Chapter 49
Kurt remained in the boat with his hands up.
The crash had been unexpected, but other than that everything was going according to plan.
A couple of minutes went by, enough time to make him ponder the need for a backup plan, and then the double glass doors to the lower level of the house opened.
Four people came out. The young woman who’d threatened them, two members of the house staff, and a tall, redheaded man with a ruddy complexion, whom Kurt recognized as Rand.
He was wearing a silk robe and oversized sunglasses.
His hair was much longer than it had been two years ago, and he had the aura of a fading, hungover rock star.
They marched down to the wrecked boat at the waterline.
“Well, well, well,” Rand said, taking a look at Kurt, Joe, and the wrecked boat. “You’ve really done a number on your whaler. Afraid that’s not going to make it out of here.”
“Yeah,” Kurt said. “I owe someone a boat. Maybe you can give him one of yours.”
Rand laughed. The fierce woman at his side did not. “Why would I do that?”
“To make amends for your wicked ways,” Kurt suggested.
“I’ll consider it,” Rand said. “Now out with it. Are you here as interlopers, investigators, or friends? Or did you hear about the party I’m throwing tonight and decide you just couldn’t miss it?”
“Party sounds interesting,” Joe said.
“None of the above,” Kurt insisted. “Mind if I put my hands down? Shoulder is a little sore from some swimming I did in the Arctic.”
“Argh, man,” Rand exclaimed. “What would make you want to swim in the Arctic?”
“You’d be surprised,” Kurt said.
Rand waved his men off and told the woman to put her weapon away. She protested, to which he said. “Pru, please, what are they going to do?”
Kurt lowered his hands. Joe did the same, the smile returning to his face as things took a turn for the better. Pru, he thought. I like that.
“We should probably speak in private,” Kurt suggested, nodding toward the woman.
“There’s nothing you can say in front of me that my sister can’t handle,” Rand said.
“Sister,” Joe said. Things were really looking up in his opinion. Though based on her scowl, she didn’t seem to feel the same.
“How about lunch and a beer in the shade?” Kurt said. “Wrecking boats always works up an appetite.”
Rand grinned and waved for them to follow.
With his angry sister at his side, he led them back to the house.
They went up a small flight of stone steps and then past a shimmering blue pool and into the great room on the lower level.
The room was a marble-walled museum of a space, with a grand piano, animal skin rugs on the floor, and built-in couches clad in exotic leathers around the walls.
“This is where the party will take place,” Rand told them.
“The two of you will be long gone by then,” his sister insisted, glaring at Kurt and Joe.
“Hopefully,” Kurt said.
“But if it works out, and we’re still here…” Joe began.
They went up a spiral staircase designed to look like a huge strand of DNA. The steps were wide enough to accommodate three or four people side by side.
At the top of the staircase they emerged into a slightly less ostentatious room. Comfortable couches were set up in front of an ultra-high-definition television so massive it took up an entire wall. In dizzying fashion, it was displaying the qualifying rounds of the Formula 1 race in Abu Dhabi.
“I was supposed to be there,” Rand told them, sounding disappointed. “I was supposed to be there right now. A friend with a very large yacht invited me to spend the week, surrounded by very beautiful women drinking absurdly expensive champagne. But I couldn’t go. You know why?”
Before Kurt could hazard a guess, Rand’s sister replied.
“It’s not safe,” she reminded him. “You haven’t been given amnesty…yet.”
“Amnesty,” Kurt said. “Really?”
“We’re working on it,” Rand insisted. “Pru is, anyway. I don’t hold out much hope.”
“Maybe we can help,” Kurt insisted.
“Not getting me killed before it’s granted would be a start,” Rand said, showing the first bit of irritation at Kurt and Joe’s presence.
They passed the wall-sized screen and settled onto the couches. Kurt could not recall sitting on a more comfortable piece of furniture.
Rand touched a button. The television went dark. The wall slid back and a view of the beach and the turquoise bay appeared. It was a million-dollar view in a ten-million-dollar house, but Rand continued to fidget like a hunted rabbit.
“Heavy lies the head that wears the smuggler’s crown,” Kurt said.
“Occupational hazard,” Rand said. “And then there’s your letter, which has thrown me off a bit.”
“Help me and you won’t ever have to worry about what’s in that letter,” Kurt said.
“This is all wrong,” Pru snapped, standing up. “Who are these people to come in here and talk to us like this? If they mix you up in something new, we’ll never be free of this life.”
It suddenly occurred to Kurt that Rand’s sister was his protector, as serious and determined as he was flighty and boisterous. It sounded as if she were trying to help him escape the life of crime he’d built for himself. She thought Kurt and Joe were fellow criminals.
“Why do we even have to talk to them?” she continued.
Rand sighed. “Because, darling, I once did a very stupid thing and let my conscience make a decision for us. These men know about it. And in this letter, they detail who else will learn about my poor choice, should they not return unharmed to the streets of Washington, D.C.”
She looked confused.
“Maybe I can help,” Kurt said. “We work for the United States government. We’re not smugglers or weapons dealers.
Two years ago, your brother gave us some information that helped us stop an incredibly dangerous man from dumping radioactive waste into the sea.
That secret remained hidden, as we promised him it would.
But as I detailed in the letter, if Rand wants it to continue that way he needs to help me one more time. ”
“Ahab,” she said grimly.
Rand nodded. “Ahab.”
“This is extortion,” she insisted.
“That’s one word for it,” Kurt said. “But let me put it to you this way. Ahab is on a revenge tour. He tried to kill Joe, me, and Gushan. If I don’t find him and stop him, that tour is going to continue.
At some point it will probably make a visit to your neighborhood.
But if I get my hands on him, that’s one less thing you’ll have to worry about.
And if you’re actually closing in on some form of international amnesty, then a good word from friends of mine—who are far more prestigious than I—could be entered on your behalf. ”
The look on Pru’s face softened, though a sense of suspicion remained. “How can we trust you?”
Rand began laughing. “Oh, darling, these are the fools who still believe the world is a good place. They’re more than willing to shoot down anyone who challenges them to prove it. But their word, I have found, is plated in gold.”
Kurt sat back, sinking into the bolster on the comfortable couch. Rand was in. His sister would be in, too. Now to convince him to risk everything one more time. “I need to know where Ahab is hiding. And I need a way to get there.”
“What makes you think I have that information?” Rand asked.
“Because you’re the first person I’ve encountered in two years who didn’t think he was dead. If you did, my letter wouldn’t have bothered you in the least. Which means you know he’s alive, and you’ve probably done some work for him along the way.”
Rand bit his lip and looked around, irritated at himself. “Never was a good poker player.”
“Are you still working with him?”
“No,” Rand said.
“We don’t smuggle the things he deals in,” Pru insisted.
“What does a smuggler named Prudence deal in?” Kurt asked.
She looked at Rand.
“Go ahead,” he said. “What difference can it make at this point?”
As she spoke, Rand pressed an intercom button and ordered a spread of lunch to be brought up.
“We smuggle high-tech chips and other items into China,” she said. “Things your government has banned them from purchasing. And then we smuggle out rare earths and specialized magnets that their government has stopped shipping to the West.”
“It’s been a beautiful setup,” Rand boasted. “Everyone loves us now.”
“I can see why that would help you,” Joe said. “As a user of powerful magnets, I thank you.”
Kurt wondered how hard Joe had hit his head when the boat crashed. He’d never heard him quite like this. He was either smitten or concussed. Maybe a little bit of both. “Back to Ahab. Where can we find him?”
“He doesn’t exactly keep me apprised of his whereabouts,” Rand insisted.
An elevator door opened at the back of the room. A small wheeled robot carrying two trays of food maneuvered through the room toward them. The aroma was delectable. Kurt saw perfectly prepared sashimi and freshly sliced mangoes. Glasses of beer in frosted mugs looked undeniably thirst-quenching.
“He’s hiding now,” Kurt said, returning to the subject of Ahab. “Waiting to make his next move. Does he have a favorite place to hole up?”
“What makes you think I would know?”
“Because you rescued him from the freighter,” Kurt said.
Rand stared.
“I shot Ahab and his boat to shreds,” Kurt said, recounting the basics.
“We found it drifting a mile from the ship. It was swamped, half-submerged, and empty. His men were floating in the sea, but Ahab was nowhere to be found. There were no other ships in the area. No helicopters for him to jump onto. No way for him to escape. Data points that led everyone to believe he was dead. But he’s alive, which means someone had to pick him up in a submersible.
Otherwise, we would have spotted his rescuer. I’m guessing it was you.”
Rand passed the trays of food out with great pride and precision. After taking a bite, he dabbed his mouth and then looked at Kurt. He shrugged. “You know, I always thought you NUMA guys would figure that out. Who else would understand the utility of a long-range submersible?”
“Shame on us,” Kurt said. “We thought we’d won the day. Where did you take him?”
“Taipei first,” Rand admitted. “He needed doctors. He needed to go somewhere the Chinese wouldn’t be able to get to him. Taiwan fit the bill.”
Kurt nodded. “And then?”
Rand hesitated once more and then rubbed his hair back and forth as if speaking the truth was causing him pain.
“Siabat Island,” he said finally. “It’s a small atoll between here and Taiwan.
There’s an abandoned American air base there, left over from the Cold War.
Ahab uses the old hangars as a workshop and staging area.
If he’s on the island, that’s where he’ll be. But he won’t be alone.”
Kurt raised his eyebrows and offered a sinister grin. “Neither will we.”