Whirlwind (16 page)

She shouted, “I am not a Party member.” But my father is. A steadfast believer in scientific socialism who will hail the day when the red flag flies again from his vessel’s stern.

“Whoops, sorry. I’ll call you White Queen instead.” He laughed.

“We are wasting time!” Although she knew she shouldn’t, she still was shouting. “You are wasting time! Letters from your daughter! Are there not more important “

The swiftness with which his voice changed caught her off guard. Suddenly he was all iron, face and intonation alike. “Nothing is more important to any father. But that’s not what I downloaded. Some… shall we say ‘friends’ have sent me DefCon Enterprises’ full public record. The Dun and Bradstreet reports, the S&P file, articles of incorporation, biographies of the management, and all the newspaper stories they found on the Web.”

He studied the screen, eyes narrow while he cur sored through pages of now decoded information. “California company. Incorporated back in the Clinton years. Privately held. Venture-capital funding. Three hundred and twenty employees mostly an R&D shop. Chief exec, Maximilian Henkes, age fifty-two. MIT grad, MBA from the Sloan School. Worked for Lockheed before starting DefCon. The chief financial officer is a Lockheed alumnus too. Vice president of operations comes from Martin Marietta, and the controller from General Dynamics. They all have defense contractor backgrounds. Everybody does except the chief scientist Sangin Wing, a Chinese defector with a doctorate in materials science. Says here he wrote his Ph.D. thesis on superconductors. Now that’s interesting….”

He leaned back again, this time shutting his eyes. His lips moved soundlessly. Suddenly he showed his teeth, a hungry fox. His eyes popped open bright, electric, frighteningly intelligent. What, she asked herself, did he see in these minuscule fragments of information? How could any man make sense of so few irrelevant facts?

McKenzie abruptly flipped the Power Book screen down, shutting the computer off. “There’s a ton of material here. We can look at it tomorrow.”

“We?” She was on fury’s edge. His self-composure, his nonchalant friendliness she knew they were meant to both charm and seduce her. That he thought she could be so easily bewitched was maddening.

“I hope so. On the other hand, if you want to make a run for it again, that’s your privilege. I won’t stop you.”

She could kill him. He hadn’t taken her pistol. He was so gallingly self-assured that he did not bother to disarm her. She’d never killed a man, but this man…

“In fact, I’ll even give you your gun back.”

What?

“Once your temper has cooled off, I mean.”

She patted her waistband frantically. The Tokarev was no longer there.

Her shoulders slumped. No, she was not defeated. She’d never be defeated. But she was on the defensive a painfully unfamiliar position.

The problem… the problem was that she was drained of her last reserve. This day had exhausted her like no other. She’d seen death, and known fear. It had left her vulnerable and bereft of the strength she needed for the parry and thrust of conversation with this infuriatingly cunning opponent.

“Look, Irina, I am not your enemy.”

“No?” she spat. “Then what are you?”

“Just a guy who wants to protect you.”

She wiped spittle from her lips. “I need no … no … guardian angel!”

“Like it or not, you’ve got one. Call me Saint Charles.” There was that dullness in his eyes again. She still could not interpret it. “Nah, on second thought don’t call me Saint Charles.” His face softened and his voice came from far away. “Plain old Charlie is better.”

Was a weakness hinted at, some vulnerability she could turn to her advantage? She pressed him. “Why not Saint Charles?”

He smiled faintly, distracted, a man mulling over a pleasant memory. “It’s the name of a place, a little town, a village really. Not Saint Charles, but the Spanish for it: San Carlos San Carlos do Cabo. Saint Charles of the Cape. Down on the California coast, south of Big Sur. Mary and I… my wife and I … we had happy times there, some of our happiest. You know, we were going to retire there, that’s how much in love with it we were….” His voice sank, and the light faded from his eyes.

I have him if I want him, she thought. A lonely widower mourning his wife at just this moment I can harvest him as a well-trained swallow would, harvest him body and soul.

It was the right thing to do. It was what they would want her to do. And when she had done it, she would be no better than her father’s dockside whores.

McKenzie shook himself like a wet dog. “I need a drink.” He pushed himself away from the desk and fumbled open the minibar. “Do you want something?”

The opportunity had passed. She knew she should feel guilty for letting it slip by, but instead she shivered with relief. “No. Yes. A soda. No, a fruit drink.” “Rattled” is the word an American would use. I have lost my self-composure and must recover it.

He brandished a cold can of orange juice, mixed himself a gin and tonic. “You want ice with this?”

“No.” After pouring it into a glass, he passed it to her with a napkin. The spark was back in his eyes, and the wry smile on his lips. She’d lost him.

Sipping his drink, then sighing in satisfaction, he said, “Anyway, like I was saying, I’m on your side. At least for the here and now. The guy you have to watch out for is the one whose tail I was twisting at the Hilton, Johan Schmidt. He’s bad medicine, the worst I can name. He’s a mere, a pro, and he’ll have five hundred men or more behind him. You’ve got the most dangerous mercenary organization I can name on your case. As if that weren’t bad enough, you also have to worry about the civilian police, the FBI, and a whole bunch of alphabet-soup agencies. A lot of people want to take you down; I’m pretty much the only one who doesn’t.”

“I will escape them.” She would. And it was important that this McKenzie man know it.

“The government guys? Sure. There’s no doubt in my mind you can get past them. But Schmidt is a horse of a different color. Look, we don’t have anything like your country’s Spetsnaz in America. Heavily armed, highly trained special forces who do the dirty work both abroad and at home just aren’t the American way. So, the laws of supply and demand being what they are, private enterprise “

Her temper ignited. She found herself sneering as her father would sneer. “This is your much vaunted free-market economy at work.”

McKenzie chuckled. “I guess. It all comes down to the same pig-stupid libertarian philosophy. Yeah, sure Johan Schmidt’s the personification of the free-market economy. He and his people are only in it for the money. Patriotism, duty, ordinary human decency they’re irrelevant to that crowd. All they care about is cash on the barrelhead. The profit motive, my girl, is the most powerful motive there is. Once you understand that, you’ll understand how much danger you’re really in.”

True, Schmidt was to be feared. The very sight of him had frightened her. But his men were mere hooligans. They would be no challenge.

“Don’t make the mistake of believing that Schmidt’s gang are all brawn and no brains. His soldiers the monkeys you saw with him an hour ago aren’t particularly bright, although they are exceptionally well-schooled. His officers are a different story. One officer for every ten foot soldiers, they’re the best money can buy smart, seasoned, and not easy to fool. I’m damned good, but as good as I am, I’d rather keep out of those guys’ way.”

He is back in control of this conversation. How did that happen?

McKenzie continued. “Which should be your objective if you decide to run. Look, I’m leaving here early tomorrow morning. They’ll be following me or at least they’ll think they are. If you wait until after I’m gone, you should be able to get out of town unseen. After that… well, I don’t know what your best route is. Southwest, probably. More traffic that way, you’d be lost in the crowd. Yeah, the route over to Southern Arizona is your best bet. Phoenix, Tucson big cities are always a good place to hide. Although the truth is you’d be safer if you stayed here until I get back.”

She glared at him, unable to decide what to say but knowing that she would never, never accept his advice.

“If you do run for it, get some decent clothes to replace that junk you insist on wearing.” Irina winced. “Stop at some upscale shop, and look for the St. John Sport label. Mary always was a knockout in their stuff, and it would look great on you. Schmidt’s people aren’t searching for a well-dressed posh kind of woman. If you’re wearing fancy clothes, you might slip by them. I doubt if you’ll find the right kind of store in this town. Maybe in Tucson or Phoenix or Sedona one of the resort towns, anyway.”

Why is he helping me? He is up to something. There is a trick here.

“Okay, it’s getting late. We should go to bed chastely to bed. Wearing our britches by the way, because Schmidt is quite capable of kicking down the door at three in the morning. But before we do, there’s something I want to ask you. Be patient. This will only take a few minutes.”

All she wanted was sleep. If she could put this day the most hideous in her life behind her, she could deal with this man and with whatever sly gambit he was about to attempt. Or has attempted, and I am too tired to notice. She shook her head, trying to clear her mind of its fatigue, and of all the chemistries of fear and flight that had bewildered it.

He withdrew a handful of photographs from his satchel. Some were black and white. Others were color. He spread them on top of the motel desk. Her cheeks flamed. Such was her outrage and such was her shock that she could feel the heat. How dare he? How dare he show me this?

“These snapshots were taken mostly up at Beloye More and over at Lake Ladozhskoye. This is your father, right? That’s you. Those are your brothers and your mother.”

She teetered on the brink. The precipice was high. The pit bottomless. The photos were too much, too much to be borne. This day horrible, horrible Dominik dying in a fog of blood, cars stolen where any man might see her, the expression on sad, sweet Mitch Conroy’s face, McKenzie finding her not once but twice, and the gloating obscenity of Schmidt’s henchmen….

She did not know how much more she could endure. Surely she could not endure the sight of these … of these… damnable photographs!

“So here you all are on holiday, and every holiday your father takes the family sailing. You must have been six or seven when this first one was taken. And in this last one, out in the Gulf of Finland I think, you look to be about seventeen.”

“Eighteen.” She could barely get the word out. Her throat was constricted. Choking memory rendered speech impossible. She felt her hands shake, knew that she burned with terrors best left unspoken, and wanted nothing nothing! more than to open her mouth and shriek.

“Same as every other spook shop in the world, the Agency just loves collecting snapshots of foreign military guys. So we’ve got this full photographic record of you growing up. Dozens of shots of you and your family on vacation. Usually you’re all out on the water. But the thing is… see here in every picture… the thing is that while everybody shares the boating chores, there’s one chore we never photographed you doing. I’m curious about that, Irina. I mean, I was just wondering “

An explosion. A house condemned to demolition. Its walls crumble. Nothing is left but dust and rubble.

“Never!” she shouted, “never!” She would not cry. This man no man could make her do that. “Never once! Only my brothers! Not me! I was never allowed! He would never give me the chance to prove myself, and …” She swallowed hard, gulping back the pain.

“He never let you take the tiller, never let you steer.”

“I was a girl. I was not good enough.”

“That’s what he said.”

“Always. About everything. I was never good enough!”

“So you never really knew?”

“Knew what?”

“Whether he was right. Whether you’re good enough. You don’t know that.”

“I do know.”

“You only think you do.”

“No!”

“The truth is…” He stretched out his hand to comfort her; she pushed it away. “… you never can be certain how good you are.”

She hated him. The power of the emotion staggered her. She began to speak to shout, really, but stopped herself short.

She stopped because she could see it. It was in his eyes, a hint, not a flagrancy, the flickering ghost of unspoken knowledge.

He knew more, knew that secret thing, knew what her father had done, knew her humiliation, the shame she denied because if she admitted it she would scream and scream and scream.

It was written in his eyes. And it was written that he would never speak of what he knew, but keep it hidden inside of him, locked as deeply as it was locked within her.

For this she hated him most of all.

She slapped him. She slapped him as hard as she was able.

He merely looked at her sadly, as though she had somehow disappointed him.

De I’audace encore de I’audace toujours de I’audace.

Danton

Wednesday, July 22. 0545 Hours Central Time

Charlie pitched his voice loud to penetrate the closet in which Irina hid. “Good morning, Mitch!” he boomed as he flung open the hotel room door.

With two shopping bags and a greasy box of Krispy Kremes clutched to his chest, Mitch Conroy hobbled in. “Mornin’, Mr. McKenzie. Am I on time?”

“Five forty-five to the minute. Punctuality is the virtue of princes.” In grey slacks, white shirt, and a Sears sports coat, Mitch looked like a small-time businessman a car dealer, an insurance broker, a shoe store manager. Charlie was confident Schmidt’s watchers hadn’t given the rodeo rider walking slowly to conceal his limp a second glance. “Is that breakfast I see? Why, bless you. And quit calling me ‘mister.” My friends call me Charlie.”

“Yes sir, I’ll try to remember to do that, Mr. McKenzie.” Wearing a puppy-dog grin, Mitch put his shopping bags on the floor, then perched on the edge of the bed.

Laughing at the cowboy’s sly wit, Charlie sat beside him. This was a good man, he told himself, one miscast in the risky role he’d volunteered to accept. More to assuage his conscience than anything else, he asked, “Look, son, are you sure you want this job?”