by Cat Connor
“I’m tired,” I said, without meaning it to be audible.
Kurt looked over at me. “You will be tired for a while. That’s why I want you to rest. Need to avoid physical and mental exertion for several days after a brain injury. Never mind the rest of the trauma you suffered.”
“You’re not very good at resting, El,” Mitch said. His hand touched my shoulder. “We’re almost at the hotel.”
I’m not very good at resting. Seems like waste of time. Bon Jovi’s ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead’ filled the car. My eyes flicked to the radio. It was off. Just for me then.
Mitch tapped on the armrest in time to the music in my head. Then he said, “If you don’t learn to rest, you will rest in peace.”
I smiled. “You can hear it?”
“Oh yeah,” he replied.
“Hear what?” Kurt asked.
“Bon Jovi,” Mitch replied.
“You two are perfectly normal.” Kurt replied, shaking his head. “Check-in time.”
Half an hour later, we walked down the hallway to our rooms. I had a preference when it came to rooms. Not the one I’d stayed in with Mac and subsequently with Carla. Not that one. Not that floor. Kurt took the first room, with Mitch and I opposite. Sam and Lee could choose either the room next to ours or one next to Kurt’s.
Kurt waited until our door was open.
“Conway, sleep. Give it a couple of hours and we’ll go back to work. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Do not take off that oximeter,” he cautioned. “You’re not out of the woods yet.”
“I know.”
I went into the room. The bed looked good. Couldn’t deny it. I was tired. Really tired. I could hear Mitch and Kurt talking at the door. I lay on the bed. My feet still on the floor. Still wearing my boots. I had no memory of ever being this tired before. All noise faded into the dark.
Eventually the dark gave way to gray and the gray to light. I live a wondrous, strange life. Peppered with gunfire, explosions, blood, death and music. I didn’t remember getting into bed but I was. I didn’t remember taking off my boots but they had gone. Ditto my jeans and jacket. Interesting. My side hurt a bit. Ribs. I tried a deep breath, remembering that Kurt said I needed to breathe deeper to help my lung heal.
My head hurt. It took a bit of time before I could figure out whether it was the concussion and skull fracture, a dehydration headache, or the beginning of something bad. A migraine now would be bad. I stopped taking narcotics to deal with migraines when I discovered an aromatherapy synergy in New Zealand. Using the synergy early enough can stop them dead. Pain jabbed me in the right side of my brain. I needed the synergy. Think. Where was it? In my desk. My desk is in pieces all over 10th Street under a couple of tons of concrete. Not helpful.
What did I have with me? The pain stabbed again. Physical pain was controllable. My right eye closed. Kurt carried pain relief. Just in case. Did I need it? Slow deep breaths.
“Ellie, you okay?” The bed moved. Mitch was lying next to me. He rolled toward me, supporting himself on one elbow. “Okay?”
“Jury’s still out.”
“What do you need?”
“Not sure. Might have a migraine.”
Mitch moved. He came back a few seconds later. “Hold out your hands.”
He dripped a familiar smelling oil into my palm. Synergy. I rubbed my hands together then cupped them over my mouth and nose and breathed deeply. The warm aroma soothed almost instantly.
“Thank you,” I said. Breathing in deeply.
“You’re welcome.” His fingers felt cool on my forehead as he brushed my bangs aside. “Where’d you get the scar?”
“Bullet graze, a long time ago.” To me my voice sounded remote, as if I were standing at the end of a tunnel trying to hear someone at the other end, as I talked into my cupped hands and the pain in my head faded to a slow, dull drilling.
Mitch’s voice undulated – I knew he was talking but it was so soft I couldn’t make out the words, just rhythm. He was singing. A familiar song, a song I loved. ‘Beneath Your Beautiful.’ My mind drifted with the melody of his music. Danni’s face twisted, distorted, and spiraled into the ground pushed further and further down by Kennedy and his two cohorts. Suddenly, she popped back up right in front of me.
Smiling.
A gun in her hand. I stepped in front of Mitch. Her smiled widened. Two birds flew from a bush. I staggered then heard a loud crack. Staggering became falling. Another crack. I turned my head and saw a man in black with a gun. A thin plume of smoke rose. Danni fell bleeding. People screamed. I looked sideways as a massive explosion rocked the area.
One eye opened, the images disappeared. I couldn’t see him.
“Mitch?”
“Here, okay?”
“Bad dream.”
I felt him move next to me. His hand touched my head. “How’s the head?”
“Okay.”
“Sleep, dreams can’t hurt.”
I closed my eyes again. When I next checked the clock, it was midnight. I had a moderate headache nagging on the right side of my head but it wasn’t a migraine, which was a win. My ribs hurt. Deep breathing was good for my lungs not so much my ribs. I needed to get a handle on the pain.
“Mitch, do we have Tylenol and codeine?”
“Yes.” He got up. When he came back, he dropped four white pills into my hand and gave me a glass of water.
Twenty minutes later, everything was more manageable.
“Shower?” I asked, as Mitch lay next to me flicking channels on the TV. I knew he was looking for news. Something that would tell us what was happening outside.
“Invitation?”
I smiled. “Yes.”
“I’m there.”
Kurt called. “Kennedy is on the move. How you doing?”
There’s always someone ready to ruin a damn fine shower moment. I stifled a sigh.
“Okay. About to have a shower, give us ten minutes?”
“Meet you out front in fifteen.”
“Okay.”
Thirty-Four
The Four Horsemen
Kurt was in the car when Mitch and I walked out the front entrance of the hotel, with Lee and Sam parked behind him. A Delta outing. Nice. Kennedy was in a bar with Holmes and Jones, one that was not one of my favorites. It sucked and so did the clientele. Creeps and morons. The deep discussion part of their meeting lasted exactly fifteen minutes; I listened to the conversation via the app on my phone. That was the longest fifteen minutes I’d ever spent while fending off five butt-ugly men with severe and repellent personality disorders, as each one tried to persuade me to go home with them. Rude, not like I was alone. Mitch was right there. Kurt was at the other end of the bar. Sam was by the door and Lee was outside.
I knew Lee would catch up to a few of the losers outside, and explain in his special way why no one would ever date them and how no one would find their bodies if he ever saw them around again.
The meeting between Kennedy and his buddies was confusing. I was none the wiser as to their plans. They said nothing that was even remotely troubling in a national security kind of way. Still talking in code. I observed their body language. They were on edge but not paying any attention to their surroundings, which was out of character but good for me. I considered that the bar might be somewhere they felt secure but couldn’t fathom why. Maybe because they were big tough men?
How did they know Trudi and Susan? Did they know Trudi and Susan? Did they know Danni? I knew Misha knew her but did Kennedy?
I turned to Mitch and whispered, “I’m going to go join them. Hang back, okay?”
I angled my body toward Sam and flashed two hand signals, really fast. He nodded. No one was leaving through the front door. I did the same to Kurt. He nodded. With utmost confidence, I approached the table in the corner of the room, grabbed a chair from a nearby table and joined the throng.
“Morning,” I said. They started to move. “Look around.”
> Sam and Kurt nodded at the table.
“Conway, you don’t need to be in the middle of this,” Kennedy said, his Irish accent warming his voice.
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” I replied. “Whatever you’re up to has encroached on my case. You’re here, Praskovya is here, Washington is exploding, and someone shot down the helicopter I was in.” I leveled a stare at Kennedy. “And again, you’re here.”
“Wasn’t us,” he said with a smile. “I made you a promise that I wouldn’t shoot at you again.”
That’s what they all say, and yet the bullets keep flying.
“You can see why I asked. You turn up and I get shot out the sky.”
Kennedy nodded. “I get that a lot.”
I just bet he did.
“Do you know who did kill my pilot?”
“No.”
“You’re here why?” I asked. “I’m not one for coincidences and I seem to have a few in front of me.”
“We’re looking for someone.”
Colin and Tim sat listening but had nothing to offer.
“What’s it got to do with Interpol?” Throwing it out there, hadn’t even checked it, just went with what Chance told me. Plus I knew Danni met with Misha. I fully expected that these three knew her as well.
Kennedy’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a fecking smartass, Conway.”
That wasn’t denial.
“Then you’ll love this. I am holding a young woman by the name of Alexandra Dobrovolný.”
“Feck,” he half-whispered. “You don’t want to be in this, Conway.”
Funnily enough, I’d heard those very words from Seamus Kennedy before, when he was in Washington trying to find a girl and a pedophile.
“Probably not but someone wanted me in. I got the tip-off from a trusted CI. I found her. My CI was killed before he could tell me where he got his information. The girl became a bomb and was in the same hospital as I was.” I still thought someone got that wrong because there was no way for her to get close to me. Unless the person behind this thought I was well enough to want to interview her myself? That wasn’t a good thought.
“Jesus. She all right?”
“She’s safe. She’s traumatized. We are taking care of her.” I leaned forward, resting on my elbows. “And you know her?”
“I know of her,” he replied. His mouth set in a thin line. He wasn’t anywhere near as chatty as I needed him to be.
“Anything else to add?”
His head shook. “She’s safe?”
“Yes.”
I watched the three of them exchange looks. Yeah, she had something to do with the reason they were in town.
“Can you keep her safe?”
“Yes. Can you tell me what the hell is going on?”
“No. Not yet. Patience, Conway, this is fecking messy.”
“No kidding.”
“Get some sleep, you look like you need it,” Kennedy said. “How badly hurt are you?”
I dismissed his comment. “I’m fine.”
He tossed a fast smile at me. “You’re not, but that’s okay. We can watch your back too.” Kennedy’s smile vanished as quickly as it came. His mouth set in a straight line. “You’re playing with fire, Conway.”
“Maybe, but someone invited me in. For whatever reason. I’m beginning to think the reason is to cause me and Delta A harm.”
He nodded. “I thought that might happen.”
“And yet no friendly heads-up?”
“I was hoping we could make this disappear before anything bad happened.”
It was possible that his definition of bad may differ from mine.
“Initially, I thought this was about Renegade,” I said.
He leaned forward and so did the other men. Tim whispered, “The President. Crap. What made you think that?”
That gave me the impression they hadn’t thought of that. Fascinating. Was I way off base? I thought I’d seen Air Force One being shot down but that was before I was shot out of the sky. Perhaps I saw my own crash and not the President in danger at all.
How to explain my random hallucinations without giving the impression I was insane?
“A gut feeling I had around about the time the Navy Yard exploded,” I said with a small smile.
“You may not be wrong, Conway,” Tim said. “Whoever is behind the current situation has more irons in the fire and more reasons for these actions than we have been able to fathom.”
“Not long ago I considered that the Unsub wanted me to think Renegade was a target so I’d have him moved. I was nervy about ground-to-air missiles.”
“Maybe not unduly,” Kennedy said. “Something shot you out of the air.”
“Which makes me think that my gut was warning me about that and not Renegade at all.”
“Best to err on the side of caution,” Kennedy said.
“Next issue, I’ve been pulled off the bombings.”
Tim frowned.
Colin who’d remained quiet found his voice. “Everything intersects. Taking you off the bombings is neither here nor there.”
“That’s what I thought. Officially, I’m not investigating bombings. I am concentrating my efforts on Alexandra and her sister, and the three kiwi women.”
All three men exchanged quick glances. I felt them close down. It was the first time I’d said anything about Alexandra’s sister and I hit a nerve.
“Good luck, Conway,” Kennedy said. “We’ll keep an eye on you as well as we can.”
“Worry about your own backs. I’ve got Delta.”
“We’ll talk soon.”
I stood up and said goodbye to the three of them. As I walked away, I wondered why I didn’t mention Senator Robinson. No reason that I could come up with, except I didn’t want him tipped off. The fewer people who knew, the better.
Thirty-Five
Symphony Of Destruction
Our next stop promised a certain level of interest.
The two women were in separate interview rooms at two in the morning. They looked tired. Probably wanted to go to sleep. They’d been in the rooms for three hours; before that they were in separate holding cells and more than likely asleep. We’d said the magic word. Terrorism. Even though I didn’t for one minute think they were responsible for any of the explosions, or indeed had any knowledge of any of it.
But the word was said and all bets were off. One whiff of terrorism and their rights started to magically disappear as Guantanamo Bay was considered a suitable place to hold them.
Walking the corridors of the Washington field office felt peculiar in the middle of the night. Empty. Hollow. Little bit spooky.
I slipped into the viewing room attached to the interview room Sam and Lee occupied. Trudi sat between them. Not an unattractive woman. About five foot six inches tall, blonde shoulder length hair, average build.
I turned up the speaker and listened.
She couldn’t very well deny knowing Danni Lane or working with her. What we needed to know was how much she knew and in what context she was working with her. Friends. Quite possibly but it was more than that. Her face looked familiar. Where had I seen her? My head ached and refused to place her in context. How could I have seen her before this case? I closed my eyes and listened to her talking. Accent. Predominately a New Zealand accent but there was a hint of something familiar. A hint of Pennsylvania?
With a flourish, someone interrupted the interview. A tall man dumped his briefcase on the table and announced his client had nothing to say.
He too seemed familiar but in a more general slimeball way. I tried picturing the lawyer in other settings. None fitted.
Sam joined me.
“She’s more than just a friend of Danni’s. I think she was hired by someone to travel with her. We’re dumping the contents of her cell phone. Hope we get some recurrent numbers and a lead or two.”
“I hope you do too. You see him before?” I pointed at the lawyer.
He nodded. “Can’t
place him though. He’s forgettable.”
Simon and Garfunkel peeked around the corner of my mind, bathed in Kodak color, and led immediately into Mrs. Robinson. I smiled.
“What?” Sam asked.
“Senator Robinson, New Jersey. That’s where I’ve seen him – with Robinson.”
“Now that’s unsettling. You spend much time with senators?”
“Not so much.” I’d never met Robinson but I knew him to look at and I’d seen him with the lawyer in a coffee shop a few weeks back.
“Wanna tell me how you pulled Robinson out of thin air just now?”
“Simon and Garfunkel,” I replied casually. And a little something Chance told me. “Also, he got an exploding card too, like me and Misha. Caine told me.”
“That’s interesting.”
“That’s what Kurt and I thought too.”
We moved onto to interview room number two. I slipped into the second interview viewing room. Susan was about five foot five, blonde, pretty. No lawyer in sight.
Lee chatted with the woman. I listened to her accent. Again, I heard a hint of something else under the distinct kiwi twang. Moments later a sharp-faced, almost rat-featured woman barged into the room. “My client has nothing to say.”
“Know her?” I asked Sam.
“Yeah, her I know. She used to be a prosecutor.”
“And now?”
“Defender of scumbags, private practice.”
“Find out if she’s on Robinson’s payroll.”
“Will do.”
I called Lee’s cell phone. “Let’s leave the lawyer to it.”
He looked over the top of the lawyer and pulled a face in the mirror.
We all met outside the interview room.
“They got lawyers at three in the morning. How?” I asked.
“Good question,” Lee replied. “We had them put in the rooms hours ago. No phones.”
“Well, someone made a call for them when we turned up.” And we needed to know who and then why. “Who’s in the building?”
“Search?”
“Yes. Now.”
We divided up the building. Sam and Lee worked together. Kurt and I had Mitch with us. At three in the morning, I’d expect the place to be quiet. I headed for the front desk and the agent who sat there watching monitors and the door. I recognized him.
