Overfall

Thirty

“We’re going to need all the firepower we can get,” Sam said.

“Aye. As long as it shoots rubber bullets, right?” Aussie was his guy in Fiji.

“I know it sounds strange, but it will actually give us an advantage.”

“I’ve got to live here after you leave, you know.”

“I understand. I want to move on this thing. What if we come in three days?”

“No way. Huge mistake. It’s going to take me more time than that unless you want to throw rocks. I can see them settling in, but I’ve got to get the boat in place. Half the heat I have is still coming. It’ll be a bloody miracle if it’s in place in a week and a half.”

“Then do it in a week. It’s important. Anna Wade is bouncing off the floor.”

“Do you think she’d bounce off my floor?”

“Very funny.”

“We’ll try, but do not arrive before we can move. The longer you’re in this backwater, the more attention you draw.”

“Okay. A week. Precise arrival time by e-mail.”

“You got it.”

“Keep your phone on.”

Jill was tapping him on the shoulder. “I’m worried. Grady has a boyfriend of sorts. She’s been talking to him.”

“And?”

“It isn’t good. She said she was going to school.”

“Oh, no.”

“You know the alarm went off this afternoon and we never really found out why.”

“Come on.” Sam grabbed his cell phone and punched Jill’s home number as he ran to the heavy steel door, shoving it open as fast as it would move. They sprinted through the waiting room into the parking lot and jumped into Blue Hades. “No answer.”

“Jack,” Jill said on her cell. “You’ve gotta move. Something’s wrong inside.” A pause. “Break her door down, shower or no shower.”

“Good move,” Sam said.

“Jack said she’s been in her bedroom for a while. The shower’s been running.”

Sam figured he could dodge traffic at eighty miles an hour; they were in front of the house in eight minutes. There was an ambulance siren sounding in the distance. Sam hit the door with a flying kick, knocking it off its hinges. They burst through into the living room and ran to the bedroom. Grady was on the bed, white and dry like chalk. Jack was hunched over her, breathing into her lungs. An ambulance pulled up, and Sam took over the breathing while Jill checked her pulse.

“She has a heartbeat. Feels strong and normal. Maybe a little slow.”

Sam breathed in her lungs and stared at eyes that were strange with something he’d never seen. She was utterly still; no part of her moved.

“A drug.”

Jack ran out the door, and came back with four guys and one woman, all in blue suits. Immediately they were on her with a stethoscope. Sam kept pushing air into her lungs.

“She said there was soup on the table,” Jack said. “Jill, did you leave soup?”

“No soup. None.”

“A drug,” Sam said. “Must be.”

“BVM,” the lead man said. “We’ll take it,” he said, putting an airway down her throat with a squeeze bag fitted atop. “She looks like somebody gave her sux,” the woman said. “Let’s go with Versed as soon as we get the IV in her.”

“Pump every last ounce out of her stomach and ask questions later,” Jill said.

They had her on a gurney and out the door in seconds. The bedroom window had been broken out and the torn curtains moved in the gentle breeze; the sheer white shreds and the blackness behind were a grim prop for someone’s death feast.

Sam pulled Jack aside. “What happened?”

“I went to the door and knocked. There was this huge crash. I went in and somebody had gone through the window. She looked dead but her heart was beating. So I did the CPR with the mouth-to-mouth thing. It seemed to help, but she didn’t breathe on her own. I called an ambulance in between breaths, which was tough, and I knew you’d be along any minute.”

“Any idea who went out the window?”

“Not a clue.”

“Didn’t the other guys see?”

“No way. They heard something and came around, but they didn’t know what they were looking for and it was dark.”

“You would think they’d have seen something.”

“Yeah. You would.”

Samir summoned Michelle into his workroom, pondering the complications in his life.

“Leona will come back next month. I have never had an office as such but I will get an office in Beirut and a spacious apartment nearby. It will be yours if that pleases you.”

“It does. I know I cannot be here when your wife is here.”

“If I were Muslim I might have more than one wife, but I am supposedly Christian Maronite. On the subject of having one wife, Leona is very religious.” Samir chuckled.

“You are looking so well, but you know we’re running out of oil.”

“I know. And life is hell without it. There is a difference between what we took from the lab and what you get in the mail. If only we knew what it was.”

“There is something I must tell you.”

“Yes?”

“Please believe me that I am growing attached to you.”

“Yes?” Samir suddenly had a bad feeling.

“I was not in Quatram when I came to the Middle East. I couldn’t get in. I was seeing lawyers in France about my boy and working as a masseuse when I was summoned to the offices of Grace Technologies. I gave a massage to DuShane Chellis. It was a good job and I came regularly.”

“So did he, I should think. Go on.”

“You do not have to be crass.”

Samir chuckled before she continued.

“I think it was a very odd relationship he had with his assistant Benoit. She is the sister of his wife. Very odd. Anyway, I told them about my son and that I was seeing lawyers. To tell you the short version, they got me into Quatram through the general and they promised I could get my son out of the country if I could entice you to hire me.”

“You are working for Chellis?”

“I am telling you what I am not supposed to tell you, so I guess I am working for you. But my son’s life is at stake.”

Samir nodded, keeping his face neutral. “Go on.”

“They said it would be easy to win your favor if I did exactly as they said. For massage I was to use the blue-tinged oil that I now use on you.”

“So they are poisoning me or playing with my mind.”

“Yes. But it isn’t what you think. I have the oil on me, and on my fingers, and it does nothing to me.”

“So what are you saying?”

“Just that the oil by itself doesn’t seem to do anything.”

“What did they tell you?”

“Nothing, except that I was to use a different oil today.”

“And did you?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I couldn’t deceive you.”

“You like me?”

“I know in some respects that you are cruel, but you were kind to me. You are powerful, very powerful, and maybe I need someone like that.”

“I could split you like a chicken for conspiring with Chellis.”

“I know that.”

“Why did you think I wouldn’t kill you?”

“Am I wrong?”

“No.” Samir chuckled. “You are not wrong, but what does a man like me know of love or loyalty? I buy women.”

“Even your wife?”

“Especially my wife. Her price is diamonds. I knew you came by way of Chellis somehow because I knew the oil in the laboratory was a stronger version of what you used. No massage could make me feel that good.”

“Why didn’t you kill me?”

“To be honest, you intrigued both my head and my loins. Few women do that. You were desperate. Equally important, I simply cannot live without the effects of the oil you brought. And I like how you use it. Now where is this oil you were supposed to use today?”

“I have it in my bag.”

“Get it.”

In moments she returned to the workroom with a white canvas bag. “Here it is.” She held a small bottle.

“Put a dab on my back. Let us see what it does.”

“What if it is deadly?”

“They do not want to kill me now. They need me for the business. They want only to control me. It is not poison. I suspect that where the other oil lessens the jitters and diminishes the torture, this one does the opposite and would make me mad with fear. So just a dab. Then get the other oil.”

“It comes in portions, remember. If I use a portion of the regular oil now, that will be a few drops I don’t have for another day.”

“I stole some from the Chellis lab but I use so much for those damn doctors who still can’t figure it out. The reason I am normal some days is that I get not only what you have but also I get extra from the other supply.”

“I am so sorry,” she said.

“Unless they can figure out what is in it, we are going to run out. Well, we will risk it. Just use a dab of the other and get ready with the usual stuff.”

Dipping her finger in the untried oil, she reached under his shirt, smeared it over his back, and held him close. They waited for a few minutes, talking quietly.

“That works fast,” he said. “It is as if someone loosed the hounds of hell in my head. Quick, give me the other.”

She smeared a little more of the regular oil and after a time it calmed him.

“So we have solved another small part of the riddle.” He patted her head and growled, “I will kill the bastard.”

Benoit rang Gaudet as he drove through Los Angeles.

“I would have said that the stuff from your snitch,” he said, “this Guy fellow, was nothing. But I’ve traced a private flight from BC to Fiji. I’d been examining many international flights on that day, but this one is suddenly more interesting. Tell Chellis to try a bluff with Samir. Act like we know where he has Jason. I have my people going to Taveuni tonight. If he’s there they will find him by tomorrow night, unless they’ve made very careful arrangements. By the way, our little angel has gone off to heaven.”

“Are you serious?”

“When do I joke about stuff like that?”

It was a relief to have Grady Wade out of the picture. Benoit found Chellis down the hall from his office, leaning in the treasurer’s doorway. He waved good-bye to the treasurer. “Did you tell Michelle to use the other oil today?”

“Yes. He’ll be paranoid as hell when you call.” As they walked she told him about her conversation with Guy and her most recent conversation with Gaudet.

“Perhaps you’d like to go get some things done,” Chellis said. “I’m liable to be a while with Samir.”

“I’m fascinated to see how you handle him.” She put her hand under his arm and leaned close.

“And if I kick you out you’ll be hard to find.”

“I’m never hard to find. I just go to the labs sometimes in the course of doing my job. I do have a job.”

“You can stay.”

They sat on the couch, where he picked up the phone and she threw her leg over his, making sure that he could feel the warmth of her body on the meaty part of his thigh.

Samir’s assistant answered.

“Samir and I need to talk,” Chellis said.

“He is very sick. But he will try you in twenty minutes.”

“Maybe if we’re going to find him in Fiji anyway, we shouldn’t bother with a deal,” said Benoit.

“Finding Jason and bringing him out without them killing him are two different things,” Chellis replied.

“I suppose you’re right. We just need his work. It doesn’t matter who guards him for the next little while.”

Benoit knew that Samir would make his way to another phone line at a relative’s used only for occasional important calls. It had a scrambler and would not be tapped. She would receive the call through a router from another number outside the building taken in the name of a dead person. It would ring into the office from a relay to a special private line. It had all been swept for interception in the last twenty-four hours. Even if a government tapped the satellite link, the scrambler would disguise voices beyond electronic decoding so that voice-recognition sweeps aimed at either man would not sort the call from the millions of other calls going on between millions of other people. No doubt the government could develop software to detect scramblers, if it hadn’t already done so. But there were so many scramblers that it left a large number of transmissions to be decoded, and no one knew exactly the level of government success in unscrambling these signals.

“I have a feeling the Fiji thing is a good lead,” Chellis said while they waited. “It’s out of the way. Politically I recall it’s controlled by chiefs in fiefdoms. There is no intelligence agency, and like all third-world countries they love foreign money. There’s no dictator to undertake kidnaps and other crap.”

“Maybe. It wouldn’t have been my choice, but maybe.” The call rang through.

“Samir, old friend,” Chellis began. “I understand you’re nervous. I don’t really blame you for taking my scientist. But we both desperately need him to continue his work and he can’t do that without Grace Technologies.”

“What has that to do with me?”

“Listen, I know you have him in Fiji. In an hour I’ll know exactly where he is. Let’s not fight. I’m willing to give you the security you want, but we need a joint team down there protecting Jason. A very powerful man is after him. He is aligned with Anna Wade, the American actress and Jason’s sister. They have the American police and the Canadian Mounties on this. We need to work together, not fight each other to the death. Because unless we work together, that is what it will be.”

“What exactly are you proposing?”

“You and I hire Devan Gaudet-you’ve heard of him-to trap the American hired by the actress. You and I watch Jason together. My men and your men. I will send a small contingent to Fiji. Four men. Together we will hire more. You will have four of your men. Gaudet will be in charge of the trap.”

“And how do you know the American will come?”

“If he is as good as Gaudet says he is, he will come. They won’t wait for years of red tape in an undeveloped country.”

“I will have ten of my men. You will have four, or no deal. And I always keep control of Jason while you are working with him.”

“You know Gaudet from France and the South Seas?”

“He is not a man. He is not even an animal.”

“Yes. Well, he’s working for me. You agree he will be there to take care of the American. So can we make a deal? You’ve ten men but Gaudet runs the war with the American and works for me. You keep your ten men with Jason; I have only four?”

“It is a deal. But don’t cross me.”

“Hey, I want my research to continue. That is all.”

“Can you fix me? My head. You have scientists.”

“I will see what I can do. But if you don’t trust me with Jason, how are you going to trust me with your head?”

They knew they had him. Even when Samir said he would call back, they were pretty sure of his answer.

Chellis hung up the phone and rolled Benoit over on the couch. Their sex was fast and for her as mechanical as the drawbridges on the Seine.

“God, that relaxes me,” Chellis said.

“Why don’t you go home early? I will call your masseuse.”

“Good,” he said.