Nga continued staring at the TV, but his eyes were no longer focused on the chaotic images flashing across its screen. He was wondering if the problem was not that the game itself had gotten beyond him, but rather that his strategy needed to be broadened. That he had reached the stage where studied and incremental moves would no longer work… and where one swift move could win it all.
Nodding to himself like a man who has suddenly realized the solution to a complex puzzle, he picked up the telephone and called Marcus Caine.
'Hello?'
'Marcus, hello. I'm actually surprised I was able to catch you at home. According to what I've been reading, you're the toast of the town these days.'
Caine raised an eyebrow at the sound of Nga's voice. He'd been in front of his television for over an hour watching raw CNN satellite feeds of the Jakarta bloodbath. By the time the footage made it to the regular broadcasts, it would be edited for mass consumption, sparing viewers the more grisly scenes of atrocity — but he preferred his glimpses of the world's ugliness straight up. Diluted reality afforded little in the way of insight.
'Libertine that I am, I occasionally give my follies a rest and try catching up with the news,' he said, wondering if the timing of Nga's call was any coincidence. 'Speaking of which, what's this madness going on in your country?'
'Our beloved head of state is clamping down on his opposition, it seems.'
'Does that distress you?'
Caine heard Nga sigh. 'I suppose it depends on how these events come to bear upon my own fortunes.'
Caine's eyebrow arched a little higher. He'd expected an earful of Nga's phoney rhetoric… sympathy for the common man, and all that nonsense. The apparently honest answer Nga had given him instead was almost startling.
'As long as your bank continues doing well, I imagine you'd be in a good position regardless of who comes out on top,' he said, uncertain whether that was true considering Nga's habit of fucking around in Indonesian politics, and hardly giving a damn in any case. He was just filling the silence, really.
'Marcus, listen to me,' Nga said after a moment. 'We have to talk about Roger Gordian. Something's arisen that could have damaging implications for us unless it is addressed right away.'
Caine stroked his chin, thinking. He had no idea what to make of Nga's cryptic statement, other than that it presumably concerned the takeover.
'I'll be formally announcing my intention to acquire UpLink in today's Wall Street Journal,' he said. 'The company's lawyers are certain to stall things in court, but I think it will all be smoke. Give me a few weeks and —'
'I said Roger Gordian. Not UpLink.'
Suddenly disquieted, Caine thought some more, wishing Nga would just spit it out. 'Does this have any connection to the son of a bitch who was nosing around my Singapore branch? I thought you took care of him.'
A pause.
'Marcus, are we secure?'
'I can only vouch for my end of the line.'
'Then we should be able to speak freely,' Nga said. 'The one you speak of is dead. And that's where the complications begin.'
Caine suddenly realized his heart was beating fast. 'I–I don't understand. I mean, what went wrong? And what does it have to do with me?'
'How it happened is a long story, but be assured it wasn't intentional,' Nga said. 'Really, though, abducting him was a mistake, and I objected to it from the beginning. Had he been released, he would have been able to share information about his captors with the authorities and his employer. His death, meanwhile, is surely going to bring about an investigation. In the end, what is the difference? People are going to want answers, and all roads lead in our direction.'
'Wait a second,' Caine said. 'You're speaking as though I had a hand in this. And I didn't. I didn't even want to know about it. Your friends came up with the brainstorm of taking him, when there had to be an easier way to find out what he was looking for. A sane way.'
'Calm down. We can't reverse what's past. The important thing now is that we have the courage to deal with the rest of it.'
'Don't give me that bullshit. You fucking deal with the rest, whatever it may be. I've repaid your loans ten times over. I've done everything you asked, like a fucking indentured servant. But this… I want no part of it.'
Another pause, this one of longer duration than the first.
'Marcus, I needn't remind you that you've already participated in activities that would be considered treasonous offenses by your government. If your actions come to light you'll be imprisoned for life, if not executed. Why do you think Blackburn had to be stopped? There was no choice—'
'Don't say his name. And don't you dare call me a traitor,' Caine protested. His voice had become shrill. 'My God, I'm not used to this. Those sons of bitches you consort with, those thugs, it's their problem. What do you expect me to do about it, anyway?'
'Nothing directly. But there are men in the States who've performed certain kinds of tasks for us before. Who can get into and out of places without anyone witnessing anything. You know who they are, Marcus.'
Caine was incredulous. 'No/' he said. 'I won't hear any more—' 'Yes, you will,' Nga said. 'I will tell you what has to be done about Gordian because there is no other choice. And for that same reason you will listen.' 'No, no, no—'
'I will tell you, Marcus,' Nga repeated. And before Caine could interrupt again, he did.
Chapter Fifteen
Sitting in his pickup outside the Bayview Motor Inn, Jack McRea resisted the impulse to check his watch for the third time in ten minutes. He was torn between contradictory desires, part of him eager to see the woman he was supposed to be meeting arrive in her car, part of him hoping she wouldn't show. He had been unfaithful to his wife only once in over a decade of marriage, and that had been when his drinking had gotten out of control and Alice had moved out for a while. Furthermore, he had never before breached his trust as a county sheriff's deputy or screwed up any of the jobs on which he'd moonlighted to pay the bills. Not even when his alcoholic binging was at its worst had he done that.
Yet here he was in a motel parking lot when he should have been on duty at the private airfield where he worked as a night watchman. Here he was waiting for a woman he had met in a bar where he still occasionally had a couple of beers between the end of his shift at the sheriff's office and the beginning of his shift at the airport. He knew nothing about her except that her name was Cindi with two I's, and that she was blond and had pretty eyes and looked fantastic in short skirts and high-heeled shoes. Also, she wore this glossy stuff on her lips that made them look very moist, and had an incredible, sexy smile, the kind of sexy that made your stomach tight.
When they had met at the bar last night, she'd told him she was waiting for a friend who'd stood her up, and he had bought her a drink because she'd seemed kind of down, and somehow or other they'd gotten kind of flirty, and she'd edged a little close on her stool, and when he'd given her a look to show he'd noticed, she just smiled, and sat there a while with her skirt way up high and her thigh touching his leg.
Well, one thing had led to another, and they'd gotten very touchy, and because it was obvious where they were heading, and just so she knew where they stood, he'd decided to come clean and tell her he was married. She'd giggled a little at his confession, and when he'd asked what was so funny, had put her finger on his wedding band and said she'd sort of figured it was either that or he was trying to look hard to get, and he'd realized how lame he must have sounded and started laughing, too. And then she'd told him she had a regular boyfriend, which made them even, or almost even, and for some reason that had gotten both of them laughing harder, and they were still laughing as they leaned in close to each other and deep-kissed, then began necking at the bar, saying how much they wanted to be alone, forget the wife, forget the boyfried, alone, damn near getting it on right there at the
