David Lindsey - The Rules of Silence

He looked at Burden, who was studying him just an arm's reach across the round table, his face a narrative of the effects of sustained secret struggles. Whatever his life had been like, it wasn't entirely hidden from anyone who cared enough to try to understand what they were looking at. It was sculpted into his face and had shaped the sorrowful angle of his eyes. Whatever it was this man knew, he'd paid dearly for it. Titus couldn't ignore that.

And then there was Gil Norlin's advice: If you follow this guy's recommendations, you won't have to worry about whether or not you're doing the right thing. You can believe what he says.

Titus took a deep breath, one that reached down into the place that made him what he was, to the place that defined him.

“Okay, ”he said to Burden, “let's do whatever it is we have to do. And let's do it as fast as we can.”

“Guys like Tano have brilliantly taken advantage of the effects that terrorism has had on U.S. domestic security, ”said Mattie Selway. She was the roan-haired woman Titus had seen in Burden's war room earlier in the day. She had joined Titus and Burden in the study, bringing with her a black ring binder that she kept in her lap, occasionally flipping the pages back and forth, making notes.

“They foresaw that for the immediate future, at least, the preponderance of the U.S.'s law enforcement, intelligence services, and domestic security would be poured into reacting to this new threat. Addressing a crisis like this creates a kind of tunnel vision in the national psyche. People want the damn thing solved, they want it to go away. The government wants to accommodate them. Luquin knew that in the States it was going to be all eyes-and money and commitment-on international terrorism for the foreseeable future. We've seen this in the FBI's reassignments, pulling huge numbers of agents from narcotics operations, others from violent crime units, others from white-collar crime, to work in counterterrorism.”

The sun had fallen behind the towering fresno and eucalipto trees outside and was sinking toward the Sierra de Morenos in the west. They sat in an eerie twilight that Titus was beginning to associate with Burden himself.

“Several things stand out as interesting to us, ”she continued. “One: the size of the ransom, of course. That's probably a reflection of his confidence in his plan. Two: the way he wants it paid. Smart. It'll work. After you've made your investments, the money will evaporate like a morning mist. It just won't exist anymore, lost in the vast electronic void. And third: the fact that Luquin himself has crossed the border for this.”

“I think this last one's the one that'll give us our opening,” Burden said from a dark pocket of the room. He was continuing to roam the parameters of the gloomy space. “Mattie thinks the unusual financial arrangements are our best bet. In any event, there are some basic preparations. Your computer's ready to go. I talked to Herrin about an hour ago, and he says they're finding phone taps and bugs all over your house. ”He stopped and looked across at Titus through the dim light. “And you need to get your wife back here, ”he said.

Before Titus could open his mouth to respond, the Mayan woman appeared in the opened doorway where the balconies led to the buildings next door.

“Garcia, ”she said, “we've got Luquin coming in on Mr. Cain's laptop.”

Within moments they were all standing around one of the desks, staring at the screen of Titus's computer, reading the incredible message.

Following is a list of enterprises in which you will want to invest and/or contribute. I suggest you begin immediately with 15% of the $64 million you wanted to utilize.

Please complete that transaction within 48 hours of this message.

Follow that with an additional 32% investment of the total within 72 hours.

Marcello Cavatino Inversiones, S.A., in Buenos Aires will be happy to provide you with the professional services necessary to execute these transactions.

The list of businesses and charities followed. One in Mexico, two in Brazil, one in Lebanon, one in St. Kitts, two in Monaco. Titus stared over the Mayan girl's shoulder and gaped at the computer screen.

“Bonnie, see if you can find them, ”Burden said to the Asian woman, who was now wearing jeans and a Oaxacan embroidered huipil. She went to work on another computer.

Titus stared at the screen and sat in one of the chairs without saying a word. He was shaken. How many times could he be surprised like this? He didn't know what he'd thought Luquin's first message would be, but he hadn't expected this.

“What's the matter? ”Burden asked. “Liquidity?”

Titus was oblivious. The money. Jesus. He should have written it down on a piece of paper and looked at it. The whole thing had been so unreal that he hadn't yet focused on what it would mean to divest himself of $64 million-a quarter of CaiText's net worth. Seeing the beginnings of the process on the computer screen was unnerving.

“That's nearly ten million dollars in two days, ”Burden said, “and then nearly twenty-one million three days after that.”

“Yes, I can get the ten. I'll have to work on the twentyone.”

“Okay. Well, we have to move fast now, ”Burden said, glancing at his watch. “It's three-thirty, for all practical purposes.”

Mattie turned to Titus.

“Luquin's job here is a lot easier than laundering money,” she said. “With laundering you're trying to cover up where the money came from. In this case that's not a problem. Luquin wants to hide where it's going. So when Cavatino disperses your investments among these seven enterprises, that'll probably be the last time we'll really know anything for sure about it. From those places it'll be buried under an avalanche of trade.”

“Garcia, ”Bonnie said from her computer, “the companies are coming up. All of them. No, wait, one of the charities, the one in Monaco, isn't showing yet. All the companies are less than a year old. Marcello Cavatino Inversiones, S.A., has been around three years.”

“Good. Do some work on them.”

But Burden was waiting, still staring at the computer screen with Mattie and the Mayan girl, as if they were all expecting another message. The room was silent except for Bonnie's fingers snapping on the keys across the room.

The ping of another message was like a gunshot.

“Here we go, ”the Mayan girl said, and the screen flashed a short, terse message.

Charlie Thrush has paid for your stupidity. You should have lived with the surveillance.

Titus was standing again, again staring over the girl's shoulder. It took him some time-he had no sense of dura tion-to make the two words fit into the context of the moment. Charlie Thrush?

Then Burden asked, “Where did Thrush live?”

The past tense of the question hit Titus like a blow to the stomach. Suddenly he had no moisture at all in his mouth. “On a ranch west of Austin.”

“Where? Exactly.”

“Fredericksburg. Near there. ”He thought he was going to be sick.

“Rosha, ”Burden said, and the Mayan girl swiveled to another computer and began typing furiously.

Titus saw Charlie talking, his lanky frame sprawled in a chair in front of one of his computer screens, his long fingers flapping on the keys as if he were playing the piano, his head half turned as he talked, explaining the theory behind the calculus and the quantum mechanics on the screen. He saw him with his head buried in a book in a small pool of light in a dark room. He saw him handing Rita a wicker basket of his own peaches with a crooked grin, telling her that Titus still didn't have the knack to grow anything as sweet as these.

“Here it is, ”Rosha said, reading a paraphrasing. “A little over three hours ago the Gillespie County Sheriff's Office got a call to the Thrush ranch on Schumann Creek. It just says that they responded.”