“You’ll be all right now,” he predicted. “I can tell you are a strong woman, but you’ve bottled up your emotions for a long time. I suspect you never showed weakness to your jailers.”
“
“But that doesn’t mean you don’t have any. So they come out in a rush in the end. Nothing to it.”
“Thank you,” she said softly. Her voice strengthened, and a little smile played at the corners of her mouth. “And thank you for saving my life. Linda has such faith in you that she never doubted our rescue. I was not so sure. But now?” The smile turned into a grin. “Now I think you can do anything.”
“Just as soon as I get my red cape back from the cleaners.”
The reference confused her for a moment. “Oh, your comicbook Superman.”
“That’s me, but I don’t do tights.” Juan turned serious. “I need to ask you some questions. If it’s too difficult, we can do it another time.”
“
“Or I can come back when you’re dressed.”
“I have a towel. It is enough,” she said with European pragmatism.
“Did you overhear anything during your captivity? Anything that would give us a clue what this is all about?”
“No. Nothing. They took me from my home in Zurich. Two men broke into my house and attacked me while I was asleep. While one held me down the other gave me a shot. It knocked me out. When I came awake again, I was in that cell where you found me. I did not even know that it was an oil platform until Linda told me. You see, they had drugged her too. But she says she woke in a helicopter on its way out to sea.”
Juan knew that, like himself, Linda would have remained motionless after coming to in order to get a sense of her surroundings. It was a trick he’d taught her.
“Do you have any idea why you were targeted?”
“I assume it has to do with my father,” Soleil replied. “He is a wealthy and powerful man.”
“I met him in Singapore when he hired us to go into Burma to look for you.”
“It is true that I was planning on going to Bangladesh with a friend of mine on an extreme backpacking trip.”
“We know. The man behind your abduction went so far as to update your website to make it look like you’d left for that trip. They covered themselves well. Anything specific about your father? Any recent business deals?”
“We are not so close anymore,” she admitted sadly.
Cabrillo knew that pretty soon she’d have to be told that in all likelihood her father was dead. Bahar had what he wanted, so Roland Croissard had become a loose end. They would keep searching, of course, but the odds were long that the Swiss financier had been left alive.
“Okay, then,” Juan said, and stood. “You get some rest, and we’ll talk more later.”
“There are some people I’d like to call. My father and some friends.”
“I might as well tell you now. Your father is missing. We’ve been trying to reach him for several days but haven’t had any luck. Also, I’m afraid that until we have a better handle on the situation we need to keep up the pretense that you died back on that oil rig.”
“My father? Missing?”
“And the last time anyone saw him he was with the man that most likely kidnapped you in Zurich.”
Guilt, fear, and anger played across her face in a kaleidoscope of emotions. She sat as still as a statue, a beautiful mannequin, her soul having just been torn out.
“I am sorry,” Juan said softly. He wished she hadn’t asked about making calls. She wasn’t ready to hear this kind of news. Not now.
Soleil finally looked up at him, a pleading look in her eyes that he wanted more than anything else to satiate. He’d never seen such naked vulnerability. Now he was in territory where he wasn’t all that comfortable because it brought up feelings of his own loss. He hadn’t been told about his wife’s death until he’d returned from a mission for the CIA and she’d been in the ground for weeks.
With relief he saw her firm up, straighten her shoulders, and harden her eyes. “I think I would like to get dressed and walk the deck, if that is okay. I have not seen sunshine or felt fresh air in a long time.” She pointed to a suitcase just outside the bathroom that he recognized as coming from the wardrobe section of the Magic Shop. Linda and Kevin Nixon had already kitted her out.
“Of course,” Juan quickly agreed. “If you need anything, feel free to ask any of the crew. Even though we didn’t find you where we expected to, they’re all relieved that you’re safe.”
“Thank you for everything.”
“Cocktails in the dining room at six. Dinner’s casual, but I’ll wear my cape for you.”
She smiled wanly at his attempt at humor, and Cabrillo took his leave. He finally tracked down Linda. She was in the exercise room with Eddie Seng. Both were dressed in the traditional
“Not enough action for one day?” Juan teased.
Linda flared. “That dirtball Smith got the drop on me back in the jungle, and I want Eddie to show me what I did wrong.”
Seng had degrees in several styles of fighting and was the Corporation’s instructor.
“It can wait. We need to talk.”
Linda bowed to Eddie and came across the padded mats in bare feet. “I’ll tell you right off the top that Smith didn’t give away much. As soon as he got me to Yangon he hit me with happy juice.”
“And you woke up on the chopper, heading out to the rig.”
“How did you know that?” she asked, one eyebrow arching.
“I’m Superman. Actually, I just had a chat with Soleil.”
“Chat, eh?”
Juan didn’t take the bait. “Was Smith with you in the chopper?”
“Yes. And he had the bag. And he made his only mistake. It was on the floor between him and the pilot, and, just before we landed, he opened it. Inside were ruby crystals, big ones. I’d say a foot long or longer, and they’d already been cut and polished. I’d never seen anything like it in my life.”
Cabrillo had a hard time believing this was all an elaborate smuggling scheme. There had to be something beyond that.
Linda was still talking. “Once we landed I continued to play rag doll. They took me straight to the cell with Soleil, so I don’t know if Smith hung around for the final act or not.”
“I suspect not. Bahar went through a lot of trouble to get that bag. He’d want the stones as soon as possible. Let me ask you something. I discovered that two entire floors of that rig were crammed with computers. I’m talking thousands of interlinked machines. Any ideas?”
“Ask the brain trust. Mark and Eric are the computer nerds.”
“Aren’t we supposed to call them ITs?”
“So I’m not politically correct. Sue me. Seriously, you’d have to ask them. I was shoved into the black hole of Calcutta as soon as I was aboard.”
Cabrillo found Mark and Eric in Stoney’s cabin. They were playing a video game on a giant flat-screen that was actually four edgeless panels mounted in a square. Juan understood that some games promoted actual skills, but he saw no redeeming features in the two of them racing a cartoon car with what looked like an aardvark behind the wheel through a shopping center.
“I guess you guys haven’t heard.”
“Heard what?”
“Croissard’s daughter was on that rig too. He was used to get to us. And MacD Lawless was a spy.”
“What?” the two crowed in unison.
“The real bad guy turns out to be Gunawan Bahar. He was the mastermind behind everything. So your priority is tearing into every part of his life. I want to know who he really is and what he’s after. When we first contacted Overholt about Bahar, he said that he wasn’t on the CIA’s radarscope, so you’re going to have to dig deep.”
“Hold on a sec,” Mark said. “MacD’s a spy? For who?”
Cabrillo laid out the whole convoluted story, summing up by saying that he and Max both agreed that Bahar
