If he was kept under watch, the first wave of attacks might fail and then Hellfire would not happen. And no way he could find Luke or Eric Lindoe or the fifty million. ‘Some protection, you with a knife at my throat.’
Drummond laughed. ‘Yes. But no one else would get a knife near you.’
Henry swallowed down the tickle of bile at the back of his throat. ‘I stay here. If he comes here – my son needs me.’ A wave of dizziness flushed through his brain.
‘Stay in touch, Henry. I will.’ Drummond handed Henry a plain white card, with a Manhattan address handwritten in black ink, with a phone number below. ‘Henry. I don’t want to see Warren’s kid hurt, if he’s innocent. But if he’s not, if he killed Clifford, nothing you do can protect him. We just want to know why.’
‘I want to know why, too.’ And it was true.
‘Henry, this has just been great. I love reunions.’ He fixed a steely glare on Henry. ‘If you decide there’s a greater truth you’re not telling me, call me. Because I’m going to find this kid, and I’m going to find out the truth of what he’s been working on. You don’t want me pissed at you.’
Henry said nothing.
Drummond left, this time out the front door. Henry slammed it behind him.
He stayed at the front window until Drummond had driven away. Drummond isn’t going to let this go, he thought. He wondered who Drummond’s employer was – a private concern, he’d said. What did that mean?
Henry dug out his cell phone and called the cabin rental number in Braintree, Texas that he’d gotten earlier from Snow and Mouser. The number was posted on the gate to the road that led to the cabin. If Clifford had rented that cabin – if it wasn’t coincidence, he had to find out who Clifford was freelancing for.
‘Good morning, Braintree Park Rentals.’ A bright cheery voice answered the phone.
‘Yes. Good morning. A coworker of mine said he was renting cabin number three, I believe, and he’s not been answering his cell phone, and I wanted to know if he had shown up there.’
‘Mr Clifford? I saw him at the beginning of the week.’
The very dead Allen Clifford had rented the cabin Luke had been taken to. ‘But not since?’
‘People come out here to escape the world,’ the clerk said. ‘Maybe he just turned his cell phone off.’
‘Did he charge the cabin to the corporate card?’
‘Yes, sir, but I can’t give out details, I’m not allowed.’
Henry didn’t give up. ‘Did he give a billing address?’
‘Yes. In New York. Who is this?’
‘Oh. Was it this address?’ He read off the address on the card Drummond had given him.
‘Yes, sir, that’s it.’ The clerk’s hesitancy vanished. Henry could almost imagine him smiling.
‘We have several firms under the umbrella, so to speak, which company did he charge it to?’
‘Quicksilver Risk.’
‘Thank you so much.’
‘Did you want to leave a message for Mr Clifford? I can go up to the cabin.’
‘No, that’s fine. He’s not supposed to be using a corporate card for his vacation but it’s not a problem, we know he’ll reimburse us. Thanks so much.’ Henry hung up.
Quicksilver Risk.
Henry glided back onto the web and found the company’s website. It was chrome-colored and discreet in the manner of the most expensive consultants. Only a mission statement and a trio of principals. Allen Clifford, hired muscle for the Book Club, was one. The other two were former professors, but with business backgrounds in risk assessment. They hadn’t been part of the Book Club. No listing of clients. No listing of fees. No mention of ties to the government. It said that they’d helped Fortune 500 companies assess the risk of providing relief after the Boxing Day tsunami, after Katrina, after the chaos in a few African countries that had contested elections.
He tried the phone number. He got the voicemail, left a message for Allen Clifford. ‘Hey, Allen,’ he said to the dead man’s machine, ‘it’s Henry Shawcross, haven’t talked to you in a while, I’d like to catch up. See what you’re up to. Give me a call.’ He left a number. Hopefully someone at the firm would start returning Clifford’s calls and he could ask more questions.
‘What dirty work were you up to?’ he said to Allen Clifford’s photo.
The doorbell rang.
At his feet lay an overnight package, flat, in a large thick plastic envelope. Luke’s condo was the return address.
He weighed the package in his hand, listened to every side of it. Light. No ticking sound, although that meant nothing with digital detonators. He carefully opened the box.
Inside was another package. It had been sent first to the American transport company for delivery in the United States, but had originated in France. Paris. An address he didn’t recognize.
Without opening the inner package, he Googled the Paris address. It was a postal shop in the Saint Germain district, the kind where you might rent a mailbox.
Inside was a cell phone. Plain, cheap, the prepaid kind. A card attached to it read FOR HENRY’S EAR ONLY.
He turned the phone on.
He very badly wanted a shot of whiskey. He was afraid what news the phone would bring. He was afraid of how the day could darken. But the phone had to be a positive, yes? It must be the kidnapper, reaching out to him. The phone was a blessing if Drummond was monitoring his calls. He had to assume they were. Drummond knew how to tap lines, bug rooms – he’d done it for years when Henry worked with him.
He put the phone into his pocket and went to get his whiskey, his mind blazing with confusion. Things that should not be intersecting were. The Book Club, Luke, Hellfire, the long and still hot hatred for Luke’s father. A hatred he had worked hard to mask, every day, when he was around Barbara and Luke. It had been hard, keeping his acid loathing bottled up. Warren Goddamned Dantry. Warren was a know-it-all and a know-nothing, all at once. Even now the thought of Warren Dantry made Henry quake with fury, with disgust.
Warren made the Book Club work, Drummond had said.
A lie. A complete lie. ‘I brought him in, I brought you all in,’ Henry said to the empty kitchen. His hand shook slightly as he poured, and the glass tinkled. He ran a finger along his neck, convincing himself that Drummond had left no mark. He would have to call Snow and Mouser, warn them that Hellfire – at the very least the code name – had been leaked, that if Bridger was found Snow was in danger of being exposed, and that Drummond was hunting Eric and Luke, just as they were. If they chose to withdraw, he could do nothing to compel them.
But then he would have to start the Night Road all over again. The Ripley operation’s advantage of distraction would be lost, rendered to nothing like the chlorine in the rain. Or else he’d have no choice but to run, from the prince’s throat-cutting wrath, since his fifty million was either locked in an inaccessible account, had been moved to Switzerland or had vanished into the ether.
Then he heard a quiet trill. He opened the phone.
‘Henry Shawcross.’ It was a British woman.
‘Yes?’
‘You may call me Jane, for the purposes of our discussion. I thought given time to miss your stepson, you might reconsider my offer.’
This woman was the mastermind. The boss. Relief flooded him; now he could strike a deal. ‘I want to know where Luke is.’
‘Shame on you, shoveling the blame on poor Luke. I suspected you were a truly despicable person and, my God, you didn’t disappoint.’ She laughed. Laughed at him, a teasing giggle.
‘You have made enemies with the wrong people, young woman.’
‘Have I? It’s more that you have made the wrong friends. That nasty billionaire who played dress-up in the London park and offered fifty million to you while the pigeons danced for the crumbs at his feet. I heard your every word.’ She laughed again, silvery, and a cold fist closed on Henry’s heart.