In that first half second Juan noted that the man’s jacket was off, his hands empty, and his expression wasn’t overtly aggressive. This wasn’t an ambush, and so he relaxed his right arm, which was about to deliver a karate strike to the man’s nose that more than likely would have killed him. The man grunted. He’d seen how quickly the Chairman had perceived and then discounted a potential threat.
“Monsieur Cabrillo?” the voice called from farther in the suite.
The gorilla who’d opened the door stepped aside. He was nearly as big as Franklin Lincoln, but where Linc’s face was normally open and easygoing, this one maintained a permanent scowl. His hair was dark, cut unfashionably, and looked like something from a 1970s adult movie. He had hooded, watchful eyes that tracked Juan as he stepped into the opulent two-room suite. He had shaved that morning but already needed another.
Hired muscle, was Cabrillo’s assumption, and too obvious about it. The good bodyguards were the ones you never suspected. They looked like accountants or entry-level CSRs at a bank, not hulking wrestler types who thought their size alone was intimidating enough. Juan resisted the impulse to put the guy down for the fun of it. The guard indicated that Juan and Max should fan open their coats so he could see if they were carrying concealed weapons. To get things moving along, the two men from the Corporation indulged him. He didn’t bother to check their ankles.
Cabrillo wondered if this guy was really that bad or if he’d been told these were expected guests and should be treated accordingly. He decided the latter, which meant the man had overstepped his authority by asking them to open their coats. His abilities went up a notch in Juan’s mind. He took protecting his boss more seriously than his orders to let them enter unmolested.
“Could you button your shirtsleeves, please?” Juan asked him.
“What?”
“Your sleeves are down but unbuttoned, which means you have a knife strapped to your forearm. I’ve already noticed you aren’t wearing an ankle holster, and yet somehow I don’t think you’re unarmed. Hence the unbuttoned sleeves.”
Roland Croissard rose from a sofa on the far end of the room. A briefcase and papers were strewn across the coffee table. A glass with ice and a clear liquid sat in a puddle of condensation. He wore suit pants and a tie. His jacket was draped across an overstuffed chair that was part of the same furniture cluster.
“It’s okay, John,” he said. “These men are here to help find Soleil.”
The guard, John, scowled a little deeper as he buttoned his cuffs. When he bent his elbow, the cotton of his shirt bulged against a low-profile knife sheath.
“Monsieur Cabrillo,” Croissard said. “Thank you so much for coming.”
The Swiss man was of medium height and starting to show a paunch, but he had a handsome face and penetrating blue eyes. His hair, an indeterminate shade, was thinning and combed straight back. Cabrillo’s estimation was that he looked younger than sixty-two but not remarkably so. Croissard plucked a pair of wire-rimmed reading glasses off his straight nose as he came across the room with his hand extended. His grasp was cool and professional, the shake of a hand that did it for a living.
“This is Max Hanley,” Juan introduced. “My second-in-command.”
“And this is my personal security adviser, John Smith.”
Cabrillo held out his hand, which Smith begrudgingly shook. “You must get around a lot,” Juan said. “I’ve seen your name on a lot of hotel registrations.”
The man gave no indication he got the joke.
“Why don’t we sit down. May I get you gentlemen a drink?”
“Bottled water,” Juan said. He set his briefcase down on an end table and popped the lid. Smith had positioned himself close enough so that he could see inside.
Cabrillo pulled two electronic devices from the case and shut the lid again. He flicked one on and studied the small screen. Gone were the days when he had to sweep a room with a bug detector. This handheld could check a hundred-foot radius instantly. Croissard’s suite was clean. In case there was a voice-activated listening device someplace within earshot, he would leave it on. He then went to the window. In the distance were the silver spires of the skyline, made somewhat indistinct by the heat haze that was forming as morning burned into afternoon.
He peeled an adhesive backing off the cigarette pack-sized device and stuck it to the thick glass. He hit a button to turn it on. Inside the black plastic casing were two weights powered by a battery and controlled by a micro random generator. It set the weights in motion, which in turn vibrated the glass. The electronic generator would guarantee that no pattern would emerge that could be decoded and nullified by a computer.
“Qu’est-ce que c’est?”
French wasn’t one of the languages Cabrillo spoke, but the question was easy enough to understand. “This shakes the windowpane and prevents anyone from using a laser voice detector.” He took one last look at the beautiful view, then closed the sheers so that no one could see into the suite. “Okay. Now we can talk.”
“I have heard from my daughter,” Croissard announced.
Cabrillo felt a ripple of anger. “You could have told me that before we flew halfway around the world.”
“No, no. You do not understand. I think she is in more grave danger than I first thought.”
“Go on.”
“The call came through about three hours ago. Here.” He pulled a sleek PDA from his pant pocket and fumbled through a couple of applications until a woman’s voice, sounding very tired and very scared, came through the speaker. She said no more than a few words in French before the call abruptly ended.
“She says that she is close. To what, I do not know, but then says that they are closer. She then says that she will never make it. And I do not know who the ‘they’ she references might be.”
“May I see that?” Juan asked and held out his hand.
He fiddled with the PDA for a moment and hit play to repeat the recording. Croissard talked him through it, and once again they heard Soleil’s breathless voice. There was a noise in the background, maybe wind through leaves, maybe anything at all. Juan played it a third time. Then a fourth. The background became no clearer.
“Can you send this to my phone? I want to have the recording analyzed.”
“Of course.” Juan gave him the number on the phone he was currently carrying, one that would have its SIM card pulled when the mission was over. “Were you able to get her GPS coordinates?”
“Yes.” Croissard unfolded a map that had been lying in his briefcase. It was a topographical map of Myanmar done before the country changed its name from Burma. Faint X’s had been marked with a fine-tipped mechanical pencil, and the longitude and latitude numbers added next to them. Cabrillo was familiar with them, having seen a copy of Croissard’s map already. But there was a new notation about twenty miles northeast of Soleil’s last-known location.
“You’ve tried to call her back?” Juan asked, knowing the answer.
“Yes, every fifteen minutes. There is no reply.”
“Well, this is good news,” Cabrillo said. “It’s proof of life, even if it sounds like she’s in trouble. As you must understand, we need some more time to get everything into position. An operation of this nature must be carefully thought out so it can be precisely executed.”
“That has already been explained to me,” Croissard replied, obviously not liking that simple truth.
“We’ll be ready in three days’ time. Your daughter has already passed effective helicopter range, which will make our jobs a little tougher, but, mark my words, we will find her.”
“Merci, monsieur. You have a reputation for success. There is one final piece to this affair,” he added.