Brodie said, “He’ll be sending smoke signals to Mercer.”
“Or sending someone in a boat. Or they have radio or sat phone contact.”
Brodie nodded. “Let’s be confident in our ability to pass as innocent tourists.” He added, “Two men traveling alone arouse suspicion. A man and a woman look harmless. That’s why Dombroski wanted you to accompany me.”
She looked at him. “First of all, I’m not harmless. Secondly, I was picked because I’m good at what I do.”
“No argument there.” But there could be another reason that Maggie Taylor had been assigned to this case, though Brodie was hoping he was wrong about that.
She glanced around and asked, “Should we call Collins?”
“We should if we think it’s safe. And if we don’t, we should walk to the plane and leave.”
“That’s your call.”
“Could use some breakfast.”
She stood, fished the sat phone out of her overnight bag, and walked out of the pavilion to get open sky.
Brodie called out, “Tell him we’re sharing a room.” He added, “Keep it short and turn the phone off when you’re done.” Brodie dug into Taylor’s overnight bag and retrieved a Snickers bar, which he unwrapped and bit into.
Taylor returned. “Sat phone works. He’s on the way.”
“Good. Want a bite?”
She sat and said to him, “Please don’t go into my overnight bag again.”
He looked at her. “My apologies.”
“That’s all right… We’re operational, so… whatever you need.”
He didn’t reply.
They sat in silence; then Taylor said, “Collins says he has never stayed overnight in Kavak, and he’s concerned about his plane. He says he’s slept in his plane in places like this, and he may do that tonight.”
“We’ll see.”
“Now that Collins is joining us, we don’t have a cut-out guy to call Dombroski. So we need to call the boss now.”
“I’d rather wait until we’re actually on a boat going upriver.”
“Why?”
“So I have more to report. Also, I don’t want to keep using the sat phone if Worley’s people are looking for our signal.”
“Worley is not the enemy.”
“No, but he is our competitor. And he has his own agenda.” He added, “I’m not giving him our location unless he needs it.”
“It’s us who may need him.”
“Maybe. But in this game you have to know what bridges to cross, and what bridges to burn.”
“How can I argue with your eloquence?”
“You can’t,” he assured her.
“We will call Dombroski five minutes after we get on that river.”
