The First Billion

Cate steered the Explorer off the road, braking gently as she brought the car to a halt beneath a cluster of coconut palms. But as her tires sunk into the sandy shoulder, a strange and wonderful thing happened. Instead of following them onto the embankment, the police car pulled into the center of the road and shot past, its V-8 engine growling magnificently. In a moment all that was visible was a pair of taillights flashing back and forth like the blinking eyes of a railroad crossing guard back home in the Rio Grande Valley.

Cate looked at Jett, and he looked right back at her. He was staring into her eyes, marveling at their depth, wondering, as he often had, if he would ever really know her. He continued to her nose, her lips, the swell of her neck.

I loved you, he said to her silently.

A cicada's electric crescendo filled the car. It died down, and then there was only the surf rushing onto the white sand beach and the melancholy drone of a single-engine plane flying high above.

"We're free," she said, in a whisper.

"For now." Gavallan dropped his eyes, uncomfortable with his feelings for her, wanting to trust her, to lower his guard, knowing it wasn't possible. "Let's not press our luck. Let's get off this island. Better yet, let's get out of this state." He looked at his watch. "If Dodson makes good on his offer, the FBI will be checking outgoing flights up and down the coast within the hour; they probably already are. If they know I'm in Florida, we can count on their knowing how I got here and how I planned to go home."

Cate fished in the side compartment for a map. "There's an executive airport in Boca Raton," she said, spreading a multicolor canvas on her lap. "I flew in once with the guys from Redmond to cover one of Microsoft's confabs. It's got a runway long enough for business jets and a few hangars. Think we can charter a plane?"

" 'We'? Where do you think you're going?"

"With you."

"But I'm not going home. And I'm not going to be responsible for you."

"No one's asking you to be. I'm thirty, Jett. Last time I checked that qualified as an adult. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it you who needed looking after about an hour ago?"

Gavallan knew it was more than a question of responsibility. It was a question of trust. Cate had become an unknown commodity. Yes, she had saved his life. Even so, her presence made him antsy, aware that he was in the middle of something bigger than himself, something gray and menacing whose borders he might never discover.

"Look, you've won," he said. "Mercury's not going to come to market. Go home. And thanks. Thanks for saving my butt back there. I mean it. But that's it. This is where it ends."

"And Graf?"

"He's my problem."

"Your problem? You think you can sit there and call me uncaring, brand me with the responsibility of ten people's deaths and expect me just to forget it? I know Grafton Byrnes too. Remember? I'm proud to say that I count him as a friend. You want to be responsible for him? Fine. But you didn't know Ray Luca. And you didn't know Alexei Kalugin. Those two are mine, whether I like it or not. No matter what might happen to Kirov, I have to live with the fact that I was responsible- at least in some way- for getting them killed. You can't just pawn me off. You said it yourself: I'm in this even deeper than you are. Longer, anyway." She spent a moment studying the map. A quizzical expression skirted her features. "By the way, what do you have in mind- I mean if you're not going home, that is? Are you planning on chartering a jet to Moscow, driving up to Kirov's house, banging on his door, and asking him to give you Graf back? Do you have any idea how well-protected a man like Kirov is? He's an oligarch, for Christ's sake. The man has his own private army. The second they know you're in Moscow, they'll whisk you off the streets and stuff you in the same hole where they've put Graf. If they don't just shoot you on sight, that is. Right about now, I'd say you rank number one on Kirov's 'Most Wanted' list."

For a moment, Gavallan didn't answer. He knew well enough that he couldn't just traipse up to Kirov's door and demand his friend's return. In truth, he had no intention of going to Moscow. Securing Graf's return would require a none-too-subtle gambit of barter and blackmail, along with a fair dose of luck. He had only the rudiments of a plan, and they involved his visiting another city on the European continent. Geneva. He needed chips to sit at Kirov's table. What better place was there to get bankrolled than Switzerland?

"If your friend Skulpin's right, Kirov couldn't have faked the due diligence without the help of Silber, Goldi, and Grimm," he said. "They're the ones who visited Kirov's operations. They hired the experts to verify that Mercury's operating platform was up to snuff. They signed off that everything was a hundred percent as advertised. If something was amiss, they'd have to have seen it."