His son crawled out of the doghouse, dragging his baseball glove with him. He stood up, hands on hips, and glared at his father.
“That’s what you said. You said we’re leaving California, and we’re going to live in Virginia, and you’re going to work in Washington, and we’re never going to move again.”
“I guess I’ve said a lot of things, huh?”
“Yeah. You have.”
Frank nodded, took the opportunity to study his son.
He’d grown again. Another inch, Castle guessed. Hadn’t put on any more weight, but that would come. Frank himself had been a beanpole in school till ninth grade, when he’d suddenly filled out.
“So why London?” his son asked.
“London is a safe place where we can all be together.”
“All of us? You included?”
“That’s right. Me included. No more moving around, I promise.”
His son looked skeptical.
“Will. When you get a little older, I’ll tell you why we had to move so much. Why I couldn’t be home with you more.”
His son looked down at the ground.
“I already know.”
“You do?”
“You always say, Will, keep your eyes open. I keep my eyes open.”
Castle couldn’t help but wonder if he was talking about Buccaneer Bay.
It had been almost a year since that awful day when the two of them (Frank on a rare vacation from his Otto Krieg identity) had been caught up in the middle of a terrorist incident. Buccaneer Bay was an Orlando tourist attraction that featured the
The group they captured, however, included a sixty-sixth person, Frank Castle, who escaped during the terrorists’ assault. He’d then donned a pirate’s outfit, complete with skull mask (courtesy of one of the animatronic attractions on the ride) and set about rescuing the hostages. Within an hour, the terrorists were all dead, the tourists safe and sound, and their anonymous rescuer had mysteriously vanished.
Afterward, Will had asked him a lot of questions. If he’d been involved in killing the terrorists. If he knew who the man in the skull mask was. Frank had dodged his questions for the most part—he and Maria agreed that the less the boy knew specifically about what kind of work his father did, the better. Now Frank wondered if it wasn’t time to take Will into his confidence.
Another decision he and Maria would have to make together, Castle realized.
“I’m not going to be doing the same thing anymore,” was what he told his son. “I’ll be working in an office. Every day.”
“For the government still?”
Which was about the extent of Will’s knowledge of his job right now. “Yes. Still for the government.”
Will nodded, his curiosity seemingly sated for the moment.
“Okay,” he said, taking hold of the Pitchback and starting to drag it back toward the house.
“Whoa. Where are you going with that?”
“The truck. Mom said to bring whatever I wanted from the yard to the truck.”
“Not that.” Castle took the Pitchback gently from his son and threw it back into the yard. “You don’t need that anymore.”
“Dad.” Will frowned. “You’re not going to make me play cricket, are you?”
“Of course not.”
“So why—” his son gestured toward the Pitchback. “I wanna bring it.”
“No. You don’t need that anymore. From now on, you’re playing with me.”
“Really?”
“That’s right.” Castle put an arm around his son’s shoulder. Will smiled up at him.
There was a sudden crash from inside the house.
Frank looked up and, through the still-open back door, saw Maria yelling at one of the movers. Next to the man, one of the kitchen boxes lay tipped on its side.
“What’s mom yelling for?” Will asked.
Castle sighed. “I think she hates moving even more than you do.”
EIGHT
“I called New York,” Glass said. “Who called Las Vegas, who called Europe and Hong Kong. We even got the Sicilians on it, for old time’s sake.”
“Hold on.” Howard Saint stepped back from the bunker and watched the shot he’d just hit rim out of the hole. Damn. Fifteenth time in a row he’d missed from this particular practice tee, his favorite practice tee, on his favorite golf course, the Tampa Country Club golf course, which he knew like the back of his own hand, hell, better than the back of his own hand, and he never missed any shot here fifteen times in a row. Not under normal circumstances, at least.
These were far from normal circumstances, however.
Tomorrow afternoon, they were burying his son.
Saint prided himself in that he had managed to keep up at least a semblance of normalcy these past few days. He’d met with Chadwick again, had managed a condolence call to Reston’s wife and another to Red Archeletta, and had even put in a half day at the office yesterday. Livia, though . . .
She was coming apart at the seams. Behaving like a madwoman.
He’d come home early yesterday afternoon to find that she’d ordered all of Bobby’s things taken out of his room and moved into storage. And last night she’d excused herself from dinner early, pleading exhaustion, but when he walked into their bedroom a few hours later, he found her wide awake, sitting in front of the fireplace, a photo album filled with pictures of Bobby in her lap, pictures she was taking from the book one by one and tossing onto the fire. Burning, as if by erasing what remained of his physical presence from her life she could erase the pain she was feeling as well.
“Pop.”
His son John stepped forward and handed him another ball from the bucket. Saint set it down and swung.
Miss number sixteen.
John held out another. Saint shook his head.
“All right, Quentin. What do we know?”
“This Krieg guy, who brokered the deal—he’s a mystery man. Can’t find anything on him.”
“Nothing?”
“Nada. We got his picture off Dutch immigration, and we’re circulating it now. Something’s bound to come up.”
“Okay. What about Krieg’s boss—Astrov?”
“Ah.” Glass smiled. “Everybody knew Astrov. Biggest arms trafficker in the world up until the other night. His organization sold to everybody. Governments, rebels, terrorist groups—you had the cash, he had weapons for you. He was top ten on everyone’s most-wanted list.”
“A legitimate target.”
“That’s right.”
“Looks like Bobby just got in the way, Pop,” John Saint added.
Howard nodded. That was how it looked, all right. Astrov had been set up and then taken down by the FBI. Bobby had fallen with him.
One thing bothered Saint, though.
“How’d they know?”
“Pop?”
