs. “What are you going to do with it?” she asked
.

“I don't know,” Dunphy said. “Probably nothing.”

“In that case . . . may I have it?”

He thought about it. “Why not?” he said
.

She smiled and got to her feet. Turning on her heel, she walked over to the counter and told a waiting clerk that she'd like to use one of the computers. He gave her a membership card, which she filled out in the name of Veroushka Bell. Then he collected a fifteen-hundred-peseta fee, and escorted her to one of the computers. Seating herself, she logged on to the Internet and, using the Alta Vista search engine, hunted for an address in London
.

It took only a minute to find what she was looking for, and when she had it, she withdrew a packing envelope from her handbag. Slapping what looked like too many stamps on its face, she printed the address she'd found on its cover. Then she returned to the table where Dunphy was sitting, mystified, and put the file inside the envelope. Finally, she sealed the envelope and, with a satisfied smile, said, “Shouldn't we be going?”

Dunphy looked at what she'd written:

“You sure that's a good idea?” he asked
.

She smiled. “Yup.”

Chapter 24

Europe and Africa dwindled behind them as the plane headed out over the open Atlantic, with Dunphy gazing through the window at a blue-on-blue world. There were places you could lose yourself, he thought. It happens all the time. You settled in a place where the people hunting you hadn't any influence. Places like . . . Kabul. Pyo˘ngyang. Baghdad
.

The problem being that places like Kabul tended to be a little short on the kinds of amenities that Dunphy and Clem took for granted. Things like . . . the twentieth century. Honey-roasted peanuts. Decent plumbing. Better, then, to take one's chances in a venue like Tenerife which, while remote, had honey-roasted peanuts in abundance
.

Located about a hundred miles off the southernmost tip of Morocco, Tenerife was the largest island in the Canarian archipelago. Famous for its spectacular and varied scenery (which ranged from sun-pounded beaches to the highest mountain “in Spain”), the island was infamous for its sprawling tourist resorts and decadent nightlife—which tended to get started shortly after breakfast. Having been to the island twice before, Dunphy both loved and hated the place
.

They'd been flying over the ocean for almost an hour when the flight attendant arrived at their seats and, reaching past Clem, pulled Dunphy's tray from its armrest. Covering the tray with a white linen tablecloth, she handed Dunphy a menu and asked if he'd like a glass of champagne. He declined, and she repeated the sequence with Clem—who asked for a Perrier
.

“Do you know where we'll stay?” she asked
.

Dunphy shrugged. “We'll find a place.”

“And then what?”

“Then? Well, then, I guess we'll just . . . play it as it lays.” When he saw her frown, he elaborated. “After I talk to Tommy, I'll have a better idea about what to do.”

“Why don't we just go to the newspapers?” Clem asked
.

The idea made him smile. “You mean, like in
Three Days of the Condor
a?”

“It was just an idea,” she said. “You don't have to make fun of me.”

“I'm not making fun of you,” he told her. “But the papers wouldn't do anything.”

“How do you know?”

“Trust me.”

“Then, why not just put it on the Internet?” Clem asked. “No one could stop you, and everyone in the world would be able to read it.”

Dunphy thought about it. For a second. Then he shook his head and said, “There's already a million crazy sites on the Internet. Flying saucers, chupa cabras, Satanic sexual abuse—everyone from the Abominable Snowman to Zorro has got a home page. So who's gonna notice our little complaint—or care that we've got evidence? Files
.
Everyone's
got files.”

The flight attendant brought Clementine her water and asked if they'd prefer veal or linguine for dinner. Clem chose the pasta, and Dunphy opted for the veal. When the attendant left, Clem turned to him with an accusing look and asked, “How can you
do
that?”

Dunphy didn't get it. “What?” he asked
.

She looked away
.

“How could I do
what
a?” Dunphy repeated
.

She reached into the seat pocket in front of her and pulled out a tattered in-flight magazine. “Eat veal!” she said. Turning away from him, she opened the magazine and began to read, ignoring Dunphy as she twirled a tendril of hair around her forefinger
.

Baby cows
a?

“I'm gonna stretch my legs,” Dunphy said, and getting to his feet, walked slowly aft, feeling the plane tremble beneath him. Stopping at the galley, he caught the flight attendant's attention and changed his order. “I think I'll have the linguine,” he said. She smiled her okay
.

Passing from business class to economy, he caught a whiff of cigarette smoke emanating from the back of the plane, where a knot of people were lounging in front of the lavatories. Looking around, he saw that the plane wasn't as crowded as he'd thought it would be. Still, it was a diverse lot. There were mothers with little children, businessmen and college kids, backpackers and Arabs. A tour group of sixty-something Brits was having a grand time, drinking with enormous enthusiasm, and playing cards. About a third of them were wearing identical red cardigans with a sort of coat of arms emblazoned on the breast. Edging past them in the aisle, Dunphy saw that he was sharing the plane with the Sacred Order of the Gorse. Sensing his perplexity, one of the men looked up from his cards and smiled. “Golfers,” he explained
.

Continuing down the aisle, Dunphy paused beside an emergency exit, crouched, and looked out through the little window. Far below, the ocean glittered in every direction, its azure surface flecked with whitecaps and crisscrossed by freighters. He watched the panorama for a minute or so, half wondering if Clem was still upset with him
.

Then he straightened up and, turning from the window, headed back the way he'd come. He'd almost reached the little curtain that separates business class from coach when he felt something on the back of his neck—the weight and tingle of another person's stare. Turning, his eyes met those of a middle-aged man with platinum hair and bad skin
.

Blondie
.

And, over there, by the bulkhead, asleep in his seat:
the Jock
.

Fuck all, Dunphy thought. I've had it. He could feel the adrenaline surging through his heart like a spring tide, then draining away, then surging again
.

He wasn't sure what to do. Or how they'd found him. Or what might be waiting for him when the plane touched down at the airport on Tenerife. And then, to his surprise, he found himself walking toward the older man
.

“Is this seat taken?” Without waiting for an answer, Dunphy stepped over his surveillant's legs and dropped into the seat next to him
.

“You speak English?” Dunphy asked, raising the armrest that separated them
.

The man nodded. Gulped
.

“Good,” Dunphy said, “because it's important you get this right. If you don't tell me the truth, I'm going to break your fucking neck—right here. You understand
neck
,
right?
Le cou
a?”

The man looked wildly around, as if searching for help, then reached for his seat belt, fumbling to unfasten the buckle. “No trouble, please,” he warned, speaking in a thick, Alsatian accent. “Or I call
la hôtesse
a.” Abandoning the seat belt, he reached overhead for the flight attendant's call button, then froze and fell back as Dunphy's left hand seized him by the balls. And squeezed. Hard
.

The man's eyes bulged, then threatened to explode as Dunphy's grip tightened
.

“Please!”

And tightened some more
.

In the seat across the aisle, a little boy began tugging at his mother's sleeve and pointing at them. Dunphy smiled at him, as if it were all a big joke. Finally, he opened his hand, and the Alsatian gasped with relief
.

“How'd you find me?” Dunphy asked
.

The other man squeezed his eyes shut, blinked, and shook his head, as if to clear it. Then he took a deep breath and said, “The girl.”

“What girl?”

“English. When she comes to Zürich, I recognize her from Jersey.”

“So you were on me—”

“From St. Helier to Zürich. Then you lose us at the hotel. But . . 
.
she
comes there, so we follow
her
.
a” The way he said it made it sound like a rebuke, as if he were criticizing Dunphy's tradecraft
.

“I didn't know you'd seen her on Jersey,” Dunphy explained
.

“Yes. We see her. And hard to forget.”

“So . . .”

“We follow her to bank. Then to airport. Then Zug.”

“And Madrid.”

“Yes, of course,” the man replied, unbuttoning the collar of his shirt. “Madrid.”

“Now what?” Dunphy asked
.

The Alsatian shrugged. “I think, maybe you speak with Roger. Because, now . . . he kills you.”

“Does he?” Dunphy asked rhetorically. “And is he waiting for me on Tenerife?”

When the man didn't answer, Dunphy turned toward him, but the Alsatian raised his hands in a calming gesture. “I cannot say. You understand, he has legal problems—in Kraków. When you are in St. Helier, the Poles are holding his passport. If not, you would have seen him in Zürich, I promise you.”

“And now?”

A little moue. “I think, maybe he gets his passport back.”

Dunphy rested his hand on the man's forearm. “You
think
a?”

A wary look crossed the Alsatian's face. “Yes, I think now he has it.”

Dunphy nodded, then spoke in a low voice. “So you're gonna see him real soon—which is good. Because I want you to tell him something. Tell him I can get him half the money right away—and the rest . . . a little later. But
not
if I see him on Tenerife. If I see him on Tenerife . . .” He left the sentence hanging, hoping his uncertainty would seem like a threat
.

The Alsatian turned to him, all po'-faced innocence, bemusement dancing past the fear in his eyes. “Yes?” he asked. “If you see him on Tenerife? What should I tell him?”

Are you fucking with me? Dunphy wondered. Because if you are . . . there is absolutely nothing that I can do about it. Not on the plane. Finally he said, “Tell him it will be a surprise.” Then he got up and walked back to his seat
.

The ride from Reina Sofia Airport to Playa de las Americas was like passing through a diorama built by road warriors in collusion with an angry volcano god. The setting was an ocher barren of cactus, rock, and hardpan cleft in two by a seemingly permanent traffic jam. After forty-five minutes of stop-and-go traffic, this desert wasteland gave way to its urban counterpart—las Americas. This was a sprawling tourist enclave overrun by packaged tours, kitschy pubs, throbbing discotheques and shops selling T-shirts and souvenirs. A sign outside the Banco Santander recorded the temperature as ninety-seven degrees
.

“Welcome to hell,” Dunphy said
.

The taxi came to a stop outside an
ALL ADULT!
a nightclub in the Veronicas neighborhood
.
“Abajo allí,”
the driver said, pointing toward a pedestrian byway that meandered along a gentle hillside past palm trees and flower gardens, switching back and forth on its way down to the sea
.

Dunphy gave him a thousand pesetas. “We have to walk the rest of the way,” he explained to Clem
.

It took them half an hour to find the Broken Tiller, which Dunphy hadn't visited for nearly three years. During that time, buildings had gone up on either side and in the back, so that Frank Boylan's watering hole now sat in the lee of a whitewashed, six-story “apart-hotel” called the Miramar. On either side: a German
bierstube
and a discotheque (Studio 666). Otherwise, nothing much had changed
.

Bolted into the side of a green and well-watered hill, the Tiller was a simple, almost elegant, seafood restaurant-cum-bar that looked out to sea over a nude beach. The sunsets, Dunphy remembered, were often spectacular, especially in the rainy season. And this evening was no exception
.

A plump red sun lolled on the horizon at the bottom of a mackerel sky, oscillating with peach and butter colors. Setting their carry-on bags next to a pale blue couch, Dunphy and Clem sat down at a small table with white wicker chairs. A handsome, young Tenerifeño came out from behind the bar with a smile
.

“What can I get for you?” he asked
.

“Beer for me,” Dunphy replied, “and . . . what?” He looked at Clem
.

“I'll have a gin and tonic, please.”

Before the bartender had a chance to leave, Dunphy told him, “I'm looking for a friend of mine.”

“Oh? Yes?”

“Yeah. His name's Tommy Davis. I thought, maybe you'd seen him.”

The kid—he couldn't have been more than eighteen years old—blinked, then made a show of thinking about it. Finally, he shook his head and shrugged
.
“Lo siento.”

Dumb question, Dunphy thought. Tommy didn't want to be found, so the answer would have been the same whether he'd seen him or not. “And Frank Boylan? What about him? Does he still own the place?”

Big smile. “Oh, sure. He'll never sell. You know Mr. Boylan?”

Dunphy nodded. “We're old friends. Can you get him on the phone for me?”

“Yes, I think so,” the kid said. “If he's not drinking. Sometimes, when he drinks—”

“I know.”

“—he turns off his cell phone. Says he doesn't want to be bothered.”