Poison Evidence

by Rachel Grant

  “I suppose we’ll never know.”

  It was a good reminder that Patrick’s former allies were still searching for her and CAM, and she was exposed away from their safe haven. She cleared her throat. “Let’s go. I need botanical samples for teaching CAM the signatures, and I want to see if there’s a cave in the northwest quadrant.”

  Now he’d out-and-out lied when he could have told her the truth, but he’d long since passed the point of no return. They had to work together to find the magic elixir so she could click her heels and go back to DC. The truth about his other work for the GRU would only turn her against him.

  Jesus, why couldn’t the Russians have held on to their damn high-tech toy? He suspected his mysterious new boss was the dumbass who let the AUUV slip from his fingers, hence the high pressure on Dimitri to recover it at all costs.

  He followed Ivy through the thick vegetation that covered the limestone island, watching the sway of her ass as she climbed the steep hillside.

  “Careful,” she said, pointing to a nearby tree. “That’s poison tree, and the trunk is coated with sap.”

  He paused and studied the tree. He’d heard of poison tree but hadn’t come across one until now—at least not knowingly. He’d never suffered a rash and so assumed he’d been lucky, but now he realized he had come into contact with a few—but they hadn’t been weeping sap like this tree.

  “The problem is the sap?” he asked.

  She nodded. “The leaves can trigger a rash—like poison oak or ivy—I hear you don’t want to stand under one in the rain. But the sap is much worse. Contact with the sap can lead to blisters. Bad ones. Often like a second-degree burn.”

  All at once, his body flooded with adrenaline. “The sap causes burns? Real, actual, second-degree burns?”

  “So I hear.”

  “Sonofabitch,” he muttered.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The guy who stole the AUUV—he had what looked like first- and second-degree burns over seventy percent of his body. It’s believed the burns killed him.”

  “Well, he was tortured, right?”

  “He was, but burns like that…that’s not a way to get information. Waterboarding. Starvation. Sleep deprivation. Tried and true methods that cause suffering but don’t tip the scale toward actually dying. The guy was burned—and my source said his interrogators claimed they didn’t do it.”

  “They could just as easily be lying to cover their asses.”

  “That was the consensus. When he was taken, there were no blisters. So it was assumed his interrogators were overzealous and burned him to get him to talk.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Photos. Video. Reports. I was given everything I’d need to find the AUUV—except money, a boat, and actual mapping equipment. I was expected to come up with those on my own.”

  “And so you did.”

  “Nothing prepared me for you, for embroiling an innocent in my shitstorm.”

  She held his gaze before returning to the key point. “Poison tree doesn’t kill. It’s a rash that blisters, like poison oak.”

  “A severe reaction combined with torture? The stress alone could overload a heart. Best speculation, the poor guy went into cardiac arrest, and his interrogators didn’t know what to do. No medics, no one who would recognize the signs that the stress was too much for him. This wasn’t a sanctioned operation. The front office of GRU wasn’t running the show. We’re talking third-string hacks doing damage control. And the poor bastard died.”

  “And you think he was exposed to poison tree?”

  “It’s possible. If so, the exposure was severe.”

  “But the blisters didn’t develop until after he’d been taken into custody.” She frowned. “A severe rash like that means he either brushed up against a sappy tree or was standing under one in the rain.”

  “Or he buried the AUUV in the roots. Either he didn’t know what it was, or he knew poison trees would be avoided at all costs, making it a damn good hiding place.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Ulai Umetaro had departed for Kayangel Island and wasn’t expected to return until evening—if then. Luke and Ian moved to plan B and went to the hotel where the party had been held. They walked the edge of the mangrove swamp, assessed the layout of the property, examined the ballroom, and spoke with hotel employees about the party and aftermath of the attack.

  Task complete, they returned to the rental car. Luke started the engine and stared out the window toward the turquoise sea.

  “I’m no investigator,” Ian said, “but I know how cells work. It’s my guess they knew Ivy was in the garden. The assault on the party was a distraction. From what the hotel manager said, these guys weren’t prepared to dig in and use the hostages to their advantage. They had no long game, or even a short one, which would fit the suicide operator. The fact that the three men in the ballroom were taken alive is unusual.”

  “If they knew she was in the garden, why not just take her there? Why reveal themselves by attacking?”

  “She wasn’t alone in the garden,” Ian said. “She was with Dimitri Veselov.”

  “That would indicate that they weren’t allied with Dimitri—unless the whole attack was to win her trust.” Using Parker’s real first name still felt strange on Luke’s tongue, but it was a form of conditioning for facing the man. He would adapt and use every tool at his disposal. Speaking to Dimitri as a friend was perhaps his greatest weapon—presuming Dimitri had a conscience.

  “It’s either-or. Yes,” Ian said.

  “If Dimitri isn’t allied with them”—Luke’s most fervent hope at this point—“then how did they know where she was and it was time to attack? They wouldn’t have spent hours waiting on the off chance she’d step outside on her own. You heard what the manager said, the garden was all but abandoned during the party.”

  Ian’s answer was quick. “They’d have needed an inside man at the party—one whose job it was to get her outside, but then Dimitri did it for them.”

  “Think we can convince the local cops to show us the security video from that night?” Luke asked.

  “I think we have better odds of that than of getting to interview the men in the holding cells.”

  Luke put the rental car in gear. “Let’s give it a shot, then.”

  It ended up being easier than they’d hoped. Upon arriving at the station, they were introduced to Assistant Special Agent in Charge Kaha’i Palea, who’d been dispatched to Palau from the FBI’s Honolulu Field Office. The Palauan police had invited the FBI into the investigation, because it involved both US interests and terrorism. More importantly, Luke learned, Agent Palea knew Curt personally. One phone call to the attorney general was all it took to authorize the agent to consult with Ian and Luke, who were acting as private investigators, hired by Alec Ravissant to track down his cousin Ivy MacLeod.

  Nice and legal, and they wouldn’t have to be skirting local and federal authorities in their search.

  The men who’d been arrested at the party, they learned, weren’t in holding cells in Palau. They’d been sent to the US military base in Guam, where military investigators could question them in Arabic. A disappointment, because Ian’s Arabic was fluent, but odds were they couldn’t—or wouldn’t—offer clues as to where Ivy was at this point anyway.

  Credentials established, they settled down in front of a monitor with Agent Palea and a local police officer to watch the security camera footage from the party. First, the party unfolded at high speed, but they slowed the playback speed once Ivy arrived. “We’re looking for anyone who pays undue attention to her,” Luke said to the local officer pointing to Ivy on the screen.

  For thirty minutes, Ivy was in full meet-and-greet mode. The local officer identified the men she spoke with: the Palauan president, governors, other local officials. Several paused to chat, but, reading Ivy’s expression, none of the exchanges were of note.

  “We’re coming up on when she meets Keaton,
” Palea said as they watched Ivy break away from a small group and head toward the bar in the corner. She received a drink and turned to face the crowded ballroom. Her profile was to the camera. After a moment’s hesitation, she stepped into the fray. It appeared she was heading toward the president when a man bumped her from the side in a move that could only be intentional. Her drink splashed on the man’s shirt.

  “Who is he?” Ian asked.

  “And where did he come from?” Luke added. “I didn’t see him earlier.”

  “He’s there,” Palea said, “But his back was to the camera.” Palea instructed the officer to back up the recording. They watched again, but instead of following Ivy, they followed the unknown subject, or UNSUB, as Palea called him.

  There were scant few seconds of footage, and as Palea had indicated, he kept his back to the camera.

  “Not only was he aware of the cameras, he’s afraid of them,” Ian said. “Which means someone might recognize him.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him,” the local officer said. “But it’s hard to know without at least a profile.”

  “There’s a glimpse of him at the end, but not much,” Palea said.

  Luke stared at the image on the screen. The man’s clothes and hair were perfectly nondescript. “Go back to where he intercepts Ivy.”

  They moved forward again in time and watched Ivy’s drink slosh in slow motion. The film quality was good enough on zoom to see Ivy’s mouth move—likely apologizing—and she tried to step away, but the man grabbed her arm.

  Ivy’s body language hinted at her irritation, but she stayed and nodded when he asked her a question. Several minutes later, two men joined them, forcing the UNSUB to adjust his angle toward the camera. They now had one ear and a hint of jawline.

  Luke recognized the first man as the governor of Melekeok, who’d chatted with Ivy earlier. “Who’s the guy with the governor?” he asked the cop.

  “Shiro Kimura from the Japanese embassy.”

  “He upset Ivy,” Ian observed.

  Luke didn’t know Ivy at all, but he had to agree from the look on her face.

  “He can be a dick. But he helped bring down one of the terrorists,” the officer said. “He needed stitches afterward.” He stopped the video. “That’s Jack Keaton.” The officer’s voice was more buoyant.

  It made sense that the FBI hadn’t informed the locals about Veselov. On the surface, Ivy’s disappearance had nothing to do with the party—the locals only knew she’d been assaulted in the garden—the search for Ivy and the Russian assassin was classified as need to know. The locals were cooperating of their own accord, so they had no need to know.

  Dimitri Veselov joined the four people clustered in the corner near the bar. Ivy’s face lit up at something Dimitri said.

  “He’s a good guy,” the officer said. “Beat the crap out of the terrorists, as you’ll see in a moment.”

  Luke couldn’t judge the officer based on his attitude toward the hero of the night. Once upon a time, Luke had shared his opinion of Parker Reeves.

  He studied Dimitri’s face. He’d seen other photos lifted from the video—ones Palea must’ve supplied to the FBI and DIA. This was nothing new. But still, it felt personal. Seeing Parker like this after all these months.

  He helped me save thousands of lives. Including Undine’s. Maybe my mother’s. Major cities could have been destroyed along with long swaths of coastlines.

  Was Dimitri Veselov a hero then and now? Or was he playing a different role here?

  He cleared his throat. “Keep going,” he said to the officer. He wouldn’t get any answers to that vital question from this video.

  It only took a moment for Dimitri to talk Ivy into leaving with him. Or maybe it was the other way around. Hard to say without sound.

  The moment Ivy and Dimitri disappeared from the frame, Shiro Kimura turned to leave, brushing against the mystery man, who was too busy watching Ivy leave to see the bump coming. For a brief moment, his face turned toward the camera.

  Next to Luke, Ian sat bolt upright. “Back up. Pause on the bastard’s face.”

  The officer did as instructed, zooming in until the image pixelated, then backing up until it was clear again. They only had one eye, a line of cheek. But apparently, that was enough for Ian.

  “Motherfucker,” Ian said.

  Luke studied the image. “I take it you recognize him.”

  “Yeah.” He glanced sideways at the officer. “The details are classified. Sorry.”

  Luke took that to mean it was CIA business and he and Palea would get the full story later when they didn’t have company.

  “We’re going to need a printout of that image,” Ian said. His hand curled into a fist. “And you’ll want to post it in the squad room.” He glanced at Palea. “He’s wanted by the FBI for treason and a host of other crimes.”

  Awww, shit. Suddenly it made sense. This was one of Dr. Patrick Hill’s men, and Ian knew him—well enough to recognize him with only part of his face visible.

  “He’s changed his appearance, but not enough for someone who knows him.” Ian met Luke’s gaze. “Good news for you, Sevick. No way was your boy in league with the men who attacked the party.”

  “How can you be certain?”

  Long-banked anger burned behind Ian’s eyes. “No chance in hell would a chickenshit like Zack Barrow run the risk of being caught in the ballroom just so someone else could win Ivy’s trust. Barrow was the inside man—probably because he could pass for an American party guest. I’ll bet anything that when he watched his prize walk out the door with another man, he called in the others.” Ian slammed the side of his fist on the desk. “And, I’m the dumbshit motherfucker who drilled it into him that he always needs a backup plan. He called me his mentor.”

  Luke wasn’t the only one here who nursed guilt over misjudging a former ally. Luke, at least, had the hope that Dimitri was still playing for the right team, while there was no doubt Zack Barrow—whoever the hell he was—was aligned with the kind of scum he and Ian had spent years trying to isolate and eradicate.

  It was time for Luke to show Ian the card he’d received days ago. Maybe, if Dimitri really wasn’t a threat, there was a chance he’d left a trail of crumbs for them to follow.

  He hoped so, anyway, because they sure as hell needed to find Ivy before Zack Barrow did.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Ivy marked the location of the sap-covered trunk on the computer tablet that acted as her field map. When she got back to the cave, she’d find the tree in the database and use the data to teach CAM the infrared signature for sap-covered poison trees. With that data, she could isolate every weeping poison tree within the target area and it would simply be a matter of a second flyover with the drone and an intensive scan of the landform and tree-root system.

  “This will take a few days,” she said. “To get the data isolated and extracted. If we’re wrong, and the AUUV is underwater after all, we’re screwed.”

  “It’s the best lead we’ve got,” Dimitri said. “I say we focus on it instead of the broad survey.”

  They finished exploring the island. If there was a tunnel in the rock, it was a natural void—she could find no entrance that led to the anomalous reading taken by RON the night before.

  It was strange, the feeling of homecoming she felt when they returned to their island haven. Shelter, food, water, and Dimitri. This would be quite a life if it were sustainable.

  But she had family in DC: her parents, two sisters, a niece, her cousin, and his fiancée, Isabel.

  The wedding was next month at Alec’s estate. It would break her heart if she missed it.

  She had a life, and a damn good one at that, even if the last two years had been difficult.

  Plus, she’d promised herself she’d pursue artificial insemination once CAM was complete. Her marriage had fallen apart, but that didn’t mean she’d stopped wanting a child.

  While Dimitri provided an emotional connectio
n she hadn’t realized she’d been missing, he couldn’t replace everyone she cared about. Not that he was offering to run away with her. He’d made it more than clear that he’d never endanger his sister and nephew that way.

  Best for her to focus on CAM and the search and forget about Dimitri altogether. She immersed herself in the work, her lifeline, sleeping only when RON’s batteries recharged, eating when Dimitri insisted. She’d probably forget to breathe if it weren’t an involuntary reflex.

  When she wasn’t working or sleeping, she mentally mapped Dimitri’s contours, taking in his ridges and lines. Committing his body to immutable storage so he would remain unchanged and she could access the memories when he was long gone.

  She dreamed about coding and crawled out of bed at four a.m. on the eighth day since she’d met Dimitri, the fifth day since they’d retreated to their own private island. An idea had come to her that required troubleshooting. Two hours later, having isolated a variable that would make it easier to separate vegetation layers, she crawled back into bed beside him.

  He woke as the air mattress shifted. His reaction was startling considering he’d been deeply asleep a moment before. He pinned her to their air mattress. “You’re supposed to wake me if you get up. For your safety. Even if you’re only visiting the latrine.”

  “I didn’t leave the cave.” They’d agreed she wouldn’t leave the safety of their hiding place without letting him know. Not even to relieve her bladder. Not because he needed to control her, but because she could be taken.

  Others were on the hunt for the AUUV. The danger was very real. The longer they were in the cave, the easier it was for her to forget, become lax. Dimitri battled that with increased vigilance.

  “Were you working?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me next time. Even if you don’t leave the cave. You were close to the entrance. Even if you screamed, I wouldn’t be able to get to you in time.”

  She couldn’t see his face in the dark cave, but she heard in his voice something that reminded her of when she’d been wearing the headphones on the sunbathing deck on Liberty. His voice held more emotion when she couldn’t see him. Probably because without an expression to read, she listened better.