by Greg Dinallo
“I don’t know,” I reply through clenched teeth. “He was Captain to me.”
“Well the guy who rented this car was Thomas,” Daniels says crossing behind me. “As Detective Molina said, there was no military rank given.”
“You know if he was Asian?”
“Asian?” Molina replies incredulously, turning the pages of the notepad again. “We called the rental agent. He said he handles dozens of customers a day. To the best of his recollection, the customer might’ve been in his late thirties or early forties, was wearing sunglasses and casual civilian clothes.”
“I gave you the driver’s description. It sounds just like him to me.”
“It sounds like a lot of men in California,” Daniels says with an apologetic shrug.
“The Captain included,” I add sharply.
“The point is, Mr. Morgan, that contrary to popular belief, eyewitness descriptions are generally the least reliable form of identification.”
I scoop up the phone and buzz my secretary. “Grace, check your notes. See if you have Captain Sullivan’s first name. You’re sure? Thanks.” I hang up and let out a long breath. “No. She doesn’t. Believe me, it’s him. He killed my wife.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Daniels counters. “In case you’re wondering why we’re not jumping all over this, Thomas Sullivan’s got an alibi.”
“You’ve questioned him?”
“No. But according to Hertz, he reported the car stolen the day before the accident. He said he parked it in a hotel garage downtown, didn’t use it for several days. Went to get it and it was gone.”
“Bullshit. He was just covering his ass.”
“Very possible,” Molina concedes. “He could also have been telling the truth. The Captain was from Hawaii, right?”
I nod impatiently, smoldering.
“The guy who rented the car had a California DL.”
“California?”
“Yes, a San Francisco address.”
“Well? I told you the Captain said he does a lot of business there.”
“We ran it through the DMV. It checked out. For what it’s worth, he has no criminal record either.”
“Come on,” I plead, my voice raising a couple of octaves in indignation. “What are you saying? That someone stole the car, took it for a joy ride, and by sheer coincidence, accidentally killed my wife?’
“We’ve seen stranger ones. The bottom line is we’re not sure the guy who rented the car was driving it at the time of the accident, or that he’s the Sullivan who came to see you.”
I hear myself groan in disgust.
“And either way,” Molina continues, “renting the car doesn’t make him guilty of anything.”
“It makes him a suspect, doesn’t it?”
“Obviously,” Daniels replies. He settles on the corner of my desk and begins toying with the Rolodex. “We’re not saying it isn’t him. We’re just saying that we have to go on the assumption that anything’s possible. Before we can walk through a door, so to speak, we have to know exactly where it is—San Francisco? Hawaii?—and who’s on the other side.”
“I know. Take my word for it.”
“You have the number of this place in Hawaii?”
“The CIL?”
“Whatever you call it. The place at Fort Shafter.”
“It’s not in there, Sergeant. Those are clients.”
“Where?”
“You’re going to call Captain Sullivan?”
He shakes no. “I’m calling the CIL.”
“Couldn’t that tip him off?”
“Please, Mr. Morgan, we do this for a living.”
I scowl, then pull up the number on my laptop, dial, and hand the phone to Daniels.
“Captain Sullivan, please?” Daniels asks as if he’s called him a hundred times before.
My eyes widen in protest until I notice his finger is poised on the reset button to cut off the call if he gets an affirmative reply.
He removes it. “You’re absolutely certain? Uh-huh. I see. May I have your name? Thanks. Sorry to waste your time.” He hangs up and challenges me with a look. “They never heard of him.”
“What?” A sinking feeling comes over me. I’d been completely taken in by a charade and I’m feeling all the more vulnerable.
“That’s right. Thomas or otherwise.”
“Who’d you talk to?”
“A Mrs. Oldham. She said she was the Colonel’s secretary.”
“Colonel Webster?”
Daniels nods.
“Yes, he’s the commanding officer there. You notice if she had an accent?”
“No, no accent. Why?”
“I had a funny feeling about Sullivan after he left my office and checked him out. The woman who answered the phone verified he worked for the CIL.”
“She had an accent?”
“Yes. She was Filipino.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I spent some time in Manila during the war.”
“Nam?”
I nod.
“You get her name?”
“I wish.”
“You’re sure you called this number?”
“Positive.”
“Something’s fucked,” Molina groans.
“Only one thing that makes any sense to me,” I say, as the pieces fall into place. “Whatever game Sullivan’s playing, he has this woman on the inside covering him.”
Daniels and Molina nod in agreement.
“Not to change the subject, but there’s something else I want to ask you guys about.”
“Your show,” Daniels grunts.
“I have two daughters. They’re college students. They don’t live at home. I’ve been kind of worried this guy might . . . you know . . . kidnap them or something.”
“Anything’s possible, I guess,” Daniels offers with a skeptical frown. “Carl?”
Molina shakes his head no. “If he was going after them, he’d have done it by now. I mean, what’s it get him? A hostage? Then what—a trade for you? After all that’s happened, he’s got to assume you’ve gone to the police. It’s complicated and risky. Doesn’t sound like how this guy does business.”
Before leaving, they decide their next step will be to contact their counterparts in San Francisco and have them check out the address on Sullivan’s driver’s license.
Their decision is made.
So is mine.
And, now, so are my plane reservations to Hawaii.
It all started after the CIL got involved. I’m going there to conduct a search and destroy mission for the woman with the Filipino accent. It follows that, prior to covering for Sullivan, she’d used her position to alert him to my inquiry. Now I’m going to use her, use her to find him, and find out what’s going on before subjecting him to the death of a thousand cuts.
I have one knotty problem.
I’ve been wrestling with it all weekend.
Sunday night it occurs to me that my portable problem solver may be the solution—literally. I fetch the laptop and place it on my desk. There’s an access door on the side of the case. It hinges open when I release the catch, revealing a clear plastic pull tab. I grasp it with my thumb and forefinger and slide out the battery. To my relief, the .25 caliber Beretta just fits in the deep, rectangular cavity. I’m about to close the access door when I sense a presence and look up.
Laura is standing in the doorway of my office with a shopping bag and a puzzled look on her face. She’d driven down from school on Friday. I haven’t mentioned my plans, knowing she’d try to talk me out of going. Instead we’ve spent most of the weekend in Century City on a movie marathon. This afternoon she said she needed to buy a few things for school. I begged off, claiming I had work to do.
“What’re you doing?” she asks suspiciously.
“Checking the battery.”
“Daddy—I saw what you did.”
I begin to explain. I’m not at all surprised to see her eyes gradually widening
with concern. By the time I finish, she’s bristling with opposition.
“No,” she says sharply. “No, I think you should leave it to the police, and get back to work.”
I can’t help but smile at how much her gestures and tone remind me of her mother. “I’m trying. I’ve been here twenty-four hours a day. But I’m distracted; and I’m sick and tired of being afraid to spend time in my own home.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want you putting yourself in danger.”
“Sweetheart, I already am in danger. I’m sleeping with a pistol in my hand. I take it to the bathroom for Chrissakes. You know I’m not the type to hide and let others fight my battles.”
“Well, if you were,” she says, a bitter edge creeping into her voice, “maybe Mommy would still be alive.”
I recoil, stung by her remark.
She hurries to me, her eyes brimming with tears, and hugs me. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know. It’s okay.”
“I’ve already lost one parent. I’m afraid I’m going to lose the other.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not doing anything foolish.”
“Daddy, the man’s a killer.”
I nod gravely, my head filling with violent memories, then my eyes shift from Laura’s to the laptop. I close the access door over the pistol, and hear myself say, “So am I.”
17
Early Monday morning, the driver drops me at the United terminal at LAX. I always carry on my bags and head directly for the gate. My palms are clammy and my stomach starts churning as I approach the security check. I’m nervous as hell, though I’ve no reason to be. In all my departures from airports all over the world, I’ve never had to put the laptop through a metal detector or X-ray machine. Not even once. The mere thought of wiping out the data is intolerable. Come on, Morgan, settle down, I say to myself as I casually drop my two-suiter and shoulder bag on the conveyor, you’re just another weary businessman in a suit and tie.
“This one’s a computer,” I explain to the security guard. “I can’t chance erasing the hard drive.”
He studies me stone-faced and gestures to a table off to the side. I set the computer down, then unzip the canvas carrying case, which also contains the battery and an auxiliary power cord, and fold back the top half, leaving the computer inside.
The guard runs his fingers around the inside of the case, and looks up at me. “Will you turn it on, please?”
My pulse quickens, but I’m not rattled. I expected him to ask. They always do. I raise the screen, revealing the keyboard, then connect the power cord, plug it into an outlet built into the table, and turn on the computer, which emits an electronic beep. An instant later the screen comes to life with a long list of programs.
The guard is satisfied and nods.
I pack up the computer, leave it with the guard, and walk through the metal detector without incident. He comes around the X-ray unit and hands it to me.
A short while later, as the 767 is accelerating down the runway, my mind drifts to a flight from Rome in 1986. Terrorists had been hijacking and bombing international flights with frightening regularity. When the plane was airborne and bearded men with Uzis didn’t materialize, I relaxed, but moments later it dawned on me that we had ten hours to go, ten hours for the plane to blow up in midair. Now I’m wondering just how badly Sullivan and his people want me dead?
Five anxious hours later, a string of islands appears on the horizon. Halos of glowing mist hover above patches of lush greenery that are ringed by sparkling turquoise surf. We’re on final approach to Honolulu International on Oahu when the spell is broken by Waikiki’s soaring towers.
After deplaning, I go directly to the nearest men’s room, lock myself in a stall, remove the pistol from my laptop, and pocket it. Then I take one of the pink wicki-wicki buses that shuttle passengers to baggage claim and ground transportation.
The white Cadillac taxicab is immaculate and air-conditioned. Soft classical music comes from the radio. The Asian driver is neatly dressed and polite. This is paradise.
I tell him I’m going to the Central Identification Lab. He nods, repeats it, and drives off, heading east on H-l, the Lunalilo Freeway. I’ve been here many times on business and vacation since that rehab stint twenty years ago, and know the island fairly well. I easily locate Tripler Army Hospital perched up on the bluffs to the north and Fort Shafter spread out next to it across the foothills. As we approach the Pacific War Memorial where the freeway branches, the cab driver bears right onto the Nimitz Highway instead of left as I’m anticipating.
“Excuse me, isn’t Fort Shafter up the hill?”
“Yes, that whole area there below the mountains,” he replies gesturing off to the left. “The military owns everything here.”
“I know, I meant I thought the Lab was located there?”
“At Fort Shafter?”
“Yes, that’s what they told me.”
“No, the lab’s up here on the waterfront.”
“The Central Identification Lab—”
“Yes. Take my word for it. I’ve been there lots of times.”
I’m not sure whether I feel foolish or unconvinced. There’s no denying I’m unnerved. Do ‘they’ have me already? Has Sullivan arranged for another accident? My hand slips into my pocket and finds the pistol.
The driver tromps on the gas. The taxi swiftly accelerates, throwing me back against the seat. Is he offended? Or has our conversation spurred him to get me into unfriendly hands as fast as possible? As the taxi races along waterfront streets lined with trucking yards and warehouses, I become progressively more concerned and have visions of being deep-sixed in Honolulu Harbor.
The driver finally turns right at a large sign that proclaims PIERS 38–44. A short street leads to an unmanned shack that once served as a traffic control point. We continue past it, crossing an expanse of bumpy asphalt toward distant piers where trucks, boxcars, and cargo containers sit beneath towering cranes.
My hand tightens around the pistol’s handgrip. I flick the safety off with my thumb, which is poised to cock the hammer prior to firing.
The taxi bears right and drives through a gate in a chain link fence that encloses two small buildings and the surrounding parking area. To my relief, an American flag flies above a flat-roofed structure where a sign proclaims United States Army, Honolulu, Hawaii, Central Identification Laboratory.
Despite the brilliant sunlight and intensely blue sky, a forbidding mist hovers above the nearby mountains, and an unexpected silence prevails. As the taxi departs, it dawns on me that here, in a desolate corner of the Honolulu waterfront, in two nondescript buildings directly opposite Pier 40, is where the remains of MIAs are brought, where the scientists ply their macabre skills, where the final answers are determined.
The entrance is on the side of the building next to a staircase that leads up to the second floor. I push through the door and find myself in a rather large clerical area.
There’s nothing pristine or scientific about it. Instead of the modern suite of offices populated by technicians in white lab coats I expected, I’m in an upscale Army barracks where the personnel wear uniforms, fatigues, and civvies, and work in beige and pale green rooms with imitation wood paneling, Venetian blinds, louvered windows, and harsh fluorescent lighting. Government-issue gray steel desks, office chairs, and file cabinets are mixed with an odd assortment of residential easy chairs and sofas. The all-too-familiar glow of a computer screen comes from one of the side offices.
I figure there’s little chance that Captain Sullivan is here, but I’ve no doubt the woman with the Filipino accent is. I’ve no idea what she looks like or if anyone else at the CIL is involved, which is why I’ve borrowed the captain’s tactic of not making an appointment in advance. Will they stare? Will jaws drop? Will they be surprised that I’m still alive?
I set my bags aside and cross toward a desk, centered in the area. The placard reads MRS. OLDHAM. The colonel’s secre
tary. I recall the name. A rotund Asian woman with a friendly smile looks up from the typewriter. I identify myself, apologize for my impromptu appearance, and ask to see the colonel.
Mrs. Oldham explains he’s in a staff meeting. Things have been hectic with the recent repatriations. But it shouldn’t be too long. About twenty minutes later, a door behind her labeled COLONEL WEBSTER opens. A group of military and civilian personnel file out. Mrs. Oldham’s intercom buzzes. It’s the colonel. She jots down his instructions, then informs him I’m there and shows me into his office.
It’s a large, square room with the same odd mix of furniture. The colonel’s big wooden desk sits at an angle in the far corner where an American flag hangs from a pole topped with a golden eagle. MIA/POW posters and memorabilia are arranged on the walls and sideboard behind the desk. One proclaims Fighting Quartermaster Corps.
“I’m afraid you’ve picked a bad time,” Colonel Webster drawls softly as he comes around the desk to greet me. He’s tall, square-shouldered, in his mid-forties with a strong military bearing and gentle handshake.
“Your secretary was telling me,” I reply, trying to sound contrite as he motions me to a side chair and returns to his desk. “I just happened to have business in Hawaii and thought I’d drop by to discuss my case.”
“Morgan,” he says as something dawns on him. “The fellow whose name’s on the Memorial.”
“That’s me.” I have no intention of either challenging him, or taking him into my confidence until I have a fix on where he fits in all this. He doesn’t seem at all shocked to see me.
“Interesting,” the colonel muses, “but not a priority. Though, as you might imagine, Mrs. Ackerman suggested otherwise. I’m real sorry. We haven’t had a chance to get to it yet.”
I frown, feigning I’m confused. “There must be some mistake, Colonel. I mean, one of your people has already given me a response. I’d just like to discuss it with you.”
“One of my people?” he wonders, his eyes clouding. “I don’t see how that’s possible. As you probably know, the CIL’s mission is an extremely sensitive one. Nothing leaves here without my knowledge and approval, and I mean nothing.”