The op disguised as a birder kept one hand under the untucked tails of an unbuttoned, oversized, short-sleeved shirt until he was sure it was Ventura heading toward him. Good. You never let your guard down when you were working. Never.
13
Michaels could hardly believe it. “Toni! I’m glad to see you.”
She nodded. “Can I come in?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah, come in, come in.” He reached for her bag.
“I got it,” she said.
Inside, there was an awkward silence.
“You want something to drink? Eat?” God, she looked great. It was all he could do to keep the baboonlike grin from taking over his face.
“We need to talk,” she said.
His stomach twisted and churned, but he said, “Yes.”
“Why did you lie to me?”
“I… I…”
“You said you slept with her!”
“Toni—”
“She says you didn’t! Which is it, Alex?!”
She was facing him squarely now, and her anger was a tangible thing in the room. “Did you have sex with Angela Cooper or not?”
“No,” he said, his voice quiet.
“Jesus Christ, Alex! What is the matter with you?!”
He raised his hands palms up, then dropped them. “I–It’s hard to explain.”
“Well, you are gonna explain it, right here and right now!”
He nodded, and started to tell it.
When he got to the end, she was shaking her head. “Why didn’t you tell me that was what happened?”
He had had a lot of time to think about that, too much time. “Because I was ashamed.”
“You turned down a gorgeous woman who wanted to jump your bones and you were ashamed?”
“I shouldn’t have gone to supper with her, I shouldn’t have had the beer, and I sure as hell shouldn’t have gone to her apartment, shucked my clothes, and let her rub my back.” “All true. Why did you?”
He’d had time to think about that one, too. “You and I were having some problems. I was rattled about the whole British situation, I wasn’t in control of work, of what was going on with us, there was all that crap about Megan and Susie and that private eye. Angela is an attractive, competent woman and she was interested in me. I was flattered. I know none of it excuses what I did, but just so you know.”
“You’re an idiot,” she said.
“I know. It never should have come up,” he said.
“So to speak,” she said. She gave him a small grin, and a great weight left him, as if he had suddenly shrugged off a coat made of lead. “But that’s not what I meant. You’re an idiot for not telling me.”
“When I saw you in the hotel lobby that morning, I didn’t think you would believe me. You were certain I had done it, and you didn’t want to talk about it, remember? You said you didn’t want to hear another word.”
She frowned, as if trying to remember. “Did I say that?”
“It doesn’t matter. The truth was, I was lying naked on a table with a naked woman straddling me and the desire was there.”
“But you didn’t act on it.”
“The thought is as bad as the deed.”
She smiled again, shook her head. “Not on my planet, it isn’t. You felt guilty because in the moment you thought about it? You really are an idiot. If they could hang us for thinking, we’d all be pushing up daisies. You can’t always control what you think, only what you do. You could have saved us both a lot of grief if you had just told me, Alex, even if I told you not to.”
“Yeah, well, I can see that now.”
She reached for his hands, took them in hers. “Come here.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
And just like that, Michaels’s life was very, very good again.
They were in the airport waiting for the Alaska Airlines flight to SeaTac to board when Morrison’s new phone cheeped. He froze for an instant. It was them! He looked at Ventura, then slipped the wireless headset on and adjusted the straw-microphone. “Yes?”
A crisp, accentless voice said, “Good morning. I understand you have a used car for sale?”
Morrison’s neck prickled with gooseflesh and he had a sudden urge to visit the nearest toilet. This was the phrase he had told them to use, and outside of the anonymous note he had posted into a security page run by the Chinese, nobody had been given the number of this particular phone, which he’d paid for in cash and registered under a phony name.
He put his thumb over the mike. “It’s the Chinese,” he said to Ventura.
Ventura looked at his watch. “Thirty seconds,” he said, pointing at the phone. “No more. Follow me.”
Morrison nodded and stood. He moved his thumb from the mike as Ventura pulled his own com from his pocket and started talking into it quietly.
“Yes, I have a car for sale.”
“I would like to see it,” the man said. “When can we get together?”
“Is your call number blocked?”
“No.”
“I’ll call you back.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
Morrison thumbed the discom button on the belt phone.
Ventura said, “My people have scanned the incoming number, we have it. Go in there and put the phone in the trash.” He pointed at the men’s room.
“Should I turn it off?”
“Leave it on. They probably already know where you are, but it’ll give them something to look for.”
Morrison headed for the bathroom. Ventura waved, and a pair of college-aged men dressed in shorts and T-shirts and backpacks went into the men’s room ahead of him. Ventura stayed out in the corridor.
Making sure nobody was watching him, Morrison shoved the phone into the bin under the paper towel dispenser. Then he went and used the nearest urinal.
When he exited, Ventura said, “There’s a car waiting in front of the airport for us. Let’s go.”
“You think they can get here that fast?”
“They can trace the phone from the carrier sig alone if you don’t bounce it — major national intelligence services have access to some very sophisticated equipment. They’ll probably send somebody. It won’t be a trio of longfingernailed Chinese dressed in colorful Mandarin silks and sporting Fu Manchu mustaches smiling and bowing and looking like the incarnation of the Yellow Peril. More likely it’ll be a busty Norwegian blond nurse helping a little old man with a cane hobble along — the last people you’d look at and think ‘Chinese intelligence.’ Certainly they have local agents within a few minutes of most major cities. Fortunately, Anchorage isn’t that big a town. If you used a decent remailer, they won’t backtrack your e-mail for a while, though probably they’ll get that soon. I’d expect them to know who you are within a day or two at most, even if you don’t call them back.”
Morrison swallowed dryly. “The service I used guaranteed confidentiality.”
Ventura smiled, looking at that moment like a human shark. “Sure, if somebody calls them on the phone and asks, they won’t say anything. But confidentiality goes right out the window when somebody puts the point of a sharp knife into your remailer’s back, over his kidney, and asks.”