was a good one—it worked almost as well as the one he had lost.
Rising, he walked over and began to draw a bath in the copper tub.
While the bath filled, he shaved at the sink and brushed his teeth, then removed the prosthetic limb and climbed into the water. As he soaked, his thoughts drifted back….
CABRILLO came from a family that had descended from the first explorer to discover California, but despite his Spanish surname, he looked more like a Malibu surf rat than a conquistador. He’d been raised in Orange County by an upper-middle-class family. California in the 1970s had seen wild times, filled with sex and drugs, but Cabrillo had never drifted that way. By his nature, he’d been both conservative and patriotic, almost a throwback. When everyone he knew was growing long hair, he’d kept his short and well groomed. When clothing tastes had run toward torn denim and T-shirts, his wardrobe had remained neat and presentable. But this had not been his own form of protest against the time, it was just who he was.
And even today he was still a bit of a clotheshorse.
In college he’d majored in political science, and had been an active member of his university’s ROTC program. So it was not a surprise when the CIA had offered him a job at graduation. Juan Cabrillo was just what they were seeking in new agents. He was bright without being bookish, stable without being boring, and flexible without being outlandish.
Trained in Spanish, Russian, and Arabic, he’d proved a master at disguise and stealth. Inserted into a country, he could read the pulse of the people instinctively. Fearless but controlled, within a few short years he’d become a valuable asset.
Then came Nicaragua.
Teamed with another agent, he and his partner had been ordered to stem the growth of the pro-communist Sandinistas, and at first Cabrillo had made inroads. But within a year the situation had spun out of control. It was the oldest story in the world—too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Chiefs in Washington calling the shots, native Indians in Nicaragua paying the price. And when bombs had burst, the fallout had blown back in their faces.
Cabrillo had been one of the fall guys, and he’d taken the hit for his partner.
Now the partner, high up the ladder at the CIA, was repaying the favor. The man had been funneling jobs to the Corporation almost since their inception, but he’d yet to offer one with a potential payday this large.
And all Cabrillo and his team needed to do was to accomplish the impossible.
WHILE Cabrillo finished his bath and got dressed, Kasim and Lincoln continued their watch. By the time they were relieved at midnight, Kasim would log one more whale, Lincoln would have played thirty-two games of Klondike, and both men would have read three of the magazines that had been loaded aboard in San Juan. Lincoln tended to aviation periodicals, Kasim automobile digests.
Quite frankly, there was little work for the two men—the
THIRTY minutes later—clean and dressed in tan slacks, a starched white shirt and a Bill Blass blazer—Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo was sitting at the large mahogany conference table in the corporate meeting room. Linda Ross was across the table, sipping a Diet Coke. Eddie Seng sat next to Ross, flipping through a stack of papers. Mark Murphy was farther down the table, stroking a throwing knife against a leather strap. Murphy found the action relaxing and he tested the edge against a piece of paper.
“How did the auction go?” Max Hanley asked.
“The target brought two hundred million,” Cabrillo said easily.
“Wow,” Ross said, “that’s a hefty price.”
At the end of the table, in front of a bank of floor-to-ceiling monitors that were currently blank, Michael Halpert turned on a laser pointer, then pressed the remote for the monitors. He waited for Cabrillo, who nodded for him to start.
“The job came from Washington to our lawyer in Vaduz, Liechtenstein: a standard performance contract, half now, half on delivery. Five million of the ten-million-dollar fee has already been received. It was washed through our bank in Vanuatu, then transferred to South Africa and used to purchase gold bullion, as we all agreed.”
“It seems,” Murphy said, shaving off a sliver of paper with the knife, “that after all those machinations, we should just steal the Golden Buddha for ourselves. It would save us a hell of a lot of time and effort. Either way, we end up with the gold.”
“Where’s your corporate pride?” Cabrillo said, smiling, knowing Murphy was joking, but making the point anyway. “We have our reputation to consider. The first time we screw a client, the word would get out. Then what? I haven’t seen any want ads for mercenary sailors lately.”
“You haven’t been looking in the right newspapers,” Seng said, grinning. “Try the
“That’s the problem with stealing objects out of history books,” Ross noted. “They’re tough to resell.”
“I know a guy in Greece,” Murphy said, “who would buy the
Cabrillo waved his hands. “All right, back to business.”
A map of the world filled the main monitor, and Halpert pointed to their destination.
“As a crow flies, it’s over ten thousand miles from Puerto Rico to this location,” he noted. “By sea, it’s a lot farther.”
“We’re going to run up the costs just getting there,” Cabrillo said. “Do we have any other jobs lined up in that part of the world after we finish with this?”
“Nothing yet,” Halpert admitted, “but I’m working on it. I did, however, require the lawyer to include a bonus if we deliver the object by a certain date.”
“How much and when?” Cabrillo asked.
“The bonus is another million,” Halpert said. “The date is March thirty-first.”
“Why March thirty-first?” Cabrillo asked.
