Suddenly Jon froze. Then his arm shot out and he pointed. “There!” On their left was a pole sign at the entrance to a large park: GREEN LAKES STATE PARK. “Both `lake’ and `green.’ ” His voice was excited. “The message says `or thereabouts,’ so he’s got to be holed up somewhere nearby.”
Randi’s gaze was on the traffic as she expertly moved from lane to lane so they could keep their slower speed without interfering with the flow. “Looks as if you’ve been right so far. Let’s see if I can help. Okay, now it refers to a letter that’s been stolen and the message is signed `Edgar A.’ ” She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “What strikes me is Edgar Allan Poe’s `The Purloined Letter.’ Does that help?”
Jon was staring off into the distance, trying to put himself in Marty’s place. Marty was an electronics wizard, but he also enjoyed arcane information and trivia. “That’s it! So where’s a missing letter best hidden? In a letter rack, of course, with other letters where no one will notice. The best place to hide something is in plain sight.”
“Then your friend is saying he’s hidden where we can see him. What the hell does that mean?”
“He’s talking about the RV, not about himself. Turn the car and go back the way we came.”
Annoyed at his bossiness, Randi pulled off into a side street, Uturned, and spun back onto the road toward Syracuse itself. “Did you see something earlier?”
Smith’s blue eyes were alight. “Remember those car dealerships lining the road on the other side of Fayetteville? I think one of them was an RV lot.”
Randi began to laugh. “That’s just dumb enough to be where he is.”
Watching carefully, they drove through Fayetteville once more. The city seemed longer, more chaotic. Jon was getting impatient.
Then he saw it. “That’s it. On the right.” His voice was compressed excitement.
She said, “I see it.”
Ahead spread a mammoth lot crammed with a variety of recreational vehicles, new and used. Sunlight played across them, and the metallic vehicles glowed. There was no showroom, only a wood-sided sales office where a man wearing sunglasses and a polyester suit sat in a lawn chair in front, reading a newspaper.
“Doesn’t look busy. That could be a break for us.” Randi drove past, turned the corner, and parked in the shade of a large flaming maple.
Jon decided, “We’d better scout it on foot to be safe.”
They walked back, alert for surveillance. Cars and trucks continued along the busy road. No one sat inside parked vehicles. The few pedestrians strode past without paying much attention. No one leaned against the buildings across the street, pretending to be waiting for someone while in reality they were on watch. From where they walked, they could see the man sitting in front of the sales office. About forty feet distant, he turned the page of his paper, engrossed.
Everything appeared normal.
Jon and Randi exchanged a look and quietly stepped over a loose chain that fenced the lot. They slipped between two RVs and searched the packed area. They sped past row after row of campers, trailers, and RVs. Smith was beginning to think he had been wrong, that this was not where Marty had gone to ground. Finally they reached the last line of vehicles, which backed up to a stand of sycamores, maples, and oaks. A breeze rustled through the woods, disturbing the mounds of colored leaves that had already fallen.
“Jesus.” He let out a long, shocked breath. “There it is.” Peter’s RV was at the very back among a long row of dusty used vehicles that appeared to have been for sale a long time. Its metal sides had been ripped up by what had to have been gunfire, and several of its windows were shot out.
“Wow.” Randi took a deep breath. “What happened to it?”
Jon shook his head worriedly. “Doesn’t look good.”
No one was in sight. They split up, and, weapons in hand, reconnoitered. When they saw nothing suspicious even in the woods, they approached the trashed vehicle.
“I don’t hear anything inside,” Randi whispered.
“Maybe Mart’s sleeping.”
He reached to try the door, and it opened in his hand as if it had been closed so hurriedly that the latch had failed to catch.
They jumped back, their weapons ready. The door swung back and forth in eerie silence. No one appeared. After another minute, Smith climbed up into the living room. Behind him, Randi aimed her mini-Uzi around the interior, her fierce black gaze sweeping it.
Jon called softly, “Mart? Peter?”
There was no answer.
Jon padded forward across the cramped interior. Randi, her back to him, advanced in the other direction toward the driver’s cab. A box of Cheerios, Marty’s favorite dry cereal, stood beside a bowl on the kitchen table. The spoon was still in the bowl, as was a puddle of congealing milk. One bunk had been slept in. It was a jumble of sheets and blankets. The computer was on, but opened only to the desktop, and the bathroom was empty.
Randi returned. “No one up front.”
“No one anywhere,” Jon said. “But Marty was here not long ago.” He shook his head. “I don’t like it. He hates to go out in public or to risk contact with strangers. Where could he have gone? And why?”
“What about your other friend? The MI6 person?”
“Peter Howell. No sign of him either.”
They studied the silence and emptiness. There was a sense of abandonment. Jon was at a loss and very worried about Marty and Peter.
Randi was peering at the interior, at the bullet holes that had eaten up sections of the walls and destroyed some of the hanging maps. “There was one hell of a battle, from the looks of it.”
He nodded. “My guess is Peter must have had armor sheeting built in under the RV’s metal skin. Look at where the shots landed. The only way the bullets got inside was through the windows.”
“And the fire fight obviously wasn’t here. We’d have seen signs outside.”
“Agreed. Marty, Peter, or both escaped in the RV and were hiding out here.”
“We’d better search more thoroughly.”
Jon sat at the computer to look for what Marty had been working on, but Marty had applied some kind of password that blocked him. For a half hour he tried to break through. He keyed in the name of Marty’s street in Washington, his birth date, the names of his parents, the name of the street where he had grown up, their elementary school. They were all traditional sources for passwords, and Marty had probably used them in the past. But not now.
Smith was shaking his head in discouragement when Randi called out. He turned quickly.
“Look! Now we know who has the serum!”
She was sitting on the small sofa, all long legs and blond dishevelment. As she leaned forward, her blond curls fell toward her eyes, and her pink lips were pursed in thought. He could see her long dark lashes even across the room. Her twill trousers had pulled up a little, and her slender ankles showed above her tennis shoes. Her breasts were outlined high and round under her tight white turtleneck. She was beautiful. With the intense expression on her face, she looked so like Sophia, and for a moment he regretted agreeing to work with her.
Then he pushed it all away. He knew he had made the right decision, and they had to get on with it. “What have you got?”
She had been going through the piles on the coffee table. She held up a copy of The New York Times so he could see the front-page banner headline:
BLANCHARD PHARMACEUTICALS HAS CURE
He crossed the room in three long steps. “I recognize the company name. What does the article say?”
She read aloud:
At a special press conference last night,
President Castilla announced that pre-
liminary tests showed a new serum had
cured a dozen victims of the unknown
virus that is sweeping the world.
Originally developed to cure a mon-
key virus found in a remote area of Peru,
the serum was the result of a decade-long
research-and-development program into
little-known viruses at Blanchard Phar-
maceuticals that was initiated by its
CEO and chairman, Victor Tremont.
“We are grateful for the foresight Dr.
Tremont and Blanchard showed in inves-
tigating unknown viruses,” the president
said last night. “With their serum, we are
optimistic we will be able to save many
lives and stop this terrible epidemic.”
Twelve nations have placed orders for
the serum and others are expected to
make formal requests shortly.
President Castilla said he would at-
tend a ceremony at 5:00 P.M. today hon-
oring Tremont and Blanchard at the
company’s headquarters in Long Lake.
The ceremony will be broadcast around
the world….