Deadly Little Lies

by Jeanne Adams

  Chapter 8

  When Ana and Gates left the garage, they were silent, but not as grim as they had been going in.

  “It’s a chance,” Gates said, finally breaking the tense quiet.

  “If there’s any chance, I’m happy,” Ana said, steering the vehicle out into busy San Francisco traffic.

  “A whiff of a chance is better than none,” Gates agreed, tapping keys on his small, high-powered laptop. He was zooming in on the high resolution photos of a small plane crossing the Mexican border at an altitude just below radar, but at a significant airspeed. He quickly ran a vector program comparing rate of speed, direction, and the size and capacity of the plane. Utilizing another program, running simultaneously, he initiated a search on the numbers Ana’s former colleagues at the CIA had deciphered on the plane’s fuselage.

  “What are you running first?”

  “Flight vector analysis, registration elimination plan.” He grinned with fierce glee, seeing the numbers start to drop into place like slots. “If there’s something to find, I’ll dig it out.”

  “I see you grinning,” she said, and he heard the lift of hope in her voice. “What do you have?”

  “The whiff just became a breeze,” he said, his fingers flying over the keys, adjusting the program to run another analysis in conjunction with the first. “This plane’s got history. I’ve got some legitimate landings, and some not so legitimate ones.”

  “Which ones are giving you that wicked grin?”

  “The legitimate ones.”

  “Where?” she demanded, slipping through traffic like an eel, edging past a semi truck with a whisker of space. He didn’t even notice, trusting her implicitly.

  “Central America. Punta Gorda. Belmopan, and a wildlife reserve. Puerto Cortés and someplace with no name just outside Tegucigalpa, which is the capital of Honduras. Then there are landings in Argentina, and in Guadalajara and Mexicali, and Villa de Álvarez in Mexico as well.”

  “I thought Punta Gorda was in Florida,” Ana said, frowning. “What country is that? Guatemala? I know the Mexican ones. And I was in Argentina. Once.”

  He made a buzzing sound. “That’s a miss on Punta Gorda. Wanna go for another try, little missy? And by the way, there is a Punta Gorda in Florida.”

  “Ha-ha,” she said, pulling through the gates at the hospital. “Nicaragua?”

  “Schools these days,” he tsked. “Neglecting geography.”

  “I sucked at Central America. Now, Europe, name your country, I’ll give you chapter and verse.”

  “We’ll try that sometime. For now though, Punta Gorda’s in Belize.” He shifted to look at her. “The others are Guatemala and Nicaragua. I looked them up.”

  “Ah. Good, I don’t feel so dumb. It’s a smaller haystack, I guess, but still a haystack.”

  They headed into the hospital, going straight to the elevator and up to the intensive care unit without a pause. Once there, Gates sat down in the waiting room, shifting slightly in the chair until he got the best wireless connection.

  “Most people can’t even get cell service in the hospital,” Callahan said, rising and stretching after hours sitting in the same chair.

  “He’s not most people,” Ana said with a smile.

  “Well, duh,” Callahan said, rolling her shoulders and slipping into her raincoat. “I’m going to take a walk, get some fresh air.” She glanced toward the unit where her partner lay. “I’ll be back, though.”

  “Stop in the cafeteria,” Ana ordered. “Get something to eat.”

  Callahan looked at her, looked away. When she looked back, the tough facade had cracked and Ana saw the fear. “I can’t eat,” she said, and her voice shook.

  “Try,” Ana insisted, knowing how much harder despair hit you when you were low on fuel.

  Callahan swallowed, not meeting her gaze. She stood that way for a bit before saying, “It won’t go down.”

  With that, she hurried away.

  Ana felt her own grief rise up to choke her at the words, and watched as Callahan got into the elevator and disappeared. Behind her the clacking of keys hesitated, stopped, resumed.

  “What?” She said it without turning. “What did you find?”

  “Another tiny piece of the puzzle just fell into place.”

  “What?”

  “The plane hasn’t clocked in anywhere else in the last twenty-four hours.”

  “Private airstrips, then, with no towers,” she summed up.

  A different beeping pinged in the waiting room and now she did turn. “What now?”

  “Sending an orde... texting a request to have the yacht go down from Key West to the Gulf of Mexico. If we can find him somewhere down there, we need to have a way to get him out. Carrie too.”

  “Yeah, they don’t have their passports—no plane ride without a passport.”

  “Well, no public planes. I don’t want to alert anyone, though, by flying one of the jets down. Especially since we have no idea where we’re going.”

  “So use an Agency plane,” she said, knowing he had a reason not to, but not sure what it might be. Several agencies had offered the use of personnel, equipment, pretty much anything they might ask.

  “Too conspicuous. Besides—” He looked up at her now, a frown of frustration on his face. Something wasn’t adding up for him and he wasn’t happy about it. He’d worn that look a lot when they first met.

  That thought almost made her smile.

  “Besides what?”

  “You’re beautiful,” he said sincerely, the frown never leaving his face.

  She could feel the blush. More than a year of knowing him, months of marriage, and still he made her blush.

  “Thank you. Now, spill.”

  “Even if it is some family thing,” he began, shifting in the seat. She could tell he wanted to pace, so she sat down and took the electronics from him, freeing him up to stand. As she had mentally predicted, he began to pace, talking it out. “Like I said, even if it’s a family thing behind the abduction, that isn’t all it is. There’s something else going on here and I can’t put my finger on it.”

  “Fact or hunch?”

  “Both.”

  “Lay it out,” she encouraged.

  “The pickup was brilliantly planned and executed, right down to the phony film crew and the innocent bystanders supposedly watching an action flick being made. The dupes driving the cars thought it was all part of the camera work. The camera team thought they were really making a film.”

  “And?”

  “That’s layers within layers within layers. If someone in Dav’s family is working this, it’s not anyone I know or have met. I’ve checked them all out, all of them.” He said that with emphasis, making her smile. He’d even checked the ones he liked, admired or both. His next words confirmed that thought. “His cousin Sophia? She has the brains and the guts, knows the film people, but she genuinely loves Dav. His cousins from his mother’s side?”

  “The ones who came over for New Year’s?”

  “Yeah,” he agreed, still pacing. “They’re too young.”

  “Smart enough I think, but I agree. And they’re impulsive.”

  “His brother’s supposed to be dead,” Gates growled. “We checked, damn it.”

  Ana’s attention sharpened on that note. “Supposed to be?”

  “Yeah. Supposed to be. Reported dead. I checked it out, Dav checked it out. I had them do DNA—they had a body.”

  “If you didn’t see it dead, it may not be dead.” She stated the obvious just to get it out there in the open. “Payoff, then. DNA can be gathered from the living too, you know. What country?”

  “Somalia, but I had it checked. With all associated bribes paid. They said dead.”

  “Huh. So likely that he really is dead.” She wanted to pace with him, but it would only agitate them both. Instead she asked, “But, on the chance that he’s not, let’s play it out. This brother, he smart enough to pull this off?”

  He looked
at her, half smiled, but with no humor. “He’s Dav’s brother.”

  “Got it. He’s smart enough.” She took the next steps in her mind. “Smart enough, obviously coldhearted enough if Dav turned against him. Is he bankrolled enough to pull it?”

  “Ah, now that’s what bothers me. He had a hefty cash flow as a mercenary. His funds flipped quickly out of sight when he died, which was pretty predictable. We didn’t think much of it.” He kept pacing, a little faster now. “That happens. Partners, brothers-in-arms.”

  “So are you looking at him, seriously, or someone else who maybe knew him or wants Dav dead and is trying to lead us that way to divert us?”

  “Ah, there’s the rub, as the Bard would say. It could be any of the above.”

  “Okay,” Ana said, on familiar ground now. Running scenarios was her thing and this tangle meant that they were at least onto something tangible, something that could be unraveled. “Let’s look at the dead brother. Does he have a name?”

  “Real name is Nikolas Gianikopolis, older half brother, cut out of the will by the old man, who pitted them against one another for the right to run the family business. The family biz was half legit, half shady, and Dav didn’t want it.” Ana winced at that; she really didn’t want to know about the shady stuff. What you didn’t know, you couldn’t be called on to testify about.

  Oblivious to her thoughts, Gates continued. “When the business went to Dav, he brought Niko into the company in a high-level position. He felt Niko had been cheated of what should have been his, at least in part. I think he would have given Niko the business if Niko had proved that he could handle it. Truly, Dav didn’t want it. He’d begun to build his fortune here and didn’t want his father’s shadowy legacy, his leavings.”

  “But neither he nor the father left it to Niko,” Ana said, filling in the blanks immediately.

  “Quick rundown,” Gates offered. “Niko picked up where his father left off on the shady side of the business dealings. Dav had shut them down, Niko opened them back up. All the while he pretended to be learning the ropes.”

  “Dav caught on.”

  Gates smiled. “Give the lady a prize. Dav did, indeed. Altercation ensues, threats made, curses and fists fly.” His smile turned feral. “Niko departs in acute pain and disgrace. Six weeks later, the father dies and the empire is Dav’s.”

  “Good reason to hate your younger, smarter, more successful brother. Especially if he beats you up too,” she said whimsically, reading between the lines that Dav hadn’t lost that fight. “A tale as old as Esau.”

  Gates looked blank.

  “Bible story,” Ana said, shaking her head. Amazing how few people knew the old stuff anymore.

  “One I missed, obviously.”

  “Stolen inheritance, and all that.”

  “Got it. Good analogy then,” he complimented, pacing up, then pacing back. “So, moving on to scenario two, Niko really is dead and someone who knew him is out to either gaslight Dav—”

  At Ana’s puzzled look, he rolled his eyes. “Tit for tat then, on Esau. You know, the movie, Gaslight ? Where the husband tries to make the wife think she’s crazy?”

  The light dawned. “Right,” Ana said. “Got it. So yes, either that or someone who knew Niko learned enough from him to get to Dav and we’ll be getting a ransom request.”

  “More than thirty-six hours now, closing in on forty-eight. No requests.”

  Gates’s expression turned grim. “I know.” He paced a bit more, then continued. “Third option—it’s revenge for Niko’s death.”

  “Then why not just kill Dav outright? That scene at the restaurant was tailor made for a killing. And why kill the gallery clerk?” Ana demanded, playing devil’s advocate. “She’s a loose end I don’t like. Something’s there too, and we need to tug that lead.”

  “Not us. That one’s for Baxter,” Gates insisted.

  She nodded, knowing how thin their resources were spread. Not everyone could drop all their tasks to hunt for Dav. “If anyone can, even with all he’s got going on and no help, then Baxter can do it.”

  “True. So then we have Door Number Four. There’s something a whole lot bigger going on here.”

  Ana thought for a minute, trying to get a broader, bigger view. Obviously Gates had already taken that step. “Rival?”

  “Exactly. But who?” Gates questioned, his frustration obvious. “Nobody legit would do this and the black market dealers are just as happy that Dav keeps it on the up and up. Hell, he’d own them, and their businesses, if he wanted to run on the dark side.”

  Ana gave him a fond smile. Much as she agreed, he made it sound like some kind of competitive sport. “True. So, no one obvious on either side. Hidden rival. Lot of women and men out there with money who’d love to see Dav go down.”

  “Yeah, but with this kind of push? This took not only guts, but long-term planning and an almost uncanny amount of luck. Anyone willing to leave three dead, and at least ten wounded just to get Dav, that someone wants him really badly.”

  Ana added that to the mix of thoughts and ideas running circles in her brain. Queller and Thompson had taken the latest watch, despite their injuries. Gates had had to threaten the others to get them to go home and rest. A young woman walked by, her uniform looking crisp and new. Her name tag read Inez. The name sparked another thought.

  “The clerk,” Ana said, remembering where she’d heard the name. “She fits in somehow. I wish she weren’t dead.”

  “Yeah, that’s probably why she is,” Gates replied. “Wait, clerk. Carrie’s former clerk. The one who was there forever. What happened to him, the one who ran the gallery when we met? Whatshisname.” Gates snapped his fingers as if that would help him remember. “Cal, yeah, that’s it. You remember the last name?”

  “Crap, no. We need to find out. Find out why she was there and he wasn’t. Interview all the clerks, make sure we find out who’s new, who’s not and who knew Inez.”

  “Another one for Bax,” Gates said. “Along with finding Cal. He’s important, I know it.”

  He was probably right. He usually was.

  Cal’s last name was right on the tip of her tongue, just almost there, when the elevator dinged and a group of harried-looking people all but leapt off the elevator with two of Dav’s staff in tow.

  She stood up, and Gates whipped around. Before Ana could speak, her text alert signaled and she pulled out her phone. Gates read over her shoulder.

  Shit. They’d finally gotten a ransom demand, along with proof of life, and he couldn’t focus on it. He had to focus on what was in front of him.

  These could only be Declan’s parents. Declan had the look of his mother, with her dark red hair and bright eyes, but his father’s breadth of shoulder and height.

  “Are you Ana? And Gates?” Like homing pigeons, they focused in on Ana and Gates and headed toward them, hands outstretched.

  “Oh, please tell us we’re in time. We’ve been driving all night.”

  “Did you hear that?” When Dav spoke, Carrie paused in her painstaking search for a way to open the wall in their cell. They’d spent the rest of the day searching for the door, but now, in the late-afternoon warmth, his hand closed on her arm in a firm, insistent grip. She stopped and listened.

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Neither do I,” he said. “And that’s not good. The birds stopped making noise; so did whatever makes that other sound, the screeching.”

  “Monkeys, I think.”

  “Something’s disturbing them, scaring them.”

  “Maybe it’s the men, coming back.” Carrie didn’t want it to be their captors. As hungry as she was, and as tired as she was of crackers and Nutella—the supplies they were down to—she didn’t want the time with Dav to end. Their captors’ return meant death, most likely. She wanted to be free, to be with him in the light and air.

  Fear clenched her belly and her heart. She wasn’t ready to face whatever came next.

  They stood,
motionless and listening, as they heard the crunch of gravel, the hum of an engine. Doors slammed and after a few more silent moments, they heard voices.

  “Ramierez, check the perimeter.” It was the smooth voice of the leader of their capture team. They were indeed back. “Carlos, go check on our guests.”

  Footsteps approached and the accented voice said, “Wakey, wakey.” He thrust the barrel of an automatic weapon through the grate and rattled it noisily between the bars. “Happy to see us, eh?”

  There was a shout and the man, Carlos, looked up.

  “Perimeter secure?” The demand in the question was sharp, imperative. “Ramierez? White? Report!”

  Carlos was crouching above the grate now, low and watchful.

  “Sir, perimeter is compr—” A scream and a distant thud punctuated the sentence.

  “Positions!” The leader screamed the order, and the man above them flattened to the ground, his weapon poised to fire. Dav pushed Carrie behind him and shifted along the wall, away from where they’d been, keeping them out of the line of the man’s weapon.

  Yells and orders were a cacophony after the last two days of silence. “Carlos! Get to cover!”

  The man on the grate shifted, started to move, and there was a soft, wet-sounding pop-pop-pop. Carlos spun sideways, keening in pain, but crouched and fired toward the jungle.

  The automatic weapon spat shell casings and the biting taste of carbon snapped in the air. Brass jangled through the bars and onto the dirt. Carrie and Dav both covered their ears as Carlos fired again.

  He’d paused in his firing, so Carrie uncovered her ears, just in time to hear another sound, deeper this time, like a wet towel slapped on pavement. Splat, splat, splat. Carlos grunted in pain, dropped to his knees, air whistling out of his nose and chest. With a gurgling sigh, he fell forward, over the grate. There were indistinct shouts and the sound of gunfire, all muffled by the body of their captor. The waning daylight now penetrating the cell through his limbs, showed them his dying, staring eyes. Blood dripped onto the stone floor in a steady stream. It was mesmerizing, the stream-drip-drip-stream pattern as Carlos’s heart beat its last. The flow of blood slowed and finally stopped, along with the noise from beyond the grate.