Part 7 (1/2)

”There's no color.” Danny looked up long enough to sweep his big hand across the winds.h.i.+eld, indicating the grayscape of barren trees standing in white snowfields.

”Color depresses you,” Eli said.

Danny sighed with pleasure. He was understood, and Eli knew that was all that mattered to his younger brother now.

Small and wiry, Eli had Levantine eyes and olive skin, and could pa.s.s for a Middle Easterner or a Creole, a southern Italian or a Corsican. He took pride in his physical advantages and used them constantly. He was sixty-five years old.

Danny was a decade younger, tall and hulking, with a thick body and an overlarge bony face anch.o.r.ed by a protruding jaw. When he was a child, he had been teased brutally for being so much larger than the other boys. In truth, the teasing was triggered by his lack of interest in them. He would not join their war games or soccer or other sports where his unusual size could help them win. Still he came home with bloodied cheeks, bruises on his back and legs, because he had let them beat him, unable to comprehend their emotions or confusion, himself unable to martial anger or outrage against them. He failed reading and history in school. He did not bar mitzvah. But within the family it was recognized he was blessed, and the rabbi agreed. Danny had one enormous G.o.d-given talent-he could build and fix anything. In particular, his eye-hand coordination was a marvel.

Ahead stood the club's lodges and cabins with their steep roofs. The white Explorer SUV and the black Cadillac limousine were parked in the same places they had seen from their sniper lair, and the corpses were lying on the drive in positions the living could not sustain. It was like all other kill zones, eerie.

”Wow.” Danny stared out the winds.h.i.+eld again. ”We did all of them within seconds.”

His eyes bright, Danny leaned forward, grasping the dashboard. He always got charged up by their kills, and this had been a highly accurate and efficient one. They had used the best rifles-Silent a.s.sa.s.sins, the nickname of the British-made L115A3 Long Range Rifle, renowned for taking out insurgents in Afghanistan a mile away. Today's firing conditions had been nearly perfect, with clear visibility. The wind had died down just before the Padre had appeared. Only the low temperature could have been a problem, but they had accounted for it.

Eli stopped the van. Danny and he grabbed their AK-47s and climbed out.

Danny lumbered to the nearest corpse.

Eli a.s.sessed the silent buildings, the juniper hedges, the trees. There was no sign of his inside man, Toms Lara. ”Toms!” he shouted. ”Toms, come out! Como esta?”

Suddenly there was the noise of thumping. The SUV rocked, followed by shouts from inside.

Danny peered in a window. ”Here he is, Eli. His feet are kicking, and he's yelling. He thinks he's angry, but I think he's frightened.” At the age of twelve, Danny had been diagnosed with autism. Over the years, he had taught himself to a.s.sess expressions, skin colors, and eye contractions and dilations to deduce others' emotions.

”Thanks, Danny.”

Nodding, Danny stepped back, and Eli opened the door. Lara lay on the floor, hands and feet bound. A big man, now he looked small.

Eli glared down. ”What happened?”

”It was that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Judd Ryder.” The man's eyes blinked rapidly. ”He jumped me. He was going to kill me. I-”

”Where are the pieces of the tablet?”

”Ryder stole them. I could not stop him.”

Eli glanced at his brother. ”Check the Padre. See if he still has them.”

With a nod, Danny trotted off.

Eli continued to study his man. The problem with buying someone's loyalty was you could never pay enough. There was always the risk someone would offer more or threaten them so much the money lost importance.

Danny reappeared. ”The Padre doesn't have the pieces.”

”Thank you, Danny,” Eli said. He leaned his AK-47 against the SUV, took out his jackknife, and sawed the ropes that bound Lara's wrists and ankles.

”Muchas gracias.” Pus.h.i.+ng himself up, Lara leaned back against the vehicle's wall, rubbing one wrist then the other.

”Did Ryder know about the limestone pieces?” Eli asked, keeping his tone mild.

”Yes, of course. Why else would he take them?”

”How did he find out about them?”

”He did not say.”

”Did he know about me?”

Lara shook his head violently. ”No, no!”

”His information about the pieces came from somewhere. From the Carnivore, Seymour, Krot, or perhaps it was from the Padre himself?”

Lara looked away. ”I think it must have been the Padre who told him. Yes, the Padre.”

Eli felt an itch at the bottom of his spine. He turned to Danny. ”Is he lying?”

Danny nodded. ”It wasn't the Padre.”

Lara's eyes widened. Sweat broke out on his forehead. ”Then I ... I must have been the one who said it. But I can help you find him. The Padre had him investigated. Everything that was learned is on the laptop in the main room of the lodge.” He pointed with his thumb.

Without being asked, Danny broke into a lumbering run.

Watching Danny's back, Lara said eagerly, ”I just remembered that Ryder must know something about the Carnivore. He asked whether the Padre was trying to find the Carnivore.”

Eli said nothing. He simply stared down at Lara.

The man adjusted his sitting position. A drop of sweat slid down his temple.

There was the sound of running feet on the drive. Danny was returning.

”This was the only computer in the lodge.” Danny showed them a Tos.h.i.+ba laptop.

Eli took it and handed it to Lara. ”Find the material about Ryder.”

The man opened the machine and searched. ”Here is the file. You will see many pictures.” He offered up the laptop.

Looking at the screen, Eli saw Ryder's name with doc.u.ments listed beneath it-early childhood, college, the army, retirement.

”Put it in our van,” he told Danny.

Again Danny left.

”How did the Padre find out Ryder or Blake might lead him to the Carnivore?”