Saboteur: A Novel

by J. Travis Phelps

  “So you think Downy is telling the truth then, like it’s some kind of goddamn international conspiracy?”

  “I think so. This Patterson, it turns out, died under very shady circumstances. Fell off a boat, but no body was ever recovered. We’re pulling his file off ICD right now. Downy claimed the Samara had suspicions about his death as well. If he is still alive he might be the one moving the shit, or at least telling people where to find it.”

  “But why frame Downy, he was his best friend?” Before he could respond Tierney answered himself. “The daughter.”

  “Yeah, if he found out his buddy was tapping his daughter, he might have decided to get some revenge in the process.”

  “So Patterson and this international ring of thieves have Sergeant Tackett?”

  “Yeah and that explains why we can’t track his phone. If they took him, probably he’s been taken out of the country already, maybe he’s even on the water still, somewhere nearby.”

  “His last cell ping disappeared near the coast,” Tierney said.

  “How can we get to him if you’re right?”

  “I can’t say for sure how they’re getting information, but I say we release Downy immediately. We can always re-arrest him if I’m wrong.”

  Tierney tapped his fingers on the desk.

  “If I’m right, they will want that,” Sullivan said pointing, and we can use Downy to reach out to them; in fact, if that is what I think it is, it may be the only way to convince them to keep him alive.”

  Tierney folded his hands and looked down. “What do you think it is?”

  “I think it’s a fake probably, but I’m pretty sure for some reason they think it’s real. My hunch says Patterson may have them convinced. He’s a specialist in the stuff, probably they trust him.”

  “What makes it so valuable?” Tierney said holding the golden laurel up in the light.

  “Check the name on the back.”

  Tierney looked closer at the inscription and let out a sharp laugh.

  “We have to make a big deal out of it in the press and talk about how we got it wrong arresting Downy. Make it clear he is a free man, our bad. We gotta make it seem like we’re really taking one on the nose. Then we use that as the bait.”

  “How you got it wrong, you mean?”

  He smiled like a child caught stealing and stopped talking abruptly. “Yes, Bob. How I got it wrong.”

  “I told you never to call me, Bob.”

  “I know, Bob. I’m trying.”

  “Get out, I need to think about this before I do anything else to completely destroy the credibility of this department. Not putting out an APB on a missing cop will surely get me fired, if not tossed in the can myself.”

  Sullivan turned to walk away.

  “Detective Sullivan, I knew the first moment I saw your face I’d regret saying yes to you.”

  “Thanks, Chief. Me too.”

  Sullivan wanted desperately to speak to the professor, but now he was with his wife in the visitor’s room talking at last. Instead he walked into the interrogation dark room and looked up at the video monitor, where he could see the two of them. Downy had his hand pressed to the glass, as did his wife, both weeping quietly. He felt a stinging pang of guilt. He was certain he had gotten it wrong with Downy, gotten everything wrong. It had never felt right in fact. There was a quality in Downy which was impossibly at odds with the kind of butchery the crime scene photos suggested. The girl had been sliced both across the abdomen and the throat. She would have bled out in only a matter of seconds, but the two cuts suggested someone double checking their work, not the haphazard hand of someone driven by passion alone, not someone slashing. It was, from Sullivan’s perspective, a very impersonal murder; the cut marks were both precise in their length and depth according to the autopsy, as if the hand of a surgeon had made them, a professional. The medical examiner had even noted that if he didn’t know better he’d have sworn the cuts had been made postmortem. It suggested also that the killer had bound the victim in some way, since there was no way she wouldn’t have fought back in the face of such a weapon. He held a light to one of the crime scene photos at the water’s edge, confirming that the footprints all led out of the water, but none into it.

  A knock came at the door.

  Rodriguez leaned in. “The file on Patterson is up. Come and take a look.”

  He dashed out of his chair and down the hall plopping down in front of the computer terminal.

  “It’s mostly like you said,” she said scrolling down the screen. “But there is one new thing you should see. I got a hit off Interpol on the name Charles Higgs Patterson to this man.” A haggard face appeared on the screen. “Professor Jacob Tannehill. Had a huge career in physics at MIT and then Interpol says he went off the grid for a whole year as a missing person. Showed up again in England at a psychiatric clinic, where he was treated for multiple mental illnesses, then released in August of 2006. Tannehill got caught up in a sting later that year involving stolen museum pieces--tried to sell some stuff on the black market apparently to an undercover officer. He did no time though; the evidence went missing before a prosecution could begin, but Interpol has him on a watch list still, a priority level 1B.”

  “Shit,” Sullivan said, “That’s our link.”

  “It gets better. Guess who posted his bail?”

  “Patterson.”

  “Yep, in 2006, about a month before his untimely death.”

  He jumped in the air at the news. Just as he did he could see Downy’s wife walking out of the meeting room toward him. It was terrible timing. She was being led by a man who stared at him scornfully. As they came closer the man spoke.

  “You damnable fools have the wrong man.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sullivan said lowering his head.

  Naomi Downy stood before him silently, but the man’s black piercing eyes stared through him, almost in menace.

  “No, but you will be, that much I can promise you.”

  And then the two walked down the hall together, the woman collapsing into the man’s shoulder; he looked like her father perhaps. Sullivan wanted to follow them and explain, but he knew it was a bad idea. He had to wait until he could be certain and saying anything before Downy was released could cause even more problems.

  “What’s our next move?”

  “We gotta set this shit straight and find Tackett.

  “I’m gonna go tell Tierney what we found.”

  “Roger that.”

  Sullivan’s pocket vibrated. He reached and looked. It was a text from Tina. He’d almost forgotten about her at the hotel all alone.

  That was some wedding night. What did you think of my trick?

  He had thought very highly of the whole performance. He considered for a moment and then typed.

  Where did a nice girl like you learn to do a thing like that?

  P.S. How does it feel to be a married woman?

  He hit send and stared out the window thinking of Tackett and what he’d said: Ten thirty-two was cursed and was going to be the end of him.

  Not if he could help it.

  ***

  “We’ll release Downy first thing in the morning,” Tierney said appearing suddenly over his shoulder.

  “We play it your way for a while. You must know though I’m out on a serious limb here and if you’re wrong on this, you take the fall, all of it. We have to bring Downy in on this too if he is going to help us, but it can’t be right away. I want him behaving naturally.”

  “Ok, I’ll go get him first thing in the morning, then we release him with a tail.”

  “Do you think he will go along? It’s a helluva risk if he says no.”

  “The guy has every right to tell us to go fuck ourselves, me in particular. We need to make it clear to him that that he will be helping track down the girl’s killer. If my instincts are right he won’t pass on the chance, no matter what he thinks of us.”

  “What about this agent in London, Clellon H
olmes? You spoke to him too, right?”

  “I have no idea if he’s involved at this point. We’ll have to wait to see which fish are biting after we dangle the bait. He’s got serious money this guy, plus the extradition; it could get messy, real messy.”

  Tierney stared off as if he saw something far away out the window, crossing his arms. It was the first time Sullivan had ever seen him look concerned about anything.

  “Chief?”

  Tierney looked up at him with a look of surprise. “Yeah?”

  “We’re gonna get Tackett back, ok?”

  “Yeah, I sure as hell hope we can. He’s a good cop and a good man. I owe him that and much more. Double down on security for the professor tonight. Somebody’s still got eyes and ears on us. I don’t want any more disappearances.”

  “What do we say on Tackett?”

  “He’s on vacation as far as the world is concerned. I don’t know how long I can keep it under wraps though. We have to work fast on this, ok? The longer they have him the more likely they are to just hit the panic button and--”

  He nodded his head in agreement. “I know.”

  “I’m bringing in Homeland Security. This is getting too big for us. I need some help if we’re going after people overseas and we have to figure out where these goddamn leaks are coming from.”

  “Ok,” he said.

  “Keep me posted on anything that develops and watch yourself out there.”

  “Will do.”

  Sullivan stared at the computer screen at the picture of Professor Jacob Tannehill. A mad scientist if he’d ever seen one. How did he figure into all of this? Why would Patterson, a respected academic, even risk such an association unless he needed him for some reason, some illegal reason?

  “Can you take me to get my car, it’s still at Woody’s,” he said looking across to Rodriguez.

  “It’s down in impound. Saw it on my way up, the piece of shit with no door, right?”

  “Right.”

  Rodriguez shook her head silently.

  Chapter IX

  The man could smell the food even before he was awake and was already fantasizing about its taste in his mouth. He could see steam rising from the plate, still warm. As he rose he could also see a note had been placed by the plate, which read:

  Eat very slowly, only half, or you will lose it.

  And so he did. His hands shook and his mouth salivated at every taste; he felt he might tear the bone right out of the meat if he wasn’t careful to control himself. He ate rapaciously. First the meat, then a sweetbread, which he then gorged down with the wine, its bittersweet taste making him choke, spilling down the sides of his mouth. Then, he simply stopped, feeling in his gut the weight of the food. He could feel great waves of pleasure coursing through his body. He realized he’d eaten thousands of times without ever tasting the full flavor of food.

  He panted lightly in the dim light, looking around him again at the strange surroundings. It seemed as if someone was stacking coins in the middle of the room, each one falling into a giant pile, clinking. But no one was there. The coins seemed to appear and fall out of thin air. Statues sat piled in another corner. They were of faces he had never seen; of gods or goddesses he did not recognize. He was in some foreign land then. But his captor had said he was ‘close to home,’ hadn’t he? He was a deceptive talker though and clearly not to be trusted. The reasons for his lying were of course what really mattered. Discovering a lie, but not trying to understand why it was told in the first place was a common mistake; it was not an error he was prone to. He thought of Gnaeus, of the war. It had been won in his head first, then on the battlefield. He had been heavily outnumbered, overwhelmingly in fact, had the worst position, fighting uphill; and yet still it was his enemy’s head that had been delivered to him in a basket. You could see the lack of intelligence in Gnaeus’ eyes even then, the milky film of death over them, completely empty. A dumb, dead bear had been his first thought upon seeing him, but he had wept nevertheless and it had given him no pleasure. He remembered the better times when the two had laughed, their gentle ribbing, the girls, the incredible wealth they had built together. It seemed the fun would never end. Gnaeus was always comfortable when he felt flattered and admired. But any challenge to his sense of personal superiority made him a tyrant, a belligerent fool. He was dead and gone now the dumb, dead bear, yet still somehow he loved him. Thinking about the past couldn’t help him now though and getting sentimental was pointless.

  He could only wait now in any case, as the iron bars of his cell showed no signs of giving way. Then a voice fractured the quiet.

  “You there?”

  “Yes, I am,” he replied.

  “We in a well. The coins, a wishing well, no use yelling. No one comes.”

  “You speak our tongue only a little, where are you from?”

  There was a long silence, but the voice had clearly come from the cell next to his. It was a soft whisper, clearly that of a boy or maybe a young woman and a foreigner by the sound of the broken phrases.

  “How you get here, remember? How they get you?”

  “I was taken, abducted from my home. It was a trap,” he whispered. “They killed my nephew I think.”

  “You speak dead languages with the man, why?”

  “What do you mean dead?”

  There was a long pause and the voice came back, seeming to ignore his question.

  “We’re not alone…others. Two, maybe more.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “A week, I don’t know. They’re poisoning us. It’s hard to remember. The others here longer, but they don’t remember. They barely speak.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “It’s S— “

  A sudden clank broke their conversation. Boot steps could be heard from above them and both waited in nervous anticipation. A figure suddenly appeared at the bottom of the stairs like something out of a nightmare. He wore a black hood and dark clothing.

  “You,” the voice bellowed, “your time is up.”

  The man went to the cell next to his and opened the door. He could hear a struggle taking place and the voice of whoever was in the cell being muted, strangled.

  The man in the hood slung open the cell door, handling his prisoner like a rag doll, dragging the tiny figure away up the stairs; They kicked back uselessly against him. He tried desperately to see who it was, but the low light only gave only a glimpse of a tiny shadow. He thought it was a young boy or woman, but couldn’t be sure. He heard the door at the top of the stairs slam shut and then the silence came again. It was maddening to be in the dark. He could hear a whisper again, but this time further away. It was a foreign tongue that he could not recognize, a garble.

  He could make out only one word, badly pronounced but repeated over and over: “Flamen, Flamen. Priest.”

  Chapter X

  Downy sat on the edge of the cot with his eyes closed thinking of the look in his wife’s eyes when she had first seen his face on set in Rome. He’d been sitting in the corner that beautiful, crisp fall afternoon taking notes as she played out her death scene for the cameras. Their eyes had locked just at the horrible moment of surprise when Cleopatra’s guards and the Roman Centurions had come for her head. She’d been utterly intoxicating, both defiant and vulnerable in the scene. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of her since. He’d begged her to keep the Egyptian gown from the shoot. She had often promised to wear it for him, though they never seemed to have time for such playful things since they came back to the states. He silently promised himself they would in the future.

  He had done his best to explain in the short time they had what had really happened between he and Samara. He could tell on the most primal level that his wife believed the story. He had broken trust with her though and knew it. He would need to spend the rest of his life getting it back, which he was more than willing to do. What he couldn’t figure out was why he was even considering Taro’s strange offer. Th
e thing to do was to wait it out of course, to get that union lawyer, but on some strange wavelength he utterly believed Taro when he said it was the only way to clear his name. Was it because of the glowing letter from the Monsignor? He couldn’t explain the feeling rationally, but for some reason he believed Taro. He was already accused of murder; how much worse could it get?

  A voice came breaking his concentration.

  “You gonna eat that boss? That’s our best Salisbury steak.”

  “You can take it” he said emotionlessly.

  “Hey Doc, I gotta tell ya that wife of yours man, whew.”

  Downy looked at him sideways, without turning his head. “Thanks.”

  “Show me a beautiful woman though and I’ll show a man tired of fuc— “

  “Don’t ever talk about my wife like that you stupid son of a bitch,” he said flatly.

  “There it is,” the guard said taunting him. “Now see that’s the attitude that got you put in here in the first place. I knew that cool exterior was all an act.”

  “When I get out, you can repeat what you just said to my face. When these are off,” Downy said holding up his cuffs.

  “You ain’t going nowhere so just relax Professor Frankenstein.”

  He smiled to himself as the guard carried his food away. It felt damn good to threaten someone actually. He hadn’t thrown a punch in years, but at the moment he felt anything was better than just sitting, waiting. He wanted to get his hands on whoever had killed Samara too. Thinking of her made him swell with rage.

  Had the vision of Charlie at the bar been only his imagination running wild? It must have and yet everyone was behaving strangely weren’t they? Clellon now too. Why had he spoken so cryptically? He knew he had to get out the cell to find out the truth and to find out who had killed Samara. The police weren’t doing a damn thing to help him. He heard the suctioned clank of the master cell door at the end of the hall close, pulling all the air out of the corridor. It was going to be lights out in a few minutes. The place was like a tomb and the silence was almost unbearable. How in the hell would Taro get him out he wondered? A bribe? It seemed unlikely. He lay down and closed his eyes. He was exhausted physically and emotionally, but seeing his wife had changed his mood significantly. There was a hope he could get his life back; he could see it in her eyes. That wasn’t true for Samara though.