Overfall (22 page)

Sam shrugged. He knew words would not help.

“And grown people do this?”

“Apparently you’re going to do it.”

“Okay. When will we actually go get Jason?”

“We leave for California first thing tomorrow while my team makes the final arrangements. For now we relax and have some dinner.”

“But when will I see my brother?”

“I can’t promise, but perhaps the day after tomorrow. I want to stop and see a psychiatrist on the way.”

“The guy you’ve chosen for Jason, right?”

“Yes. Before you ask who, we’re still deciding which one right now.”

“You probably think I’m heartless. Your good friend died and I’m talking only about my issues.”

“Jason’s alive and we can do something. Shohei is dead and we can do nothing for him.”

“Have you cried?”

“No.”

“Does that concern you?”

“People who don’t cry usually aren’t concerned that they don’t cry.”

“Have you had this happen before? When your son died?”

“That was much different. That was a piece of me gone, so it was like mourning myself.”

“Anybody else?”

“A woman I loved. I was at the funeral. I stood off to the side away from the crowd mostly. A few people I knew hugged me. I think I examined my feelings more than I felt them, although I certainly felt a great deal. How many people have you had die besides your father and Jimmy?”

“That’s pretty much it.”

Sam poured a second glass of wine for Anna, refilled his own glass, and gave her the last piece of bread. He had gobbled six pieces to her one. “When Shohei and I went to memorial parties or funerals I never saw him cry. Out of respect for the dead he would go on living, eat the food, and drink the wine.”

“Is that supposed to make this easier for you?”

“Shohei was a professional. He lived with the risks. John Weissman didn’t.”

“You can’t blame yourself for that.”

“I can. I do.”

Anna put her hand over his.

For a while they talked of Shohei. Anna recited the events of their day together, the way he had smiled, why she had become fond of him so quickly. Then Sam talked of his first meeting with Shohei, their cases together, and tried to recite a few of Shohei’s jokes, which were legion, all the while struggling to distill the dry sense of humor and the unbeatable confidence of the man.

“When we were together,” Sam explained, “I felt a special energy, like we could do anything. I wish now we had hugged each other at least once.”

“You never did?”

“Never. We usually nodded our greeting. That was us. Cool to the end.”

They returned to the kitchen and Sam cooked the pasta.

“Dinner is about ready,” Sam said. While they waited Sam placed a call to Carl Fielding.

“A big portion of the file is encrypted,” Fielding said. “Ask Anna if she would know how to finish a sentence that begins ‘Receive for yourself ...’ ”

Sam asked her.

“... the same sun that shines on your brother, the same blue sky that colors his river.”

“Any commas?”

“One after brother,” Anna answered.

“I’ll try it,” Carl said and was gone.

“Jason would know that I would know that Nutka painted it on a piece of wood.”

“Intriguing—all these codes,” Sam said.

“What did the police say? They sure were fast with me.”

“I used some pull. They know they don’t have the whole story. I told them it was international and that they needed to trust me. They used to trust me for a lot more than this when they wanted my help. I also told them that Weissman’s killer could be related to Grace or Samir Aziz. They have no more desire to reveal your involvement in this thing than we do. I had to promise to tell them anything I discover in that regard the minute I discover it.”

“What in God’s name happened to the helicopter?”

“Well, of course it’s not official yet. But a fuel line was put together badly after maintenance. It came apart and starved the engine of fuel.”

Sam prepared the pasta and pulled out the fish. “That can’t be a coincidence,” she said. “Right now they’re saying it is just that. We may never know.”

Out of nowhere Anna said, Tell me about the psychologist Spring.”

“You haven’t admitted you know she’s my mother.”

“Okay.” She sighed. “Tell me about your mother.”

“I wish she would put what she knows in a book. And I wish people could hold the book and sense the woman when they read her words. She is the best person I know. She is strong and principled and intelligent in her compassion. I feel humbled when she talks.”

“Wow. That’s quite an endorsement for a mom.”

“She is quite a woman. But to learn what she is saying, you have to struggle because her words have to be used if you want to find their meaning. They are like bones, you have to add the meat.”

As he put the dinner on the table, Anna nodded, not quite understanding.

“She is a Talth and the daughter of a Spirit Walker.”

“What exactly is a Talth and a Spirit Walker?”

“Are we all done snooping around, calling Josh, or anybody else?”

“We are all done with that.”

“Talths and Spirit Walkers can be the same or different. Kind of like a priest and a monk can be the same and different.”

“Okay.”

“A Talth can be male or female and they are a ceremonial and a spiritual leader. In our tribe they are thought to be the keepers of the secrets to harmony of the soul. They know the sacred places and teach the young people. Today not many young people are listening. Spirit Walkers, like my grandfather, are thought to have mystical powers; they are usually loners, but can be married, and they wander a lot. They dream. For them the wilderness is a place of plenty. By the way, I don’t necessarily buy into the mystical powers part. I think maybe there are comprehensible reasons why it all works. Then again, you wonder.

“There is a story handed down among my tribe that life on earth was started by Wah-pec-wah-mow, which would mean something like Earthmaker in a literal translation, but we would say God or Great Spirit, and that Wah-pec-wah-mow began humankind through a race of spirit beings that held the secret to inner strength and harmony of soul. Spirit Walkers are thought to be their spiritual descendants. Sort of like a Catholic would say that the pope is the spiritual heir of the apostles.”

“I’d like to know more about Spring.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything. Whatever you’ll tell me. Let’s start with her legal name.”

“Key-atch-ker,” he said quickly. “Try to remember that.”

“One more time.”

“Key-atch-ker. It’s actually Yurok, not my tribal language, because she was named by a Yurok Talth, and to honor the woman who named her she left it in Yurok. She took the name later in life—Spring, the time of new beginnings. It’s also part of the culture of my tribe.”

“What
is
your tribe?”

“We’ll get there. We have to get to know each other first. Every year my tribe and some others have a sort of new-beginnings ceremony where they renew themselves and everything in the earth.”

“And what do you believe?”

“Well, as to people, I guess I more or less made my living on the premise that people don’t change. That’s if you want to play the odds.”

“Tough outlook, don’t you think? I got the impression you were trying to change.”

“Yeah, well, I guess I’m trying to beat the odds. What about you?”

“Lately I think the odds are beating me.”

Normally Salice is warm in early November, and this year had been no exception. Samir sat on the balcony on the third floor of the lavish government guest house. It was built around an inner courtyard with garden and fountain. On the first floor a large entry lobby led to a three-way intersection. To the right lay a living area for the women screened by a
mashrabiyya,
to the left a larger living area for the men, and straight ahead an open courtyard.

Designed so that Arab dignitaries might appropriately entertain guests, it had complete daytime facilities so that men and women could be separately entertained. The upper two floors were bedrooms and game rooms and Western-style multimedia rooms. On the third floor there was one less bedroom and a library of sorts.

In keeping with Muslim tradition, the decor featured no artistic depictions of people or animals, lest they become objects of worship. Paintings were landscapes only, with one exception—pictures of the emir of Quatram. Perhaps veneration of the emir was a pardonable sin in Quatram. Despite four of his men behind the door and another eight at various points in and around the building and hallway, and the safe-passage guarantee of the general, Samir sat and watched the tremor in his hand, felt something like a peach pit in his esophagus, and suffered the raw acid of anxiety-driven esophageal-reflux disease eating his duodenum. He imagined red puckered holes growing in the lining of his stomach.

Samir’s anxious moments had grown so powerful that they frequently felt like pain. Often he considered putting a bullet in his head. To relieve the tension he took all manner of tranquilizers. By insisting to himself that his mind had been invaded and that his feelings were unreal and unjustified, he remained barely capable of making himself function. Despite the fear, he understood winning and losing, and he knew he was losing. Sheer force of will kept him in the chair where he had promised himself he would sit for twenty minutes.

When it got really bad, Fawd would apply the stuff from the laboratory on Samir’s skin. Its effect was almost instantaneous. The doctors couldn’t explain it, and were trying to discover some component of the oily substance that was the active ingredient. So far they could discern only that it must contain every herbal remedy known to man and certain trace hormones from an unknown source. It had obviously been carefully mixed by brilliant chemists determined to mask its individual components. Since the supply was limited and he was hoping for a long life, he used the magic potion sparingly.

Tonight he was the guest of General Al Mashriq, one of the emir’s many cousins. On the table next to him sat a report on missiles available from some warehouses in the Czech Republic. They were old but serviceable and he knew he could sell them. He had tried to study the technical details, but soon lost interest.

Occasionally he used his laptop computer to access his e-mail account via a server in Lebanon. This time he had an e-mail, sent through encryption software illegal in many countries. Not in Lebanon. Tediously he punched in the necessary letters and numbers until the mail document opened. It read:

We have not secured the merchandise. Complications. The butterfly apparently had it and the scorpion went after her. We aren’t sure what happened to the merchandise.

There were many defective packages upon our arrival. Concern that consumers may blame us for defects. Other southern gentlemen involved. Prospect of picking up the merchandise is now remote.

Can we shop at the other store?

Samir wanted to talk to his people, but his paranoia made him reluctant. He didn’t know who might be listening and had no scrambler good enough to guarantee security against the best intelligence services. The encrypted e-mail was pretty much foolproof, but even then he wrote only in silly allusions.

For days he had had men monitoring Chellis’s Canadian compound. There was no doubt that Anna Wade carried something that had great value to Grace Technologies. Samir’s people had followed her to New York, used listening devices, and by tapping her and her ex-husband’s phones learned she might have a data CD-ROM that was to be delivered to a world-renowned physicist.

From the opaque message in the e-mail it was clear his men had failed to take the CD. Before they arrived, there had been killing. And some other Latins were involved. His men were concerned about being blamed for the shooting. Now they wanted to go ahead and take Jason Wade, since they didn’t hold the CD as a bargaining chip. He knew from a separate message that they had planned to take Jeremiah Fuller, only to find he had died hours before, and they couldn’t secure his body or his brain.

Samir sensed the hand of Devan Gaudet at work.

Furiously he typed his answer.

Fawd stepped onto the balcony. “What are they doing?”

“Everything. Nothing. We need to take Jason Wade. What do you need?”

“The general has sent something for your nerves.”

“How does he know about my nerves?”

“With all due respect, during your meeting this morning you rose and walked around about one dozen times. Your eyes never stopped moving. Three times you caressed your side arm under your jacket. With all due respect.”

“So what does he send?” Samir asked.

“I will show you.”

A moment later he returned with an attractive blond Caucasian woman. She showed no dullness in her countenance; no dilated pupils. Intelligent blue eyes looked down at him with some interest.

“What do you do, or should I ask?”

“I am a masseuse. I calm nerves. I will relax you.”

“That’ll be the day.”

“Have someone bring in my things, please,” she said.

Just inside the balcony they set up a portable massage table.

“Please take off your clothes and lie on the table.”

Samir eyed her. He had enjoyed a few massages in his life. He supposed he could worry as well on the table as in the chair.

The woman appeared ready with her table and towels.

“Everybody out,” he said to his men.

Nude, he wrapped a towel around himself and told the woman she could turn around.

“What is your name?”

“Michelle. I go by Mindy.”

“Why did my friend the general send you to see a man twisted by his own nerves?”

“Because I’m white. Middle Eastern and Persian men seem to prize white women.”

“So what services do you provide?”

“I provide massage and companionship. If you choose to steal it, you can have sex.”

“I don’t take that from a woman. I am a wreck of a man anyway.”

“Let me see what I can do.”

As he lay on the table, the only things he could think of were the monkeys in Chellis’s laboratory. Chellis was making a monkey of him, using some sort of science fiction to instill a terror that nearly overwhelmed him. Samir imagined what a world leader who felt as he felt might purchase in the way of weaponry.

The massage was good, but the conversation better. Immediately, and almost miraculously, it seemed, he began to relax as he hadn’t since the day at the laboratory. It was as if this Michelle had the magic potion from Kuching. She was forthright and not at all slow-witted as he expected. As she massaged him, she told him her story: Her husband, a man from Quatram, had fled the U.S. with their child. She came to Quatram, tried to take the child back to the West, and was caught in Salice and put into slavery by the general.

The general had kept her for his own purposes. It was better than torture, so she worked with it and won his confidence. Samir liked her a great deal; something about her seemed to match something in himself. After the massage they talked and drank wine. Her tenacity with respect to retrieving her son was obvious. She was courageous, at least as clever about men as she was brave, and one other quality amazed him: her seeming inability to complain. Always looking ahead, thinking, plotting, never giving up, even in the face of disastrous circumstances.

At 2:00 A.M. she left, but they could easily have talked all night. It was only after she had left that he cursed himself for his own stupidity. She had to have been sent by Chellis with massage oil that contained the same stuff he had stolen from the lab.

In the morning he went to the ministry offices and met again with the general. They haggled over small arms and rockets. The rockets were a problem. If he sold them to Quatram he would be violating various international laws and treaties. In response to continuing pressure from the general he hedged. Then the meeting ended with backslapping and goodwill. They desperately needed him.

In the limousine Samir found himself longing for another massage and for Michelle’s company. He called the general, knowing all the while that she must be a Chellis plant and he would be walking into DuShane’s latest scheme.

“I am afraid I don’t feel well enough to travel. I’d like another massage from that woman, what’s her name?”

“The stubborn one? She’s Michelle. She won’t answer to her Arabic name.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Samir said. “I just want the woman to give me a massage.”

Michelle met him in the guest house within the hour. “I would like to buy you from the general,” Samir said. Her eyes showed hope, then went flat. “Take you to Lebanon, where you would be free. I should like to employ you, but only if you accept. I would try to see that you get to visit your son. And if you work hard enough and smart enough, I will consider helping you get your son back.”

“I am required to give you sex?”

“No. Never.”

“I am a slave. I cannot leave.”

“You aren’t listening. You can leave if I buy you.”

She seemed to consider; then she spoke quickly. “I accept your offer.”

“Good.”

Samir called the general from the limo and established a price of $200,000 and the sale of five missiles. It was the missile deal that sealed the bargain. Already rich, the general was not so interested in the money—but he certainly took it.

There was just enough time for Anna to pack a bag before sleep. At 4:00 A.M. she would be going to the airport to meet Sam. When the phone rang, she talked herself into picking it up, knowing it could be her agent.

“Guess what I’m going to get you for
August Moon.”

“Whatever you negotiate. You know—”

“I know you like to pretend the money doesn’t matter. Maybe you’re not pretending. Anyway, guess why I’m going to get you twenty million.”

“Because I have two X chromosomes?”

“Because you’re going to get nominated. I’m pretty sure and so is everyone else.”

“I wish I had a clever line for that one.”

“You deserve it.” Despite her deadline at the airport she remained on the line for five minutes, listening to her agent’s assessment of who was impressed, who was not, who would be critical, and most of all, who would be jealous and whom she had impressed. These would be the factors that would help determine whether she would win her second Academy Award.

“They want to have a little formal announcement about your taking the part at the studio—and a party. Next week. Thursday or Friday. They’re working the details.”

“Okay.”

“Anna? Will Lane be coming?”

“I ... I don’t think so.”

“Will anyone?”

“What have you heard?”

“Nothing. Nothing. Well, maybe not exactly nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, there was the story about the yachtsman, which you denied, of course. And then I asked Peter if he knew anything ... and of course he denied it, but his voice said otherwise, or so I thought.”

“There is someone. I haven’t broken up with Lane, though. This new guy has got the worst case of hide-and-seek I’ve ever seen. He’s seriously the smartest man I have ever met.”

“Have you fallen for him?”

“Officially I don’t know he exists.”

“How does he feel about you?”

“He doesn’t know yet. I haven’t told him.”

“Normally that would be something he would tell you.”

“I’m working on it. I’ll get him to take me to the studio party. I’ll just have to work fast.”

“I guess you will.”

Anna took a deep breath and dialed again. “Lane?”

“Yeah?”

“This is really unfortunate but I need you to be just dead-on honest with me.”

“Okay.”

“Sometime here we are planning to have dinner. And I think we will both be jockeying for one of those really sweet, we’re-great-pals breakups. That’s what I think. You tell me right now straight out if I’m wrong.”

“Who is he?”

“His name isn’t important and ... well ... it’s the fellow who is helping me with my brother ... Mr. Secrets.”

“Her name is Julie.”

“Have you slept with her?”

“No. Of course not. I’ve barely talked to her. Well, maybe I’ve talked to her. And she went home before we actually slept.”

“You’re a gentleman. Go have your way with her. Under any other circumstances I would do this better. You deserve better. You are a good man and some woman will be very lucky. We are now officially good friends.”

“Okay. You tell your publicist first. Mine will confirm. It was mutual, we remain best friends, blah-blah-blah. And there were no third parties involved. I do want to know, though. Did you sleep with him?”

“No way. Never even considered it. Until now.”