Off Guard: A clean action adventure book

by Glen Robins

  Megan announced the assorted bagel flavors as Richard passed out the piping hot cups to the others in the room. Once everyone had their coffee and bagel in hand, Henry launched into a story about the odd woman down the hall from Emily’s condo and her peculiar puppy. He described the woman’s mismatching outfit, her droopy stockings, her misaligned wig, and the unused cane which hung over her arm. He’d bumped into her in the elevator as she was heading out to walk the dog. Despite the warm weather, the tiny Chihuahua was dressed in a thick sweater and woolen booties. Henry roared with laughter as he described the sight, but added that she was a very affable and talkative lady and he had enjoyed their conversation.

  “That’s Mrs. Greenbauch,” said Emily. “She is the kindest, sweetest lady, even though she may have lost her fashion sense years ago.”

  When the laughter subsided, Emily looked around and asked, “Has anyone seen or heard from Rob this morning? I thought he was the one bringing coffee.”

  Richard looked at Megan. Megan looked at Henry. Henry looked at Richard. Each in turn shrugged and shook their head. “Should we call him?” inquired Henry.

  “I already tried,” said Emily. “It went to voicemail. He usually shows up earlier than this.”

  “Maybe he slept in,” said Megan.

  “I doubt it,” added Richard. “Knowing him, he’s working a deal.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be here as soon as he can,” said Henry reassuringly.

  The conversation switched to hospital food, dreams, and some of Henry’s favorite old stories to keep everyone laughing. Time passed quickly and before Emily knew it, it was nine thirty. Dr. Rogers entered the room and asked Emily if she would come with him. He needed her input, he said.

  He was a kindly man in his midfifties with creases around his mouth and eyes from a smile that sprang naturally across his face as he spoke. With only a few words, he had already managed to put Emily at ease. She slipped out of her hospital bed and followed Dr. Rogers into the hallway, excusing herself as she passed between the members of the Cook family.

  Dr. Rogers led her down the corridor to the elevator, making small talk as they walked. One floor up, they exited the elevator and turned left. His office was in a corner of the building and offered a generous view of the hills in the distance. In the foreground, traffic rumbled north and south on Interstate 5. To the south, ornamental trees adorned the courtyard of the Scripps complex.

  The office of Dr. Gerald Rogers was neither overstated nor lacking. Dr. Rogers pointed to the right where a comfy-looking leather recliner, a thick brown lounge chair, and a coffee table sat arranged in a U-shape.

  Emily sat, as directed, in the overstuffed reclining chair and sank into its luxury. As he sat and adjusted his papers, Dr. Rogers continued their conversation in an easy dialogue that transitioned undetectably from how did she sleep to how is she feeling right now to how has her experience colored her outlook on life. He was smooth, like a skilled craftsman effortlessly turning a piece of wood into a work of art. Emily, however, balked at the question. Instead of answering, she looked at the row of handsome frames hanging on the opposite wall and asked, “So where did you do your graduate work?”

  Rogers smiled and nodded his head slowly. “USC.” He studied her for a moment, accepting the fact that her emotional wounds were still too painful to be poked. “I did my undergrad here at UC San Diego. Guess you could say I’m a true Southern Californian. Never wanted to leave.”

  “Not even for college?”

  “Yes and no. Had I been accepted somewhere back East, like Johns Hopkins, for example, or Harvard, I may have considered leaving the state—for a short time, at least.” He must have known her background already.

  “You have a beautiful view,” she added, turning her focus to the large plate-glass windows to her right. Emily’s office building stood a few hundred yards away. Between the buildings, a smattering of leafy green trees reached toward the speckled blue sky. A walking path meandered through the landscape, bisecting a pair of neatly mowed lawns lined with manicured shrubs.

  Another smile spread across Dr. Rogers’ face as he removed his reading glasses and set his notepad and pen on the glass coffee table. “Out that window, yeah. Over there,” he said, pointing behind her at the view over Interstate 5 and the hills beyond, “I have the constant reminder that traffic on the freeway will always affect my ride home and that I have the choice of how I’m going to react to it, like all the other things in life that are beyond my control.”

  “I like how you worked in that little teaching point, Doctor,” Emily said, showing the first grin since arriving at his office.

  “Well, I figured that’s one of the things you’re dealing with: how to determine your feelings and reactions to something you had no control over. Am I right?”

  Emily blinked quickly a few times and opened her mouth as if to respond, then clamped it shut and slowly shook her head. “I’m just not ready to rehash things yet. I know I’ve got to come to terms with what happened to me, and I know I will with time, but right now . . .”

  “I understand, Dr. Burns. I really do. For some patients in some situations, words are woefully inadequate to frame their experience, especially traumatic experiences like yours.” He appraised her and nodded. “An intelligent woman like you may struggle to find a reference point for her pain and it may feel like the walls of your reality have just been removed and you’re standing, completely exposed, in the shell of a building that is supposed to be your shelter, your safe place. With time, your mind will rebuild those walls. They may be realigned. They may look and feel completely different, but our psyche requires us to construct shelters, and you will, like you said, over time. I have no doubt about that. My advice at this point is, don’t put those walls too close together and don’t make them too high or too thick.” He surveyed her reaction, and, seeing her forehead wrinkle, continued. “In other words, allow space for other people and don’t allow yourself to be so guarded that you shut the world out completely.”

  Emily remained silent, simply returning his gaze.

  “Well, why don’t we have another chat tomorrow morning? Same time?”

  Emily nodded her acceptance.

  Dr. Rogers stood. Emily followed suit and he showed her to the door. “Shall I walk you back to your room, Dr. Burns?”

  “No, thank you. I’ll be fine. I appreciate your time, Dr. Rogers.” She held out a hand and he clasped it in both of his, nodding with a reassuring smile.

  When she returned to her hospital room with the Cook family, it was 9:50 a.m. and the Cooks were embroiled in more story sharing and laughter. They had found chairs and had encircled Sarah’s bed. When Emily walked in, Henry stood, as was his custom, smiled, and welcomed her back. He apologized that she had missed out on a few real humdinger family tales.

  Emily returned the smile. “No apologies necessary. I’m glad to see you all here, enjoying your time together. Any word from Rob yet?”

  Apprehension replaced mirth. Concern sprang up instead of new stories. Each face grew tense as they exchanged nervous glances and shrugs.

  “Let’s try his number again,” suggested Henry, searching for his phone.

  “I’ve got it right here,” Emily said. Her phone was already to her ear, but she quickly switched to speaker phone and held it out for all to hear. No ring, just Rob’s cheerful, confident voice explaining that he was busy helping other clients and that he would get back to the caller as soon as possible.

  Emily felt an unexplainable sense of desperation. For reasons she couldn’t quite pinpoint, it really bothered her that Rob wasn’t there. Her expression showed her disappointment and she fought to keep her thoughts from spinning out of control as she ended the call. “Where could he be?”

  Chapter Seven

  London, England

  June 17, 5:28 p.m. Local Time; 9:28 a.m. Pacific Time

  For the first time since he started working the Collin Cook case, Nic Lancaster was preparing to leav
e work at a normal time and join his friends at the pub like a normal person. The fire inside that Crabtree and McCoy had reignited earlier in the day had cooled off, thanks to a stunning lack of progress obtaining any viable new leads on the whereabouts of one Collin Cook, American escape artist. Because there was nothing urgent happening with the Cook case at the moment, there was nothing preventing him from being a normal person for one night.

  Even his boss, Alastair Montgomery, had encouraged him to go home and take his mind off it for a while. “I’m sure a bit of rejuvenation is in order,” Alastair had said at the end of their routine late-afternoon meeting.

  Not only had he been working eighteen-hour days since late April trying to locate and apprehend Collin Cook, hoping it would give him the information he needed to arrest Pho Nam Penh for his many crimes against Britain, but Nic also hadn’t had a vacation in almost two years. After all the setbacks he had experienced during this case, Nic knew his temper and disposition had inflicted damage to nearly every one of his relationships. He’d already lost a girlfriend in the pursuit of his ambitions. It appeared that his friendships were also in jeopardy. Today that would change. Tonight, he would enjoy a pint or two with the lads and engage in conversation about something besides detective work and fighting terrorism.

  A night at the pub with Manchester United playing on every television set in the place and the accompanying crazed atmosphere seemed the perfect antidote for his self-inflicted alienation. Football, beer, and a chance to forget the stress for a while. A perfect, well-deserved evening was taking shape.

  After logging off, Nic spun out of his chair and grabbed his coat off the hook near the opening of his cubicle, a smile on his face and a bounce in his step. He wasn’t more than six paces down the corridor when his cell phone began to play “God Save the Queen”—his standard ringtone for work mates. Pushing away the instinct to ignore it and go on his jolly way, Nic answered it on the fifth ring.

  “Lancaster, you’re going to want to see this,” said Peter, the dungeon-dwelling techie with the earrings and dyed black hair that poked up at odd angles.

  “You messing with me, Pete? Right now? I’m heading out to watch the Man U match at the pub with some mates.”

  “Messing with you? Why would I do that? You promised me a promotion when I help you find this guy, remember?” said Peter in mock protest.

  Nic exhaled through his nose. “What’ve you got? It better be good.”

  “Wait, did you say you were going to the pub? I don’t believe I’ve ever heard those words pass from your lips,” said Peter, exaggerating his shock.

  “Shut up, you bloody tosser.”

  “This shouldn’t take too long, but I do think it rather important to your case. Get down here and check it out for yourself.”

  “Right. Why did I ever think I could get away for an evening with my mates?”

  Nic took a right at the bottom of the steps instead of a left. Had he gone left, he would have been at the front doors, then the sidewalk, just a few paces from the entrance to the tube. The tube would have taken him to the pub and a nice evening out. Taking the right turn instead led him to another set of stairs that ended in the basement where Interpol’s IT department was temporarily housed while their floor underwent major renovations. His pause marked his dilemma.

  Career ambitions, as well as curiosity, won and Nic soon found himself huddled over a computer monitor while Peter explained the technological wizardry that provided the breakthrough video clip Nic was about to watch. “Did I mention I’m heading to the pub to watch the match?”

  “Yes, you did, but didn’t I just mention that I have something that will rescue your fledgling aspirations for greatness from the dustbin?” Peter was as sharp and quick as anyone Nic had met.

  “Go on, then. Let’s have it.”

  “Right. The systems we have set up and that the little code I developed to monitor all the video feeds we receive is very good, I must say, at spotting anomalies. Case in point: center screen.”

  Nic was looking at a split screen with nine different surveillance feeds. Along the bottom of the screen a tagline read in small white block letters: “Belize Municipal Airport – Jun 17, 15:46 GMT.” The center of the screen showed nothing but dark gray while the top row showed the tiny maintenance building, the refueling area, and the main office. The bottom row displayed from left to right: takeoffs from the right runway, approaches from the left runway, and takeoffs from the left runway. Only one box in the middle row had a video feed and that was the far right one showing approaches on the right runway.

  Nic shook his head. “These two cameras in the center screen show nothing. Is that the anomaly?”

  “Indeed, Lancaster. You’re a clever one.” Peter tapped a key and everything began moving in reverse. People in the miniature frames walked backward. Planes taxied away from their positions in reverse, while others landed tail first and rolled to a stop at the end of the runway. These were planes that had taken off, played backward. More significantly, the first two boxes in the center showed landings and takeoffs rolling in reverse.

  Nic pointed at the screen. “So these cameras go dark at, what, 3:45 p.m. GMT. What time is that locally?”

  “8:45 a.m.,” said Peter.

  “Right. It looks like there’s a plane on approach, then the screen goes dark. I get it. That’s the anomaly. But do we know why?”

  “That, Mr. Detective, is your job, is it not? I’m just an IT guy using technology to aid in the work of detecting and prosecuting criminal activity. Just thought this little oddity might be of interest to you.”

  “Yeah, it could have been useful, say, two hours ago when there was a chance I could have done something about it.”

  “You do see the tie-in, then?”

  “Of course. Anything happening out of the ordinary in and around Central America is of interest to me right now. He’s out there, somewhere in that general area, I know he is. But I can’t do much with this information right now, can I?”

  “Can’t you? Sounds like you might be giving up in the name of a football match.”

  “Bollocks. This is just my sort of luck now, isn’t it?” Nic closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Thanks, Peter. You’ve come through again. I won’t forget it.”

  Peter smiled as Nic gathered his things and stormed out of the basement, taking the stairs two at a time.

  ****

  In the air above northern Guatemala

  June 17, 10:43 a.m. Local Time/ 9:43 a.m. Pacific Time

  Sharp hunger pains and a throat so dry he couldn’t swallow woke Collin from his uneasy nap. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “It’s hotter than hell in here,” he said to the pilot, who, himself, seemed to be stirred out of a nap by Collin’s words. Collin opened the lid to his half-full water bottle and drank every last drop. “Plus, I’m starving. Aren’t you?”

  “I could eat, that’s for sure,” said the pilot.

  “Why is it so hot all of a sudden? It wasn’t this hot earlier,” said Collin, wiping sweat from his brow and upper lip.

  “Sorry about that. My air conditioner has been on the blink for the past week. I worked on it the other day and thought I had it fixed. It’s been working most of the trip. Gave out about fifteen minutes ago,” he said as he looked over at Collin. “What are you looking for?”

  “I’ve got to eat something besides this crap,” said Collin, holding up an almost empty bag of chips he’d purchased in the hangar in Belize. He was searching the floorboards by his feet, under and behind his seat. “Breakfast was what, almost six hours ago? This isn’t going to cut it. Chips and soda only go so far.”

  “Tell me about it,” agreed the pilot.

  “Haven’t we got any other food in this plane?”

  “The flight attendant will be bringing the service cart soon, don’t worry.”

  “Very funny. I mean, don’t you have a stash of something real in the back?”

  “Like steak and lobster?”r />
  “I could go for that if you got it. This is about all they had in that vending machine,” Collin said, pointing at the chips and Diet Coke and the empty Snickers wrapper on the floor.

  “I know. Between us, we about emptied it out, didn’t we?” said the pilot, revealing his small pile of junk food. “I didn’t have time to pack much, thanks to all the urgency around your particular operation. But I think there should be some pretzels and Oreos stashed in that storage compartment behind the back seat if you want to look around.” The pilot gestured toward the back with his thumb. “Other than that, the only food is a box of MREs.”

  “MREs? The ready-to-eat meals they give the military? I’ve only heard the rumors; never had to eat one.”

  “Count your blessings. It’s food in the sense that it will fill the void, but it has a tendency to not want to leave, know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, let’s try to avoid the necessity of ingesting any emergency food, shall we? How much longer until we land? And will there be some food there?”

  “About an hour, I’d say. I haven’t been to this airstrip in a couple of years, but I remember the guys took me into the little town a mile or two away and we ate at a place with some killer tamales—authentic Mexican style.”

  “I could go for that,” said Collin. “I might even be able to last the whole hour with that in mind. But maybe I’ll break out the pretzels as an appetizer, you know what I mean? Is there more water, too?”

  “Just what you can see. I couldn’t take it from the hut. Those guys were running low thanks to us and I won’t be back there on my normal supply run for another week.”

  “That could be a problem in this heat. I’m already dying of thirst,” said Collin, who had climbed into the back seat of the plane and was rummaging through the cargo area. “You’re right. No more water. Half a liter of water for each in one-hundred-degree heat is not enough. We’re going to be in trouble.”

  ****