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Nineteen

 

"Shark!"

"Yes?"

Hardman's thoughts came heavy and hard. "Merlin's group is on the road, in two vehicles: a white Cadillac sedan and a black Ford four-wheel-drive pickup with a camper shell and big, off-road tires."

"What route?"

"I'm coming to that, goddamn it! Lemme finish!" Mentally Hardman glared. "They've turned south on I-17. That probably means they're going to take I-10 by way of Tucson, but they could take US 60 through Globe."

Good, Shark thought to himself, Hardman's surly again. And hard; he'd never sensed such hard determination in the gridman before. Shark had wondered how Hardman would do after Sordom's fiasco last night. John Sordom had been the one of the four that each of the others could talk to as a friend. And Hardman, with his strange, confined, and necessarily reclusive life, had often, Shark knew, held private psi conversations with Sordom through the grid.

Sordom had been crouched over the bomb when it went off, and Hardman had been monitoring his mind at the time. It must have been a hell of a shock for the gridman. Shark decided that Hardman was tougher than he'd given him credit for, to have come around so strongly and so soon.

Shark looked at the clock on his office wall. Nine-twelve. Arizona was on Pacific—no, Mountain Time; it would be seven-twelve there. And eight-twelve in St. Louis, where Gracco was unless he'd already left for Minneapolis.

He put his attention on Vincent Gracco and got something that was part concept and part picture. He could see Gracco's face and a hand-held telephone, and knew it was the mobile phone in Gracco's car. He was probably driving to the airport and setting up meetings while he drove. When Gracco was off the phone, Hardman could give him the information on cars and routes.

Shark himself already missed John Sordom. Among the other three, Sordom had been the most nearly like himself, with broad interests and knowledge. But to handle the necessary negotiations in this short-term situation, Gracco was better suited; he'd grown up connected to the Mafia and spoke the language of the big-time rackets. If he'd had to lose one man, Sordom had probably been the one whose loss would prove the least injurious in the short-run.

And that's what there was: a short-run. There were no long-term situations left in this cycle. Even the Arab project was irrelevant now, really, something challenging and enjoyable to play with, to fill the time while waiting. But within a few months...

Briefly, Shark considered jumping into the Merlin project himself, but rejected the idea. The mental eavesdropping and nudging that he did so superbly in financial and governmental circles were not of much use where he didn't know who to snoop on and nudge. He'd already told both Hardman and Gracco to call on him if they needed him. For now, he'd keep hands off.

* * *

Vincent Gracco's dark eyes looked through the windshield of the Cessna Citation at the snowy expanse of farmland and subdivisions on the approach to Minneapolis. Busy with his thoughts, he ignored the radio exchanges between air traffic control and his pilot. He was going to have to work his ass off, trying to handle two men's work by himself.

According to Shark and Hardman, Merlin and his people were coming north to try for the Isle Royale gate; his job was to see they didn't make it. He would set things up here this morning, then fly to Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Denver, and Omaha. That would cover the main highway routes, and the odds were that the Merlin gang would never get this far.

Minneapolis filled his view as they continued to lose elevation toward Wold Chamberlain Field. He'd be picked up there by the people he was coming to see. They'd talk at one of the airport hotels while his pilot had lunch, then he'd head out again. It never even occurred to him that he might fail to get full cooperation here—not with the money he could offer, and not with the way he could nudge their heads.

Minneapolis. A weird place, he told himself, to have a capo named Olson. Manoukian in K.C. and Martinez in Denver weren't Sicilian either, or even Italian, but their names didn't sound as strange as Olson, for chrissake. But then, Gracco was only half Sicilian, he reminded himself; his mother was Irish and Polish.

He smiled. A hundred percent American, that's me, an equal opportunity employer. Choose 'em by reputation and record, and maybe by what I get out of their heads, not by where their last name comes from. According to the computer, Olson owned at least a dozen city and county attorneys and was the boss as far north as Duluth; north of Duluth there wasn't enough money to bother with. He'd been indicted for racketeering, extortion, narcotics, murder, and conspiracy to commit murder, to name some major charges, but he'd never been convicted since serving time as a juvenile for mayhem and arson. It added up to tough, smart, and effective.

Maybe he can take them alive, Gracco thought. Some of them, anyway. Be interesting to question them. But he decided not to mention it to the people he was contracting with. For practical purposes it would be better just to kill them.

The private jet took the runway without a bump. He'd be talking to Olson in only minutes now.

 

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Framed