“Looking for less stress and pressure. An escape from the rat race,” Cade confirmed.
“The positions we offer normally pay around twenty thousand. Was that the kind of figure your client has in mind?”
It was double talk, spelling out what the service would cost. “We could settle for that, yes,” Cade agreed.
“Fine. Of course, we would need to arrange an appropriate interview. Where does the applicant currently reside?”
“I guess you could say on the West Coast.”
“Hm. . . . These things are usually managed by our Eastern region. However, if that should be impracticable, it would probably be possible to arrange a preliminary meeting with a local branch representative.”
Cade chewed on his lip while he thought about it. The reference to the East probably meant that CounterAction’s route for spiriting people out of the country led in that direction, maybe through the Caribbean to Africa, and then Asia via the Middle East. He didn’t want to get any more involved here, in his own backyard, he decided. Midnight callers and furtive meetings around the locality would be the last thing he needed. Better to get Rebecca there as quickly as possible. And if something came of it, she would already be partly on her way.
“I’d prefer that the regional office handle it, if they’re the proper people,” he said.
“You will be contacted in due course.” The caller hung up.
* * *
That same evening, a fax came through in Cade’s study of a promotional brochure from a hotel called the Metro in downtown Atlanta. Typed across the bottom were terse instructions for the “applicant” to be outside the main doors of the ground-level motor lobby at a given date and time, holding an Atlanta city guide book for recognition.
The date stipulated allowed four days, presumably making allowance for a journey by road. Luke advised against it on the grounds that, with all the trouble in the news, spot checks of travelers on major highways, railroads, and public buses were likely to have been intensified. And besides, he didn’t think Rebecca was up to the stresses of a protracted trip. But Cade had never contemplated such alternatives in the first place. What was the point of doing favors for wealthy friends, he asked, if you couldn’t ask one back now and again for yourself?
There was one Lou Zinner, based most of the time in Las Vegas, who had interests in casinos and the entertainment world, and fingers in various associated sleazy dealings. It was Lou, for example, who provided the available girls for Cade’s Hyadean parties and boat trips. He remained at a distance behind Cade’s more respectable front and didn’t deal with the Hyadeans directly. Lou also happened to own an executive jet, which he used for attending business meetings, visiting “family,” and flying a seemingly inexhaustible supply of mistresses, young admirers, and hopeful starlets to be entertained in exotic places. Lou was always happy to hear from Cade because high-ranking Hyadeans taking time off talked in big bucks. Hence, he was a hundred percent receptive when Cade called and said he wanted the loan of Lou’s plane and its pilot for a day.
The craggy, balding head guffawed heartily on the screen in Cade’s study. “What’s going on, Rolie? Don’t tell me. You’re expanding the operation. The boat’s too tame for ’em now. You’ve got aliens that wanna join the twenty thousand club, right?”
“Wrong. No, nothing like that. I need to make a rush delivery across the country. It’ll be back the same night.”
“Okay, then I’m not askin’. So what’s the cut?”
Cade thought for a second. “Maybe I’ll be able to get you some high rollers out there yet. You know how those ones that come across from Washington are loaded.”
“I’ll settle for that. Okay, Rolie, you’ve got it. Just try to send it back in one piece, willya? I’ve got it booked for the weekend after.”
That solved the immediate problem. But Luke thought that if they were going to have an entire aircraft at their disposal, they could make better use of it. “Just to take one person to Atlanta?” he said to Cade when Cade gave him the news. “Why on her own? What happens if something screws up—say nobody shows, and she finds herself stuck there? We couldn’t just leave her like that. One of us ought to go too. I say we keep a good eye on her until we know she’s in the right hands.”