It was here-and in the daisy-chained series of dual-G5 processor-based desktops functioning as the system’s central processing unit-where the software was housed for Gibson’s $168 million surveillance system, the cost of which he knew to the nickel, since he’d been the one to commission its installation.
With a few keystrokes he had on the monitor in front of him the full array of data that the system had already gathered on the topic of the Apache racing boat. Radar and sonar readings, 360-degree infrared photography, 1,200-millimeter zoom lens snapshots, background checks on any registered owners-all automatically conducted by the software while Gibson had worked out. Also there were the Apache’s registration data; numerous close-up photographs of the asshole piloting the vessel, in which photographs Spike Gibson was able to see that the man had been reviewing maps, not simply taking photographs; and the precise location of the boat every five minutes following its departure, made possible by the private satellite aboard which Gibson rented camera space. He saw that the Apache was steaming west-northwest across the Caribbean Sea, on a course, the system speculated, for either the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, or Florida. When the trace on the vessel’s owner popped up on his screen, Gibson saw that the boat was registered to Albert Einstein, listed under an address in Paris, France.
Funny guy, Gibson thought. Funny fucking guy.
The stench of trouble wafting from the man behind the wheel of the racing boat was, he thought, nearly overwhelming-but if nothing else, it had become obvious the dumb asshole had nothing to do with General Deng and his fucking games.
Gibson returned to the balcony and stared out at the Caribbean, across which his new acquaintance Albert Einstein had arrived, and then left.
Albert, Gibson thought, you’ll soon see that I can be a pretty funny fucking guy too.
The revolutionary leaders attending Deng’s Mango Cay missile seminar were permitted to carry firearms. The weapons allowance would make the guests more likely to accept Deng’s invitation, and attend, as the invitation stipulated, solo. No security detail was permitted-not for the final segment of the leaders’ voyage, nor for their time on-island-so the firearm policy served as a security blanket.
This sense of security proved useful when, near the conclusion of a celebratory meal arranged for the men on the final night of their stay, Hiram the bartender flipped the knob on a rather large canister lodged beneath the poolside bar. His introductory remarks concluded, Admiral Li-who, following Deng’s departure the prior day, had assumed the duties of host-excused himself from the dinner. Lana the maid quickly served the hors d’oeuvres, depositing seven platters of food on the long table before moving into the kitchen and out its rear door. This left Hiram alone behind the bar, at least until the point at which he turned the knob on the canister and strode calmly off in the direction of the Greathouse.
While it appeared to supply the bar’s soft-drink gun, the canister actually housed a batch of the nerve agent VX. The canister was charged with sufficient supply-assuming the gas was administered judiciously-to exterminate most of the inhabitants of any major metropolis.
The premixed VX took approximately forty-nine seconds to flow from the canister, down its tubes, and out through the heater stands beside the dining table, the stands tripling as the source for illumination, nighttime heat, and the thin, odorless, amber mist of the world’s deadliest airborne nerve toxin. It took fewer than thirty seconds for the concentrated dose to paralyze every leader seated at the table.
Four of the men managed to draw their personal firearms upon being struck by the initial physical symptoms of the fog-seized lungs, immediate vomiting, defecation, and seizures-but the guns fell from fingers or froze in clutched hands as full paralysis followed. The remaining complement of guests perished within one minute of the initial emission. Only two men remained conscious for longer than fifteen of these sixty seconds.
Just over an hour later, outfitted in a Gulf War-style chemical warfare suit, Hiram returned to the poolside party. Wheeling in on one of the resort’s golf carts, he removed an industrial-strength, oscillating fan from the vehicle and stood it facing the lagoon behind the dinner table. He stepped behind the bar, shut off the VX canister, and proceeded to crank the fan to its highest setting. He returned after another two hours armed with a hose from the pool house; still wearing the suit, he left the fan running as he hosed down the entire poolside deck, including every body, chair, utensil, and scrap of food that occupied it.
Another two hours after Hiram’s initial cleansing, Gibson, Li, and Lana arrived aboard the pair of limousine-length carts. An emaciated black man rode in the rear of Lana’s cart, and when Lana braked to a stop, he rose as though she’d ordered him to do so, which she had not. He exited the cart and stood before her on the poolside tile wearing no protective gear. At Lana’s command, the former wino from the pawnshop alcove on East Queen Street then loaded the bodies collapsed around the dinner table aboard the pair of limo carts.
When the wino was finished, Gibson pulled a second hose from a cabana and began working its spray across the deck for a follow-up wash-down. Hiram and Lana climbed behind the steering wheels of the two carts; the wino slinked aboard, draping himself across the feet of the last body he’d transferred.
“Any chunks wind up as floaters,” Gibson said, “pull them out and try again.”
Hiram and Lana steered the limo carts up the hill. Gibson knew their destination to be the underwater lagoon in a secondary cavern he referred to as the cargo cave, which Deng preferred to call the Lab. It was in the waters beneath the cargo cave where a local gang of sharks had learned to feast upon Gibson’s disposable labor pool.
When the carts vanished behind the Greathouse, Gibson noticed Admiral Li standing on the main trail some distance back from the pool, looking like a misplaced astronaut in his beige-and-green chemical suit.
Gibson switched hands, flipping the hose to his left, and saluted the admiral with his right. Since Gibson too was wearing one of the haz-mat suits, he figured Li might not have seen the grin Gibson was hiding behind the mask, but Li didn’t respond to his salute, either, so the security director left it at that and continued his work with the hose. Per its manufacturer, the VX would take about two more hours to break down once he had soaked whatever remained of it.
32
Dottie, the blonde waitress, was taking dinner orders from the yachting contingent at the Conch Bay Bar & Grill with a mildly haggard look of exhaustion and a satisfied kind of glow. Cooper had spent some time with her-they’d shared a drink at the bar two or three times, Cooper feeling he had a pretty good read on her, but he figured he didn’t need to have spent any time with her at all to understand the look on Dottie’s face tonight. He peered around the restaurant over the lip of his Cuba libre, trying to get a sense of who might have landed her. He saw nobody giving her rather ample bosom the fond eye of remembrance, or of regret, Cooper first thinking he’d got it wrong, and then thinking finally of one word:
Ronnie.
Apart from their difference in age and station in life-which hadn’t ever stopped him before-Cooper thought about why he hadn’t pursued Dottie himself. The girl’s hulking schnoz didn’t bother him; there were equally hulking breasts that came along for the ride. She was nice enough, and reasonably intelligent. No, Cooper decided, he’d ignored the occasional open door simply because he still preferred to dine from a menu of the betrothed. Working from a pool of brides got him a little more space in which to operate-whoever she was, whenever he did whatever he did with her, a married woman was more likely to leave him alone afterward. Stay out of his personal real estate-read the KEEP OUT sign he had chipped into his shoulder.