'I don't think Cuba. Haiti maybe. They've already flown outside the boundaries of the detailed maps hardwired into this laptop. Unless they sweep back into U.S. airspace, I'll only be able to pinpoint the transmitter to the nearest city, but no better.'
'I'm not
'Absolutely not. If we can get to within a hundred miles of wherever they take him, we can still track them down. Every activity leaves a trail, and I know how to find it and follow it.'
The road workers exited the restaurant, talking and laughing. Stephen climbed in and shut the door. He hitched an arm around his seat back, turning to address her.
'Foreign soil,' he said. 'If the cards were stacked against us before, think how much more difficult getting to Allen will be in another country. Where would we go for help? The language barrier alone—'
She made him feel hope—insane and untenable maybe, but hope all the same.
He glanced away, at the men getting into a sedan across the parking lot, at the darkness of the night beyond. Did he believe her when he wasn't pinned by her determined eyes? Incredibly, he did. He believed in his heart she could do what she said.
That's all he needed.
He rolled his head in a muscle-stretching circle and let out a long, deep sigh. His heavy beard parted in a smile. 'Have you ever thought of selling cars?'
'I'm pretty good at wrecking them.' She checked her watch. 'Now get this thing moving. We've gotta get to Atlanta before the man we need to see gets too plastered to help us.'
seventy-one
The staccato pops of gunfire woke Allen from a fitful slumber. Before his eyes opened, pain from his shoulder and wrists welcomed him to consciousness. Nearby, a man spoke, something about a conference in Geneva. Music came on. One eye opened; the other was crusted shut. Light, shadows flickering over it. He remembered the plasma TV, rolled his head to see it. He forced open his other eye. A news commentator was replaced by a black- and-white western was replaced by a commercial for car wax was replaced by a televangelist . . . For a moment, he imagined that these images were not coming to him, but he was going to them: bouncing around through time and space, appearing and disappearing, a soul caught in the cosmic equivalent of a tornado. He wondered if the people he saw, saw him back, a flicker of a ghost, here and gone, swept off to the next sight and sound before surprise registered on the faces.
He experienced a sense of weightlessness as the plane bobbed gently over air currents and he swayed, handcuffed to the hook in the ceiling.
He swung his head the other direction. The cockpit door was open. Atropos sitting at the controls, seemingly staring at the stars beyond the glass.
He tried to think of something to say. He was thirsty. He had to use the restroom. He became aware of a cold pressure on his leg and crotch, the stench of ammonia, and realized he had already wet himself.
Explosions came from the television . . . canned laughter . . . A woman's screams followed Allen back into unconsciousness.
Shadows tumbled in the gusty wind as Stephen waited for Julia outside a windowless tavern on one of downtown Atlanta's rattier streets. He knew it must have been a trick of his eyes or faulty electrical currents that fed the anemic yellow light on the corner a half block away, but the illumination undulated intermittently, as though something unimaginable kept fluttering past—the spirit of despair or desperation, he thought, looking around.
On the other side of the street, outside another 'lounge,' a loud argument escalated into a shoving contest. Stephen sighed, pushing his hands deeper into his pants pockets. Darkness shifted silently in a recessed doorway not far away. He had the uneasy feeling of being watched but had no desire to investigate. Instead, he turned away.
Staring at the streetlamp, trying to catch its flicker, he hoped she would hurry up. On the way over, she had explained that Sweaty Dave was an 'identity broker,' someone who arranged the acquisition of false identity documents. He would gather the raw materials like signatures and photographs and send them to someone more specialized to turn into official-looking IDs.
Husbands wanting hassle-free relief from nagging wives or greedy exes; militants looking to distance themselves from governmental scrutiny; debtors desperate for a fresh start; but mostly, it was criminals on the run who made up Sweaty Dave's client roster. They all thought they were buying a permanent escape from the mistakes of their past. But only one in ten succeeded in vanishing for good. The other nine eventually gave themselves away by slipping back into the grooves cut by their old habits and penchants.
Then again, some bad guys simply chose the wrong false-document handler, such as Sweaty Dave. The Bureau busted him several years ago, Julia explained, leading to a Faustian bargain for his freedom: he would continue his illicit brokering activities in exchange for timely tips on who was using his services. The Bureau would then wait months, even years, to collar certain fugitives, taking great pains to falsify the means of their detection. Sweaty Dave's operation was simply too sweet to risk causing criminals to cast a suspicious eye at it.
Julia had said she wasn't worried about using an FBI informant. They needed the temporary ability to leave the country undetected, and by the time their patronage found its way to someone who mattered, they'd be long gone.
The tavern door behind him crashed open. Julia backed out, tugging on the arm of a man who obviously had no desire to be with her.
'Lady, you're really starting to tick me off!' the guy yelled, craning his head back toward the dark refuge of the lounge. As soon as he cleared the door, a heavy spring started pulling the door shut.
Someone inside called out, 'You tell 'er, Sweaty!' and two or three people howled in laughter. The door slammed closed, cutting off the noise.
'Now look—!' the man said and swung around to face Julia. Instead, he flattened into Stephen. He took a shaky step back, eyeing Stephen up and down. He turned to Julia. 'What's this! You going to rough me up?' To Stephen: 'Well, do it, big man. Whadda I care?' Defiantly, he pushed a greasy lock of black hair off his forehead.
Stephen rolled his eyes toward Julia, who made an exasperated expression and said, 'Stephen, meet Sweaty Dave.'
The man glaring at Stephen had a severely bloated face: chipmunk cheeks, tennis ball chin—complete with fuzz—and rolls of fat on his forehead. Within this soft terrain, beady eyes sat too close together, molelike. His lips were fat and puckered, not unlike two wet worms writhing over each other. And indeed he was sweaty. A thin sheen of
moisture that looked more akin to oil than perspiration covered every inch of his pasty flesh. He was about five eight and as similar to the Pillsbury Doughboy as anyone Stephen had ever seen.
'Dave, can you help us?' Stephen asked, kind, composed. His tender manner appeared to soothe Sweaty Dave's wrath. The identity broker's shoulders slumped.
'This ain't the way it's done,' he said to Stephen. He turned to Julia. 'This ain't the way it's done.'
'I'm sorry,' she said.
'Two Gs before I even look at you again,' Sweaty Dave said, holding up his palm and actually turning his head away from them.
She nodded. After a quick scan for nearby predators, Stephen pulled a wad of cash from his back pocket. He quickly peeled away twenty hundred-dollar bills and set them into the man's upturned hand.
Sweaty Dave pushed the cash into a front pocket of his jeans. Then he shoved past Julia and Stephen and shuffled away, mumbling. 'Can't even have a drink in peace anymore . . . I'm telling ya .. . Next time I'm not gonna be so nice . . .'
She raised her eyebrows at Stephen, and the two followed Sweaty Dave down the street. Before reaching the
