“Isn’t it?” he asked against her hair. “I brought you to St. Kilda.”

“It’s not St. Kilda’s fault. They’re just the messenger.”

“Yeah, well, we all know what happens to messengers.”

She smiled sadly at him, sighed, and took the controller back. But when she moved to separate from him, he held her close.

“I’m okay now,” she said.

“I’m not.”

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry some more. So she leaned against him and started the DVD again.

“How can you stop it?” Thomas asked seriously. “You’re a very small nation whose supposed allies are very close to Andre Bertone.”

“Camgeria and some of the other small African nations victimized by Bertone have come together to establish the West African Regional Tribunal.”

“How will that help?”

“The tribunal is an investigatory body that is accumulating evidence against Bertone and his ilk. We will prove that the peoples of West Africa have been victimized by some of the most unscrupulous men on the face of the earth. Then world opinion will force that money to be returned to the people from whose blood and bone it was squeezed.”

“That sounds like a huge job.”

“It is. Interviews like this are just the beginning. We need help. We need friends. We need people who haven’t been purchased by Andre Bertone.”

The DVD ended with the stylized logo of the channel.

Kayla let out a long sigh, relieved that no more images of suffering would be burned into her conscience. “How did I miss this show? I’m a fan of The World in One Hour.”

“This segment is still in production,” Rand said, tossing the controller aside. “It won’t air at all unless we get more evidence against Andre Bertone.”

“More? What I saw was devastating. Bwana-suited gunrunner becomes Phoenix socialite and benefactor to state, national, and international politicians.”

“You and the guy who took that picture are the only ones on earth who can link Bertone to the bwana suit.”

“You’re kidding.”

Rand looked at her.

“You’re not,” she said quickly. “I knew that. I just didn’t want to know it.”

She swiped the back of her hand against her eyelashes, taking the last of her tears, wondering if she’d really felt Rand’s lips moving so gently over her skin.

“Pictures are powerful, but they can be Photoshopped,” he said. “Anybody who saw President Bush supposedly giving the world the Roman salute knows all about digitizing photos.”

She started to object, then sighed. “And the first thing Bertone’s lawyers would scream is Photoshop.”

“Yeah.”

“So even if The World in One Hour airs that show, Bertone will still have deniability.” Kayla’s mouth turned down. “Like my bank, shifting the responsibility somewhere else.”

“That’s where you could help.”

“How? After what Bertone did to me, I’m already compromised. And my boss. Let’s not forget the golden bastard.”

“I’d rather bury him,” Rand said under his breath.

“What?”

“Your reputation will survive if The World in One Hour beats Bertone’s lawyers to the press.”

“Big if.”

“Not as big as it was before you signed on with St. Kilda.”

“How so?”

“Easy. Under the charter of the West African Regional Tribunal, Neto can seize any money, anywhere, that’s connected to illegal activities. But first he has to know exactly where said dirty money is.”

She got it. “Cue Bertone’s private banker.”

“Bingo.”

34

Phoenix

Saturday


10:01 P.M. MST

The Jumping Cholla bar on Indian School Road was as close to home as it got for Gabriel Navarro. The taste of beer was mother’s milk. Tequila was the sting of his father’s hand across his mouth. The smoky air was a familiar blanket. Taverns, cantinas, blue-collar bars in white-trash neighborhoods, they were all places where men were men and any women present ran from soft hookers to hard pros.

When Gabriel had been a kid, men in his knee-breaking line of work had to hang out in beer bars and strip clubs and sports joints. If he was a regular, he could give clients the phone number and know that the bartender would put his calls through or take a message.

For a price.

Cell phones had really cut into a bartender’s income. With his own phone, Gabriel was never more than a ring away from his clients, no bartender required. But he still liked to hang with his Phoenix homies in the bars north of downtown and west of Central Avenue. Despite his slight, ropy build, he didn’t have to fight every night or every week to prove himself. The thought made him smile.

Here, everyone knows that Gabriel Navarro is a stone-cold mother-fucker.

It had been three years since he’d killed anyone in the Jumping Cholla, and that hadn’t been done to polish his reputation. The dude had needed to die. Gabriel had taken care of it.

The mixed clientele of the bar-Indian, Indio, Mexican, the odd gringo-reflected his own heritage. He could drink here and shoot eight-ball with the cross-eyed Cajun from Baton Rouge for a hundred bucks a game and nobody bothered him. Well, the bar girl asked every half hour if he wanted another schooner, but she always came close enough for him to grab her ass, so it wasn’t really a hardship.

The last thing Gabriel expected to see as he chalked his cue stick was Andre Bertone walking in through the open back door.

Ay, chingón! He has my cell number. What is he doing here?

Immediately Bertone stepped into the shadows and stopped to size up the bar. He didn’t have to take a deep breath to know what kind of place he was in. The mixed odors of tobacco, beer, male sweat, and a urinal more often missed than hit were familiar. By comparison to places he’d been in around the world, the Jumping Cholla was almost upscale. At least someone had tried to cover the urinal’s stink with a pungent disinfectant.

Even if the bar hadn’t been relatively genteel, Bertone wouldn’t have worried. Once he’d delivered a million-dollar cash bribe to an African defense minister in a place far worse than this. Another time he’d shot to death a Bulgarian helicopter pilot who had hijacked a load of rocket-propelled grenades. Another time it was a knife and a fool who had tried to step on Bertone’s shoes. Never had any of the bar patrons tried to stop Bertone.

If he decided that Gabriel had lied to him about the girl’s escape, no one would stop the death Gabriel deserved.

The bartender spotted Bertone and made him as wrong.

Bertone almost smiled. Maybe it was his white silk shirt open at the throat, his heavy silk slacks, and his thousand-dollar loafers. Or a haircut that cost more than most men in the place cleared in a week.

With a sound like a pistol shot, the bartender slammed the heavy glass he’d been polishing on the bar.

Heads raised, looking first at the bartender, then in the direction of his eyes.

Gabriel didn’t look up from the shot he was setting up at the pool table. “Bienvenido my house, esso,” he called out in sliding, slurred English. “I thoug’ I see you soon. But no here, esso. You ’ave good sources.”

“I found you once a long time ago, Gabriel. After I have found you once, I can always find you again.”

With that Bertone turned away and walked back through the door into the deeply shadowed parking lot.

To the surprise of every man in the room except himself, Gabriel racked his cue and walked toward the back door.

The Cajun had hair the color of chili colorado and a rough voice. “Hey, bro, you forfeitin’?”

“It’s a draw, asshole,” Gabriel said without looking back.

The Cajun didn’t argue.

Gabriel found Bertone leaning against the gleaming black flank of his bulletproof Humvee, puffing on a cigar he’d just lit. A gold-plated Zippo gleamed in his thick fingers.

“Tell me what really happened,” Bertone said.

“Like I told you,” Gabriel said, shrugging. “Bitch had a knife. She opened it with one hand, like maybe she knew how to use it. You tell me no blood, so I hadda think. Then the fuckin’ guard turned on the light. I figure I wait for a better time.”

Bertone puffed on the cigar and watched Gabriel through the smoke. The man wasn’t smart, he wasn’t worldly; a primitive, really.

But a useful, ruthless one.

“So you climbed the wall and came back to the main house,” Bertone said.

“Guard had a gun. If I don’t book on out of there, he make a big noise you no like with all those fancy guests around.”

“What happened to your gun and the rest of the gear?”

Gabriel’s mouth opened, then closed without a word. He lit his own cigarette with a match scratched across the butt of his jeans.

“I got my own gun,” he said finally. “I can use rope when I find her again.”

“If you find her, you cretin.” Bertone’s voice was a lash.

“I know Phoenix. You watch the airport. I find her.”

“You lost your gun, tape, and handcuffs. If she found them, she’ll run to the police. If the guard found them, he didn’t mention it to me, probably because I haven’t seen the guard since Kayla disappeared.”

Despite the cold fury of Bertone’s voice, Gabriel forced himself to shrug. “You want I find the dude?”

“His name is Jimmy Hamm,” Bertone said, stuffing a sheet of paper in Gabriel’s hand. “This is his employment application form. It has his last known address. Find him. The girl may be with him. If she is, kill them both.”