by Jeanne Adams
“No camera in Carrie’s office?”
“No. Then again, I don’t want one in mine either,” Gates acknowledged. “Next thing the camera shows is the wall of the corridor, so the guy went and moved the camera so it wouldn’t show him leaving. It wasn’t off long enough to trigger the backup alarms. He knew what he was doing.”
“No doubt.” She said nothing else, knowing that he had to walk through the crime scene in his mind, feel the pattern if there was one. They hadn’t had the luxury of walking through it in person. Now they had to think it through in order to find a next step.
“So,” Gates continued, oblivious to her thoughts. “Then, as the whole restaurant deal goes down, with this guy at the gallery doing the deed with the gi—Inez.” Gates caught himself and used her name. “Is he a dupe, a cog? Or is he a major player? I have no idea. The restaurant op went essentially without a hitch on their part. Sure,” he said, waving a hand to indicate their opponent’s negligent attitude toward life, “they would probably have preferred not to kill anyone, but hey, collateral damage, right?” He ran his hands into his hair again. “So they’re not amateur operators. We know that.”
“Professionals all the way. They were in and out of that restaurant with Dav, with decoys flying in all directions, within four minutes. Police response couldn’t get past the camera barriers and they were slow anyway because there were legitimate permits for filming and mock gunfire. Cops thought the calls were just neighbors who hadn’t known they were filming there. The security guards were real hires as well. They slowed everything down because they thought they were protecting the set.”
“Mass confusion,” Gates snapped, but Ana heard the renewed admiration in his voice. “Brilliant, really. And in the middle of the chaos, our real snatch-and-grab vehicle, full of our real friends, gets away clean. I’d bet they made a transfer within blocks to a van or another SUV that had nothing to do with the set.”
“Another lead for Bax to tug.” Ana made a note to e-mail him that potential directive. Who knew if it was the way it had gone down, but if Gates thought it a reasonable scenario, you could bet it was a good thing to check.
“Exactly. But not anything that helps us now,” Gates growled in frustration.
“Keep playing it out,” she encouraged. “Anything we can figure about the scenario may help. Laying it out this way may give us more keys.”
He nodded, paced some more. “Okay, so we’ve got a nondescript vehicle heading to general aviation at the airport, maybe even to one of the smaller outlying airports for smaller planes, maybe to a private strip.”
“Plenty of those around San Fran and Oakland, in the outlying areas. Wouldn’t have to drive far. Palo Alto, San Jose, San Martin, any of those would do it.”
“Right. No matter what, though, you get them on a plane and head them south. We have the planes here, so we know they left the States pretty soon after they nabbed Dav and Carrie.”
“That evening at the latest,” she added, thinking of the time line he was presenting.
“Which leads me to believe they cut Dav’s and Carrie’s hair here, in Belize, for proof of life, rather than in the States. The FedEx box came from a drop box in Texas, but according to the lab, the box had traces of an adhesive only used on the boxes in the Central American countries.”
“That would explain some of the time lag,” Ana mused, counting the hours. “And can I say that it’s a strange day when adhesives take us in the right direction.”
“Tell me about it.”
She managed a grin at his appreciative tone. Criminalistics rocked. “So, we’re postulating that either someone brought it back to the States to send it to us, or they sent it from here, but through an American account so there was no question that the return addy and account number was San Fran.”
“Exactly. And the sender’s address has no connection to anything or anyone in Texas, Central America, South America or the like. They make custom doll clothes. I’m sure it was sent back to the States before it was shipped to us,” Gates said with conviction. “No question that FedEx gave us real tracking numbers and listings from their origin point in Texas. That means we can be ninety percent sure it was shipped from where the label indicated it shipped from.”
“And we won’t discuss or mention the hacking you did to confirm that,” Ana said without a blink. “Okay, so they get them here to Belize, tag ’em for the hair and the ring. Do they then kill them?” She hated to ask it, hated to think it, hated to think that this was a wild-goose chase or a fruitless search to recover only bodies.
“No, not yet. If they only wanted Dav dead, they could have killed him at that restaurant. He wasn’t under cover, didn’t have on a vest, and his detail wasn’t close enough to stop a bullet. If they knew that, they knew they could take him out right then.”
Ana frowned, thinking it through. Her heart clenched. “He wanted private time with Carrie,” she said, knowing that had to be why the normally cautious Dav had ditched his detail, kept them contained inside while he and Carrie went outside.
“Yeah,” Gates agreed. “He was nervous about the date. He wanted to really talk to her, get to know her on more than a social level.”
“He’s in love with her, isn’t he?” Ana asked, and her husband looked surprised.
“In love? Dav?” He looked shocked, as if that hadn’t ever occurred to him.
“Duh, of course,” Ana said, rolling her eyes. Men just didn’t get that sort of thing the way women did. For the first time in days both she and Gates laughed. “Why else would he want to have lunch out? Why else was he so nervous? Why else would he ditch his detail and walk to the restaurant, make them stay inside? It’s not Dav’s usual style. You taught him to be übercautious, and last year only reinforced the lesson.”
She added up the pieces in her head and came out with a new theory. “That’s got to be it. She’s the bait because someone saw that it was more than just interest. Someone who knows him really well saw something between them that Dav hasn’t admitted to himself, or to you or anyone. All they had to do was wait for him to make his move, let himself be vulnerable to her.”
Now it was her turn to pace, to think it out. “He’s always with women. He’s dated beautiful women, smart women, businesswomen. He works with women. Hell,” she exclaimed, “half his business divisions are run by women. Who would have seen that Carrie was different? Who on our team knows him that well?”
“I would have said me,” Gates admitted ruefully, “and I knew he was interested in her, but I didn’t catch on that it was love.”
“Maybe Dav didn’t either.” Ana narrowed her eyes, thinking hard. “Another woman might recognize it, or a family member.”
“It isn’t Sophia, or the other side of the family either, the ones with the artist son. They’re not sly enough, connected enough.”
“I wasn’t thinking about them,” Ana said. “I’m thinking about the dead brother. You said we couldn’t be sure he was dead, right?”
“We’re as sure as we can be,” Gates said, looking frustrated again. “Without seeing his body.”
Ana shook her head. “I’m thinking we need to go in that direction. Let’s get the Agency to find out what the scuttlebutt is here in Belize about Niko. And in Somalia for that matter.”
Ana began making notes from Gates’s comments about Niko’s death and their investigation into it. If Niko was alive, who better to be working this deal?
She had a gut sense that she was on the right track. This smacked of something personal, really, really personal. Family-hate personal. There wasn’t anyone other than Niko, that they knew of, who would have such a deep and ugly grudge against Dav.
Scribbling notes, she added scorned lovers from youth and his mother’s people to the list. She was about to go back a generation and ask Gates about Dav’s unlamented father, uncles, and so on, when there was a knock on the door. Hand on his weapon, Gates stepped to the side of the door.
“Gates? It’s F
ranklin.”
Ana nodded, recognizing the voice. Gates opened the door. Franklin stood there with one of his dogs on a lead.
“Yeah?”
“Manager asked me to tell you there’s a fax for you at the desk. The new guy, Geddey, also called Callahan, looking for you. Wants you to call in.”
“Thanks,” Gates said, then motioned Ana ahead of him as they left together to get the fax.
Franklin walked around the compound with another of the dogs heeling off-lead as he kept the younger one on the lead. He watched them as they went into the office and Ana wondered if he was their leak.
She wondered if the mole was with them. Who could it be?
The fax was simple. It was a number. The only other information on the sheet was one word, and a time: Info. 10:00 am EST.
They got back to the room and Gates fired up his computer to run the number, to reverse-directory list it and check it with the phone company. Meanwhile, Ana called Geddey.
“Mrs. Bromley,” Geddey answered on the first ring. “Glad you got the message.”
“You didn’t call direct,” she stated. “Why?”
“I wanted your team to know you needed to call me. You said there was a mole, and I thought it might help us flush him or her out if I was known to be calling you. I have some new info on the extra prints.”
Ana’s pen was poised to take the information down when Gates grunted a curse.
“Hang on, Geddey.” She turned to Gates. “What?”
“Number’s a cell. A throwaway,” he growled, tension radiating from every muscle. “It’s on, but it’s bouncing even as I tune into it. San Fran. Oakland. LA. Seattle. All West Coast, but bouncing like a rubber ball.”
“Watcha got?” Geddey demanded in her ear.
“Bouncing throwaway cell. Someone faxed us here, saying they had info.”
“How the hell did someone know you were there?” Geddey demanded. “Hell, I don’t even have the fax number for the damn place.”
“I’ve stopped asking,” Ana said wearily. “This is more complicated than a plate of Silly String. Too many loose ends, too many colors, too many sticky parts.” She took a deep breath, trying not to take her frustration out on “the new guy.” “We flush that mole we discussed, we may figure that out. If we call this number, when they say, we may get the mole or we may get more gooses to chase.”
“Let me know.” It was a demand, not a request.
She suppressed the irritation she immediately felt. Geddey had the tough job. He was waiting. And if Dav was dead, he had no job. Pretty much sucked all the way around.
“Will do,” she finally acknowledged.
Geddey had a parting shot of his own. “Oh, by the way, Declan woke up.”
Chapter 16
Dav woke to the sound of chirping birds. He smiled. He hadn’t heard that sound outside his bedroom window since he was little. Before she’d become ill, before she’d lost his little sister, Dav’s mother had loved to open the windows at night, let the soft air of evening in to cool the house. In Athens, the nights would cool down enough to open the house in the spring and fall. She would come in sometimes, he remembered now, and tell him which of the birds were singing. Their Latin names would roll musically off her tongue, along with their names in Greek and English. He still remembered some of them, but even as he tried to remember, he felt Carrie stir.
Carrie.
Birds.
Freedom.
He abruptly sat up, and Carrie jumped. “What?” she said, peering at him.
His eyes open, with the morning upon them, he realized he could see without the flashlight. “Carrie, the light. The birds.”
She looked startled, listening, and turned toward the light. Together they peered into the gap. Old bones lay beyond them, but they looked like animal bones, well gnawed. A musky odor wafted their way in the warming air. Cat, maybe. A big one.
Carrie scrambled to her feet and, turning sideways, tried to get through the gap. It took her three tries, and on the last attempt, sucking in her breath, she managed to squeeze through. He heard the tearing sound of cloth and as she stumbled into the other cave, he could see that even though she wore his T-shirt, wrinkly and crumpled from wear and sleep, it now had a huge rent in the back of it.
She went to her knees and he reached out. “Carrie? Darling? Are you okay?”
He saw her nod.
“I’m just catching my breath. That was a tight squeeze and the ground here is uneven.” She turned back and he saw anguish in her eyes. “Dav, there’s a way out.”
“Yes!” he exulted as she moved forward, toward the vines and the light. “Excellent.” He said with fierce delight. “Can you see anything? Can you see a village?”
She shook her head. “I can’t see anything but jungle. Dav,” she said, moving back to him. “I barely got through. There’s no way you’ll be able to squeeze out.”
He had already realized this, when he saw the tear on the T-shirt. But she would escape. That was the important thing.
“I know this, Carrie-mou,” he reassured her, reaching through the gap to touch her face. “I will wait here for you. You will find help, come back for me.”
She shook her head, her cheek soft against his rough palm. “It’s too risky, trying to find this place, this opening. I think ...” She hesitated, then plowed on with what she obviously found hard to say. “I think you should go back to the cell.”
“Back?” The thought of traversing the tunnels, returning to the cell, was not only unpalatable, he wasn’t sure he could make it with a fever-clouded mind, and alone in the dark.
Before he could protest aloud, she barreled on. “I think I can find the clearing, following the way we came down the tunnels and ... and ...” She could tell he wasn’t happy, but she continued, his brave Carrie. “If you can get to the cell and I can get to the clearing, then I can shoot off the lock, put down the ladder and get you out that way.”
When he started to protest, she overrode the words. “Dav, if this is Mexico or Guatemala or any of the Central American countries, no one will listen to a woman, especially an American woman, and it won’t be safe for me to go try and find help. You can say that’s all changed and it’s the twenty-first century, but not out in the countryside or boonies or wherever the hell we are.”
He realized that her point was well taken. It was very possible that harm would come to her as she attempted to get help.
“You may be right,” he conceded, and he saw her shoulders slump in relief at his agreement. “You believe you can find the clearing?”
“I think so. If I can get out of the cave going straight up, then I think I can just return to where the center cave was, then turn a little left, then go straight to the clearing.”
“I hate to be grim, but you will probably be able to follow the buzzards as well.”
“Nasty, but true,” she said, her features wreathed in distaste.
“Let us think this through,” he cautioned. “Too many things can go wrong. First, you should go to the cave mouth again, see if you can actually get out. Go and see what you see. I will wait until you come back to tell me, yes?”
“That sounds good. It sounds smart,” she said, giving him a small smile. “I can’t believe I’m out. I want you out too.” She stood up, brushing at her clothes. “Sit tight, okay?”
“I will do this,” he said, watching her go. She pushed through the vines and he saw her stumble, then right herself and begin to climb up out of the narrow opening. When he saw the sun glinting on her dark hair, he knew she was going to be free, she would make it. A huge weight lifted off his heart, knowing that she would survive, even if he did not. She was so strong, so determined.
She would make it. He must tell her, he thought, trying to organize his tired thoughts, that he wanted to marry her.
He couldn’t judge the time, but it didn’t seem long before she was back, scrambling into the cave on her hands and knees. Her smile was excited and positive.
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“Ah, there you are, my flame,” he said with a smile, standing up to greet her. “Returned from your jaunt, have you?” he joked.
“I can see the buzzards circling, and I think I saw the roof of the building. There isn’t a lot of tall vegetation up there.” She used one foot to scratch the opposite ankle. “There’s some kind of biting bug though. Really itchy.”
“I’m glad you could see the way. If I am to go through these dratted tunnels without you, it will help me to know that you will be there, when I find my way.” He said it as if he were sure he could make it, although he wasn’t entirely confident.
“Here—” She held out her hand for her purse. “Take some more aspirin before you start out, and drink the rest of the water. I didn’t see a stream or anything up there,” she pointed upward. “But you can refill in the water cave as you go by. Drink lots of water as you go. That fever is dangerous.”
“I feel better,” he lied, but took the proffered pills and unscrewed the canteen. “But still not well,” he admitted when she gave him a look that patently said she didn’t believe him. As he raised his injured hand, holding the canteen, he felt the broken finger throb. At rest, it hadn’t hurt, but now it throbbed like he’d hit it over and over with a hammer.
When he had drunk his fill, he handed the second, full canteen through the gap. When she’d set the cord that held it over her shoulder, he handed through her purse, and the all-purpose tool. Then he handed her the weapon. He’d been able to clean it a bit more, but he was still unsure whether it would fire properly.
“Come close, Carrie, and let me show you the safety and the things you need to know about this weapon,” he said, holding it up, testing the strap with both hands to be sure it would hold as she climbed.
He pointed out the small safety lever and the gap where the magazine connected. It was loose, so he told her to make sure it was snugly seated before she fired.
“I hope the only time I have to fire it is to shoot off the lock and get you out.”