Killed in Action

by Michael Sloan

  McCall let go of him. “What were you going to take?”

  “Fella called it a Blue Velvet.”

  “You know what that is?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Elixir terpin hydrate with codeine and tripelennamine. It’s a weak heroin substitute.”

  “He told me it was the real deal.”

  “It’s bad enough. You ever shoot up before?”

  “No, sir.”

  McCall picked up the syringe and smashed it against the low coffee table. “You want to OD in this sewer tunnel under the streets, don’t do it on my time. I need your help. Do I have to stay here to sober you up?”

  “No, sir. I’ll be right as rain. What can I do for you?”

  “I need Morgan Freeman.”

  “He ain’t available. Guess you got me.”

  McCall told him what he wanted. The flicker of the TV screen played across Fooz’s face. McCall wasn’t sure Fooz had even heard him. McCall got to his feet and left the old black man to struggle with his demons. It was a lonely struggle. McCall knew that only too well. He retraced his steps back to the iron ladder and climbed up to Forty-Second Street. If anyone took any notice of him popping up from a manhole cover, no one reacted. These were New Yorkers. McCall walked quickly to where Jimmy was now parked beside a fire hydrant and slid into the passenger seat.

  “Where’d you go?” Then Jimmy looked at McCall’s face and decided not to press it. “Where to, boss?”

  “You know where Brahms’s Manhattan Electronics is?”

  “Sure, I stop by once in a while to see how the old spy is doing. I hear his wife is real sick.”

  “She is.”

  “Is she going to make it?”

  “I don’t know. I need to talk to Brahms.”

  “I can drop you.”

  Jimmy pulled out into traffic.

  * * *

  Helen Coleman was sitting at the desk in her home office talking to her son Tom, via Skype, when her cell phone beeped to let her know she had a text. It was seven hours later in Istanbul, which made it the middle of the night, but Tom was burning the midnight oil for his studies. He was eight years younger than Josh, with a thin face, wild brown hair, brilliant green eyes, and an academic intensity that had brought him straight As all through high school. He was studying Arabic at the Istanbul Sehir University, specifically at its School of Islamic Studies. He’d always been an emotional child. At eighteen, he was more balanced, but Helen could see it was hard for him to contain his grief. Tom had idolized his older brother.

  “I’m coming home on the first flight I can get,” he told his mother.

  Helen shook her head. “I haven’t heard back from the Pentagon. There’s some kind of a delay in bringing back”—she paused, almost unable to say the terrible words—“Josh’s remains.”

  “But they have them, right? I mean, they know he was killed, right?”

  “That’s what the two-star general told me. But the colonel who accompanied him wasn’t his CO in the field.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Helen sighed. “Just that it was odd. There’s no need for you to interrupt your studies to fly back yet.”

  “I’m not going to let you deal with this alone, Helen.” Tom had called his mother Helen since he’d been four years old. At first it had startled his parents, but then they’d accepted it, and now it was as much of an endearment as Mother. “They are going to bury him in Arlington National Cemetery, right?”

  “Yes, with full military honors. They’re awarding him the Purple Heart and the Silver Star posthumously.”

  Her son lost his battle. Big tears rolled down his cheeks. “I have to get through my midterm exams.” He brushed away the tears with an impatient hand. “They’ll be done on Friday. Then I’m coming home.”

  Her cell phone beeped at her. “Fuck this thing!” she exclaimed.

  Tom said automatically, “Language, Helen,” and smiled through his tears.

  “I’m expecting a text from work.”

  “Don’t they ever leave you alone?”

  “It’s the UN, honey. One hundred and ninety-three nations. One of them is always threatening to kick the shit out of another one.”

  She picked her phone up and looked at the caller ID.

  Her entire body stiffened.

  She set the phone down and looked back at the laptop screen.

  “I’ve got to go, Tommy. We’ll Skype again tomorrow, okay?”

  “Okay. Be strong. That’s what Josh would want. Save the tears for the funeral.”

  “I will if you will.”

  Tom smiled ruefully as two more tears ran down his cheeks. “Yeah, just follow my lead. Talk to you tomorrow, Helen.”

  Tom’s face faded from the laptop screen. Helen picked up her cell phone and tapped into the text. When she read it, her sense of sudden elation—of sudden hope—was replaced with bewilderment.

  She searched her desk until she found the piece of paper with Robert McCall’s phone number on it.

  * * *

  McCall sat with Brahms in his darkened office at the back of Manhattan Electronics. He could hear the small sounds of items in the store being moved around. The store was closed, but Mary was doing some stocktaking. McCall thought she used every excuse she could think of to be close to her boss for a comforting word while his wife lay critically ill in hospital. Brahms was working on his desktop computer, fingers flying over the keys, writing some kind of algorithm. Mary stepped into the office. She was dressed in a tight black skirt and beige blouse that clung to her petite and quite spectacular figure. She wore her dark Diane von Furstenberg tortoiseshell glasses even though it was gloomy in the store.

  “I don’t want to throw out an heirloom,” Mary said, “but do we really need to keep an eight-track player with AM/FM radio on a bottom shelf?”

  “Belongs to Hilda,” he said without looking up from the screen.

  “Going right back.” Mary smiled at McCall and disappeared.

  “She loves you like a father,” McCall said.

  “Hilda couldn’t have children,” Brahms said softly, as if responding to a question that McCall hadn’t asked. He sat back. “Done. Seven o’clock tomorrow morning your man Norman Rosemont will be off-line.”

  “Thanks, Brahms.”

  McCall’s iPhone on the table vibrated. He looked at the caller ID and picked up.

  “This is Robert McCall.”

  Helen asked, “Can you meet me at our table in Times Square in twenty minutes?”

  * * *

  Times Square was jammed with people. McCall watched Helen Coleman stride through them with her usual purposeful demeanor. Something about her was immensely likable. Even in her grief her warmth shone through. At least, it did to McCall.

  She sat down at the table. “What have you been able to find out?”

  “Nothing yet. The one contact I had that could have told me the truth about the circumstances of your son’s death has vanished. Literally into thin air. You’ve got something?”

  Helen took out her cell phone and double-tapped the LED screen into life. “I got a text from Josh’s satellite phone half an hour ago. But I don’t know what it means.”

  McCall picked up the phone and looked at the text.

  He knew exactly what it meant. “This doesn’t mean Josh is alive.”

  “I know that. Someone else could have picked up his phone. But how? It would be in the safekeeping of the Army. And why send me a text?” She leaned forward and gripped McCall’s arm. “Unless it was Josh who sent it. A message he wanted only me to see.”

  McCall turned the phone around and tapped the screen.

  On it was displayed 35° 45′ 00.60″ N—38° 22′ 56.60″ E.

  “It’s the latitude and longitude of a location.”

  “Do you know where?”

  McCall accessed the internet and found the coordinates.

  “Syria. It’s close to the coordinates of Aleppo.”

  �
�But if it is from Josh, why is he sending it to me?”

  “Because he doesn’t want anyone else to know where he is. Or he’d have sent it to the Pentagon, or to your colonel friend, what was his name again?”

  “Colonel Michael G. Ralston; everyone calls him Gunner.”

  “And you still haven’t been able to get in touch with Gunner?”

  “He hasn’t called me back, and he’s one of the good guys.”

  “He may be under orders not to get in touch with you. And he may not know the truth.”

  “What could that truth be?” Helen squeezed McCall’s arm, not quite cutting off all circulation. “Can you find out?”

  “Only by going there.”

  She let him go, shaking her head. “You don’t work for the UN for as long as I have, liaising with the Pentagon, and not know the guidelines. If that location is in Syria, they’d never let you get anywhere near it.”

  “I won’t be asking their permission.”

  She stared at him. “You would really fly to Syria to try to find my son?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fuck, yeah. Language, sorry. When can you go?”

  “I have some arrangements to make first. Send this text to my phone.”

  Helen sent him the coordinates.

  “Who else knows about this?”

  “I was on Skype with my other son, Tom, earlier tonight. He’s eighteen, studying Arabic at the Sehir University in Istanbul. The text came through while I was talking to him.”

  “Did you tell him what it was?”

  “No, I thought it was from the UN. I haven’t showed this to anyone but you.”

  “Keep it to yourself. I’ll call you. But don’t get your hopes up. These could be rerouted coordinates from someone else or a kid picking up Josh’s satellite phone and playing around.”

  Helen pocketed her cell phone. She reached out and clasped McCall’s hand. “Josh is alive. I can feel it. And that’s not just a mother’s intuition. It’s something deeper than that. Find him for me, Mr. McCall. Please.”

  Then she let go of his hand, stood up, and strode away.

  McCall lost her in the crowd.

  CHAPTER 18

  McCall walked into the lobby of the Liberty Belle Hotel. Chloe was behind the reception counter dealing patiently with a florid guest who said “Honey!” to her like he was ordering it. Sam Kinney came around the counter and walked over to McCall.

  “Hey, what happened to your neck? Cut yourself shaving?”

  McCall ignored that. “I need you to do a job for me. Probably take a day to set up. Can you take time away from the hotel?”

  “Sure. You gonna let me know what this is all about, if I’m gonna get shot at again, or will it all be a fun surprise?”

  “I’ll brief you when the time comes.”

  “I look forward. There’s another babe here to see you. This one wouldn’t wait in the lobby. I let her into your suite. I figure you’d either shout at me or tip me.”

  McCall moved into the elevator and ascended.

  “You’re very welcome,” Sam Kinney said.

  McCall entered his seventeenth-floor suite. The lights were out in the living room, but the curtains at the big windows were open. A square of light was coming from the bedroom. McCall heard the small, thrumming sound of a hairdryer. He touched the Mark Newman sculpture of the naked sea nymph walking an eel on a leash as he walked past it. Kostmayer’s favorite. McCall entered the bedroom.

  The far bedside table lamp was on. Tara’s clothes were strewn casually on top of the bed. Light spilled from the bathroom through the open doorway, where the sound of the hairdryer was louder. Then it snapped off. Tara walked out into the bedroom. She was wearing one of McCall’s dress blue shirts, one button in the middle holding it together. The swell of her breasts threatened to pop it. Her long legs glowed in the shadows. Her hair was still a little damp. She smiled at him.

  “I decided to take a shower while I waited for you. I wanted to get rid of the smell of pot smoke and red wine and too many sweaty people crowded into that big space.”

  “Where’s Melody?”

  Tara looked at him appraisingly. “A fairly attractive woman, maybe eight on a one-to-ten scale, steps out of your bathroom clad only in one of your shirts and you want to talk shop. Okay. Melody left with Blake Cunningham not long after you ran out of the place. He called her a cab and took her home to her apartment building on Eighth Avenue and Jane Street. He walked her to her front door. He was the consummate gentleman. Got a big good-night kiss out of her and that was it. She walked inside and he hailed another cab and was gone. I watched the lights come on in her third-floor apartment. I waited with Mike Gammon in his car for another forty-five minutes. The lights went out in Melody’s apartment. Blake did not come back. I asked Mike to drop me off here at the Liberty Belle. I tried to call you, but you didn’t pick up your cell.”

  “I was in the subway tunnels below the streets. There’s no cell coverage down there.”

  “The subway tunnels? Sure, why not? I thought I’d have to bribe the hotel manager to get up to your suite, but he liked the idea of my waiting in here. He thinks you need to get laid.”

  “He worries about the national debt, too.”

  She saw the thin livid knife scar across his neck. She moved right up to him and her fingers gently traced it. He winced a little.

  “Sorry. What happened? I hope the other guy is in an ER somewhere fighting for his life.”

  “Isaac got jumped by some muggers. I chased them away.”

  “How did you let one of them get close enough to cut you?”

  “I was careless.”

  “Did you get the information you needed from Isaac?”

  “I got a name. It’s something.”

  “Since I’m almost naked, you could at least take off your coat.”

  She unbuttoned McCall’s jacket. As she slid it off and tossed it onto the bed, she noted the heaviness of the gun in one pocket.

  Then she looked up into his eyes. “Are you going to make me do all the heavy lifting?”

  McCall unbuttoned the single button on the blue shirt. Tara shrugged it off onto the floor. She moved naked into his arms and kissed him. He kissed her back. She broke the embrace and stepped back to give him a better look at her body.

  If the bathroom door hadn’t been open, he wouldn’t have seen it.

  The barest shadow moved across the steamy mirror.

  McCall shoved Tara to the floor. The sound of the gunshot was deafening. The bullet missed McCall’s ear by an inch. It hit the one lamp that was on, shattering it. Tara dragged McCall’s jacket off the bed and threw it to him. McCall caught it, took out the Glock 19, and moved to the bedroom doorway. He just caught sight of the front door swinging shut.

  McCall ran across the suite and threw open the door. The elevator door was closing. McCall ran down the seventeen flights of stairs, taking some of them two at a time. He reached the ground level and ran down the short corridor to the lobby.

  It was deserted.

  McCall ran out onto Sixty-Sixth Street. There was no sign of the shooter. McCall put the Glock into his pocket and walked back inside the hotel. Chloe was behind the reception counter now.

  “Did you see anyone in the lobby? Ten minutes ago he would have walked to the elevator. A minute ago he would have run from the elevator through the lobby to the street.”

  “I didn’t see anyone, Mr. McCall. I had to leave the desk for a few minutes. Is something wrong?”

  “Everything’s fine.”

  “Should I call Sam?”

  “He needs his beauty sleep.”

  McCall took the elevator up to the seventeenth floor. When he walked back into his suite, Tara was dressed and waiting for him in the living room. She had a glass of brandy in her hand.

  “I helped myself.”

  “You can pour one for me.”

  But she didn’t. McCall nodded. Nothing like being shot at to break the spell of th
e moment.

  “Did you get a glimpse of him?”

  “He was long gone by the time I got outside.”

  “One of Blake’s college buddies?”

  “Blake doesn’t know who I am or where I live. He still thinks I’m Emily’s father, who probably went home to the Midwest a month ago.”

  “So you have no idea who just tried to kill you? I doubt that bullet was meant for me. The only people who hate me are my landlord and my accountant.”

  “I have an idea who it was.”

  Tara threw back the brandy in one swallow. She picked up her leather jacket from the couch and shrugged it on.

  “I’ll check up on Blake on the receiver. Find out where he is. Probably at home. I’ll continue to follow him tomorrow morning. If anything breaks, I’ll call you.”

  No mention of the kiss or the naked encounter. McCall doubted she was embarrassed by it. It just wasn’t part of the night any longer. But Tara did smile reassuringly at him.

  “We’re going to find Emily,” she said with quiet determination.

  Then she left him alone in his suite.

  * * *

  Norman Rosemont liked getting to his office early in the morning. He put a sheaf of documents into his Coughlin leather attaché case on his desk. He could have scanned them and sent them to Chicago, but he liked to have the hard copies with him. Soon he’d have a 29 percent merger with Webstar Telecommunications that would net him a cool $17 million. Not bad for a day trip to the Windy City. Trump that! he thought. He was grinning as he fired up his desktop computer.

  The grin froze on his face like a rictus smile on a Halloween pumpkin.

  His array of desktop icons were gone. In their place was a death’s-head skull, bright orange in the empty eye sockets. A little ironic tune played Brahms’s Three Motets for Four and Eight-Part Chorus a cappella, Ach, arme Welt, not that Rosemont recognized it. Beneath the eerie death’s-head appeared the English translation: Ah, Shallow World.

  Above the skull were the words, in bright orange, YOU’VE BEEN HACKED.