Black Friday (or Black Market) - James Patterson [67]
“When we do meet with them,” Frazier slid off his wire glasses and briskly robbed his eyes, “you’ll be outfitted with an internal transmitter. Absolute state of the art, Designed for the military. Armalite Corporation. You swallow the damn thing.”
Carroll shook his head. Ah, police work. Sometimes he wondered what he’d thought it was going to be like—long, long ago when he’d first decided on what he now sometimes called the wrong side of the law.
“If we ever do meet up with them, Caitlin will verify that the securities are genuine,” Frazier said.
“If we ever meet up with them.”
Six more hours droned by in the most painfully, slow waltz-time. The only perceptible change was the morning sliding into afternoon outside, the day turning to the steel-blue shades of the Northern Irish cityscape.
A red-haired serving girl, no more than sixteen or seventeen, finally brought in steaming tea and hot Irish soda bread. Carroll, Frazier, and Caitlin ate out of boredom more than anything.
Carroll remembered to check in with Trentkamp’s office in New York. He left a message for Walter, “Naught, zero, bupkis, zip, goose egg… as in wild goose egg chase.”
Ten hours passed inside the Regent Hotel suite.
It was exactly like what had happened the night of December fourth in New York, when the final deadline for the bombings had gone past, and the clock hands had begun to move with intolerable slowness. Why, though? How were they supposed to investigate a chimera or a mirage?
From the fourth-floor window of the hotel suite, Carroll saw an antiquated bicycle bumping over the cobblestoned street outside. It was ridden by a man of about seventy, whose thin frame didn’t look like it could survive the shuddering motions of the bike.
Carroll leaned closer to the dormer window. His brain felt like something shapeless lying in a basin of tepid water.
The rider parked his bike almost directly below the Regent Hotel window.
“Could this be our contact?” Carroll asked in a hoarse voice.
Patrick Frazier moved into the window and studied the old man. “Doesn’t look the terrorist type. That’s a good sign. They never do in Belfast.”
The rider hobbled inside the hotel entrance, then disappeared from Carroll’s sight.
“He’s inside now.”
“Then we wait and see,” Frazier said, muttering to himself.
Carroll sighed. The tension buzzing inside him was familiar now. He looked toward Caitlin, who smiled at him. How did she stay so calm? The journey, the tension, the awful waiting.
Less than ninety seconds after he went inside the Regent, the old man came marching out again. He rigidly climbed back on his bike.
Almost immediately there came a solid rap on the hardwood door of the hotel suite.
Caitlin rose and opened the door.
“An old man just delivered this message,” a British detective entered and reported. He walked forward to his commander, passing both Caitlin and Carroll without so much as a nod.
Patrick Frazier immediately ripped the envelope open and read it without any discernible expression. Frazier’s eyes finally peeked over the wrinkled note page at Carroll.
He read the words of the message aloud for both Carroll and Caitlin:
“There’s no salutation or date…. It reads as follows: ‘You are to send your representative with the proof of transfer of funds. Your representative is to be at Fox Cross Station, six miles northwest outside of Belfast. That’s (he railroad. Be there at 0545 hours. The precious securities will be safely waiting nearby…. The messenger is to be Caitlin Dillon.’”
Chapter 48
AT 5:30, the morning air was misty in Belfast.
It was the kind of day in which objects have no hard definition. The railway platform at Fox Cross was silent.
All the trees were stripped and bare and looked arthritic in the wintry absence of clear light. Up beyond the mist the sky was dark gray, and the cloud cover low.
Caitlin shivered slightly and folded both arms around her rising and falling chest. She could hear the drumming of her own heart.
She wasn’t going to let herself be frightened, though. She vowed not to act the way