by Caleb Carr
“Well? What the fuck are you two waiting for, a medal or a monument? Get outta here, will you?” Then he spun around again, walking down the hall shouting, “Somebody get me Dennis Shea, either on the phone or in person! I want to know what the hell this was all about!”
Mike and I wasted no time following Mangold’s order: after all, there was every chance that we might be the next to occupy those rather scary little interrogation rooms. Even when we were back in our own car and under way east, we were too dumbfounded to speak until we were outside Albany, at which point, speculation began to creep in.
“Dude,” Mike said. “Trajan—accepting the fact that that whole thing was seriously bizarre, what the hell else did we learn? Because to me it seems like…”
“Like some seriously high-placed strings must have been pulled?” I replied. “In order to get Frank to agree so quickly? Well, you’re right, Mike. The only question being, who was the conduit for that message: the message that said, ‘If you don’t have it, let them go. We don’t need more of a mess on our hands than we’ve already got.’ ”
“Correct,” Mike said with a nod of relief.
“Good questions, all of them,” I said, lighting a cigarette. “Frank did mention that utter piece of shit Dennis Shea, the guy who administered the coup de grâce to Latrell, but he’s just a sergeant in the sniper unit. I doubt there’s anything much there.”
“Although he could have been relaying messages.”
“True,” I said. “But why pick him? More probably, Shea had simply been the first one to hear the story that there was a body in the Patricks’ house. Although he could, I suppose, have been one of the BCI men that Pete talked about being there—the ones that planted the body. But a sergeant? In the snipers? Unlikely that he was even there, much less a planner. Too much of a career risk. It’s something else…But we’ll have to file it away. And other than that? We’ve learned very little. Except that, if Frank Mangold was bullshitting about being surprised, he did a very good job.”
“Yeah; though we know that he is, in fact, a very good bullshitter.” Mike lit a cigarette nervously. “I don’t like it, L.T.—somehow, I have the distinct feeling he’s setting us up for something, but I can’t say what it is. One thing’s for sure—he’s still pissed that we’re around. And whoever the big shots that Indian Bill mentioned actually are, it’s for sure that they’re pissed, too.”
“No doubt. But like I say, we can’t go guessing at what unknown people are doing where or how. We’ve got enough to deal with.” I checked my watch. “Shit—you’ve already missed your class.”
“Aw, you don’t say,” Mike answered with a knowing smile: the first time he’d looked even slightly at ease since we’d entered headquarters.
“Yeah, I know, you’re all busted up about it. But get me back in time to at least fulfill my duties—which include taking Marcianna for a stroll before my class. We’ve got to act as if nothing’s going on, even if we know that something is—and we’ve got to keep quiet to Ambyr and Lucas about how high that something may reach. Won’t do them any good. They’re in it, now, with us, and there’s no way to change that. But there’s no sense in freaking them out, either.”
“And the last of that tribe?” Mike asked. “Derek?”
“Derek is another riddle to be solved. In fact, at this point, I’d say that we have a rough idea of what the two ends—the high and the low—of the scheme to get these kids down south look like: Derek finds the kids, and the people with money pay for them. The only problem being, who are the middlemen? How many of them are there—how many steps, I mean, from Derek to the money?”
“That’s an awful lot of questions, L.T.,” Mike said ominously.
“It is. But we’ve done this before, Mike—worked without a net. We can manage it.” It struck me even then that this statement was a pretty blatant display of hubris; but there was no time to dwell on it. “Now punch it, and get us back to Shiloh…”
{x.}
During the next few days, Mike, Ambyr, Lucas, and I made sure that we knew exactly who our initial quarry in New York City was to be, Mike and I having tapped several of our still-friendly contacts in the NYPD and among New York newspapers for whatever information they could offer about the man whose name appeared on Donnie Butler’s documents of authentication: one Roger Augustine, a senior officer at Goldman Sachs, the financial giant. Along with his equally high-powered wife, Augustine fit the profile of someone who might be looking for a throwaway child to take in illegally, for a variety of reasons we would flesh out in the coming days. Simultaneously with this line of investigation, we began planning the initial stages of our descent upon the city, in between classes. Ambyr became a valued auditor of both Mike’s and my courses, or at least as many as she could fit around her schedule of rehab and studies at the Disability Center in Fraser without raising suspicion. Mike graciously offered to ferry her up from Surrender each afternoon, since we didn’t really want her state-appointed driver getting an idea of what was going on at Shiloh; and her very serious and attentive presence only inspired her already enthusiastic brother to dive into his studies even deeper, to the extent that he began taking his proposed role as our cover during the trip to New York very seriously, and even offered some genuine insights that helped us sharpen the plan.
After we’d all decided to knock off work that Friday night, we all went down to the hangar floor to enjoy a few beers, along with a small breeze that was kicking up through the hollow after a very still week. Making her way to the hangar opening, Ambyr seemed to be drawn to something; and when I joined her, I realized it was the sound of Marcianna chirruping in a peculiar way that I’d never heard before within her enclosure.
“What’s she saying now?” Ambyr asked, hearing my footsteps behind her but continuing to keep her attention on the hill. “She sounds—so strange…”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “And I honestly don’t know the answer. I thought I knew all her voices, but—this one is new.”
At that, Ambyr tugged me by the hand toward the enclosure. “Come on, let’s go hang out with her.”
But I pulled back wearily. “You hung out with her once today,” I said, referring to my usual afternoon stroll with Marcianna, on which Ambyr had joined us that day without sparking (somewhat to my surprise) any objection to the additional company. “Besides, I’m so beat that the next time I go up that hill, I probably won’t end up coming back down till tomorrow morning.”
“Aw,” Ambyr noised, taunting me with undeniable charm, as had become her custom. “Is our poor one-legged sorcerer feeling sorry for himself?” Then, in a remarkably agile and swift move, she released my hand, took her cane, whipped it back in a flash to her left side, and delivered a sharp, even slightly unsteadying backhand across my prosthesis. The sound resonated, catching Mike’s and Lucas’ attention. Lucas started our way cackling, anticipating more; but Ambyr, rightly figuring that I wasn’t used to that kind of behavior, simply laughed again and turned to make her escape by quickly feeling her way with her cane to the path up to Marcianna’s gate.
I moved after her, once I’d gathered my wits and my full balance; but before clearing the area around the hangar, I glanced back when I heard the sounds of Lucas trying to follow, and Mike restraining him with no little difficulty. When the kid asked why Mike was being “such a God damned pain in the balls,” Mike told him that one day he’d reach puberty, and then he’d understand. That set off a genuine donnybrook that echoed through the night, making me pause to check my watch in the hope that Clarissa would still be in her study in front of the television: there’d be no chance of her being alarmed by our racket. Reassured, I finally caught up to Ambyr at the gate to Marcianna’s enclosure, where she was laughing harder than ever as she caught her breath. She tried to get her mischief under control, however, when she heard the sound of Marcianna speeding through the high grass of the enclosure and finally leaping up to put her front paws on the gate.
As had been th
e case that afternoon, Marcianna seemed not at all shocked or angered to find Ambyr on the other side of the several layers of wire; indeed, she was even more welcoming toward the newcomer than she had been earlier. Ambyr, for her part, moved over to and crouched down by the fencing to the side of the gate, which was lighter than that of the entry panels and afforded her space to get her hands and forearms through so that she could pet Marcianna. This was by no means a wise or safe move (Marcianna was sometimes alarmed by grasping, groping hands that came through the fence, an experience, I’d always thought, that was far too reminiscent of what she’d endured as a cub in the petting zoo), and I was about to call out to Ambyr in alarm. Yet Marcianna simply strode over, gave Ambyr’s hand a short smell, and then began accepting the scratching and petting that our guest offered; none of which diminished the momentary alarm sparked in me by Ambyr’s very rash crossing of a boundary that I’d thought she understood.
I went and crouched by her. “You know that was stupid, right?”
“What?” Ambyr said, with another of her soft, carefree laughs, her attention far more focused on Marcianna than it was on me.
“Sticking your hand through the fence like that!” Only when my outburst had made my point plain did Ambyr lose her smile, retract her arms, and turn to me slowly. “She could have taken off your hands at the wrist, Ambyr—never, ever forget how abused she was in that zoo. Or that the savage in her is still alive, under the big pussycat side. And I want it to stay that way.”
Ambyr paused for a long half-minute or so, becoming very still and seeming to develop something of a lump in her throat. “Lucas…” she finally said, her voice somewhat obscured; then she cleared her throat and continued: “Lucas told me what she did to you.”
“Of course—he’s told you everything else,” I answered, a little annoyed. “Which makes what you just did that much more foolish. Remember, if she attacks you, she gets put down, almost certainly. Let alone what happens to you.”
Ambyr nodded a few times, the hazy violet eyes tearing up a bit. “Yeah—Lucas also told me how afraid you are of something like that happening. But, Trajan, please—” She put a hand on my knee, then swiftly moved in and pressed a tender yet slightly tentative kiss on my lips. It was a disarming enough moment; but after she let the kiss linger for a charged moment, her mouth moved to my left ear, where she murmured, “Don’t ever shout at me like that again. It’s not something I respond to very well. Anymore…”
There was such a mix of emotions behind the words that for an instant I didn’t know whether to let myself remain in the state of mystified intoxication caused by her kiss, or to raise all my inner defenses because of the very cool, even icy, threat contained in the warning she’d issued.
Having made her point for the moment, Ambyr rose up, turning her face toward the hangar. “Wow,” she said, with what seemed affected carelessness. “We let it get pretty late, me and Lucas. Didn’t we?” Monitoring the arguing voices and the crashing sounds of small flying objects that echoed up our way, Ambyr smiled. “Will you listen to those two?” she said. “Come on, Trajan, we’d better stop them before they burn the whole place down…”
She waited for me to rise and approach her, then took my arm. I told Marcianna not to worry, that I’d be right back, and then we started toward the hangar; although it wasn’t until we were about halfway there that Ambyr broke the rather awkward silence, leaning her head on my shoulder and saying, “You shouldn’t let it bother you, Trajan.”
“Shouldn’t let what bother me?”
“Me,” she replied. “When I get like that.” She smiled once again. “I have—moods. Apparently. Never used to…”
Considering this statement, and wanting very badly to believe it, I said, “Well—things being what they have been, I guess you’re more entitled than most people.”
“Yeah, but…” She was struggling hard with it. “I screwed up that kiss, damn it.”
This time, I was the one who laughed quietly. “Believe me—you didn’t.”
“Yeah, I did,” she insisted as we closed in on the two idiots inside the hangar. “But don’t worry—I’ll do better next time…”
Within just a few minutes, she was in the Empress with her brother, who, in the full froth of adolescent combat, was still laughing and trying to get another shot in at Mike, whether with fists or words. Finally, I ordered him to stop, if only for the sake of his sister’s safety, and the car took off. My soul was by then a mass of confusion, one eager for the simplicity of a night spent in Marcianna’s company; yet Ambyr’s very meaningful kiss lingered, to put it mildly. Still, I hung my jacket and vest on an obliging peg in one of the hangar’s vertical beams, and headed uphill.
I had not actually intended to spend another night in the enclosure; yet I’d been away a lot, that week, and Marcianna needed reassurance. We got to knocking each other around, and at some point I suppose we must have drifted off in the high grass; or perhaps only I did, for when I awoke with a start, Marcianna was as awake and alert as she’d been when I’d fallen asleep. How long I’d been out was also a mystery: the moon had disappeared, and there was a glow above the mountain behind the den, making it early morning. But I was without either my phone or my watch, making an exact determination of the time impossible. The biggest question of all, however, was what could have woken me so suddenly and sharply; and with a start I remembered that it had been the signature alarm call of the old telephone in the JU-52. Or had I simply dreamt it?
Then I heard Mike, calling from the gate of the enclosure: “Trajan!” he hollered—yet his tone not one of dire emergency, such as one would have expected at that hour. “Get your ass up, the kid’s on the phone…”
Mike began to undo the lock on the gate: a sound that brought an angry little growl from Marcianna. “It’s okay, girl,” I said, stroking her neck. “You know who that—” But another growl, this one louder, still angrier, and accompanied by a tightening of her muscles and the slow rise of the fur along her spine, quickly followed. “Stay down there, Mike!” I called. “I don’t think Her Highness is in the mood for visitors!”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” he answered; and I could see his silhouette against the brightly lit hangar, moving back down the hill. “You want me to tell Lucas to call back at a decent hour?” he added. “Or are you coming down?”
“What the hell’s he doing calling so early?” I asked.
“How the fuck would I know? The little prick woke me up, too. Maybe he’s got a lead. His hair’s on fire about something, that much is pretty obvious.”
“All right,” I said, standing as quickly as I could. “I’m on my way…”
Marcianna accompanied me to the gate, clearly worried by my imminent departure. As I pulled the chain in the gate around so that the lock was on my side, I said, “Don’t worry, you. I’ll be right back.” The lock opened, and I leaned down to take her head in my hands. “Right back, got it?”
Yet her concern now seemed less to abate than to transform, as she gave out with that same peculiar chirrup. Then, very uncharacteristically, she darted away from me, moving along the fence of the enclosure and into her den, still chirruping in that urgent, unintelligible way.
By the time I reached the hangar, I was awake enough to realize that it was odd that Mike was there so early. I said as much, adding, “You been here all night?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Mike said. “Too fucking humid, I guess. Something. Anyway, figured I’d try to see if I couldn’t do something constructive.”
“And have you?” I asked, following him up into the plane.
“Abso-fucking-lutely not,” he replied wearily. “Best thing I could come up with was getting Monday’s lecture notes together, and that’s pretty damned sad.”
“Well,” I replied with a yawn, “it’s better than nothing…” Then I took up the waiting receiver of the phone, pulled the winding cord around the bulkhead and into the cockpit, and slumped into the pilot’s seat. Finally, I
stuck the thing to my ear. “Lucas?”
He gave me no greeting, just shouted into my ear, sounding more than a little crazed: “Finally! L.T.—Derek’s gone!”
I used the control wheel to yank myself upright. “What do you mean, ‘gone’?”
“He’s gone, L.T., ran off, he ain’t here!”
“Okay, okay, calm down,” I said. “I’m sure there’s some simple explanation.”
“No, there fucking is not!” the boy cried; and at that, I heard Ambyr in the background, urging him to try to control himself and stick to the facts. “He left a note. He said he’s leaving.”
“Did he say where he was going?” I asked dimly, as Mike moved to the cockpit doorway.
“No!” Lucas shouted. “Do you think I would have called you if I knew that?”
“Okay, okay,” I answered. “Sorry. So what does the note say?”
“Ambyr wants to know if you guys can come down and read it,” the kid replied. “It’s not that long, but—it just doesn’t sound like him, and I don’t think he actually wrote it! Though Ambyr does.”
“Okay, sit tight. We’ll be there in five minutes.” I heard Lucas shouting at his sister as he hung up the phone, and I tried to get back up as quickly as I could, a task which required a little assistance from Mike. “Derek’s taken off,” I said to him. “Left a note, apparently, that’s got them both freaked out—like maybe he didn’t go willingly. Whichever way, he didn’t leave any forwarding address, if you know what I mean. We’ve got to go.”
“Yeah,” Mike said, rushing to his desk and strapping on his .38. The sight made me retrieve my Colt: because if Lucas was right, and Derek had been taken by force—probably because he’d been seen going up to Shiloh earlier in the week, and questions about his trustworthiness had been raised among his immediate superiors—then they might still be lurking around the Kurtz house, to tidy things up should it prove necessary.