Dead on Arrival

67

A half hour ago Oliver Lincoln had spoken to Pugh. Now he was sitting on his veranda drinking champagne — he wasn’t celebrating, he just liked champagne — and looking again at the photo he’d received that morning, the one that showed him and Pugh sitting together in the restaurant in Winchester.

One of the things Lincoln prided himself on was his ability to keep his emotions in check. No cursing, no screaming tantrums, no kicking over chairs and tables when things got sticky. No matter how complex a job might be, no matter what last-minute changes had to be engineered, no matter how much pressure the authorities were putting on him, he always kept his head — and, he liked to think, his sense of humor. But this, this demand from Pugh … well, it made him very angry.

This redneck was ruining his life. The one poor photograph that he’d taken had been enough for the FBI to consider him a prime suspect in the terrorist attacks. The good news was that Pugh’s original photo hadn’t been enough for an arrest. The bad news was that the investigation was tearing him apart. His lovely home had been ransacked, he’d paid his lawyer three hundred thousand dollars to date, and, because he was being watched so closely, he couldn’t set up any other jobs to bring in more income. He had just turned down a very lucrative job in Nigeria, a simple thing related to ensuring the outcome of an election.

And now he had a demand from Pugh for $4.2 million. The odd number puzzled him, but it didn’t really matter. He didn’t have anywhere near that much money, at least not in the United States. He had money in offshore accounts, but if he tried to access those accounts the FBI might catch him, and then they’d start badgering him all over again about the source of his income. At a minimum they’d notify the IRS, and the taxman would kill him with penalties on back taxes or, even worse, send him to jail for tax evasion. To pay Pugh — not that he had any intention of paying Pugh — would mean he’d have to sell his home.

The photo. Was it real or not? It certainly looked real, but then King Kong swatting biplanes out of the sky also looked real. No, it had to be a fake. In the photo he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses and he was almost sure he hadn’t removed them the day he met with Pugh. He could get an expert to examine the photo, but ultimately that would be a waste of time and money. The photo was irrelevant. Jubal Pugh had to be eliminated.

He couldn’t have Pugh hanging over his head for the rest of his life like some rusted sword of Damocles. Whether the photo was real or not, whether the witness existed or not, Pugh had to go. If the FBI ever managed to get any real evidence tying him to the terrorist attacks, Pugh would testify against him, and Pugh would be the last nail in Lincoln’s legal coffin.

But he did need to confirm that the photo was fake. If it wasn’t, he needed the memory card from the camera and he needed to know if other copies existed. He also needed the name of this supposed waitress witness. And the fact that he needed to know these things was really too bad for Jubal Pugh.

He raised the champagne flute to his lips and noticed for the first time that there was a slight chip in the rim. Now that was vexing. The flutes had been made to his personal specifications by a glassblower in Venice and the man was now dead. Those FBI … apes! They must have damaged the glass the last time they searched his house.

Take a breath. Take a deep breath.

Pugh had said he wanted the money in two weeks. If the man had had any brains at all he never would have given Lincoln that much time. Finding Pugh wouldn’t be a problem; he could do that with a single phone call. The primary problem was convincing the Cuban to take the risk, which meant it would take a lot of money, money he would have to pay out of his own pocket, money he didn’t have on hand. He might actually have to sell a few of his possessions to raise the money for her fee. Yes, Jubal Pugh made him very angry.

Lincoln hit the button on the house intercom. ‘Esperanza, sweetheart, can you please tell Juan to pull the Porsche up to the door. I’m going to Miami. I’m in the mood for a lovely Cuban dinner, a nice polla a la barbacoa with negros dormidos.’

‘Are you insane? What are you doing here?’ the Cuban hissed.

‘Relax. If they’d connected me to you, you’d have been arrested or questioned by now.’

‘You’re an idiot to come here,’ she said.

‘Sticks and stones. If you’d returned my phone call, we could have met somewhere else.’

‘I’m not talking to you. Finish your dinner and leave.’

‘Two hundred thousand,’ Lincoln said.

The Cuban stared at him for a moment, then she blinked, then she blinked again — and Lincoln had the image of an old-fashioned adding machine, the lever going down, the machine going ka-jing as the Cuban added two hundred thousand dollars to her hoard.

She sat down with Lincoln and snapped her fingers at a waiter.

‘Bring me and Mr Lincoln a Calvados,’ the Cuban said, and then added, ‘Put both drinks on Mr Lincoln’s bill.’