“Senator Ring has an exemplary congressional record. Any hint of scandal—even from her husband—could be devastating to her position as chair of the Homeland Strategic Appropriations Committee. If she is disgraced and steps down, we will be back to square one. We will have lost valuable time. We cannot afford to start all over.”
No, Minister Ouyang thought, we most certainly cannot.
“I despise stupidity,” he said.
Li wisely held his tongue.
“There is danger in exposing ourselves to the extent required to extricate Thorne from his predicament.” At the moment, Ouyang appeared to be talking to himself, trying to work out the pros and cons of Li’s suggestion. “As you know, Li, there is a very thin line between an asset and a liability.”
His eyes never left the face he now knew so well, a face he saw in long, drawn-out nightmares to which he returned again and again, an endless repetition that infuriated him.
“I understand, Minister. But I have trained Thorne. He is our unwitting conduit.”
“The best kind,” Ouyang acknowledged.
“Precisely.”
The face had a name, of course, and he knew it as well as he knew his own—a name that was hideous, a name he was determined to eradicate as if it had never existed.
“I have worked long and hard cultivating this conduit. He can be saved from the oncoming storm,” Li said with the full force of his conviction.
“As long as you aren’t exposed, as long as our plan isn’t jeopardized, you have my permission.” He cocked his head to one side, concentrating on both his important conversation with Li and the equally important photo. He grunted. “Do not disappoint me, Li.”
While Li Wan rambled his gratitude, Ouyang tapped the eyes of the man in the photo, first one, then the other, in his mind’s eye blinding him before he was killed, and his name echoed and reechoed in his mind.
Jason Bourne, Jason Bourne, Jason Bourne.
"Hey.”
“Hey yourself.” Soraya smiled when she saw Peter enter her room, heard his familiar voice. But seeing him in his bedraggled clothes, her
expression immediately changed. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Thirty million dollars.” He pulled up a chair and began to relate the story of the increasingly visible web that included Richards, Core Energy, Tom Brick, Florin Popa, all leading to the thirty million sunk in a watertight satchel off the Recursive at Dockside Marina.
“What does it all mean?” Soraya asked when she had absorbed the various strands.
Peter shook his head. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”
“What about Richards?”
The same question Hendricks had asked him. “I’ve decided to give him his lead. Whatever Brick is up to, it runs through Richards.”
“Won’t Brick be suspicious that you didn’t wait around to kill whoever it was he was bringing back to the house in Virginia?”
Peter hitched his chair forward. “I don’t think so. Anyone with half a brain wouldn’t stay around. I think that was just a test.”
“An intelligence test.”
“Brick doesn’t trust me fully.” Peter shrugged. “Why should he? As far as he’s concerned, I crawled out of a hole and saved him a lot of grief. But so what? In his business, he’s got to run me through a maze before he can accept me completely.”
“So you’ll contact him again?”
Peter winked at her. “You bet.” He stood up. “Now relax. I want to see you on your feet before long.”
Don Tulio sat in his rental car watching as Sam Anderson, his team having scoured and dredged the marina basin for any sign of the man who had attacked his boss, berated the crew and sent them back down to try again.
Anderson stood giving orders to a man Don Tulio knew from conversations overheard as Sanseverino. Sanseverino nodded and went back up to the parking lot. Don Tulio followed Sanseverino as he drove Peter’s car to the hospital. Don Tulio was an expert driver; he knew how to tail someone without being discovered.
Now he sat in his car, watching as Sanseverino trotted into the ER entrance and disappeared into the bowels of the hospital complex. He had no intention of following Sanseverino inside, where there was sure to be security and every chance he would be made. Why bother, when all he had to do was wait here for jefe Marks to emerge, get in his car, and drive off? Don Tulio, time running out, would follow him and take his pound of flesh. The plane he had chartered back to Mexico City was ready and waiting for him.
As to the thirty million, he knew for certain it was gone. The federales had it, which meant it had evaporated like smoke. His lieutenants, having decapitated the sacrificial lamb Don Tulio had chosen from within his ranks, were hard at work replacing the thirty million. Rehabilitating his image with Don Maceo weighed just as heavily on his mind. Don Maceo would have already been placated, at least temporarily, by the head the Aztec’s lieutenant had delivered. But he would not be impressed until the money was returned and Don Tulio delivered the second head and informed him to whom it belonged.
The Aztec checked the 911 handgun, its hollow-point ammo, one more time. Then, setting the gun on the seat next to his gravity knife, he leaned his head back, closing his eyes halfway. He had developed the ability of sleeping with his eyes half-open, like a reptile. Nothing got by him when he was in this state. His mind relaxed and rested while his senses remained on alert. It was this peculiar ability that alerted him to jefe Marks emerging from the hospital, accompanied by Sanseverino. The two men went directly to Marks’s car. A brief altercation broke out as Sanseverino insisted on driving. Marks acquiesced, and his deputy got behind the wheel while Marks himself climbed in beside him.
Don Tulio turned on his ignition a moment before Sanseverino did. He followed the car out of the hospital parking lot at a discreet distance, varying the number of vehicles between them. As he drove, he hummed a cumbia tune that reminded him of sleek arms and powerful legs, sweat-slicked bodies, minds lubricated with mezcal, all moving to the insistent beat.
Sorry we haven’t found him yet, boss,” Sanseverino said as he negotiated a turn. “Maybe the currents took him, ’cause if he was down there the divers would’ve found him by now. The current was sucking out, they told me, so Anderson sent them down to search a wider circle.”
“Dammit,” Peter said, “I needed to ID him in order to follow the money trail back to its source. Without him, we’re at a dead end.”
“Dead is dead,” Sanseverino said.
“It ain’t over till it’s over,” Peter grumbled. He was in a foul mood. Everything is going wrong today, he thought, refusing to admit how worried he was about Soraya. Plus, he didn’t like that she had shut him out; it wasn’t like her.
“Anderson said to leave it and go home,” Sanseverino said. “Take the day and night to recuperate.”
Peter shook his head. “With Soraya down, Treadstone is undermanned as it is.”
“We’re kind of circling, you realize that?” Sanseverino said. “I have no idea where we’re going.”
“Take a deep breath.” Peter pulled out his mobile. “In a moment you will.” He looked up Delia’s mobile in his address book and clicked on the highlighted number. A moment later, Delia answered.
“It’s Peter,” he said, brusquely. “We need to talk.”
“I’m—”
“Now.”
“Uh-oh.”
He grinned fiercely. “That’s right. ‘Uh-the-fuck-oh.’ Where are you?”
“Out of the office. On a case.”
“I’ll come to you.” He snapped his fingers. “Address.”