Persuader Part 11

We drove the fifteen miles inland and turned north on the highway toward Portland. I stared ahead through the windshield and wondered exactly where they were taking me.

And what they were going to do with me when they got me there.

They took me right to the edge of the port facilities outside the city itself. I could see the tops of ships' superstructures out on the water, and cranes all over the place. There were abandoned containers stacked in weedy lots. There were long low office buildings. There were trucks moving in and moving out. There were seagulls in the air everywhere. Duke drove through a gate into a small lot made of cracked concrete and patched blacktop.

There was nothing in it except for a panel van standing all alone in the center. It was a medium-sized thing, made from a pickup frame with a big boxy body built onto it. The body was wider than the cab and wrapped up over it. It was the kind of thing you find in a rental line. Not the smallest they have to offer, not the largest. There was no writing on it. It was entirely plain, painted blue, with rust streaks here and there. It was old, and it had lived its life in the salt air.

"Keys are in the door pocket," Duke said.

Beck leaned forward from the back seat and handed me a slip of paper. It had directions on it, to some place in New London, Connecticut.

"Drive the truck to this exact address," he said. "It's a parking lot pretty much the same as this one. There'll be an identical truck already there. Keys in the door pocket. You leave this one, you bring the other one back here."

"And don't look inside either one," Duke said.

"And drive slow," Beck said. "Stay legal. Don't attract attention."

"Why?" I said. "What's in them?"

"Rugs," Beck said, from behind me. "I'm thinking of you, is all. You're a wanted man.

Better to keep a low profile. So take your time. Stop for coffee. Act normally."

They said nothing more. I got out of the Cadillac. The air smelled of sea and oil and diesel exhaust and fish. The wind was blowing. There was indistinct industrial noise all around, and the shriek and caw of gulls. I walked over to the blue truck. Pa.s.sed directly behind it and saw the roller door handle was secured by a little lead seal. I walked on and opened the driver's door. Found the keys in the pocket. Climbed inside and started the engine. Belted myself in and got comfortable and put the thing in gear and drove out of the lot. I saw Beck and Duke in the Cadillac, watching me go, nothing in their faces. I paused at the first turn and made the left and struck out south.

CHAPTER 4

Time ticking away. That's what I was conscious of. This was some kind of a trial or a test, and it was going to take me at least ten precious hours to complete it. Ten hours that I didn't have to spare. And the truck was a pig to drive. It was old and balky and there was a constant roaring from the engine and a screaming whine from the transmission.

The suspension was soft and worn out and the whole vehicle floated and wallowed. But the rearview mirrors were big solid rectangular things bolted to the doors and they gave me a pretty good view of anything more than ten yards behind me. I was on I-95, heading south, and it was quiet. I was pretty sure n.o.body was tailing me. Pretty sure, but not completely certain.

I slowed as much as I dared and squirmed around and put my left foot on the gas pedal and ducked down and pulled off my right shoe. Juggled it up into my lap and extracted the e-mail device one-handed. I held it tight against the rim of the steering wheel and drove and typed all at the same time: urgent meet me 1st I-95 rest area southbound S of Kennebunk exit now immediately bring soldering iron and lead solder Radio Shack or hardware store. Then I hit send now and dropped the thing on the seat beside me. Kicked my foot back into the shoe and got it back on the pedal and straightened up in the seat.

Checked the mirrors again. Nothing there. So I did some math. Kennebunk to New London was a distance of maybe two hundred miles, maybe a little more. Four hours at fifty miles an hour. Two hours fifty minutes at seventy, and seventy was probably the best I was going to get out of that particular truck. So I would have a maximum margin of an hour and ten minutes to do whatever I decided I needed to.

I drove on. I kept it at a steady fifty in the right lane. Everybody pa.s.sed me. n.o.body stayed behind me. I had no tail. I wasn't sure if that was good or bad. The alternative might be worse. I pa.s.sed the Kennebunk exit after twenty-nine minutes. Saw a rest area sign a mile later. It promised food and gas and restrooms seven miles ahead. The seven miles took me eight and a half minutes. Then there was a shallow ramp that swooped right and rose up a slope through a thicket of trees. The view wasn't good. The leaves were small and new but there were so many of them that I couldn't see much. The rest area itself was invisible to me. I let the truck coast and crested the rise and drove down into a perfectly standard interstate facility. It was just a wide road with diagonal parking slots on both sides and a small huddle of low brick buildings on the right. Beyond the buildings was a gas station. There were maybe a dozen cars parked close to the bathrooms. One of them was Susan Duffy's Taurus. It was last in line on the left. She was standing next to it with Eliot at her side.

I drove slowly past her and made a wait gesture with my hand and parked four slots beyond her. I switched off the engine and sat gratefully in the sudden silence for a moment. I put the e-mail device back in my heel and laced my shoe. Then I tried to look like a normal person. I stretched my arms and opened the door and slid out and stumped around for a moment like a guy easing his cramped legs and relishing the fresh forest air.

I turned a couple of complete circles and scanned the whole area and then stood still and kept my eyes on the ramp. n.o.body came up it. I could hear light traffic out on the highway. It was close by and fairly loud, but the way it was all behind the trees made me feel private and isolated. I counted off seventy-two seconds, which represents a mile at fifty miles an hour. n.o.body came up the ramp. And n.o.body follows at a distance of more than a mile. So I ran straight over to where Duffy and Eliot were waiting for me. He was in casual clothes and looked a little uneasy in them. She was in worn jeans and the same battered leather jacket I had seen before. She looked spectacular in them. Neither of them wasted any time on greetings, which I guess I was happy about.

"Where are you headed?" Eliot asked.

"New London, Connecticut," I said.

"What's in the truck?"

"I don't know."

"No tail," Duffy said, like a statement, not a question.

"Might be electronic," I said.

"Where would it be?"

"In the back, if they've got any sense. Did you get the soldering iron?"

"Not yet," she said. "It's on its way. Why do we need it?"

"There's a lead seal," I said. "We need to be able to remake it."

She glanced at the ramp, anxious. "Hard thing to get ahold of at short notice."

"Let's check the parts we can get to," Eliot said. "While we're waiting."

We jogged back to the blue truck. I got down on the ground and took a look at the underside. It was all caked in ancient gray mud and streaked with leaking oil and fluid.

"It won't be here," I said. "They'd need a chisel to get close to the metal."

Eliot found it inside the cab about fifteen seconds after he started looking. It was stuck to the foam on the bottom of the pa.s.senger's seat with a little dot of hook-and-loop fastener.

It was a tiny bare metal can a little bigger than a quarter and about half an inch thick. It trailed a thin eight-inch wire that was presumably the transmitting antenna. Eliot closed the whole thing into his fist and backed out of the cab fast and stared at the mouth of the ramp.

"What?" Duffy asked.

"This is weird," he said. "Thing like this has a hearing-aid battery, nothing more. Low power, short range. Can't be picked up beyond about two miles. So where's the guy tracking it?"

The mouth of the ramp was empty. I had been the last guy up it. We stood there with our eyes watering in the cold wind, staring at nothing. Traffic hissed by behind the trees, but nothing came up the ramp.

"How long have you been here now?" Eliot asked.

"About four minutes," I said. "Maybe five."

"Makes no sense," he said. "That puts the guy maybe four or five miles behind you. And he can't hear this thing from four or five miles."

"Maybe there's no guy," I said. "Maybe they trust me."

"So why put this thing in there?"

"Maybe they didn't. Maybe it's been in there for years. Maybe they forgot all about it."

"Too many maybes," he said.

Duffy spun right and stared at the trees.

"They could have stopped on the highway shoulder," she said. "You know, exactly level with where we are now."

Eliot and I spun to our right and stared, too. It made good sense. It was no kind of clever surveillance technique to pull into a rest stop and park right next to your target.

"Let's take a look," I said.

There was a narrow strip of neat gra.s.s and then an equally narrow area where the highway people had tamed the edge of the woods with planted shrubs and bark chips.

Then there were just trees. The highway had mown them down to the east and the rest area had leveled them to the west but in between was a forty-foot thicket that could have been growing there since the dawn of time. It was hard work getting through it. There were vines and scratchy brambles and low branches. But it was April. Getting through in July or August might have been impossible.

We stopped just before the trees petered out into lower growth. Beyond that was the flat gra.s.sy highway shoulder. We eased forward as far as we dared and craned left and right.

There was n.o.body parked there. The shoulder was clear as far as we could see in both directions. Traffic was very light. Whole five-second intervals went by with no vehicles in view at all. Eliot shrugged like he didn't understand it and we turned around and forced our way back.

"Makes no sense," he said again.

"They're short of manpower," I said.

"No, they're on Route One," Duffy said. "They must be. It runs parallel with I-95 the whole way down the coast. From Portland, way down south. It's probably less than two miles away most of the time."

We turned east again, like we could see through the trees and spot a car idling on the shoulder of a distant parallel road.

"It's how I'd do it," Duffy said.

I nodded. It was a very plausible scenario. There would be technical disadvantages. With up to two miles of lateral displacement any slight fore-aft discrepancy due to traffic would make the signal drift in and out of range. But then, all they wanted to know was my general direction.

"It's possible," I said.

"No, it's likely," Eliot said. "Duffy's right. It's pure common sense. They want to stay out of your mirrors as long as they can."

"Either way, we have to a.s.sume they're there. How far does Route One stay close to I95?"

"Forever," Duffy said. "Way farther than New London, Connecticut. They split around Boston, but they come back together."

"OK," I said. Checked my watch. "I've been here about nine minutes now. Long enough for the bathroom and a cup of coffee. Time to put the electronics back on the road."

I told Eliot to put the transmitter in his pocket and drive Duffy's Taurus south at a steady fifty miles an hour. I told him I would catch him in the truck somewhere before New London. I figured I would worry about how to get the transmitter back in the right place later. Eliot took off and I was left alone with Duffy. We watched her car disappear south and then swiveled around north and watched the incoming ramp. I had an hour and one minute and I needed the soldering iron. Time ticking away.

"How is it up there?" Duffy asked.

"A nightmare," I said. I told her about the eight-foot granite wall and the razor wire and the gate and the metal detectors on the doors and the room with no inside keyhole. I told her about Paulie.

"Any sign of my agent?" she asked.

"I only just got there," I said.

"She's in that house," she said. "I have to believe that."

I said nothing.

"You need to make some progress," she said. "Every hour you spend there puts you deeper in trouble. And her."

"I know that," I said.

"What's Beck like?" she asked.

"Bent," I said. I told her about the fingerprints on the gla.s.s and the way the Maxima had disappeared. Then I told her about the Russian roulette.

"You played?"

"Six times," I said, and stared at the ramp.

She stared at me. "You're crazy. Six to one, you should be dead."

I smiled. "You ever played?"

"I wouldn't. I don't like those odds."

"You're like most people. Beck was the same. He thought the odds were six to one. But they're nearer six hundred to one. Or six thousand. You put a single heavy bullet in a well-made well-maintained gun like that Anaconda and it would be a miracle if the cylinder came to rest with the bullet near the top. The momentum of the spin always carries it to the bottom. Precision mechanism, a little oil, gravity helps you out. I'm not an idiot. Russian roulette is a lot safer than people think. And it was worth the risk to get hired."

She was quiet for a spell.

"You got a feeling?" she asked.

"He looks like a rug importer," I said. "There are rugs all over the d.a.m.n place."

"But?"

"But he isn't," I said. "I'd bet my pension on it. I asked him about the rugs and he didn't say much. Like he wasn't very interested in them. Most people like to talk about their businesses. Most people, you can't shut them up."

"You get a pension?"

"No," I said.

Right then a gray Taurus identical to Duffy's except for the color burst up over the rise of the ramp. It slowed momentarily while the driver scanned around and then accelerated hard straight toward us. It was the old guy at the wheel, the one I had left in the gutter near the college gate. He slammed to a stop next to my blue truck and opened his door and heaved himself up and out in exactly the same way he had gotten out of the borrowed police Caprice. He had a big black-and-red Radio Shack bag in his hand. It was bulky with boxes. He held it up and smiled and stepped forward to shake my hand. He had a fresh shirt on, but his suit was the same. I could see blotches where he had tried to sponge the fake blood out. I could picture him, standing at his motel room sink, getting busy with the hand towel. He hadn't been very successful. It looked like he had been careless with the ketchup at dinner.

"They got you running errands already?" he asked.

"I don't know what they got me doing," I said. "We got a lead seal problem."

He nodded. "I figured. Shopping list like that, what else could it be?"

"You done one before?"

"I'm old-school," he said. "We did ten a day, once upon a time, way back. Truck stops all over the place, we'd be in and out before the guy had even ordered his soup."