by Rachel Grant
The world went black.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
BLOOD SEEPED BETWEEN ERICA’S fingers as she tried to staunch the spurting wound in Lee’s arm. Paramedics arrived seconds later and pushed her out of the way. She stood nearby, frantic with worry.
“His brachial artery’s been nicked,” one said, applying pressure to the wound.
She felt lightheaded. She was going to be sick. “Is he going to be okay?”
The bleeding stopped, and the medic wrapped Lee’s arm in gauze. “He’ll be fine. We’ll get him on an IV to get his fluids up. He’ll probably wake then. We’ll take him to the hospital for monitoring.”
They took pity on her and let her ride along in the ambulance. Some part of her registered the sea of reporters who followed their progress from the building to the ambulance, but the rest of her was focused on Lee’s pale face.
He woke before they turned off Seventh Avenue. He saw the bandage on his upper arm and tried to sit up. “Was I shot?”
“A shard of glass cut your brachial artery,” the paramedic said.
“I passed out because of a shard of glass?” He lay back down and closed his eyes. “That isn’t the least bit manly. JT will never let me live it down.”
The paramedic chuckled, and even Erica found a small laugh inside her.
He opened his eyes and squeezed her hand, then brought her fingers to his lips. “You have the most beautiful smile. I want to see it more.”
She burst into tears.
“Hey, Shortcake, I told you to smile. You have to do what I say; I’m the injured one.”
“Because of me. My stupid plan to trap the senator could have killed you,” she said.
“It could have killed you. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Everything you’ve done has been for Joe.”
“I was wrong about him.” His voice dropped as he squeezed her hand again.
She kissed him, telling him without words she’d be there for him as he dealt with Joe’s betrayal. This wound, she knew, would take a very long time to heal.
The ambulance arrived at the hospital. Erica was told to wait while Lee was examined. An hour later, they finally let her inside the treatment room.
He lay on the bed, shirtless. She took in his sculpted biceps, his handsome face, his crooked, sexy smile, and for the first time since he’d passed out, she was able to take a deep breath.
“Come here,” he said.
As soon as she was within reach, he grabbed her with his unbandaged arm and pulled her onto the mattress alongside him.
She squealed. “I don’t want to hurt you!”
“It’s just a nick. I’m fine. They’re going to release me soon.” He snuggled her against his side. “I need to hold you.”
She settled her cheek against his chest, listening to his strong heartbeat. “I’ve been watching the news in the waiting room. The FBI arrested Drake.”
“Good.”
“And you bled all over the new sofa.”
“Damned inconsiderate of me.” She felt his chuckle against her cheek. He played with her hair, his nails grazing her scalp.
She let out an exaggerated purr, and he laughed aloud.
“I wish we’d met at a different time,” he said, turning serious. “Different place. I’d have treated you so much better than I did as your lying, manipulative intern.”
She traced circles on his chest. “I’m not complaining. You saved my life. Twice.”
He flashed a cocky grin. “Well, you have a nice ass. It’s a shame to see you fall on it.”
She nipped his smooth skin with a chuckle, then settled back on his chest. “Lee, tell me something about yourself.”
“What?”
“Anything. I know almost nothing about you.”
“I guess we’ve never been properly introduced.” He stroked her hair. “My name is Lee Scott. I’m thirty-two, I’m a computer and cell phone security consultant, and I love you. Those are the most important points.”
She smiled. “I’m Erica Kesling. I’m twenty-nine. I used to be an underwater archaeologist before I destroyed my reputation working for a treasure hunter who turned out to be a drug smuggler. I’m deeply in debt, have a bad credit rating, and just destroyed the man who owns the company I work for. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with my life, but whatever it is, I hope I’m with you, because I love you.”
“That’s all that matters,” he said. “For now.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
SEVERAL REAL EVENTS INSPIRED parts of this book. Some may be familiar to readers, some probably aren’t. Many readers will likely remember the looting of the National Museum of Iraq in 2003 but may not recall the twelve billion US dollars that went missing in Iraq in 2004. In 2007, the US Department of Defense created a deck of cards to educate troops about protecting cultural resources in the Middle East. For links to articles about these cards, please visit my website at Rachel-Grant.net.
I drew upon a sad chapter in our nation’s history in placing Joseph Talon in an Indian boarding school. Starting in the 1870s, the US government really did force Native American children to attend off-reservation Indian boarding schools with the purpose of erasing the cultural identity from the students.
Something that may be familiar but which did not inspire this story are the questions raised about President Barack Obama’s birth certificate by the Birther Movement. The first draft of this story was finished in 2007—before the first ballots were cast in the 2008 campaign and before (to the best of my knowledge) the media began repeating the questions. I was never quite sure how to handle that development and need to thank my clever editor for suggesting a way to address the Birther controversy in this story.
Last but most important on the list of real inspirations for Concrete Evidence: Thermo-Con is real. In 1998 the engineering firm I worked for was contracted by US Army Garrison Fort Belvoir to write an environmental assessment of a house made out of a strange, yeasty concrete. They didn’t know who had built the house on the post or why, and wanted a detailed history as part of the EA. As in the story, I went to the National Archives and found a journal entry that gave me the date the house was built and the name Higgins. Three days later, after rereading a 1949 article in the army post’s newspaper, Belvoir Castle, I was inspired to try to track down the patent.
For story-line reasons, I changed both the year Thermo-Con was developed and the location of the house. But the information about Thermo-Con’s relationship to Andrew Jackson Higgins is accurate, and the newspaper article Erica reads is nearly a word-for-word duplication of the Belvoir Castle article (Vol. VIII, No. 43, Friday, April 22, 1949). The bones in the basement, of course, are pure fabrication.
When I researched Thermo-Con in 1998, information for older patents could only be found in card-catalog file drawers located in an old storage room. The patent office has moved now, and much of the information has been scanned into an online database, but I took fictional license and kept the old patent office and research methods, preferring the way it really happened to how it could happen now.
Lastly, as in the story, the day before the Thermo-Con EA was due, I ran a simple Internet people search on the inventors listed on the patent card and ended up on the phone with Andrew Jackson Higgins’s great-grandson. He gave me his father’s number, who in turn put me in contact with the wife of the man who ran the Thermo-Con development team. The Higgins family members’ names were purposely left out of this story, and I wish to thank them for their help and enthusiasm back in 1998 and hope they appreciate this fictionalized account.
THANK YOU FOR READING Concrete Evidence. I hope you enjoyed it!
If you’d like to know when my next book is available, you can sign up for my new release e-mail list at www.Rachel-Grant.net. You can also follow me on Twitter at @RachelSGrant or like my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/RachelGrantAuthor. I’m also on Goodreads at www.goodreads.com/RachelGrantAuthor, where you can see what I’m currently r
eading and post reviews.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’D LIKE TO THANK WRITER, ENGINEER, and fellow Pixie Chick Sarah Castleberry for brainstorming cranes with me. In appreciation, I named the crane after her. Thank you to Amanda Burgess Murphy and her brother James Eric Burgess, retired US Navy, for responding to my request for information on aircraft carrier garbage-dumping protocol. Thanks also to Kathryn Rand, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of North Dakota School of Law for providing information on tribal gaming as it relates to election laws.
As a debut author, I have so many writers to thank, not just for their help with this work, but for their ongoing encouragement over the years. Thank you to the Pixie Chicks, who have provided amusement, encouragement, and support since we all met in 2008. Thank you also to my Golden Heart sisters from 2011—the Starcatchers (AKA Fire Breathing Unicorns) and 2012—the Firebirds.
Thank you, Jill Barnett, for your infinite patience, wisdom, and mentoring. Thanks to all the authors who have critiqued this manuscript in one form or another: Kris Kennedy, Darcy Burke, Natasha Tate, Elizabeth Heiter, Courtney Milan, Amanda Brice, Rebecca Clark, Kristina McMorris, Cathy Perkins, Amy Atwell, Adrianne Lee, Carey Baldwin, Manda Collins, Sarah Andre, and Krista Hall.
A special shout out to the Northwest Pixie Chicks and honorary Pixie Elisabeth Naughton. Thanks for the critiques, the plotting sessions, and companionship. I adore you all!
Thank you also to my blogging sisters, the wonderful women at KissandThrill.com, who have supported me in this mad publishing experience.
Thank you to my fabulous agent, Elizabeth Winick Rubinstein, for your support and enthusiasm.
I also owe a special thanks to Janet Friedman, who was my boss when I worked on the Thermo-Con project in 1998. Janet died of leukemia in January 2002, and I miss her terribly.
Naomi Raine, my cover artist and web designer, thank you for your artistic eye, attention to detail, endless patience, and for being a wonderful friend and sister. I’m so lucky to have you in my life.
And lastly, a huge thank-you to underwater archaeologist David Grant, who provided valuable information on many aspects of the story line. Thanks, Dave, for getting me a deck of the coolest Department of Defense playing cards ever, for brainstorming story ideas with me, for taking our kids on adventures so I could write, and for your endless encouragement and support. I love you.
BODY OF EVIDENCE
Read on for a sneak peek at
ONE
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)
October
“RISE, MARA GARRETT.”
Mara understood only a handful of Korean words, but she’d learned that phrase early in this farce of a trial and was on her feet before the interpreter finished speaking. Tremors radiated from her belly. This is just a formality. I’m one step closer to getting home. Her token lawyer had warned her she would probably be sentenced to ten years’ hard labor; then the real negotiation for her release would begin. With her conviction and harsh sentence, North Korea would be in a stronger bargaining position.
Of course, North Korea, the most secretive and unpredictable regime on earth, wasn’t known for negotiating. They would make demands, and the US would either meet them or not.
She’d traveled the world for her job with the Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command, conducting excavations to retrieve the remains of American servicemen who’d died in wars fought by the United States in the last century. Her work for JPAC was hazardous. She’d faced down poisonous insects, dug up unexploded ordnance, and suffered third-world diseases. But never, not even in her wildest imagination, did she think her work could lead to being arrested in North Korea.
But that was what happened when she ended up alone on the edge of the Demilitarized Zone.
She looked to her lawyer for some sort of reassurance and caught the glint of a camera lens. Cameras hadn’t been permitted in the courtroom during the trial; the presence of one now filled Mara with a foreboding chill. It seemed the North Koreans expected a dramatic, newsworthy reaction.
She stood straight with her head high so the camera wouldn’t see her clenched hands behind the table. She refused to give them the spectacle they wanted.
The judge spoke. She forgot to breathe while waiting for the translator. Finally, the man said, “Mara Garrett, you have been convicted of spying. The penalty is death by firing squad. The sentence will be carried out in twenty-four hours.”
The room tilted. A shriek built in her throat, while her bones turned to jelly. Sheer will kept her face blank while she battled dizziness. She’d been alone when she was arrested but had spent the last two months worrying her coworkers had been detained as well. For their sake, she needed to take the blame. If they were being tried in another courtroom, her admission of guilt could prevent them from receiving the same sentence. She pressed her nails into her skin and fixed her gaze on the lens. “This is my fault. My JPAC team is blameless.”
The judge spoke again, yelling now, and the translator matched his tone. “You are guilty and have been sentenced!”
“It was a mistake,” she said, desperation building in her voice. “I was separated from my team by accident.” But that wasn’t true, and she feared they saw through the lie.
Panic threatened as a guard grabbed her arm and tugged her toward the door. He wasn’t taking her to the firing squad. He couldn’t be. Hadn’t they given her twenty-four hours?
They’d almost reached the exit when the door swung open and slammed against the wall. The guard jerked to a stop. Framed in the opening was a portly, highly decorated military man.
A rapid-fire exchange between the judge and the newcomer ensued. Mara twisted in the guard’s grip and watched in horror as the judge angrily ejected the cameraman from the room.
Panic morphed into bone-melting fear. What the hell was happening?
The military official waved a magazine in the air. In a haze, she recognized the Asian edition of TIME magazine from the bold font and familiar red border.
At last the man looked away from the judge and addressed her, causing the translator to jump to his feet and race to her side to voice his words. “Our leader, in his infinite wisdom, has decided to grant you amnesty on one condition.”
Hope flared but was soon tempered with the fear that this interruption was a stress-induced fantasy, like the ones Mara had suffered years ago after her father’s death. Each time the fantasy faded, hope went with it, and she was slapped with grief as fresh and intense as the day he’d died.
Hope would break her, making it her captors’ ally. She knew that better than anyone.
“Our beloved Dear Leader once got your President Clinton to come groveling.”
No. Not again. This wasn’t a pathetic fantasy. It was an all too real nightmare. Cold sweat dripped from her brow. The idea of a rescue mission headed by a former president terrified her. She wasn’t a reporter dipping her toes in the Tumen River. She was the niece of a former vice president of the United States, and as such could be seen as a valuable bargaining chip.
The North Koreans knew exactly who she was. Because of her family connections, it was especially important she downplay her significance. A presidential envoy would open the door to other outrageous demands, and she was horrified by the thought that the unpredictable dictator could gain the upper hand with the US because of her.
Her situation wasn’t helped by the fact that her uncle was facing trial on ridiculous corruption charges. She could only assume her arrest had added to the ongoing media frenzy in the United States, further convincing her captors of her importance. She’d repeatedly begged her interrogators to tap a low-level politician as envoy, but each time her pleas were met with disdain.
“Our leader wants to meet the man on the cover.” The translator pointed to the magazine. “If he comes to P’yŏngyang before your execution, we will allow him to take you home.”
The man stood too far away; she couldn’t see the face on the
cover. She had no idea who had been selected. But even more important, was twenty-four hours enough time for an envoy to fly to North Korea?
The official waved the magazine as if it offered hope, but there was no such thing as hope. She was going to die.
* * *
METAL CLANGED AGAINST METAL as Mara’s cell door crashed open. She pushed to her feet with shaking arms. Her twenty-four hours must be up. She looked from one guard’s face to another. “Did the envoy arrive? Am I being released?”
The two men looked at her blankly and said nothing. None of her guards ever spoke English. Too bad she hadn’t learned the Korean words for execution or firing squad. On my next trip to North Korea, I’ll be more prepared.
Or at least bring a better linguist.
The guard held up a blindfold and handcuffs and gestured for her to step forward, answering her in the universal language of executions. Her vision dimmed in the already dark cell, and she rocked back on her heels. With a hand on the cold concrete wall to steady herself, she closed her eyes. She took a slow, shallow breath. In a matter of minutes, this nightmare would be over.
She should welcome the restraints. She didn’t want to see the guns or look into the eyes of the men who had been ordered to kill her. She didn’t want to instinctively raise her hands, as if she could ward off bullets. Handcuffed and blindfolded, at least she could die with dignity.
Ironic that after years of devoting her life to bringing lost US servicemen and women home, it was unlikely her body would return to American soil. As a convicted spy, she would receive no such gesture of respect.
The guard wrapped the cloth around her head. His vacant eyes and hollow cheekbones would be the last thing she’d ever see. She recalled the unseen face on the cover of TIME. But he represented hope, and hope was a treacherous bitch.
A guard pushed her toward the door, and she left her cell for the last time.
