David Lindsey - The Rules of Silence

Chastened by Burden's silence and by the sound of his own naivete echoing in his ears, Titus ducked his head and then looked up again.

“Okay, that was stupid, ”he conceded, “but still, help me understand how he's going to carry out his threats and maintain the silence he's promising, and demanding, at the same time. I mean, what are the logistics of what he's talking about? Mayhem and silence just aren't compatible.”

Burden's silhouette, his hands in his pockets, one shoulder angled a little lower than the other, moved out of the doorway and drifted into the shadows gathered at the edges of the bookcases. The ambient light was too little, and Titus couldn't see him well. Outside, the day was turning soft, descending toward late afternoon.

“Look at what's going on here, ”Burden said from a corner. “He's not going to do in Austin what he does in Colombia or Brazil. This is not a stupid man.

“Go back to the Rio cases. With each case Tano learned something to do, and not to do, in each subsequent abduction. First case: He learned the K and R people only made matters less lucrative and less efficient for him.

“Second case: He eliminates them by contacting the family instead of the corporation. But he still has to put pressure on the family to put pressure on the corporation to pay up. Working with two separate entities is still inefficient.

“Third case: This time he makes sure that the victim and his family are major stockholders in the company. They'll have more leverage in making the company pay than a mere employee would. Still, the demands are on the family, not the corporation. When there's a glitch, he has to kidnap a relative of the original victim before the family presses for payment and Luquin gets his money.

“Fourth case: This time he made sure he chose a victim who was a major stockholder in the company. But it was publicly held, and some of the board members insisted on this supersecret SWAT team's intervention. Caused Tano a lot of trouble. Still he had to threaten to kill additional employees to force their hand.”

Burden moved along the wall of books until he stopped at the feet of the reclining nude woman with the monkey.

“Fifth case: You. What's he learned? To whittle down his irritants. No K and R people. No police. No corporate interests versus family interests. No publicly held company with a board to answer to. And even more ingenious, no crime. You'll be buying foreign companies. No noise. Everything done silently-and with seeming legitimacy.”

Burden stopped. He took a few steps toward Titus.

“No noise, ”he said. “What does that say to us, Titus? Do you think he's going to commit a series of brash, Colombianstyle assassinations in Austin? Remember: He said that when this is all over no one will even know that any crime has been committed. Use your imagination.”

He came across the room and stood on the other side of the table from Titus. Thinking, he put his fingers on the fountain pen that lay in the gutter of the opened book.

“Imagine this, Titus. Let's say you decide that working with me isn't the way to go. You go to the FBI. Luquin discovers this immediately and disappears. You tell the FBI everything, but the fact is, you don't really have any proof that what you're telling them actually happened. Except the dead dogs. We've already cleaned up the bugs. Their files on Luquin are sparse, and he's been off the radar screen for a decade. They find your story interesting, curious, but frankly, a little suspicious, too. But it's all over, and you've averted a huge loss of money. You've saved lives. Close call.

“Six months from now a friend dies unexpectedly. A car wreck. Or a hunting accident. Or a heart attack. Afterwards you get an e-mail: ‘Hello, Titus. I told you not to go to the FBI. You should have listened to me.’You go to the FBI again and tell them what's happened. They listen. You're a respectable man, so they take you seriously. But, really, there's just nothing they can do about proving that an accident like that was actually a murder caused by a bad guy from Brazil.

“Time passes. A friend's wife in San Francisco drowns while swimming laps in her pool. You get an e-mail: ‘Hello, Titus. It's me again. You should have listened to me.'

“Five months later, the teenage daughter of another friend in Boca Raton, all the way across the continent, overdoses on drugs. Shocking, because the child had absolutely no exposure to such things. You get an e-mail: ‘Hello, Titus…'”

Burden slid the fountain pen along the gutter of the page an inch or two.

“Do you see how this could happen? ”he asked. “Every time you go to the FBI. But you understand, Luquin won't always go after your closest friends. He'll scatter the deaths across the country and across relationships. Maybe even extended family members of your employees. Six months apart. A year apart. Can you imagine how many people would die before the FBI could ever establish a connection in a scenario like that? If they ever did?

“Can you imagine how it's going to make you look to keep going back and saying: Please! You've got to believe me. That tractor accident in Iowa was really a murder. It's this guy in Brazil who wanted to extort sixty-four million dollars… And Luquin's going to make sure you can't capture his e-mails. There'll be no proof. It could go on and on.

“Tano Luquin is no ideologue, ”Burden went on. “He knows nothing about ideals or dreams or political causes, and he cares nothing for them. He's a common criminal. Venal. Violent. Egotistic. He's the kind of man who can be found in every generation and in every culture. A predator. You have something he wants, and he's going to take it.

“But the difference is that today clever men like Luquin have so many more powerful resources in the technology at their disposal. To anticipate them, you have to be willing to imagine beyond your assumptions, to be willing to make that leap into the realm of the unbelievable. I can assure you, they have. Luquin is wealthy. His methods and resources are sophisticated. His imagination and appetites are unrestrained.”

Burden's point was well made, and chilling.

“Okay, ”Titus said, “just tell me this: Can you stop him? Can you save lives?”

Burden didn't answer immediately, and with every second he hesitated, Titus's hopes diminished with a grim effect on his spirit.

“I think I can stop him, ”Burden said. “I can save lives. But I can't save all of them. I've told you that. That's what I think.

“You have to remember, ”he continued, “Tano's ego is tied directly to his stature in his own mind. He's warned you. You go against that warning, and you've insulted him by not respecting his power to dictate to you. He's going to make you pay for it. And he's going to make sure you know you're paying for it.”

Titus was feeling trapped.

“I could just cough up the money. Get it over with.”

“Yeah, you could do that, ”Burden agreed. “And maybe that would end it for you. But it would also guarantee that Luquin would go on doing what he does, and with even more resources. You'd guarantee that someone else would be put through the same hell that you're going through. And your money would be financing it. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want that on my conscience.”

Titus found it a little difficult to get his breath.

He looked toward the windows and the opened doorway. He felt alienated, estranged from his life before last night. Adrift. Outside, the light and the sounds were foreign. The language was foreign. The smells belonged to other people, and the rhythm of life belonged to another culture. It all contributed to a sense of uncertainty.

Uncertainty, however, was only part of it. His anger was still there, too, slowly evolving into a determination to fight back. Somehow. But not at the cost of someone else's life. Not even one. Burden was probably right that Luquin would find out if he went to the FBI. Sooner or later. And then there was Burden's other prediction, that someone was going to die anyway, regardless, just so Luquin could establish his authority.