3 Lies (18 page)

How could he miss the flight? Avi was at the damn airport when Clint called.

“There was one other part of the message. I’m sorry, sir.” She sounded embarrassed. “He expressly asked that we read this next section to you.”

“Go on.”

“Mr. Kalush said, and I quote, ‘I know I was at the damn airport. If you’d checked your messages or had a damn cell phone like the rest of the civilized world you wouldn’t be standing in the middle of the damn baggage claim.’ End quote. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” For nothing. He hung up the phone.

No one understood. Not Paige. Not Todd. Not Avi, apparently.

Only Beth.

She understood his need to step off the treadmill. Let the pace unwind. Stroll awhile.

At the age of three and a half, he picked up his first Atari 2600 joystick. His parents had the Christmas scene on video. They locked up the machine within a week. He routinely sneaked out of bed, so he could eat more dots and chew up ghosts. He decided at an early age that technology owned his future. But after nearly three decades, he wanted it back.

He left the airport and made three more visits to dialysis equipment dealers. The staff at each gave him a similarly skeptical reply but politely took his number. His farthest stop was in Nashua, New Hampshire. He wanted to make sure he’d covered the vicinity.

Louie tired of the long day in the truck. Clint gave him exercise and sustenance breaks throughout the day, but like Clint, the dog needed a full airing. They stopped at another beach on the way home, and Clint unclipped the dog’s leash to let him run.

Home wasn’t a compelling draw today. He knew the sheriff, or a deputy, or somebody intended to hand him a venomous legal snake. Restraining orders were easy enough to get in Massachusetts even you weren’t the head of the Supreme Court. All a person needed to do was claim the fear of imminent bodily harm and get a judge to sign an emergency restraining order. The accused got a court hearing to contest it after ten eternal days.

By then Beth could be dead.

He loaded Louie and drove home. The white van wasn’t parked in the marina lot nor in any of the others nearby that he perused. He found himself scanning for it everywhere he went.

He looked for Paige’s BMW this time. It consumed two prime spaces in the lot. She was almost as welcome as was the expected process server. So much for home sweet home. He popped into the chandlery to get his messages.

The stack included a message from Avi, Todd, another from Paige, no less than three from different CatSat board members, and another from Beth’s neighbor Janet. Only the message from Avi contained anything more than a request for a return call. He’d return these after the showdown.

Bookends of misery flanked the aft of his boat. At one end Paige avoided the cherubic sheriff’s deputy with accustomed condescension. The deputy in turn kept his distance. Both of them looked relieved when Clint strode up with Louie.

The deputy swung first. “Sir, are you Mr. Clint Masters?”

“Yes, and I know you have a present for me.” He opened his palm to receive the paperwork.

“You’ve been served with a restraining order—”

“I know all about it. Please tell, Honest Abe, I said ‘Thanks’.” Clint saluted with the paperwork and walked past the startled deputy. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Paige. Just the person I wanted to see.” He meant it too, but from her expression, he knew she wasn’t convinced.

“Where have you been? I left a message earlier. Honestly, don’t you think it’s time you get a cell—”

“Yes. It’s time.”

Her nose lowered from the rarefied altitude in which it usually sniffed. “What?”

“I want a paternity test. I need to know for certain if your baby is mine.”

The Atlantic Ocean roused under the rising orange of the sun. The Grady White motored out to the Hatteras moored offshore, and the sea churned astern. Startled by the boat’s arrival, storm petrels on the surface parted into twin clouds like a mitotic cell.

The ferryman sidled the craft up to the aft deck of the larger ship. His lone passenger, Amir, sat on a fold-down seat in the walkaround with a khaki duffel bag slung over his shoulder. From the ship, Jaman tossed a rope to the ferryman, which he hurriedly lashed to a sturdy cleat on the starboard side of the smaller boat. Amir waited for the boat to settle to a predictable rhythm before stepping onto the aft deck of the ship. The ferryman loosened the rope and cast it back to Jaman and then idled to a respectable distance before roaring back to shore.

“Salif is on the salon deck. He is anxious for your report.”

“I have much to tell.” A rush of heat came from Amir’s nostrils. He leaned in closer to speak. “Who is in charge of this mission?”

Jaman looked past Amir. “Salif has not seen fit to share this information with me.”

Amir’s chin tightened. He climbed to the salon deck. “
Sharmuta
,” he muttered mainly to himself. But if Jaman heard, all the better.

Salif and Binard sat on folding chairs playing blackjack atop a wooden lath table. They rose when they saw Amir. From the monitors peering into the sleeping chambers of the hostages, Amir knew that none was yet awake. The tiny girl slept close to the golden one, the pretty one, the sick one. She weighted the mission with death.

Salif crowded Amir. “You were supposed to return last night. What happened? Where is the woman’s machine?”

Amir turned the duffle bag upside down and rained the floor with fairy books, crayons, and dolls. He was not smiling. “I risked the mission—my life—for this.”

Salif’s upper lip twitched. His eyes frosted as if covered by a lens and narrowed to slits. He would not look at it, but perhaps he considered the pile of pink now littered about his feet. Binard half-stepped back as if giving room for the swelling anger.

“Binard.” Salif searched his jacket pocket for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He tamped the open end on the butt of his thumb. “Amir seems to have trouble with his load. See to it that these amusements are given to the child.”

Binard appeared surprised at the mention of his name but stooped to the deck floor to gather the packages. He kept both men under scrutiny while he worked about their feet as if one of them might lunge with a swift kick.

A dog amidst the masters. A fitting posture for the cur.

“Jaman. You will prepare breakfast for our guests.” Salif’s eyes never left Amir.

Jaman’s mouth slinked toward a smile as he left for the galley.

Salif loosened his posture like a boxer easing out the tension before going in for the first round. He sat back down on the folding chair and laid his booted feet upon the abandoned cards. He held the cigarette with the corner of his mouth and left it there while he dragged. “You seem to have forgotten your place.” The smoke curled up to his eye and caused a squint. “But I have not. Nor has our controller.”

A current skittered over Amir’s skin. Even if incompetent, the controller’s authority on the mission was absolute. He might even be monitoring the situation remotely. Amir’s account, already under scrutiny, could not bear the price of disobedience.

“You seem unsettled about your mission. Did we request too much of you?”

“They are watching the woman’s house. The police arrived when I was on her property. They expected someone. And a car tailed me when I left her place, but it was not the police.”

The cigarette ash hung at the end of the burning cylinder. “Did you get the machine?”

He clamped his frustration “I cannot simply slip it into my pocket. I spent several hours in hiding before I doubled back to the car. Then I drove many miles out of my way to lose the car on my tail. I found a safe place to sleep for a couple of hours before I rang for the ferryman at first light.”

“So you failed?”

The patronizing tone fanned Amir’s smoldering anger. He felt for the stiletto in his back pants pocket. Another time. A different place. The stiletto served to reduce men of more substance than Salif.

“The target was not accessible. You are welcome to get it yourself.”

Salif’s belly shimmied under the vibration of his laughter as if there were seismic activity underground. The ash fell on his lap, which he swept to the floor, and he plucked the cigarette stub from his crescent mouth and pointed it at Amir. “You do not like me, yet you do not fear me. That is a valuable trait in our line of work. Nevertheless.” His mouth returned to a pressured line. “We each are called to do the unpleasant, the difficult, the dangerous. Paid well for it, at that.” He thrust his cigarette toward Amir. “My job is to manage the project with the resources, such as they are, even if you do not agree with my methods. I will not tolerate your insubordination twice.“

Amir’s cheeks steeped in his own boiling blood. Expendable. That was the word for his role on the mission. Salif reveled in the flex of his muscle because, for now, the bastard was holding the higher hand. But a deck held many cards.

Death didn’t worry Amir the way it might someone of a tepid vocation; he lived for the game. Noble causes only diluted the experience, leaving one vulnerable, weak, and exposed. He had specific expectations of those he served. Mission-appropriate judgment included protecting your assets. Particularly human assets. Salif’s disregard for the wisdom of protocol—especially where it concerned Amir’s own life—was reckless. Salif’s behavior confirmed the maxim: to thine own ass be true.

Amir’s service brought more than mere fortune. It was the very fire between his synapses. He bridled his rage, envisioning the day when Salif would experience the leeward side of fortune. The image lengthened his spine.

“If you have other work for me, I shall be downstairs.”

Salif hesitated, as if he had another nail to pound, but eased back into his chair and found a smoke to light. Amir sauntered past him and through the galley where Jaman prepared plates of microwaved egg biscuits and dried fruit.

Jaman glanced up from his knife. “Are you ready, now?” He spoke only within Amir’s hearing.

Agreement passed with the slightest of nods.

Amir continued through the galley down the stairs to the lower deck hallway. The air, cooler than the top deck, moved little and smelled of the sea. From the monitors, he saw the stirring of captives. He paused. One man, feet on the floor appeared to be in prayer. Another man, grey hairs bursting from his fleshy jaw, waved through the opaque air for someone beyond reach. His eyes opened. Clinging to his pillow, he shrank in retreat. He seemed to realize where he was and that it was not merely a dream.

On another monitor, only the largest of the women was awake. Her bulk consumed the doorway of the lavatory as she exited. The tiny girl waited by the door for the woman to push through and then went in. The pretty one did not stir. Even sick and in rumpled sweats she decorated the room.

Restlessness smothered him. The journey out the night before even ill advised, reminded him how small a 72-foot ship felt. They enjoyed the open air of the bridge deck only after night claimed the sea. Until then, the salon deck remained their respite from confinement, from stale air, from feeling like one of the captives.

Amir glanced at the wall monitor showing the five men whose best-before dates had come and gone. Their cabin was too small a space to stage a coup if they were of a mind to try. Each encounter with the men was the same. They begged for answers, freedom, coffee: they were allowed no information, no release, and no one trusted them with scalding liquids.

Amir picked up the bag of pink for the girl. Jaman appeared at the other end of the hall. He signaled to Amir.

“I will take their food down shortly,” said Jaman. Protocol demanded that a second cover him as he went in to feed the hostages.

Amir patted down his shirt for cigarettes. “So what do you know?”

“Salif confides in no one. I have overheard bits of information that concern me.”

He cupped his hand around the flame. “I am beginning to share your concern.”

Binard entered the hallway but slipped into the crew’s cabin. He left the door ajar.

“Binard may appear to be a buffoon, but he keeps close to Salif,” Jaman said. “The information flows only one-way, but it is a steady flow. I know he reports on me. There is no doubt he now reports on you.”

“Salif is a pawn. The mission controller is the one that dictates. Have you any information on him?”

“None yet.”

Smoke expelled from Amir’s nose. “It is time we found out.”

Paige pinched the bridge of her nose as if to stave off tears. She cupped her face in her hands and made noises akin to a dog’s whimpering. She lifted her head and brushed back the dark hairs that stuck to her moist lashes.

The performance was lamentable. Clint had witnessed much better the nights she came home at three or four in the morning. The strained eyelids, the angle of her shoulder, the posture of her jaw told him the truth. His request didn’t shock her, didn’t sadden her, didn’t even particularly offend her, but it did utterly piss her off. He wondered what they ever shared besides a history.

“Alright, if you must put me through this torture to assuage your lousy jealousy—”

Um. Mistrust. Doubt. Suspicion. Jealousy evaporated when she filed for divorce.

“— then I’ll do it.” She pulled out her cell phone and searched for a number. “Right now.”

He let Louie off the leash, so the dog could eat. “Maybe we should take this below deck.” He touched Paige’s elbow to usher her off the dock.

She jerked it from his reach. “I’d like to speak with Dr. Compton. Yes, I do mind your putting me on hold. Tell him this is Paige Lambert, and I will speak with him right now.”

Ritchie Compton.

Ritchie grew up in their old neighborhood. He hung out more with Todd but Clint knew him—didn’t like him, but he knew him. Ritchie had sat behind Clint in tenth grade algebra. He cheated on a test by reading the answers over Clint’s shoulder. Paige knew that story yet she chose him for her gynecologist. He had an excellent reputation in the community, but a gyny who cheated was fundamentally unholy.