His own blood.
But still . . .
How far was he willing to go?
He wiped his hands on his pants. He felt sick.
Yesterday at this time he had been sitting in a food court, eating cinnamon buns and looking forward to a pleasant supper and some alone time with his wife while the boys played in the hotel pool.
And today. Today he was . . .
“Torture won’t work on him,” said Laurel. “You don’t have the stomach for it and, unfortunately, it appears he does.”
Wallace stared into Laurel’s eyes, sensing her inner strength, and wishing it was something he possessed.
“With time,” she continued, “you could break him. Anybody can be broken, but you wouldn’t be able to trust the information he gave you. Most tortured prisoners will confess to anything just to stop the pain.”
Wallace looked at Laurel helplessly, not wanting to believe but knowing that what she said was true.
Who was he kidding? He was about as tough as an old banana — and the guard fucking knew it.
He rubbed his face. Blunt, chewed-up fingernails clawing pathetically at tired skin.
“What do we do?” His voice cracked under the strain. “How do I find out what he’s done with my family? I don’t even care why anymore. I just want them back.”
Laurel stood and walked over. She touched Wallace’s arm — a brief, gentle caress — and moved on to the guard. She ignored the man’s loathsome glare and walked behind him. Through the oval gap in the chair’s iron back, she studied his inked flesh.
“He’s definitely ex-military,” she said. Her finger stroked the man’s bare skin, just beneath his muscular neck. The man flinched as though her touch burned. “See this large tattoo?”
Wallace had noticed the curving shape of a snake slithering over the man’s shoulder and around his neck to flick its forked tongue toward his left ear.
He moved to stand beside Laurel. She radiated calmness and he sucked it in like a vampire, every drop making him feel less likely to fall apart and crumble into a pile of broken jigsaw pieces. She reminded him of Alicia, and how much he depended on her.
It was Alicia’s strength, wisdom and serenity that kept him going when he worried about unpaid bills or when the rehab on his leg had seemed too much to bear. She was his rock, the foundation upon which everything else was built, and yet he now felt that he had never told her just how much that meant.
He studied the tattoo on the guard’s back and fought back an urge to rip it from his skin with fingernails and teeth.
The snake’s scaly body curled around the guard’s spine in a clever display of optical illusion. And although most of the snake was simply a black outline, dozens of the petal-shaped scales had been colored in. Strangely, considering the intricate design, the hodgepodge of colors looked to have been selected at random; a mosaic created by a blind man.
“Those are kills,” said Laurel, pointing to the colored scales. “The different tones represent different types and rank of enemy combatants. He’s obviously seen action in both Afghanistan and Iraq.”
She pointed to a series of numbers mixed in with the pattern of the snakeskin. The writing was so small that without a magnifying glass, the numbers were almost impossible to see. “Those are likely GPS co-ordinates of his more memorable missions.”
Wallace pointed to the colored scales. “Why are there Xs in the middle of some, but not others?”
“Eye for an eye,” said Laurel. “On those engagements he killed an enemy in retaliation for losing a member of his unit. I saw them on quite a few of my patients. The markings were different, crosses mostly, even a series of dots, but the meaning is the same.”
The guard shook his head violently until he worked the towel free.
He spat it out with a hoarse scream. “Shut up, bitch! Do you know what this cowardly bastard did?”
Wallace darted in front of the guard and grabbed hold of both his ears. He twisted them fiercely, feeling cartilage crackle and skin stretch as he thrust his face to within an inch of the guard’s.
“What have I done?” Hot, angry spittle flew from Wallace’s lips. “Tell me what I’m supposed to have done?”
“Semper Fi, bitch.”
The guard launched his head forward, his teeth snapping like a crocodile, aiming to grab and tear cheek, nose or lips. Wallace lurched back just in time, feeling the guard’s teeth skim the stubble beneath his lower lip.
Roaring in frustration, Wallace snatched the ball gag off the table and forced it into the guard’s mouth before he had time to clench. He pulled the strap tight behind the guard’s head, locking it uncomfortably in place.
“Sorry,” he said to Laurel before realizing how lame that sounded. It was something one would say if their conversation had been interrupted by a phone call.
He tried to shake away the panic, control his too-rapid breathing and concentrate on what the guard had said.
“Semper Fi,” he repeated. It was a phrase he had heard in war movies, but never really understood. “What does that mean exactly?”
“It’s Latin,” said Laurel. “Short for Semper Fidelis. Among other things, it’s the motto of the United States Marine Corps. It means ‘always faithful’.”
“Faithful to who?” asked Wallace.
“Country, naturally,” said Laurel. “But out on the battlefield, it’s being faithful to your unit. When you’re outgunned and under-supplied, it becomes all about watching each other’s backs. Leave no man behind. The bonds formed when patrolling on enemy soil are virtually unbreakable. You would have to live it to know it.”
Wallace pointed to the last grouping of colored scales on the guard’s back. A mass of mustard yellow, comprising close to a dozen scales, surrounded a linked cluster of six Xs. Beyond that cluster, the remainder of the scales were empty, uncolored flesh.
“Likely his final mission,” said Laurel. “He sought revenge for a lot of friends that day.”
“So he was telling the truth,” said Wallace quietly. “He has had worse.”
Laurel nodded. “The question, however, is why isn’t he still doing it? These types of men live for the military. They don’t just love the job, they are the job. His unit is his family. Closer than blood. He would never quit to work the border. It’s too much like being a cop rather than a soldier. That last mission must have cost him everything.”
“Semper Fi,” muttered Wallace under his breath.
CHAPTER 40
Wallace dragged his fingers across his scalp in frustration. He needed to lash out, to hurt someone, but he had lost all taste for punishing the guard.
If he wouldn’t talk, what was the goddamn point?
“I’m a bus driver,” Wallace told Laurel. “The furthest abroad Alicia and I have ever been is a rainy week in Mexico before the boys were born. We’ve never been to the Middle East, so what’s my family got to do with a bloody U.S. Marine?”
“I don’t know,” said Laurel. “But if he’s sentimental enough to tattoo a memorial to the dead on his back, maybe he’s kept other things, too. He wouldn’t be this loyal to just anyone. Money doesn’t buy Semper Fi.”
Wallace looked down at the guard, but the man simply glared back, disclosing nothing.
He turned to Laurel. “I’ll look upstairs. You should pack your things and leave in case the cops show before I’m done.”
Laurel took hold of Wallace’s arm and led him into the living room, out of earshot of the guard.
“What are you going to do with him?” she asked.
“Damned if I know,” said Wallace. “Like I said, I’m only a bus driver.”
“If he gets loose, he’ll come after you,” she said. “That one’s not the type to forgive and forget.”
Wallace sighed and his frustration came to a boil. “Yeah, well, he better join the goddamn line. I’m not giving up until I find my family.”
Laurel’s eyes looked pained as she gave his arm a final squeeze. “Go s
earch upstairs. I’ll see if I have something in my kit that will buy some time.”
UPSTAIRS, WALLACE started in the smaller of the two bedrooms. The guard had turned it into a sparse office with a simple desk and chair in one corner.
On top of the desk was a laptop computer.
Wallace lifted the lid, waited for the screen to brighten, and began clicking through the various folders saved on its hard drive.
He didn’t know much about computers, but during his time off from work Alicia had shown him the basics on her own laptop. He didn’t quite see the appeal — although he had wasted hours on a website with funny stories and jokes written by and for bus drivers — but he didn’t want to be completely clueless when the boys were talking about iTunes and torrents and an online game they referred to as a MMORPG.
Wallace continued to click until he found one folder titled: Wallace Carver.
He opened the folder and saw it contained a collection of digital photographs.
The tiny icons were too small to make out any detail, but Wallace discovered that if he clicked on them, they instantly grew in size.
One of the photos looked incredibly familiar. It showed Wallace sitting alone in his green minivan, but the background wasn’t the Peace Arch border. He recognized the edge of a neon sign in one corner. The photo had been taken in North Vancouver as Wallace was leaving his physiotherapist’s office.
Wallace enlarged several more photographs. Most of them showed the same thing, but from different angles. There was nothing specific to indicate a date. The photo could have been taken days or weeks — even months earlier.
Someone had been following him, waiting for just the right moment to take Alicia and the boys.
Why?
How could he possibly make such an enemy? He was nobody. And why target his family? It didn’t make sense.
He clicked on the final image. Its icon was slightly different and it launched a separate program called Photoshop. When the program finished loading, it displayed the photograph that had been emailed to the detective: Wallace alone in the minivan as he drove across the border.
But in this file, the photograph was shown in layers. A small menu on the right of the screen showed three separate layers had been combined to create the final image.
The top layer was a duplicate of Wallace leaving the physiotherapist’s office, except the background had been erased or cut away to isolate the van.
In the menu, the tiny symbol of an eye lay to the left of each layer. When Wallace clicked on the first eye, the top layer vanished to reveal the middle layer, which was some kind of digital mask used to obscure part of the bottom layer.
Wallace clicked the eye symbol again and the mask vanished to reveal the unaltered bottom layer.
This final layer showed a blue Dodge van with California plates being inspected at the border crossing. Wallace didn’t recognize the van, nor its passengers, but he instinctively knew they weren’t important. It could have been anyone in the right type of vehicle. This family was simply creating a hole that his own vehicle would fill.
Wallace stared at the photograph, not knowing what to do with it. It was proof that he wasn’t crazy, but after the Bellingham police found their detective strangled half to death on his own bedroom floor, would anyone even care?
Wallace closed the laptop, unplugged its power cord from the wall and carried it with him to the second bedroom.
CHAPTER 41
Wallace turned the master bedroom and ensuite bathroom upside down. He shoved the mattress off the bed, pulled drawers out of the dresser and clothes out of the closet, dumping everything onto the floor.
The search came up empty. Apart from discovering the guard’s affinity for expensive, custom-cut suits and imported silk boxers, he didn’t find anything of a personal nature.
It didn’t make sense. What Laurel said was true. The guard was both sentimental and loyal to an extreme. Why else would he tattoo a part of his body that he couldn’t even admire without . . .
Wallace glanced at the full-length mirror mounted on the wall within a few steps of the walk-in closet.
The guard was a bodybuilder. He liked fine clothes and had them tailored to fit his sculpted body. Big shoulders. Narrow waist. Arms like Popeye.
He was proud, vain, obsessed.
This mirror was framed in white oak. Thick. Solid. Wallace ran his fingers along each edge, feeling for a latch.
Nothing.
He placed his hands on its smooth reflective surface and looked at the old, worn man staring back at him.
He didn’t recognize the tired face, nor the person cowering behind the eyes. Deep inside, it wasn’t a man. It was a young boy. Weak, lost, desperate . . . scared.
He shoved away in disgust, daring the glass to break, to curse his luck even further.
The sudden release of pressure made something click and the mirror swung away from the wall on invisible, silent hinges.
Wallace quickly grabbed hold of the frame and swung it open all the way to reveal a secret space, no deeper than an average medicine chest, in the wall behind it. The hollow was lined with tempered glass shelves.
The top two shelves were filled with money. Stacks of it. Wallace picked up a bound package. American hundred dollar bills. So crisp and fresh, the corners crackled as he flicked through them. The printed band running around the stack told him the amount: $25,000.
There were other stacks, at least a dozen of them, all in various denominations and amounts. Wallace guessed it totaled over three hundred thousand dollars.
He had never seen so much money.
Imagine what Alicia and he could do—
Fuck!
Wallace shoved the money back on the shelf, angry with himself and the creep of greed that distracted him from his mission. His only mission.
Wiping a sheen of sweat from his brow, he moved down to the third shelf. This one was mostly empty, except for a well-thumbed Zippo lighter and a set of dull metal dog tags, rectangular with curved corners, on a beaded stainless steel chain.
Wallace ignored the lighter and picked up the tags. They were stamped with the guard’s name, blood type, social security number, Armed Forces branch, gas mask size and religion.
Desmond Morris was Catholic, and in case of chemical attack, he took a large.
Wallace slipped the tags into his pocket and moved to the last shelf. It contained a narrow metal cash box that was the length of a shoebox but only half as deep. Wallace removed it from the shelf. It wasn’t heavy, but it was locked.
He shook it. The contents didn’t make any sound.
He searched the shelves for a key. It would be small, easy to hide. But he didn’t find one.
He stepped back—
And froze in place at a sudden noise from downstairs.
The protesting screech of metal.
It came from the garage; the nails-on-blackboard noise bouncing through the heating ducts.
He tried to place the sound in context, but the only thing that made sense was that someone had forced open the garage door. Someone who didn’t have a key and didn’t want to be seen.
Wallace swallowed nervously, picturing the shotgun resting on the couch in the living room, and the baseball bat somewhere on the floor.
He slid the metal box into the back of his pants, where a handgun would have been welcomed, and swung the mirror closed. It clicked into place, seamlessly hiding its secret once again.
He picked up the laptop and moved to the top of the stairs, wondering if, and hoping that, Laurel had already left.
He doubted it was the police. They wouldn’t be so quiet. They liked their sirens, battering rams and jackboots.
He moved down the stairs, trying to be quiet but fearing that everyone within a two-block radius could hear his heartbeat. It thundered in his chest.
He strained to listen over the rapid thumping. The house was silent.
No other noises had joined the initial metal screech.
&nb
sp; He took three more steps, hovering two steps above the landing that led into the living room.
He was about to call out, to see if Laurel was still there, when everything stopped—
A dark stranger stepped onto the landing, appearing as if from nowhere.
The man was tall, thin and dressed from head to toe in black — like Death. Even his minimal shoestring tie and hollow piercings were black. His eyes, however, were incredibly bright. They radiated delight, like a cat that has just discovered its tortured prey is still twitching, still game for a little more fun.
“Mr. Carver,” said the man. “Congratulations. You’ve been very busy.”
“Who are you?” Wallace kept a firm grip on the laptop, wondering how much damage its half-inch-thick aluminum edge could inflict.
The man reached into his pocket and produced a small black handgun. He casually pointed it at the heart of the laptop . . . at the palpitating heart of Wallace.
“You can call me—”
Blood sprayed from his mouth as the man crumpled to his knees and his bright eyes rolled skyward. A second crunch of metal against bone made him drop the gun before he pitched face-first onto the floor and lay still.
“Come on!” Laurel tossed the bloodied baseball bat aside. “We have to get out of here.”
As Wallace stepped over the unconscious man, Laurel ran back into the living room to snatch up her medical bag and the shotgun. She passed the gun to Wallace as they headed down the last flight of stairs and out the front door.
Wallace felt numb as he staggered down the pathway beside Laurel. A large black SUV was parked in the steep and narrow driveway, blocking any exit possible with the truck. The vehicle was big enough to carry eight people, but despite the tinted windows, it looked empty.
If there had been others, they would have stepped out to block their way. Laurel and he wouldn’t have stood a chance.
That meant the thin man had arrived alone.
[2010] No Cry for Help Page 13