Howe smiled in return, but it looked more like a wince. ‘That’s one of Mr Fielding’s concerns. But hopefully, things will never get that far.’
The car slowed to a stop on a curve. Up ahead and to his right, Gant saw two of the men from the airstrip climb out of the lead SUV. They both had compact machine guns cradled in their arms. Suddenly there was the blat of automatic weaponry. Gant’s heart skipped a beat at the sound. He looked back to where the kids had been – they were both OK, running through the high grass toward the shanties. The gunmen had fired into the air.
‘Not very sporting,’ Gant said. ‘Firing on children, even over their heads, could be counter-productive.’
Howe was unapologetic. ‘We live in a profoundly active balance of terror with the neighbors, I’m afraid. We don’t shoot children, but we do try to demonstrate who is in charge on this island. Increasingly, it’s a lesson that seems lost on their parents.’
Gant just looked at Howe. He took a good long look. Howe was a man who had probably never fired a weapon in anger during his entire life. But Howe held Gant’s stare, his eyes never wavering. It was easy to be a tough guy in the back of a limousine.
‘I guess that’s why we hire a person like Mr Tyler Gant,’ Howe said. ‘To remind everyone just who’s in charge around here.’
Gant glanced at the red smudge on the window. ‘Actually, you hire me when no one is in charge, and you want me to fix that.’
The car and its SUV escorts started again. They exited the main road and followed a narrow, well-paved lane uphill through thick green foliage. The ascent was steep for a moment, and then very steep. Gant sat back in his seat, almost like an astronaut waiting for takeoff. He felt the heavy Town Car working to manage the hill.
The entrance to Fielding’s estate was at the top of the hill. Gant took in the security – the place seemed well-guarded. The procession waited while the main gate slid open, then each car passed through in line. Unlike out at the airstrip, here the security team made no pretense. Two men stood near the booth with Uzis carried lightly in their hands. The perimeter fence was wrought iron and very tall – the gaps were too narrow for even the skinniest kid to slip through.
Gant glanced upward and spotted bands of circular razor wire at the top. Beat that fence – a determined mob could probably take it down – and you faced about thirty yards to an identical wrought iron fence, with identical razor wire on top. The thirty yard gap between fences was a dog run. Gant spotted half a dozen Rottweilers roaming free in there. Beat the dogs, beat the second fence, and you probably confronted ten or more slack-faced, dead-eyed professional killers with automatic weapons. It would take something just short of a revolution to breach these grounds – hundreds of people, too hungry to fear death. Either that, or a sudden outbreak of empathy and reluctance to fire among the security team.
The house itself was a palace. When the Lincoln pulled to the top of the circular driveway, Gant did a quick calculation. Old quarried stone plantation house, around two hundred years old, fully restored, probably thirty rooms. Gant’s own large home – a mansion by many people’s standards – would fit tucked neatly into a far wing of this house.
He exited the car and immediately felt the breeze – the air wasn’t nearly as heavy up here. Ahead of him, Howe jogged briskly up the stone front steps. Gant carried his own bag and followed him. They turned around. The front of the house faced inland – a sweeping panorama downhill across the brown and green island, the township far below, and in the distance, a white sand beach. Here and there, wisps of cloud clung to the treetops – maybe a few drops of rain in those clouds, but not much. On a few of the hillsides, Gant spotted homes similar, but perhaps not as grand, as this one.
‘Quite a view,’ Gant said.
Howe shrugged. ‘That’s nothing. Wait until you see the view from the veranda, and from your bedroom.’
They crossed into the foyer. A simple white cross, seven feet high, dominated the space in front of the wide spiral stairway. Gant thought of the garish depictions of Christ on the cross from his Catholic upbringing – super- realistic, emaciated, bleeding from the spikes piercing His hands and His feet and from the thorns pricking His head, wild eyes rolling Heavenward in anguish. It was the stuff of nightmares, and had made an impression on Gant. But none of that for Fielding. Fielding’s own brand of fanatical Christianity was crisp and clean – it had abstracted ol’ Christ right out of the picture.
Howe led Gant to the second floor and down a wide, cool hallway. Their feet echoed on polished stone. They passed through a doorway and here was what must have been Fielding’s office – fifty yards away, on the far end of what might have once been a ballroom. Gant could almost hear the strains of music and laughter from those long ago times – the good old days. As they walked across the open space, Gant could see the desk, positioned to the right of the open balcony. To the left of the balcony was a sofa, two chairs and a settee. Two men sat there, each sipping from a teacup. Gant recognized one of them, a man with white hair, as Roscoe Fielding, the owner of this house, and the master of all he surveyed. Gant didn’t know the other man. They rose as Gant and his minder approached.
‘Mr Gant,’ Fielding said. ‘Good of you to join us. Do you know Representative Harting?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t.’ Gant extended his hand to the Congressman, who took it in his soft paw. Harting was a beefy man of indeterminate age with a swoop of sandy brown hair. He wore a light brown sports jacket over a dress shirt open at the collar, and khaki shorts – the prep school look. It was enough to make Gant dislike him instantly. Even worse, Harting’s chubby cheeks and the spot of red on each one made him look like a spoiled twelve year-old who spent much of his time indoors playing video games.
‘Jim Harting, Tyler Gant,’ Fielding said. He put a proprietary arm around Harting’s big shoulders. ‘Jim is one of the good ones. He’s one of ours.’
‘Fighting the good fight,’ Gant said. ‘Don’t let me interrupt you.’
‘Roscoe and I were just finishing,’ Harting said, with a hint of a Southern twang. ‘He told me y’all had some important business to talk about, and I’m here for a couple more days, so… ’
‘He has plenty of time to grab my ear, should he need to,’ Fielding said.
Howe smoothly escorted the Honorable James Harting out. Gant took a seat across from Fielding. Fielding was thin to the point of pain. His bony wrists extended a few inches past the end of his white cotton sleeves. His eyes seemed sunken back into his face. The face itself looked like it was written on wrinkled parchment.
‘The tea is still hot,’ Fielding said, gesturing to the pot on the table. ‘Hot tea on a hot day, it makes you perspire. Cools you off some.’
‘No thanks.’
Fielding poured himself some, his hands shaking just a bit. ‘We see you already moved the money from the account we set up for you.’
Gant smiled. ‘One bank account is as good as another.’
‘Do you trust us?’
Gant shrugged, didn’t say anything.
Fielding waved the issue away. ‘It’s your money. Do whatever you want with it. Anyway, that’s not why I asked you here. I thought it was time for us to meet. You’ll find that I’m a man who isn’t much for chit-chat. I like to get down to business right away. And I like to speak plainly.’
Gant thought of the politician who had just left. He looked like a chit-chatter and double-talker, if ever there was one. ‘I’m all for speaking plainly,’ Gant said.
Fielding nodded. ‘Good. Then here it is. We’ve paid you a lot of money, and as I say, that’s OK with me. But I’m concerned. I find you much less forthcoming with information than I’d like. We’ve had no status reports from you. You’re hesitant to talk on the telephone or to submit anything in writing, and I understand that reluctance. But you also refuse to send any of your people here to make a report, and that I don’t understand. Our mutual friends told us to expect these things from you, so I’ve been patient, but my patience is wearing thin. I’m beginning to suspect I’ve been taken for a ride. I can’t tell you how much that upsets and disappoints me.’
Gant felt nothing as a result of Fielding’s little speech. He’d been through this type of thing before. Clients, at some point in any operation, especially one as uncertain as this, always needed to be reassured. They needed a hug, and they needed a grown-up to tell them everything was going to be all right. In fact, Fielding had lasted longer than some others before reaching that place.
‘I’m here, aren’t I?’ Gant said. ‘I’d hardly come waltzing through all of your gunmen if I were, as you say, taking you for a ride.’
‘Agreed. I feel a little better already, just having you as my guest.’
