Ricci considered that. After pulling Quiros’s file out of the Sword database in San Jose, he’d gotten the phone number of the Golden Triangle front operation and decided to phone him directly. The call had been brief, and Ricci had done most of what little talking there was. It hadn’t crossed his mind for an instant to state his reasons or ask any questions. He had identified himself, told Quiros straight out that he was flying down to see him that afternoon, and strongly advised him to be waiting in his office. Though he’d had awful doubts about putting him on alert, it had seemed better than the alternative of making the hour-long trip by air only to miss him and have to hunt for him around town. Ricci had gambled Quiros would understand it was in his interest to know how much he had on him and what he wanted to say. That he would cooperate at least as far as agreeing to meet. And his thinking proved to be right on.
Still, Quiros knew he was in trouble, and he’d had several hours to guess at how much. Even if Palardy’s message had exaggerated his involvement in what looked like a deeply spun conspiracy to murder Roger Gordian-one that might be part of a broader plan if Thibodeau’s idea about the death of Alberto Colon bore out-it was hard to predict how he would act under pressure. Hard to tell how anyone would act. Ricci had been prepared to hear that he’d dropped from sight, keeper of the family flame or not.
Glenn swung to the right now, provoking aggravated horn honks as he cut across two lanes of heavy traffic
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to double-park in front of their destination. “Your stop,” he said.
Ricci nodded and reached for the door handle.
“Hey, Ricci.” From behind him.
He glanced over his shoulder.
“You want backup? I can pull this heap into a garage.”
Ricci looked at him a moment.
“No,” he said. “Think this might go easier for me solo. But I’d like to buy you that glass of suds later, if you don’t mind sitting with a Coke-drinking glory boy.”
Glenn grinned a little.
“Company’s company,” he said.
Ricci exited the car and strode toward the office tower, shouldering through a tumult of homebound office workers. In the lobby, an ornamental rent-a-cop asked his name, called upstairs on the intercom, and then waved him to the elevators. Ricci figured he was with the building’s legit security crew. Quires’s personal bodyguards were certain to be waiting upstairs with him.
A few minutes later, he was in the corridor outside Golden Triangle. The door swung inward to admit him before he could buzz, his features running like liquid over the reflective gray-and-blue-toned letters across its front.
The big man who opened the door looked exactly the way Ricci had imagined one of Quiros’s people would. As did the other six or seven big, muscular guys planted around his office. Seated at his desk at the far end of the spacious room, only Enrique Quiros didn’t altogether conform to expectations, appearing even younger and more spruced than his file photo suggested.
Ricci stepped inside.
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“Hold it,” the door-opener said. He moved into Ricci’s path, his hands outstretched to pat him down.
Ricci shook his head.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” he said, and gestured around the room. “My opinion, that might be the best policy for everybody here.”
The door-opener looked at him, glanced back at Qui- ros.
“Jorge’s just doing his job,” Quiros said in a calm voice.
“Course. I know there are all kinds of classy businesses that make a ritual of frisking people at the door.” Ricci was looking at Jorge. “But he touches me, he’s going on the disabled list with a groin injury.”
Jorge continued to stand there, flat-footed, blocking him. His expression was neutral.
Finally Quiros released a breath.
“You’ve come to talk,” he said. His tone fell midway between questioning and declarative.
Ricci nodded.
“Then I suppose we can make an exception to our usual security procedures if they’re bothering you,” he said. “Out of deference to your UpLink International credentials.”
His face still without expression, Jorge sidestepped to let Ricci pass. Ricci strode across to Quiros’s desk and took the seat across from him without waiting to be motioned into it.
Quiros was looking at him through his glasses.
“So,” he said. “I’ve been wondering what this is all about.”
“Sure,” Ricci said. “Bet my call came as a total surprise.”
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I
Quiros said nothing.
Ricci let the silence string out a moment.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Say again that you don’t have an inkling why I’m here. Say it ten times fast, if that helps get it out of your system. Because I don’t intend to mess around.”
Quiros stared.
“Tell me what you want,” he said.
Ricci tipped his head back a little to indicate the men behind him.
“You rather we talk with or without them?” he said.
Quiros kept staring. “They stay.”
Ricci shrugged.
“I know Palardy infected Roger Gordian with a biological agent on your orders,” he said. “I know you had him killed to prevent him from ever talking about it if he was nailed or maybe had an attack of conscience. And I know you know he got his message to us anyway.”
Quiros’s face tightened.
“That’s quite a mouthful,” he said. “And not a word of it makes sense to me. I’ve never heard of anybody called Palardy. It’s all craziness.”
“Right. Crazy as hell. Because the agent isn’t anthrax or botulism or ricin or whatever else Saddam Hussein cultured in Muthanna and Al-Salman. It isn’t anything the old Soviet Biopreparat germ chefs might’ve auctioned off when they got pink-slipped after the breakup. And it definitely isn’t anything you could have whipped together with some kitchen fermenter in the rat holes where you process your crack, smack, and other drugs I’m getting too old to know by their street names. It’s a virus engineered with genomic biotechnology, one that
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isn’t supposed to be in the showroom yet. Which makes me wonder how and why you’d get mixed up in this deal.”
Quiros looked for a moment as if he was about to say something, then caught himself.
“I told you,” he said and shook his head. “I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
Ricci looked at him.
“Think about it another second. Maybe there were rumors in the wind and you dismissed them. Because they were so screwball. Or because they came from pretty far outside your range. Something’s reached your ears that can help me and you pass it along, I might force myself to swallow your other denials. Move on from here. But you need to take the offer while it lasts, because it won’t be repeated.”
Ricci watched Quiros take a slow breath.
“No,” he said. “I’ve got nothing for you.”
Ricci was very still.
“Guess I should’ve counted on you being dumber than you look.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re making a mistake. You think you’re a player, but you’re as much of a stooge as Palardy. And you’ll wind up like him. You, your business, your whole precious family. Down the hole. Buried in dirt.”
Quiros leaned forward, his hands on his desk, his shoulders very stiff.
“Get out of here,” he said. “Who do you think you are? I don’t need your insults. Your threats. Don’t need you coming to me with some insane story, bringing me problems.”
Ricci rose from his chair, got his card out of his wal-
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V
let, and flipped it toward Quiros. It landed on the floor, close enough to the desk so it almost seemed like he hadn’t intended to miss.
“You want to reach me, I should be in town another couple of hours,” he said. “Whatever you decide, we’ll see each other again. I promise.”
He stood there looking at Quiros another second. Then he turned and walked past Jorge and the other guards, pushed through the door, and strode down the corridor to the elevator. He rode it down to the lobby and left the building without once looking back.
“Meg, finally, I thought we’d never connect today except through voice mail,” Bob Lang said over the line from Washington.
“Phone tag,” she said.
“It gets maddening.”
“Yes, it does,” she said.
“You calling from home?”
“The office.” She checked her watch, saw that it was almost six-thirty. “I was at the hospital most of the afternoon. Thought I’d come in and rake through some of what’s been sitting on my desk.”
“How’s Roger doing?”
“No better.” She steadied herself. “They’re saying the X-rays show his lungs are near whiteout. Without the ventilator … I don’t think he’d be able to breathe.”
“Hell,” he said. “How’s Ashley holding together?”
“She’s incredible, Bob. If you were there to see her, you’d be impressed. She seems absolutely aware of Cord’s condition but won’t surrender an inch to discouragement. She puts on a mask and gown, stands at his bedside, and talks to him whenever they allow. He