“Do you want to get your friend killed?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then listen to me. Vince Paulo has this enormous set of balls that makes him believe that a face-to-face talk with a hostage-taker is a good idea. That’s what happened last time, when everything literally blew up in his face. Now he’s blind, and this time he’ll need someone to take him by the arm and walk him into another death-trap. I’m not going to let that person be Alicia.”

“Just because we put her on the telephone doesn’t mean that she’s headed for an up-close and personal talk with the gunman.”

“It’s the first step. Clearly, Falcon is obsessed with my daughter. For crying out loud, he stole her lipstick and sent her that sick ‘It’s only out of love that I seek you’ e-mail.”

“You need to check your department sources, mayor. They’re not so sure it was Falcon who did either of those things.”

“Are you denying that this guy has a thing for my daughter?”

Jack remembered his first meeting with Falcon, the look in Falcon’s eye when they spoke about Alicia. “No. I don’t deny it. But she’s a cop, and if letting her talk to Falcon can get a hostage released, I’m all for it. I think we should trust the negotiators on this.”

“I trust nobody, all right? Do you-” He started to say something, then stopped. At first, Jack thought he was trying to control his anger, but it seemed that some other emotion was at work. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to lose-”

Jack waited for him to finish, but again the mayor stopped himself. The mayor was looking straight ahead, toward his own reflection in the windshield, making no eye contact with Jack as he continued in a solemn voice. “I don’t talk about this very often, but Alicia’s mother is my second wife. I was married once before. Had another daughter.” He paused, then added, “She was eight years old when she died.”

“I’m sorry.”

“September sixteenth, nineteen seventy-four. Isabel and her mother were in a pastry shop in Buenos Aires. They had been out shopping, had their bags and packages with them. They decided to stop for something sweet before coming home. They were just sitting there at the counter, having a perfect little mother-daughter day.”

Jack was watching him, but the mayor was still looking through the windshield, staring out at nothing.

“And out of the blue,” the mayor said, his voice starting to quake. He swallowed hard to regain his composure. “Out of the blue, there was this huge explosion. A bomb. Some crazy terrorist son of a bitch had decided to blow up a bank branch right next to innocent shoppers. Can you imagine anyone doing such a thing?”

Jack could, but he wished he couldn’t.

“About forty bombs were exploded around the country just on that day alone. My wife was dead at the scene. Our daughter died in the hospital, two days later.”

“I had no idea. I truly am sorry.”

The two men sat in silence. Jack wasn’t sure what to say. Would it really have mattered if he had promised to do everything in his power to keep Alicia out of the hostage negotiations? Or was the mayor simply trying to close old wounds-trying to convince himself that, this time around, he was doing everything he possibly could to protect his daughter, even if his demands on Jack were not entirely reasonable, even if his fears for Alicia were not completely rational? Finally, the mayor leaned over the console, reached across Jack’s torso, and grabbed the passenger-door handle. The invasion of personal space made Jack uneasy.

“Keep my daughter out of this,” the mayor said as he pushed the door open for Jack. “Or we may both regret it.”

It had almost sounded like a threat, but the situation was too delicate, too ambiguous, for Jack to challenge him on it. Jack offered a little nod, wanting to give the man something, if only out of pity for what had happened to the Mendoza family more than a quarter-century ago. Then he climbed out of the car and closed the door.

The engine started, and the mayor drove away.

chapter 27

I t was still dark in Nassau when Riley returned home from the Greater Bahamian Bank amp; Trust Company. He was exhausted, annoyed, and determined to get another two hours of sleep before meeting with the bank’s attorneys about the safe deposit box matter. He was forced to deal with lawyers far too often to suit his own preferences. Probably the only thing that wasn’t secret about the offshore banking industry was that the secrecy regulations and the endless challenges to them had made plenty of lawyers rich.

Riley climbed the front steps to his townhouse slowly. The sprawling tropical canopy over his front yard blocked out the glow of the street lamp, and he’d neglected to turn on a porch light before rushing out the front door to meet Swyteck and the others at the bank. The door was unlocked, just as he’d left it. Crime wasn’t exactly unheard of in the Bahamas, but something about island living seemed to encourage unlocked doors and open windows, as if to deny, or at least defy, the existence of evil in paradise. Riley entered the foyer and tried the wall switch. The room remained dark. No great surprise. Power outages were a way of life in his neighborhood. He closed the door and waited for his eyes to adjust before trying to cross the room. He was about to take his first step when, from the other side of the living room, he heard the distinctive cocking of a revolver.

“Stop right there, Riley.”

He froze in his tracks. The voice was familiar, though he might not have recognized it so quickly if he hadn’t just spent the night dealing with box 266. “News must travel pretty fast.” He was trying to sound breezy, but he couldn’t conceal his nervousness.

“It’s a small world, Riley. Even a smaller island.”

“That it is, mon.” Riley’s eyes were adjusting to the darkness, but the man was still just a shadow in a black corner of the room. Not that Riley would have recognized him. In their past dealings, he had only heard the man’s voice, never seen his face. The fact that he’d cut off the electricity at the circuit breaker signaled his clear intention to keep it that way.

The gunman said, “I hear that someone finally cleaned out box two sixty-six.”

“You hear correctly.”

“Who was it?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

The man’s chuckle was laden with insincerity. “Good answer.”

“It’s the only answer I can give you.”

“I can live with that,” the man said, and then his tone became sterner. “So long as it’s also the only answer you can give to the police.”

“That’s up to the bank and its lawyers.”

“Wrong answer.”

Riley waited for him to say more, but there was only a long, uncomfortable silence. Several strands of speculation began to race through his mind, and none of them ended in a very happy place. Riley could not escape the conclusion that the man was simply debating whether to shoot him here, in Riley’s own living room, or to take him somewhere else and do the job.

“Here’s my problem,” the man said finally.

Riley’s throat was dry, and he had to force his response. “Yes?”

“Police are such nosy bastards. If you tell them who cleaned out the money, what do you think their next question is going to be?”

“I-I don’t know, mon.”

“Think about it.”

“I’m having a little trouble concentrating right now. I’m sorry. I’m sure the bank’s lawyers will have an answer.”

“Screw the lawyers. You ask them for a straight answer, they’ll give you six wishy-washy ones and bill you for twelve. Let’s keep this simple. I’ll answer it, and you tell me if you agree with me. All right?”

The gun made it difficult for Riley to disagree. “Sure, mon.”

“When the police find out who took the money, they’ll have just one question: How the hell did all that cash get there in the first place?”