Quentin had never laid eyes on these men before, but he knew why they had been sent. He just didn't know how they'd do it. His only wish was to pass out or have a cardiac arrest first.
For half an hour they rode through back roads until the driver, talking into a radio phone, turned down an abandoned lane lined with dark evergreens. Soon the trees gave way to a frozen marshland. Quentin's eye fixed on a section of ice that had not frozen over, where reeds stood up. He thought about how cold that water was and what the ice looked like from underneath.
The door slid open and Quentin was pulled outside. He was cold and numb, hoping it would be quick. The men rubbed their hands and waited. The man with the sunglasses removed a pack of gum and thumbed out a stick for Quentin. A few chews of Juicy Fruit to make him feel better about being shot in the head and dumped into a frozen swamp.
Then from nowhere came a fluttery sound as a small helicopter dropped to a nearby clearing. The pilot Quentin didn't recognize. But the passenger was Vince Lucas in muffler phones. If they wanted him dead, they would have done it by now.
The cockpit door opened and Juicy Fruit rushed Quentin inside behind the pilot, then pulled beside him. A moment later they were over the treetops and heading full throttle toward Boston.
Quentin settled in place. He didn't know why, but he was going to be spared.
As they approached the spires, the pilot cut over the North End. But instead of tilting toward Logan, he pulled to a thousand feet over the bay to open water. After a spell, Vince poked the pilot who nodded and zipped up his jacket. Then Vince put his hand on Quentin's door latch and began to jiggle it.
My God! Quentin thought. They were going to push him out. Everybody was harnessed in but he. They were going to bank hard at the same time Vince would throw open the door so Juicy Fruit could push him out.
It all happened with such a blur that Quentin could barely process the final moments: The pilot's hand pressing the steering mechanism, Quentin's body suddenly shifting to the door, his hands grasping for something to block the fall, the bright blue sea rising up in his face, the sudden plunge that sent his organs up his throat, the sudden frigid blast. The long agonizing scream in a final expulsion of air…
The chopper landed with a thud.
Very little had registered in Quentin's mind: Not Vince double-checking the lock on Quentin's door, nor the pilot's protest about a Cessna appearing from nowhere and sending them into a sharp turn, nor the fact that they had landed on the heliport of an eighty-five foot ocean cruiser, nor the fact that he had wet himself. All that registered through Quentin's gasps was the face staring at him through the hatch that Vince had swung open.
Antoine Ducharme.
Ross knew very little about computers, including the fancy new system installed a year ago. When he wanted to check financial records, he turned to Quentin to whom Accounting and the Legal Department answered directly. But Quentin was out, so he called his secretary Sally to access the quarterly earning reports for the last two years on his own terminal. She wrote out the access codes and called up the files.
Ross scrolled through tables of numbers and spreadsheets. He took note of certain figures, particularly losses in accounts with foreign pharmaceutical houses. Because Sally might say something to Quentin, he went to Accounting to check backup files with Helen Goodfellow, a confidante whom Ross had hired long before Quentin married his daughter.
She was riffling through folders when she remembered something. "Actually, they're not here. Mr. Cross took them. He was working on those personally and had a deadline, so he just gave me the numbers and said it was okay to sign." She looked at the empty file slots. "I guess he forgot to return them."
"I see," Ross said. "Helen, I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention this to Quentin. He's got a lot on his mind right now."
"Certainly, Mr. Darby."
At 10:30 Ross dialed the number for Werner Ackermann, president of Alpha-Chemie in Geneva, Switzerland where the time was 4:30 in the afternoon. They had been associates for years.
Luckily Werner was in. Ross made small talk, then said, "Werner, I have a favor to ask. Our records are a little off." He explained something of the problem. "I'm wondering if you'd check the first- and second-quarter earnings last year and let me know what you have for a net loss on the R-and-D report." Twenty minutes later Werner called back with the requested figures. Werner asked if things were good, and Ross lied.
All project accounts were under Quentin's control. That may not have made good business sense since it left no checks and balances. But, after all, Quentin was family. What shocked Ross was that checks for over $3 million had been written to two corporations in the Caribbean: Global Partners Inc. in Grand Cayman and Fair Caribe, Ltd. in Apricot Cay.
"Either you're part cat, or that Elixir stuff's for real." Vince popped a wedge of honeydew melon into his mouth.
They were aboard Antoine's new yacht, a huge sleek craft named Regine after Antoine's mother. The interior was larger and more elegant than that of the late Reef Madness. But, like its predecessor, there were bookshelves stocked with mystery hardbacks. Quentin imagined Antoine moving from port to port making drug deals between P. D. James and Sue Grafton.
"They say he's hiding someplace," Antoine said. "Which means he has Elixir and the notebooks. Is that what you think?"
"Yes," Quentin said. "Absolutely."
Outside a cloud bank closed in from the west. There would be snow that evening. Quentin wondered where Antoine would sail to next. He was like a phantom, appearing and disappearing at will. He seemed to have unlimited power and resources.
"How long has he been working for you?"
"Fifteen years."
Antoine wore a forest-green fisherman's net sweater, but his face still sported a tropical tan. He leaned forward. "I am going to explain something to you in very simple terms, Quentin." The intensity in his eyes took Quentin back to that night when with the same heat of expression Antoine had held forth about loyalty and trust just moments before Marcel was hurled to his death. "Every man has one major mission in life-one that he dates the calendar from, understand? A turning point in the progression of his days-the point after which nothing will ever be the same again, and all things that came before are forever gone. Like birth and death, it happens only once. Do I make myself clear, Quentin? Do you understand?" Antoine's face had a rigid fixity. His eyes were like laser beams focussed to score the message on the back of his skull.
Quentin felt parched with fear. "Yes, I understand."
"A mission with no margin for error."
Quentin glanced at Vince Lucas, who stood against the windowed wall of the cabin dressed in black glasses and black leather, looking like the allegory of death from some medieval painting. "I understand."
"A mission whose stakes are beyond mortal. This is yours, Quentin Cross: To find out the names of this Doctor Christopher Bacon's intimates-friends, relatives, his wife's friends and relatives, where they go on vacation, what they do for hobbies and recreation-anything and everything and anybody that could lead us to him. Check your files, talk to your people. Do what you need to do to find him because everything you hold dear in life depends on it. Comprende?"
"Yes."
If the police weren't all over Jenny yet, they soon would be-interrogating her and Ted, tapping their telephone, reading their mail, tailing their every move.