As the last of the guards disappeared into the darkness, Max came out from behind the hedge, slipped through the door, closed it and locked it. That wouldn’t keep the guards out for long, but she didn’t need long — she just needed to get past this insulation and locate Lyman Cale and explain the situation. Though Logan had said little about his uncle, what she’d heard was positive, and she just knew he would want to help.
The first floor of the house was not what she expected at all — no furniture in the entry way, the living room, or the den on the opposite side. Except where security teams had walked, a patina of dust covered the floor, and it looked like no one had cleaned the place in years.
In fact, it looked like no one had lived here in years.
As she made her way up the wide stairs to the second floor, Max listened carefully, hearing no one, nothing. Then, at the far end of the hall, she heard mechanical, electrical sounds coming from behind a closed door.
The lights were dim throughout the house, almost as if no one was here (but who or what were the guards guarding, then?), and she crept slowly toward the closed door at the far end. Opening it gently, as silently as she could manage, Max stepped into a stripped-down bedroom illuminated only by the light coming from a TV on a raised table to her right. The volume was turned low, and the light changed as the picture did. In front of her was a single hospital bed surrounded by machines, each whirring as they fed oxygen and IV fluids to a dried-up prune of a man, on his back on the mattress.
The figure in the bed wasn’t much bigger than Max had been when she’d fled Manticore. Stepping forward, she could see that the pruney lump was a very old gent with no hair, no teeth, and tiny black dots for eyes. Though the man’s eyes were open, he seemed to see nothing, but his short, straight nose sniffed past the oxygen tube in his nostrils, as if he could smell her.
As she realized what she was seeing, Max felt the bottom drop out of her stomach and a chill sweep over her.
From behind her an icy male voice intoned, “Say hello to Lyman Cale, why don’t you?”
Chapter six
As the crow flies
Max whirled to face a handsome blond man of about six feet and 180 pounds; he wore a black blazer over a white shirt with no tie, though his gray trousers had a disturbingly crisp crease for this time of night.
“Max... Guevera, isn’t it?” he asked. His voice was a baritone that somehow managed to be both smooth and husky.
“Do I know you?” she asked, placing her hands on her hips, raising her chin, sending out confident body language that didn’t truly reflect her current state of mind.
Even in the half-light provided by the television screen, the thirtyish man had piercing blue eyes — icy eyes; his pretty-boy looks were slightly undercut by a pug, piggish nose. His thin lips created a straight line that turned up maybe a tenth of an inch at each corner in what was, technically at least, a smile.
“We’ve not met,” he admitted. “But I recognize you.”
“From the TV,” she said flatly.
“Yes... and I make it a business to know who’s a friend of the Cale family, and who isn’t.”
“Then you know I’m a friend.”
“A friend of Logan Cale’s.”
“Yes.”
That assertion drew a leering appraisal, and the smile broadened into something uglier. “Logan always had an eye for the ladies.”
“I am so flattered,” she said dryly. “You know who I am. Be a good host — who the hell are you?”
He raised a scolding finger. “Be a good guest... I’m an old family friend — Franklin Bostock. Logan and I went to private school together, as boys. Ask him about me, sometime. I’d be amused to see if he recalls me fondly or not.”
“I’ll do that. Why is a family friend in Lyman Cale’s bedroom at this hour?”
“A better question might be, why is a friend of Logan Cale’s in Lyman Cale’s bedroom at this hour?... My position right now is as Mr. Cale’s private secretary.”
Max gestured to the array of machines — one to help the patient breathe, a monitor that showed a stable heartbeat, reasonable blood pressure, and a barely perceptible nudge in the line that indicated brain activity. “What’s wrong with Mr. Cale?”
Bostock made a clicking sound and shook his head. “I’m afraid Mr. Cale’s had a series of debilitating strokes.”
She frowned, wondering how Cale could have degenerated to this degree in so short a time. “Recently?”
“Fairly recently. He’s been in a vegetative state for most of the last year and a half.”
Eyes narrowing, she shook her head. “That’s impossible. I just saw a video of him addressing Congress, what? Barely two months ago?”
The private secretary’s smile returned, showing her another shade of self-satisfaction. “Video technology has come quite a long way, hasn’t it? Feed some actual footage into CGI generating programs, and a person can live forever.”
Max stepped near the bed, looked at the small pitiful form there, barely discernible as a human being. Quickly, she did the math on this situation, and strode over to Bostock, standing just a foot from him.
“Mr. Bostock, I came for Logan’s uncle’s help. But it looks like it’s your help I need.”
He bowed his head slightly. “As one family friend to another, I assure you I’ll do what I can to be of assistance... Shall we go to my office?”
She followed Bostock out of the bedroom, leaving the frail old comatose figure to his unknowing privacy, and down the stairs to what must have been Lyman Cale’s book-lined study until his private secretary had moved in and arrayed the massive mahogany desk with computer equipment. She was shown to a dark dimpled leather couch, and Bostock pulled a heavy chair around and sat, ready to listen attentively.
It took her less than five minutes to lay out the whole story for him. When she was finished, Bostock made that clicking sound again.
“I see,” he sighed, shaking his head. “Obviously you believe Mr. Cale could put up that ransom.”
She nodded slowly. “It would be a big help. It will probably be the thing that saves Logan’s life, and I promise my first priority after recovering Mr. Cale’s nephew will be to get that money back for you.”
“From what I understand about your abilities,” he said, “I believe you could return the ransom.”
“Then...?”
“I only wish we could provide it.”
She gestured to the lavish surroundings. “Why can’t you, Mr. Bostock?”
He arched an eyebrow, shrugged. “For the simple reason that we don’t have the money. Or at least I can’t access it.”
She sat forward, almost climbing onto the man. “What’s the problem here, Mr. Bostock? Surely you know that Logan is your employer’s favorite nephew... and this is a family matter, an urgent, life-or-death—”
“Ms. Guevera — please. Your indignation is misplaced. Please keep in mind, I would have every right to call the police and have you taken out of here, bodily — for breaking and entering?”
Max did not back down. “What’s going on in this house, Bostock? What the hell are you up to?”
“Nothing nefarious, I assure you. There is no money to access.”
She pointed a finger ceilingward. “He may be in a coma, but Lyman Cale is wealthy as sin.”
“He’s sick as sin, too, Ms. Guevera. And his money is tied up in a conservatorship overseen by the trust department of the First National Bank of Seattle. The attorney in charge of the estate’s fund would never agree to provide that ransom... and even if he did, I’m fairly certain the estate’s full worth is well below your ransom figure of four million, at this point.”