Running Hot

TEN

Harry Sweetwater felt the faint vibration of his cell phone just as he left the beach path and started up the steps to his hotel. He checked the incoming number and then stopped in the shadows of a large palm to take the call.

“Hello, Gorgeous,” he said.

“Hello, Handsome,” Alison said.

The ritual greeting between them was as old as their relationship. It had started on their first date thirty-four years earlier.

“Are you in position?” Alison asked.

He pictured his wife at her pristine desk, heavily encrypted computer and phones neatly at hand. The desk was in a small, anonymous office housed in a large commercial tower located on a convenient, offshore island. Most of the other firms in the building offered financial assistance to those who found it necessary to give their money a thorough cleansing before investing it in legitimate enterprises. Among such a group of discreetly run businesses, a small, family-owned enterprise that offered special services to an exclusive clientele went unnoticed.

“All set,” he said. “Got a room in the hotel next to the one the target is going to check into tomorrow.”

“I’m starting to think that we may have a problem with the client, Harry.”

He didn’t question the conclusion. Alison was a high-level intuitive.

“We’ve done a lot of work for Number Two,” he said.

They only had two clients. It kept things simple in the customer relations department.

“Everything looks right,” Alison said. “Two is using the right security codes. I’m not sure what’s bothering me about this job. Maybe something to do with the way the client is trying to micromanage it.”

“You got another e-mail?”

“Yes. It came in a few minutes ago requesting another update. That’s not routine. In the past, once Two has commissioned a job, there has been no further contact unless something changes. When the contract is completed, the money shows up in our account and that’s the end of the matter.”

That was true. In his experience, neither of the two clients ever wanted to know anything more than what was absolutely necessary about the details of the work that had been commissioned. Ignorance was bliss or maybe it just let the clients sleep better at night.

“Did you initiate a reverse security check?” he asked.

“Yes. I got the right response but something just doesn’t feel right.”

“Think we’ve been hacked?”

“I’ve got Jon checking that angle now. He doesn’t think our computers have been invaded but there’s always the possibility that someone has gotten inside Two’s system.”

He felt a flash of fatherly pride. His youngest son was brilliant when it came to computers; preternaturally so. Jon was a crypto, a strat talent with a twist that made it possible for him to plot patterns and follow complex paths in the new dimension that was cyberspace. He wasn’t a true hunter like most of the other males in the Sweetwater family, but he possessed all the right instincts. If anyone could track a hacker back to his lair, he could.

“Tell Jon to keep looking,” he said to Alison. “We’ve got time. Mistakes are embarrassing.”

“I’ll get back to you as soon as I know anything more.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

“How’s Maui?”

“Warm. Balmy breezes. Palm trees. Beach. Hell, it’s an island.”

Alison laughed. “I can always tell when you’re working. You never take time to stop and smell the plumeria flowers.”

“Not when I’m on a job.”

But even as he said the words, an uneasy sensation twisted through him. A few minutes before, he had been running wide open, doing some basic recon on the beachfront path. But somewhere along the line he had unintentionally relaxed and slipped back into his normal senses. That wasn’t like him. He always stayed at least partially alert while on a job. He had been taught from the cradle that it was critical to maintain constant awareness of the immediate environment. The smallest details could lead to disaster. Screwups were not good for business.

So what the hell had happened to him out there on the path? The thought that he might be losing his edge at the grand old age of fifty-nine was depressing. His father and grandfather had worked into their seventies. Sure, they had slowed down a little with the passage of the years, but experience had more than compensated for what they lost in raw speed and psychic sensitivity. In the end it wasn’t a decline in talent that had forced them into retirement. They had both been dragged into it, kicking and screaming, by their wives.

“How’s Theresa doing?” he asked.

“She’s fine, just a little impatient. She’s more concerned about Nick. He’s turning into a basket case. It’s been a long nine months for him.”

He smiled. His eldest son was a stone-cold hunter when he was working but when it came to his beloved wife and his soon-to-be firstborn kid, there was nothing icy about him. Nick had scheduled his jobs so that he could attend prenatal classes with Theresa. He had devoured every book on the subject of birth and parenting that he could find on the Internet. He had even insisted on hiring a decorator to design the baby’s room in order to create what one of the texts had called a “nurturing environment.” Now he was determined to assist at the birth.

“He’ll survive,” Harry said. “I did.”

“Hah. Every time you came into the delivery room with me, I was afraid you would faint.”

“Okay, maybe I got a little pale around the edges but I didn’t keel over.”

They chatted for a few more minutes and then signed off with their customary ritual.

“Good night, Gorgeous.”

“Good night, Handsome.”

The phone went silent in his hand. He dropped it into his pocket and stood looking out at the black mirror of the ocean. Something had definitely happened back there on the path. He tried to remember exactly when his other senses had shut down. He had passed an elderly couple who had been holding hands. Next he’d noticed a man using a cane and a woman. They had been walking side by side, not touching. Something about the man had drawn his attention. His jacked-up hunter instincts had recognized another potential predator. But an instant later he had lost interest.

The next thing he knew he was several yards down the path, cranked back to normal. Relaxed on a job when he had no business being relaxed.