Henry showed Sarah the Southern Cross that night from an open palm-covered veranda at a bed-and-breakfast they’d spotted during their travels with Enrique. The evening was particularly clear, and the moon shone brightly above them. In this lovely place they were able to relax and forget the problems of the present. For Sarah it was unlike any happiness she’d ever known. For the first time in many years Henry was able to remember feelings long suppressed and forgotten. Now he found himself able to allow the memories to flood over him as he told Sarah about his children, his wife and his parents, memories hitherto lost in a mire of dark emotions as deep as the ocean that claimed his loved ones.
“I guess I feel saddest about my kids,” he said, studying the twinkling lights on the horizon. “It’s so unfair they had to go too.”
Sarah didn’t reply; she just squeezed his hand a bit harder.
“I helped them build the boat,” he said. “Did I ever tel you that?”
“No.”
“The rescue services never found it,” he said. “Not even a life preserver.”
He sighed. He should have been crying by now. But the tears wouldn’t come.
“I’m being a bummer,” he said, looking at Sarah.
“No. I think you’re just catching up on your backlog.”
She stood up and walked slowly into the darkened bedroom. His eyes had no choice but to follow the well defined curve of her back beneath her transparent nightgown. The sight called to him as it vanished into the shadows.
A moment later, he saw her light a candle; she was sitting on the bed, waiting there, looking at him. He couldn’t see her eyes, but he knew what they were saying.
Fifty-six minutes after Gadfly 1 had lifted off it settled back onto its landing pad. It was followed swiftly by Gadfly 2. When the hatch snapped open, Halsey was standing there with Frei’s bodyguard to help the President down from the chopper. Grimes hopped out first and lent them a hand.
The President swung his leg out and stood up, loosening the straps of his helmet. As Frei took his first breath of unfiltered air, Halsey could see he had had a rough trip. His face matched the colour of the airstrip they were standing on.
“Well, sir,” said Halsey, “how’d we do?”
Grimes helped the President steady himself. “We did fine, Captain, in spite of the rough winds at the top.”
Halsey pretended not to notice the President’s pallor. Instead he looked at Grimes. “Did you make it to the top?”
The bodyguard surreptitiously lent Frei a supporting hand as they began to walk away from the helicopter.
“Yes, we did, sir. We even topped it…” Grimes spoke loudly and enthusiastically. “Even with the extra weight. And the President was a trooper — in spite of the rough ride.”
Unfortunately, the President was by now too far away to hear the SEAL’s compliment.
“What did you do to him?” whispered Halsey.
“A day at Disneyland,” said Grimes. “The President did just fine — for a first-timer.”
The two men stood by the Gadfly and watched Frei get into his limo and drive off into the night.
“Did he ask for any state secrets?”
“As a matter of fact, sir,” said Grimes, “not a single one.”
It wasn’t long before the Gadflies had refuelled and taken off for the return trip to the Enterprise, where the 204 postflight boys would go over them meticulously before they would be recertified flight-ready.
September 24, and there was still nothing to do but readiness exercises while they waited for the Pentagon to try to locate Rudolfo Suarez.
They had no way of knowing that Suarez and his men were travelling in their van on the road only a half- day away from Santiago, where they planned to relax while he prepared the final instructions he would issue to the United Nations and the world. Soon Suarez would up the ante to five billion US dollars in securities, bonds, gold and precious commodities and begin the process of shuffling a bewildering flow of riches from exchange to exchange around the world, all managed by a financial program he controlled from his little laptop. The program had been encrypted into its hard drive in a way only he knew how to access. Even if the impossible happened — the loss of his laptop to US federal agents — the program would, if downloaded, dissolve into a meaningless string of binary gibberish. Best of all, he’d worked it so that only the central program could identify him as the genius behind the greatest blackmailing in history.
To pass the time today, as Remo guided the van expertly, Suarez switched on his laptop and began running simulations. His computer would take minutes to untangle and analyse these; while he waited he watched the rocky landscape and scrub trees pass by.
Occasionally an adobe farmhouse with a red tiled roof would move past them and disappear behind. These little homes always reminded him of his own childhood home, of his humble beginnings.
He idly wondered if the world would ever know of the little boy who had grown up to be a man who would bring it to its knees. His mind drifted back over the years of planning he’d dedicated to this. Had he overlooked anything that might link him to the crime? Crime, he thought. Is that with a capital “C” or a small “c”? He remembered his grandfather’s words: “Crime depends on who’s rich.”
Suarez had become very rich, especial y for a man who’d only just reached forty. But this was only a beginning. He had tasted his destiny when the first spoils of his aspirations had bought him the death of one of his family’s enemies. He had found out then that riches were only as secure as one’s ability to hold onto them. Without competitors, there is no loss. Nothing brilliant or astute about it. These were old laws, older than his ancestors. Older than mankind. Not laws, even, but divine truth. Only the losers called them crimes; only the vanquished recognized martyrs.
The van passed a road sign: “Santiago 200km.”
Suarez’s eyes moved to the large rearview mirror next to where his arm rested on the opened window. Red dust swirled behind the van. The sun was hot but the air was cool, and felt good as it eddied around the inside of the van. Would I have been better to have taken the plane? he wondered. No — better to keep the profile low. Better to take it slow, at least for now.
He had time. Lots of it.
Most of his men were asleep. Their heads bobbed as the van hit the occasional pebble that had rolled down from the steep rocks next to the road. He turned to see his half-brother Augusto staring at him without expression.
When their eyes met, Augusto looked away. He picked up a green knapsack and tucked it between his ear and the window, then he too closed his eyes. One of these days, thought Suarez, I will have to terminate Auggie’s life, even though he is blood of my blood. He is the weak link in the chain I have forged. One day — but not yet.
Remo, driving, smoked an unfiltered Pal Mal as he studied the road from behind large sunglasses. Noticing Suarez looking at him, he reached into his shirt pocket and, pulling out the pack, offered it to his boss. Suarez took one and pushed in the lighter on the dash.
“You would have preferred the plane, Remo? Faster — no?”
Remo shrugged and blew smoke out the window. “I like driving.”
Suarez lit the cigarette and his attention returned to the address he was planning to deliver to the world. It had to be a perfect follow-up to his manifesto. That had been a work of art. “The Golden Sun Terrorists.”
Perfect. He’d liked the line about “mad from the suffering of our children”. He’d claimed sympathy with Tamil Nationalists, the Brotherhood of Islam. Then the part supporting Libya’s sovereignty and the New World Order of Farrakhan. It all had the desired effect of clouding the issue. He couldn’t wait to visit a newsstand in Santiago — fairly salivated at the thought.