The Rules Of Silence Part 9

"But, d.a.m.n, this many?"

"Well, a lot of people think they have a lot of status, "Burden said dryly. "We'll get another look when they go back up in a little while. If we're lucky, we'll find something for them to take a second look at. Now we'll wait for the guys in the other van to tell us which of these things are in Spanish."

Chapter 20.

Through the screen door and the opened windows of the old motel room, he looked out at the dappled shade of the afternoon on the circular gravel drive around which the dozen paint-flecked cottages sat in mute dishevelment. Trashy hackberry and chinaberry trees shielded the entire compound in a murky gloom that contrasted sharply with the bright sunwashed street a short distance away at the motel's entrance. In the center of the circular drive was a weedy miniature playground, a weather-splintered seesaw, a swing set with two broken swings, a rusted merry-go-round. No child had touched them in decades, and they were haunted by silence and by the absence of little bottoms and little hands.

From the sagging bed where he sat, he could see the bungalow directly across from him. An older couple was sitting in front of it in clunky rusted lawn chairs, smoking. They wore outsized shorts over their inflated stomachs and pale, spindly legs. From behind their sungla.s.ses they stared straight ahead without animation, like the listening blind.

The Bungalows Motel was built in 1942, and it had not changed except for the necessary piecemeal repairs that the decades regularly forced upon it. It used to be out on the edge of town, but the years and the city had swallowed it. Now it occupied a section of South Congress Avenue that was invisible, except to people who were also invisible and who no longer had anything to do with the world in which they lived.

Shirtless and perspiring, he wiped his damp hands on his trousers. He was conscious of the odors of dank and aging surroundings, of puggy linens and mildewed upholstery and wood furnishing soured by decades of cursory cleaning with cheap, sweet cleansers. All this forced a weight of melancholy on him that was unexpected and uncomfortable.

He didn't like this motel, and even though he had been here only a few hours, there was something about the place that gnawed at him in a way he couldn't explain. It was the dank odor of mildew. He had figured it out, finally, but that didn't make it stop. There was no mildew where he'd come from. The odors of cheap hotels and apartments were quite different there. They didn't give him this oppressive feeling that chewed at his thoughts.

He didn't usually give a d.a.m.n where he was. He was summoned. He went. He did his work. He waited. If no one called, he just stayed where he was, living however life was lived there. The world was interesting. Or it wasn't. It was different everywhere. Or it was the same everywhere. Sometimes it was both in the same day. It depended on what it was. There was an infinite variety of things to be different or to be the same. In the end, though, it didn't matter to him one way or the other. He just observed that it was ... or that it wasn't.

He had never smelled anything like this before in his life, and it was driving him crazy. It didn't make any sense at all. Why would this smell get on his nerves so much? The humidity. The slimy feel of the sweat under his arms. He imagined the hair under his arms mildewing and turning rancid. Rotting. Tufts of it falling out and sticking to the sweat against his body. Itching.

Sometimes he went to cities he'd been to before. It happened often. But it seldom seemed as though he'd been there before. It was just new all over again. As alien as the inside of a casket.

The old couple across the way were beginning to get on his nerves, too. They sat there like two corpses, their bodies distended by the heat. He imagined he could smell them, as well. He imagined that when their bodies began to crack open and ooze, they would begin to tilt over a little. As they tilted, their sungla.s.ses would kick up on one side, maybe slip a bit down their noses. The ooze would begin to cake on them, and their limbs would swell and discolor and stiffen with gases, making them tilt even more.

No need to think like that. He'd change the subject. He'd already forgotten the name he was supposed to be. It didn't matter. He had his ID. He'd check it if he needed to know.

Sometimes it was a good thing not to remember who you were.

Chapter 21.

When the charter jet pulled up at the hangar in the blazing afternoon sun, t.i.tus was waiting on the tarmac with Derek and Nel, the Thrushes'son and daughter, who had flown in from Denver. He had already had a lengthy conversation with them and had heard the shocking details of Charlie's death from the son. Derek had talked about his father's death too readily and in startlingly clinical detail. It was the kind of obsession you sometimes saw in people who were still trying to deal with something horrible, still trying to absorb it and make it real in their own minds. t.i.tus could hardly bear it.

The meeting with Louise was anguishing. They stood in the sun and everyone cried. Louise was already a.s.suming the role of st.u.r.dy survivor. After all, she'd had a long flight to think about it, and it was clear that she and Rita had talked it through at great length.

After they moved into the shade of the hangar and visited a little while longer, t.i.tus and Rita said good-bye to them, and Louise headed back to Fredericksburg with her children.

t.i.tus and Rita went to the Range Rover and started back across town. Rita sat with her head against the window, tired and emotionally drained. She was wearing black Capri pants, sandals, and a white blouse, her blond hair kept out of her face by her sungla.s.ses pushed back on her head. She looked exhausted.

During the drive back, t.i.tus said nothing. In fact, much of the half-hour trip was made in silence. So much had already been said, and t.i.tus was trying to figure out how in the h.e.l.l he was going to say the rest of it. At the same time, he kept checking his rearview mirror for surveillance. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, and as Burden had said, there was nothing he could do about it, but he couldn't help scanning the traffic and wondering which of these ordinary-looking people were actually working for Luquin.

As they pulled in through the gates and headed up the curved drive to the house, he said, "I've got some people working here, "he said.

"Doing what? "she asked without concern.

"For one thing, working on the security system, "he said. "It's on the blink."

He pulled up beside Herrin's trucks and got out. He got her bags from the back, and they went into the shade of the veranda and through to the kitchen, where they encountered Mark Herrin carrying an armful of digital meters.

t.i.tus introduced them, and Herrin had the good sense to make himself immediately scarce. As he walked out of the room, Rita was standing by the island counter and her eye caught the list of rooms that had been swept. She read it at a glance, dropped her carry-on bag on the floor, and turned to t.i.tus.

"What's going on here? "she asked.

"We've got some trouble, "he said, "but we can't talk about it here. Let's take a walk."

They walked through the allee of laurels together, each with an arm around the other, and sat on the low rock wall that ran behind the orchard. Thirty feet away, the freshly dug grave where he had buried the dogs remained a bare reminder of their changed lives. Mourning doves burbled in the peach trees. He began at the beginning and told her nearly everything.

Rita was stunned, of course, and while t.i.tus was telling her what had happened during the last two days, his own words sounded bizarre even to him. She interrupted him only a few times to ask questions, but most of the time she sat quietly, her lack of a reaction more telling of the profound effect this was having on her than if she had wept and railed.

After he finished, neither of them spoke for a little while. Midday was well gone, and the heat was building in the orchard. Cicadas droned in the woods.

"G.o.d, t.i.tus, "she said. "Good G.o.d."

She stood, unable to sit still, and he watched her move away a few paces to the edge of the shade of the burr oak that was sheltering them from the sun. She turned around and crossed her arms.

"Are you absolutely sure of this? That this man's responsible for Charlie's death?"

"Yes."

Dumbfounded, she stared at him. Then her eyes reddened and the tears came so suddenly and profusely that it was odd to see, even disarming. She didn't hide her face, and her mouth didn't contort, but her chin quivered. Her crossed arms shifted until she was hugging herself in the summer shade with the bright light behind her. The tears just came and came until her cheeks were lacquered with them, and they dripped off her chin in a copious mixture of fear and anger and grief.

"Oh, horrible, "she finally managed to say with a kind of sob. As she looked at him, he knew that she already understood intuitively, without having to reason it out, that all of their yesterdays had been absurdly innocent. Their future had been abruptly truncated and, perhaps, reached no farther than the distance between them. All around them lay the debris of their a.s.sumed well-being. The past, the normal life, had been as naive as a child's daydream.

Then Rita began wiping her cheeks with her palms and fingers, sniffling. She produced a tissue from her pants pocket and wiped her nose. She cleared her throat. She bent her head and pulled her hair behind her head as if she were going to put a band around it, but she didn't.

"G.o.d, "she said, and looked up and dropped her hands. She took a deep breath and put her hands on her hips, wrists turned in, then exhaled and fixed her red eyes on him. "Louise's life has been devastated because of us!"

She couldn't think of what to say because what the h.e.l.l did you say to this? She couldn't stop staring at him, and he could tell that she was having a hard time trying to absorb the enormity of what he was talking about.

"Rita, I want you to go away, to get out of here. I'm going to talk to Burden about putting you up at a safe house. Someplace where ... you won't have to worry-"

"What! What in G.o.d's-what are you thinking, t.i.tus?" She was looking at him as if he'd suddenly begun speaking in an unintelligible language. "That's ... unthinkable. No! I will not! I'm staying right here. Whatever's going to happen, happens to both of us, t.i.tus. I can't even believe you'd think I'd do such a thing, "she said, her voice holding off a quaver.

"It's crazy for you to stay-"

"You're crazy, "she snapped. Tears weren't in her eyes, but they were in her voice. Everything was happening in a slightly surreal way, anger and fear and love melting together in disregard, their characteristics blurring and smearing across categorical boundaries.

"You tell me what's going on here, t.i.tus, "she said. "you've told me what happened, now you tell me what's going on."

Still sitting on the rock wall, he looked out over the land that fell toward the creek.

"Burden's going after this guy, Rita, and he's moving fast, but there are no guarantees."

He wanted to be honest with her, but he didn't want to tell her everything. He didn't want to tell her his fears, or the grim probabilities, or that he was trying to ignore where it was all going. If he was lucky, they could get through this without her learning things that would be hard for her to live with when it was over.

"Oh, for G.o.d's sake, t.i.tus. What have you gotten into here?"

"What have I gotten into? "He was furious at her remark. "This came to me! Rita, listen to me: This son of a b.i.t.c.h is going to kill someone else. Think of that! He's going to kill someone else. And then someone else, and then ... Friends, all of them our friends! I don't give a d.a.m.n how Burden stops him, and I'm going to do everything and anything in my power to help him do it."

Again she could only stare at him. A scrum of bluejays moved through the orchard, fighting and screaming, flinging themselves about like crazed hotheads, blue flashes tumbling through the orderly rows of peach trees. They battled their way to the other side and out, carrying their internecine hostilities into the cedar brakes toward the creek. In their wake, silence, then the doves began again, the voices of solace.

Rita had that look on her face, the odd angle to her mouth that she had when she was suddenly frightened and hadn't yet had time to order her mind and overcome the adrenalinedriven confusion. He had seen it when she had heard about her father's hunting accident and when she had heard about her mother's illness. And he still ached when he remembered seeing it the day the doctor had told them that the fetus was horribly deformed.

"This is impossible to believe, "she said, "all of this. I just don't know how to ... "She took a short, jerky breath. "I can't believe you've done this without the police. The FBI ..." She was shaking her head. "Somebody with a legal responsibility."

"I just went over that with you, the reasoning behind it."

"Well, I think you've lost your mind, t.i.tus."

"I'm trying to save lives, "he said.

"And you think this is the way to do that? With this ... vigilante?"

He started to come back at her, then stopped himself. "I trust Gil Norlin's advice, "he said.

"Great! A guy you met briefly four years ago, and even then he was a little slimy."

"I never said that."

"You told me he was shady."

"He just wasn't working up front like the rest of them, "he said. "That's all I meant by that."

Again they glared at each other. This was killing him. He watched her eyes reddening again.

"t.i.tus, "she said, and her voice had a break in it that surprised even her, he saw it in her face, "are we going to regret this? "She was actually trembling. t.i.tus had never seen Rita tremble-ever.

"I'm making the decisions I have to make, "he said, "and I'm making them the best way I know how. You've got to understand, there are no guidelines for this, Rita. This is like waking up from a nightmare and discovering that being awake didn't stop the dream. I'm just having to work through it the best way I can."

He hesitated. "I need your help, Rita. I can't do this without you."

Her expression shifted. She wasn't sure she wanted the conversation to go in the direction his tone of voice was suggesting. At this point her emotions weren't attuned to conciliation.

"I need you to cooperate with me here, "he said. "I'm going to have Burden find you a place to stay where I know you'll be safe-"

"t.i.tus! "Rita stopped him, her eyes holding him, her face rigid with anger and frustration.

He knew what she was thinking: He doesn't understand ... doesn't even have a clue what he's asking. But he did. The fact was, she was the one who didn't have a clue. Her loyalty scared the h.e.l.l out of him because it put her at risk, and he could hardly live with the idea of the possibilities that presented themselves.

They stared at each other.

"I've got to unpack, "she snapped, and spun around and headed up to the house along the allee.

He didn't try to stop her. He knew better. She was tired. She was emotionally worn out. She was scared. This was the way Rita reacted to those stresses. When she was afraid she got angry, because she could feel the edges of control slipping away from her and that was the most frightening thing of all. She needed time. G.o.d help them, they all needed some time, but he didn't think they were likely to get what they needed. Luquin was going to steal as much time as he could along with the money. He was going to keep the pressure on.

As he watched Rita's back flickering through the shadows of the laurels in the allee, the droning of the cicadas grew louder, as if someone had turned up the volume. The heat seemed to have gone up a notch, too, extruding the fragrances of summer, of superheated vegetation, the undercurrents of peaches, the good odors of earth. It all seemed so much more appealing to him now, so much more desirable, than it had a few days before when he had taken it for granted. He relished it, understanding now as he'd never understood before that it was finite, that it wouldn't last forever because it couldn't. It had always been only a temporary thing, but he'd just never thought of it that way before.

Chapter 22.

The coordinates from the Spanish-language transmissions dribbled in slowly, sent immediately from the first mobile team as soon as the coordinates had been identified. When the first few pinged on Herrin's screen, and Burden's, too, as he waited in the second mobile unit, Burden was immediately speaking into Herrin's earpiece.

"What are the stats on your new program? "he asked.

"It'll pull us into a target area of about a one-hundredmeter radius, "Herrin said, focused on the screen.

"Good. Let's just see if we can eliminate anything outright. Maybe a retail site, a law firm, law enforcement. Something that might have a legitimate need for encryption. We're going to be interested in residential. Leased property, most likely."

Herrin stayed at the computer for nearly two hours before all the transmissions had been scanned by Burden's mobile unit. When the Spanish-language transmissions had been pulled out of the list of 112 encrypted calls, the list had shrunk to only 14. He had called Burden back.

"Okay, "Burden said. "The Beechcraft will be in position again in fifteen minutes. So what have we got?"

Herrin brought up the summary on both screens.

"Of the fourteen encrypted Spanishlanguage transmissions, "Herrin said, "two originated in a country club, one in a real estate office, three in lawyers'offices, and two were APD Chicano squad transmissions."

He rubbed his face and then leaned on his elbows and stared at the screen. He was sitting in the path of one of the airconditioning vents in the guest house, and the chilled air was welcome.

"That leaves only six transmissions to look at, "Herrin continued. "Three originated on this side of the lake, three on the other side. The ones on the other side are known addresses. The ones on this side were mobile. But we still don't have any content."

"They said the encryption's tricky, "Burden said. "It didn't take much to find out if they were English or Spanish, but the actual translations themselves are another thing."

"Any guesses?"

"No. But I'm hoping the mobile ones go back to one of the houses on the other side, "Burden said. "If they do, then I'm hoping we'd have their base and their surveillance unit."

Herrin stared at the screen and unwrapped the clear cellophane from a cube of taffy candy and popped it into his mouth.

"We've got just this one more shot, "Burden said. "That plane's scheduled for a job in Maracaibo beginning tomorrow. "Herrin was sucking nervously on the taffy, sucking on the taffy, thinking, thinking, and then he bit into it and chewed it up in a couple of bites.

"I'm going to call the plane, "Burden said. "I'm going to tell them to stay with those six channels, and go ahead and scan as many of the new ones as they can during the two-hour flight."

Herrin waited, eyes fixed on his screen, one leg bouncing on the ball of his foot as if he were a manic adolescent. Running live operations made him forget to be laid-back.