Dead Promise

by Linda Wells

  Seeming puzzled, she said nothing. She moved her arm, became aware of the IV. She winced, looking again at the man speaking to her.

  “What’s your name?” he asked again. He was speaking slowly and deliberately.

  She didn’t answer.

  Dr. Ahmed said to Elliott, “Please raise her head a little.”

  Washington touched a button next to the side rails, and with a whirring sound, the head of the bed elevated to a thirty-degree angle.

  “Is that better?” Dr. Ahmed asked.

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Where do you hurt?” he asked her, trying a different course of questioning.

  “My head and legs ache,” she said, looking into his eyes.

  Beginning to focus, she turned slightly to look around the darkened room.

  “You received a gunshot wound to your head, but you are an extremely lucky young woman. The bullet became lodged under the skin. But the impact was powerful, and you fell, bruising your legs. The bandages cover the incision necessary to remove the bullet. Can you remember what happened?” he asked.

  Her confused stare provided the answer. She closed her eyes, seemingly in pain.

  “May I please have some water?” she asked, her tongue touching her lips.

  “Certainly,” Dr. Ahmed answered, and he motioned to Captain Washington to get her water.

  Elliott poured chilled water from a pitcher into a Styrofoam cup, placing the straw to her lips. He held the cup for her as she slowly sipped the cool water. She must have been desperately thirsty, but he could tell she was using great effort to drink.

  “Thank you,” she said, looking at Elliott. Then she asked, “How long have I been here? Where am I?”

  Ahmed answered, “You had surgery and have been asleep for about eight hours. You’re in a military hospital, and we’re taking good care of you.”

  He patted her arm and said, “You are going to be fine. We’ll talk later, when you’re feeling better.”

  She whispered, “Thank you.”

  Dr. Ahmed turned to the two nurses, gave them instructions, and said she could have a light breakfast but warned them not to press her too much. He knew a severe concussion could cause nausea, along with confusion and amnesia, hopefully all temporary. She was to stay in bed, and he ordered an MRI. He wanted to check for brain swelling and any other abnormalities. Sometimes a hard hit could cause slow bleeding into the brain well after the accident. He wasn’t taking chances with Patient X. Her recovery was critical, and he was not going to let anything happen to her.

  Elliott said, “I’ll order her breakfast. Maybe she’ll be able to eat.”

  Colonel Heath was making notes on the electronic chart, ordering the MRI, when she thought she heard Patient X mumble something, although her eyes were closed, and it appeared that she was sleeping.

  She looked around and said to Elliott, “What did she say?”

  “I’m not sure, but I could swear that she said, ‘I promise, Max.’”

  22

  The coffee was helping; the alcohol stupor was wearing off. Max was slowly absorbing the details of the previous twenty-four hours. He was surprisingly calm, monotonic, as he answered questions directed at him. He now remembered the guy questioning him had been at Suzy’s condo the night before. He must be out of his jurisdiction, but so what? That wasn’t relevant. Everything felt out of sync. Max’s thoughts were all over the place, but he kept coming back with disbelief to what had happened. That disbelief was keeping him sane.

  “Colonel, help us out if you can,” asked Patterson, one of the FBI agents who had been on the scene the night before at Suzy Chen’s condo.

  Max cradled the warm cup in both hands, his shoulders slumped, as he stared down at the dark-brown carpet. But other images were flashing through his mind. Greg’s blood splattered all over the kitchen floor. The inside of a white van. The words “Dr. Suzy Chen has been shot and is dead.” He had to try to concentrate on the questions from the man who was sitting in the beige wingback chair next to him. The words were slow to penetrate the thick dark cloud that seemed to be surrounding him, but he heard them.

  “Your friend Greg Hammond gave you a report some months ago on Suzy Chen. Is that correct?” Patterson asked, speaking very quietly.

  “Yes,” Max said, remembering when Greg had handed him the large manila envelope.

  They had been sitting in a Greek restaurant, and after Max opened the envelope and read the contents, he’d made a scene and left. He’d been pretty shaken.

  The report was a complete background on Dr. Suzy Chen. The details included information about her twin sister, Lee, who was forced into prostitution as a young girl after being separated from her mother and after surviving the brutal loneliness of a Chinese orphanage. Suzy and her mother were granted permission to leave China and move to Hong Kong. Suzy had been very young, and she didn’t know how her mother met her stepfather.

  According to the document, Suzy’s real father had died in a Chinese “reeducation” labor camp. She and her mother and American stepfather had relocated to the United States, and Suzy had had the good fortune of becoming the family’s shining star, with the encouragement and support of a father who loved her as his own. She had repaid his love by becoming a respected PhD biochemist and assistant director of Edgewood Labs.

  The report included the brief love affair that Dr. Chen had had with the lab director, Dr. Adams. Her promotion to assistant director had been based on merit, but the implication was that her relationship with Dr. Adams had landed her the position. The report had been thorough. Suzy Chen was not only smart but beautiful, and Adams hadn’t kept her bedroom talents a secret. Not only was he a major player, but he loved to kiss and tell. Apparently her passion surpassed her credentials, in his words.

  The ugly story of their breakup wasn’t spelled out. Hammond didn’t include all the sordid details, but there were enough to make one thing clear: Chen hated Adams.

  But Max realized it now. And he realized more. Many motives had driven her to carry out this act, if, in fact, she had. Someone had positioned her to be involved in a terrorist plot in order to save her sister. The revenge and money aspects factored in, but family devotion had been her primary motivation. Whoever this Director was knew how to pull her strings.

  Max felt a surge of rage in his gut. He had learned how to control and direct his rage toward the enemy in combat. Whoever masterminded this plot to manipulate and destroy Suzy was going down, even if he went down with them. Max also remembered his sworn oath to defend his country. An oath he would keep.

  23

  Patterson knew Max had wandered off into his own thoughts. He had to keep this guy talking.

  “How long have you known that Suzy was on the NCS watch list?” he asked.

  Max shook his head. “I don’t know, a couple of months, maybe.”

  “Greg asked you to watch her, too, right?” Patterson asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see anything that might make you suspicious of Dr. Chen?” asked Patterson.

  “No way. Absolutely not!” Max said. “She was played. Don’t you see that?” He was getting loud. “I knew something might be wrong, but nothing like this, and the message I found in her desk drawer indicated that whatever was going to happen would happen in July. There was no clue about what it was. I went to Greg with it.”

  “No one is blaming you, Colonel Graham,” said Patterson, trying to calm Max.

  “I don’t give a shit! I want to find the bastards responsible for this attack, and sitting here talking isn’t helping, is it?”

  “Sir, do you realize your life is in danger, and that Greg Hammond was shot by someone who thought he was you?” asked Patterson.

  “Fuck, yes. Do you think I’m stupid?” Max stood up. “He was my best friend, and he took it for me.”

  “They’ll try again,” said Patterson.

  He stayed seated as Max stalked around the room, not saying a word. He finally s
at down again on the leather sofa and leaned back, crossing his right leg over his left. Max sipped the remainder of the coffee and stared at the bandages on his feet. Blood was beginning to seep through the gauze.

  “I think you’ve had enough. Let me get someone to check out your bandages, OK?” Patterson asked.

  Max just sat there, staring straight ahead. Then he realized he had been asked a question.

  “Sure,” he said, not really knowing what he was agreeing to, something about his bandages.

  Patterson called for one of the medics to check on Max’s wounds and asked an agent to get some takeout. They all needed to eat. He also set up a twenty-four-hour watch on the house, with someone on the inside as well. Hammond’s body was on the way to Quantico. The crime scene was taped off, but nothing had been found inside or outside the house. A skilled shooter could have stopped his car in the alley and shot from an open window. The neighbors weren’t of any help, but agents were canvassing a square mile surrounding the house, in case anyone had seen or heard anything unusual. Late at night in this quiet residential area of Georgetown, most people would have been in bed. Maybe they had heard an unusual noise, but if the killer had used a silencer, no one would have noticed. Police patrolled this upscale neighborhood often, but the killer could have timed the hit to his advantage, especially in the dark.

  Patterson walked to the foyer, just off the living room, grabbed his cell, and called Agent Georgiana Reed. She would be interrogating Max eventually. Maybe she could get more out of him. She answered on the second ring.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Hey, George. I’m at Colonel Graham’s. He’s sober, pretty much stunned by everything. Hammond was hit in the kitchen, probably a large-caliber rifle with a silencer and scope. They wanted Graham.”

  “Yes. You’ll keep assets with him?” she asked.

  “Right. You coming here?” he asked.

  “Mark and I want to talk to him.”

  “He’s still pretty vague,” said Patterson.

  George answered, “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

  “I’ll see you when you get here,” he said, ending the call.

  Right now, they needed to watch and wait and keep Max in protective custody. The assassin would try again. That was a certainty.

  24

  Staying in the shadows, he had jogged to his car, several miles from Chen’s condo. He pulled the black Land Rover away slowly, lights off. Making sure that he wasn’t followed, he detoured to dump the Tomcat into the back bay marshes of the Chesapeake. It cost time, but he wanted it in a place where no one would ever find it. Then he jumped on I-95 and headed south to the DC suburbs. He kept pace with traffic flow and arrived in Georgetown around midnight. He made several turns, finding the narrow street that ran behind the brick town house, pleased to see Graham’s Mercedes parked next to the curb. He turned right, drove a block, and turned into the alley that ran behind Max’s house. He nosed the rental SUV into the space behind an older burgundy Saab.

  “Nice little yuppie collector’s item,” he thought.

  He was parked a short distance from the town house. The SUV blended with the other luxury cars parked in the high-end neighborhood. He could see the back of the house from his car; he was parked at an angle, about fifty yards away. He was used to calculating distance to maximize accuracy. Light from the kitchen window would give him a perfect backdrop for the shot.

  Now he would wait for the right moment. Patience and calculation had come easy to him. The rifle was on the back seat, hidden under a jacket. He watched and waited in the stillness; only the sounds of cars on the freeway two blocks away, a car door closing, or the occasional barking dog could be heard. He slid low in the driver’s seat, invisible to anyone who might pass by. The perfect moment came sooner than expected. He reached into the back seat.

  He saw the movement in the kitchen. He steadied the suppressed short-barreled AR on the car windowsill and sighted through the scope. He saw the muscular figure, his back to the window, the bottle lifted and poured; the man tipped his head, brought the glass up, and took a drink.

  “Hope you enjoyed it,” he thought, as he slowly applied pressure to the trigger with the small pad of his right index finger, releasing the single round with a suppressed sound signature, easily taken for a car door slamming.

  He wouldn’t realize until later that he had screwed up. Big-time.

  25

  Mark used lights but no siren. Traffic from Edgewood to Georgetown had been steady but not heavy, as it would have been on a normal weekday in June. Everything felt bleak, like night duty on Christmas Eve. Nothing felt right. The normal traffic tie-ups were absent on the freeway. People were getting the message about the pandemic and staying home. Max’s street was cordoned off with yellow police tape. Mark pulled his black Mustang GT up to the barriers and parked in the middle of the street. Uniforms and suits were moving around inside and outside the town house, searching the home and adjacent streets for any possible evidence left by the assassin.

  George led the way, with Mark following close behind. Patterson met them at the front door.

  “How is he?” asked George, skipping formalities.

  “As you would expect,” answered Patterson. “He’s in his bedroom, pretty shaken. We have his Kimber .45, if he asks for it.”

  “I’ll keep it,” said George.

  Patterson handed it over. George cleared it, then put it in her purse.

  “Have you found anything?” asked George.

  “No, but we’ve ID’d the weapon and caliber. Looks like a pro. One to the head. Hammond didn’t stand a chance.”

  “Can we take a look at the scene?” George asked.

  “This way.” He led them down the center hallway to the rear of the town house.

  George and Mark stopped at the kitchen doorway. They saw what they needed. Two guys in khakis and black FBI shirts, wearing masks and gloves, were combing through the glass on the floor, and several other agents could be seen outside the broken window, looking for evidence. Blood was everywhere; the floor where Hammond’s body had fallen was marked.

  “I think we should talk to the colonel,” said George.

  Patterson pointed to the stairs. “At the top, to the right.”

  “Thanks.”

  Mark stepped aside to let her go up the stairs first. He stopped on the landing, touching her shoulder.

  “Wait a minute, George,” he said.

  She turned around. “What?” she asked.

  “Are you going to tell him?”

  “Fran wants it kept quiet, but she left the decision up to me,” said George. “I want to see how he’s doing. We don’t need a loose cannon before we find out what we need to. Make sense?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Mark. “But he could be useful to us. And he would be the person to get her to talk.”

  George knew he was right. Max had kept secrets before, and maybe Chen would open up to Colonel Graham.

  She knocked on the door. No answer. She opened it slowly, walked into the dim bedroom, and saw the television on with no sound and a man with his eyes closed, stretched out on the bed. A man nearly destroyed by two tragic losses.

  26

  They were embracing, kissing, his mouth on hers. Feeling her again. God, kissing her eyes, face, neck, pulling her tight against him.

  “I love you, Suzy,” he whispered, as his hands slid down her slender body.

  He unzipped her dress slowly, his mouth never leaving hers. As her red sheath dress slid to the floor, her lips opened, gasping, his tongue lingering on her neck. He bent to kiss her soft curves as he unfastened her bra. Her head tipped backward, his kisses inflaming her. She stood motionless, wearing only red lace panties. Max’s breathing was rapid.

  He grasped Suzy’s hand, led her to their bed, pulling her down next to him. They embraced, no words spoken. Their kisses wet and passionate as Max touched her breasts. Suzy touched him, and he responded. He stood, rippe
d his tie off, threw his shirt on the floor, and unzipped his pants. He was ready for her. He pulled her close to him, kissing her as he pushed her back onto the bed. He stopped just long enough to slide her panties off and spread her legs, open for him, only him. As he touched her, he felt her wetness, full of desire for him. He couldn’t get enough of her, touching her, kissing her breasts, wanting her. He kissed her gently, loving her, her loving him, the way they always did, and it felt right.

  He was struggling. What was happening?

  “Damn it, baby, where are you? I love you. Don’t go,” he said, and he tried to hold her, and he saw her hand, wearing his ring, slip from his grasp.

  “Suzy…” His voice faded.

  “Colonel Graham, it’s Georgiana Reed, sir. FBI. Wake up.”

  His hand hurt from squeezing hers, her ring leaving a mark in his palm. The ring he’d given to her. His eyes opened slowly, trying to focus. His nails dug into his palm. Where had she gone? The soft afternoon light, shadows of two people in his room. He must still be dreaming, half-awake, half-asleep. He wanted to go back.

  Mark said, “Colonel Graham, sorry to disturb you, sir. I’m Agent Strickland. We met last night.”

  Max sat up, orienting himself, groggy from the heavy sleep or maybe the bourbon. He wasn’t sure, but his head was pounding. Still in his cargo shorts and gray T-shirt, he threw his legs over the side of the bed.

  “Excuse me. I must have fallen asleep,” he said, his hands running through his short military cut, graying at the temples.

  He looked up, realizing who the two people in his room were. Remembering the events of the past evening. Shit! The past days, weeks, sinking in. Clarity hitting hard.

  As he sat there, very still, he asked, “What do you want?”

  “Colonel, we need your help. I’m sorry we had to wake you, but under the circumstances, perhaps we can help each other.” Georgiana spoke softly.