Pelayo stands up. “I won’t take that as an insult. You’re a father, a husband, under serious stress. That insult…I will let it slide. But remember this in the hours ahead: be very, very happy and prayerful that you’re not in the presence of my cousin Miguel. If you were…well, let’s just say at this point, you would be begging for the sweet relief of being killed.”
He takes another satisfying sip of the Coca-Cola—really, how could anyone not tell the difference?—and as he turns, the man calls out, his voice pleading, “Wait, please. Just a moment? Please?”
Pelayo sees the man is no longer angry, no longer ready to curse him again. Instead, well, the man’s shoulders are slumped. He is showing he is defeated.
But Pelayo sees that as just a temporary success. Many times, a defeated and humiliated man will come back with a surprising vengeance and fury at the most inopportune time.
“Go ahead.”
The man says, nearly looking down, “We’ve eaten just once. It was quite the nice meal. I…I thank you. But could we have some snacks and other drinks, just in case we get hungry? And my daughter…she loves chewing gum. Could we get that for her as well?”
He smiles. This is going better than he expected. “You will have it all within the hour.”
Pelayo now is beyond the door, and Casper is ready to close it, when the man says one last thing:
“Why? Why did you do this to us?”
Pelayo shrugs again. “You know very well why. And soon so will your wife.”
He steps back, and the plain gray metal door closes shut on the American father and his daughter.
CHAPTER 12
I RESTRAIN myself from jumping up and slapping Sue Judson on her pretty face, but I manage to minimize the screen for GILLNET so she doesn’t know what I’m up to.
But even then, she knows I’m up to something, which is just as bad.
Her expression is a mix of curiosity and concern, and she says, “Is everything okay at home, Amy?”
Instantly I’m on guard, and I say, “Of course everything’s okay. Why do you ask?” And I’m thinking, All right, what does she know, has her husband, Luke, said something about me and work and that appointment tomorrow with the CID officer—another problem the size of the moon I’m trying to ignore—and then I try to dial it back and add, “Are you all right?”
“Me? Oh, yes, fine, it’s just that…well, I’ve seen you here plenty of times with Denise, and I’ve never seen you at one of these terminals. Is your computer at home broken?”
“Well, it’s been giving me some hiccups, and I was running some errands and—”
She puts her hand on my right shoulder and says, “I hate to interrupt you, but your daughter was asking me about getting a book for her from the interlibrary system, and darn it, I can’t remember the title. Do you know it?”
“No, I don’t,” I say, conscious that with every passing second, every passing minute, Tom and Denise are farther away from me. If they are still in the back of the van, each sixty seconds of blather with Sue is taking them a mile farther.
She gives my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Well, I’m sure Denise is home right now. If you want to give her a text, I’ll wait here.”
“I’m not really sure…” and I was about to say, where she is, but I can’t say those words out loud—no, I refuse to say those words out loud.
“Oh,” Sue says, smiling widely. “It’ll only take a second. I can wait. Then I can take care of her.”
“Sue,” I say, also conscious that with every passing minute, my presence on this parallel classified computer system is being recorded, “I really don’t have the time.”
“Amy, just a quick text, that’s all.”
“Sue…”
“Amy, just a quick text, and we can take care of it right here,” she says, and she quiets her voice—I suppose so the other computer users around us don’t hear. “I’m sure Denise will be happy to see how thoughtful you are.”
Thoughtful. Sure. How thoughtful. I should have left the Army after having her and gone into private industry, and she and Tom would be safe at home, with better clothes, better gadgets, fatter savings accounts, and above all, safe.
Safe from her mom’s sins.
“Sue?”
“Yes?”
I crook my finger at her, so she leans down, still smiling.
I lift myself up so I can whisper in her ear without anyone else overhearing.
“Sue,” I say, choosing my words carefully, using my best parade-ground command voice. “Leave me the hell alone or I’ll hurt you.”
CHAPTER 13
WITHIN TWO seconds I’m back at the screen, face warm, back tingly, knowing I’ve just tossed a hand grenade into the comfortable civilian life of one Sue Judson, and right now, not particularly giving a crap.
I double-click on the icon for GILLNET and go to the hit, indicating some sort of audio or visual surveillance system at or near Morgan Airport, and a lit acronym comes up.
USFWS.
In this man and woman’s Army, I’ve come across and memorized scores of acronyms, but this one is a puzzle until I click on it and come up with…
US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Well.
Not really part of what one would call the nation’s intelligence agencies, but I navigate GILLNET and find a video system piggybacked on a cell phone tower, used to film certain patterns of bird migration. How fascinating.
But it also overlooks part of Morgan Airport.
With apologies to naturalists everywhere, I manage to seize control of the surveillance system and rewind back to the time when I last saw the van—I wait.
And wait.
The video feed comes back to life, and I get a shot of the airport, its strip, and the two outbuildings.
Nothing else.
I fast-forward, but not too fast, because I don’t want to miss anything.
Some minutes flicker before me. I hear harsh whispers. I look up, and Sue Judson is having a serious talk with two other librarian staffers at a center workstation.
I make the informed guess that I’m the subject of the irritated chatter and go back to the screen.
The camera captures something flying by.
A bird?
No.
I hunch forward, peering at the screen.
Oh, yeah, it’s a bird all right, but a man-made bird.
A jet aircraft, lining up for a landing. It gets closer and closer, and then it makes the landing and slows itself, and I recognize it as a twin-engine Learjet 60, one of the most popular business-sized jets in the world.
I rub my fingers together.
All right.
Not a big deal. This airport belongs to a medical device company, and maybe they’re here to drop off or pick up someone.
The jet taxis to the end of the runway, slowly circles around, the view now being blocked by the two buildings. I can make out the nose of the fuselage and nothing else.
Strike that.
I can make out that no one’s walking in or walking out.
The jet seems to be waiting for somebody.
“Oh, God, yes,” I whisper. At the very limits of the camera, one can make out a dirt access road leading to the small airport.