Mirage (Oregon Files 9)

“Thanks, Hux,” Cabrillo said in a monotone. “I know you did all you could.”

He settled the heavy handset back onto its cradle.

From the brief exchange of looks he’d shared with the ship’s physician back in the boat garage, he’d known the inevitability of Yuri’s death but couldn’t motivate himself to do anything until he’d received verification. He’d failed. It didn’t matter that he’d busted Yuri out of the prison and got him to within a mile of the Oregon. Juan blew out another long breath.

Cabrillo stripped off the remains of his snowsuit and stuffed it and his prison garb and the bloody boots into a plastic bag for incineration. He strode into a green-marble bathroom and hit the brass taps of a multiheaded, glass-enclosed shower that was big enough to hold six. As steam began pouring over the top of the enclosure, he unstrapped his artificial leg, gave the toughened skin of his stump a quick massage, and then stepped into the hot spray.

There were usually just two items in his shower, a bar of plain soap and generic shampoo. Though Juan was a bit of a clotheshorse, like most men his personal grooming was minimalist.

Today there was a third item and from it he poured some yellowish gel into his palm and felt its chemical burn over the heat of the water. He smeared his hand across his bald head and began working it into his skin. Kevin Nixon had explained the chemical process that would dissolve the ersatz tattoos he’d painted across half the Chairman’s body, but formulae and reactivity coefficients were meaningless when the solution felt like it was not only melting off the ink but his skin as well.

The water sluicing off his head turned gray as the ink began to run.

It took fifteen minutes of searing agony to remove the tattoos to the point they looked like faint, week-old contusions that would fade away completely in a couple of days. He could have spared himself the pain and let them wane on their own, but having them on his body somehow reminded him of the mark of Cain.

He toweled off and swiped clear a spot in the mirror over the vanity, deciding at first glance that for a while, at least, a hat was in order. The baldness was shocking enough—he usually sported thick blond hair trimmed neatly by the ship’s barber—but the faint blue cast left by residual ink made him look like a reject from Dr. Frankenstein’s lab.

He looked past the faded ink and decided that if his hairline ever did go into retreat, as it had with two uncles on his mother’s side—an ill omen—he would shave it all off. With his broad swimmer’s shoulders and height, he thought he could pull it off. He thought he looked more Yul Brynner than Telly Savalas.

He hopped through his cabin to the closet. The leg he’d worn on the mission would go down to the Magic Shop for cleaning and maintenance. Lined up like boots at a shoe store, the back of his walk-in had a selection of artificial limbs for any number of occasions. Some were designed to mimic his real leg right down to the coarseness of his hair, while others were metallic monstrosities out of science fiction. He chose a flesh-colored plastic limb and snugged the top sock over his stump, making sure there were no wrinkles that would later chafe his skin.

It had been more than five years since a shell fired from a Chinese gunboat had severed the limb below the knee, and not a day went by that the missing portion of his leg didn’t hurt. Phantom pain, doctors called it. To those who suffered through it there was nothing phantom about it.

He dressed in a pair of jeans, an Oregon State sweatshirt, and a pair of sneakers. He’d gone to UCLA for his undergraduate degree. The Oregon shirt was a hat tip to the ship. He slipped on an original L.A. Raiders baseball cap that had belonged to his grandfather, a season ticket holder for the twelve years they were in the City of Angels, and worn only at home games. He hadn’t worn it in so long, he had to reshape the bill.

It was only as he turned away from the walk-in closet that he noticed the plastic bag containing his soiled clothes had been removed and a silver server had been placed on the white alabaster bar in the corner of his cabin. Next to it was a single glass of wine that glowed like liquid ruby in the subdued lighting.

He chuckled a little ruefully.

An hour ago he’d been so hyper-aware of his surroundings that he still retained the muscle memory of every turn, bounce, and shudder of the ride from the forest until the moment the snow machine came to rest in the Oregon’s boat garage. Yet now, back in what had been his home for so many years, his guard h

ad so dropped that he hadn’t noticed when one of the ship’s stewards, most likely the septuagenarian chief steward Maurice, had padded into his cabin as he was in the shower and removed the dirty clothes while bringing Cabrillo his supper. Had the man been an assassin, Juan wouldn’t have stood a chance.

He plucked the silver dome off the serving tray and was greeted by a rich, spicy aroma. He justified to himself that if there was any safe place for him on the planet, it was aboard the Oregon surrounded by her amazing crew. The embossed card resting on the plate said the meal was bison chili served in a French bread boule, and the wine was a Philip Togni cabernet sauvignon.

Maurice, who’d spent his career in the Royal Navy as the personal steward for at least a dozen admirals, was a superb sommelier, and Juan was certain the wine paired beautifully with the dish, but tonight wasn’t a wine night. There was a minifridge tucked under the bar, and from it Cabrillo slipped out a bottle of plain Stolichnaya vodka and two chilled shot glasses. No sooner had he filled them than there was a knock on the door. Max Hanley came through without being invited.

“In the movie,” Max said, crossing the room to take the barstool next to Cabrillo, “Bogie eventually asked Sam to play ‘As Time Goes By.’ Just so you know, I can’t even play ‘Chopsticks.’”

Juan smiled a bit. “Truth is, I didn’t have room for a piano in here anyway.” He handed one of the shot glasses to Max and hoisted the second. “To Yuri Borodin.”

“To Yuri,” Max echoed, and they both downed the vodka.

Max Hanley was the first person Cabrillo hired when he’d formed the Corporation on the recommendation of his CIA mentor Langston Overholt IV. Hanley had been running a scrapyard in Southern California at the time and had given Juan’s offer less than a minute’s thought before accepting. Prior to that he’d been involved in marine engineering and salvage, and before that he’d commanded Swift Boats on nearly every navigable inch of river in South Vietnam.

Heavyset, with a florid complexion, a crescent of ginger hair ringing the back half of his skull, and a nose that had been broken enough times that he could have been mistaken for a professional boxer, Max was the details man of the outfit. No matter how crazy the scheme Cabrillo dreamt up, Max was there to see it pulled off.

“I already broke the news to Misha Kasporov,” Hanley said without looking Juan in the eye.

That task rightly fell to the Chairman, but Cabrillo was grateful his number two had told Mikhail Kasporov of his boss’s fate. He toasted Hanley with a refill and downed it with a little shudder.

“He asked that we bury Yuri at sea with Russian military honors,” Max went on. “I had Mark pull up the appropriate ceremony off the Internet.” He handed Juan a piece of paper.

Cabrillo scanned the ceremony. Typical Russian, it was maudlin and somewhat bombastic but with a dutiful sense of patriotism, which, he supposed, summed up Yuri. “Tell the crew we’ll hold the ceremony at 07:30.”

“And not that you particularly give a damn tonight,” Max continued, “but Misha held to the contract to get Yuri out of jail. The rest of the money’s been transferred to our temporary account on the Caymans.”

Juan raised another shot. “Honor amongst thieves.”