Whitfield’s expression hardened. “She’s in way over her head,” he warned. “I can protect her.”
“I tried to sell that. She wasn’t buying. She is, after all, our daughter, so she’s naturally suspicious.” Margaret studied him, and her gaze reminded him of a lab technician eyeing a specimen on a slide. “She doesn’t trust you. Which, based on the look on your face, makes two of us. You’ve never been able to hide your nature convincingly from me, you know. For years I told myself that it wasn’t you, but it is, and I accept that I made a mistake.”
“You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”
“No? What’s funny is that when she was telling me why she was going to see through Liu’s work and ensure that it saw the light of day, she reminded me just a little of you. Stubborn, committed and, above all, fearless.” Margaret paused. “What happened to you, Arthur?”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No. Not that I’d tell you if I did. But she asked me to deliver a message. So here I am.”
“Fine. What is it?”
“That when you keep company with demons, you become one yourself.”
“You must enjoy saying that very much,” Whitfield said softly.
“It gives me no pleasure.” Margaret checked something on her phone. “I’m afraid you’ll be eating alone, Arthur. I thought I could manage it, but I seem to have lost my appetite.” She slipped from the booth and stood. “I hope all this was worth it. Your daughter. Me.”
Whitfield clutched his glass as she made her way to the entrance and left, his mind racing. He struggled to rise, but his chest suddenly cramped, and the most incredible pain he’d ever experienced shrieked through his synapses as his heart seized. He fumbled for the edge of the white linen tablecloth and then sat back, his breathing so shallow it resembled that of a baby bird fallen from its nest.
The server returned and took the senator’s drink off the table and walked unhurriedly to the kitchen. He didn’t stop until he was out the rear service door, where a van waited with its engine idling. He climbed into the passenger seat and dropped the glass into a garbage bag, and then peeled off his latex gloves, taking care not to handle their exterior, and tossed them in as well. The neurotoxin he’d used wouldn’t show up on any autopsy report, and the good senator’s passing would be mourned for the loss of his moderate voice and Solomon-like judgment.
The server removed the mustache he’d affixed that morning and pulled the putty from his nose — just a small amount was sufficient to alter his appearance, he’d found through trial and error. He looked at the driver and nodded once.
“Drive.”
General Holt watched the Potomac rush by, the moon silvering its surface. A few late night joggers pushed themselves along the riverside path as the last balmy breeze of autumn stirred the trees around them. He’d spent the day in a series of panicked meetings with anonymous men whose deeds were now making headlines, and he was bone tired. Of everything. The subterfuge, the denials, the palpable fear in the rooms he drifted in and out of, unable to offer reassurance. The excrement had hit the fan good and well — with remarkable vigor, as one wag had said on television that morning.
And now he’d been summoned like a schoolboy for a clandestine conference with a man whom nobody said no to, presumably to have his ass chewed out and his future threatened. Holt would take it stoically, as was his custom, and assure him that damage control was being undertaken, and that they would all survive this, as they had so many other calamities. That Holt was expected to act as a lapdog to the most influential figures in the world didn’t strike him as odd at all — in his experience, the hubris that inflated them with grandiose importance was always the first to dissipate, leaving them demanding that he, little more than a foot servant, do something to protect them from the antiseptic of sunlight.
He glanced over to admire a young woman who was approaching on the path, obviously athletic even in a hoodie and shorts. Holt might have been in the twilight of his years, but he could still appreciate beauty for its visceral pleasure. In his mind he wished her nothing but well, as she aged, became a parent, wrinkled and stooped as the unforgiving years had their way, and ultimately, turned to dust.
The pop of her suppressed pistol could have been mistaken for a distant backfire. Holt stared at her through fading eyes as her expression never changed and she fired three more rounds into his skull, the second one extinguishing his life, the rest for grisly show.
Another robbery gone wrong in an area beset by crime would go unremarked. The woman’s long legs glided along the pavement, leaving the husk of Holt lying ruined by the water, his lifeless gaze staring accusingly into nothingness.
A week later, Daniels watched the CNN coverage of the unfolding train wreck in Washington with a bitter smile as steel drums pulsed from the beach veranda, the mild surf luminescent in the starlight. The bartender strode over and tilted his head at Daniels’ drink — a blood-red fruit punch concoction that had enough rum in it to lay an infantry platoon low.
“’Nother one, mon?” the islander asked in his musical accent.
“No, Cliff, I think I’ve had enough. See you tomorrow.”
“You bet, mon. Take it slow, you hear?”
“Is there any other way?”
Daniels’ voice sounded slurred, even to him, but he didn’t care. His life had fallen apart, but like the proverbial phoenix, he’d been reborn. Over his career it had been child’s play to secret away enough money in offshore locales to be able to run — so much cash sloshed around in the system that you had to be a fool not to see the possibility. The trick had been to avoid being greedy, and to shave off a sliver at a time, which was never missed. “Shrinkage,” he muttered to himself, smiling at the retail term for pilferage. “Just a little shrinkage, mon. T’aint no thang.”
He’d covered his tracks sufficiently and was enjoying his fourth night on Ambergris Caye, Belize’s best kept secret, as far as he was concerned. It was a country that boasted more spottings of fugitives on the FBI’s most wanted list than any other, no doubt a function of labile borders and English as the official language, as well as a reputation for discretion from a populace that had its own affairs to contend with.
He padded along the beach to his hotel, the reef in the near distance glowing from abundant marine life with each surge, and didn’t register the two islanders who darted from one of the darkened bungalows that lined the strand until it was too late.
Neither man spoke, letting the steel in their hands do the talking for them. When they ambled away thirty seconds later, Daniels had been stabbed eighteen times. The terminal stroke had penetrated his skull through his eye. The tallest of the pair slid a wad of hundred-dollar bills from Daniels’ wallet and threw the empty billfold far into the water. Neither looked back at the dead man lying half in the surf, his blood staining the white sand inky in the moonlight. Violence against tourists was an increasing problem as the beleaguered country battled drug gangs intent on moving in from Honduras and Mexico, and the headlines would meet with disapproving head shakes over breakfast as the vacation spot ramped up for another long day under the tropical sun.
Chapter 58
Drake reclined in his Herman Miller Aeron chair and eyed the blue Pacific stretching to the horizon. Spencer shifted on the sofa and gave an exasperated sigh.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
Allie’s voice on the speakerphone sounded equally impatient. “Positive. There’s no such thing as the Myanmar Archaeological Committee, and the government is stonewalling us. There’s no official statement about the find, no return calls, nothing. It’s been the same thing for, what, coming up on three weeks?”