The Patrick Bowers Files - 05 - The Queen

by Steven James

  I translated that to mean that my face was really a mess.

  Turning to the side, I drew my sleeve across my chin, leaving a long smear of dark blood on my jacket. I managed to keep from wincing from the pressure against my lip. “Lien-hua!”

  “I’m coming.”

  Back in my room I grabbed my computer, as well as Donnie’s biometric ID card, additional magazines for the Glock, my folding knife—a Randall King black automatic TSAVO-Wraith—the extra plastic handcuffs, and the GPS ankle bracelet. After encouraging Amber to call Lien-hua’s cell if there was anything we could do or if she needed to talk, I said an awkward and rushed good-bye. On my way through the living room I discreetly asked Tessa to text me as soon as Sean came back, then I left to meet Lien-hua by the cruiser.

  Sliding into the driver’s seat, I handed her my computer.

  “I can drive if you like,” she offered.

  “Sometimes I process things better when I’m behind the wheel.”

  I took us down the driveway, sliding momentarily on the ice. Wind-driven snow sliced at our headlights.

  “So the Schoenberg Inn,” Lien-hua said. “Alexei left Kayla right under everyone’s nose?”

  “If he’s telling the truth, yes. And if Kayla is there, I want you to talk with her first.”

  “Sure. Of course.”

  On the road I hit another patch of ice and we fishtailed precariously close to a snowbank, then straightened out again.

  “You sure you don’t want me to drive?”

  “I’m all right. See if you can trace the GPS location for Hank Burlman’s cell.”

  It only took Lien-hua a few seconds to put the trace through, but Alexei knew how to operate off the grid and not surprisingly she came up empty.

  A dozen puzzle pieces were cycling through my head. Too many things to keep straight. “Okay,” I said. “Check my email. There should be a file from Angela or Margaret containing the schematics for the ELF base.”

  Lien-hua clicked to my email. “No. Nothing.”

  “What’s taking them so long?” I muttered. “Send them both a message that we need that ELF info now.”

  Lien-hua did as I asked, then said, “Next.”

  “Two things. First, see if the Navy has had any communication problems tonight with the ELF base. Any alerts, anything at all.”

  “Who should I contact?”

  “Admiral Winchester is the one who put this case in Margaret’s lap. Try him. I’m not sure how to get in touch with him.”

  “I’ll figure it out. What’s the second thing?”

  “Check the statute of limitations for vehicular reckless homicide in Wisconsin. I need to know what they were twenty years ago.”

  A moment of silence. “What’s that about?”

  “When I was in high school there was an accident. Sean lost control of our car, there was a collision, a woman was killed.”

  “Oh, Pat.”

  “No charges were brought against him, but when we were in the garage just now he told me he’d had too much to drink that night before getting behind the wheel.” I didn’t want to add this last part, but I wasn’t sure if Lien-hua knew that my brother was only two years older than me. “Sean was underage at the time.”

  She quietly tapped at the keyboard. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  79

  Tessa knocked on Amber’s bedroom door. “Hey, can I come in?”

  “Sure.” She could tell that Amber was trying to stifle her crying.

  Tessa opened the door somewhat haltingly and found Amber seated on the bed, a box of tissues on one side of her, a pile of crumpled tissues on the other. She was blowing her nose, doing her best to make it sound soft and insignificant.

  Whatever confidence Tessa had displayed a few minutes ago when she was reassuring Patrick that everything would be fine had now evaporated.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” she told Amber inaptly.

  Amber patted the bed. “Come here.”

  Tessa crossed the room and took a seat beside her.

  She’s taking depression meds, this must be totally weirding her out.

  “I’m sorry,” Amber said.

  “No, you don’t need to be sorry.”

  But Tessa wasn’t sure if that was true or not.

  Overall, Sean seemed like a nice enough guy, so on the one hand she was upset at Amber for wanting to leave him, but Sean had punched Patrick—which, actually, Patrick probably had coming—and Amber had told her earlier that Patrick wasn’t the reason she was leaving her husband, and apparently Sean did drink a lot, so it was hard to know what to think.

  Tessa wanted to remind Amber of the stuff they’d talked about at the motel about canceling debts and sacrificing for the benefit of the relationship and all that, but she wasn’t really sure if Amber needed to forgive Sean or divorce him. Obviously, Amber had issues too; however, as far as forgiving yourself, Amber had told her that she thought that sort of talk seemed arrogant, so in the end Tessa ended up saying nothing rather than chance saying the wrong thing.

  Instead, she just reached out and took Amber’s hand.

  And Amber let her hold on.

  “Okay,” Lien-hua said, “sat comm with the ELF station broke off a couple hours ago, but the Navy received a web-based encrypted audio message that everything is okay.” She paused then added, “Yeah, unlikely. I know.”

  I’d heard Lien-hua’s side of the conversation with the admiral’s aide but hadn’t been able to decipher all the specifics. “Who was the message from?”

  “A chief warrant officer named Dickinson. He said the storm took out the satellite communication and landlines and that he’d come to the surface to check in. Because of your suspicions, though, the Department of Defense did a voiceprint analysis on the audio, and it was him. It’s confirmed.”

  Could he be working with someone? With Eco-Tech?

  “That’s not enough to convince me.”

  “Me either. But it seemed to reassure them for the time being.” Her voice stiffened. “They’re closely monitoring the situation.”

  “Closely monitoring it.”

  “Their words, not mine.”

  That phrase “closely monitoring a situation” really means “not taking any immediate action,” and that was the last thing I wanted to hear right now. I wished Torres and the SWAT team were here. I could sure use their help, especially if there was something going down at the base.

  “Pat, I’ll look up those statutes in a sec, but I never told you what I was working on at Sean and Amber’s house earlier—doing research, trying to pull together a preliminary profile on Valkyrie.”

  “What’d you find out?”

  “Unfortunately, not a whole lot. Valkyries are found in Norse mythology and were originally goddesses who flew over battlefields and determined who would be slaughtered and who would survive. Basically, angels of death. Eventually, the myths turned them into beautiful, alluring spirits who waited on slain heroes in Valhalla.”

  “Quite a transformation.”

  “Well, beauty and death are central themes of nearly all mythic systems. Very Jungian—if you buy into that. Anyway, psychologically, the code name draws from images of death, eternity, beauty, marriage. Maybe even judgment or eternal rewards.” She paused slightly. “Code names by high-level operatives are rarely chosen indiscriminately.”

  I thought of the Bible reference to the bride of the Lamb and the seven last plagues: images of death, eternity, beauty, marriage.

  It seemed like more than a fluke to me. “Anything else?”

  “Our guy will be experienced in law enforcement or involved in the intelligence community. Midforties. Computer science training. High intelligence. A history of international travel. Multilingual. Male. Nationality at this point is still too hard to call.”

  “But a Valkyrie is a goddess. Why are you thinking we’re looking for a male?”

  “Female criminal masterminds might make good villains on the big screen, but t
hey’re almost unheard of in real life. For the most part, spying is a man’s game. We should also look for possible religious idealism or mission-oriented terrorist affiliations. Possible motives: revenge, monetary gain, ideology.”

  “Or challenge.”

  She considered that. “Yes. Or challenge.”

  “So in essence, we need to discern what Valkyrie wants? Is that what you’re saying the key is here?”

  “Well, to nail down motive, yes. To glimpse personality, no.”

  I was no expert on profiling, but her comment took me by surprise. “No?”

  “To find out what lies at the core of someone’s personality, you need to know more than what he wants.”

  “What he loves?”

  “No.”

  “Dreams of?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Fears?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then what?”

  “What he regrets. Only when you know what someone most deeply regrets will you know what matters to him most.”

  I took a moment to reflect on that, recalling my thoughts from my conversation with Jake yesterday about assassin mentality: Without rationalization we’d have to live in the daily recognition of who we really are, what we’re really capable of. And that’s something most people avoid at all costs.

  Tessa’s observation: Denial is too cheap a cure.

  “What happens,” I said, “when you’re not able to rationalize or justify your deviant thoughts or behavior? When you’re left with regret but no hope of forgiveness or resolution?”

  “The mind has to deal with guilt somehow. When it’s overwhelming, escaping reality is sometimes the only choice.”

  We run from the past and it chases us; we dive into urgency but nothing deep is ultimately healed.

  “So, some kind of psychotic break? A split personality?”

  She shook her head. “I see where you’re going with this, but that’s incredibly rare. Usually people just find a way to diminish the wrong or justify themselves in some way. Assassins, terrorists, espionage agents are experts at that.” She sighed in disappointment. “I’m sorry, I know at this point all of this is sketchy, just unfounded conjecture.”

  “No, it’s more than that. It’s your instinct based on experience.”

  “Pat, you don’t trust instincts.”

  “I trust you.”

  A long moment. “Thanks.” She regrouped at the keyboard. “How much farther to the Inn?”

  “Just a couple minutes.”

  “Let me see what I can find out about those criminal statutes.”

  One hour and four minutes left.

  Solstice had thought they should just use a small, handheld camera, but Cane had wanted to go all out, so they’d brought a Sony HVR-HD1000U digital high definition HDV camcorder along.

  “Go ahead and set it up,” Solstice told Gale. “Let’s get this statement filmed.”

  He flipped open the tripod and began to pull out the equipment.

  “I made a real mess of things,” Amber said, her voice quavering in a delicate, broken way. “Sean—he’s not really that bad of a man. He never hurt me. Never hit me. He’s never . . . I love him. I think I was just looking for a reason . . .”

  To justify leaving him . . . Tessa thought, filling in the blanks.

  “It’s all gonna work out,” she told Amber. “Don’t worry.”

  Cliché, cliché, cliché.

  Lame, lame, lame!

  In the unsettling silence following her words, Tessa remembered the broken glass from the sailboat painting in the living room. “Maybe we should clean up that glass? From the picture, in the other room?” Okay, it was a little pathetic, but at least it might help distract Amber for a little bit.

  Amber took a breath that was obviously an attempt to compose herself. “Yes.”

  The lights flickered briefly as the two of them traipsed down the hallway.

  “There should be some flashlights in the kitchen,” Amber suggested, obviously in anticipation of a power outage. “And we should probably get that fire started. Just in case.”

  “All set,” Gale announced as he finished tightening the height adjustment on the tripod.

  Solstice nodded.

  Right now, three members of her team were carefully setting the remaining TATP ordnance in the tunnels on the top level of the base; Eclipse was guarding the hostages on the second level. Cyclone had taken Donnie up to the crew quarters for the time being so he wouldn’t disturb the filming. The remaining team members were here with Solstice in the control room.

  She eyed the remote control detonator on the desk next to her keyboard. A simple five-step plan: (1) send the transmission, (2) get to the tunnel that wasn’t rigged to explode, (3) shoot anyone who tried to stop her, (4) blow the base, (5) disappear.

  No more Eco-Tech team.

  No more ELF base.

  No loose ends.

  Cane and Squall donned their ski masks and positioned themselves in front of the camera. Behind them hung a flag with a picture of the earth taken from outer space, as well as Eco-Tech’s logo and their boldly lettered motto: A New Breed of Green—Dialogue When Possible, Action When Necessary.

  “Ready?” Gale asked.

  Cane nodded, Gale moved behind the camera.

  The light went on.

  And the filming began.

  80

  Lien-hua and I were less than a mile from the Schoenberg Inn.

  Ever since starting in law enforcement sixteen years ago, I’ve always prided myself on my commitment to uncovering the truth and then seeing justice carried out, but now in this situation with my brother, I was sorry I knew the truth and I wasn’t sure I wanted justice carried out at all.

  “All right, Pat.” Lien-hua took a small breath. “I’ve got something. In Wisconsin there’s a fifteen-year statute of limitation on prosecutions for second-degree reckless homicide. It was in place at the time of the accident.”

  “But, let me guess: for first-degree reckless homicide there isn’t one.”

  A pause. “That’s right.”

  “We could be talking about a twenty-year sentence for—”

  “Pat, it doesn’t do any good jumping to conclusions like that.”

  “How do the statutes define the difference between second- and first-degree homicide?”

  She consulted the computer. “First-degree reckless homicide—whoever recklessly causes the death of another human being under circumstances which show utter disregard for human life. It’s a Class B felony.” She scrolled to the next part of the law code. “Second degree—whoever recklessly causes the death of another human being. It’s a Class D felony.”

  Utter disregard for human life. What does that mean exactly?

  I already knew the answer to that: it would be up to a jury to decide.

  The Schoenberg’s parking lot lay a quarter mile ahead of us, and I could see its parking lights glowing blearily in the snow-strewn night. “Are there any statutes that specifically address vehicular homicide?”

  “Yes, but that’s not as clear-cut. According to Statute 940.09 1(c) it looks like a Class D felony. Unless . . .”

  “The person was legally intoxicated.”

  “Let me see.” She gazed at the computer screen, but I had a feeling she was stalling, that she already knew the answer. “Yes, there’s another statute that determines if it’s a Class B or Class D felony, 340.01 (46m). And yes, you’re right, it has to do with blood alcohol content.”

  There were so many factors that we didn’t know, would never know—Sean’s alcohol concentration, Mrs. Everson’s, whether or not she was driving too fast for conditions, whether or not he was—

  Utter disregard for human life.

  A skilled prosecutor could probably make the case for the first-degree reckless homicide charge, but the only way he’d be able to make it stick would be with proof of Sean’s intoxication. And after all these years, the only evidence he would have of that was—


  “Does that help?” Lien-hua asked.

  “Yes,” I said unenthusiastically. “Thanks.”

  —Sean’s confession in court—

  —Or the testimony of a federal agent to whom he had personally confessed.

  We arrived at the Schoenberg Inn, and as I parked the cruiser, I tried to put thoughts of my brother and what he’d told me aside.

  I tugged out my phone and pulled up the security camera photo of Alexei Chekov from the Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport, but even as Lien-hua and I hurried inside to see if Kayla Tatum was all right, my disquieting fears for my brother’s future wouldn’t leave me alone.

  And neither would the nagging question of where Alexei had gone after he’d left the sheriff’s department.

  81

  8:06 p.m.

  54 minutes until the transmission

  It took us only a few moments to locate the hotel manager, Simon Weatherford, a gaunt-faced lanky man in his early forties. His shaved head and slightly graying goatee made him look more like an avant-garde artist in LA than the manager of a historic hotel in northern Wisconsin.

  “You have rooms you did not show the officers earlier,” I told him firmly. “I want to see them. Now. The rooms on the south end of the basement.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking—”

  I held up my phone and showed him Alexei’s photo. “This man paid you for the use of a room and he left a woman there. She was kidnapped and right now you’re facing charges as an accessory. Take us to her now.”

  Weatherford’s face flushed. “He said she was hungover when he brought her in, he—”

  I grabbed his arm and directed him toward the hall. “Let’s go.” I didn’t even try to hide how furious I was that he hadn’t shown the officers earlier where Kayla was.

  Reckless homicide.

  Utter disregard for human life.

  Weatherford took the lead and hurried us through a network of corridors and past a series of plaques that celebrated the history of the Inn and its inclusion in the list of National Historic Landmarks in 2004. When I questioned him about Alexei, he admitted that Chekov had given him $200,000 cash with the promise of another $300,000 in twenty-four hours if he didn’t tell anyone about the woman.