Thrilling Thirteen

by Ponzo, Gary

  Rojas shifted his position again, lips thinned against the pain. They had realigned and plastered the compound fractures of his arm so that only the tips of his fingers protruded from the cast, yellow with iodine. He was still getting used to the weight of it and he moved awkward and slow.

  “You’ve suffered a serious head injury,” I said. “It’s bound to have affected you more than you realise.”

  “You mentioned the couple who were found nearby. Did she …?” He looked on the verge of weeping. “Was the lady wearing a ring as I describe? If so, I may be able to help you identify her.”

  I had a brief recall of the way the body bag behaved when we had loaded it into the Bell. I had no idea what state the woman’s face might have been in.

  “It’s possible you may not be able to visually identify her,” I warned.

  “Ah. Then I could at least identify the ring perhaps?” he said. “If I can help, I want to do so.”

  “I’ll ask,” I said.

  He met my gaze with very dark liquid eyes and smiled. “Thank you,” he said. “It feels important that I do this. I need to know.”

  A harried nurse appeared in the doorway and told me my time was up.

  “If you have more questions, you will have to come back tomorrow,” she said, “when he has rested.”

  I rose, pushed my chair to the side of the room.

  “Is there anyone you would like me to contact for you, Mr Rojas?” I asked, looking back as I reached the doorway. “Your wife or family?”

  “I am not married,” he said automatically and then gave a quick smile. “At least, I do not believe so.” His expression became stricken. “Do you think it is possible that I might have forgotten a wife? Children even?”

  I thought of Sean, of what he’d remembered—and what he’d forgotten.

  “Yes,” I said gently. “I’m afraid that is possible.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I calculated the time difference and called Parker Armstrong back in New York.

  It was late afternoon there. The weather before I left had been edging into a late autumn, the leaves falling in copper swathes to coat the grassy expanse of Central Park. The weather swung between being not quite cold enough for winter coats, but too chilled for summer wear. The streets and subway trains were filled with people who sweated or shivered accordingly.

  Here it was hot with a humid overtone that made the day seem sullen. I stood by an open window while I made my call, but all that seemed to do was blow hot air into my face.

  “Charlie!” Parker greeted me, as if hearing from me was the highlight of his day. I sincerely hoped that was not the case. “How’s it going?”

  “Fine.” I paused. “Any word?”

  “From Sean? No, I’m sorry,” he said, at once more subdued. “Is that why you …?”

  “No,” I said. “I need you to check something out for me. Or I should say someone.”

  “OK. Shoot.”

  “There’s a young girl here as part of the R&R team. A Brit—Hope Tyler—she’s a dog handler. Search, rescue and recovery.”

  “Rescue and recovery?” Parker queried. “Unusual. In my experience they typically have specialised teams for search and rescue and then bring in the cadaver dogs when they’re pretty sure there’s nobody left to rescue.”

  I shrugged. “Well, Lemon seems to do just about everything bar tap dance and make the tea. And come to think of it I wouldn’t put either of those things past her.”

  “Lemon?”

  “Hope’s dog. A rather beautiful yellow Labrador retriever.”

  “I have a great deal of respect for working dogs of any kind,” Parker said with the fervour of an ex-military man himself. “But you think this Hope—and Lemon—may be involved in what happened to Stephens?”

  “Possibly not,” I said. “But like I said, she’s young—and she’s scared of something. She went very cagey as soon as I brought up Stephens’ name.”

  “When you say ‘young’, how young?”

  “Twenty apparently, but she seems a very young twenty,” I said. “I don’t ever remember being that young.”

  At Hope’s age I’d been in and out of the army, lived through humiliation and disgrace and was halfway out the other side. I’d been beaten down to my knees and refused to be beaten further.

  “So you don’t have her tagged as a potential suspect?”

  “I wouldn’t rule out anything at this stage, but if she is caught up in this I’d say she was labour rather than management.”

  “Oh?”

  There was a wealth of quick understanding in the single-word question. Another of the reasons I enjoyed working with Parker so much.

  “The rumours Mrs Hamilton heard related to thefts,” I said. “And whatever else Hope may be, from what I saw of her today she’s also a very talented fingersmith.”

  “A what?”

  “A pickpocket. She liberated a wallet from the local police commander in front of all his men and none of them saw a thing, although she had the dog deliberately running interference, which helped. They’re quite a team—in more ways than the expected.”

  “If she’s stealing from the cops, that kinda confirms the rumours, don’t you think?”

  “Hmm,” I said, still undecided. “The wallet she liberated wasn’t the good commander’s to start with, and she took it in order to put it back where it belonged. Not the behaviour of your average thief.”

  “Sounds intriguing. I’ll have Bill do some deep background and I’ll get back to you soon as I can.”

  “There’s one more thing about her,” I said and hesitated. “It’s only an impression and I could be wrong but—”

  “I trust your instincts, Charlie,” Parker said. “So should you.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I took in a long warm lungful of air, let it curl out again. “She shows signs of having been through some kind of sexual assault. Could be in her distant past for all I know, but it still resonates. As soon as a male stranger gets too close she locks up and Lemon goes crazy.”

  Parker, to his credit, didn’t ask if I was sure, but his tone was grave. “OK Charlie, leave it with me. I’ll see that Bill makes it a priority to find out what we can about this girl.”

  “I suspect she might have been through the system,” I said. “After all, she didn’t acquire those sleight-of-hand skills overnight. Not without a few false starts that probably got her nicked for it once or twice. She said she had to work hard to persuade Joe Marcus to take her on. Wonder what kind of a job interview that was.”

  “Good call. Anyone catch your eye apart from Hope?”

  I gave a short laugh. “She’s about the only one of them who isn’t capable of murder, to my mind, although the way Lemon reacted earlier when she thought the girl was under threat makes me wonder if Hope needs to be capable herself. I wouldn’t put anything past the others, though. I suspect they’ve already had one pretty good go at getting shut of me.”

  I heard Parker’s indrawn breath, his muttered, “Let’s hear it, Charlie.”

  So I told him all about the rescue on the fallen section of roadway, the precise jink of the Bell at exactly the right moment to throw me off balance, and how close I’d been to falling. And the reactions of Dr Bertrand and Joe Marcus afterwards.

  “I guess if I said I wanted you on the next flight out it wouldn’t do me any good, would it?” Parker asked. “Your job is to protect them from threat, not become a human target.”

  “But that’s exactly what I agreed to,” I pointed out. “And in fact it was what you promised Mrs Hamilton I was more than capable of doing. Don’t make liars of both of us, Parker.”

  The long moment’s silence at the other end of the phone line was not solely due to the signal bouncing off a telecommunications satellite. Eventually Parker said with clear reluctance in his voice, “All right, Charlie. These days I find I like the thought of sending you into danger less and less.”

  “Sean never had a problem with
that—before,” I said equably. “I suspect he’d have even less of a problem with it now.”

  That brought another intake of breath and somewhere in there I could have sworn I heard an underlying wince.

  “Well now, maybe that’s something you need to get your head around,” he said then. “For better or worse—I am not Sean.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  When I walked out of the hospital it was to find Joe Marcus waiting for me.

  He was leaning against the front wing of a dirty white Toyota Land Cruiser, drinking from an insulated aluminium mug. As I neared I recognised the smell of strong coffee.

  “Jump in,” he said. “I’ll give you a ride back to base.”

  “I didn’t think the roads were clear enough to get through.”

  “Well, that was yesterday,” he said. He peeled the top off his mug and threw away the dregs. “You all set?”

  I shrugged and opened the passenger door while he got behind the wheel and cranked the engine.

  “So, what did you get from him?” he asked as he swung the vehicle round in a wide circle and headed out.

  “From the survivor? His name is Santiago Rojas—the owner of the jewellery store where we found him. He reckons he was probably there alone when the quake hit. His memory’s a little shaky, which is not surprising considering the crack on the head he took.”

  Marcus nodded briefly but there was something vaguely disapproving about him. I tried to work out if it was a general demeanour or if it was something I’d done—or might do. Well, if he was giving me the cold shoulder because he had a guilty conscience that was his problem.

  The first half mile was slow. We were still moving through the city. Buildings had fallen sprawling across the roadway and had yet to be cleared. In places the road was only passable because the Toyota had four-wheel drive, all-terrain tyres and Joe Marcus had clearly driven off road before.

  “Rojas thought he might know the couple we found nearby—that they might be customers. He said if that was the case the woman would be wearing a ruby engagement ring, and he asked if he could take a look at her, just to be sure.”

  “At the body?” Marcus shook his head. “Not happening,” he said. “We learned a long time ago that visual identifications are a waste of time.”

  “Even by close relatives?”

  “You got any siblings, Charlie?”

  “No.”

  He gave a snort. “Figures,” he said. “I got a brother I haven’t seen for twenty years. I could walk right by him on the street and never know. For all I know he could have a shaved head, be covered in tattoos and every hole in his body pierced.”

  I didn’t point out that apart from the silver in his hair and the lines cut deep around his eyes, Joe Marcus probably hadn’t changed a bit in the last two decades. His brother, I decided, would know him anywhere.

  “We tried visual IDs in the past,” Marcus went on. “People are either so desperate for their loved ones to be found, dead or alive, that they’ll claim anyone even vaguely similar, or they’re in complete denial. Too many false positive and negatives.”

  “OK, that sounds logical, but can we at least check the woman’s possessions for the ring he mentioned?”

  “I’m sure that’s one of the avenues Dr Bertrand will explore,” he said and there was a finality to his words.

  OK, that’s me told.

  I turned and stared out of the passenger window. Dusk was starting to fall hard, creating gloomy shadows from the ruined buildings. The streets were devoid of human life but we passed a pack of assorted dogs, half of which wore collars. They looked up hopefully and picked up their pace as we passed, like hitchhikers at the prospect of a ride, then fell away when we didn’t stop. The animals would be as lost and confused as everyone else.

  “You coping OK?” Marcus asked suddenly.

  I turned back. “With what?”

  “Your first day out there. Digging out the dead.”

  “And the living,” I put in. I paused. “Tell me, did you ask Kyle Stephens the same question?”

  His face gave a tic that might have signified irritation. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that do you think someone like Parker Armstrong would have sent me out here if he didn’t know I could cope with whatever came up?”

  “Everyone has their limits,” Marcus said. “And yes, I did ask Kyle Stephens the same question.”

  Something in his voice alerted me. “But you didn’t like his answer.”

  He glanced at me sharply then, no expression on his face. He had cool grey eyes very much like Parker’s—a little darker maybe, a little closer to stone.

  “Not much,” he said. “It’s a fine line we tread here between empathy and self-preservation. Some people have difficulty maintaining that balance.”

  And Stephens, I guessed, had been all about himself.

  “You have to care, but not to the point of burn-out. I get that.”

  “You should do in your line of work,” Marcus said. He flicked me another assessing look, only taking his eyes off the road for a second. “You lost a principal not so long ago.”

  That rocked me. “It happens. I’d be foolish to think it was never going to.”

  “Since then your boss, Sean Meyer, has not been back into the field,” Marcus said, his neutral tone sending my heart rate rocketing, “but you have. And that makes me wonder which side of the line you tread.”

  “I care but I put it behind me and do my job—and technically he wasn’t our principal,” I said. “How do you know about that anyway?”

  Marcus’s voice hardened. “You think I’d let anyone just walk into my team without checking them out first?”

  “No. I just didn’t think you’d had the time.”

  “I made the time.” He gave a dry smile. “And from what I hear, you’ll go out on a limb for what you feel is right. That a fair assessment?”

  “Pretty fair,” I agreed.

  “And who gets to choose what’s right—you? What makes you qualified to take that decision?”

  The intensity in him ensured I didn’t come straight back with a glib reply. Eventually I said quietly, “Why not? You’d rather I abdicated responsibility to someone further up the line? So I could say, ‘I was only following orders’?”

  “But you’re not much of one for following orders either, are you?”

  “Depends on the orders—and who’s giving them.”

  His fingers tightened on the rim of the Land Cruiser’s steering wheel. “When I give an order I don’t do it just to hear myself speak.”

  I recalled his order to Riley, back there above the fallen section of roadway, to put himself and his aircraft in serious jeopardy to effect a rescue that had turned out to be in vain anyway.

  “Did Stephens follow orders?” I asked.

  “Sometimes,” Marcus returned. “When it mattered.”

  Hope had told me Stephens died because he didn’t do what Joe Marcus told him. But given the number of conflicting stories I thought a fishing trip was worthwhile.

  So I said, “Is that what he was doing when he died—following your orders?”

  We’d cleared the city boundary now and were into an area that had escaped relatively undamaged. Marcus put his foot down and the Land Cruiser picked up speed.

  “Kyle Stephens was a damned fool. He’d come through two Gulf Wars without a scratch and he thought he was indestructible,” he said. “But are you asking me do I blame myself? Am I responsible for what happened? Then yes I am.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  It was dark by the time we got back to the army base. The gate sentry made a perfunctory check of our IDs and waved us through. Joe Marcus swung the Land Cruiser to a halt outside the mess hall and cut the engine. In the glare from the floodlighting the insects swirled as components of a larger mass.

  “Grab some food, Charlie and get some rest,” Marcus said. “It’s been a long day and tomorrow won’t be any shorter.”

  “I know,�
� I said. “‘The only easy day was yesterday’, right?”

  “You’re thinking of the SEALs,” he said, climbing out.

  “Before we call it a day, I’d like to check on the items found with the woman—the one Rojas mentioned.”

  He turned back, flicking his head against the airborne bugs. Maybe that was why he looked annoyed to have his plans interrupted.

  “I think Alex has her on tomorrow’s list,” he said. “What’s the hurry?”

  “There won’t be time for me to wait around for the results in the morning, and I’d like to see her things—just in case the ring is there.”

  Or if it’s been miraculously disappeared …

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now,” I said, standing my ground. “If I’m going to call in on Rojas again on one of the hospital runs tomorrow, he’ll want to know.”

  Marcus eyed me with a dispassionate gaze. “Chances are, by tomorrow, there won’t be any more hospital runs,” he said. “They’ll all be coming here to the morgue.”

  “Even more reason not to leave it any longer than I have to then,” I said. “You have a better idea?”

  “Yeah,” he said, exasperated. “Eating is a better idea than getting emotional over a piece of jewellery that still won’t give us the woman’s name.”

  “The credit card authorisation Rojas used will give us her name,” I argued. “Five minutes is all I ask. In fact, all you need to do is unlock the door for me.”

  After another moment’s grumpy silence Marcus let his breath out and reached into his pocket. He came out with a small bunch of keys which he threw across to me. I wasn’t foolish enough to try to catch them, so I just stuck a foot out to stop them skidding off the path into the grass. You never knew what might be lurking there.

  “Knock yourself out,” Marcus said as I bent to retrieve the bunch. “Bring ’em back when you’re done.”

  “Where will you be?”

  He gave a now familiar snort as he turned away. “Eating,” he said over his shoulder. “Where d’you think?”

  I watched him walk away. Eating sounded like a very good idea, particularly as the smell of cooking drifted from the mess hall windows. If he hadn’t been so stubborn I probably would have held off until morning but the more he’d tried to talk me out of the idea, the more important it seemed to find out the information tonight, dammit.