‘I’d like to personally thank the captain for a safe and pleasant trip—’
‘Very funny,’ said the Secret Service man, ‘but save it for the movies and get the hell off. You’re not going to see anybody.’
‘You want to bet, Luigi?’
‘You want your balls on the deck? And the name’s not Luigi.’
‘How about Reginald?’
‘Off!’
Evan walked down the island pier towards the sloping ground and an ascending stone path, the Mafioso behind him. He passed between two signs, both hand painted: white lettering on stained brown wood, each done tastefully, professionally. The sign on the left was in Spanish, the one on the right in English.
Pasaje a China
Propiedad Privada
Alarmas
Passage to China
Private Property
Alarms
‘Hold it there,’ ordered the Secret Service man. ‘Don’t turn around. Look straight ahead.’ Kendrick heard the sound of running feet on the dock, then quiet voices, the distinguishable words spoken in English but with Hispanic accents. Instructions were being given. ‘Okay,’ continued the Mafioso. ‘Go up the path and take the first right… Don’t turn around!’
Evan obeyed, although he walked with difficulty up the sharp incline; the long constricting trip on the yacht had severely numbed his legs. He tried to study the surroundings in the semi-darkness, the shaded lights from the dock only barely compensated by small amber lamps lining the stone path. The foliage was lush and thick and damp; trees everywhere rose to heights of twenty, perhaps thirty feet, with heavy vines that appeared to spring from one trunk to another, arms enveloping arms and bodies. Clusters of bushes and undergrowth had been cut back and down with precision, forming identical waist-high walls on both sides of the path. Order had been imposed on the wild. Then his vision was sharply reduced by the steep ascent and the growing darkness away from the pier, and sounds became the focus. What assaulted his ears were not unlike the sounds of the incessant, staccato eruptions of the rapids during his runs in the white water, but these had a beat of their own, a pulse that controlled their own particular thunder… Waves, of course. Waves crashing against rocks and never very far away, or perhaps amplified by echoes bouncing up from stone and reverberating through the wild greenery.
The ground-level amber lights divided into two sets of parallel lines, one heading straight ahead and up, the other to the right; Kendrick turned into the latter. Heading across, the path levelled off, a ridge cut out of the hill, when suddenly there was an alarming increase in visibility. Black shafts and swelling shadows became dark trunks and spotted palms and tangled, blue-green underbrush. Directly ahead was a cabin, lights shining through two windows flanking a central door. It was not, however, an ordinary cabin, and at first Evan did not know why he thought so. Then as he drew closer he understood. It was the windows; he had never seen any like them, and they accounted for the burst of light when the source appeared to be minimal. The bevelled glass was at least four inches thick, like two huge rectangular prisms magnifying the interior light many times its candlepower. And there was something else that accompanied this imaginative feat of design. The windows were impenetrable… from both sides.
‘That’s your suite, Congressman,’ said the Secret Service man who provided extra-official services. ‘”Your own villa” describes it better, doesn’t it?’
‘I really couldn’t accept such generous accommodation. Why don’t you find me something a little less pretentious?’
‘You’re a regular comedian… Go on over and open the door, there’s no key.’
‘No key?’
‘Surprises you, doesn’t it?’ laughed the Mafioso. ‘Me, too, until that guard explained. Everything’s elettronico. I’ve got a little widget, like a garage opener, and when I press a button a couple of steel bars slide out of the frame and back into the door. They work inside, too.’
‘With time I might have figured that out for myself.’
‘You’re cool, Congressman.’
‘Not as cool as I should have been,’ said Kendrick, walking down the path to the door and opening it. His eyes greeted the rustic splendour of a well-appointed New England mountain retreat, in no way reminiscent of southern California or northern Mexico. The walls consisted of bulging logs plastered together, two thick windows on each of the four walls, a break in the centre of the rear wall obviously for a bathroom. Every convenience had been considered: a kitchen area was located at the far right, complete with a mirrored bar; on the far left was a king-sized bed and, in front of it, seating quarters with a large television set and several quilted armchairs. The builder in Evan concluded that the small house belonged more properly in a winter, snow-laden Vermont than in the waters somewhere south and west of Tijuana. Still, it was bucolically charming and he had no doubt that many guests on the island enjoyed it. But it had another purpose. It was also a prison cell.
‘Very pleasant,’ said Bollinger’s guard, walking into the large single room, his weapon constantly but unobtrusively levelled at Kendrick. ‘How about a drink, Congressman?’ he asked, heading for the recessed mirrored bar. ‘I don’t know about you, but I could use one.’
‘Why not?’ replied Evan, looking around the room designed for a northern climate.
‘What’s your pleasure?’
‘Canadian and ice, that’s all,’ said Kendrick, moving slowly from area to area, examining the interior construction of the cabin, his practised eye seeking flaws that might lead to a way out. There were none; the place was airtight, escape proof. The window sashes were secured, not with recessed magnesium nails but with bolts concealed by layered plaster; the front door had internal hinges, impossible to reach without a powerful drill, and, finally walking into the bathroom, he saw that it was windowless, the two vents small grilled apertures four inches wide.
‘Great little hideaway, isn’t it?’ said the Mafioso, greeting Evan with his drink as he emerged from the bathroom.
‘So long as you don’t miss sightseeing,’ replied Kendrick, his eyes aimlessly straying over to the kitchen area. Something was odd, he considered, but again nothing specific came to him. Aware of the guard’s weapon, he passed the mirrored bar and went to a dark-stained oval oak table, where presumably meals were served. It was perhaps six or seven feet in front of a long counter in the centre of which a stove had been inserted beneath a line of cabinets. The sink and the refrigerator, separated by another counter, were against the right wall. What was it that bothered him? Then he saw a small microwave oven built in below the last cabinet on the left; he looked back at the stove. That was it.
Electric. Everything was electric, that was the oddity. In the vast majority of rustic cabins, propane gas was piped in from portable tanks outside to eliminate the need for electricity for such appliances as stoves and ovens. The maxim was to keep the amperage as low as possible, not so much because of expense but for convenience, in case of electrical malfunctions. Then he thought of the lamps on the pier and the amber ground lights along the paths. Electricity. An abundance of electricity on an island at least twenty, if not fifty, miles away from the mainland. He was not sure what it all meant, but it was something to think about.
He walked out of the designated kitchen zone and over to the living room area. He looked down at the large television set and wondered what kind of antenna was required to pull signals across so many miles of open water. He sat down, now only barely aware of his armed escort, his mind on so many other things, including—painfully—Khalehla back at the hotel. She had expected him hours ago. What was she doing? What could she do? Evan raised his glass and drank several swallows of the whisky, grateful for the warming sensation that spread quickly through him. He looked over at Bollinger’s guard who stood casually by the stained oak table, his weapon confidently on top of it, but on the edge, near his free right hand.
‘Your health,’ said the man from the Mafia, raising the glass in his left hand.
‘Why not?’ Without returning the courtesy, Kendrick drank, again feeling the quick, warming effects of the whisky… No! It was too quick, too harsh, not warming but burning! Objects in the room suddenly pulsed in and out of focus; he tried to get up from the chair, but he could not control his legs or his arms! He stared at the obscenely grinning Mafioso and started to shout but no sound came. He heard the glass shattering on the hard wood floor and felt a terrible weight pressing down on him. For the second time that night the darkness came as he kept falling, falling into an infinite void of black space.