“What about the bait?” he asked. “The fake S.I.T. trigger?”
“Went live last night. In Dubai. That’s an international hub. It’ll be going elsewhere. We’ll find it.”
Then Nilsson was saying, “Now. About my text.”
He lifted an eyebrow.
“We owe you some money.”
He’d forgotten that finding and guarding Allison Parker and her daughter was a job. The man hiring him was in jail, as was the keeper of the petty cash purse, Marianne Keller. Shaw supposed, though, that there was somebody in accounting who could arrange payment.
But Nilsson had another agenda.
“How’d you like to triple it?”
“Hm.”
“I’m in touch with somebody in Interpol.”
Shaw knew the organization. It was not, as many people thought, a law enforcement agency itself. It was an intelligence clearinghouse sharing information about crime and criminals among overseas law enforcement departments.
“They caught some intel from a source in Eastern Europe. Money went into a secret account in Siberia.”
Though obviously not all that secret.
“The recipient was supposed to steal a proprietary component from a manufacturing company in the U.S. The Midwest.”
“In the nuclear reactor business, by any chance?”
She continued, “The thief blew the job. But his bosses gave him a second chance. If he couldn’t get the part this time, he was to — quote — ‘significantly disrupt’ the company. He would not be given another opportunity.”
“Abe Lincoln.”
She frowned.
Shaw said, “Lemerov.”
“Right.”
He pictured the lanky man and recalled the meeting in the motel not far from where the two of them stood now.
But don’t pat back too fast, Mr. Colter Shaw. More rounds to come. More rounds to come...
Tom Pepper had said that the Russian had been deported — put onto a plane bound for London — but had then disappeared.
She asked, “You read military history?”
“Some.”
“I’m fascinated by tacticians. I think the top five are Stonewall Jackson, Erwin Rommel, Sun Tzu, Alexander the Great and Hannibal Barca — that’s, yes, the Carthaginian Hannibal.” She shook her head. “His command at the Battle of the Trebia? The Carthaginians lost a few thousand men, the Romans more than twenty thousand — half their army.”
Both their eyes were on the Water Clock.
She said, “You strike me as a bit of one yourself. I’d like to hire you to step into the shoes of our Russian. Figure out how he’d strike the company. Where, when, how. And help me stop him.” She cocked her head. “Legally, of course.” Her smile appended the word probably.
“So what do you say, Shaw? Until you have to hit the road again?”
He turned to her, just as a cloud parted and her face was bathed in brilliance.
Suddenly, the answer was clear:
She wasn’t wearing contacts.
95
Colter Shaw pulled his Avis sedan, a not-bad black Malibu, into the driveway of Allison Parker’s rental house on Maple View Avenue.
Hannah was sitting cross-legged on the porch, rocking slowly in a hanging swing, wearing jeans, a pale green knit stocking cap, and a bulky maroon sweatshirt whose sleeves were far too long. The girl was waving goodbye to a lanky teenage boy, who had lengthy blond hair and was dressed similarly to her. Like a natural athlete, he dropped his skateboard, hopped on and wove down the sidewalk balletically, then out of sight.
Kyle. Wasn’t that the name? From the look he shot her upon departing, Shaw assigned him a slot far higher than ten percent.
He collected the bag beside him and climbed from the car.
“Hey, Mr. Shaw!” Hannah smiled. Then surprised him by climbing from the swing, stepping forward and hugging him hard. He reciprocated gently.
“Mom’s at the hospital. Think she’ll be here soon.”
Shaw said, “I know. You doing okay?”
“Yeah, it’s cool.” Spoken more like somebody who’d just dodged the flu, not been the target of professional killers.
They continued onto the porch.
He handed her the bag.
She extracted the slim book that was inside.
“Oh, hey. What you were telling me about.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance.
“Dope! Thanks.” Her face grew earnest. “I’ll read it. Not like the way I tell my teachers I’ll read something. I mean I’ll really read it. Oh, hey, Mr. Shaw, there’s something I want to show you.” She picked up a notebook sitting on the swing. It was nearly identical to the ones that he used on his reward jobs. She offered it to him. “I wrote a poem.”
He read the lines.
Colter Shaw, a man of percentages and careful assessments, not a man of the arts, nonetheless felt his pulse accelerate with every word. “It’s good. Very good.”
“Do you like it? Really?” It was clear his judgment was important.
He nodded.
“I’ve been working on it nonstop.”
“The meter, it’s good. The rhythm.”
Her eyes shone. “I tried to get that down. I didn’t want it to rhyme. That’s lame. You know, singsongy.”
“Like your selfies — unconventional.”
Beneath her modest smile, the girl was beaming.
A car pulled to the curb. The brakes squealed.
Instinctively Shaw reached for his hip.
A pointless gesture as he had no weapon to reach for.
Pointless too because the driver was Allison Parker. She climbed from her 4Runner and walked toward Shaw and Hannah, limping only a little. She winced slightly as she climbed the stairs to the porch.
He lifted an eyebrow.
“It’s good. Some physical therapy for a few weeks.”
“How’s Mr. Villaine?” Hannah asked.
“He’ll be fine. They’re discharging him tomorrow. I was thinking he should stay here, with us, for a few days, until he recuperates.”
“Definitely,” Hannah said.
Parker then told her, “Your grandmother Ruth’s flying in to TRA in an hour. We’ll go pick her up.”
“And Noonie?”
Merritt’s mother, Shaw guessed.
“She’ll be here tonight. You’ll have to sleep on the couch.” A smile. “I saw that look.”
But the girl did not appear seriously put out. And her face brightened when Shaw said to Parker, “You know your daughter’s quite the poet.”
“Han’s a woman of many talents: photography, poetry.” She eyed the girl. “And differential equations.”
“Mom...”
Parker nodded at the notebook in the girl’s hand. Hannah started to show it to her, but Parker said, “No, Han. You read it. Out loud.”
“Uhm, I don’t know.” Was the girl blushing?
“Please.”
After a moment. “I guess.” She bent to the notebook.