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.”
Sheepishly, I said, “I haven’t figured that out yet. Maybe I’ll bill Kurt.”
She looked at me like I had truly gone off the deep end. She said, “Maybe we should go back to the hotel and get on the VPN. See what Kurt wants. What he’s willing to do before we start building a makeshift team. Before we start wrecking things.”
I knew what she was asking. She understood that we were hanging out in the wind here. We’d been lucky with the Serbs, but if we found Kylie, it would more than likely be along with a bunch of armed men. Even given our conversation before, she knew someone was going to get killed, and it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that it would be the bad guys, even with Nung on the team.
I’d been running that very scenario through my head for the short flight over from London. Wondering how far I wanted to go. I’d decided to go as far as it took. Kylie free, or me dead. But that probably wasn’t fair to ask of Jennifer.
I said, “Hey, I know Kurt. He wants his niece back. And so do I. By giving us the geolocation of the Serb phone call, he’s provided his intent. If I call him now, questioning what I can do, he’ll tell me to back off. He won’t order me to do what’s right. He can’t.”
I pulled over next to one of the ubiquitous pubs that dotted the city, letting the car idle. I looked at her and said, “I’m going to get her back, but I understand if you want out. It is risky without a team.”
Jennifer studied my face, then said, “Is this about her, or you?”
“What’s that mean?”
“Is this about your daughter?”
The question touched a nerve that deserved to be left alone. I said, “What the fuck are you talking about?” I began to wind up for a fine verbal joust, sick of the unfair accusations, but she just stared at me. Burrowing past the scar tissue with her gaze alone. I sagged into the seat and said, “Maybe. Maybe it is. But that doesn’t make it wrong.”
She said, “I know. Remember Guatemala?”
Surprised, I turned to face her, wondering where this was going. “Yes. Of course.”
“I wanted you to come. I didn’t think you would, but I prayed.”
“And?”
“And if she’s praying for you like I did, she’s in good company. I just want to know where you stand. What you’re about to do. What we’re about to do.”
I felt a grin break on my face. “You don’t have to come. I can get her back with Nung.”
She said, “Are you kidding me? You can’t even drive over here.”
I put the car in park and said, “Then why don’t you try your hand at driving, since I suck so much?”
She smiled and said, “Fine by me.”
We switched seats and drove in silence, the only sound the idiotic voice from the GPS.
Finally, I said, “I won’t turn into the monster you knew before. That won’t happen.”
She looked at me, judging my face. She said, “I don’t believe that.”
Stung, I said, “I won’t. I’m not like that anymore.”
She said, “You miss my meaning. I understand the monster, and sometimes it’s good to let it run free.”
I couldn’t believe the words had come out of her mouth. I wondered if it was a trick.
Turning down a small side road, she said, “These people are evil. They are the monsters.”