No Fortunate Son (Pike Logan, #7)(52)

In the harsh fluorescent light, she looked aged. As if someone had taken a picture of her two days ago, then put it through software manipulation to show how she would appear in twenty years. She looked lost.

She said, “So you have something? Tell me you have something. The police over there are still giving me the stone wall.”

He steeled himself and said, “Kathy, I have a thin lead, and I’m exploring it, but you have to understand that it might go nowhere.”

“Exploring it? What does that mean? You sound like you’re looking for oil.”

He told her what he’d found, leaving out all aspects of the vice president’s son and the Serbian connection, washing it all into a date with a ghost who he was trying to find. When he was done, she sagged into her chair and began to cry.

He reached across and rubbed her arm, saying, “Hey, it doesn’t sound like much, but it’s something. We’re going forward.”

She snapped back and said, “Bullshit! You’re doing nothing. I knew you would do nothing from that first phone call. You’re sitting here on your ass while she gets gang-raped or sold into slavery.” She broke down again and began sobbing into her hands, the patrons around them looking on in concern.

Kurt let the barbs fall and said, “Kathy, that’s not true. Yes, I’m here, but it’s only because I’ve sent someone better than me. I have a man over there. He’s looking right now.”

A bitter look on her face, she spat out, “Better than you. Sure. I get it.”

He nodded, a soothing gesture. “Yes. Better than me.”

He saw a glimmer of hope, quickly dissolved by the pain of her fear. She said, “Kylie always talked about you being some great hunter of terrorists. I knew that was bullshit, but she thought you were saving the world. I guess she was wrong.”

“No. She wasn’t wrong. She just misconstrued how I hunt. I will find her.”

The hope returned to her eyes, as much as she tried to prevent it. She said, “Who? Who do you have looking?”

He clasped her hand in both of his and said, “I can’t give you his name, but he’s the best man I have.”

She sniffled and said, “Is he good enough? Will he bring her home?”

Kurt smiled, intending to show warmth. What came out was the grin of a shark. “Trust me, he’s a predator. His target is the man who took her. And he has never failed me.”






34




I failed to see the exit from the roundabout in time and swerved, trying to make it. I reached the lane and caused a flurry of honking horns. Apparently, it wasn’t a one-way road, and I was driving head-on into traffic.

Jennifer barked, “Pike!” and threw her hands onto the dash. I swerved back into the roundabout and said, “What the hell? The road’s painted with white stripes.”

The GPS said, “Recalculating” in a female Irish voice, and I expected it to follow up with a “dumbass.”

I circled around again and said, “Look, it’s Big Ben . . .”

Jennifer, not getting my movie reference, said, “Are you crazy?”

Now knowing how Chevy Chase felt, I said, “This driving on the wrong side of the road is killing me.”

She turned to the window and said, “Some world traveler. Maybe when Knuckles gets here we can survive the roads.”

I whipped into the correct exit and said, “He’s not coming.”

“What? I thought you’d told Kurt what we’d found?”

“I did. But Knuckles has apparently found a connection with the ferry ticket. We’re still on our own. Which, honestly, I don’t care about. Easier to do what I want without some command from eight thousand miles away telling me what my left and right limits are.”

Jennifer said, “Until we need the backup.”

I turned down a lane, watching the GPS track, and said, “Yeah, there is that. I called someone else for help, but it’ll be a while before he can get here.”

Jennifer said, “What? You’re turning into the Man of Mystery. Who did you call?”

“Nung. Remember him?”

“The guy from Thailand? How on earth did you have his number?”

“He gave it to me after we rescued Knuckles. I’ve kept it for a special occasion, and this is it.”

Nung was the son of an old Air America pilot in Bangkok. Half Thai and half American, he had helped us get Knuckles out of a little prison predicament that hadn’t been exactly smooth. He was as calm a person as I’ve ever seen in a scrape. To be honest, I thought he might be a little crazy, but he was definitely good at mayhem, and that’s something we might need now that Knuckles was off the table.

“Do you even know his name?”

“Well, yeah. It’s Nung.”

“His real name. Nung is the number one in Thai. Did you call for Song as well?”

Song meant the number two in the Thai language and was the name of another guy who had helped us. I said, “No, I don’t know his name. If he wants to tell us, he can. And it’s just him, no Song.”

“Why’d he agree to come? What did you promise?”

“I told him I’d pay him for his services after we found Kylie.”

She leaned her head back into the rest and closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead as though she had a migraine. We traveled through the small roads, leaving the city center of Dublin behind and heading to the west. Eventually, she said, “How are you going to do that? We don’t have that much cash in the till from Grolier, and the damn plane ticket alone will be enormous.”