Medina’s headshake was a tribute. “I’m too goddamn new at this, man,” he said. “You know I can’t go back, don’t you.” Not a question; a flat statement.
“Yeah. They’d turn you inside out,” Corbett agreed. “They already think you’re dead, you said. Look, we gotta talk this out, Speedy, and I can help. It’ll cost you half that bundle. You earned the rest.”
“Damned decent of you, man, seeing as how I stole it fair and square already.” Medina moved around the nearest Escort, kicking corrugated debris aside, lifting the bags of money with a grunting effort. He dropped it all into the dirt at Corbett’s feet, toeing it roughly, and grinned. “Ain’t that a bitch, treating our spookers so rough?”
Corbett nodded. “I’ll give odds the stuff is marked, or bugged somehow. That’s one of the things we have to check before we leave here. And I don’t know where we can go.”
Pause. Then, suddenly: “I do,” from Medina. “That old guy, Julio, had a little place on a creek, a mile from the Regocijo hangar. He got zapped; that’s his VW I drove. The Russki seemed to think the guy you killed was the sneaky type, so he’s the one we should hide.”
“Yeah?” Corbett’s heavy shoulders shook faintly with amusement. “Yeah? Try this: we hide the Russian. Somebody was depending on him, Speedy, and so on up the line. Fuck ‘em all,” he said, and winked.
“All the way back to the Kremlin,” Medina nodded, his eyes alight. “Jesus, I’m glad you’re on my side.” He saw Corbett turning his hand over in a “maybe yes, maybe no” gesture, and laughed. “You fly him to Regocijo and I’ll drive the VW there.”
“You and the money,” Corbett said.
“Fuckin’ A,” Medina said. “And it’s only fifty miles by air but if you don’t get your ass in gear, it’ll be dark before you could make Regocijo. Don’t land at the strip; look for a thatch-roof place a mile to the north, by the creek. It’s got a pasture big enough for you.” Then, with a sigh: “Shit, I’ll be driving half the night. But at least I know the way, and you’d never make it with your balls the size of punching bags.”
Corbett picked up his pistol, wiped it down and thrust it into his jacket, took a half-dozen steps, then turned. “You still have that modified airchine you were building?”
“The Imp? Sure, hangared under false ID outside Binghamton. I’m not holding out on you, man.”
“Didn’t think you were, Speedy. I’m just reminding you: you’ve got your airchine. I’ve got mine. I won’t object to a little trading around now and then, but”
Medina drew a long breath. A muscle twitched in his cheek. “Yeah, what’s mine is mine, and what belongs to the fucking NSA is yours. Is that all? You through setting terms and conditions, ole buddy? Maybe you’d rather just take the money and let me lug that fucking deader in a VW that might conk out on the streets of Mazatlan when I’m halfway to Regocijo, huh? Seems I heard you say you owed me one, and that was damn straight, Kyle; you do.”
Corbett raised a conciliatory hand. “Dead right on all counts. I’m just giving all the bad news up front, Speedy. I’m not holding anything out on you either. We have a lot of planning to do. We need to buy spreads from Canada to Chile where we can build hangars, a couple of dead dropout ID changes for you, stuff you may not have worked out. The good news is, I can lay it out for you, step by step.”
“Not if you don’t quit talking and get moving,” Medina said gruffly, reaching into a net bag as if it were full of scorpions. He popped the seal from a bundle of banknotes, dropped the money, and held the paper tape toward the sun which was now within a hand’s breadth of the horizon. “Well, how about that,” he said, “circuitry printed into the tape. We’re not the only high-tech spooks in the game.”
“Nope; just the best,” Corbett replied as Medina began to remove more tape wrappers.
EPILOGUE
The javelin’s tires hummed a song of gray slush and skittishness as Dar Weston wheeled from the beltway toward Potomac and a fireplace that needed only a match to make the afternoon absolutely perfect. That and hot chocolate with brandy, he amended. She had loved the stuff since the days when it was forbidden. Tires like these were definitely not for January weather, but Dar had not expected his retirement to feature many trips, certainly not a jaunt to and from Baltimore on a moment’s notice. A block from the house, he made a turn just a few degrees too tight and felt the Javelin’s rear end slip before straightening. He glanced at his passenger.
“Don’t mind me, I’ll just eat my knuckles,” Petra said brightly. Her tone said that a little fishtailing was of no concern. Then, looking ahead: “What on earth happened to the edge of your carport?”
Dar turned in at his driveway. “Don’t ask,” he said. “Been meaning to fix it, but somehow I never seem to get around to it. And don’t imagine I did it, Pets, I may be retired but I’m not senile enough yet to collide with my own carport.”
He would have taken her two small overnight bags inside but neither of them would be staying the night. When she had called, she’d given him choices: pick her up at the Greyhound station in Baltimore and take her to Dulles in hopes of a flight to Hartford, or spend the balance of the day with her at his home in Potomac and then drive her to Old Lyme that night. Or let her continue by bus. That, thought Dar, was never a likely choice and, bless her, she knows it. She also wants me to help her take some heat from Phil and Andrea when she gets home. And I will, and she knows that too.
“You’ll never be old, Uncle Dar,” said the young woman, sliding her arm around his waist in a hug too powerful for most women her size. The hug made him miss the keyhole in the kitchen door, but Dar did not complain.
She skipped up the three steps into the kitchen, snapping on the light without looking, as if she owned the placewhich might as well be true, Dar thought. I need no higher compliment. In the light, Petra’s tanned features radiated health that seemed a reproach to other women. “Been skiing, have you?”
“No,” she said, touched her sun-bleached hair, and laughed. “Looks like it, huh? The truth is, I feel an awful slut for taking off like this over Christmas holidays when Mother and Dad expected me, butI’ll be starting winter term knee-deep in snow, Uncle Dar! This is a beach tan, I’ll have you know.” She strolled with him to the living room, a place of lounge chairs and incongruously modern lamps, made untidy by the scatter of books. She returned his smile. As he knelt to light the crumpled paper beneath oak logs, she stood behind him, fingertips touching his shoulders. More seriously, now: “Tell me it’s okay with Mom and Dadbut tell me the truth.”
He laughed into the growing blaze, then stood up and hugged her to him. “The truth,” he said gently, “is that it’s not okay yet. But it will be, a half hour after you kiss Andrea hello.” He released her and pointed to one of his recliner chairs, taking the other. “The greater truth is that the right thing to do isn’t always the thing people recommend.”
She flopped into the chair like a child. “That sounds funny, coming from you. Tell me honestly: would you have said that beforeyou know.”
She doesn’t want to say, “before you were canned.” “Probably not, Pets. But I knew it, all the same.”
The blaze had caught nicely now, licking up through the smaller split pieces, searing into oak bark that hissed in protest. “If it bothers you to talk about it,” she said with some hesitation.
He waved her reticence away, staring at the flame as if mesmerized. “Truthfully? A little, Pets, but sometimes you have to talk to someone.” His voice lowered, the words falling from his reverie as if from a great height: “And there is no one I would rather talk with than you.”