The Memory Collector Read Free Page A

raised the binoculars and scanned the shoreline again. Where was his contact?
    The boat rocked, and from the corner of his eye he saw Captain Wally’s first mate hop to the other boat to grab the fuel cans. He refocused the binoculars. There—ahead, a Nissan Pathfinder edged through the tall grass down to the beach. His heart began ringing like an alarm clock.
    The Pathfinder was muddy and had Zim tags. He felt a pang of disappointment. But what had he been expecting, diplomatic plates? Or fuzzy dice with an intelligence service logo hanging from the mirror?
    Something. He’d been hoping for some clue that told him who his contact really worked for. A U.S. or European agency, or the Israelis, or maybe some group farther east.
    The boat rocked again, and the hull reverberated as feet landed on the deck. More conversation in Tonga behind him. Forget the family gossip, skipper. Get going.
    The engine revved and the boat rose at the bow, moving sharply away from Captain Wally’s cousin. It headed straight down the center of the vast river.
    Lesniak turned. “Head for shore, that’s the guy . . .”
    The wind chattered against Lesniak’s shirt. The engine growled, deep and dirty. The boat bounded across the water.
    Captain Wally was no longer at the wheel. Captain Wally was no longer aboard. He and his crewman were on the cousin’s jet boat, which was fast receding into the distance.
    Standing at the wheel was the cousin’s passenger.
    Lesniak gripped his beer. It felt clammy. He felt clammy.
    “You?” he said.
    The man at the wheel wore jeans and a black T-shirt and even blacker sunglasses. With the sunset glaring behind him, it was impossible to tell what he was looking at. Or whether he had eyes. He was lean and taut, his mouth grim in a sunburned face. He had removed his baseball cap. His copper-colored hair caught the sunlight.
    The boat cut smoothly through the swollen river. The wind and spray turned the sweat cold on Lesniak’s back. He saw the southern shore recede. He saw the Nissan Pathfinder flash past. Brass ring . . .
    “Where are you going?” Lesniak said.
    The man held the throttles steady. Slowly his head clocked around until his sunglasses seemed to center on a spot between Lesniak’s eyes. The beer bottle slipped from Lesniak’s fingers, hit the deck, and rolled around, clinking.
    “I can explain,” he said.
    The man spun the wheel and drove the boat toward a cluster of tiny islands. They left the open flow of violet water and swept into a narrow channel between islets knotted with trees. Egrets carpeted the branches like huge blossoms. The man cut the throttles back to idle. The boat settled lower in the water.
    The man stared at Lesniak. “Give it to me.”
    Lesniak’s chest rose and fell. White wings loomed all around. The smell of bird shit hit him so hard he gagged.
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “We both know that’s not true. Give it to me.”
    Lesniak put the back of a hand to his nose. He felt his courage and self-assurance shrivel.
    He had never bothered to learn this man’s name.
    He knew him only as Rusty. That’s what they all called him—Rusty, the sheepdog. The herder. The babysitter. The hired hand, a glorified gofer, a guy who showed up when the bigwigs came to town. Somebody’s ne’er-do-well relative, he’d heard, who landed himself a cushy job nannying execs and tech geeks on corporate road trips.
    Wrong. This guy was no nanny. Why had Lesniak never noticed he was a mean and cold son of a bitch?
    “I don’t have it,” he said.
    “The guard at the lab talked. I know you took it.”
    The boat swayed with the current. Rusty the sheepdog turned the wheel to keep it pointing downriver. “Who got to you?”
    Birds fluffed themselves in the trees. White wings everywhere, blank eyes, all watching, none seeing him. Lesniak’s lips pulled back, and he knew, horribly, he was smiling. Stop it, he told himself. You look like a fool. His left hand went