29

 

Saint Kitts, Leeward Islands

 

For the first time in months, Sledge woke to a feeling of contentment. He was lucky to have found love once. To find it a second time was exceptional indeed. And to spend two days with Kristin in this tropical paradise made him fortunate beyond belief.

But there was work to be done. Although he was sure he and Kristin had found the weapons transshipment point, they’d found no leads to the organization behind it. That failure tasted bitter. He felt responsible for finding the source of the weapons, and he had the sense some force was moving him blindly toward that end.

All right, he thought. So let it move me.

Meanwhile, he’d enjoy being with Kristin. Maybe her presence would dispel his somber thoughts.

He knocked on her door.

No answer.

He knocked again. Same result.

Maybe she’d thought they were to meet downstairs. He descended to the breakfast room and scanned every corner. She was not there.

Had she overslept? He used a house phone to call her room. The phone rang ten times, but no one answered. He waited fifteen minutes and tried again with the same result.

Had she run out on him again? She’d done that in Bogotá—gone back to Chozadolor on her own. No, last night had been too genuine for that. But on two occasions before that, she had flinched away from him. And in his last sight of her, she’d been crying and smiling at the same time. What emotional state did that signal?

Enough of that, he thought. Something must have happened.

He asked the hotel desk clerk, “She doesn’t answer her phone. Please send someone to check on her.”

The desk clerk gave him a suspicious glance. “Perhaps she has gone out.”

Sledge glowered at him. “She has a heart condition,” he lied. “She did not feel well last night. If anything has happened to her, you are responsible.”

The clerk blanched. “One moment, sir.” He produced a key, and a bellboy materialized from nowhere.

Sledge followed them to the room. They knocked several times, then opened the door and called. There was no answer. All three of them entered the room together.

The bed had been straightened but not made. Kristin’s luggage, fully fastened, rested on the luggage stand. A cell phone lay recharging on a table. The closet stood empty, and Kristin’s wide-brimmed hat was nowhere in sight.

The clerk gave Sledge a disgusted look. “Perhaps your engagement was not as definite as you thought.”

Sledge left the room without a word. The missing hat meant Kristin had gone out. The recharging phone meant she intended to return. All he could do was go back to the lobby and wait.

He did, and his concern grew with each minute.

After an hour, he knew something was terribly wrong. Regardless of the reason Kristin had left the hotel, something unforeseen had prevented her return. She could be anywhere in the city of Basseterre or, indeed, anywhere on Saint Kitts. He wanted nothing more in this world than to find her and assure her safety.

But he had no idea how to begin.

 

****

 

In flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico

 

Kristin grew more apprehensive as the flight progressed. With hardly a thought, she’d assigned herself a task for which she had no training. She would have to depend on her wits to shadow her quarry without being seen. She thought of him simply as The Brute. She didn’t know what would happen if he found her following him, but she knew it would be violent. Anyone involved with the weapons factory would be completely ruthless.

One advantage she had, though, was that The Brute had never seen her face. She’d shown him only the wide-brimmed hat as she boarded. If she could keep changing her appearance, he might not realize she was following. The flight schedule called for a two-hour wait in San Juan. Maybe she could get to a phone and report to Roger Brinkman.

She wouldn’t be in this predicament if she’d remembered to charge her cell phone. Sledge would think she’d stood him up or run away again. That would hurt him after they’d felt so much in harmony last night. Hurt him? Pain welled up in her own heart, and tears rose in her eyes. She suppressed the pain and blinked away the tears. She’d best keep her mind on her job. If Sledge was the man she thought he was, he’d understand.

Kristin’s tension remained as the aircraft landed at Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, the arrival and departure point for flights throughout the Caribbean. She remembered that all commuter flights arrived at or departed from the lower level at this end of the terminal. She didn’t relish the long walk to the other end and the upper level that served the long-range jet flights.

When the plane came to rest, The Brute stepped into the aisle to deplane. He did not glance in her direction. Everyone would have to go through customs, so she remained in her seat as other passengers crowded past. She followed among the last of them along the lower-level corridor that led to customs. She made sure her hair was well-hidden, tucked up into the hat, and she put on her dark sunglasses to disguise her features.

When she arrived at customs, The Brute was just clearing. Without looking back, he headed for the terminal’s upper level. Good. She could re-establish contact up there.

“Your baggage, ma’am?” The customs official’s voice called Kristin back to the present.

“I…uh…have none,” she said. “I left Saint Kitts in a hurry.”

“Please empty your purse on the counter.”

She did so, conscious that the officer’s eyes scanned her person for contraband. He sorted through the unremarkable contents of her purse without comment, then dismissed her with a nod. She thought he looked disappointed not to have found a liter or two of cocaine, but she was too relieved to enjoy the thought.

She found a phone upstairs near the duty-free area and felt relief when Roger Brinkman came on the line.

“I’m following one of the blond hulks we saw at the weapons factory,” she said after giving her location. “He’s the same one I saw going to Saint Mark yesterday, and he’s the one we saw in the terminal at Bogotá.”

“Has he seen you?” Concern showed in Brinkman’s voice.

“So far as I know, he hasn’t ever seen me.”

“Don’t let him. His name is Erich Staab. He’s worked with violent terrorist groups in Germany. He disappeared several years ago and Interpol wants to question him.”

Kristin shuddered. “I’ll make myself invisible.” She gave her flight numbers and arrival times at Chicago O’Hare and Spokane. “Sledge will wonder what happened to me,” she added. “I didn’t have time to contact him. Maybe he could collect my things and send them to me before he goes home.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Brinkman said. “I’ll send you some help in Spokane—not enough time to get someone in Chicago. Meanwhile, don’t take chances. That guy is deadly.”

Kristin swallowed hard as she hung up the phone. Brinkman’s promise of help was reassuring, but knowing the kind of man she was following was terrifying. She’d better make sure he didn’t know he was being followed.

So she changed disguise, glad now that she hadn’t overspent her credit card. In a nearby shop she bought a figured scarf in a subdued brown color and fashioned it into a turban to hide her blonde hair. She followed that with a large shawl, in darker brown, to wear over her shoulders in case Staab had noticed her yellow blouse. Last, she bought another pair of sunglasses, narrower and in a different color from the ones she’d been wearing.

She completed her makeover in the restroom and disposed of the old sunglasses and wide-brimmed hat. She’d used no makeup before leaving the hotel in Saint Kitts, so she applied a generous layer of lipstick to change her coloring. Satisfied with the effect, she began the long walk to the jet ports at the far end of the terminal.

Her anxiety grew as she walked. What if Staab had changed his itinerary while she dithered over her masquerade? She need not have worried. She found him at the gate for Chicago, alternately reading a girlie magazine and watching the passersby. Her skin crawled as she felt his eyes inspecting her, but she kept her head high and her gaze to the front. She found a seat several rows behind him in the waiting area. If he wanted to keep looking at her, he’d have to move or strain his neck.

Boarding the aircraft proceeded according to routine. Staab boarded with the other first-class passengers without casting another glance at Kristin. The plane was an airbus with a near-maximum load, so that would help her blend with the other passengers. As she entered the aircraft, she saw Staab’s attention focused on a shapely brunette across the aisle from him. As Kristin passed on the way to coach class, he looked up and gave her another once-over. She didn’t dare look back to see if his eyes followed her. She’d long since grown accustomed to that kind of male interest, but the brutality written in Staab’s face made her cringe. She hoped the brunette would recapture his interest.

After takeoff she was able to relax and enjoy the relative quiet of the jet flight, so different from the vibration and noise of the commuter aircraft. She even managed to doze for a while. She might have a long night ahead in Spokane.

The flight ended at Terminal 2 of O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. This time Kristin hurried toward the front of the coach class section and caught a glimpse of Staab as he deplaned. She feared that his head start might let him get away. She could follow only as fast as the crowd permitted. She mingled with it as it drifted along the concourse toward the main terminal, constantly checking right and left to find her quarry. Presently she saw him emerge from a newsstand with a magazine and a couple of paperback books. From the corner of her eye she watched with satisfaction as he joined the serving line in a fast-food concession.

Good. If he’d been going anywhere between flights, he wouldn’t have made his first stops for reading materials and food. She kept moving along the concourse toward the terminal. Better to take a chance on his changing plans than to hang around and draw unnecessary attention.

Her next problem was another makeover. At the information desk she learned there were leather goods stores in Terminals 1 and 3. She headed for Terminal 3, thankful for the low-heel shoes she’d chosen for her morning’s walk. In the store she bought a leather jacket and gloves which almost matched her shoes, and completed the ensemble with a black leather toque. She hoped Roger Brinkman would reimburse these expenses, for her credit card was getting strained. To that end, she tucked the receipts into her purse.

As before, she changed in the restroom. Though it hurt, she discarded the scarf and shawl. She didn’t feel quite the type for leather wear, but she tried to assume a personality appropriate to the garb. She wiped and scrubbed the lipstick from her face and let her blonde hair fall free to her shoulders. She hoped the toque subdued it enough to avoid its being a spectacle.

That done, she ate a sandwich and headed back to the vicinity of Terminal 2. There she forced herself to window shop until she could enter the terminal as if her journey had originated in Chicago. Her apprehension grew as she approached the gate for the Spokane flight. Had she guessed wrong? Had Staab realized he was being followed and bolted for parts unknown?

She sighed in relief as she sighted him in the waiting area. This time he was reading a paperback book with a half-dressed woman on the cover. Again, his cold and hard eyes looked her over as she passed. Had he recognized her? He gave no sign. But then he wouldn’t. She would never know he suspected her until too late.

She again found a seat behind him in the waiting area. It was then that fatigue caught up with her. She had walked vigorously that morning in Saint Kitts. Since then she’d traipsed all over two inhospitable airports. Not to mention the tension she’d felt all day long. She’d earned every bit of that fatigue, but there was no end in sight.

A wave of loneliness swept over her. She wasn’t trained for this, and she wasn’t qualified to carry this kind of responsibility. She had driven herself like this before in pursuit of a story, but she’d never felt so desperate. This time it wasn’t just a story. Alone, she was following the only lead toward defining a dangerous threat to her country. If she failed, Brinkman and Novak would have to start over. And who knew whether they would succeed before those deadly weapons were used against her countrymen? How many people would die if she failed?

Darkness descended outside the terminal and her loneliness deepened.

She was supposed to receive help in Spokane.

But what if it didn’t arrive?