west of the Florida Keys. “Will this present a problem?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Good. The payment will be made in the usual manner.”
“I would expect nothing less,” Rodriguez said.
DeCamp hit the End button, then went into the bedroom to change back into khaki slacks and a light pullover — more fitting attire than his suit for a religious revival meeting.
FIFTY-THREE
Since the news conference this morning McGarvey had become increasingly restless, and by midnight, unable to fall asleep, he’d gotten up and went across to the crew’s mess where he bummed a cigarette from the cook. He got a cup of coffee and went out on deck, the evening thick, but almost no wind and only a slight sea running.
Schlagel’s God’s Flotilla was still out there, surrounding the rig, some of the boats still blowing their horns, but it had been going on for so long that the noise had just become an ignorable part of the background.
They’d gotten underway a couple of hours after the reporters had left aboard the InterOil helicopter, and he could still make out the glow on the bottoms of the clouds on the northern horizon from the taller condos and casino-hotels in Biloxi and Gulfport.
Their speed was barely two knots, so it would take a week to reach the deeper parts of the Gulf where he figured the attack would come. Time to relax, time to figure things out, time to prepare, and yet McGarvey felt that he was missing something vital. Like he was being outthought
He’d spent the morning more or less trailing the media group, and after they’d left, Gail had sought him out and they had a cup of coffee together in the mess, seated alone in a far corner. “The Englishman,” she’d told him. “His accent was more or less right, but I got a pretty strong feeling.”
“I saw the one you’re talking about, but all I have to go on are the images from your surveillance camera at the power plant.”
“He was in the tour group that walked right past me, and I got a good look at his eyes,” Gail had said. “Different color this time, but they had same expression, or lack of it. Like he was sizing me up, working out how he was going to kill me.”
“Otto vetted him,” McGarvey said, but he too had the feeling that at least one of the reporters was in actuality their contractor.
“So did Eric,” Gail said. “But I’ll have them check again. At the very least see if this guy filed a story with his newspaper.”
They’d spent the rest of the afternoon together, wandering around the rig, which was a gigantic, impossibly complex maze of rooms and corridors, piping and girders, electrical runs, and machinery bolted or welded in what seemed like an endless series of random placements. At least a dozen steep stairways connected all of the levels from the helicopter deck, control rooms, and living spaces down to just above the sea level, where water sloshed over the catwalks. The noise at this level, from the blasting horns and the heavy rumble of the tug’s powerful diesels, rumbled around the struts and hammered off the surface of the water and the underside of the deck above, making it nearly impossible to be heard.
Work refurbishing the platform had gotten underway again, and at one point they’d run into Defloria who’d warned them they were out on deck at their own risk. “I can’t be responsible for your safety unless you stay inside.”
“Thanks, but we have a job to do, too,” McGarvey had told him.
“Just watch yourself.”
Dead tired, McGarvey had turned in right after dinner, seeing the brief look of disappointment on Gail’s face but ignoring it. She was pumped up from the day and she didn’t want to be alone.
But he needed to be.
For all of his career, first in the Air Force, then in the CIA as a black operations field officer, then as an administrator, and finally as a sometimes freelancer, he’d done best working alone. Or at least being alone in the sense that he was not emotionally involved with someone. When his wife had given him the ultimatum — the CIA or her — he’d chosen neither and instead had run to Switzerland, where for a while his life had seemed orderly to him. Until he’d become involved with Marta Fredricks, a Swiss cop assigned to watch him, which ultimately led to her murder. She’d fallen in love with him, and followed him to try to get him back. But she’d stumbled into the middle of an operation and had lost her life.
Because of him.
It had happened again in Georgetown where an explosive device meant for him had instead killed Jacqueline Belleau, a French intelligence officer who’d worked with him on an assignment in Moscow, and who’d followed him to the States.
And again outside Mexico City two years ago when Gloria Ibenez, a Cuban-born CIA field officer, had given her life to save his.
And still again eighteen months ago when his wife and daughter were killed in another attack meant for him.
So much carnage, so many lives wasted uselessly. The list wasn’t exactly endless but sometimes it seemed like it was, and over the years he’d been rubbed so raw that he didn’t know if he could care about anyone ever again. At the very least, he’d come to reason, his proximity to someone very often ended up as a death sentence for them.
“A penny,” a woman said from behind him.
He turned as Eve Larsen appeared out of the darkness. She was dressed in jeans and a dark windbreaker against the damp, chilly night air, and she looked worn-out, almost haggard, her face even a little gaunt. “It’d take more than a penny,” he said.
She inclined her head, and came next to him and leaned her elbows on the rail. “Do you think they have the stamina to keep up the racket all the way to Florida?”
“Probably not.”
“You’re still expecting an attack.”
“I think it’s possible.”
“But no one else does.”
It was more complicated than that, because even the White House thought that an attack on the rig was possible, though not by Schlagel’s group. But there was no proof, not one shred of evidence, not one indication, not one warning, even a distant warning that something like that might happen. Everyone was going on McGarvey’s instincts, while at the same time hedging their bets in case he was wrong. And he’d been in this position before. More than once.
“No.”
She fell silent for a time, staring out at the dozens of boat lights — red, green, and white — surrounding them, while straight ahead the tug’s array of lights stacked up in a vertical column indicating she was engaged in a tow presented an almost surreal image against the thick dark of the overcast night sky and no visible horizon. “I haven’t seen you since you came aboard.”
“I didn’t want to get in your way,” McGarvey said, and in the lights on the rig that lit up the superstructures like a forest of Christmas trees, he saw her expression harden. “Gail and I are here to provide security in case something goes wrong. And believe me, Doc, I sincerely hope this will be a wasted trip.”
“Eve,” she said. “My name is Eve.” And she sounded very vulnerable.
“You have your work … Eve.”
“Yes.”
“What do you want?”
“Someone to put their arms around me, tell me that everything will work out, that there’s really nothing to worry about.”
“You have Don,” McGarvey said. He wanted to run.
“No,” she said. “You. Five minutes is all I’m asking.”
