The Gamma Option

Chapter 1

The figure slid through the night, the low-lying sea mist making him seem more phantom than man as he approached the isolated townhouse. He had stolen a skiff and ridden it across the bay from the mainland. In order to avoid detection by possible security personnel, he had cut the engine and paddled the last stretch to McKinley Estates’ private dock on Great Diamond Island.

It was not a place where he would have expected to find Blaine McCracken, but then it was difficult to tell what to expect from McCracken if truth was to be gained from experience. That McCracken was on the island was not in doubt; the problem was getting to him without being noticed. The townhouse was off by itself, in a grove at the head of a bank that looked out over the water. A single outside light shone down from the porch illuminating the front walk. The figure elected to make his approach from this point, using the light instead of tempting the darkness at the back of the townhouse.

Security systems became the problem now. McCracken would have several of them set to alert him to unwarranted approach. The figure eased forward, cloaked in the rolling mist. A waist-high brick wall surrounded the townhouse; an opening gave access to the front walk. The electric eyes built into the wall on either side of the walk appeared to be mere imperfections in the brick, one high and one low to prevent leaping over or ducking under to bypass the system.

Of course the walk itself might be wired, sensitive to weight which would trigger an alarm. The freshly sodded grass inside the wall would be watched over as well, probably by ultrasonic waves. The figure understood the limits and constraints of such systems. He knew there would be a single weakness to exploit, a foot-wide strip on either side of the walk that acted as a buffer between the two systems preventing overload and short-circuiting.

The figure eased himself over the brick wall, and placed one foot gingerly behind the other with barely a row of single grass blades separating them from the walk. He proceeded to move forward tightrope style toward the front door. He kept his arms close to his sides, resisting the temptation to extend them for balance. At last the porch was within reach. The figure held his breath. He could tell by the way the boards were placed that the porch and steps leading to it were wired. The most difficult task of all thus lay before him: to get the door open and deactivate the final alarm system while balanced precariously on the threshold.

The figure reached out and grasped the beam supporting the overhang of the porch. Wasting no time, he vaulted up and over the railing and projected himself forward through the air. He rotated his body so his feet would reach the threshold an instant before the rest of him hit the door. He managed to latch on to the brass doorknob just as his feet touched down. With that in his grasp to cushion him, the figure was able to absorb most of the impact as his upper body thumped weakly against the door.

All the same he held his breath, half expecting an intrusion alarm. When there was none he set to work immediately on the locks, three of them, all strictly top of the line. But he had never known a lock that couldn’t be picked and had the knob ready to turn in barely a minute. Now came the toughest part of all. Still balanced precariously on the threshold, he had to crack the door and disable the entry alarm at the same time. The alarm activating plunger would be placed low on the hinge side of the door. Stretching to the maximum extent of his muscles, the figure could just reach it with his left hand while holding on to the doorknob with his right.

First he removed a small square of putty from his pocket and reached down again with his left hand. The plunger would remain depressed until the door parted from it entirely. The figure started the door slowly inward, easing the putty into place a little at a time until it covered the whole of the plunger, holding it in its slot even without pressure from the door. Then the figure eased the door open the rest of way and slid inside with some of the sea mist trailing behind him.

A key pad before him with bright red light warned of the final security system, which would include a motion detector. The figure had the tools to bypass it, but he reached out first and pressed a sequence of four numbers with his index finger. The red light flashed green, and the figure allowed himself a smile.

Not like McCracken to be so foolish.

The moonlight through drawn glass curtains over a bay window that overlooked the water provided what little light he needed now. The stairs rose just to his right. The matter was finished so far as the figure was concerned, the rest a mere formality. McCracken’s bedroom would face the ocean, and when he reached it all pretense of subtlety would be abandoned.

The figure crept onward, almost to the head of the stairs now, careful with each step, silent as the night that had delivered him here. He had barely reached the top and started to turn when the slightest motion froze him; no, not a motion so much as a shifting in the air, a breeze passing through an open window. The figure had just begun to slide on again when something cold and hard touched the back of his neck. A distinctive click sounded as hammer met pin.

“Bang,” said McCracken.

“I’ve got to hand it to you, Henri,” Blaine said when they were back downstairs. “You haven’t lost a step in all these years.”

Dejourner shrugged in the darkness. “Apparently, mon ami, I have lost something.”

Blaine preceded him back down the stairs and hit a pair of switches which activated recessed and track lighting throughout the first floor.

“Looks better with the lights on, old friend,” he said and led Dejourner past the galley kitchen into a living area furnished in rich dark leathers. Oriental rugs in many shades lay on the polished hardwood floors. What might have been the dining alcove was dominated by custom-built cherry bookshelves packed with leatherbound books.

“I’ve taken to reading them,” Blaine said, following Henri’s gaping eyes.

“I must say, Blaine, that when my sources placed you in Portland, Maine, I was surprised and worried, but this—”

“Don’t sell the city short. Riverfront redevelopment is a way of life around here. Take a look.”

Another flip of a switch illuminated a deck with a clear view to the sea.

“Got a pair of bedrooms upstairs and a full gym in the basement. You know, I’ve got five apartments scattered around the country, but I seem to have settled here. Maybe it’s because the long winter gives me an excuse to be isolated. Might try Canada next, who knows?”

“Then please excuse me for disturbing you.”

“Solitude is fine, but the winter was long enough.”

Blaine sat down in a leather chair that faced out to the deck. Henri Dejourner settled into the couch adjacent to him against the far wall. A brilliant landscape painting hung above it.

“I gotta tell you, Henri, no man could have negotiated my security systems better. It was a real treat watching you work again. The only one I can’t figure is the alarm code. How’d you guess it?”

“Simple, mon ami. I pressed 1-9-5-0, the year of your birth. Since it’s exactly twenty years after my own, it’s easy to remember.”

“Don’t remind me. Turning forty wasn’t exactly the happiest day of my life.”

“And how do you think I felt turning sixty?”

McCracken couldn’t say how Henri felt, but he looked marvelous. His still-full hair was the same shade of gray it had been when they had last met, and his frame, though small, remained lean and taut.

“And in spite of everything,” the Frenchman said, “you were still lying in wait for me the whole time, laughing to yourself no doubt. You’re still a magician, mon ami.”

“Johnny Wareagle’s the magician, Henri. I rely on more traditional aids. Like a harbormaster named Abner who saw you make off with the skiff. He gave me a call.”

“Ah, knows what to look for, does he?”

“He certainly does.” After both of them had shared a smile, Blaine added, “You enjoyed yourself tonight, didn’t you?”

Dejourner smiled fondly. “I miss the old days. When was it we met, Vietnam in ’70 or ’71?”

“ ’Seventy on the crisscross. I was on my way in and you were on your way out. And it wasn’t Nam, it was Cambodia.”

“Forgive me.”

“For that, of course. For tonight, I’m not so sure.”

“Blaine?”

“Who were you testing tonight, Henri, you or me?”

“There would be no reason to test you, mon ami. I have kept tabs.”

“Then you should have known that the last party that showed up on my doorstep unannounced went swimming.”

“You gave him a life jacket, of course.”

“Sure. I made sure his seatbelt was fastened before I made him drive his car into the bay. About a month ago I think it was. Figured he might be coming back for a second dunking. Abner keeps an eye out for me.”

“You haven’t changed, mon ami. That’s good.”

“The fact is I wouldn’t have needed Abner a few years ago or these damn security systems either. I’m slipping. My last few missions haven’t gone too well. I think I came here to hide out for the winter. Now I’ll probably go somewhere else.”

Dejourner waved him off. “You’ve never looked better.”

“But I’m starting to have to work too hard at it. Gotta run faster and faster just to stay in the same place.”

Dejourner was nodding. “As I recall, you spent five miserable years quite literally in the same place.”

“No offense, Henri, but I learned to hate your country during those years.”

“No offense taken.”

“You made that time bearable. I was stuck sorting paperclips, but you saw fit to throw some real work my way. It’s too bad our countries weren’t enemies; we could have exchanged prisoners.”

“With intelligence communities, enemies would be an accurate description. I was able to convince my superiors to let me use you only after persuading them it would make their American counterparts look bad. Such a rat race! You are lucky to be out of it.”

“And you?”

“Still a rat, I’m afraid.” Dejourner shrugged.

“Listen, I meant what I said about what you did for me back then, Henri,” Blaine said. “I owe you. I don’t forget my debts.”

Dejourner grasped his meaning and waved his hands dramatically before him. “Non, mon ami. I have not come here to request one of your famous favors.”

“Well, you sure as hell didn’t fly across the ocean to play a game more fit for recruits many years younger than us.”

“Please, Blaine, this is not easy for me. There is something I must tell you and I don’t know how. I spent the flight over rehearsing a dozen speeches. None of them worked.”

“Why don’t you try number thirteen on me now?”

“It’s not that simple. As many times as I rehearsed, I almost decided to just take the next flight home. I’m not sure I have any business being here. I’m not sure I have any business bringing you this news.”

“We’re friends, Henri. Friends always have business doing whatever they want.”

Dejourner grimaced as if the words bottled up inside him were causing genuine pain. “You recall a British woman named Lauren Ericson? You met her—”

“In London thirteen years ago. Let’s see, that would have made me twenty-seven: five years out of Nam and four operating in the same theater as you. Things were less complicated then.”

“The woman, what do you remember of her?”

“A knockout. Thought she was a model at first but she turned out to be a doctor, studying to be an orthopedic surgeon, as I recall. I was working with the British rounding up Al-Fatah operatives. We were on speaking terms then.”

“Pre-McCrackenballs …”

“Yes. Lauren and I were an item for three months or so and then she broke it off. That’s always the way it is for me.”

“Did she tell you why she broke it off?”

“She told me the same thing I’ve heard over and over again: I was a lot more fun to be with before she learned everything about me because she knew everything wasn’t all and she didn’t want to know it all. In a nutshell. My turn now, Henri. Where is this leading?”

“She died two months ago.”

Blaine wanted to feel grief but found it hard to muster any for someone he hadn’t seen in thirteen years.

“You haven’t come here to inform me I was mentioned in her will.”

“In a sense I have, mon ami. Lauren Ericson is survived by a son. He’s yours.”

Chapter 2

The news hit McCracken like a hammer blow, knocking the breath hard out of him.

Dejourner had a memo pad out and was reading from it. “The boy’s name is Matthew. He’s three months past twelve and is enrolled in the third form at the Reading School in Reading, England. He is at present a boarder at the school after having lived the rest of his life in the village of Hambleden twenty-five minutes away.”

“How did Lauren die?”

“Traffic accident.”

“Does the boy …”

“No, mon ami. He has no knowledge of you. Lauren told him his father deserted them.”

“Then he does have some knowledge of me.”

The Frenchman eyed him sternly. “Your shoulders are still broad, Blaine, but don’t expect too much of them. She made the choice for reasons you understand as well as I. As near as I can figure, she broke off the relationship when she learned she was pregnant.”

“Because she felt no father was better than—”

“One who could never be happy living a normal life …”

“A sane life, you mean.”

“Call it what you will, but she knew it wasn’t for you. A child was the last thing you needed, and she understood that enough to do what she felt was right.”

“There’s more.”

“There always is. The practical side — and Lauren was a practical woman. If you knew of the boy’s existence, then so might your enemies. Once she elected to have the child, Lauren could not permit that. So the gesture probably was not aimed so much at you, as what you had given her.”

“Given her?” Blaine rose from his chair, strode to the window, and stared out at the nearby waters as he spoke. “We ate lots of dinners, saw lots of shows, and had plenty of fun. I didn’t mean to give her any more than I took.”

“Apparently the child changed things.”

Blaine swung around. “I think she mainly wanted a child, and there I was, ready and willing.” He smiled ruefully at his reflection in the glass, observing the scar which ran through his left eyebrow and his eyes that were blacker than the night. “Hope the kid got her looks anyway.”

“He did.”

“You’ve seen him?”

“I … checked up on him at the school, made the proper arrangements for his boarding and the like.”

Blaine closed the gap between them and watched the Frenchman’s eyes waver. “Wait a minute, Henri. Suddenly I’m getting the feeling that your stake in this is deeper than you’d have me think.”

Dejourner sighed deeply. His face looked flushed. “It is why I struggled so long and hard before coming to you, Blaine. Lauren was … my niece.”

“Then you …”

Dejourner rose to face him, having to look up to meet his eyes. “You needed someone. So did she. Yes, I arranged it. And what it did for you at the time proved I was right. You were like a son to me, and I saw what that awful war had done to you. It stole from you your youth and set you on a path that denied honest sharing, compassion, love if you wish. I knew that path because I walked it myself.” The Frenchman’s expression grew somber. “I was almost fifty, single and alone, having known only love for my country, which as you often have told me can be a cold and callous partner. You had to see the other side. I had to show it to you.”

“When did you learn of the child?”

Dejourner looked away. “I didn’t know it was yours.”

“You suspected.”

“But I didn’t know!” Then, more softly, he added, “I supposed I did not want to know. I did not learn the truth until a covenant in her will reached me with the entire story. Lauren had grown up an orphan. She did not want the same for her son.”

“Then she expected me to—”

“She expected you to be true to your own heart. She knew the kind of man you were, that you would do what was right and fair. I’m not sure, no, I am sure she had no desire for you to approach the boy. She merely wanted to insure his future would be watched over by someone she trusted.” Henri’s eyes reached out toward him. “You must do what is right and fair for the boy, but you must also do the same for yourself.”

“A rather difficult combination to achieve under the circumstances.”

“Your heart will guide you, mon ami.”

“You don’t really expect me to walk into the boy’s life now, do you?”

“I expect you to do what is right. And whatever you choose, it will be right. I have done my part. I have stayed true to my conscience as well as Lauren’s covenant.”

“And by so doing, you may be exposing the boy to the very things she wanted to avoid when she — and you — chose not to tell me he existed.”

Dejourner nodded. “Now you can understand the predicament I have faced these past months. Sleep has not come easy, believe me. I thought of you, I thought of Lauren, but in the end I thought of the child, and that is what swayed me.” The Frenchman reached out and grasped Blaine’s forearm tenderly. “He deserves to know you, mon ami, perhaps not as a father but at least as a man.” Dejourner pulled away. “I leave it to you.”

“How old are you, Johnny?” McCracken asked the huge Indian. They sat facing each other in the log cabin Wareagle had built in the woods near Stickney Corner, Maine. The town was three hours from Portland, and Blaine had driven there the minute Dejourner had departed.

“Blainey?” Wareagle responded, turning so Blaine could see his tanned, leathery face that had remained unchanged for the nearly twenty years they’d known each other. They had served together in the same covert division in Vietnam, Johnny a lieutenant to Blaine’s captain. If McCracken’s exploits were legendary, then Wareagle’s were the source of myth. He could charge into a minefield or weave through a firefight without fear, because death, he claimed, was something that stared you down before it took you. And your best chance to avoid it was to stare right back.

“I just got to thinking that with all the shit we’ve been through together, I don’t even know how old you are.”

Wareagle moved sideways to lift a boiling kettle from an open flame and poured the water into a pair of mugs that held his homemade tea. “As old as the last season and as young as the next.”

“I mean in years, Indian.”

“Blainey, a man’s years vary like his thoughts. We are here from birth to the end of our chartered time, and what passes between is measured in whatever terms we choose.”

“You’re talking to a man who recently turned forty.”

“A man who did not drive all the way up here to celebrate.”

Wareagle finished stirring the cups and brought Blaine’s over to him where he sat in the high wooden chair. McCracken felt himself swallowed by the size of the furnishings. Everything in the cabin, from the height of the ceilings to the furniture, had been built with Johnny’s seven-foot proportions in mind. Blaine took the cup and sipped its steaming contents. He could taste the sweetness of the molasses and honey and felt somehow soothed.

“I got a belated birthday gift a few hours ago. Thirteen years belated.”

Wareagle sat down opposite him and leaned back so his ponytail of coal black hair flopped over the chair’s top. He said nothing.

“I’ve got a son, Johnny. He’s twelve years old, his mother’s dead, he’s at a school over in England, and he doesn’t even know I exist.” Blaine’s words came in a rush, as if hurrying the tale might make it easier to tell.

Wareagle just sat there across from him. Beyond the windows, dawn had come and gone, but the promise of the day was gray and overcast.

“I don’t know what to do. I can’t even think about it ’cause it scares me.” Blaine forced a laugh. “Listen to this. Look at what we’ve been through, all we’ve done. After that, is this what it takes to scare me?”

“The unknown holds the most terrifying prospects for us all, Blainey.”

“You know what I mean, Indian.”

“As well as the problem facing you: either you go to England or you don’t.”

“Reduced to bare terms, that says it all.”

“All life can be reduced to such terms, Blainey. We complicate our existences by creating additional choices that merely confuse our decisions. You speak of all we have accomplished and so often together. In those situations life stripped us of all choices and left us only with actions. We thrived because the thinking was spared us. We could heed the words of the spirits because nothing was in our heads to get in their way.” Wareagle eased his chair a bit closer to McCracken’s. “We faced physical complications with immediacy and relentlessness in the hellfire. That is what kept us alive. Moral complications must be treated the same.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“You didn’t ask one.”

“Then let me make it as uncomplicated as I can: do I walk into the boy’s life or stay out of it?”

The Indian leaned back and sipped his tea. “What was I doing when you arrived?”

“Chopping wood outside.”

“For when?”

“Winter.”

“And now May is barely upon us. Preparing for what lies ahead is the essence of all life. Preparation holds the greatest opportunity for avoiding complications. But what if the seasons reversed themselves? What if winter began tomorrow? Then my pile of wood would be woefully inadequate. Would I freeze?”

“You’d find a way not to. You’d survive.”

“Even with the vital preparation unfinished?”

“The first cold wind would be your warning. Snow in May would give you a pretty good notion things were fucked up big time.”

“And what would I do?”

“Bring the wood inside, make sure it stayed dry, chop as much as you could, and stack it right here in the living room. Conserve whatever you had until you were sure you had enough.”

“And are emotions any different, Blainey? Must we not conserve and adapt them as well to the change of emotional seasons the spirits bring upon us without warning? We survived the hell-fire because we expected whatever might come. Preparation helped, but keeping our minds open is what saved us. We responded to the moment, not the hour, and we never closed our eyes to what was before us in the hope it would go away. Ignoring the cold, Blainey, would not have made us warm. Yes, the wood must be chopped. We must never forgo preparation for any events, even those that frighten us with their suddenness. If we do not accept that suddenness, as we did in the hellfire, we die. There are many ways to die, Blainey.”

“And we’ve seen just about all of them, Indian.”

“Never all. Not even most.”

Blaine nodded. “I think I get the idea.”

Wareagle sipped his tea. “Travel well, my friend.”

Chapter 3

The ivy-colored brick walls of the Reading School rose in the damp mist that had swept in across the countryside. Blaine drove through the front gate and down the tree-lined entry road that took him past a collection of playing fields, or “pitches” as they were called over here, en route to a central building adorned with steeples. He was still not entirely convinced he was doing the right thing, and each slow climb over a speed bump along the drive brought him that much closer to turning back.

He had flown TWA out of Boston Monday night and arrived at Heathrow early Tuesday morning. From there the M-4 brought him straight to the city of Reading, where he had made reservations at its largest hotel, the Ramada Inn. He was not expected at the school until two P.M., which gave him four hours to rest and recharge himself following his uneasy sleep in the first class section of the jet. He soaked in the bathtub, showered, and grabbed a sandwich in the simplest of the Ramada’s restaurants, loitering the additional minutes away inattentively watching news on the television.

He crossed the Reading School’s final speed bump at five minutes to two and asked a group of boys dressed in charcoal gray suits where he could find the residence of housemaster John Neville who was expecting him. The boys’ answer came politely in unison and they pointed to the red brick house nearest at hand. Blaine parked his car and stepped outside. He felt the damp mist assault him instantly, reaching through his clothes and flesh for bones to chill. He noted a large bell tower perched atop the school’s central building as he walked toward the housemaster’s residence. He rang the buzzer and a chorus of heavy barks and snarls came from the inside before the chimes had even ceased.

“Come on now, back up!” he heard a thick voice order, and then the door was opening.

“Mr. Neville?”

“John. You must be McCracken. Henri told me to expect you to be right on time. Please, come in.”

John Neville was as big and thick as his voice, a powerfully built man with bands of muscle swimming through forearms revealed beneath the sleeves of his rolled up rugby shirt. Blaine was impressed by the strength of his grip as they shook hands. Neville closed the door behind them and the dogs, huge German shepherds, growled their suspicion.

Neville tapped one on the snout. “Enough of that, Bodie. You and Doyle go play now.”

“Bodie and Doyle?” Blaine asked.

Neville smiled warmly and the expression gave his face a youthful glow. His complexion was pitted, but there was color in his cheeks and life in his voice.

“I see you recall ‘The Professionals.’ ”

“British detective series from years back. The dogs are named for the heroes. I spent considerable time over here years back.”

“So Henri told me.”

“What else did he tell you?”

“Just the barest details. You’re good to do this, Blaine.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I’ve got tea ready in the living room.”

They moved from the hall into a spacious den dominated by a fireplace layered with the remains of yesterday’s fire. The radiators were old-fashioned, and to help break the chill a pair of space heaters had been strategically placed. The dogs followed them at every step, nuzzling against Neville for attention as soon as he sat down in the chair adjacent to the one he directed Blaine to. He fussed over Doyle, and Bodie growled from deep in his throat.

“Enough of that!” he scolded. “I won’t tell you again.”

Bodie lay down, whimpering softly.

John Neville handed a cup of tea across to McCracken from a tray. “Got something stronger to mix with that if you want.”

“No, thanks. This will be fine.”

Neville leaned back. A shock of dark hair slid over his forehead and he pushed it back. “You’ll want to hear about the boy.”

“About Matthew.”

“Matt he likes to be called. Good student and a top athlete as well.”

“Soccer?”

Neville shook his head and stroked Doyle’s shoulders. “Rugby’s the thing here. We’re a relatively small school as far as enrollment goes, so we could never hope to compete effectively in either if we tried for both. Rugby’s a tradition at Reading. There are lots of traditions. That bell tower you were admiring outside, seniors love to climb into it and carve their initials on the bell.”

“Kids must really love this place.”

“We do our best. Our situation’s unique in that we’re still actually a private school by definition. In addition to serving as housemaster for the boarders, I run the phys-ed and rugby programs.” Neville hesitated. “Matt’s in class now. I can get him, if you wish.”

“No,” Blaine said abruptly. “I mean, I don’t want to disturb him. I don’t want to … intrude.”

“Do you see this as intruding?”

“I don’t know what to see it as.”

“Would have been much easier for you if you hadn’t come. Not easier for him. He should know you.”

“He doesn’t even know I exist. You didn’t say anything, did you?”

Neville shook his head. “Figured you’d want all that business left up to you. Your timing couldn’t be better, though. There’s a school holiday tomorrow. Perfect opportunity to get acquainted. First meeting ought to be the toughest. After rugby practice this afternoon’d be perfect, if you don’t mind waiting.”

“I don’t mind,” said McCracken.

John Neville had a class of second formers waiting for him in the gym and left McCracken to pass the time before a bay window in the dining room with Bodie on one side of him and Doyle on the other. He watched the boys of Reading School, all dressed neatly in their gray suits, and wondered which one of them was Matthew. Then with the coming of the three o’clock bell the students rapidly exchanged suits for rugby shirts and shorts in the school colors and trudged off to practice fields not far from the school. John Neville returned shortly thereafter with a mesh bag full of rugby balls in hand.

“We’ll drive over,” he told Blaine, loading the bag into the hatchback of the British version of a Ford Escort. Then, eyeing McCracken, he added, “You might not be dressed for the outdoors.”

“I’ll do fine.”

In fact, he did anything but. After the drive, the walk across to the pitch where the third formers were practicing under the guidance of a small man with a mustache soaked his Italian loafers through to his socks. To make the proper impression at the school he had dressed well, in wear totally inappropriate for the damp outdoors. The cold was raw and unsettling, and the mist smelled like dank sweat. Neville had promised to come over and point Matt out as soon as he got his own practice started.

In the meantime Blaine was left again to his thoughts, again trying to distinguish which among the thirty boys performing warm-up exercises before him was Matt. He tried to narrow it down by recalling Lauren’s looks and attempting to superimpose them over the faces of the boys. But it was all to no avail. Strange how he had spent his life in unfamiliar places and had always been able to distinguish between the friendlies and unfriendlies at a glance. Yet here he was now coming up short in pursuit of his own …

“Come on now!” the little man with the mustache was urging, as game practice commenced with a drill in which members of two sides circled around a ball trapped in their center. “Push it out now! That’s it! And again! … And again!”

“Know the game at all, Blaine?” John Neville was asking, suddenly by his side.

“Bits and pieces.”

“A game made for children, this is. They can take the rough-and-tumble. Take a hard hit and bounce right back. The older one gets, the—”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“The small talk to help me relax. It isn’t necessary.”

Neville simply nodded and let his own thoughts stray briefly. “Playing on the right across the field. Striped shirt muddied in the front.”

And with his heart crashing against his ribs, Blaine found the boy just as a teammate gave him a perfect pass on the run and Matthew Ericson streaked down the far sideline like a champion thoroughbred. A deft stutter step stranded one opponent in his tracks, and a fake pass to the side left him with a clear path to the goal line.

The boy ran with graceful, loping strides, propelled by a high leg kick that tossed mud behind him off his soggy cleats. With token pursuit closing at the last, he slid to touch the ball to the ground in the end zone to insure the points. Then he rose to the shoulder slaps and praise of his teammates and mustachioed coach. He walked back toward the center line just as gracefully as he had sped in for the score, front thigh muscles rippling with definition. His hair was straight and longish, curled at the ends now from the dampness. His eyes were brown and radiant and he carried himself with a smoothness and confidence that seemed entirely natural.

“Want me to call him over?” Neville offered.

“No, please. Let him be.”

“Him or you?”

“What?”

Neville smiled. “After practice then?”

“Yes. Much better.”

“With you to be introduced as …”

“A friend of his mother’s. A good friend.”

“And tomorrow’s holiday?”

“We’ll do something. If he wants.”

“You’re underestimating him, Blaine. Not only will he want to, it won’t take him long to figure out what’s going on. You’d be wise to prepare for that.”

“I’ll try.”

“I was a friend of your mother,” he told the boy before John Neville had a chance to as they shook hands after practice. “A good friend.”

The boy’s grip was sweaty but firm. Blaine was surprised when he smiled. “Really? Did you know her from America?”

“Accent give me away?”

Another smile. “Would she have mentioned you, sir?”

“Call me Blaine, please. No, I don’t think she would have.”

In the next instant neither knew what to say, and John Neville stepped in.

“Matt, Mr. McCrack — er, Blaine — is going to be in the country for a bit and would like very much to spend some time with you. I suggested tomorrow’s school holiday as a possibility.”

“If you don’t have any plans,” Blaine added, wanting the boy to have a way out, or maybe himself.

“I’d like that very much, sir.”

“Blaine.”

“He was thinking an outing to London might be smart,” Neville proposed.

“Oh yes! Smashing!” The boy beamed. “It’s been ages since I’ve been there.”

“Done, then,” Neville concluded.

But it isn’t done, Blaine reckoned, not by a longshot. Do I tell him, and if so when? Damn you, Henri, for dropping all this in my lap….

Later, thrashing his thoughts about, Blaine drove from the school through Henley on Thames to the small Norman village of Hambleden where Lauren Ericson had lived and been buried. The village was quiet to the point of seeming deserted, and Blaine found himself easing the car door shut to avoid an echo. The moist air had the same sweaty feel as it had back in Reading. Here, though, it was laced with the warm scent of wood smoke coming from chimneys on houses that might have been fashioned out of the same light reddish brick. It was difficult to date the structures since even the newer ones had been built to blend in with and maintain the village’s rustic appeal. There were graves in the churchyard dating back to the eleventh century but only a few dug in the last few years, and their tombstones hadn’t been aged as the buildings had.

Lauren’s was a simple affair wedged in a small family plot her ancestors had obtained four centuries before. Dying, Blaine supposed, should be like coming home, and perhaps this was as close to that ideal as possible. He knelt by the grave wanting to feel something other than the confusion and uncertainty racing through him.

In recent weeks he had for some reason been reminiscing about his own parents, and all this served to only intensify his confused feelings. How unglamorous the story was. His parents had married late and had him, their only child, later. His father was an insurance salesman who made his living on the road and died in a Milwaukee hotel room of a heart attack at the age of sixty when Blaine was in high school. His mother had held up through it bravely and built a decent life for herself that ended after a painful struggle with cancer while Blaine was in Vietnam following an aborted attempt at college. She’d been dead for six months before he learned of it, due to the incommunicado status of men who were assigned to clandestine duty such as his. In those same six months and the six that came before he had not been allowed to send a single letter. Strange how when word came about her death he wondered more than anything what he might have said if he had been permitted.

Even with everything else considered, that was the only time he really hated the war, for not allowing him the dignity of rushing to his mother’s deathbed or at least attending her funeral. And though he tried, he was unable to remember what mission he’d been on at the moment of her passing.

Blaine supposed the advanced ages of his parents had helped make him independent almost from the cradle. He had always gone his own way, never with the crowd, and spent many of his early years resenting his parents for being so much older than those of his friends. In later years he loved them even more for it. At the very least they were there. At the most, they had somehow helped mold him into the man he had become.

He thought of all the high school sporting events his father had been unable to attend and how guilty he felt for preferring this to having the old man standing out among the other parents, looking more like grandfather than father. He thought of Matthew streaking down the sidelines to bring Reading School the rugby championship … with no parent to cheer him on, no face to pick out amidst the crowd. And if it wasn’t McCracken’s face, then whose would it be? Besides Henri Dejourner there was no one. Blaine had never turned his back on an obligation before, and this was no time to start. The boy was strong and brave and beautiful, but time might work as his enemy under the circumstances. He hadn’t gone through a Christmas alone yet, or a birthday. Blaine knew all about that and it was never easy.

“I wish I could cry for you, Lauren,” he said over the grave. “I’m sorry we shared so little time. But I won’t abandon what we produced. You have my word on that.”

Chapter 4

“You met my mother in England, then?” Matt asked as they took the fast train toward London from Reading the next morning.

McCracken nodded. “I was over here for an extended time, almost a year.”

“On business?”

“Sort of.”

The boy hesitated before speaking again. “Did it have anything to do with you being a soldier?”

The question took Blaine by surprise and his face showed it. “What makes you ask that?”

“The way you move. The way you look at people. I’ve studied a lot about soldiers.”

“Yes,” Blaine told him. “I was in the army.”

“Were you in a war?”

Another nod. “Vietnam.”

The boy looked genuinely proud. “Really? As what, sir? Please, do tell me!”

“Only if you promise to call me Blaine. The story gets a little complicated.”

“I’ll understand. I’ll try anyway.”

Blaine didn’t want to lie, but he couldn’t tell the truth yet either, at least not the whole truth. “I was trained as a Green Beret.”

Matt’s mouth dropped. “The Special Forces!”

“We weren’t called that yet, but yes.”

“They predated our Special Air Service. They were the first specially trained commandos in the western alliance since World War II.”

“I was fortunate enough to miss that one,” Blaine said.

Matt flashed a smile that quickly melted back into a questioning stare. “You said it was complicated.”

“Well, yes.”

“You started to tell me.”

What the hell, Blaine figured. “How are you at keeping a secret?”

“Good. Very good.”

“Okay. Vietnam was a funny war because lots of people were running different parts of it. The army had its hands tied and that pretty much explains why we got pounded like we did. But an authorized faction of the army got together with the CIA and decided to run part of the war its own way. I was part of what they called the Phoenix Project. We did most of our work behind enemy lines and we never issued reports. Make sense?”

“Wow,” Matt said. “But what did you—”

Blaine cut him off. “That’s for another day, Matt, later.” Then, sensing the boy’s disappointment, he added, “I’ve still got some friends in the SAS by the way. Like to come out and see them train sometime?”

“It’s top secret, sir. No visitors allowed.”

“You’ve got connections, kid.”

“Could we, si—, Blaine? Could we really?”

“Just name the time.”

“I’d like that. I really would.” His face turned quizzical again. “But what exactly did you do while you were in London?”

“When we get to the city, I’ll show you.”

They came to Parliament Square in the middle of the day. Blaine had never intended to give the boy such a detailed glimpse into his history, much less such an infamous occurrence. But, damn it, he was caught up in it all, the boy’s adulation and interest serving to open up areas of discussion he had kept closed for years. And didn’t Matt have a right to know, if anyone did?

“What’s so important about Churchill’s statue?” he wondered as they drew up close to it.

“Bet you didn’t know they had to rebuild a section.”

“I didn’t. Is it important?”

“Not really. Except for the reason.”

“Reason?”

They moved closer.

“Notice the slight discoloration in the great coat right after it breaks beneath his stomach?”

“I guess so. Why?”

“They repaired it after I shot off a rather important anatomical area.”

The boy’s eyes bulged, then glared at him disbelievingly. “You’re making it up.”

“You don’t really believe that.”

“Okay, why did you do it then?”

Blaine eased his arm tenderly around the boy’s shoulder. “Another story for another day, kid.”

They spent hours at Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum. Not surprisingly, Matt was most fascinated by the military exhibits. Blaine found himself enjoying the time just as much. After all, besides rejection his greatest fear in starting this relationship twelve years late was that he would have nothing in common with the boy. Well, he couldn’t have asked for much more than this and dared to wonder whether such interests could be hereditary.

They climbed to the whispering pews of St. Paul’s Cathedral and lunched at a traditional London pub in the business district called Smithfield’s. From there they took the underground to Pall Mall where Matt spent ten minutes expounding to McCracken, and a half-dozen others who had gathered, on the rigorous combat training endured by the red-clad, black-capped horsemen who ceremonially patrol the gates.

“Do you think I should join the army?” Matt asked as they strolled away.

“That depends on a lot of things you’re too young to consider now.”

“Not really,” Matthew responded maturely. “Seventh formers at Reading can sign up either with the RAF or the infantry on Friday afternoons to cover their community service. That’s not very far off at all.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“So, should I sign up or not?”

Blaine tried to show how happy he was at being consulted. “It sounds like you’ve already made up your mind. If it’s important to you, absolutely.”

“Was it important to you?”

“To enlist, you mean? Well, there was this thing called the draft and my number was about to come up anyway and college was a bore, so I joined. That way I got my choice of service.”

“And you chose Green Beret …”

Blaine hedged. “Well, actually it was chosen for me a few months into training.”

“You didn’t tell me that.”

“Got to save some stuff for later.”

“And what about what you did in the Phoenix Project?”

“Also later.”

Matt hesitated. “You haven’t told me much about what you’re doing now.” And before McCracken could answer, the boy did it for him, a smile flashing through the words. “I know — later.”

It was well past dark by the time Blaine got the boy back to Reading School and watched him disappear through a door.

“Thought it was you,” John Neville said as he approached McCracken with Bodie and Doyle restrained on leashes. They fought to greet McCracken as well. “I’ve just been out walking my dogs.”

“Sorry I’m so late.”

“I didn’t give you a curfew. It went well. I can tell that much.”

“It went great. It scares me it went so great.”

“Why should it scare you?”

Blaine turned fast enough to draw a slight growl from Doyle. Neville spoke again before he had a chance to.

“It didn’t go great enough for you to tell him who you were, did it?”

“I didn’t want to spoil the day.”

“Do you think it would have?”

“Maybe.”

“For you or for him?” Neville eyed him suspiciously. “You’re hedging, mate. Something’s holding you back.”

They started walking toward the playing pitches which fronted the school. With the wind gone, it felt warmer than it had the previous afternoon.

“How much did Henri Dejourner tell you about me?” Blaine asked.

“Very little, I’m afraid.”

“Then let me fill in a few of the holes. The boy’s mother kept his existence secret from me for a reason. Back then I was involved in governmental matters that required an expert hand. Things haven’t changed all that much since.”

Neville was nodding. “I’d expected as much. Or close to it. It’s your eyes. I’ve known men like you before.”

Blaine shook his head. “You’ve never known a man like me, John. It’s not possible, believe me. Right now I’m trying to sort out emotions that I’ve never felt before. Today was special for me in a way I can’t describe, and it’s tempting to see it as a sign of a new phase in my life. But the trouble is I’ve got lots of enemies. What I’m trying to say is that makes Matt vulnerable if I decide to enter his life on a full-time basis. No, change that. He’s already vulnerable and has been since Henri Dejourner paid you a visit. Whatever I decide to do—”

Neville stroked Bodie’s head as he interrupted. “He’s in good hands.”

“You’ve got to watch over him, John. You’ve got to be extra careful.”

“Consider it done.”

Blaine couldn’t sleep. His thoughts kept hammering away at him and there seemed no way to soften them.

He was worried. He was scared.

The fragility of life was nothing new to him. He had seen firsthand how quickly it could be snuffed out and had considered his own passing often enough to be unfazed by it. There was no sense worrying over that moment, because when it came even he would be powerless to prevent it. Yet now life’s fragility took on deeper meaning. The very focus of his existence was in turmoil. What did he owe the boy? And what did he owe himself? He was forty years old and had celebrated that milestone with a disheartening realization. The events he had found himself a part of lately were all random, unconnected, unlike his Vietnam service and after.

And after …

And after …

The phone on the nighttable rang, jarring him, and Blaine felt for it in the darkness.

“Yes?”

“Would this be Mr. Blaine McCracken?”

“It would.”

“This is Chief Inspector Alvin Willie of the Reading Police, sir. There’s been some trouble at the Reading School. Youd better get down here.”

Chapter 5

Chief Inspector Alvin Willie was a portly man with a huge bald head and no neck to speak of. He was dressed in civilian clothes and his shirt was only half tucked into his trousers. He showed McCracken the splinters where the front door of housemaster John Neville’s residence had been kicked in.

“Rather amateurish, I’d say,” the chief said.

“No,” Blaine told him, still in a daze. “He’d want to attract attention. He’d want to draw John down here.”

“Sounds foolish.”

“Anything but. Where’s the body?”

“This way,” Chief Willie said, and started forward through the hall.

They first came upon the partially covered corpses of Bodie and Doyle. Blood had pooled beneath their open mouths and Blaine could tell from the angle of their heads that the poor animals’ necks had been snapped. Inside the den a uniformed officer was ready to cover Neville’s body with a sheet when a glance from Willie stopped him. The corpse’s head and shoulders were propped up against a wall. The face was frozen in twisted pain, the neck bent at an impossible curve, obviously having been snapped as well. But there was something strange about the positioning. Neville hadn’t died there; he had been dragged over and propped up, as if to be made a witness to something after death.

Blaine shuddered at the strength required to finish the muscular Neville and his two dogs. Someone was making a point, someone who enjoyed his work. And the point could only have been aimed at him. But what had gone on in this room after the housemaster had been killed?

“It happened between ninety minutes and two hours ago,” Chief Willie explained. He was sweating profusely, the perspiration soaking through his clothes and shining off his exposed dome. “As near as we can tell, whoever was responsible entered through the residence, and after … doing all this, made his way to the area of the boys’ rooms upstairs.”

“Was there a delay between the time the killer finished here and went upstairs?”

Alvin Willie looked surprised by Blaine’s conclusion. “We think so, yes, judging by the interval between the time the dogs stopped barking and …”

“And what?”

“The Ericson boy’s roommate was knocked unconscious prior to the boy being taken.”

“How did you know to call me?”

“It was in the boy’s file. A note pinned to it in what we believe is Neville’s writing.”

“Damn. He never should have written anything down …”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.”

“If there’s anything I should know that could help me in all this …”

“I would tell you, Chief. Believe me, there isn’t. This isn’t your problem anymore,” Blaine added, regretting it immediately.

“You’re damn well wrong about that. There’s a man dead here and a boy’s missing you’re linked to. I need some answers. First off, what is your connection to the kidnapped boy?”

But McCracken’s mind had wandered to the moments leading to Neville’s death. He would have charged down the stairs with the dogs ahead of him, perhaps a weapon in hand. He would have known instantly what was happening and with the dogs should have made a decent fight of it. That worried Blaine more than anything else. Two dogs meant two killers, he saw that now. They could have entered in any number of ways but they chose one that guaranteed a confrontation. And after Neville was dead, what then?

“You hear me?” Alvin Willie was asking as Blaine brushed by him to proceed along with the scenario in his mind.

There was something anomalous here. A man like Neville would have called the police first.

“He didn’t call you, did he?” Blaine asked suddenly.

“I got a question on the table for you first, mister!”

“The lines were cut from the outside, weren’t they?”

Willie’s huge jowls puckered. “How in the hell did you know that?”

“They wanted to take him alone.”

“They? Who’s they?”

“Two people did this, Chief Inspector. If your lab men are worth anything, they’ll confirm it.”

McCracken started for the staircase, but Willie cut him off.

“What’s your connection with the missing boy, Mr. McCracken?”

“You read his file.”

“I read a note attached to his file. Didn’t say much at all. Just your name, the time you were arriving yesterday, and the hotel where you were staying.”

“That’s it, then.”

Alvin Willie was losing his patience. “I got a dead housemaster who was a damn good bloke and a kidnapped—”

Willie stopped with the approach of another uniformed officer down the stairs.

“I’ve got the boy’s statement, sir.”

“What boy?” McCracken demanded.

Willie barely acknowledged him. “That’s none of your business.”

McCracken edged himself up close to the fat man, pushing down the urge to jack him against the wall. “You wanna know how wrong you are, Chief? You want the answer to your questions? Fine. The kidnapped boy’s my son, and he got taken almost surely because of me. I saw him for the first time yesterday and the details of that don’t matter. All I can tell you is that all this is almost surely meant as a warning for me. Somebody’s showing off. Somebody wants me to know how ruthless they are. They probably want something from me in return for the boy. But don’t bother trying to run a make on me because every U.S. agency with three letters will tell you to get fucked. Am I making myself clear?”

Alvin Willie managed a nod. He could not recall a time when he’d been more intimidated by a single man. There was strength behind this one, incredible strength, but it was his resolve that did the trick more than anything.

“You’ll want to read the statement, then.”

“I’ll want to see the boy who gave it.”

“I wasn’t supposed to be awake, sir,” the boy whose name was Gilbert told him. “I wasn’t supposed to be by the window.”

“I understand,” Blaine said. “This is just between us.”

“But the police, I gave them that statement.”

“Did you tell them everything?”

“I think I did.”

“But you’re not sure.”

“I keep remembering … stuff. It probably doesn’t matter.”

“It probably does. You know Matthew Ericson, don’t you?”

The boy nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, sir! We’re mates.”

“Then you’ll want to help him, which means you’ve got to help me.”

Gilbert shrugged. “I have trouble sleeping sometimes. Sitting by the window helps. See, I’ve got asthma so I can’t have a roommate since I make a lot of noise when I’m asleep. On bad nights, I’m afraid to fall asleep and that’s why I stay up. Going to the window makes me tired again.”

“Did it tonight?”

“It started to. But then I heard …”

“Heard what?” Blaine eased himself closer and made sure his tone was soft. “Please, there’s nothing to be scared of now.”

“I heard Mr. Neville’s dogs barking. They do it a lot at night but this was … different. I’m not sure how.”

“It doesn’t matter. What next?”

“Well, there was noise, like something breaking and then lots of sounds before everything got quiet again. And there was a scream, just one, and the dogs whimpering. I was scared. I jumped back into bed but I was shaking so hard I started to wheeze. I went back to the window after a few minutes and that’s when I saw them.”

“Saw who?”

“Two figures.”

“Big men or small?”

The boy looked in the window’s direction. “The policeman didn’t believe me, either. He tried to make me change what I said, what I saw.”

“Change what?”

“They weren’t men, sir. They were women.”

“But I’m not a hundred percent sure,” Gilbert added almost immediately. “I mean it was so dark and everything.”

“You know what you saw, though.”

A reluctant nod.

“The women, were they small or big?”

“One was tall.”

“How tall?”

“I don’t know. Very, I guess.”

“As tall as me?” Blaine asked, rising to his full height.

“At least. Taller I think. She was the one carrying something over her shoulder.”

Matthew, Blaine thought as he fought to assimilate the boy’s story. A pair of women? That possibility juxtaposed against the scene downstairs didn’t hold. To think that two women could have so effortlessly slain Neville and his dogs … Whoever they were, the killers had performed from the start with deadly professionalism, each move undertaken to obtain a desired reaction to which they were prepared to respond. Neville had played right into their hands. It was all a show.

All for Blaine’s benefit.

They liked to kill, that much was certain. Professionals could have made off with the boy with no fuss at all, but obviously that wasn’t enough for them. If revenge was the point, however, he would have found the boy’s body along with Neville’s. The choice of kidnapping instead meant someone wanted something to hold over his head, and the display of violence downstairs was meant as a demonstration that they were willing to go to any lengths to …

To what?

McCracken found Alvin Willie waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. “Look, Mr. McCracken, I don’t know who or what you are, and I don’t really want to. But I do know that Reading is my town and the people hurt here are my people and—”

“Except one, Chief,” Blaine interrupted,”except one.”

He had to think it out rationally. There was logic in each move the female killers had made, except the propping up of Neville’s body. What he had to do was backtrack, learn who they were and who had hired them by first learning how they had learned about Matthew.

There was only one answer: Henri Dejourner. Henri was the only other man who knew of Blaine’s connection to the boy. Somewhere, somehow, Dejourner’s security had been penetrated. That was the place he would start but he had to act fast. Whatever the kidnappers wanted from him, they would be making it known soon. McCracken had to grab the offensive before that time came.

Never one to travel unprepared, Blaine had flown overseas with a custom-designed Uzi coated with detector jamming Teflon. He pulled it from its taped position beneath the bed, made sure it was ready, and then dialed Henri’s private contact number.

The phone rang and kept ringing, unanswered.

Impossible! It was manned always, if not by Henri himself then by an underling he trusted. Could whatever was going on here extend somehow into France as well? He had to find out. A moment later another number was dialed and once again he was listening to the ring.

“Hello?” responded a sleepy voice.

“Ah, Daniels, it’s been too long.”

“Who is th — No, it couldn’t be….”

“I need your all-powerful agency to run something down for me.”

“Now? Do you know what time it—”

“Now. Am I making myself clear, Daniels? Or would you prefer that I—”

“Just tell me what you need.”

“I can’t reach Dejourner. No answer.”

“Give me half an hour. I’ll call you back.”

“Sorry, Daniels. I may need you but I still don’t trust you. I’ll call you back. Twenty minutes.”

“You’re an ass, McCracken.”

“The Frenchman’s line has been disconnected,” Daniels reported twenty minutes later. “He was killed this afternoon.”

Blaine’s stomach sank. “How?”

“Neck snapped. By hand, they tell me. Three bodyguards bought it in similar fashion, except one took longer to die. Made it to the hospital where he claimed a couple of women did it all. Women! Do you believe it?”

“Yes.”

“Wait a minute, McCracken. If you’re up to something that the Company should be informed of—”

“You’ll be the first to know, Daniels, and that’s a promise.”

Blaine hung up. Things were coming together and the picture wasn’t pleasant. Matthew’s kidnappers had killed Henri Dejourner as well as John Neville. Very professional. Very brutal. Because they wanted something from him. So be it. McCracken would play along as long as necessary, make them think the upper hand was theirs until he got the boy back. He felt the old familiar rage building up inside him, swelling to what scientists called critical mass. If they harmed the boy in any way, he would kill them all.

His eyes strayed to the phone, knowing what was coming next even before the ring jarred him. He thrust the receiver to his ear with his heart pounding.

“I trust the bad news about Mr. Dejourner has reached you, Mr. McCracken,” a voice said.

“The boy …”

“We have him,” the voice said. “He is safe. He is comfortable.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that?”

“It’s the truth.”

“What do I have to do to get him back?”

“Not on the phone, Mr. McCracken.”

“I know your voice. I’m sure of it, I know your voice.”

“I know your room. I can come up straightaway.”

“The temptation to kill you might prove too much.”

“I don’t think so. After all, you do want to see your son again, don’t you?”

The knock on the door came less than three minutes later.

“Come in,” Blaine called out. He was seated in a chair against the wall farthest from the door. “It’s open.”

The door opened, brushing over the carpet. A dark-skinned, bearded figure entered. McCracken made sure he could see the Uzi.

The man closed the door behind him and stopped. “You don’t need that.”

“I know. I just wanted you to know how it feels, having your back up against the wall. And it relaxes me to know I can splatter the organ of my choice if the spirit moves me.”

The figured swallowed hard, still in the shadows cast by the single lamp. “Don’t forget your son, which is what this is all about.”

“Oh, I wasn’t talking about killing you. A simple maiming would suffice once you’ve told me what you’ve come to say. Whatever it is you won’t hurt the boy no matter what I do to you because you need me to deliver. You’re a worm, nothing more.”

The figure stepped further into the light, and Blaine blinked several times to make sure he had the face right. It was Mohammed Fett, an Arab power broker who fluctuated back and forth between the moderate forces of the PLO and the various radical cells populating the Mideast.

“Robes are more fitting for you than Giorgio Armani, Fett.”

“Ah, but when in Rome …”

“Your geography’s off. This is Reading, England, where one Matthew Ericson resided until a few hours ago.”

Fett came slightly more forward, slowly, making sure his hands were in plain view. “It was necessary because we need you. Desperately.”

“You couldn’t think of a better way to ask for my help?”

“We tried. You rebuked all our advances. Surely you remember. The channels, the contacts — we tried. We even sent a representative directly to you. You treated him rather rudely.”

Blaine did remember all too well. An Arab force had sought him out just over a month before and he had refused even to speak to them. He had mentioned to Henri Dejourner how the last agent they sent to his island condominium had ended up in the bay.

“You do remember! I can tell! You are going to work for us, Mr. McCracken. You won’t like it but you have no choice, just as we have no choice.”

“Someone holding something over your head too, Fett?”

“Millions of Arab lives … if it matters to you.”

“Not nearly as much as Matthew Ericson’s does.”

“Listen to me,” Fett responded, voice tense. “Israel is going to strike at us. There is going to be a war, and this time they are going to be the ones to start it.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I expect you to stop it for your son’s sake, and for the sake of the world.”

“Spare me. Please.”

“Listen to me, McCracken. You and I have fought before on different sides. But there are forces at work this time that bode ill for me and for you as well.”

“And were these the forces responsible for the deaths of John Neville and Henri Dejourner?”

“The people retained exceeded their mandate.”

“They did a hell of a lot more than that. You should have seen the housemaster’s residence, Fett. Whoever killed him enjoyed it and they wanted me to know that. What did they want him to see after he was dead?”

“I—”

“You might be bringing me one message, but those women were delivering a different one.”

“My point exactly. Their role in this has ended. You have only me to deal with now.”

“My lucky day …”

“There will be far more deaths on your head if you do not act, if we do not act.”

“Against Israel?”

“Against a militant force within Israel. This force is in possession of a weapon of incredible scope. If utilized, it will destroy the Arab world as it is known today.”

“And I’m supposed to stop it from being utilized, is that it?”

“Exactly.”

Blaine felt himself starting to fume again,”Know something, Fett? I could torture the boy’s location out of you now.”

“That would be useless because I don’t know it. Steps were taken to guard against just what you are threatening.”

“Fine. Now explain why me? What makes me so important to you?”

Fett shrugged. “It was not my idea. I warned them against angering you. I told them what you were capable of. She overruled me.”

“She?”

“You’ve heard of Evira no doubt.”

“Have I ever. She’s an Arab agent operating within Israel, certainly the most wanted terrorist in the entire country.”

“Not a terrorist, McCracken! Not even a militant!”

“Call her whatever you want. She chose me?”

“She insisted on you. There have been leaks, deep ones, within our organization. Evira fears her own identity has been compromised. An outsider seemed the only hope, and you were the only choice she presented.”

Blaine eased off. “So you’re saying Israel has this weapon and I’m supposed to prevent it from being used.”

Fett nodded. “In return for the life of your son, yes. But it becomes even more complicated. The government of Israel is not to blame here, but a cell operating within the country. With the government’s blessing or not, it is difficult to tell. The Israelis are masters of misdirection. But the weapon exists and the cell intends to use it; there’s no misreading that.”

“Can you tell me more about this cell?”

Fett shook his head. “I only know what I’ve been allowed to. The rest of what you need to hear will come from one closer to Evira.”

“Another messenger, Fett?”

“Only this time the journey will be yours, McCracken. To Tel Aviv. I have your ticket with me.”