The Silent Sea (2010) - Cussler Clive - Страница 30

You know what I mean. Didn't you ever dream of finding pirate treasure when you were a kid?

Two tours in 'Nam pretty much crushed any whimsy I might have had.

Sorry, fellas, Juan said with finality. No pirate treasure for us. We're just going to deliver the papers and tell Mr. Ronish where his brothers died.

All right, they said in hangdog unison, making Cabrillo smile.

Let me find a pen to write down his address, and Max and I will get ourselves up to Washington.

Don't forget to bring garlic and a wooden stake, Eric said.

What are you talking about?

Ronish lives outside of Forks. That's the town where the Twilight books take place.

Huh?

It's a series of romantic novels about a teenage girl in love with a vampire.

How would I possibly know that? Cabrillo asked. And, more telling, why do you?

Eric looked sheepish while Max roared with laughter.

BECAUSE THERE WAS NO real urgency to reach Forks, Washington, it didn't take much for Max to convince Cabrillo to enjoy an overnight layover in Vegas. Had he wanted, Juan could have made a nice living as a professional poker player, so he had no problem taking money from the amateurs at the table with him. Hanley didn't do as well at the craps table, but both agreed it had been a welcome diversion.

In the city of Port Angeles, on the Juan de Fuca Strait, they rented a Ford Explorer for the hour-long drive around the spectacular Olympic Mountains to Forks.

The place was typical small-town America a cluster of businesses clinging to Route 101 backed by houses in various states of disrepair. Timber was the main industry in the region, and with the market so soft it was clear that Forks was suffering. A number of storefronts were vacant with leasing signs taped to the glass. The few people walking the streets moved with little purpose. Their shoulders were hunched from more than the cold wind blowing off the nearby North Pacific.

The darkening sky was filled with bruised clouds that threatened to open up at any moment.

In the center of town, Max nodded his head at a hotel as they neared. Should we check in first or head straight to Ronish's?

I don't know how talkative this guy's going to be, and I don't know if the desk in a place like that stays open too late. So let's check in and then get to his house.

Man, this sure ain't Caesars.

Twenty minutes later they approached a dirt track off Bogachiel Way, six miles from town. Pine forests soared overhead, and the trunks were so tightly packed that they couldn't see lights from the house until they were almost upon it.

As Eric had said, James Ronish had never married, and it showed. The one-story house hadn't seen fresh paint in a decade or more. The roof had been repaired with off-color shingles, and the front lawn looked like a junkyard. There were several skeletonized cars, an askew satellite dish as big as a kiddy wading pool, and various bins of mechanical junk. The doors to the detached garage were open, and inside was just as bad. Workbenches were littered with unidentifiable flotsam, and the only way to reach them was by narrow paths through even more clutter.

Right out of Better Homes and Scrapyards, Juan quipped.

Five will get you ten his curtains are dish towels.

Cabrillo parked the SUV next to Ronish's battered pickup. The wind made the trees creak, and their needled tops whisper. The storm couldn't be more than a few minutes away. Juan grabbed the condom-wrapped papers from the center console. As much as he wanted to read them, he didn't feel it appropriate. He could only hope that Ronish would share their contents.

A blue flicker showed through a large picture window that was caked with dust. Ronish was watching television, and as they neared the front door they could hear it was a game show.

Juan pulled open a creaky screen door and knocked. After a few seconds of nothing happening, he rapped on the door a little harder. Another twenty seconds went by before a light snapped on over the door and it opened a crack.

What do you want? James Ronish asked sourly.

From what Juan could see, he was a big man, heavy in the gut, with thinning gray hair and suspicious eyes. He leaned against an aluminum cane. Below his nose was a clear plastic oxygen canula with tubing that lead to an O2 concentrator the size of a microwave oven.

Mr. Ronish, my name is Juan Cabrillo. This is Max Hanley.

So?

Friendly sort, Juan thought. He wasn't sure what he'd expected, but he supposed Mark was right. Ronish appeared to be an old man marking his calendar until he died.

I'm not sure how to tell you this, so I'll just come out and say it.

Juan didn't pause but Ronish interrupted anyway. Don't care, he said, and made to close the door.

Mr. Ronish, we found the Flying Dutchman. Well, the wreckage anyway.

Color drained from Ronish's face everywhere but from his gin-blossom nose. My brothers? he asked.

We found a set of remains in the pilot's seat.

That would have been Kevin, the old man said quietly. Then he seemed to rouse himself, and his guard was up in an instant. What's it to you?

Max and Juan shared a glance, as if to say this wasn't going as they'd planned.

Well, sir

If you're here about Pine Island you can just forget it.

You don't understand. We were just in South America. We work for Juan had planned to use the United Nations as a cover, but he suspected that would make a guy like Ronish all the more suspicious a mining company doing survey work, and we discovered the crash site. It took a little research to realize what we'd found.

Just then, the rain started. Icy needles that pounded through the pine canopy and impacted the ground almost like hail. Ronish's porch didn't have a roof, so he reluctantly opened the door for the two men to enter his house.

It smelled of old newspapers and food on the verge of spoiling. The appliances in the kitchen next to the entry were at least forty years old, and the floor had the matte finish of ancient linoleum. The living-room furniture was a mousy brown that matched the threadbare carpet. Magazines were stacked atop tables and along the yellowed walls. There were fifteen or twenty portable oxygen bottles stacked near the front door. The exposed fluorescent bulb in the kitchen gave off an electric whine that to Cabrillo was as obnoxious as nails on a chalkboard.

The only other illumination was from a floor lamp next to the chair where Ronish watched television. Juan would have sworn it had a five-watt bulb.

So you found 'em, eh? Ronish didn't sound as though he much cared.

Yes. They came down in northern Argentina.

That's strange. When they left, they said they were gonna search along the coast.

Do you know exactly what they were looking for? Max spoke for the first time.

I do. And it's none of your business.

An uncomfortable silence stretched for several seconds. This was not the feel-good moment Juan had been hoping for. There was nothing about James Ronish's reaction that was going to cosmically balance what had happened to Jerry Pulaski.

Well, Mr. Ronish Juan held out the bundle they'd taken from the downed blimp we found this in the wreckage and thought it may be important. We just wanted to give it to you and maybe bring you a little closure over your brothers' fate.

I'll tell you what, Ronish said, anger tightened the wrinkles around his eyes. If it weren't for those three, Don would still be alive, and I wouldn't have had damned-fool ideas about romance and adventure when I volunteered for Korea. Do you know what it's like to have the Chinese blow your leg off?

Actually

Get out! he snapped.

No. Seriously. Juan stooped to raise his jeans' cuff and lower his sock. This prosthetic leg was covered with flesh-colored plastic that still looked artificial under the uncertain light.