The Rules Of Silence Part 3

"How were the threats made? Letter?"

"Three armed gunmen showed up at my house about an hour ago. Shot my dogs right there in front of me and gave me ultimatums."

"Give me the address where you are right now."

"I imagine I'm being followed. My car's probably-" "As long as you're not tagged personally, we'll be okay." t.i.tus gave him the address.

He left the Rover at the convenience store and rode with Gilbert Norlin through the winding, wooded roads of the hills while Norlin made the necessary maneuvers to make sure they weren't being tailed. t.i.tus surprised himself by not being able to speak. Norlin didn't press him, and they rode in silence for a while. t.i.tus's tongue-tied confusion embarra.s.sed him, but there literally wasn't anything he could do about it. Finally he could control his voice, and he began to tell Norlin everything, chronologically, in as much detail as he could remember.

By the time he had finished, they had arrived at the deserted building site of one of the many new homes under construction in the hills. They got out of Norlin's car and walked to the house slab where the framing was just beginning. They sat on the slab, surrounded by the smells of lumber and concrete and freshly moved earth.

Now it was Norlin who remained silent. t.i.tus waited, his heart loping along as if it were trying to outrun what he was sure would be Norlin's grim appraisal of his dilemma.

Finally Norlin asked, "How difficult is it going to be to do what he wants, to move the money?"

"Depends on how much he asks for first. I've got, I don't know, a good chunk in markets I can dump immediately. I'll take a loss, but I can do it. Beyond that I'll have to sell pieces of the company. It's just going to look bizarre to ... h.e.l.l, to everybody. I've built CaiText on cautious, conservative business practices, for G.o.d's sake. I've got a reputation for that.

"Just six months ago, after years of planning, I let all the division heads buy into the company. That's worked great all these years with one other guy who's been with me from the beginning. But on top of that, six months ago, we borrowed heavily for our expansion program-a program all the division heads planned and proposed to me. Everyone's excited about it, and we think it's going to have a huge payoff.

"Now, can you imagine how this is going to look if I start s.h.i.+fting a.s.sets so I can start laying out millions of dollars on foreign investments? This isn't going to work."

"But you don't have any specific instructions yet, "Norlin said. "You don't know the immediate requirements."

"No."

Norlin wasn't saying much, and that was making t.i.tus nervous, filling him with the worst kind of dread.

In the reflected glow of the city lights across the river, t.i.tus could see enough of Norlin to remember him from four years ago. Of middle height, he had thinning hair, a face with no jawline. His shoulders were rounded, tending to a slight hunch.

Norlin shook his head. "I don't blame you for not going to the FBI. I wouldn't have, either. But that's not what they'd want me to say to you. The conventional wisdom is that the sooner they're involved, the better."

Norlin sat with his arms locked straight, his hands palms down on the edge of the slab, looking at t.i.tus.

"But this doesn't look too d.a.m.ned conventional to me, "he said. "You know what the percentages are for catching kidnappers in the U.S.? Ninety-five percent. That's mostly because things like this don't usually happen here in the States. The people who get into it here are loners, emotional basket cases to start with. Crazies who think they're going to magically solve the sad problems of their empty lives by stealing another living human being."

He paused.

"But if something like this, if this was what kidnapping was like in the States, that ninety-five percent would be shattered. Why? Because this is business, and these people aren't crazies. Not in the sense I'm talking about, anyway. That thing with the dogs, that was a promise, not a threat. You can expect these people to do exactly what they say they're going to do."

"This is it, then? "t.i.tus was incredulous. "This is it? I just get ready to cough up sixty-four million?"

"No, I didn't say that."

"Then what in the h.e.l.l do I do?"

Norlin didn't say anything. He was thinking, and the fact that he wasn't just firing off action points, wasn't rolling out a game plan, wasn't giving t.i.tus go-to names, scared the s.h.i.+t out of him. Norlin was t.i.tus's cop show equivalent of his one phone call, and he wasn't coming through.

t.i.tus wiped the sweat off the side of his face. This wasn't what he'd wanted. He'd wanted Norlin to be rea.s.suring, to have answers. He felt his chest tightening; he felt time running out; he felt desperate.

"I'm no good to you, "Norlin said.

Jesus.

"I'm not. Wherever this guy's coming from-Colombia, Mexico, Brazil-he's from another world. Believe me, these guys do not breathe the same air we do. Listen, last year in Colombia alone, nearly a billion dollars were paid out in kidnapping ransoms. Big business. And it just doesn't get any more serious than this."

Norlin shook his head, thinking.

"What I'm seeing here, this is some kind of hybrid operation. I don't know. I've never heard of this kind of thing happening in the States. I've never heard of this much money being demanded. I've never heard of them wanting to keep the money transfer 'legal.'"

His voice was flat. He wasn't getting excited about it, he was just laying out the facts.

"Killing friends, family, for negotiating leverage, that's routine in Latin America, India, Philippines, Russia, those places, yeah. But here in the States? s.h.i.+t. I don't know what they're thinking. It's just way, way out of whack. It's hard to believe."

t.i.tus thought he heard a glimmer of hope.

"You think this could just be a huge poker hand, then? He's calling my bluff? If I cough up some money, he hits it lucky? If I don't, he'll just disappear? He took a shot at it, and it didn't really cost him anything to try."

"No. "Norlin was quick to come back. "That's not what I'm saying. You've got to believe this guy. "He shook his head. "Everything's accelerated in the last two years. There's a harder edge to everything, terrorism, international crime. Law enforcement's pressing harder, intelligence community has gotten back into the trenches. Everything's more extreme. Looking down the road, we knew we were going to be seeing things we'd never dreamed of seeing before. This is the kind of thing we were afraid of. And the worst part of it is, we're just not geared up yet to deal with something so d.a.m.ned brutal."

Chapter 8.

t.i.tus turned and sat on the slab again, a few feet away from Norlin. He felt a little light-headed, his thoughts alternating in velocity between a stunned, sluggish incredulity and the frenetic, revved-up hyperjitter of panic. He wanted to stand up again. He wanted to pace. He wanted to be able to think methodically. He wanted more air. He wanted to wake up.

"I'm going to give you some advice, "Norlin said. "Your situation, there are going to be pressures put on you, deliberately, to make fast decisions. And you're going to have to do it. You won't have any choice. But it's going to be tough because sometimes-and it's just the odds, you can't fight it-sometimes you're going to make the wrong decisions. The consequences are going to be painful."

"What's that mean, exactly? "t.i.tus wanted it spelled out, bad news in black and white.

"It means that after it's done, it's done. If you're going to second-guess yourself, you'll go crazy before this is over."

"Odds are, people are going to die, you mean."

"Think of it like this: This man is bringing you a sick situation. He created it. You didn't. He's going to force you to make choices where n.o.body wins. When that happens, remember who started it. You're just playing the hand that this guy's dealt you."

t.i.tus let this sober insight sink in. Norlin didn't rush him. t.i.tus could smell the freshly cut brush around them, the stuff that had been carved out of the hillside for the construction site. He could smell the earth, an odor, a fragrance, really, that made him think of his dogs and of the weight of them as he'd put them into the hole he'd dug at the back of the orchard.

"Okay, "t.i.tus said, "I understand. "And he did, but he didn't want to believe it. He wanted to believe that he could avoid the grim scenario that Norlin was predicting. He wanted to believe that in most cases that might be true, but he'd be able to avoid it. He'd figure out a way not to have to live through that kind of dark dilemma.

"I'm going to put you in touch with someone, "Norlin said, standing. In the dim ambient light from the city in the distance, t.i.tus watched him step off the concrete slab and go over to his car. He reached in and took out an oversize cell phone- encrypted, t.i.tus a.s.sumed-and came back over to the slab.

"I've got to repeat this, "Norlin said. "This is not the way the FBI would want it done. They'd say it was irresponsible. And normally I'd agree with them. But ... "He hesitated only slightly. "The truth is, if I were standing where you're standing right now, I'd want this guy to hear my story. And I'd want to know what he thinks about it. He may say, Go to the FBI. Then you should go, and you won't have to worry about whether you're doing the right thing or not. You can believe what he says."

"But he may say something else, "t.i.tus said. "And if he does, I go with that. I believe him on that, too."

"That's right."

"Where is he?"

"I don't know. I'm getting ready to find out."

"You have a lot of faith in him? "It was a question, and an observation, and a concern.

"I worked with him at the CIA. He's been contract for a long time now. He's solid, like I told you. Does his best work out of the box."

"Out of the box. I need a little more on that."

"He's several points removed from any official equation. If he screws up, there's no blowback. He's one of a very few who know going into a situation that he's on his own. Guy like that, n.o.body owns his a.s.s. And n.o.body helps him out of a bind, either. He's alone. He's given the edgiest operations, and when he succeeds, the intelligence community wins big. And silently, which is really the only way to win. But when guys like him go down, they go down alone. They just disappear. Forever."

"Why do they do it?"

"Big, big money. And because they can't help themselves. They're addicted to the adrenaline. Or they have private demons that can only be satisfied by putting everything on the line every time. "He shrugged. "Or for reasons that maybe only G.o.d understands."

"But that's CIA work. Intelligence stuff. Why would he be interested in this?"

Norlin shrugged. "Big, big money. Or maybe he'll have other reasons."

t.i.tus considered this. "And you think this is the way to go, then, with this guy who's ... good at working outside the box?"

"Look, Mr. Cain, I may not have the goods to advise you on what's happening here, but I can promise you this: This Alvaro doesn't even know there is a f.u.c.king box. Believe me, if I can find him, you're going to need this guy."

Without saying any more, Norlin turned and walked away, past his car, onto the dirt track that led away from the construction site to the road below. t.i.tus could hear him murmuring out in the dark.

t.i.tus stood and twisted his shoulders to relieve the tension. He stared out over the valley. No city view here, but he could see a coil of Lake Austin, the surface of the water glazed in reflected light. He felt desolate. Isolated. Completely at a loss. The woods around the construction site were dense, and when he looked up toward the lighted sky, he could see the black circle of the trees surrounding him out of his peripheral vision. He stood that way a long time, long enough to lose track of time. Long enough to be startled by Norlin's voice.

"You're in luck, "Norlin said, coming up out of the darkness.

t.i.tus was surprised to see Norlin step up and stretch out his arm, handing the cell phone to him.

"He just happens to be close by, "Norlin explained. "He's in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. His name's Garcia Burden."

t.i.tus took the heavy phone and put it to his ear in time to hear one ring and then: "t.i.tus Cain?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Garcia Burden. Gil's told me the basic story. If this is what it seems to be, it's extraordinary."

His voice was soft, a surprise, though t.i.tus hadn't had any preconceptions. He had a bit of an accent, but t.i.tus had no idea what it was. Garcia. No, it wasn't Hispanic, the accent, not like Alvaro's, anyway. It was something altogether different.

"'If'? "t.i.tus asked. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"Who knows? "Burden said cryptically. "But your visitor's not who he says he is. His scheme is complex and would require a lot of experience in this sort of thing. So I'm fairly sure he's using a bogus name, which means he's on all the international border watch lists. He must've entered the States illegally. That's significant and supports the ransom story."

"How does it do that?"

"He's too cautious to have come in under a fake pa.s.sport. Too much risk with the new technology now. This kind of man wouldn't enter the States under the sorts of conditions illegal entry would require for anything routine. This has probably been in the works for a long time. He's come in for the kill ... so to speak."

Burden seemed to be all over this.

"How long before he gets back to you?"

"He didn't say."

"It'll be very soon. But he gave you no instructions?"

"No."

"So there are no 'rules'for you to offend yet."

"I'm not supposed to contact any law enforcement agency."

"Well, he would consider me in that category, so if he knew about this, you would've already offended him. This conversation would justify the first hit."

The word hit hit struck t.i.tus like a board to the side of the head. Jesus. It was stunning to hear that word in the context of reality, of his reality. But then, did he really believe Alvaro was going to start killing people if t.i.tus didn't-what-follow instructions? struck t.i.tus like a board to the side of the head. Jesus. It was stunning to hear that word in the context of reality, of his reality. But then, did he really believe Alvaro was going to start killing people if t.i.tus didn't-what-follow instructions?

Burden responded to t.i.tus's shocked silence.

"No, don't make that mistake, Mr. Cain, "he said. "This man doesn't threaten. He probably even told you that himself. He's eagerly awaiting his first opportunity to show you how quickly he'll react to your failure to follow instructions."

"Then you do know him."

"I don't know. But I do know the kind of man he is. In that sense, yes, I know him. "Burden abruptly s.h.i.+fted gears. "I want to work with you on this, Mr. Cain. Are you interested?"

t.i.tus glanced at Norlin, but he couldn't see anything beyond a dark figure.

"Of course I'm interested, but I've got to think this over. I'm not going to decide to do this right now."

"I'm only asking if you're interested in talking."

"Yeah, of course I am."

"There's not a lot of time. You should come tomorrow."

"Down there? San Miguel?"

"Yes. We need to be here when we talk. I have things to show you, to explain. My archives are here. They're not portable."

"But what if he tries to get in touch with me while I'm gone?"

"I'll explain how to handle that."

"I don't know if I can make it tomorrow. My security system's been wrecked, and I've got to get someone to start debugging this place."

"Did he tell you not to call in security people?"