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The fin went a few yards past them, then reversed course. “How big?”
“I’m guessing fourteen, fifteen feet. Tell me you’re not having your period.”
“I’m not having my period.”
“Thank God for that; we don’t need that scent in the water.” She looked back toward the beach and saw Dino and Genevieve walk into the water and begin swimming toward them. “They’re splashing,” she said, pointing.
Stone turned and looked at the swimmers and began waving his arms. Dino waved back. Stone, with both hands, began making a pushing motion, waving them back to the beach. It took Dino a moment to understand, then he tapped Genevieve on the shoulder, and they began swimming back. They stood in knee-deep water and watched. Dino pointed out the shark’s fin to his girlfriend.
“This is ridiculous,” Holly said. “Four naked people watching a shark swim.”
“Two of them in the water with the shark,” Stone pointed out. “That’s even more ridiculous.”
“What are we going to do?” Holly asked.
“Wait for it to decide we’re uninteresting.”
“And if it has a different opinion?”
“Hit it with our fists in the eyes, which, I think, are at the ends of the hammer. I wish now I hadn’t missed that field trip to the aquarium when I was a kid. I was home with the flu.”
“I wish I had a gun,” Holly said, looking at Stone. When she looked back at the shark, the fin was gone. “Oh, shit.” She pointed.
“Oh, shit, indeed,” Stone replied. He ducked slowly under the water again, and this time he was under for a full minute before he came up again.
Holly kept looking for the fin. “Could you see it?” she asked.
“No, it vanished.”
“Vanished where?”
“I don’t know, it’s just gone.”
Holly ducked under the water and did a slow three-sixty. She wished she had goggles. She wished she had a shotgun. She came up again. “I can’t see more than thirty feet.”
“Neither could I.” Stone suddenly pointed outside the bar. The fin had reappeared, moving slowly down the beach, away from them. “I think it’s time to rejoin Dino and Genevieve,” he said. “No overhand swimming; breaststroke.”
But Holly was already swimming steadily toward the beach. She had a weird feeling that the big hammerhead was an omen, or maybe a metaphor for what might be waiting for them on St. Marks. She tried to shake off the feeling and failed.
They walked out of the water a few minutes later and flopped down on the blanket next to their friends.
“I’m exhausted,” Holly said. “Too much adrenaline; I’ve used it all up.”
“Looked like a dolphin to me,” Dino said.
Stone shook his head. “I saw it underwater; a hammerhead.”
“Eeeew,” Genevieve said.
“My feelings exactly,” Holly replied. “I’m going to shower, then I have to make a phone call.”
Twenty minutes later, she dialed Bill Pepper’s satphone number. He answered immediately. “Scrambling,” she said, and pushed the button.
“Okay, I’m scrambled, too,” Pepper said. He sounded as if he was very far away. “What do you want?”
“I’ve got new instructions from Lance,” she said.
“I don’t work for Lance, and I don’t take his instructions, unless I feel like it.”
“This is handed down from the director, bypassing Hugh English.”
“How do I know that?”
“Do you expect the director to call you?”
“Well, that hasn’t happened so far.”
“And it’s not going to happen now.”
“What are these instructions?”
“We’ve got to identify Robertson beyond question.”
“Isn’t a strong suspicion enough to call the cops, or Interpol?”
“The problem is, he may be someone else.”
“Someone else? You mean, besides the Heathrow robber?”
“This never goes to Hugh English or anyone else.”
“I don’t like the sound of this.”
“It doesn’t matter whether you like it; this has to be done.”
“All right, I agree. Now, who does Lance think he is?”
“Maybe Teddy Fay.”
Pepper burst out laughing.
“No kidding.”
He stopped laughing. “He’s not dead?”
“I wish he were.”
“This is nuts.”
“Maybe so, but there it is. Prove he’s not Teddy. Prove he’s Barney Cox or anybody else. We have to know.”
Pepper sighed. “This might be fun, if it weren’t so crazy.”
“I hope you enjoy the experience.”
“Is that why you’re on St. Marks? To track down the maybe mythical Teddy Fay?”
“Yes.”
“Did Lance offer any suggestion as to how I am to proceed?”
“His view is that you’re here, on the ground, you have resources, and you know best how to use them.”
“Great, and what are you going to do?”
“Don’t go near Robertson; those are my instructions.”
“And who do I report my findings to?”
“Me. I’ll report to Lance.”
“This is very weird.”
“I can’t deny that.”
“You were sent here to find Teddy, but you’ve been told not to pursue your primary suspect? Or is he your primary suspect? Is there anybody else?”
“What do you think of Pemberton or Weatherby as suspects?”
“Jesus, I don’t know; I wasn’t looking for Teddy Fay when I checked them out.”
“How did they check out?”
“Okay; they had the usual paper trail; as far as I can tell, they’re who they say they are.”
“Have you ever seen either of them?”
“No; they’re snowbirds; they don’t spend all their time here.”
“Are they worth my pursuing them as suspects?”
“Well, apparently, you don’t have anything else to do.”
“Tell me what else you know about them.”
“Nothing-a criminal record, use of a false identity-has come up.”
“Please let me know if you hear anything else.”
“I’ll get back to you.”
“Bye.” Holly hung up, still pissed off that she wasn’t being allowed to investigate Robertson.
27
Kate Lee arrived back at the White House, shed her Secret Service detail and went up to the family quarters. Her husband was sitting in front of the big flatscreen TV he had had installed, watching Katie Couric deliver the news. A commercial came on.
She kissed him. “You gave up the guys for a girl?” she asked, mixing them a drink at the bar concealed in the bookcases.
“I alternate,” he said. “If you were home in time to watch the news more often, you’d know that.”
“If I were home in time to watch the news, you wouldn’t talk to me until the news was over, anyway.”
“You have a point, as usual.” They touched glasses and drank.
“What are we doing for di
“I ordered a pizza.”
“What, we’re having di
“Amazing, isn’t it?”
The commercials ended, and Katie returned. Kate knew better than to talk before the news was over. Couric wrapped up simultaneously with the arrival of the pizza.
Will opened the box and looked at the pizza. “Shit,” he said.
“What?”
“Green peppers. I ordered the Extravaganza with no green peppers.”
Kate began picking out the green slivers and putting them aside. “I hope the voters that depend on green pepper growing for their livelihood don’t hear about this,” she said. “You’d never be reelected.”
“You could be right,” he said, picking up a green-pepper-free slice of pizza. “George Bush the elder said publicly that he hated broccoli, and look what happened to him.”
Kate went to the bar, opened a bottle of wine and returned with two glasses. “Maybe Teddy Fay is like the green peppers,” she said.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t order him, either.”
“I mean, maybe we should just ignore him.”
Will’s mouth was too full of pizza to respond immediately. He chewed for a minute, then swallowed. “You really think that? I thought your people were close to nailing him.”
“We’re just guessing.”
“Kate, the man has murdered a dozen people, among them a speaker of the house and a supreme court justice. We shouldn’t catch him?”