Twice a Spy_ A Novel - Keith Thomson [68]
“Sounded like a three-fifty-seven,” Drummond said. Lying down, he pulled the pillow over his head, presumably to prevent additional .357 reports from disrupting his sleep.
He was kept awake by the two men racing up the stairs, amplified by the damp concrete so as to sound like two bulls. The first to appear was Hector Manzanillo, the toothy Îlet Céron security man. The long barrel of his steel revolver shone in the wash of the overhead fluorescents. Miñana accompanied him.
Drummond rose from the bed. Recognizing Hector, he smiled.
“Hola, Señor Lesser,” Hector said with warmth that seemed genuine.
Misgiving still flooded Charlie. A physiological malfunction, he hoped, a by-product of fatigue in combination with two weeks during which everyone he’d met had tried to deceive or kill him. The thing was, if Hector had known that the Riva was fitted with a LoJack, he might have bribed someone in the Saint Lucia police force so that he could sit back and wait for the elusive $100 million washing machine to be delivered to his confederate, Starfish Guard L. Miñana.
“You’re not here to liberate us, are you?” Charlie said to Hector.
Hector flashed a car salesman’s smile. “I am.”
“If?”
“If you tell me the detonation code for the bomb hidden in the washing machine. Alejandro’s wheeling it down to my brother’s boss’s cigarette boat right now. I can go down and test it. If it works, you’re outta here.”
“Detonation code?” Drummond shouted, prompting Miñana to blanch.
“There’s something wrong with his head,” Hector reassured the guard. “But the other one, he’ll tell us.”
Miñana, Hector, and Drummond all looked to Charlie, who did not know the code but could learn it with a quick glance at the Perriman Pristina’s serial number. Were he to share that information, Hector would liberate them. From the cell. He wouldn’t permit them to live much longer than that, though.
Charlie’s only other idea was to stall until Drummond blinked on. “The code’s on my cell phone,” he said. “It’s listed in my phone book under ‘Dry Cleaners.’ ”
Hector looked to Miñana.
“They didn’t have no phones on them,” the guard said.
“Yeah, I figured it was a lie.” Hector’s big mouth twisted in disgust. “The college boys Lesser used to bring down from the States, they were all fucking math geniuses. Memorizing a thirty-number code for those dudes is like memorizing a name for me or you.” He spun at Charlie. “I’ll tell you something, man. There was some pretty slick spooks on Céron last week, packing state-of-the-motherfucking-art code-breaking software. Not one of them made sense outta that Bernadette and Antoinina thing, though. But you turned it into latitude and longitude in, like, five seconds. In your fucking head, too, am I right?” Without giving Charlie a chance to respond, he asked Miñana, “How does your piano piece go?”
The guard indicated the wall of bars fronting the cell. “He lays his fingers flat on the crossbar. Then I play them”—he raised the cudgel as if it were a hammer—“until he sings.”
“Go for it, maestro,” Hector said.
Miñana advanced to the crossbar. Hector pointed his revolver at Charlie, directing him to come forward.
Drummond looked on with anguish that Charlie judged, unfortunately, legitimate. And warranted.
“Stick your fingers through the bars,” Miñana told Charlie.
The guard tightened his grip on the cudgel.
Charlie placed his fingertips on the cold and grimy crossbar and slid them forward, a hairbreadth at a time, scrambling meanwhile to come up with an alternative.
All he came up with was nausea.
“Wait,” Drummond said—ordered, actually, in that Patton style he employed when he was at the top of his game and things got hot.
Electrified, Charlie withdrew his hands and looked to his father.
There was no fire in Drummond’s eyes. “What if we work out some sort of arrangement, Hector?” he asked. As if he believed it was a truly novel idea.
“Like when the bomb gets sold, I get half of the money?”
“Something like that, yes! How about it?”
“I’d rather get all the money.” Hector flicked his gun, directing