The lean man lowered the assault rifle.
Marty’s eyes were bright as he watched the big cat move off. “I’ve never heard of a trained mountain lion. How did you do it? He even has a name. How deliciously wonderful! Did you know African kings used to train leopards to hunt? And in India, they trained cheetahs—”
Howell stopped him. “We should have our talk inside, you see. Never know whose ears are listening.” He motioned with the Enfield and stood aside to let them precede him into the cabin. As Smith passed, the Englishman raised an eyebrow and nodded to Marty’s back. Smith nodded affirmatively in return.
Inside, the cabin was larger than it appeared from the front and belied its rustic appearance. They stood in a well-appointed living room with nothing of the Western lodge about it except the enormous fieldstone fireplace. The furniture was comfortable English country-house antiques mixed with men’s-club leather chairs and military mementoes from most wars of the twentieth century. The wall space not taken up by guns, regimental flags, and framed photos of soldiers displayed several giant abstract expressionist paintings— de Kooning, Newman, and Rothko. Originals worth a fortune.
The room occupied the entire width of the cabin, but a wing, hidden from the front, extended at the left rear deep into the tall pines. The cabin was actually built in an L-shape, with most of it in the stem of the L. The first door off the hallway behind the living room proved to be a study with an up-to-date PC computer.
Marty let out a cry of joy. Peter Howell watched him dash for the computer, oblivious to anyone.
Howell quietly asked, “What is it?”
“Asperger’s syndrome,” Smith told him. “He’s a genius, especially with electronics, but being around people is hell for him.”
“He’s off his medicines now?”
Smith nodded. “We had to leave Washington in a hurry. Give me a minute, then we’ll talk.”
Without a word, Howell returned to the living room. Smith Joined Marty at the computer.
Marty looked up at him reproachfully. “Why didn’t you tell me he had a generator?”
“The lion sort of took it out of my mind.”
Marty nodded, understanding. “Stan-the-cat is a mountain lion. Did you know that in China they trained Siberian tigers to—”
“Let’s talk about it later.” Smith was not as confident of their safety as he had told Marty. “Can you try again to find out whether Sophia made or received special phone calls? And also locate Bill Griffin?”
“Precisely what I intended. All I need do is tie into my own mainframe and software. If your friend’s equipment isn’t as primitive as his choice of location, I’ll be up and running in minutes.”
“No one can do it better.” Smith patted his shoulder and backed away, watching him hunch farther and farther over the keyboard as he entered the computer world that was all his own.
Marty muttered to himself, “How could this pipsqueak machine have so much power? Well, no matter. Things are surely looking up.”
Smith found Peter Howell sitting before a fireplace, cleaning a black metal submachine gun. Beside him, a roaring fire licked and spat orange flames. It was a homey picture, except for the military weapon in the Englishman’s hands.
Howell spoke without looking up. “Take a chair. That old leather one is comfortable. Bought it from my club when I saw I’d become something of a liability at home and that it might be wise to do a bunk to where I was less known and could watch my back better.”
A shade under six feet, Howell was almost too lean under the dark blue-green plaid flannel shirt and heavy khaki British army trousers he wore stuffed into black combat boots. His narrow face had the color and texture of leather dried out by years of wind and sun. It was so deeply lined his eyes seemed sunk in ravines. The eyes were sharp but guarded. His thick black hair was nearly all gray, and his hands were curved brown claws.
“Tell me about this friend of yours— Marty.”
Jon Smith sank into the chair and touched the high points of his and Marty’s growing up together, the difficulties of Marty’s young life, and the discovery that he had Asperger’s syndrome. “It changed everything for him. The drugs gave him independence. With them, he could make himself sit through classes and then do the spade-and-shovel work necessary to get two Ph.D.s. When he’s medicated, he can do the boring, nitty-gritty things that are necessary to survive. He changes lightbulbs, does his laundry, and cooks. Of course, he has plenty of money to hire people to do those things, but strangers make him nervous. He has to take the medicine anyway, so why not take care of himself?”
“Can’t say I blame him. You said his medication was wearing off?”
“Yes. One way to tell is he talks in exclamation points, just as you heard. He lectures and enthuses and seldom sleeps and drives everyone nuts. If he stays off too long, he can zoom into never-never land and be so out of control he’s dangerous to himself and maybe to others.”‘
Howell shook his head. “I feel sorry for the young fellow, don’t get me wrong.
Smith chuckled. “You’ve got it reversed. Marty feels sorry for you. And for me. Actually, he pities us, because we can never know what he knows. We can’t conceptualize what he understands. It’s everyone’s loss that he’s isolated himself to concentrate strictly on his computer interests, although from what I understand of what he’s doing, other computer experts consult him from around the world. But never in person. Always by E-mail.”
Howell continued to clean his weapon— a Heckler & Koch MP5, as lethal as it looked. He said, “But if he’s mechanical and slow when he’s on the drugs, and gaga when he’s off, how does he manage to get anything accomplished?”
“That’s the trick. He’s learned to let himself go beyond the stage where the meds are working but not quite into the state where he’s flying high and wild. He’ll have a few hours a day in that in-between condition, and that’s heaven for him. New ideas seize him with lightning speed. He’s sharp, incisive, quick, and half out-of-control every minute. He’s unbeatable.”
Howell’s creviced face looked up from the weapon. His pale eyes flickered. “Unbeatable at computers, is he? Well, now. That’s something else again.” He returned to the H&K submachine gun. It had been the weapon of choice of the British Special Air Service some years ago and probably was still.
“You always clean a gun when you have visitors?” Smith closed his eyes, resting after the long drive from San Francisco.
Howell snorted. “You ever read Doyle’s The White Company? Quite good, actually. Much more interesting to me as a boy than Sherlock Holmes. Odd about that. The boy’s the father of the man and all that.” He appeared to think about boys and men for a moment before continuing. “Anyway, there’s an old bowman in the book— Black Simon. One morning the hero asks him why he’s sharpening his sword to a razor’s edge, since the company doesn’t expect any action. Black Simon tells him he dreamed of a red cow the nights before the major battles of Crecy and Poitiers, and last night he again dreamed of a red cow. So he was getting prepared. Of course, later that day, just as Simon expected, the Spanish attacked.”
Smith chuckled and opened his eyes. “Meaning, when I appear, you’d better prepare for trouble.”
Howell’s weathered face smiled. “That’s about it.”
“Right as usual. I need help, and it’s probably dangerous.”
“What else is an old spook and desert rat good for?”
Smith had first met him during the boredom of Desert Shield when the hospital spent every day preparing and waiting for action that never came. But it came to Peter Howell. Or, to be exact, Peter and the SAS went to it. Peter had never said exactly where “it” had been, but one night he appeared at the hospital like a ghost who had arisen out of the sand itself. He had a high fever and was kitten-weak. Some doctors swore they had a heard a helicopter or a small land vehicle close by in the desert that night, but no one was sure. How he had arrived or who had brought him remained a mystery.
Smith realized instantly the unknown patient wearing British desert camos without rank or unit markings had been bitten by a venomous reptile. He had saved Peter’s life with immediate treatment. In the following days, as Peter recovered, they came to know and respect each other. That was when Smith learned his name was Mal. Peter Howell, Special Air Service, and that he had been deep inside Iraq on some unnamed mission. That was all Peter would ever say. Since he was obviously far too old to be a normal SAS trooper, there had to be more to the story, but it was years before Smith gleaned the rest, and even then it remained hazy.