Читать книгу Day Of Atonement - Alex Archer - Страница 13

“Roux, you old bastard, what an unexpected and, if I might say so, delightful pleasure,” Garin said, laying it on thick. The universe worked in mysterious ways, he thought, smiling to himself. He’d been agonizing over what excuse to use as a pretext to call the old man, even going so far as to suggest a good old-fashioned Christmas dinner at the chateau, just the three of them. “What can I do you for?” Apart from liberate Guillaume Manchon’s papers from your vault. Though, if he stole Guillaume Manchon’s papers during a cozy visit, the wagging finger of suspicion would point toward him—but it always was. And Roux would forgive him; he always did.

They were peas in a pod—him and the old man. Partners in crime. They were, even without the blood bond, family. They needed each other. What was a little theft and profiteering against a backdrop as profound as that?

“I need your help,” Roux answered.

Interesting, Garin thought. The old man never made a habit of asking for anything lest he be beholden to someone. He’d negotiate, blackmail or manipulate Garin into getting what he wanted before he would say please. This wasn’t exactly uncharted territory, but it was seldom-ventured waters. He knew Roux well. There were a lot of things he was unable or unwilling to try to deal with, including technology and murder.

“So who do you want killed?” he laughed, only half joking.

“It’s the exact opposite…”

“You want someone brought back to life? I’m good, but I’m not even that good.”

“Shut up, Garin.”

“Is that any way to ask for help?”

“I’ve already asked. I’m not asking twice. Now stop being an ass. I’ve just had a most peculiar telephone call…”

“A mouth breather? I hate those.”

“I need you to see if you can trace the call.”

“I’m assuming this won’t be as simple as hitting last-number redial? You have tried that, right? I know you’re not exactly down with the kids.”

“I’m not an idiot.”

“Time?”

“Twenty minutes ago, maybe a little less,” Roux said. The old man was using that annoyingly matter-of-fact tone he always had when he was worried. That was the giveaway. There was no banter. No back and forth. He was genuinely worried. That meant Garin, in turn, was fascinated—because anything that worried the old man was worth digging into.

“On this number? Not the main line of the house?”

“This number. Can you do anything?”

“Probably. There are ways and means. Nothing’s truly hidden in this modern world. I’m going to assume this wasn’t a crank call, so what is it all about?”

“The caller wanted me to believe he had hurt Annja.”

Garin fell silent for a moment. That changed things. Annja was neutral territory. They were both protective of her. She was the glue that kept their dysfunctional family together. The implications zipped through his mind like a runaway train. First, it wasn’t impossible that someone had joined the dots and learned of the connection between the two of them. It wasn’t a secret, but it wasn’t public knowledge, either.

Then there was the fact the old man was paranoid and didn’t share this number with anyone, including the phone company who serviced it, having used his charms a long time ago to seduce the operator and have the private number “lost.” That meant the caller had gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to track down a number that to all intents and purposes hadn’t existed for the best part of fifty years. Third, which was completely selfish in origin, if the mysterious caller knew about Annja, odds were that they’d found the connections between the old man and him. That made it personal. That was a world of inconvenience he’d rather avoid.

“I’m on my way,” he said, realizing he’d just been given the key to the house.

“There really is no need to come running,” Roux said. “Just find out where the call came from. If you want to impress me, find out who made the call. Let me know when you have any news.”

The old man had hung up before Garin could bluster about how he was heading over no matter what he said. Of course, that didn’t mean he had to sit on his hands.

Garin was good with machines. He understood their universal language in a sense that far surpassed his knowledge of most things in this life. Most, but not all. He smiled at the woman who stood in the bedroom doorway, shadows not leaving much to the imagination.

“I just have to make this call. I’ll be right there. Why don’t you get started without me?” She turned on her heel. He enjoyed how her curves were accentuated by the soft light. Simple things offered the greatest pleasures in life. That was a life lesson worth hundreds of years, right there.

Another was, why sit hunched over a computer trying to track a call when there was a delicious woman waiting to do unspeakable things to you in the bedroom?

He made the call.

The drowsy voice on the other end of the phone didn’t sound pleased to hear from him. Garin looked at the clock and then remembered his favorite hacker was half a world away. Instantly making the time zone adjustments, he apologized and said, “Sorry. I figured you’d have the phone turned off if you were crashing.”

“Garin,” was all the hacker could manage for a several seconds.

“I’ve got a job for you.”

“Usual rates?”

“Do it right and I’ll throw in a nice bonus,” Garin said, and started to fill him in on what he needed.

“Leave it with me,” the hacker told him. “Assuming the caller tried to mask his whereabouts, I’ll set about stripping away his anonymity. That’s always the fun part with these guys. First, I’ll send a crawler into the satellite stream and try to backtrack the signal. That should give us a rough location pretty quickly, then I’ll start narrowing the focus. Give me a couple of hours. But you know the odds are it’s a burner phone and there’ll be nothing to find at the other end apart from the batch number.”

“That’s not a dead end. Batches go to shops, shops have CCTV. Get me everything you can, starting with a location. I’ll take it from there.”

He hung up and made another call. He would need to have his plane ready within the hour. That gave him plenty of time to finish what he’d started in the other room and to shower before he left for the airport.