by Steven James
“It kinda looks like a rainbow threw up on you,” Tessa said.
“Great,” he mumbled, deflated. “Now I’ll think of vomit every time I wear this shirt. Thanks for that.”
“You’re welcome.”
I decided to intervene. “Maybe you can help Ralph pick out a suit,” I said. “For the funeral this afternoon.”
Tessa looked at his shirt again. “Well, it’s evident he could use some fashion advice.”
“You just don’t appreciate good taste,” Ralph muttered.
Then they left and Lien-hua slept and I let my thoughts meander back to the case.
Terry had been one of my best friends over the last three years. He was one of the few people I really trusted, one of the few people who knew just how much Richard Basque bothered me, haunted me. In fact, Terry knew me better than almost anyone. But now I realized I’d never known him. Not really.
I heard Lien-hua stir. “Pat.” It was a relief to hear her speak.
“Shh,” I said. “The docs tell me you’re supposed to rest.”
“Some water.” Her voice was course but resolute. “Please.”
I brought a glass to her lips, and after a small swallow, she reached for my hand. As she took it, she spoke again, her words intense and urgent, but also tender, “Thank you for last night. For all you did.”
She was amazingly coherent for having just woken up. Maybe she’d been awake for a while but I hadn’t noticed. “You’re welcome,” I said.
A faint grin. “I always wanted two broken ribs.”
Well, at least her wit was on its way to recovery. “Don’t mention it.”
She took a thin breath. “Really, I wish I could find a way . . .” She swallowed some air. “To thank you. I don’t know what to say.”
“Maybe we can find a way that doesn’t require words,” I said. And I wasn’t necessarily thinking of sign language.
That brought a smile. “I’m serious.”
“So am I. Anytime you need someone to give you mouth-to-mouth again, just let me know.”
Another smile, beautiful in its gentleness. “OK, I’ll do that.” She paused. “Margaret stopped by earlier.”
“Margaret Wellington? I don’t believe it.”
“She brought me a card—”
“Incredible.”
“And then told me I’m still suspended.”
“What! No. I’m not going to let this happen.” I went for my cell phone but Lien-hua stopped me with a squeeze of her hand and a shake of her head. “Leave it for now. It’s OK. It’ll give me a chance to visit Redmond.”
Lien-hua had been born in Redmond, Washington. I wondered if that’s where her sister was buried. “Chu-hua?”
She nodded. “I think I’m finally ready. I need to set a new flower arrangement on her grave. One that catches a little more light.”
Then she asked for another sip of water, and after I’d given it to her, I realized there was one more thing I needed to say, but I wasn’t quite sure how to do it. Finally, I decided to just be straight with her and get it out in the open. “Listen, I need to tell you something. For a short time I thought you might be Shade.” I held her hand lightly. “I’m sorry.”
I wondered if she would be upset or disappointed with me, and when she was slow to respond, I realized she probably was, but at last she whispered, “Don’t be sorry. You were only looking for the truth.”
“I know, but—”
“It’s OK. It’s who you are. It’s what you do.”
Hey, wait a minute. “Do you know, that’s almost exactly the same thing Tessa told me the other night? Have you two been sharing notes?”
She smiled slyly. “Maybe we just think alike.”
“That’s a scary thought.” I liked that she was still holding my hand. “So, still friends?”
She signed “yes” to me with the hand that held mine. And I signed back “thank you.”
“OK,” I said. “Now, you need to rest.”
“Wait. One more thing. In the room . . . the hotel room . . . when I taught you the alphabet, you remembered the letters, didn’t you? The first time through?”
“Yes.”
“But you stopped at Q, then M. Why?”
“Honestly?” I asked.
“Honestly.”
“I wanted the lesson to last as long as possible.”
“Hmm,” she said softly as she closed her eyes and relaxed back into her pillow. “Ulterior motives.”
“Guilty as charged.”
I held her hand and watched her drift back to sleep and wished I could do the same. Rest. Sleep. Relax. But as tired as I was, as much as the gunshot wound on my leg was bothering me, something else was at the forefront of my mind. Terry’s words: “I was just sent in to confirm it was there.”
Who sent you to the evidence room, Terry?
If only he weren’t in a coma I could’ve asked him.
But he was in a coma. And according to the doctors, he wouldn’t be coming out of it any time soon.
A few minutes after Lien-hua fell asleep Ralph and Tessa arrived. Tessa went in to sit with Lien-hua, and I tottered into the hallway to talk with Ralph about the case.
After we were alone I asked him about the Project Rukh researchers. “Are they all OK?”
“Yeah, I just talked to Margaret. They’re all safe. Being debriefed as we speak. Except this one guy, Kurvetek. Osbourne mentioned him. We haven’t been able to track him down yet.”
I let that sink in.
“And, by the way, Margaret told me why it’s called Project Rukh.”
I didn’t even want to think about Margaret, but I was curious about the name so I took the bait. “Why is that?”
“Turns out rukh is a Persian word. Back when chess was invented, it was the name of the piece we call a rook. It used to mean either ‘war chariot’ or ‘hero,’ and later, when chess made it to Europe, the piece morphed to look like a siege tower. The idea was the same, though—by using your rukh, you could slip past your enemy’s defenses and then take him out before he even knew what hit him.”
“And that’s exactly what the device does.”
“Right.”
“Slipping past their defenses, taking them out unaware,” I said. “Maybe they should have called it a Ralph.”
“Kind of you to say so.” He drained the last few drops of his extra-large breakfast Mountain Dew. “Oh yeah. I almost forgot. Graysmith and Dunn are looking into another homicide—General Cole Biscayne was shot in the head last night. No leads yet, last I heard. One bit of good news though. That girl, Randi, she was just hiding out at a friend’s place, afraid of the ‘terrorists.’ She’s all right.”
“Good. What about the device?”
“You’re a good shot, Pat. It’s destroyed. And, although most of the files are gone, Margaret is going over the ones Drake didn’t have a chance to shred.”
“I’m sure she is. And Cassandra?”
“She’s fine. Spent last night and this morning in a safe house. I guess she’s gonna take some time off work to recover. Last I heard, they were dropping her off at the aquarium so she could say goodbye to her friends and some guy named Warren Leant.”
I began to press out the last few wrinkles of the case. And I didn’t like where they pointed. “She’s at the aquarium? With Leant?”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
“Ralph, have those agents stay with her.”
“Why? Melice is dead, Terry’s in a coma—”
“No. Trust me. Don’t let them leave her alone with him.”
“Why not?”
“A blind spot. Let’s go.”
He put the call through to the agents, I ducked into Lien-hua’s room and told Tessa I’d be back in an hour or so, and then Ralph and I headed for the car.
107
Warren Leant met us at the door of the Sherrod Aquarium, and I politely requested that he lead us to the animal husbandry area.
“Is everything all right?�
�
“We’ll see,” I said.
A few moments later we entered the husbandry area, and he asked if we wouldn’t mind to please hurry. “I have a board of directors meeting. A man was eaten by sharks here last night and it’s a public relations nightmare. I’m sure you understand. We meet in half an hour.”
“You might be late.” I eyed the pool where Lien-hua had drowned staring at the surface, straining toward freedom. “I’d like to look around for a minute. Ralph, can you wait with Mr. Leant?”
“Sure thing.”
I whispered something to Ralph and then the two of them left together as I scanned the room. The criminalists had spent the night processing the site, and the only person they’d allowed back here was Cassandra, who I noticed was clearing out her office. On the ride to the aquarium Ralph had told me that the two field agents guarding her were still with her, but I didn’t see them in the room.
Cassandra recognized me and set down the box she was carrying. “I need some time away,” she explained. “Some space. This whole thing, it’s too much for me.”
I nodded. I understood.
“You OK?” she asked, eyeing the crutches.
“I will be. What about you?”
“I think so. Once this is all behind me.”
“That may take awhile,” I said. “Because you made one mistake. Or maybe two.”
Just a glint of bewilderment in her eyes. Just a glint. “What are you talking about?”
“You looked at the camera, Cassandra. None of the other women did.”
Her right index finger became restless against her leg. “What camera?”
“Cassandra, please.” I leaned unsteadily on my crutches. “From where you stood in the tank, it wasn’t possible to see the camcorders. I know, I checked. All the other women stared toward freedom, but you stared at the back wall of the warehouse. You told me yesterday you didn’t know what Melice was doing while you were in the tank. But you did know. You made it easier for him to make the video by staring at one camera and then the other. You knew where they were because you put them there.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” But her eyes betrayed her.
“I’d assumed Shade was one person instead of two. That’s what threw me off, but now I get it. You, or maybe Terry, switched the chains. It was that simple. I counted the links. The other women had a shorter chain. You’re nearly six feet tall, and the chain on your ankle was long enough for you to reach the surface, even when the tank was full. You put on a good show though, gasping for breath like that, but I’m guessing that after all your years of scuba diving and running triathlons, you can hold your breath pretty well too. Maybe two, three minutes? Plenty of time, even while we were there trying to break you out of the tank. So tell me, did you buy the warehouse, or was that Terry?”
“You’re insane.”
Cassandra looked past me toward the door. I thought maybe she was going to rush me. On crutches I knew I couldn’t either run or defend myself.
Where are those two agents?
Before she could try anything, I went on, “I’m guessing the security at the base was too tight for you to get into Building B-14. That’s why you and Terry couldn’t steal the device yourselves. So, who found Austin? Did Terry? Or did you? Either way, you seduced Austin, gained his trust, his love, and the rest is history.”
“Why would I let myself get kidnapped?” She began edging toward the staircase beside the acclimation pool.
I took two feeble steps toward her on my crutches.
“Answer me that,” she said. “Why would I stand in that tank for twelve hours?”
I watched her carefully. “To get the one thing that matters most to you.”
“And that is?”
“I have no idea, I’m not too into motives.” And then, she bolted toward the stairwell beside the pool, but Ralph emerged from the mouth of the stairs where I’d whispered for him to have Warren Leant lead him. The two agents followed closely behind.
Cassandra made the mistake of trying to shove Ralph back down the stairs but he grabbed both of her arms, whipped her around, and had her on the floor and cuffed before she knew what hit her.
Project Ralph.
She struggled uselessly against him for a moment, then as he helped her to her feet, she leered at me, an unholy darkness descending across her face. “You still don’t understand.” Her voice, which had been relaxed and normal just a few moments earlier, now seared the air between us. “You have no idea what we have planned, Agent Bowers. No idea.”
“You’re right,” I said, “I don’t. I’m just an investigator not a mind reader. Take her away, Ralph.” I began to hobble toward the door. “My leg is really starting to hurt and I could use another cup of coffee.”
108
Twilight
Tessa and I would be flying back to Denver tomorrow morning, so after the funeral we decided to visit the beach one last time to watch the sun set over the ocean.
With my crutches, I couldn’t walk on the sand, so we found a paved path that led to a park bench beside the beach at Mission Bay. It seemed like there was so much to talk about, but that it was OK, too, if we didn’t say anything at all.
Knowing how much Tessa hated dead bodies, I was surprised she’d decided to attend the funeral earlier in the afternoon. “You didn’t have to go today, you know,” I told her as we sat down.
“I was right there when it happened. I wanted to go.” She toed at the sand. “So did you ever meet a living person named John Doe?”
“Not yet. Only dead ones.”
A moment passed. “Jose Lopez,” she said. “It’s good to know his name.”
I thought back to the funeral. I was glad the ME had been wrong; Jose did have a family. Fifteen transient men and seven women lined up with us to walk past the closed coffin. Some were crying. Some were quiet and reflective. Some were drunk. Some high. But all of them thanked us for coming and then either hugged us or shook our hands. I thought maybe they would ask us for money, especially since Ralph was wearing the new suit Tessa had helped him pick out, but none of them did.
I slipped my hand into my windbreaker and felt the tooth I still carried with me. “Yes.” I couldn’t keep the sadness out of my voice, the thoughts of the case out of my head. “It is good to know his name.”
She must have noticed that my thoughts were beginning to distract me again. “You OK?”
“Yeah. And I’m being a dad right now, really I am. But it’s just that there’s another part of me, the FBI part, that’s still—”
“That’s OK. I know you can’t turn it off.”
“I’m trying to, Tessa—”
“No-no-no-no,” she said. “Not that part. Not the FBI part. The dad part. That’s the part you can’t turn off. I didn’t understand before. But I do now. I think I finally get it.”
Tessa doesn’t always say the right thing, but when she does, she really nails it. I leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Thank you for saying that, Raven.”
“I meant it.”
“I know.”
Silence then, as we gazed at the ocean stretching before us and watched the sun wander toward the horizon. Finally I said, “Tessa, remember when we were talking about me and Agent Jiang?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“And I said I’d let you know if we decided to move to anything that’s a little more than nothing?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Well, I think we decided.”
“It’s about time.”
I stared at her. “But I wasn’t sure you liked her?”
“She’s growing on me,” she said. “And besides, she’s good for you. A stabilizing influence.” The sky began to turn grayish pink above us. “Sometimes,” she added, “she even reminds me of Mom.”
We watched the waves rush in and then ease back into the ocean. The steady, rippling heartbeat of the world, with all of its deadly currents and its soft ripples. The gentleness is as much a p
art of the ocean as the ferocity is.
The ocean is both terrible and calm.
Both at peace with itself and at war.
Eerie and beautiful.
And so is our world.
So are we all.
“Patrick?” Tessa said, interrupting my thoughts.
“Yes?”
“It’s been almost exactly one year since Mom died.”
“I know.”
The sun rested hesitantly on the horizon, straddling the moment between day and night. “Sometimes it hurts when I think of her,” Tessa whispered. “And sometimes it feels just right.”
“It’s the same for me.”
A pause, as she turned to look at me. “Does it ever get easier?” I watched a gull circle and dive, circle and dive toward the inky water. “I’m not sure,” I said. “But it gets different.”
A couple of soft moments passed, then Tessa looked away from me, toward the sky and the sea and the thin line between them. “Can I lean on you?” she asked quietly.
“Always.” I put my arm around her shoulder, and she rested her head against my chest, and together we watched the sun disappear into the ocean.
So that it could rise again a moment later, on the far side of the sea.
EPILOGUE
Nineteen minutes later
The true Shade, the mastermind of everything, snapped another instant photo of Patrick Bowers sitting beside his stepdaughter and then smiled.
Yes, Terry was in a coma.
Yes, Cassandra was in custody.
Yes, the device had been destroyed, but still Shade smiled. After all, no one except the daughter from his first rather ill-fated marriage knew about him, so no one would come after him. And his daughter would never give him up; after all, she knew he would pay her bail and help her escape, just like he’d done with Melice.
His camera spit out the photograph. He snapped another.
Then Shade, the one who’d shot the bottle out of Melice’s hand . . . the one who’d identified Agent Bowers’s voice on the phone . . . the one who’d stood still and invisible as his daughter stepped out of the shadows beside him to make Melice think she was Shade . . . the one who’d first introduced her to the compromised NSA agent, Terry Manoji . . . the one who’d told Terry to shoot Bowers at the base of the neck . . . the one who’d planned everything from the beginning, and so carefully coordinated the work of his two protégés, now he claimed a new enemy, set his sites on a new target: Special Agent Patrick Bowers.