by David Hosp
‘True,’ Ainsworth agreed. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to find him. I’ve got his sister with me.’
‘Is she cooperating?’
Saunders looked briefly at Cianna Phelan. He’d given her a moment to wash the blood from her face, and apply a butterfly bandage to the cut. Even with that triage, though, she was still a mess. ‘I think so. She was involved in the dust-up at her apartment and took a couple of good knocks. She’s got a nasty bump on her head, and she seems a little disoriented, but I think she’ll be cooperative. She’s clearly worried about her little brother.’
‘Word on the grapevine is she’s a looker. That true?’
Saunders glanced at her briefly. ‘Tough to tell at the moment. Maybe under different circumstances. What grapevine?’
Ainsworth didn’t answer the question. ‘Be careful with her.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s more dangerous than you think. That’s the report I’ve gotten from both her commanders in Afghanistan and at Leavenworth.’
‘You want to be a little more specific?’
Ainsworth paused. ‘I can’t.’
Saunders said, ‘Thanks, that’s helpful.’
‘My hands are tied.’
‘What about other assistance? Any chance we can bring in someone else to help with this?’ Saunders asked. ‘FBI or the locals?’
‘There is no this,’ Ainsworth said emphatically. ‘You’re on suspension, remember? You’re only in Boston for vacation.’
‘Right. That reminds me, I need to pick up some postcards. You like those wide-angle aerial shots, right?’
Ainsworth ignored the sarcasm. ‘You need to keep this clean and contained, and make sure there are no fuck-ups. If you get into real trouble give me a call, and I’ll see if I can send in some cavalry.’
‘You don’t consider getting shot at “real trouble”?’
‘He missed, didn’t he?’
‘You’re all heart, Skip. I’ll call you when I know more.’
‘Jack, I was serious about what I said before,’ Ainsworth said. ‘Be careful with the girl. I don’t care how good-looking she might seem in other circumstances. I don’t want to lose you like I lost Sam.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
‘Who is he?’
Saunders was sitting in his rented car with Cianna Phelan. He turned the key and the engine came to life. He watched her as she clenched and unclenched her fists. The bruise on her face had darkened to a deep purple, and her clothes were disheveled, but her eyes blazed as they darted back and forth.
‘I told you, he’s my brother.’
‘The other guy,’ Saunders said impatiently. He pulled out into the street, and as he gathered speed, he could hear the sound of sirens approaching. He looked into his rear-view mirror and saw two squad cars pull up in front of Phelan’s apartment. He kept driving.
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
She was lying; that much was clear. He didn’t mind so much when people lied, as long as their lies were obvious. ‘Well, let’s start with what we can put together,’ Saunders said. ‘He’s in the Army.’
She looked at him. ‘How do you know that?’
‘His gun was a Walther PK90; standard military issue in active theaters. And the car he was driving was the same blue piece-of-shit four-door sedan the Army uses when it doesn’t want to announce its presence openly to the public. He probably picked it up from the motor-pool at one of the bases around here, which suggests he’s still active. Charlie just got out of the Army, right? And you were in the Army, too, at least technically, before your discharge from Leavenworth.’
She looked at him warily. ‘You seem to know a lot.’
‘I wasn’t here by accident. I came here looking for your brother.’
‘Why?’
He decided to stick to an abbreviated version of the truth. ‘He was mentioned prominently in a communiqué from a terrorist network we intercepted. We figured it was worth looking into so we could find out what his involvement with them is.’
‘You think he’s involved with terrorists? Charlie?’ She rolled her eyes in disbelief. ‘That’s what your investigation is about?’
‘It’s not an investigation,’ Saunders said. ‘Like I said, we thought it was worth checking up on. I wasn’t expecting to get shot at.’
‘The guy who shot at you isn’t a terrorist.’ She looked away. ‘Not in the way you mean, at least.’
‘I thought you didn’t know who he was?’
She looked sharply at him for a moment, then lowered her eyes. ‘My brother said his name is Sirus Stillwell. He knew him in Afghanistan.’
‘Which brings us back to where we were before. Your brother was discharged recently.’
She nodded. ‘Two weeks ago. He showed up here yesterday.’
‘What’s his connection to Mr Clean?’
She hesitated.
Saunders said, ‘Like I told you before, I’m not looking to jam him up, but if we’re going to find him, you’ve got to give me some information.’
‘Charlie said Stillwell is a thief. He ran a group that was stealing antiquities from Afghanistan. At least, that’s what Charlie told me.’
‘And Charlie was involved with the group?’
‘He wasn’t involved. Not really. He said he just looked the other way when some things came through his depot, and made sure they got delivered where they were supposed to.’
‘That’s it?’ Saunders demanded. She nodded, but he shook his head. ‘If that was it, none of us would be here. What else is there?’
‘Nothing,’ she insisted.
He grabbed her by the shoulder and shook her. ‘You’re not doing him any favors, you know that, right? My guess is that if we don’t find him in the next five hours, he’ll show up at the morgue. Or worse, they’ll never find his body. Either way, the only chance he has to make it through whatever this is alive depends on us. So I need to know everything you know. You got that?’
She looked at him, and he could tell she was deciding whether or not to trust him. ‘Fine,’ she said at last. ‘He may have taken something from the last shipment he made for Sirus.’
‘What did he take?’
‘He said it was an antique knife.’
Saunders considered that. It was possible that what Charlie stole could be the ‘Heart of Afghanistan’ referred to in the communiqué. If he could find it, it might unravel the mystery of his informant’s murder. ‘Did he tell you where he stashed it?’
She shook her head.
He looked closely at her, and she stared back. ‘It’s important,’ he said. ‘Unless you have some idea where this Stillwell took your brother, we’re at a dead end. If we can find whatever he stole, maybe we can use it to get your brother back.’
‘You think I don’t understand that?’ she spat at him. ‘He didn’t tell me where it was. All he said was that it wasn’t in the apartment. He said he would take me to where it was to show it to me, but then Sirus showed up.’
‘He didn’t say anything else?’
‘No, he didn’t,’ she insisted. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. For the first time Saunders noticed without intention that she was attractive, and he thought about what Ainsworth had said to him. ‘Wait, that’s not true,’ she said. ‘He said he put it in a safe place.’
‘A safe place,’ Saunders repeated. ‘Like a bank safe-deposit box?’
‘No, wait, that’s not exactly what he said,’ she said, frowning. ‘He didn’t say “a safe place”. He said “a place where we were always safe”.’
‘And that’s different?’
She nodded.
‘Where were you always safe?’
She closed her eyes and frowned. After a moment, she said, ‘There’s only one place I can think of that makes any sense.’
Akhtar Hazara pulled up to Cianna Phelan’s building as the sun started to set on the backside of South Boston. He looked at his watch; i
nternational travel had thrown his sense of time into confusion. It was just after four o’clock. He parked and sat back in the driver’s seat, staring at the door to the tiny apartment house, wondering what his next steps should be.
He leaned forward and popped open the glove compartment. A Glock 9mm pistol was tucked under the registration, another gift from his contact at the bar. At least they understood the importance of his being armed.
He sat back again and looked up at the window on the fourth floor.
Suddenly, the door to the apartment house opened and two people walked out. One was an attractive young woman in her late twenties. She was in disarray, and it looked as though she had a large bruise on her face, but she fit the description he had of Charles Phelan’s sister. He opened the folder on the passenger seat, flipping through pictures until he came to the one he was looking for. He held it on his lap, looking at the image of the girl in the photo. It was two years old, and the subject in the photo was in military fatigues and handcuffed, but there was no question it was the same woman.
He looked up again. Her companion was a wiry, tense man with black hair and sharp features. Akhtar guessed he was in his late thirties, certainly too old to be Charles Phelan. He was talking on a cell phone, and had his hand through the girl’s arm. He was pulling her along with some urgency. They walked across the street, and he led Cianna Phelan around to the passenger side of the red car parked three in front of Akhtar’s. He opened the door and deposited her, then walked back around to the driver’s side, and got in. The engine came to life, and they pulled out immediately.
Akhtar looked up at the apartment. If Charles Phelan was still there, he was likely alone, and this might be a perfect time to confront him. Something about the demeanor of the sister, though, gave Akhtar the feeling that wasn’t the case. There was something in her eyes – fear and anger and desperation – that made him think something had already gone wrong.
He hesitated for only a moment before he turned the key and pulled out after the red car.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Charlie Phelan was on a chair in the basement of the little house in Cambridge. His hands and feet were bound, and a piece of duct tape covered his mouth. The blood clotting in his nose made breathing difficult. It was cold and damp, but Charlie could still feel the sweat dripping down his face, soaking his body.
The basement had an unusual setup. Most of it was unfinished, and moisture stains covered the cement walls. One section, though, had a freshly painted length of drywall propped up against it. A small area of the floor in front of the wall was covered with a run of thin, beige carpet, and two chairs sat facing each other across a knee-high table, like a cheap imitation of the old set for the Dick Cavott Show. Several tin lights hung from the ceiling, aimed at the chairs, and a small camera was set upon a Walmart tripod underneath the lights. It was, Charlie realized, a makeshift television studio. It was unclear, though, what kinds of programs were filmed there.
On the other side of the basement, closer to where Charlie was tied, a massage table stood against a wall with leather straps hanging off it at both ends. There were dark stains running down the side of the table, and on the cement underneath.
Sirus Stillwell had brought Charlie down to the basement as soon as they exited the car. It took a few moments for him to make certain that Charlie was tied tight enough that he couldn’t escape, and then he had disappeared up the stairs. Charlie could hear him pacing the floor above him, and heard his voice in the muffled half of a telephone conversation.
A few moments later, Sirus came back down. He was still limping slightly, and he winced as he took off his jacket. Charlie could see the large bloodstain on the man’s shirt at the shoulder where he’d been shot. He put his gun down on the massage table and opened a drawer in an ancient wooden cabinet built into the wall. Charlie couldn’t see exactly what he took out, but he caught the flash of metal, and he felt his stomach lurch toward his throat. Finally, Sirus turned to Charlie.
‘We don’t have much time, Charlie,’ he said. ‘I know you took it. We both know you did. Others know it, too. Some of them are on the way here. If you tell me where it is, I may be able to save you, do you understand? If not, there is nothing anyone will be able to do. If the others get here, and I can’t tell them that you’ve agreed to cooperate, it’s over for you. You’ll tell them what they want to know eventually, trust me, but you’ll suffer very badly first.’
He walked over to Charlie, crouched in front of him, so that he was looking into his eyes. Stillwell’s eyes were ice blue, almost clear. They cut through Charlie for a moment. ‘I’ve known you for, what, almost three years, Charlie?’
Charlie nodded.
‘You’re not someone who is prepared to suffer,’ he said. ‘Not the way you’re going to be made to suffer. I’m going to take off the tape now, and you are going to tell me where it is.’ He reached up and tugged at the corner of the duct tape to get a good hold. Then he ripped it off in one clean, quick motion that took several layers of skin off and left Charlie gasping in pain. ‘Where is it?’ Sirus said after a moment.
It was true that Charlie had known Sirus for three years, but he’d heard of him long before that. Sirus was a legend in military circles in the Middle Eastern theater. His brutality in battle, and his unforgiving nature with respect to those in the allied military forces who crossed him, were legend. Even the illegal activities with which Charlie had helped him were generally regarded as an open secret. The military police were never called in to investigate him. It was as though the command structure was afraid of this man. He had become untouchable. And as Charlie sat tied to the chair, looking back at him, he knew that Sirus Stillwell had no intention of sparing his life if Charlie agreed to talk. It wasn’t Sirus’s way, and Charlie knew it. He tightened his gut, and tried to brace himself for what was to come.
‘I don’t know what you’re looking for, Sirus,’ he said. He tried to sound as scared and honest as he could. He was sure he’d accomplished the scared part, at least.
Sirus nodded, a frown on his face. ‘Okay,’ he said. He stood up and turned for a moment, and then spun back with force and speed, and his enormous left fist hammered Charlie in the side of his face. Charlie could feel the blood flow from just below his eye, and he was sure that his cheekbone was broken. The pain was more intense than anything he’d ever felt, and he screamed out in agony. Rather than inspiring pity, though, his scream seemed only to inflame Sirus, and he followed his first blow with several more to the exact same spot. Charlie could feel several of his teeth come free in his mouth, and it felt as though the entire left side of his face was sliding off his skull. It was remarkable that Sirus could hit him as hard as he did even with a bullet wound in his shoulder. It was an effective reminder to Charlie of the kind of man Sirus was.
Sirus leaned down close to him again. ‘I’m serious about what I said, Charlie,’ he said. ‘We don’t have much time. Tell me what you know.’
Charlie spat blood and shards of teeth. He was crying, and every movement was its own separate eternal agony. He had to hold to his story, though. It was the only chance he had to survive. ‘I don’t know anything,’ he garbled. ‘I swear to God.’
Sirus hit him again, this time on the other side of his face and not quite so hard. It was odd, but it felt like a kindness compared to the prior blows. ‘You stupid little shit!’ Sirus yelled. He sounded more exasperated than angry now.
‘I don’t know—’
Sirus cut him off. He squatted down in front of Charlie again and grabbed the front of his shirt. ‘You need to tell me where it is, do you understand?’ Charlie frowned through the pain and shook his head. ‘There’s a civil war coming in Afghanistan, and our country doesn’t give a shit. Those of us still over there need to place our bets, do you understand? I’m not coming home. I’ve invested too much to walk away. I’m staying there, and that means I need the right people to take charge. It’s the only chance I have. It’s the only chan
ce we all have.’
Charlie stared blankly back at the man in front of him. Sirus’s eyes had grown wide and crazed, and what he was saying made no sense. It was gibberish.
‘Do you love your country, Charlie? Do you respect those of us who have bled over there?’
Charlie nodded. There seemed really only one answer.
‘Then you need to tell me, now!’
Charlie heard the door open upstairs, and there were footsteps on the floor above them. He could hear them moving toward the top of the stairs that led down to the basement, two or three sets of footsteps moving with direction but without haste.
‘They’re here!’ Sirus hissed. ‘Now! Do you understand? You need to tell me now!’
The footsteps were coming closer. They were at the top of the stairs, and beginning their descent.
Charlie choked out, ‘I don’t know anything.’
Charlie could see the shadows as they crossed from the staircase to the cement floor, and the legs of the newcomers were visible for a moment. Then Sirus hit him again on the side of the face that was most badly injured, and the howling pain began again. Sirus hit him repeatedly. Three, four, five times in a few seconds, and the agony was so complete that Charlie’s vision blurred.
The violence stopped, and with his eyes closed Charlie could feel Sirus step away from him. He heard him talking, and his voice sounded distant.
‘He hasn’t told me anything yet,’ Sirus said.
‘Are you sure he knows?’ The voice sounded kind, almost feminine. It had a light accent that reminded Charlie of his time in the Middle East.
‘He knows,’ Sirus said, his voice cruel and harsh in contrast.
‘And yet he hasn’t talked?’
‘No.’
Charlie felt someone touch his chin. The hand was soft, and it raised his head up. Charlie opened his eyes and looked into the warmest face he could remember. The man appeared young, and he had a quiet, singular confidence about him that comes only from surety of purpose. A dark brown birthmark in the shape of a teardrop adorned his right cheek under the eye, which made the face appear even more compassionate. He seemed almost to glow, and for just a moment, Charlie felt hope grow in his chest.