Persuader

her phone and hit the number. I timed it out in my head. One ring. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.
    "No answer," Duffy said.
    Then her face brightened. Then it fell again.
    "Gone to voice mail," she said. "Something's wrong."
    "Let's go," I said.
    "Where to?" I looked at my watch. Looked out the window at the sky. Too early .
    "The coast road," I said.
    We left the warehouse with the lights off and the doors locked. There was too much good stuff in it to leave it open and accessible. Villanueva drove. Duffy sat next to him in the front. I sat in the back with the Persuaders on the seat beside me. We threaded our way out of the harbor area. Past the lot where Beck parked his blue trucks. Onto the highway, past the airport, and south, away from the city.
    We came off the highway and struck out east on the familiar coast road. There was no other traffic. The sky was low and gray and the wind off the sea was strong enough to set up a howling around the Taurus's windshield pillars. There were drops of water in the air.
    Maybe they were raindrops. Maybe it was sea spray, lashed miles inland by the gale. It was still way too light. Too early.
    "Try Eliot again," I said.
    Duffy took her phone out. Speed-dialed the number. Put the phone to her ear. I heard six faint rings and the whisper of the voice mail announcement. She shook her head. Clicked the phone off again.
    "OK," I said.
    She twisted around in her seat.
    "You sure they're all out at the house?" she said.
    "Did you notice Harley's suit?" I said.
    "Black," she said. "Cheap."
    "It was as close as he could get to a tux. It was his idea of evening wear. And Emily Smith had a black cocktail dress ready in her office. She was going to change. She already had her smart shoes on. I think there's going to be a banquet."
    "Keast and Maden," Villanueva said. "The caterers."
    "Exactly," I said. "Banquet food. Eighteen people at fifty-five dollars a head. Tonight.
    And Emily Smith made a note on the order. Lamb, not pork. Who eats lamb and not pork?"
    "People who keep kosher."
    "And Arabs," I said. "Libyans, maybe."
    "Their suppliers."
    "Exactly," I said again. "I think they're about to cement their commercial relationship. I think all the Russian stuff in the crates was some kind of a token shipment. It was a gesture. Same with the Persuaders. They've demonstrated to each other that both sides can deliver. Now they're going to break bread together and go into business for real."
    "At the house?" I nodded. "It's an impressive location. Isolated, very dramatic. And it's got a big dining table." He turned the windshield wipers on. The glass streaked and smeared. It was sea spray, whipping horizontally off the Atlantic. Full of salt.
    "Something else," I said.
    "What?"
    "I think Teresa Daniel is part of the deal," I said.
    "What?"
    "I think they're selling her along with the shotguns. A cute blond American girl. I think she's the ten-thousand-dollar bonus item." Nobody spoke.
    "Did you notice what Harley said about her? Mint condition." Nobody spoke.
    "I think they've kept her fed and alive and untouched." I thought: Paulie wouldn't have bothered with Elizabeth Beck if Teresa had been available to him. With all due respect to Elizabeth.
    Nobody spoke.
    "They're probably cleaning her up right now," I said.
    Nobody spoke.
    "I think she's headed for Tripoli," I said. "Part of the deal. Like a sweetener." Villanueva accelerated hard. The wind howled louder around the windshield pillars and the door mirrors. Two minutes later we reached the spot where we had ambushed the bodyguards and he slowed again. We were five miles from the house. Theoretically we were already visible from the upper floor windows. We came to a stop in the center of the road and we all craned forward and stared into the east.
    I used an olive-green Chevrolet and made it out to MacLean in twenty-nine minutes.
    Stopped in the center of the road two hundred yards shy of Quinn's residence. It was in an established subdivision. The whole place was quiet and green and watered and was baking lazily in the sun. The houses were on acre lots and were half-hidden behind thick evergreen foundation plantings. Their driveways were jet black. I could hear birds singing and a far-off sprinkler turning slowly and hissing against a soaked sidewalk through sixty degrees of its rotation. I could see fat dragonflies in the air.
    I took my foot off the brake and crawled forward a hundred yards. Quinn's house was sided with dark cedar