When The Devil Whistles Read online

  “Whoa, he built P-51s?”

  “Well, not quite. He owned a company called Lamont Industries that made all sorts of machinery. One of the things they made was machine guns for the P-51. When the war was over, he bought one of the planes that had his guns in it.”

  “I wish my grandfather had a P-51.”

  “Stein!” called a pretty blonde woman who had just emerged from an office building. “Time to go!”

  “Hold on just a sec.” Connor felt around inside the wing and found a small loose cylinder. He pulled it out and handed it to the boy. “Want an empty cartridge from today’s movie shoot?”

  The boy’s eyes widened. “Thanks!” Then he turned and ran to his mother, showing her his prize as soon as he reached her.

  Connor chuckled as he watched them go. Twenty years ago, he had been exactly the same. He pestered Grandpa Lamont for a ride in the White Knight at least once a week, and when they were in the air, he always begged to shoot the guns. Grandpa had soon learned to keep them unloaded whenever he took his trigger-happy grandson for a ride.

  Grandpa had been convinced that Connor would be a fighter pilot and had given him the P-51 when he got his pilot’s license. Grandpa hadn’t exactly said he was disappointed when Connor chose Stanford over the Air Force Academy, but he had made Connor promise that he wouldn’t let the White Knight get rusty.

  That hadn’t been a hard promise to keep. Connor loved the old plane and kept it in mint condition. He flew it at least once a month when he was in California and had trained himself to be a competent P-51 mechanic.

  As for Grandpa Lamont’s desire that Connor spend his life shooting down America’s enemies, Connor liked to think that he was doing just that—even if he generally didn’t get to use machine guns on them.

  12

  OKAY, MIGHT AS WELL GET THIS OVER WITH. Allie picked up the phone and hesitated. She eyed the bottle of margarita mix in the liquor cabinet, but decided against it. Better to do this sober.

  She took a deep breath and dialed. The phone rang three times. Four. Five. She began to hope that Mom and Sam had gone to bed early.

  But no. “Hello, Allie.”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Thanks for calling, sweetheart. It’s so nice that you remember to call every July twenty-third.” She paused. “It’s ten years today.”

  “I know. Sometimes it feels like a hundred years ago— sometimes it almost feels like it’s still happening. How are you and Sam doing?”

  “We’re fine.” She sighed, and Allie could hear the tired smile in her voice. “Samantha and the girls made oatmeal-raisin cookies and we sat around the kitchen table and ate them and looked at pictures of Grandpa.”

  “Wow, he would be a grandfather now, wouldn’t he? It’s weird to think of him like that.”

  “I know. He’s forever young, isn’t he?” Mom’s voice got rougher and softer. “He’ll always be the man in those pictures.”

  “Which pictures were you looking at?”

  “The ones from our last trip to the Dells. The girls loved the one of you and Sam on his shoulders. Do you remember that one?”

  “Oh, sure.” She and Sam, each wearing bikinis and each standing on one of Dad’s shoulders in the hotel swimming pool. All of them wet and laughing in the sun. Dad was a big man, proud of his size and strength. One of his favorite pool or beach stunts was to balance his two teenage daughters on his shoulders like a circus strongman. Sometimes they even stayed up long enough for Mom to snap a picture. That had been the last time.

  Less than forty-eight hours after that picture was taken, he’d been lying next to Allie in a pile of twisted steel and shattered glass, his face too pale and—

  Waves of guilt crashed over Allie, driving her down and suffocating her. She squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed hard. Her eyes were suddenly wet and she fought back sobs. “So, how are you and Sam doing?” she forced out.

  Mom paused a second before answering. “We’re fine, dear. How are you?”

  She sniffed and took a deep breath. “I’m good. Just started a new job. Lots to do. These guys can build an underwater power plant, but they can’t balance a checkbook.” She laughed, a brittle and harsh sound. “So anyway…”

  “Are you sure everything’s all right, Allie?”

  No. “Yes. I’m just… work is just really busy and I’m kind of distracted and tired.” She faked a yawn. “Sorry.”

  Mom paused again. “All right. Well, I’ll let you get some rest then. Have a good night, honey. I love you.”

  “I love you too, Mom.” She sniffed again and wiped her eyes on a sheet of paper towel, leaving little smears of mascara. “Give Sam and her girls hugs from me, okay? And if you need any money or anything, just let me know.”

  “Thank you, but you’re already too generous. We still have over twenty thousand from the last wire transfer you sent.”

  “When that starts to run out, let me know.”

  “Good night, Allie.”

  “Good night, Mom.”

  She hung up and took out the margarita mix. She dumped some ice in a big plastic mug, filled it halfway up with mix, and then the rest of the way with pure tequila.

  Last year had been a lot easier. She had held it together for nearly two hours, chatting and reminiscing about Dad with no problem. Come to think of it, the year before hadn’t been too bad either. Maybe this year was rough because it was the ten-year anniversary of the crash. She took a swig from her mug, and the strong tequila aftertaste promised a powerful buzz by the time she reached the bottom. Good.

  The annual Dad calls were like going to the dentist for a checkup. Sometimes all that poking around was basically painless. But other times, ka-BLAM—it hit a nerve with no warning. It felt like being slapped with an oven mitt covered in broken glass.

  She popped her iPod into the stereo and set it to shuffle. She took another swallow of super-charged margarita and flopped down on the sofa as the first song came on: “Novocain for the Soul.” She laughed and tipped back the mug again. How appropriate.

  13

  PREDICTABLY, THE CALL CAME AT 7:00 ON A MORNING WHEN MITCH Daniels was trying to sleep in. First Mate Randy Jenkins told him that the Grasp II was sailing in 24 hours, and anyone not on board would be left behind. Mitch said he’d be there, hung up the phone, and rolled over. His wife, Sherrie, was snoring vigorously. He thought about trying to roll her onto her side, but if she woke up she’d yell at him, insist she didn’t snore, and they’d have a fight. Too early for that. He put on his headphones and buried his head under a fat down pillow. He had just started to drift back to sleep when the phone rang again.

  Mitch groaned and dragged the handset to his ear. “Hello?”

  “Mitch, pick up a can of WD-40 on your way to the dock, okay?” said Ed Granger’s voice. “I’ll see you there at eight.”

  Out of deference to the sleeping Sherrie, Mitch didn’t yell. Instead he whispered, “It’s seven in the morning, Ed. Go do your own shopping.”

  “Can’t. Jenkins told me Tuesday he didn’t think we’d be sailing until next week, so now I gotta get down to the G-2 and do four days worth of work on Eileen in twenty-four hours.”

  “Yeah, well that sucks for you. I’m going back to sleep.”

  Ed gave an exaggerated sigh. “Okay, fine. If you don’t want to know what else Jenkins told me when he called me this morning, that’s fine.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “I’ll tell you when we’re on the G-2.”

  Mitch flopped his head back on the pillow and stared at the popcorn ceiling. There was no way he’d be able to go back to sleep now. “This better be worth it.”

  Ed cackled. “Oh, yeah. And don’t forget the WD-40.”

  “Up yours, Granger.”

  The familiar scent of bunker oil, seawater, and diesel exhaust met Mitch as he stepped out of the cab he had taken from the 12th Street subway station to the Port of Oakland. The sharp, incessant cry of sea gulls mixed with the sound o
f the sea breeze and the rumble of the trucks that were picking up or dropping off shipping containers.

  The Grasp II lay in her berth, her freshly painted hull gleaming blue and white in the morning sun. She was squat and low, and her two cranes looked like mismatched mantis arms on her deck. The G-2 wasn’t a beautiful or graceful ship, but she had a certain magnificent ugliness that Mitch liked.

  He picked up his duffel and stainless-steel mug and walked across the stained concrete dock to his ship. First Mate Jenkins leaned against the gangplank railing, a clipboard in one hand and an Egg McMuffin in the other. He wore a clean uniform shirt, but didn’t look like he’d showered. So even he had been surprised by their sailing date and time. Interesting.

  Jenkins checked him in and confiscated Mitch’s cell phone and laptop. When Mitch asked why, the second officer just shrugged. “Captain’s orders.”

  “Any idea why? We’ve gone on some pretty hush-hush trips before, but the captain never ordered us to turn in computers.”

  Another shrug. “He’s ordering it this time.”

  Jenkins didn’t seem to be in a talkative mood, so Mitch gave up and went below to stow his gear and find Ed Granger. As he expected, Ed was in the machine shop tinkering with Eileen. Man and machine looked remarkably alike: ugly, powerfully built, and bulging in odd places.

  “Hey, Ed.” Mitch pulled a can of WD-40 out of his jacket pocket and tossed it to his friend.

  Ed caught it nimbly. “Thanks, Mitch.”

  “Just make sure you pay me back.” Mitch drained the last inch of lukewarm coffee from his mug and yawned. “So, what did Jenkins tell you?”

  “Hey, you want a reload?” Ed pointed a greasy finger toward a battered orange Thermos. “I got some Italian roast in there. Not the garbage you get from Starbucks—roasted and ground those beans myself. Pretty good if I do say so—that’s as full-bodied and sensuous a cup of joe as you’re gonna find.”

  “ ‘Full-bodied and sensuous?’ ” repeated Mitch as he poured himself a steaming mug. “What, am I supposed to drink it or take it to a hotel room?”

  “Do both for all I care.” Ed snorted and turned back to Eileen. “Last time I give you good coffee.”

  Mitch took a sip. It really was good coffee. “Sorry, man. This is good stuff. It really is, uh, sensuous and full-bodied.”

  No response from Ed.

  “So, what did Jenkins tell you?”

  Still no response.

  “Oh, come on, man! You wake me up, make me get your stupid WD-40, and come all the way down here—and now you’re not going to tell me because I made a joke about your coffee?”

  “Don’t make fun of my coffee.”

  “Fine. I’m sorry, okay? I won’t do it again.”

  Pause. “Okay.”

  “So, what did Jenkins tell you?”

  Ed stood slowly, wiped his hands on a towel that was almost as dirty as they were, and motioned for Mitch to come closer. “Okay, so I went down to Jimmy’s last night,” he said in a thick whisper. “Jenkins is already there, so I sit down next to him and we start talking. He’s had a few, and you know how he is when he’s had a few. So I figure this is a good time to ask him what the big mystery is and why they wanted all that new equipment on Eileen. And he says, ‘Ed, you know I can’t talk about that.’

  “So I say, ‘Come on, it’s me. Who am I gonna tell? Besides, I already know we’ll be looking for gold.’

  “And he says, ‘Who told you that?’ ”

  “And I say, ‘Oh, I figured it out, but if you tell me the rest of it, I promise to keep quiet.’ ”

  “So he tells me. At the end of World War II, the Nazis have all this gold and jewels they took from the Jews and the French and other people, right? They want to hide it where the Americans and Russians can’t find it, so they put a bunch of it on their biggest submarine and send it to Japan. They stuff it so full they even put loot in the torpedo tubes.”

  Mitch grinned. “But the submarine never reached Japan, am I right?”

  Ed grinned back. “You are correct, sir. No one knew what happened to it until a fishing boat found some wreckage in its nets a couple of months ago.”

  “Wow.” Mitch pondered for a moment. “Wait a sec, who owns it? The French and the Jews because it’s their gold? The Germans because it’s their sub? Or is it really finders keepers?” He took a sip of coffee and shook his head. “There’s gonna be a huge lawsuit over this.”

  Ed’s smile narrowed and a crafty gleam came into his eyes. “Only if someone figures out that we’ve found their gold.”

  14

  ALLIE TOOK A SIP OF HER FOUR-SHOT VENTI WHITE CHOCOLATE LATTE AND tried again to focus on the spreadsheet on her monitor. She needed to reconcile it against a stack of customer files but was making slow progress. She had done about ten minutes’ worth of work in the hour she’d been in the office.

  A bartender had once explained to Allie that pure tequila wouldn’t cause a hangover the next day because of the chemical structure of the sugars in the liquor. Based on extensive experience since then, Allie had concluded that the bartender was a liar trying to sell her pure tequila, which was a lot more expensive than the mixto stuff bars ordinarily use. Either that or lime juice caused pounding hangovers.

  Whatever caused her hangover, the result was impressive. It hurt to stand up, it hurt to sit down, it hurt to think, and it hurt to talk. It even hurt to blink.

  “Allie, please come with me,” said a woman’s voice behind her.

  Allie jumped and turned to see her supervisor, a large and open-faced Hispanic woman named Sabrina.

  “Hi, Sabrina. You startled me.” She pointed at the screen and smiled, trying hard not to wince. “These spreadsheets are a little too interesting, I guess.” Lame, but it never hurt to make sure her temporary employers knew they’d caught her working when they surprised her. They’d be less likely to keep a close eye on her in the future.

  Sabrina didn’t smile back. “Uh-huh.”

  They know! Panic shot through Allie, cutting straight through the hangover fog. She froze. Had she copied any hard files? No. Had she downloaded any of the screwed up on-line files she found? No. Had she accessed any locked files? No, but she had started looking for them. She’d had that secure server up on her computer screen last night—had she left it on? She couldn’t quite remember. Think! Think! Think!

  “Allie?” prompted Sabrina.

  “Yes?”

  “Could you come with me, please?”

  “Oh, uh, okay. Just let me close out of this and I’ll be right there.”

  “Don’t worry about it. You can finish what you’re doing later.”

  “Um, all right.”

  Allie stood slowly and followed Sabrina down the hall, several sets of eyes following her as she went. At least there were witnesses in case she never came back. She caught herself and smiled. Maybe she was being just a touch melodramatic.

  Then she remembered that she had indeed turned off her computer last night. Her smile widened and the lump of ice in her stomach began to melt. She hadn’t done anything remotely suspicious. Maybe this was nothing. In fact, it almost had to be.

  She had mostly relaxed by the time Sabrina stopped at a conference room, gave a tight smile, and motioned for her to go in.

  Allie returned her smile and walked in. Two men sat at a medium-sized oak table. One was Sanford “Sandy” Allen, one of the founders of Blue Sea. He had thick white hair and a wide, lined face that had made Allie think “grandfather” the first time she met him. Her only interaction with him had been on her first morning at Blue Sea. Sandy had greeted her and the other new temps and told them a few funny but pointless stories before turning them over to Sabrina.

  He looked more like a prison warden than a grandfather today, and he frowned as she entered. The other man in the room was a younger, but equally grim, Asian with a crew cut. Allie didn’t think she’d met him before.

  She heard the door shut behind her and Mr. Allen said. �
�Have a seat, Miss Whitman.”

  Allie picked a chair near the door and perched on its edge, the ice refreezing in her gut. “Why are you here?” asked crew cut man without bothering to introduce himself.

  “Um, what do you mean?”

  He glared at her. “You know what I mean. Why are you at this company? You’re clearly overqualified for the work you’re doing.”

  “Oh, well, I like the flexibility of temping and if I took a permanent job, I couldn’t—”