Marv shouted. “She’s been around longer than you and Nicci combined. You should just shut the fuck up and do your job. Do you hear me?”
“Marv, you stepped way over the line with the very first words you said to me, and now you’re totally blowing it. I’m not staying in the Maldives under these circumstances.”
“Then leave. Now.”
“I’ve already made that decision on my own, but there’s one thing I want to leave you with, while it’s still on my mind. I had my recorder hooked to the phone during your diatribe because I’d been doing an interview with Senator Higgens, and everything you just said, you know, ‘lesbo,’ ‘shut the fuck up,’ all of it, Marv, is on a neat little disk that I intend to play for James Elfren and anybody else on the eighth floor who’s interested in hearing it.”
Silence. Then click.
Then a smile: Jenna had lied, but how could Marv know? She figured that he had assumed the worst. And why? Because the worst was what he would have done, if he’d been in her shoes.
Right then Jenna realized that her reporter’s instincts were getting sharper by the second.
* * *
Adnan stared at a sapphire ring on the Shopping Channel and turned up the sound. It was the only broadcast he could find that wasn’t showing the tanker takeover—and he desperately needed a diversion from the horrors of the wheelhouse. So … he locked his eyes on the scantily clad Western women with big breasts and baubles. But what else could a pious Muslim do? The Waziristani had pried open the captain’s hand with dire threats to the man’s privates—acted out with a shocking snip-snip of the wire cutters—and then clipped off his index finger, which took gritty seconds to complete and left the captain screaming and bleeding on the floor. The jihadist had thrown a white towel at Adnan and gestured with his hands for him to mop up and stanch the wound. Adnan had had to wrestle with the captain, who thrashed around a great deal, which was remarkable, considering that he was still trussed with his hands tied behind his back to his feet. The position left the poor man arched in the shape of a … crescent. But eventually Adnan had pressed the towel to the man’s swollen, bloody hand.
Bad as all that was, Adnan had just seen the old newsman drink from a bottle of liquor that the Waziristani, a jihadist, had given him. Satan’s nectar! Surely, Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon Him, would condemn such a wicked practice. How could a self-professed Islamist commit such a grievous sin? The only explanation possible was that he truly was an American. Maybe even CIA.
Once more, Adnan had to turn away from the old man. His Adam’s apple bobbed hideously each time he swallowed from the bottle, and every few minutes he took another big gulp.
Reaching into his vest, Adnan pulled out the two wires that could put an end to this sacrilege. All he needed to do was rip off the plastic caps and bring the wires together.
* * *
Booze for Birk. Booze for Birk. The old correspondent could have sung that ditty all day long and added endless lines (Then he’ll work. Then he’ll work…). He felt so good he could have danced, too—the tango, mambo, and a tarantella! And romanced the Queen Mother, dead as she was, and her entire entourage while he was at it.
To be finally himself again, slightly tipsy but no longer shaking. To feel every bit as debonair as he believed he looked, despite having not one but two chopped-off fingers hanging from his shirt.
He glanced down, eyes steady, hands steady, delighted to see those free-swinging digits still as a Monday morning belfry. They’d done all the sh-sh-shaking they were going to do. As long as he could control himself and not drink too much, he’d weather this storm. No problem. The fate of the world, boys. And ol’ Birk’s got ’er under control. He’s just going to have himself another sip or two, that’s all, to tide him over, wet the whistle, kiss the sky. Yes, Birk wanted little more than that nice steady-state incipient inebriation that had served him so well for nigh fifty years now. But damn, hadn’t “another sip or two” always done him in, in the end?
At that moment he caught a disconcerting glimpse of his reflection on one of the sonar screens in the wheelhouse. Those fingers