“Love to, but my man will kill me,” she said, reaching to switch off the laser printer.
“You married?” I asked. She glanced up at me. Maybe I was getting a little personal.
“Was.” She picked up a framed photo from her desk and handed it to me. “My man,” she said. The photo was a family shot—Colonel Selwyn, her husband or partner, and a three-or four-year-old boy. They were standing together on a sandy beach, the water lapping at their toes. All three seemed happy to be there. “My husband, Manny's father, was killed soon after this was taken, in an aircraft accident—a light plane, engine failure. He was a passenger. Manny knows his father, but only through photos and home videos.”
“I'm sorry,” I said. Truly, gravity sucked. Change-the-subject time. “Listen, I'm not sure what your schedule's like tomorrow, but I'd like to go and have a look at where Wrong Way came down.”
“Who?”
“Wrong Way—the deceased. That's what we called Ruben Wright. If you could walk me around the area, it'd save me some time.”
Colonel Selwyn picked up a briefcase and motioned me toward the door. “OK, but it'll have to be first thing in the morning. I'm taking a half day—being a mom, you know.”
“ Oh-nine-thirty good for you?” I asked.
“Yep. You'll need a four-wheel drive.” Selwyn flicked off the interior lights after we stepped outside. Motion-sensitive lights took over, pushing back the twilight. Insects began strafing runs on the bulbs.
“Is the officers' club still worth a stopover?” I asked.
“Sure—if you like testosterone over ice. Otherwise, head on over to Destin. Plenty of good places there. Try The Funkster. The beer's cold, the music's good—if you like blues. Can't miss it. On the left as you come into town.”
Destin. I'd had some wild nights in that town, but that was in another life. We exchanged thanks, and I stood by my vehicle and watched the DI drive off until the lights on the building behind me switched off.
SEVENTEEN
Four black guys on steel guitars, a snare set, and an accordion were cooking up some zydeco music that brought gators and marsh gas to mind. The bar was weathered, smelled of beer sweat, and was bathed in neon from Miller Lite and Budweiser signs on the walls. The place was full, though perhaps not compared with when the summer-vacation crowds got thirsty. I ordered a Glen Keith on the rocks and found a spot among the wallflowers, watching the talent with one eye and the band with the other.
I'd barely settled in when I heard someone with a broad English accent yell behind me. “That was a fuckin' wanker's shot, mate.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Three men were playing pool.
“And you're a fuckin' tosser,” roared one of them over the music.
I heard the guy beside me grumble to his drinking buddy, “Those goddamn SAS assholes get away with murder.”
So the loudmouths were British Special Air Service—SAS. That accounted for the accents. I didn't need to be a cop to sense a situation brewing. They were drinking shots of something bright green. Maybe it wasn't the alcohol they were reacting to but the artificial coloring. Lined up on a windowsill behind them was a collection of over twenty shot glasses. That was a lot of artificial coloring. The apparent ringleader, and the oldest of the three, had light-colored hair dyed blond at the tips and brushed forward like he'd stepped out of Julius Caesar's Rome. He had narrow brown eyes and pale skin strewn with freckles, and was slightly taller and thicker set than his comrades. The Brits were showing off to a couple of attractive local twenty-somethings occupying the other pool table, both of whom were doing their best to ignore the attention.
“Eh, ‘ave you ladies ever sampled the delights of an English lad?” I heard the guy with the Roman haircut inquire.
Again, no response from the women. They were being polite, but standoffish. It seemed to me they just wanted to play their game in peace.
“Basically, luv, what ‘e was sayin' was ‘ave you ever gobbled an English knob?” said another.
His buddies thought this comment uproariously funny. One of the men had to steady himself with his cue stick, using it as a crutch to stop himself from sinking to his knees.
I glanced beside me. Knuckles were bunching.
“Limey assholes,” I heard another guy say beneath his breath. He took a step forward, into my line of sight. He looked like a Special Ops guy, one of ours, pumped muscle with a bony skull shining beneath hair cut as short as pig bristle.
The guy with the blonded tips sauntered on vaguely wobbly legs over to the objects of their attention. He put out his hand toward the woman's butt as she leaned over the cushion to play a shot. I took a couple of steps toward them. It was a nice butt, so I knew where he was coming from. I also knew where he was going if it landed—into a Dumpster out back, especially if she objected. I took another step and, before my left hand knew what was going on, my right had reached out and caught his by the wrist.
The Englishman turned. “‘Ere … wot's your fuckin' problem, mate … ?”
“OSI,” I said. I held my shield in his face. I could tell his eyes were having trouble focusing. My mind went blank at this point. Where to from here? My reflexes were aware, even if my brain wasn't, that someone had to do something before two teams of trained killers quite possibly put that training into practice on each other.
“Yeah… and…?” One of his buddies pushed forward into my space as I let his friend's wrist go.
“We've been looking for some tourists—civilians—who took a Humvee for a joyride,” I improvised. “Couldn't help but catch your accents.”
“Yeah? And just where were these tourists from?”
“New Zealand,” I said.
“ New-fuckin'-Zealand? Can't you tell a fuckin' Englishman when you hear one, Mr. Plod?”
“Watch your language, buddy,” I said. “Ladies present.” In fact, the two ladies had vacated the area. I also noticed that the band had stopped and that several SOC Neanderthals were now standing behind me, shoulders interlocked, in case I called for backup.
“This is bullshit, boss,” said one of the three Brits, a short guy with no lips and a busted-up nose, the only one of the trio aware that the attention of the whole bar was fixed on our little show. “The music's fucked and the buggers don't even have football up on the telly. More fuckin' hockey. C'mon. It's time to fuck off out of here anyway…”
I glanced over my shoulder at one of the aforementioned “tellys.” Ice hockey was playing. Ice hockey. Canadian ice hockey. What was wrong with the NFL? Hell, I'd even settle for croquet over Canadian ice hockey. Maybe the guy had a point. Maybe I should leave, too.
The three Englishmen pushed past with a drunken swagger. I could ignore attitude much easier than a swinging pool cue. I kept an eye on the door to make sure no one else followed them out. No one did.
“Hey, nicely done,” said one of the SOC guys who'd backed me up.
There was something familiar about the guy's face. I knew him from somewhere. As I was trying to sort through the Identi-Kit pictures in my head, he said, “Hey—it's Vin. Vin Cooper, right?”
I still couldn't make the connection.
“Drew McNaught,” he said. “Remember?”
The dime dropped. “Yeah, Drew… Didn't recognize you there for a second… How ya doin', buddy!”
“It is you!” McNaught and I shook hands. “Goddamn it. Long time, Vin. What you doin' round these parts, brother?”
I told him about OSI. He told me he was instructing static line parachute jumps.
We got past the small talk and current affairs—the events in San Francisco—and moved on to old times. McNaught and I had been in combat together back when I did completely stupid things. As part of Operation Allied Force, we'd jumped onto a hill in Kosovo to plant an aircraft navigation beacon so that our airmen would be able to pin the tail on the donkey. Trouble began the moment we landed. The weather unex pectedly closed in and our extraction was canceled. Also, a platoon-sized band of
Serb militiamen saw us put down and tried to outflank us. From the way they moved, we guessed they were farm boys and were most probably out to settle old scores with their neighbors, but that didn't make their bullets any less lethal. They outnumbered us seven to one, and took potshots at us as we retreated toward UN ground, severely wounding one of our guys. McNaught was the ranking non-com on that mission, a hard and fearless man. On the second night of our retreat, he crept into their bivouac and killed five of them, taking their heads, without being discovered. The Serbs broke off the engagement that morning. Perhaps they no longer liked the odds.
On a more personal level, McNaught was also the father of twins and cried in movies, if my memory served me correctly. But that was a long time ago and maybe he'd toughened up. He introduced his buddy Marco. I shook the guy's hand, which was calloused, and felt like a brick in my palm.
The band hung around till about eleven p.m. and so did McNaught, Marco, and I. A couple of interesting facts emerged by about my sixth or seventh single malt. The first of which—and perhaps the most surprising—was that McNaught had divorced and come out of the closet, and that he and Marco were on a date. The other interesting thing I learned was that one of the Limeys I'd shown the front door to earlier was Staff Sergeant Chris Butler, the same man who'd possibly helped Master Sergeant Ruben Wright on his one-way ride to the refrigerator.
EIGHTEEN
Early the following morning, I found myself beside an area the size of a basketball court outlined with yellow crime-scene tape. Colonel Selwyn didn't end up making the trip. Her son had come down with something, and so company was limited to a map and a hand held GPS. It was reasonably open ground peppered here and there with scrub and low trees, surrounded on three sides with thick pine forest and a cleared hill on the fourth. The air was thick with the smell of pine sap, wet grass, and decaying peat. It might once have been a dump but nature was doing a reasonable job of reclaiming it. I put on the sterile over-boots so that I could walk around the scene without introducing anything new to it, though my caution was probably unnecessary; in the open air, new material was being brought into the site and taken away constantly by the wind and insects. Proving my point, a couple of squirrels scampered about, picking up bits of foliage.
I ducked under the tape. I had no idea what I was looking for. Maybe the missing knife. Or maybe it was just to let Ruben's ghost know that I was on the case. This was not a Road Runner cartoon and so there was no depression in the ground where my former squadron buddy had come to rest, although there was a white spray-painted outline on the grass around a small bush that had been flattened, its thin green trunk snapped off at ground level. Presumably it had done its best to break Wrong Way's fall. Its best hadn't been near good enough.
Two hours later, I'd found nothing inside the tape, but I did firm on my theory that if the knife had come down here, it wouldn't have been just lying around waiting to be picked up. The earth was soft and loamy. The knife would certainly have kept going, burying itself well over the hilt and pulling the dirt in behind it. The sun was out, but the air was cool and still smelled of rain. I had no pressing engagements so I began to walk the area outside the tape. I needed the exercise. I hadn't been able to do my usual morning run for over a week. And also, the walk gave me time to think. Colonel Selwyn was right, there really was only one possible theory that fit the facts we had: Wright had been cut out of his chute. It couldn't have happened in the plane on the climb to the drop zone. It would have happened on the way down. Special Forces, especially SAS and CCTs, do a lot of aerial work—they are highly adept parachutists. The sort of maneuver required in midair of the assailant would have been difficult, but not impossible. The unanswered question was whether it was murder or an unfortunate accident. Perhaps there'd been a collision. It had been a night jump. Maybe Wrong Way had just been plain unlucky. But if that's what had happened, why would the men who jumped with him hide the truth?
More than a hundred and fifty feet from the taped area, I scuffed my shoe over a tuft of grass and something caught my attention. It caught my attention on account of it was red where everything else around it was green. I pulled an evidence bag from my pocket and used it as a glove to remove the object. It was a sliver of plastic. If this was a supermarket parking lot, I'd have said it was possibly part of the remains of some housewife's brake light. Maybe it was nothing, but, this close to a crime scene, maybe it was something. A tearing sound, far overhead, distracted me. I knew that sound.
I stood and used my hand as a glare visor, squinting upward. The source of the noise took a moment or two to locate. And then I saw them. They were dropping fast, small black fleas against the blue. I counted five. At a height of perhaps fifteen hundred feet, black parachutes opened. A second or two followed before I heard the distant, familiar cracks, like the sound of a baseball bat smacking into a heavy punching bag. I watched the parachutes fly in a descending corkscrew pattern. The way they came down reminded me of the double helix. That prompted me to wonder how Bradley Chalmers was getting along with the Natusima's cook in Guam. I sure hoped he was getting absolutely nothing from the trip besides a tan. Actually, I hoped it was overcast.
The fleas landed on the far side of the open, marshy ground that separated us. Watching them flare their chutes and touch down safely, gently, made me wonder how Wrong Way had come down. Had he panicked or had he resigned himself to his fate? What thoughts had gone through his mind just before his boots did? A Humvee pickup appeared from the scrub between the parachutists and the crime scene. It splashed across the marsh, heading toward the soldiers as they gathered their chutes under their arms.
After making the collection, the vehicle headed back to the point where it had appeared. But then it did a sudden ninety-degree detour in my direction. I stood my ground and it stopped. Its rear door swung open. Two guys hopped out as three others jumped down from the rear. They were all wearing Disruptive Pattern, Material camouflage—different from our “woodland pattern” battle-dress uniforms, or BDUs. In other words, they were visitors. I gave them a quick once-over. They appeared to be fully kitted up with ammunition pouches and various stores attached to webbing points. They were minus their chute bags, Kevlar helmets, and weapons, all of which were piled in the back of the Humvee. The driver stayed behind the wheel, keeping the motor running.
The men facing me had their faces painted with camouflage. I was wondering what they wanted, when the guy in front said, “Well, if it isn't Mr. Plod…”
And then I saw the blond tips and it clicked. “What did you say?” I asked.
He shrugged, hands on hips. “You're a copper. Back home, Mr. Plod is what we call coppers. Term of endearment, an' all.”
“You're a long way from home, Mack. And here you can call me Special Agent Cooper.” Once I'd established that he wasn't endearing himself to me, I said, “And you are… ?” I already knew, of course, but I didn't want the guy knowing that I'd already attached his name and face to the death of Sergeant Wright.
“Staff Sergeant Chris Butler, Her Britannic Majesty's Special Air Service Regiment. I heard a rumor there was going to be a new investigator appointed. If that's you, then you'd know I was with Sergeant Wright when he bought the farm. And please accept my humble apology, Special Agent. No disrespect intended.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“So, are you? Taking over the investigation?”
Asking questions was my job, not his. “What are you doing here, Staff?” I repeated.
“That's our drop zone,” he said, indicating back over his shoulder. “We were in the vicinity, so the lads and I thought we'd come over and pay our respects to the late sergeant's ghost.”
I didn't buy that. Most probably on his way down Butler had seen the beacon that was my Hawaiian shirt loitering around the taped-off area and was just being nosy.
“Are you and your men around later today?” I inquired.
“I've got nothing planned. Lads?” He turned to get a
consensus from his men. They gave a collective shrug.
I gathered they'd be around, too.
“You know where we're staying?” Butler asked.
“I'll find you. Expect me at sixteen hundred hours.”
“We'll put on a brew,” he said.
Something irregular caught my attention. “You've lost your flashlight, Staff.” A flashlight was part of a para's inventory, just like a knife, and, as Clare Selwyn had said, Special Forces soldiers were fanatical about their gear. It was usually attached to the webbing on the chest.
“Oh, hadn't noticed. Must have left it back at the hacienda,” he said, padding down the front of his webbing.
In my pocket was, I believed, a fragment from a low-light red lens, the type commonly found on a typical military flashlight. Maybe the fragment had come from Butler's. If so, what was it doing here? How had it come to be smashed? And if it had come from his flashlight, why lie about it? Maybe I'd found a genuine clue here. Or maybe the fragment belonged to one of those squirrels.
“Anything else we can help you with?” Butler asked.
“Not just at the moment,” I replied.
“Well, we'll catch you later, then, eh?” Butler climbed back into the Humvee, all smiles. The others climbed up after him, all except one. Unlike the rest, this guy wasn't smiling. He also had an anxious look on his face like he'd just passed a monkey wrench. I wanted to know why.
NINETEEN
It was just after 1400 hours by the time I made it back to my quarters. I fixed myself a sandwich with supplies bought from the Hurlburt Field BX, and stoked up the coffee machine. I phoned Agent Lyne and obtained an address for Butler and his team. According to Lyne's information, the men were all renting an apartment in Destin together, which made sense. It was quite near The Funkster, where I'd come across the Brits the previous evening. Lyne was interested in knowing how it was all going. I assured him that it was going quite well, although, unbeknown to him, I was referring to the pastrami and cheese on rye I was halfway through.
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