Giri Read Free Page B

Italians. Robbie would be a handy chap to have around.
    Sparrowhawk was suddenly alert. Something was wrong at the other end of the phone in New York.
    Paul Molise was supposed to have answered. Instead Sparrowhawk heard another voice, mockingly polite and barely suppressing laughter. An alarm went off in the Englishman’s mind. As arranged, he was using a public telephone in Georgetown to reach a public telephone in Manhattan, one that should have been free from wiretaps. The voice that greeted Sparrowhawk seemed to know he was out of the country.
    “Paulie says he’s sure you did a good job down there. He wants you to pass the information on to me.”
    The information. Molise’s eight million, now untraceable in a Cayman bank, would return to America in three days as loans to businesses controlled by Molise. Also, Molise would be allowed tax deductions for interest payments on the loans.
    And in the telephone call fifteen minutes earlier Sparrowhawk had arranged for someone—not an employee of Management Systems Consultants—to carry out a contract killing for the Molise family within the next forty-eight hours.
    The silver-haired Englishman, receiver to his ear, drew deeply on an oval-shaped Turkish cigarette and stared at a Pride of Burma, whose scarlet and gold blossoms made it one of the world’s most beautiful trees. Two American college girls, made giggly by ganja, cycled past on their way to Seven Mile Beach, fins and snorkel masks dangling from handlebars. One, the blonde, reminded Sparrowhawk of Valerie, his daughter, and suddenly he remembered his promise to bring her some coral jewelry.
    “Hey, I know you’re there,” said the voice. “I can hear you breathing.”
    Bloody bastards are on to us, thought Sparrowhawk. One bloody bastard in particular.
    He put a hand over the mouth of the receiver and with his head signaled Robbie to come closer.
    “Manny Decker,” whispered Sparrowhawk. Robbie’s eyebrows rose.
    “That’s him on the phone?”
    “Keep your voice down, dammit. Whoever it is, is trying to disguise his voice with a handkerchief over the mouthpiece. But I’ll give you cards and spades it’s Decker.”
    “Son of a bitch. How did he find out which phone we’d be calling in New York? How the hell did he even know we were down here?”
    Sparrowhawk, struggling to control his anger, stared at the setting sun, a bright red ball that had turned the sea into crimson glass. Jesus in heaven, how he hated to be hunted.
    “Doesn’t matter how he came to know. He’s a police officer.”
    “Come, come,” urged the voice, “time’s a-wasting. Give me numbers, dates, something to tell Paulie.”
    The look on Robbie’s face would have chilled the blood of a lesser man than Sparrowhawk, who had seen it before: in Saigon just before Robbie tortured and killed, and at karate tournaments before he annihilated his opponent.
    The Englishman, his hand still covering the receiver mouthpiece, violently shook his head. “Unpurse your lips and listen to me. You’ve twice had a go at Decker. Leave it at that. This isn’t Vietnam, do you understand?” Chastened, Robbie hung his head.
    Like Robbie, Manny Decker was an accomplished karateka. Twice they had met in tournament competition, with Robbie winning both times. In their last fight, which had gone into overtime, Robbie had savagely broken the knee of the New York City detective. Only skilled surgery and months of special exercise had saved Decker from being permanently crippled.
    After that, Decker had never fought in another tournament, leading many, Sparrowhawk included, to assume he was afraid of Robbie. Decker continued to train and instruct and was in top shape, but he avoided all tournament competition. Unfortunately, he was still a good cop, too good. Sparrowhawk and Robbie had run up against the man in Saigon and knew how efficient he could be. Decker was assigned to a federal task force investigating Management Systems Consultants; to