Fay Li leans in. “I hope you’ll consider me your own insider here on Swannekke Island.”
Luisa probes with caution. “Journalists need insiders, Fay, so I’ll certainly bear it in mind. I have to warn you, though, Spyglass doesn’t have the resources for the kind of remuneration you may be —”
“Men invented money. Women invented mutual aid.”
It’s a wise soul, thinks Luisa, who can distinguish traps from opportunities. “I’m not sure .?.?. how a small-time reporter could ‘aid’ a woman of your standing, Fay.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself. Friendly journalists make valuable allies. If there comes a time when you want to discuss any matters weightier than how many french fries the Swannekke engineers consume per annum”—her voice sinks below the clinking of cutlery, cocktail-bar piano music, and background laughter—“such as data on the HYDRA reactor as compiled by Dr. Sixsmith, purely for example, I guarantee you’ll find me much more cooperative than you think.”
Fay Li clicks her fingers, and the dessert trolley is already on its way. “Now, the lemon-and-melon sherbet, very low in calories, it cleanses the palate, ideal before coffee. Trust me on this?”
The transformation is so total, Luisa almost wonders if she just heard what she just heard. “I’ll trust you on this.”
“Glad we understand each other.”
Luisa wonders: What level of deceit is permissible in journalism? She remembers her father’s answer, one afternoon in the hospital garden: Did I ever lie to get my story? Ten-mile-high whoppers every day before breakfast, if it got me one inch closer to the truth.
A ringing phone flips Luisa’s dreams over and she lands in the moonlit room. She grabs the lamp, the clock radio, and finally the receiver. For a moment she cannot remember her name or what bed she is in. “Luisa?” offers a voice from the black gulf.
“Yeah, Luisa Rey.”
“Luisa, it’s me, Isaac, Isaac Sachs, calling long distance.”
“Isaac! Where are you? What time is it? Why—”
“Shush, shush, sorry I woke you, and sorry I was dragged away at the crack of dawn yesterday. Listen, I’m in Philadelphia. It’s seven-thirty eastern, it’ll be getting light soon in California. You still there, Luisa? I haven’t lost you?”
He’s afraid. “Yeah, Isaac, I’m listening.”
“Before I left Swannekke, I gave Garcia a present to give to you, just a dolce far niente.” He tries to make the sentence sound casual. “Understand?”
What in God’s name is he talking about?
“You hear me, Luisa? Garcia has a present for you.”
A more alert quarter of Luisa’s brain muscles in. Isaac Sachs left the Sixsmith Report in your VW. You mentioned the trunk didn’t lock. He assumes we are being eavesdropped. “That’s very kind of you, Isaac. Hope it didn’t cost you too much.”
“Worth every cent. Sorry to disturb your beauty sleep.”
“Have a safe flight, and see you soon. Dinner, maybe?”
“I’d love that. Well, got a plane to catch.”
“Safe flight.” Luisa hangs up.
Leave later, in an orderly fashion? Or get off Swannekke right now?
A quarter of a mile across the science village, Joe Napier’s window frames the hour-before-dawn night sky. A console of electronic monitoring equipment occupies half the room. From a loudspeaker the sound of a dead phone line purrs. Napier rewinds a squawking reel-to-reel. “Before I left Swannekke, I gave Garcia a present to give to you, just a dolce far niente.?.?.?. Understand?”
Garcia? Garcia?
Napier grimaces at his cold coffee and opens a folder labeled “LR#2.” Colleagues, friends, contacts .?.?. no Garcia in the index. Better warn Bill Smoke not to approach Luisa until I’ve had the chance to speak with her. He flicks his lighter into life. Bill Smoke is a difficult man to find, let alone warn. Napier draws acrid smoke down into his lungs. His telephone rings: it’s Bill Smoke. “So, who the fuck’s this Garcia?”
“Don’t know, nothing on file. Listen, I don’t want you to—”
“It’s your fucking job to know, Napier.”
So, you’re addressing me like that now? “Hey! Hold your—”
“Hey yourself.” Bill Smoke hangs up.
Bad, bad, very bad. Joe grabs his jacket, snuffs his cigarette, leaves his quarters, and strides across the site to Luisa’s hotel. A five-minute walk. He recalls the menace in Bill Smoke’s tone and breaks into a run.
A swarm of deja vu haunts Luisa as she stuffs her belongings into her overnight bag. Robert Frobisher doing a dine and dash from another hotel. She takes the stairs down to the empty lobby. The carpet is silent as snow. A radio whispers sweet nothings in the back office. Luisa creeps to the main doors, hoping to leave with no explanation required. The doors are locked to keep people out, not in, and soon Luisa is striding across the hotel lawn to the parking lot. A predawn ocean breeze makes vague promises. The night sky inland is turning dark rose. Nobody else is about, but as she nears her car, Luisa forces herself not to break into a run. Stay calm, unhurried, and you can say you’re driving along the cape for the sunrise.
At first glance the trunk is empty, but the carpet covers a bulge. Under the flap Luisa finds a package wrapped in a black plastic trash bag. She removes a vanilla binder. She reads its cover in the semilight: The HYDRA-Zero Reactor—An Operational Assessment Model—Project Head Dr. Rufus Sixsmith— Unauthorized Possession Is a Federal Crime Under the Military & Industrial Espionage Act 1971. Some five hundred pages of tables, flowcharts, mathematics, and evidence. A sense of elation booms and echoes. Steady, this is only the end of the beginning.
Motion in the middle distance catches Luisa’s eye. A man. Luisa ducks behind Garcia. “Hey! Luisa! Hold it!” Joe Napier! As if in a dream of keys and locks and doors, Luisa stows the vanilla binder in its black trash bag under the passenger seat—Napier is running now, his flashlight beam swishing the half darkness. The engine makes a lazy, leonine roar—the VW reverses too fast. Joe Napier thumps into the back, yells, and Luisa glimpses him hopping like a slapstick actor.
She does not stop to apologize.
