The Path of Silence (16 page)

“Joe believes it’s far more important—and urgent—to find who is producing these explosive chest implants than to follow up on the motive,” I said. “Perhaps that’s how we should divide the work.” I looked at Bourke. “Inspector Weston and his staff have already started to trace routes that may lead to the motive. It would make sense for the rest of us to concentrate on finding out who is producing these devices and where.”

Bourke passed my suggestion to the FBI with a look. I saw that Inspector Weston was not happy with it. We wouldn’t be working together. But he saw the logic and agreed.

“The first victim,” Ken said, “Jonathan Brick, lived for four years with the device in his chest. We’ve tracked down a car dealership where he had worked for two months as Jonathan Twain. Guilford Exotic Cars should have been bankrupt by now. However it’s not just thriving—it’s soaring. We think that Brick set up the dealership as a money laundering operation. It might be a good idea to alert the I.R.S. and suggest an audit.”

“No!” I grabbed his arm. “Not yet. Later, when we’re closer. If we shut down one of their money laundering operations, they’ll retaliate.”

“By exploding another messenger’s chest.” Ken caught on quickly.

“Or someone more important,” I said.

“How many people could they have tagged with this device?” he asked, frowning.

“Joe thinks there might be quite a few. We don’t know. And we don’t want to find out by filling up the morgue.”

The armored car business would have had many customers while in operation. Not necessarily every customer would have been a target for a chest implant but quite a few might have fallen into Jeffries category.

“Do you think that Joe is right and there are more of these walking dead-on-demand?” Bourke asked me.

“Yes. I do.”

“Then we should help him implement those unorthodox hospital procedures he’s fighting for,” Bourke suggested.

“You could talk to the Hopkins administrators,” I told him.

“Money laundering is a high profile issue and a profitable business,” Weston replied pensively. “But there has to be more at stake than just intimidation of banking principals. It’s a lot easier to plant an assassin in the vicinity of the target and then eliminate him as a lesson.”

“Intimidating and eliminating are two different concepts, Inspector,” I said. “You can eliminate those who stand in your way but it’s a temporary solution. A replacement will always rise to block your way again. Elimination is limiting. Intimidation, however, is control. If you turn a person into a walking corpse, you’re in control, all the time. You dictate your conditions and if they’re not met you’re—as Captain Bourke aptly put it—dead-on-demand. If the subject doesn’t obey, you execute him and move on to the next target.”

“The current target is the banking circles.” He stared at me with uncomfortable intensity.

“That’s correct.”

“While the next target may be in the political ranks.”

“Ahhh…” I breathed out softly, because I had just figured out one possible—and very likely—connection between the armored limo service and the human time bombs.

Chapter 20

“S
ven was just teasing you,” I told Ken when I drove him home.

“Suddenly everyone has a vested interest in my private life,” he murmured.

“You’ve been dating Brenda for fourteen years,” I said, stifling laughter. “I’m surprised it hasn’t driven her berserk.”

“Even that doctor at Mongrove was smirking.”

“I’m sure that was just your imagination—or guilt. Did you ever think about it that way?”

“It’s not driving her crazy. We’ve had discussions—often.”

I believed him but I also suspected that those discussions had been one-sided—Brenda’s. “Everyone is on my case.”

“Not Brenda,” I assured him. I thought it was more Sven’s sense of humor, rather than Brenda’s urging—though it may have been a small component.

“What was she doing with Joe again, anyway?” he asked. “She told me that she thinks he’s charming—and a good listener.”

“He probably is. I’d be more worried if she’d said that he was a good conversationalist. He doesn’t get much of it from his clients. He works surrounded by death, gadgets and medical journals all the time. What else is there to do but to listen to the ticking and humming of his machines? He likes human company. “

“You’re laughing at me.”

“Not at all. I’m just wondering when Brenda’s going to put a full announcement in the papers, to end the rumors.”

“There! You are laughing.”

“No I’m not. Sven and Jasper were probably laughing. I’m trying to help you make up your mind.”

I dropped him off at home and reminded him that tomorrow, our lab had promised to return his Malibu. I hoped it would cheer him up.

“Yeah, it’ll probably look like it’s been through a sand storm,” he murmured, as he got out of the car.

I drove home, by habit glancing often in the mirrors. A dark red car was definitely following me. I’d seen it earlier, in our headquarters’ parking lot. It was a Chrysler, an obvious rental. He knew where I lived. There was no use cruising around the neighborhood.

I parked beside Mrs. Tavalho’s van and went inside.

I entered into a hostage crisis. The housekeeper would not let Jazz use the phone to call another People Finders’ agency. Jazz had taken her car keys and locked herself in the bathroom.

“She hasn’t flushed them down the toilet,” she told me with a heavy sigh. “I would have heard it. She’s pretty upset. You should go have a talk with her school. Her social studies teacher sounds like a tyrant. Jazz put down generic names on her tree. The teacher sent her down to the principal’s office. He gave her a three-day suspension for being rude and impertinent. There’s a letter on the counter. It sounds as if it was written by a prison warden, not a teacher. The child didn’t do anything wrong. She put down what she knew—to show the teacher that she understood a family tree. There’s no need to be heavy-handed,” she finished with another sigh.

“Perhaps not. But there’s no need for her to behave this way.” I walked down the corridor and was about to bang on the bathroom door, when Mrs. Tavalho reached out and stopped me. “Don’t do it with anger. She has too much of that inside her already.”

“Jasmine, come on out. Mrs. Tavalho wants to go home. She needs her keys.”

“Go away! I flushed them down the john.”

“If you did you won’t get your allowance for as long as it takes to pay for Mrs. Tavalho’s new keys.”

“I don’t care. I don’t give a shit.”

“Jasmine!”

“No. Make me.”

“Come on out before I pick the lock and you lose your allowance for the rest of your life.”

“Go away!”

“I’m getting a screwdriver. You won’t like it when I come through that door.”

“Go away! I’ll come out when you go away.”

“Fine.” My negotiating skills were fraying. “I’ll give you ten seconds and then you better be out here—with the keys.”

I let the housekeeper pull me back into the kitchen but I was counting at the top of my voice.

One second away from losing it, she came out.

“Don’t even think of throwing those keys. Bring them here and give them to Mrs. Tavalho,” I said, anticipating her next move.

She walked over to us, eyes puffy, cheeks flushed but she handed the keys to the housekeeper meekly enough—then bolted for the door.

“Jasmine! Get back in here at once!” I sprinted after her even as the door smashed into the wall.

I flew out, skidding across the wooden porch, trying to stop before I broke my neck. The porch was eight feet off the ground with very narrow steps. I stopped just in time to see her pitch headlong—to land in the arms of her father who was in position to make the life-saving catch.

“Saved by the bell,” I murmured. “Nice catch,” I continued. “Jasmine, say thank you and hello to Inspector Weston. I presume he’s come to discuss work.” I heard Mrs. Tavalho behind me.

“Is she all right? Oh, thank God!” She touched my shoulder when she saw that Jasmine was uninjured, held in the arms of one very confused man.

“He’s a colleague,” I told her and wished her good night.

By the time the van pulled out, father and daughter were studying each other with great interest.

“Hi. Thanks,” Jazz said when she finished her scrutiny. “I’m Jazz. I live here. You’re from Mom’s work?”

“Hi. I’m…Field. Yes, I’m from work.”

“You’re her new partner?”

“No. An old friend.”

“Really? How old?”

“Jasmine!” I stepped in. “Inside. Now.”

As always, she ignored me.

“What do you mean? You knew Mom before? How long, when?” The questions poured out of her. He didn’t get a chance to insert an answer between them.

“Your mother wants you inside. You’d better go.” He must have sensed that it would be dangerous to prolong the interrogation.

“You’re coming too?” She reached for his hand, not waiting for a reply.

He raised his head and looked at me. It was our first eye contact since Jazz flew out the door.

“I normally don’t bring my work home, however…” my voice trailed off. He had composed himself but I saw the tightness around his eyes.

“Come on, it’s okay. I won’t bother you.” Jazz dragged him up the steps. “I’ll do my homework in the kitchen. You can talk in Mom’s office. I don’t go there.”

He shuffled up the steps and sat down at the kitchen table, while she spilled out the contents of her knapsack. I took a deep breath, dreading what would start.

“Math,” she said in a lilting voice. It was too cheerful to be natural. “Word problems are really hard. Our teacher won’t explain. She says we have to think independently and figure them out. That sucks. I mean how are you supposed to learn if no one explains things to you?”

I let out my breath. I felt my rib cage creak with gratitude and went to make coffee for me—and tea for him. He took it with lemon and honey—or used to. I only stocked lemons and honey because Mrs. Tavalho liked to flavor her sponge cake with them.

Ten minutes later, Jazz listened while he explained her math problems. He gave her pointers and clues on how to solve them.

“I think I’ve got it,” she declared with enthusiasm I hadn’t heard in months. “Are you a policeman too?”

I knew it was too good to last.

“In a way, yes. I work for the FBI,” he told her.

“No shit!”

He laughed.

“Did you always work for the FBI?” she pursued doggedly.

“Ever since I graduated from college.”

It was just as well that I hadn’t picked up the tray with the beverages. It would have landed on the counter with a crash.

“Where did you go to college?”

“Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina. Do you know where it is?”

“We had to memorize the names of all the states in the third grade. What do you think?” she responded indignantly.

“Grade school’s tough these days. Where do you go to school?”

“Brown Elementary, ten bus stop pick-ups all over the place.”

“You’ve always lived here?”

“Well, sure, since I can remember.”

“Were you born in Baltimore?”

“No. I was born in Mexico. I don’t remember coming to Baltimore. I was a baby,” she sighed and took aim. “Mom was born at the same time I was, in Mexico, because she doesn’t remember anything before that either.”

“That’s enough, Jazz.” I turned around. “Finish your homework, then you can watch TV or play video games, or talk with your friends on the phone. I’d also suggest cleaning your room. Mrs. Tavalho is not going to do it—for a month.”

“I wasn’t going to flush her car keys down the drain. I like her. I was just upset.”

“That’s fine—as long as you don’t upset others with your antics.” I picked up the tray. My hands felt numb. I headed for my home office. “Inspector, this way please.”

“I’m only discussing work,” I said when the door closed behind him.

“Fine. You can sit here while I talk. Thanks for remembering.” He reached for the tea and the saucer with lemon wedges.

“There is nothing to talk about.”

“If I sat here for a year and talked, there still would be something left to talk about,” he rumbled.

“If you don’t want to talk about work, I’ll throw you out.”

“Then I might as well go back out into the kitchen and continue my chat with our daughter.”

“Field, please, don’t. I didn’t know anything about you ten years ago. That’s when it would have mattered. I married you and ten days later you left. That’s all the history I have. I don’t want to be briefed on anything.”

“We should get our stories straight. You left.”

“I went to my Criminal Procedures lecture and then to the library to study for my exams. You were supposed to pick me up for dinner and then we’d go home. I went home alone that day. You never came back.”

“It’s true what I’ve told our daughter. I joined the FBI right out of college. The Smithsonian was an assignment—”

“Field! I don’t want to talk about it. Please, leave me alone!” I headed out the door.

Suddenly, two powerful arms entwined me from behind and lifted me off the floor. Before I could say a word, I was back on the chair. He restrained me, dragged a chair over with his foot, sat down and rested his chin on my shoulder, holding me tightly. “You won’t scream because you don’t want Jazz to come in here. I know this isn’t hurting you but you can’t move. The Smithsonian was not my first assignment but it was the first time I fell in love. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have done what I did.”

I had no choice but to listen.

A Smithsonian art exhibit coordinator had contacted the FBI when, by accident, he peeled off a strip of fabric from one of the Asian masterpieces. It was a part of a foreign art collection that would be soon leaving the US, continuing its global tour. A paint application had blended the strip into the painting’s landscape. The other side contained writing—codes, ciphers—formulae. Someone had figured out a novel way to pass on government information, top military secrets. The FBI suspected that the Washington facilitators had to be on the inside—in the Smithsonian. Agent Weston drew the field assignment. He was placed at the Freer Gallery of Art as a security guard. The strip of fabric had been replaced in the painting, imprinted with useless information. The exhibit was to leave for Europe in five weeks time. The conspirators were hard to flush out. A week before the exhibit was to leave the US, the Smithsonian art curator negotiated an extension—six additional months. The rationale was that the exhibit continued to draw huge crowds.