callus over it, on some level, he still cared what the old man thought of him. Amazing to realize that.
Tad couldn’t sleep. He was topped off with enough drugs to put a stadium full of rabid football fans into a trance, but his mind wouldn’t go down.
He had taken a hot shower. He had tried to blank his mind. He had gotten up and eaten another phenobarb, and while he was so stoned he could hardly move, he was no way about to sleep, and he needed that, bad.
Bobby had told him about the new operations plan, the safe house, moving the money, and wanting to hire some armed muscle to ride shotgun. Tad had shrugged that off. Whatever Bobby wanted was fine. Tad had made some calls. Some guys were coming by to see Bobby later, shooters who didn’t care who they cooked, long as the money was good. It wouldn’t cramp things here, they had five bedrooms, plenty of space. Bobby was thinking he could post one as a lookout, have him watching the road, scanning police radios, shit like that. Somebody came calling, they’d hit the beach before the visitors got to the door, jog a ways down to the parking lot where his car was already parked, ready to roll. Could maybe leave another ride in the opposite direction, at the bed-and- breakfast place, slip the owner a few bucks for parking. Maybe even have a jet ski or something, take to the ocean. Maybe rig a bomb to the front gate or something.
Bobby got into the details of stuff like this, and once he did, he covered it pretty fine.
Tad didn’t think it was gonna come to that, but that last biz had put the fear of God into Bobby a little, so that was cool, whatever.
Tad went out on the deck, sprawled in the padded lounge chair, lit a cigarette, and blew smoke at the ocean. The wind blew it back in his face, and he smiled at that. Bunnies in thong bikinis jogged past, guys with tans dark as walnuts, all going about their boring lives. Tad waved at them, some of them waved back. Jesus.
A helicopter zipped by a few hundred feet up, probably looking for people caught in the rip and pulled out beyond the surf. Welcome to the Promised Land, folks. Sun, water, beautiful people, even airborne lifeguards to make sure you don’t venture too far away from paradise by accident.
Tad finished the cigarette, ground the butt out on the arm of the chair, then snapped it out toward the water using his thumb and middle finger. This was what his life had come to: There was the Hammer, and then there was waiting for a chance to grab the Hammer; that was it.
Except for the waiting part, it was okay.
He leaned back and watched the seagulls wheel and work the uncertain air currents over the beach, diving and rolling, sometimes hovering almost still against the force of the wind. Some real intricate patterns there, those flights.
The aerobatic dance of the gulls was what finally lulled him to sleep.
31
Michaels said, “Mean anything to you?”
Jay shook his head. “Nope, not right off, but I’ve turned the searchbots loose on it. I should be getting a first-hit list any moment.”
Howard came into the conference room. “Sorry I’m late. I had to park in the secured lot. There’s some, ah, hardware I was checking out locked in the trunk of my agency car I didn’t have time to return yet. I wouldn’t want to lose it.”
“No problem. Do you recognize the names Frankie and Annette?”
“No, sir.”
Michaels slid a hardcopy printout across the conference room table to Howard, who picked it up and looked at it.
Howard shook his head. “And this came from where?”
Michaels explained how Toni had discovered the hidden message inside the capsule. He was feeling a certain sense of pride when he told them.
Jay said, “Tell Toni that’s nice work. Nothing in the DEA reports about this. Somebody there is maybe sitting on this information?”
“That’s what I thought,” Michaels said. “I asked the director to pull some strings, and she’s gotten the original lab reports from DEA. They went over the caps they’ve recovered with a fine tooth comb. None of those have this little grandkids riddle inscribed in them.”
“We think the DEA might be hiding things from us?” Howard said.
Michaels nodded and brought him up to speed on what Jay had discovered.
“And there’s one more little tidbit,” Jay said when Michaels had finished. “I have a record of a telecon between Hans Brocken and our Mr. Brett Lee, of the DEA, from three months back. Herr Brocken is the chief security officer for Brocken Pharmaceuticals, of Berlin, Germany.”
“Careless,” Michaels said.
“I did have to look for it. It wasn’t something you’d stumble across accidentally. They made a pretty good effort to hide it.”
Howard said, “You really think Lee is in bed with a drug company? Looking to sell the formula for this stuff?”
“It makes a certain kind of sense,” Michaels said. “We talked about reasons for him shooting the movie star before, remember.”
“And you think Lee is in league with the NSA?”
“Only with one particular person there. No point in casting aspersions on the entire agency,” Michaels said. “It seems that Mr. Lee and Mr. George have history about which they have not been entirely forthcoming, though this is still circumstantial evidence.”
“I’ll get harder stuff eventually,” Jay said. “Oops, speaking of which—” He tapped keys on his flatscreen. “Okay, here’s what the Sherlock searchbot has to say about my query…”
Jay frowned at the flatscreen.
“You want to let us in on it, Jay?”
“Huh? Oh, sorry.” Jay tapped a key.
The flatscreen’s vox began reading aloud in a smoky, sexy woman’s voice:
“Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, teen singing and television idols from the late 1950s and early 1960s, first appeared together in the low-budget movie
“Avalon and Funicello were paired in several additional surf movies, including a distant sequel,
The computer’s voice went silent, and the three men looked at each other.
Michaels said, “The stars of fifty-year-old teenybopper movies? Fine. Who are their grandchildren?”
Jay shook his head. “I’m cross-checking here, but it does not appear that the two had any off-screen relationship that would have resulted in children together. They were both married to other people.”
“Not having children would make it hard to have grandchildren, wouldn’t it?” Howard observed.
Michaels said, “Maybe we aren’t talking about literal grandchildren. Maybe movie grandchildren?”
Jay tapped away at the keyboard. A moment passed. “Nope, nothing that fits. Nobody ever did another beach movie with the actors who played their children in the’ 87 picture.”
“Maybe the message is speaking metaphorically?” Howard said.
Jay looked at him.
Howard said, “Anybody make any similar kind of pictures recently? Celluloid grandchildren, so to speak, of the originals?”
Jay smiled. “Well, film isn’t made out of celluloid anymore, but that’s pretty good, General. Let me see…
