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“Her,” Simon corrected.
“No matter. They have telephone records from a burner cell phone of hers making multiple calls to a cell that was seized in your office.”
“What! You have to get that tossed. There has to be a way.”
“I’ll do my best, but it looks airtight, at first glance. Jeffrey, this woman murdered dozens of children. She organized a rebel group that killed Australian citizens. She was trying to overthrow the government so your companies could profit.” Simon exhaled. “How on earth did you get involved in this?”
“Simon, I had no idea . . .”
Simon removed his glasses and smoothed his hair. “They’re talking extradition.”
“You need to stop this dead, Simon. Whatever the cost.”
Simon nodded and sighed. “Which brings me to the next bit of housekeeping. This will be enormously expensive to defend. We’re talking millions. Many millions. I’ll need a substantial retainer to proceed. Say . . . two million Australian, within twenty-four hours?”
Grimes snorted. “That’s highway robbery!”
“How much is your life worth, Jeffrey? They want you as badly. And if they extradite . . .” He didn’t have to finish. “I’ll be battling this for years.”
“Fine.” Jeffrey gave him the combination of his safe. “There’s a little over three million in maple leafs and one-kilo bars in the safe. I should think that will suffice. How soon until you can get me bail?”
Simon stared at Grimes like he was mad. “You don’t understand, do you? There will be no bail. You’re to be transferred to solitary confinement and put on suicide watch. You’re considered to be not only a flight risk but also guilty of crimes against humanity, in addition to all the other charges.”
The air suddenly felt overheated and heavy. Grimes struggled to breathe as perspiration beaded his forehead. Simon didn’t seem to notice as he rattled off a few immediate requirements he’d need to address with Grimes’s board of directors. When Simon finished and stood, he seemed anxious to be rid of his client.
Grimes rose and shook hands with his attorney, his palm sweaty. “Simon. You have to get me out of this. Whatever it takes. I . . . I can’t spend my life in prison.”
Simon averted his gaze and nodded. “I’ll do my best, but you’ve really gone and done it this time, Jeffrey.”
The sound of the steel door closing behind the attorney echoed like the detonation of a bomb as Grimes glared at the walls. The entire episode had been surreal. A pulsing throb in his jaw radiated down his left arm as his sweating increased and he was trying to call out for help when his chest seemed to explode and he slipped out of the chair, gasping as his heart faltered, a chunk of plaque the size of a pencil eraser clogging one of the arteries.
By the time the medics arrived, Grimes’s body was already cooling, his sightless eyes staring at the ceiling in puzzled amazement and his handsome face frozen in an expression that could only be described as fear.
CHAPTER 53
Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands
Remi eyed the impenetrable rushing of the waterfall and turned to Lazlo, who was standing between Sam and Leonid.
“Are you sure about this?” she asked.
“Never more so.”
“But Nauru never said anything about going through a waterfall,” Sam said.
“Be that as it may, I’d bet money there’s a cave behind that water.”
Sam glanced at the puffs of clouds drifting across the sky, glowing white in the noon sun. “The Japanese may well have moved the crates, once they were in a nearby cave. Or the old man might have just been forgetful. We tend to remember the dramatic moments and forget the rest—and having your entire village slaughtered in front of you is certainly dramatic enough.”
“So how do we get around the water?” Remi asked.
Leonid pointed at the falls. “It looks like there are a few feet of rock that we can traverse over on the right side.”
“No time like the present,” Sam said, and led them toward the edge of the small pond the waterfall fed.
“Wouldn’t this be exactly the kind of place you’d expect to find crocodiles?” Lazlo asked as they moved along the spongy ground.
“Oh, I’d think they’d find only you,” Remi said.