Twice a Spy_ A Novel - Keith Thomson [7]
“What makes you think my father can get an ADM?” Charlie asked.
“A few months ago he delivered one to Nick Fielding, an illegal arms dealer, in Martinique. A couple of weeks ago, my employers met with Fielding there. They negotiated the purchase of the ADM, pending an inspection at its hiding place, but the trip to the hiding place never happened because Fielding got himself killed in New York City the same night. Fortunately, your dad knows where the thing’s hidden. My employers need it, along with a working detonation code, no later than the thirteenth of January, which is four days from today.”
Jesse James, whoever he was, had excellent intelligence, except for the fact that Nick Fielding had been a Cavalry man who trafficked fake ADMs. “All things considered, I’d happily make the trade,” Charlie said. “My father probably did know where the bomb is hidden.”
The cowboy’s eyes narrowed. “Did?”
“Once, yeah. That’s the rub. You need to understand that when he finishes brushing his teeth at night, he has to hunt for the toothpaste cap, even though it’s always right beside the soap dish.”
Jesse James scoffed. “I do shit like that too.”
“But he has Alzheimer’s.”
“Alzheimer’s?”
“Midstage. We’re here because there’s a clinic with an experimental treatment—”
The cowboy’s groan cut Charlie off. “The word I got was you’d trot out some spiel like this. Let’s save ourselves some time, okay? Just last week, on at least three separate occasions, your daddy shut out the New York Yankees of death squads. The reason I’m talking to you is word had it that if I went to talk to him, it’d probably be the last conversation I ever had.”
“He has his moments.”
“Well, if you want Miss Alice to keep on being alive four days from now, he better have one more of those moments.” Jesse James tapped the steering wheel. “I’ll leave your Beemer in the Hauptstrasse train station parking lot, keys under your seat. Meet me outside the general aviation terminal at the Zweisimmen airport at thirteen hundred tomorrow. I’ll have a jet waiting to take us to the ADM. I know a professional like your father wouldn’t be stupid enough to try any tricks, like telling anyone about this, but you might. And if you do, your sweetheart gets your name written across her face with a box cutter.”
Although enveloped by toasty air, Charlie felt no comfort as he stepped into the chalet’s spacious living room. Usually on entry he savored the blond wooden beams and old-fashioned Alpine-style furniture. Before coming to Gstaad, he’d never given a thought to upholstery—probably never even uttered the word upholstery. But he’d been taken by the sofa and chairs here, embroidered with white dots that matched those on the lace curtains, which in turn afforded privacy without sacrificing a view of the skyrocketing mountains. Now he felt as if an avalanche were carrying the chalet away.
Drummond still sat at the farmhouse dining table. Of average height and weight, he’d always fostered a nondescript appearance, which served him well as a professional cipher. He was a young sixty-four, though two weeks ago it had been easy to see the senior citizen version of him waiting around the corner: His white hair had begun to thin, gravity was winning the battle with his spine, and wrinkles and spots massed as if readying to invade his taut skin’s otherwise healthy glow. In Gstaad, those trends had seemed to reverse somewhat. He sat ruler-straight now. He exuded vitality. His hair even seemed a healthier shade of white.
It was too soon into the course of the treatment to detect an effect on his mind, but the medication could have been responsible for his general improvement. More likely, the upturn resulted from their strenuous hikes and the invigorating Alpine air. Or possibly Drummond benefited from the comforts of the chalet: When forced to go on the lam together, the previously estranged father and son managed not only to get along, against odds no