“I must remember to stay on my side of the lake.”
“Probably wouldn't be a bad idea.”
“See you in a few days, Mr. Colburn.”
“Come again, Mr. Pitt. Have a nice day.”
Pitt looked up at the sky. Not much of the day was left. The late-afternoon sun was partially shaded by the tops of the fit trees rising behind Colburn's store. He set the grocery bags on the rear passenger seat of his rental car and climbed behind the wheel. He turned the ignition key, shifted into drive and pressed the accelerator. Five minutes later, he turned off the asphalt highway onto a dirt road leading to the Foley cabin on Orion Lake. For two miles the road meandered through a forest of cedar, spruce and hemlock.
At the end of a quarter-mile straight, he came to a fork, each road skirting the shore of the lake in opposite directions until meeting up again on the far side, which happened to be Qin Shang's extravagant retreat. Pitt could not help but agree with the grocer's description. The former cannery had truly been transformed into an architectural miscarriage, totally inappropriate for a beautiful setting on an alpine lake. It was as though the builder had begun a modern structure of copper-tinted solar glass intermingled with exposed steel beams, then changed his mind and turned it over to a fifteenth-century Ming-dynasty contractor who topped the building with a golden tile roof straight off the majestic Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City at Beijing.
After being told that the owner was cloistered by an elaborate security system, Pitt, while enjoying the solitude of the lake, now assumed his movements were being observed. He turned onto the road bearing left and continued for another half-mile before stopping beside a wooden stairway leading to a porch that ran around an attractive log cabin overlooking the lake. He remained sitting in the car for a minute, gazing at a pair of deer that were feeding in the woods.
The soreness had gone out of his injuries, and he could exercise movement almost as well as he could before the tragedy. The cuts and burns had for the most part healed. It was his mind and emotions that were taking longer.
He was ten pounds lighter and not making a concerted effort at putting the lost weight back on. He felt as if he had lost all sense of purpose. It was a case of actually feeling worse than he looked. But deep down there was a spark that was fanned by an inherent urge to peer into the unknown. The spark burst into flame soon after he carried the groceries inside the cabin and set them on the kitchen sink.
Something did not seem right. He couldn't put his finger on it, but it quietly gnawed at his mind, some unfathomable sixth sense that told him something was wrong. He stepped into the living room. Nothing out of the ordinary there. He cautiously entered the bedroom, glanced around, checked the closet and moved into the bathroom. And then he had it. The toiletry items from his shaving kit—razor, cologne, toothbrush, hairbrush—were always placed in neat order on the sink after he arrived at his destination. They were right where he had set them, all except the shaving kit itself. He distinctly recalled holding it by the outside strap and pushing it onto a shelf. Now the strap was facing the rear wall.
He went through the rooms now, carefully studying every loose object. Somebody, probably more than one person, had been over every inch of the cabin. They had to be professionals but became indifferent when they concluded that the resident was not a secret agent or a hired assassin but merely a guest of the cabin's owner enjoying a few peaceful days of relaxation. From the time Pitt left for town until he returned, they had a good forty-five minutes to do the job. At first the reason behind the search escaped Pitt, but then a light began to glow in the dim reaches of his brain.
There had to be something else. To an expert spy or gold-badge detective, the answer would be immediately transparent. But Pitt was neither. A former Air Force pilot and longtime special projects director for NUMA, his specialty was troubleshooting the agency's underwater projects, not undercover investigation. It took him a good sixty seconds to solve the dilemma.
He realized that the search was secondary. The real purpose was to install listening devices or miniature cameras. Someone doesn't trust me, Pitt thought. And that someone must be the chief of Qin Shang's security network.
Because listening bugs were no larger than pinheads they would be difficult to find without an electronic snooping device. But since Pitt had only himself to talk to, he decided to concentrate on the cameras. Assuming he was under surveillance and his every movement was being observed by someone sitting in front of a TV monitor on the other side of the lake, he sat down and pretended to read a newspaper while his mind churned. Let them see what they want in the living room and bedroom, he reasoned. The kitchen was another matter. That would be his war room.
He put down the paper and began putting away the groceries in the cupboards and refrigerator, using the activity as a distraction while his eyes darted into every nook and cranny. He found nothing conspicuous. Then he began casually glancing at the log walls of the cabin, peering into the cracks and chinking. He finally hit paydirt when he spotted a tiny lens pressed into a wormhole, burrowed when the log was the trunk of a growing tree. Playing the role of an actor in front of a camera, which indeed he was, Pitt swept the floor with a broom. When he was finished he turned the broom upside down and leaned the sweeper part against the wall directly in front of the camera.
As if given a shot to spur his adrenaline, he brushed off any feelings of fatigue and tension and stepped outside, walking thirty paces away from the cabin into the woods. He pulled a Motorola Iridium phone from the inside pocket of his jacket. After dialing a number, his signal was bounced over a network of sixty-six satellites around the world and down to the private line of the person he was calling at the NUMA headquarters in Washington, D.C.
After four rings, a voice with a slight New England twang answered. “This is Hiram Yaeger. Be brief, time is money.”
“Your time isn't worth a dime stuck in gum on the bottom of a shoe.”
“Am I the subject of mockery by NUMA's special projects director?”
“You are.”
“What are you doing that's not worth repeating?” asked Yaeger facetiously. Yet his voice betrayed a trace of concern. He knew Pitt was still recovering from injuries suffered during a volcanic eruption on an island off Australia only the month before.
“I haven't time to leave you breathless with my daring adventures in the north woods. But I do need a favor.” “I'm drooling with anticipation.”
“See what you can dig up on a Qin Shang.”
“How's it spelled?”
“Probably like it sounds. If my limited knowledge of Chinese menus serves me correctly, the first name begins with a Q. Shang is a Chinese shipping magnate who operates out of Hong Kong. He also owns a private retreat on Orion Lake in Washington State.”
“Is that where you're at?” asked Yaeger. “You never told anyone where you were going when you up and disappeared.”
“I'd just as soon Admiral Sandecker was kept in the dark.”
“He'll find out anyway. He always does. Just what is it that intrigues you about Shang?”
“You might say I'm irritated by nosy neighbors,” replied Pitt.
“Why don't you go over and borrow a cup of sugar, have a few laughs and challenge him to a fast game of mah-jongg.”
“According to the locals, no one can get within ten city blocks of his place. And at that, I doubt if he's at home. If Shang is like most wealthy celebrities, he has several different houses around the world.”
“Why does this guy consume you with curiosity?” “No upstanding citizen has a mania about security unless he has something to hide,” said Pitt.
“Sounds to me like you're bored, lying around the primeval forest, watching moss grow on the rocks. You've missed one of life's pleasures if you haven't tried to outstare a moose for forty-five minutes.”