Primary Valor by Jack Mars (booksvooks TXT) 📗

this early, and it made it to his bedside, then someone thought it wasimportant. He didn’t get where he was by avoiding important calls.

He put the phone to his ear.

“What?”

“Sir, I’m very sorry to bother youat this—”

“Save it. What’s going on?”

“There’s a call from the UnitedStates.”

“Okay. Put it through.”

A pause came while the man put thecall through. This far from civilization, the phones worked like they had inthe past, when this place was still a hotel. There was a switchboarddownstairs, in a room near the kitchen, and a person plugged lines into theswitchboard, just like in movies from the 1950s and 1960s.

Darwin reached a hand behind himand touched the warm flesh of a young thing. The girl made the groan of someonewho was comfortably asleep. It was nice. It was reassuring. There was somethingnostalgic and romantic about it.

There were two other girls besidesthis one in the bed with him. That’s where the romance ended—three young girlsin a gigantic bed.

He sat up at the side of the bed. Heextended the antenna of the cordless phone, stood up, and padded nude to thebalcony. He passed through the doors to the outside.

It was a different world out here.Cool but humid, white mists hanging across the dense trees as they descendeddown the side of the mountain. It was still dark, but light was entering thesky, as if someone was very slowly turning up a dimmer device. The fog was sothick, he couldn’t see the ocean from here.

“Darwin?” a voice said. It was aman’s voice.

“Yeah.”

“I was told to call you.”

Darwin nodded. “Okay.”

“It’s happening. The thing youwere warned about.”

This was what people like BillRyan didn’t understand. Ryan was so self-centered, he somehow thought that hewas the only one who had access to information, or that his access was thebest, or was exclusive in some way. It wasn’t.

The hint Ryan had given him wasenough. Darwin King had his own ways of finding out more.

“When is it happening?”

“We don’t know. We are on top ofit, though, and we will find out.”

“Do you know what form it willtake?”

“Well, we don’t expect a hundredvice cops to pull up at your house, if you get what I’m saying. Given thepeople involved, we can only guess it will be some kind of undercover thing. Likea black op. More than that, we don’t know at this time.”

Darwin didn’t like that. Itconjured to mind images of ninjas in black pajamas, moving unseen, creepingdown darkened hallways with knives between their teeth.

“Is it about number 21?” he said.

“Yes.”

Darwin ran a hand through hishair. He had a moment of weakness then. Nothing had happened yet. She hadpledged herself to him, but he hadn’t consummated their relationship. She wasstill downstairs in the Tombs, softening up, getting ready, ripening,as he liked to put it.

She was probably ready now, but heliked them all the way ready, completely malleable, no resistance at all. Heliked to remake them, and their images of themselves, according to his vision. Hewas like a master painter in that way.

Give her back.

Maybe he had overstepped afterall. Maybe he had underestimated Miles Richmond. It was just one girl. She wasnot harmed, other than a little bit of psychological shock and physicaldiscomfort. She would get over that. He could give her back. If he did, thisproblem would go away, and these people would leave him alone.

But that wasn’t him, was it?

He shook his head and smiled. No.

You didn’t become Darwin King bybacking down.

“What else?”

“As I understand it, there wassome talk of terminating your lease.”

“Terminating… my… lease.”

“Yes. If you understand me.”

Darwin nodded. “I do.”

That settled it. People didn’ttalk about terminating Darwin King’s lease. It didn’t happen. They weren’tgoing to kill him. They weren’t even going to come close. It was a joke. Hewould increase security here on the island, as a precaution, and he wouldderail their efforts at the source. He would keep the girl and do anything andeverything he wanted with her.

“Can we stop it?” he said. “Crushit, like an insect? Make them sorry they even considered it?”

“Yes, of course,” the voice said.“We have someone very close to it already. But derailing it is one thing. Crushingit will cost extra.”

Darwin wanted to be completelyclear. “I’m talking about a total loss for them, and total victory for us. Completelyone-sided. Devastating impact. Such that no one ever tries anything like thisagain.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Good,” Darwin said. “In thatcase, money is no concern at all. Spend whatever it takes. And keep me in theloop.”

“Okay. We will.”

Darwin hung up. He went inside thebedroom and looked at the enormous bed in the gathering light of dawn. Thesheets were tangled and twisted. Live bodies were strewn this way and that,heads buried in masses of blond and brunette hair. It looked like some kind ofabstract art piece. If he were an artist, he would put a canvas on an easelright now and paint it.

“Total victory,” he whispered tohimself.

That’s what he would call it. That’swhat his life was. That’s what his art would be. That’s what every singlepainting he ever made would be called.

He decided he was in no hurry tostart his day. He was in no mood to worry about black operators, spy versusspy. That would all take care of itself. And if past was prologue, it wouldtake care of itself in his favor. Meanwhile, he had better things to do withhis time.

He smiled and slid back into bed.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

8:25 a.m. Eastern Standard Time

Marriott Extended Stay Suites

Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport

Fort Lauderdale, Florida

 

 

“I could get used to this,”Special Agent Henry Bowles said.

Luke looked at Ed. Ed shook hishead.

The man wore blue jeans, and aplain black long sleeve T-shirt that hugged the muscles of his upper body. Bowleswas jacked. He had a pair of leather sandals on his big feet. He wore a blackbaseball cap that said Spy Kids in white across the front. His face hadthe same three-day growth of beard it had the day before.

He looked like a male model. Specifically,he looked like a model doing a travel magazine shoot where he played a happy,healthy, prosperous dad on a Florida vacation with the family.

Bowles had