Donovans - Pearl Cove Part 11

"Why do you keep shutting down the computer?" she asked.

"Even the most paranoid pa.s.sword programs will give you two tries before they fry circuits. Kyle has a way around that, but he isn't here. I'll just have to do it the hard way for a while."

"I see." She sipped coffee that was now the same temperature as her tongue. "This could take a long time."

He slanted her a sideways glance that reflected the tropical blues and greens of the tiles in her kitchen floor. "Yeah. You have something better to do?"

"Watch flies land?" she suggested.

Smiling, he tried two more variations. Nothing.

Fifteen minutes later, he shut down the computer and turned to Hannah. "Okay, his code probably isn't a variant of his name or birthday, the date of his marriage or the date he was paralyzed. It's not a variant of your name or birth date, either. You don't have any pets, so "

"My name?" she cut in. Her eyes widened into startled, navy blue pools. "Why mine?"

"People have lousy memories. When it comes to pa.s.swords, they use names and dates that are important to them."

She laughed out loud. "Forget my name. I wasn't important to Len. Not that way."

"You were his wife."

"We shared a computer."

"And a house."

"Not in the last few years. He pretty much lived out in the main pearl-sorting shed. There's a small loo, a sink, a hand shower, a bed." She smiled thinly. "All the comforts of home and none of the drawbacks."

"Why didn't he keep the computer in the shed?"

"He didn't want anyone to know that he could use it."

Snake tongues of adrenaline flicked through Archer. He looked at the computer and wondered how many of the answers he needed lay inside. "You're sure of that?"

"That he wanted his computer use kept a secret?"

"Yes."

"Positive."

"Why?"

She shrugged.

"Guess," he said curtly.

"Guessing implies that Len and I have had enough thought processes in common for a guess to be effective. I gave up guessing at Len's reasons for doing anything years ago. He and I didn't think alike." Hannah's eyes focused on Archer in dark speculation. "You would have a better chance at it."

"Are you saying I'm like Len?"

The bitterness in Archer's voice caught her by surprise. "I didn't mean it as an insult."

He let out a soft, hissing curse and reached for another cookie. "I'm not Len. I repeat. Not. Len. If I saw things the way he did, I'd have stayed in the field or gone private with him when he asked me to."

Hesitantly, Hannah touched Archer's hand, where he still held his fourth cookie. Or maybe it was his sixth. A melting chocolate chip touched her fingertip like a tiny, soft tongue. "Right. You're not Len. But you're cool, efficient, and merciless. That requires thinking a certain way, doesn't it?"

Cool Efficient. Merciless.

Archer smiled grimly and looked at his watch. He didn't know how much time he had left at Pearl Cove. He knew it wouldn't be enough to get into Len's computer, unless he got pig-lucky. "I can be all of those things. It hasn't helped me get into that d.a.m.ned disk. The things that should have been important to him... weren't."

"What do you mean?"

"His wife," Archer said succinctly. "You should have been important to him." And so should his unborn child.

But Archer didn't say that aloud. For her it had happened seven years ago; she had healed. For him, it was a fresh wound.

Hannah shrugged off the suggestion that she should have mattered to Len, but her eyes were haunted. "Some things just don't work out. Only one thing was important to Len. Pearls."

Archer's eyes narrowed. He turned back to the computer. He fed in variations on the theme of pearls, Pearl Cove, black pearls, experimental pearls...

"Wait!" Hannah said, grabbing his shoulder and leaning toward the screen in sudden excitement. "Try the words Black Trinity. Nothing mattered more to him than making that necklace perfect."

The keys clicked quickly as Archer fed in the words. Quickly the screen changed, listing various files and applications.

"Bingo."

Hannah sensed the triumph vibrating just beneath his control. She turned toward him. He was focused on the screen as he opened the file that had been used most recently. The screen blinked and filled with...

Gibberish.

"s.h.i.t." Archer raked his hand through his hair. "More code."

He looked outside. In a few hours evening would descend like a purple and orange freight train. Then it would be dark enough to check out Len's home away from home, his steel sh.e.l.l against the world.

For a moment Archer wondered if oysters felt secure inside their sh.e.l.ls, or simply trapped.

"Now what?" Hannah asked.

"Now I tie up my cell phone for a few hours."

Mystified, she watched while he plugged his cell phone into the computer, punched in a number, hit some keys, and stood up.

"That's it?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Now what?"

"We wait."

Seven.

Hours later, Archer unplugged his computer from his cell phone, tossed it on the counter next to Hannah's phone, and went to the stove for more coffee. Flynn had called in an hour earlier, claiming he was crook sick. Archer didn't believe it. Nor did he care enough to do anything about it. He and Hannah weren't going to be in Australia long enough for Flynn's report to matter.

Just as Archer started pouring the thick brown coffee into a mug, his phone rang.

"I'll get it," Hannah said, slipping past him. When she saw that it was his cellular, not hers, that was ringing, she hesitated. With a shrug, she answered it. "G'day."

"Archer Donovan." The woman's voice was clipped. She wasn't asking, she was telling.

"Who's calling?"

"It's his uncle returning his call."

"Sounds more like his aunt."

"Is Donovan there or not?"

"Yes." Hannah turned to Archer. "It's your uncle," she said clearly, handing him the phone.

The change in his eyes made her realize just how warm they had been. She looked at the phone in his big hand and stepped back away from it. From him. Neither the phone nor the man was her business, no matter how curious she was about both.

She headed for the bathroom, saying over her shoulder, "I need a shower."

Archer glanced in the readout window on the cell phone. There was no number for the incoming call. It was in the clear, unscrambled, available to anyone who wanted to overhear.

"This is Donovan," he said. His voice said a lot more. Impersonal, leashed, merciless. "How the h.e.l.l are you, Uncle?"

Though Archer didn't watch Hannah, he was aware that she had withdrawn. Just to make sure the distance was far enough, he walked out onto the verandah. Against the blazing sunset, the new screens gave the land and sea a metallic, surreal glow.

"You waited a long time to call," the woman told him.

Silently he absorbed the fact that the U.S. government already knew something about Pearl Cove and cared enough that they had been hoping he would have to ask for help.

Not good.

"If I'd known you were waiting, I would have called sooner."

"Save it for someone who believes you, slick."

"Slick, huh?" He smiled thinly. The agent who had reluctantly helped Kyle chase ancient Chinese jade had called both Donovan men "slick." April Joy had been in and out of Donovan lives several times since then. She was a very beautiful, very intelligent, and very ruthless agent. At one time he would have been attracted to her. He was a lot older now. "I thought your specialty was jade."

"That's why I'm not happy. As far as I'm concerned, pearls are the end product of constipated oysters."

Archer smiled thinly. "My requests are simple. Do you want them in the clear?"

"Knowing you, I doubt it."

Static poured into his ear before a status light blinked on his phone and words came out instead of electronic garbage. Obviously the two computers had found a code they both could translate.

"... understand?" she asked.

"Loud and clear. Ready?"

"I was born ready."

He didn't doubt it. "Two pa.s.sports. Married couple. Mine should have blue eyes instead of gray. Hers should be brown. Black wig, long enough to put in more than one hairstyle. The woman is five feet ten inches, one hundred and twenty-five pounds, brown hair and brown eyes, thirty-four, dressed like designer sin. Expensive." With a faint curving of his lips, he wondered if Hannah would object to having five years, one inch, and some odd pounds piled on her life, plus a courtesan's clothes. "One pair of brown contacts. One pair of dark blue. Tickets from Broome to Darwin under one alias. Tickets from Darwin to Hong Kong under the second alias."

"Got it. You'll be Mr. and Mrs. Murray on the flight from Broome to Darwin. Darwin to Hong Kong you'll be Mr. and Mrs. South. Where to after Hong Kong?"

"I'll take care of it from there."

There was a humming silence on the other end of the call that told Archer he wasn't making April happy.

"How soon?" she asked, her voice clipped.

"Yesterday."

She snorted. "Next week."

"Tonight."

"Tomorrow, Mr. South, and you should be thanking me on your knees with your face buried in my deepest cleavage."

Archer smiled despite the urgency gnawing on him. "South. Right. I have a rental car. White Toyota, left rear taillight will be broken."

"Careless of you."

"I'm a careless kind of guy."

April laughed at that, a sound of genuine amus.e.m.e.nt.

"The car will be parked in the airport lot at Broome," Archer continued, "as close to the entrance of the lot as possible."

"Do better. I'm not sending some joker cruising the airport parking lot for hours, looking for a broken taillight."

"You ever been to Broome?"

"No."

"You can cruise the whole town in five minutes, max."