Mark Taylor Omnibus (The Mark Taylor Series)

by M. P. McDonald

  “Jessica Bishop?”

  Capping the balm and tossing it back in her bag, Jessie nodded. “Who wants to know?”

  The man reached into his suit-coat breast pocket and pulled out identification. “Sean Daly, CIA. Is there a place we can talk?”

  A sliver of dread coiled in her stomach as she dropped her purse back into the drawer. Jessie stood and motioned to the chair on the other side of her desk. If she had to speak to the CIA, it would be on her home turf. “Have a seat. We can talk right here.”

  He stepped in and shut the door. Any objections he might have had to doing the questions here, didn’t show in his expression. Jessie sat and scooted her chair closer to the desk then folded her hands and waited. Hopefully, Dan wouldn’t walk in right now. He had gone down to talk to the desk sergeant about practice for the precinct basketball league. She had a feeling this was going to be about Mark, and Dan had already tried to grill her about Mark’s arrest a few months back. He’d have a field day with this. It wasn’t every day a police detective’s boyfriend was arrested as a terrorist.

  Daly glanced around the cramped office and then lifted his briefcase onto his lap and withdrew a pad of paper, a tape recorder and a file folder. Jessie narrowed her eyes at the recorder. So, this was going to be official. He set the case on the floor and then arranged the other things on Jessie’s desk, raising his eyes in question when he began to move a photo of her niece. Jessie shrugged. She was determined not to make this any easier for him.

  He clicked the button on the recorder and said, “This is Officer Sean Daly. For the purpose of accuracy and records, please state your name.”

  Jessie spoke in a clear voice, “Jessica Bishop.”

  “Do you know Mark Taylor?”

  “Yes.”

  Daly looked like he expected her to say more and he waited a few seconds. She was familiar with the tactic. People liked to fill silences and he thought she would jump in with more information without being asked. She quirked an eyebrow. Nice try.

  “When did you first meet the subject?”

  Jessie thought for a moment. There was a file in the cabinet with the information, but unless he asked, she wasn’t going to mention it. “I don’t have the exact date right now, but it was approximately two years ago.”

  Once again, he waited and when she didn’t elaborate, a trace of a smile played around his lips. “And under what circumstances did you meet?”

  “I was working a case and he called the precinct with some information pertinent to my case. I agreed to meet with him.”

  He didn’t wait this time, but just jumped in with another question. “What was your first impression of the man?”

  Jessie looked towards the window, recalling how nervous Taylor had appeared. The meeting took place at a fast food restaurant in the River North area. He had given her a general description of himself and what he was wearing so she spotted him before he saw her. He had been standing at one end of the front counter, a cup of coffee in front of him and a couple of open creamers. Her first impression was that he was taller than she expected. Her next impression had to do with how well his jeans fit.

  Jessie glanced at Daly and hoped she wasn’t blushing. Taylor had been too modest when describing his looks. Brown hair and a bit over six feet tall made him sound average. But more than his looks, she had been struck by how expressive his face had been. She recalled thinking he would be terrible at poker. “My first impression was the guy couldn’t lie his way out of a parking ticket.”

  Daly tilted his head and leaned forward. “What made you think that?”

  Smiling, Jessie looked down at the desktop before raising her head to meet the agent’s eyes. “Have you met Mark Taylor? If you had, you wouldn’t have to ask. Every emotion he feels zips across his face.”

  “No, I’ve never met the man.” His tone hinted that he never wanted to.

  Jessie’s smile hardened. “Well, it’s your loss.” The words surprised her even as she spoke them, but she realized it was the truth. “He’s a bit different, I’ll grant you that, but I no more believe him capable of helping al-Qaeda than he is of flying to Mars by flapping his arms.”

  “What do you mean about different?” Daly picked up the note pad and pen. He finally looked interested.

  Jessie wanted to bite her tongue. Despite her best efforts, she had done just what she had vowed not to do. She had offered more than was necessary to answer the question. “I mean that he would call me with information. Like he had heard a mini-mart was going to be robbed. He thought one of the robbers had a gun he might use. When I would ask how he came by the information, he gave vague answers.”

  His pen flew across the paper and without looking up, he asked, “And, was he right?”

  “That’s the thing. He usually was.” It still bugged her that Mark never told her the truth about his sources. One look at his face and she knew he was lying, and he knew that she knew. He had always squirmed and looked embarrassed, but even so, he never came clean.

  “Taylor tipped the police to criminal activities and was evasive on how he came by his information. Didn’t that make you suspicious?” Daly shook his head, as though talking to an idiot.

  Jessie leaned forward, no longer concerned with keeping her mouth shut. This guy just pissed her off. “Do you take me for some wet-behind-the-ears rookie?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Of course it made me suspicious and I questioned him and looked into his background. There was absolutely nothing that raised red flags. No known criminal contacts, no drugs, no arrests, no priors period, unless you count some parking tickets in college. He was a successful photographer with dozens of professional references.” Leaning back, she crossed her arms. “But you should know that already.”

  Daly’s lips thinned and his face flushed as he narrowed his eyes. “You better believe we’ve checked his business contacts.” He moved to the edge of his seat and smirked. “Now we’re checking his personal contacts. Which led us to you, Ms. Bishop.”

  She played it cool. “Really?” She arched an eyebrow at him.

  He ignored her comment and flipped through some papers in the file. “Our investigation turned up that you and Taylor had a relationship. Is that correct?”

  Jessie chuckled and stood. Crossing her arms, she moved to the window and sat against the ledge. “Wow, you guys certainly do your homework.”

  “We’re very thorough.” He threw her a smug look and then fiddled with the tape recorder. Jessie knew moving around would make the recording come out less clear, but she didn’t care.

  She countered his look with one of her own. “I would hardly count a few months as a relationship.” Jessie plucked a dead leaf off of a plant on the ledge beside her. No matter how hard she tried, the plant never thrived.

  “You’ve only been seeing each other for a few months?” He sounded surprised and Jessie felt a measure of satisfaction. She knew the agent was only doing his job, but being the subject of an investigation was new to her, and she didn’t like the idea of someone going around questioning her friends behind her back. The irony that she did the same thing when she investigated a case didn’t make it any easier to accept.

  “Yes. And I’m surprised we even made it that far because the first date was pretty much a disaster.” Except for the kiss. Jessie didn’t think Daly needed to know that detail. Before Mark had rushed off, he had dropped a kiss on her lips. It had been unexpected, but not unwelcome. “We saw each other several times afterwards, but it wasn’t serious.” Not yet anyway. There hadn’t been enough time. She cleared the lump in her throat.

  “At any point when you were with him, did he mention going to Afghanistan in August of 1999?”

  Jessie moved back to her chair and sat. “Yes.” She leaned to the side and tossed the dead leaf into the trash can beside her desk.

  Daly didn’t even try to hide his irritation this time. He motioned with his hand, circling it in a keep going motion. “And...”

  She shrugge
d. “He showed me some pictures he took. They were amazing.” Jessie recalled the poverty in the photographs and even more, the stark despair in the women’s eyes. That was all she could see of them, covered head to toe in their garments.

  Daly leaned forward. “Did you see any pictures of what might have been training camps?”

  Confused, she leaned back in her chair. “No. Just shacks with women and children. There were some landscapes too. Those were stunning also, but Mark won’t admit this, or maybe he doesn’t know, but what he does best is candid photos.” Jessie bit her lip. She didn’t have a creative bone in her body, but even she had realized how mesmerizing the photos were. It was as if the women were allowing a brief glimpse into their souls. They had trusted Mark enough to lower their defenses.

  “Candid photos? Like snapshots?”

  Jessie rolled her eyes. This guy knew even less about photography than she did. “Well, sure. I guess you could call them snapshots. Just like you could call the Mona Lisa ‘some painting’. What Mark did was art.”

  “Oh, excuse me. I can see I hit a nerve with you.” Daly smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He stopped the recorder and flipped the tape over.

  “Listen, Mark Taylor and I had only been seeing each for a short while, but I knew him for several years before. Yeah, he drove me nuts with his premonitions, but even so, I couldn’t help liking the man. He’s a good guy.” She raised her chin in defiance when he snorted. Jessie rolled her chair up tight against her desk. “And now, he’s just disappeared.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that. And nobody has any clue where he is. Even his lawyer is in the dark.”

  Daly’s face closed down and she got the impression he knew something and it didn’t bode well for Mark. “I’m not at liberty to tell you where he is, but I can tell you that he’s been transferred to a more secure location.”

  “Secure?” Wasn’t a federal prison secure enough? “Why?” Jessie glared at the man until he began to squirm. As satisfying as that was, she knew it was pointless. This man was low-level CIA; he probably didn’t have a clue where Mark was being held. She sighed and dropped the tough act. Her voice softened, “He has family and friends that are worried about him. No matter what you think he might have done, his parents, at least, deserve to know where their son is.” The anguish in his mother’s voice the time she had called looking for information was something she never wanted to hear again.

  Daly sighed. “I’m not sure about the location myself, and even if I knew, I couldn’t tell you. You realize the President has declared him an enemy combatant?”

  She’d been right. The guy had been bluffing before, but it didn’t matter. Since seeing Mark in custody, she had done some research on enemy combatant status. The designation was reserved for those deemed significant threats to the country. “I didn’t know it was official.” When she had mentioned it to Mark in the holding cell, she had been trying to scare him into talking. Never had it entered her mind it would actually happen.

  * * *

  Eggs. Again. At least they were better than the oatmeal. Mark poked the spork into the yellow, rubbery mass. He ate every morsel and used his finger to wipe up the tiny pieces left on the plate. As unappetizing as the meals were, they were the highlight of his day. The only problem was, he never knew when they would arrive. He had already been awake for hours.

  Some mornings, breakfast would be waiting for him as soon as he opened his eyes, others, he would work out for almost two hours before a clink at the slot would announce its arrival. The length of time between the meals varied too. On occasion he had barely shoved out his lunch tray when dinner arrived, but often he became light-headed before the next meal slid through the flap. It was hard to stay calm when that happened. He couldn’t help wondering if he had been forgotten.

  Once, in an effort to stem the panic, he’d tried to save some of the food by stashing a piece of bread under his blanket. They immediately demanded that he send the bread out. The loss of the food had bothered him almost as much as finding out they were constantly monitoring him. Sure, he knew the dark bubble on the ceiling concealed a camera, but knowing for certain that he never had a moment of privacy made it more intimidating. His next meal hadn’t come for a very long time. He never tried to hoard food again, and he ate every bite of whatever came in on the plate, even if it tasted terrible.

  It didn’t take long for him to realize he would go mad confined to his cell with nothing to do but stare at the walls. He set himself a routine, a margin of control. When he awoke, he considered it ‘morning’ and did as much of a normal bathroom routine as he could manage under the circumstances. Then he began his exercise program. Despite the cell’s tiny dimensions, he was able to do crunches, push-ups, lunges and squats. He made sure every movement was precise, the intense focus kept his mind sharp. Counting out each exercise and holding the positions for a set amount of seconds, gave him a rough estimate of the passage of time.

  He worked especially hard on his stretching. His sessions with Jim and his team had taken a nasty turn. Not satisfied with the endlessly same answers to the endlessly same questions they had decided he would think of more interesting things to say if they chained him to the floor or the walls of the interrogation room and made him bend his body into ‘positions’. Muscles stretched or cramped, joints twisted, bearing weight they were never designed for and if he broke the position they would make him ‘start over’, but he never knew what measure of time they were using. More than once he’d had to lean on a guard to steady himself for the walk back to his cell. The stretches helped. A little.

  Mark downed the milk and sent the tray out. It had been a late one today and he had already completed his workout. He sat on the floor, legs crossed. If nobody came to take him away for questioning, he spent the time between breakfast and the next meal doing imaginary photo shoots. Today, his model was a top cover girl. Her picture graced the pages of swimsuit issues, high fashion magazines and she had her own line of clothing. Every detail of the photo-shoot played in his head. The lighting, the camera angles, and the location. Sometimes, he even allowed some bad frames to tarnish the proof-sheet. On a good day, those mistakes made him smile.

  He had just tested the light meter in the imaginary shoot, when the tinny voice came over the speaker commanding him to put his hands through the slot. The photo-shoot dissolved in his mind, and his heart thumped against his ribs. Even with all of his exercises and stretches, the positions caused him agony. It just took longer for the pain to hit.

  There was a tiny part of him that welcomed the excursions. As horrible as they were, at least he had someone to talk to. Pain was the price he paid for company. Pain he could deal with because it wasn’t permanent. There was an end to it, and then it was gone with nothing to show for it. No scars or disabilities. It could be worse. He could be in a pit with rats and fed maggot infested rice. Compared to that, this was nothing. Mark took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders. He winced as the left one grated in its socket. Maybe just a little bit of disability.

  Five minutes later, he stood in the familiar room. The three usual spectators sat at their table, quietly chatting as he entered. He listened as hard as he could. Sometimes, he caught bits of sports scores or traffic reports. As mundane as it was, he relished every scrap of it. He felt less isolated when he knew the Knicks beat the Lakers or that there was a ten car pile-up on the freeway. There was still a world going on outside his walls and he clung to that fact like a tick to a dog.

  Jim strode into the room and Bill tagged along behind him blowing on a cup of coffee. Mark’s mouth watered at the scent. They ignored him while Jim sorted through some papers and Bill told an off-color joke to the other three. Mark filed the joke away for later, when he could smile in private.

  Finally selecting a sheet of paper, Jim closed the file. It was Mark’s. He knew it. Every time he was brought here, it was a little thicker.

  Jim approached him, his face grim and not in sync with his greeting. “Go
od afternoon.”

  Mark filed that information away too. So, it wasn’t even morning although he had eaten breakfast less than an hour ago. He would try to go to sleep earlier today and see if he could get his nights and days back on track.

  “Good afternoon.” He didn’t mean to emphasize the afternoon part, but Jim caught it, and gave him a sharp look. Mark knew somehow he had blundered.

  “I have some questions to ask you, but you probably already knew that.”

  “Yes, sir.” There, he had spoken. It felt good, even if it was to Jim.

  “You’re looking rather smug today.” Jim quirked his mouth, as though trying to figure out what Mark was up to. “What’s going on?”

  Mark raised his chin a notch. He would never admit coming here was better than sitting in his cell waiting for the walls to close in on him. “Nothing, sir.” His stomach churned. It was their mission to make his life a complete hell. It wasn’t enough that they stole every last shred of pleasure from his life, now even a pleasant thought was forbidden.

  “We’ll see if you’re feeling so pleased with yourself after today.”

  Mark swallowed and dropped his gaze to the floor. Maybe the cell was better.

  Jim paced, his measured steps in cadence with his words. “Okay, first, I’ll give you the opportunity, as always, to be forthcoming and admit to your crimes. Give us the information we’ve been asking of you.” He stopped directly in front of Mark. “We can end this session on a good note for once. How about it?”

  Mark lifted his gaze, not fooled by the hopeful look in the other man’s eyes. The men at the table behind Jim sat straight, more alert than he had ever seen them. One drummed his fingers. Mark’s stomach went from churning to a whirling mass of acid.

  “I...I don’t have anything to confess.” He almost wished he did. He would do nearly anything for all of this to be over. More than once, he’d considered making up a confession. If only he had details. Plausible details. But he didn’t.