Springboard Read online

“Could be a lot of things,” Thorn said. “Somebody trying to keep it from his wife, maybe looking to dodge taxes, like that.”

  “That’s true. I ran across that once before—some guy bought a spendy guitar and didn’t want his wife to know. But I was able to find him and figure that out pretty quick.”

  “You think this is our guy.”

  Kent nodded. “I do. More hunch than anything else. The shop owner was contacted via e-mail, the money was transferred from an account in the Bahamas, and the buyer is supposed to drop by and pick the guitar up tomorrow.”

  “And you don’t want to have the local FBI team check it out.”

  “No. This is . . . personal. I’d like to be there myself.”

  Thorn nodded. “Go.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Natadze is a bad mark on my record, too, Abe. You need any help?”

  Colonel Kent shook his head. “I don’t think so. This time, surprise will be on my side, not his.”

  “Keep me posted.”

  “I will, Commander.” He paused. “How’s Jay’s son doing?”

  “Okay now, so I hear. Not ready to come home yet, but doing better.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Yes.”

  Kent went to the shooting range and put in an hour, burning a hundred rounds through his sidearm. He was going after a professional killer who would be armed and extremely dangerous. The least he could do was make sure his weapon was working properly and he was able to shoot it straight.

  He cleaned the piece at the range, reloaded it, and headed home to pack a bag.

  The smart thing to do would be to get to San Francisco, assemble a team of FBI ops, plus a squad of the local police SWAT team, set it up, and if Natadze showed and blinked crooked, take him down fast.

  But: Natadze hadn’t crept into somebody else’s motel room and swiped a guitar from under their sleeping noses. The man had made Kent look stupid too many times to let it pass into somebody else’s hands.

  Besides, Natadze hadn’t killed him. Could have, no question about it, but didn’t, and Kent knew it didn’t have anything to do with Natadze being worried about what one more death would do to his jail time if he was ever caught. The man was a professional hit man, and yet he’d let Kent live.

  That had to count for something.

  No way was Kent going to respond with a posse of sharpshooters.

  No, he was going to be on a plane this afternoon, and scoping out the guitar shop as soon as he could get there. Natadze might decide to come a day early—or a day late. One thing for sure: Whoever picked up that handmade ten-thousand-dollar instrument was going to have Abraham Kent on his tail when he walked out of the store. No question about that at all.

  Quantico, Virginia

  Money could only buy you so much, Locke reflected as he considered the situation. Here he was in a so-so motel in Virginia, in a tiny town that wouldn’t exist were it not for Marines and government workers. He had established that Net Force was indeed linked with CyberNation and actively trying to deal with Shing’s machinations, and when it came right down to it, that was just about all he could expect to do, wasn’t it?

  Locke didn’t like trusting people in general, and less so those who did things he himself could not do. Shing was a one-trick pony, but it was a clever trick. Locke—and Wu— had to hope that Shing was sufficiently skilled at it to go against the best security in the world and win. Living on hope was dangerous.

  Locke mentally shrugged. His part of this operation was going as he had planned—so far, at least. It would not fail due to mistakes he made. That might not mean much against the loss of the fortune destined for his pocket if it went sideways, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances.

  He couldn’t get inside Net Force or CyberNation to see what they could or could not do against Shing’s attack, not any more than he already had, and the bottom line was, even if he could, what could he do about it anyway?

  It was, he decided, time to leave. That there was a frozen body in small packages out there waiting to be discovered did influence his decision a little. He wanted to be far away when it turned up, just in case he had missed something. . . .

  People’s Military Base Annex

  Macao, China

  Wu passed the envelope full of currency across the desk to Shing.

  The younger man smiled. “Thank you, Comrade General.”

  Wu smiled in return. “It is nothing. When we are successful, we would not stoop to pick such as this up if it fell from our pockets.” He paused. “Things continue to go well?”

  “Yes. The Americans and the French still run around like blind men on a football field, bumping into each other, but seeing nothing.”

  “This is good.”

  “When we’re ready to unleash the dragon, it will damage their houses so badly they will all but collapse. And they don’t have any idea it even exists!”

  So full of himself, Wu thought. Still, if Shing was correct, it would be a great victory. Wu’s heart soared as he thought of how it would be when he made the call to the North Koreans. Not a dragon, perhaps, more like a pack of hungry wolves, but dangerous enough to anyone in their path . . .

  “Well. Go and enjoy yourself at the casinos,” Wu said. “And say hello to that young lady you spoke of.”

  “I’ll do that,” Shing said.

  They both smiled, and while Shing’s expression was doubtlessly insincere, Wu’s was real.

  It was so good to be the man who knew what was going on, really it was.

  Children’s Hospital

  Washington, D.C.

  The pediatrician, a tall, skinny man of sixty or so named Wohler, spoke to Jay in the hall, amidst that antiseptic smell Jay associated with hospitals.

  Saji sat with Mark in the private room behind them. Whatever else you might say about it, Net Force had a great health plan.

  “It’s too soon to say he’s completely out of the woods, Mr. Gridley, but he’s responded well to the medications and his fever is greatly decreased. I’d like to keep him here for a few more days to be sure everything goes as we hope.”

  Jay nodded. “Yes, sure, whatever it takes.” Jay wasn’t happy with the way doctors hedged everything they said, but he supposed he could understand it. They got sued at the drop of a hat, and it was safer if they never promised anything they weren’t positive they could deliver.

  Mark’s convulsions had been due to a high fever, and that was because of the pneumococcal pneumonia he had suddenly developed. The onset had been faster than they usually saw, the doctor had said, and no, there wasn’t anything Jay or Saji could have done to protect Mark from it. Yes, there was a vaccine for some strains, but not the one Mark had. The bug that caused it was common, so much so that probably three quarters of the people walking around on the planet had it or some variation of it in their systems, where it was pretty much harmless most of the time. Nobody was quite sure exactly why it sometimes decided to lodge opportunistically in the lungs and start to grow.

  The main thing was, Mark seemed to be okay. No apparent brain damage from the high fever, which had registered 106 degrees Fahrenheit when Saji had brought him in.

  After Jay had rascaled the traffic lights, it had only taken her a few minutes to make it to the hospital, and Jay had gotten there in under half an hour—the helicopter pilot was a speed demon in that machine, and he’d put it down on the pad outside the ER like a champion gymnast sticking the landing on a dismount.

  “Thanks for your help, Dr. Wohler.”

  The older man smiled. “That’s what I do, son.”

  Back in the room with Saji, Mark slept. Every time the baby twitched, Saji jumped, but they had him inside a clear plastic tent, she wasn’t supposed to touch him, and that broke her heart when he cried.

  The last time that had happened, Jay had said, “Enough of this!” He’d gone and washed his hands with the antibacterial soap in the bathroom, put on rubber gloves and a surgeon’s mask
like the nurses did, and reached into the tent to comfort his son.

  As soon as Mark had felt his father’s hands and heard his voice, he had quieted, even though Jay must have looked scary in the paper surgeon’s mask.

  “How’s he doing?” Jay asked his wife.

  “Better. He seems to be resting more. What did the doctor say?”

  “Nothing really new. I think he believes Mark is going to be fine, but nobody around here will commit to that. I did some research, and baby doctors get sued a lot. Obgyns get hit the most, then pediatricians, followed by orthopedists. Nobody wants to say everything is okay and risk it not being totally okay.” Jay sighed. “He wants to keep him here a few more days,” he finished.

  Saji nodded. “That’s fine.”

  “Look, why don’t you go home, change clothes, take a shower, maybe a nap, get some books or something? I’ll stay with Mark.”

  They had slept on the fold-out couch, which wasn’t particularly comfortable, and washed their faces in the bathroom sink, but they were both tired and rumpled.

  “No,” she said. “You go. I can’t leave.”

  Jay shook his head. “I can’t, either,” he said.

  He took her hand. She squeezed it. They looked at their son, and they worried together.

  21

  San Francisco, California

  The guitar store wasn’t in downtown San Francisco, but in a little upscale pocket neighborhood on the way toward Oakland. This was an area that had been bought up and renewed, old buildings remodeled or torn down and new ones built that looked like those they had replaced. There were shops and businesses within easy walking distance of housing—small apartments, row houses of condos, and even single-family homes. Very nice and, Kent knew, very spendy. Real estate in the Bay Area had always been some of the most expensive in the country, and it still was.

  It was late in the afternoon before he arrived at the shop, which was identified simply as “Cyrus Guitars.” There was a parking lot across the street next to a deli, and Kent pulled his rented and outfitted van into that. He had food, water, a little portable potty, and assorted other knick-knacks that would make a long surveillance bearable.

  He went into the deli and talked to the guy running the place about letting him park there for the next couple of days. His Net Force ID and a few words about Homeland Security—along with a single fifty-dollar bill—were enough to settle the deal.

  With the van situated, Kent walked across the street to the guitar place.

  It wasn’t particularly impressive from the sidewalk. The sign was low-key, there was one small window with a single guitar on display, and without those to identify it, the shop could have been any small-business storefront.

  Inside, it was more interesting. There was a wooden counter, covered with what looked like a sheet of black velvet. Behind the counter, hung on the wall inside a series of rectangular glass or Plexiglas cases, were ten guitars. They were mostly classical models—Kent had become passingly familiar with the design—a couple of steel-string acoustics, and he quickly spotted the one made by Stansell—the color on the sides was unique.

  The man behind the counter sat on a stool with one foot propped on the cross-supports, playing an acoustic guitar that appeared to have a stainless-steel clamp on the neck several frets up from the tuning pegs. He wore sweatpants and a T-shirt and what looked like moccasins. His right arm was covered with a long black sleeve. It took Kent a second to realize what the sleeve was for: to keep his bare skin from touching the guitar.

  The instrument had a rich, warm tone. As Kent watched, the player squeezed the metal clamp and removed it from the guitar.

  “G7th capo,” the player said. “Great design. Locking cam, doesn’t detune the strings if you’re careful, one-handed operation, imported out of the U.K. by John Pearse Strings. Plus the looks-cool factor is still very high even after ten years.” He extended the clamp toward Kent, who walked over and took it. He didn’t know capos from capons, but the little device did feel very solid and well-made. He said so as he handed it back.

  “The euro is down again,” the man said, “so they are running about fifty bucks American. I’m Cyrus, what can I do for you?”

  Cyrus stood, and was tall—six-five, six-six, maybe, with a one-cut cropped-short red orange crewcut. He wore three or four earrings in each ear, wire-rimmed glasses, and had what looked like some kind of tribal tattoos on the arm Kent could see.

  There were several ways to play this, and they usually depended on the guy you were dealing with. His instinct was that Cyrus was a solid citizen. Something seemed familiar about him, Kent couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was. He decided to go for it straight on: “I’m Abraham Kent,” he said, “I work for Net Force.”

  “The net query, yeah. Nancy told me about that. She’s my manager—she’s the one who does all the Internet/web stuff.”

  Kent nodded. “You sold a guitar to somebody who’s supposed to come in tomorrow to pick up.”

  “Actually, I have five or six folks dropping by to collect instruments in the next few days.”

  “You’d remember this one. The guitar went for ten thousand dollars.”

  Cyrus smiled. “You say that number as if it’s amazing. I’ve got almost two hundred thousand dollars worth of guitars on display here, couple of ’em cost three times that much.” He waved an arm at the wall. “But I know the one you mean—the Stansell White Tiger, right?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded. “Some guy bought it from Nancy, and paid for it up front, a bank transfer. Most of our customers I know personally, or by reputation. Some are referrals. I don’t know this one.”

  “I’m not certain he’s the guy I’m looking for, but if he is, he’s a bad man, and we need to have a chat.”

  “What’d he do?”

  “Killed some people, among other things.”

  “Really? Not something serious classical guitar players are usually into.”

  “He’s not your usual player.”

  Cyrus looked at Kent. He nodded slightly. “Okay. So what do you want me to do?”

  The man didn’t seem particularly disturbed at the idea that he’d be dealing with a murderer. Kent looked at him with the unspoken question: Why so cool?

  Cyrus rolled the protective sleeve down his arm, grinning. The Marine Corps logo was tattooed in blue on his upper arm. “Semper fi, sir,” Cyrus said.

  Kent shook his head, and returned the grin. “Do I know you?”

  “Not personally, but I was in First Expeditionary in Second Iraq—I saw you around a couple of times, Major.”

  “Colonel, now,” Kent said. “Hell of an operation, that.”

  “Yes, sir, it was. Glad I survived it. What’s the deal?”

  “This guy shows up, you fill out forms or whatever you usually do and send him on his way. But if sometime during that procedure you could get to this”—Kent pulled a small cell phone from his pocket and put it on the counter—“and just push the ‘send’ button, right here, I’d appreciate it.”

  Cyrus looked at the phone. “Yes, sir, I can do that. Then what?”

  “Nothing happens in the store. I’ll know the guy if I see him. He leaves, I follow him, and somewhere, we get together.”

  “No problem, Colonel.”

  Once a Marine, always a Marine.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’ll let me know how it turns out?”

  “That’s the least I can do.”

  They both smiled.

  College Park, Maryland

  The driver dropped Thorn off at his house and left. It was only one o’clock, but Thorn had some old business to deal with, business he would rather not do at the office.

  He walked to the front door. It was a quiet neighborhood, not far from the University of Maryland. There were a number of college professors and even a dean or two living on his street. The tree-lined roads—mostly pin oak, but some elms and pear trees, too—were shady, the houses big an
d built mostly in the early part of the last century.

  He thumbed the print-reader on the new lock he’d had installed, and stepped inside to do the same to the alarm system control panel, which went from red to green as it disarmed.

  He set his case down next to the half-round table against the hall wall, and headed for the kitchen.

  Lying on the kitchen counter was a single, long-stemmed rose. The petals were such a dark red that they seemed almost black.

  Thorn smiled at the flower as he picked it up and sniffed it.

  The rose smelled as good as it looked.

  Who did he know who could get past a thumbprint reader lock and alarm system? And who would leave a black rose on his kitchen counter?

  His smile got bigger. Oh, this was too much.

  He unclipped his virgil from his belt. “Call Marissa,” he said.

  He held the little device to his ear with one hand, the dark rose in the other.

  “Hey, Tommy.”

  “Hey, Marissa. Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  He held the virgil so that its cam pointed at the flower.

  “Very nice,” she said. “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “It was on my kitchen counter.”

  “And you think I put it there? That would mean I’d have to drive way the hell and gone to God’s country, then rascal a thumbprint reader lock and house alarm with a security cam, to leave that flower in your kitchen, just to make you smile when you saw it. You think you’re worth all that trouble?”

  “I hope you think so.”

  There was a pause. Then she said, “Maybe. We’ll just have to see. Where are you taking me to dinner tomorrow?”

  “Anywhere you want to go,” he said.

  “Try and surprise me.”

  “Oh, I expect I can manage that.”

  “Want to bet?”

  “I’ll send a car for you,” he said. “Seven o’clock okay?”

  “What’s the wager?”