Meg came into the sitting room and startled him.
“Jumpy, huh?” she asked.
He nodded. “I may get you killed today, Meg.”
“I’ve thought about it. I think you’re doing the best you can under the circumstances.”
“Under the circumstances, maybe.”
She put her hand on his cheek. “Listen, I haven’t told you what a great thing you’ve done. You started with nothing on this, and you found her.”
“I’d have given up on finding Jinx in Santa Marta if it hadn’t been for you. I’d have given up on everything else, too. But you made me realize that there was still something in me that could love somebody, something I thought had been wrung out of me. I do love you, you know.”
She smiled. “I know. And I love you.” She bent and kissed him.
“If we get out of here alive...” he started to say.
“Then we’ll talk about it,” she said. “Not much point right now. Let’s concentrate on the matter at hand.”
He stood up. “You’re right.” He took Hedger’s canvas-and-leather grip and set it on the sofa, open. Then he worked the combination on the aluminum briefcase and started transferring the money into Hedger’s bag.
“Jesus,” she said, rolling her eyes.
He packed the money into the case, and put a towel on top of it. “Pack anything you can’t bear to leave into one small bag and take it to the tennis court with you. Our date with Prince and Jinx is at seven, and I may not be able to come back here first. Will you take this bag for me, too?”
“Sure. All I really need to take of my own is my camera and tapes and my passport. The rest is expendable.”
“Put some towels on top of the bag to make it look as much like a tennis bag as possible.” Cat slipped the H&K automatic into the shoulder holster and put it on. He put on dark gray trousers and a blue blazer over his tennis clothes and slipped the silencer into his pocket. He took a deep breath. “Let’s be at the court a little before seven.”
“All right.”
He didn’t want to go. He kissed her and slipped out the door. He stood in the doorway for a few moments and let his eyes become accustomed to the dark. There was no moon, and he was grateful for that. Nothing was moving in the night. He stepped off the small porch. Would it be best to simply walk to the main house? Then, if he was stopped, he could plead insomnia and a walk. They might just send him back to the cottage. On the other hand, if they caught him sneaking around, he’d be up before Vargas or Prince very quickly. He decided to sneak. It seemed his best chance of making the house.
He kept off the main path and moved from tree to tree, looking as far as he could in every direction. Still nothing. Finally, he came to a place with little shelter. There were sixty or seventy yards of open ground to cover, and only low shrubs for cover. He took one more look around, then ran for it. It seemed to take forever, but he reached the side of the main house. He paused a moment to let his breathing return to normal. Then he stepped around the corner of the house to the front veranda. He nearly ran head-on into a khaki-clad guard carrying a machine gun. The man was standing, looking up at the sky, not three feet from the corner of the house. Cat ducked back around the corner, hoping he had not made a noise.
He stood, frozen, the gun in his hand, pressed against the side of the house. Then he realized the silencer had not been fitted to the barrel. He fumbled in his pocket for it, cursing his own stupidity. If he had to use the gun out here without the silencer, he’d bring the whole place down on him. He got the silencer screwed into the barrel; he heard the man yawn, then his footsteps recede. Cat peeped around the corner of the house and saw him walking down the veranda in the opposite direction. Cat waited a few seconds longer to be sure he was gone, then ran to the front door. Locked. Damn. He started back the way he had come, then stopped. There was a window in the men’s room, he remembered. He went back past the front door, found the window, and tried it. Locked. He looked around once more, then with his elbow, smashed the glass. There wasn’t much noise; most of the glass fell inside the house. He reached inside, unlocked the window, and stepped through. Quickly, he removed the fragments of glass from the window and put them into a wastebasket. Maybe no one would notice the empty pane. The room was dark, but the glow from his Rolex said ten to five. Dell was going to have trouble getting into the house, too. Cat eased open the men’s-room door and looked around the large foyer. Empty. A light from the communications room cast a dim glow over Vargas’s office. He could hear the sound of big-band jazz coming from a radio in the room. Cat slipped off his tennis shoes to keep the rubber soles from squeaking on the marble floor, then tiptoed to the front door, keeping his eyes on the door to Vargas’s office. He reached the front door and started to turn the lock. As he turned his eyes back from the office door, he opened the front door an inch, then jerked back. A man was standing on the other side of the door. Too frightened to move, he stared at the shadowy figure on the veranda. The man motioned for him to open the door. Holding the pistol behind him, he did, and Dell stepped in. Cat motioned him toward the men’s room.
“Christ, you scared me,” Cat said when they were safely inside.
“Same here,” Dell said, panting.
They stood there in the dark, composing themselves.
“What now?” Dell asked.
“I was afraid you were going to ask me that,” Cat said, ruefully. “I guess we go in there and take that guy. Did you bring a gun?”
“Yeah.” Dell held up a snub-nosed .38-caliber revolver.
“If there’s any shooting to do, let me do it,” Cat said. “I’ve got a silencer. You can point, but don’t shoot; you’ll bring the house down on us.”
“Okay, who goes first?”
“I do, I think. The guy who’s on duty saw me this afternoon. I fixed his printer. I’ll be a familiar face.” He took a deep breath. “Let’s go.”
Cat checked the foyer, then stepped through the door. He tiptoed across the floor toward Vargas’s office. At the door he motioned for Dell to hang back, then walked into the communications room. He walked hard into the radio operator, who was coming out.
The man leapt back. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing here?”
The music was coming from a big Zenith Transoceanic radio on the shelf above the other radio equipment.
“Easy,” Cat said, holding the pistol behind him, “you scared me, too.” He had forgotten how big the man was. “I was in here this afternoon. I fixed your printer, remember? I want to place a call to my bank in Switzerland.”
The man relaxed a little but still seemed suspicious. “At five o’clock in the morning?”
“It’s eleven o’clock in Switzerland,” Cat said.
“You’ve got to have an authorization from the Anaconda or Vargas,” the man said. “How the hell did you get into the house?”
“The front door was open,” Cat said. “And I have the Anaconda’s permission. I’ve got to transfer some money to his account in Cali.”
“Nobody said anything to me,” the man said.
“The Anaconda should have,” Cat said. “And I’ve got to get the money wired before noon Swiss time, or it won’t get to Cali today.”
The man looked doubtful. “I don’t know.”
“Shall we wake up the Anaconda and ask him?” Cat asked.
“Jesus, no,” the man replied.
“Look, you can place the call and listen in. All I have to do is give them my account number and the Cali account number and the amount, a million dollars.”
“You didn’t bring it with you, huh?”