A Wild and Lonely Place (30 page)

I ignored the question. “My pilot friend—how do you know about him?”

He shook his head and smiled again.

Didn’t matter how he’d found out about Hy; he still didn’t know his name, or he’d have recognized it when it came over the
loudspeaker. He would have flaunted that knowledge now. It wasn’t a large advantage, but an edge nonetheless.

I suspected how Schechtmann and Hamid had found out we’d flown to the Florida Keys: Kenny the cab driver had not been as uncurious
about our visit to the old sugar plantation as I’d assumed. He’d followed us through the thorn forest, heard Hy ask if we
wanted to go to the Keys, and later contacted Schechtmann through his fellow driver, Slow Eddie Frazier. In a tourist area
with a poor standard of living the residents are alert to the slightest scent of profit, and they’ll sell anything they stumble
across.

I should have paid more attention to the rustlings I’d heard in the thorn forest. I’d take a lesson from that mistake and
be doubly on guard now.

Maynard said, “Why don’t you just tell me where the kid is? Give her up and go home. Nobody’s interested in you or your friend.”

The hell they weren’t. Maynard had to be stupid if he actually believed that.

I studied his face: lines around the eyes that suggested long nights of vision-straining surveillances; lines around the mouth
that suggested long years of disappointment. In spite of the embossed card and the talk of his people, I sensed Maynard’s
operation was a small one, and that Klaus Schechtmann was a major client whom he wouldn’t want to disappoint.

Maynard’s muddy brown eyes were studying me in a similar fashion.

A good private investigator has to be a good actor: we adopt false facial expressions; we tell lies with body language; we
alter our personas with vocal tone. We’re two-sided: lying while seeming truthful; dripping sincerity while drowning in duplicity.
Maynard was doing all of that, and pretty well. But not well enough to fool
this
actor.

I said, “Well, we both know the business. You do what you have to.”

He spoke a bit too eagerly. “You’ll turn the kid over?”

“No.” I pushed away from the table and stood. “Right now I’m going to those phones—right over there where you can see me.
I’ll make some calls. Long ones, so you might as well stay here and finish your beer. In fact, have another, on me.” I dug
a five-dollar bill out of my pocket and set it on the table.

Maynard looked at it and then at me. “What the—”

“You’re free to try to keep as close a surveillance on me as possible, Mr. Maynard. But it’ll have to be on my terms. If you
come any closer to me than, say, the distance from this table to those phone booths, I’ll call Security. Your Florida P.I.’s
license doesn’t give you the right to harass or intimidate women, you know.”

I let that sink in, then added, “As you said before, that kind of trouble you don’t need.”

My first call was to Greg. “Anything on Joslyn?”

“No. Sharon—”

“No further postings on the Web?”

“Nothing. Where—”

“I’ll be in touch.”

Kent Maynard was finishing his beer, narrowed eyes fixed on me. I saluted him. He scowled.

For a moment I debated calling Renshaw to ask if he could help us out of this situation, but then I decided against it. Renshaw’s
methods tended to be high risk, and I was damned if I would allow him to endanger Habiba. Besides, I had RKI’s best man only
a Touch-Tone dial away. Between us, Hy and I would manage.

Mick’s recorded voice was all I reached at my office. I redialed, this time Charlotte Keim’s extension at RKI. Keim answered,
sounding too frisky for someone laboring in the data-search section. Mick’s voice in the background explained why. Oh, well,
at least Keim had promised to be gentle with him.…

Charlotte became even more animated when I identified myself. “Sharon, you were right. We’re definitely onto him!”

“Go ahead.” I pulled a pad that I’d appropriated at Hy’s friend’s house from my bag.

“No, I’ll let Mick tell you. These’re really his findings.”

Keim knew how to reel my nephew in, all right. When he came on the line he sounded as puffed up with self-importance as a
blowfish is with air. “We just finished,” he said, “and we found incidents like you described for each country—some of them
outside the ten-year time frame that you originally set. You ready for this?”

“I’m ready.”

* * *

In less than fifteen minutes I had it all. “Good work, Mick!”

“Thanks. So what should I do? Turn it over to the task force?”

I hesitated; something was cautioning me against that. “What you do is sit on it.”

“But your friend Adah—”

“Could be in more danger if the bomber realizes how close we’re getting. Do you think Parkhurst would keep this information
confidential? It’s the first substantial break in the case; he’d call a press conference. You are to do nothing with the information.
Understood?”

“Yes.”

“Now, I’ve got another assignment for you. How good are you at surveillance?”

“I’m—” He seemed about to extol abilities that he’d seldom tested, then retrenched. “I’m okay.”

“Can you pick up somebody at the airport tonight and keep tabs on him indefinitely?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Subject’s name is Dawud Hamid. He’s on American’s ten-nineteen flight from Miami.” I gave him Hamid’s description.
“Take that ridiculously expensive cellular phone you bought last month along with you so I can get in touch. And Mick—”

“Don’t worry—I’ll be careful, I won’t run up any more expenses than I absolutely have to, and I won’t fuck up.”

* * *

Kent Maynard was still watching me. I returned his gaze with a steady and measured one of my own. Then I moved down the concourse
to an empty gate and spread the pages of notes I’d taken during my conversation with Mick on a table between two chains of
molded plastic seats. Tucked my legs under me and swiveled sideways so I could examine them. In a moment Maynard came out
of the bar and moved to another gate, keeping exactly the distance I’d prescribed. I ignored him and hunched over the pages
on the table.

Brazil: assault w/ deadly weapon, Washington, 1982

The son of the Brazilian ambassador had allegedly stabbed a bouncer at a nightclub, leaving him permanently disabled. The
suspect spent a few hours in custody, then was released because of his diplomatic immunity. The embassy could have waived
privileged status, but refused.

Saudi Arabia: rape, D.C., ′83

A fifteen-year-old girl was allegedly raped at a party by the son of a diplomat attached to the Royal Embassy. The father
was persuaded to repatriate the young man to their native country, but he reappeared in the D.C. area several weeks later.
The authorities told the girl’s parents there was nothing they could do because he was immune from prosecution.

Pakistan: child molestation, D.C., ′82

A military attaché to the Pakistani Embassy fondled an eleven-year-old girl at the post exchange at Fort McNair, Virginia.
Both the military police and the Criminal Investigation Division told her mother that their hands were tied because he was
a technical staff member at a diplomatic mission—a category granted full immunity from criminal prosecution.

Ghana: rape, New York City, ′81

The alleged perpetrator was the son of a United Nations delegate. In spite of a positive identification by the victim, he
spent only forty-five minutes in custody and left the police station laughing. Later he voluntarily repatriated to Ghana.

Yemen: vehicular homicide, NYC, ′86

The son of North Yemen’s ambassador to the United Nations was driving along Park Avenue at lethal speed; his victim, a pedestrian,
was dead on arrival at Bellevue Hospital. No charges were filed.

Mexico: assault w/ deadly weapon, NYC, ′85

The Mexican Ambassador to the United Nations broke another driver’s window and threatened him with a semiautomatic pistol
in a dispute over a parking space. No charges were brought, although a cash settlement was later tendered to the victim.

Panama: reckless driving, D.C., ′74

A cultural attaché to the Panamanian Embassy ran a red light and broadsided another car, permanently paralyzing one of its
occupants. He carried no liability insurance and offered no financial restitution to the victims. Again no charges were filed
and the diplomat was later posted elsewhere.

Libya: murder, London, ′84

A Libyan assassin fatally shot a London policewoman in front of the embassy, where a peaceful demonstration of Libyan exiles
was taking place. The murderer was never apprehended and the murder weapon never found, presumably because he had it in his
sealed diplomatic baggage when he fled the country.

Belgium: drug trafficking, La Guardia Airport, ′85

The chancellor of the Belgian Embassy at New Delhi, India, delivered heroin smuggled into the U.S. in a diplomatic pouch to
an undercover agent of the DEA. Diplomatic immunity carried no weight in this case, as the chancellor was not posted to a
U.S. mission; he received six years in prison. The high-profile case revealed that drug smuggling in diplomatic pouches was
not an uncommon practice.

No wonder, I thought, that the Diplo-bomber’s attacks seemed to follow a completely random pattern. They occurred anywhere
from five to eighteen years after the diplomats’ crimes. They were not necessarily directed at the perpetrators or even at
the same missions. But now that I’d discovered the common link among his victims, it was apparent that the bomber was enraged
at diplomatic crime—and that the specific crime that had fueled his anger was Chloe Love’s murder.

Interesting that his last attack before the attempt at the Azadi Consulate had been on a diplomatic mission of a country whose
lawbreaker had been brought to justice. A message, perhaps, about his future intentions?

What had the bomber been to Chloe? Friend? Relative? Lover? What had he been doing in Washington, D.C, and New York City?
Why the two-year period of inactivity preceding the San Francisco bombings? And why play this contrived game of cat and mouse
with the Azadis, rather than locate Dawud Hamid and deal with him directly? Why take innocent lives, injure innocent people?

Because originally he wanted to make a statement, but now it had gone beyond that. He was enjoying this, getting off on it.
It had produced the biggest high of his life, and he would do anything to maintain it.

I glanced along the concourse. Kent Maynard was sitting patiently at the empty gate. I was certain his eyes hadn’t left me
the entire time I’d studied my notes.

I looked down at the pages again, staring at my scribblings till they blurred. The felt-tip lines and whorls bled out to an
asymmetrical Rorschach blot and, like a psychiatric patient who has lost all other hope, I searched it for a vision of the
bomber’s face.

Nothing materialized.

I sighed and looked up. Maynard nodded pleasantly.

As if I didn’t have enough problems, now I was cursed with this nuisance!

I got up and walked along the concourse to the phones. Called the Ramada in Key West. Maynard took up a position at the closest
empty podium.

“Everything okay there?” I asked Hy.

“Still very silent on our young friend’s part, but nobody’s come looking for us, if that’s what you mean.”

“My colleague here claims his firm has people scouring the hotels for you.” I related my conversation with Maynard and his
actions since then. “He doesn’t know your name, but he probably has a description, so watch out.”

“How’d they find out we were in the Keys?”

“A money-hungry cabdriver, I think. But that doesn’t matter now. What am I going to do about Maynard?”

“Well, do you suppose he’s got the manpower he claims?”

“I really can’t guess at that.”

“Can you lose him?”

“I doubt it. He knows the territory here; I don’t.”

“Okay, let me do some phoning. I’ll get back to you.”

* * *

“McCone? Is Maynard still watching you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay, we’ve got a plan. I’ve set things up with my buddy, the one whose house we stayed at; he’s a real helpful guy. Trouble
is, you’re going to have to spend the night there in the airport.”

“I’ve spent the night worse places. Besides”—I glanced at Maynard, smiling faintly—“misery loves company.”

“And you’ll do your best to make sure he’s miserable. Okay, tomorrow morning there’s a Vanguard Air flight to Fort Myers at
seven. I’ve already made you a reservation on it and a connecting flight to Tampa.”

“What good’s that going to do? Maynard’ll buy a ticket at the podium and go along.”

“That’s the idea. When you get to Fort Myers, here’s what you do…”

* * *

Vanguard Air was a grandiose choice of name at best. The ancient twenty-four-seat turboprop was the kind of aircraft that
reduces passengers unaccustomed to small planes to babbling, quivering lumps of terror. The pilot looked to be around twelve
years old; through the open cockpit door I could see him reading the operations manual. After a few minutes he announced our
takeoff would be delayed because nobody could figure out why the baggage compartment door wouldn’t close.

None of it bothered me. When you’ve flown upside down over the Sierra Nevada, you’ve seen it all from every angle— literally—and
you know that the moment you set foot inside a plane you’ve turned your life over to random chance or fate or a higher power,
whichever you happen to believe in. Apparently Kent Maynard didn’t share my stoicism; from the instant he belted himself into
the seat across the aisle, his face was tinged an unbecoming shade of gray. Our rattling, stuttering takeoff bleached it to
white.

Serves him right for being so relentless, I thought as I pulled Habiba’s hat down and closed my eyes. As Hy and I had counted
on, Maynard had purchased a ticket at the podium as soon as he saw me present mine to the gate attendant. When he entered
the cabin he looked somewhat tentative: it wasn’t large enough for him to keep the prescribed distance; would I summon the
pilot, as I’d threatened to summon airport security? I eased his concern by motioning cordially at the opposite seat.