The door opened. Coyle stepped back in the room, his arm cuffed around the bulging upper arm of a large man with a severe crew cut. The man—Nick Larsden, he presumed—had a network of tattoos scrawled up and down his arms. Interesting, Anthony thought. He recognized the US Army Special Forces motto—De oppresso liber—tattooed on Larsden’s upper arm. But Larsden hadn’t been Special Forces. In fact, he’d been a personnel clerk. Maybe that would be a wedge. A two-tour combat veteran like Coyle wouldn’t think much of that either.
“Sit down,” Coyle said. To emphasize his point, he pushed Larsden down into one of the chairs. Once Larsden was sitting, Coyle unlocked one handcuff then locked it to the steel table. Only after that ritual was complete did he say, “Mister Larsden.” His emphasis on the word Mister was a little ominous. “Allow me to introduce my colleagues from Washington, DC, Misters Wyden and Walker.”
“Are you fuckin’ serious?” Larsden said. “Is that like Laurel and Hardy?”
Bear leaned forward and slammed a fist on the table with a crash that hurt Anthony’s ears. “You don’t want to mess with me. I’m with the Diplomatic Security Services, and my normal interrogations are with al-Qaeda trained killers, not two-bit washed up personnel clerks like you.”
Larsden immediately tensed up, his face turning red. “I ain’t no personnel clerk—”
“Shut up!” Bear roared.
Anthony kept absolutely still. He’d never seen a police interrogation before, other than on television. He didn’t have any gauge of whether or not Bear’s methods were conventional or not. But the room went absolutely silent.
Bear leaned forward and said, “I want to make things absolutely clear to you, shitbag. The woman you were taking potshots at was the wife of the Secretary of Defense of the United States. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Bear flipped the newspaper over. Right on the front page was a full-color photo of Richard and Adelina Thompson, underneath the headline, “ASSASSIN SHOOTS AT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE’S WIFE.” Underneath that, in smaller but still bold letters, “Adelina Thompson demands political asylum in Canada.”
“Motherfucker,” Larsden muttered. “No one said she was … what the hell?”
“You’re mixed up in some bad shit, Larsden. This is way over your head. What were they offering you? Fifty thousand? A million? Whatever it was, it’s not worth the electric chair.”
Larsden jerked in his chair. “Electric chair! Hell no, I didn’t hit her, she got away, right?”
Bear shouted, “Her teenage daughter’s in the hospital, shitbag!”
Anthony didn’t say a word. Technically what Bear said was true. Jessica Thompson was in the hospital, though not of a gunshot wound. Larsden didn’t need to know that.
“What do you want from me?” Larsden demanded.
“I want to know who you’re working for. I know you didn’t think this stupid operation up yourself.”
“I don’t know!” he cried.
Bear leaned over the table, shouting in his face, “You better know, asshole!”
“Bear,” Anthony said.
“WHAT?” Bear shouted at Anthony.
“Maybe I can ask him some questions?”
Bear shouted, “We’re not asking him shit until he gives me a name!” But even as he shouted, apparently out of control, his right eye winked at Anthony, just out of Larsden’s sight.
Christ, Bear was a hell of an actor.
“Seriously, let me try,” Anthony said.
“If he doesn’t talk he’s dead,” Bear shouted. “Do you know what they do to people in prison who kill little girls?”
“I’ll talk!” Larsden said. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. But I never met Oz! I don’t know his name!”
Bear whirled toward Larsden. “Oz? Who the hell is Oz?”
“I don’t know,” Larsden said. “English, or maybe Irish. Real bastard. This job was supposed to be a simple bounty, going after a couple of fugitives. Then when I caught up with them, it turned into murder. And the bastard said if I didn’t follow through, he’d make sure I ended up dead.”
Anthony said in a calm voice, “So you decided to murder a woman and her child to save your own skin?”
“Wouldn’t you?” Larsden said. “No bullshit. I took the job, but I didn’t know it was going to turn into all this.”
“What was the payoff?” Anthony asked.
“One million,” Larsden replied. “When he announced I had to kill them to keep them from crossing the border, I told him he had to make it three. He didn’t even blink.”
Bear said, “Did you meet this Oz in person?”
“No,” Larsden replied. “Phone call only. An old Army buddy put me in touch with him.”
“What old Army buddy?” Bear asked.
“Marky Lovecchio. I knew him in Germany.”
Anthony leaned in. “How many jobs have you done for this guy?”
“Oz? This was the first one. And let me tell you, I’m regretting it.”
“Little late for that,” Bear said. “You should have thought of that before you took out a rifle and started shooting at people.”
“Yeah…”
“Where’s Marky Lovecchio from?” Bear asked.
“Boston.”
Anthony said, “Did you see a phone number? When Oz called?”
Larsden shook his head. “Nah. It always said unknown caller.”
“English accent?” Anthony said.
“I don’t know. English. Scottish maybe. Irish. I don’t know. He sounded like that actor … the old one … Liam Neeson?”
That’s not very useful, Anthony thought. “What else did he tell you? Anything?”
“He was pissed she got so close to the border. He said I had to do whatever it took to make sure she didn’t get into Canada.”
“Well you blew that, motherfucker,” Bear said.
“So what’s next? Do I get immunity if you catch him?”
Bear snorted. “Are you serious? You haven’t given us anything yet. Immunity is something you trade for.”
“I’ve told you everything I know.”
“Yeah? I don’t believe it.”
For the first time in the interview, Coyle interrupted. “Anthony. Time’s up.”
“All right, asshole,” Bear said. “You’re about to go through the ringer. IRS and FBI and Border Patrol and I don’t know who all else wants a piece of you. They’ll mess you up so bad you won’t even know your name. So you better think it through. We’re the only ones who can protect you. You better come up with some answers. We’ll be back in the morning.”
Adelina. May 6.
Adelina Ramos Thompson slowly opened her eyes. She was in a reclining chair, her feet up in the air, and she felt groggy and more than a little exhausted.
As always, her eyes immediately darted to her daughter.
Jessica had awoken from the previous evening, for about three hours. She was lucid, aware of her surroundings, and bitterly spiteful. Adelina withstood the onslaught of verbal abuse for almost an hour before she finally slipped out to the waiting room. Under the influence of medication, Jessica had fallen back asleep. Only then did Adelina return to her daughter’s room.
She felt like a coward. She should have stayed, no matter what Jessica had said. But … she was human.
I hate you, Jessica had said. You were a whore. You cheated on our father. I don’t believe your lies.
It had gone on and on, until Jessica finally turned away from her. Time passed and the verbal attacks began again. Adelina sat there, not hiding the tears that ran down her face, but also not replying in kind. Jessica’s words hurt. They wounded, like bloody stab wounds left open, but Adelina reminded herself that Jessica didn’t know what she was saying. She didn’t have the facts, and she was going through hideous and painful addiction withdrawals. Worse, her speech was slurred, the left side of her mouth drooping almost imperceptibly.
While Jessica was asleep, Adelina got on her knees i
n the corner of the room and prayed for Jessica’s recovery. She prayed that one day her daughters might forgive her—or, if they couldn’t do that, that they would at least find peace.
She’d finally fallen into a fitful sleep, still on her knees. A nurse found her there and helped her stand on unsteady legs, pain radiating up through her knees. She had stumbled to the chair and collapsed.
Now, Jessica looked better. Her skin wasn’t so sallow, and her breathing was steadier than it had been the night before. And that was a blessing. For the first time in days, she knew where all of her daughters were. Julia, Carrie and Sarah had all moved back to the condo the night before, and hired armed guards for protection. Alexandra and Andrea were at the British Embassy in Washington, DC, along with Dylan. She didn’t dare hope to see George-Phillip again—she’d hurt him too much to ever expect that—but she knew that unless he’d changed profoundly in the last sixteen years, he would do everything he could to protect her daughters.
Adelina would never forget those months. Never. She had lost hope in Belgium, lost all pretenses that she could ever have a life. Her hospitalization in Spain, initially just a few days, extended to weeks in Belgium after she’d woken up in a panic attack and the doctors had to restrain her to keep from clawing her own skin off. Weeks she’d spent in a drugged haze, while they tried antipsychotic medications on her. Clozapine, which gave her dizziness the first three days, then caused seizures on the fourth day. Risperidone, which took away the terror but caused uncontrollable trembling and insomnia and the worst migraine she’d ever had. It was four weeks before she’d stabilized on imipramine and low doses of risperidone, which reduced the anxiety but also made her listless and vacant, with frequent trembling. Better that than another panic attack.
Almost ten weeks after her hospitalization, she returned to the Embassy in Brussels in mid-September. Julia had been cold on her return, turning her nose up and walking away. Carrie, always the sweetest of children, had come to her and hugged her, whispering, “I missed you, Mommy.” Alexandra, almost four, had been full of nonsensical questions.
The months following her hospitalization were hazy to Adelina. She vaguely remembered packing as the tour in Brussels was coming to an end, but the memories were confused and unfocused. She’d tried to reach out to Julia, but the poor girl had been so hurt and confused that she’d refused any contact, spending all of her time in the garage with Corporal Lewis, who Adelina thanked God for every day. At least someone was watching out for her, because it was clear that during her hospitalization, Richard had barely seen the children.
The drugged haze continued as they spent several months in Washington, DC in 1995—months Adelina could barely remember now, except that it was one of the very rare times in their marriage where Richard had insisted she sleep with him. Those occasions, no more often than every few weeks, had filled Adelina with rage and self-loathing as she lay there, unmoving, disassociated. One night in May, in the room in the condo, he’d cursed at her when she winced at their painful intercourse.
You’re a dried up old whore, he’d said in response to her body’s inability to lubricate.
Maybe if I didn’t hate you with every fiber of my being, my body would respond differently.
His response had been immediate and violent. But his attempts to have sex with her began to become less and less often, and the very last time had been in September 1995, just before he left for China.
By that time, she knew she was pregnant with twins.
The children had to switch schools in the fall when Richard was assigned as Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China. The panic attacks and anxiety had returned in full when she’d stopped her medication due to the pregnancy.
The flight over had been miserable. Richard had flown separately, as he often did, leaving Adelina to handle the travel arrangements for the children. Twenty-four hours travel time, seventeen of them in the air, with a teenager, a pre-teen and a toddler, made the stuff of nightmares. She’d been in the bathrooms on the planes half a dozen times vomiting. Julia was sullen, almost never taking her headphones off long enough to help. Carrie had been a godsend, holding hands with then four-year-old Alexandra as Adelina juggled the luggage while they made their way through the connecting stop in Los Angeles. Then, in Narita International Airport in Tokyo, everything went to hell in an instant. They’d stepped off a moving sidewalk into the crowded terminal, hundreds of people moving in every direction. Adelina had been awake more than twenty-four hours, and she stumbled, setting the bags down and searching for information about their connecting flight.
Then a chill had gone down her spine when Carrie screamed, “Alexandra! Momma, I can’t find her!”
Adelina shouted, “What?”
Carrie was standing there, eyes wide, panicking. They were surrounded by people and Alexandra was nowhere in sight. Julia had taken up a position against a wall, headphones on.
“Alexandra!” Adelina screamed out the name in a voice loud enough to be heard across that part of the terminal. “Alexandra!”
She’d turned to Julia and pulled the headset off. “Help me find your sister!”
Julia, not fully aware of the situation, shouted, “Leave me alone!”
A mix of panic and rage swept over Adelina. She reached out and slapped Julia full across the face. Julia’s face jerked back at the slap, and Adelina shouted, “Don’t you talk to me that way. Help me find your sister!”
Julia looked stunned. It was the first time Adelina ever struck one of her children, and remorse and horror instantly swept over her.
“Alexandra!” Carrie cried, not seeing what had happened behind her. A red mark had bloomed up on Julia’s face. Adelina turned away, calling Alexandra’s name again.
It took forty-five minutes before airport security found her. She’d wandered into one of the smoking lounges, where she’d panicked, crying in the corner.
They’d missed their connecting flight.
The next few months were a nightmare for Adelina. This pregnancy was different than her first three. She was older, of course, thirty-one years old, but that wasn’t old to have a baby. But it was her fourth, and twins, and she’d just been taken off powerful antipsychotic and antidepressant medications. Almost instantly after coming off the meds, the fear and anxiety returned, her mind constantly wrapped around itself, twisting in fear. She took to writing in the margins of her Bible, and in a tight scrawl in her journal, filling every page right out to the margin, desperately trying to contain the uncontrollable emotions which were tearing her apart.
She remembered meeting with Charlotte Kelly, the only western obstetrician working in Beijing.
This pregnancy will be different than your others, Adelina. The hormones are twice as much or more. And as you get further along, you’re going to be much larger. I want you to get as much rest as you can. Are you staying off your feet?
Adelina had laughed. As much as any parent of three children can. My youngest is four.
Get some help. You’re going to need it. I want you back every two weeks. We’re going to consider this a high-risk pregnancy.
High-risk pregnancy. Everything about her life was high-risk. She wasn’t ready to have another child, much less two more. She knew she was a terrible mother—every time she saw the sullen rage in Julia’s face she knew it. Julia became so involved with school activities that fall that Adelina rarely saw her. It felt as if Julia was more and more withdrawn, but she wouldn’t talk with her mother, and Adelina had no idea how to help. She was overwhelmed and terrified.
Shouldn’t the morning sickness be over? She’d asked Doctor Kelly late in the fifth month of her pregnancy, just before Christmas.
It’s not always predictable, especially with multiples.
Predictable. It felt as if she spent half of each day vomiting.
One night in late January, Julia didn’t come home from school. At first Adelina didn’t worry. Julia had been late often this year, and usually got rides fro
m her friends—Lana, the daughter of the Australian Consul-General, and Harry Easton, the son of the British Ambassador. But that night, she didn’t appear at all.
She had called Lana’s parents: the girl had been home for hours. Ronald Easton had answered and verified that Harry was home and hadn’t seen Julia since he’d left school that day.
Where was she? For that matter, where was Richard? As he often did, he hadn’t come home that evening. Usually she was glad when he gave his attention to whores and massage parlor girls instead of her, it meant that she would be left alone. But with their oldest daughter missing, things were different. Adelina lay on the couch, clutching her chest, unable to breathe, her chest tight with tension. What if she lost the babies? What if Julia didn’t come home? What if Richard had finally lost it and done something to their daughter? WHERE WAS SHE?
At ten o’clock that night, Julia stumbled in, half covered in snow, her eyes wet with tears. She was pale, strung out as if on drugs, her eyes dilated. Adelina pulled herself up, barely able to move with the weight of the twins, and half stood, half rolled off the couch.
“Where were you?” she had screamed. “Julia! Where were you?”
Julia’s eyes had widened, and she’d instantly screamed back. “Why don’t you ask me how I am, Mother? Don’t you care? Don’t you care about me?”
Adelina back, “You can’t just run off anywhere you want, Julia! You can’t just do whatever you want! It’s dangerous! Don’t you turn your back on me!”
In the other room, Alexandra began to cry—a little at first, then a loud scream.
“See what you’ve done, you bitch!” Julia shouted. “Leave me alone!”
Without thought, rage swept over Adelina. For the second time as a parent, she hit one of her children—a loud, stinging slap that knocked Julia to the floor.
Stunned, Julia stared up at her, her face horrified and grief-stricken. Then she screamed, “I hate you! I hate you!” She stumbled to her feet and ran out of the room, slamming her bedroom door shut so hard the frame rattled. The next morning she was running a fever, and stayed home from school for a week.
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