Doc Ford 19 - Chasing Midnight (22 page)

Talas, who’d been gulping water since his gag had been removed, understood the significance because he attempted to undermine the twins’ power by saying, “I will do whatever your organization asks of me, of course. And I believe Mr. Armanie will be cooperative. We only want what’s best for the Caspian Sea. But for one person to dictate the demands as the voice of an entire organization”—the fat man shrugged as if the unfairness was obvious—“well, I don’t think it will be as convincing. You are, after all, asking Mr. Armanie to entrust his life to the integrity of your organization.”

I watched Kahn’s nostrils flair, aware of Talas’s obvious attempt to manipulate. But he also realized that Talas was trying to help him stay in power, so he said to Odus, “Why not let Winifred decide? She’s chairperson. I mean, I hate this fat leech as much as you do, but he’s got a good—”

“I’m dictating the goddamn letter!” Odus yelled, still staring at Kahn while his head bobbed to the rhythm of his earbuds.

The two activists continued to argue, volleying threats and insults, until Geness, still in the doorway, said, “No more talking. It’s settled.”

And it was.

Although composed, Talas looked pathetic, with his glistening
jowls and his urine-stained slacks. The twins made him nervous, and Geness scared him. It was in his Sydney Greenstreet chuckle that dismissed the brothers as children but also conceded their new power. So, when Kahn and Odus stopped arguing, Talas took a pen in his sausage fingers and did what he was told. He squared a sheet of Vanderbilt Lodge stationery in front of him and said, “I’m at your service. What do you wish me to write?” A moment later, though, he sealed Kahn’s demotion by ordering him to bring him more light.

Odus, whose mood seesawed between rage and euphoria, was too combustible to dictate anything. He began badly, saying, “Okay, get this down, the exact words. ‘This is to inform Abdul Armanie, the, uhhh… the Iranian douche bag
criminal
!… that his criminal friend, uhhh…’ What’s your freaking first name, you fat leech… ?” Which is when Geness proved who was really in control by taking over, telling his brother, “Abraham says I should do it.”

Invoking the name of the dead triplet got instant results. The twins changed places, and soon Geness was instructing Talas, “I want you to write in English. Nothing else, understand?”

“Whatever you say, of course,” Talas replied, “but it might make Armanie suspicious because—”

“No, it won’t,” Geness said and, with no change in facial expression, hammered his fist against the back of Talas’s head. The twins were barely five and a half feet tall, but they were a chunky one-seventy, one-eighty. The shock wave rippled through the fat man’s neck to his cheeks and caused his eyes to spark with anger—a spark that Talas managed to hide as Geness continued talking as if nothing had happened. “You’re lying,” he said. “Today, at the pool, I heard you both talking in English. You’d better not lie to us again. Understand?”

Talas nodded, showing no emotion—the response of a powerful man who was patient enough to wait for his revenge.

Then Geness began to dictate, saying, “‘My dear Abdul…’ No… wait. ‘My
respected
associate, Armanie,’” which frightened me as much as anything the Neinabors had done so far. It proved that Geness, at least, was not only perceptive, he was shrewd and calculating. Armanie never used his first name and he had no friends. Geness understood that to begin the letter any other way would warn Armanie that he was being lured into a trap.

That’s what the letter was: a personal invitation to Armanie, and his bodyguard, to come to the lodge, unarmed, and meet with Talas.

“To discuss what?” Darius Talas asked, touching the pen to his silver mustache.

The twins nodded at each other before Geness said, “To talk about a computer hard drive that was taken from Viktor Kazlov’s boat today. And about a thousand baby sturgeon that will die soon when the boat’s batteries go dead.”

Fingerling sturgeon?

Talas was nodding as Odus yelled, “Hurry up, lard ass! After this, you’re writing a letter to Kazlov. He’s the criminal who brought all those innocent fish. We’ve got to make goddamn sure he doesn’t miss the boat.”

Miss the boat?

Was he speaking figuratively? I wondered about it as my eyes moved from Talas, who was giving Geness a sharp look, to Kahn, whose face showed surprise, then skepticism. Maybe the twins were lying or maybe they’d actually stolen the hard drive. Either way, it was news to Kahn. Probably news to their drunken chairwoman, too, but Tomlinson didn’t appear surprised. He was looking at me with his wise old eyes as if to confirm it was all true.

Talas hunched over the desk, the pen a rhythmic instrument in his hand, as he added a few sentences, then asked, “And what about
Mr. Lien Bohai? If we’re meeting, shouldn’t we invite our Chinese colleague? Asians aren’t particularly emotional but they are easily slighted.”

For an uneasy moment, I was afraid Talas was going to mention Bohai’s young wife and daughter, too. But Kahn jumped in and tried to regain respect by saying, “The old man’s dead. I shot him myself. Bohai didn’t cooperate with us and that’s what happens. We’ve got his assistant in the dining room right now.”

Once again, I felt a building tension as Talas reflected on what he’d just heard. “Bohai’s
assistant
, you say?”

“A woman named Umeko.
What?
I thought you TRs knew everything about each other.” Kahn was searching the fat man’s face, suddenly suspicious.

Talas was still giving it some thought but then defused it all, saying, “TRs?”

“Yeah, it means ‘assholes’—asshole.”

The fat man nodded. “I think you’re talking about one of Bohai’s
concubines
. Forgive me for laughing, but Lien always travels with at least two women. No idea how he introduces them to outsiders. But let’s just say they aren’t paid to sit at a desk and read reports—old men have their needs, too, you know. On every trip, there’s always one woman who’s quite beautiful and another who is… well, presumably, she is quite skilled at—”

Geness, becoming impatient, interrupted him, saying, “No more of your filthy sex talk. Write the exact same letter to Kazlov. No tricks—hurry up!”

When Talas had finished, both twins looked the letters over before Odus said, “Okay, now put them in envelopes and write each leech’s name on the front. Like, we want it to look official. Then we’ve got a serious question for you.”

Geness Neinabor nodded, already looking at me. “Tell us what
you know about this dude, Ford.” As Geness stared, his eyes sparked, then oscillated with twin images of the candle flame twitching and flaring on the desk nearby.

Talas swiveled the chair around. He said, “Dr. Ford, you mean,” then threw his hands up to protect himself as the twin used the pistol this time to hit him. The muzzle caught Talas on the side of the head, which caused a rivulet of blood to race down the fat man’s cheek.

“Ford. Plain Ford,” Geness said, enjoying himself. “The days of rich men using titles is over. Vanity is the vexation of all liars.” Then his eyes swung to Odus before he nodded at Tomlinson, who was standing near the window.

Odus took over. “Ford’s friend is a traitor, a Judas. Our brother, Abraham, figured it out. See that black eye he’s got? Our brother insisted, so Geness used his fists. We’re going to execute him later.”

Odus was smirking at Tomlinson as he continued, “But right now, here’s our problem: we don’t know if the asswipe traitor told us the truth about Ford. The asswipe claims Ford’s like this military special agent who could, you know, tell us how to take down this island. You with me so far?”

Talas nodded quickly as he explored the side of his face with massive fingers.

“Of course, this was
before
we figured out the freaky-freak guy is a traitor. Plus, my brothers and I didn’t have one bit of trouble taking down this island all by ourselves, did we?” The twin aimed a cutting look at Kahn before he went on. “Now, though, there might be a job Ford can help us with. So what do
you
know about him?”

Talas produced a monogrammed handkerchief from his pocket and concealed his anger with a glowering silence as he dabbed at the blood on his face. Finally, he said, “You are looking for someone to deliver these letters, I take it? And, perhaps, kill Armanie and
Kazlov—as they read the letters, perhaps? That’s the only reason I can think of why a skilled military person would be of use to you. Which means he would have to kill their bodyguards, too, of course. Which won’t be easy, you need to realize. Kazlov’s man especially. He’s captained Viktor’s various yachts over the years and he’s very devoted.”

The fat man was talking about Vladimir.

The twins used their eyes to communicate before Odus said, “We never thought of making him shoot the caviar slavers, too. But it’s an interesting idea—”

“It’s a bad idea,” Geness interrupted without inflection.

Odus said, “Yeah, a shitty idea. Ford wasn’t sent here to judge anyone. My brothers and me, we’re the judges.”

“And executioners,” Geness prompted.

“
And
executioners. We know why we were sent here. All we want from you, leech, is tell us what you know. You think Ford can get these letters to Armanie and Kazlov without getting killed?”

Talas was giving it some thought as Odus kept talking but not so loud now. “We’re sending someone with him, too, ’cause at least one person has to make it back here to let us know they’re coming. And we only have”—the twin checked his watch, which caused him to lose his temper again—“
Shit!
We’ve got only two hours! They’ll have to bust their asses to do it, considering no one knows where your
goddamn parasite friends are hiding
!”

It had to be close to one in the morning. I was wondering why the twins wanted Kazlov and Armanie in the lodge before three, as Odus calmed down a little before he said, “At least one person needs to have some experience at this sort of stuff. You heard all the guns banging away out there.” He glanced at Kahn. “Unless Rez and Trapper want to volunteer and prove they’re not a couple of pussies.”

That got him laughing, and it started Geness laughing, and then they both lost it in a two-minute laughing jag that bordered on hysteria. Finally, as Odus regained control, his laughter assumed a childlike quality that was perplexing. I glanced at Tomlinson, who was shaking his head, a sad look on his face, which is when I realized that the twin was weeping now, on an emotional descent.

“Don’t be ashamed,” Geness said, getting impatient, “it’s nothing to be ashamed of,” but made no effort to place a hand on his brother’s shoulder.

“Can’t help myself,” Odus bawled. “Don’t know why… I was thinking about those poor fish in the boat… and those beautiful dolphins.”

It didn’t surprise me the group had planned to target the casino resort as well, even though Talas was right. It had no association with Vanderbilt Island. But to lapse into hysteria because of dolphins he’d never seen, at a place he’d never visited?

The spectacle was so disturbing that I turned away only to discover that Talas was looking me over, still undecided about how he was going to respond to the twins’ questions about me.

The fat man had the black eyes of a crow, a bird that preys on weakness and manufactured opportunities. In the last few minutes, I’d come to respect Talas’s intellect and his character more than I’d thought possible. But he was in a tenuous position if the twins insisted that he share information about me. By virtue of being sane, if nothing else, the Turkmenian and I had a reason to help each other. He had already attempted to shield Umeko and Lien Bohai’s wife from discovery. If he contrived to advance his own cause, though, by helping me, the twins might punish him for trying to manipulate them.

I was wondering how Talas was going to play it.

He played it two ways, as it turned out. The man played it smart for Talas and dangerous for me.

More dangerous for the twins, though, if they dismissed Talas’s assessment as a lie or, better yet, as transparent reverse psychology. That’s exactly what Talas attempted to do, I realized, because he told the Neinabors everything he knew about me—which wasn’t much.

But the little he knew was true.

D
arius Talas folded the bloody handkerchief until he’d created a clean square. Now he pressed it to his head and said to the twins, “If my sources are right about this man, I could be arrested for what I’m about to tell you. Or assassinated. Would you mind clearing the room so we can speak in private?”

Odus’s head was bobbing, his face still pink from crying, but he managed to grin at Geness, his giddy expression asking his brother
Isn’t this cool?

Geness was showing some interest, too, giving me a look of assessment as his brother asked Talas, “You’re kidding. Ford is really that heavy a dude?”

Talas appeared mountainous as he turned in the swivel chair. “I can only assume it’s true, and I’m not in the habit of taking chances, not when it comes to the international intelligence community. Please, I must insist.”