The Descent From Truth (21 page)

Alex frowned. “I have money in the bank, but my wallet’s pretty much tapped out.”

“I anticipated that. Parents seldom get emergency calls without money being involved.” The colonel pulled a roll of bills from his pocket. “This is all I could scrape together on short notice.” He also gave Alex a prepaid cell phone and a slip of paper with a phone number. “Memorize the number. It’s in Denver, but calls are automatically forwarded.”

He lived on the western side of the Continental Divide, yet he had a Denver number? “I thought you retired.”

“But I didn’t die. I’ll contact you tomorrow.”

* * *

Alex reached Boulder shortly after dark and checked into an Embassy Suites hotel. He and Frederick had dinner, and he played with the youngster until sleep began to overtake both of them. They stretched out on the bed together, and Alex slept until Frederick awakened him shortly before daylight. Both of them were eager for breakfast when Alex’s father called. The colonel agreed to meet them at a Denny’s restaurant across the street from the hotel.

Alex’s mood lightened as he watched Frederick eat. Seated in a highchair in the restaurant, the child pushed scrambled eggs into his mouth with both hands. But Pia belonged in the picture. An image of her sitting where his father was now, reaching from time to time to wipe errant egg from Frederick’s face or to adjust the plastic bib the restaurant had supplied, stirred his rage anew. I’ll get her back, he vowed silently. For both of us.

Frederick, no longer hungry, began to fidget and fret. The colonel distracted him with teaspoons, handing them to him one by one. Giggling, Frederick tossed them onto the floor.

“Have you worked out a strategy?” the colonel asked between tosses.

“Yes, sir,” Alex said. “I know exactly what I’m going to do.”

“I don’t want to hear details. Just enough so I know you have a reasonable chance.” The colonel placed another spoon in Frederick’s hand. “I don’t mind having Freddy for company while you do whatever you think you must. But I need some assurance that you’ll be able to reclaim him.”

Overnight rest had erased Alex’s uncertainty. “If Pia’s at Silver Hill, I’m going to get her. If she isn’t there, I’ll look for her in Peru. She’ll be with Faust, and he won’t be that hard to find.”

“Don’t worry about Freddy,” the elder Bryson said. “Wherever I am, that’s where he’ll be. I won’t tell you where. That way, nobody can get it out of you.”

Alex absorbed that while his father leaned down to collect spoons from the floor. The colonel handed one of them to Frederick and pulled a cash-stuffed envelope from his briefcase. He pushed the envelope across the table.

“Colonel, I . . .” Alex wanted to say
Dad
, but his mouth wouldn’t form the word. “I want you to know . . .” His vocal chords refused to cooperate.

The colonel passed another spoon to Frederick and laid a hand on Alex’s arm. “You do what you have to, son. I’m your home base.”

Chapter 26

Midway up a mountainside on the outskirts of Lima, Theo Faust paced the courtyard of his hacienda. Bougainvillea-bordered, tile-floored, and enclosed with a seven-foot-high, wrought-iron fence, the courtyard overlooked a valley and, in the distance, metropolitan Lima. A squatter’s camp near the foot of the mountain formed a squalid slum that dominated the daytime view. But the slum had no electricity. After dark it became a black hole, allowing one’s eyes to focus on the spectacular vista of Lima’s twinkling lights. That made the courtyard Faust’s favorite place for nighttime relaxation.

This evening, however, he hardly noticed the view. Tromping back and forth over the tile, he checked his watch each time he crossed the swath of light flowing out through his bedroom window. The medical technician who had monitored Pia during her flight from Colorado was inside checking her vital signs. He had assured Faust that she would be out of her drug-induced stupor by mid-afternoon. That hadn’t happened, and Faust was running short of time. To make his rendezvous with Shining Path commanders, he needed to be out of the hacienda no later than midnight. Two more hours.

Things were shaping up really well, he thought as he paced the courtyard. It had seemed otherwise when he first heard about the disappearance of the team he had sent to take out Alex. But the SOB hadn’t shown up in Silver Hill or at his father’s home in Grand Junction, hadn’t tapped into his bank account or used his credit cards. It figured that the men had whacked him before something happened to them. No way to be certain, and Faust would keep feelers out to make sure the bastard didn’t reappear, but it seemed a reasonable assumption.

And if Alex was dead, so was the kid. That meant, with old man Koenig’s health deteriorating and the balance of his precious frozen sperm rendered non-viable, Dominga’s inheritance was assured.

Faust grunted in satisfaction at the thought. When Dominga took over, she would need him more than ever. It gave him a backup in case his plan to control the country’s rare earth deposits didn’t pan out; he had locked in primary and secondary routes to wealth and power. Besides that, he’d gotten revenge on Alex, although not as dramatically as he would have liked. And now he had Pia back. All in all, a pretty damn good week.

The door between the bedroom and the courtyard opened. The medic reported on Pia’s condition. “She’s a little groggy. She’ll be unsteady on her feet, probably want to nap some more. Ought to be a hundred percent by tomorrow.”

“But she’s conscious?”

“Yes, sir.”

Faust peeled a fistful of
nuevo sols
—approximately a hundred dollars—from his money clip. The medic, a member of Variant Corporation’s security force, was well paid, but it never hurt to buy more personal loyalty. “Your wife’s gonna be pissed at you for staying out so late.” He pressed the money into the young man’s palm. “Buy her something nice, and she’ll forget about it.”

He dismissed the medic and checked his watch again. Still enough time to take up with Pia where they’d left off before the trip to America. He stripped, laid his clothing on a chair, and turned off the bedside lamp. Stretched out beside her on the bed, he ran a palm down her back. So smooth. Taut yet soft. He caressed lower. An ass to die for, and it was all his
.

She mumbled something. He leaned closer to hear.

“Alex? Alex?”

Faust lost seconds of time and found himself standing by the bed, swinging his doubled-over belt.

Shrieking, Pia rolled off the bed and curled up on the carpet.

Another wild swing with the belt. He paused and clicked the wall switch for overhead light.

Her expression changed gradually as she pieced together what had happened, where she was. Clasping her arms around her knees, she curled into a still-tighter ball, visibly trembling.

He tossed the belt aside. “Get off the floor.” He pointed to a big, comfortable recliner where he liked to relax and read before bed. As she stumbled to the chair, he pulled two robes from his closet. He handed one to her and slipped the other one on. “You thirsty?”

She nodded. Keeping her eyes downcast, she wrapped the robe around her shoulders and curled her legs under her in the chair.

He poured a glass of water from a pitcher the medic had left by the bed, waited while she sipped. “You wide awake? Understand what’s going on?”

Another nod. Her grip on the water glass made her knuckles almost white. She looked up, made eye contact.

“I was good to you.” Standing close, he stared down at her. “After we cleared up that initial misunderstanding, we had a great life until Koenig took you away to nursemaid the kid.”

No answer, but her expressive face registered his comments, so she was back mentally. “I don’t know what Alex did to make you run away,” Faust said, “but he’s history. I sent a hit squad back to that cabin where we found you.”

He studied her face to gauge her reaction. She flinched as if she’d been hit. Then she resumed staring.

“I found Koenig a new breeder,” he said. “That means, with your kid dead, the old man has no further interest in you. Before that trip to the U.S., you and I had a good thing going. You treat me right, maybe we can get it back. You’ll have to convince me, though.”

Her shoulders sagged, her face contorted. She set the water glass aside, wiped her eyes with the back of a hand, and fixed her gaze on the carpet once more, fingers intertwined in her lap. “There is nothing you can do to me that is worse than what you already have,” she said, her voice so soft he had to strain to hear.

Her words shot anger through him so abruptly, so powerfully, that it was almost painful. “I can kill you. No one will care.”

Slowly, as if moving her head caused pain, she looked up at him. “Do it.”

“Your thumb still give you trouble?” A brief search through drawers in his closet unearthed the metal thumb sleeve with its recessed Allen-head screw. Holding it so she could see it, he loomed over her, expecting her to shy away, to pant and tremble the way she had when he’d used it before.

No expression, no sound. She simply extended the misshapen thumb, an invitation to clamp the device on it.

Grasping her hand, he inspected the thumb, manipulated it. “Joint’s fused. Nail’s pretty much shot. And I never even tightened the screw all the way down.”

Lips compressed, she stared impassively, her hand resting in his.

“Maybe we should start fresh, make the other thumb match this one.”

She held up her other hand, fingers loosely fisted, thumb extended.

“You think that’s the worst I can do?” He tossed the thumb sleeve on the dresser. “Unless you convince me you’re worth something, you’ll end up begging me to kill you. But I won’t do it until your brain shuts down, stops registering pain. Then I’ll fly you out over the water and feed you to the sharks.” He checked the clock again. Time to hit the road. “You’ve got a day to think about that. To figure out how to make me want to keep you.”

The hacienda had been built to Faust’s specifications, with an inner courtyard and with arches around three sides to shade a deep porch,. Its attached, windowless garage had more in common with a Midwestern-U.S. ranch-style house than a traditional hacienda. He locked Pia in the garage and headed for the airport in his Mercedes CLS sedan. While driving, he phoned Carlos Escobedo. “I’m on my way to the interior, and I’d like some equipment waiting at my place when I return. Get whoever you have to out of bed.”

He ordered a twelve-volt automobile battery and a set of heavy-duty jumper cables. “But I want the alligator clamps on one end of the cables modified. Have one side of the jaws removed and the teeth on the remaining side ground off. Tell the machinist to shape the copper into rounded probes about six inches long and an inch or so across. Have him insulate them at the top so I can hold them and deliver a jolt to whatever they touch without zapping my hands.”

The airport came into view, and he checked his watch. Still on schedule. In a couple of hours, he would meet with Shining Path commanders and explain the opportunity opening to them. He had left a corporate jet in Colorado with a three-man team loaded with cash. They were hours away from returning to Peru with technology the rebels needed to defeat the military’s fleet of helicopter gunships.

Back in Lima by midmorning, he would have a brief nap and continue his reunion with Pia. Their year of separation while she cared for Koenig’s brat had frustrated him almost beyond tolerance. Heavy partying and a parade of women, as nearly look-alikes to her as he could engineer, had still left a hole in his life. During the Colorado trip, she’d seemed happy with the prospect of taking up where they left off. That made her betrayal—running away during that drive to the ski lodge with Frederick, then taking off with Alex—extra hard to digest.

It would be different now. He’d left the thumb sleeve where she couldn’t avoid seeing it. The constant reminder should make her as responsive as she had been when he used it during her pregnancy. If not, he’d have the electrodes.

Chapter 27

Alex spent half the night scouting Silver Hill Ski Resort. As he expected, Koenig and his entourage were gone. Back in Peru, no doubt. To make doubly sure, Alex headed cross-country to the valley where Variant Corporation had built a concrete-paved landing strip the previous summer.

Being back on his old patrol route seemed strange, almost eerie. Shifting between snowshoes and cross-country skis to accommodate changes in terrain made familiar by his time on Colorado Land and Cattle Company’s payroll, he pushed on until, as the sky turned pink with morning light, he came within sight of the landing strip. The thin snowpack on the valley floor permitted travel without snowshoes or skis, so he stowed them with his backpack in a ravine where a lone, skinny cedar tree served as a landmark, then hiked across open fields to an asphalt-surfaced roadway leading to the landing strip and hangar. The road had been plowed, and the sun had melted residual snow from its black, heat-absorbing surface.

A sleek, twin-jet Citation rested on the runway’s apron, and a fuel truck was parked by the hangar. The only lights were in the hangar and a nearby mobile home. He slipped into the hangar and spotted a tiny orange glow: someone ignoring the
No Smoking
sign. He flattened himself against a wall and crept forward, keeping in shadows.

Two men leaned against a mud-splattered and ice-encrusted Cadillac Escalade parked inside the hangar. Moonbeams lancing through a skylight revealed that the SUV wore a Utah license plate.

“Can’t remember ever being so cold,” one of the men said. He pushed off the SUV and began pacing. “What’s keeping ’em?”

The smoker said something that Alex couldn’t make out. As he drew closer, the words became clear. “. . . than the Defense Department. Hell of a lot more generous.”

The pacing man smacked his fist against a gloved palm. “We could get twenty years.”

“You worry about the wrong things, Chuck.” The smoker dropped his still-smoldering cigarette butt on the hangar floor. “Concentrate on how you’ll make your child-support payments if the company folds. How you’re gonna keep dates in divorce court and bankruptcy court on the same day.”

Businessmen, and they were selling something illegally. Was this part of the deal Pia had heard Faust discussing? A plan to get some kind of weaponry for Peru’s rebel forces?

“Don’t know which bothers me more,” Chuck said, “the company’s problems or Thelma cutting out like that. Least she coulda done is . . .”

Satisfied that Pia was not in the hangar, Alex headed for the cluster of mobile homes, his attention centered on the one with glowing interior lights. A guard lounged by its front door, so he circled wide and approached from the rear. No protective cover there, and the moon seemed brighter the farther he ventured from sheltering shadows. If anyone bothered to look, they couldn’t miss him. His only advantage was the site’s isolation. They wouldn’t expect an intruder to show up on foot.

The rear of the mobile home afforded protective shadows. With its bulk separating him from the guard, some of his tension drained away. Drapes covered all the windows, so no chance to peek inside. He heard voices but couldn’t make out what they were saying.

From a summer job with a mobile home manufacturer during college, he knew the sides and ceiling were insulated but the floor most likely was not. Underneath would be nothing but marine plywood covered with carpet or vinyl tile. He could hear the voices more clearly from there.

An aluminum apron around the bottom kept winter winds from whipping underneath. He crawled along on hands and knees, fingering the metal, until he found a seam where the edges of the apron overlapped. The aluminum sagged, making the gap in the seam open several inches. Pealing it back would be a cinch. He laid his rifle aside to grasp the edge.

As his gloved fingers were about to clamp on the soft metal, the gap widened abruptly. The seam bowed outward. He jerked his hands away.

A large, furry shape scampered out through the opening. Turning at the last moment, the creature narrowly avoided slamming into Alex’s face. It lunged against nearby garbage cans, knocking one over and setting up a clatter. A ringtail, Alex realized as it changed course without slowing and disappeared into weeds.

Too much noise. He scooted back and pressed his body hard against the apron, where the mobile home shaded him from the moon, and shifted his rifle to cover the guard’s most likely route around the structure.

Before Alex could click off the safety on his rifle, the man appeared and stood in the open, weapon at the ready. Fully illuminated in moonlight, he made an easy target. But the shot would alert the men inside and everyone else around the landing field. Alex was in shadows, and his bulk blended with the mobile home. Unless the guard walked the area, he might not notice that he had company.

That was, unless Alex made a noise—such as the muted snick if he thumbed off the safety on his rifle. If the guard spotted him while the safety was still on, however, what chance would he have to click it off and fire before the man drilled him? Trip the safety and fire now, alerting everyone to his presence, or lie still and hope he wouldn’t be noticed?

Take the shot, he decided. With the target so close and backlit by the moon, sighting on him was a cinch. Ice him and try to get out of firing range before the men inside figured out what had happened. Thumb resting on his rifle’s safety, he inhaled and tensed to squeeze off a round.

The guard moved. Mumbling under his breath, he walked to the garbage cans, kicked the overturned one, and reached down to right it. “Damned scavengers,” he muttered.

With his thumb still pressed lightly against the safety and his trigger finger engaged, Alex waited. He took deep, regular breaths, inhaling and exhaling through his mouth to avoid wheezing noises.

Mumbling again under his breath, the guard turned away. Another curse, and he walked back around the mobile home.

For several moments Alex lay still, willing his drumming heart to settle. Then he finished bending back a corner of the aluminum apron and wriggled through. With barely enough clearance between the ground and the undercarriage, he slid along on his back. Save for a single splash of moonlight where he had opened the apron and a moonbeam slanting through a puncture at the far end, the crawlspace was dark. Melting snow along the edges had turned it into a bed of mud.

Voices leached through the floor. Straining, he raised his head and pressed an ear to the cold plywood.

A Spanish accent, faint but decipherable: “Not more than five grand, I’ll bet.”

“We won’t do time for selling to the government, though,” an American voice said.

Someone walked across the floor, creating a miniature dust storm in the crawlspace. Alex felt particles settling on his face. Dust burned the lining of his nose. To avoid sneezing, he breathed through his mouth, sucking in dirt and who knew what else.

The Spanish accent sounded contemptuous. “Forty grand a pop would cover your costs and compensate you for your risk.”

“That’s only four mil, total,” the American protested. “Each of these little rascals will take out a fifteen-million-dollar helicopter gunship. We’re asking the price of just two targets. Your man agreed the price is right.”

“It’s robbery, and you know it.”

Alex knew his old Special Forces commander well enough to be certain Faust would have taken charge of the negotiation if he was in the mobile home. And, after what Faust had said during their dinner at the lodge about his relationship with Pia, he would have her with him wherever he had gone. Back to Lima, most likely.

“You have the money with you?” the American in the mobile home asked. He sounded uneasy.

“It’s here,” the Spanish accent said. “Where’s the merchandise?”

“We brought half, like we agreed. You look ’em over, give us half the cash. When we’re safely out of here . . .”

Alex had heard enough. His next stop was Peru, but first he needed to know what it was Koenig wanted so badly that he would pony up thirty million dollars. Reversing direction, Alex headed for the hole he had made in the mobile home’s aluminum apron.

Back in the hangar, he saw that one of the men by the Escalade was smoking again. Foolhardy or ignorant, the man courted fiery death by lighting up so close to aviation fuel. Pacing around the parked SUV, the smoker stomped his feet and swung his arms to stave off the cold. Both men wore suits and lightweight topcoats.

“What’s keeping ’em?” the smoker said. He must have heard Alex; he squinted at the shadows. “James, that you?”

Alex stepped into the open. “You men warm enough?” Though his rifle pointed toward the hangar’s floor, he clicked off its safety and curled his finger inside the trigger guard.

Both men backed away as Alex approached. They edged closer to the Escalade. “Who’re you?” the smoker asked.

“You gentlemen aren’t nervous, are you?” Alex hoped the dim light made his grimy coveralls and disheveled appearance less obvious. “Your man insists on counting our money, so the boss sent me to check the merchandise.”

“They’re in the back.”

Alex focused his attention on the speaker and remembered the name he had overheard. “You Chuck?”

“I’m Arnie. He’s Chuck.”

“Take them out of the vehicle, Arnie.”

Arnie turned to the SUV, but then twisted back to face Alex. “Where’s James?”

“I told you, he’s counting our money.” Alex larded his voice with irritation. “I was in the middle of a poker game, luck’s been running my way. Let’s get this over with.”

From the Escalade’s rear, Arnie pulled what looked like an aluminum attaché case. He held it against his chest and looked uncertain about what to do next.

“Set it in front of the vehicle,” Alex said. “Turn on the headlights.”

In the glare of the lights, Arnie opened the case and stepped back.

“Turn it so I can see inside.”

“They’re all there.” Arnie turned the case with his foot. “Fifty. Like we promised.”

Tiny, golden cubes rested in neat rows on a black felt liner. They looked like the memory chips inside a personal computer, except that every chip Alex had ever seen had been black. Whatever they were, either Faust or his boss was prepared to pay thirty million for them. Anything they wanted that much was worth taking.

“That’s half,” he said, remembering the conversation in the mobile home. “Where are the others?”

“With a buddy in Utah. He won’t tell anyone, not even one of us, where he hid them ‘til we show up with the cash for these.”

Alex forced a chuckle. “Don’t you trust us?”

“Just being careful.”

“I’m changing the deal.” Alex elevated the business end of his rifle until it pointed at the man’s chest. “I take the case, you get to keep breathing.” He squatted, balancing his rifle with one hand, and reached to scoop up the case with the other.

Arnie tried to kick him. Sweeping his foot sideways, the man bent his body to add force to the kick while maintaining his balance.

To avoid the kick, Alex dropped the case and steadied himself by pressing his free hand on the concrete floor. He brought his rifle to bear on Arnie’s chest once more.

Arnie had stepped closer and poised for another kick. He froze with the rifle barrel almost touching his ribcage. “Don’t shoot.”

“Hands on your head.” A flicker of movement at his side alerted Alex to Chuck’s presence. As the man closed on him, Alex stood and clipped him on the chin with the butt of the rifle.

Chuck collapsed on the hangar floor without making a sound. But Arnie grabbed the rifle barrel and jabbed a fist at Alex’s face.

Alex jerked his head back, dissipating the force of the jab. He twisted the rifle, trying to loosen Arnie’s grasp.

Arnie, both hands on the rifle now, aimed a kick at Alex’s groin. It missed by a hair. Obviously well coordinated, the man was strong. And he knew something about hand-to-hand combat.

Alex let him have the rifle. Pressing close, he snatched his knife from its sheath and jammed the tip of the blade against the spot under the man’s ear where jawbone meets neck. He pushed hard enough to break the skin.

The rifle clattered to the hangar floor. “Okay, man,” Arnie said, breathing hard, his voice higher-pitched than before. “Whatever you want.”

“Stretch out on the floor. Move slowly.” Alex kept the point of his knife hard against Arnie’s neck. A quick glance at Chuck. The man had regained consciousness and sat up on the floor holding his jaw. He showed no interest in more fighting.

Alex backed away, retrieved his rifle, and leveled it. “Chuck, crawl over next to Arnie.” Standing too far away for either man to reach him, Alex squatted again and hefted the aluminum case.

“Both of you, on your feet. Get in the vehicle—front seat. Chuck drives.” Alex slid into the rear seat as the men climbed into the front. He kept the rifle pointed in their direction. “You get us out of here, I promise to let you live. Any more nonsense, you’re both dead.”