Wild Card

“Pull teeth all you want, I can stand the pain,” she said. “You don’t need me to tell you Rayos del Sol isn’t just another getaway. It’s an exclusive resort that caters to the world’s most powerful individuals… including our own past and present heads of state. It’s spread across an entire island in the Serpent’s Mouth and has its own international airport and ocean harbor. And lest we forget, it has a security force that’s been assembled by a former head of the French GIGN, Henri Beauchart, who would very much like to personally compare notes with our security chief.” She looked at him. “We should also keep in mind that its controlling owners include members of the Trinidadian parliament who have ties to Sedco, and are highly supportive of UpLink International’s regional presence. They’re eager to put their lush native paradise on proud display for us.”

There was another pause. Nimec thought some more, tugged his earlobe, leaned forward.

“I’ve been waiting for you to mention those e-mails you got a couple weeks back,” he said.

“My intention was to save them for a last-but-not-least.” Megan shrugged a little. “Every aspect of this deal’s been written about in the financial press, including the Rayos del Sol/Sedco connection. To be perfectly honest, I’d dismiss the messages as a nasty prank… somebody’s bush league attempt at throwing a wrench into things… if it wasn’t for that. Vague claims of accounting, inventory, and shipping irregularities at Rayos del Sol with nothing to back them up. Our nameless whistle-blower didn’t see fit to specify which inventories or shipments are supposed to be questionable, or even explain why he or she would choose to make the allegations to an UpLink executive.” She gave another shrug. “As I said, it’s all so insubstantial I’m tempted to ignore it. But it’s probably worth checking out while you’re there.”

“On vacation,” Nimec said.

Megan’s eyes were on him again.

“Repeat the word a hundred times, I still won’t understand why you find it so abhorrent,” she said. “Nor will I concede it’s even applicable. You have legitimate professional reasons for making the trip.”

“And for bringing along my wife, some fresh cabana shirts, and maybe a jug of suntan lotion.”

“No crime, Pete,” Megan said. “Your job’s taken you to some very unfriendly places. That doesn’t mean you’d be cheating your responsibilities by visiting a hospitable clime for a change. This isn’t the sort of opportunity that comes around very often. Enjoy it on the company’s tab. Bring Annie so she can enjoy it, too, I guarantee it’ll do both of you a ton of good—”

Nimec shook his head.

“We’ve got Chris and Linda,” he said. “They’ve got school.”

“They also have a grandmother to see they get there and back every day.”

He gave another head shake. “Annie’s mom lives in Kansas City.”

“And she just might be available,” Megan said. “In fact, she’d probably love the chance to come visit the kids and spoil them rotten.”

Nimec started to say something, stopped, at a sudden loss.

“What makes you sound so sure?” he said after a moment.

Megan held her hands out and wriggled her fingers.

“A mildly psychic hunch,” she said, smiling.

Nimec felt as if he was looking at a good-natured hijacker.

He smoothed a hand over his hair, slightly grown out from his preferred brush cut at Annie’s insistence. What was it she’d said the other morning? Her remark had come out of the blue — or so it seemed to Nimec at the time — when he’d been readying himself for work, their bathroom’s skylit brightness washing over him as he knotted his tie in front of the mirror.

“Ricci’s Field,” she’d said from over his shoulder. “Oh how does your garden grow.”

Nimec had glanced questioningly at Annie’s reflection, noticed the sobriety in her smile.

“This gray patch,” she’d explained, and fondly scratched the side of his head. “We should dedicate it to Tom Ricci. Post a little handmade sign that says how much we really owe him for putting it there.”

Looking himself over in the mirror, Nimec hadn’t managed to smile back at her.

Now he sat opposite Megan in silence, his eyes returning to the blurry view of San Jose that filled her window. He thought about all the opinions of Ricci he’d heard, more than he could accurately recall. Sometimes he would hear a single person give contradictory opinions in what almost seemed to be the same breath. A lot of them seemed to have equal or nearly equal merit. But only three voices counted in deciding whether Ricci had become an unsalvageable liability. Meg had already gone down on record that she’d had enough of him. Rollie Thibodeau had been cagier about his sentiments, which was pretty uncharacteristic for someone who normally had no trouble expressing himself. But he’d always disliked and distrusted Ricci, and seemed resentful of sharing the title of global field supervisor with him. He also normally aligned with Meg on important decisions involving the company’s security arm. That, Nimec mused, left him straddling the fence alone. If a vote were taken that very morning, he was betting it would come out two-to-one in favor of Ricci’s permanent dismissal. A delay might be his only shot at a different result, and Nimec wasn’t too sure he could find a totally honest and unbiased rationale for why Ricci would deserve it. Or that Ricci, who’d returned none of his phone calls for the past several days, would even want to stick around, which might prove to be the real kicker in the end.

Nimec looked out at the somewhat indistinct contours of the mountain a while longer, turning things over in his mind. There were decisions and there were decisions. Some were tougher than others, and with good reason. When you had one that couldn’t be reversed and worried endlessly about the consequences of getting it wrong, Nimec guessed that ought to be reason enough to rank it high on the difficulty scale. And maybe knocking a week or two off the calendar was exactly what he needed to get the decision ahead of him right.

Another full minute of silence passed before he brought his eyes back to Megan’s face.

“Hope you’re okay holding down the fort while I visit Shangri-la,” he said with a relenting sigh.

“Fret not,” she said. “I’ll keep our stockades guarded round the clock.”

“You and Gramma Caulfield?”

Megan smiled, reached across the desk, and gave his wrist a fond little pat.

“Leave it to us womenfolk, pardnuh,” she said.

TERRITORIAL TRINIDAD

Jarvis wanted to believe the chopper wasn’t out searching for him. Even as he opened the motorboat’s throttle to push it faster downriver than any boat piloted by a sane man should be moving in the pitch darkness, he was wishing he could convince himself they would not do so drastic a thing, send a helicopter into the air after him, a small and unimportant person in their big, important world. Someone who’d not taken so much as an unearned cent from them, and did not let his eyes stray far from the grounds he kept in nice, trim shape for his weekly paycheck. And why not think he’d be found deserving of a fair turn? An honest, hardworkin’ gardener is Jarvis Lenard, we’ll make an exception an’ let him be, they might have said. Save some trouble, ya know. Leavin’ aside that bad seed family relation of his, what have we to fear from the man?

Jarvis had to smile grimly at the thought. And right so. The bird might be whipping over that southern shore for some purpose other than to track him down. Just as the Sunglasses might’ve come poking around the employee commons for a reason besides his connection to poor Udonis. If he were to give his imagination a stretch, Jarvis supposed he could come up with an explanation that didn’t involve his cousin for the Sunglasses having asked about him in that menacing way of theirs, wanting to know this and that and the other thing from anyone they could seek out that knew him. Surely he could, and no doubt his words would find an accepting ear… but the truth would remain the truth all the same. His mother hadn’t raised any fools under her roof, and it was too late in the day to eat a plate full of lies and nonsense, especially those served up raw by his own brain. Not after hiding for almost a week in the bush with only the few supplies he’d taken from his cabin. Not since spending every dollar he’d saved over these past years, every dollar and more, to grease the hands of a bald hair parasite for use of his flimsy little seventeen-footer. And most especially not at this moment, while he was shooting along the channel at — what was his speed just now? — Lord Almighty, sixty miles an hour, sixty on a moonless night, heading out to the open sea.

The truth was the truth. Right so, right so. It was there in the sky above that Jarvis Lenard had his evidence.

The copter was out prowling the night for him. The Sunglasses never gave up. Sinister, menacin’ bastards, yeh. Weren’t going to quit until they found him, caught him trying to reach the mainland.