Errand of Mercy: How far do you run, and where do you hide?

by William Walker

Schoenfeld had screamed into the phone. The man had a bloody bag on about the diamonds and those damn pilots. Recover the diamonds and make the pilots pay, make the pilots pay, over and over. I got that, he almost told him outright. You think I’m a bloody idiot?

  “The car,” Udo grunted.

  Murdock drove by his parked BMW. Finally there was space to pull out the big sedan and they could ditch the Land Cruiser. One block over he wedged the boxy vehicle into someone’s numbered space.

  “Die Uniform?” the German questioned as he opened the door.

  “Bring the uniform.” the Briton said with disgust. “Christ,” he mumbled to himself. He’d explained it to the German clod once already. The uniform was now part of the Conductor’s plan and Udo had to be ready to use it.

  O’Brien threw off the heavy down comforter smothering him on the king-sized bed and opened his eyes. A hazy brightness was visible through the closure between the curtains. He guessed the time approached seven ’o clock in the morning. His body rhythm usually ran a few minutes ahead of the game time-wise so he adjusted backward. When he at last turned his head, the red, digital readout on the clock radio displayed 06:55. He rubbed his eyes, massaged the sleep out of his face with both hands and stretched.

  Pillows were crowding him. He’d never seen so many freaking pillows on a bed. He kicked a couple on the floor and walked to the bathroom. His clothes were dry and hanging from the shower bar where he had hooked them the night before. He had hand-washed them yet again, but Gina’s blood stains were never going to completely come out of his white polo shirt. He didn’t want them to.

  He showered with very hot water and finished with a cold-water rinse and a scrub with an oversized bath towel. Item by item, he selected and used the complimentary toiletries: the milled French soap bar, the shampoo, the toothpaste and shaving cream, even the plastic razor and moisturizing face lotion. Twenty minutes later he was clean-shaven and refreshed.

  Gina was on his mind. She’d come close to death, and that might be the most difficult concept any individual had to deal with, the concept that someone wanted to take your life. They’d both find out how tough she was, but he was beginning to think she was a lot more resilient than either he or she realized.

  His phone rang as he finished dressing. “You up?” It was Gina. She sounded okay.

  He said, “It was too hot to sleep under all of these covers.”

  “Can I come over?”

  “Are you kidding? I wanted you here last night...maybe just to talk. It helps to talk about it.”

  “Let’s do that over breakfast,” she suggested.

  “Coffee and biscuits in the room okay?”

  “And some orange juice, Daniel.”

  He opened the door to her quiet knock a few minutes later. Gina’s hair was pulled loosely off her neck and held with a blue ribbon. She wore light makeup that didn’t quite hide the cuts around her swollen lips and the bruises around her neck. Her dress was a repeat of the previous evening: a dark skirt with a white blouse.

  “Gina?” O’Brien hugged her tentatively and was surprised with the positive force of her return embrace. She felt good in his arms and he sensed a tiny ripple, a tremble that coursed through her body as she placed her cheek against his. A long moment passed as he held her.

  She pulled away slowly and glanced around the room. “I smell coffee.”

  Later, after he’d refilled their cups and called down for another coffee service, she began to talk about the attack.

  They had held her down and suffocated her twice to the point of partial unconsciousness, she told him. She was terrified when they began, but that changed when Starr started in on her a second time. She was still terrified, but she was also screaming mad.

  “They smelled, Daniel.” She scrunched her nose. “All of them, like some type of rotten beef that’s been sitting in a garbage can. But when I think of Starr…” She shuddered. “We worked together for two months, and I’m mad at myself because I didn’t suspect anything about him. Not for a second.”

  “That’s because you were overloaded with your kids. You didn’t have time to focus on anything else. And like Larry said, Starr was gone all the time to the clinics in the foothills.”

  “If that’s what he was doing, and somehow I doubt it now.” She finished her remaining orange juice in a swallow and leaned back with her coffee cup. She was deliberate with her movements, as if she didn’t quite trust her coordination. Her hands were shaking.

  He buttered a biscuit. The miniature jar alongside the plate was full of boysenberry preserves, and he cracked the lid and scooped out thick chunks of red berries onto the biscuit. He gave her half.

  “Say something, Daniel.” She nibbled at an edge.

  “Okay. Here’s what I think. You’re doing right by talking this out, confronting all the emotional darkness of this thing early and not burying it away in your subconsciousness, because it’ll follow you.” He leaned back and gave her another two feet of body space. “You’ll have the shakes for a few days, and they may come back later. You’re going to blame yourself for a while. Maybe blame is not the right word, but I can already see it when you wondered why you couldn’t read Starr better from the get-go. Believe me, Gina. Nothing, nothing that happened was in any way your fault.”

  “Thanks, Doctor O’Brien.” The words came out with a small touch of humor.

  He took a long swallow of coffee. “The knowledge that someone intends to kill you, that someone wants to take your life, is an odd thing to comprehend. It gives you a weird feeling, and it’s difficult to share that feeling with someone else.”

  “And you know this because?”

  “I know it.”

  She focused on her plate and then raised her eyes. “Right now I think I’m more pissed than anything else. That Starr. What a miserable excuse for a human being. Even if I’d known where the diamonds were I’m not sure I would have told him.”

  “They would have killed you as soon as you told them.”

  “Not for a while.” She shuddered again and looked away. “I know that much.”

  He had no reply. He refilled his coffee and motioned to her cup.

  She shook her head and finished the remaining wedge of biscuit. She dabbed her lips with the napkin. “Daniel?”

  He made a slight upturn of his head and allowed his eyes to rest on hers. He had a good idea what was coming. “I want you in my life, Gina. Before you say anything I want you to know that.”

  “I know it. But when I think about my feelings, they don’t make sense, and I’m questioning everything. We’ve known each other what, four days? All of my study, all of my empirical, medical training tells me I can’t be falling for someone this quickly. But I am.”

  “Lucy said something to that effect.” His eyes rambled for a second and came back to hers.

  “It’s because you keep playing the hero, and I’m going to call you ‘my love’ always and forevermore.”

  The words had the ring of a painful goodbye, and it seemed his heart began a slow downward spiral. “I mean it when I say I want you in my life. I would hate never to see you again. Remember when you asked me on the train what we’d do on a normal date?”

  She nodded. “I wanted to stay on the train and just talk to you.”

  “I assumed what you were really asking was what we’d have between us when this continual crisis ended, if we’d see the same things in each other. I wondered also.”

  “I think I know the answer.”

  “If…we can go forward, you’ll find out I’m actually a funny guy. Bet you don’t know that.” He smiled.

  She laughed. “You’re making me laugh now so I guess it’s true.”

  A knock sounded at the door.

  Gina placed her cup on the table. “Daniel, this is all…too much too soon, with us and everything else. I’m going to need some time when we get home. You need to understand that, my love.”

  “I knew that’s where you were going.” He stood, le
aned toward her and placed a lingering kiss against her cheek. “Call me when you’re ready, because I’ll be ready, and I’ll be missing you until then.”

  O’Brien opened the door and Lucy barged in ahead of the room service steward. “I knew you guys would be in here,” she said in a huff of breath. “My brother and the other two pilots aren’t even up yet.” She grabbed his shoulders in a quick hug as he tipped the young waiter. “I think they were all up late talking to flight operations on the phone. Gina, why didn’t you wake me?”

  Lucy wore her hair down. She’d pulled it close to the side of her face and let it hang loose. Her lips were polished red but the rest of her face looked like she’d played center position in a football game without a helmet. She pulled up a chair beside Gina.

  “Let me look at you, Lucy.” Gina pulled Lucy’s hair away from the bruised side of her face.

  “We’re a pair, aren’t we?” Lucy said. “I think I’ll go hide in a cave somewhere until this heals.”

  “Any blurred vision this morning?”

  “No.” She shook her head.

  “You’ve got a lot of broken capillaries here. This is going to get greenish-yellow before it gets black.” She sat back. “You can’t have any aspirin, Lucy, only Tylenol.”

  “How about this biscuit? That okay?”

  “I can order something more if you’d like.” O’Brien sat down and poured fresh coffee into another cup.

  “Please,” Lucy said. Her eyebrows went up.

  O’Brien tipped his chair backward, stretched for the phone and the room service menu. “How do you want your eggs?” he grunted.

  “Scrambled, with some hot sauce if they’ve got it.”

  “You may as well order something for me, Daniel,” Gina said. “That biscuit is not going to hold me.”

  Lucy smiled at her and raised the borrowed knife. “A good appetite. That’s the first step in the healing process. ’Course, I’m not a doctor.”

  Gina grinned. “Maybe more than you know.”

  O’Brien spoke into the phone while peering at the menu, “I’d like three breakfasts sent up: two Euro Day Starters and one American Cowboy Special—with hot sauce.”

  Lucy looked up. “Very funny, Daniel.”

  He stretched back to the table. “Gotta get you ready for all that roping and bronco riding, or whatever you do in Wisconsin.”

  She gave him an idiotic stare. “We make cheese.”

  “Oh yeah. I forgot.”

  “I thought you were going to meet one of the pilots for breakfast,” Gina remarked. “Your brother’s two co-pilots seemed like nice, normal guys when we met them last night.”

  “Are you kidding, I think we scared the hell out of them.” She dug into the tiny jar of jam. “I’d rather eat breakfast here anyway. We’re family, sort of.”

  Udo felt rested. The back seat of the big BMW was almost as comfortable as his bed in Weimar. The night’s sleep and the huge breakfast he’d just consumed made him feel like himself for the first time in several days. His leg wasn’t even hurting anymore. The British Schwein behind the wheel needed a shower, that was for sure, but the people here were lacking in so many ways it didn’t surprise him.

  They were on the way to Gatwick. The Conductor had explained everything on the telephone before they’d even sat down for breakfast, and it made sense. He’d have to shave his beard, though. The Conductor was adamant about that.

  Udo gazed over his shoulder at the gold wings attached to the blue captain’s uniform lying on the back cushion. The pilot’s peaked hat was beside him on the front passenger seat and he fingered the embossed lightning bolts on the bill. He sat up straight, tightened his stomach muscles and flexed his pectorals. The Americans certainly had good-looking uniforms for their flyers. He hadn’t tried it on yet, but he was certain it would fit perfectly. The uniform was a natural match for him. His countrymen had always been acclaimed as skilled pilots. The famous aces from the last war had all been fellow Germans. Perhaps if he’d escaped from East Germany at a younger age...well even so, he had the blood of those expert pilots in his veins.

  The Briton was driving fast. They were looking for a BP station with an outside restroom. Someplace he could shave and put on the uniform without going past a bunch of clerks gaping at him from behind their counters. He checked the time on the dashboard clock. It was almost nine-thirty, and the Conductor had informed them that the FedEx flight would take off at about eleven o’clock. Udo shook his head and wondered how his boss could know so much.

  Late the previous evening Herr Schoenfeld had called. He wanted the pilot’s name and tag number from the large identification badge that accompanied the uniform. During the night, in a span of less than twelve hours, the Conductor had discovered all of the flight information concerning the pilot and his scheduled departure. Udo was grateful that Herr Schoenfeld was not after him.

  “Da drüben, auf der rechten Seite.” Murdock pointed out a BP station up ahead and to the right.

  “Ja, ja. Ich sehe,” Udo replied.

  Murdock turned to him. “From now on only English. Klar?

  “Yeth, I understand. I only speak English.”

  The filling station and the quick-stop convenience store had a brand-new look. The Briton drove onto the clean, concrete lot and motored slowly past the service lanes of shiny, green petrol pumps. He stopped the sedan on the last parking spot at the end of the building. The washrooms were located on the back side of the store just as they’d hoped. They were nicely screened with a border of lush privet hedges but the doors were locked. Someone would have to get the key.

  Murdock killed the ignition and opened the door. “I’ll be back in a moment. Stay in the car.”

  Udo rubbed the nice, full texture of his beard one last time. He hated to shave it, but orders were orders and he wasn’t going to let the Conductor down on this final operation.

  The Briton walked back to the car with a razor and shaving cream in one hand, and the washroom key in the other. The key was attached to a large piece of metal. He opened the car door. “You know what to do,” he said to Udo, and handed him the items.

  Udo gathered the uniform, key, and shaving items and made his way into the washroom. He entered and locked the door behind him. The tile floor was clean and white, and the urinal and single stall appeared spotless, almost as nice as German urinals.

  He hung the uniform on the stall door and relieved himself in a long, steady stream. Most of the discharge hit the urinal, but he wasn’t too careful with his aim. This was English soil, after all.

  Five minutes after leaning over the wash basin his beard had disappeared. He ran a hand over his face, and decided that even with the cuts and bruises his features were actually quite handsome. He’d worn the beard for so many years he’d forgotten what a firm jaw he had.

  A sharp series of blows hit the door. “We’re late. Hurry up!”

  Udo dropped his trousers and pulled on the uniform pants, then the shirt and tie. They fit perfectly, although he was slow to make the knot in the tie. The look was spectacular, even though he might never get a chance to actually walk onto the flight ramp.

  The plan was simple and ingenious. They were going to ambush the O’Brien man and the two women before they entered the FedEx freight terminal on the far side of the airport. Freight terminals were not crowded like the buildings on the passenger side of the airport, the Conductor had told them. And sometimes, even in this day and time, a single guard gate and a sliding perimeter fence enforced security. If for some reason they were late and missed the three thieves, Udo was prepared to enter through the security fence and walk onto the ramp in his uniform. He’d do the job himself with his .40 caliber Glock, and then retrieve the diamonds. Somehow, Herr Schoenfeld knew the plan would work, and that was enough for Udo.

  He buttoned the coat and pulled the captain’s hat onto his head. Gold wings on a field of blue reflected back at him from the mirror over the sink, and he peered at the image of a strong
, capable jet captain. He turned his head slightly, gave the mirror a quarter-angle as he firmed his lips. If he’d just brought a camera—

  The door shook with a hammer blow. “Come on out of there you fucking idiot!” the Briton shouted.

  Udo allowed himself one more lingering glance at the reflection in the mirror. Perhaps in this uniform women would find him handsome and appealing. He might no longer have to rape and murder to get what he wanted. It was a thought.

  27

  “You guys remember Stewart and John from last night?” Eric waved at his co-pilots as they boarded the hotel’s purple and white courtesy van.

  “How come you need so many pilots?” Gina asked.

  “It’s a problem with the duty day and the flight time,” Stewart answered as he slid onto a bench seat. He was fair-haired, in his late twenties, and reminded O’Brien of Kurt, the van driver back at the medical compound.

  They departed the Crowne Plaza for the short ride to the cargo terminal. Eric and his co-pilots occupied the front seats and O’Brien and the two women sat in the back.

  Eric looked odd without his uniform. “You sure there’s not going to be a problem with us riding along?” O’Brien asked. He assumed the difficulties associated with Eric’s lack of a uniform and identification badge had already been dealt with.

  “That’s why we’re going out a few minutes early. My co-pilots in uniform will vouch me in through operations, and you three non-FedEx civilians will have to be checked, even though I’ve put you on the manifest.” He turned sideways in his seat and allowed his glance to include them all. “I may as well brief you on the flight. John will fly the leg back to Washington, DC—we’ll be landing at Dulles—and Stewart will do the outside preflight of the airplane.”

  “Bet your airplane will be in better shape than ours was,” Lucy said.

  “It’s larger, that’s for sure, Sis.”

  “He flies a DC-10. I may have told you,” Lucy added to O’Brien and Gina.

  “You told us about ten times, Lu,” O’Brien said.