Spy

“What was it, June?”

“What I think it was?”

“What you think it was.”

“I think it was Mexican Army units in military Humvees crossing the Rio Grande, that’s what I think.”

Dixon took a deep breath and said, “Why do you think that, June?”

“I know what they look like, Sheriff. You know that. I was with you a few years ago, when you got that award citation from Mexico down in Laredo. These men were in Mexican Army uniforms. Real ones. And they were heavily armed. The Humvees were definitely Mexican Army vehicles. That’s what I think.”

“Did they see you?”

“Are you kidding me? No, sir, they did not! I crept up though the bushes. But, Sheriff, I got them on tape! Filmed the whole thing. I just looked at the cassette on the TV. You can see them plain as day. I swear.”

“Who’d you tell about this, June?”

“Sheriff, I drove over a hundred miles an hour to get home and call you on the telephone. Only thing I did before calling you is stick a chicken potpie in the oven. I’m half starved to death after all that excitement.”

“All right, June, now listen. Here’s what you do. Eat your supper. Then I want you to go back to town. Go to the FedEx machine and overnight me that cassette. Got a pencil? Send it to the Green Pelican Hotel, 11 Duval Street, Key West. 33040. For a guaranteed ten-thirty a.m. delivery tomorrow morning. You’ll need a FedEx envelope. You still keep some at home?”

“Yessir, I do. I got the address. Wrote it down.”

“Good. And don’t tell anybody word one about anything until you hear from me. Understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right. Go do it now. I’ll call you soon as I get that envelope in the morning.”

“This is pretty important, isn’t it?”

“It could be. I appreciate your vigilance and courage. Good-bye, June.”

HE HUNG UP the phone and stared at the floor. Things were happening pretty fast now. He felt like he was at the eye of one of those famous Key West hurricanes. Evidence of a military incursion by uniformed Mexican Army troops, if that’s what was on the tape, would turn this conference upside down. Turn everybody upside down. His presentation was right after lunch tomorrow. Hell, he could skip his damn jibber-jabber. He’d just show June’s home movies of invading Mexican troops. Couldn’t beat pictures like that with a thousand words.

He sat back down and realized he was about starving. Lunch had been some fancy little finger food and some really bad shrimp quesadillas. He wanted a hamburger, rare, and some French fries. Not to mention a cold beer. Maybe two.

He stood up and pulled his brown oilskin duster off the coat rack. He shouldered into it and then he put on his hat, trying to remember where he’d hidden his wallet. He checked under his shirts in the bottom drawer of the dresser and then remembered putting it under his pillow while he was talking to Daisy lying on the bed. She told him you couldn’t be too careful of your money in a place like Key West. Of course, she’d never been here, only been out of Texas once in her whole life, but she was probably right. She usually was. He stuck his billfold in the back left pocket of his jeans, locked his door, and headed downstairs to the street.

There was a man sitting in the lobby he thought he recognized from the conference. At least he recognized the suit, a very wrinkled white suit and very shiny black shoes. You couldn’t see his face because he had it buried in the local newspaper. On his left hand was a big gold nugget of a ring with a large diamond. The paper he was reading was the Key West Gazette, a paper Franklin had read, cover to cover. It featured mostly Help Wanted ads and real estate. Which was strange, he thought. The stranger didn’t seem the type to be buying himself a house or hiring any short order cooks.

“Howdy,” Franklin said on his way out, since he was polite, but the man didn’t even have the courtesy to look up when he walked by.

He got a funny feeling walking out the front door. He felt like he was in one of those old black and white spy movies during the war. High Noon in Havana, something like that.

Life was funny what it threw at you sometimes. He’d never pictured himself setting foot in a peculiar place like Key West, Florida. Back home, even around folks he didn’t know well, he could at least identify with them to one extent or another. They all pretty much wore the same clothing. Talked about the same things. They were all related somehow, either by blood or by marriage.

Well, what could you do? That was America for you.

Times were strange. People were stranger. Especially the strangers you saw around here.

But, like Daisy always said, strangers were people too.

Who was he to argue with that?

45

M argaritaville was chock full of interesting characters. Just walking up Duval, you came across more unique people in one block than you’d stumble across in Prairie in a whole lifetime.

When Dixon arrived at the bustling café at the southeast corner of Duval and Greene streets, there were a couple of Harleys parked out front and he could hear some pretty good music coming from inside. Looked like a place where a man could duck out of the rain and get a decent cheeseburger.

He liked the name, Sloppy Joe’s, and he quickly stepped inside. He looked for someplace to hang his wet oilskin but didn’t see one. Dusters didn’t seem to have caught on down here. Of course, the only horses he’d seen in town were busted-down mares pulling a bright pink surrey with yellow fringe on the top.

It was still pretty early by Key West standards and luckily there was an empty table right over in the corner. It was way in the back so he figured it would be nice and quiet. He caught a pretty waitress’s eye and she nodded “okay”, so he went on over there and sat down. There was a fella on stage dressed pretty much the same way he was, jeans and boots. He was singing a Jerry Jeff Walker song. The busty red-headed waitress came right over and handed him the menu.

“What’ll it be, stranger?” she said, with a cute smile.

Her name tag announced she was Savannah. He ordered something called the Ernie Burger, rare. “Who’s Ernie?” he asked Savannah, “The owner?” And she’d looked at him like he was kidding, which of course he wasn’t. She suggested something called Conch Fritters as a go-along and he said, sure, that sounded good too. And a cold Corona with a chilled glass would be nice. Savannah winked at him, told him she liked his hat, and disappeared into the crowd.

So there he was, minding his own business, sipping his beer and listening to Jerry Jeff’s Hill Country Rain, when the stranger in the rumpled white suit from the hotel lobby came over and asked could he sit down.

“Don’t see why not,” he said, and the man sat.

“Sheriff Franklin W.Dixon?”

“Yep.”

“Eduardo Zamora,” he said, and stuck his hand across the table, thin gold bracelets dangling from his thin wrist. A big pair of black sunglasses stuck out of his breast pocket and a black tie was tied loosely around his neck. His teeth were very white under his black moustache. His smile was big but not very believable. Franklin looked down at his shoes. Black and shiny, all right.

He shook his hand and said, “What can I do for you, Mr. Zamora?”

“Here is my card, senor. I am a stringer for a chain of Mexican newspapers as you can see. Los Reformos. I’ve got my press pass, too if you’d like to see it. My credentials.”

“Like to know what you want,” Franklin said, turning the card over in his hand, reading it. He somersaulted it through his fingers before he slid it back across the table. He’d noticed a phone number written in pencil on the back. He’d heard of the Mexican newspaper chain. A big one and not particularly partial to American interests. Backed the Communist candidate for president in the last election. Supported Chávez, too.

“What do you want, Mr. Zamora?”

“A story, of course, I’m a reporter. We’ll be hearing from you tomorrow, Sheriff? I saw you listed as one of the Texas Border Sheriffs’ Coalition members who will speak, I believe?”

“I’ll speak my piece if they have time for me.”

Zamora got out a thin spiral notebook and held a stubby pencil poised above the page. “What our readers would like to know is, what do you intend to say to attendees at Secretary de los Reyes’s Latin American conference?”

“You’ve got your press pass, Mr. Zamora. You’ll find out tomorrow afternoon.”

“I’d like to get a scoop, señor.”

“You’re at the Green Pelican Hotel, aren’t you? Saw you in the lobby a while back.”

“You have me confused with someone else. I was here when you walked in, Sheriff, remember?”

Franklin decided to let it go.

“Listen, I don’t want to take too much of your time. But, it will come as no surprise to learn that people in my country are very unhappy about this security public relations meeting. Feelings in my country are running very high. Still, some responsible journalists, like myself, we are trying to present this American conference to our readers in a fair and balanced way. Our readers would be very interested to hear the personal view of the situation from a Texas sheriff who sees it up close.”

“Which struggle is that?”

“The struggle against injustice, señor! The struggle for a humane solution to the pain and suffering. An end to our poor honest people risking death just to find a minimum-wage job to support their families.”

“I’m not a politician, Mr. Zamora. I’m a lawman. Your citizens are breaking the law. Day in, day out. And your government is encouraging them to do it. Tell your readers to fix their country instead of breaking mine.”

“But this is not true! My government would never—”

Dixon stared at the man until he looked away.

“A borderline ain’t nothin’ but a law drawn in the sand,” Dixon said. “I’m sworn to uphold that law, however fragile it may be. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think my supper’s about ready.”

The man in the white suit made no move to get up.

“Yes, yes, of course. But, Sheriff, there are stories circulating here in Key West that you plan to show a video shot on the Rio Grande. A very explosive video. Any truth to that?”

“What did you say?”

“A video? Shot recently along the border?”

Franklin just looked at him. There were only two possibilities. One, June had told a lot of folks what she’d seen before she’d called him. Or, two, this hombre had a friend working the Green Pelican switchboard. He favored the latter.

“How’d you hear about that?”

“I have a job to do, too, señor.”

“Get up bright and early and see for yourself.”

“Your speech is not until the afternoon.”

I might move it up some.”

“Señor. I am here to offer a very substantial sum of money for this video. My paper has authorized me to offer you fifty thousand U.S. dollars for the film. I have the money. Here. Waiting for you in a safe deposit box at the Key West Bank on Whitehead Street.”

“Who do you really work for, Mr. Zamora?”

“I told you this already. Los Reformos.”

“You’ve got the wrong man. Mr. Zamora. I’m sure you fellas are pretty much used to buying whatever it is you want. But attempting to bribe a law enforcement officer is a serious crime in this country. I think you ought to stand up and walk out now and let me eat my supper in peace.”

Savannah had arrived with his food. She put it down in front of him and Franklin began to eat immediately. He was hungry. “Uno mas Papa Dobles?” Savannah asked the Mexican.

“He’s not staying,” Dixon said.

“Si, uno mas,” Zamora said, with a big smile at the waitress. Savannah looked at the sheriff and he nodded, okay, bring him another. It’d be nice to end this without a fuss.

“Listen to me, Mr. Zamora,” Dixon said, trying to keep his voice low. “My cheeseburger’s getting cold. Now, I don’t know who you people are or what you think you’re doing. But I want you to know one thing. I’m not for sale. At any price.”

“Sheriff, there’s no need to get excited. We’re both businessmen. I can see you were disappointed with my original number. Perhaps it was a bit underwhelming. Let me make my offer more realistic. I am prepared to pay a hundred thousand dollars for this video. Okay? Cash.”

“You got something in your ears?”

“I’m sorry. Still no good, huh? Maybe you have decided to sleep on this offer. Good. I have written my mobile number on the back of the card. If you change your mind before the conference, please give me a call. I wish you good night. Buenas noches, señor.”

“Mr. Zamora,” Franklin said, dismissing him without looking up. He picked up his burger and took a bite. It was good.

The man stood up and pushed his chair back from the table. He tilted his head back and drained his cocktail. Even though there was no one within earshot he leaned forward and put both hands on the table, speaking very softly.

“Sheriff, I must ask you a personal question. It must be hard to go away on business and leave your poor wife all alone in a small house so far from town. Is it not?”

“Say that again?” Franklin leaned forward and put his nose inches from the man’s own.

“Sorry. I am just saying it must be difficult. For your wife. She must get frightened sometimes, without her brave husband to protect her.”

“My wife.”

“Yes. Her name is Daisy, is it not? Such a pretty name. You must tell her to be careful. The desert is full of coyotes, eh? Especially at night. A woman alone.”

Franklin’s right hand shot out and clamped around the man’s left wrist. He didn’t break any small bones, but he came close.

“If you people ever get anywhere near my wife…if she even hears a voice she doesn’t like on the phone…if you or any of your kind ever cause any harm to come to my wife, I will take off this badge and hunt you down like the worthless piece of filth that you are. I will kill you, Mr. Zamora. Do I make myself clear?”

He let go of the wrist and the man in the white suit was gone out the door and disappearing into the throng outside.

Franklin threw some money down. He got up and left his uneaten hamburger on the table. Then he, too, disappeared into the crowded carnival that was called Duval Street.

HE PUSHED UPSTREAM, bucking the tide of boisterous humanity. He was six blocks from the hotel. He could already see the big animated bird up ahead, all lit up in the misty night sky.

He looked at his watch. It was an hour earlier in Texas. Daisy would be finished with her supper. She’d be standing at the kitchen window, washing up the dishes. It would be getting dark pretty soon. The coyotes would be fixing to start singing.

At that instant, he would have about killed somebody for a cellular telephone, even though he hated the damn things.

“Excuse me,” he said to the large woman. She was standing on the corner with her right hand pressed to her ear, the way people do these days.

“What? Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing, mister? Give me back my cell phone!”

“I’m sorry. Official police business, ma’am. I won’t be long.”

He flashed his badge and turned away from her.

“How does this thing work?” he asked her, stabbing at buttons with his index finger.

46

H awke stared into the coal fire still burning merrily in the basket grate. He and Ambrose had retired to the ship’s small book-lined library immediately following dinner. Congreve had suggested a brandy. The detective was feeling a bit homesick, Hawke thought. Missing his beloved Diana Mars and snowy walks by her side in the country. He was anxious to be home.

The conference, Hawke’s part of it anyway, was over. Next morning, Ambrose and Pippa were scheduled to fly back to Britain. Hawke himself was headed for points south. He’d given Langley and the State Department what information C had allowed him to share. What Conch and Washington chose to do with the intel he had provided was out of his hands. He was now operating on his own. He was mentally clearing his decks, well on the verge of taking the fight to the enemy.

He was sufficiently motivated. Revenge, in Hawke’s mind anyway, was a highly underrated and overly maligned emotion. He personally had found it to be vastly energizing.

On this cold and rainy Saturday night in Key West, only Pippa had elected to go ashore. One last night on the town, she’d said. The two men remained aboard to work on the Code, even though it meant foregoing a spot Hawke had chosen for its name, the Hot Tin Roof.

The small ship’s clock on the library mantel struck four silvery bells. Hawke, lost in a daydream of drum-beating savages and thick, unyielding jungle, was roused from his reverie. He had been listening to the lovely song now playing softly over the system. It was Andrea Bocelli’s haunting version of Vorrei Morire. He’d decided not to dwell for too long on why this particular lyric had such morbid appeal.

It was just ten o’clock and through the library’s starboard windows, Hawke could see that the rain had finally let up. A rind of yellow moon was visible behind tattered rags of cloud slowly sliding off to the east. The cold front had almost cleared. Tomorrow promised balmy sunshine.

A sleepy sigh was heard above the gentle music and Alex looked from the fire to his friend.

“I’m afraid I’m bloody well stumped,” Congreve said, removing his gold pince-nez glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. He laid aside the Zimmermann letter. He’d been staring at the bloody thing for hours on end. He stood and stretched his arms above his head.

“You? Stumped?” Hawke said, holding his thistle-shaped snifter aloft so that its many facets refracted the firelight. “Where’s Miss Guinness? We need her famous Record Book!”

“Very amusing, Alex. But I tell you, if C’s Signals section can’t crack it, and I can’t crack it, it simply cannot be cracked.”

They had discussed a variety of approaches to the puzzle at dinner. They kept coming back to the deathbed letter that, for convenience sake, they now referred to simply as the Zimmermann Letter. The numeric code, so promising at first, was now deemed to be a random sequence, computer generated, and thus indecipherable.

“Everything can be cracked,” Hawke said, reaching for the damnable thing. He stared at the letter blindly for a few moments and then put it back down with a sigh of frustration. Numbers. The bane of his existence.

“Gibberish,” Hawke said, giving up any last hope of discerning some kind of repeat or pattern. “Maybe you’re right. We’re both bloody well stumped. There has to be another way.”

Congreve eyed Hawke carefully, his invisible brain wheels spinning so rapidly and obviously Hawke was surprised they weren’t audible. Ambrose stood with his back to the fire, lighting his first pipe of the evening. In a second, the familiar fragrance of Peterson’s Irish Blend was in the air.

“Before the towel is thrown,” Ambrose puffed, “Or, at least, whilst the flag of surrender is still paused mid-flight above the gaping maw of the rubbish bin, bear with me a moment longer.”

Hawke sat back in silence, waiting for Ambrose’s genius to slip silently into the room.

“Consider. The ambassador wanted a letter delivered to his wife. We both assumed, until we actually saw it, that the thing might be some kind of poetic deathbed farewell to his soon-to-be widow in Brazil. Yes?”

“Yes,” Hawke said.

“You subsequently learned from the captured Venezuelan officer, that Zimmermann’s widow has fled Rio de Janeiro for the tatty Amazon River town of Manaus, correct? Fearing for her life.”

“Correct.”

“A problem arose in Mexico City. The ambassador was abducted from his hotel in the Zona Rosa by Brazilian agents, whereupon he was quickly disappeared into the jungle.”

“Yes. Where Top tried unsuccessfully to kill him. Zimmermann was up to his neck in this thing. But he lost the heart for it, or the nerve, and escaped to England.”

“So, we have a German ambassador with links to Brazil, Venezuela, and Mexico City. And all three somehow go back to this Syrian, Muhammad Top.”

“Top stands at the crossroads,” Hawke said. “He’s the link.”

“Why Mexico, though? Why are they in bed with a Muslim terrorist?”

“Who stands to benefit most if Top succeeds? Mexico, I’d say. A few successful border skirmishes, America succumbs to the media outrage, and they have a chance to reclaim all the land they lost to the Americans in the war of 1848.”

“I suppose you’re right. Finally, Alex, one thing I may have overlooked. There was a second gift in addition to the coded letter. A book of poetry, perhaps. At least, it had the heft of a book to me.”

“A book, yes, that’s exactly what it was.”

“So you examined it?”

“Of course. I’m a snoop.”

“And?”

“It’s book. Innocuous enough. A popular novel.”

“Any good?”

“It’s no War and Peace. I can hardly imagine giving it as a final farewell gift to a grieving widow. Still, there can be no disputes about taste.”

“De gustibus non est disputandum. Still, you kept it.”

“I can hardly put it down.”

“And where is that book now?”

“Brought it along for the voyage. Stuck it in my library desk over there. I thought to finish it tonight.”

“Where, exactly?” Congreve asked, moving to the desk.

“Left bottom drawer most likely. That’s where I usually stick things I want to keep track of.”

Congreve crossed to the small leather-topped desk, sat down, and opened the left hand drawer.

“I don’t see it.”

“It’s there.”

47

H ere we are. Let’s take a look, shall we?” Congreve withdrew the book and placed it on the desk before him, staring down at it.

“Careful,” Hawke said, “Anything ticking? You’d best shake it a few times and see if it rattles, Constable.”

“Very funny. Still, a rather good, although belated, point. It’s the Da Vinci Code.”

“Hmm.”

“The special Illustrated Edition.”

“The pictures help, actually,” Hawke said, “I wouldn’t know the Mona Lisa from Lisa Marie.”

“Please, Alex. Spare me.”

Ambrose held up the book for closer inspection. He said, “An odd choice, I must admit. For a belated gift to the one left behind.”

Hawke smiled. “Somewhere in the heart of the Amazon lurks the last literate human being on earth yet to read the bloody thing. Did you ever get round to it yourself?”

“Like a lamb to the slaughter,” Ambrose said. “I rather enjoyed it. Anything at all to do with codes hooks me instantly.”

He was holding the book by its spine and shaking it over the desktop. Seeing nothing fall from the pages, he set it down and began leafing through the book slowly.

“Are you going to read it again?” Hawke asked. “Now?”

“Quiet,” Ambrose said, lost among some vast, shadowed hallways of thought.

“Are you onto something? Twitchy eyebrows. You’ve all the symptoms.”

“Perhaps I am.”

“What? Spill it.”

“Don’t you find it the least bit interesting, Alex, that the last book Zimmermann bequeaths to his wife has the word Code in its title?”

“Funny, that, now that you mention it.”

“Yes, isn’t it? Hand me the letter, will you, Alex? I left it over there on the table somewhere.”

Hawke retrieved the ambassador’s coded farewell message and handed it to Ambrose.

“We need a positive supposition here,” Congreve said, his eyes darting rapidly from letter to book. He was quickly running his finger down the page Zimmermann had filled with scrawled numbers.

“Namely?”

“That the letter and the book are connected.”

“Too simple. Too obvious.”

“The truth often is. That is, I suspect, why we haven’t cracked the bloody code, Alex. Humans naturally look for complexity where none exists. Whilst I, on the other hand, subscribe to William of Occam’s point of view.”

“Remind me about William of Occam again?”

“A mediaeval philosopher, Alex. His principle, widely known as Occam’s Razor, stated that one should not make more assumptions than the minimum needed. Confronted with a puzzle, reduce the entities required to explain it. In other words, Alex, choose the simplest path through the forest.”

“Ah, that’s it.”

“Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.”

“Exactly.”

“Yes. Assume for a moment the widow is not a polymath with multiple degrees in higher mathematics, nominism, or cryptography. Assume she’s an ordinary woman possessed of ordinary gifts, an average human being, just like you or me. But, also assume this letter and this book are not the loving farewell of a dying husband, but something far more…sinister.”

“Such as?”

“A program sequence initiator, for instance. You use the numbers to key in some kind of unstoppable electron virus to disable worldwide communications. Or launch a missile at London. Who knows? Doomsday scenarios are your bread and butter, not mine. I’m a simple copper.”

While Congreve spoke, he was rapidly flipping the pages of the novel.

“You’ve solved far more intricate puzzles than this one. Stick to your knitting, Constable,” Hawke said, sensing an excitement in Congreve’s expression he’d despaired of ever seeing this night. “Do you see anything in it? Any connection?”

Ambrose was studying the letter, repeating numbers under his breath, and then flipping back and forth through the novel.

“I’m looking, I’m looking. Ah. Yes. Here we go, here’s something. The book has one hundred and five chapters, plus a prologue and an epilogue.”

“And?”

“And, hold on a tick…yes…the cryptic farewell message has exactly the same, wait, yes, one hundred and five individual lines of numeric code!”

“Brilliant!”

“Thank you. But it doesn’t mean anything, yet.”

“Is there anything at the end of the book itself that resembles the code’s format?” Hawke leapt to his feet and moved to the desk to look over Congreve’s shoulder.

“Yes. Two short numerical lines appended at the end like some kind of coda. It’s a match.”

Hawke squeezed Congreve’s left shoulder vigorously. “You’ve cracked it, old slug! God bless you for a common genius after all. So, how does the bloody thing work?”

“You take the book, I’ll do the code. We’ll start with something simple. The ambassador’s first handwritten line is 001005005. Take a look at the book, Alex. First chapter, fifth paragraph, fifth word? What is it?”

Hawke flipped rapidly through the book, searching for Chapter One, and then quickly running his finger down the page. “Ah, here it is, fifth paragraph, fifth word…Reckoning. That’s a good start…and I must say, Constable that you have a remarkable ability to, when all seems lost, stick to your—”

“Ah! There you are!” a cheery voice called from the doorway.

Hawke and Congreve looked up from their fevered study of the Da Vinci Code and the accompanying message.

“Pippa!” Ambrose almost came out of his chair with delight.

Hawke slipped the folded letter inside the novel and snapped it shut. Then he slid the book under some loose papers on his desk.

“We’ll finish our literary discussion later in private,” he murmured to Ambrose. Congreve nodded his agreement.

“Ah, Pippa,” Hawke said, “Here you are.”

“I was wondering where you two had run off to! My last night in Key West after all. Hullo, Alex.”

“Have a good time, did you?”

She giggled, slightly tipsy, and said, “I danced and danced, really.”

“Ah, lovely,” Ambrose smiled wistfully at the girl, seemingly at a loss for further dialogue.

“At the Hot Tin Roof?” Hawke said.

“No, some little dive called the ‘Varoom Room.’ ”

“Ah,” Alex said, instantly running out of conversation as well. Finally, he looked at Congreve and said, “Your fiancée, Diana, loves to dance, does she not?”

“We are not engaged, Alex. We simply have an understanding.”

The little minx did look rather fetching posed in the doorway, Alex thought. She had her blond hair up in rhinestone combs and it now fell in a few stray wispy curls about her blushing cheeks. She was wearing red, a sheath of silk under a red satin shawl, and it was, Hawke saw uncomfortably, an inspired choice. Her cups runneth over, he saw, despite making every human effort not to notice.

Hawke dragged his eyes away, looking pointedly at Ambrose. “Well, I’m for bed then.”

“So early, Alex?” Congreve said. “A tinge of autumn in the air, is there? Hmm.”

Hawke looked at him. “What?”

“No need to get snarky, old sausage,” Ambrose said, chuckling into his brandy snifter.

At that moment, Tom Quick entered the room.

“Skipper, you asked to be informed the minute Wally arrived back from Cancun. Pulling up at the dock right now.”

“Thanks, Tom, I’ll be right down.”

“Wally?” Pippa asked, twirling a red satin evening bag by its strap, “Who’s he?”

Alex said, “Not a ‘he,’ Pippa, a ‘she.’A new boat. You’ll see her in the morning before you leave.”

“Can’t I see her now?” Pippa asked, smiling at Hawke from under her long lashes.

“You certainly cannot. There’s a good deal of preparation to be done before dawn,” Hawke said. He was anxious to get his first real look at her and get feedback from the crew just returned from a quick shakedown cruise to Cancun. The first radioed reports from her new skipper, Gerard Brownlow, were encouraging. She was blisteringly fast and very seaworthy. Armed, she’d be lethal in a fight.

“A quick nightcap after all that preparation, Alex?” Pippa asked shyly, her long lashes lowered.

“I think not. Good night, Constable. And I wish you a very good night as well, Miss Guinness. It’s been a pleasure having you aboard. Most helpful. A pleasant homeward journey.”

“Pity about him,” Pippa said as Hawke crossed the room to confer with Tom Quick. “You’re not going to bed, too, Mr. Congreve?”

Ambrose said, “Well, I suppose I could be persuaded to have just one more brandy. Just the one, mind you! Don’t be naughty.”

“We need to crack that code, Constable. Tonight, if possible.”

Ambrose said, “I’ll read the thing straight through, Alex. Soon as I’m finished, I’ll ring you up. First light too early?”

“Not at all.”

“Code?” Pippa said, plopping herself into Alex’s still warm chair. “What code?”

“The Da Vinci Code,” Alex said, pausing at the door, “Read it?”

“Not yet.”

“You and Mrs. Zimmermann,” Alex said on his way out.

48

GUNBARREL, TEXAS

H omer crouched down on the forlorn pile of bones and waited. He was hiding in a rear corner of the trailer. He was up against the rear door, about four feet below where the top would have been if it hadn’t rusted out. He had his gun out and he was breathing hard. His shoulder burned like the devil and was bleeding pretty good now out of the exit wound. Hadn’t hit bone, just muscle. He’d stuffed his bandanna in the little hole but what he needed to do was tie it off. He could hear the man outside, maybe a hundred yards away.

He took a chance and put the gun down a second so he could wind a tourniquet around his upper arm. He wound the bandanna tight, clenched the knot in his teeth and pulled. Hurt like a bitch, but he felt the bleeding ease up instantly.

“Shitfire!” the man on the ground said. Must not have seen the tangle of wire fencing Homer had ripped down. Sounded like he’d tripped over it and gone down hard. It was a heavy thud; he was a big man. When he got up, his steps were slow and heavy.

He had a smoker’s hack and the sound of his cough was getting closer. Homer couldn’t figure out why the sound of the man’s gunfire hadn’t brought all the outside security lights on and more folks streaming out of the big brick warehouse building. Then he got it. Except for the Yankee Slugger that had pulled inside, the building must be empty. The smoker out there was all she wrote.

The lone night watchman.

Who was watching what, exactly? A junkyard?

No. Something really, really interesting, that was what. Somebody had put serious money into that fancy electric sliding door. And then paid a lot more to make the whole building look old and weathered. And, invisible to anyone who happened to take a detour through a forgotten hole in the wall called Gunbarrel, Texas.

“Hey. You in there, asshole?” Smokey said, between hacks. “You still alive and kicking?”

Voice sounded familiar. Homer didn’t say anything. He picked up a bone. It was surprisingly heavy, a leg bone, thigh maybe, and threw it hard across at the opposite sidewall of the truck. It made a hollow clang, more of a thonk. Two loud shots instantly rang out. Jagged, magnum-sized holes appeared in the trailer’s aluminum siding. This was at the other end of the big open truck, right where the bone had bounced off.

“Throw the gun out,” Smokey said. He was standing now near the rear of the truck. Maybe six feet from where Homer was hiding. The voice was starting to sound more and more familiar, but it was so hoarse he still couldn’t place it.

“I ain’t got any gun,” Homer said, his voice sounding like it was on reverb.

“Shit. You said you was a lawman. Toss out your damn gun. I could just set out here, couldn’t I, podnuh? Jes’ let you starve and rot in there, y’-know. Ain’t nobody ever going to find you in there, Lone Ranger. I promise you that damn much.”

“I’m hit.”

“I figured you was.”

“Need a doctor.”

“Where’d I catch you?”

“Arm.”

“Bleedin’ pretty good?”

“I guess.”

“Yeah? So throw out your fuckin’ six-shooter and we’ll talk about getting you over to the Emergency Room.”

Homer picked up another bone. It was smaller than the first one he’d thrown, only about a foot long. Rotted black cloth had stuck to one end of it, embedded in a knobby joint. Part of the person’s shirt, maybe. There were still some pieces of people’s clothing mixed in with all the bones. Lots of sandals. He tied more black rags tight around the bone. Didn’t look that realistic. Had a good heft to it, though.

“You win. I’m throwing out the gun.”

“I’m waitin’.”

“Here she comes.”

Homer sailed the bone high and long with his pitching arm. He hoped to get it all the way to those tall weeds outside the wire fence. Then he might have a chance. Either the guy would go look for it in the weeds and leave the ladder unguarded. Or, being fat and lazy, he just might take the easy route and believe what he wanted to believe. That he’d seen a gun go flying over his head and now he had an unarmed kid trapped in a forty-foot long coffin that was half-full already.

Most people, in Homer’s limited experience, believed what they wanted to believe.

“Smart kid,” Smokey finally said, still huffing and puffing just outside the truck doors. “Okey-dokey, son. I’m coming on up that ladder.”

Homer heard a grunt and felt the noticeable dip of the man’s weight on the bottom rung of the ladder. Big guy, all right. Heavy. He’d have one hand on the ladder and the gun in the other. Gun in the right hand most likely, if you trusted the law of averages.

Homer pressed his cheek against the cold aluminum siding as the smoker slowly mounted the steel ladder. He was crouched in the shadows. The ladder went up the right side nearest him. He could see the top rung. When they saw each other’s faces, hell, there wouldn’t be more than six feet between them.

Homer’s finger tightened in the curve of the trigger. He blinked a few times, and tried to swallow. He hurt. Cold sweat was stinging his eyes. He’d never killed a man before. Never fired a shot with his service revolver in the line of duty. He wasn’t even much of a shot. Smokey was almost to the top, grunting and wheezing. He saw white fingers curl around the top rung.

Homer Prudhomme, looking at his shaking gun hand, thought to himself, Son, you can’t win with a losing hand.

Eternity passed. His hand suddenly stopped shaking.

“Hey,” Smokey said, near the top rung now. “Where the fuck are you at, boy?”

He could see the slotted top of the man’s cowboy hat. The top half of his face, his eyes.

“Hey! You hear me? I said. Where. You. At?”

“Waiting for you,” Homer said and fired twice at the whole head and shoulders now silhouetted against the dark blue sky.

The man’s head exploded and his body fell away, his fingers finally peeling off the top rung. There was a thudding sound like a big sack of potatoes hitting the dirt. Homer got to his feet and began stacking bones in the corner so he could climb out of this death trap.

He dropped to the ground beside the body. It was face down in the weeds, dead still, except for the right leg which was splayed out at a bad angle and twitching.

He got a hand under the shoulder and managed to get the man turned over onto his back. There was just enough of his face left to recognize him.

The man he’d killed? Mr. J.T.Rawls.

He waited to feel something. Fear, he guessed. Didn’t happen. Justifiable self-defense during a murder investigation? The man was going to shoot him, no question about that. He shook his head, trying to clear it of anything but the facts of his developing case. Mr. Rawls, bigshot Chevy dealer, had himself a little sideline business, seemed like. Mexican Midnight Auto Supply? No, something a whole lot bigger than that.

But, what?

49

H omer half expected the rear door of the warehouse to be hanging ajar, but it wasn’t. Rawls was dead as dirt, but he’d padlocked the door behind him when he’d come out to check out the noise outside. Homer walked around the building again and figured out the only way inside was still the fire escape ladder.

He reached up and pulled the ladder down, not worrying about the screeching noise anymore. You could make all the noise you wanted in a ghost town with a population recently dropped down to one. He went up the steps and climbed through the open window, shining his mini-flashlight inside first and seeing nothing out of the ordinary. It was an empty room, probably used to be an office. An overturned wooden desk was in the center of the floor.

There was single bulb hanging from a wire in the center of the room. Homer turned the switch but it was either burned out or there was no power. He saw a wooden chair facing the window. Scuff marks on the windowsill where J.T. parked his boots. Rawls was a rich man. Yet, this had been his office. His half-full Cowboys coffee mug was sitting on the seat where he’d left it when he’d heard something outside.

Or, maybe Rawls had his fancy office somewhere else in the building. Maybe he’d just been walking around having a smoke and stepped in here. Walked over to the window to get a little air.

On the floor around the upturned desk were some girlie magazines and some porno stuff. He picked one up. It was a calendar with a naked girl in a tire swing. The year 1988. At the bottom were the words, Courtesy of Rawls Chevrolet. J.T. had himself a dealership down here a long time ago. Never told anybody about it. Must have been successful though, size it was.

He dropped the calendar among the paper cups, and other garbage. Some old Burger Boy and Krispy Kreme sacks and wads of dirty paper napkins. The room still reeked of tobacco and the old sweat-stink of the dead man.

Homer thought he heard something beyond the closed door and stood stock still for a second. It was a faint, humming noise, like heavy machinery moving deep inside the warehouse.

He moved quietly over to the door and pulled it open.

He had no idea what he expected on the other side but it certainly wasn’t what he saw.

Which was nothing.

The whole building was empty inside. He was looking at a big empty box at least a hundred feet long, fifty feet wide, and four stories high. No floors. No windows. No staircases. No nothing inside. There was a roof up there overhead. Corrugated aluminum. The arched steel beams that supported it seemed to be fairly new. And the featureless brick walls were freshly painted white floor-to-ceiling on all four sides. There was a narrow steel catwalk beyond the door and he stepped out onto it. He was about twenty feet above the ground floor.

He flicked his mini-light on and played it down below. The spacious floor looked to be painted concrete, spotless and shiny. In the center of the floor was a circle. Just a faint line, really, with a diameter about sixty feet across, maybe more.

Homer moved left along the yellow-painted catwalk hung from the ceiling and extending all the way around four sides of the building. Across the way were two office doors like the one he’d just come out of. But he wasn’t curious about those doors.

What got his full attention was the fact that the Yankee Slugger cab he’d seen pulling inside this very building about an hour ago, had now disappeared. He certainly hadn’t heard that big diesel crank up, and he would have, wouldn’t he? Even when he was hiding out there in the boneyard, he would have heard that monster cranking up, backing out into the street and roaring off. He hadn’t heard a thing. But the Slugger was gone.

He saw that the catwalk had a single staircase leading down to the ground on the street side of the building.

He moved toward it along the narrow metal walkway carefully, not because there was anybody to hear him, the place was obviously empty, but because if he tripped and went over the rail, well, that would be all-she-wrote for damn sure.

He went downstairs slowly, keeping his light aimed on the steps all the way to the ground. The big main door, so cracked and peeling on the outside, was a shiny brushed steel on the inside. No handles or locks. It just slid up into the wall above it. He turned away from his inspection of it and looked at the faint outline of the circle in the center of the floor. Had it changed? It looked different than it had when he’d been up on the catwalk. He went over to check it out, kneeling down inside the circle to feel its outline with his fingers.

Now he could see that the big sixty-foot circular section was slightly lower than the rest of the floor. Like a tiny depression. The outline he’d seen from above was due to the fact that this section wasn’t flush. There was about an eighth of an inch of dull steel showing all the way around. Something, a sound maybe, made him lean forward and put his ear to the floor.

It was that gear noise he’d heard earlier up in Smokey’s office. A deep whirr, and then a soft hiss.

And suddenly the whole center section was moving. He was dropping down through the floor.

He stood up and quickly stepped off the moving platform. He stepped away from the hole, watching wide-eyed as the huge round section of floor descended slowly and steadily. Almost noiselessly. A foot. Two feet. Still dropping. He could hear something down there now. The noise of whatever machinery below supported a huge round section of concrete floor. A massive hydraulic lift of some kind. And now, another noise. A big diesel firing up. Then, a second one started. A third. More.

Wait a minute. Trucks? In the basement?

He lay down flat on his stomach, trying not to hurt his wounded arm any more, and inched forward until he could see just over the edge. There was a faint reddish light down there, swirling with diesel fumes. It was too thick to see anything but shadowy shapes in the red mist. He shoved himself forward a few more inches, lowered his head, and peered down inside.

If there was somebody down there aiming to blow his head off it was going to happen now. He hadn’t heard anybody and he thought he would have. But, you never know.

Nobody shot him. But what he saw beneath him took the breath right out of him.

Monster rigs. A whole lot of them, tractor trailer trucks, in fact. Maybe fifteen, or even more, he thought. At least twenty. But that was only all the ones that he could see from this angle. The underground garage was big, he could see now, lowering his head even more, because the great oval section had now descended flush into the lower level floor.

All the way at the back of the lower level was a well-lit tunnel.

So, that was how they did it, got the ghost trucks cross the border with nobody catching on. He’d seen all the reports of Mexicans building tunnels under the border. Big ones, with air-conditioning even. To move illegals and drugs into the States. But this tunnel was something else entirely. It was large enough to accommodate eighteen-wheelers. Must have taken years to build this thing. Rawls owned a construction company in addition to everything else. He was in cahoots with the Mexicans somehow. Bringing trucks in for some reason.

Homer’s case was starting to add up. J.T. had been a smuggler, a crook. And a traitor. He’d never killed a man before, but if he had to start, it wasn’t a bad place.

There was a loud snort of a big diesel engine revving. He watched in wonder as, below him, a truck pulled forward and stopped right in the middle of the circular lift. It wasn’t the Yankee Slugger he’d seen pull in earlier. No, this was an ancient road warrior, an old fifties vintage Mack truck with faded green paint on the cab and trailer. Yellow road lights, now lit up a row of rusty chrome-plated horns mounted on top of the cab. He couldn’t see into the cab. Blacked-out windows, of course. He watched, unable to tear his eyes away, as the whole center section started turning clockwise, turning the rig around so it’d be facing the street.

When the lift platform had rotated one hundred-and-eighty degrees, it stopped.

Then the beat-up old Mack truck started rising on its hydraulic pedestal. It was a truck with a big juicy tomato logo and Ocala Farms Inc. painted on the trailer. At the same time, the main door of the building started sliding up inside the wall. All this crap going on, Homer thought, and not a single solitary human being on the property besides himself and the man he’d killed.

The whole thing was, what, automated?

Homer figured it was way past the time to beat feet the hell out of Mr. J.T.Rawls’s haunted truck graveyard and that is just what he was fixing to do. He ducked underneath the half-opened street door and took off at a run, darting across the ghost town’s main street to the burned-out Texaco where he’d parked the Vic.

He’d get on the radio and call in the dead man’s location. Then he’d get off the radio and get to the bottom of whatever the late J. T. Rawls had been up to in this little ghost town.

50

LA SELVA NEGRA

H arry Brock slapped in a fresh mag and jacked a round into the chamber of his semi-automatic rifle. Then he said, “How old is Caparina, anyway?”

“Almost thirty,” Saladin replied.

“Yeah? Told me she was twenty five.”

Harry and Saladin nervously eyed the low, blunt structure on the opposite rim of the canyon. They were nearing the end of the bridge. So far, they’d seen no movement and no more of the hellish little lead-spitting Trolls. But neither man had any illusions about a champagne reception immediately upon arrival on the other side.

Hassan flicked the selector on his weapon to full auto. He, like Harry, was crouched down behind the flared steel mudguard that covered the tank treads. This was all the protection the little green battlebot afforded the casual rider and, as they had witnessed, it was precious little.

“Don’t believe everything Caparina says. You’ll find yourself one day wishing you hadn’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I believe you’re trying to make me jealous. My ex-wife had many lovers before you, Mr. Brock.”

“Doesn’t seem to bother you much.”

“Maybe that’s because I view all of her lovers, such as you, not as a rival, but as a fellow sufferer.”

Harry grinned at him and cocked his gun. “Lock and load, Saladin,” he said, “We’re about to go find that loose woman of yours or die trying, I guess.”

As the tank neared the last third of the bridge, both men were relieved not to have seen Caparina’s charred corpse lying in the smoking ruins of the tank. And they were mildly shocked that no one had bothered to kill them yet.

“Drone aircraft formation,” Saladin said suddenly, “Get low as you can. Hug steel, Harry!”

“Shit,” Harry said, flattening himself as best he could in the cramped space between the fore and aft mudguards. Both of them were wearing jungle fatigues the same shade of camo as the battlebots were painted. Harry hoped that it afforded a small measure of visual protection. It all depended on how alert the operator flying the UAV was at this precise moment.

“No movement!” Harry said. “Don’t even blink!”

He watched three sleek silver craft bank and turn as they flew up the ravine directly toward them. He saw the telltale red tips at the ends of the wings and knew the goddamn things were armed with air-to-ground missiles. The drone squadron was now on a collision course headed straight for the bridge. All you could do was wait for a launch and watch one of those little red bastards home in on your dead ass.

Nothing of the kind happened.

The lead drone dipped its inverted-spoon nose at the last possible second. Harry held his breath as it streaked directly beneath the bridge with about six inches of clearance. The two flankers streaked across overhead, where they began a lazy turn, climbing to the south. Probably on a search circuit that would route them along the southern perimeter of Top’s compound, Harry thought.

If Top was on his game, which he surely was, he’d be scheduling these drone recon flights at odd hours, eliminating any predictability that would allow intruders inside unnoticed. The two intruders aboard the tank whipped their heads around and watched the lone silver bird dart and twist its way up the deep green ravine, finally disappearing around a rocky promontory and into heavy mist. When Hassan and Brock faced forward once more, the Troll was rumbling off the bridge and onto a wide apron of crushed sandstone.

“That was good,” Harry said, his eyes darting back and forth, looking for any movement in or around the seemingly abandoned pillbox fortification.

“Why?”

“Nobody sent that drone squad to take us out, or, believe me, it would have. That last flight was on routine patrol and the operator didn’t pick us up.”

“Asleep at the wheel.”

“We got lucky.”

“Better lucky than smart.”

The remote operations post had been well guarded. Now, it was pockmarked with bullet holes. It was a squat, ugly, rectangular sandstone building, bristling with damaged video cameras and mast antennas. Camouflaged, it also sat just far enough inside the green wall of jungle to be invisible from the air. Like the suspension bridge it guarded, it was disguised with a mat of leafy vines. This was not the camp’s main approach, Harry and Hassan figured, it didn’t look sufficiently fortified or important enough. God knew how many of these manned outposts lined this stretch of ravine.

But, in his gut, Harry knew they might have found a backdoor to the heart of darkness.

“The entrance to this pillbox is here at the rear,” he heard Hassan call out from behind the structure, and Harry went cautiously around back to check it out.

When he turned the corner, Hassan was sticking his boot under one of the three dead guards on the ground. He flipped him over. Harry checked out the other two. All were dressed in jungle fatigues. Each man had a single bullet hole in his forehead.

“What the hell?” Harry said.

“Caparina.”

“She did all this?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“It’s what she does best, Harry.”

“Holy shit. She’s still alive.”

“You’ll find her hard to kill. Let’s have a look inside.”

This small command post was a more sophisticated version of the operations shed they’d first found at the airstrip. The controller, dead no doubt of a bullet to the back of the head, was slumped forward at his monitor station before an array of flickering flat panel screens.

The center screen still carried a real time image of the bridge they’d just crossed. Another camera angle, mounted on the underside of the bridge, showed the tumult of the rapidly flowing river far below. The third monitor was broadcasting the view from the nose of a drone plane, probably the one they’d just seen, winding its way up the snaking ravine. The fourth was the interesting one. This camera, mounted on a Troll battlebot, was moving at a high rate of speed through the jungle. You could see it was headed toward some kind of low building at the end of a jungle trail.

That building looked extremely familiar.

Yeah. That robot tank was speeding toward the very building he and Hassan were currently inspecting.

Harry shouldered his Bizon and moved to door. “Let’s get outta here. Go take that little bastard out.”

“Harry, wait. It’s not a Troll. Look again at the monitor. Bottom right hand corner of the screen. What do you see?”

Harry squinted his eyes, looking carefully up at the monitor. “A piece of boot? Bouncing around on top of a footrest?”

“Yeah. Look familiar?”

“Hell, yeah. It’s Caparina’s boot. She’s coming back for us?”

“You’re a quick study,” Hassan said, rushing outside to greet his ex-wife, with Harry on his heels.

When Harry and Saladin stepped outside, they saw Caparina. But it wasn’t a Troll she was riding. Not at all. It wasn’t even a robot. It was a bizarre vehicle that resembled a lunar lander with four giant rubber wheels. It was driven by two carbon-bladed propellers mounted facing aft at the rear. Amphibious, probably. The thing was long and narrow so it could snake through jungle trails, Harry supposed. In addition to the video camera mounted on top of the heavy tubular roll cage, it had, Harry was surprised to see, a kind of steering wheel.

Caparina slid to a stop and smiled down at them from atop her centrally mounted buggy seat.

“I commandeered it,” she said before anyone could ask. “Called a Skeeter. Get up here! There are two seats on the back behind me. C’mon, jump! I’m only about one minute ahead of them!”

“Them?” Harry said, not liking the sound of that.

The two men scrambled aboard the vehicle and began to fasten the safety harnesses that secured them to the twin seats aft. Caparina had shed her rain jacket somewhere along the line. She had the sleeves of her mud-streaked white T-shirt bunched up over her sunburned biceps. The thin cotton shirt did little to hide her figure. Her face, too, had been war-painted with streaks of brown mud. She shoved the hand throttles forward and the buggy lurched forward. She fishtailed around the low building and raced out onto the bridge.

“Wait,” Harry shouted, “Where the hell do you think you’re going? We’ve got to find a way inside the central compound!”

“Not today, we don’t,” she said over her shoulder as they raced back across the bridge. “There are at least half a dozen assorted machines on my butt right now. The sun’s going down. They’ve got NV lenses that can see in the dark and we don’t.”

Harry didn’t like the word assorted, either, but he decided to keep his mouth shut for the time being. He was having a hard time getting the buckle on his seat harness fastened and there was going to be no way to stay inside this damned buggy without being strapped in.

“Run away to fight another day,” Saladin said with a wistful smile, lighting an unfiltered cigarette as if he’d just wandered off a goddamn golf course with a scratch round on his card.

“Fight?” Caparina said, glancing back at them. “You two have no earthly idea. I got a peek behind the curtain.”

“Tell me what you saw,” Harry said, leaning forward and putting his hand on her shoulder. “I need to check in. I need to know what we’re up against before I call Washington.”

“Tell them you’ve seen the future of warfare, Harry Brock.”

“Yeah? And what future is that, Caparina?”

“Robots, Harry.”

51

PRAIRIE, TEXAS

I love you, too, Sugarplum,” Daisy had said to her husband, marking her place in the old family bible with a sprig of bluebonnet wild-flower. She was talking on the phone, sitting on his side of the sagging double bed. She’d come in the bedroom for something when the phone by the bed had rung. She couldn’t remember why, what she’d been looking for in here, but she’d brought her bible with her.

She must have been thinking about her husband. How nervous he must be giving a speech in front of all those important people tomorrow. Standing at the bedroom window, watching the night fall, but seeing in her mind all those worry lines around his eyes.

That’s right when the phone rang, and sure enough it was Franklin.

One of those spooky coincidences. Serendipity, they called it. Not serendipity exactly, but something kin to that.

She’d leaned back against his soft pillow and listened to him worrying silently at the other end of the line. They had a bad connection, almost like he was calling from a cell phone. Which was silly, because he wouldn’t own one. Wouldn’t have one in the house.

“Franklin? You still there?”

“Yep. I’m here.”

“Who’s that yelling in the background?”

“Nice lady whose phone I borrowed. I guess I should give it back now.”

“All right, but you just stop worrying, okay? Go on back to the hotel and try to get some sleep. Tomorrow’s your big day. Especially with those tapes June got on video. I’m sure this Zamora fella is just a whole bunch of hot air. Just like the ones tried to scare us last time. And the time before that. All hat and no gun.”

“I’m sure you’re right. But please just do like I said, Daisy. Lock all the doors and windows and wait by the phone till the cruiser I called in gets out there. Okay?”

“I wish you hadn’t done that. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself. You know that.”

“I normally don’t bother you, Daisy.”

“I know you don’t. I’ll go close up the house right now, honey.”

“Good.”

“Night, darlin’.”

“G’night.”

Daisy had waited for his click and then reached over to put the receiver back in its cradle on her nightstand. The house was suddenly very empty.

“Shoot,” she said, staring up at the ceiling.

This wasn’t the first time somebody had threatened to harm her to get to Franklin. The last time this had happened, somebody trying to scare them like this, she’d had to tell Franklin every time the phone rang and nobody was there, every time a car she didn’t recognize slowed down going past the dirt road that led to their house, every time a letter or package came with handwriting she didn’t recognize, every time somebody looked at her cross-eyed buying aspirin in the drug store.

The phone rang again.

“Hello?” Daisy said, thinking it had to be Franklin again.

Silence. Then they hung up.

Another wrong number.

Third one tonight. She hadn’t told him about the first two. Didn’t want to get him more upset about nothing than he already was.

She swung her legs off the big empty bed and stuck her feet into her house slippers. She’d lock up and then she was ready for bed. Had her nightgown on and everything. She’d already locked up all the doors anyway. Now she went from room to room, checking, locking the windows in the kitchen, the small back bedroom, and Franklin’s study.

In the parlor, the two windows on either side of the front door were wide open with the thin curtains blowing in. She spread her hands on the windowsill and peered out into the dark night. Not too many stars out and it had turned cold. She heard the faint hum of tires out on the highway, somebody going past at a pretty good clip, on into the night. Then another car going in the opposite direction. Real slow.

She waited, listening for it to keep going past the little dirt road leading to their house.

It did.

The distant hum of a car going by on a lonely highway at night was a weird thing. She often lay in bed, waiting for sleep, and listened to them passing by out there. On a rainy night, especially, there was that sad hissing sound the tires made on the way to somewhere else. Who was it behind the wheel? Where were they going? What was going on in their minds as they watched that long yellow line disappearing in the rear view mirror? Was someone sitting next to them? Who?

Franklin had spooked her, all right.

No question about it. She pulled the damn front windows down, both of them, locked them, and went back into the bedroom. She got down on her knees beside the bed. Looked like she was fixing to pray, but she wasn’t. She was just doing the next best thing, getting her gun. She bent down to fetch the double-barreled Parker. It was a rare Sweet Sixteen shotgun that Franklin had rejiggered to fit her for her twenty-first birthday. Sawed a couple of inches off the stock and gave it to her on the big day itself.

A sawed-off gun for a grown-up girl, the card said. She still had it stuck in the mirror all these years later.

She lifted the worn chenille bedspread and felt around with her right hand until her fingertips brushed the smooth cold barrels. She pulled it out and lifted it to her nose. God help her, she loved how that damn gun smelled more than was natural in a woman.

Daisy kept half a dozen or so shells locked in the right hand drawer of the dresser. Double-ought buckshot. She unlocked the drawer and fished out a couple. Then she levered the gun open and loaded it. She snapped it shut, made sure the safety was on, and went back into the kitchen. After laying the gun across the table, she lit a wooden kitchen match and turned on the gas, lighting the burner under the teakettle.

Sitting there at the kitchen table, facing the bedroom, she knew she could easily swivel her head and see both the front door and the back door. Looking straight ahead, she’d see anybody who just happened to be peeking in her bedroom window.

She’d deliberately left the porch lights on, front and back. And now she decided she’d best turn all the lights in the house off and sit in the dark. That way she could see them before they saw her.

Not that there was any “them,” she told herself, moving from room to room and extinguishing lights, but she’d heard something catch in Franklin’s voice tonight when he told her how much he loved her.

You sit watching them in the dark, a kettle take an extra long time to whistle. And, a ticking kitchen clock sounds a whole lot slower and louder. She had the Parker in her lap now. Pretty soon the cruiser would show up, park out in front of the house. She’d walk around the house with Homer or Wyatt or whoever was on duty, see that there was nothing to see, and then she could maybe go on to bed and get a little sleep. Even though it was so hard with Franklin gone.

Any damn bed felt ten sizes too big without your man in it. All her friends who’d lost their husbands said so.

The thought, when it first came, hit her so hard she almost fell out of her chair.

A woman alone.

That’s what the Mexican guy in the restaurant had said to Franklin. You had to worry about a woman alone, he’d said. She was alone, sure. But so were a few other women here in Prairie.

June Weaver, for instance, was very much alone tonight. June had a son named Travis. Big strong football player. But he lived with his father.

June lived alone.

And it was June, she thought, getting nervous and excited all at once, not her, who had the videotape the man down in Key West wanted badly enough to threaten a man like Franklin over. If they knew about her tapes, they probably knew how to find June’s address as easy as they’d find—

She jumped up from the table and ran to the phone mounted on the wall beside the stove. June’s home number was among the ones scribbled in pencil just above the phone.

Line was busy.

She called the sheriff’s office and got a recording. June’s familiar drawl telling you what to do in case of an emergency. Which meant whoever was on duty was on the phone.

She took a deep breath and redialed both numbers.

Still busy.

52

D aisy grabbed the shotgun and ran into her bedroom flipping the light switch by the door. To hell with it. She shed her slippers and stuck her feet into her boots. No time to dress, she grabbed her terry robe off the hook on the bathroom door. She grabbed a handful of shells from the dresser and stuffed them in the pocket of her terry. Then she hurried back to the kitchen. The phone was ringing off the hook and she paused just long enough to grab it.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

“Who is this, damn it?”

Hearing only silence, she slammed down the receiver, picked it up again and redialed June’s house.

Busy. So was the sheriff’s line. Damnation.

Was that June trying to get through to the courthouse? Is that why Daisy couldn’t get through to either number? Had to be it.

She ran out the front door and jumped into the pickup, laying the gun on the seat beside her. She twisted the key in the ignition and for a few horrible seconds thought the damn thing wasn’t going to turn over. Then it did. She jammed it into gear and fishtailed onto the long dirt drive that led out to the highway. She didn’t hardly slow down when she hit the blacktop, just cranked the wheel over and mashed her foot to the floor.

It was freezing in the cab. She pulled the worn terry robe tight around her but it didn’t help much. She could be dead before that leaky heater under the dash started putting out anything significant enough to thaw her out.

June Weaver lived six miles further out from town than the Dixons did, in an old two-story farmhouse set back about a half-mile from the highway. The old house backed up onto a small creek that ran through the Weaver property. June had grown up on the place and then lived there by herself ever since the divorce. Her son was a gridiron star at Prairie High School. Going to college on a scholarship. He lived half the year with his dad and half with his mom. It was his dad’s turn, she knew, because it was football season and his dad had him on some kind of training regimen.

Daisy was going fast as she could push it, over a hundred, and still it took forever to reach June’s place. Her road wasn’t marked very well and she had to slow down real fast to find the wooden sign tacked to a fence-post that said Weaver in faded red letters. She saw it, braked hard, and swerved off the highway and onto the road leading to the house. Just because it seemed to make sense, she’d doused her headlights as soon as she’d seen the sign and turned off the highway.

A quarter of a mile from the house she saw a car pulled over to the side, two wheels half in the ditch. June drove a twenty-year-old Olds Cutlass Supreme station wagon. Faded gold color. This was not that. It looked new, a two-door, and black. A Ford or a Chevy, she couldn’t tell. All cars looked the same these days. Oklahoma plates. She slowed as she approached it, coming up on it from the rear, one hand on the Parker.

She eased up alongside, keeping her gun barrels just below the windowsill. The car was empty. She put the truck in park and climbed out into the frigid cold, taking her gun with her. She bent and looked into the driver’s side window and saw a Hertz map on the front seat and a crushed pack of cigarettes on the floor. She stood up and looked at the big old house, the big dark sky looming over the rooftops. June’s room was upstairs on the nearside corner. It was dark, too.

She reached her hand out and touched the hood of the rental car. It was still very warm and the engine was ticking softly.

Daisy decided she’d best walk the rest of the way. The sound of her truck pulling up in front of June’s house was not going to help anybody tonight. She yanked the keys out of the ignition, stuck them in her robe pocket, and started walking.

A few minutes later, she was standing at the front door listening and not hearing anything inside. Her hands were shaking, but, hell, her whole body was shivering in the cold night air. She tried the screen door and found it unlocked. Her heart thudding in her chest, she twisted the front door knob. The door swung inward without a sound and she stepped inside. She stood quiet a second and then moved on into the living room, the Parker out front, her finger on the forward trigger and the safety off.

“June?” she whispered in the dark. “It’s me—Daisy. Are you home, honey?”

Was she home? Maybe, maybe not. June normally parked the Olds in the garage around the back and she stupidly hadn’t checked to see if it was back there. How dumb can one person be?

“June, listen, I’m just here to see if you’re all right. Okay? I’ve got a gun. If you’re not all right but you can hear me, say something.”

The house was dead quiet.

Not a peep.

Nothing.

Daisy smelled something burnt in the kitchen. Like a pie that had been left in the oven too long. Make that chicken pot pie maybe. Daisy moved carefully toward the rear of the house, wishing she’d been smart enough to remove her damn cowboy boots. The wooden floors were creaky and a deaf man could have heard her coming a mile away.

She also wished she’d brought a flashlight. The house was at least a hundred years old, with heavy drapes covering the windows, and it was black as a crypt inside. Nothing looked the same in the dark anyway. She bumped into a little table with a porcelain lamp on it, grabbing the lamp just before it toppled over and hit the floor in a million tiny pieces.

She went through a wide arched door that led to a long narrow hall going back to the kitchen. At the kitchen door she paused and peeked inside. She could tell the room was empty and was tempted to go turn the damn oven off.

Knowing that this was a really bad idea, she turned around and crept to the foot of the stairs. There was a door on her right, behind it were the cellar steps if she remembered correctly. She tried the knob. Unlocked. She opened it six inches and got that musty, rotted basement smell up her nose. She felt something sticky on the bottom of her boot. She had no idea what it was but since she feared the worst, she was thinking it might be blood. She raised her right foot and swabbed her index finger across her boot heel. She held it under her nose. It didn’t smell like blood. It smelled like mud.

She shut the door quick.

There was a deadbolt on the outside of the basement door and she locked it. Then she headed up the stairs to the second floor, no longer caring that each step made a loud groan as she climbed.

“June? Are you up here?” she said, fingering the safety nervously. She was absolutely ready to squeeze the trigger if somebody suddenly appeared at the top of the steps.

Nobody did, but it didn’t help her heart rate.

At the top of the stairs she stopped to get her bearings. June’s room was at the far end of the hallway, all the way to the left. All the doors along the hall to the left were shut. Same thing to the right. Except there was a bathroom to her right, just across the hall, and she could see inside a little, shadows and shapes. The door was halfway open and she had to stifle the temptation to rush in and rip back the shower curtain just to see what she’d find there. All the shower rings flying and hiding in there was a—

Boo.

Having scared herself silly, she turned left and started toward the door to June’s room.

“June? June-bug, are you up here, honey?”

She’d taken about three more steps along the worn carpeting when she heard a muffled noise behind the door. She raised the Parker to her shoulder, aiming it dead center on the door about four feet from the floor. Her hands were shaking badly again, even though it was a tad warmer in the old house. She was sorely tempted to just blow whoever was waiting for her behind that door to kingdom come and ask questions later.

But she moved toward it instead, dropped her left hand and placed it on the crystal knob. She twisted it, felt it give a half turn, then stop. It was locked. It was an old door with an old lock. All she had to do was put her shoulder into it, force the damn door open and put herself out of her misery one way or the other.

Something made her step back away from it. A noise. Movement inside. She took one, two steps back. She mounted the gun to her shoulder again and planted her left foot square in the center of the door. It slammed inward, splintering to jagged pieces.

She saw a figure silhouetted, standing in the center of the room by the big four-poster bed. Big shoulders. Small head.

“I’ll shoot,” she said. “I swear on a stack of bibles I will.”

Her finger tightened on the trigger.

“Daisy?” the person said, so soft she almost missed it.

“June?”

“Jesus wept! It’s you, Daisy!” June sobbed and took a few small steps toward her.

Daisy lowered the gun and embraced her friend. She was heaving sobs and shaking worse than Daisy was. June was wearing a thickly insulated stadium jacket which accounted for the big shoulders she’d seen.

“June, what happened? I tried to call you but—”

“I-I came up here to get my medicine. Not ten minutes ago. I heard somebody downstairs. Heard a window break sure as I’m standing here. Down in the kitchen. I didn’t know what to do. I locked the door and called the office but I couldn’t get through. I tried to call you, too, but first it was busy and then no answer. I didn’t know what else to—”

“June, listen. We don’t have time. There may be someone down in the basement.”

“What?”

“I saw mud on the floor. He must have tracked it in from the creek bed out back. That’s the only mud around here I know of. The mud was tracked through the kitchen and stopped outside that door. He’s still down there, I guess. I locked the door from this side.”

“What do we do?”

“Is there another way out of the cellar?”

“The old coal chute in the back of the house. Don’t use it anymore but it still works.”

“We have to move. Now. Where’s that videotape you’re supposed to send Franklin?”

“Right there on top of the dresser in that FedEx envelope. I was just fixing to take it into town.”

“Grab it and let’s get out of here.”

“What about the basement?”

“He’s either already outside and coming around the house to kill us both or he’s still locked inside down there and really pissed off.”

“Daisy. You must be freezing. Take this coat.”

She did. They descended the steps as quietly as they could. The door at the bottom of the steps was still locked shut. They tiptoed past it and then ran for the front door.

“C’mon, let’s run. My truck’s halfway down the drive.”

They left the old house in a hurry.

When they reached the two cars, Daisy went over to the black rental car and peeked inside. Nothing on the seat had been moved. The driver had to be still in the basement. She fired both barrels of the shotgun, blowing out the two front tires.

“I can’t shoot and drive at the same time,” she told June, holding out the shotgun.

“Give me some ammuntion,” June said, taking the Sweet Sixteen and a couple of shells. She quickly loaded the shotgun and snapped the barrels shut.

They jumped in her truck and Daisy turned on the headlights and stuck the key in the ignition. Just as she twisted it, three starburst patterns exploded on her windshield, covering the two women with chunks of safety glass.

“He’s over there!” Daisy cried, “See him? Coming around that mule stall. He’s got a rifle!”

The yellow beams picked up a large man in a dark coat, now racing toward them. He was trying to shoot on the run. Rounds were hitting the truck, but the gunman was too dumb to stop and take a stance before he tried to shoot anybody.

“Okay, okay, take it easy,” June said, “I’ve got this one.”

He was less than a hundred yards away. She leaned out the window with the shotgun, aimed, and pulled both triggers.

The gunman staggered a few more steps, went down hard.

“He didn’t think I’d shoot,” June said, collapsing against the seat. “I didn’t either.”

“You got him!” Daisy said, “Let’s get out of here!”

June leaned her head back on the seat said, “Oh my Lord.”

Daisy got the pickup turned around in a hurry, and they tore off down the bumpy dirt road back to the highway.

“What time is it, Daisy?” June said a few minutes later, her eyes fixed on the empty two-lane road ahead. She was doing eighty.

“ ’Bout nine-thirty.”

“I mean exactly.”

“Nine thirty-two. Exactly.”

Daisy mashed the accelerator to the floor. “If we hurry, we can still make the FedEx machine in time for the last pick-up at ten.”

53

KEY WEST

H awke stripped off all of his clothes on his way to the head in the aft owner’s stateroom. He caught a mirrored glimpse of his naked body stepping into the green glass shower. Six months in the jungle on starvation rations were not an especially good way for a man to lose weight. When he’d been admitted to Lister Hospital, he’d weighed only 143 pounds and his body had been wracked with malaria and other exotic bugs.

Now, two months later, he’d reached his fighting weight of 180 pounds, give or take the odd ounce or two. God knew he was trying. Eating right, lowering his alcohol intake, and maintaining the strict daily exercise regimen in the ship’s small gym had started to yield dividends. He was rapidly gaining in upper body strength and increased muscle mass. The salt air and sunshine had been working wonders on him, body and, perhaps, his battered soul.

He leaned toward the glass and rubbed the stubble on his chin. He hardly recognized himself in the mirror anymore. His black hair was cut short in a military brush cut and he was clean-shaven. Save the stark white band around his middle, the tropical sun had deepened his skin color to a dark and healthy tan.

Physically, at least, he was definitely on the mend. The septicemia and malarial symptoms had diminished considerably, as well as the insomnia. He was sleeping better and the nightmares had ceased altogether. To his surprise and delight, the prior evening he’d successfully completed a six-mile night swim in heavy surf off a deserted Key West beach. He was trying to run at least five miles a day on the sandy beaches. Running in sand got you in shape in a hurry.

For all that, he was not yet nearly as fit as he liked to be before going into the field.

But this assignment wouldn’t wait. He wouldn’t even have time to wish Conch a proper farewell. He’d gotten a message that she’d called earlier. He hadn’t called back. He didn’t want to say good-bye over the telephone. An image came to him, unbidden, Conch, her lustrous auburn hair splayed out upon his pillow.

Hawke suddenly realized that he desperately needed a shower.

A cold shower, to be brutally honest, to purge all the thoughts of overwhelming desire that featured so prominently in his recent dreams now that he’d recovered. He was uncomfortably aware that a woman had elbowed the nightmare jungle demons aside, fighting for his nightly attentions. The beauteous and brilliant Consuelo had appeared. The scent of her, the touch of her hand sometimes lingered upon waking.

Instead of cold, he reached for the chromium handle marked HOT.

There was a circular rain-head fixture above his head; a hundred or so tiny apertures created the hot needlelike streams he craved whenever he bathed. The temperature was exactly as advertised and he closed his eyes and let the rain-head hammer the tension out of him. Steaming hot water streamed down on his head and shoulders and he stood under the downpour willing his mind and body to unwind.

Relax, he told himself, leaning his head back against the glass wall and controlling his breathing. There was no time for women in his life. Affairs of state beckoned, far more urgent and demanding than mere affairs of the heart. When it was over, if he were able, he would tend to the latter.

He squirted some of the sharp-smelling L’Orange Verte body shampoo into his hands, lathering his hair, face, chest and shoulders. Yes, relax, old sport. Focus on the mission. Prepare for battle. Take up the sword. Why was he so bloody distracted tonight of all nights? Two reasons, obviously. The second reason was a very special boat just delivered for the high-speed run down to Brazil.

The first reason?

He didn’t even want to think about the first reason now.

But the boat, yes, he could think about her all right. He’d ordered her especially for this assignment and she was a wonder. She was one hundred and eighteen feet long with a beam of only thirty feet and could accommodate a crew of twenty. She drew only four and a half feet of water, a draught that should suit his purposes perfectly. He was planning a speedy trip up the Amazon, with a quick stop at Manaus to reprovision and pick up some equipment he’d need in the interior of the rain forest.

An Italian design group with the wildly improbable name of ‘Wally’ had created the sleek Italian offshore powerboat to his unique specifications, adding armor and weaponry to what was more typically used as a high-speed Côte d’Azur cruiser.

The most avant-garde design team in the world had created a vessel built of advanced composites that could cruise offshore comfortably at sixty knots. Three 5,600-horsepower gas turbine engines drove the boat. People had described the new Wally design as “psycho origami.”

To Hawke’s naval eye, she was a staggeringly beautiful vessel. Her knifelike hull and fiercely aggressive superstructure resembled nothing so much as a wildly experimental stratospheric airship. Lazzarini-Pickering, the principal naval architects at Wally, had designed a boat all rake and flat planes and sharp angles from stem to stern. Stealth, Hawke thought, had long become a design cliché. But this new boat left any such tired ideas in her wake. Even sitting alongside an old Navy pier in Key West, she seemed to be doing fifty knots.

With his newly appointed crew present on the dock, he had just christened her Stiletto, smashing a bottle of Pol Roger Winston Churchill against her razor-edged bow. The crew had cheered wildly, eager to be off next morning. Already a crewman was carefully stenciling the newly christened yacht’s name in blood red on her dark flanks. She was completely finished in a very deep gunmetal gray , vaguely metallic in direct moonlight.

Her magnificent bow, with a deeply inset teak deck, swept aft to a prominent knife-edged pilothouse built of carbon fiber and laminated composite glass. The three large rectangular windows of thick, bulletproof Lexan, sharply angled aft, were tinted a shade of dark charcoal. The massive air intakes for her gas turbine engines, mounted amidships on either side of the hull, owed much to intensive wind tunnel testing the Wally design team had done in Italy at the Ferrari racing facility at Maranello.

HAWKE PUT his head back and let the stinging water strike his face.

If it was possible for a man to love a machine, he thought, then this was love. Tomorrow morning, he would light out for the Equator and points south. He and his sleek new girl would go racing across the blue sea at speeds approaching one hundred knots. He would take her far up the Amazon, deep into the jungle, and show her where life and death lived together in such uneasy coexistence. He would find the devil standing at the crossroads and he would kill him.

“Need any help?”

With the noise of the shower, he hadn’t heard her come into his bathroom. Now there were two more hands washing him. And her naked body was up against his, moving against his leg, her head nuzzling in the curve of his neck and shoulder. Her mouth was at him too.

Hawke said nothing. What was there to say? No? Yes? Maybe? He simply stood there in the green glass box with his head and shoulders against the wall, feeling her hands moving on his upper body now as she set about scrubbing his face and hair and shoulders.

“I was afraid you’d start without me,” she said.

“If you get soap into my eyes, you’ll be sorry,” Hawke said.

“I’ll try to be careful.”

Her hands moved down the length of his arms and over his chest to his belly where they paused.

“You’ll have to do the rest, I’m afraid,” she said, blinking the streaming water from her eyes as she looked up at him, smiling.

“I will not. And be thorough about it, will you?”

“I’ve never washed a man before.”

“Really? Then something tells me you are a woman with abundant natural talents.”

She bent to her task.

“Hard work.”

“Yes, isn’t it.”

I am drowning, he thought.

And then the woman was in his arms, the two of them were standing in the steamy mist and drenching downpour, both of their bodies slick with soap and heat and desire. He felt the soft weight of her lovely breasts pressed against his chest. He kissed her mouth for the very first time and was surprised at the violence of that kiss, at the need of it, how hard he kissed her and how hard she kissed back, the fierce tenderness of it all, and how wonderful she tasted on his lips.

Somehow, he managed to turn the shower off. He lifted her in his arms and carried her through into the bedroom where he gently laid her upon his bed. She was smiling up at him through half-closed lashes as he reached for the light.

It had been a long time since he had been with a woman and he took her with a gentle brutality, the sweetness of which surprised them both. When the moment came, she dug her fingernails into his hips to take him with her and then she cried out, blessing or cursing his name, perhaps both, and he drove himself into her harder and faster until at last he buried his face in her hair and urgently whispered her name.

Afterward, he lay still on his back, gazing up into the semi-darkness of his cabin and listening to the sound of their tandem breathing. Eventually, her breath slowed and became rhythmic and quiet. Moonlight was pouring through the half-opened shades on either side of his paneled cabin. He closed his eyes, sleep tugging at him, pulling him down.

At some point, he, too, must have drifted off, for he awoke with a start. There were still puddles of moonlight on the floor at the foot of the bed. He sat up, coming awake instantly. It was three o’clock in the morning. The bedside phone was ringing. The green light was blinking, meaning it was his private line.

He reached across her for it, but she’d already taken it off the hook and was sleepily saying, “Hello? Who’s this, please? Yes, he’s right here. Hold on a tick.”

She rolled over and offered him the phone.

“Who is it?” he whispered, his cold eyes flashing with anger at her impertinence.

“It’s your friend,” she said, stifling a yawn as she handed him the phone.

“Which friend is that?” he said, covering the mouthpiece and instinctively dreading her reply.

“The American Secretary of State, Consuelo de los Reyes.”

“Conch?” Hawke mouthed the word.

“Mmm.”

“Bloody hell, Pippa!” he whispered fiercely.

54

H awke put the phone to his ear. The girl in his bed turned her back to him and yanked the bedcovers up over her head like a small child desirous of a private tantrum. Was she actually pouting? Bloody hell, he’d just have to ignore her.

“Good evening, Conch,” Hawke said, with a good deal more bravado than he’d intended.

It was a full two minutes before Alex Hawke was allowed to insert a single word edgewise.

“Sorry,” he finally managed to wedge in.

“He says he’s bloody sorry!” he heard the girl under the covers cry, thankful the exclamation was somewhat muffled.

Pippa rose from the bed without another word, swaddled in trailing bedclothes, and padded silently across the hardwood floor to the head. She pulled the door firmly closed behind her. Thirty seconds later, she emerged once more in one of the white terry robes that hung in all the guest staterooms. Her hair looked different, and Hawke realized she must have used his silver military brushes. The robe, which was obviously what she’d worn when she’d crept below to his stateroom, was belted tightly about her waist.

She crossed his cabin without even a backward glance and, on her way out, banged his stateroom door shut just hard enough to avoid splintering it.

“Conch, this is not at all what it seems,” Hawke said, wincing at the sound of the slamming door, easily loud enough to be heard over the phone, “Can we just move on?”

“Alex, relax. Your personal life long ago ceased to have any fascination for me. And I would happily let you go back to whoever you were doing except for one thing. I’ve just gotten off the phone with the president. He is in full crisis mode. And, he specifically asked me to call you.”

“Conch,” Hawke said, sitting up in bed, coming full awake. He was vastly relieved to be talking business. “How can I help?”

“In the last six hours, all hell has broken loose along the Mexican border. It’s not exactly war, but it’s close enough. We’ve had reports of multiple incursions by Mexican Army units in three different states. Border Patrol agents are being openly attacked, shot at without provocation by illegals with AK-47s. A few small border towns in Texas and New Mexico are under siege by rampaging drug gangs on motorcycles. There has been widespread burning and looting of remote farms and ranches. A few small border towns have reported fires raging out of control. Arson.”

“God.”

“Now, we’re getting reports of American vigilantes raiding Mexican border towns in reprisal. Anti-American demonstrations in Mexico City and the countryside are turning violent. This thing is spiraling out of control, Alex. It’s insane. The administration is all caught up in planning for the Inauguration and we’re on the verge of a full-fledged border war.”

“An invasion,” Hawke said, “That’s just how the American people will see this. That the bloody Mexicans have invaded their country.”

“Well, for Christ’s sake, how else could they see it? It’s what’s been happening, Alex. You know the numbers. Ten thousand a day coming across. Twelve to twenty million illegals already over. And now, just what we need, Mexican Army units crossing the border.”

“You have any proof of that?”

“No. Unfortunately, we don’t.”

“Uniformed troops takes this to a new level. Has anyone spoken directly to the president of Mexico about this?”

“Of course. That was the first call the president made. Mexican President Fox disclaims any knowledge of his army moving north across our border. Only he could give that order. He says he has not. But, he also says, if these vigilante reprisals against innocent Mexican civilians continue, he will declare Mexico in a state of war with the United States and move four divisions north. He will also immediately stop all oil flow to the U.S. through Mexico.”

“What’s the president’s response?” “He’s going to pull every single National Guard Unit from the interior of the country and disperse them along that two thousand-mile-long border.”

“That sounds a lot like war. How long will that take?”

“To organize and mobilize something like that? A week. Less.”

“That may not be enough time.”

“To do what, Alex?”

“Conch, the whole time I was in hospital I was thinking about Top. I ordered a new boat to navigate the Amazon and its tributaries. I can have a crew ready to go in less than twelve hours. For reasons I’m not sure you’ll understand, I’m going back.”

“I understand all right, Alex. It’s commonly called revenge.”

“THERE’S A powerful political angle to this, Alex. Border state governors and local law enforcement are besieging the president to do something immediately. In the meantime, the Minutemen are raising public funds to erect a border wall and money is flooding in. You saw the demonstration in L.A. last year. People waving Mexican flags, chanting, ‘Viva la Reconquista!’ The Mexicans are taking back the southwest without a shot being fired.”

“With the help of the jihadistas I saw in the jungle.”

“You think the Mexicans are innocent?”

“Hell, no. Ambrose and I interrogated a German diplomat named Zimmermann. Formerly the liaison between the Mexican government and the Brazilian terror army. He’s dead now. I think the Mexicans are in this at some level. Maybe not all the way to the President, but someone.”

“Alex, look. The president was just narrowly re-elected, primarily because those southwestern states supported him. Believed he was going to stand up for this country and that our borders still meant something. If he doesn’t put a stop to this borderline wildfire and fast, he’s going to be country fried chicken right out of the box.”

“Pulling the Guard away from all those major cities is a bad idea right now, Conch. A very dangerous idea.”

“Right. We see thousands of internet threats every day. We must have missed this one.”

“I saw this threat with my own eyes, Conch.”

“What do you want me to do? Invade Brazil? Argentina? We’re stretched so goddamn thin right now—caught between Iraq and a hard place, isn’t that what you said? Send what few troops we do have, and they’ll only be concentrated and vulnerable along a broken border.”

“That’s only half of it. Send the balance of the Guard to the border and you leave major cities wide open.”

“I know.”

“Conch, the president doesn’t really think the root of this problem is Mexico, does he? That’s his dilemma. He can’t say what he really believes publicly. He thinks I might be right. Tell me the truth.”

“He’s not sure, Alex. Nobody in Washington can figure out what the hell the Mexicans are up to, much less the rest of the Latan leaders. But, every day, there are more attacks on our border agents. Six were shot in the last week. You’ve got el Presidente down there, somewhat believably disavowing any knowledge of armed troop incursions.”

“And that may prove true.”

“Privately, he has assured us he means us no harm. But he encourages an invasion of our country by millions of his citizens. And then says he’s very pissed off at American reprisals against his people.”

“Resulting in the current confusion at the White House and up on the Hill,” Hawke said.

“With the Mexicans rubbing our faces in it on CNN. I’m just waiting for the mainstream backlash.”

“A situation ripe for any third party trying to foment a U.S. border war, isn’t it, Conch? Think about it.”

“I see where you’re going. But to what end, Alex?”

“The oldest trick in the book. Lure the enemy defenses away from your true military objectives. Spread the enemy along the perimeter. Then, attack at the center with overwhelming force.”

“Washington.”

“Washington. New York. Chicago. Maybe all three at once. I’m trying to find that out.”

“You could be right, of course. And, right now, there isn’t anyone in Washington who will at least acknowledge this possibility.”

“You just did, Conch. I could talk to the president. Tell him what I know.”

“There’s no time. McAtee needs action now. That’s the political reality. Everything points at the Mexican government.”

“But the president is not entirely convinced. So his hands are tied.”

“Right. He also believes there’s something in what you’ve been saying, Alex. That the radical Islamist terror cells down in the Amazon are somehow mixed up in this.”

“Everybody who hates America has a dog in this fight.”

“And they’ve chosen Mexico as the battleground.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Good point.”

“As I said, it’s possible these border flare-ups may be diversionary tactics. The enemy wants to lure your troops in, leave the real targets undefended. That’s not to say Mexicans reoccupying their old land won’t want to hold on to it.”

“It’s perfect, isn’t it, Alex? A perfect terror attack plan?”

“Nothing’s perfect. Tell the president one thing for me. That the heightened Mexican border trouble may be just a ploy to draw all American troops south away from the center.”

“A ploy. We leave our capital undefended. And we concentrate our troops along a clearly defined perimeter where they can be wiped out in a single blow. A formula for disaster.”

There was silence while both of them contemplated the horrific ramifications of what she and Hawke had just said. A moment later, Conch spoke again.

“Alex, there’s more. And it supports your argument. General Charley Moore, JCS Chairman at the Pentagon, called me three hours ago. He’d just stepped out of an emergency Oval Office briefing with the president. Moore’s got a CIA field agent named Brock down in the Triangle area right now—”

“Harry Brock got me out of the jungle.”

“Right. He decided to go native after he got you extracted. We thought he was dead. Anyway, he’s just turned up alive in Brazil. He checked in with his boss six hours ago. He’s seen something down there, something too big for him to handle alone. But he indicates it’s a situation that needs immediate attention.”

“Papa Top. Harry must have found him. You’ve got to order a strike, Conch.”

“No. In this political climate, Washington has no intention of sending waves of bombers over the Amazon, Alex. You know that as well as anyone. I’m asking for your help. Off the books.”

“I’ll find Brock. We’ll do what we can.”

“Brock is holed up outside of Manaus, at a hotel called the Jungle Palace. He’s there now, waiting to hear from you.”

“Conch, could you get a signal to him? Tell him to sit tight. I’ll pick him up there in forty-eight hours.”

“Done. Listen, Alex, I’m afraid our hands are tied. I wish there was some way we could—”

“You don’t have to say any more. I understand the difficult position you’re in, Conch. Neither you nor the president can afford to have a clandestine U.S. operation blow up in your face right now, especially one in Latin America.”

“That pretty much sums it up, Alex. As long as you understand that you’ll be on your own as far as we’re concerned.”

“When have I not been on my own?”

“Right. That’s your style, isn’t it, Lord Hawke? The lone wolf himself.”

“Conch. As soon as I return I will try to explain myself. But right now, I’ve got to get moving.”

“Don’t be stupid about this.”

“I’ve got the right equipment. The right men. And I know the theater of operations intimately. I want to go this alone. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“When can you shove off ?”

“Stiletto can be under way in six hours.”

“Alex, I hate to say this to you. Especially given how much I hate you at this moment. But I have a really bad feeling about this thing.”

“Well, Conch, you know what, it is a really bad thing.”

“Don’t push it. I thought you’d already died once in Brazil.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t ready. I guess I wanted to keep my hand in a while longer. Although some days I feel like just pissing off and retiring to the bloody Bahamas. Lie in a hammock all day and whistle ‘Rule, Britannia.’ ”

“Good night, Alex.”

“Good night, Conch.”

“Be careful. Vaya con Dios.”

55

H awke was up and moving early next morning. The rising sun sent brilliant red rays streaking across the wave tops and the day dawned, cool and clear. Beyond the walled perimeter of the old Naval Station, Key West was still sleeping it off.

The only audible sound on Blackhawke’s topmost deck was the cry of screeching white gulls and black scimitar shearwaters, diving and swooping off the ship’s great stern. That, and the martial tune of the Union Jack on its massive mahogany staff, snapping smartly in a fresh morning breeze.

Hawke found Ambrose Congreve already tucked in to his customary pair of three-minute eggs. Seated all alone on the curved stern banquette, the famous detective was wearing a wide-brimmed Panama and a three-piece suit of pale yellow linen. He was scribbling furiously in the code book.

“Good morning, Alex,” Ambrose Congreve said. His voice was near to bursting with hearty cheer. “Sleep well, old pot?”

“Like a babe in arms,” Hawke replied with a wry smile.

He had finally given up all hope of sleep and risen at five. After a few more necessary phone calls and packing enough gear and tropical kit for two weeks south of the Equator, he’d subsequently gone for a very long swim outside the harbor. He’d pushed himself to the point of exhaustion and beyond just to see if he could do it. He could, and he felt invigorated by the effort. He was more than ready to shove off.

Stiletto was moored along the breakwater, just aft of Blackhawke, and arc lights had been blazing on the dock all night long. She was still taking on provisions for a two-week voyage to the tropics. The crew was also loading additional ammunition for the new weaponry Hawke had added at a yard in the south of England. And racing to finish topping off her tanks. After briefing them, Hawke had ordered everyone assembled on her foredeck to be ready to shove off in two hours.

“Have some breakfast,” Congreve said, offering a plate of salted fish. “Kippers?”

“I’m trying to quit Kippers. Hated the bloody things all my life.”

Hawke pulled up a chair and the steward took his order of fruit, coffee, eggs, and toast with Dundee’s orange marmalade.

Ambrose said, “The oddest thing. I saw Pippa hurrying down the gangway at dawn this morning. Had her luggage in tow and there was a taxi waiting on the dock. She looked…unhappy.”

“I booked her an early flight. She was leaving today anyway.”

“Well, you’re in a mood.”

“I am indeed.”

“I won’t ask.”

“Looks like you’re making progress with the Da Zimmermann code, Constable,” Hawke asked, eying the opened book beside Congreve’s plate. The pages were now much marked up with Congreve’s pencil scrawling and tabbed with tiny yellow stickers from front to back.

“I will tell you one thing. There is going to be an attack of some kind. And it’s been in the works for quite a long time.”

“Where Washington? New York?”

“America, to be sure. But nothing more specific as to date or location yet.”

“Too soon to bring Conch into this?”

“Hmm. What can I tell her at this point, really? It’s odd, but I keep stumbling across the phrase, his hand on the bible. Whenever does one put one’s hand on the bible?”

“When you swear to something?”

“Hmm. Anyway, halfway through the novel, the coded message comes to an abrupt halt. Absolute gibberish again after page 230. We’ve hit a wall, I’m afraid.”

“You’re joking. It just stops working?”

“Yes. I’ll keep at it. By the way, Conch was looking for you last night. She rang my cabin. Apparently all hell is breaking loose.”

“Yes. She reached me.”

“And?”

“Ambrose, I’m terribly sorry to do things this way. I know you loathe surprises. But, I’ve canceled your flight for London later this morning.”

“Really?” Congreve said, touching his linen napkin to his lips, “I must say the idea of a few more days in the tropics is not without appeal.”

“I’ve booked you another. In fact, I believe that’s your flight landing now.”

“That thing?”

A few hundred yards away, a large baby blue seaplane was on the downwind leg, about to touch down on a glassy stretch of sea beyond the breakwater. She had her nose up and her floats were just about to splash.

“Yes, that thing,” Hawke said. “It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it? An old Grumman Goose. A G-21. Built just after the war, but newly rebuilt, I assure you. The current owner replaced her old radial engines with new turbocharged ones according to Stokely. Stokely Jones is aboard that plane, by the way. I invited him to breakfast.”

“Well, I should be delighted to see him again. But, Alex, you can’t expect me to actually fly in a contraption like that? Where the bloody hell are you sending me?”

“Ambrose, our only hope is to crack that bloody code book. I think it’s the only way to figure out what these bastards have planned. So I need you to get down to Manaus and find the ambassador’s widow. Today. You’ll be met on the other end by an American named Harry Brock. CIA, and a good one. A NOC, as it happens.”

“Not On Consular. Nonofficial.”

“Yes. If he buys it, there’s no receipt. He’s making all the arrangements at that end. You two have one mission. Find Zimmermann’s widow, wherever she is. Take your book. Get to the bottom of that bloody code as quickly as possible. I don’t exaggerate when I say deciphering that thing as rapidly as possible may prove to be vital. For all of us.”

“I couldn’t agree more, Alex.”

“Look at you, Ambrose,” Stokely said, suddenly appearing on the top step of the starboard staircase, “Got the whole Sydney Greenstreet vibe going on.”

“Ah, Stokely!” Ambrose said, rising from the table to embrace the huge man. “Marvelous to see you,” he said, pounding his broad back.

“Stoke,” Hawke said, hugging him as well, “Have some breakfast.”

“Is that crate airworthy?” Congreve asked, nervously watching the ungainly Blue Goose taxi across the water toward the fuel pier.

“Man, I hope.”

“Ambrose, you and Stokely simply must find that widow alive. She’s the only one who can possibly help us now.”

“I agree. I don’t hold out much hope for cracking the balance of the book without her.”

“Stiletto should arrive in Manaus approximately forty-eight hours from now. God willing, and a calm sea, she’ll be safely berthed at the Jungle Palace hotel at 0700 hours day after tomorrow.”

“And Blackhawke?”

“She stays here.”

“I’ll see you in Manaus, then, Alex,” Congreve said, rising from the table. “Godspeed.”

Stoke said, “We take off for Shit Creek at eight, Constable. Don’t forget your paddle. And, don’t be late.”

“Late does not appear in my vocabulary.”

The resplendent criminalist doffed his tan Panama hat and disappeared down the after staircase.

“So, tell me, boss, how the hell are we supposed to find this bad boy in all that jungle?” Stoke said.

“I’m working on that.”

Stoke smiled.

“Bring your laptop, boss. We get lost, we’ll just go to Google and punch in ‘Amazon.com.’ ”

56

THE BLACK JUNGLE

M uhammad Top, wearing a custom leopard-skin burka and one of his trademark bowler hats, was seated at the controls of a war machine headed east along M Street. He was nearing the target. The softly flashing blue and yellow lights above the Ogre’s control and fire monitors bathed his twisted features with an unpleasant sheen. The massive tank was designed to be autonomous on the battlefield.

But what a thrill it was to be at the controls of such a monster.

The Day was coming. The Hour approached. The Minute. Not quite yet, but soon, very, very soon. His eyes were narrowed in concentration as he spun a cursor, using all the electronic marvels at his disposal to maneuver the great mechanical brute through the snowy streets of Washington, DC.

In his headset, he could hear the squealing protests of the massive caterpillar tracks as he rounded a tight corner into a broad avenue. He had tamed the beast. He could make it go anywhere he wanted. Over the onboard Bose audio system, in his stereophonic headphones, he was enjoying one of his many guilty Western pleasures. The Stones.

His left hand hovered over a small toggle switch just now illuminated on a panel just below the monitor. The Ogre’s Fire Control System was armed and in READY mode.

In a few moments, he would strike the first blow. He would see the flash and hear the thunderous roar of his anti-personnel cannons. Only then, when those who opposed were all dead and posed no further threat, when he had a clearer picture of his target, would he launch his missiles. They would streak away toward their target, creating glowing orange holes where once proud monuments to a former civilization had stood.

The Day was less than seventy-two hours in the future.

He was in drive-by-wire mode, guiding a giant hulking monster, nicknamed the Ogre, through the middle of the New Year’s first massive snowstorm. It weighed slightly in excess of one hundred tons. Despite its heavy composite armor, it was capable of speeds up to sixty miles per hour and could climb steps at angles of thirty degrees.

Ogre would accept commands from either human or non-biological intelligence. There was also a manual override system that allowed the Ogre to act autonomously. In that mode the tanks were fully functional on their own, receiving real time data input and making fluid battlefield decisions as conditions warranted. It was this specific function that had so electrified Khan in the early days of the planning.

Top, however, had always envisioned a more personal approach to destruction. He didn’t want to be seated deep inside a concrete bunker in the fucking jungle when the glorious Hour came. He wanted to be there in the front row when the devil finally got his due. He hadn’t told Khan about his feelings. Khan believed in the perfection of machines. He believed the fewer humans involved in making war, the less chance for plans to go awry. He was right, of course, if you didn’t count the victims.

The digital information now being fed to the Ogre’s CPU was precisely replicating the official NOAA weather forecast for the following week in the Mid-Atlantic States.

A massive low-pressure system was moving across the Midwest directly toward the nation’s capitol. The onboard dynamic weather analysis presented the tank “Sensor Command” with an up to the second picture of the developing storm system and alerted the driver to every nuance of temperature, wind speed, barometric pressure, and, most importantly, road and off-road conditions.

The snow was nearly blinding. Only the radar and GPS functions now depicting real time obstacles on his satnav screen kept him on course. Five minutes earlier, he’d almost found himself careening past the Jefferson Memorial and plunging into the icy Potomac. But a loudly bleeping alarm sensor had alerted him to his course deviation and saved him at the last instant.

The icy Washington roads, barely visible and unfamiliar, presented the human sensor operator with a bewildering challenge. Still, with the well-practiced Top at the controls, the enormous treads had been successfully grinding up the miles since his insertion inside the District of Columbia’s theater of operations.

Top had been manning the controls for nearly an hour. With the exception of that one minor mishap, he had successfully navigated a crossing of the Key Bridge. He had then entered the maze of confusing side streets of Georgetown. He was now rounding Washington Circle and preparing to move the beast left onto Pennsylvania. So far, he’d been un-opposed by forces of any significance. Two DC police cruisers had chased him for a few blocks, but he’d dispatched them with only his .23-millimeter machine guns.

He heard a disconcerting alarm sounding. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the blinking dot of orange light moving across the computer-generated map of Washington, DC. It was coming this way. At a disturbingly high rate of speed. The words Manned Armed Vehicle flashed at the bottom of the screen. Jara, he whispered, shit. A tank.

Top spun his turret toward the location of the glowing dot five kilometers away. He had his electronic jam screen up. He didn’t think the thing could get close. He wondered why EMP hadn’t knocked the vehicle’s guidance systems out. Perhaps it was operating visually. In any event, he had plenty of low-yield missiles yet to expend and he was unafraid. He felt, not without reason, invulnerable.

He spun his fire control cursor, moving a bright red dot across the screen with well-practiced ease. When the red dot and the orange dot merged, he stabbed at a yellow button on his panel.

Both blinking lights disappeared, praise be to Allah!

Then he turned his gaze to the icy road dead ahead. He was nearing one of his primary targets. He could feel the shudder of nervous excitement building inside. It was a feeling very much akin to lust.

Top’s right hand, the one gripping the joystick, trembled slightly as he twisted the throttle, shoved the stick forward, and accelerated. It was cramped inside, and though there was artificially cooled air, his face shone with a thin coating of sweat.

He successfully navigated the sweeping left hand turn at forty miles and hour and slowed the machine as he pulled up abreast of the White House. With darting jabs at his controls, he armed the main fire control systems and reached out for the small joystick that operated the giant tank’s turret. A second later, he had the North Portico of the White House squarely in his primary gun sight.

A great lantern hung suspended by chains from the porte-cochere that sheltered the North Portico. The lantern glowed a soft yellow through the sleeting snow. He’d seen countless photographs of this famous scene in his life, harried diplomats coming and going through this storied portal, trying to save the world from people just like him.

A burst from his forward machine guns obliterated the lantern. He moved his hand over the primary weapons control panel. He would fire his first missile right through the Great Satan’s door!

“THAT’S ENOUGH,” he heard Dr. Khan say in his headset. “Come on out. Playtime is over. We’re due at the river for the demonstration.”

“I did well?” Top asked his superior, exiting the Ogre Tank Simulator. It was even colder in the underground bunker than it had been inside the simulator. And he didn’t have the Stones to keep him company, heat his blood.

“Yes. You did well. Almost perfect, in fact.”

“Only machines are capable of perfection, Leader,” he responded, knowing the words Khan wanted to hear.

“It’s a pity you won’t be driving one of these brutes north, Muhammad.”

“Yes. I come by these skills naturally, Dr. Khan,” Top said, accepting his fleece-lined bomber jacket from one of the technicians. “My father commanded the 192nd Armored Division in the Valley of Tears. Golan Heights. 1973.”

“I knew your father well. He was a fierce warrior. But he lost. A mere 150 Israeli tanks stopped 1,400 invading Syrian tanks in the bottleneck. It was a disaster. I vowed that day never to see a repeat of your father’s humiliation.”

Abu Khan knew whereof he spoke.

In 1973, in the Yom Kippur War, Dr. Abu Musab al-Khan had commanded all the mechanized armor divisions deployed on the Golan Heights. It was a mere two-hour tank ride south to Israeli territory. The Golan Heights protected Israel’s north. Any attack from Syria had to be topographically channeled through one of only two passes in which armored vehicles could cross.

The surprised and vastly outnumbered Israeli troops held off the invaders for a vital 48 hours. In that time, they were able to mobilize and deploy the necessary forces required to beat back and ultimately defeat the Syrians.

Khan had long since redeemed himself. He had been responsible for the Syrian build-up of highly advanced weaponry in response to the Yom Kippur disaster. Now, in order to implement Hafez al-Assad’s vision of a “Greater Syria,” Khan’s generals possessed 4,000 manned tanks on the Golan crestline.

The troops had doubled in size and were equipped with Scud-C missiles, twice as powerful and four times more accurate than the Iraqi Scuds that rained down upon Israel during the Gulf War. When war came, his plan was to unleash vast numbers of the new Scuds against Haifa and Tel Aviv, sowing widespread civilian panic and seriously disrupting Israel’s emergency reserve mobilization.

But Khan had far grander ideas. At a secret meeting in Damascus, he had seen Top’s Latin American battle plan in its infancy. It immediately dawned on him that here was a chance to build, test, and field his dream. A remote-controlled air force. And a mechanized army incapable of human foibles and battlefield stupidity because it would be autonomous once launched.

“You’ve created an invincible army, Leader.”

“Yes, God willing. Because there is no chance of human error. Keep that in mind when you play your little war games, Muhammad, my brother. The Day approaches. It is out of your hands now. Inshallah.”

Top looked Kahn squarely in the eyes. In truth, he had come to believe in the vision. The wizard from Damascus believed that infallible machines should strike the first blows in this jihad. Death would roam the streets of Washington, unseen and unexpected. The Cause would be better served if Abu Khan and Muhammad Top were here in the bunker on the Great Day. Let infallible machines do the work of destroying the enemy’s military and political infrastructure.

Then send the armies north to wreak havoc on the civililan population.

“Yes, Leader. It is out of my hands.”

“I believe the Bedouin is ready for inspection?”

“She is. Let us go at once.”

Bedouin was a small, unmanned submarine that would ultimately carry a single but very lethal piece of cargo. The sub could be operated from remote locations up to 7,000 miles away. Inside Bedouin was a 150-kiloton nuclear weapon. The warhead was shielded to provide protection from the electronic pulse of any simultaneous nearby nuclear explosions. In two hours, the Volkswagen-sized sub was due to be airlifted to Manaus for further shipment to Mexico. From there, Bedouin would be transported by tractor-trailer truck to a pre-determined location in America.

The location was a small farm just outside of Lee’s Ferry, a tiny town located on the Potomac River in Virginia. It was called Morning Glory Farm. Apple orchards. The farm was owned by an extremely wealthy individual from Rio de Janeiro. He in turn was owned by a large multinational company headquartered in Dubai.

The man, a German, had been a traitor.

But the traitor was dead now.

His name had been Zimmermann.

57

PRAIRIE, TEXAS

W on’t this truck go any faster?” June asked Daisy.

“Do you want to drive? I’m going as fast as I can without killing us.”

“I’m just looking at my watch. Don’t get all uppity with me, Daisy Dixon.”

“What time is it now?” Daisy said, glancing over.

“Quarter to.”

“Damn. And FedEx is always on time, too. I’ve seen his van. Pulls up next to the automated station right on the button every time.”

“Well, step on it then. Take the shortcut to the Courthouse.”

“Cut through the filling station? Are you crazy? Ross will have his chains up on both sides. He closes at nine.”

“When is the last time you took the short cut, Daisy?”

“I’m married to Franklin. I don’t take short cuts.”

At five minutes to ten, they rounded the corner on two wheels and careened onto Main Street six blocks west of the Courthouse Square. Daisy thought the street was strangely empty for a Friday night. Most of the lights were off. Everything looked shut up, dark, like a ghost town. Weird-feeling. Something was seriously wrong with this picture.

Elvis had definitely left the building.

“What the hay is going on around here, girlfriend?” June said, taking the words right out of Daisy’s mouth.

“The streetlights are all shot out,” Daisy said. “Some windows too.”

Daisy slowed to a crawl and doused the headlights. They were still five blocks away from Courthouse Square. The FedEx machine sat on the sidewalk right out front of the old building. She looked at her watch. Five minutes until the FedEx delivery kid showed. Daisy knew him from when she taught art at the Prairie High School. His name was Buddy Shirley. He was never, ever late for class.

Daisy saw something else that was very disturbing. A couple of doors were hanging ajar, like folks had left in a hurry. Somebody had shot up the town.

June rolled to a stop and set the brake. “Something’s not right. We better just sit tight till we know what’s going on.”

“Yeah.”

“Wait a second. What’s that truck doing up there?” June whispered a few seconds later.

“Hell if I know,” Daisy said, “We better stop before they see us.”

There were very few cars parked on Main Street. But there was a big truck parked directly across from the courthouse. It looked like an old moving van. It was parked outside Sam Robin’s appliance store. Which was fine, except for the fact that the rear doors now opened wide and there was a man inside with a powerful flashlight. He pointed it down the street, the beam pausing on the pick-up a second, then moving on.

They’d crouched low on the seat.

“Think he saw us?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I hope not. Stay down.”

As the women watched from four blocks away, a couple of large boys carried another huge cardboard box right out the front door and hefted it up onto the truck’s hydraulic lift. Daisy had seen boxes like that. Not that she’d ever owned one, but she knew what it was all right. A super-sized flat-screen TV that cost five thousand dollars minimum.

“Looters,” June said.

“Yeah. We’ll set tight right here. Buddy has to pass this way to make his pickup.”

“You think those looters have guns, don’t you, Daisy?”

“What do you think, June-bug?”

“That old truck does not look the least bit local.”

“No, it’s not. Those boys look Mexican.”

“Well, they’ve got brazen enough, haven’t they?” June said. “Just cross the border and do your Friday night one-stop shopping.”

“Something bad is going on,” Daisy said, her voice low. “Nothing feels right in this town.”

June nodded her head. “So, how are we going to get Buddy the envelope? You can’t just drive up there next to the van and put the envelope in the FedEx slot and hope Buddy picks it up. Those hombres up there would just as soon shoot us as look at us, you ask me.”

“There are more shells in the pocket of my robe. Here. Load up. Both barrels. Have it ready in your hands.”

June reloaded the Parker Sweet Sixteen. She snapped it shut with a satisfying click and thumbed the safe button forward to Fire.

“Do you think they saw us?” June said again through compressed lips, looking out of the corner of her eye.

“I think they’re pretty busy taking Sam’s inventory,” Daisy said, grinning at June.

“Shoot, no wonder folks around here hate—”

“Hush! I’m thinking.”

“It’s ten o’clock, Daisy, on the button,” June whispered fifteen seconds later, her head way down, just peeking over the dash at the looters down the street, keeping the gun low. Then she craned her head around and peered back over the windowsill, looking for headlights coming up Main.

“Where is he? You think he got spooked?”

“Buddy will be here, June. Any second now. I’ve got an idea.”

“What is it?”

“I’ll flag Buddy down when he comes and just hand him the envelope as he goes by. You put the sheriff’s Key West address with a zip code on the envelope?”

“Sure did. Look here. Just like he asked me to.”

Daisy grabbed the envelope, opened her door, and stepped out onto the sidewalk. She glanced down the street at the looters, fervently wishing the pick-up’s interior dome light was busted like it normally was. She shut the door softly and started around the rear of the truck.

“Here comes Buddy,” June said from inside the truck. They both saw the van’s single pair of headlights moving very quickly up Main Street toward them. Daisy saw the dome light come on again in her truck as June cracked her door.

“June! Stay there! Don’t get out of—”

“You’re not leaving me here,” June said, swinging her door open and stepping out into the street just as Buddy’s white FedEx Home Delivery truck roared by her going about sixty, blurring the purple and green letters on the side. Nearly took her door off. When Buddy was almost abreast of the automated pick-up box, he hit the brakes hard and fishtailed to a stop, leaving the engine running. The driver’s side door flew open, and she saw Buddy’s boot hit the pavement.

“Buddy! No!” Daisy screamed, running down the street toward him as fast as she could, “Stay in the damned truck! They’ve got guns!”

There was a sudden staccato explosion of heavy automatic weapons fire from the other side of the street. Daisy registered a muzzle flash from the man standing on the lift at the rear of the big van. The FedEx panel truck rocked with the force of the slugs and the passenger side window imploded in a shower of glass. She saw two more men rush out of Sam’s, both pulling weapons and shouting.

Daisy saw Buddy start to crumple to the street. He caught hold of the driver’s side door, though, and pulled himself back inside behind the wheel. She watched him still trying to pull his door closed and then the panel truck lurched forward, swerving crazily as Buddy floored it, yanking his boot inside. The two looters who’d come out into the street chased him half a block, firing at the back end of the van.

“Go, Buddy!” she screamed as she turned away. “Get out of here!”

58

D aisy ran fast as she could to her pickup truck without looking back at the Mexicans. She was waiting for one of them to shoot her in the back but nobody did. Back in the truck, June was sitting straight up in the seat and she had the shotgun poking out her window. “They shot Buddy, didn’t they?” June said, and there wasn’t trace of fear in her voice now. It was as if the woman had suddenly been rendered nerveless. “Let’s go see if we can help him.”

Daisy jumped in and floored the accelerator before she popped the emergency brake handle. It was a technique her older brother Rance had taught her. It still worked.

“Whoa!” June said, as they shot forward, the rear tires burning rubber.

“What are you doing?” Daisy cried. June was half-in, half-out the passenger window and they were coming up fast on the old moving van.

“Shooting back,” June said. She was sighting down the barrel at the hombre standing on the lift watching Buddy’s escape. The big man turned toward them at the sound of their oncoming truck, raising his gun.

June aimed the shotgun at him, leading him, and pulled both triggers almost simultaneously. The noise inside the truck was deafening.

“Don’t mess with Texas, asshole!” June had screamed over the blast.

Daisy was going way too fast now to concentrate on anything other than the road in front of her. The two remaining Mexicans leapt out of the road just in time to avoid being hit by the pickup. The moving van blurred by on her right. She no longer could see the one who’d been standing on the lift.

“Did you get him?” she asked June.

“Yeah,” she said, looking back. “Uh-oh. Keep going. The other two are climbing up into the cab.”

She saw the lights come on in her rear view mirror. “Here they come.”

The moving van was pulling quickly away from the curb in pursuit. It probably wasn’t all that speedy, but then neither were they. She mashed down the accelerator, fire-walling it.

“Take some more shells, June-bug,” Daisy said, eyes straight ahead and both hands on the wheel. “Take ’em all.”

“All my life I’ve been wondering what ‘riding shotgun’ meant,” June said, digging once more in Daisy’s robe for the cartridges.

Daisy smiled at her.

“There’s Buddy,” she said, “I think we’re gaining on him.”

They could see Buddy’s taillights now, disappearing around a bend in the highway and starting up a hill. They were outside the town limits, heading east into the desert over toward Kingsville. The headlights of the big van were still in her rear view, but the Mexicans were having a hard time catching up.

“Can you catch him?”

“He’s faster. I’m going to try.”

“Can’t you signal him to stop? With the lights, I mean?”

“We can’t stop, June. The two amigos are still on our butts.”

Daisy hit the gas and just stayed off the brakes. About three miles out of town she finally managed to get right up on Buddy’s tail and started flashing her high beams at him. He must have recognized her green Ford truck because he slowed down just enough for her to pull alongside. June pulled the shotgun back inside the cab and stuck her head out.

“Buddy, it’s us! It’s me, June!” she shouted and she saw his pale face at the window looking over at them. There was blood on Buddy’s face and down his front. A lot of it.

“What do you want?” he screamed above the wind. “I’m running a little late!”

“We got a FedEx package to go out!” June yelled. “Needs to be in tonight’s shipment. Extremely urgent!”

“Tell him it’s a matter of national security,” Daisy said.

“A matter of national security, Buddy!”

He nodded that he understood.

“Hand her on over,” Buddy cried back. “I’ll slow up.”

“Hold on a second,” June said, and turning to Daisy, “Slow down a little, will you please? And don’t swerve so much.”

Buddy decelerated to about fifty. Daisy matched his speed and eased her truck over till they were just neck and neck about three feet apart. She tried to maintain that exact separation but they were on a winding road and it was a whole lot harder than in looked in the movies.

“How’s this?” Daisy said.

“Pony Express?” June grinned at her, putting the gun between her knees and grabbing the FedEx envelope off the seat.

“Exactly.”

“Here you go, Buddy!” June said, extending her arm to the FedEx driver.

Buddy reached out and grabbed hold of the envelope in June’s hand.

“Got it?” June asked him before she let go.

“Got it!” Buddy yelled, pulling it inside. “Yessum, I’ll make sure she goes out tonight! Guaranteed.”

“Good! Are you hurt too bad?”

“No, ma’am. Just a scratch I believe.”

“Buddy, you get yourself over to Southwest Medical and have somebody stitch you up, okay?”

“Yessum, soon as I get my mail here delivered. Y’all have a good evening now!”

“G’night!”

June sat back and pushed her hair out of her eyes and they watched the little FedEx truck roar away and disappear over a hill.

“Well, that was fun,” June said, smiling over at Daisy. “Are the Mexicans still on our tail?”

“We lost ’em. They couldn’t keep up on the steep hills.”

“Roll your window up for starters. It’s cold as snow in here,” Daisy said.

“Whoopee,” June said, cranking her window up, “Hey. Look at the sky over there. To the south.”

“What is that?”

“Something’s burning, I reckon.”

“Looks like a lot of ‘somethings’ burning to me. Over toward Dolores.”

“Let’s go see.”

“I guess that’s where what’s left of our police force went. I was wondering who gave the looters the key to the city.”

Daisy took the first right she could. It was old state road #59 heading south. The sky on the horizon was aglow with a red haze as she crested a hill. A big eighteen wheeler passed her headed the other way, smoke pouring from its twin stacks as it chugged uphill. Then, about fifteen or so more trucks evenly spaced behind it. One after another, until she thought the line would never end. She counted: twelve trucks in all.

Before she could even digest that fact, she saw something else. Right behind the very last truck in the convoy, one of the two brand spanking new Crown Victorias newly acquired by the Prairie PD.

“That was Homer Prudhomme, I do believe,” June said, craning her head around to look. “Wonder where the heck he’s going. Following that big convoy?”

“Off on another wild goose chase, I reckon,” Daisy said, “It is his night off, I guess.”

“Prairie, Texas’s, very own Ghostbuster,” June said, shaking her head, and Daisy laughed until she cried.

59

H omer had just passed a battered pickup headed in the opposite direction on SR-59. Just a blur, the vehicle was going pretty fast, but it sure had looked an awful lot like Mrs. Dixon’s truck. He was too busy trying to stay on the semi convoys’ tail to look around and be sure. It had been an old pea-green Ford pickup. Out the corner of his eye, he’d seen a couple of ladies up front, laughing about something maybe.

He remembered it was Friday night. He hoped, whoever was in that truck wasn’t counting on whooping it up over in the border town of Dolores tonight.

Dolores, at least some of it, was on fire. In his rear view mirror he could still see the reddish glow above the town. Arson, he suspected, because it sure looked from here like it was more than one building. Time was, arson was an occasional thing. A destitute rancher burning his barn down hoping to collect the insurance. But that was then. Now, it seemed like the whole county was going crazy.

All of Texas, if you wanted to be honest with yourself. It was certainly not a good night for a couple of nice ladies to be running around out in the desert that was for sure. It was a bad night, Homer felt, and it was going to get worse before it got better.

Well, he thought, the sheriff was still down in Key West. Supposed to be coming home some time after his talk at the conference, whenever that was. So, maybe that had been Miz Dixon after all, going out to party with a friend, maybe. Like they say, while the cats away the mice will play.

He smiled and shook his head. It was a side of Mrs. Daisy Dixon that he’d never imagined. She was such a quiet, churchgoing lady from what he’d seen. When she didn’t have her nose buried in some Nora Roberts novel, she was fixing supper, tending her knitting, mending Franklin’s shirts, or mucking out the barn. He’d never seen her at a single solitary Saturday night square dance, and he’d pretty much decided she had to be one of those foot-washing Baptists who frowned on dancing.

To be truthful, Homer had been a little worried about Mrs. Dixon ever since the boss had left town. All alone out there, and, things being as unpredictable as they’d been lately, it scared him some. She’d always been good to him, the problems he’d had, and he appreciated it maybe more than she knew. It was time to give something back.

But, when he’d mentioned it at work, his idea of just dropping by to check on the missus occasionally, June Weaver had told him in no uncertain terms to leave her be. “You do that, she’ll bless you out from here to next Sunday, Homer Prudhomme,” June had said. “She’s settler stock, Homer, Texas women can take care of their selves. You’ll just make her mad you show up out there looking worried.”

So Homer had left well enough alone. If things got worse in Prairie though, he’d make sure to look in on her or just make up an excuse to call and check. Drop off a new mystery book, maybe.

Homer felt right guilty about sticking with his ghost truck convoy while there was a big fire going in Dolores. But he’d convinced himself it was okay. He’d heard some police radio chatter here about twenty minutes ago, and he knew the other two Prairie PD cruisers and a couple of PFD fire trucks and EMS vans were en route to the scene to render assistance. He’d taken a deep breath, shut his radio off and concentrated on minding his own beeswax.

He knew it was against regs, strictly against regs, but he just couldn’t stand all the police chatter right now. He had to think. Had to concentrate on this trucker mystery he’d stumbled on to. He didn’t know what it was all about yet, but he could guarantee dollars to donuts it wasn’t good. When he got to the bottom of it, and he would, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t have been wasting anyone’s time.

The big rig hit the brakes for a sweeping curve and Homer slowed it up a bit, too. He was staying five hundred yards back. Just above the rear doors, he’d seen a little camera doohickey. Some of the big trucks were fitted with them these days, so they could see behind them when backing up. He guessed you could turn it on anytime, see who was behind you. Pretty good system.

He was on to something big. He could just feel it.

Homer knew the expression for someone in his position. He was what you called a man on a mission. He’d been following the convoy of eighteen-wheelers for pretty near an hour now. He knew they were headed north, that was for dang sure. North, and by the looks of things, east maybe. Twelve trucks, all headed northeast, carrying God knows what all in those fifty-foot long trailers. Wherever they were going, they’d have to stop for gas at some point. He checked his gauge. Luckily, he’d filled her up just before spotting the convoy.

One by one they’d put their blinkers on;the big rigs had peeled off as they came to different highways. Like it was all pre-arranged, he thought. He had his map spread out on the seat beside him. He’d looked at all the possible routes and decided that all of them were basically headed in a northeasterly direction.

Not one truck had taken a turn that would indicate it was headed west, or circling back to the south. Homer could have picked any one of the trucks to follow. They were all basically the same rigs. Up front, Mack, Freightliner, Kenworth, and Peterbilts. All heavy-duty trucks, standard forty eight-foot aluminum vans, all weighing in at around 26,000 pounds. But they had different logos on the trailers. Even though the cabs were all the same. Funny, he thought, trying to study his map and drive at the same time.

Headed north on Texas Highway #59 out of Laredo, he’d watched them gradually peel off, trying to decide which one would be best to follow. There was no method to it. The big citrus hauler, Big Orange, had turned right off of #59 at Freer. She was headed east over to Alice, Texas maybe. He stayed with the main convoy headed north, biding his time.

At Beeville, Texas, and again at the little one-horse town of Victoria, another truck turned north, heading up Route 181 or 183 to the I-10, most likely. That was the interstate that ran due east to Houston and points north. He stayed with the main body of trucks, taking #59 all the way to the Houston Tollway.

The trucks all must have had EZ-Pass, because they all got in that lane and blew right through. He stayed right with them around Houston, then followed the convoy when it got right back on #59 again headed for the Louisiana border and Shreveport.

But then he got lucky, if you could call it that. At Shreveport, all the trucks got on the I-20 which headed east to Jackson, Mississippi, then northeast up to Birmingham, Alabama, and up to Chattanooga, Tennessee where you could pick up I-75 headed north. All the trucks but one, that is. What happened was, the last truck separating him, it was owned by the Valley Spring Electronics Company, took a right on a two-lane going due east.

Bingorama, as the saying goes.

The truck now in front of him was very familiar. It was the one he’d followed into Gunbarrel. The one that had disappeared inside the garage. The very same one that he and Sheriff Dixon had stopped that terrible night the posse came home without their hats.

It was the same truck, all right, the big Yankee Slugger. When it had braked for a moment on Route #59 just outside of Nacogdoches, Homer had pulled up alongside and tried to look inside the cab.

One thing they’d done to all the Slugger Garage trucks, they tinted all their cab windows dark. Illegally dark, if you wanted to get picky about it. Tinted to almost what he called full limo black. He could pull the truck just for that alone if he wanted to. In his experience, pulling low riders and hot rods, people tinted their windows that dark for only one reason.

So you couldn’t see what they were doing in there. Or, who was in there.

It wasn’t a ghost driving that rig, haunted garage or no.

He was pretty sure of that much, at least.

Homer didn’t believe in ghosts. But, one thing he did know for sure. This truck didn’t run on air. Sooner or later, whoever or whatever was driving that thing was going to have to stop for a pee or diesel. And when it did, watch out. Katy bar the door, as his grandma used to say. He was going to follow this truck until it ran out of diesel fuel and then he was going to climb all over that thing, tear that big rig apart and see what the heck made it tick. He was going to get to the bottom of this case.

Because that’s just what this was. A case. And by God, Homer was on it.

The truck, if you discounted the illegally tinted windows, was acting like a solid, sober, law-abiding citizen. Very conscientious driver, Homer, Sheriff Dixon would say. Never speeding. Signaling every lane change or turn. And, for some reason or other, taking the scenic route. They’d mostly been sticking to the secondary roads instead of the freeways or the Interstate, which raised a question in his mind. Why do that? It was slower. Wherever these trucks were headed, they didn’t seem in much of a hurry to get there.

Never more than a few miles over the posted limit. Stopping completely for every single stop sign (not a “low-rider drive-by,” which meant slowing and then cruising right through) and never, ever crossing the double lines. Of course not, he thought. The truckers, or, whoever, didn’t want to give law enforcement any excuse to pull them.

Homer sat back against the seat and relaxed his grip on the wheel. He was in this for the long haul. He’d follow this truck to the North Pole if he had to.

He picked up the radio, thinking he’d call it in.

The sheriff was out of town for a few days. If he radioed in, who would he tell? Wyatt? June would just tell him he was acting crazy again. Behind his back, Homer knew, she called him the Ghostbuster. They all did. Heck with it.

He put the radio down. He’d fly this mission solo.

60

LOUISIANA

A fter they crossed the border into Louisiana, the Slugger started easing off the throttle. He dropped down to forty for a bit, then thirty. Homer couldn’t figure out what he was slowing up for. The road was cut through heavily wooded country, more like a swamp, and he hadn’t seen civilization for almost half an hour. Not even a roadside jelly stand or a lean-to shack.

He slowed way down, opening up the distance. He had his lights off ever since they’d entered the Great Boggy or whatever it was called. There was plenty of moonlight and his quarry wasn’t going anywhere without him.

The truck had slowed to about five miles per hour, the right turn indicator flashing now. He was pulling over, all right and now Homer saw why.

There was a small, old-fashioned filling station coming up. Nothing more than a falling down shack with a couple of pumps out front. Homer made a decision. He slowed way down and pulled off on the shoulder into a stand of live oaks with a view down the road. The station was about a thousand yards away. He was low on gas, too, the needle hovering just above E. But he wanted to see what the heck would happen at the pump. His blood was pumping. He was on the damned case now, all right. And he wasn’t scared, either. Not at all.

He sat behind the wheel of the Vic and waited, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. He wasn’t expecting anyone to get out of the Slugger and he wasn’t disappointed. No one did.

A minute later, though, a guy came out of the little office. He paused a second on the doorstep, looking at the big rig parked at his little pump. He raised his right hand to his ear for about fifteen seconds. Talking on his cell phone, Homer guessed. Then he shoved the phone in the back pocket of his jeans and shambled down the steps. He was big, maybe two-fifty, and walked slowly out to see what he could do his customer for.

Unusual for a pump jockey, he was smoking a cigarette. Other funny thing was, the guy didn’t go around to the driver’s window and say, “What’ll it be?” Didn’t ask anything, he just did it. Went right to the diesel pump and pulled the nozzle out and started pumping fuel into the silent rig. Which told you something, too.

It took a while to fill that big polished aluminum hundred-gallon tank. Homer, still behind the wheel of the Vic, was in no hurry, except he did have to whizz like a racehorse. Just as he was getting out of his car to answer that important call, the station guy yanked the nozzle out of the Slugger’s tank and stuck it back in the pump. Then he waddled back up the steps and into the office. Never even looked at the truck again.

Never said word one to his customer, which told Homer the fat man already knew there was no one behind the wheel of the truck at his pump. Knew it all along. Homer’s brain was ticking now and he knew he was beginning to understand. Maybe not all of it. But some of it.

This pit stop was prearranged way ahead of time. A little gas station on a deserted road in the middle of the night. Made a lot of sense if you didn’t want anybody messing into your business. Whoever was behind all this knew what they were doing. Organized crime, had to be. With very deep pockets. He’d thought drugs all along, and now he was sure of it. Somebody was moving huge amounts of Number Four heroin around the country, running on back roads at night.

He looked at his watch. 0200 hours. He wondered if all the trucks in the convoy were stopping now. At little out of the way stations just like this one. The whole thing was getting curiouser and curiouser.

Homer jumped back behind the wheel and pulled back out of the trees and back onto the highway. He accelerated smoothly the short distance up to the station, tucking in behind the Slugger.

He got out, and removed his service weapon. Then he walked forward to the driver’s window and rapped on the black glass with his left hand. Once. Twice. Nothing.

There was a sudden flat blatting sound from the engine, puffs of smoke from the tall chrome stacks, and the Yankee Slugger, in no hurry at all, slowly pulled ahead and out of the station. Her right hand turn signal went on and then she rumbled back onto the highway. Homer had a funny thought, watching the truck head north still, and taking her easy as always: if he ever did meet up with one of these drivers, he was going to try to get them to teach a driver’s ed course! They were good!

Homer turned and looked at the small office building. He needed gas and he knew he wasn’t taking too much of a chance if he let the Slugger get a few miles down the road. He’d catch up quickly and they’d continue their cat and mouse game just like before.

“Hello?” he shouted. “You got another customer!”

Nobody came out so he walked between the pumps and across the cracked tarmac to the front steps. There was a neon sign buzzing on and off over the door. It said CITGO. He pushed the screen door open and stepped inside, his gun out in front of him. There wasn’t much to see. There was a single light bulb hanging on a wire over a counter. It had a green metal shade and was swaying slightly as if someone had just touched it.

There was nobody at all behind the counter.

“Anybody home? Hello? I could use some gas anybody cares.”

No response.

Not taking it personally, Homer walked around the plywood counter. There was door behind it, presumably leading to the back office itself. The door was cracked and he opened it the rest of the way.

A coppery smell, blood, instantly assaulted his nostrils.

The old man who had owned the station was slumped forward over his cheap wooden desk. He was missing the top half of his head. His brains were leaking out on to a AAA map of Louisiana, the blood already soaking the paper and spreading across the desktop.

Homer pressed his fingers behind the man’s ear, feeling like he had to check for a pulse. There was of course no pulse but—

A powerful motorcycle started up just outside the rear door to the station. Big chopper with straight pipes. Damn, he hadn’t even looked out there! Before he could even replace the man’s arm, the big bike roared around the side of the office and headed toward the highway. Homer, in his excitement, almost slipped in the blood puddle on the floor around the desk. He raced out the door he’d entered by, vaulted over the counter and down the front steps.

He was just in time to see the blinking red lights of the fishtailing chopper disappear up the black road headed south for God knows where.

He had to get moving. Call this in. Right. Fill up the Vic’s tank, get on his radio and call local law enforcement with the crime scene location, a description of the victim, the perpetrator, and his motorcycle. With any luck, they’d have the biker in custody within half an hour. He couldn’t wait around. He had to go catch the Yankee Slugger. Then he was going to bust him wide open.

61

MANAUS, BRAZIL

I t was pitch black outside, nothing but the dripping leaves of the overgrown banana trees in the lush hotel garden. Steady rain was hammering the canvas roof above his head and hissing on the river running beside the deeply rutted hotel drive. Of course it was raining. He was in the bloody rain forest.

Ambrose and Stokely were en route to some kind of hospital, moldering away out in the countryside. It was called the St. James Infirmary, which he found a charming name, but apparently the institution itself was not. It was said to be a wretched place, formerly a home for indigent children.

Harry Brock and another man, a local chap named Saladin, had been standing on the hotel dock to help with the luggage and mooring lines when the Blue Goose first arrived from Key West. Harry Brock and this other chap had arrived in Manaus four days ago. At Hawke’s request, they had been doing all the preliminary legwork on the widow. It had not been easy, Harry said. He’d been shown a badly decomposed corpse with a death certificate attached. The name on it was Hildegard Zimmermann.

Saladin wasn’t buying it. He had zero confidence in the local police; they’d kept looking.

Harry had told Ambrose, as they stood on the dock under an umbrella, he and Saladin now felt there was a reasonable chance they might find Hildegard Zimmermann still alive in a secret hospital currently used by the military. Congreve had thanked him for all his hard work and then asked for a car. He and Stokely would leave for the hospital immediately after checking in and having a bite to eat.

“How long do you think it will take us to get there?” he asked Stokely. They had reached the end of the long hotel drive and were about to turn right onto the primary road along the Rio Negro.

“About an hour upriver. Then we go into the jungle. If the road isn’t too washed out, we’ll be all right. That’s what Brock said.”

“You know this Harry Brock quite well, I take it?”

“I do. He helped Alex and I in Oman last year.”

“Bit full of it for my taste.”

Stokely looked over at him. It had been a long day in a small airplane and Ambrose was finally beginning to get on his nerves. “If I knew what Harry Brock was full of, I’d order a case of the stuff and split it with you.”

“Bollocks.”

Stokely was driving, thank God; the roads were ridiculous. The car, some sort of official four-wheel drive vehicle this Brock character had borrowed. Very official looking, taken from the local constabulary car pool via the CIA station chief in Manaus. It was beastly uncomfortable. Not that he’d ever mention it or complain, of course.

They were all such rugged outdoorsy fellows, every last one of them. Stokely, the Aussie pilot, Mick, this serious Arab fellow named Saladin, and, of course, the American spy, Harry Brock. Wearing their bloody bush shorts, shirts with epaulets, naff kit from the Indiana Jones Collection. Even the very attractive woman he’d met at the front desk, Caparina, he thought her name was, had a machete hanging from her belt.

He’d looked at his luggage waiting to go up on the trolley. All he had in his trunks were three-piece linen suits and gabardine trousers. And the pith helmet he’d found in his aunt’s attic which currently adorned his head.

“So, how do you like the Jungle Palace?” Stokely asked, trying to lighten the mood.

Congreve craned around and looked back at their hotel. Three stories high, a wide verandah on each floor, and surrounded by overwhelming vegetation. The shuttered windows, some open to the elements, were aglow through the misty rain.

“The Jungle Palace, I would say, only lives up to half it’s billing,” Congreve said with a grin.

“The Jungle part, you mean?” Stoke said, laughing.

“Precisely.”

Harry Brock certainly had exotic tastes in hotels. The palace was on the extreme fringes of Manaus. Brock had chosen this remote hostelry for one reason. Because it was perched on the banks of the Rio Negro; and there was a dock where Mick could moor the Grumman Goose seaplane.

Ambrose, bone tired from the flight down, sat back and tried to think positive thoughts. The hotel’s bar food was edible, at least. And the barman had Johnnie Black and was generous with his whisky. After flying by seaplane all day from Key West, it had been pleasant to taxi up to one’s private dock and heave out the luggage.

The Blue Goose, which had this day proved her airworthiness beyond question, certainly looked right at home in this tropical environment. She was moored on the river, just off the hotel dock. And, should it come time to get out of here in a hurry, Ambrose could think of no better man to do the job than the Goose’s pilot, a former bush pilot from Queensland, Mick Hocking.

All in all, there were some positives. There was a complimentary bottle of gin in one’s room. A vast four-poster with clean linen sheets stiff as boards, and acres of mosquito netting. A verandah outside his room where he could smoke his pipe in peace. And, Ambrose had learned upon checking in, there were eighteen species of bats in the garden.

How perfectly charming. All of this grandeur and luxe living, and only a scant thousand miles up the Amazon River.

Well, no matter, the game was afoot. He and Stokely Jones were wasting no time, already off on their mission to find the Widow Zimmermann and unlock the code. He had the thriller, the book he and Alex Hawke now fondly called the Da Zimmermann Code, resting in his lap. He had sweated bullets over the damn thing, reading and re-re-reading the book until his eyes glazed over.

Finding Hildegard Zimmermann was vital. There was simply nothing more he could do, no possible arrangement or rearrangement of words or ciphers, that would budge it forward past the mid-point. Where were those brainy chaps in Room 40 when one really needed them?

He closed his eyes, exhausted, in the vain hope of a catnap before they arrived at their destination.

“We’re here,” Stoke said seconds later, and he sat bolt upright just as they drove through the iron gates. There was a dimly lit guardhouse and uniformed sentries on either side of it. Seeing the Police shields on their doors, the guards snapped to a salute as the speeding buggy passed through. Ambrose noticed high stone walls with nasty concertina wire atop them. They soon passed under an arch, including an ancient portcullis, and now were on the hospital grounds proper.

St. James Infirmary suddenly loomed in the headlights. It looked more like a large prison reformatory than a hospital for destitute children. Pretty ghastly, but there you had it. They slowed, and Stokely waved some kind of credential at a lone sentry posted at the entrance to the bricked forecourt. He waved them in, and Stoke parked next to a decades old ambulance standing just outside the main entrance.

“I speak fluent Portuguese,” Congreve reminded Stokely, opening his door. “Just in case.”

“Don’t say anything unless you have to,” Stoke said as they climbed out of the car. “Anybody wants to know, you’re an English doctor who’s here to examine the patient for scientific reasons.”

“And who are you?”

“A friend of the guy who slipped the Chief of State Security in Manaus ten grand so you could see her tonight, Doc.”

“Ah. Why is she here?”

“This is where you go before you disappear.”

At the end of a long dark hall, an elderly woman in a starched nurse’s uniform sat at a reception desk in a pool of white light.

“May I help you?” the old woman said, her Portuguese sounding very neutral, if not downright unfriendly. She was tapping her pencil on a clipboard: a sign-in sheet upside down.

“Good evening, I’m here to see a patient,” Congreve replied cordially in the nurse’s native tongue.

“Name?”

“Mine? Or, the patient’s?”

“Yours,” she said, rather impatiently.

“Dr. Congreve. Dr. Ambrose Congreve.”

She checked the clipboard and looked up at Stokely. “Who is he?”

“My driver.”

Stokely offered her his best credential, a broad white smile.

She hesitated, then wrote something on a thin slip of note paper. She folded the paper and shoved it across the desk. In return, Stoke slid a sealed envelope across to her. She pocketed the envelope and nodded her head, indicating the stairwell.

“The Latin way,” Stoke said, opening the note the nurse had given him.

“It works,” Congreve replied, following him to the stairs.

“Your driver? You have to say that?”

“Whom would have me say you were?”

“Psychiatrist would be more like it. I’ve been trying to cure your fear of flying all damn day.”

“Where are we going, Dr. Jones?”

“Room 313,” Stoke said, “Top floor.”

If the hospital was grim, the top floor was grimmer. It was a long, poorly lit corridor. Filthy. There was a nurse’s station situated beneath a skylight at the center of the wide hall. The periodic lightning flashes gave the elderly nurse on duty a distinctly netherworld appearance. She wore steel-rimmed spectacles that glinted with each strobe as she silently watched their approach.

They paused at her desk and another envelope was delivered and pocketed. The nurse said a few words in Portuguese and Congreve nodded.

“What did she say?” Stoke asked.

“We’re allowed ten minutes, max. No gifts. No items can enter or leave the room.”

“You’ve got the lady’s book?”

“Of course. Underneath my mackintosh.”

Room 313 was at the end of the long hall, on the right. The door was closed and Ambrose tapped lightly upon it before entering. The patient was in a bed on the far side of the room, beneath a dormer window overlooking the hospital grounds. Heat lightning flickered in the heavy cumulus clouds moving rapidly over the treetops.

A candle was burning on the woman’s bedside table, and it nearly guttered out when the door swung open. Ambrose fingered a switch on the wall but nothing happened. A jagged arc of lightning flashed across the sky as the two men crossed to the bed.

There was a sagging shelf of books and a crucifix mounted on the wall above her head. Asleep, she was lovely. White hair framed her pale face, and her thin chest rose and fell slowly under the white muslin gown. There was only a whisper of breath from her lips. She appeared so peaceful propped up against her pillow, Congreve was loath to disturb her.

“Hand me that chair, will you?” he whispered to Stokely.

“Thank you.” He pulled the wooden chair right up to the bed. He placed his gift on the nightstand beside the candle. Then he reached out and gently took the old woman’s hand.

“Frau Zimmermann?”

Her eyes fluttered open.

“Ja?” She responded automatically in German, asking Congreve if it was time for her medicine.

“Nein, nein,” Congreve said in a perfect mimicry of her dialogue, “I’m a friend of your late husband, come to ask you a favor.”

“Was ist los? What’s going on?” she asked, raising her head from the pillow and searching Congreve’s face. Stokely hung back in the shadows, invisible in this light.

“Do you speak English, Madam Zimmermann? It would be simpler.”

“Of course I speak English. I am a diplomat’s wife.” Her voice was remarkably strong given her feeble appearance.

“I saw the ambassador in England. Shortly before he died.”

“You knew my husband?”

“Not well. We met once, but we spoke of many things. He…he asked me to give you this. It was his last request.”

“Gifts are not allowed in here,” she said, a flicker of fear in her eyes, but then she saw the book in Congreve’s hand.

“Please take it. There is a letter for you. Inside.”

She took the book and it fell open to reveal the letter. She pulled the single page from the envelope. Congreve watched her eyes scan the rows of numerals as easily as if she were reading a child’s poem.

She folded the book across her chest and closed her eyes. For a moment, Congreve thought she’d gone back to sleep.

“Whose side are you on, Doctor?” she said, her eyes remaining shut.

“Your husband’s,” Congreve said, silently praying it was the right answer.

“Why have you come?”

“Before he died, your husband saved the lives of many hundreds of people at Heathrow Airport. I believe that, knowing the end was near for him, he had…he had a change of heart. About whatever it was he’d been involved with.”

“He was a broken man, Doctor Congreve. These people in Brasilia, these Arabs, they tricked him into doing things he should never have involved himself in. The bombing at the synagogue in Rio. What could he do? He protected his family. He was a good man, Doctor. A statesman. He had a brilliant career.”

“Why did he do it?”

“Money, of course. Why does one do anything? Money or power. He had plenty of the latter. He knew I was dying. We had spent all our money. We lived too well for too long. Sold everything. He still needed money for my treatment. Sadly, it only prolonged the agony. Look at me.”

“I’m very sorry.”

“Have you broken our code?”

“Some of it. There is a break, right in the middle and—”

“I know, I—forgive me. I’m very tired.”

“I’ve come because I think you can help me, Frau Zimmermann. You, too, might save a lot of lives.”

“Help you?”

“With the balance of the code. Help me break it. Please. It’s another attack, isn’t it? Against the Americans this time?”

The nurse cracked the door and said, “Five more minutes.”

After she’d gone, the woman said, “I don’t want to die in this horrid place, Doctor. I want to go home.”

Congreve looked quickly over at Stokely, who nodded his head in the affirmative.

“Perhaps I can arrange that. I will try. I know someone who may be able to help you. You have to tell me who is responsible for your being here.”

She suddenly opened her blue eyes and looked up at him.

“Do you promise? You’ll help?”

“I promise. But you have to help me first. Now. There isn’t much time, I’m afraid. A matter of a week or less, if what I’ve deciphered thus far is accurate. Tell me who is holding you against your will. And why.”

“The answer lies above.”

“Above?”

“With Jesus.”

Congreve’s eyes went immediately to the crucifix. His mind racing, he looked at the peeling paint on Christ’s robe, the faded gold leaf of the cross. The feet, he noticed, and the hands, had nails driven through them directly into the plaster wall. The wood and porcelain figure would be difficult to remove and examine. There was no time.

“Jesus? I’m afraid I don’t understand you.”

“No, no, not the crucifix. The books! The books beneath the cross!”

“Ah. Of course.”

Ambrose stood and examined the drooping shelf of books, scanning the titles on the spines. They were mostly works of European history and politics. A book of poems by Longfellow. However, in the exact middle was a single novel. He pulled it from the shelf and examined the dust-jacket of the hardcover book.

O Codigo Da Vinci.

“If you know enough to bring me this book, you’ll understand that one. You’ll find the answers to your questions in that volume, Doctor.”

“The second half of the Zimmermann Code is in the Portuguese edition of the Da Vinci book,” Congreve said, more to himself than anyone in the room. It was not really a question.

“Yes. You’ll find the second half of my husband’s letter can easily be decoded with the Portuguese translation. It’s the way he liked to do things.”

The nurse was at the door again. Before she’d finished clearing her throat, Ambrose whirled and looked at her.

“One minute! Please!” Ambrose said it so sharply and with such authority that the nurse instantly withdrew, pulling the door softly shut behind her.

The poor woman looked up at him with pleading eyes.

“Exchange the dust jackets, I beg you, Doctor. Then replace the Portuguese edition on the shelf with the English one you brought. They check all my possessions. Every night. If one book is missing, I’ll go hungry. Or, worse.”

“One more question. Who is doing this to you? Who poisoned your husband?”

“The ones who come in the night. Las Medianoches.”

“Thank you,” Ambrose said, quickly slipping her book inside his yellow mac. “Thank you very, very much indeed. May I have your husband’s letter back, Madame Zimmermann? I promise to mail it along with the book to you when I’ve finished my work here.”

“Of course. The book is worthless without the letter. Good-bye, Doctor Congreve. I do pray I shall go home soon. I want to die in my own bed.”

“I shall do all that I can. I promise you. Good-bye.”

“Papa Top is an animal,” she whispered as he and Stokely moved toward the door. “He cannot be understood any other way. He cannot be treated in a civilized way, Doctor. Never forget that.”

“What is it?” Stokely whispered as they hurried down the hallway and into the stairwell. “What’s with the book?”

“It’s so simple!” Congreve said under his breath. “I can’t imagine why I didn’t think of it myself.”

“What?” Stokely said as they reached the bottom of the steps and walked quickly past Reception.

“The Portuguese edition of the thriller. The one sold here in Brazil. The second half of the coded letter is in Portuguese.”

“Yeah. Tell me again why you can’t believe you didn’t think of that before?”

“Because it was a possibility, my dear Stokely.”

Stoke was going to say that possibilities were endless, but decided not to get into that philosophical argument. He said, “So, we’ve got it now? What you and Alex needed to go after the bad guys?”

“Yes, we’ve got it all right. I pray that we do. And we’ve got to get that poor woman out of here. Did you see her tongue? Her skin? The same river-borne bacterial infection they used to kill her husband. We need to get your Mr. Brock on this issue immediately. Get her out of there.”

They climbed inside the car and Stokely turned the ignition key.

“Don’t worry,” Stokely said, “Brock and I will take care of it in the morning.”

“The Latin way,” Ambrose said, feverishly turning the pages of the new book. “I certainly hope you’re right.”

As they reversed out of the courtyard, tires squealing, the matronly figure of the Reception nurse appeared at the doorway. She raised her hand and appeared to be calling to them but they ignored her. A moment later, they’d cleared the sentry booth without a problem and were back on the river road, speeding through the pink dawn to the Jungle Palace.

Unseen by the two men, another car had pulled out of the jungle in their wake and was following at a discreet distance, its headlamps extinguished. It was an armored vehicle belonging to the Military Police, a car bristling with gun barrels called a Cavelrao by the terrified citizens living in abject poverty in the worst of the slums, the favelas of Manaus.

62

THE RIO NEGRO

S tiletto knifed through the mist and ghosted toward the dock. The only lights visible on the vessel were a reddish glow from inside the wheelhouse and the red and green LED running lights inset forward on the sharp prow, small haloes of mist encircling each one. As she steamed up river, coming around the wide river bend out of the dark, she looked more like a Jules Verne fantasy submarine than the twenty-first-century monster offshore powerboat she was.

Stokely said, “Damn thing looks like an assault knife with a rudder. Doesn’t it?”

The hotel’s dock master was standing on the dock beside Stokely watching Hawke’s boat slide through the water. The wiry little guy, whose name was Candido, was nodding his head in serious agreement. He let out a long, low wolf-whistle.

“Scary looking thing, Señor Jones,” he said in pretty good English. “I’m telling you the truth, man. Those fuckin Indians they got up the river? Most of ’em never seen a white man. They see this boat, they’re already half toasted.”

Candido had been helping Stokely and Harry load miscellaneous supplies, extra ammo, and fresh vegetables on the dock for the last couple of hours or so. He was Stoke’s new best friend. How that happened, Mr. Jones had come out to the dock and handed him a thick envelope earlier in the day. Since then, Candido had been filling his guest in on recent activities of Las Medianoches in this neck of the jungle. If Hollywood was doing these bad boys it would be al-Qaeda meets the Gangbangers meets the Hell’s Angels. As far as Stoke could tell, they were a law unto themselves around here. And there was nobody, including the Military Police, that they did not own.

Nobody.

“Carpet tacks?” Stoke said, eyeing the big canvas sacks of the things. “I still don’t know why we need carpet tacks.”

“You will understand, Mr. Jones, once you’re on the river. That, I promise you,” Candido said, this wise grin on his face.

Stoke shrugged and stared at the oncoming craft, trying to imagine such a beautiful thing in the heat of battle. He could just make out Hawke. He was the man in the black turtleneck sweater, standing on the starboard bow, talking quietly to the crewmen. Crew had on their jungle camo, Stokely noticed, olive drab tiger stripes. The deck hands were preparing to throw mooring lines to a couple of hotel dockhands waiting for the big vessel’s arrival.

It was getting late. Without traffic, the river looked wide, deep, and black. Tendrils of night fog lay scattered on the mirrored surface of the Rio Negro like strings of thin gray wool. The dark jungle crowding the river banks on either side was dead quiet. Stoke shivered just a bit when a howler monkey screamed, shattering the peaceful silence.

Midnight. Hawke was right on time.

Stiletto, her engines ahead dead slow, eased alongside the old wooden picr and lines were heaved ashore. The still air was now filled with the low rumble of her engines and the sounds of her exhaust burbling at the stern. No one on deck said a word now, even Hawke, who had waved briefly when he recognized Stoke among the men lining the hotel dock.

Guns were out onboard Hawke’s boat. Every man not handling lines cradled a semi-automatic weapon. Stoke saw some familiar faces. A lot of these men were old friends of his from the Thunder and Lightning Spec Ops group based in Martinique. He scanned the faces, looking for his little pal Froggy, the Foreign Legionnaire. Didn’t see him yet.

During Stiletto’s last hours in Key West and rapid transit south, certain modifications had been made. Mods included the addition of four sleek carbon fiber canoes mounted at the stern for when and if they ran out of navigable water. Deck guns had been mounted, fore and aft in rotating turrets armored with bubbles of clear, two-inch thick bulletproof Lexan. In addition, twin .50 caliber machine guns had been mounted atop the wheelhouse with an access from a ladder inside. There was an armored surround on the mounts so gunners would have reasonably good protection from shore fire.

Also on the stern, two mysterious black boxes. Something Hawke had requested from unnamed sources in Washington after his debriefing with Harry Brock. Stoke thought they looked like oversized dishwashers but they probably weren’t.

Stoke knew the two things Hawke feared most on the river were mines and rocket-propelled grenades. RPGs, launched from the banks, could take out the deck guns despite the armor. There was only one antidote to RPGs and that was speed. For speed, though, you needed a whole lot of water. So what was in the boxes?

“Welcome to the jungle, Commander,” Stoke said, extending a hand as Hawke stepped easily across the two feet of open water that remained between boat and dock.

“Good to be back,” Hawke said, looking back at Stiletto in the steamy moonlight. “Under more advantageous circumstances.”

“Trip didn’t take long.”

“Flat seas and light wind all the way, except for the rough bits off eastern Cuba. Upriver, we were mostly flat out all the way from the coast. Brownie, her new skipper, says we set a Key West-Manaus record. This thing is seriously fast, Stoke. Despite all the composite armor and weapons.”

“I think we’re going to need every bit of it,” Stoke said, casting his eyes downriver.

“I’m afraid we will indeed. Everybody ready here? I want to shove off immediately after the tanks are topped off.”

“I got my stuff right here. The Blue Goose is gone. She took off two hours ago. The pilot, Mick, and Harry Brock, plus a couple of local people Harry’s been working with down here.”

“Any good?”

“Yeah. I think so. Ones who helped him locate this Papa Top character. And found that Zimmermann lady for Ambrose. They don’t exactly admit to it, but I think they’re both with some Brazilian Spec Ops unit called Falcon Five. A man and a seriously good-looking woman.”

“You trust them?”

“Down here? I don’t trust anybody.”

Hawke nodded, thinking through the next steps. Time was dwindling rapidly and he had to use every hour as best he could. “Let’s go aboard and attack the maps while they fuel this beast. Where’s the world’s most ingenious detective?”

“See that light burning in the upstairs corner window? That’s him. Working away.”

“God love him,” Hawke said, “I just hope he can crack this bloody thing. We’re running out of time.”

63

H awke and Stokely faced each other across a map-strewn table in the small cabin that would serve as Stiletto’s war room. Stoke told Hawke all about the visit he and Ambrose had paid to the St. James Infirmary the night before. He recounted Congreve’s conversation with the imprisoned elderly widow and explained Congreve’s reaction upon discovering the Portuguese version of the novel.

“Giddy?” Hawke said, smiling.

“Your word, not mine. But, yeah, I’d say he was giddy over getting that book.”

“Damn good work, you and Ambrose finding that woman. That book may yet help us stop this bastard.”

“Well, all I can tell you, the man has been in his room ever since we got back just before dawn last night. Been holed up in there all day. Working on his code. Won’t answer the phone, won’t even come to the door. I sent him some room service and it sat outside the damn door so long they finally took it away.”

“Got the bone in his teeth, all right. That’s good. Let him keep beavering away right up until it’s time to shove off.”

“What’s so special about this book we got last night? It’s a novel, isn’t it? Fiction. We don’t have a whole lot of time for fairy tales right now.”

“The book was encoded. This woman’s husband, Ambassador Zimmermann, was dirty. Mixed up with al-Qaeda here in Brazil. And possibly the Mexican, Cuban, and Venezuelan governments as well. Remember what your friend from Caracas told us?”

“The Mambo King? Yeah, Colonel Monteras told us what we already knew. That el Presidente Chávez of Venezuela was determined to bring down the American government. And he was using his oil money, buying those Russian anti-ship missiles from Cuba to help make that happen. Sink tankers in the Gulf of Mexico. Start the war that way.”

“Chávez has his own plans for dealing with America. I’ll let the Yanks worry about those missiles for now. Top is the more imminent threat. We’ve got enough on our plate.”

“But you think Top is in cahoots with Chávez?”

“Chávez may be bankrolling Top, Stoke. Based on what Harry Brock told me, Top’s weapons development alone requires massive amounts of cash. And Chávez is rolling in the stuff right now. Chávez, Fidel, and Top all have the same objective. They’re just coming at it from differing perspectives.”

Half an hour later, Hawke straightened up and stretched his back muscles. He’d been bent over the bloody maps with Stokely for too long, and he hadn’t had any exercise in forty-eight hours. He was tempted to go for a night swim in the river but there wasn’t time.

“Now you know why they built their stronghold in this part of the jungle,” Hawke said, looking at Stokely across the table. “No satellite imagery, no aerial recon photos, no thermals, nothing. Just a bloody map with a ton of green on it.”

“It’s a bitch all right. How do you find something that isn’t on a map?”

“I think Harry Brock has at least gotten us within spitting distance. We’ll see for ourselves shortly.”

“So, when we do go in, this will be Brock’s LZ here,” Stokely said, “The strip where he saw the drones and the little remote control tanks.”

Stoke was pointing to the small red grease mark Brock had placed on the laminated map of the target area. An inch away was a long yellow mark indicating the deep ravine that was believed to be the western perimeter of Top’s compound.

“Yeah. Brock’s land force goes in there, moves toward the river. We move west from the river and join them roughly here.”

“Where exactly do we go in?”

“Good question. Captain Brownlow is plugging river waypoints into the GPS guidance and weapons systems now. Brock believes we’ll find Top’s central command approximately here. Somewhere along this stretch of water is a camouflaged bridge. Find that bridge and we’ve found Top.”

Hawke used his index finger to trace his intended route on the map.

“The Black River?” Stoke said, looking through the large magnifying glass.

“Right. To get there, we execute a rapid backtrack east on the Amazon to the mouth of the Madeira River here. Then head due south along this large tributary. At this point, right here, the junction of the Aripuana and the Roosevelt, we—”

“Whoa. Roosevelt? That’s the river’s name? Down here?”

“Teddy Roosevelt. Back in 1908, he led an expedition looking for something called the River of Doubt. T.R. found it, everybody thinks anyway, and the Brazilians named it after him. Rio Roosevelt.”

“You don’t think he found it? The river?”

“There’s still some doubt, pardon the pun, in London’s geographic circles. There’s another river. It’s called the Igapo, or Black River. You can only see it with the glass. It’s this tiny hairline tributary that disappears into the forest here. No one’s ever found the source. Or, even where it ends. My friends back at the Geographical Society think it actually goes underground and resurfaces in a distant location still uncharted. I think this river might have been the one the great Bull Moose was actually looking for.”

“So this river, the Igapo, is not really on any map. Even now, in the age of electronic miracles.”

“Right.”

“So, we’re winging it.”

“To some extent, yes, we are.”

“Excuse me, Skipper?”

Brownlow was at the door.

“Yes, Cap’n?” Hawke said.

“Wanted to make sure everyone was aboard. We’re topped off and ready to get underway.”

“Is Chief Inspector Congreve aboard yet?”

“No, sir,” Brownlow said. “Haven’t seen him yet, sir.”

Hawke looked at his black-faced wristwatch. It was almost one o’clock in the morning. Everyone was supposed to be aboard and prepared to shove off at midnight. “Well, we’ll just have to go fetch him. Give us ten minutes, will you? We’ll be back with him. He’s the only one missing. Everyone else has gone ahead to the next rendezvous by air.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

HAWKE AND STOKELY walked quickly through the deserted lobby, climbed three flights of stairs, and walked along the hallway until they came to Congreve’s room. The hotel had gone to sleep, by and large, and the only room showing a light under the door was the one on the left, Room 307, belonging to Ambrose Congreve.

Hawke paused a moment, listening, then put his hand on the knob. The door swung inward.

“Holy Jesus,” was all Stoke could say.

The room had been tossed. Not just tossed, heaved upside down and turned inside out. Every drawer had been pulled from desk and dresser, upended on the floor. The bed had been stripped of its bedclothes, the mattress had been pulled from the bed, sliced open and gutted, wads of stuffing everywhere.

“What the hell were they looking for?” Stoke asked.

Hawke’s eyes were brimming with anger.

He said, “Last night, Stokely. Your visit to the St. James Infirmary. Was there any trouble?”

“We were in and out of there in fifteen minutes.”

“It was Brock who told you she was there? And Brock who got you inside, too?”

“Right. Brock and five thousand U.S. dollars paid to a Major Rojales of the Military Police here in Manaus.”

“No names, right? Tell me you two didn’t use names last night.”

Stokely thought about it. “Damn. Ambrose called himself ‘Dr. Congreve’at Reception.”

“Then it’s the bloody letter they’re after. The Zimmermann Code,” Hawke said, barely keeping his anger out of his voice. How could Ambrose have been so bloody careless? A momentary lapse, probably because of his fixation with breaking that code book.

“We’ve got to help that poor woman,” Stokely said. “God knows what they’re doing to her out there.”

“Whatever it is, they’ve most likely already done it. They extracted information about the letter and the fact that Ambrose had it. The Zimmermann woman is probably dead, I promise you. And she didn’t die in her sleep.”

“Look in the bathroom,” Hawke said, furiously yanking open the closet door. His friend’s expensive clothing was still on hangers, although all the pockets had been pulled out and many of the jacket linings had been slashed. The beautiful shoes, normally a neat file, were strewn about the room. He’d never had time to pack. His mind was racing, but one thought was winning. What in God’s name am I to tell Diana Mars?”

“Alex. Come here.”

Hawke went instantly to the bathroom door.

“Oh, shit,” Stokely said.

“Where?”

“Come inside and close the door.”

Hawke did so. On the white tiled floor and on the wall, a bright spatter of red blood.

Hawke stared at the pattern for a second, then looked at Stokely and said, “He didn’t cut himself shaving.”

“No.”

“You didn’t see him at all this morning?”

“Said goodnight outside that door last night around midnight. Didn’t see or speak to him since.”

“Look at this,” Hawke said, holding up the black bowler hat he’d found in Congreve’s closet.

“A hat with a hole in it. That’s not Ambrose’s style.”

“It’s a voodoo calling card. From Papa Top, I’d guess. He’s half-Hatian and they’re big Voodoo worshippers.”

“I got it now.”

“Bastards have got my friend,” Hawke said. “Let’s go.”

64

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

A nother ghost truck,” Franklin said to Daisy, shaking his head.

“That’s what I’m telling you, darlin’. Another ghost truck. Only this one, we got cornered.”

“Who calls them ghost trucks?”

“Me and June. We got it from Homer.”

Daisy was driving the pickup. She had just picked up her husband outside the American Airlines baggage claim at San Antonio Airport. All he had was a small duffel which he heaved in the back before he climbed in. She handed her ticket stub and five bucks to the hourly parking attendant and popped the clutch, not waiting for change.

“Daisy. Since I’ve been gone, you’ve gunned down an armed man in the street, you’ve—”

“Excuse me—that was June shot the Mexican looter. Not me.”

“You were just driving the getaway truck.”

“Correct. Trying to deliver your videotape like you asked us to do. And we did.”

“And you did. I thank you for that.”

“What are you so upset about?”

“Nothin. I’m tired, honey.”

Daisy reached over and took her husband’s hand. “Didn’t all those Washington people appreciate June’s tape? Wasn’t it what you needed down there at the conference?”

“It was. I think it’s already on its way to the White House. The president might use it in his speech to the Congress tonight.”

“Well, there you go.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just whupped. I’m glad you’re okay, that’s all. I’ve been worried about you ever since I left.”

“Well, I’m tired and worried, too, Franklin. Haven’t slept much in twenty hours. June and me grabbing alternating catnaps on the bench seat at a McDonald’s is not my idea of beauty sleep. That’s why I look so awful. Don’t say anything sweet, either. Let’s just drive and try to enjoy the scenery.”

“Nice Wal-Mart,” Franklin said, gazing out his window.

That quieted things down, all right.

They were driving into downtown San Antonio. Going back to the McDonald’s on Commerce Street. When Daisy first picked up Franklin at the airport, she had told him they were driving directly downtown before heading home to Prairie. There was a suspicious vehicle she and June had staked out. June was there now, watching from their stake-out position across the street from the truck.

“Take me through all this, Daisy,” Franklin said after ten or so minutes. “From after you handed off the envelope and sent Buddy Shirley to Southwest Medical to see about his gunshot wounds.”

“He’s okay. I called his momma this morning. Already back at work.”

“So then what happened? Where’d you manage to pick up all the bullet holes in your truck?”

“Well, like I told you before, we had just outrun the outlaw moving van when we saw a big fire burning over in Dolores. Those fires were started by a bunch of local Mexican druggies and teenage banditos calling themselves the Reconquistas, you see, and we chased ’em back south of the the border.”

“You and June?”

“Well, we helped. Mostly, it was a couple of bikers called Zorro and Hambone and their gang. Even the great Re-Conqueros didn’t want to mess with those bad boys. So, it was a whole lot of bikers, plus a lot of folks from the neighboring towns, plus me and June who helped chased them home.”