Guardian of Lies

by Steve Martini

  A line of ambulances long enough that no one bothered to count them lined up under the freeway overpass, waiting their turn as paramedics and police worked through the bodies on the bus.

  The bomb squad gingerly checked the box truck for explosives. Two of the FBI agents had already been badly injured in the blast from the getaway van, and authorities were taking no more chances. The box truck had to be cleared before moving it so that ambulances could pull up on the ramp.

  “I don’t, sir.” One of the FBI agents was on the phone with Thorpe, in Washington. “They’re on the bus looking for both of them now. I know. I know. There’s nothing the hostage rescue team could have done, believe me. They made no contact with any authorities, no evidence of any interest in negotiating anything. When the sheriff’s department tried to communicate with them through the speaker on one of the squad cars up at the top of the ramp, the assailants just opened on them. The minute they blew the door off the bus, they just entered and started shooting people. We had no choice, we had to move in.

  “No, from what we can see, there were eight of them. All dead, yes, sir, unfortunately. It’s hard to tell. We went through the pockets of the two we killed outside the bus on the ramp. They were carrying nothing. No identification. They were wearing jeans and street clothes. They could have bought them anywhere. But it’s pretty clear they’re not Islamic. The two outside had gang graffiti tattooed on their bodies. Somebody from the sheriff’s gang unit is trying to decipher it now. I have a feeling we’re going to find out they’re not local, probably from over the border.

  “The weapons, yes, sir, Chinese made, AKs, all original military actions, fully automatic. The explosives we don’t know yet. We think most of them went up in the van explosion, but we should be able to get residue, trace compounds and markers that should tell us where they originated. I’d say it’s pretty clear that it’s not ideological. It’s either drug related or they were after your woman on the bus.”

  “Get them out of here.” A big, beefy sergeant from the jail unit at Las Colinas had taken charge on board the bus. He was the same one who had slipped the small Walther pistol to Carla two days earlier.

  “Crime scene is gonna want them left where they lay.”

  “I don’t give a shit.” The sergeant turned on the officer, still decked out in SWAT gear. He had lost two friends, Jed the driver and the guard, and he was in no mood to debate the issue. “We’ve got wounded people here and I want this aisle clear. Get some officers to drag those bodies out of here.” He gestured toward the dead button boys piled up in the aisle.

  “See that they lay ’em outside far enough away so they don’t block access to the ambulances. Crime scene can process them there. And tell them to hurry up and get that truck out of there.”

  “They just cleared it for explosives. They’re looking for the keys.”

  “Let’s hope they didn’t go up with the van,” said the sergeant. “Check their pockets before you take them out of here. The truck keys may be there. Here.” The sergeant handed a different set of keys to one of the agents on the FBI assault team. He had found them outside on the ground, near the body of the guard.

  The agents and officers were busy trying to get the ankle bracelets off the wounded and remove the waist chains so they could be separated from the dead as paramedics checked the victims and conducted triage. The officers already knew that most of the women up front were dead. Those who hadn’t been shot were killed in the blast when the last satchel charge was tossed inside. It had blown a hole in the roof of the bus and ripped out four of the bench seats, bending them sideways, so that they now rested against the bulging walls of the bus.

  “What do you want to do with this?” One of the agents was holding the small Walther pistol.

  “Here, give it to me.” The sergeant took it, dropped it on the floor, and kicked it under the body of one of the dead button boys. It was clear that one of the women had managed to get the gun away from them. What wasn’t clear was how many of them she shot or from what angle or distance. The medical examiner and the forensics team would have to figure that one out, and having moved the bodies, it would be anybody’s guess.

  The agent worked with the keys, found the one that worked, turned it, and the manacle on her ankle popped open.

  “It should be the same key on her waist,” said the sergeant.

  Two seconds later the agent had it unlocked. “I know her last name, what’s her first name?” the agent asked the sergeant.

  “Katia. Katia Solaz.”

  “Katia, listen to me. We have to take you off the bus now. Is she okay to move?” asked the agent.

  Katia could see his lips move, but she couldn’t hear a word, or any sound for that matter, just a constant ringing in her ears.

  One of the paramedics glanced over. “There’s a shallow flesh wound, right thigh. I bandaged it. It doesn’t look serious. She’s got some concussive injury from the overpressure of the blast. May have blown her eardrums, I’m not sure. They’ll have to check her at emergency. Make sure they don’t give her any depressants in the meantime. But she should be okay to move, if you can get her outside and on a gurney.”

  “Katia, listen, you have to come with us now. Please.” The agent took her hands and tried to pry her arms open.

  Katia started to struggle. She tried to fight him off. She wasn’t going to let go, no matter what they did. Who were they? If they were here to help, why had they waited so long? Why didn’t they come sooner? She buried her head next to Daniela’s and clung to her for life, praying that her friend would wake up, that she would stir, open her eyes and offer the reassurance she had given Katia since the moment they’d met—that everything would be okay.

  The agent gave up trying to pry her hands from the dead woman. Katia stopped struggling. She looked at them with an expression of fierce determination. Then, with her fingertips, she brushed a few of the bloody and matted hairs from Daniela’s face and hugged her, rocking back and forth on the floor between the seats as if in a trance. The last thing Katia remembered was the image of Daniela as she pushed her down and threw herself on top of her an instant before the brilliant white flash engulfed them both. She remembered the French braid of Daniela’s shimmering black hair suspended straight out in the flare of superheated air, and then nothing.

  She watched as the men talked to one aother, but she heard nothing. Two of them nodded. And then the one who had been kneeling down, seeming to talk to her, instead knelt down and leaned in. He worked with a set of keys until he found the one that worked to unlock Daniela’s ankle shackle. He removed the manacle from her leg and the chain from her waist. Before Katia realized what was happening he’d lifted Daniela into his arms and suddenly she was gone, being carried down the aisle of the bus, toward the door.

  Katia struggled to get to her feet, but her leg hurt. It seemed that it would no longer support her. One of the other men leaned down, put his arm under her shoulder and whisked her up into his arms. They followed Daniela down the aisle and off the bus. It seemed so long, a lifetime since the two of them had climbed on the bus at the jail and talked about the honor farm, Katia’s family, and her mother being in Colombia. She knew that Daniela had not told her the truth about who she was or what she wanted. But to Katia it no longer mattered. They had been through so much together that nothing, not even death, could now break the bond she felt.

  THIRTY-THREE

  By the time Harry and I arrive at the University Medical Center on Hillcrest, Katia had already been admitted. The sheriff’s department has a contract with the university for inpatient care of inmates, and this morning the lobby is crawling with law enforcement. There are city police, sheriff’s deputies, and federal agents, some of them still wearing tactical gear.

  The moment I mention Katia’s name at the reception desk, Harry and I are approached by a man in his mid-thirties.

  “Excuse me. Who are you?”

  He is wearing baggy black tactical pants and is s
tripped down to his T-shirt up top.

  “Who’s asking?” says Harry.

  “Agent John Swarz.” He flashes FBI credentials at us.

  “Paul Madriani, my partner, Harry Hinds. We’re Ms. Solaz’s lawyers.”

  “Do you have any identification?”

  Harry and I show him our driver’s licenses and state bar cards. I hand him a business card.

  “I don’t think she’s going to be seeing anybody right now.”

  “We’d like to know where she is,” says Harry.

  “Do you know what her condition is?” I ask.

  “She’s not critical, if that’s what you mean. She took a flesh wound in the leg. You can get the details from the doctor. According to the EMT, she suffered some shock, possible concussion, and a chance of some hearing damage from the explosive device.”

  “Then you saw her?” I say.

  “I carried her off the bus. Give me a second,” he says.

  The agent steps away from us, pulls a cell phone from his pocket, and walks farther away as he presses buttons to dial the number. He stands twenty feet away, glancing at Harry and me as he talks on the phone and looks at my business card. Then he looks at me and motions for me to come over.

  “Somebody wants to talk to you,” he says, and he hands me his cell phone.

  “Hello.”

  “Mr. Madriani, this is Jim Rhytag. Agent Swarz informs me that you’d like to be able to see your client.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “That will be up to the doctor, of course. But I want you to know that she will be well protected from here on out. We’ve made arrangements to have her moved to a private room upstairs in the hospital, outside the jail ward. She will be in the custody of the sheriff’s department but there will be two federal marshals assigned at all times while she’s there, providing backup, more if we think it’s necessary. We have reason to believe that the assault on the bus this morning may have been directed at Ms. Solaz.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what this is about?” I say.

  “I’ve told you all that I can. Just one more thing, we’ve kept her name off the admissions records at the hospital and my agents covered her with a blanket when they took her off the bus. Law enforcement has agreed not to give her name to the press as a survivor. Whoever tried to kill her may not know she’s alive. We’d like to keep it that way, at least for the time being. We’ve already advised the judge and court personnel. You need to know so you can avoid any questions from the press. It’s for your client’s own safety.”

  “I understand. For how long?”

  “We’re not sure. We’ll let you know. The rest you’ll have to get from her doctor. Sorry I can’t be more helpful.” The line went dead.

  I hand the phone back to the agent. “Thanks.”

  Harry and I have cooled our heels, pacing the lobby and sitting on hard wooden benches, for nearly two hours before one of the nurses comes out and tells us that the doctor will see us now. She leads us down a broad corridor and through a pair of wide electrically controlled double doors with the word EMERGENCY blazed across them in red paint.

  She tells us to take a seat inside a small room. Before we can sit down, a young intern breezes into the room with a clipboard under his arm.

  “Hi. I’m Dr. Johansson. I understand you’re here to see Ms. Solaz.”

  We introduce ourselves.

  “The good news is, she’s going to be okay. The bad news is, she’s undergone a tremendous amount of trauma. There are no broken bones, no internal injuries, the bullet wound in the leg is in soft tissue, some minor muscle damage. It should heal completely. It may take a few weeks. Her hearing loss, we believe, is temporary.”

  “She can’t hear at all?” says Harry.

  The doctor shakes his head. “Not at the moment, as far as we can tell. There was some minor bleeding from the nose and ears, the result of a concussion from the explosive pressure wave. Both eardrums were ruptured, but they should heal. That usually takes about two months.”

  “Will she be able to communicate in the meantime?” I ask.

  “That’s the real question,” says the doctor. “We don’t know. She’s clearly suffered some concussive brain injury, physical trauma in the form of shock waves to the central nervous system. Coupled with that is the psychological component, all the things she saw, the sheer terror of what happened, and the death of her friend—”

  “What friend?” I say.

  “She apparently had someone on the bus she was very close to, another woman who, according to the police, may have died in her arms. We don’t know. From what I understand, the other woman may have saved her life. Again, we’re not sure of all the details. Regardless, you can imagine the stress your client was under, physical and emotional. The problem is, it’s hard to separate the two, to determine how much of the damage is physical, resulting from the blast, and how much is psychological.

  “The concussive effect of the blast alone on the nervous system can last anywhere from hours or days to weeks. It depends on the individual.”

  “But she will recover?” I say.

  “I think so. The damage usually isn’t permanent unless the source of the trauma becomes repetitive, shell shock from long-term combat, for example. In this case, the odds are she’ll recover.”

  “But you can’t tell us how long that’s going to take?” says Harry.

  “Not with any certainty or precision, no. She’s going to need a lot of rest and quiet. She won’t be going back to the jail anytime soon. I’d say she’s either going to be here or in a very quiet semiskilled nursing facility for a minimum of ten days to two weeks, perhaps longer.”

  “So what you’re telling us,” I say, “is that Ms. Solaz is not going to be able to give us much help in preparing her defense on criminal charges during that period.”

  “At the moment she’s unable to speak to anyone.”

  “Because she can’t hear?” says Harry.

  “No. She’s in a stupor, probably as a result of the shock. We’ll be doing an MRI and some other tests. There’s limited motor response. She doesn’t seem to react normally to stimuli. To the extent that anything depends on her participation or cooperation, she may not be able to comply. As I say, it’s probably only temporary, but at the moment it’s absolute. I can give you a letter if you need it.”

  “If you don’t mind,” says Harry, “that would be helpful.”

  The doctor makes a note on his clipboard. “Right now she’s not communicating with anyone. We haven’t been able to get a word out of her. The officers who brought her in said they were unable to communicate with her as well.”

  “Can we see her?” I ask.

  “Does she have any family in the area?”

  “No,” says Harry. “We’re it. Her nearest family is in Costa Rica. They don’t have U.S. visas or the financial ability to travel up here.”

  “That’s too bad. Sometimes family helps in a situation like this, reaching the patient, I mean. She is sedated, just mildly at the moment. We’re going to be moving her upstairs shortly. If you want to see her, you’ll have to keep it very quiet and brief. Try to stay fairly still, avoid a lot of movement. Two minutes, that’s all. And keep in mind that she’s not going to be able to hear you. She may recognize you.

  “If you’ll come this way.” He leads us out of the room, down the hall past a number of curtained-off cubicles with hospital beds, some of them empty, others with patients.

  There are three uniformed deputies milling around keeping an eye on the women in blue jail jumpsuits until they can get them upstairs into the jail ward.

  “How many of the injured from the bus were delivered here?” says Harry.

  “Eight.”

  “How many did they route to other hospitals?” I ask.

  “None. There were only eight survivors, seventeen dead, not counting the driver, the guard, or the gunmen. Absolute insanity,” says the doctor.

  “Yes, it is,” I s
ay.

  A few feet farther on he puts his hand out like a traffic cop. “If you’ll wait here just a moment.” He steps away to confer with a man wearing gray slacks, a dress shirt and tie, and a worn blue blazer with wrinkle marks where it covers the padded holster on his belt.

  The man is positioned outside one of the cubicles with the curtains drawn. As the doctor is talking to him, he looks our way and checks us out. He looks like he’s crowding fifty, a crew cut with a little moonshine on top, some middle-aged heft around the middle but with shoulders broad enough that you wouldn’t want to wrestle him. He is slowly chewing gum as he looks at us.

  “Now who do you suppose he is?” says Harry. “Black Rockports resoled with inch-thick rubber soles and Cat’s Paw heels. And I thought they stopped making the Cat’s Paws years ago.”

  “No, they just sold the company to the U.S. Marshals Service,” I tell him.

  “You think he’s trying to go undercover?” says Harry.

  “No, I’m thinking Rhytag may have already done that number.”

  “Hmm?” says Harry.

  “See if we can get a list of the names of the seventeen inmates killed on the bus, check it against courthouse records, criminal cases pending, or county sentences handed down. My guess is we’re either going to find one name from the bus that doesn’t have a matching courthouse file, or the coroner is suddenly going to come up one cadaver short in the head count.”

  “Katia’s friend from the bus,” says Harry.

  “Uh-huh.”

  The doctor wiggles his finger and motions us to join him. He goes through the opening in the curtain, followed closely by Harry and then me. The marshal comes in behind us.

  Harry starts to turn, about to get in his face to assert lawyer-client, but I tap him down low with my hand on his wrist and stop him. “Nothing confidential is happening here today,” I whisper as I nod toward the bed.

  Katia is flat on her back. The cover sheet is drawn up to her chest. Her eyes are half open, with a glazed look, a combination of shock and the sedative. Her face is as white as the sheet. It’s clear that she will remember none of this in the days that follow.