[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]They re watching her to see who she contacts. If you can do something, better
do it now. Your fate is in your own hands. And then he hung up.
There. Done. My fate is in your hands as well, Salinas. Do something, dammit!
And then he stopped. Listen to me. I want Salinas to kill someone. And if he
succeeds, he ll probably kill that little girl too. For what? To save my
worthless ass. But I did start off with the right intentions. I got involved
for a good reason, a just cause. I did it for the country, dammit. That should
count for something. Maybe it did. Somewhere. But it did nothing for the cold,
sick weight sitting in his chest.
As Dan walked away, the pretzel man started kicking at his jammed wheel. What
a life when the worst thing you had to deal with was a jammed wheel. For a
moment, Dan wished they could trade places. I ll push the cart and let him
swim this river of shit I ve got myself into.
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3
Was that an Esso sign we just passed? Bob Decker said as he drove toward
Sooy s Boot.
Yeah, said Canney from the passenger seat. It s like we ve hit a time
warp.
Some kind of warp, Decker thought. A Pine Barrens town seemed to consist of a
gas pump, a canoe rental place, and half a dozen plywood boxes on cement slabs
that they called homes. Here they were on a county road with no shoulder and
only an occasional isolated house, usually with a sign offering decoys for
sale. A graveyard tended to have half a dozen headstones and no more. He saw
lots of signs for rod and gun clubs, hunting clubs, even a muzzle-loaders
club. He got the feeling there might be more guns per capita here than
anywhere else in the country.
Bob glanced in the rearview mirror at Vanduyne in the big rear seat of the
rented Buick Roadmaster. He d said little since they d picked him up for
breakfast an hour ago. He looked terrible pale face, sunken eyes, sloppy
shaving job, wrinkled clothes.
I picked this up by the registration desk, Canney said, holding up a
pamphlet. All about the Pine Barrens. You know it s as big as Yosemite Park?
A million acres of scrub pine. And we re in one of its least populated
areas averages only one person per eight square miles around here. And it says
here there s places in the pinelands that no human eye has ever seen. Can you
imagine that?
Seems hopeless, Vanduyne said from the back, finally showing signs of life.
That s why we need those helicopters, Bob said.
You think they ll help?
They can cover a helluva lot more ground than we can. They ll start their
search pattern from Sooy s Boot and move outward. They ll call in anything
that looks remotely like a red panel truck, and we ll check it out from the
ground. We ll
A cell phone chirped. Decker checked to see if it was his but it turned out
to be Canney s.
He did? Canney said. He looked at Bob and nodded significantly.
Oh, shit. Bob thought. Oh, no.
Canney was peering through the windshield as he spoke into the phone.
Wait. Let me get to a pay phone and He glanced out at the woods and shook
his head.
What am I crazy? All right. Give me the barest details and no names. This is
a cell phone, remember.
As Canney went through a series of nods and uh-huhs, Bob silently cursed
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himself. He hadn t believed it could possibly be Dan Keane. If he had, he
would have come up with better disinformation chosen a real motel and watched
it in the hope that whoever Keane was feeding would make a move and reveal
themselves, Finally Canney ended the call.
All right, Bob said, knowing what was coming. Give it to me.
It s him, all right. We have these vendor carts rigged with minicams and
parabolic mikes. One of them got within a hundred feet of him at a pay phone.
That was close enough. We don t know who he called but we know he mentioned
Tuckerton and the Adamston Motel.
Aw, no. Bob felt sick. Dan Keane& what on earth could have possessed him?
There s got to be an explanation.
What s wrong? Vanduyne said.
Nothing, Canney said.
Might as well tell him, Bob said. We found our leak.
Vanduyne was leaning forward now. Son of a bitch! Who is he?
That s not for publication.
I ve got a right to know! I d have Katie back by now if it wasn t for him.
The bastard almost had her killed!
And you almost killed the President! Bob said, flaring.
They had my daughter.
And how do you know they don t have this man s wife? Or one of his
grandkids?
Vanduyne leaned back again, slowly. If they do, then my heart goes out to
him. There s nothing& absolutely nothing worse than having the life of someone
you love hinge on your doing something vile.
Have your people check that out, Bob told Canney. But discreetly& very
discreetly. And while Canney called, Bob continued down the road to Sooy s
Boot, almost hoping that Dan Keane had been forced into this treachery by a
threat to his family rather than a threat to his career.
And yet the prospect of all those billions in appropriations being diverted
from your agency to another& who knew what that could do to a man?
4
Snake finished reprogramming the third cell phone and stretched.
All set.
His head and eye still hurt, but not so bad this morning. He was a long way
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from feeling good, but the dizziness seemed to have receded, and the pills
were managing the pain better.
He went to the bathroom to check himself out. After going on his electronics
shopping spree last night, he d removed all his bandages except the eye patch,
and had slept that way. Turned out to have been a good move. His scalp
lacerations had dried out; some crusting remained around the sutures, but in
general they looked pretty clean.
He peeled off the eye patch and studied himself in the mirror. Pretty fucking
frightening. With his half-shaven head, the crisscrossing stitches, and his
ruined right eye, he looked like the Terminator after a bad day.
And he liked it.
Not that he wanted to look like this for the rest of his life, but it just
might come in handy today.
He d been planning to do the mummy thing with his head and the hooded
sweatshirt. But this was better. This would scare the shit out of those Jersey
hillbillies. Scare Poppy too, he d bet. He d let her get a good look at him
before he blew her away.
He buttoned up a denim shirt. Over his right eye he gently fitted the black
eye patch he d bought last night. And over that he slipped a pair of superdark
sunglasses.
Humming the riff from Bad to the Bone, he began to gather his equipment.
Time to hit the road.
5
That is impossible, Carlos Salinas said. It must be a new motel that is
not listed yet.
I m telling you the place doesn t exist! Alien Gold was flushed and sweaty
as he stood on the far side of Carlos s desk, the phone in his hand. I ve
called information and there s no listing new or old for an Adamston Motel in
Tuckerton or anywhere else in Ocean County, or in any of the counties around
it. I even called the Tuckerton town hall and they ve never heard of the
Adamston Hotel. You know what this means, don t you?
Carlos knew exactly what it meant. Mierda!
Right. Deep mierda! They re onto us!
Perhaps, Carlos said, keeping cool on the outside and trying to stay
equally cool inside. Now was not the time to panic. Not yet. And perhaps not.
It means for certain that they are onto Senor Keane. This false information
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