The American couple looked his way; the man stared at him. Suddenly McCarter needed to get out of there.
He gathered his papers, logged off the computer, and handed ten dollars to the clerk. Hobbling out into the street he glanced back at the shop. The clerk and the other patron were watching him and for a moment a wave of paranoia swept uncontrollably over him.
Getting into a rhythm with his walking staff, McCarter moved quickly, albeit awkwardly, down the edge of the street. So what if they were watching him. They were nobodies, university-age tourists. They’re not with the enemy, he told himself. They’re not with the enemy.
He could hear the thoughts reverberating through his mind, thoughts that seemed to grow stronger the harder he fought against them.
“Help me,” he whispered to the air around him, in search of the spirit of his deceased wife. “Olivia, if you can, please help me.”
Hearing no reply, he rushed forward, seeking the only place he felt marginally safe: his small room at the guesthouse. He needed to get there and sit down and study the printouts and the data. There he could make notes undisturbed and try once again to make sense of the inscription he’d seen on the Island of the Shroud.
But as he hobbled along a new thought occurred to him. His notes would be extremely valuable to their competitor. A treasure that could be found or stolen. Of course the very act of making notes and conclusions in the first place would endanger him, perhaps even make him superfluous if he were caught.
If they had my notes, my very thoughts, what would they need me for?
He tried to calm down. Needing his mind to stop whirling, he considered finding a bar and drinking himself into oblivion. But instead he slowed his pace and deliberately slowed his breathing. Somewhat calmer, he changed direction, heading down a random alley.
What he really needed was a way to make notes and then destroy them instantly: a shredder or a fire, or something he could scribble on and erase over and over again without leaving any evidence of his conclusions.
He needed a chalkboard. It was so simple but it was perfect. That would protect both himself and the mission. But unless he broke into a school somewhere, he wasn’t likely to find a chalkboard in the sleepy fishing village of Puerto Azul.
The thought loomed like a giant roadblock. And then he looked up and found himself at the end of the alley, one narrow street from the edge of the sandy beach. With the tide going out, the sand was still smooth and flat and packed hard enough to draw in with ease.
McCarter had found his chalkboard.
CHAPTER 23
Hawker could feel things beginning to move. Not just in the physical sense, as the freighter began to push toward open ocean, but in a more personal sense as well.
Danielle had finally disconnected from Moore and slid the phone back into her bag. She was moving toward him with that purposeful look in her eye; on a mission once again.
“You guys okay?” she asked.
“We’re fine,” Hawker said. “I’m teaching the kid to fly.”
He held his arm out like a wing once again and Yuri copied him.
“I—” she began.
“You don’t even have to say it,” he told her.
“I have to go back,” she said. “McCarter’s still out there and he won’t come in.”
Hawker could not believe what he was hearing. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same guy?”
“Everybody changes,” she said.
Hawker could not imagine McCarter changing that much, but obviously the professor felt strongly about what they were after.
“You’re both OCD on this deal. You realize that, right?”
“I guess,” she said. “Care to hop on the crazy train with us?”
“You want me to come along?”
She looked out to sea for a moment, hesitating as if she didn’t know what she wanted.
“I don’t want to lie to you,” she said. “This mission is as odd as the last one. Maybe stranger. I don’t know where it’s going, but I know McCarter’s in deep.”
“And you feel responsible,” Hawker said.
She nodded. “I owe you a lot, too, though. So no arm-twisting.”
Hawker exhaled. For the first time in a decade he had within his grasp a free pass to a new life: Moore’s money sitting in the numbered Swiss account. He could disappear, become someone else, and leave the darkness of his own world behind. He pictured a beach in St. Tropez, with a cool drink, warm sand, and beautiful women gallivanting about. In the ultimate fantasy, Danielle would join him. The two of them could travel the world on Moore’s tab. Even if they were wasteful, the money would last for years.
But the fantasy would become a guilt-ridden nightmare if McCarter were to stay out and get himself killed or if Danielle were to go after the professor and both of them were to be harmed.
Knowing himself, Hawker could foresee spending the rest of his life and all of Moore’s money seeking to punish Kang or Saravich for what they’d done. Not the kind of outcome he was looking for.
“I think you and the doc are both insane,” he said to her. “This doomsday thing, end-of-the-world prophecy, it’s too far out for me to grasp. I promise you, if mankind’s going down for all the things we’ve done, quick and clean is too light a sentence.”
“I understand,” she said, looking as if she were expecting him to say no.
“But I can’t let you go alone,” he added. “When you found me in Brazil, I promised I’d see you through, right to the end. I thought getting back to Manaus safely was the end, but obviously we were all wrong about that.”
She smiled. And he loved that smile. He loved the fact that she wouldn’t leave McCarter out there on his own, even though she’d almost been killed once trying to protect him.
“I’ll go with you,” he said. “I’ll do what I can to help you find McCarter and to keep you safe. That’s my quest. As far as these stones and everything else, that’s your problem. The way I see it they’re either some huge cosmic joke or some kind of Pandora’s box we should never have messed with in the first place. But since you two are crazy enough to keep pursuing them, then I’ll do what I can to keep you out of trouble.”
“So you’re going to be the voice of reason?” she asked, barely holding back a laugh.
Hawker put a hand on Yuri’s shoulder. “Me and the kid here,” he said. “We’ll keep you guys on the straight and narrow.”
Yuri looked up. He didn’t say anything but his eyes were bright. He seemed to like the attention.
She looked incredulous but pleased. “Sounds like asking the fox to watch the henhouse. But … thank you.”
He saw the gleam in her eye. “Just remember. When this is over, assuming the world hasn’t blown up, I wash my hands of you two. You guys decide to go on another crusade somewhere, then go. I’ll have a beach waiting for me somewhere.”
A crooked smile crossed her face. “You retiring or something?”
“Actually I am,” he said. “I’ve recently discovered the benefits of a 401(k). Not my own exactly, but those of others.”
She looked at him with suspicion but he decided not to explain.
“Hmm …,” she said, playfully. “I guess that makes two of us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When this is over,” she said, “assuming the world hasn’t blown up, I’ll be done with the NRI and all of this myself.”
Her voice was higher than usual, as if she were playing. And yet in a way it seemed like a contest: who could quit first or best. And if there was one thing he knew about her, it was that she loved to win.
“Believe it or not,” she said, “I had a normal life for a while. And I liked it.”
He could barely contain the laughter. “Really?” he said, more surprised than ever.