arrived, smelling of salt and grill grease, and the Weasel attacked his with the relish of the half-starved. The coffee and cigarette seemed to have calmed him, and his hands were steadier. He bit into the butter-slathered toast. “Bloch thinks you’re up to something, Sam.” Otis seemed to enjoy calling a U.S. senator by his first name. He swallowed the toast. “That’s why he sent me up here. He doesn’t give a shit what you do, so long as he gets his money. He’s not worried about you giving away his operation, because he knows if you do, you’ll end up swimming in shit, too.”
“He’s overextended,” Ryder said coldly, wishing he could feel as confident as he sounded.
“Yeah, I know, but that don’t matter. He’s putting the screws to you so you can pull him out. Man, he’s been doing this crap for years. You try and mess him up, you don’t come out of it. He will; you won’t.”
Ryder said nothing. It rankled him that Bloch—Master Sergeant (ret.) Phillip Bloch—had sent Otis Raymond as his messenger. The Weasel, for the love of God. A drug-addicted loser giving him, a United States senator, advice!
“Don’t bullshit Bloch, man. You got something going, level with him.”
The acidic coffee burned in Ryder’s stomach as his contempt for Raymond and Block and the underlife they represented again assaulted him. They’d been in Vietnam together—or, more accurately, at the same time. Weasel, Block, Ryder. And Stark. Mustn’t forget Matthew Stark, although he’d tried. Of the four, only Ryder had successfully put their shared past behind him. He’d overcome all that had happened to him in Vietnam, all he’d done, all he’d seen, all he’d had done to him. He’d been a first lieutenant, a platoon leader, and Bloch had been his platoon sergeant. Stark had been a helicopter pilot, Otis Raymond his door gunner. They’d all survived their tours of duty.
Ryder understood tragedy as well as anyone—better than most, he felt. But why dwell on what you couldn’t change? Why not move forward? He loathed men like Otis Raymond, still living the war, letting it destroy them, but at least Otis wasn’t always whining and complaining the way so many were. Ryder had never had much in common with the men with whom he’d served, the men he’d led. Most were from the dregs of American society and had gone to Vietnam not because they believed in or understood the cause for which they were fighting, but because they had had no other real option. “I got into some trouble,” Otis had explained once. “Judge told me, go to school, go to war, or go to jail.” But Ryder came from an old, prestigious central Florida family and was himself the son of a U.S. senator; going to Vietnam for him had been an honor and, as his father’s son, a duty.
“What more does Bloch want from me?” Ryder asked, hating the hoarseness in his voice. Normally his strong sense of self, which some called arrogance, could conceal his fear.
“Anything he can get, Sam.”
He licked his lips, resisting the impulse to bite down. “What does he know?”
Otis shrugged. “He knows de Geer’s in New York, that you two got something cooked up.”
“Did de Geer tell him?”
“The sergeant’s got snitches all over camp. He knows what’s going on.”
“He would,” Ryder said, dispirited.
If he leveled with Bloch, the Dutchman would be furious and perhaps impossible to control. Technically, de Geer worked for Bloch, although as an independent his only loyalty was to himself. It was in his role as Bloch’s messenger that Ryder had first met the Dutchman. De Geer turned the screws on Ryder on the sergeant’s behalf—demanding more money, more favors, making those demands impossible to refuse. But now Ryder was the one turning the screws on the Dutchman.
Still, Ryder knew that if he didn’t level with Bloch, the sergeant would keep digging until he found out what he wanted to know. Right now, Ryder didn’t need that kind of interference. He needed to keep Bloch where he was, at least for the moment. “Can’t you stall him?”
“Me?” Otis gave a croaking laugh that ended in a fit of coughing. He slurped some coffee and settled back, his bony frame almost disappearing against the tall wooden back of the booth. “Shit, Sam, you got a sense of humor, huh? I don’t stall Bloch—man, nobody stalls that fucker. I try, I’m a dead man.”
“My God, what have I gotten myself into?”
Ryder hadn’t intended for Otis to hear him, but the skinny army combat veteran nodded solemnly. “You know it, Sam, don’t you? Let me help, okay? Trust me, I know Bloch. Man, I ain’t going to let you go down.”
My God, Ryder thought, am I so desperate I need Otis Raymond to protect me? “Thank you, Otis, but I can handle Bloch. Everything will work out.”
“That’s what you always say.”
“It will. Trust me.”
“I gotta give Bloch something.”
“Of course. I understand that. Explain to him that Hendrik de Geer and I are meeting at Lincoln Center tomorrow night to discuss a plan to get Bloch enough money to purchase the weaponry he needs and to get into his permanent camp—and out of my life for good. That’s to his advantage as well as mine. Our current arrangement is too dangerous for us both.”
Otis nodded at Ryder’s plate, and Ryder shook his head and pushed it over. “I ain’t had a good plate of eggs in I don’t know when. You should see the crap the sergeant feeds us. Granola, for chrissake. So, what kind of plan?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Man, you gotta.”
“Look—”
“You want Bloch at Lincoln Center, then you clamp up right now.”
“That’s the last thing I want!”
Otis dug into Ryder’s cold eggs. “Then talk to me, Sam.”
“I’m going after a diamond.” Ryder measured his words carefully, trying to ignore the grinding pain in the pit of his stomach. He was so afraid. Dear God, he was afraid. But everything would work out. “It’s the largest, most mysterious uncut diamond in the world.”
“Huh?”
“And if I can get it—if—I intend to turn it over to one Master Sergeant Phillip Bloch.”
Three
A young woman in a fresh white apron smiled across the counter in Catharina’s Bake Shop at the tiny dark-haired woman. “May I help you?”
“Yes,” Rachel Stein said, only vaguely aware that in this place, her faded Dutch accent seemed right. “I’m here to see Catharina Peperkamp—Fall, I mean.” It was impossible to think of Catharina married, with a child. “Catharina Fall.”
“And who should I tell her is here?”
“Tell her Rachel.”
It would, she believed, be enough.
The waitress went back to the kitchen, and Rachel took a piece of broken butter cookie from a sample basket on the counter. For
