“That’s up to the Colonel, sir.”
“Naturally.”
I could tell from the way he was standing that he’d had some training. He was well balanced, feet spread apart, and his profile turned towards me, presenting a least favourable position for me to attack him from. The training sets hard on some of that stuff. I smiled and told him I’d talk to the Colonel. He eased up at that, and left.
The cleaning kit was in the bottom of my bag, so I rooted around for it and carried it back to my chair, setting it on the bed, which was now pretty well covered with my stuff.
I reached over from the chair and picked one of the Colts out of its holster and started stripping it down. I needed some sleep, but the guns came first. I had some privacy for the moment, and I didn’t like to do them in front of company. Stopping for a moment, I pulled the phone from its cradle. Noting that there were no dialing buttons, I waited for the Comm’s person to pick up. It only took about three seconds.
“Yes, sir?”
“I’d like to place a personal call please. Toronto, four-one-six-, five-two-two, seven-one-six-seven.”
“Is this to be a scrambled call, sir?”
“They have no equipment at the other end, so, no.”
“Very good, sir. I’ll place the call and ring when it’s connected.”
“Thank you.”
There was a click, then silence. It shouldn’t take too long. I replaced the handset in the cradle and went back to the Colt.
The phone rang thirty seconds later. I picked it up.
“Jeffry. You’re not sleeping?” It was the Colonel. Obviously, her staff had their orders. Everything to be cleared through her. I would have done the same thing.
“No, not yet Colonel. I have a personal call to make first.”
“Would this call be relative to the mission in any way?”
“No, it’s purely personal.”
“I see.” There was a slight pause, and I could hear someone talking to her in the background. Not the words, just the muttering. She came back on. “A Ms. Louwellyn, I believe?”
“As I’m sure you know, Ms. Louwellyn is in no way shape or form connected to this business. She is just a personal friend. Now please authorize the call before I get really irritated. Your Comm’s man can sit in if he wants, but if he makes his presence known I’ll come forward and throw him out the pilot’s hatch.”
The Colonel seemed to be satisfied with that, and apparently took no affront from my attitude. Her voice was warm and very buddy-buddy as she responded.
“No problem at all, Jeffry. Talk to you later, sleep well.”
The phone went dead a second time, and I went back to my cleaning.
I was on the second Colt and beginning to wonder about the verity of her statement to me when the phone rang again. I almost dropped the vial of gun-oil I was holding answering it. It was apparent that Cynthia even had long-distance effect on me. The line was open when I put it to my ear. Maybe they’d already got her on the line.
“Hello?”
“Hello yourself, big boy.” She laughed a little bit, sort of deep in her throat. It sounded good to my ears.
“Hey, baby. How you doin’?”
“I’m doing fine, thank you. But…” She let that hang.
“But? But what? Everything’s alright, isn’t it?” She had to hear the concern in my voice. I did. Strange that. It had been a long, long, time since I’d had concern for anyone other than Sarah, George, and the little one.
She repeated herself.
“But… you’re not here. That’s all. I want to see you today. I want to see you now, in fact.”
I started to feel warm inside, and the tension bled out of me swiftly.
“Hey, sugar. I feel the same. That’s why I’m calling. I want to see you, but I can’t, not today. The case has taken me away from town for a few days. I don’t want to discuss it further just now, though. I’ll be back within the week, and we’ll go to the Muskokas for a weekend trip, how’s that?”
“I’d like that. We can go canoeing in the rain, and eat all our meals in our room. Shall I make reservations? Do you have a favourite resort?”
I started laughing myself. “Whoa there. Cynthia, I just can’t say for sure what day I’ll be back yet, so making reservations is a bit premature at this point. But… I’m glad you like the idea. I haven’t gone up to the lakes in ages. I think we’ll have fun.”
Cynthia did something that I had never heard a woman do before, and it was pronounced enough to come through the phone loud and clear. She growled. A low throaty growl that made me go pins and needles right down my back. Then she spoke again, her voice changed husky.
“Oh, I have no doubt that you’ll have fun, mister.”
I almost broke out into a sweat. Then I thought about the Comm’s guy who was probably monitoring this call. Time to disengage.
“Now you’ve given me an incentive to get back as fast as I can, so I will. I’ll call in a day or two and let you know how it’s going, Okay?”
“If you can stand it, so can I.”
I caught her meaning, but I wasn’t sure I could stand it. I’d have to, though. No choice at this stage of the game. We hung up promising to talk soon. I finished the Colts, and cleared the bed for a couple of hours’ sleep. I lay on top of the covers, just wearing my shorts, and slept fitfully for the next two hours, dreaming on and off of being lost in the woods with a broken compass. I kept knocking it against a tree to make it work again, and walking in circles, shouting ‘Bar-B-Q! Bar-B-Q!’. I woke with the smell of charcoal in my mind. It had to be my mind, because no matter how fancy the service is, an aircraft doesn’t do open-pit charcoal fires.
~
Chapter Eleven
T
he sleep had done me good in spite of the strange dream. I had woken on my own internal alarm, and I always felt better when I did that. I got dressed in my pants and shirt leaving off my tie and jacket for the moment. Slipping on my loafers, I headed out for the washroom badly in need of relief. I ran into Wilson at the door, coming to wake me. He pointed out the door to the facilities for me.
When I came out into the lounge, Therese was nowhere to be seen. She’d obviously gone off for a nap or at least some privacy. Godsen was sitting closer to the front, using the telephone next to the chair she sat in. There was tea service for two set up at the table we’d had breakfast at just a few hours earlier, so I sat down at that table and helped myself to a cup of tea and a shortbread biscuit. Not bad either. A couple of minutes later she ended her call and joined me.
“Good morning again, Jeffry. Did you rest well?”
I looked at her with my jaded just-woke-up mind. She still looked fresh as a daisy and had such a perky look that I didn’t know if I could stand it.
“Yeah, well. Listen, I’m not going to call you ‘Colonel’ all week, so if you don’t want me making up my own name for you, give me a handle I can use, will you?”
“Hmm. That seems fair. We can’t go around in public being man and wife with you calling me Colonel, can we? Very well, then. You can call me Helen. That’s the cover name for the operation, so we might as well start using them. You’re ‘Martin Wayne McAllister, and we’ve been married for six months now, and this trip is our overdue honeymoon. That gives us plenty of cover. Honeymooners come and go at odd hours, spend too much time in their rooms with the do-not-disturb sign on the door, and so on. So, I’m ‘Helen’, and you’re ‘Marty’.”
I looked at her like she was from another planet. A planet very, very, far from mine.
“Is it at all possible to have a normal conversation with you, lady? This is not, I repeat, not a game, however much you think it is.” I stared at her with what must have been a sour face because she winced.
“Fine. I was just kidding, anyway. We don’t have to use cover names just yet. My first name is Veronica. I don’t much like it, and I don’t normally use it with people I work with. If you must call me something more pe
rsonal than Colonel, use Ronnie.” She picked up her tea and sipped. I could tell she was uncomfortable with the ‘personal’ stuff. I took it anyway.
“Alright, I can live with that. Ronnie. It suits you, actually. It’s a pretty name for a woman.”
I was trying to recover some equanimity for her, and it seemed to work. She fidgeted some, before resuming the conversation.
“Would you like to go over the plans I’ve made now?”
I shook my head in disagreement while munching on another shortbread biscuit. This was an unexpected twist for her, I could see that. I don’t think that I was turning out the way she had planned.
“Well, is there something you feel we could be doing that would better spend our time then?”
I nodded my head in agreement this time, finishing off my biscuit.
“Would you care to let me in on it?”
She was getting tense. I had her on the defensive for the first time since she’d placed my name on the mission list. Without my permission. I took a slow sip of tea and wiped my lips with the napkin provided me. Real linen too. Nice.
“Let’s talk about you and me for a few minutes, Ronnie.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve read my file, right?”
“Yes, but I don’t see…” I interrupted.
“Yes, exactly. You don’t see. What you don’t know about me could fill the Encyclopedia Britannica and vice versa. We don’t know each other. And, by the way, that file is crap. The people who put together that sort of file are the kind of people who leave out more than they put in. You see some of the nice stuff. I have a great security clearance and I know how to keep my mouth shut. I know how to fight to kill, because I’ve had the courses given by masters at the art. That’s all paper show. The real reason that I got into the deal in the first place isn’t in there for example. It couldn’t be, because I never told anyone. Without knowing the motivation behind the action, you have no handle with which to apply leverage. It documents a three-year tour by virtue of operations completed and rank achieved based on performance in said operations. I went in taking orders from the guys on latrine duty and came out a Lieutenant-Major three years later. Quite a meteoric rise, wouldn’t you say?” She mistook what I was saying for her cue to join the conversation.
“Yes, I would agree that…”
“Never mind, that was a rhetorical question. Listen to me for a minute. That three-year tour was crap. The only reason I came out a Lieutenant-Major was that field promotions are rapid and go high very quickly. You know what a field promotion is? It’s when the guy above you in the squad gets killed while you’re in the middle of an operation, and somebody has to take over his work, because it was more important than yours. If that happens enough times in a row, you can come back from a mission with two stars on your collar. Then the guy who sent your commander and his crew out on the crappy kamikaze operation in the first place has to salute you. Weird, eh? Well there was a lot of that going on. Among other things. After three years, I was told that I had a great future with the outfit, and would I like to lead the next mission? That’s when I first considered quitting. I considered it for another year while I led mission after mission. The one point of pride I took in that period was that I never came back to base without everyone I’d left with. There were times when some of my team members came back in a bodybag, but they always came back. That was important to me. A family has the right to expect that of their government. Sometimes a death cannot be prevented, but a loved one does not cease to be a loved one because of the inconvenience of death and therefore should be accorded the right to return with the team.
They thought they had me figured out, but they didn’t have my motivator because I didn’t give it. I didn’t give it then, and I’m sure as hell not going to give it now. I’m here because it’s what I need to do to solve the case I’m on right now.
You have a mission objective that coincides with mine, we’re fine. Your plans deviate from mine, we’re history.
You may think I’m here to apply all sorts of nefarious skills in order to succeed in the mission. Well I’m not. I don’t do that anymore. If I wanted to do that, I’d still be with the SAS boys. Maybe I’d be dead. But I certainly wouldn’t be running an Industrial Investigations company. I don’t even carry my pistols anymore except in extreme cases, and I haven’t had one of those in over a year and a half. The only reason that I have them with me now is because George made me bring them, literally.
Another thing that may help you to understand me or my position. The files that you requisitioned are ‘Cover Files’. The real ones are classified under the DEEP code. That means that all of the really important stuff is unavailable to you. Hell, it’s unavailable to me.
Now, I understand that you’ve got a mind that won’t let go. You have a track record of solving problems by thinking them through and getting one step ahead of the bad guys. And you do it well enough to get what you want when you want it, even if it might not be good for your health.
I’m told that you’ve never done field assignments before, that this is your first. Be advised that your planning didn’t work out perfectly this time. You anticipated a potential tough time, so you pinned down the toughest guy you could find who was associated with the case thereby covering your rookie butt. Didn’t work.
I’m not a tough guy. I wasn’t tough then, and I’m certainly not tough now, just older. I knew tough guys. I worked with them. I know how they tick, and I don’t want anything to do with them anymore. Tough guys get everybody killed. Usually so they can prove just how tough they really are. What I discovered was that they weren’t actually tough. I mean, they were, but more than that. They were nuts. I like to think that category doesn’t cover my psych profile.
What I do is I investigate things. I’m good at it too. I also tend to use the experiences I’ve accumulated through the years in order to ensure that I return home at the end of each day. Or trip, as the case may be. If I were to find myself in a tight spot, I’m not saying that someone wouldn’t get hurt, and I’d do my damnedest to make sure that someone wasn’t me, but I won’t knowingly walk into the kind of situation I used to work with every day. Not for all the tea in China.
You have a reputation for brilliant planning, I’m going to defer to you on that score. I’m the field operative here, and I’ll let you know when you have something that sounds reasonable, and I think it’ll work. I don’t get forced into anything, because I won’t allow it, and Therese is my responsibility. I have veto power over anything planned for her, or even anything she thinks up for herself. If we get Dawson, we can toss for first crack at questioning him. We can do it together, take turns, set up a list of questions for us to ask him.”
I finally paused for a breath. I hadn’t given a speech like that since I’d been on the debating team at college. Well, since I’d tried to debate myself into a position on the team. Turned out the Team Leader had lost his girlfriend the month before to some cad who’d dropped her after about a week. Hurt his feelings as well as hers apparently, because he made damn sure I didn’t make the team. I had thought I’d tried pretty hard with her, but I just couldn’t stand the fact that she was shallow. I couldn’t. Of course, at that age it’s not the first thing you’re attracted to depth. But you do get around to it eventually.
I took a sip of cold tea and swished it around in my mouth. It was parched. Too many words. Throughout this little ordeal Godsen had at first made faces at the things I was saying, running the gamut from irritation to incredulity, and finally settling on forbearance. Now that I’d wound down and she had the floor, she was taking her time. Assimilating my attitude as well as the information, I presumed.
“Mr. Claxton.” She shook her head and started laughing. It appeared to be honest laughter, because it was infectious, and nasty laughter never has that effect on people. I started to smile, I couldn’t help it. She laughed until there were tears on her cheeks, and I was grinning like an idiot myse
lf.
“Yes, Colonel?” She laughed some more. I grinned some more. This was strange, but funny.
Between gasps for breath as she brought herself under control, she managed to make what I’m sure she thought was a fairly ego-shattering statement to me.
“I have two men and two women on this very plane, who are twice as tough as the guys you used to work with. You’re not here because I needed you. You’re here because it was part of the deal George made for the data he had. He wanted one of his own people in place, and you were it. You’re my penalty for not figuring it out for myself. I thought that you could be helpful when I read your file and discovered that you’d had experience in the field. If you’d rather sit back at the hotel while we get the job done, that’s fine with me.” She’d gotten herself under control by now and was wiping at her eyes with a tissue. She looked good when she laughed. I wasn’t that crazy about what she was saying though. I had stopped grinning along with her. There was only one question in my mind right now: was I wrong, or was she right out to lunch? It was fairly important that I know.
“Tell me something Ronnie, is Wilson one of your foursome of tough guys?”
She gave me a solid look. Her eyes had changed colour when she laughed to a deep icy blue, and now that she was serious again they were back to blue-grey. Odd.
“Wilson’s been with me for quite some time now, and I can assure you that he represents a considerable threat to anyone that crosses me or my projects. Speak of the devil.” While we’d been engaged in our hilarity over my speech, Wilson had arrived to clear the table.
“Ma’am?”
“Nothing, Wilson. Take this away, we’re done now.”
“Very good, Ma’am. There’s a call for you on the red phone.”
The Diamond Dust on Dragonfly Wings: A Jeffry Claxton Mystery Novel Page 25
