by Davis Bunn
When the pilot started back toward the front, Matt realized all the brass were glaring at him. The three generals looked outraged.
Matt ducked his head, shamed by the prospect of his nighttime terrors having been on public display. He said to the phone, “This is Kelly.”
“Van Sant here. You awake?”
Matt glanced at his watch. He was still on East Coast time. It read almost eleven. He had slept five hours and woken up feeling even more tired than before. “Barely.”
“We got a match on the print. You ready for this?”
It took Matt a second to realize what he meant. “Yes.”
“Barry Simms.”
“The guy killed by the bomb over here?”
“One and the same.”
Matt stared out the window. The plane broke free of clouds, revealing a wet green world below. “I don’t get it.”
“That makes about a dozen of us. We’re all thinking message, but we don’t know—”
The pilot’s voice broke through on the line. “We’re cleared to land in five. This connection needs to shut down.”
Matt said, “Call Detective Lucas D’Amico with Baltimore Homicide. Tell him what you told me.”
“Roger that. Good hunting.”
Tuesday morning Lucas slept in and then made pancakes for Katy. Pancakes were Katy’s favorite meal and normally reserved for easy Saturdays. But Lucas wasn’t due at the office until noon, and he was trying to make up the interrupted Saturday routine. He called the school and said Katy would be late, then waited for the smells to wake her. A silent celebration, something she loved and he loved doing for her. There was a quiet joy to such mornings, a tiny glimpse into the past, one that meant far more to Lucas than the food. Before June had become ill, he had made all the meals for their little family on Saturdays. His wife usually sat in the kitchen with them, reading a book or the newspaper. Saying little. Quietly enjoying her own downtime.
Katy came downstairs when the smell of bacon and pancakes filtered through her closed door. “Good morning, sweetheart. Sleep well?”
“Is it Saturday?”
“No, honey. Go look at Katy’s calendar and tell me what day it is.”
She rubbed the sleep in her features and crossed to the calendar on the pantry door. It took her quite a while to decide. “Tuesday.”
“Very good, honey. But sometimes we have pancakes during the week. You don’t like pancakes just on Saturday, do you?”
“That’s silly talk, Daddy.”
But there was no playfulness to her tone. Lucas had learned to listen closely to what his daughter did not say. And something was wrong. “Sit down, honey, your plate is ready.”
He had melted the butter in a little iron skillet just as Katy liked. She watched him solemnly as he forked open a hole in the middle of the top pancake and then poured in the yellow liquid. “Enough?”
“Thank you, Daddy.”
He poured himself another cup and seated himself across from her. “Do you want to pray?”
“You do it.”
“Let me have your hand. Lord, we thank you for these many blessings. We thank you for family and friends. Bless this food to our bodies and this day to doing your will. Amen.”
He watched her eat. Something was wrong. “What is it, honey?”
She cast another glance at the window. “The sun is shining.”
“Yes, it looks like a beautiful day.” He let her take another bite, not offering to help her cut up the bacon, even when she slid all the other slices onto the table mat. Katy knew how to ask for help when she needed it. “Is something bothering you, Katy-girl?”
“We were going to work in the garden.”
“Who?”
“My friends. I told them I would be there at nine.”
“Sweetheart, I’m sorry, I didn’t . . . It’s just, I wanted to do a family thing.”
She did her slow-motion cut with another bite. “We’re family.”
“That’s right, sweetheart. We sure are.”
“I miss Mommy.”
He set down his mug. This was serious. Katy rarely spoke about June anymore. When she did, it was because something at the dark core of her being pained her. So much of Katy’s interior world was a mystery, even to Katy. Talking about June was her way of touching the hidden depths.
Lucas reached for her hand. “I miss her too. Very much.”
“She’s not coming back.”
“No, honey. But we’ll join her when our time comes.”
“In heaven.”
“Yes.”
“We’ll be a family again then, won’t we?”
“Yes, sweetheart. We’ll be in God’s family.”
She cut another piece of pancake, then pushed the plate to one side. “I don’t want any more, Daddy.”
He rose from the table. “Go wash your face and hands and brush your hair. I’ll drop you by the school.”
“No, Daddy. I told you, by the home.”
“Of course. Where your friends are working in the garden.” He watched her put the plates in the sink. Sometimes she remembered to do this on her own, but not often. He kept his tone light. “Who are these friends of yours, Katy?”
“They live in the home.”
He set his mug in the sink with her plates, squirted some soap over the dishes, and grabbed the brush. Anything to keep his eyes and hands busy. “Do you want to go live with them in the home, Katy-girl?”
“No.”
She did not move from beside him. “Why not?”
“You can’t come.”
The lump in his throat turned the words very hoarse. “But I could visit you as often as we liked.”
She stood there beside him, as still as only his Katy could be. Finally she said, “Family is a lonely thing, Daddy.”
Lucas stacked the dishes and the frying pan in the drying rack. He dried his hands off on the dish towel and moved to the downstairs closet. He unlocked the door using the key he always kept with him. He slipped on his holster and armed his weapon. He relocked the door. He stood at the foot of the stairs, wondering if he dared go ask Katy what she had meant. Then the phone rang.
“D’Amico.”
It was Connie. “I think I scored, Lucas.”
“Tell me.”
“I might have a lever we can use for Bert Lang.”
“He was the leader, right?”
“Yeah, and his common-law wife was the Division One dispatcher.”
Katy thumped down the stairs, turned, and gave him the look. The one that was both sad and resigned. Like he’d been caught doing something wrong. Or he’d disappointed her in some intensely bad way. “Look, I need to run do something with my daughter. Where are you?”
“On my way back home to shower and change. I’ve been at it since five.”
“I’ll run by the federal courthouse, get us a writ on Lang, then swing by your house. Give me an hour.” He hung up the phone and realized Katy was standing in the hall, watching him with a worried frown. “What’s the matter, baby?”
“You have to work.”
He walked over to her and started to take her in his arms. But Katy scrunched up her shoulders and shied away. A little girl’s way of saying she didn’t want to be held.
Lucas dropped his hands, feeling as helpless as he had since standing by June’s hospital bed. “I don’t understand, honey. It’s written down in your calendar. Today is a day when Daddy works.”
“I know.”
“Then what . . .”
Katy opened the door and stepped outside. She walked down the stairs and stopped in front of the car. Lucas opened her door, then went around and let himself in. He started the car and put it in gear, but stayed where he was. “Katy, I can’t help you if you won’t tell me what’s wrong.”
“I miss Mommy.”
“I know you do, honey. So do I. Very much.”
“Mommy told me I had to take care of you.”
Lucas cut off the motor. He reached over and took
her hand. “Katy, I want to ask you a question and I need you please to promise to tell me the truth. Okay? Will you do that?” She nodded in her slow fashion, staring out the windshield at nothing. “Katy-girl, would you like to go live in the home?”
“I promised Mommy.”
“Sweetheart, Mommy would understand. I know that in the bottom of my heart.”
“We’re a family.”
He felt the confusion and distress beneath those deep, soft, slow-spoken words. So much it threatened to crush his chest. “Yes. Yes, we are.”
She rocked slightly in her seat. “I’m alone a lot, Daddy.”
The U.S. air base at Upper Heyford was laid out like a wet red-and-green chessboard. The buildings were low and brick. Between them, neat emerald lawns glinted in the rain. A pair of military sedans arrived while the plane was still taxiing. The brass deplaned without a backward glance. Matt waited while they saluted and shook hands and departed. He then started down the aisle to where the pilot waited. Matt asked, “When do you head back?”
“That depends on you, sir.”
“Excuse me?”
The Gulfstream was just high enough for the pilot to stand straight but so low Matt had to crouch. It brought him close enough to see the man’s spark of humor. “They didn’t tell you anything, did they.”
“Show up and go, that’s about all.”
“That last call you got included a change of orders for us. We’re to hold here until you’re ready to depart.”
“Which is why the brass gave me the slow burn,” Matt realized.
“Air force pilots are trained not to notice things like that, sir. How long will you be here?”
“I have no idea. I hope not long. Is there a number I can call as soon as I know something?”
“Have your man notify the ready room. They’ll know where to track us down.”
“My man?”
This time the smile broke through. “Bottom of the stairs. Good hunting, sir.”
“Mr. Kelly? Brian Aycock, United States Embassy.” He opened an umbrella and held it out to cover Matt, not himself. “Welcome to England. Sorry about the weather, sir.”
He was young and dressed in a three-button suit that turned him into a fashionable stovepipe. He was also extremely nervous. Matt felt like a liar just shaking his hand.
“I haven’t had much time on this, sir. I was only flagged yesterday.” He led Matt to a dark Ford Mondeo parked on the tarmac. He opened Matt’s door and extended the umbrella to shield Matt as he took his seat. “I’ve managed to set up a meeting with the head of security here on base, as per instructions from Washington. Other than that, I’m at your disposal. Sir.”
Matt put up with it until Aycock scurried around the car and slid behind the wheel. “Hang on here just a second.”
“Yes sir. But the senior air force security officer, he—”
“He can wait five minutes.”
“Sir, yes sir.” Aycock wore the expression of a deer staring down the business end of a rifle barrel. Five minutes into the assignment and he was already going to catch it.
“I don’t know what they told you, but I am a total rookie. I’ve moved around all my life, but I’ve never been anywhere.” Matt realized that made no sense only when Aycock’s forehead creased. His own head felt stuffed with steel wool. He had heard of jet lag but never experienced it before this moment. He tried again. “I’ve never been outside the U.S. I’m not supposed to be here now. I got handed a vague nothing of an assignment and suddenly it’s gone ballistic. So you can forget the sirs. I’m Matt. We clear so far?”
“Yes sir . . . Sure.”
“Good. The only way I can hope to move forward is if you tell me what you know.”
“Not much.”
Matt rolled his finger. Go.
“Okay. Two things. You don’t want to keep this guy waiting.”
“That’s one.”
Aycock started the car. “Don’t expect much from this meeting.”
They rolled away from the airfield at a sedate twenty miles per hour. Hangars gave way to barracks and offices and gyms and buildings Matt could not identify. The base was far too tidy to be called decrepit. But every building appeared of World War II vintage. They were all mind-numbingly similar, red brick with sash windows and white trim and white doors and little yellow signs with cryptic military code planted by every front walk. The signs all said the same thing to Matt: If you have to ask, you don’t belong.
The road’s often-repaired tarmac was as striped and humped as lizard skin. “I thought you said we were in a hurry.”
“We sure are.”
“And this is the fastest you can go?”
“That is absolutely correct.”
Matt settled back. “Tell me what I’m seeing.”
“Upper Heyford Air Base played a critical role in D-day. Following the end of World War II, it was designated part of NATO operations. The airstrips were extended to handle B-52s and B-1Bs. Security was stepped up.”
“The base went nuclear?”
“There has never been official acknowledgment of any U.S. nuclear arsenal ever being on British soil,” Aycock replied very carefully. “For the past two years, Upper Heyford has basically been waiting its turn at closure.”
“Has it gone well?”
Aycock glanced over, measuring whether he could take Matt at his word. Then, “The official word is, there is no official word.”
“So not at all well.”
“There are problems at both ends. The Brits can’t decide what they want to do with the place. The local government is fighting with both Whitehall and the British army.”
“And from our side?”
Aycock glanced over once more. “I have no idea.”
“Is that a fact.”
“Yes,” Aycock replied. “It really is.”
“Meaning whatever is happening, they don’t want me to know about it.”
Aycock drove on in silence.
Military police headquarters had an incongruous white front porch, the only one on the base that Matt had seen. Aycock pulled into the one slot marked Visitors. He asked, “Do you mind if I stay out here?”
Three young people stood at attention in the misting rain, two men and one woman. Their hair was matted flat to their faces. They all wore sodden National Guard fatigues, darkened to almost black by the drenching. They looked very young. All three trembled violently. Matt asked, “What are you not telling me?”
“The station chief wasn’t all that eager to help out.”
Matt noticed a corporal in fatigues standing on the porch. He leaned against a wooden pillar, his arms crossed, watching the three enlisted personnel. “He refused to meet with me?”
“The ambassador had to speak with the base commander to make this happen.”
“The ambassador knows about me?”
Aycock nodded. “Whatever you landed in, it really must be something.”
Matt kept watching the three trembling soldiers. “I was told some National Guard units out of Baltimore have been sent over to help shut the base down.”
“That is correct.” Aycock did a very good job at diplomatic bland.
“Problems?”
“Officially, the base is severely understaffed due to most of its original personnel now serving in Kuwait City.”
“And unofficially?”
Aycock pointed at the three shivering forms. “Ask them.”
Matt held up the file he was given on the plane. “Have you seen this?”
“No sir.”
He handed it over. “Read it. Then I want you to call the judge in Oxford who handled the case. His name is at the top of page four. Ask if we can come by and see him.” Matt opened his door. “Make it sound urgent.”
The young woman whimpered softly as Matt passed by. The two young men gave a hoarse shiver with each breath. The chill was cramping them so that their bodies were slightly bent and their faces taut. Like they were in severe pain.<
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The corporal was taller than Matt and outweighed him by twenty pounds. He watched Matt’s approach with eyes as pale as his close-cropped blond hair. He drawled, “You the guy from Washington?”
Matt climbed the stairs. “That’s right.”
“You’re late.” The corporal’s eyes flicked over Matt and dismissed him. “Not a good idea to keep Major Stafford waiting.”
A dozen off-duty enlisted personnel hoofed by on the road, protected from the rain by military ponchos. Not one looked at the trio in the front lawn as they passed. Cars crawled by on the street. No face glanced their way.
As Matt started for the door, the corporal added, “Overnight spell planted out front would teach you the proper meaning of time.”
Matt entered the station.
A grizzled sergeant was seated behind a desk. His eyes were darker, but just as cold as the corporal’s. “Help you?”
“Matt Kelly to see the officer in charge.”
“You’re late, Mr. Kelly.”
Matt glanced at two young women seated on a bench beneath the side window. They were scrunched together as far from the sergeant as they could manage. They looked terrified.
The sergeant rose from his desk and made a military drama of crossing to the inner office and knocking.
Matt saw the two young women wince as the voice inside barked, “Come!”
“Major, the fellow from Washington finally decided to show up.”
The two women wore the same National Guard fatigues as the trio outside. They looked ready to sell their every remaining day to be elsewhere.
The voice inside drawled, “What does he want to see me about, Sergeant?”
He swiveled around. “You there! What’s the purpose of your keeping the major waiting?”
“I wish to ask about the murder of an American civilian.”
“Show him in, Sergeant.”
Major Stafford was a humorless badger with silver-flecked eyelids and a bony ridge along the crest of his bald head. “Close the door, Sergeant.”
“Certainly, sir.” The door banged shut. “Can’t have the scum in our front office hear the top secret business that kept us waiting all morning.”
“That will do, Sergeant.”
Matt walked over and sat down.