The Rules of Silence Page 16

  Well, she was glad she'd taken the dark sable brown suit to the cleaners. That's the one the girls would choose. But Nathan would have to think of it being at the cleaners when they couldn't find it in her closet.

  Suddenly her head was bursting, and she felt nauseated. And she was so hot!

  Chapter 31

  Titus was shaving, a towel wrapped around his waist. His neck was stiff despite the long shower he'd taken to try to loosen it up. A cup of coffee sat on the countertop by his shaving mug, along with a half-eaten piece of toast. The outside of his eyebrow was swollen, and the flesh around it was purple. He looked out the glass wall to the pool, feeling thickheaded. The four hours of sleep had felt exactly like four hours of sleep: not enough.

  Nevertheless, he had to admit the conversation with García Burden in the small hours of the morning had been fascinating. Burden had made good points about Titus's concerns that he had done the wrong thing, but he hadn't really offered anything concrete. Titus still had that uneasy feeling that his decision to work with Burden was going to result in yet more tragedy. But, as with Burden, he couldn't come up with any specific, factual data to justify his anxiety.

  He washed the lather off his face and walked into his closet to get his clothes. After dressing, he felt a little less fuzzy headed as he made his way along the atrium to the kitchen. Rita was again sitting at the island, nursing a glass of orange juice.

  “You want anything besides that piece of toast? ”she asked. She, too, looked exhausted.

  “No, I'm fine, ”he said, dumping his cold coffee down the sink. He turned around and leaned against the counter.

  “How's your head feeling? ”Rita asked.

  “Lousy.”

  “Let me see. ”She got up from the bar stool and went over to him. He waited while she examined him. She was close, and he could see the blond fuzz along her temples, smell her shampoo.

  “The swelling's going to be with you for a while, ”she said, returning to the island.

  The front gate intercom buzzed behind him on the counter panel, and he reached over and pushed the button.

  “Yes?”

  “This is Deputy Seams with the Travis County Sheriff's Office. This Mr. Cain?”

  “Yeah. Yes, it is.”

  “Wonder if you could open the gate for me, Mr. Cain?”

  “Uh, sure, ”Titus said, frowning and looking over at Rita as he hit the gate button.

  Rita was motionless, her questioning eyes locked on him.

  “I don't have any idea, ”he said, and headed for the door to the veranda. Rita followed him, and they both stood in the morning shade and watched the sheriff's car come slowly over the rise on the paved drive, seeming to take too long to curve around and approach the turn that brought him behind the high hedges. He pulled up behind Herrin's trucks and turned off the engine.

  Oddly, the deputy took off his regulation summer western hat and laid it on the seat of the patrol car before he opened the door. As he got out, the scratch of radio transmissions came with him and then went silent as he closed the door. He looked around as he walked over to the veranda where Titus and Rita were waiting at the edge of the flagstones, under the morning glory vines. Mourning doves soughed in the rows of peach trees in the orchard, their cooing carrying surprisingly far in the morning stillness.

  He bobbed his head at Rita and said, “Ma'am, ”and then reached out his hand to Titus. “Ward Seams, ”he said, dropping the “Deputy.”

  “I'm Titus Cain. This's my wife, Rita.”

  Now the deputy bobbed his head at her again and shook hands with her, too. He looked at Titus.

  “I'm sorry, ”he said, “but I've got some bad news for you, Mr. Cain. I understand Ms. Carla Elster is your personal assistant?”

  Titus could only nod. The only thing that remained for him to know was how it had happened.

  “Ms. Elster is dead, Mr. Cain.”

  Rita gasped, then gasped again, two expurgations of air that sounded as if she'd been hit in the stomach. Titus couldn't respond at all.

  Seams talked slowly, carefully, as if he were trying to coax a frightened animal.

  “She was found just about an hour ago near her home,” he said. “She was lying by the roadside. Been jogging. EMS people tell us it looks like she died of allergic reaction to insect stings.”

  Incredibly, Rita gasped again. Seams threw a look at her again and then went on.

  “She was wearing identification, ”he explained. “EMS took her to Seton downtown. I went by the house and neighbors told me her two daughters were out of town for the summer. They told me she worked for CaiText, and the people there told me she worked for you. That you were old friends.”

  He reached out and put his hand on Titus's shoulder, an unexpected gesture.

  “I'm really sorry, Mr. Cain. ”And he seemed to be. He looked at Rita again, then back at Titus. “This is hard, I know, but I need to ask you some questions about the girls. We need to talk about how to handle it. Somebody has to tell them. We've got to decide how to go about doing that.”

  Rita had sat down in one of the wrought-iron chairs in the veranda and was crying as Titus stood and watched the deputy's car go down the drive to the front gate. He watched it until it was out of sight.

  What he was feeling was indescribable. It was an emotion like no other, and it grew stranger as he stood under the morning glories and listened to Rita crying softly, even politely, but without consolation. There was a world of bewilderment in her weeping as well as fear and anger and stupefaction and emotions that no one had ever named.

  For Titus, though, the overriding feeling was one of nausea driven by an appalling sense of guilt. If he had … if he had … if he had … In an instantaneous swarm of remembrances, he blamed Luquín … and Gil Norlin … and García Burden … and himself for not seeing at every turn where all this was going, for not having enough insight, for not having enough intelligence, for not having enough savvy … for not having enough guts …

  “Goddamn it all! ”he swore, and wheeled around, his face flushing, his body thrilling with the adrenaline that was exploding through him, driven by the hyperagitation of his own mind. “Goddamn it! ”he repeated, and barged across the veranda and onto the courtyard, headed for the guest house, where Burden had spent what was left of the night instead of going back down the hill.

  “Titus! ”Rita lifted her head out of her hands. “Titus!” She stood, but she was frozen to the spot.

  Titus flung open the door of the guest house with such force that it slammed against the inside wall like a gunshot. His entrance was so volcanic that Herrin and Cline, who were working at computer monitors, actually jumped to their feet in shocked surprise.

  “Where the hell's Burden, ”he demanded, his throat thick with emotion, just as Burden stood up from the sofa where he'd been sitting, his telephone still to his ear.

  “Get off the goddamned phone, ”Titus barked at him.

  Burden said something into the phone and snapped it shut. The two men faced each other.

  “You know what just happened?”

  “Yeah, ”Burden said. “I just found out.”

  Titus's chest was heaving, his heart pitching, almost squeezing off his ability to speak.

  “No more, ”he said. “That's it. No more. Not one more. Don't give me any of this shit about inevitability. Fuck that. The killings stop here. Right now.”

  “How do—”

  “I'm going to tell you, ”Titus said. “You take every bit of information you have on Luquín and his people—which is considerable at this point—and you go to the FBI. Now. Right this minute. You take them everything you have, and you get their tac squads over there and arrest Luquín or kill him, and I don't give a shit which. But this insanity stops now!”

  “Think about this, Titus—”

  “You do this now, García”—Titus was almost screaming, his voice hoarse with heat—“or I will. I don't give a shit about your silence or your secrecy or
your hidden agendas. No more of my friends are going to die because of this son of a bitch. You don't have any choice. You don't have any say. This is the end of it.”

  Chapter 32

  The guest house was full of electricity, more of it coursing through the people than through the tangle of cables and wires supporting the computers and communications hardware scattered around on makeshift folding tables.

  Rita had burst through the door immediately after Titus, and the two of them were standing facing Burden, who, unintimidated, was nodding at them, letting them catch their breath. Mark Herrin and Cline were working feverishly at their computer screens with an improbably fierce concentration. In the midst of this momentary silence, the only sound was the white noise of humming electronics.

  “I should never have let this go this far, ”Titus said. “My choices led to these deaths. But I'm not going to let it happen anymore.”

  “So your solution is to pull the plug on all this, ”Burden said.

  From where he stood, he faced the south side of the large main room, with its high glass wall that reached to a vaulted ceiling and looked out at the last part of the laurel allée and the peach orchard.

  “Look, ”he said, running the fingers of one hand through his hair and looking at Titus, “think about this: Knowing what you know now about Luquín, knowing that he had promised you he'd kill people if you went to the FBI”—he paused—“do you think that if you'd gone to the FBI that first night, you would've prevented either of these deaths?”

  Burden paused, but he didn't want his answer quite yet. He went on.

  “How quickly do you think the FBI would've found Luquín? Literally, how would that have played out? Would they have him yet”—he looked at his watch and then back at Titus—“sixty hours later? Would either of these deaths have been prevented?”

  Titus stared at him. His mind was plunging into the problem, but still Burden didn't wait.

  “Even if they had arrested him—an impossibility, but let's go ahead with that fantasy for the hell of it—would that have prevented these tragic … accidents?”

  Silence.

  “Or let's say Luquín would've managed to get out of the country before they found him. Do you think that would've prevented these two deaths?”

  Burden glanced at Rita, who was staring at him in brittle silence.

  “You need to remember, Titus, that you aren't the only one who's ever had to go through something like this because of this man. Have you forgotten that? And, believe me, I didn't tell you nearly all that I could've. The fact is, as tragedies go, things could've been a hell of a lot worse for you, couldn't they.”

  Titus stared at him, feeling the heat of temper still in his face. He was strung out, pummeled by his own emotions.

  Leaving his questions hanging in the air, Burden moved over to the window and looked out. He stayed that way, giving no indication of what he planned to do next.

  “I can't do anything about what Luquín's done anywhere else, ”Titus said to Burden's back. “I'm sorry about it, I am, but I can't do anything about it.”

  Burden turned around. “But you can do something about it here? Is that it?”

  “I should've gone to the FBI to begin with.”

  “And Luquín would be gone now, ”Burden said, “and Thrush and Elster would've died anyway.”

  “But we'd have the FBI, ”Titus countered, “and the CIA, and the damned U.S. military, if we needed them, chasing his ass. There's a lot of weight there, García. What have you got chasing him?”

  “And others would've died, too, ”Burden went on, “just like Luquín promised, because he would've been furious at you for having gone to the FBI and having cost him his damn ransom money. On top of that, he would've gone underground, and it would take us another ten years to get our hands on him again, and all the while he would've gone on devastating God knows how many more lives. ”He paused. “That's what you would've accomplished, Titus.”

  The two men looked at each other.

  “You do recognize that, Titus? You do understand that, don't you?”

  “Let me tell you what I understand, García. I understand that it was because of decisions that I made that Charlie and Carla died. I understand that I can't live with any more of those kinds of deaths. I can't do anything about things that I don't understand. I'm through working off the books. I want this information to go to the FBI. Now. I want Luquín stopped. Now.”

  Burden came back over in front of Titus and Rita, addressing them both.

  “Get this straight, ”he said, sounding nearly callous now, “Charlie Thrush and Carla Elster were dead from the moment Cayetano Luquín stepped onto your veranda over there two days ago. They were dead, regardless of what you did, and that's just the brutal reality of it. I think I said as much to you, didn't I? In San Miguel. I said, One or two are already as good as dead. I said Luquín would have to do this because he thinks that's the only way you'll really be able to grasp the reality of what's happening to you.”

  He paused but didn't move, didn't even blink.

  “Luquín travels with violence and misery. He's decided to travel here. Now, you can blame me for that if you want to, but it doesn't make you right. And you can feel guilty about that if you want to, but since you didn't have anything to do with it, it seems a little irrational for you to feel responsible for it. It's just wrong to feel that way, and it doesn't accomplish anything. And, frankly, it smacks of self-indulgence.”

  This last remark made Titus furious, but in the same instant he could see it. He hadn't forgotten what he'd learned about Luquín, but neither had he stopped to put his own experience into perspective in light of those other horrible stories.

  Burden moved away from Titus again. Though he seemed self-possessed, his few movements were actually his version of nervous pacing. Titus remembered him walking through the pools of light in his study as he tried to put his thoughts together. Now Burden stopped near one of the stone pillars that supported the high ceiling.

  “You've got to stop this ambivalence, Titus. There's no time for it. You've got to understand how thin the margin for success is here even if we work closely together. We can't fight each other and win this thing.”

  He had hardly finished his last word when Rita spoke up.

  “I want to know where we are, ”she said. “If you're so sure that Luquín would've gotten away if we'd gone to the FBI because they're too slow and clumsy, now that you've got all this information that your computer people are processing, why don't you take it to the FBI like Titus says, and make sure that they nail this maniac? And when you say ‘winning this thing,’ what do you mean, exactly?”

  Burden's eyes moved between Titus and Rita. His expression was stoic, but he was clearly trying to make a decision. He shifted his weight on his feet, still leaning on the pillar. He looked over at Herrin and Cline, who were doing their best to appear oblivious to what was going on, as if they were deaf.

  “Mark, ”Burden said, “could we have some time alone here?”

  “Oh, yeah, sure, ”Herrin said, and he and Cline got up and walked out of the guest house without another word.

  As soon as they had shut the door behind them, Burden came back over. He sat on the sofa, on the front edge of it, his forearms on his knees, his fingers loosely laced.

  “The FBI doesn't want this damn information, ”he said. “They want me to have it. And they don't want to know what I do with it.”

  Chapter 33

  Titus and Rita gaped at Burden, half-afraid of what they were going to hear.

  “The only reason I'm going to tell you what you're about to hear is because I've got to have your cooperation, and I don't think you're going to give it to me unless you know. But, hear me on this: There's a price for knowing what I'm getting ready to tell you. You've got to go to your graves with this. If you don't, it won't matter who you are or how righteous you think your claims are, it's not going to go well for you.”

  “You ough
t to be able to give a threat more teeth than that, ”Titus said.

  “I can, but that's not a threat. It's a matter of counsel, a cautionary word.”

  “I'm not promising a damn thing, ”Titus said.

  “I didn't think you would. You're in a hell of a situation, and at this point in the game you deserve as much of an explanation as I can give you. I'm just telling you, the knowledge doesn't come free. There's a price for it. You'll have to make some tough choices about how you use it.”

  Burden's soft voice seemed to grow even softer as he spoke. He paused, considering what he was about to say next, and when he began again, Titus found himself leaning forward in his armchair, trying to hear him more clearly.

  “There's a list, ”Burden said, “and Luquín's name is on it. It's a short list, and was drawn up by a select committee of ranking members from each of the branches of the U.S. intelligence community. This list is not shared with the intelligence agencies of any other nations, not even our closest allies. The individuals on this list are considered to be serious threats to the U.S.—specifically to the U.S., without regard to any other nation. The executive branch has issued a secret finding ordering a consent to silence, targeting these people for assassination.”

  Titus felt Rita stiffen as she sat beside him on the arm of his chair.

  “There's another list. A shorter one. These individuals have been sanctioned to carry out the consent to silence. My name is on that list.

  “Listen to me carefully: You've been sucked into something here that you can't fathom. It's more complex than you're able to imagine.”

  Titus was stunned. “How … how could these men be so much of a threat … you're talking … assassination?”

  “Before bin Laden we didn't think it was possible, either, ”Burden said. “These men are known to us. So was bin Laden. These men have connections that cross political, ideological, criminal, and national boundaries. So did bin Laden. It's their ability to synthesize these connections, and to focus them on a target on a scale never seen before, that has earned these individuals a place on the list. If such a thing had been imaginable before bin Laden, his name would've been on the list, too. As it's turned out, he's the one who's made us see the necessity for even having such a list. And for seeking such a resolution.”