When The Devil Whistles (37 page)

Only one police car. No military. Odd. The information on the drive he had given to Daniels should have called for a much stronger response.

He turned and ran for the bridge. He yanked open the door and jumped down a narrow flight of stairs. He raced down the corridor to Mr. Lee’s quarters and jerked open the door without knocking. The room was dark, so he pulled to a halt and stood at attention in the doorway. “Apologies, sir! A police car approaches!”

He saw a stir by Mr. Lee’s bed, but kept his eyes straight ahead. A few heartbeats later, Mr. Lee appeared in the light. He was still pulling on an undershirt and jeans. Red lines from pillow creases marked the left side of his face, but his eyes were bright and fully alert. “Have you spoken to the Americans?”

“No, sir. I came directly to you.”

Mr. Lee nodded crisply and walked out.

They met Captain Wither in the hallway. He was still fully dressed, but his shirt was half unbuttoned. His face was flushed and his eyes were wide and bloodshot. “The cops are coming!” A pungent scent of alcohol wafted over them as he spoke.

Mr. Lee drew his brows together in a disapproving frown. “Yes, we know. Mr. Park will talk to them, yes? We paid extra for him for just this reason.”

The captain looked away. “Yeah, I’m sure he will.” He returned his gaze to them and pulled the corners of his mouth up in a smile. “Nothing to worry about.”

Mr. Lee regarded him silently for several seconds, then nodded. “Very good.”

They left the captain and continued down the corridor toward the bridge. Without turning his head, the general spoke softly in Korean. “Assemble the men around the MIRV housing. Kill anyone who enters. I will stay with the captain to make sure he does not betray us.”

Cho nodded and turned to the men’s quarters.

Three minutes later, they were all awake and in the large storage room with the MIRV housing. Two men aimed pistols at the door while the others took positions around the door and waited and listened.

Unidentified creakings and grumblings from the depths of the ship. Footsteps on the deck above grew louder, then fainter, and then disappeared. More footsteps—clanging on the metal stairs this time.

The men tensed and readied themselves. The electricity of imminent violence charged the air.

Footsteps outside and faint conversation. The voices were indistinct but sounded jovial and relaxed.

The footsteps stopped at the door. It opened. The captain and First Mate Jenkins began to step in but jerked back at the sight of the men ready in ambush.

The captain put a hand to his chest.

The first mate swore, then guffawed. “I almost peed my pants!”

No one else laughed.

Jenkins’s smile faded. “Anyway, you’ll be happy to hear that the cops are gone. So you can all relax and go back to bed.”

The captain looked at Cho. “Except you. Mr. Lee would like to talk to you in his stateroom.”

Cho nodded and followed the captain upstairs.

Mr. Lee sat facing the door. He did not look happy. “The police said someone rang them and said there were nuclear weapons on this ship—nuclear weapons from a sunken Soviet submarine. Fortunately, Mr. Park was able to persuade them that this was a misunderstanding.”

Cho gasped and widened his eyes in what he hoped looked like shock. “Who rang the police?”

The captain cleared his throat and clasped his hands behind his back. “First Mate Jenkins discovered that Granger and Daniels managed to escape.”

Cho stared at the man. “Escaped? How?”

The captain shifted his weight from foot to foot. “We’re not sure. Jenkins found the door unlocked.”

Cho continued to hold the captain with his gaze. “Jenkins and Granger were friends, yes?”

The captain looked down. “They did drink together sometimes.”

Cho turned back to Mr. Lee. “Sir, may I suggest that Mr. Jenkins stay in a locked room until we are done. May I also suggest that,” he glanced at the captain for a split-second, “that he be guarded by one of our men.”

The alcohol-fueled flush on the captain’s face deepened, but he did not speak.

Mr. Lee nodded. “Yes, I thought the same. It is being done.”

“Sir, do you wish for me to arrange a search for Granger and Daniels? Perhaps they are still nearby.”

“They will have difficulty escaping now. There is a fence around the docks, and it was lit and electrified as soon as the escape was discovered. Mr. Kang is already leading a search squad. If Granger and Daniels are still there, he will find them. I need you to supervise removing the warheads from the MIRV housing and loading them onto the truck on shore. We need to move them as quickly as possible. This place is not safe.”

“Yes, sir. Anything else?”

Mr. Lee pursed his lips and folded his arms, as he often did when he was about to speak of something he found distasteful. “I am told there is a well-equipped interrogation room on shore. Go inspect it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And please do supervise Kang,” Mr. Lee continued in Korean. “He is a good interrogator, but he enjoys it a bit too much. It impairs his results.”

61

C
ONNOR
’
S CELL PHONE BUZZED AGAIN
. H
E DISCREETLY SLIPPED IT OUT OF
his pocket and glanced at the screen. Allie. Again.

He suppressed his irritation and returned it to his pocket. Even if he wanted to talk to Allie, this was a particularly bad time. He was sitting next to Tom Concannon on one side of a table at Slanted Door, a fashionable Vietnamese restaurant on San Francisco’s waterfront. On the other side sat Bill Fisher, head of D&B’s litigation department. And next to Bill was Frank Garibaldi, general counsel of Phoebus Partners—a wealthy and highly litigious investment group in San Francisco.

Years ago, Frank had worked on the staff of a congressional committee headed by Connor’s father. A couple of weeks ago, Frank and Connor had sat at the same table at a black-tie charity dinner. Frank had mentioned that Phoebus wasn’t happy with their current outside counsel. Connor had suggested that Doyle & Brown might be a good fit and had offered to arrange dinner with some D&B partners. Frank had accepted, and here they were.

Frank noticed the phone call. “You’re a popular guy tonight, Connor.” Genial male laughter. “Do you need to get that?”

Connor looked back at his companions and dropped the phone back into his pocket. “No, no. I’m sure it’s nothing. Sorry, Frank, I didn’t mean to interrupt your story. So, you were in New Orleans for the Vikings-Saints playoff game and you met Zygi Wilf in a karaoke bar on Bourbon Street.”

“Right. He’d obviously had a few and he was singing ‘Born to Run’ as loud as he possibly could.” Connor nodded and laughed as his guest told a rambling ten-minute anecdote, the main point of which appeared to be that he knew the owner of the Minnesota Vikings.

Connor didn’t mind. Phoebus was a plum client, with billings worth millions per year. If he could land them, he could write himself a one-way, non-stop ticket from the firm’s doghouse to its penthouse. Nothing encourages law firm forgiveness quite like a fat book of business. Profitability is next to godliness in the Big Law world. Actually, it beats godliness cold—as Connor knew through personal experience.

Connor’s phone buzzed again. Frank and Bill discovered that they shared a love of Buster Keaton movies and were busy quoting favorite scenes to each other, so Connor risked a quick look at his phone. A new text message from Allie. He opened it and read, “trapped @ dp 7 dock. help!!”

He glanced up quickly. Frank and Bill hadn’t noticed, but Tom was looking at him. Connor showed him the message below table level. Tom frowned and shook his head slightly.

Connor messaged back, “Call 911.”

Bill had steered Frank away from movie trivia and back to business. “… and our financial litigation group has had quite a run of success in recent years. We’re also open to alternative billing models, as Connor may already have explained to you.”

Frank’s eyebrows went up and his martini glass stopped halfway to his lips. He looked at Connor. “Why, no. I’d be very interested in hearing about that.”

Connor put his elbows on the table and put on his most winning smile. “And I’d be very interested in telling you about it. We—” His pocket buzzed again. “I’m very sorry. I’ve just learned that we have a minor emergency brewing. Could you excuse me for just a moment?”

Frank swept his martini toward the door, spilling a drop on the table. “Of course.”

Connor rose and hurried an exit, opening the new message as he went. “already called cops. they stopped @ gate, talked to grds & left. dont know what to do now. bad stuff going on-nkoreans w/ nukes! im scared.”

“Allie again?”

Connor turned and saw that Tom had followed him out and was standing behind him on the walkway between the restaurant and the water.

Connor handed the phone to his friend. “So, what do we do?”

Tom glanced at the message. His jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed. “What do we do? Nothing! Not one blessed thing, you understand?” He shook the cell phone in Connor’s face. “She is trespassing on Deep Seven property and you’re giving her advice! And you’re doing it on your cell phone by text message so that they’ll get every word when they subpoena the phone company!”

“I’m sorry, Tom, but I didn’t have much choice. She might be in real danger and—”

Tom bared his teeth and cocked his arm. For a frozen instant, Connor thought he was going to throw a punch. But he pivoted and hurled Connor’s cell phone far out to sea. “Don’t you lie to me! You had a choice and you made it! You chose to shaft me and the firm so that you could keep helping that cute, lying little—” He bit off the last word and took a few seconds to master himself. “Look, you know how bad this’ll look in Deep Seven’s suit against the firm, right? Didn’t we talk about exactly that? And didn’t you agree that you wouldn’t have any contact with her? You’re already hanging by a thread, Connor. You know that. Why are you trying to cut it? If you can’t shut up and do exactly what you’re told,
you… are… dead
.” He shook his head and rubbed his eyes, then nodded toward the door. “All right, let’s go back in there and have dinner. If you can land Phoebus, maybe ExComm will let this go. Maybe.”

He turned and walked back in. Connor followed him in a daze. Tom had never acted like that toward him. No one had. Or at least no one who inhabited his world. Every now and then, he’d run into a loudmouth at a baseball game or a bar, but you couldn’t expect class from people like that. But from Tom Concannon?

They crossed the restaurant and found their meals waiting for them. Tom flashed a grin at Frank. “Emergency resolved! Did Bill fill you in on our alternative billing models?”

“I gave him an overview, but I thought I’d let Connor tell him about a couple of cases where our partial-contingency fee system turned out to be a real win-win for us and our clients.”

Tom took his seat. “And a lose-lose for our opponents.”

“That’s how our cases tend to turn out.” Bill picked up his chopsticks and winked at Connor. “Now you talk while I work on this delicious-looking branzino.”

Connor stood looking down at the table, every detail crowding in on his senses. He saw the exquisitely presented Dungeness crab and cellophane noodles on his plate and the dew-beaded glass of Chardonnay next to it. The click of Bill’s chopsticks and the pleasant murmur of a dozen conversations around them blended into a wistful music in his ears. The bouquet of fresh gourmet food and a hint of sea tang filled his nose with a tempting perfume. He felt three pairs of eyes looking up at him expectantly.