Bream’s condominium complex consisted of about fifty luxury duplexes, amalgams of classic colonial and modern beach houses with weather-browned clapboard walls and doors trimmed in a sandy cream. A suntanned blonde out of the pages of a swimsuit issue dozed, gently swaying in an oversized rope hammock by the pool. Lying on a floating chaise lounge was a second woman, possibly the blonde’s younger and bronzer sister. She glanced up from her paperback and smiled as Stanley and Hadley got out of their new rental car.
Stanley gave a tight smile in response.
“Bonjour,” Hadley said to the women. Nudging Stanley, she said under her breath, “Don’t you want to give them a thorough once-over, make sure they’re not sentinels?”
He looked down at her and saw her grin. He liked that she never missed a beat.
He hoped like hell that the switchblade ring business was just an aberration.
She rang Bream’s buzzer. A moment later the pilot appeared in the doorway, pulling an old sweatshirt over a pair of gym shorts. He might have put on the sweatshirt before opening the door, Stanley thought, but then he wouldn’t have been able to show off his Muscle Beach abs. The pilot’s eyes were rimmed red with sleeplessness, pleasing Stanley, who didn’t like it when scumbags with that much free time for the gym slept well in their cushy island pads.
“Mr. and Mrs. Atchison, hey.” The pilot acted pleasantly surprised. “Nice of you to drop by.”
“We’re here on United States government business,” said Stanley, glad to be spared the song and dance of why the golf-obsessed CFO and his self-absorbed wife were on the pilot’s front stoop.
Bream leaned closer, as if he hadn’t heard right. “Government business?”
“We should go inside and talk about it,” Hadley said.
The pilot shrugged. “So long as you don’t mind a little mess. The maid hasn’t been here, well, to be honest, ever.”
Stanley stumbled, intentionally, as he followed Hadley across the threshold. He fell against Bream, who reflexively caught him by the shoulders.
“Excuse me,” Stanley said, clinging to the pilot’s waist to remain upright while he felt for a gun hidden in the small of the man’s back.
Bream released him. “First thing on the maid’s list will be that doorstep.”
“Much obliged.” Stanley added a pat of gratitude, feeling no holster in the vicinity of Bream’s underarm, bolstering his confidence that the pilot had no weapon on him.
Still Stanley knew he needed to keep an eye out for a knife or gun produced from a hiding spot and against which his only defense would be the surveillance team in a hotel room fifty yards away. In such situations, the old joke went, the best your backup team can do is avenge you.
The condo itself wasn’t as bad as advertised. Empty Red Stripe bottles, randomly flicked bottle caps and clothing abounded, but were lost in the grandeur of the space-ten-foot ceilings with gleaming ceramic tile crown molding, lustrous hardwood floors, and slabs of granite atop every counter.
Whisking a weight-lifting belt off the back of one of the dining room chairs, Bream ushered Stanley and Hadley into two of the other three seats at the table. “I can offer you water, or water with a tea bag in it,” he said, indicating a stout Victorian teakettle on the burner.
“How about you just join us, Mr. Bream?” Hadley tapped the glass tabletop.
“Okay, then.” Bream spun around a chair and sat so that his chest was pressed against the backrest, providing himself an extra layer of protection whether or not he consciously intended it. “So are you folks CIA or FBI or I don’t need to know?”
“You were right the first time.” Stanley leaned over the table to minimize the distance between them. “I take it you’re aware that you’ve been ferrying some fairly sought after individuals.”
“I heard about the dustup at the airport last night. You’ve gotta understand, though, I’m just a glorified courier. Those guys came to me through an American company that does lots of business here.”
“We know all about them,” Stanley said of Alice Rutherford’s NSA unit, which had operated under the cover of a Maryland-based insurance agency and obviously hadn’t placed background checks for charter pilots high on their priority list. “I want to let you in on something that the CIA has learned: John Townsend Bream is a thirty-nine-year-old resident patient at the Four Oaks mental institution in Tunica, Mississippi. Has been for nine years.”
Bream stared across the table in openmouthed wonder. “So you’re saying I’m a mental patient in Mississippi and, what, that I’m just imagining that I’m in Martinique?”
“That’s possible. It’s also possible that you assumed the identity of someone who wouldn’t be going anywhere …”
Bream scowled. “Maybe the mental patient assumed my identity-”
“If I were you, I’d deny everything too,” Stanley said.
“Don’t worry, we’re not here about that,” Hadley added.
“Not necessarily.” Stanley let a beat of silence underline the threat. “If you’ll help us locate your two passengers, J. T., your only involvement in this case will be collecting the ten-thousand-euro reward for their arrest.” In fact, Stanley expected Bream, or whoever he was, to wind up penniless in a federal penitentiary.
“Do you have any idea where they are?” Hadley asked.
Bream sighed wistfully. “I wish I did.”
Stanley didn’t believe him. “How about your best guess?”
“The only unusual part of the deal is they’re planning on bringing back some supersize cargo. I’m supposed to find a bird with an extra-large cargo door. But that’s okay. I once had a client who bought a statue in Athens and flew it back to Palm Be-”
Hadley cut in. “Do you have a rendezvous time or place?”
“They’re gonna call me as soon as they find whatever it is they’re looking for. They’ve got me booked for the whole week.” Bream broke free of Stanley’s stare, shifting his focus to the copper teakettle.
Hadley set her BlackBerry on the table and cupped her right knee, signaling to Stanley her belief that the pilot was dissembling. Stanley twisted his wedding ring, indicating his agreement.
The BlackBerry vibrated, rattling against the table. Hadley snatched it up.
“Well, how about that?” She relayed the text message. “Lesser and Ramirez have been captured at sea by the Royal St. Lucia Police Force and are on the way to a detention center.”
Bream grinned. “Well, it’s a good thing you came to see me, isn’t it?”