The Fifth Man (9 page)

“Where were you?” Matt said.

“Sal fell off the roof. He broke his leg. He’s with Nico.”

“Who’s this, Teo?” said Anna Cavanagh. She was standing in the doorway, pointing her Baby Glock at Max.

“He’s a friend,” Matt answered. “Can you get some rope?”

“She doesn’t need rope,” Anna said. “She needs a hospital.” She had entered the room and was looking down at Natalya, whose eyes were wide open with hatred in the middle of a face now white, completely drained of color. “Fuck you,” she mouthed to Anna.

“She’s not going to a hospital,” Max French said. “But a rope is a good idea. We’ll tourniquet her leg. We don’t want her to die just yet.”

18.

Skopelos, August 25, 2012, 9:00 a.m.

“Did you sleep okay?”

“Yes. Are you angry?”

“Of course not.”

“Who is he?”

“Who? Your waiter, or Dravic?”

“Well… both.”

Chris and Tess were sitting on the north terrace, sipping coffee. A silver serving tray holding a loaf of the crusty bread Christina called
psomi kristina,
with a painted china plate of fresh butter next to it, rested on a small wrought iron table between them. From here they could see the whitewashed houses of the village arrayed in crooked rows on the hill that flanked Panoramos Bay, which gleamed a hot blue-green under the Aegean’s relentless morning sun.

“Tell me what happened?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Chris smiled. Last night at dinner he had acted as if all was normal. Poised, very beautiful after two days in the sun, Tess, taking his cue, had lent a deft hand with the small talk over which the three courses of Christina’s rich, deceptively simple meal were consumed. She had excused herself after the
baklava
, leaving him and Dravic to take their coffee and talk in the large, formal sitting room at the front of the house. Just another day in paradise.

“You handled yourself well,” he said.

“What’s going on, Dad?”

“What happened out there?”

“Patriki said he knew the chef on the new yacht in the harbor,” Tess replied. “The owner was supposed to be away. He said his friend invited us for a drink and snack.”

“How did you get there?”

“Patriki had his cousin’s skiff. It took five minutes.”

“What happened when you got there?”

“The owner
was
on board. Mr. Dravic. The chef was embarrassed. He had forgotten that he invited us.”

“Did you believe him?”

“At the time I did.”

“Then what?”

“Dravic was gracious. We sat on the bow deck and had lemonade and petit fours.”

“Did you know he called me?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“He sent me ashore in the launch.”

“And Patriki?”

“He said he wanted to stay and talk to his friend.”

“He won’t be back.”

Chris watched his beloved Tess lower her eyes as he said this, and then raise them and look out over the village to the bay. The
Frie Markit
was gone.

“I’m sorry, Dad.”

Chris Massi looked at his daughter, his first-born. At twenty-four, though he knew she would disagree and call herself a woman, she was still a girl. Beautiful, intelligent and proud, but still a girl. He did not want that to change any sooner than necessary, but the time had come.

“He has no cousin on the island,” Chris said, “with or without a skiff. No family here.”

“Who was he?”

“Someone who got paid to do a job, to demonstrate to me how easy it would be to abduct my daughter.”

“How did Dravic get your cell number?”

“He called Christina’s phone.”

“How would he have that number?”

“He must have scanned it from your phone. There are devices that can do that.”
Dravic’s second mistake
, Chris thought.

“What did he want?”

“To mislead me in some way, I’m sure.”

“About what?”

Chris did not answer. He looked out at the bay and then to his right, where he heard footsteps on the tiled terrace. Christina approached with a cell phone, which she handed to Chris.

“Mr. Max,” she said.

“Max,” Chris said, after taking the phone from Christina and putting it to his ear.

“It worked,” Max said. “We have Nico and his partner.”

“Andrei, you mean.”

“Yes.”

“Are they talking?”

“Not yet, but I haven’t really tried. What should I do?”

“Start with the girl. Then confirm with Andrei.”

“You know we’re at the bottom of the food chain here.”

“Get me to the top, Max.”

“How much time do we have?”

“A couple of days.”

“There’s a complication.”

“What?”

“The girl’s hurt. Matt shot her in the leg. Also, Sal broke his leg jumping on Pugach. I’m sorry,
Kamarov.
”

“Did you get her a doctor?”

“He’s on his way.”

“Max, someone made a play on Tess yesterday.”

“What? Is she okay?”

“Yes, it was a warning.”

“Connected to the diamonds?”

“I don’t know. Yet.”

“I’m on it.”

“Thank you, Christina,” Chris said, handing the phone to Christina after clicking off. “Are you still upset with me?” he asked her. He had to shade his eyes with his hand to be able to see her against the glare of the morning sun. “The dinner was good.”

“Not so good,” Christina replied. Then she turned and spat on the terrace and walked off. She probably spat in Dravic’s food, Chris thought, watching her walk away.

Chris turned to Tess, who he knew from watching out of the corner of his eye had been listening intently to his side of his conversation with Max French.

“Who’s Max?” she asked now.

“I want you to do me a favor, Tess,” Chris said.

“What, Dad?”

“I want you to take some time off from graduate school.”

“And do what?”

“I want you to go to a special school.”

“What kind of school?”

“Weapons training, hand-to-hand, survival training, awareness training. Other stuff. It’s geared toward women.”

Chris watched his daughter’s eyes as she reacted to this. No surprise, which was pretty surprising. What then? Enlightenment? Confirmation? Did she know something like this was coming? Maybe she
wasn’t
a girl anymore. Maybe he’d misjudged her.

“How long?” she said.

“It’s a one year commitment.”

“Dad…”

“Yes.”

“I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“Not after last night, no.”

“Where is it, the school?”

“In the desert in Arizona. And then Europe.”

“When does it start?”

“A couple of weeks. Until then I want you to stay here. Costa’s people will keep an eye on you.”

“Can I date?”

“Tess.”

“I’m kidding, Dad.”

“Good.”

“I have a picture of Patriki, if that means anything, on my phone.”

“Send it to me, you never know.”

“I will. Dad, I’ll go to Arizona if you tell me what you really do.”

“I run some businesses that your grandfather passed on to me, that’s all.”

“Dad…”

“You have to go, Tess.”

19.

Jackson, New Jersey, August 25, 2012, 5:00 a.m.

Matt and Anna sat on folding beach chairs on the concrete slab that served as a front porch for Wall Storage. The rain had stopped, leaving the small asphalt parking lot glistening under the twin pole lamps that straddled the front gate and the night air cool and smelling of pinesap and ozone. Anna, dressed in jeans, sandals and a dark blue polo shirt had made a pot of coffee, which sat, with their cups and spoons and a sugar bowl, on a white plastic table between them. They had a good view of the front gate and the long, quiet road that led to it through the forest of scrub pine from Route 195, a major highway about ten miles away. Matt, watching the road, fingered his bruised right knee, which had been iced and bandaged by the same Air Force doctor who had set Sal Visco’s broken ankle and tended to what had turned out to be a flesh wound in Natalya’s leg. He looked at his watch. The flight from McGuire to Warsaw was scheduled to leave at 6:00 a.m. He had told Max he would be back in time but he doubted he would. To make the plane, he would have to leave now, which he would not do.

“Are you sure he’s coming?” Matt asked.

“No.”

“What did he say?”

“He said that he had enough. He was coming over.”

“Does he know where your friend lives?”

“He thinks they are here with me, the kids.”

“Does he own a gun?”

“Not that I know of.”

Anna had brought a pack of Marlboro Lights out with her on the coffee tray. She tapped one out now, lit it with a plastic lighter, inhaled deeply, tilted her head back and blew a long slow stream of smoke out into the air above her.

“What happened tonight?” she asked, when she was done.

“They wanted the cash.”

“Yes, but the other man, Max. Who is he?”

“I just met Max. Sal, you know.”

“You are not answering.”

“Max is a new friend. Please don’t ask me anything else about him.”

“What happened?”

“Max and Sal were waiting for them on the roof.”

“Why?”

“Max wanted to talk to them.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure, Anna, I’m really not.”

“Did you know they were up there? On the roof?”

“I knew they’d be in the area, that’s all.”

“Where did you go?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why are you here?”

Why
am
I here? Matt thought. Then he looked over at Anna, picked her beautiful face out of the gray, pre-dawn light, and remembered their lovemaking, the smell and feel of her unbelievable body, her moaning beneath him, his sudden, convulsive climax. It made him dizzy, this memory.
That
was the reason, that memory, for the rush he felt when she called him on his cell. It all came back to him when he heard her voice. He could no more say no to her than he could stop himself from breathing.
That’s why you’re here
,
Matt.

“Because you asked me to come,” he replied, finally.

“And you came.”

“Yes.”

“Like
that
,” she said.

“Yes.”

“It’s just the sex,” she said.

“Maybe. But what’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me about Skip,” Matt said. “How did he try to kill you?”

“With a baseball bat he keeps in his truck.” Anna stood and lifted her blouse, revealing the lurid remains of her twelve-inch by twelve inch, Rorschach test of a black and blue mark.

Matt looked.

“He was going to hit me again,” Anna said, “but he was drunk. He swung at my head, slipped on one of my son’s toys and hit his head on the corner of the kitchen counter. I had already called 911. The police arrived and took him away.”

“Was this the first time?”

“A year ago,” Anna answered, and then stopped, as if this were all she was going to say, her mouth grim. Then she went on: “He tried to run me over with his truck. I ran. He hit the fence. He had started drinking again. He was also using the meth. A friend of his makes it. Crystal meth, the cops called it, such a nice name for such a bad thing.”

Before he could respond, Matt heard the sound of a car and, looking up, saw headlights approaching the gate. As they drew nearer and stopped, he saw it was a red pickup, its fenders and sides streaked with mud.

“I guess this is him,” Matt said, eying the driver, who was stabbing with his index finger at the keypad mounted on a post at the entrance. Matt got to his feet as did Anna.

“If he is drunk,” Anna said, “he will be nasty.”

Matt watched Skip Cavanagh park his truck in a space near the front gate, exit and walk over to them. He was bigger than Matt had expected, six-three, a couple hundred pounds, cut, a weightlifter, tattoos on both of his forearms. His hair was long, well below his ears, and straggly, his square face darkened by a two- or three-days growth of beard. As he came closer Matt could see the sneer on his face and the meanness in his eyes.