“And in the meantime, Cambry is your standin?”
“I couldn’t be with Juno all the time anyway.” She moistened her lips. “I told you that. Not on Nicos’s island.” She glanced at him. “Unless you were able to figure out that password? Cambry said you were going to join us later because you had an idea about going in a new direction about that.”
“Now you’re interested?” He shook his head. “You didn’t give me much time to figure out anything before Cambry phoned me to rescue Juno.”
“I had to get her out of there. I didn’t stop him because I thought you might have more experience than Cambry.”
“It appears we all have our places in your agenda,” he said sardonically.
“I had to save her,” she said soberly. “Just as we have to save Patrick. It’s all life. I’m sorry I didn’t give you time to work this morning.”
“I had time, just not enough. But I was able to shoot off a couple orders to my think tank in Silicon Valley before you yanked me out of that motel. They should be working on it now.”
“Working on what? What was this new direction?”
“Same goal—information. New path. It was taking too long to find that password. Even if I let you go to Vadaz Island to buy time and try to locate that password in Nicos’s office computer, it could be an involved process and might take too long.” He looked at her. “And you could get caught because you ran out of time.”
“I’d be careful. I wouldn’t get—”
“It’s too complicated,” he said, interrupting her. “And too dangerous for you. It’s better to simplify.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re not going to search for the password. We’re going to go after the computer wizard who created that file for Nicos. Who would know better than he what that password is?”
“No one.” Her mind was moving from possibility to possibility. “If we can find him.”
“Would Nicos have opted to keep him on the island in case he needed him?”
“He never kept outside techs on the island while I was there. He only used them infrequently and made sure they were intimidated enough so that there would be no question of betrayal. But that might have changed if Juan Salva had his way. Nicos was arrogant and thought no one would ever cross him. Salva was always more cautious.”
“We’ll have to see if it did change. I’m hoping that it didn’t. Then all I’d have to do is find out who this computer guru is and zero in on him. That’s why I texted the Silicon office to tap into all our resources and try to find a computer genius somewhere out there who is corrupt enough to work for Nicos.”
“Would you have done it?” she asked suddenly. “I mean, when you were a boy? You said you had a very twisted sense of right and wrong. After all, you hacked into the CIA.”
“I wasn’t that twisted. The challenge might have tempted me, but I would have walked away from Stan Nicos.” He added, “Like you’re going to be able to do when I get the name of Nicos’s pet computer guru. I’ll make a dozen calls myself and I’ll put pressure on Silicon. Once I get a name and address, we’re on our way.”
“That will be good.”
“But you don’t believe it will happen.”
“I’m afraid to believe it.” She smiled with an effort. “We both know that I have to show up on the island tomorrow or we face the fact that Patrick will be killed. I’m even becoming accustomed to the idea.”
“Not if I can find that computer expert.”
“Good luck to you. But you said time was against my finding that password in Nicos’s office. Time’s against you, too, Lassiter.”
He swore under his breath.
“I feel like swearing, too,” she said. “But as I said, I’m beginning to be accustomed to the idea of confronting Nicos again. I’m not as afraid as I was. That’s a good thing.”
“I don’t see anything good about it.”
“I do.” She glanced back at Cambry and Juno. “Everything okay with you two?”
“Peachy,” Cambry said. “I just gave her those nutrition pills and she went to sleep. I think she believes I’m boring or just another slave.”
“She’s comfortable with you. Hey, she’s pregnant and she’s had a rough couple weeks. It’s good that she’s sleeping.”
“Yeah.” He gently stroked Juno’s throat. “I guess that’s right. And no one ever said I was all that stimulating. Do you know, she reminds me of those French mountain dogs. She doesn’t look like a retriever.”
“It’s that thick white coat. She’s definitely a retriever.” Margaret glanced back at Lassiter. “She should have another feeding soon. We’re supposed to keep them small today, until she becomes used to eating again. When are we going to land?”
“Another hour or so.” His lips twisted. “I’m sorry I didn’t consult you with the travel plans. I didn’t realize we had food-schedule priorities. We’ll land south of Cancún at a private airport that I had Nick Mandell, the head of my security team, check out. He’ll leave a rental car beside the hangar and we’ll drive it to a beach property several miles away. It has a beach house and it’s very secluded and should give me the privacy I need to work. Any objections?”
“No, I like the sound of it,” she said quietly. “I can use privacy and seclusion in the next twenty-four hours. But I thought Cancún was a big tourist mecca.”
“You haven’t been there? I suspected that you’d hit most of the Latin towns while you were skipping around the Caribbean.”
She shook her head. “Cancún is big into drugs. I wouldn’t have risked going to any city where Nicos had contacts after I got away from him.” She added, “And when I first came down here from the States, my first stop was Guatemala. I liked it there, so I stayed awhile.”
“First stop,” he repeated. “And how old were you when you traveled all the way from the States to Central America?”
“A little younger than you were when you were trying to bilk the CIA.” She grinned. “I was sixteen. I thought of it as a great adventure, too. And I guess it was technically illegal. I didn’t have any papers.”
“You started that young?”
“It was a great adventure,” she repeated. “And I didn’t feel all that young. I’d been running from my father and DEFACS for years and I saw it as a chance to get far, far away.”
“I’d say that Guatemala fits that description.” He was silent. “But I’d bet that something happened to make you take a radical step like going alone to a foreign country.”
“I never said I was alone.”
“No, you didn’t, did you?” he said curtly. “It just appeared to be your modus operandi since the moment I began hunting you. And the United States is a big country. Why did you feel you had to find somewhere else to hide? And who was with you?”
She tilted her head. “Why do you want to know?”
“It’s always annoyed me that I know only bits and pieces about you. It’s like opening a book in the middle and not knowing the beginning.”