Part 7 (1/2)

'Let's save the trouble and pretend I've now asked, Who sent you?' ad nauseam, and endured all your variations of Sent me where?' and Why, n.o.body sent me anywhere, darling,' with you looking at me all the while like I've spent too much time in the wine cellar, shall we?'

'Okay, but I still won't know what you mean.'

'All right, stick with that tack. I'll counter with a threat. But first, so you won't think it's an idle threat, let's broach for the first time the topic of what I do for a living. Alice, what do I do for a living?'

'You hunt for buried pirate treasure.'

'Sometimes I do, yes. But have you ever thought about buried pirate treasure?'

'How should I think about it, Nicky?' She was playing along as though he were a seven-year-old.

He resolved to keep his emotions out of it. 'Say you're a pirate. What sense would it make for you to take your treasure, which likely came at the sacrifice of lives and limbs, and dump it into an unguarded hole in the ground on a remote island you might never be able to find again?'

'What about the treasure of San Isidro?' she asked. His well-publicized search for the legendary pirate h.o.a.rd was into a seventh month.

'Actually, the treasure of San Isidro is the maritime equivalent of an urban legend.'

'How about your gold escudos, then?' He'd supposedly found the cache after weeks of searching along the Argentine coast. News photographs showed him neck deep in a hole on a beach, holding one of the coins aloft, its gleam matching the one in his eyes. A neophyte collector, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al Saqr, bought the lot for six million dollars.

'I suspect you already know this, Alice*or whatever your name really is*but in case the brief you were given glossed over it, the truth is that the authenticity of the coins was questionable at best. Al Saqr knew that and didn't care. Because the coin deal was really a cover for * what, you tell me.'

She looked away to hide her anguish. 'Of course I've heard the rumors.'

He stopped pacing, waited for her to look, then locked eyes with her. 'Ever hear the one about Nick Fielding, illegal arms dealer?'

'Look, if that's the case*' She was embarking, he suspected, on an explanation of how she'd made her peace with it.

'It's the case,' he said. 'Moreover, as a dealer in illegal arms, one has to be ruthless, probably to a psychotic extent, though I'm probably an exception*then again, what psychopath thinks he's a psychopath? In any event, I had a man keelhauled recently. Know what that is?'

'I don't think I want to.' Her eyes pooled with tears.

'Sorry, you've got to. Keelhauled' means dragged under a s.h.i.+p's hull so you drown, if you're lucky. Otherwise you're shredded by barnacles and whatnot. It would've been easier for me to put a bullet through the guy's head, of course; the keelhauling was something of a public relations move.'

Weakly, she asked, 'Are you going to keelhaul me?'

'Are you going to tell me who sent you?'

'Nicky, please, I*' Her voice broke into a sob.

'Then what good would keelhauling you do? You wouldn't be able to tell me who sent you.'

'I wouldn't be able to tell you regardless. I haven't the first clue even why you think someone sent sent me.' me.'

'How about the night on the Malecon, when the Blackbeard look-alike said, What's a matter, puta puta, you too good for us?' First, the script was laughable. And how about the way he delivered the line a second time, just in case I missed it the first time because of the loud waves? Also, my dear honey trap, your hair was, and remains, red*my weakness for which is widely known. Now, before you accuse me of being vain, know I've done some homework. You claimed to be the only child of parents now deceased. You said you had an idyllic upbringing in Chiswick in West London, and you fled a tedious a.s.sistant solicitor's life in Bristol to study marine biology in the Bahamas. And your story held water, as it were. Whoever sent you did a bang-up job on your legend, if that's the right term. Probably you're one of those spooks with the single-mindedness of a mountaintop monk; you can set your real life aside for months at a time. Still, you're human, which means you can't entirely extinguish your feelings for your real life. I'm willing to wager that that will be so in the case of Jane.'

Alice looked at him as though 'Jane' were some strange-sounding word from the language of the indigenous Carib tribe.

She ought to have been curious which Jane he meant, though, for surely she knew several, let alone her de facto G.o.ddaughter.

'Poor play,' he said. 'You're masking your apprehension that I mean the little girl in South Yorks.h.i.+re with pigtails the color of suns.h.i.+ne, who, on Christmas morning, opened an airmail package sent from this neck of the planet and delighted in its contents, a radio-controlled mermaid.' He was certain this detail would get a rise out of her.

She didn't blink.

Could he be wrong about her?

'Well, then, that brings us to the evening's threat,' he said. 'Note the FedEx pouch over there on my desk. It arrived earlier from the UK, sent by a fellow limey of yours known as the Knife'*trite, sure, but if anyone deserves the moniker, it's him.'

He strolled to his desk, automatically checking his computer screen for new e-mails. Nothing. Then he took up the sealed pouch. 'This contains the pinky finger from Jane's left hand, removed late yesterday afternoon at the Rotherham rail yard, where she was found in what was believed to be a state of shock.' Fielding disliked having had to dispatch the Knife to South Yorks.h.i.+re yesterday to chloroform and butcher an innocent child, but he believed it was for the greater good. 'As you may know, Jane had been warned repeatedly against playing with the feral dogs there. The dogs are currently viewed as the culprits. Now, unless you tell me who sent you, the dogs' will revisit Jane and tomorrow's pouch will contain*' Fielding stopped himself.

Alice had broken, though without the sobbing one would have expected based upon her maudlin performance to this point. 'Fine,' she said with the nerve of a different person altogether. 'I'll tell you the truth. You're right. I was sent here by MI6.'

'Okay, okay, good,' Fielding said, preoccupied. What had caused him to stop himself mid-threat was the winged envelope icon that popped onto the computer screen, sent by one of his fellow members of Korean Singles Online. 'I just need to take five, Allie. Hector and Alberto will take you up to your room. I've just received some, er, news of the hunt.'

As soon as the two hulking servants led her out, he clicked open his message from Suki835. 'Howdy, Cowboy232,' the text began, then launched into the movies and music she favored.

He scrolled to the important part, her photograph. She had a plump, round face; pleasant eyes; and an effortless smile. She couldn't really weigh just 110, unless five four was the fib.

He moused to her silver left earring and magnified it several hundred times over, until he could read the text on the overlaid digital dot. Decrypted, it was indeed 'news of the hunt,' but not the hunt for the treasure of San Isidro as he had implied: hounds lost rabbit and rabbit, jr., at utica and fillmore in bklyn at 00:35. rabbits driving ny daily news delivery truck north on utica. will unleash addl hounds asap.

Not good news, Fielding thought, but nothing to lose sleep over. How far could a feebleminded old man and a ne'er-do-well gambler get?

3.

Charlie wrung another mile out of the beleaguered Hippo. When it felt like the truck was about to collapse into a pile of spent parts, he pulled into a down-market strip mall. The businesses*a supermarket, a carpet wholesaler, and five or six smaller stores*were all dark, save a few red exit signs and a display counter someone probably had forgotten to switch off. another mile out of the beleaguered Hippo. When it felt like the truck was about to collapse into a pile of spent parts, he pulled into a down-market strip mall. The businesses*a supermarket, a carpet wholesaler, and five or six smaller stores*were all dark, save a few red exit signs and a display counter someone probably had forgotten to switch off.

He nosed the truck behind Sal's Cheesesteak Hut, a trailer painted to look like a giant hoagie. It sat on cinder blocks at the rear of the crumbling lot. Between the broken windows, graffiti, and garbage strewn all around, it appeared Sal had served his last steak years ago.

'I think it's closed,' Drummond said.

'I like it anyway,' Charlie said, 'because it's big enough to hide this monster from the street, and it's just a block from here to the subway.' He pointed to the elevated track, where a subway train was snaking toward the station. After midnight, the trains ran fifteen to twenty minutes apart. 'We should hustle.'

'Why the subway?'

Charlie jumped out of the truck. 'I'm thinking, until we can figure out our next move, we'd do well to hide in Manhattan, where there are ten million people, as opposed to here, where it's pretty much just you and me.'

Drummond remained in his seat. 'Why don't we drive?'

There were too many bullet holes in the truck to count*the light streaming through them and into the cab resembled pickup sticks in mid-toss. Much of what had been the windows lay in fragments on streets between Fillmore and here. The rear tires were ribbons. Hurrying around the hood, Charlie left it at, 'The truck's hot.'

'I meant why don't we get a car,' Drummond said.

'There's about a zero chance of even seeing a taxi around here now.' His patience evaporating, Charlie yanked open Drummond's door.

'Our own car, I mean.'