of lights in a few of the building’s windows, but I saw no sign of anyone. The moonlight was bright enough on the slope for me to pick my way down through the darkness without serious risk, yet still not bright enough to make me unduly conspicuous. That was about as much good luck as I could hope for.
I unzipped the bag and took out the.45 and the spare clips. Positioning the holster in front of my right hip, I snapped it over my belt and stuffed the spare clips into my trouser pockets. Hauling the windbreaker out of the duffle, I turned it inside out to make the yellow FBI identification on the back a little less conspicuous-somehow I didn’t think that would strike exactly the right introductory note with Barry’s armed guards-then pulled it on over my polo shirt and jeans.
Taking a deep breath I shifted back into gear and eased the jeep on down the rough track without turning on the headlights. The tires made a swishing sound in the limestone dust as I rolled through the darkness toward the black rock wall.
After about three hundred yards the track dipped sharply and then rose again. When I reached the top of the small rise I stopped and reexamined the view ahead. From that point onward the track faded away, so I backed carefully down from the rise, pulled the jeep off where it couldn’t be seen from the compound, and cut the engine.
I got out, closing the door quietly behind me I took the field glasses and walked back up the rise. Stretching out flat so I wouldn’t be silhouetted against the sky, I raised the glasses.
From where I was the ground sloped down evenly to the compound and then dropped abruptly right behind it over a cliff and into the sea. The main road was a narrow line of gray asphalt that came in from the north, made a sharp dogleg west, and ended in a small pad in front of the gates. It was rough and unlit, really not much of a road, and it was deserted.
Now that I was closer to the compound I could see that in front of the gates there was a box set all by itself waist-high on a shiny post which had to be an intercom of some sort. Above the gates there was another box mounted on the wall. That one looked like a camera. I swung the glasses back and forth and didn’t see any other surveillance cameras along the wall. That was the good news. The bad news was that I couldn’t find any cover between the rise and the wall either, but with no surveillance and no sign of any guards outside the walls, maybe I wouldn’t need it.
While the light from the burning torches illuminated the area around the gate, the shadows around the rest of the wall were dark in spite of the moonlight. Unless Barry had himself some spiffy infrared sensors out there, it looked like I could make it unseen at least as far as the wall if I approached the compound from the side rather than head-on toward the gates.
I eased back down the rise and dumped the field glasses in the jeep. Moving perpendicular to the track, I jogged in a half crouch until I was far enough on the north side of the compound that I couldn’t see the gates any longer. Taking one more careful look around and seeing nothing, I drew a deep breath and ran as quietly as I could for the wall.
Sure enough I reached the base without any indication that I had been seen. I ended up at a spot that was dim enough to make me feel about as secure as I could hope to be under the circumstances. Up close, the wall was just what it had looked like through the field glasses. Solid rock, about fifteen feet high, and mortared so smoothly that climbing it wasn’t even worth thinking about. Staying in the shadows, I worked my way around the compound looking carefully for a weak point. I hugged the base of the wall and kept away from the gate, and I found nothing that was any help.
There were no other entrances at all and if there was even the slightest variation in the construction of the wall it eluded me. When I reached the corner of the compound opposite to the one where I had started, I leaned cautiously out of the shadows and studied the section of the wall where the gates were. It looked exactly the same as it did everywhere else.
The gates themselves were thickly varnished and seemed to fit together in the center with perfect precision. There was no hardware on their exterior, not even a handle or a plate suggesting a lock and I couldn’t see anything like a crack or a knothole through which I could try and sneak a peek inside.
It was an entrance designed to make anyone who approached it feel insignificant, a supplicant begging audience with the Black Prince, and that made me mad as hell. Barry Gale was a slug who had crawled into bed with the Russian Mafia. I knew for certain he had been involved in one murder back in Dallas and I had no doubt that he was somehow connected to the killings of Howard and Dollar as well. Yet here I was, skulking around in the darkness just to talk to the bastard. My right hand slipped inside my windbreaker and closed over the grips of the.45.
With a sigh, I took my hand out of my jacket and looked around again. No, of course I wasn’t going to do that, but there was only one other alternative.
Manny’s underground network had successfully smuggled me onto Phuket undetected. I had found Barry Gale’s secret bolt-hole, waited until I had the cover of darkness, and then crept all the way to his very gate without anybody spotting me.
I stepped quickly out of the shadows and rounded the corner into the wavering circle of light cast by the gas torches before I had any more time to think about how stupid I felt. There was a single, red button next to a white number pad on the intercom box and I gave it a solid push.
“Yes?”
The voice that rattled out of the box’s loudspeaker was cold and metallic. Worse, it sounded entirely unperturbed. So much for the element of surprise.
“I’m here to see Barry Gale.”
It was a wimpy thing to say and I had to bend down slightly to speak into the intercom, so I felt even wimpier. After all the maneuvering and calculating of advantages and possibilities, now I was just some jerk standing in the dark outside the castle and begging this faceless retainer for an audience with his master.
“Who is this?” the voice asked.
Banks of floodlights set back in recesses at the top of the wall suddenly came to life and bathed the entrance to the compound so brightly that the flames from the brass torches seemed to have been snuffed out.
I hit the button again. But this time I didn’t bend down.
“This is Jack Shepherd.”
Squinting against the glare, I let the button go, but then I banged it again with my fist and yelled at the little box. “And I’m sick of this goddamned bullshit. You can tell Barry he’s got ten seconds to open this gate or I’m coming back here with every cop I can find and maybe the fucking United States Marines, too.”
I slapped the box with one hand, turned my back on it, and started walking toward the gates, although I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do when I got to them.
“Don’t you know it’s rude to drop in on friends unannounced, Jack?” Barry Gale’s voice startled me and I swiveled toward where it seemed to have come from, but there was nothing to see except the black intercom box. “You could at least have called so the cook would have had time to put out an extra plate for dinner.”
“We’re not friends, Barry!” I was shouting back at the intercom box, but of course I wasn’t pressing the button so Barry couldn’t hear me. “And you can stick your goddamned dinner up your goddamned ass!”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the gates move and I glanced back at them. The shiny teak panels opened a crack. A man slipped out of the compound and looked me over without expression. He was a local, not particularly big or formidable, but the black assault rifle in his hands more than made up for any personal deficiencies.
The man took a few steps in my direction, then stopped, moved off to one side, and gestured me forward with the muzzle of the rifle. His round, slightly shiny face was expressionless and my eyes kept shifting back and forth between it and the rifle. The man gestured again in an impatient way, this time clearly pointing with his free hand toward the opening in the gates. I walked forward keeping a wary eye on the rifle.
