Slowly they emerged from the marshy land into a hollow sheltered by a loose stand of pines. They lowered the box onto sandy soil mixed with guano. The heron rookery stench was overwhelming. They hated to breathe, despite being badly winded. Every molecule of air was weapons-grade, and would have had doughboys reaching for gas-masks in the trenches of Ypres. Above them, more than a hundred herons stirred, squawked, and canted their sleek plumed heads for a view of the visitors.
“Only nineteen to go.” Ellis the optimist. “This’s some kind of stank.”
As if on cue, Lonesome George glided down to a landing on his thin legs.
Ben said, “Supervisor’s here.”
Lonesome George watched them grunt through the labor, probably wondering when his oyster alms would appear.
They blotted kerchiefs at their watering eyes. Back again to Miss Dotsy. Hauling the second box of gold, Ellis’s foot slipped off the hogged top of the sunken board. He did not let go of the box. Its weight pile-drove his leg deep into the mud and pinned him. Ben was almost dragged off the board after him, but held on tight. Ben slowly pulled the box back onto the plank. Planting his feet on the slippery board, he hooked his arms under Ellis’s shoulders, bear-hugging his chest. It took precious minutes of heaving to lever Ellis’s leg out of the ooze. From sheer main strength it came free with a wet sucking sound.
Ellis rasped, “Thanks.”
“Protecting our investment.”
“Mistook you for a Christian.”
“That so?”
“Maybe I mistook you for a friend.”
Ben did not answer. Until he knew more about Ellis’s involvement in all this, there was no room for loftier sentiments.
Gasping and retching from the stench, they slogged the plankway seventeen more times. The distance from the boat to the rookery hollow seemed to grow ever longer. Normal-length sentences between the men were compressed down into quick phrases under the weight of gold.
Ben said, “Rhinoceri.”
“The split. The money.” Ellis led first with this box, but walked backward to keep a better grip on it.
Ben knew this was coming. “What you figure?”
Knocker Ellis gasped one word. “Half.”
Ben said, “The way I figure—”
Ellis put in more. “You figure this, Ben. I’m taking half the risk. Breaking my back here for half of a dead man’s dream.”
Ben took a few more steps, waited to be sure Ellis had finished. Then he nodded. “I was saying, the way I figure — half’s good.”
Ellis eyed his partner. Shook his head. “Should have asked for more.”
“No. Very bad idea.”
“Who knows? Your old man might’ve been bringing the whole lot of it to me.”
Ben asked, “Is that what he told you?”
Ellis said nothing more.
The last box was lighter than the others, but not by much. It contained the bomb. They put it down by the others. Ellis gave Ben a What now? glance.
Ben shrugged. “It’s a pirate’s treasure. What else? We bury it.”
CHAPTER 11
Bill Slagget was driving. Simon Clynch was riding bitch in the second row of the van with some pinch hitters, new guys Chalk had brought up from his farm team. For one, nobody really liked The Kid. He was probably in his twenties, but his mug was a deceptive downy baby-face. Chalk thought The Kid had skipped the piss-and-vinegar dressing on his psychotic salad. Gone straight into rabies-and-battery-acid. Chalk never saw someone more interested in mindless homicide. A complete tool. No brains. Just a dog to cut loose in the hopes it tore a chunk out of the right person.
On the other side of The Kid sat Tug Parnell. Parnell was a little steadier than The Kid, but only a little. An untreated case of adolescent acne had left him horribly scarred. One look from him could frighten tame horses and make kind children stare. Even dermabrasion wouldn’t help unless performed with a belt sander. He was calculating, a cooler head, and therefore more useful to Chalk than The Kid.
Dar Gavin, another veteran of the Vickers interview and many other sorties, rode the third bench with bags of gear that overflowed from the cargo area at the dead rear of the van.
Chalk was thumbing a file he’d printed from his last probe on Black Widow. And there it was. The sanction he recalled his buddy whining about a decade and a half ago. It had in fact been ordered against Dick Blackshaw. Sadly, the primary target had escaped once, and then a second time, never to be found again. That failure was costing Chalk big. An unknown woman had been unconfirmed collateral damage in the sanction. Now Dick Blackshaw was back. If this theft was about revenge, Chalk had a good idea who the woman must be.
Chalk’s cell phone blared. For this caller, the ringtone was Vera Lynn’s rendition of We’ll Meet Again. It was the end theme of Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. Strangely indeed, the song was part of an old BBC collection of soothing ditties to boost British morale after a nuclear attack. Chalk liked irony as much as the next guy.
Chalk felt Slagget’s glance from the driver’s seat. Incoming calls on the boss’s mobile were rare.
Chalk flipped the phone open. “I told you never to call me here.”
Senator Lily Morgan wheezed into the other end. “It’s your cell phone, you tit! How am I supposed to know where here is?”
Chalk kept his voice low. “Who came down with comedy cancer tonight? Kinda late even for you, isn’t it?”
“Haven’t slept since the Carter administration. Just checking in. Level with me. How bad is it?”
Chalk was certain she knew he was stuck between a shit and a sweat on this detail, and she was loving every minute of it. She was definitely behind this mess, rooting for his demise.
Chalk rolled his eyes. “The hand-off won’t be for two more days!”
The Senator said, “I just have a bad feeling about this. The terrorism alert level just hiked up to burnt sienna or some damn thing. They’re picking up a lot of suspicious chatter on the wires. You sure we’re good?”
“Take a chill-pill, Lil. Don’t forget, Right Way Moving and Storage prides itself on being part of the problem, not the solution.”
“Call me when you know something.” The Senator rang off.
Slagget was antsy. “Everything okay?”
To Chalk, such an inquiry was akin to questioning his authority, his control, his very penile dimensions. This time Chalk was quiet. Slagget, a recent hire, might be another of Senator Morgan’s moles, as Tom Chase almost certainly was. That is, unless his mule was lying dead in a ravine somewhere in the Jemez Mountains. Before Chalk could craft a reply, the phone sounded again. The ringtone: Steve Martin’s King Tut.
“For the sake of our Lord Jesus H. Christ of the Andes!” Chalk pulled out the phone again. After a quick double-check of the caller ID, he focused like a viper stalking a sleeping mouse. “Here we go, boys.”
He fixed a smile on his face to radiate world harmony and bonhomie across the airwaves. He answered, “Yusef, you old camel-fucker, how the hell are you?”
Yusef was an independent operative currently working for the terrorist faction selling the plans. The folks expecting the gold in two days. Though Chalk and Yusef went back many years together, through many unsavory missions, this was no time for Chalk to let on there was a hiccup.
“Maynard Chalk, you dog-raping son of a whore, I’m fine. Just fine. For now.”
The last phrase told Chalk that something was up. Something might have shattered the two-day window he needed to track Blackshaw, secure the gold, and complete the transaction as if nothing had gone wrong. Yusef was being unusually cagey.