[Anthology] Close to the Bones

by Martha Carr

  “Hey!” Dan yelled while beating on the rollup door. The person inside pulled out earphones and shouted that they were closed. Dan held his badge up to the opening.

  “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” the young lady replied.

  “Something happened right around the corner here maybe ninety minutes ago. What did you see or hear?” Dan asked.

  “Something what? That’s about when we shut down. I shut the door, put on my jams, and got busy. I didn’t see or hear anything besides this nasty place, but look at how it shines now!” she said proudly.

  They thanked her for her time and walked back to the ground floor rooms. Dan started knocking on doors. Not a single person answered. They went to Evelyn and Kate’s room where Dan demanded access to the room.

  The security chief, looking like a whipped puppy, hesitated in using his master access. “But you don’t have a search warrant.”

  “Nice try. Victims. National emergency. Agency business, whatever you want to call it. Now let me in,” Dan insisted. The security chief slid his card into the slot and the light flashed green.

  The room looked like most rooms. A single king bed faced toward the sliding glass doors that looked toward the lagoon and past to the ocean. The clothes they’d been wearing when Rick last saw them were on the bed. Wet towels were in the bathroom.

  “They were snagged on their way back out,” Rick posited. “That changes the timeline. They’ve been gone for forty-five minutes to no more than an hour.”

  “But, why them?” Dan asked. “Just because they’re agency doesn’t make them a target. This is Hawai’i for Christ’s sake!”

  “I have no idea why they were taken, Dan. Let me make a call.” Rick stepped out of the room and after putting some distance between himself and the security chief, he called the CIA’s operations center.

  When the watch officer answered, Rick signed in with his credentials. He reported what had happened and the watch officer told him to wait one. After far longer than one of anything, a new voice came on the line.

  “Rick! What the hell kind of crap are you stirring up?” Bob McClendon asked.

  “Bobby Mac! What the hell are you doing working this late?”

  “They transferred your call to my house. It’s almost like they know you. I can handle pretty much anything from here, Rick. Just tell me what you need, buddy,” the older intelligence agent said.

  “Evelyn Stowe and Kate. You knew them when they were in the big house, didn’t you? If not, doesn’t matter. I think they’ve been kidnapped by Russians here in Waikoloa, Hawaii. Is there anything they were working on that would make Russia take such extreme measures?” Rick prodded.

  “Oooh. That’s a little much for an open line, don’t you think, buddy? That’ll take a little and it’s late here, like really late. I’ll start checking right now. Do you have your blackphone with you?”

  The blackphone was the most secure smart phone on the market, with cutting edge features built into its special Android apps.

  “It’s in the room safe, but I’ll go dig it out. It’s been just over an hour since they were taken and we don’t have time for niceties. I need the info as soon as you can get it, Bob. Time is of the essence.” Rick hoped that the tone of his voice carried through. He even felt like he was wasting time being on the phone.

  “I know, Rick. I’m calling people now.” Bob hung up without saying anything further.

  “I need to go back to the room. Sadie, keep Dan company, I’ll be right back,” Rick told them as the police officer pointed in the direction of the shops and Hokala Spa located across the tracks from the Lagoon Tower. Rick gave the thumbs up as he darted away, running along the walking passage, looking at every face, hoping to see those of his friends, or the Russians, if no one else.

  “Shall we?” Dan asked Sadie. She nodded, not knowing what he meant, but followed him as he headed toward the shops.

  First stop was the Tours and Activities office. Two desks faced a wall of glass, giving attentive people within a prime view of any incident.

  Only one desk was occupied. Dan held the door and Sadie walked in and greeted the young woman behind the desk. Thin, blond, made up to perfection. She was the face the resort wanted people to see. Sadie smirked at the marketing. If she couldn’t sell people on high-priced tours, then no one could.

  Sadie noticed the name tag on the woman’s light blouse. She zeroed in on “Olga from Russia.” Then Sadie shook her head, not wanting to get caught up in her husband’s perpetual paranoia.

  Dan entered and hesitated. He looked systematically through the office, taking it in with his well-practiced eye. He finished his study by looking at the woman behind the desk.

  “Hi there, you can call me Dan,” he said pleasantly. He was in uniform, so didn’t feel the need to say he was with the police.

  “Call am Olga. How can I help you,” the young woman said in a light Russian accent using well-practiced phraseology.

  Rick had been very clear with Dan about his concerns. A possible link registered, but Dan avoided clumping her in with potential kidnappers for the sole reason that she was Russian. The law wouldn’t support him.

  “We think two women may have been kidnapped, right out there, about an hour ago. Can you help us please? Did you see anything, anything at all?” Dan pleaded, holding his hands out, his body language passive.

  It was an act, but he’d done it for so long that it came naturally. At one point in his life, he would have been happy grabbing a collar and shaking the person, but those days were far in the past.

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you are talking about,” the young woman said stone-faced. Dan leaned in closer to her, all pretense of kindness gone.

  “Nothing? You didn’t see anything?” he asked.

  Her lip trembled slightly.

  “I expect that I had a client and was distracted. We’ve been very busy,” Olga countered, avoiding the officer’s gaze, shifting in her chair, and adjusting her skirt.

  “Can I see your sales log for the past two hours, please?” Dan asked, standing up straight and wearing a broad smile.

  “I’m sorry. I would have to get that cleared by hotel management. If you have a search warrant then please show that to hotel management and they will be able to grant access to the system,” she replied smoothly, but she was no longer smiling.

  A single bead of sweat formed on her forehead under her expertly styled hair. It burst through her makeup and trickled into her eyebrow.

  “Thank you, Olga, you’ve been very helpful. We’ll follow up if we have more questions. I don’t expect there’s anything to it. It was a pleasure to meet you. Looks like you have some great tours. Even though I live here, I think it’s time to become a tourist, and this is where I’ll book when my plans are solid. Have a great day, Olga,” he said changing back into the mild-mannered and easy going middle-aged man.

  When they were outside, Sadie wanted to talk, but Dan walked away, nodding at the clear windows and Olga watching them intently. Sadie nodded and waved as she turned her back, understanding why Dan didn’t want to review the conversation.

  They moved away before Sadie stopped. “She’s lying,” Sadie stated.

  “Of course, she’s lying, but why? That’s the real question. In my business, you find that everyone lies. Once you get to that dirty secret they’re trying to hide, usually it has nothing to do with the case. She might have been goofing off, watching porn on her computer or something like that,” Dan explained, taking off his hat to scratch his head. He was starting to go bald.

  “With men, it’s porn, a tryst, sex of some kind. I apologize for the sins of my gender,” he laughed as Sadie shook her head, happy at not being in that business or Rick’s business. Her husband kept his work to himself, because it was classified. She couldn’t let something slip that she didn’t know, although she counted on herself to keep Rick’s secrets if he wanted to talk.

  It frustrated her, and she could see t
he frustration in Dan’s face, too. Every crime was a puzzle where people were incentivized to lie. The system always said, innocent until proven guilty, the right against self-incrimination. Dan had to come up with the evidence and prove the crime beyond a shadow of a doubt.

  She felt for him.

  He put his hat back on. “Let me show you a little trick we can do, since we’re in a public place.” He pulled a smart phone from his pocket and turned on the video. He walked close to the wall, stretching out his arm, until the camera was past the corner and looking through the clear glass wall and into the tour office.

  Olga was on the phone, talking excitedly.

  He pulled the camera back and hurried away before too many curious passersby blew his mini undercover operation. He reviewed the video, showing it to Sadie.

  “What do you see?” he asked, biting his lip as he reviewed the video.

  “She’s on the phone,” Sadie said matter-of-factly, wondering if it was a trick question.

  “What does her body language tell you?” Dan asked patiently, as a teacher might prompt a star pupil.

  “She’s standing, one hand is palm up. She looks afraid.” Sadie watched the ten seconds of video that kept replaying.

  “What does that tell you?” Dan prompted. Sadie shook her head. She didn’t know what it meant.

  “She’s talking with someone in an authoritative position over her, whether a husband, although I saw no rings or tan lines, a manager, a third party. Again, this could be anything, but it tells me a great deal,” Dan instructed, examining every detail of her posture and movements, pausing the video, then continuing.

  “The look of fear is the most significant for me,” he said. “Why is she afraid to speak with the police? Is it an immigration issue or some other crime, but she’s telling me that there is something she absolutely doesn’t want the police to know. All of that means nothing. Why? Just because she looks guilty of something, doesn’t give us a reason to rake her over the coals, but we’ll have to keep our eye on her, though, maybe dig more into her background, do the stuff we can do without having a warrant.”

  Sadie nodded and wondered why a man of such talent was in a place with relatively no significant crime.

  He pointed to their next stop, the Kohala Bay Collections.

  They entered the store, a gift shop with a variety of Hawaiian clothing and beachwear. No one was behind the counter. Dan called out, “Hello!”

  A shorter oriental woman popped out from behind a clothing rack. “Can I help you, sir?” she said pleasantly, but stopped short when she saw the uniform.

  Sadie waved at the employee from behind the officer.

  “Did you see one or two men carrying or coercing two women, one tall, one short?” Dan stumbled. He didn’t know what she might have seen. “An hour ago, we think two women may have been kidnapped somewhere near your store.”

  “I’ve been restocking, changing our displays on the racks. I’m sorry, but I’ve seen nothing outside this store for my whole shift, the past two hours,” the woman apologized.

  “Thank you,” Dan answered warmly. “Are there any other employees here?”

  “Not right now. There is one roving employee between these shops who stops by to give us our breaks.” The woman smiled at both Dan and Sadie.

  Dan’s ears perked up at her answer. He wrote something in his small notebook. “When was that person last by here?”

  “Hasn’t been since I got here. Odd…” The woman let the word linger as she looked at the dainty watch on her wrist. “I’ve been here three hours. I should have had my break an hour ago.”

  Sadie and Dan both leaned toward the woman. “This person wouldn’t be Russian, would they?” Dan’s eyes narrowed as he waited for the answer. The poor woman took a step backward.

  “I don’t know, sir. It’s a different person each day, and they haven’t stopped by yet, sir,” the woman stammered.

  Sadie put a hand on Dan’s arm, and he lightened up.

  “Thank you so much. You’ve been very helpful. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m sorry,” he apologized, before turning and walking quickly away.

  He didn’t wait for Sadie as he focused directly on the next shop. When Dan raced from Kohala Bay Collections, he almost ran face first into Rick. Two men, hauling ass in opposite directions.

  Sadie would have laughed if it weren’t for their missing friends. She wanted to tell her husband something, but Rick’s blackphone rang.

  “Hey, Bobby Mac,” Rick said, then waited while the CIA analyst on the other end of the line delivered a long explanation.

  “Come on, Bobby Mac, industrial espionage? Is that really enough to kidnap someone over?”

  “Worth billions, Rick. It’s enough that they’d kill everyone for it,” Bobby Mac replied.

  Rick looked at his phone when the line went dead as Bobby hung up without Rick getting to say another word.

  He looked around to make sure no one was near. “They are involved in Russian industrial espionage being coordinated from the Russian Consulate in San Francisco. Hawai’i falls under that consulate’s control, for reference. And none of that gets repeated, understand?” Both Dan and Sadie nodded.

  “I need to get a question answered first. Sadie, bring the man up to speed with the very little that we know so far,” Dan said, stabbing a thumb over his shoulder toward the gift shop. He strode off like a man with a purpose.

  The clock was ticking.

  Evelyn and Kate had been missing for almost ninety minutes. There had been blood.

  Dan was no closer to finding them, and he cursed himself for losing focus on the priority, which was to find them. He could solve the crime later.

  Rick had been focused, but on the intelligence aspect and what secrets someone would be after, enough to kidnap CIA agents, maybe even kill them. He cursed himself for losing focus on the priority, which was to find his friends.

  Sadie quickly brought Rick up to speed.

  Dan returned after a minute. “Today’s floater is Sergey and he missed relieving her, too. He’s AWOL, and she didn’t see anything,” Dan told them.

  “We need to find my friends. How far do you think anyone would have gotten with them, with at least one of them unconscious? We’re looking for hiding places and escape routes,” Rick suggested, building a plan of attack within his mind, looking for ways to most efficiently eliminate the unwanted.

  “Cleaning personnel,” Rick blurted, grabbing Dan by his arms.

  “For what reason?”

  “To check empty rooms or rooms with Russians,” Rick added excitedly, still shaking Dan by the arms. The officer shrugged Rick off.

  “I can’t do that, no warrant although we may have enough probable cause to act, but I’ll have to get approval.” Dan reached for his radio, but Sadie stopped him.

  “I don’t need any of that. Leave the cleaning staff to me, and you two check everyplace else!” Sadie shouted because the adrenaline surged through her. She ran off to catch someone from the cleaning staff before they left for the evening.

  Rick and Dan walked back toward the elevators and the coffee shop. The evening sun cast long shadows, changing the lighting within the walkway.

  “Dan!” Rick called, pointing to something on the sidewalk. “What do you think this is?”

  “Probably the same thing you think it is.” They back tracked to the elevator and found one more drop. They turned and ran back to the first drop they’d found.

  “How did we miss this?” Rick lamented, knowing that recriminations were a waste of time.

  Rick drew a line in his mind from the attack site, to one of the drops to the drop where he stood. “It looks like a beeline for the Kohala Spa.”

  Dan took off running into the foyer where they found the double staircase heading down to the spa. Rick went left and Dan went right.

  Dan yelled halfway down. “Got one!” Rick hit the bottom and looked around. It was mostly empty, only a couple people standing around.
There was a small clothing and spa gifts store set up to the left. The main desk was straight ahead and a waiting area was located to the right.

  A man was in the shop to the left. He looked alarmed.

  His nametag said Sergey.

  “You!” Rick shouted. The man tried to run, but caught an arm in a rack of dresses. When he pulled free, Rick’s two-hundred thirty pounds hit him in the middle of his back, sending him sprawling.

  Sergey groaned. Rick leaned on the man as he got to his feet, then he hoisted him by the back of his shirt.

  “Where are they?”

  “Ya ne govoryu po-angliiskii,” the man said in Russian. I don’t speak English.

  “Gde oni?” Rick replied instantly in Russian, wrapping a hand around the man’s throat. Where are they?

  Sergey switched to English. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I thought you were immigration and my visa is fake,” he admitted far too quickly.

  “I asked you where they were?” Rick picked the man up and shook him. Although he looked afraid, Sergey clammed up.

  Dan looked at the woman at the desk. Irina, her nametag said. “Where are they?” he demanded, walking around the front of the desk to get behind it with her.

  Her eyes darted toward the private massage rooms. Dan didn’t hesitate. “Bring him!” he ordered.

  Rick turned the man, pulled his hand behind his back, twisting, and wrapped an arm around his throat. Sergey resisted, but Rick had him by a hundred pounds and had leverage, too. The man tried to shuffle until Rick pulled his forearm tightly against the man’s throat.

  He stopped fighting and went limp. Rick threw the man to the ground and punched him in the temple. Sergey’s head bounced off the marble, stunning him. Rick picked him up and threw him over his shoulder using the fireman’s carry.

  Dan systematically opened the doors to the rooms. He found one that was locked and pointed at Rick to watch it while he continued down the hallway.

  When he reached the end, Dan turned back and nodded. Rick started pounding on the door and yelling to open up. He heard muffled cries from within and started kicking the door like he’d seen in the movies. After three tries, his knee and foot screamed in agony and the door was no closer to opening.