“What?”
“How did you know?” Howard Saint repeated. “About the deal that night? Surveillance? A man on the inside?”
Something flickered in Weeks’s eyes.
“Surveillance,” the agent answered, a little too quickly.
“On the boat. We tracked it out from Belfast a week before.”
Saint shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think you had an informant. A turncoat, inside Astrov’s organization, feeding you information all along. Isn’t that true, Mr. Weeks?”
“No,” the man said reflexively. “That’s not how it was, sir. We had cooperation from Interpol; I can show you the paperwork. I can even put you in touch with . . .”
Weeks droned on, but Saint wasn’t listening. He was thinking. Comparing Weeks’s version of events with the one Micky Duka had given him. They were identical, no clues there about who the Feds’ mystery man might be. . . .
Mystery man.
That was just how Quentin had described Otto Krieg today.
“Agent Weeks,” Saint said abruptly, interrupting the man. “Two nights ago, I asked you about Otto Krieg. Could we open that inquiry again?”
Saint saw the look of terror that suddenly came into his eyes, and thought: Bingo.
“I don’t know what I can tell you about him, Mr. Saint. I mean, the guy’s dead, that’s the most relevant fact.”
“Humor me, if you would. Tell me what Krieg did before he got involved with Astrov. Where he’s from. A little of his personal history. Surely you know some details.”
Weeks shook his head.
“Not off the top of my head, but I could get them. We have a file; I could get the file. Be happy to, just —”
“Agent Weeks.” Howard Saint leaned over the man, and now he could smell his fear; he knew that whatever the reason his son had died, this Otto Krieg was at the heart of it. “I’m no fool. Don’t treat me like one. Otto Krieg.”
He put a hand on the man’s shoulder and felt him trembling.
“You got problems. Two hundred g’s worth of problems, Agent Weeks,” Mike Toro said. “Don’t make it worse.”
His brother nodded. “Don’t forget about the bitch slapping, Weeksie. You gotta consider that, too.”
Weeks swallowed hard.
“Otto Krieg,” Howard Saint said again.
Weeks took a deep breath then and looked up at Saint.
At that instant he looked utterly defeated, utterly miserable, as if he’d lost his last friend in the world.
“That’s not his real name.”
“Really?” Howard Saint pulled up a chair and sat down next to Weeks.
“That’s very interesting,” he said. “Tell me more.”
NINE
Sun on his face. Warm water on his skin. The smells and sounds of street vendors and musicians coming from the pier next to him—
So this is what it feels like to be relaxed, Frank Castle thought. He’d just about forgotten.
“Dad.”
Frank Castle turned. Will bobbed in the water next to him, his skin already the color of dark coffee after only two days in the tropical sun.
“You all set?” Frank asked.
Will nodded.
“All right. Remember what I said. Take a big deep breath—nice, easy, even strokes—and—”
“I know, Dad,” Will said impatiently. “Come on, let’s go already.”
“All right.” He smiled at the boy’s eagerness. Will was right. They’d been prepping for this dive all morning. The boy was either ready or he wasn’t. They’d find out in a minute.
Castle pulled his arm out of the water, looked at his Rolex, and immediately realized he’d forgotten to call Jimmy Weeks again. Damn. He’d been meaning to do that since they landed at San Juan yesterday morning. See if there’d been any further fallout from Ares. Last e-mail he’d gotten from Sandoval had been nebulous, the deputy director had dodged around every question he’d posed, and Jimmy for some reason hadn’t answered his phone for two days, so—
“Earth to Dad. Come in, Dad.”
Castle blinked and looked up at his son.
“Sorry. Here we go.” Putting Weeks out of his mind for the moment, Castle focused on the second hand, sweeping toward the six. “Okay. Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . and . . . dive.”
Will sucked in air, and plunged beneath the water’s surface. Good kick, good form. He’d give the boy a five second head start, then go after him.
This would be their last dive of the morning—they’d been at it since right after breakfast, both in and out of gear. Castle still had his equipment on, but Will was diving in trunks only now. There were a lot of amazing places around here to scuba dive—they were a half hour south of the Black Wall, and that was something he wanted Will to experience this trip for sure, six-foot moray eels, black coral reefs, water so clear you felt as if you were swimming in an aquarium—but before he took his son any deeper out into the ocean, he wanted to make sure that Will understood diving equipment was fallible, no matter how many times you tested it, and that the only thing you could count on in the water was yourself, your lung power, your muscle power.
Five seconds. Castle slipped on his mask and regulator, and dove.
The seafloor here sloped gently down from the beach. Right off the pier, where they were now, it reached a depth of perhaps twenty, twenty-five feet, running up against a small reef, dotted here and there with underwater caves.
Will swam—nice, easy, even strokes—toward the entrance to one of those caves, in front of which Castle had left the boy’s tank and regulator.
With a last kick, his son reached the scuba equipment. Will turned to his dad, gave a thumbs-up, and bent down to pick it up.
Frank shook his head and pointed toward the surface. Ascend.
For an instant, he saw confusion on the boy’s face. That, and maybe a trace of panic. Castle had told him the test was to see if he could reach the equipment and put it on—not reach it and then surface again. He could guess at the thoughts running through Will’s head: I need the tank now. I need the oxygen.
Castle met his son’s eyes impassively. It was Will’s call; either way, the boy had done well this morning. It was only his second day of diving. They could come back tomorrow. No shame in not being able to do the dive both ways.
No shame—but no glory, either.
Will dropped the regulator and shot up off the ocean floor then, so quickly that Castle found himself kicking hard just to keep his son in sight.
When he broke the surface, Will was already there. Gasping for breath and smiling. Waving toward his mother, who stood on the beach, hands on hips. Castle couldn’t see the expression on Maria’s face, but from her body language, she was not thrilled. No surprise there—she didn’t think Will was old enough to be scuba diving yet, had, in fact, tried to send the boy snorkeling with his cousins this morning, only to have Will declare that looking at tropical fish in two feet of water was “for babies.”
Behind Maria, a man suddenly stood up and waved back at Will. Frank’s father. Castle would bet money he was smiling, at least.
“Trying to trick me, huh?” Will said, still a little out of breath.
“Nope. Trying to test you. You did good.” Frank mussed his son’s hair. “Come on. Let’s go calm your mother
