Smoke

by Lisa Unger

  Too many bodies and a struggling old window air-conditioning unit made the hotel room too warm. Lydia shed the tailored black gabardine jacket she’d been wearing and laid it on the bed beside her. She pulled her hair back into a twist at the base of her neck as Special Agent John Grimm spoke. She liked him. He was sarcastic and tough, but not disrespectful of why they’d come to Florida.

  “We first heard about Trevor Rhames in 1994,” said Grimm, crossing his legs and tapping a finger on the tabletop. His eyes were on the satellite image of the New Day compound. “He was arrested in the former Yugoslavia for selling arms to the Bosnians after the UN had imposed the embargo that pretty much left them at the mercy of the Serbian nationalists.”

  “There are plenty of people who think the UN never should have imposed that embargo,” said Dax, a little defensively, thought Lydia. John Grimm gave him a long, hard look.

  “Anyway,” said Grimm, looking away from him and turning his eyes to Jeffrey. “He was found to be working with a company called Kintex.”

  “The arms company owned by the Bulgarian government,” said Jeffrey with a frown. “How did he wind up working with them?”

  “It’s a bit of a mystery,” said Grimm. “Rhames, as you probably know, is an American. You might not know that he was a decorated Marine, honorably discharged from service after touring in Rwanda, Iraq, and the former Yugoslavia. For a couple of years, he kept a very low profile, worked in security systems in the private sector with the training he’d received in the Marines. He dropped off the radar for a while, then he turned up overseas in Bulgaria.

  “Bulgaria has been notorious for decades as an anything-goes arms bazaar, selling things like assault rifles, mortars, antitank mines, ammunition, all kinds of explosives to anyone who has the money to buy, no matter what their agenda,” said Grimm. “They’ve supplied-utterly without code or conscience-arms in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Libya, regions riven with conflict, rebel governments guilty of the most heinous civil-rights violations.

  “The government keeps trying to get it under control because they want very badly to become part of NATO and the European Union,” he continued. “But the arms business is so entrenched in that culture that it’s almost impossible to be rid of it without bankrupting the economy. Then of course there’s all the corruption.”

  “Okay,” said Lydia, thinking this was the first she’d heard of Bulgaria’s weapons activities. “So he wound up there doing what?”

  “We’re not sure exactly. But he was apprehended during an Interpol sting where Kintex was selling guns to the Bosnians in direct violation of the UN embargo. He was extradited to the United States. He was charged and indicted for illegal weapons sales and did two years in a military prison.”

  “That’s all you get for something like that?” asked Lydia. “Two years?”

  Grimm leaned back and crossed his arms. “His spotless military record and lack of criminal history helped. And he made a deal. He gave up some of the security codes he’d established for Kintex, some names and some upcoming deals, which allowed Interpol to intercept some illegal shipments. Anyway, after he was released he disappeared completely for a few years. Then he turned up working for a company called Sandline, a Privatized Military Company incorporated in the Bahamas but with bases of operation all over world.”

  “What’s a Privatized Military Company?” said Lydia with a frown. “Like mercenaries?”

  “In a sense,” said Grimm. “More like companies that facilitate arms deals, consult with ‘legitimate’ or democratically elected governments being threatened by rebel factions, provide trained soldiers for ‘conflict resolution,’ usually elite former military men from around the world.”

  “For a price,” said Lydia.

  “For a huge price,” said Grimm with a nod.

  Her eyes fell on Dax, who was examining with great fascination the floor between his feet. He raised his eyes to her, saw her looking at him, and quickly looked away. Lydia held back a smile.

  “They work best for small conflicts,” said Jeffrey. “Where only a couple of thousand men are needed for a job. But if they operate without conscience or in violation of UN accords, then they can have a destabilizing effect. You know, like arming rebels against a democratically elected government. But at their best, PMCs are effective for hostage negotiations or rescue operations, disaster cleanup, monitoring elections, sort of small, dirty jobs.”

  Lydia nodded absently, the wheels already turning as she tried to connect this new information to what they already had.

  “How do you go from being a mercenary to being a preacher?” Lydia asked.

  “It’s a good question. He joined The New Day in 1998 after injuries he sustained on an op for Sandline. He almost died from multiple gunshot wounds and broken bones. He took some bullets and got blasted out a third-floor window in Kosovo. There was no reason for him to survive but he did. And apparently, during a grueling convalescence at a rehab center in Florida, he found religion.”

  “Or it found him,” said Jeffrey.

  Grimm nodded. “He was ripe for recruitment. Injured, likely depressed, no family or personal connections. Rhames was orphaned at the age of ten when his parents died in a house fire that he escaped; he went to live on a working farm belonging to his uncle and aunt.

  “By all accounts, he was happy enough there. With a genius-level IQ, he did well in school, but was a bit of a loner. Unfortunately, a year after Rhames arrived, his aunt and uncle died in a house fire that the boy escaped.”

  Jeffrey and Lydia exchanged a look. They knew too well the childhood signs of psychosis. Arson was a big one.

  “Suspicious? Yes,” said Grimm, reading their faces. “But there was never any evidence that Rhames had started those fires. He had no other history of violent or aberrant behavior. He was sent to a state-run orphanage, the money and the land left to him by his parents and his uncle kept in a trust for him until he turned eighteen and was emancipated from the system. It was a fair amount of money for a young man, enough to go to college and start a life. But he chose to join the Marines.

  “He excelled in the Corps. I mean, he was the best of the best. He became a part of an elite unit that doesn’t officially have a name. And his activities, until his honorable discharge in 1981, are classified. There aren’t many people who know what he did during that time.”

  “Okay, so he went into the Marines, was discharged in 1981. He was off the radar for a while, you have no idea what he was doing until he showed up selling arms in 1994. He was arrested and went to prison for two years. After which point he went to work for Sandline. He was injured and almost killed but somehow recovered and wound up running The New Day?” asked Jeffrey.

  Grimm shook his head. “Well, I wouldn’t say ‘runs’ it exactly,” he said, leaning forward. “It’s a big multinational organization, with tentacles reaching into a number of different business arenas, real estate, the entertainment industry, banking. Rhames isn’t a businessman. He’s a tactician, a security specialist, a soldier. We don’t know enough about his military career but we do know that he’s trained in what the military refers to as ‘psych ops,’ the ability to manipulate and control an enemy through brainwashing and mind games. What he does for the organization is unclear.”

  “So who shot him in Kosovo?” asked Jeffrey.

  “Who shot him, how he survived and got back to Florida are all unknowns. The unofficial word was that Sandline wanted to be rid of Rhames,” said Grimm. “He was unpredictable and becoming a liability; they doubted his loyalty. A couple of security breaches led the higherups to suspect someone was selling codes and information. But he knew too much to just serve him his walking papers.”

  “So they arranged for his termination, but he survived?” asked Jeff.

  Grimm nodded.

  “Why haven’t they come after him again?” asked Lydia.

  “Who says they haven’t? They just haven’t succeeded in getting to him. In fact, you three g
ot closer to him than anyone ever has. As you know, his security is very tight.”

  It was clear now why Rhames had spent so much money on his security system.

  “I just walked in through the front door,” said Lydia.

  “What did you see in there?” asked Grimm.

  “A guy with a lot of personal power giving desperate people some hope, some spaced-out looking people in tunics, and a couple of big bald guys in leather.”

  “On security monitors I saw people in five-point restraints, on feeding tubes, wide awake,” said Jeffrey.

  Grimm didn’t seem surprised. “We’ve been on you since that night.”

  “Why?” asked Jeffrey. “What do you want from us?”

  “I’m glad you asked,” said Grimm.

  I was sitting out here, waiting to go in when the van pulled up. Look. It’s still there.”

  They’d parked the GTO on Fourteenth Avenue and walked up Sixty-Sixth Street, stopping at the corner across from Clifford Stern’s residence. Jesamyn looked at her watch.

  “How long ago?” she asked.

  Dylan shrugged. “Like five or six hours.”

  “Just sitting there all this time. Why?”

  “Maybe they’re trying to make sure he stays put. At first, I thought maybe they were going to head in there… kill him, take him, whatever. But then I thought, why? If what you say is true and The New Day is trying to frame Stenopolis, they need his testimony.”

  “Right.”

  “I waited here for hours and then I came to find you.”

  “Why didn’t you just call me?”

  He looked down at his feet. “I tried; you didn’t answer,” he said. “And I was afraid you wouldn’t come if I just left a message for you to meet me here.”

  She looked at him, then back at the van. “You didn’t go across the street to see what was going on in there?”

  He shook his head, turned his eyes on her. “I didn’t want to give myself up, in case they were looking to make some kind of a move.”

  “And you didn’t see anyone exit the van?” Another shake of the head. She didn’t see anyone in the driver’s seat.

  “You should have kept trying to call me and stayed with the van. Who knows what happened here in the hour or so you were gone?”

  He didn’t say anything, just pulled his sheepish face. He’d used this as an excuse to spend time with her. He brought her here not to help Mount but to hold her in his thrall, create a drama they could share. If he’d called, she would have come but she would have had her own car, could have come and gone as she pleased without him. He was such a child.

  “So what are we doing here?” she said. “I mean what are we going to accomplish here?”

  “Let’s call it in, let’s call the van into 911. Suspicious vehicle.”

  “What does that do?”

  “It ties The New Day to Clifford Stern, gives some plausibility to the story you told Detective Bloom.”

  She held his eyes for a second. It wasn’t a bad idea. It was effective and by the book. Or they could call Bloom directly; they weren’t breaking any laws by being there. They were both off duty, just passing through the neighborhood that just happened to be where Clifford Stern, the man who’d implicated her friend and partner, was probably watching television like he hadn’t just ruined somebody’s life.

  “Why didn’t you do that before?”

  He showed her his palms.

  “Did you run the plate?”

  He opened his mouth to answer when two flashes of light lit up Stern’s bay window. Two sharp pops followed; then another blue flash. Another pop.

  “Oh, shit,” said Dylan, grabbing her arm hard and pulling her back from the corner. The sound of gunfire, even muffled, was unmistakable to both of them.

  “Oh, my God,” said Jesamyn, reaching for the Glock at her waist as she instinctively dropped to a crouch. But no one exited the front door of the row house; there was no movement from the van. The street remained quiet, no one popping their heads out windows, no new lights coming on.

  “Call 911,” said Dylan.

  She hesitated, wanting to go up there herself. He put a hand on her arm.

  “If you don’t, and someone just killed Clifford Stern, you’re the first person on the scene. Do you realize what that looks like?” he said, reaching into the pocket of her coat for her phone.

  She looked at him. He was right. It would look like she shot him. She had no business being there, no legitimate reason for being in the vicinity. Something in her went stone cold.

  “That’s crazy,” she said uncertainly. “My gun hasn’t been fired. Ballistics test would prove I hadn’t shot him.”

  He looked at her like she’d lost her mind. There was something she hadn’t seen very often in his eyes. Fear. “Aren’t you the one insisting that The New Day framed Stenopolis, that somehow they managed to plant blood and fingerprint evidence to implicate him?” he whispered fiercely. “Protect yourself, Jesamyn. Protect both of us. For Ben.”

  The sound of their son’s name caused a tide of panic to rise within her. She grabbed the cell phone from him and put it back in her pocket.

  “I can’t use that. Are you nuts?” she said and moved away from him quickly toward the pay phone on the corner. She pulled on her gloves and dialed 911, made the report, keeping the receiver away from her mouth and ear. These days they could get prints and DNA off of anything. Chances were if there were no other witnesses, they’d be looking for the person who made the 911 call. Inwardly she cursed herself as they climbed into the GTO. Every instinct had told her not to come here with him. They pulled down Fourteenth Avenue as three police cars raced past them, sirens crying, lights spinning.

  “What if someone saw us?” she asked him.

  “No one saw us. Besides, even if they did, there’s no way for them to identify us. I mean it’s not like we’re wearing name tags.”

  He was trying to be funny. But there was nothing funny about this. He pulled the car over in front of an espresso shop; she could smell the aroma of coffee and the sweet smell of pastry from inside the car. He leaned over her and turned on his police scanner; the chatter, sizzle of static, and beeping filled the car.

  “Let’s get a coffee and listen to the scanner. See what happened in there.”

  She nodded and he left the car. She listened to the crackle and hiss of his police scanner, the voices fuzzy and distant like they were coming from the moon. A robbery, two units responding. A suspicious man standing on the corner, one car on the way. She listened. A Medical Examiners van and CSI team summoned to 1604 Fourteenth Avenue.

  “Dispatch, we got a DB, multiple gunshot wounds,” said a deep male voice. “A witness describes the suspect as a Caucasian male, more than six feet tall, big build, over two hundred and fifty pounds, wearing a dark jacket, possibly leather, and blue jeans. He exited the back of the home and scaled the fence to the street. Witnesses say he headed east on foot.”

  “Units responding,” said the dispatcher.

  “Oh my God,” said Jesamyn.

  Dylan slid back into the car, handed her a coffee and a white bag that was already greasing through on the bottom with whatever pastry was inside.

  “They’ve got a dead body at the scene. The suspect matches Mount’s description,” she said to him with a smile. “But Mount’s in lockup. Maybe whoever killed Stern, killed Katrina Aliti. They said he was heading east on foot; let’s go.”

  Dylan looked down at her with a frown. “Jesamyn, you didn’t hear?”

  “What?”

  “Mount’s out,” he said. “He was released on bail earlier this afternoon.”

  She looked at him and thought she might throw up.

  “No,” she said, searching his face for dishonesty or uncertainty. “He would have called.”

  Dylan shook his head slowly. “His family posted bond. He went home this afternoon. Suspended without pay pending the outcome of the trial.”

  She kept staring a
t him, the full implication of his words sinking in. Dylan looked away uncomfortably after a moment, sipped on his coffee. Taking the phone from her pocket, she scrolled through the call log. A couple hours earlier there was a call from Matt’s home phone but no message. She quickly dialed the number and waited as the phone just rang and rang. She tried his cell, but the voicemail picked up immediately, indicating to her that he had it off. Her throat felt tight; her hands cold.

  “Listen,” Dylan said gently. “Nobody who was guilty of Aliti’s murder would kill the witness implicating someone else. If The New Day is trying to frame Mount, they’re not going to kill their eyewitness. The only person who would want the witness dead is the person being implicated.”

  “Unless they just want Matt to look guilty for this, too.”

  Dylan sighed and rolled his eyes. “Come on Jez. Let’s get real, here.”

  “You saw the van,” she almost shouted. “What were they doing there? What’s The New Day’s connection to Clifford Stern?”

  “Maybe it was a coincidence,” he said with a shrug.

  She looked at him, incredulous. “A coincidence?”

  “Yeah,” he said weakly. “It’s not out of the realm of possibility, is it? That the van was parked there for some other reason not relating to Clifford Stern?”

  She shook her head. “Just drive East on Sixty-Sixth Street.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  He put the car into gear and made a left on Sixty-Sixth Street.

  “He could be anywhere by now. It’s not like we’re going to find him strolling up the street, taking in some air.”

  Jesamyn knew he was right but it made her feel better to be doing something. She scanned the few figures on the street, walking quickly, huddled against the cold. Matt or someone who looked like him would be easy to spot. Speaking of coincidences, she couldn’t help but wonder how they wound up here for this. She thought about how they just happened to get there, minutes before the shooting, just in time to call 911. She looked at Dylan, who had his eyes on the road.