Darting from its habitat cave, the octopus was quick to wrap its venomous tentacles around him.
The vid-conference between Megan Breen in San Jose and Noriko Cousins and Tom Ricci in New York took place almost immediately after the federal agents left Noriko’s office.
It was no coincidence that their visit to Sword-Manhattan, and the reasons for it, were the main subjects of discussion.
“It boggles me that you let this happen,” Megan was telling Noriko. “A threat of the magnitude you uncovered… how could you not immediately report it to the authorities? The list of protocols you violated is so long, I can only begin to list them from memory. NYPD, the FBI, Homeland Security — all of them should have been informed.” She paused, shook her head. “This was a Code Red national-security emergency. Millions could have died—”
“But they didn’t die, and the reason they didn’t is because we didn’t wait to move,” Noriko said. Her lips tightened. “All it cost was the lives of two of my men.”
Megan looked at her from across the country.
“I’m not questioning the actions you took,” she said. “It’s the notifications you should have — and could have — made when they were taken.”
Noriko stared at the video screen from her chair at the conference table, glanced over at Ricci, glanced back at the screen. Started to say something, then stopped. And then stared at the screen some more.
“I had reasons that I can’t share,” she said simply.
Megan looked at her.
“Reasons,” she repeated.
Noriko gave a nod.
“Reasons,” Megan repeated a second time, incredulous. “Noriko, listen to what I’m saying—”
“She can hear you,” Ricci said abruptly. “You want to put this on somebody, put it on me.”
Megan shook her head.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“My source gave me his tip on the condition that we handle everything ourselves,” Ricci said. “He wanted time to get himself out of the city before it went into lockdown, and I told him he could have it. Better that than have him leave without talking.”
There was a prolonged silence. Megan inhaled, exhaled.
“This mysterious source you’ve mentioned… you could have told him whatever you wanted for his information,” she said. “Do you really think letting him have things his way was worth putting UpLink under fire? Our reputation, our contacts… were they worth jeopardizing for him?”
Ricci looked at her with his icy blue eyes and merely shrugged.
“No,” he said. “They were for my promise.”
“Yes, sir, may I help you?” the salesman said from behind his counter.
Malisse nodded.
“The cocobolo rosewood humidor,” he said. “The one in your window, with the beveled glass lid…”
“I know which you mean,” said the salesman, looking sharply down his nose at Malisse. “It is a one-of-a-kind.”
Malisse tugged at his earlobe.
“I see,” he said. “Well, I’d noticed it earlier, and was wondering about its price”
The salesman looked at him, and quoted a dollar amount with what appeared to be delighted scorn.
Malisse tried not to choke on the exorbitant figure. With his flight back to Antwerp booked for the morning, he had returned to the tobacconist’s on a whim… and a foolish whim it had been to think he could afford the cigar case.
Indeed, Malisse thought, he was probably undeserving of it. Certainly undeserving. He had failed to determine anything conclusive about the sapphires. He had not learned whether they were authentic or fakes. He knew nothing more than before about their origins, or the identity of the scoundrel in the outback coat who had doubtless been set to meet the late, unfortunate Hoffman before his fall. He had done nothing, nothing of consequence in New York City but sample its sweets and return a briefcase full of money to Hoffman the middleman’s bereaved widow.
Yes, Rance Lembock would offer to pay him despite his disappointment. And no, Malisse would accept nothing but expense money from the old survivor of genocide. How could he presume to justify the purchase of the humidor to himself?
“Ah, sir… if you don’t mind?”
Malisse looked at the salesman, plucked from his reverie.
“Don’t mind what?” he said.
“I have other customers waiting,” the salesman said with a wave toward some presumably invisible person at a counter where Malisse had thought himself standing alone. “So unless there’s something more—”
Malisse snapped up his hand, a finger pointing skyward.
“Yes, my friend,” he said. “Yes there is! Bring me the humidor, a carton of Davidoffs to fill it… and have the whole package gift wrapped quickly, as I have a plane awaiting to carry me away from this cold city.”
The salesman’s eyebrows arched. His scorn transformed to surprise, he turned to bring the valuable goods.
Malisse watched him, guiltless about the decision that had struck him like a bolt out of the blue.
Sometimes, he thought, a man must not be rewarded only for success.
Sometimes just trying one’s best was worth a gift.
The seven dead bodies had been lined one beside the other on their backs, naked, stripped of their dog tags, their Indian army uniforms buried deep under the snow elsewhere on the mountainside.
Siphoned of emotion, Yousaf looked down at them. It was too late to second guess himself, yet he knew his decision not to radio out a message to his buyers had in all probability cost them their lives… and crushed his hopes of ending this night as a very rich man. While the border patrol uniforms the men had worn — and identification they’d carried — had gotten them past the Indians on the other side of the Line of Command, it had not stopped them from being ambushed by Ahmad’s scouts here on the mountain pass.
Cold and pale under the moonlight, they might have looked like their own ghosts had it not been for the single, red, seeping bullet hole Yousaf could see in the middle of each man’s forehead.
As far as he knew, bloodless spirits did not bear the marks of a gunpoint execution.
He turned toward one of the LeT scouts that had led him to the bodies, trying to maintain his presence of mind. “Tell me again when these whoresons were caught.”
The scout looked at him.
“Two hours ago,” he said, and gestured toward a nearby rock overhang. “We spotted them earlier. Came up the other side of the mountain and took them.”
“And you say it appears they had been waiting here for some time?”
“There are signs, yes.”
Silence. Several paces away, just out of earshot, a Bakarwal guide waited near his mule, holding the beast’s rope in his hand as it snorted steam into the icy night air.
Yousaf glanced over at him and thought a moment. The prospect of wealth might be lost to him, at least for now. But there was still more of the game to play, another deception he must turn to assure the scout’s suspicion did not instead turn his way.
“The nomads,” he said in a lowered voice. “It can only be that they betrayed us. Conspired with these troops so we’d be caught before making our rendezvous across the border.”
The scout continued to eye him.
“That might be easy for me to believe,” he said. “India’s government and military generals would pay a high price for the Dragonfly cannon.”
Yousaf nodded.
“Enough of a fortune to satiate even a Bakarwal’s greedy soul,” he said. “My intelligence is that only two complete units have been produced. That the other remains with our brothers in Americ—”