A Line in the Sand, page 27
The doctor watched her as it happened. She figured she had seen most, if not all, of the possible manifestations of human emotion: An infant’s first animal wail. The alien strangeness of puberty. The irrepressible joy of survival. The humiliation of the bedpan. The addict’s suicidal rejection of everydayness. Regret. Determination. Acceptance. But somewhere underneath it, she thought, there was a first cause. The source of this young woman’s pain. Perhaps even her own. At its root was the fundamental and impenetrable terror of believing you have been sentenced to the solitary confinement of yourself. The worst part of that belief, the doctor thought, was that it wasn’t true. “Your father is going to need your help,” she said to Sally. “It’s okay if you need some too.” Dr. Manajwala stood up and touched Sally on the arm. “I’ll have a nurse bring in a wheelchair and take you to see him if you think you’re ready.”
Sally nodded. “I’m ready,” she said. The doctor started for the door. “Dr. Manajwala?” Sally said.
“Yes?”
“I want to try.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Catherine and Arman sat across from each other at a small table in the Tidewater medical examiner’s break room. Neither one spoke for a little while. She tried calling Lamar, but his phone didn’t even ring anymore. Straight to voice mail.
“Nothing?” asked Arman. She shook her head and sat there in silence, wondering if what she knew to be true was actually true. There was no other explanation. He’d boarded the plane in Austin. Unless he’d disappeared midflight, he’d landed in Richmond. She looked at her watch. Almost four p.m. Please, God, she thought, let him be okay. Eventually, Catherine said, “It’ll be a team from BCI looking after you. You’ll be out in the mountains.”
Arman sat there thinking about it. “BCI?”
“State troopers. Bureau of Criminal Investigation special agents.”
“You trust this guy? The assistant commonwealth’s attorney?”
“I do.” She drummed her fingertips on the table, then reached across it to hold his hand. “It’s what I would want in your shoes.”
He nodded. “Okay,” he said. “When?”
“Later today. They’re making arrangements now. They’ll send a car. It’s a long way, but by morning you’ll be safe.”
“Promise?” he said.
She leaned back in her chair. “Yeah, Arman. I think I do.”
Dr. Martin opened the door and held it for a man in a conservative charcoal suit, then followed him in. “Cat, Mr. Bajalan, this is Mr. Kelly from the Australian embassy in DC.”
They both stood up to greet him, but he raised his hands and said, “Please. Sit.” They sat back down, and Mr. Kelly pulled a chair out and joined them at the table. He looked up at Dr. Martin and said, “Thank you, Doctor. For all you’ve done.”
Dr. Martin nodded and said, “I’ll leave y’all to it. There are just a few more forms to fill out before we can officially release Mr. Leventis to you, Mr. Kelly.” He closed the door behind him as he left.
Mr. Kelly looked at Arman and said, “It seems Mr. Leventis came a long way to find you, Mr. Bajalan.”
“You knew him?” Arman asked.
“I did. Nick and I have known…” He smiled at his mistake. “Nick and I knew each other a long time. We served in the army together, and then in the Department of Foreign Affairs. He was a good man. An honorable one.”
“How did you find him?” Catherine asked. “We haven’t even sent out any formal ID requests yet.”
“Nick was a careful man, Detective. When he came to look for Mr. Bajalan, he set up… do you know what a dead man’s switch is?”
“I think so,” she answered.
Mr. Kelly pulled a watch from his inside jacket pocket and laid it on the table. Catherine recognized it—the vintage Adina Oceaneer that had been on the corpse’s wrist. “He had a GPS locator put inside the case. Nothing happened as long as it signaled movement during a twelve-hour period.”
“But if it didn’t…” she said.
“That’s right. I received an e-mail from an anonymized account two days ago. It took some time to verify that Nick was the sender and to collate the data the e-mail contained. But one of the items allowed us to receive the GPS signal.”
“And it led here,” Arman said.
“It did.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Kelly. I don’t understand why he wouldn’t just tell you what he was doing here,” Catherine said.
“It’s complicated, Detective.” The man paused. He had a calm demeanor, but it broke, almost imperceptibly, for a fraction of a second. “He wasn’t supposed to be here. He would have been in heaps of trouble if we’d known. In fact, I could get in heaps of trouble for telling you this.”
“No offense, Mr. Kelly, but if you want to compare troubles, Arman’s got the nuts.”
“I know,” he said. “And I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Do you know why he was looking for me?” Arman asked.
“I do now. The information in his e-mail clarified the situation immensely. We know it started last year, when Nick was sent to Afghanistan—”
“With the Special Air Service?” Catherine interrupted.
Mr. Kelly gave her a searching look.
“The tattoo,” she said.
“Right. No, he was with a different organization at the time.” Mr. Kelly took four photographs from his jacket pocket and placed them in front of Cat and Arman in a neat row. Names were written across the bottoms of the photos. “These are not current. Nick… retrieved them from the U.S. Army’s Official Military Personnel Files.”
“Retrieved?” Arman asked. He and Catherine looked at the pictures as Mr. Kelly continued.
“Our countries share intelligence. We aren’t supposed to gather it about each other, but sometimes, if a situation is delicate…”
“Him,” Arman said. “From the video. He was there. Remember, Catherine?” He pointed to the name below a photograph: Staff Sergeant James Grabowski. He was younger than the man Arman had captured on video at the university, but it was him.
“There’s Harris,” said Catherine.
“The one who killed Mr. Peters,” Arman said. “He was in the park that morning.”
She nodded. The third picture was of Sergeant Patrick Dempsey. Catherine was fairly sure he was the accomplice Mr. Peters dropped at the Sea Breeze, but she’d have to wait for forensic identification to be certain.
“Nick met these men in Afghanistan. They were all working for Decision Tree International. He didn’t like them. He said they were ruthless and unprofessional. And they were sloppy. One night Nick heard that their boss was coming close to securing contracts with the Australian defense forces. He requested permission to create a target profile on Decision Tree but was ordered not to. Our bosses were concerned about upsetting the relationship between U.S. intelligence and our organization.”
“So how did he know all this?” Arman asked.
“He quit. That was six months ago. I never heard from him again. But he was an exceptionally good intelligence officer, Arman. There’s still a lot to learn from the information he gathered, but we know he had been in contact with David Taylor, your platoon leader. We know that each of the men in these photos served under one of Trevor Graves’s commands while on active duty. We saw the video. We know what happened to you. Nick knew what they were doing. He was trying to protect you. He wanted to help.”
“Trying to help me has been trouble for a lot of people.”
Mr. Kelly smiled. “I know that too. And I suspect I know what Nick would have said about that.”
“What?” Arman asked.
“He would have said he had to try.”
Arman looked at him skeptically. “Did he have a wife? Children? Is that what they’ll say?”
“He did. He was married last year. He has a baby girl. And no, they won’t say that today, I reckon. Not tomorrow either. But someday they might. She knew who she married. And I think part of the reason she married him was that he was the kind of person who would do something like this. I know it’s part of the reason I loved him.”
Catherine said, “What will happen to his body now?”
“I’m going to take him home,” said Mr. Kelly. “Because of the nature of his activities since he left the service, he won’t have any official recognition. But he’ll be buried in a military cemetery in Adelaide. It’s not far from Somerton Park, where he grew up. A few people will be there, but even fewer will know what happened to him. Those of us who do, we won’t forget it.” He looked over at Catherine, who was holding the last photograph. The picture was trembling in her hand. “Detective Wheel?” he asked. “Is everything all right?”
Arman looked at her. Her jaw was clenched, her face expressionless. Tears spilled silently down her cheeks. “Catherine,” he said and put his hand on her shoulder.
She put the picture down and slid it across the table to Arman. She wiped the tears from her cheeks with the sleeve of her blazer and tried to collect herself.
Arman read the name: Chief Warrant Officer 2 Christopher Miller. “Catherine, I don’t understand,” he said as he handed the picture back.
“It’s okay, Arman,” she said. “Mr. Kelly, this man picked up my partner from the airport this morning.” The tears started again. “He won’t answer his phone.”
Mr. Kelly took an envelope from his jacket and slid it across the table to Catherine. “This is for you.”
She put her hand over the envelope. She stared at the table until her vision blurred. She had to accept it. Lamar was gone.
“There’s information you may find useful inside. Of course, I won’t tell you what to do with it. Officially, as a representative of my government, I’m limited in my ability to help you. I would have to deny ever speaking to either of you if I were questioned. And none of this material has evidentiary value due to its method of collection. But you should know you have an advantage, Detective. He won’t see you as a threat. Not immediately.”
“Graves.”
“That’s right.”
“Because I’m a woman,” she said.
“I wouldn’t presume to tell you how to feel about it. But in situations like this, it’s advisable to use every advantage you have. I know what I would do if the circumstances were different. He was my best mate, after all.” Mr. Kelly stood up and buttoned his suit jacket. To both of them, he said, “I’m afraid it’s a terrible thing we have in common. These men have taken someone from all of us now.” He said goodbye and left the room. Catherine and Arman understood that they would never see him again.
Catherine knew he was right. Of course, some women were dangerous, and Graves was too experienced not to have encountered them. But he’d be on guard against a threat from a man first. What would it give her, five seconds? Maybe ten? Was that enough time? Enough time for what? Catherine asked herself. What was she considering? Whatever it was, she’d have to control as many variables as possible. Even then, she knew what she’d be up against. Using a weapon was part of her job. But using a weapon was the only job of the men in the photographs. She qualified with her service weapon once a year. She practiced with it every quarter. She fired maybe two hundred rounds annually. Catherine guessed that Decision Tree contractors typically fired two hundred rounds a day, and they had fired their weapons when other people were shooting back, something she had never done.
“What’s in it?” asked Arman.
His voice brought her out of her thoughts. She opened the envelope and took out a sheet of paper. Handwritten in black ink was Tomorrow, 19:00, Dec. Tree private event, downtown Hilton, Graves in pres. suite, exec. floor.
“Well?” Arman asked.
Before she had a chance to reply, her phone rang. She answered it, held it to her ear and stared at Arman while the voice on the other end of the line said, “Detective Wheel, this is Master Trooper Charmayne Hendricks.”
“Go ahead, Trooper. I’m listening.”
“I’m at the hospital in Richmond with a friend of yours.”
Catherine hung her head. “Who is it?”
“It’s Sally Ewell. She asked me to call you. We’ve all had a hell of a night. She wanted me to fill you in, let you know she’s all right.”
“Is her father with you there? Can I talk to him?”
“He just got out of the OR, Detective.”
“Oh God. What happened?” she asked.
“How much time do you have?” asked Trooper Hendricks.
Catherine looked down at the paper before her, then at Arman. “I’ve got until seven o’clock tomorrow night,” she said.
“Oh, well, I—”
“Sorry. I’ve got time, Trooper,” said Detective Wheel.
Arman watched Catherine as she listened to the voice on the other end of the line. He couldn’t hear everything that was said, but he didn’t need to. Catherine’s face told him the story well enough.
“Is he gonna be all right?” Catherine asked.
“He took multiple nine-millimeter rounds to the chest. The doc won’t make any promises, but she seems optimistic.”
“And Sally?” asked Detective Wheel.
“She’s okay. Busted up her ankle pretty good. She doesn’t have to stay in the hospital, but she won’t leave her father’s side. Anyway, I’m gonna sit with her for a while. Keep an eye on her,” the trooper said. “The doc is hoping we can talk Sally into a treatment center.”
“What about the shooter?”
“Mr. Ewell hit him in the exchange. Guy tried to draw on us when we arrived on scene before he bled out. No ID yet, but Sally told me she recognized him from a video. Said you’d know what that meant.”
Catherine picked up one of the pictures from the table. “I do. Trooper, your shooter is gonna be a James Grabowski, formerly a staff sergeant in the army. That’s all I’ve got on him right now.”
“Okay, thanks, Detective. More than we got.”
“Will you tell her I’ll come to see her soon?” Catherine asked.
“She’ll be glad to hear it.”
Cat closed the phone.
“Sally?” Arman asked.
“She’s gonna be okay.”
“Mr. Ewell?”
Catherine shook her head. “He got one of them,” she said. “He’s in the hospital. They don’t know for sure, but they think he’ll make it.” She stood up, walked over to a counter in the back of the break room, and fished around in a cup of pencils and pens until she found a Sharpie. She came back, sat down again, picked up the picture of the man Butch Ewell had killed, and put an X across his face. She drew another X across Michael Harris’s face, then another over the face of Patrick Dempsey. She picked up the photograph of Chief Warrant Officer Christopher Miller and turned it over. She wrote Graves’s name on the back and tucked the picture in her bag.
“What are you going to do?” asked Arman.
Catherine leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. She rolled her head left to right, trying to loosen some of the tension in her muscles. “I’m going to stop them, Arman.”
At two o’clock in the morning, Arman stepped out onto the balcony of his room in the Old Mill Inn in the tiny town of Damascus, Virginia. A pair of special agents from the Wytheville division of the Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigations occupied the rooms on either side. In four-hour shifts, the agents took turns sitting in an armchair in the lobby, letting the other agent know if anyone took the stairs to the upper floor. It was a simple and effective way of keeping Arman safe, but it had no fundamental difference from imprisonment.
He looked out over the flat black water of Laurel Creek. Farther up, the creek disappeared into the spine of the Blue Ridge, a wilderness of jagged shadows in the distance. One of the agents had told him there was hardly anything in a fifteen-mile radius that had changed in the past twelve thousand years except the residents, and he suspected that the little that had changed would have long since turned to dust twelve thousand years from now. Go a couple hundred yards off the pavement, he’d said, and the land was as undisturbed by human presence as it had been a hundred thousand years ago. Arman didn’t know if it was true or even what to make of it, but he did have the sense that the world was somehow more expansive here, and he a much smaller part of it, than he could remember feeling before.
The elevation wasn’t all that high down on the flat grassy banks of the creek on which the Old Mill had been built, but there was still a premonition of autumn in the cool night air. He realized he was wearing Detective Adams’s VCU basketball T-shirt. The thought of Lamar vanishing the way he had sent a chill through Arman that not even the coldest winter could have caused. He thought of his wife and son, Lamar, and Mr. Peters. And Sally’s father in the hospital. What if he were to be lost in a place like this? He closed his eyes. Imagined a bend in a trail. A promontory looking west, the ridges rolling like waves above an ocean of mist and fog. Another turn, another overlook. He saw Arcturus, Vega, and Altair piercing the same darkness they had when his father took him to the mountains near Zawita to stargaze when he was a child. He opened his eyes and leaned against the wooden railing. The night was silent. The world was black beyond the meager yellow lights of the inn.
Sally’s phone rang at quarter after two in the morning. She’d been wide-awake in her hospital bed for hours. She reached an arm out from under her covers and grabbed the phone. It was Arman.
“Sally?” he said.
She pulled the phone under the covers with her. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yes. I’m in southwest Virginia. I have guards. I feel like I’m away from… I don’t even know what it feels like I’m away from.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean,” she said.
“You know, Sally, I just wanted to say—”
“I know,” she said. “I know.” They listened to each other breathe for a while. “Do you need to go, Arman?” she asked.
