He shook his head slowly. “Didn’t see it comin’.”
“Anything more about his face?” said Sarah, looking hopelessly at the screen of her laptop. “Can’t you tell me more about his face?”
“He was a slick prick.”
There was a knock at Sarah’s door. Kai Grimes. He looked at her, then at Henry.
“We have a little more info on the shooter,” said Sarah.
Grimes’s eyes narrowed. “Finally,” he said. “Tell me.”
She looked back at Henry. “I gave him a relaxant to help him remember. And he remembered the man who shot him was left-handed.”
“That’s the news?” said Grimes with a look of disgust.
Henry giggled. “Better than a sharp stick in the eye, eh?”
“French,” said Grimes, “what have you done to our witness?”
“Just give the information to the general or whoever,” Sarah said firmly, closing the door in his face. She rested her back against the closed door and sighed. She could hear Grimes laughing outside in the hall.
“If you ever stopped screwing around, Henry Scott Gibbs,” she said, “I might even like you.”
“If we ever screw around, Sarah Jordan French, I think I might love you.”
The words seemed to hang in the air between them. With horror Henry realized they had come from him. He put his hand over his mouth. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
Too late. A moment later he found himself in the hall, barely able to stand.
In the mess hall, four hours later, he apologized again to Sarah for his impropriety, but she didn’t answer. And, when he asked to sit down next to her, she informed him coldly she was just about to leave. So he found himself eating pork chops and beans with the general and Grimes. About ten minutes later he watched her leave the room. He thought he saw her look back at him and smile as she passed through the door, but he wasn’t sure. He decided to let his libido cool off for a while.
Sarah was the first woman he’d really looked at since Tess had died. Janet, back at McMurdo, had been just, well, a diversion. He knew it was foolish to try to form any attachments in circumstances such as these. His conscious mind told him to forget any feelings he might have towards Sarah, because she’d be gone as soon as her work was done. But it wasn’t his conscious mind that was pushing him at her. And not just his libido, either. Both of those he could have dealt with. This was worse. He felt like he belonged with her. Yet he knew he had to distance himself before things went too far. He told himself he had only one companion now, his dog. That was the way it had to stay.
Shep was sitting next to him, watching every bite of food he took. Henry cut off a slice of fat from a pork chop and flipped it to the dog. It vanished with a snap of Shep’s jaws.
Grimes laughed. “Hope that hound doesn’t decide he likes long pig.”
“Long pig?” said Hayes. “Isn’t that what cannibals call human flesh?”
“Yup,” said Grimes. “By the way, hero, the guy I showed you a picture of…?”
“Yes?”
“I checked,” said Grimes. “He’s a lefty, too.”
Henry’s eyebrows raised. “Oh?” was all he said. But when he thought about it a bit, he added, “Not too many left-handed businessmen in the Mediterranean? Come on, Kai.”
“Just sayin’,” answered Grimes, looking at the general.
Hayes listened, his expression unchanging, but he seemed to know what Grimes was talking about.
“Who is that guy?” asked Henry.
“Rudolfo Suarez,” said the SEAL. “He’s a businessman with international links. Sometimes deals with arms dealers, sometimes just banks and financiers. Half the year he works out of Munich and half the year he’s in South Africa.”
“You think he’s connected to this?” said Henry.
“Why?”
General Hayes put down his fork and pushed his plate away. He took out a cigar. “Kai sent those photos he got to Naval intelligence as well. It’s up to them to decide what’s going on and who’s involved. But, to judge by what scraps of information they’ve passed our way, it’s an even bet that there’s a connection between this guy and the nuke.” He nipped the end of his Cuban Especial.
“Yeah, that’s right,” said Grimes, smiling. “They collar ’em and I kill ’em.”
Hayes lit his cigar and blew a copious cloud of smoke, which settled around Henry.
Henry feigned a cough. “Sheesh, General,” he complained, “those things stink! They must be good.”
“An acquired taste, I’ll admit. My only vice. Suarez has been… out of touch for several months,” Hayes added.
“On vacation in Chile,” added Grimes with another smile.
“Mountain-climbing, is the official story,” said Hayes.
Henry swallowed his last forkful of beans and wiped his mouth. “I don’t get the connection. Chile isn’t exactly the Antarctic.”
“The connection isn’t necessarily with Chile,” said Hayes. “The man can get plutonium. He has all the right contacts.”
“From a mountain in southern Chile you could send a radio signal to Antarctica,” remarked Grimes. He got up and walked to the counter, where a cook was busying himself with cleaning the dishes. Grimes leaned over the counter and looked around. “You got any pie back here, Mac?”
“Some apple, sir,” said the cook.
“Hate apple pie,” said Grimes. “Ice cream?”
“Vanilla and chocolate, sir.”
“Fuck it. Just give me a coffee.”
Henry scratched his head, then fanned a curl of smoke that drifted in front of his eyes. “Wouldn’t South Africa, his part-time home territory, be a better base of operations?” he asked once Grimes had returned with coffee.
“New Zealand’s a lot closer,” said the SEAL.
“But that’s the first place we’d look,” observed Hayes.
“But what would make him a suspect if I don’t finger him?” asked Henry.
“Old Rudolfo’s just playing it safe,” said Grimes.
“Never do the obvious — and cover your tracks whatever happens.”
“I don’t know.” Henry shook his head. “Seems real convoluted to me.”
“Not your problem to figure ’em.” Grimes laughed.
“Just finger ’em.”
Hayes chuckled. “Very good, Kai. You oughta go into speech writing.”
“No blood in it, sir,” said Grimes without expression.
Rudolfo Suarez always arose at 4:30am, no matter what part of the world he happened to find himself in on any particular day. How he did this was a mystery to his employees, but they never asked him about it. Rudy didn’t like questions.
Today Suarez was on the internet by 5am. He sat in front of his tent, waiting for the sun to come up. Not far away, a small dish antenna slowly traced the path of a barely visible communications satellite, a mote in the sky moving among the stars.
He was camping with four of his men high in the Andean mountains, a hundred miles from the coastal city of Arica on a peak the locals call Nevada Sajama, over 21,000 feet above sea level. From there he could see almost as far as the Pacific Ocean to the west. The area teemed with tourists and archaeologists drawn to the famous sites of Machu Pichu and Tijuanaco. Suarez was part Chilean and owned a home in Arica, on the Peruvian border. His business had him moving all over the world, but it was here in the Chilean heights that he felt most secure and in control. He mused on the spirits that he believed haunted the Andes and called to him. Sometimes, while giving orders, his men would have to wait for him to consult a spirit or two. No one ever laughed.
Once, when he was a boy camping in the mountains with his father, a condor had landed only five feet from him. It had spoken to him, he believed, and told him he would rule the world one day. His father had laughed when little Rudolfo told him of the magic condor. He explained to the boy that the bird was probably sizing him up for a meal. “Don’t stay quiet too long when they’re around.”