Mariposa (7 page)

Price walked to the window. Outside, a very large insect buzzed past. It wasn't an insect, of course.

"I'd like to move you up a notch," he said. "As you know, we've got a big conference in a couple of weeks. I've asked the campus supervisors who's best at translating Arabic dialects—and they all tell me it's you, hands down. You're also well-versed in Texan, I hear." Price chuckled. "Not easy to get a handle on how we talk around here. The food alone . . . well, Muslims aren't big fans of some of our favorite dishes."

Fouad remained smiling.

"We'll be hiding billboards and such that might offend some of our Muslim guests as they limo in from the airport. I've asked restaurant owners to cover up the pink neon pigs, that sort of thing. They're happy to oblige—they know how important this is to Lion City. But once our guests are here, I'd like a fellow I can trust to provide a running commentary, delivered straight to me, on how they're thinking, what they're saying, and maybe pitch in and correct misunderstandings, as need be. I'd like you to be that fellow."

Price gestured to a well-upholstered blue leather chair on one side of the desk, near the window.

"Take a seat, Mr. Al-Husam."

Fouad sat. This was not at all what he had expected. Best to show surprise and quiet pride. "I am honored," he said.

Price beamed. "I pick my people well."

The man could be charming. Many here could be charming and yet hold the most untoward views.

"Tell me what you think that sort of work would require, Fouad . . . if we can go on a first-name basis. And please, call me Axel."

Price's pronunciation was good. He spoke sound but rudimentary Arabic, from the years when he had directed security and other contracts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait.

"I could be attached to delegations as a back-up translator," Fouad said. "The guests will rely on their own translators, but they will not be offended if you also position someone with expertise, to listen."

"My thoughts exactly. You can't cover all the conversations—hell, I'll probably only be able to drop by for about a third of the sessions myself. But if I'm there . . . you'll be there. I'd be pleased if we could make that sort of arrangement. Keep you around a while, at a much higher pay grade than a teacher, of course."

"It would be my pleasure, Mr. Price—Axel," Fouad said. "My contract, however, is soon ended, and I have other commitments I would have to adjust."

Price bowed his head and threw up his hand, showing this was not his concern.

"I'm sure you can work it out," he said. "Start now. I might need you in a snap, so we'll put you up in a guest house. Real nice place. Deluxe. You'll sleep out there tonight. My logistics team will move your stuff from Lion City. You'll need a chip upgrade, of course—deep, deep security."

"Thank you," Fouad said, but his heart was not with him. This familiarity felt too convenient. Trust meant nothing to Axel Price—caution was his hallmark.

"The conference is coming up fast," Price said. "Private jets from all over are coming into Lion City airport. About two hundred guests, fifty or sixty from the Emirates, Qatar, Arabia Deserta, Yemen, Jordan—plus retinues. You'll get all the docs and prep you need, plus a finger-key transcriber." He held out his hand and waggled his fingers. "You know how to use it—like a court steno?"

Fouad nodded. It was standard for secure translators.

"Good. FBI trained you well. Any regrets about heading for greener pastures while the Bureau's in limbo?"

"Of course," Fouad said. "But it was inevitable."

"Moving them out of D.C. and Virginia—that's a hoot. Our beltway masters seem to think they need to squeeze everything good out of the South—or squeeze the South out of everything. As if the war never ended."

Price shook his head in wonder at this effrontery. "Be up and dressed by 0700. Prep team will meet you in the cook shack.

"Welcome to the ranch!"

Chapter Thirteen

Los Angeles, California

The bar was a long, shadowed cave with highlights of blue and gold. The angled glass window beyond the stools and tall tables overlooked a themed restaurant laid out like a 1930s train station. Three dining cars waited beside a wooden platform, sleek roofs lacquered black, sides painted tan and hunter green. Waiters in white jackets and trim black pants and red caps showed customers to their tables while diners watched through half dropped windows.

The restaurant was called The Roundhouse and Rebecca Rose had come here at the invitation of a navy captain. They were in town attending the COPES domestic security conference and had unexpectedly run into each other while registering in the convention center lobby.

His name was Peter Periglas, Captain, USN, retired. It had been two years since they last met—on a ship in the Red Sea.

Two years since Mecca.

She sipped her vodka martini. She didn't like themed restaurants. Worse, the captain was late.

The bartender was a waxen, seen-it-all mannequin with toned shoulders and silicone breasts, eyes dulled by self-doubt and too many boyfriends. She asked Rebecca if she wanted a refill.

"I'm good."

Rebecca was about to get off her stool and return to the hotel when she saw a tall man with black hair enter through heavy glass doors at the far end of the bar.

He caught her eye and waved.

She quirked her lips and waved back.

"Sorry," Periglas said, approaching with a sheepish grin. "My handlers are giving me grief about my speech tomorrow. I seem to be a little stiff."

"I was surprised to see you in the exhibit hall," Rebecca said. "When did you get out of the Navy?"

"Last year. Took the rank—they offered it out of rotation—and then retired. Too many secrets, I guess. You?"

"Not really retired—just on extended leave. Furlough."

"So what are you doing?"

"Consulting, traveling. Enjoying life."

"I need a beer," the captain said.

The bartender was occupied by three raucous young men at the far end of the bar.

"How long with the FBI, total?" Periglas asked.

"Eighteen years. And you, the navy?"

"Twenty-three. Enough of the wine-dark sea. Dry land looks good. I'd like to become a private investigator. I could set up a downtown office," Periglas said. "Inland Empire Investigations. Keep a .38 in a drawer. Stare out the window, harass the pigeons, suck on a bottle of hooch and let the California sun bake me through the flyspecked window while I bask in a big oak swivel chair."

"You've given it some thought," Rebecca said. "Sounds pretty good."

She had dealt with navy men before. All the pulling up of roots made them a little too quick, a little too eager, but this time, she didn't mind.

"You could protect all the pretty WAVEs when they come to you with their problems. Sensible shoes, tight skirts, pert little  . . . caps."

Even before Periglas had invited her to the bar, Rebecca had checked his right hand. The impressed shadow of a ring.

"My wife—my ex-wife—can't stand me enjoying anything. She was why I knew I would never make admiral. Hates Washington." The captain grinned a what-can-you-do grin. "Do we order bar food or descend to the dining cars?" he asked. "Cost no object. I'm buying."

Rebecca gave a passing thought to dropping her shields. It was about time. He seemed pleasant and smart, a little out-of-breath but not nervous. He might not bite. She might not bite. She felt remarkably strong.

All better now.

"Did you make reservations?" she asked.

"Nope," Periglas said.

"Tail o' the Pup for us, then," Rebecca said, leaning across the bar to get the waxy woman's attention.

No joy.

"That was over on San Vicente," Periglas said. "I'm a native Angeleno. My father might have eaten at the Pup. I never did. It's been gone for years."

He lifted his arm and the bartender gave him a frown and a nod but kept arguing with the young men.

When she finally minced down behind the long bar to their seats, her eyes were like flints and her cheeks flushed cherry.

"We need another war, to filter out pricks like that," she said. "What can I get you?"

Periglas's breath hitched. Sharp lines framed his mouth.

"Nothing," he said. He rose from the stool and leaned toward the bartender, practically in her face. "I've watched young pricks like that get
filtered
," he said. "I'll put up with happy bullshit any day."

He swung around and marched toward the exit.

Rebecca grabbed her purse and followed. She watched him with a fascinated grin, which she tucked away when he looked back at her, replaced with polite interest.

"Apologies, Rebecca. I usually don't show my bitter card until the second date. Let's stalk the evening like wolves," he said, arms swinging. His looseness came from dissipating anger, but also from self-assurance. He was happy to be here, expected nothing in particular, happy to be with her—happy in his own skin.

Not manic, not nervous, not showing off in the least.

He was just that way.

He glanced aside like an embarrassed boy as they came out under the cobalt sky. "So—let's find a little, out-of-the-way bistro and gorge on tiny plates of overpriced food."

Rebecca focused on what she could see of his face and smiled again, this time openly—she smiled a lot around Periglas. This was what she could expect: good talk from a decent man. Some of his stories were doubtless more interesting than hers.

Life at sea, camaraderie and discipline, engines and weather—anything but the creeps and monsters she had had to pursue, capture, help convict—and make miserable—throughout her entire career.

And yet there were always more.

She still kept three pictures in her wallet of a few of the worst that got away. Murderers and rapists—portraits of monsters rather than children.

Perhaps the monsters
were
her children.

"Forget the bistro," she said. "Let's get room service."

Periglas appeared genuinely surprised. For a terrible moment, Rebecca felt like a teenager pushing too far, too fast.

"All right," he said.

"We're civilians, mostly," she said. "They owe us time away from the world."

"No explanation necessary," Periglas said. "Lead on."

Rebecca's phone wheedled. She looked at the number. This was a call she had to take.

"My room," Rebecca said, and passed him a hotel key folder without the key.

Periglas drew his hand over his eyes, fingers spread. "I am beguiled," he said.

"Give me ten minutes," she said.

Rebecca closed the door to the room and set her purse on the nightstand. Biting her lip, more nervous than she had been in months—she returned the call she had been hoping would come.

A recorded voice answered. "Central California Adoption Services. Our offices are closed for the day—"

She punched in the code for Dr. Benvenista. The doctor's high, musical voice came through after the third chime.

"Hello, Rebecca. How's Los Angeles?"

"Nice," Rebecca said, her throat full. She wasn't used to being so scared. "Busy."

"Fresno is scalding. We have great news. You've passed the third round. Though I do wish you had a good man in your life. We could sail you right through."

"I'm working on it," Rebecca said, embarrassed and hopeful enough to stretch the truth.

"Mary is doing quite well. One inspector expressed lingering concern about the race issue, but I think that is not a major objection at this point. You are a stable person and well-motivated, and you are certainly qualified, and I have said so to the committee. Who better to protect a little child than a mommy who's an FBI agent?"

Bureau. On furlough.

"Thank you."

"There will be more news tomorrow, and perhaps the paperwork will clear by the end of the week. Until then, please keep in touch."

Rebecca expressed her thanks and relief, said goodbye, and closed the phone—just as she heard a polite rap on the room door. She opened it, her chest tight, stomach a-flutter. Too much all at once.

Tough to keep up her game face.

Periglas entered as she finished dabbing her eyes with her coat sleeve.

"I don't often have that effect on women," he said, his voice soft, wondering.

"It's not you," Rebecca said, and took his outstretched hand. "Not
just
you, I mean. It's everything. I think I'm becoming a human being again. It's been so goddamned long . . ."

She looked up, across two inches of difference in height, and searched his face.

Her lower lip trembled. She bit it, but did not stop checking out his forehead, his cheeks, his nose, then his eyes.

His eyes were slightly moist, reflecting hers.

"Damn," she whispered.

Periglas put his hands on her shoulders and leaned toward her, as if about to lead her into a dance.

"Dinner first?" he asked.

She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed, frightened and incredibly hungry—ravenous, but not for food.

For a home. A place to rest and arms to rest in.

Hungry for all the glories and sins flesh was heir to.

Maybe you're finally cured.

"Dinner after," she said.

Chapter Fourteen

Sherman Oaks, California

Nathaniel Trace had arrived in California in a state of rolling nausea and hunger. He could not find the proper foods to eat.

He cabbed from LAX up the 405 to Ventura Boulevard, then checked into a back room in a sprawling old hotel—and locked himself in.

The hotel was seventy-two years old. It had two hundred and fifteen rooms.

He lay down for a two hours but could not sleep.

Rising from the rumpled bed, he shook his head to get rid of the dizzies—they came in late morning and sometimes late evening—and drew back the opaque curtains.

There was blood on his hand. It smeared on the rod and a drop or two fell on the carpet. A trail to the bed.

He had bitten his hand.

That made him chuckle.

Extra tip for the maid.

Through the white veil of the inner curtain, glancing at the parking lot, he instantly counted sixty-two cars. Fourteen trees, none of them very tall. Thirteen people walking, four drivers trying to park. Sixty-three buildings visible between nadir and horizon. Five hundred and sixty-four windows. No doors visible from his vantage point, except twenty-four car doors—six opening, one closing.

"Today, in the state where I was born, I am thirty-six years old," Nathaniel said. Numbers were important. If he thought hard enough, counted long enough, they would all add up—like a combination lock.

"I'm turning into fucking Rain Man," he whispered. "Jesus H. Christ. Nobody hires card counters."

He wiped his hand on the curtain, then thought again: time to stop acting like a bloody animal and recharge the old social programming. He went into the bathroom to wash out the bite. Could his own bite be septic? He used soap. There were marks on both hands. He'd have to stop that or wear gloves.

Already today he had cycled through seven different hells and seven different heavens.

When he realized that this was entirely up to him, or some part of him—that some or other will controlled his mood—it scared him. For a few moments there, floating in a disconnected and emotionless void, looking at the wallpaper and feeling like a fish flying through the air, he had for a couple of hours forgotten his real name.

"I should move into a creepy old house," he told the mirror, then looked hard at his reflection and smiled. He had finally found something he could not count: the thick mat of gingery hairs on his head.

Too confused.

My tire chocks have been pulled and I'm rolling free. My emergency brake is busted. It was a lovely feeling for a while.

Now, not so much.

But who the hell am I? If Mariposa is coming undone, then the others must feel the same way—wherever they are.

What if somehow his
fingers
could hold supremacy over his brain? What if central control was now up to his arm, his foot—his liver, his bowels?

He had found several days ago that he could make his vision turn purple, or shade it into the pink—and then push it back to something like normal.

Not even a baby is born this clear.

Everything is possible.

When he believed he was capable of interacting with the public again on some minimal level, Nathaniel dressed, left the room, and forced himself to walk around the hotel grounds, then up and down Ventura Boulevard.

The sun peeking between clouds actually made his skin vibrate. That felt good—good and healthy.

So perhaps this was still just a boost phase and he had not yet achieved a stable orbit,
and what then, old cosmic mind?

Nathaniel returned to the room and crept into bed. He wiped his hands on the sheets. After a few minutes of studying his palms, frowning deeply, he picked up his disposable cell and slipped in a new quantum card.

Then he typed in a key code and called a dummy transponder in Nicaragua.

The dummy flashed his call to a number none of them knew, which passed it on—again through a quantum EPR cell—to yet another number.

It took several seconds to connect with the Quiet Man.

"Checkpoint Turing." The low voice at the other end sounded calm but exhausted.

"Nathaniel here. I'm in LA."

"You're late. Hugh and Jerry have checked in but nobody's heard from Nick in two days. Have you heard about the vice president?"

"Saw it on a reader headline in the hotel lobby. Wild. What does Jones say?"

"I think he knew about it before the public announcement. He called it a 'potential triggering event.' But he won't say if it was planned."

"So what was it, a coincidence?"

"Unknown."

Nathaniel felt a little sting of mortal practicality—followed by irritation. "We were supposed to be free and clear before the shit hit the fan. Any luck with the new covering IDs?"

"They're in place, twenty-one of them. Better than federal grade. I've kept them away from Jones, so he doesn't feel any conflict. His attitude is fairly even and smooth. I'd like to keep it that way.

"I got a call from Dr. Plover, of all people," the Quiet Man continued. "None of you has had any contact with him for over a year, right?"

"I certainly haven't."

"He sounds unhappy. Says he wants to meet. He asked for you in particular."

"Do we owe him anything?"

"No. But he may have something for us. He's being cagey—seems to be caught between professional responsibility and complete paranoia."

"Maybe he should take some of his own medicine."

"He's staying somewhere in downtown LA, near the convention center—there's a security conference there, COPES, C-O-P-E-S. He was scheduled to give a presentation on Mariposa, but withdrew."

"Was he going to use me as an exhibit?"

"Unknown. I suggest that you meet with him. It's only a suggestion, of course."

Nathaniel thought this over, looked down at his hand. "I'm not all that presentable," he said.

The Quiet Man took one of his long pauses. Nathaniel could hear him breathing—soft, regular. It sounded almost artificial, like a machine.

"He wanted me specifically? Not the others in town?"

"Just you. I shipped him an EPR phone. Here's the number." The Quiet Man read it out to him. It was no problem to memorize the sixty-four digits. And Nathaniel was certain he would not forget.

"Get back to me with whatever you learn."

"What if I don't go?" Nathaniel asked, but the connection had already been cut.

He removed the card from the cell and cracked it in half. Code dust leaked out onto the floor. He scuffed the small mound with his bare foot, grinding the tiny polygons into the carpet.

Now no one could ever trace anything, no matter how hard they tried.

Nathaniel lay back on the bed and stared at the blank ceiling, just to quell his overwhelming urge to count. It didn't work. He started up again with the ghostly floaters drifting through his field of vision.

Closed his eyes.

Counted the speckles in the reddish dark.

Another hour passed.

The voice of interior reason spoke.

Why just you? Better call the others. Besides, don't you want to learn how they're getting along?

Let's surprise the old head poker.

He picked up his cell, inserted another card, and made three calls.

The last was to Dr. Plover.