So full of himself, Wu thought. Still, if Shing was correct, it would be a great victory. Wu’s heart soared as he thought of how it would be when he made the call to the North Koreans. Not a dragon, perhaps, more like a pack of hungry wolves, but dangerous enough to anyone in their path…
“Well. Go and enjoy yourself at the casinos,” Wu said. “And say hello to that young lady you spoke of.”
“I’ll do that,” Shing said.
They both smiled, and while Shing’s expression was doubtlessly insincere, Wu’s was real.
It was so good to be the man who knew what was going on, really it was.
The pediatrician, a tall, skinny man of sixty or so named Wohler, spoke to Jay in the hall, amidst that antiseptic smell Jay associated with hospitals.
Saji sat with Mark in the private room behind them. Whatever else you might say about it, Net Force had a great health plan.
“It’s too soon to say he’s completely out of the woods, Mr. Gridley, but he’s responded well to the medications and his fever is greatly decreased. I’d like to keep him here for a few more days to be sure everything goes as we hope.”
Jay nodded. “Yes, sure, whatever it takes.” Jay wasn’t happy with the way doctors hedged everything they said, but he supposed he could understand it. They got sued at the drop of a hat, and it was safer if they never promised anything they weren’t positive they could deliver.
Mark’s convulsions had been due to a high fever, and that was because of the pneumococcal pneumonia he had suddenly developed. The onset had been faster than they usually saw, the doctor had said, and no, there wasn’t anything Jay or Saji could have done to protect Mark from it. Yes, there was a vaccine for some strains, but not the one Mark had. The bug that caused it was common, so much so that probably three quarters of the people walking around on the planet had it or some variation of it in their systems, where it was pretty much harmless most of the time. Nobody was quite sure exactly why it sometimes decided to lodge opportunistically in the lungs and start to grow.
The main thing was, Mark seemed to be okay. No apparent brain damage from the high fever, which had registered 106 degrees Fahrenheit when Saji had brought him in.
After Jay had rascaled the traffic lights, it had only taken her a few minutes to make it to the hospital, and Jay had gotten there in under half an hour — the helicopter pilot was a speed demon in that machine, and he’d put it down on the pad outside the ER like a champion gymnast sticking the landing on a dismount.
“Thanks for your help, Dr. Wohler.”
The older man smiled. “That’s what I do, son.”
Back in the room with Saji, Mark slept. Every time the baby twitched, Saji jumped, but they had him inside a clear plastic tent, she wasn’t supposed to touch him, and that broke her heart when he cried.
The last time that had happened, Jay had said, “Enough of this!” He’d gone and washed his hands with the antibacterial soap in the bathroom, put on rubber gloves and a surgeon’s mask like the nurses did, and reached into the tent to comfort his son.
As soon as Mark had felt his father’s hands and heard his voice, he had quieted, even though Jay must have looked scary in the paper surgeon’s mask.
“How’s he doing?” Jay asked his wife.
“Better. He seems to be resting more. What did the doctor say?”
“Nothing really new. I think he believes Mark is going to be fine, but nobody around here will commit to that. I did some research, and baby doctors get sued a lot. Obgyns get hit the most, then pediatricians, followed by orthopedists. Nobody wants to say everything is okay and risk it not being totally okay.” Jay sighed. “He wants to keep him here a few more days,” he finished.
Saji nodded. “That’s fine.”
“Look, why don’t you go home, change clothes, take a shower, maybe a nap, get some books or something? I’ll stay with Mark.”
They had slept on the fold-out couch, which wasn’t particularly comfortable, and washed their faces in the bathroom sink, but they were both tired and rumpled.
“No,” she said. “You go. I can’t leave.”
Jay shook his head. “I can’t, either,” he said.
He took her hand. She squeezed it. They looked at their son, and they worried together.
21
The guitar store wasn’t in downtown San Francisco, but in a little upscale pocket neighborhood on the way toward Oakland. This was an area that had been bought up and renewed, old buildings remodeled or torn down and new ones built that looked like those they had replaced. There were shops and businesses within easy walking distance of housing — small apartments, row houses of condos, and even single-family homes. Very nice and, Kent knew, very spendy. Real estate in the Bay Area had always been some of the most expensive in the country, and it still was.
It was late in the afternoon before he arrived at the shop, which was identified simply as “Cyrus Guitars.” There was a parking lot across the street next to a deli, and Kent pulled his rented and outfitted van into that. He had food, water, a little portable potty, and assorted other knick-knacks that would make a long surveillance bearable.
He went into the deli and talked to the guy running the place about letting him park there for the next couple of days. His Net Force ID and a few words about Homeland Security — along with a single fifty-dollar bill — were enough to settle the deal.
With the van situated, Kent walked across the street to the guitar place.
It wasn’t particularly impressive from the sidewalk. The sign was low-key, there was one small window with a single guitar on display, and without those to identify it, the shop could have been any small-business storefront.
Inside, it was more interesting. There was a wooden counter, covered with what looked like a sheet of black velvet. Behind the counter, hung on the wall inside a series of rectangular glass or Plexiglas cases, were ten guitars. They were mostly classical models — Kent had become passingly familiar with the design — a couple of steel-string acoustics, and he quickly spotted the one made by Stansell — the color on the sides was unique.
The man behind the counter sat on a stool with one foot propped on the cross-supports, playing an acoustic guitar that appeared to have a stainless-steel clamp on the neck several frets up from the tuning pegs. He wore sweatpants and a T-shirt and what looked like moccasins. His right arm was covered with a long black sleeve. It took Kent a second to realize what the sleeve was for: to keep his bare skin from touching the guitar.
The instrument had a rich, warm tone. As Kent watched, the player squeezed the metal clamp and removed it from the guitar.
“G7th capo,” the player said. “Great design. Locking cam, doesn’t detune the strings if you’re careful, one-handed operation, imported out of the U.K. by John Pearse Strings. Plus the looks-cool factor is still very high even after ten years.” He extended the clamp toward Kent, who walked over and took it. He didn’t know capos from capons, but the little device did feel very solid and well-made. He said so as he handed it back.
“The euro is down again,” the man said, “so they are running about fifty bucks American. I’m Cyrus, what can I do for you?”
Cyrus stood, and was tall — six-five, six-six, maybe, with a one-cut cropped-short red orange crewcut. He wore three or four earrings in each ear, wire-rimmed glasses, and had what looked like some kind of tribal tattoos on the arm Kent could see.
There were several ways to play this, and they usually depended on the guy you were dealing with. His instinct was that Cyrus was a solid citizen. Something seemed familiar about him, Kent couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was. He decided to go for it straight on: “I’m Abraham Kent,” he said, “I work for Net Force.”