An Absence of Light

Then suddenly the darkness began to throb and thicken, and Graver’s nausea instantly leapt to the back of his throat with the chest-pounding, wind-beating, and almost deafening appearance of a sleek, black helicopter that slid over the tops of the trees across the runway. A glistening, pitch airship, it was nearly invisible as it hung in the night air, its lights winking against the stars, its dimly lit windows goggling at them like a giant locust’s eyes from across a hundred feet of tarmac. Its mammoth rotors whipped up an invisible cloud of grit and sand that pelted them as though the chopping blades were hacking the black night into cinders.

Chapter 80

Remberto and Murray quickly edged into the hangar with Redden, moving back into the darkness behind the front of the van where Last was holding Landrone and the client who had flown with him.

Graver uncocked his Sig-Sauer, jammed it into its holster, and waited at the wing of the Pilatus. If this was Kalatis, Graver had no intention of allowing a shoot-out between the two groups of men. There were already too many bodies; he didn’t want to be the cause of any more. Kalatis could have his money-but Graver wanted to talk to him first.

The huge Bell LongRanger rocked slightly as it descended from the darkness and then settled to the ground, its jet-driven rotors changing pitch of tone as the deceleration relieved them of the weight of their torque and they began a whining, whistling, slowdown.

Nothing happened in the helicopter for a few moments until the rotors were circling slowly enough for the eye to follow them, gliding, and finally whooshing to a standstill. Graver waited where he was. The doors opened. Graver would not have been surprised to have seen the hairy, black body of Satan emerge, hoofed and horned and goatish and smelling of the stench of his own corruption and of the death over which he reigned always, even this night, lying all about them.

Instead, the steps unfolded and a middle-aged, middle-sized man stepped out of the helicopter alone. He wore a beige-colored suit without a tie and started walking toward Graver. As the man approached, Graver noted that he was balding, that his suit was wrinkled and carelessly worn and, as Graver moved away from the wing of the Pilatus and started out to meet him, he realized that the face was familiar. When they were thirty feet from each other Graver recognized him and stopped.

“Geis,” Graver said.

The man stopped also. He looked at Graver with an unconcerned but serious face.

“Very good,” he said. “That’s commendable.”

The photographs from the fountain flipped through Graver’s memory. The man at the fountain. Geis. As Arnette had pointed out, this Geis in front of him was unremarkable in appearance. The slightly rounded nose was indeed familiar. The man exuded… nothing. He was so common in appearance as to have been all but invisible had he been encountered on the street or in a mall or sitting in the car next to you in traffic. He was uninteresting in every way.

“What are you doing here?” Graver asked.

“Vested interests, Graver. Vested interests.” He nodded at his own words. He said it wearily, as though he had had a long day but wasn’t going to complain about it “What, uh… Is all the money here?”

Graver hesitated, he didn’t know why. More than likely Geis knew damn well where the money was.

“It’s all here,” Graver said.

“What about Panos Kalatis?”

“I don’t know anything about Kalatis.”

Geis sighed and nodded. “Did you know his house blew up about an hour ago?”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Big-time. Blew to shit.”

Geis nodded at his own description of the severity of the explosion and then leaned sideways a little to look around Graver at the entrance of the hangar. His cheap, loose-fitting suit emphasized his rounded shoulders and dumpy stature. Graver noticed that the sleeves of his coat were a little too long, coming down onto his hands.

“You have people back in there with guns, I guess,” Geis observed blandly. He might have been asking Graver if he had a ride home.

Graver said nothing.

“Well, look,” Geis said, straightening up and putting his pudgy hands into the pockets of his baggy trousers, “I’m, uh, I’m going to have to take the money.”

“Where?”

“Well, with me.”

“I don’t think so,” Graver said.

Pause.

“Is it all in the hangar there, in the van?”

Graver said nothing.

“I don’t think it’s all in the van,” Geis said, almost to himself. “You haven’t had time to unload the Pilatus yet.”

Pause.

Graver turned partway to the hangar and called back over his shoulder. “Use the handset and call Westrate,” he said. “Get a tac squad out here. Tell them who’s here.”

“Don’t do that,” Geis said quickly, but without urgency. “I mean, we’ll be out of here before anybody can get here, but if we leave without the money it will be very, very bad. Just have them hold off on that call. I’ll show you what I mean.”