Rupert has gone through the contents of the desk and the filing cabinet without finding anything of interest, and he has scattered those papers on the floor, perhaps as payback for Chase’s comment about the Bureau’s dress code. Rupert considers himself a sartorial rebel; he is fond of his corduroy suits and bolo ties.
Using Longrin’s computer, he has back-doored the DMV to search state records for vehicles registered to the Longrins or to Longrin Stables. Pickup trucks, horse vans, two SUVs, a Ford sedan …
Rupert says, “I gave the list to Vince. He’s checking to see if there’s a set of wheels that should be here but isn’t.”
The Unknown Playwright is in a mood for dramatic efficiency, because even as Rupert finishes speaking, Vince Penn bursts into the room like the burly star of a former circus act featuring a bear. “All the vehicles are here except for the Mercury Mountaineer. I checked the garage, all the stables, the hay barn. I went into the house and checked under the beds, but it’s nowhere.” He looks from Gottfrey to Rupert Baldwin to Gottfrey again. “That last part about the beds, see, that was just a joke.”
In the interest of moving things along, Egon Gottfrey doesn’t get into a conversation with Vince.
On learning that the Mountaineer is their search target, Rupert uses its DMV registration to consult a cross-referenced National Security Agency directory that contains the unique GPS transponder code of every vehicle in the country. He obtains the one by which this particular Mountaineer can be tracked by satellite.
Gottfrey watches as a map appears on the screen and a blinking red indicator signifies the location of the vehicle.
“It’s not moving. Maybe parked,” says Rupert.
“Parked where?”
“Downtown Killeen, Texas.”
“How far from here is that?”
“Not far,” says Vince Penn. “I was in Killeen for a few weeks once. Met this girl there. She wasn’t beautiful or nothing, but she was pretty enough so I thought I might marry her. Then it turned out she was a whore, and it wasn’t marriage she wanted.”
Somewhat more helpful than Vince, Rupert says, “It looks like about a hundred thirty-some miles. Nearest helicopter we could use is in Austin. By the time it came here and picked us up and flew us to Killeen, it’d be quicker by car. We have to drive through Austin, which will slow us down, but we can still make it to Killeen in two hours, maybe two hours fifteen.”
40
CORNELL JASPERSON KEPT THINKING that something very bad was about to happen. He and the boy were getting along so well, and the dogs had not attacked him. Nevertheless, every now and then Cornell stiffened and lifted his head and listened intently, in expectation of a sudden threat. Not the collapse of civilization, not yet, but something not good.
For dessert, they enjoyed pineapple-coconut muffins, which they tore apart and ate with their fingers, still sitting in the circle of lamplit chairs.
“While I lived over there in the little blue house, I did all the construction drawings myself.”
“You said fipaleen workers. What’re they?” the boy wondered.
“Filipino. From the Republic of the Philippines, half a world away. Seven thousand islands, though most people live on eleven.”
“Gee, couldn’t you find workers closer than half a world?”
“Not highly skilled construction workers who spoke only Tagalog and couldn’t tell anyone in Borrego Valley that they were building a secret library and bunker, please and thank you.”
“Tagalog is a funny word.”
“Umm. It sort of is.”
A crawly feeling quivered down the nape of Cornell’s neck, between his misshapen shoulder blades, along his spine. For no good reason, he looked at the ceiling in expectation of … something.
“What’s wrong?” the boy asked.
“Umm. Umm. Nothing. Anyway, by the time I made three hundred million, I also made a lot of connections with powerful people. I located the workers, got them visas and green cards, brought them from the Philippines. They were nice. They worked hard. Sometimes they sang at night. Their singing was very pretty.”
“What did they sing?”
“Mostly about Malaysian legends and the sea and the stars and Buddha and Jesus. Sometimes Elvis Costello in Tagalog.”
Cornell sang a few lines in Tagalog, amazed to be so relaxed. He sang without feeling silly. He looked at the boy when they were talking, though he didn’t usually look so directly at other people.
“These muffins are really good,” the boy said.
Cornell licked sweet icing from his fingers. “Very kind of you to say so.”
“How’d you talk to the fipaleens without them knowing English?”
“Before I hired them, I learned Tagalog. They lived in trailers on the property and never went into town, and by the time they flew back home, I’d made millionaires of them all.”
“That’s humongous! Twelve millionaires.”
“Umm. It cost a lot more than that. Counting materials and all the donations, it cost an arm and an egg.”
“You mean leg?”
“Leg. I don’t know why that happens, that word thing. Anyway, it cost a farm and a leg. Oh, there it happened again.”
The boy laughed.
So did Cornell, though a moment later he was frowning at the cluster of four security monitors that hung from the ceiling. When a warm-blooded moving creature, larger than a coyote, drew within ten feet of the building, a soft alarm would sound, and an image of the visitor would appear on each screen; from any point in the library, he could see what was happening outside. The screens were blank.
“Donations to what?” the boy asked. “To like Wounded Warriors? Uncle Gavin and Aunt Jessie give to them and others like them.”
“These were donations to some officials, to let us have a high construction fence, to build without getting plans approved, without inspections. A secret bunker isn’t much good if it’s not secret.”
“You mean payoffs, bribes.”
“How does a five-year-old boy know payoffs and bribes?”
“I’m going on six. And, anyway, my mom’s FBI. I’m an FBI kid.”
“Yes, of course. An FBI kid.”
“These are the best muffins ever,” the boy said.
“Umm. I got the recipe from one of the construction workers. They grow a lot of pineapples and coconuts in the Philippines. Would you like me to get you another muffin?”
“Sure, you bet. That would be great, please and thank you.”
When Cornell lifted his tray and scooted forward in the chair and put the tray on the footstool, the two dogs raised their heads to consider the unfinished muffin.
“Nothing of that belongs to you,” Cornell said. The good dogs lowered their heads. And he regretted having spoken sharply.
At the kitchenette, as he took a muffin from a Tupperware container and put it on a small plate, he glanced at the security monitors a couple times, though no alarm had sounded.
He supposed that he was just Cornell being Cornell: too smart for his own good—as his mother had often said—plagued by a weird developmental disability, afraid civilization was going to collapse, but even more afraid that someone might touch him and drain the soul out of his body. He was maybe a little too obsessed with death.
As Mr. Paul Simon had sung, We come and we go. That’s a thing that I keep in the back of my head.
41
EGON GOTTFREY LEAVES six of his people to keep the Longrin family and their employees in custody, at gunpoint, until they hear from him. The detainees must not be allowed to place an unsupervised phone call during that time, which would surely be a call to Ancel and Clare Hawk to warn them that they have been traced to Killeen.
Rupert Baldwin and Vince Penn will accompany Gottfrey. As they climb into their Jeep Wrangler and as he approaches his Rhino GX, Janis Dern, who followed him from the house, calls out, “Hey, Egon. Can I have a minute?”