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“You think about it,” Vincent said. “You’ll do the right thing. You owe me, remember.” He faded and disappeared.

“What does that mean?” Tuck said, then he moaned, arched his back, and came so hard he thought he would pass out, but she kept on and on until he couldn’t stand the intensity and had to push her away. She landed on the floor at his feet and looked up like an angry she-cat.

“You’re mine,” she said. She was still breathing hard and her dress was still up around her waist. “We’re friends.”

It came out like a command, but Tuck heard a note of desperation below the panting and the ire, and he felt a wrenching pain in his chest like nothing he’d ever felt before. “I know you, Beth. I am you,” he said. But not anymore, he thought. He said, “Yes, we’re friends.”

She smiled like a little girl who’d been given a pony for her birthday. “I knew it,” she said. She climbed to her feet and smoothed down her skirt, then bent and kissed him on the eyebrow. He tried to smile.

She said, “I’ll see you in a few hours. We’re flying out at nine. I have to go see to Sebastian.”

Tuck zipped up his pants. “And get ready for your performance?” he said.

“No, this isn’t a medical flight. Just supplies.”

Tuck nodded. “Beth, was that little boy blind from birth?”

“Of course,” she said, looking offended. She was more convincing as the Sky Priestess.

“You go see to Sebastian,” Tuck said.

After she had left, Tuck looked at the ceiling and said, “Vincent, just in case you’re listening, I’m not buying your bullshit. If you want to help me, fine. But if not, stay out of my way.”

55

Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Computer

Tuck went into the bathroom and washed his face, then combed his hair. He studied his face in the mirror, looking for that scary glint that he’d seen in Beth Curtis’s eyes. He wasn’t her. He wasn’t as smart as she was, but he wasn’t as crazy either. He cringed with the realization that he had spent most of his adult life being a jerk or a patsy and sometimes both simultan-eously. And it was no small irony to have had an epiphany during a blow job. Vincent, whatever he was, had been playing some kind of game from the beginning, mixing lies and truth, helping him only to get him into trouble. There was no grand bailout coming, and if he was going to find out what was really being planned for him, he had to get into the computer.

The best time to sneak into the clinic was right now, in broad daylight. He hadn’t seen any of the guards all day and Beth was “seeing to Sebastian.” If he got caught, he’d simply say he was trying to get the weather for to-night’s flight. If the doc could e-mail and fax all over the world, then surely he would have access to weather services. It didn’t matter; he didn’t think he’d have a hard time convincing the doc that he was just being stupid. His entire life had set up the cover.

He grabbed some paper and a pencil from the nightstand and stuffed them into his back pocket. While he was in there, he might as well see if he could pick up the coordinates for Okinawa. If he could sneak them into the nav computer on the Lear, he might just be able to get the military to force the jet down there. He didn’t have a chance in hell of getting there on his own navigational skills.

He stepped out on the lanai and gave a sidelong glance to the guards’ quarters to make sure no one was just inside the door watching his bungalow. Satisfied, he walked to the clinic and tried the door. It was unlocked.

He checked the compound again, saw nothing, and slipped into the clinic. He was immediately met by the sound of voices coming from the back room. Male voices, speaking Japanese. He tiptoed through the door that led into the operating room and opened it a crack. The door to the far side was open. He could see all the ninjas gathered around one of the hos-pital beds playing cards. It was visiting day for Stripe. He palmed the door shut and went to the computer.

There had been a time when Tuck was so ignorant of computers that he thought a mouse pad was Disney’s brand of sanitary napkin, but that was before he met Jake Skye. Jake had taught him how to access the weather maps, charts, and how to file his flight plans through the computer. In the process Tuck had also learned what Jake considered the most important computer skill, how to hack into someone else’s stuff.

The three CRTs were all on, two green over black and one color. Tuck focused on the color screen. It was friendlier and it was displaying a screen saver he recognized, a slide show of dolphins. He moved the mouse and the familiar Windows screen appeared. There was a cheer from the back room and Tuck nearly drove the mouse off the top of the desk. Must have been a good hand.

He expected to see obscure medical programs, something he’d never figure out, but it looked like the doc used the same stuff everyone in the States did. Tuck clicked on the database icon and the program jumped to fill the screen. He opened a file menu; there were only two. One was named SUPPLIES, the other TT. Tissue types? He clicked it. The ENTER PASSWORD field opened. “Shit.”

Jake had always told him that people used obvious passwords if you knew the people. Something they wouldn’t forget. Put yourself in their place, you’ll figure out their passwords, and don’t eliminate the possibility that it may be written on a Post-it note stuck to the computer. Tuck looked for Post-it notes, then open the desk drawers and riffled through the papers for anything that looked like a password. He pushed out the chair and looked under the desk. Bingo! There were two long numbers written on tape on the bottom of the desk drawer. He pulled the paper and pencil from his pocket and copied them down, then entered the first one in the password field.

<INVALID PASSWORD> was the response

Tuck typed in the second number.

<INVALID PASSWORD>

Look for the obvious. Tuck typed SKY PRIESTESS.

<INVALID PASSWORD>

The guards were laughing in the other room. Tuck typed in VINCENT.

<INVALID PASSWORD>

DOCTOR.

<INVALID PASSWORD>

It would be something that the doc would be sitting here thinking about. It would be on his mind.

Tuck typed BETH.

<INVALID PASSWORD>

BETHS TITS.

Wait a minute. This was the doc thinking. He typed BETHS BREASTS.

The file scrolled open, filling the screen with a list of names down the left side followed by rows and columns of letters and numbers. All of the names Tuck could see were native. Across the top were five columns that must be the tissue types and blood types, next to those, kidney, liver, heart, lung, cornea, and pancreas. Christ, it was an inventory sheet. And the heart, lung, liver, and pancreas categories convinced him once and for all that there was no benevolent intention behind the Curtises’ plan. They were going to the meat market with the Shark People until the village was empty.

Tuck typed in SEPIE in the FIND field. An X had been placed in all the organ categories except kidney. There he found an H and a date. H? Har-vested. The date was the day they harvested it.

He typed in PARDEE, JEFFERSON. No “x’s” in any of the columns, but two H’s under heart and lungs. Of course the other organs weren’t marked. They’d been donated to the sharks and were no longer available. There was nothing under SOMMERS, JAMES. That too made sense. How would they get the organs to Japan without a pilot. Tuck wished he’d gotten the little blind boy’s name. He couldn’t take the time to scroll though all three hundred or so names looking for missing corneas. He typed in CASE, TUCKER. There were H’s marked under the heart and lung category. The harvest date was today.

“You fuckers,” he said. There was a shuffling in the back room and he stood so quickly the chair rolled back and banged into a cabinet on the other side of the office. The database was still up on