Particularly if the snuffer-outers, and by extension the chemical plant torchers, were, as he suspected, “of government” and “of Washington,” or at least somewhere in the States.

“Crap,” he said.

Maybe I’ll just sit out on the beach and wait around until the snuffer-outers work their way around to me-

He heard a noise and realized that somebody had begun slicing melons behind him. Without turning to look, he already knew it wasn’t Ronnie-the errand boy, he knew, wouldn’t have got to work without offering up at least a snide remark, or hangover-heavy greeting. Cooper listened, still facing the beach and not the melon slicer, and detected the bubbling gurgle of a pot of coffee brewing somewhere behind him too. Finally, it seemed a form of calm-or maybe he’d have to call it a fluid sort of transition-had come over the veranda and its surrounding garden.

Because of this, he knew who it was who was doing the slicing.

The man with the knife cut a tall, lanky shadow against the nearest bungalow wall. He cut the fruit with an expert, if rusty hand, doing it a little more slowly than when he used to do it every day. Meaning that when Cooper turned, he found the proprietor of the Conch Bay Beach Club looking back at him, an almost imperceptible nod offered while the man continued with the slicing and dicing. His name was Chris Woolsey-a tan, fit, cheery-looking fellow maybe half a decade younger than Cooper but much healthier-and much healthier looking-than the permanent resident of bungalow nine.

Woolsey didn’t spend as much time in Conch Bay these days-there were a few other properties to manage-but when he did, it was evident to gecko, plant, and person alike that this was a man who’d found his place in life.

As with Cooper, that place was here.

“The hell’d you do with Ronnie,” Cooper said.

“Even the putz gets a vacation now and then, Guv.”

“Where’ve you been?”

“Mostly the Caymans,” Woolsey said. “Little while in Aruba.”

Cooper nodded. He knew what Woolsey meant, and specifically where the proprietor had been on the islands he mentioned.

Cooper sometimes admitted to himself he envied Woolsey for his generally friendly manner-it was utterly genuine, and in fact he’d grown more effusive in the two decades Cooper had known him. Cooper envied Woolsey for it but couldn’t quite grasp how it might be possible to always be in a fine mood. Though on the other hand he could see how a person might be capable of acting that way, had that person not been subjected to near-fatal torture, nor dug himself a spiritual hole and taken a nosedive into the abyss in the years that followed.

“You know, the lagoon’s beginning to look like shit,” Cooper said. “Saw a fucking beer can down there the other day.”

Woolsey nodded.

“Got a notion to cut back on the rezzes,” he said. “Put a limit on it. Maybe raise the prices. Cut ’em back either way.”

“In the meantime let’s get Ronnie down there with the net to clean it out. When he’s back from his little sojourn, that is.”

“Not entirely clear he’s comin’ back, mate.”

Cooper turned to look at his friend.

“Feeling guilty?” Woolsey said after a little while.

“Why would I feel guilty?”

“Seeing that you’ve been even more than your usual horse’s ass recently.”

“Christ,” Cooper said. “You too?”

“It’s usually funny as effin’ hell, mate,” Woolsey said. “Almost a tourist attraction in and of itself, having a bitter, angry old fuck such as yourself in the last bungalow in the row. Angry and sad-make that depressed-are bloody different, though.”

Cooper turned back around to face the water.

“See,” Woolsey said, “somebody’s pissed, you argue with him, even laugh at the bloke, right? Take some barbs but who gives. Somebody’s in a funk, it’s different-kind of rubs off on you. Rubs off on the whole effin’ place. Rubbed off on Ronnie anyway.”

Cooper lowered his eyelids. “He quit?”

“He will,” Woolsey said, “you don’t quit driving him into his own depression. Hell, Guv-lucky anybody’s even coming by any longer. Place has the atmosphere of a funeral parlor. Maybe one with a sad old dog sleepin’ in the corner.”

Cooper didn’t say anything. Woolsey, who had finished slicing the fruit, stacked a few cubes of each kind on a series of plates. When he had the servings assembled, he wiped his hands on a towel he’d been keeping in the waistband of his board shorts, turned his back, reached for the pot of coffee, and poured two white mugs full enough to prohibit the addition of any milk. He grabbed both mugs and came over and handed one to Cooper.

He took a nearby seat and the two of them sat there, facing the very short crescent of sun as it began to show itself, fatten, then rise above the horizon. Cooper sipped, Woolsey sipped, and they said nothing. Cooper didn’t disturb his PowerBook, or the piece of wood. He just kept sipping, and looking out at the water and the sun.

When they were finished with the first round, Woolsey brought the pot over and poured them each a new cup and they drank that too in silence.

When they began to hear some footsteps on the garden path-the tell-tale sound of flip-flop on gravel-Woolsey stood.

“Time for the world-famous continental breakfast,” he said.

Woolsey stood there, sort of glaring down at Cooper, until the guests behind him were only a few steps away. When they were nearly within earshot but not quite, he said, “I trust we understand one another.”

Cooper didn’t look up at him, or do anything else to acknowledge the comment, but Cooper knew better than to think he could get away with the silent treatment on a friend as old and good as Woolsey. He understood Woolsey perfectly well-this didn’t mean he was ready to admit anything-far from it-but Woolsey knew as well as he did that their little get-together had gotten under his skin. They certainly did understand one another-for nearly twenty years now, they almost always had.

When the bubbly conversation arrived along with the married couple on the veranda to spoil the solitude of his morning paradise, Cooper stood, folded his PowerBook beneath an elbow and the strip of wood in the pocket of his swim trunks, and headed out onto the beach-opting, as he usually did, to take the scenic route on his walk back to bungalow nine.

38

“Time to earn your money.”

Upon hearing Laramie’s voice over the earpiece of his sat phone, Cooper checked his watch-ten of twelve. He decided he had no idea when he’d fallen asleep-ten minutes ago? Twenty? However long it had been, it hadn’t been enough. If nothing else, at least the beers he’d put in the icebox would be cold now, so he’d be able to drink something chillier than piss-warm brew.

He thought immediately of asking Laramie to look into the letters “ICR” for him-admit he was a failure as an investigator, that he’d be better off swimming laps, consuming lukewarm beer, and taking his cherished late-morning naps, and leave it at that. Rub her nose in the scent, he knew, and Laramie could find just about anything-including how to get his goat like nobody’s business. Julie Laramie, he thought-the woman he’d once referred to as the human lie detector machine. Maybe I’ll just put her on the case.

Since Cooper wasn’t thinking any of these thoughts out loud, Laramie went on.

“You’ll need to get us into Cuba,” she said. “The sooner the better.”

“Us?”

“You and me. Or, if you prefer to think of it this way, the operative and his commanding officer in the ‘counter-cell cell.’”

Cooper thought for a moment, reclined as he was in the hammock that stretched between a pair of palms at the far end of the beach. He couldn’t see the restaurant from where he lay, which meant that nobody in the restaurant could see him either. Either way, it was the ideal time of day-the sun was high and hot, the sky clear, and most of the guests had headed into the restaurant or their bungalows from the beach, either eating lunch or readying to do it. A pair of kids played in the water all the way down the other end of the beach, but no one else was around.