Eckers nodded.
“I see what you’re thinking,” he said. “Those people know their way around the island. And they’re protective of their own.”
“Aren’t they?”
“As far as that first goes, without a doubt,” Eckers said. “They’ve been there for generations. But a lot of them live in poverty or near poverty and won’t need much incentive to give up what they know.”
Jean Luc watched his face another moment. Then a smile crept across his strong, full-lipped mouth.
“Take me back to Bonasse,” he said, and reached behind him to open the Rover’s passenger door. “We’ll talk more on the way home.”
They got in, Eckers behind the wheel, and drove along the dirt vehicle path across the production fields to the Southern Trunk Road. On their left, pump rods moved up and down over the established wellheads in steady rhythmic fashion. On the right, enormous derricks soared above the newer drill sites, their various mechanical systems powered by humming diesel engines and generators. Beyond these were the storage and refinery tank farms, and further to the northeast the delivery terminals on the Gulf of Paria, barely visible now in the bright blue-green reflectiveness of Caribbean morning sunlight and seawater.
Jean Luc sat in the Rover’s comfortable air-conditioning and waved a hand toward the fields as they bumped along.
“You know, when I look out at all this, it would be easy to see two hundred and fifty years of family accomplishment,” he said. “But it isn’t my perspective. It wasn’t my father’s, or my grandfather’s, or great-grandfather’s. I’m a now kind of person. I focus on each opportunity as it’s presented. That’s how I was raised, a sensibility that’s been instilled in me. It’s how I run my life and business.” He gestured out the window again. “What I see out there are separate parts of a whole, individual projects at distinct, ongoing stages of development. I look at a well that’s ten, fifteen years old, ask myself whether it’s almost tapped out, or peaking, or somewhere in between, and then ask whether its efficiency can be improved. I see a thumper rolling over a particular location, or possibly a rig going up, and make a mental note to have the latest seismological and core sample data on my desk toot suite… Can you appreciate where I’m coming from, and how it relates our current problem, Toll?”
Eckers made a quick turn to put them on the main route.
“You’re saying not to lump sum it,” he said, nodding.
Jean Luc looked across the seat at him and grinned.
“Nicely put,” he said. “And right on. Experience is always helpful, but you can be lulled by past success. What we need is to reset our priorities, focus on today instead of”—his grin widened—“our master plan, if you’ll pardon my being cute.”
Eckers gave another thoughtful nod.
They rode in silence for the next forty miles, crossing the peninsula on the Trunk, a smooth multilane blacktop that dipped inland from the constellation of industrial towns around the petroleum fields and then swung southwest through undisturbed woodlands toward the beaches, sugar plantations, and fishing villages of Cedros.
Just short of an hour after they had left oil country behind, Eckers made the long, curving turn off the road that brought them within sight of the estate grounds and, high on a hill behind a spread of cedar copses, topiary, and ornamental gardens, the grand Colonial mansion with its witch’s hat turrets wrapped in balconies of stone.
“I’ll reset and reorganize the search,” he said, passing through the electronic entry gate. “See that our men — our assigned specialists—understand Lenard has to be their first priority.”
“As if our world stands or falls on finding him,” Jean Luc said. “In the meantime, I’d better massage our partners at Los Rayos. With their having gotten confirmation that the visitor from UpLink will be coming, this episode’s bound to have made them uptight.”
“Beauchart’s given them his reassurances.”
“They’ll want to hear from me anyway,” Jean Luc said. He paused. “Suppose I might as well make a call to Washington while I’m at it.”
Eckers glanced at him.
“Are you surprised?” Jean Luc said.
Eckers shrugged a little.
“Some,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you’d need to do that.”
“I don’t. Not absolutely. Not yet. But there’s the history. The connection between our families. Respecting it’s another of my ingrained traits.” Jean Luc paused again; Eckers’s silence betrayed his reservations. “No fear, Toll, I haven’t contracted the honesty bug… I suppose you could say fair’s fair between Drew and myself, though,” he said. “If I expect him to play by my rules of the game, I have to respect his.”
Eckers looked as if he was about to say something, but then moved on without another word. He went up the drive to where it rimmed the mansion’s front court, pulled over to the low curb, and stopped the vehicle.
“Do you want me to stay on the grounds?” he said as Jean Luc got out.
Jean Luc leaned his head back in the door and shook it once.
“That’s okay, I’d prefer you get back to the hunt,” he said. “And don’t forget our chat. Take one thing at a time, Toll. One thing at a time and we’ll be fine.”
Eckers nodded and became very still, staring out the windshield through his dark lenses again. Jean Luc studied him a moment, withdrew his head from the Rover, pushed the door shut, and turned up the courtyard toward the house.
A moment later Eckers spun away from the curb and started back down the drive to the gate.
Tom Ricci knew as he awoke that he was hung over. It was the dry graininess in his eyes, the sour taste on his tongue, the headache and burning stomach. This wasn’t his first time, not by far, and he knew.
He stretched out a hand, found the other side of the bed empty, and lay back in the morning light eking through the window blinds. He remembered her drawing them shut while he’d started to undress her, tugging at the cord as he worked on her blouse from behind. The pile of clothing had built up fast. Hers first, then his — they’d made a bet at the bar and he’d won. Ricci had gaps in his recollection of the night before, but that was among the parts that had stuck. There were enough of those, especially of what they’d done when they got back to her place, even if he couldn’t recall what their bet had been over.
He remained very still, his head on the pillow, not bothering to look around for her. She was in the kitchenette; he could hear her through its Dutch doors, opening and closing the cabinet, moving things around. Her apartment was small, a studio — hard to get lost in here for very long.
A minute or two passed. Ricci listened to her in the kitchenette, holding out the slim hope that she’d put up some coffee. But he didn’t hear the maker gurgling and supposed he’d have caught whiff of a finished pot.
He pulled off his covers, sat up naked on the edge of the bed, felt his brain slosh against his skull. He was slower leaning down to check for his holstered FiveSeven, making sure it was there underneath the bed where he’d left it.
Devon appeared from the kitchen entrance wearing a short robe of some silky black material and carrying a black melamine serving tray in both hands. She collected Melmac and vintage Ray-Bans and body jewelry, bought them through online auctions. With only two closets and a single cupboard over its half-height refrigerator for storage, her apartment became easily cluttered, but she kept the place neat and planned to start looking for a bigger one soon. The sunglasses were professional accessories, she said. For her costumes when she danced. She’d had the strategic piercings done for work and play, but keep it quiet from the IRS, she said. Melmac was strictly a hobby, and she liked the black pieces best. Black was her favorite color, and “black velvet” was the hardest shade of Melmac to find, she said.