Burke shook his head and grinned. "You're a jewel, Brittany. I'd probably have spent a week coming up with that."
She gave him an embarrassed smile. "I don't believe that, Mr. Hill. You're a flatterer." She turned a page in her pad. "I also checked at the Federal Club and learned the hotel Mr. Coyne uses when he comes to town. I called and found that Stern stays there as well. When I learned the date of Lt. Col. Juan Bolivar's death, I called a friend at the hotel and asked him to check the records and see if Stern was registered then. I should hear from him in the morning."
"How do you acquire all these friends?" Burke asked.
"Probably the same way you cultivated informants as an FBI agent. I do a lot of nosing around, contacting people with their fingers on the pulse of the business community. A PR researcher deals in facts and figures. I get to know a lot of people who run the computers at various locations. Those things can give you just about any information you want."
"Well, you certainly did a bang-up job on this one, Brittany. Let me know what you come up with in the morning."
Not far from downtown San Antonio was a neglected section of small, rundown frame houses on a street whose most notable feature was a large vacant lot where scrubby trees grew among a cluster of rusting junked cars. The street ran along a low hill, making the vacant lot an excellent vantage point for observation of the commercial area beyond.
Roddy Rodman and Yuri Shumakov had scouted out the area earlier, after tracking down the location of Kreuger Produce Company. The narrow street intersected at the bottom of the hill with the access road to the produce firm's fenced enclosure. The melons aboard the Carga la Plata trailer would be unloaded at the long dock behind the company's large, concrete block warehouse building.
Standing beneath a stunted oak tree beside the remains of a Ford pickup truck as rusty as a sunken battleship, the pair of trackers, armed with high-resolution binoculars, scanned the area as they waited. The slanting rays of the late-afternoon sun gradually encroached on their small oasis of shade, adding to the discomfort of the stakeout. The temperature had been in the mid-nineties most of the afternoon, and the humidity seemed to lag not far behind.
As his gaze swung around the compound, Roddy suddenly spotted a silver tractor-trailer rig approaching from the access road. "Hey, look." He pointed excitedly. "Silver truck and trailer. Has 'Carga la Plata' painted on the side."
Shumakov swung his binoculars in the direction Roddy was pointing. "Yes, and look behind it. A gray van pulling a… a what do you call it?"
"A U-Haul trailer," said Roddy, noting the white rectangular box on wheels with the big orange stripe around it. It would easily hold the weapons. He speculated that it would contain some sort of shock absorbing material, sand or poly foam.
As they watched, the truck moved around behind the building and backed up to the dock. The van pulled over to the side of the lot.
Shortly after the melon unloading process began, the Mexican driver strolled over to the van. As Roddy and Yuri focused in with their binoculars, they saw Nikolai Romashchuk step out onto the asphalt.
"There's our man," said Rodman. And as he recalled what had happened in Guadalajara, he added, "The bastard who killed Elena."
"And one of those responsible for my brother's death," Shumakov said.
When the Kreuger crew had finished unloading the produce, the driver pulled his trailer over to Romashchuk's van. The Major climbed in, followed by four Peruvians. A few minutes later, they reappeared and gently lowered two crates into the U-Haul trailer.
As Romashchuk handed a handful of bills to the Mexican, Roddy turned to his partner. "We'd better get back to the car."
With Yuri at the wheel of the blue Ford Taurus, they paused on the hill until the van pulled into the intersection. Then Yuri launched their pursuit. Where would it end, he wondered? Would he get his chance to confront Nikolai Romashchuk and learn who had killed Vadim Trishin? That was the tenuous thread of possibility that had allowed him to fight his way this far in the face of all kinds of negative odds. How much longer could he hang on, and if he were successful, what would he find back home when he got there? For the first time in several days, he thought about General Borovsky and the troubling investigation that had started it all. Surely someone had taken over after his disappearance. He wondered what they had been able to ferret out? Had General Zakharov resurfaced? Then he remembered Latishev's concern about interference with the CIS meeting on July fifth. That was only six days off.
58
Lila Rodman was a young woman with a zest for life and a penchant for making friends. She had quickly thrown herself headlong into activities of her new community. She had a passion for music, and being the granddaughter of a Methodist minister, she promptly joined the choir at a nearby United Methodist Church. At one of her first rehearsals, she was introduced to a guest soloist, a young Air Force sergeant named Ian McGregor. After the service that Sunday, he had taken Lila and her mother out to eat. She had dated him several times since then.
McGregor was a natural musician. He played trumpet and French horn with a flair and could hold his own on half a dozen other instruments, including guitar. In addition, he had a rich baritone voice. He had polished his innate talents through professional studies during two years of college. Then his parents had gone through a nasty divorce. To avoid the crossfire, he had dropped out of school and joined the Air Force. Now a member of the U.S. Air Force Band, stationed at Bolling Air Force Base just across the Potomac from Alexandria, he had been chosen for a new band offshoot called The ThunderBards. They performed a variety of folk music. Ian's father was a native of Edinburgh. With that heritage, he was given the lead on Scottish airs, perfecting a Gaelic accent for songs by Robert Burns.
Ian brought Lila home early that evening because of a meeting at the base.
"Have you heard from Daddy?" was her first question to her mother.
Karen shook her head. "Not yet. I expect he'll call later this evening."
"He didn't say when he was going to be back?"
"No. He just said he would try to get back as soon as he could." She had promised Roddy not to worry Lila by mentioning the difficulties he faced.
"Let me talk to him when he calls. They've made some changes in the program for that July Fourth concert at the Capitol. The ThunderBards are going to be featured in a medley of folk songs. I want all of us there to cheer Ian when he performs. Most of the congressional leadership will be there in the VIP seats."
Karen smiled. "That's great, Lila. I know Roddy wants to meet him."
But after her daughter had gone to her room, Karen Rodman dropped the smile. She had a gnawing fear that something would happen to thwart this budding reunion with her husband. For a long time she had tried to convince herself that it was all over between them. Roddy was in Mexico. Another country, another world. The crash and the court-martial had left him a physical and mental cripple. He no longer had any room in his life for her. She had built a life without him and now was on the brink of fulfilling her entrepreneurial dream with the dress shop.