Reflex (29 page)

She consulted her map and headed inland. It took her twenty minutes to reach the clubhouse of the Edgartown Golf Club. It would've taken her less time, but once, head bent to avoid the vicious wind, she'd missed her turn and had to backtrack. As she expected, it was closed and locked, but a man was doing something with a tractor in the distance. She knocked loudly and when there was no answer, she looked in the large picture window overlooking the putting green and jumped within.

I could come back at night,
she thought, then shook her head. At night she'd have to use a flashlight or turn on the lights and she'd be even more noticeable.

She found the member records in the back office in a gray filing cabinet. Simons, Lawrence was a member in good standing having bought his two hundred and fifty thousand dollar membership over twelve years before. The address his monthly statements went to was in New York City, but his qualifying address—members had to have a residence on the Vineyard—was listed as being Driftwood Hall, Great Pond Lane. The listing was for Edgartown but that street was not on the small map Millie carried. There was no local phone number listed but she wrote down the address and phone number of his place in New York, a 212 area code—
Manhattan
—and put everything back as she'd found it.

She took a careful look out the window. The man on the tractor was headed this way. She thought about the nasty wind swirling down Water Street among the restaurants and the gray and white whaling mansions, and she jumped.

"That's down by South Beach," said the expatriate British woman who waited on her at David Ryan's Restaurant. The fancy dining room upstairs was still closed, but the pub on the first floor was warm and out of the wind and this woman gave her Earl Grey in a pot properly warmed. "It's west of that big resort hotel, the Winnetu. There's quite a few expensive homes down there. I mean, even expensive by
Vineyard
prices."

"How come it's not on my map?"

The waitress bent over the paper and tapped a line leading toward the shoreline. "That's it. The one marked 'private drive,' though there are several different homes off of it. But the fire department insisted they slap a name on it so they can know where to go."

Millie wrapped her hands around the teapot. "How far is it?"

"From here? Three, four miles. You don't want to go down there without an invite—it's gated and they run private security. Them what lives there likes their privacy. More hot water?"

In Manhattan, the winds and temperatures were less severe, and Millie, warmed by the tea and comfortably full of a bruschetta steak sandwich, finally stopped shivering. She briefly stopped in an internet café and sent an e-mail to rat8765:

Who is Lawrence Simons?

She walked across Central Park to get to the East Side.

Mr. Simon's billing address was on East 83rd between Madison and the hulking mass of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The house was a four-story townhouse faced with gray stone, wrought iron window bars, and security cameras. She swallowed hard and kept walking. The house was three times as wide as the adjoining brownstones and included two street-level garage doors.

She half expected the doors to rise up and squads of white armored stormtroopers to come pouring out.

She turned south on Madison without looking back. She wasn't worried about the cameras. With the museum just down the street they must get thousands of people walking by. And she hoped, with her short blond haircut, that she looked nothing like the Millie Harrison-Rice they'd hounded through that other museum.

She reached 81st and looked west, back toward the museum. She'd never look at any art museum again in the same way after that time in the National Gallery. And, surprisingly, the associations weren't all bad. Her imagination (and the masters' work) had provided her with a host of allies. She'd learned something about her inner reserves.

And what would my allies do about one Lawrence Simons?

She checked on Mr. Padgett, midday.

He was trying to make a fire by the bow drill method in the old fire pit still marked by blackened stones.
It does give him something to do.
Still she was worried about him. It was probably her very recent experience with the nasty, cold winds on the Vineyard that put her in sympathy with him.

She jumped to the Aerie and took four piñon logs from the woodpile and, using string, bundled them together with some old newspaper and a long-tipped butane fireplace lighter. Back at the pit, she picked a spot well to Padgett's rear, jumped down, held the bundle out at arm's length, and released it as she jumped away.

Watching from the rim, she saw Padgett jerk around as the logs clattered to the ground, a startled look on his face.

The next time she checked, he was crouched close to the burning fire.

Her next delivery was a portable toilet and a roll of toilet paper. After that, a set of crutches purchased from a thrift shop. Last, a bucket of fried chicken and a six-pack of bottled water.

In each case, she waited until he was settled and put the items quietly down some distance behind him and left before he noticed.

Examining his face through the binoculars, she thought,
Haunted. He looks haunted.

Good.

It was the most terrifying plane ride Davy had ever taken.

He'd wondered how they were going to do it. He didn't think they'd put a plane ahead and behind him with the keys. Instead, Hyacinth gestured him into the Cessna Grand Caravan and, when he was in his seat, she cuffed him by the ankles to the base of the seat before him and covered the chains with a sweater from her shoulder bag.

He broke into a cold sweat. He'd flown into all sorts of remote areas in all kinds of small aircraft but the knowledge that, in the event of a crash, he could teleport away, made the flights more like amusement park rides—the illusion of danger, not its actual manifestation.

She spoke into a radio after pocketing the key to the cuffs. "Romeo is fixed in space. Bring 'em in."

A few minutes later two more SUVs pulled up on the concrete apron. Two guys, each with shoulder bags, got out and walked across to the plane. Frank, the pilot, doing his walk around, asked them to put their bags in the cargo compartment and then take the two seats most forward. "Behind the pilots' seats."

The plane was configured for mixed duty, the rear cargo section was separated from the front by a barrier of nylon webbing and the front had the two pilots' seats and six passenger seats.

Frank shut the cargo door and walked around to the passenger door. He crouched and pulled up the lower half of the door, with the steps. Before he shut the top, he said, "You may take the co-pilot's seat, if you like, Miss Pope."

She accepted, threading forward between the seats. Frank walked around the plane and entered from the pilot's door.

They were airborne fifteen minutes later and out over the dark stretch of Lagos Lagoon, outlined in lights. Lagos Island blazed, and then they were past the shoreline and out over the Bight of Benin. They climbed southeast, bound for the Niger Delta. The half-moon, low on the western horizon, cast a long bright finger on the sea below.

Davy had never been to the Delta. His previous trips to Nigeria had been to Lagos and the Federal capital, Abuja. Below five thousand feet the turbulence was severe, but they reached a level of relative calm above. The AC finally caught up with the humidity and Davy's breathing slowed as he became convinced death was not
immediately
impending.

Fifty-five minutes later they crossed back over land and began the descent. The turbulence began again shortly thereafter and Davy started sweating.

Ahead, the Delta was on fire. He knew what it was, but it still looked hellish. They landed along a stretch of asphalt road lit entirely by one of the gas flares. It towered into the sky, several hundred yards away, a massive pillar of flame reaching fully two hundred and fifty feet into the air. Davy could feel the radiated heat through the window. Frank turned on his landing lights though he didn't really need them. As soon as all three wheels were bumping across the road, he reversed the pitch on the prop and the shoulder strap bit into Davy's chest.

They were expected. A trio of Toyota Land Cruisers were parked in the grass, short of the mangroves. Frank taxied past them, then reversed pitch again and backed the plane off the road.

Davy looked curiously behind him. He could see water at the base of the mangroves and wondered if Frank would back it right into the swamp. He tried to remember the position of the landing wheels. He knew it was a tricycle configuration but he couldn't remember how far back the rear two wheels lay.

It wasn't as if they'd drown. The water couldn't be that deep and the mangroves would keep the plane from sinking in. And, provided he could get these cuffs off,
he
didn't need the plane to get back home.

The turbine died and Frank ran through the shutdown quickly, before dropping out of the pilot's door and walking over to the Land Cruisers.

Hyacinth pivoted in her seat and said, "You'll have two armed guards with each of you. Settings as discussed." She had to raise her voice almost to a shout to be heard over the roar of the flare.

The two key holders threaded back past Davy, fished their bags past the cargo netting, and opened the airstair. As the first one went down the stair, Davy heard a squelching noise and a muffled curse.

"Watch it. We're right on the edge of the marsh."

By stepping off the bottom of the stair toward the front of the aircraft, the second man avoided the mud. The two men went around the front of the aircraft and joined Frank at the Land Cruisers. Frank directed them each to one of the vehicles and they climbed in. Both Land Cruisers started up and moved in opposite directions down the road. Their passage raised dust at the edge of the road.

It hasn't been raining, here.

Davy, already sweating from the heat of the gas flare, felt a surge of adrenaline. What if one of them drove out of range? He was still cuffed to the plane.

Slowly, Hyacinth moved down the aisle. She sat across his lap and leaned her chest toward his face. "Hot in here, isn't it?"

"You're pushing it, Miss Pope," he said through gritted teeth.

"And
it
pushes back," she said with a twist of her hips. But she relented and stood, rubbing against him, then knelt to unlock the cuffs. Davy jumped to the shadow cast by the flare at the rear of the remaining Land Cruiser, out of sight of the cluster of men near the passenger door. He saw Hyacinth swivel her head around sharply, looking for him. He moved out of the shadow and leaned against the vehicle.

She saw him then and climbed down the Airstair. He was hoping she would step into the marsh, but she'd been watching, apparently, and jumped lightly forward from the stair and avoided the mud. Davy saw now that the rear wheels of the plane were a good six feet away from the marsh's edge. In fact, they were forward of the airplane's midpoint and he figured the engine and fuel tanks must move the center of mass toward the front of the craft.

Hyacinth gestured to Davy and they arrived at the front of the Land Cruiser together.

Frank was talking to an African in creased khakis in one of the local languages. Davy didn't recognize any of the words so he thought it might be Yoruba, Ijaw, or Ibo.

"Right," said Frank. "This is Reverend Uori of the ECWA mission on the Dado River. He is the contact."

Reverend Ilori was a middle-aged man. His closely cut cropped hair was shot with gray. He nodded politely and said, "May the blessings of our Savior be with you."

Davy smiled and with just a twinge of hypocrisy said, "And may Jesus Christ forever watch over and guide us all." He'd met members of the Ecumenical Churches of West Africa before, near Abuja. They were mostly good people, trying to help, but more concerned with salvation in heaven than improvements here on earth.

Frank watched this interaction, a look of mild amusement on his face. "The exchange is for dawn, at the mission itself, but if we want to be in place, we had better go."

Reverend Ilori sat in the front seat with the unarmed driver and Davy sat in the back with Frank and Hyacinth. Hyacinth kept the bag on her lap.

"We can put that in the back, Miss Pope," Frank offered.

She tightened her hold on it. "I don't think so."

"Ah. The ransom. Don't blame you."

Davy, who knew otherwise, remained quiet.

The road curved around the flare, then headed east, toward the coast. They entered a section of grassy brush and a large, rabbit-sized animal scuttled off the road, eyes shining in the headlights. Reverend Ilori said something over his shoulder and smacked his lips together.

Frank translated. "Cane rat. Good eating. Surprising to see—they've been hunted hard around here."

Hyacinth, seated between them, shuddered. "Yuck."

Davy offered, "It's not a true rat. It's taxonomically closer to the porcupine."

Reverend Ilori turned again. "Porcupine! Also good eating." He smacked his lips again.

The asphalt road turned to dirt and the ride became much rougher as the Land Cruiser bounced over ruts and dropped into potholes. Fortunately this track ended at a wharf, sticking out into a narrow channel threading between the mangroves.

A solitary boy rose from the dock, slight, dressed only in shorts, hand held up to shield his eyes. He looked sleepy. Reverend Ilori, stepping out of the car, called to him. When the boy approached, the Reverend handed him something.

Hyacinth said, "What's that about?"

Frank took a pair of binoculars from the driver. "He was guarding the boat. Wouldn't have done us much good if someone had stolen it while the good Reverend was away."

The driver turned off the headlights but made no move to get out of the vehicle. The night seemed to close in but after a moment, Davy began to detect the distant glow of gas flares all around the horizon. The moon had set while they were driving but after a bit he could make out the brighter stars, too, through a low haze that owed more to the gas flares than local weather.