Oscar picked Jaime up the next morning and they made the drive to Chesapeake Bay together. It was a long and uncomfortable two hours as far as Jaime was concerned. His eyes fixed on the road and his expression grim, Oscar was a miserable companion. She made several gentle attempts at conversation, which were met with monosyllabic answers. Finally she gave up and watched the scenery go by.
Once at the marina and out of the confined space of the car, Oscar took in some deep breaths of the salty air and his mood seemed to lift a little. As they walked down the ramp to the docks, he turned to her.
"You know when I should have figured out she wasn't you?" he asked, with the faintest glimmer of humor in his eyes.
"When?"
"When we were both reading The Post on Sunday morning. I had the Op/Ed page, and when I turned to see what she was reading..." he smiled ruefully and shook his head, "she was checking out the horse racing forms."
Jaime stifled a laugh with her hand. "I'm sorry... but that is kind of funny."
"It is, isn't it?" He actually managed to crack a half grin. They walked down the dock, which bobbed gently on the water, accompanied by the sound of rigging rattling against metal masts. Toward the end of the main walkway they turned left, arriving at a handsome twenty-five foot wooden sailboat.
"That's mine." he said, pointing to it.
"It's beautiful, Oscar." she said, as they stepped aboard. "What's it called?"
"She's the Delmar. She'll be seventy three years old this year."
"Did you choose the name?"
He shook his head. "You don't change the name of ships - not in my books, anyway."
"It means 'from the sea', doesn't it?"
"Yeah – but it's probably really some guy's late lamented girlfriend."
"Wow." Jaime replied, admiring the sparkling brass fittings and running her hands on the burnished teak. "How do you find time to keep it in such beautiful shape?"
"I don't." he answered as he unwound the lines from dock cleats. "I get a local kid to work on it for me most of the time."
"I didn't even know you liked to sail."
"There are a lot of things you don't know about me." he replied, as he always did when she discovered something new about him. "...though you certainly know more than I ever intended you to." he added under his breath.
They made their way out of the marina by means of a small outboard motor. Jaime scanned around her, looking for the vessel that was most likely to intercept them. There were a couple of sailboats out in the bay, and a speedboat blasted by and quickly disappeared from view.
"I don't see any likely candidates for our rendezvous yet." Jaime murmured. Oscar took a perfunctory look around as he pulled the motor out of the water and began to hoist the sails.
"Come on over here." he beckoned. "I'm going to put you to work." He gave her a short demonstration of her duties as an able seaman before settling down at the tiller. Jaime had sailed a few times in her life, but had never exactly grasped the principles, so she just did what she was told.
It was such a contradictory pastime, she thought - supposedly all serene and quiet, but then much of it seemed to be spent frantically hitching and unhitching ropes as sails flapped wildly and she crouched in the bottom of the hull trying to avoid being hit by the boom. Oscar sat at the tiller and gave orders. At work or at play, he was very good at being the boss. Finally they were truly underway. Now it was quiet; the sails were trimmed and they moved swiftly through the dark blue waters.
Once again she scanned the horizon. There were not many boats on the water today, but now, separating itself from the haze of the opposite shore, was a white blob that in a short time showed itself to be a large, gleaming yacht.
"Look at that." Jaime said quietly, gesturing toward it with her chin.
Oscar glanced toward it. "Yeah..."
For fifteen minutes they quietly sailed out into open waters, the land receding behind them. It was a beautiful day, no question. There were perfect white puffy clouds dotting the skies, and the wind was steady but not violent. Under other circumstances it would have been a very pleasant occasion. All the while they were both keenly aware of a big white yacht on their aft starboard side – far enough away to look disinterested, but close enough to move in on them anytime the occupants wanted.
"Okay," Oscar sighed. "we'd better keep up appearances." He shifted back and beckoned her to him. Feeling self conscious, she sat in front of him and he wrapped his long legs around her, slipped his arm around her waist and placed his cheek lightly against hers. For all the intimacy of his actions, she could tell he was tense too.
"You're going to play it safe in there, okay?" he said quietly. "If you don't find exactly the right moment to bust this thing open, don't do it. Even if they slice, dice and julienne me in front of your eyes, don't let it get to you. If worse comes to worst, they can have one of us, but not both of us."
"Don't let it get to me? You must think I'm a lot tougher than I am." Jaime scoffed. "We're going to make sure that doesn't happen. And you know, if it did... it's a lot less painful for me to be sliced and diced than you."
"That's not the point. Your bionics don't lie. I can lie."
"Well it's not going to happen." she repeated firmly. "What is this slice-dice-julienne thing anyway? Have you been sitting up all night watching TV?"
"It might happen. You should think of this as a golden opportunity to get yourself a new boss."
"Don't even say that!" Jaime turned on him angrily.
"Okay, okay. Shhh." he said quickly. "I'm sorry."
"You really scare me when you say things like that." she insisted, glaring at him.
"Just a little gallows humor, that's all. Don't take it so seriously."
"Well it's not funny." she grumbled. She was struck by how quickly he had moved from remote and bad tempered to soothing and conciliatory - she did have a lot of power over him, she realized, and it was something she would have to be careful with.
"I won't do it again. Come on now. We can't look like we're having a fight. Tell me a joke."
Jaime sighed.
"I'm sorry." he said again, and kissed her cheek. The kiss was so natural, so tender, that it gave Jaime insight into how he must have been with Lisa – with her - and it made her feel sad all over again. Somehow that sweet, small gesture erased any question left in her mind about the depth of his feelings for her.
"You are a good liar, aren't you?" she said quietly.
"Mmm-hmm. And I hate being found out."
"Well," she said, leaning back into him, "did you know that Davy Crockett had three ears?"
"Why, no I didn't." Oscar replied gamely.
"Yup. His left ear, his right ear and his wild front ear."
To her surprise he laughed, loud enough to startle her, and it made her laugh too.
"Good one. Where did you get that one?"
"Oh, just take a guess. All my jokes come from my students."
"How about another one?"
The yacht was drawing closer, close enough that Jaime could hear the sound of guns being cocked, of nervous muttering on deck.
"We might not get to the punchline." she said, looking out of the corner of her eye.
"Then you can tell me later."
"Okay, why did the pilgrim's pants fall down?"
"Why did the pilgrim's pants fall down?" he asked cheerfully.
"Oscar Goldman - " a voice crackled out from a megaphone. "bring your vessel to a halt immediately."
Oscar looked up at the yacht as though it were the first time he'd noticed it.
"What do you want?" he yelled.
"One more question and we'll shoot the young lady."
Obediently and quietly they took down the sails, tied up to the back of the yacht and mounted the ladder up to the deck.
The man with the megaphone was a tiny, wizened character, with a mirthless grin, dark eyes, and crowded teeth that pointed slightly inward. He wore an immaculate white suit that matched the yacht. Surrounding him were three silent, glowering men with big muscles and big guns, one of whom handcuffed Oscar, while another grabbed Jaime unceremoniously and pushed a gun to her temple. She winced and pulled back, protesting as the cold metal pressed into her flesh.
"Jaime!" Oscar barked anxiously. "Don't resist - please."
"Welcome aboard, Mr. Goldman, Miss Sommers." the man in the white suit said. "You may call me Mr. White."
Oscar and Jaime glanced at each other - both realizing at the same moment that neither of them knew whether White believed her to be Lisa Galloway or Jaime Sommers.
"Hank," Mr. White turned to the last large muscular man who was not otherwise occupied. "Go capsize that boat. I'm sorry, Mr. Goldman - but it's necessary. We need your people to believe you had an unfortunate accident."
Oscar frowned unhappily as he looked back to his beautiful boat tethered at the stern.
"Let Jaime go." he said, turning back to White. "I'll cooperate if you let her go."
"Very gentlemanly, I'm sure," smiled the tiny man, "but I think we'll keep her around as an incentive for you to behave like a good boy. Now, let's go down below." He lead the way while the two henchmen prodded their prisoners down the narrow stairs. "I'm afraid we don't have much time for niceties. I've got a lot of people waiting on me."
They descended into a plain room lit by greenish fluorescent ceiling lights. Suddenly instead of being on a luxurious yacht, it was like they were in somebody's creepy basement. Jaime felt sweat bead on her temples when she saw the big plastic sheet on the floor with a single metal chair placed in the middle. Beside the chair stood a sinewy man holding some kind of baton attached by a cord to an electrical box. On a counter that ran along the side of the room were other items, less high tech but still ominous – a hammer, a crowbar, several pairs of pliers, a saw, and a bottle of bleach.
"Have a seat, Mr. Goldman." the man with the baton said, smiling coldly and patting the chair. Oscar hesitated, and his guard immediately punched him in the head and pushed him forward, jamming the butt of his gun into the center of his back. Jaime clenched her teeth to suppress a gasp. Staggering slightly Oscar crossed to the chair and sat, silent and wary.
"Now, Oscar," White said, pacing in front of him, "I know you won't mind if I call you Oscar... I'm sure you can imagine why you're here. There are just so many things rattling around in that head of yours that we'd like to know about. We have quite a list, in fact - the access code for the Fairbanks Missile Project, the names of all the negotiators working on the Nuclear Deactivation Plan... the security details on the upcoming Middle East talks - and a few other things. But we'll get to all that in due time. You can start with the sequence of six codes for the MacIntyre project. I know you've memorized them, and I want them. And don't even think about lying - because we'll know - faster than you can imagine. We've got a big network out there, Oscar, all hanging on your every word. Isn't that flattering?"
The subject looked at the floor in front of him and said nothing.
"Come on Oscar. It's all over. You know it's all over." White prompted, squatting in front of him to catch his eye. "You give us what we want, and we'll dispense with you quickly and painlessly. No humiliation. Otherwise it's going to be very unpleasant. I don't need to tell you about torture, I'm sure. Mark is very good - he can reduce a big strong man to a quivering, sniveling pulp in no time. It's very degrading really - and you don't want your sweet Jaime to see that, do you?" Oscar was so still and so unresponsive it was almost as though he hadn't heard.
Jaime's breath was short and her heart was wild. She was keenly aware of the guard's sweaty grip on her arm and the gun muzzle at her head. It was far too risky, but she longed to heave him across the room – to knock all these creeps down like so many bowling pins and get Oscar the hell out of here – away from the plastic sheet and the pliers and the threat of - she never should have asked him to do to this – to put him in danger like this. On top of everything else… this was too cruel.
"And then," White added, in a regretful tone, "if you don't cooperate, we'll have to work on her, and that would be such a shame. Such an attractive woman." he said wistfully, gazing at Jaime. "In fact it might be more productive to start with her..."
Oscar's eyes flicked anxiously to Jaime as the man holding her jammed the gun harder into her temple.
"Ow!" she cried indignantly, in her best southern accent. "Now looky here, Mr. White, I've had just about enough of this. I agreed to deliver Goldman, not to get into some crazy improvisational comedy routine!"
"What?" Oscar gasped, looking shocked and horrified. All he had to do to be convincing was relive the most painful memory of his life, now only three days old.
"Lisa Galloway...?!"
"That's right Sugar." Jaime smiled unpleasantly. "Surprise!"
His head dropped to his chest. "Oh God..." he whispered.
"For Chrissakes Lisa!" White spun around. "Couldn't you keep your mouth shut for another minute?!"
"Not with this jerk jamming a gun into my head!" Jaime responded with equal ire. "Now I would like you to pay me my money and put me ashore. I've got better things to do than stand here watching you carve him up!"
"I thought you wanted to watch us carve him up." White hissed, his eyes narrowed.
"Well I have changed my mind!" Jaime replied hotly. "It looks like it's gonna be messy. And I could be getting a massage and drinking a cocktail instead."
White glared at her a moment longer, then his expression shifted back into something tolerant and civil. "Let's go up on deck, Lisa, and discuss this further."
"Fine." Jaime replied. She went straight up the stairs without a backward glance, though it made her sick to her stomach to leave Oscar alone and undefended.
"Mark, see if you can reason with him while I talk to Lisa." White called back to the man with the baton.
"Now, Sugar, let's have it." Jaime said, turning and holding out her palm as they stepped up onto the deck.
"One million." countered White.
"Oh no... it's Goldman - not Silverman. I want my two million. That's what we agreed on."
"You compromised our interrogation by giving yourself away."
"Two million." Jaime insisted.
She didn't see the man come up behind her, nor did she hear him over the yacht engine. He lifted her cleanly off her feet and she was suddenly airborne, the sky and water and yacht tumbling around her as she dropped into the cold blue water, screaming.
Oscar was trying hard not to listen to the torments Mark was describing to him when Mr. White returned from above - alone. His heart rate instantly doubled.
"Where is she?" he said, his voice as flat as possible.
"She went for a little dip." White replied, his black eyes glinting with amusement.
"Good riddance." Oscar said, nearly choking on the words, as he returned his gaze to the floor.
"Now then, back to business. The codes please."
"White, or whatever your name is, this is going to be the last thing I say to you. Torture doesn't work. And I don't really give a damn what you do to me."
"Oh dear. Lost your will to live, have you? Well I'll be more than happy to put a bullet through your head if you'll only give me what I want - you poor, pathetic schmuck. Pity that such a fine career should come to such an ignominious end." White stood over Oscar, shaking his head in disapproval. "I always thought you'd be too smart to get caught out by a woman." He smiled. "Well now, Mark has an interesting new toy he's eager to try on you. Four thousand volts. That ought to make you regret being alive!"
Mark walked around to face Oscar, holding the baton in front of him. He gave him a wolfish grin and flicked the switch, creating a glow and a low hum. Oscar couldn't help but recoil as it was held near his face, then over his neck and chest. The mere proximity of it raised goosebumps on his flesh and caused a shiver to run down his back.
"Care to reconsider?" Mr White asked.
Oscar stared harder at the floor and tensed as the baton was placed against his neck.