by Toby Neal
“Sounds like they’re doing damage control. Why didn’t you tell me you were setting up a cam?” Sophie asked sharply.
Dunn shrugged. “It never came up. Check this out.” He opened the slim laptop he had brought in and turned it to face her. “This footage was sent remotely, and as you recall the signal isn’t too good out there. The resolution isn’t great, but you can see that they’re digging up the garden. With a backhoe. At night.”
Sophie hurried around her desk to lean over his shoulder. The images were grainy, shot through a night vision scope, but even so Sophie could see the small backhoe, planted square in the middle of what would have been the mandala labyrinth in the garden, and it was digging, creating a mound of soil. “They’re moving the bodies.”
“It looks that way. Any luck with your online hunt for a reason for a search warrant?”
“I’ve isolated a couple of possible sources of unreported funds. But—I’m afraid it is not enough yet.”
Dunn pointed a finger at the screen. “This was last night. I should have been monitoring the cam all night, but I left the laptop at work. My bad. Who knows what they’ve done by now.” He punched a few more buttons, and a new window popped up. Morning light was dawning over the Waipio Valley, throwing the high, velvety-green, corrugated sides of the valley into sharp relief.
Sophie frowned. “We have to talk to Hilo PD.”
“What will they be able to do?” Dunn threw his hands up in frustration. “You know that isn’t actionable. But maybe—” he leaned forward, his thick forearms bunching. “Maybe, if we’re able to sample that soil using the new sniffer technology device, we can get them to come check that hole.”
Sophie lifted an eyebrow, feeling a smile tug her lips. “You just want to go back in and use that device.”
“So what if I do? Thing cost thousands, and we haven’t had a case to use it on since we bought it. This is the perfect test situation.”
The cadaver detection device, a handheld contraption utilizing the ninhydrin-based decomposition gas detection technology, was being touted as a replacement for cadaver dogs. Sophie had her doubts, but clearly Dunn was eager to try the thing out.
“So what if we do find something?” Sophie leaned back and tapped her lips with a forefinger as her eyes wandered the acoustic tile ceiling. “So we find something that indicates the presence of a human body. Then what? How do we stop the cult from disposing of it, and get Hilo PD there in time to confiscate the remains?”
Her gaze fell, to find Dunn looking her over, a pinched expression on his face. Clearly he didn’t care for the Mary Watson outfit she’d dressed in today: long Bermuda shorts, sensible sandals that fastened with Velcro, and a button-down floral shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows. It seemed like the kind of outfit that was appropriate for a casual office setting like theirs.
“What’s with the new threads? You look like you’re going to a church luncheon—with my grandmother.”
Sophie shrugged, her cheeks heating. She was experimenting with clothing styles for the first time in her life, and his comment hurt a bit. “I was getting sick of always looking like an FBI agent, or like I was going to the gym. Can we get back to the topic at hand?”
“You have to take me shopping with you next time you go. I can help you with wardrobe choices.” Dunn looked serious, though she grinned at the thought of him trailing her through clothing aisles, holding her bags and advising her on purses. “I know how you should dress.”
“Oh really?” She scoffed. “Probably something tight and slinky. You men are all the same.”
“No, really. You are what I’d call a ‘classic.’ You should dress like Audrey Hepburn. Little black dress, cream silk blouse, tailored pants. Pearl earrings.” The tops of Dunn’s ears had gone red.
Sophie met his gaze. “You’ve thought about this,” she said in astonishment.
The color spread from Dunn’s ears to his cheeks. “My mother was a model. Worked closely with some designers in New York. I got dragged to a lot of shows as a kid.”
“Fascinating. Turns out I agree with you about the pearls, at least. I have a nice pair of earrings at home.” Sophie took a sip of her mug of morning tea. “All right. Where were we?”
“Planning a raid on the compound with the sniffer device.” Dunn stood. “Let’s run this by Bix and see what he says.”
Sophie laughed. “I think you’re starting to appreciate the benefits of the chain of command.”
Dunn glanced back at her from the doorway and winked. “I am, as a matter fact. I’m beginning to like the feeling of having my butt covered.”
It took them all day to prepare: prepping their strategy with Bix, packing and sorting gear, communicating with and setting up the situation with Hilo PD, who agreed to be standing by to move in on their positive ID of human remains biologicals.
Stepping up into the helicopter in the long, slanting rays of sunset, Sophie ticked over the plan as she fastened her four-point harness. Her wardrobe dilemmas were resolved by being decked out in dark, gray-green camouflage wear; underneath she wore the newest, latest version of a bulletproof vest made of lightweight, high-technology fabric that was supposed to be able to stop any bullet. Knowing Sloane and the sniper on duty at the compound, Sophie wished this didn’t have to be her first time wearing it, or that she’d at least had time to watch the demo videos of how it worked.
Before they put on their flight helmets, Dunn leaned over. He smelled like lemon and breath mints. “I’m kind of shocked Hilo PD is standing by at the edge of the valley. I thought Ohale would give us more of a hassle.”
“I think he wants Jackson as much as we do,” Sophie said. “And he knows this is their last chance for someone else to get inside.” They donned the helmets and conversation ceased as Security Solutions’ small, lightweight stealth helicopter rose from the pad on top of their building. Sophie tried to enjoy the sight of the city beneath them, spread like a sparkling carpet of jewels, but the small size of the aircraft, the buffered, silent engine technology, and the sleek shape, built for speed, not stability, all contributed to a rough, bouncy flight all the way across the black ocean to the Big Island.
Sophie’s stomach was churning with airsickness by the time they swooped into the furthest corner of Waipio Valley. Per usual, they would have to work their way closer on foot.
It was beginning to feel almost like a familiar routine to drop out of the hovering helicopter into long grass, give a thumbs up to their pilot, drop the visor of her night vision helmet, engage comms, and follow Dunn’s rapid progress through the jungle. Dunn had a GPS heading on the compound and made a beeline for it—regardless of trees, fences, the river, or taro patches in the way.
They reached the compound in an hour.
The moon was still high, and detection was easily possible as they flattened themselves into deep shadow against the high wooden wall. Dunn carried the cadaver detection device in his backpack, and Sophie carried evidence bags and a trowel to store soil samples in.
The gap they’d made in the razor wire of the fence had been fixed.
“Doesn’t matter.” Dunn’s eyes were invisible behind the faceplate of his visor but he seemed to sense her dismay. “We have to get in closer to the digging area anyway. The compound’s security is going to be on alert with any organics exposed.”
Organics. What a way to describe whatever was left of three beautiful women.
But they needed to reduce their mission to a series of neutral components. Sophie gave a brisk nod.
“This looks good.” Dunn’s whisper went from the microphone, so close to his lips, straight into Sophie’s ear. They worked their way around the compound to the shadowed area directly opposite their target. Per their plan, Sophie loosened her weapon and turned her back to Dunn as he strapped on climbing spikes and took out his wire cutting tools.
The night was silent but for the chorus of coqui frogs, their high-pitched calls creating a backdrop of white noise that s
creened the soft clinking of Dunn’s equipment as he prepared. In no time her partner was at the top of the fence.
Sophie kept an eye on his movements even as she scanned the quiet area surrounding them. But suddenly Dunn went rigid as sparks flew up from the bolt cutters he’d set to the wire. He flew backward, falling to hit the fence with a heavy thump. He dangled from his climbing gear, head down, arms and legs limp.
“Venomous yak worms!” Sophie exclaimed. They’d electrified the wire!
She jumped up high enough to grasp hold of Dunn, clearly unconscious. Whipping out her combat knife, she cut the rope tying him to the top of the fence and caught his heavy body, breaking its fall and lowering him to the ground at her feet.
Sophie scanned for danger, but heard nothing. Saw nothing.
They had to have surveillance cams or some sort of monitoring system for the electrified fence. They had to know that the current had been breached.
Sophie checked Dunn’s vitals. His heart was beating—rapidly, irregularly. He was still breathing, but unconscious. His color was pale even in the dark. There was nothing she could do for him right now but leave him to rest. Hopefully he’d come around soon.
The thought of going away empty-handed was intolerable. Dunn had breached the electrical circuit. Maybe this mission wasn’t over yet, because it didn’t seem as if they’d been detected.
It could be a trap. But if so, why hadn’t Sloane and his helpers come after them already, with Dunn passed out on the ground? It was worth taking a chance, because it was going to be the last chance they had to gather evidence about the missing women.
Sophie stripped off Dunn’s climbing harness, strapped on his spikes, and removed the backpack with the sniffer device in it from his body. She stowed a few more evidence bags from her bag into his, donned the pack, and hit the fence. At the top, she scanned the compound. All was quiet.
Sophie’s skin crawled with tension as she made the first cut into the razor wire. With her NV visor, she could see the electrified wire that Dunn had cut on his initial attempt. She cleared away a two-foot section of wire and tossed it back down on the other side of Dunn, who had begun to move his arms and legs, making tiny moaning sounds.
She whispered into her comm unit. “I’m going in, Dunn. When you feel up to it, keep an eye out for me.” And over the fence she went.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sophie hit the ground, her knees bent to absorb the drop. She sank into the soft, dislodged soil of the garden’s disruption and moved forward quickly to a heavy-duty dump truck next to the hole, already piled high with dirt from the digging site.
Watching the daytime surveillance, they’d seen the dump truck already make a trip to the entrance of the bay to empty the garden soil into the ocean. This was the reason they had had to move so quickly.
Sophie swung the backpack off of her back, extracting the sniffer device. A long steel rod ended in the ninhydrin technology unit, a round attachment. A stabilizer clamp around her forearm and a handle to hold gave the device the look and feel of a metal detector. Sophie swung the device along the edges of the deep excavation hole, watching the LED display attached to the rod for a green light that would indicate human remains.
It was hard to keep an eye on both the LED display and the surrounding area with the helmet on. It also inhibited her hearing, which at this point she concluded would be her best indication of someone approaching. She removed the helmet, setting it on the ground, and moved away from the hole to scan the mound of dirt in the back of the dump truck. Her eyes flitted over the destroyed garden, the amber-lit yurts in the distance, the dark shadow of the fence nearby. All of it felt so familiar from her time at the retreat, but menacing now.
The LED display lit suddenly, a strong green seeming to leap off of the small black square to pulse in her vision. Sophie fumbled to take out an evidence bag, and scooped a handful of dirt from where the signal had showed. She hadn’t packed the trowel—that was still in her backpack on the other side of the fence—so she used her hands to scoop the dirt into the bag. Her fingers encountered something hard—probably a stone. She fumbled it out of the soil.
She held a bone, darkened with dirt but still pale enough to discern. Probably a phalange. Smooth, round and about the size of a half-smoked cigarette, it lay like a talisman in her palm.
“I was hoping you’d come back.” Dougal Sloane’s voice was casual. Sophie spun, dropped the bone into her pocket and reached for her weapon with her spare hand—but froze as moonlight shone on the chrome-plated Beretta in Sloane’s hand. “I knew it would be you, Mary Watson.” The way he said her name confirmed he knew it wasn’t real.
It was a bad idea to test her new, untried vest with a 9mm at close range, and her lifeline to help was four feet away in the helmet she’d foolishly taken off. “They say men with big guns are overcompensating,” she said, equally conversational.
Sloane snorted an almost-laugh and took another step toward her. His eyes were dark caves, the bald top of his head gleamed, his teeth flashed white. “Psychoanalyzing me, eh? Don’t think you want to do that, m’dear. You won’t like what you find.”
Sophie fumbled the sniffer detection unit’s forearm grip off, letting the unit drop to the ground. Her mind scrabbled to think of a way out as Sloane took another step closer. “Not sure how you got out of here the first time, but I won’t make the mistake of leaving you alive again. This is an ideal opportunity to bury you with the rest.”
So that’s how it was going to be.
A deep calm settled over Sophie.
Time seemed to slow. The details surrounding her impressed themselves on each of her senses: the rich, loamy scent of the dirt around them. Moonlight on the chrome barrel of the Beretta was oddly beautiful, as was its ominous black bore. Even Sloane’s Scottish accent felt rich, grace notes over the aural tapestry that was the song of the coqui frogs in the background. The humid night air felt like satin on her skin.
Maybe this is where all your struggles are meant to end, the depression whispered. He is going to kill you.
Hello, darkness, my old friend. I won’t give in to you now, or ever. I have to at least try to live.
Sophie gathered her strength from her core, an invisible inward coiling, and leaped at Sloane, the longest standing broad jump of her life. Her hands caught his wrist, deflecting the weapon upward.
The massive boom of the gun going off felt like a bomb in her hands. She felt a blast of heat on her face—then she felt nothing.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Voices sounded nearby but muffled, as if heard through a thick cotton blanket. “You’re going to be all right. Stay with me, Sophie. Stay with me!”
Dunn. He was always so bossy, so demanding. Always wanting more than she had to give.
There was a long stretch of nothing. Perhaps. Or maybe it was only a moment or two.
She was drifting, somewhere gray, like walking in the morning fog through the marsh of a rice paddy, as she’d done as a child in Thailand. The ground was spongy below her, the sky too close and the color of lead. Memories played intermittently, like glitchy videos.
Her mother Pim Wat’s beautiful face close to hers, kissing her cheek, stroking her hair. Sophie had been sick, and it was one of the few times her mother had been well enough to take care of her. “You are going to be beautiful.” Her mother’s voice was so loving, her small hand sliding around the outside of Sophie’s face, stroking the bones. “Even with this hair from your father.”
Her mother’s hair was long, straight, black, and shimmery as a fall of silk. Sophie’s was dense, curly, with the structure she’d inherited from her father’s African-American roots. She’d dealt with it by cropping it short, too impatient to figure out how to manage the wayward locks.
She heard a rumble in the gray mist—her father’s voice. She’d always loved his voice, so deep and melodic, a good part of his success as an ambassador. He could talk anyone into anything with that voice. Now it was no
thing but a rumble in the distance, a rumble that felt like home.
But where was home? Certainly not the bare little apartment Mary Watson had rented. She really just wanted to sleep. If she could just lie down and rest, maybe all of this would make sense.
Someone was talking over her head.
Marcella. Her friend sounded upset, with that edge she could get in her tone when something was bothering her. “I’m going to tell you this and assume you can hear me. They say you can hear things. Maybe you’ll even remember them, and you better listen when I tell you…” Marcella’s voice caught. “Don’t do this. Wake up, Sophie. You’re my best friend. I need you.”
Sophie hated the sadness in Marcella’s voice. She looked around in the gray, but couldn’t see a way out. She tried to run forward but her legs felt too heavy.
“Thanks for sitting with her,” Dunn’s voice said.
“You don’t have to thank me. She was my friend a long time before she was your partner.” Marcella sounded harsh, angry.
“I’m sorry I let this happen to her.”
“You should be.”
Dunn and Marcella did not sound like they were getting along, and it really wasn’t fair to Dunn. He was unconscious when she went over the wall. He would have stopped her if he could have; he would have taken the bullet for her. Somehow she knew this.
Remembering that about Dunn felt like it meant something.
The struggle to get through each day, to keep the depression from crippling her, that familiar sense of futility, hopelessness, and loneliness—it was gone. If this was the afterlife, it was boring, but it was peaceful.
Perhaps time passed. She heard snatches of conversation, but not anything that she connected with enough to notice until Waxman.
Waxman was close to her. She could imagine herself, lying on the hospital bed or wherever it was. Her former mentor and boss was speaking directly into her ear on the left side. Maybe the light gleamed on his prematurely silver hair like it used to.