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“I suppose you don’t want to see pictures of my grandkids, then?”
“That would be correct.”
“Suit yourself, friend.”
The old man leaned his cane against his stool, but it clattered to the floor by the carry-ons. With a groan he bent down and picked it up. Given his age, it took awhile, but he found his way back up. The music was a bit louder than he would have liked.
He hailed the bartender with a tremulous hand, and the handsome Arab man bounced over. “What’ll it be, sir?” he asked in pristine English. “We have cold beers on tap.”
“No, thanks,” the old guy said, peering around the barkeep at the beautifully displayed vodka bottles. “Is that Kauffman Vintage?”
The elderly man shuffled his way through the private-jet terminal, his pace starting to quicken. His gait evened out as he straightened up by degrees, trashing his cane into a metal waste receptacle. He rolled a Tumi international carry-on just like the one he’d entered McGettigan’s with, the same circular tag bobbing atop the handle.
But it wasn’t the same piece of luggage.
The matching piece he’d brought into the pub, the one that Derek Tenpenny had left with, contained several ounces of gunpowder for the explosives-sniffing canines and numerous documents accusing members of the House of Al Falasi, the royal ruling family of Dubai, of pedophilia and treason.
Boarding the Embraer Lineage 1000 he’d reserved for the long haul, Evan peeled off his putty nose and cracked his back.
Tenpenny had name-dropped Qatar-based Al Jazeera enough times that Evan had asked Joey to monitor travel into the Middle East. Sure enough, Tenpenny’s name had popped up on the databases, a flight from JFK to Dubai on Emirates, after which he’d switch planes for the shorter hop to Doha.
That is, if he cleared security.
Aragón Urrea needed the luxury jet back in Texas, but Evan would certainly enjoy it while he had it. A queen-size bed, a full-length couch, silk cut pile carpet—everything at peak design.
He collapsed into a leather seat and let out an exhale.
Mission complete.
It was bizarre how it had started and where it had wound up. The more distance he got from Tartarus, the more vague his recollections of Luke Devine had grown, as if he were something from a dream.
Evan’s blinks grew longer. He needed a short rest. And afterward he could relax and clean up.
The bar was stocked to his liking. The plane even had a shower in which he could rinse the dye out of his hair and the old-age makeup from his face.
He’d be a new man.
64
Toe-to-Toe
Evan was over the Greenland Sea when his RoamZone rang. He’d set up the phone to route calls through low-earth-orbit satellites when he was airborne; they placed less demand on antennae.
The caller ID was blank, and yet he knew precisely who it would be.
In the privacy of the luxury cabin, swathed in the golden light of the midnight sun, he answered.
President Victoria Donahue-Carr said, “To say I’m dissatisfied would be an understatement.”
Evan said, “That makes two of us.”
“May I ask why you refused? After all the missions you’ve completed?”
He thought for a moment, then told her what he’d told Luke Devine. “Nothing you’d understand.”
“You’d be amazed at what I understand,” she said. “The complexities I have to contain for myself, for the country, the world.The presidential race is the greatest nonlethal competition in the history of humankind.”
“Nonlethal,” Evan repeated.
