“Hiring?”
“He needed men,” Ion said. “He needed some guys who knew demolitions and ships. More than he could round up on his own.”
Kurt thought about that, thought about the pirate attack on the Kinjara Maru and Dirk Pitt’s information about the mercenary group that had loaded the superconducting material on board in Freetown. It certainly sounded like Andras had built a small army. But why?
“How do you contact him?” Kurt asked.
“By e-mail,” Ion said. “You want to go beat up a server in some office tower somewhere?”
One of the problems with the modern world: people could send and receive information anywhere at any time. The days of the dark meeting and the dead drop had passed, for the most part.
Kurt looked down at Ion. He was still holding back, Kurt was sure of it. “You know something you’re not telling me,” Kurt said. “Otherwise, you would have told me all this without the hassle.”
Ion didn’t respond.
“Joe,” Kurt said. “If you please, it’s feeding time again.”
Joe unlatched the door to the snake pen one more time. Kurt began to drag Ion over there.
“Wait… Wait,” he said.
“Talk to me,” Kurt said, “or talk to the snake.”
“He lives at sea,” Ion said. “Andras lives on the sea. He doesn’t have a home. He goes from place to place on a ship. That’s why no one can find him. That’s why he can get in and out of almost any country even though he has no citizenship or passport and is wanted everywhere. He comes ashore as part of the crew or even with the cargo.”
Now it made sense. Every time the CIA, FBI, or Interpol got a lead on Andras, he seemed to vanish into thin air like a ghost, only to pop up somewhere else a month later. It was like an international game of Whack-A-Mole. But no one had been able to figure out how he did it. Turned out he was like an evil version of Juan Cabrillo.
“What’s the name of this ship?” Kurt asked.
“It could be any ship,” Ion said.
Kurt pushed him toward the door.
“I swear,” Ion said. “Do you think he would tell me?”
Kurt relaxed. He had a better idea. “When was he last in Singapore?” he asked. “The exact dates.”
“The last I saw him was February fourth,” Ion said. “I know because it was the day after Chinese New Year, a holiday here.”
Kurt sensed that Ion was telling the truth. He glanced at Joe, who closed the door of the snake enclosure tight. The python had retreated to the back of the enclosure and coiled itself up defensively anyway.
Kurt released Ion and stood over him. “We’re leaving,” he said. “Don’t even think about warning Andras. If you do, he’ll know you ratted on him. And you’re right. He’ll do far worse than feed you to the snakes.”
“What are you going to do?” Ion asked, looking up and rubbing at his neck where the collar had choked him.
“I told you, I’m going to kill him,” Kurt said. “For your own sake, you’d better hope I succeed.”
45
KURT AUSTIN SAT huddled over a laptop computer in his room. He and Joe had arrived back safely at the hotel and reported seeing a leopard in the shopping district to the proper authorities. And then they’d promptly gotten down to business.
For Joe that meant a hot shower and tending to his various wounds. For Kurt it meant toweling off his face and hair, changing into dry clothes, and getting on the horn to NUMA headquarters. He needed downloads of information, some which NUMA had access to, some which they had to beg Interpol, the FBI, and other agencies for.
Fortunately, NUMA had a long and positive history with these agencies, and there were enough markers to call in to still be on the right end of the balance sheet.
He’d been working at it for nearly forty-five minutes before Joe reappeared through the room’s adjoining door.
“What took you so long?”