The last few years, the facial pain had been as bad or worse than the pounding inside his head. When the headaches came shooting up his spine, the first jolt now seemed to bathe his face in acid. Fucking miserable. So talking took his mind off it.
Otherwise, all the kid did was read. About the only time he opened his mouth was to ask for more books, or to do research on the Internet-which Prax allowed, as long as he was right there to keep an eye on the little brat.
The kid was reading now, sitting at a chair in the corner. Some book about bugs or snakes or some damn thing.
Prax watched him for a second before he said, “Have you ever heard of drugs called cyclosporine or prednisone? I’ve never heard of the fuckin’ stuff.”
The kid looked up from his book and thought about it for a moment before he said, “Cyclosporine, no, but prednisone, yeah. I remember reading about it because the body produces its own form of prednisone, a chemical called cortisol.”
“Really?”
“Um-huh. I’ve been reading a lot about medicine lately, because. .. well, a friend of mine has some emotional problems. There are so many new drugs coming out that can help-almost always from the United States-it’s kind of interesting. The chemistry of it, I mean. I think I’m going to be a doctor.”
Prax said, “No shit? A fuckin’ doctor.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
The kid was like that. A smart-ass, but smart.
Maybe the brat would have some ideas on how to get his hands on those brand-new drugs…
SEVENTEEN
Even though I seemed to be moving in slow motion, the satellite phone was still ringing when I got the car door open.
The phone was made by Motorola, cased in black plastic, the size and shape of a standard cell phone, but it had an oversized antenna and a flat face with no keypad. There was an On-Off button, a menu key, and a couple of other buttons. Stupidly, I hadn’t bothered to familiarize myself with the thing.
It rang once more, green face plate flashing, as I held it beneath the car’s dome light, trying to figure out how to answer.
Damn it, how’s this work?
Finally, I pressed the largest button and slammed the phone to my ear. “Hello. Hello?”
There was silence on the other end. Silence… but it was an inhabited silence. Someone was listening.
After a few seconds, I realized that the silence may have been catalyzed by surprise-because the caller was expecting Pilar to answer. Quickly I said in Spanish, “My name’s Ford. I’m the boy’s father. Laken’s father. I’m all alone, no police. The mother’s… indisposed right now.”
More silence.
“Hello! Talk to me. Let me talk to my son.”
Then I heard click.
I kept talking until I was certain they’d disconnected. Then I hit the Off key.
Shit.
I was aware that Janet was watching me from the house. Because I didn’t want to have to explain, I waved goodbye, got in the car, and drove slowly back toward the beach, the satellite phone in my lap.
Call back, give me another chance. Ring, damn you, ring.
The phone still wasn’t taking my telepathic commands.
It was nearly one A.M., but I was so hyped-up, I knew there was no chance of sleep. Besides, there were still a few proactive steps to take, I decided.
The reasonable thing to do now, and what we should do, was check Pilar’s e-mail to see if the kidnappers had supplemented their call with another written message. Trouble was, Pilar-and her password-were in Miami.
I was justified in asking her for it. No question about that. She and Tomlinson had to be in the room by this late hour, so I grabbed the cell phone, dialed the Radisson.
No answer.
I was furious.
I redialed the hotel immediately and asked the clerk, “Are you sure they haven’t checked out?”
He used a practiced, polite and frosty tone that showed disdain, but from a safe distance. “Oh yes, sir, I’m positive, sir.”
“Then make sure they get my message the instant they get in.”
“Yes sir!”
As I drove, I rehearsed some of the bitter, cutting things I would say to my old pal and to the mother of the boy who, for all we knew, was fighting for his life at this very instant. I indulged in that ugly rehearsal for several miles before I recognized the kind of emotional spiral I was in. Negative cycling is as irrational as Pollyanna optimism.
I stopped and made myself review. Tomlinson is a flake and a womanizer, but he is also brilliant, decent, and one of the kindest people I know. Pilar and I had issues, but I had no reason to doubt her devotion as a parent. Quite the opposite. Neither of them would put their own pleasure ahead of our son’s well-being. If they weren’t in their hotel room, or weren’t answering the phone, there was almost certain to be a good reason.
Now… what the hell that reason was, I couldn’t imagine. But I decided that I should, at the very least, give them a chance to explain before I passed judgment.
So back off, Ford. Settle down.
I was hyped, all right. Juiced on a day of adrenal overload. It was O.K. to stay aggressive, but I also needed to stay constructive.
I took it easy through the curves south of ’Tween Waters, then slowed to a crawl at Blind Pass Bridge.
To my right, the moon was enormous over the Gulf of Mexico. It was a gaseous sphere, meteor scars showing, sitting on a rim of atmosphere that buffered Captiva Island from the emptiness of outer space. Beyond the bridge, white surf rolled out of a far horizon that touched Yucatan and the jungles of Central America.
I stared, eyes soft-focused, thinking that only water separated me from a shore where someone held my son prisoner. Islands may be isolated by water, but they also seem more intimately linked to a wider world because of the uninterrupted plane. Lake seemed close. Just over there. Just beyond the moon.
I’m coming. I’ll find you.
I touched my foot to the accelerator.
As I drove, I concentrated on how to take the next necessary step: check Pilar’s e-mail. Lake’s well-being was too important to let it wait until morning. The kidnappers might want us in Miami the next afternoon, and we wouldn’t know about it until too late. But how could I get the woman’s password at one A.M. without talking to her?
I knew a way. Maybe.
I had a friend I could call. A man by the name of Bernie Yeager. He could help-if he was home, and if he was agreeable. An elite and distinguished member of the U.S. electronic warfare and intelligence community, Bernie didn’t qualify as law enforcement. Not by my definition, anyway.
Under my agreement with Pilar, contacting Bernie was permissible.
On the way back to Dinkin’s Bay, there was someone else I decided to telephone: my cousin, Ransom Gatrell.
Under any other circumstances, I wouldn’t have bothered her so late. But Ransom’s a night owl-she’s always up at odd hours-plus, my sensitivity to the power of blood linkage had been heightened.
Her second cousin, Lake, had been kidnapped. Aside from my son, she is my only living relative, and so I dialed her number.
Ransom was born and raised on Cat Island, one of the remote cays in the Bahamas. She works on Sanibel now, lives just across the bay from me, but her Bahamian accent remains just as strong as her Cat Island attitude.
When I told her what had happened, I heard her say with great emotion, “Aw, me brudder, I knowed I wuz piddlin’ ’bout diz hour far a reezin, mon. I comin’ to yer hose jus’ as fas’ daht li’l boot kin kirry me sweeet broon awss. ’N I breengin’ a jar o ’soop, mon. Daht ain’ no beeg dill.”
What she’d told me was, she was going to get in her boat and meet me at my house, and that she was bringing along a jar of soup that she’d made.
I was smiling mildly when I punched off, but then I stopped smiling.
The satellite phone was warbling again.
This time, when I answered, there was a voice that I recognized on the other end. It was Masked Man, the voice from the video. It was Praxcedes Lourdes, my son’s abductor. It was the one Pilar called “monster,” the man who burned men.