Night and Day (Book 2): Bleeding Sky (37 page)

So
it wasn’t going to be a kill shot. It was indeed going to be the
bomb.

“What’s
the story with EOD?” I asked.

“Thirty
minutes,” he said. “Ordinance disposal is headquartered at the operations
center. They’ll chopper them down here.”

“Let’s
hope they’re here before things go boom,” I said. “Okay, I want you to move
your command post over there, where we put Heymann. The command trailer is
probably too close even if it’s not a really big bomb.”

“I
can’t run everything on portable commo units,” he said. “Somebody needs to
man at least one console in the trailer.”

“Then
leave a trooper behind,” I said. “Volunteer only. Also, move that Stryker
over in front of the door, and when the second one gets here, put it there
too, both of them buttoned up. Then redeploy your men to locations that are
at least a little safer.”

He
nodded. “Where will you be?”

I
looked at the open hatch. “Not everybody got to leave the trailer,” I said.
“There’s a four hundred year-old girl in there who’s probably scared
shitless. Think I’ll go in and calm her down.”

“I’d
strongly recommend against that, sir,” he said.

“Your
recommendation is noted, captain. Now get your people out of the command
trailer and follow my orders.”

“What
about Martinez?” he asked. “Your mother hen isn’t going to like
this.”

“Keep
her with you,” I said. “Tell her those are my specific orders and that she
better goddamn well follow them. Now get on it, Bristow.”

“Sir,”
he said with a salute.

I
started up the ramp.

I
don’t consider myself especially brave. If I have a choice, I always prefer
to run away from danger instead of toward it, especially at those times
where death is in the air. But sometimes you have to weigh what you want to
do against what you should do.

Going
into the trailer was probably the worst mistake I could make, and as I
reached the top of the ramp and turned down the dark hall, I was as nervous
as I can remember ever being. It took real concentration to keep my legs
moving.

Anna
Thodberg was part of Heymann’s entourage. As I interpreted the job that Bain
had given me, she was included in my assignment to protect the ambassador. I
could have interpreted the job in a different way, but that would be lying
to myself. I don’t have a problem lying to other people when a case requires
it, but I always try to be honest with myself.

I
checked the ambassador’s living room as I passed. Empty. A few more steps
and I was at the spiral staircase and the small galley.

Anna
sat in one of the booths, wearing a tee shirt and a pair of jeans, watching
me approach. Three tubes of blood were fanned out on the table in front of
her. She had a knife in her right hand.

“Charlie,”
she said. “What a lovely surprise.”

“What’s
with the knife?” I asked.

She
smiled. “I didn’t know if someone might come to kill me while I’m alone and
unprotected,” she said. “Though I will undoubtedly die one day, perhaps even
today, I will not go as a lamb to the slaughter.” She paused. “But please,
sit down if you’re staying.”

I
slid into the booth across from her.

After
studying me for a moment, she said, “You’re terrified, aren’t
you?”

“More
special vampire powers of observation?”

She
laughed. “What an astonishing thing to ask,” she said. “No, it’s no
special power. Just the smell of fear sweat, the slight tremble in your
hands. And you’re blinking a bit more than usual. After so many years, you
become very observant of your surroundings.” She pushed herself out of the
booth. “Can I get you something? Konrad has some excellent German beer in
the refrigerator.”

I
shook my head. “No, I need to stay sharp.”

“There’s
a difference between sharp and on edge,” she said. “How about some brandy.”
She pointed to the bottle on the other table. “Konrad was quite shaken after
the incident earlier. Had three double brandies and was about to have a
fourth when Ron came to get him.”

“I
don’t think so.”

“Nonsense,”
she said as she went to the galley and pulled a glass from the cupboard. She
grabbed the half-full bottle as she came back, put the glass in front of me,
and poured a couple of fingers of brandy into it.

“Drink,”
she said. “Relax.”

I
studied the glass for a moment, then picked it up and took a mouthful. The
brandy burned going down.

“There,”
she said, sliding into the booth opposite me. “Much better.”

She
was right. The brandy hit my stomach and in seconds, the warmth made me feel
less stressed about the possibility of imminent death.

“So
Heymann told you what’s happening?”

Anna
smiled and shook her head. “Ron did,” she said. “Konrad was only concerned
about getting out when he learned of the bomb. He didn’t say a word to me.
Not even good-bye. Quite sad, don’t you think?”

“You
seem to be taking it pretty well,” I said.

“I’m
fatalistic about it,” she said, slicing the top off one of the blood tubes
and raising it to her mouth. She gulped some of it down. “Most older
vampires are. When you live a life where a simple step outdoors at the wrong
time brings death, you look at the prospect of dying a different way. Your
American vampires haven’t reached that point. They still revel in their
power at night. In time, they’ll begin to see things
differently.”

I
watched her drain the rest of the blood into her mouth and drop the empty
plastic tube on the table. “I’ve been alive for nearly four hundred years,”
she said. “If I die today, I can’t say that I didn’t have enough time to
live.”

“And
you obviously plan to die on a full stomach,” I said, nodding at the tubes
of blood in front of her.

“My
last supper,” she said with a smile as she picked up another tube. “This is
my blood. Drink it.” She cut off the top and squirted some into her open
mouth. “Or at least somebody’s blood.”

“I
guess you’re not very religious,” I said.

“I
was baptized in the Lutheran church when I was a child, but religion had
little place in my life, and even less once Herr Vogt took me,” she
said.

I
grinned. “I bet you enjoyed meeting Father McCray this morning.”

“The
priest!” she said with a sharp laugh, almost spitting blood on the table.
“He sat there for ten minutes, telling Konrad about Satan’s work and the
demonic vampires. I think Konrad found it tiresome and was looking for a
quick way to get rid of him. So he told him that I was a vampire.” She
laughed again. “I think he had thought I was Konrad’s daughter. When he
learned what I was, the meeting ended very quickly.”

“So
what do you think?” I asked.

“About?”

“About
McCray’s beliefs,” I said. “That vampires are Satan’s demons, come to test
our faith.”

“I
have no opinion,” she said. “Though I have never personally had any contact
with a satanic master, anything is possible.” She paused. “I may seem like
the Encyclopedia Vampirica to you, Charlie, but in truth, I know very little
beyond what I have seen and heard in my many years. An older vampire might
be able to give you answers. One of the very old vampires even
more.”

“How
old?” I asked.

“The
oldest vampire I have personally met was changed in the ninth century,” she
said. “My bloodfather in the thirteenth century.” She smiled. “I have heard
that the oldest vampires are in Africa.”

“And
how old are they?”

“Who
can say,” she said. “Ten thousand years old. Fifty. Older. Only they know,
and they continue to live because they stay far away from those who might
ask the question.”

I
nodded, took another sip of the brandy, and leaned back in the booth. We sat
there for a while in silence, each in our own thoughts.

She
broke the silence with a question. “Why are you here, Charlie?”

“Just
waiting on the bomb disposal team,” I said. “They should be along pretty
soon.”

“Yes,
I understand that, but why are you
here
, in the trailer, with me?
Wouldn’t you be safer wherever you’ve stashed Konrad?”

“Probably,”
I said. “Just didn’t like the idea of you sitting alone, wondering what was
going on.”

Anna
smiled. “Why Charlie, you’re a sentimentalist. I had no idea.”

“I’m
doing my job,” I said. “And finally getting a chance to do it the right way,
not just sitting somewhere, watching other people do the work.”

She
tilted her head to one side. “How are these bomb people you’re waiting for
arriving?”

“Helicopter,”
I said. “They’re flying in from the Area Operations Center.”

“Then
they’re here.”

I
strained to listen and could faintly hear the sounds of a helicopter getting
close. “Good ears,” I said.

She
smiled.

About
a minute later, I heard a shout come down the hall from the hatch. “Mr.
Welles?”

“Yeah,”
I shouted back.

“Lieutenant
Johnson, EOD,” she said. “We’re going to be working outside.”

“Good
luck,” I said.

“You
really should evacuate while we work, sir,” she said.

“Just
do your job and let me know how it turns out, lieutenant,” I
yelled.

Anna
smiled. “Unless you find out how it turns out when the trailer blows up,”
she said. “You can leave, you know. I’m fine alone. As I’ve told you, it’s
my natural condition.”

I
shook my head. “No, I’ll stay. Nobody should have to die alone.” I smiled
faintly. “That includes both of us.”

Another
sip of brandy. It would probably be my last, and not because of the
bomb.

I’m
not much of a drinker. Got into the bottle a little too much when I was a
uniform cop, and had my ass handed to me by Sgt. Jimmy Mutz when he smelled
it on my breath. Since then, I mostly stayed away from it. Had some beer in
the apartment for my infrequent guests, but that was about it. I hadn’t been
drunk since I had to tell a mother that her seventeen year-old daughter had
been bled dry and tossed in a dumpster.

Five
minutes later, I heard heavy footsteps approaching from down the hall. A
woman in a bulky green bomb suit stopped beside us. I could make out her
face through the plastic faceplate of her helmet.

“Lieutenant
Johnson, sir,” she said. “The mechanism outside isn’t connected to
anything.”

“Excuse
me?”

“It’s
not hooked up to a bomb,” she said. “It’s a standard B99 trigger unit, but
it was just stuck in a hole and buried.”

“Why?”

“Don’t
know, sir,” she said. “Maybe the bomber was interrupted or made a mistake.
I’ve ordered a detection team to sweep the trailer.”

“Okay,
keep me informed,” I said.

Johnson
raised her arm slightly toward her head, then seemed to realize that she
couldn’t salute. She turned and lumbered away.

“Odd,”
Anna said.

“Very
odd,” I said. “I don’t see Shuster just digging a hole and leaving it.
Especially if he had the shooter in midtown to scare Heymann into coming
back.”

I
heard more heavy footsteps in the hall and leaned out. There were three
people in the detection team, one in front holding a device that looked a
lot like a very large metal detector, and two behind.

“Clear,”
the man in front was saying as he stared at what seemed to be a display
mounted on the handle. “Still clear. Still clear.” He stopped near the open
door to the living room. “Okay, got something.”

He
slowly approached the living room door and looked in, then stuck the
detector inside and studied the display. “Yeah, it’s in here.” He tapped a
spot on the front of his suit. “Got something, boss,” he said. “Going
in now.”

The
man went around the corner and through the open doorway. The other two
followed. I slid out of the booth and walked down the hallway. I could hear
Anna’s footsteps behind me.

They
were in the middle of the living room, the man with the detector moving it
in slow arcs over the floor. “Get that couch out of the way,” he
said.

The
two people with him moved quickly and pulled it to the right, away from the
chair that Heymann usually occupied. The man with the detector moved
forward, then stopped. “Right here.”

The
flat disk of the detector was directly in front of Heymann’s chair. “It’s
under the floor,” he said. “Get me a cutter.”

One
of the others pulled a handsaw from a bag and handed it to the man with the
detector. He set the detector to one side and slowly lowered himself to his
knees.

It
took him a couple of minutes to cut through the carpet, fiberglass and
steel. As the circle he was cutting neared completion, one of the others
knelt beside him and stuck a clamp into the middle of the circle.