“But not just Walter Ogden’s life.”
“Right again, Carver. He was only the finger on the trigger. I never thought I’d have an opportunity like this. It’s their greed gonna take ’em down. They killed Martin Luther King for ideological and economic reasons. Years later they saw even more money in the illicit drug trade and got into that. Couldn’t stay out. That’s why the core organization still exists. Why they’ll all be together on that boat. Talkin’ money, just like in the sixties. Only difference is, the money’s bigger.”
“You can nail them for dealing drugs,” Carver said. “Isn’t that enough?”
Jefferson shook his head sadly. “Not nearly.”
Carver said, “What is enough? What’s minimum? Taking Ogden’s life?”
“Maybe it woulda been, but not now. You know, I’m kinda disappointed in you. From what I found out about you, what people said, I thought you’d understand this.”
Carver hesitated, staring down at the table, “Yeah, I do understand.” God help me, I do.
Jefferson smiled. If cats smiled at mice, they’d look like that. “There’s a bomb on board that boat. Got a timer set to blow it at ten o’clock tonight, when, accordin’ to Courtney, the Bold Entrepreneur will be well out to sea.”
“How’d you get the explosives on board?”
“Courtney. Only she don’t know it.”
It took Carver a few seconds to realize the import of Jefferson’s words. The extent of his madness. “Jesus! You’re gonna let her die along with the others?”
Jefferson’s eyes became dark pools of pain. “What’s my choice? How’m I gonna get her off that boat without tipping the others?”
Carver looked out at the Bold Entrepreneur swaying in its berth. “I don’t know.”
“I lived for this, Carver! And the opportunity’ll never come around again. You realize that?”
“Sure. But you said you and Courtney-”
“Dammit, what has to be will be!” Jefferson cut in. “I’m gonna make it be! Me! And it’s important. You know that.”
“Man with a mission. Like your father.”
“Not quite like him. This mission’s gonna be carried out. I swore that to myself a long time ago.”
And something ugly and ominous stirred in a corner of Carver’s mind. A cold dread took root in his stomach. “How come you’re spilling this to me?”
“You found out about the rifle.”
“Something more,” Carver said. “I know it.”
“Well, I guess I want you to know it. Owe it to you that you know. You’re the one slipped the leash and made them mad. Made them wanna tighten the screws on you. You shoulda figured out how they might do it. Your goddamn fault.”
No, no! Carver gripped his cane. Started to get up.
Jefferson reached across the table before he could attain balance and, slowly but firmly, eased him back down into his chair. The waitress and the old guy eating oysters stared for a moment, then turned away.
His throat dry, his heart slamming in his chest, Carver looked out the window again at the Bold Entrepreneur bobbing in the sunlight, wavering reflections from the water dancing over her white hull.
“That’s how it is, I’m afraid,” Jefferson said. “They got Edwina Talbot on board.”
Chapter 34
Jefferson watched Carver across the table. Said softly, “Try any heroics and I’ll put you in custody. You can bet I damn well mean it.”
Carver stared back at him. And into the pure energy of an obsession that rationalized any sacrifice in exchange for justice on a cosmic scale. What was the life of a woman he hardly knew when it stood in the way of balancing the scales for the killers of Martin Luther King and, surely if indirectly, Jefferson’s father? What was Edwina’s life to Jefferson if he was willing to let the woman he himself loved die? If he was willing to use Courtney Romano as an unknowing instrument of death?
With effort, Carver composed himself. This wasn’t the time to let Jefferson see the fear and desperation seething in him. He breathed in the bitter rising steam of a fresh cup of coffee and said, “There’s no sign of her on board.”
“No sign of anyone on board,” Jefferson said.
Carver realized that was true, as it had been earlier when he’d planted the tiny transmitter on the Bold Entrepreneur’s hull. Ghost ship.
“Your friend Van Meter gave her to them,” Jefferson said. “Called his man off the bodyguard job when we paid him to cooperate. Sold you out.”
Carver didn’t want to believe it, but he couldn’t disbelieve. Women and money, they cause us to do things we wouldn’t ordinarily. Even Van Meter? Carver remembered the sexpot secretary Marge. The way the middle-aged receptionist at Van Meter’s office had rolled her eyes at the sound of Marge’s voice. Why not Van Meter?
“These people’ll stay below deck until the boat gets well out to sea,” Jefferson said. “They have an aversion to being seen and maybe photographed under these circumstances. Never know when a photo or a videotape might turn up in a courtroom. And they didn’t get to be who they are by taking unnecessary risks.”
“They have to eat,” Carver said. He looked around at the supper crowd beginning to filter into Lobster Jack’s. Fifteen, twenty customers now. Several more waitresses in the frilly red-and-white-checked aprons were gliding about the place, taking orders, balancing round trays with food and drinks on them. “Suppose they send someone over here to bring back food to the boat?”
“Ha! You don’t know these rich cocksuckers. There’s a gourmet cook on board, along with two crew members. All part of the crew of the Sea Charger, a larger yacht, owned by the SCBL once or twice removed. That boat’s used to make drug pickups at sea. Folks on board the Bold Entrepreneur are probably sipping champagne and nibbling caviar right now while we sit here working on this horse-piss coffee.”
“Champagne and caviar. Courtney’s last meal.”
Jefferson’s body stiffened and he leaned back in his chair. But his expression didn’t change. Something had been set in motion years ago for him, and its momentum was irreversible. Carver could understand that, which was why he feared it so much.
The waitress came over and refilled their cups for the third time. Jefferson pulled a crumpled pack of Viceroys from his pocket. Glanced at Carver. “Mind?” I’m letting the woman you love be obliterated, but I wouldn’t want to offend you with tobacco smoke or risk giving you lung cancer in twenty years without your permission.
“I didn’t know you smoked.”
“Only now and again.”
“When you’re nervous?”
Jefferson gave Carver a brief smile. Dragged a blue Zippo lighter from the same pocket the cigarettes had been in and lit a Viceroy. The lighter worked on the first try; Jefferson had everything under control.
Or did he? The waitress hurried over and told him he was in the no-smoking section. Asked if he’d like a table where he could smoke. Jefferson told her no thanks. Said he was sorry, he hadn’t known. He snubbed out the cigarette on the heel of his shoe and dropped the butt into his pocket.
Carver sat gazing out the window at the Bold Entrepreneur for the next hour or so, trying to imagine Edwina below deck. Just on the other side of that curve of pure white hull. What were they doing to her? She should be safe as long as they thought she could be used as leverage to control him. But how accurately could you figure somebody like Vincent Butcher? He was a sadist, a psychotic fascinated by sharp steel and what it could do to flesh. Maybe Wesley and Ogden couldn’t control him.