“Really? That never occurred to me. What should we do?” Bridget asked.
“Wait and see. If this is for real, it won’t be long now.”
She moved in closer to him, whipped out a pair of binoculars, and trained them on the swimming hole. Bridget was very petite. Dan wondered how a little girl like her would measure up as a partner. She’d probably be pretty fast, maybe even quick on the draw, but how would she ever manage to pull some two-hundred-pound animal off him in a dark alley? Not like a partner had never been called on to perform that service. It’d happened, all right, about five years back. Randall Walker had proved he was still one tough son of a bitch that night, with some spark left in him, and because of that, Dan was still walking around. Okay, Bridget smelled a damn sight better than Randall, but realizing that only made Dan long for Melanie, so it wasn’t much reason to join forces.
“Hey,” Bridget whispered.
“You got something?”
“Yeah, two guys about ten o’clock. Could be the Colombians.”
“Lemme see,” Dan said, holding out his hand for the binoculars, but Bridget wouldn’t give them up.
“Definitely the Colombians. One has a duffel bag. Must be the product. And-Jeez. Shit.”
“What?”
“They got AK-47s. And dogs.”
MELANIE TOLD HERSELF this was just like any old nature trail. She was in a national park. There was a path. It led from Point A to Point B, it was slippery but only moderately steep, and it was marked. All she had to do was stay on it. Maybe it was dark, but she had a flashlight. Maybe a lot of things were flying through the air and crawling underfoot, but-
“Aaghh,” she cried involuntarily, swatting at something that knocked into her face. Jesus, it was crunchy and sinewy. Some sort of whirring insect, but the size of a small bird.
She broke out in a cold sweat and thought about turning back. The problem was, where would she go? The park gates were so far away that she wouldn’t make them by sunup. And she’d have to walk through a dark ocean of creepy-crawlies to get to them. Melanie was a city girl. A lot of things didn’t scare her: police sirens, gunshots outside her window, the ominous beating of military helicopters during orange alert. But the forest at night-forget about it! Her legs were quivering like jelly.
She forced herself to continue on, shielding the flashlight beam with her hand and keeping it pointed at the ground. Her goal was to use the weak light to avoid stumbling off the path without alerting Expo’s bodyguards to her presence. When she got closer to El Baño Grande, she’d do some reconnaissance and try to locate her team members. How, she wasn’t exactly sure, but something would come to her. It’d better.
She walked on resolutely for about five minutes more, the path sloping steadily upward, challenging her thigh muscles. She’d feel this tomorrow. If Raúl had been correct that El Baño Grande was only ten or fifteen minutes’ walk from the information center, she should be coming up to it soon. Her heart had stopped pounding; her breathing was steadier. Hell, this wasn’t so bad.
Just as she finished congratulating herself on how well she was handling the thick sounds of the night echoing in her ears, the flashlight flickered and went out, plunging her into darkness. For a moment she stood completely still, not quite believing her bad luck. Then she flipped the switch back and forth several times to no avail. Hopeless. Fucking thing was a piece of crap. She threw it into the bushes and drew a deep breath, trying to figure out what to do next. There weren’t many choices. She could stand rooted to this spot all night, till the sun came up, and hope Expo’s goons didn’t step on her on their way back down the path. She could sit on the ground and let bugs crawl all over her. Or she could wait for her eyes to adjust and keep walking. Not much of a choice-she’d keep walking.
The night was clear. Because the rain forest on either side of her was thick with vegetation, all she had to do was look at the thin corridor of starry sky overhead to keep to her route. And the moon was up, casting an unearthly white glow she could almost taste. After a moment she could see the path pretty clearly. She started walking, insides tight with anxiety, but then immediately stumbled over a tree root, tumbling to her knees, her hands lighting on disgusting, slick wetness. Ugh! Mud, wet leaves, bugs. Getting back up, she felt like bursting into tears. She hadn’t appreciated how much that pathetic flashlight had comforted her. The darkness was full of hidden threats. Damn it, why wasn’t she a smoker? Then at least she’d have a cigarette lighter in her bag. Or matches or…wait a minute. Frantically, Melanie grabbed the leather bag she’d been carrying over her shoulder and dug around its dark insides. Her fingers hit the hard metal of her cell phone. She pulled it out and turned it on. No reception, but it cast a warm, glowing light. She walked on, feeling calmer.
Five minutes later she turned off the phone. The path had ascended steeply, and now she stood on a shallow ledge overlooking a round, dark shimmer that had to be El Baño Grande reflecting the moonlight. She’d reached her destination, but now what? How would she find her people without alerting the enemy?
Directly ahead, all at once, lights flashed in the darkness. Loud pops registered in her ears, and a swarm of bats rose into the air from their perch on a nearby tree. Melanie threw herself down on the slimy path, stomach clenching with dread.
This was the place, all right. She’d wandered into the middle of a firefight.
53
THINGS WERE GOING like clockwork for Bud. This was no accident but rather the result of brilliant planning. Finally some payoff for being smarter than everyone else yet eating their shit so patiently for so long.
Jay called Bud’s cell phone at eleven-thirty from the office at Noir, the club in the Flatiron District that was strictly for the bridge-and-tunnel crowd. Noir was always packed on a Thursday night. Bud had advised Jay to be seen out and about so that he had an alibi for what went down in Puerto Rico, and Jay had fallen for it easily. Every step was carefully mapped, down to the fact that Jay’s office at Noir had a private back door that led out to the alley. Anybody watching would witness Jay enter his office from inside the club, alone. And plenty of people would be watching, because all eyes were always on Jay at his clubs. That was one of the perks of being a celebrity, and Bud was counting on it.
“Where the fuck you been?” Jay demanded, hearing the sirens in the background as Bud walked down the street. Bud was carrying the golf bag, annoyed that his feet were wet from the slush at the corners, that he didn’t have the cash to take a cab on a miserable night like this. That was about to change, but not soon enough for his taste.
“I’m not too far from you. I’m gonna stop by. I don’t want to get into details over the phone,” Bud said.
“Fuck that pussy-ass shit.”
“You’ll thank me later, Jay.”
“I want an update. Now.”
“Relax. I talked to Pavel. The deal happened already. Everything’s cool,” Bud lied smoothly. He was enjoying every second of this double-cross.
“If the transfer was made, why the fuck haven’t I heard from the Colombians?”
“I’ll be there in five minutes to explain. Leave the back door unlocked, okay? It’s better for you if nobody sees me.”
There was something very ultimate for Bud about this impending confrontation. It had become much more to him than just a settling of old scores. He felt like he’d finally be liberated from all the things in his past that smacked of failure, of defeat, of unfulfilled promise. He’d finally be free.