The first was to Roger Gordian.
Standing near his office window, looking out at the rain that had just started pouring down on Rosita Avenue, Gordian was about to leave for the day when his desk phone chirruped. He stared at it a moment, tempted to let it remain on the hook, one arm halfway inside his trench coat. Whoever it was could leave a message.
Ignore it, he urged himself. Ashley. Dinner. Home.
The phone rang a third time. On the fourth, the caller would be automatically transferred to Gordian’s voice mail.
Shrugging out of his coat, he frowned in acquiescence and grabbed the receiver.
“Yes?” he said.
The man at the other end identified himself as Mason Cody from the Sword operational center, Mato Grasso do Sul. His voice seemed to come out of an odd, tunneling silence that put Gordian in mind of what it was like holding a conch shell up against his ear — listening to the ocean, they’d called it when he was young.
He sat behind his desk, realizing immediately that he was on a secure digital line. And that the call was therefore anything but routine.
“Sir, there’s been an incident,” Cody said in a tone that made his back stiffen.
Gordian listened quietly as the violent events at the ISS compound were outlined for him in a rapid but collected manner, his hand tensing around the receiver at the news of injuries and fatalities.
“The wounded men,” he said. “How are they doing?”
“They’ve all been medevaced from the scene,” Cody said. “Most are in fair shape or better.”
“What about Rollie Thibodeau? You said he’d been pretty badly hurt.”
“He’s still in surgery.” A pause. “No word on his condition.”
Gordian willed himself to be calm.
“Has Pete Nimec been told about this?” he asked.
“My feeling was that I should brief you first, Mr. Gordian. I plan to call him the moment we sign off.”
Gordian rotated his chair toward the window, thinking about what he’d just been told. It was all so difficult to absorb.
“Is there anything else?” he said. “Any idea who was behind the raid?”
“I wish I could tell you we know, sir,” Cody said. “Maybe we’ll get something out of the prisoners, though right now I’m not even sure how long we can hold onto them.”
Gordian inhaled, exhaled. Cody’s meaning was clear. As members of a private security force that operated internationally, Sword personnel were obliged to abide by stringent rules of conduct, some of them preconditions set by host governments, some internal guidelines, occasionally complicated formulations premised on the simple reality that they were guests on foreign soil. While adjustments for different cultural and political circumstances were built into their procedural framework, it would be pushing beyond acceptable bounds to interrogate the captured attackers even if the on-site capabilities to detain them existed — which was doubtful. Moreover, an incident on the scale he’d been told about would have to be reported to the Brazilians, assuming they hadn’t already learned of it through their own domestic intelligence apparatus. Once the prisoners were in their custody, it was impossible to guess whether Brazilian law enforcement would share any information obtained from them. The politics of the situation were going to be touchy, and the last thing Gordian wanted was to start stepping on toes.
“Have you been in contact with the local authorities?”
“Not yet,” Cody said. “Thought I ought to hold off, see how you wanted that handled. Hope that was the right thing.”
“It was exactly right,” Gordian said. “I suspect they’ll be showing up without word from us, but notify them as soon as possible anyway. Tell them that we mean to provide our absolute cooperation in terms of whatever questions they have. And that we’re confident they’ll reciprocate. It’s in our common interest to get to the bottom of this.”
Gordian heard the tapping of computer keys.
“Yes, it’s right up in front of me.”
“Okay. Keep me posted on any developments. Doesn’t matter what hour it is.”
“Understood,” Cody said.
Gordian took another breath.
“I suppose that’s it,” he said. “Hang tight, I know you’ve got hell on your hands.”
“We’re doing our best, Mr. Gordian,” Cody said.
His voice dropped into that hermetic tunnel of silence again.
Gordian cradled the receiver and sat looking out his window in sober contemplation. Rainwater splashed against the glass, washing down its surface in long rippling streams. From his angle, he could see nothing of the street below, no pedestrians scurrying through puddles for someplace dry, no cars crawling along with their windshield wipers on. Mount Hamilton too seemed beyond the reach of his vision, rendered a gray, featureless blur by the heavy curtains of moisture blowing across the sky.
It was, he thought, as if the world was made of rain.
Only rain.
As Gordian had been assured, Cody’s next call was to Pete Nimec. He was not in his office, and the recorded greeting on his voice mail said he would be away overnight and checking his incoming messages regularly. His cell phone number was given for emergencies.
Cody quickly terminated the connection and dialed it.
“So you want me to be your, what, eyes and ears around the world,” Ricci said. He crouched and put a log into the woodstove opposite the comfortable leather sofa where his visitors were seated. “That about it, Pete?”
“Not quite, if I may interject a point or two,” Megan said, glancing at Nimec.
He gave her a shrug. They were in Ricci’s spacious living room, a mid-1980’s rear addition to a Colonial home built a century earlier, with natural wood plank walls and glass sliding doors that gave onto the water-front deck where they’d been talking until a few minutes ago.
“The person we select will be responsible for implementing and coordinating security functions at UpLink’s various international and domestic sites,” she said. “He or she will be second in authority only to Pete. But I want to stress that we’re primarily here so you and I can get acquainted, and to gauge your interest in us.”
“And yours in me,” Ricci said, facing her.
They exchanged looks.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s a unique and demanding job. We naturally want to see if you’ve got what it takes to meet its challenges.”
Ricci considered that a second, then nodded.
“Fair enough,” he said. “You still assembling your candidate list?”
“The only other person whose qualifications we’re presently weighing is a current member of our Brazilian team named Roland Thibodeau. And to be frank, his interest in the position hasn’t yet been determined. I plan on speaking to Rollie sometime within the next couple of days.”
Ricci turned to Nimec. “How come you wouldn’t tell me anything about the reason for this visit over the phone?” he said.
“If I’d tried, I would have heard a click in the receiver before the words were finished leaving my mouth. Figured it would be best to come and talk. See how you felt about it face-to-face.”
Ricci silently took three sheets of newspaper from a shallow wine crate beside him, crumpled them, and pushed them underneath the grille of the stove. Then he struck a match and held it to the newspapers to start them burning. Flames crackled up and licked at the bottom of the log.
When the log had caught, he carefully shut the glasspaneled door of the stove and looked at Megan again.
“I figure you’ve heard the long sad story of how I lost my badge,” he said.
