The Plan

Chapter 54.

LUCINDA STEERED A COURSE FOR CABO SAN LUCAS, AND the fifty-foot ketch headed downwind in a following sea.

The course corrections were frequent as she rode the mounds of fast-moving water that were overtaking them from the stern. The sky was filled with high, scuddin g c louds that turned the day silver in the afternoon light.

Ryan had stayed on deck, hopping awkwardly to port and starboard, reeling in the jib lines with the chrome coffee grinders.

The incident with Jerry Paradise had crystalized the danger for both of them. For Lucinda, it was the final chord in a dark fugue that started playing the day they buried Rex an orchestrated deception that included the beating in the park… the cold, empty warning in the den and the threat in the kitchen where he'd pushed her down and accused her of spying on him. All of these things paled next to Jerry Paradise and the attempt to kill them.

"We should call Kaz and tell him what happened," Lucinda finally said.

Ryan listened to the wind whistling through the rigging. He knew she was right. The cell phone was in the center drawer below. It was dead but Ryan told her there was a charger down below.

Lucinda got the cell phone, turned on the tiny generator that fed power to the cabin, plugged in the charger, and set the unit up on the chart table. She turned to go back up on deck, but hesitated when she saw Ryan sitting at the wheel, looking off toward the horizon, his chin high, his right hand on the helm. Her heart caught as she looked at him. There seemed to be something more substantial about him now-something that was missing before, a strength of purpose, a determination. He looked down and caught her staring at him. She smiled to cover her embarrassment and clambered up the stairs to join him.

"What were you just thinking?" she asked.

"I was wondering what force in the cosmic plan decided to hand us this gigantic problem. How are we qualified to keep the underworld from stealing the presidency?"

She had no answer. The thought overwhelmed her.

A gust of wind caught the mainsail and they both felt the boat lean over as it rushed down the hill of rolling water.

Ryan looked out at a low-flying gull that had its wings spread and was cruising, effortlessly, along behind the Linda, never changing its position, riding the same wind so that it appeared to be hovering, while in fact it was moving fast, maintaining the position with only slight adjustments of wing and tail. Ryan thought it would be nice if he'd been able to control the currents of his life with such ease.

In forty minutes, the cell phone was charged and Lucinda went down and got it. She dialed her mother's number. It rang three times, then she heard Kaz's voice on the other end. "Yep," he said, noncommittally.

"Kaz?"

"Who's this?"

"Lucinda. I'm with Ryan. He wants to talk to you." She handed the phone to Ryan, who put it to his ear.

Kaz was still in Washington, parked in front of the Human Resources Office. He was about to go in and find somebody who would buy a line of bullshit he'd dummied up about an overpayment on David Robb's social security. "How y' doin', Kaz?" Ryan said.

"How you feeling is a better question."

"Coming along. But I have a problem that needs solving."

"Do my best…"

"Nobody should have known where Lucinda and I were. We had been there for three days and some guy who called himself Jerry Paradise, or maybe his name's Harry Meeks, showed up and tried to kill us. He was from Atlantic City, so I'm pretty sure Mickey sent him, but the only thing I can't figure out is how Mickey could know where we were."

"You call him?"

"I called him once, but it was from a pay phone and it was the same day we got attacked, so that couldn't be it." He looked at Lucinda. "Just a minute…" He turned to her. "Did you call your brother?"

"No." Then she remembered the call she had made to Penny. "But I called my mother at the Jersey house two days ago when I went into Avalon for food."

"Lucinda called Penny at the house in Jersey two days ago."

"He must have a Pin Tel."

"A what?"

"A gadget the phone company developed to catch people who are making threatening phone calls. If he's got one, he'd get a printout of the number she was calling from. It's not much of a trick to get the address." Then Kaz added, "I guess I don't have to tell you not to call him again unless you wanna decorate the inside of a pine box."

"Listen, Kaz, I want to be part of this."

Kaz said nothing, so Ryan forged ahead.

"Mickey's already tried to kill me three times. As long as I'm a target, I might as well go ahead and get a uniform."

Kaz really didn't want to work with amateurs, but he couldn't say that to Ryan. "Cole and I are working on something. Get some place where you won't draw a crow d a nd lay low. Is that a cell?" "yeah."

"Okay, gimme the number and stay out of sight. If I need any help, I'll call."

Ryan gave him the cell-phone number and they ended the conversation.

After he hung up, Ryan and Lucinda held hands in the cockpit of the ketch as the day turned slowly to dusk. The sun sat on the horizon like an orange cue ball on frothy green felt. It slowly sank from view and then they were in a strange murky twilight, the boat shooting down the sides of the following sea. For almost a minute, the color of the ocean and the sky were an identical shade of dusky gray. Where sky and water met, there was no horizon. It created a strange vertigo, as if the small sailboat were in a colorless vortex, a small shifting platform in a world of invisible, coursing currents.

Then night fell and the moon lit the ocean as they, once again, slipped silently away, heading toward Mexico.

They finally arrived at a protected cove in Mexican waters about six miles south of Ensenada. It was nine-thirty in the morning when they dropped anchor. With sleep still in her eyes, Lucinda got the sail down, gathered it in, and lashed it to the boom with a line. Then they sat in the cockpit and drank coffee. Lucinda turned on the radio for some music to lighten the mood, and while they listened to the distant sounds from a San Diego station, they admired the beautiful, but barren, Mexican coast.

At ten o'clock, the radio station announced what most of the world already knew-Haze Richards had won the California Democratic primary. He would control the national convention scheduled in Denver.

Ryan shut off the radio, then got his crutches and moved forward on the deck of the boat.

"Where are you going?" Lucinda asked.

"I'm going to get this leg in shape."

She watched as he stretched out and hooked his right leg under his left heel and started doing leg lifts, using the right leg to help. He was sweating and grimacing with pain. He did ten reps, counted to twenty, and did ten more. Over and over, he repeated the exercises.

He had no strength in the leg and after a while, Lucinda could watch no longer and went below. In the small cabin, she could still hear the thumps as his heel hit the deck. She had seen the mangled leg up close. She knew that most of his muscle had been lost.

Up on deck, under the Mexican sun, Ryan continued his leg raises. Sweat was rolling off him, but his mind was miles away. He was back at Stanford University on the practice field in the shadow of Maples Pavillion. He was nineteen years old, lying on the ground in his practice uniform doing grass drills with the backs and ends. He could hear the fitness coach, Zoran Petrovich, screaming at them with his German accent, Lass go. Come on ya lazy pussies, two, free, fo'… two, free, fo'…

Ryan struggled with his damaged leg, trying to lift it, using less and less help from the right until he couldn't lift it at all.

Lass go, ya pussies… A bunch a' fooking Frauleins… Yah?

In his thoughts, he was back in time. He was young and healthy. There was no fear of defeat-only open fields and touchdowns stretched before him.

Come on, let's go… One, two, free, fo'…

He had always been at his best on game day. He wasn't going to give up. He wasn't going to let Mickey win… not after coming this far.