Turn or Burn (8 page)

I nodded. “We shouldn’t have let him.”

“Probably. But we took the risk. Ted knew what he was signing up for. We all did. Casualties are always a possibility. I want to know what happened, though. I feel like we owe it to Ted to find out.”

I was half-listening, lost in my own thoughts, thinking about my friend. When you’re out on the battlefield, you’re there for a reason. Something leads you there. Some people fight for their country, their honor, or their pride. Some fight because they find happiness in chaos; they need war. That one probably fit me best. That’s why I’d signed up. Didn’t have anywhere else to turn. Some are in it for the money, or sometimes it’s just the only thing one knows. But once the weapons are firing and you’re watching people die in front of you, only one thought is on your mind.

Survival.

If you’re a good warrior, I believe it’s not just your survival, but that of your comrades, too. That’s all that matters. You and your team making it out alive. There’s a connection beyond family. It’s the comrades you’re sharing a foxhole with that remind you that you’re human, that you’re not alone going through the darkness, the nightmare. That’s a connection so much deeper than anyone else could ever know.

I remember times—countless times—when Ted and I worked reconnaissance missions in the desert, getting dropped behind enemy lines in the middle of the night and racing to dig hide sites seven-feet deep in the sand before the sun came up. The hide sites could barely hold two or three of us, and we’d build a canopy and let the wind cover it with sand, making us virtually undetectable, save the little air hole we’d cover up with a branch or whatever we could find. We’d spend three or four days together trapped in there in one hundred-plus heat, not showering, shitting into bags, collecting information on the enemy, and hoping they wouldn’t discover us. You learn a lot about people when you go through that kind of hardship. Bonds develop.

Yeah, when Francesca Daly was telling me that Ted meant a great deal to her, I did know exactly what she meant. I was going to have to face his mother and father and tell them for the second time in my life that their son was dead. So I wanted to know what happened to him, too. How had two women gotten weapons past security and, more importantly, why? Why did they come into that building on a suicide mission to kill Dr. Sebastian? Why were they so against the Singularity or the doctor’s research? Were there others involved? If so, I wanted them to pay. Ted would have done the same for me. He would have felt the same guilt that I did.

Why did Ted have to die today?

We parked a few blocks away this time and began to weave through the dispersing crowd. The protesters had lost their momentum and many of them were headed home. As we’d heard on the radio, they’d already cancelled the entire Singularity Summit. The streets were littered with signs and handouts and other waste. The police were doing their best to bring an end to the day’s disaster before anyone else was hurt.

“I had a man to protect,” I said. “What would you have done?”

“Don’t test me.” Detective Coleman Jacobs did not frequent the gym unless the steam room was his only stop, and he proved that with a belly that had to be contained by a belt I felt sorry for. I’d never sympathized with leather until that day. A black man with freckles up high on his cheeks, he wasn’t that tall, probably five-ten. His pants were cut extremely wide, all the way to his ankles, to the point where they nearly covered up the toes of his shoes. And his tucked-in shirt showed the perfect curvature of his stomach. He was standing there, his hands planted on his hips, on the fourth floor of the Convention Center, very near the room where everything had gone down. Where Ted had been murdered.

Detective Jacobs and I had to establish ourselves right out of the gate because I think we both had the feeling we’d see each other more than we wanted to over the next few days.

“Test you?” I replied. “I was acting in the best interest of the doctor, who
I
was paid to protect.” I looked at Francesca, remembering my manners. “Who
we
were paid to protect, who was most likely the intended target. We had no idea what else to expect, so we made the decision to evacuate the doctor.”

“All right, all right. I’ll let it slide. I don’t have time to play
Whose Dick is Bigger?
right now, Mr. Knox. Though I’d probably win.” He winked at Francesca. “I’m going to need you both to go sit with my guys over there and answer some questions. I’ll be back with you in a little while.”

“Sure,” I said, deciding to warm up to him. He wasn’t as much of an idiot as I’d thought. Maybe a jackass, but not an idiot. “Sorry for the hostility. It’s been a long day.”

“Well, I’m sorry about your friend.”

“Where is he?”

“In a van on the way to the morgue.”

I nodded. “With the two women?”

“Yep.”

“How’d the other one die? Do you know?”

“Looks like she ate a pill of some sort, cyanide maybe, but we’re not sure yet. She wasn’t shot.”

“No, she wasn’t. How’d they get the guns in here?”

“Look, I’ve got a lot of work to do. Let me worry about the details on my own.” He waved over one of his cronies, and he began to walk away. “And Mr. Knox,” he said. “Ms. Daly.”

“Yeah?”

“You two don’t go playing cowboy and cowgirl. I know about you both. I know who you are.”

“Don’t worry about us. Just find out why this happened to our friend…please.”

“That’s why they pay me.”

The uniformed cops separated us. I took a seat at a wooden table in the main lobby next to a younger cop dressed in a crisp blue uniform. He should have just worn a sign that said
Impressionable.
I was about to eat this poor boy up.

“Your name’s Harper Knox?” he asked me.

“Yes.”

“Jacobs said you’re a Green Beret?”

“I was,” I replied.

“Hats off to you, sir. I had a dream of heading in that direction, but it never panned out.”

I looked him in the eyes. “Any idea what happened in there? Who they were?”

“Oh, I’m not really supposed to talk about it.”

“C’mon, now. I’m just curious. Ted Simpson was a good friend. And the finest soldier I’ve ever known.”

“I believe you, but…”

“So I’m asking you to give me a few details to tell his parents over on Bainbridge Island when I go see them later today. I was there when his brother was killed, too. The information will not go beyond that. What happened in there?”

“I really don’t know much,” he replied.

I leaned in closer. “Anything will help. They will want to know.”

“Don’t get me in trouble.”

“I will not.”

He sighed, giving in. “I don’t know their names. But I saw the bodies. The medical examiner found the same branding on both of them. Not sure what it was. No one is.”

I had a quick flashback of seeing that mark on the woman’s stomach. “Yeah,” I said. “I saw it on one of them. You got a picture of it you could send me?”

“No, sir.”

“Don’t call me ‘sir.’ ”

“Okay. One of them had a piece of paper in her pocket, too. You didn’t hear it from me, but it said
Forgive me
.”

“Whose pocket did they find that in?”

“No idea.”

“How’d they get the guns in there?”

“C’mon. I can’t tell you this stuff.”

“Just tell me how they got the guns in there. I want to know how my friend died. If you can’t trust a Special Forces soldier, then we should all give up now. Give me a break. Your leader over there will never know.”

The officer looked around, making sure his superiors weren’t nearby. “One of the guys working the security line helped them out. I don’t know the details…they’re holding him now. But it sounds like someone took his family hostage and forced him to get a bag to the two girls. That’s really all I know. We just got word about this a few minutes ago.”

That caught me off guard.

“That’s all I can tell you,” he finished. “Now, I really need for you to tell me what happened.”

I spent the next ten minutes giving the young officer the details. Francesca was waiting for me when we finished, and we found Detective Jacobs on the way out. “We’re going to take off,” I told him.

“All right. Don’t go too far. I may want to talk to you again.”

“We’ll be in town. In the state, at least. Has anyone gotten ahold of Ted Simpson’s family yet?”

“Not yet.”

“We’re going to see them now. We’ll take care of it. Please keep his name out of the news for the rest of the afternoon.”

“10-4.”

But I didn’t feel protected. Out of nowhere, the realization of Ted Simpson’s death hit me like a club to the face. Any feelings of loss I had experienced before that moment were completely superficial. What started to come over me was horrifying. My stomach and chest cinched up, like someone had their hands inside of me, squeezing and twisting. I couldn’t even take a breath. Images of his dead body permeated my visual cortex. With what little air I had, I said, “I’ll be right back,” and got out of the car.

Bent over, my hand gripping my chest, I made my way down the length of cars. I was light-headed and dizzy, and the cars around me began to spin. I started to fall, but I caught myself, placing my hand on a car hood.

The driver poked his head out the window. “Hey, man. You all right?”

I focused long enough to say, “Yes. Just feeling a little seasick.” Then I kept moving, making sure I was far enough from the SUV. Once I knew Francesca wouldn’t be able to see me, I went to the rail, nearly collapsing. It didn’t matter if my eyes were open or closed. All I could see were the dead faces of Ted and his brother, Jay, morphing into one another. Even in death, they looked so much alike. And I’d been there to see them both take their last breaths.

As the Bay breeze cooled me down, I began to get a grip. I emptied my mind and let all my thoughts and all those images drop into the cold water below.
Let go. Let go. Let go.

The tightness in my body disappeared. Wiping the sweat from my face, I put my hands on the rail and looked out toward Mt. Rainier for a while. More than anything, I felt shame. I know I should have felt overwhelming regret or sadness, and I did, but more than those, I felt shame. Nothing worse than feeling like you’ve lost what makes you a man.

I finally returned to the car. So much for all that healing. Sure, I could handle a helicopter flying over the vineyard, but I couldn’t handle being back in the war. I needed Roman next to me, stat.

Francesca asked me if everything was okay, and I nodded. Then an awkward silence came between us, but I had no desire to fill it. My recovery had just hit a brick wall.

When I finished, I showed Francesca what I’d seen and what the cop had told me. “I’ve got someone who might be able to tell us more about it,” she said. She took a picture of my sketch with her phone and forwarded it.

I turned on the radio. “Let’s see if they’ve released the names yet.”

Several stations were discussing the murder at the conference. According to the newscaster, the protesters were continuing to disperse but arrests were still being made. They referred to the deceased as the two female shooters and the male victim.

My brain wanted to toss out theories, but it was too early. I didn’t want to fall into the trap of making assumptions. So, in an effort to distract my mind, I said, “I’m going to ask you a question, and this time, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

“Go ahead.”

“Where are you from?”

Francesca took a deep breath and turned the radio down. “Look, I’m sorry for reacting the way I did yesterday. In this line of work…”

“You don’t need to explain,” I said, appreciating our first real conversation. “I get it. And I’m over it. Where are you from? Tell me something about yourself.”

“Rome.”

“Georgia?”

“No. Italy.”

Then she noticed the little grin I had put on, and she shook her head. With that accent, only a child wouldn’t guess she was from Italy.

“My father was a fighter pilot and was stationed in Rome, Italy, until I was thirteen. He met my mother over there.”

“Then where’d you go?”

“Back to where my dad grew up. Los Angeles.”

“You’re an L.A. girl? Uprooted at thirteen years old and dropped into L.A. That explains everything.”

She rolled her eyes. “I was an L.A. girl for a
second
. I moved back to Rome to go to University and have lived there ever since. My parents moved back there once my dad retired.”

“So I should say you speak good English, not good Italian.”

“Of course. My father never let me speak Italian in the house. He wanted to make sure my English was impeccable.”

“You’re still an L.A. girl, though,” I said. “You were there for the impressionable years.”

“This is true.”

“Are they proud of you?”

“Are my parents proud of me? Sure, I guess so. They’d probably rather I was a teacher. How about yours?” she asked.

“They would be, I think. Lost them years ago.”

“Now, that explains everything.”

“
Touché
.”

“Just kidding. That was rude,” she apologized.