“You still haven’t answered my question. Where is he?”
“I don’t know … not for sure. But I have an idea. DeMaio is very close to the Chairman of the Board. A man named Wade Preston. If I had to guess, I’d bet Preston is hiding him.”
“Where?”
“I was invited once to a private meeting with Preston. It was a sensitive personnel issue at the time. I was the only one dealing with it. He sent a helicopter to pick me up at the corporate headquarters and flew me to his private island, about an hour from Halifax by chopper. Very luxurious—huge compound, numerous outbuildings, a dock big enough for an ocean-going yacht and heliport. If my life depended on it, I’d bet that’s where DeMaio is staying.”
Lonnie stood up. “Your life does depend on it,” he said. Liotino looked ill. “All right, let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“To the train station. You’re taking a trip to Ottawa for a few days.”
“What? I can’t do that. I have a job.”
“Not for long, if my guess is right. Besides, from what you’ve told me, you don’t want to be around when the shit hits the fan. I’m doing you a favor. I want you out of town, just so you don’t accidentally run into Preston or DeMaio. You got your phone on you?”
“Yes.”
“Call your office. Tell them a family emergency has come up and you have to go out of town at once. Don’t say where. I’m not going to stay around to make sure you do this right, because believe me, if something goes wrong, I’ll know it was because of you and I’ll find you.” He stared at Liotino. His big hand gripped the smaller man’s shoulder like a vise. “Do you believe me?”
The look on Liotino’s face said it all. This time tomorrow morning, he’d be taking in the nation’s parliament buildings and wandering through the ByWard Market. No question about it.
62
G
ARRETT STROLLED AROUND THE COVE,
picked Sarah up at her house, and they arrived at Roland’s neighbors’ house a little after six. Leo greeted them at the door with a nervous look on his face.
“I don’t know how this is going to go,” he said. “Especially with Ingrid. She’s having a lot of trouble with the new order.”
He led them into the living room where they could see Ingrid, Grace, and Keith sitting outside on the deck. There was no sign of Roland.
Garrett said, “Something I want to ask you before we go outside. Did you and Ingrid know what Grace was up to? About working undercover, I mean.”
Leo shook his head. “Not a clue. Grace said she wasn’t assigned to the job until after we moved here, and then she was ordered not to tell anyone. We always thought there was something a little odd about her schedule. She’d take off at strange times without explanation. We wondered if she had a lover she didn’t want us to know about.”
“And you had no idea she was a federal agent?” Garrett asked incredulously.
“None. We both knew her in Halifax and assumed she came from a well-to-do family. She always had money, which made her a welcome addition when we decided to invest in this place.”
They went out onto the deck and greeted the others. Keith was undoubtedly present for moral support, of a kind, for Roland. As another longtime resident of Misery Bay, he’d always gotten along with Roland as well as anyone. Garrett and Sarah offered congratulations to Grace again for her narrow escape.
“Nothing narrow about it,” she said. “I was as good as dead until Roland came along. I’ve been trying to get Ingrid to understand how I feel. I owe my very existence to Roland.”
Ingrid gave out an extended and, Garrett thought, theatrical sigh. “I still don’t see why it means we have to invite the whale to be our best buddy,” she said.
Grace shot her a piercing look. “I told you not to call him that anymore. He’s got enough baggage to deal with.”
Garrett accepted a Manhattan from Leo and sat down.
“What do you make of all of this?” he asked Keith. Garrett had never known anyone more at peace in his own skin than his neighbor. Keith’s family was close-knit, and while he didn’t make a lot of money working as a postal clerk, he was so completely fascinated by genealogy that he was always in an upbeat mood. Nova Scotia was a crucible of history, after all, a result of being at the center of the world’s maritime stage for over four hundred years. Keith was like a kid in a candy store, surrounding himself with books, maps, diaries, weather analyses, tide charts, and mariners’ logs. It was all he needed to amuse himself for a lifetime. Garrett had often wished he might feel as passionate about something.
Keith gave his usual infectious smile. “The winds of change are blowing in Misery Bay. You seen Roland yet?”
Garrett shook his head. “I’ve been trying to lie low till the press furor dies down.”
“Well, prepare yourself for a shock, that’s all I can say.”
Before Garrett could quiz him further, the doorbell rang and Grace went to answer it. A moment later, Roland appeared on the deck.
Garrett and Sarah stared at him in disbelief. It was the first time they’d ever seen Roland looking clean and dressed in anything other than a stained T-shirt and sweatpants. His hair was a tousled mat of ringlets, obviously professionally coiffed. He looked like some sort of gaunt version of Paul Newman playing a Roman centurion. When he walked over to them, the limp was noticeably diminished.
He had on a pale gray shirt under a leather vest and matching, pressed slacks. His rough fisherman’s hands were scrubbed clean and he had clearly used some sort of hand lotion to make them look smoother. There was even a hint of cologne. When he took in Garrett and Sarah’s open mouths, he looked sheepish.
Sarah was the first to recover. She stood up and gave him a little hug. “You look terrific, Roland.”
“Feel a little silly,” he said. “But Grace says she knows what she’s doin’. And I gotta admit to ya, people look at me differently. Even … girls.”
“Women,” Grace corrected him.
“Sorry,” said Roland. “I forget sometimes. Women.”
They settled back into their chairs. Garrett thought even Roland’s posture had improved and wondered if he was wearing some sort of girdle or body cast. The thought was almost too much to absorb.
Periodically, Roland sneaked a peek at Ingrid. Obviously, he had taken to Grace’s remake program, but Ingrid was the unknown factor in all of this. She’d been the one who despised him the most.
Garrett said to Grace, “I talked to your boss the other day. He confirmed to me that you’d been doing a good job and were extremely brave to be out there all alone.”
She smiled. “We’d been building up a case against some of these drug traffickers and then I began to see that at least some of them were also involved in moving young girls for the escort agencies. It’s the most despicable thing, Garrett. Some of the girls are just babies, eight, nine years old. They find it easier to train them when they’re very young.” She shook her head. “It just breaks your heart.”
“Did you ever come across anything about DeMaio?”
“No. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t into the drug trade, though. At least as a dealer. He could have been a buyer, I suppose, for personal use or to control his own women. But he probably considered the drug business beneath him. I gather money wasn’t his issue. He had plenty of that.”
It was more or less what Garrett had come to believe. DeMaio was a businessman. He sold multi-billion-dollar oil rigs and provided sexual favors to his customers. It was all about influence and power.
“So how did they get on to you?” Garrett asked.
She frowned. “I haven’t really worked it out. I don’t think I slipped up. Nothing I can put my finger on anyway. When I went for my last buy, they just grabbed me, held me down, and one of them said, ‘this is what happens to people who double-cross us.’ I didn’t know what he meant, but then they pumped me full of drugs and set me loose in my kayak in the middle of the storm.”
“Were you conscious?” Sarah asked, leaning forward.
“Semi. I could barely move and drifted in and out. I remember being cold and wet and managing to turn on my emergency beacon somehow, but most of it’s still a blur. I do have a foggy memory of Roland picking me up, though, and putting me into a warm place.” She smiled at her rescuer.
Garrett looked at Roland, who watched Grace with an expression on his face Garrett had never seen before. It wasn’t desire, not even infatuation exactly. It was more a sort of puzzlement, as though he were trying to absorb a feeling he’d never experienced before. How an attractive woman might consider him a friend.
Ingrid stood up abruptly and stalked off the deck, leaving an awkward silence. Grace put one hand on Roland’s knee. “Give her a while,” she said. “She’ll come around.”
Roland said, “Can’t blame her, ya know. I was pretty mean ta ya all. I want ta say somethin’.”
Everyone looked at him.
“I … I never really had any friends. Not one my whole life. It’s goin’ ta take me some time ta get used ta this, same as Ingrid. But I will. With Ma gone, I thought I was goin’ ta be alone for the rest of my life. I never thought somethin’ like this would be possible. And I’m goin’ ta make it work. Grace has done somethin’ no one ’cept Ma ever did. She cared about me.”
Grace leaned over and gave him a hug.
Tears welled up in Roland’s eyes. There was no question that what he was feeling was real and transforming. After a moment he appeared to get control of himself.
“Sorry,” he said. “I din’t mean ta embarrass ya.”
“One other thing I wanted to ask Grace about,” said Garrett, trying to move the conversation away from the awkward moment. “Did you ever come across anyone dressed in a Mountie uniform, maybe working with the drug runners?”
She nodded. “There was someone I saw a couple of times. I was never introduced to him, but I gathered he had inside connections.” She shrugged. “It was hard to know his role, exactly. He came and went. I never saw him in full uniform, but he carried a Glock and always wore at least the hat. It was kind of strange.” She got up, poured herself another Manhattan, and clinked glasses with Roland.
Sarah said, “Have you got any leads at all on DeMaio, Gar?”
He spread his hands. “Nothing. Which is only slightly more than what Nichols has. DeMaio holds passports for several countries and is bound to have planned for a day like this. Probably got plenty of money socked away in Swiss bank accounts or the Caymans. Probably got a home … or homes … under assumed names. Hard to believe the CEO of one of the world’s biggest oil companies could disappear without a trace. But he’d be a lot bigger fool than I would think possible if he was still moving around inside Canada. I suspect we may never hear from him again.”
“I disagree,” said Grace. “He’s so used to having power and influence, he’s not going to be able to give it up. I can’t imagine him simply slipping away to become a beachcomber for the rest of his days. Hard to give up what he had.”
“Maybe you’re right. Anyway, Lonnie’s looking into it. If anyone can find the man, it’s him.”
Conversation turned to the collapsed oil rig.
“The incredible thing,” Keith said, “is that there’s been almost no oil spilled by this whole business. Do you think the real reason for it’s being there was simply to serve as a sort of floating brothel?”
“Hardly makes sense,” said Sarah. “That rig probably cost upwards of a billion dollars. Hell, you could pay thousands of professional women top dollar to service your clients if that’s what it was all about.”
“I think DeMaio got off on having women from all walks of life forced into servitude to him,” said Garrett. “I mean, imagine the chutzpah to buy a television anchorwoman, for God’s sake. He liked the conquest aspect of the whole thing. I also think the rig was intended more for show to potential buyers than as an efficient operating platform. Anyway, the money spent on the rig wasn’t his. It was the company’s.
“And don’t underestimate the lure of being in international waters. That sort of freedom from legal scrutiny was huge and made it nearly impossible for DeMaio’s protégés to escape. He set himself up with every man’s dream. A steady crop of beautiful young women for his personal pleasure at virtually no risk. Probably hasn’t been anything like it since the days of the hareem … maybe Hugh Hefner. I’m sure it fed his ego to know he had what every other man could only dream of.
“As for bargaining power … he had something to dangle in front of legal assistants, employees, members of the board, police, politicians, you name it. A lot of men would bend over backward to not risk losing access to that ultimate fantasy.”
The room was silent as they all contemplated the incredible world of one Anthony DeMaio.
63
T
HE ROOM WAS LUXURIOUS, PERCHED
on the edge of the sea, all mahogany and stone and glass. The view to the western sunset was perfect. Though isolated, the space contained a large desk and computer, satellite hookup, and fax lines that connected instantly anywhere in the world.
The central compound was crisscrossed with carefully laid-out walkways surfaced with imported red clay from France. There was a red clay tennis court, a large heated swimming pool, and a dining room with crystal chandeliers, run by a world-class French chef. There was a fully equipped gymnasium and even a small medical center. Supplies and carefully screened foreign workers were flown in by helicopter daily, along with fresh lobster, Russian caviar, and the latest Toronto and New York papers, including the
Wall Street Journal
.
Anthony DeMaio sat in a leather armchair and stared at the lowering sun, brooding. So far as he was concerned, the magnificent surroundings were nothing but a glorified prison. For three weeks he had restlessly paced about the island, his lean face taut with frustration.
Global’s Chairman of the Board, Wade Preston, had convinced him that he should ensconce himself at Preston’s secluded island rather than try to get out of the country.
“No way you can get out under the radar,” Preston had pleaded. “Everything’s being watched too closely; every plane, ship, and border in the world is displaying your picture. You need to hunker down and wait this out.”