Wrongful Death (16 page)

At the moment, Sloane had no such evidence, other than his gut, but he wasn’t about to tell Pendergrass that. Sloane could have delayed filing the complaint—it would have allowed him and Jenkins more time to find Michael Cassidy, and maybe some evidence to actually support the allegation, but there was no guarantee of that happening and Sloane wanted the complaint filed before Beverly received a formal notice that the claim had been reopened. Besides, filing a complaint was the best way to get people’s attention, and to let them know that Sloane was not going away. It might also make them nervous, perhaps make them suspect Sloane knew more than he did about the man who came to his house to issue the threat. Nervous people tended to react, and the more someone reacted, the more chances they might make a mistake. The downside to filing the claim was that the clock would start ticking as soon as the government filed its inevitable motion to dismiss, and Sloane would have very little time to find evidence to corroborate his gut belief that there was more to Ford’s death than the military was saying. Federal judges weren’t partial to “feelings” and wouldn’t hesitate to toss him out of the courtroom on his butt, with his wallet a little less thick to cushion the blow.

Sloane walked up the wide concrete steps and pushed through the glass doors. Metal detectors and a healthy number of federal marshals waited inside. He put his briefcase on the conveyor belt to be x-rayed and stepped to the gate. The gray-haired federal marshal waiting for him on the other side told him to empty all his pockets.

“Even a penny will set it off,” he said.

Sloane wondered if that was the reason for all of the copper
and silver coins reflecting off the black bottom of the lobby’s shallow pool to his left.

He complied with the instruction and stepped through the arch.

The detector beeped.

“Probably your belt.” The marshal pointed to the silver clasp. Sloane walked back through to the other side and removed his belt. “Put your coat through as well,” the marshal instructed. “Do you have a cell phone?”

Sloane slipped from his coat and put it on the conveyor. He stepped through without a beep. As the coat and belt went into the machine, the marshal standing on the other side watching the monitor stopped the conveyor and studied the grainy images. Then he motioned to his partner to view something. They stood together considering the monitor before starting the belt again. When Sloane’s jacket came through, the marshal picked it up.

“You have anything in the pockets?”

Sloane reached for the jacket. “I don’t think so.”

The marshal kept it. “We’re going to rerun it.” He walked to the other end and put the jacket back on the belt. By this time there were two other suit-clad men waiting to get through. Again the belt stopped. Again the marshals considered the jacket. When it came through, the gray-haired marshal picked it up and squeezed the pockets.

“Where did you get this jacket?” he asked.

“Florence. Why?”

“It’s got something in the lining that’s tipping off the detector.”

“Really?”

“It’s round. Could be a quarter that got through the pocket lining.” The marshal put his hands in both pockets. “I don’t feel a hole.” He held out the jacket for Sloane to feel. “Right there,” he said, and Sloane felt the quarter-size spherical object in the coat lining.

SEA OF CORTEZ
BAJA, MEXICO

J
ake grimaced, his face a beet red from the sun and exertion. Tina wanted to tell him to let the deckhand take over, that he’d done more than anyone expected of an eleven-year-old boy, but she knew Jake would never give in. He was mentally that strong, and though she hated to admit it, he had her stubborn streak. This was his fish. He wanted to land it himself, even if it meant his arms falling off.

It didn’t help that they were sharing the boat with three fraternity brothers from California. Jake would not want to quit in front of them.

“Keep ahold of him, little man,” one yelled.

“You can do it, Jake,” another encouraged. “That’s it. Keep its head up.”

Miguel, the bronze-skinned deckhand with a face like cracked leather, said the fish was a yellowfin and estimated it to weigh between thirty-five and forty-five pounds. He had been coaching Jake through the thirty-minute battle.

“Tranquillo, tranquillo,”
Miguel shouted. “Let him run,
muchacho.
”

Jake relaxed and looked over his shoulder at Tina. Trickles of sweat rolled down his face. He smiled, but his relief was brief.

“
Enrollo, amigo.
Reel.” Jake lurched forward, reeling down as Miguel had taught, keeping his left arm straight and using his legs to pull. He used the tension on the line and a slight bend in the tip of the pole to ease the fish toward him.

Tina was happy Jake was having a good time. She couldn’t say the same for herself. She missed David terribly and felt sick with worry, unable to eat much and too preoccupied to enjoy their surroundings. They had not parted on good terms, and she now felt bad about how she had behaved. Making matters worse, Alex had forbidden any phone calls. The past three days in Baja had felt like a month.

“
Enrollo, amigo,
” Miguel continued to shout. “
Muy bien, muchacho.
You are tiring him out.”

Jake was determined to bring David back a fish bigger than the salmon, which was the only reason Alex had relented about the fishing excursion. Up to that point she had avoided anyplace that would put two women and an eleven-year-old boy in a confined space. When they checked into their new hotel in Cabo, Alex had taken a room by herself and let Tina book a room separately, though they all shared Alex’s room. They had driven to the dock at dawn, and Tina and Jake waited while Alex spoke to half a dozen different charters. Though they all understood English, Alex had spoken only Spanish. Tina had been able to pick up bits and pieces of the conversations. The debate had not been about price, but about the other guests. Alex wanted other people on the boat, but only if they had made a prior reservation. She settled on the three fraternity brothers. Tina had feared a long day, but the young men were not the typical beer-swilling pigs she associated with most fraternities. That had not, however, stopped them from hitting on
Alex. Dressed in white shorts, a tank top, and sneakers, Alex was a more prized catch than a marlin.

Tina applied a liberal dose of sunblock to her arms and legs and felt the salt from the splash of the waves on her skin. Despite her Italian heritage, number 45 sunblock, and the wide-brimmed sun hat covering much of her face, she felt as though she was baking.

“Reel,
niño
, reel,” Miguel shouted.

Tina offered the sunblock to Alex, but she declined. Alex remained quiet, and seemed to be constantly scanning the horizon, considering other charters that passed. The fraternity brother named Vincent had been unsuccessfully working to get her attention.

“Ya parele, ya parele,”
Miguel yelled. “Stop. Stop.”

He picked up a long pole with a hook on the end and jabbed it into the water. On the second try his muscles strained and he lifted a huge fish from the water onto the deck to loud cheers. The fish looked prehistoric, silver green with yellow fins along the tail. It thrashed on the deck, but Miguel held its head down with the pole and pinned its tail between his ankles, the fish’s blood pooling on the deck. Jake looked exhausted, but had a grin from ear to ear.

Tina smiled back and congratulated him, then looked to Alex, but she was now focused on the captain, who stood on the deck above them behind the wheel talking on a cell phone.

“David would have loved this,” Jake said. “Can I have it stuffed, Mom? We could hang it over the fireplace in the living room.”

“You did great, Jake.” She hugged him. “Really great. David will be so proud.”

The captain yelled down in Spanish, and Miguel gave him a puzzled look before beginning to organize the poles as the diesel engines powered up, smoke sputtering for a brief second before the blades churned the water.

Alex approached Tina. “Do you have that sunblock?” Tina
handed her the tube. As Alex rubbed the lotion into her copper-brown skin, she continued to look out at the water. Then she turned to hand back the tube. “When we get back to the dock, follow my lead and do exactly as I say.”

U.S. FEDERAL BUILDING SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

IT FELT LIKE
the marshals’ eyes were boring holes in the back of Sloane’s head as he walked across the lobby to the elevators. Sloane told them that the black spot was likely a security device to keep someone from stealing the jacket from a store. He acted relieved, saying he’d had similar problems traveling through airports but had been unable to determine why the jacket kept tripping the sensor. The explanation seemed to pacify the marshals, if not completely convince them.

Sloane knew the hardened object was not a security device. There had been no security detector in Florence. There had been no store. Tina had purchased the jacket at an outdoor market not far from the Duomo. Sloane knew what the quarter-size object was. Ken Mills had pulled one like it from his desk drawer, and said it was a listening device.

And Sloane also knew exactly when the device had been inserted into the lining of his jacket.

It’s a hundred and thirteen degrees in Iraq.

Captain Robert Kessler had encouraged Sloane and Jenkins to leave their jackets when they went to tour the Argus warehouse with the replica of the blocks in Mosul. Someone had slipped the bug in the lining then.

As the elevator ascended, Sloane struggled to recall what conversations he had engaged in while wearing the jacket. Had he dis
cussed Cabo? If Argus had been listening to everything Sloane had said since leaving Kessler’s office, they very well could know Tina and Jake were with Alex and where they were. He fought to recall where he’d put the jacket the night he sat with Alex and Charlie in the living room discussing the trip.

On the fifth floor he exited the elevator and pulled open glass doors to the lobby of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. A wood carving of the Great Seal of the United States hung on gray walls beside a picture of Western District of Washington U.S. Attorney Rachel Keane. Sloane slid his driver’s license through a slot and advised the woman on the other side of the glass that Tom Pendergrass expected him.

“Who?”

“Tom Pendergrass.”

The woman picked up a phone and had a brief conversation. Then she studied Sloane’s driver’s license as she typed out a visitor’s pass and eventually handed both back through the slot. Sloane peeled off the backing of the pass and stuck it on his jacket.

“Could you direct me to the bathroom?”

“Down the hall to your left,” the woman said.

He left his jacket, with his briefcase on a chair, and stepped into the hall, pulling out his cell phone and hitting the preprogrammed number. “Charlie?”

“No luck,” Jenkins said.

“You need to call Alex. Tell her to change their plans. I don’t care where they go in Mexico, but tell her to change everything.”

“Whoa. What’s the matter?”

“They put a transmitter in my coat.”

“What?”

“Remember when Kessler gave us the tour—”

“You took your coat off.”

“There’s a transmitter in the lining. It just set off the metal detector at the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”

“I’m on it.”

Sloane hung up and stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows. He pushed his thoughts aside and tried to focus. Alex and Charlie had been right. It had been the right decision to send them out of the country. They had Alex and all of her training to stay hidden. He couldn’t help them. Besides, the best way to protect all of them, as John Kannin had said, was to find enough information to make someone important’s ass pucker. Sloane needed leverage.

DARSENA MARINA
CABO SAN LUCAS, MEXICO

AS THEIR THIRTY-TWO-FOOT
charter neared the marina, Tina fought the urge to look around. She envisioned another boat intercepting them and men with guns boarding, but the only boats she saw were other fishing charters returning to the marina to have their fish weighed and filleted into steak-size chunks. Still, her stomach felt as if it were in her throat.

Alex, by contrast, looked completely relaxed. She had struck up a conversation with the fraternity brother Vincent, whom she had previously ignored, telling him her name was Maria, and was smiling and laughing easily. Vincent looked about as excited as Jake when he landed the fish.

When the boat docked, Tina gathered her towel and belongings, shoved them into her beach bag, and accepted Miguel’s hand onto the dock. Alex took at least a dozen pictures of Jake holding the fish, and Tina noticed that on several shots Alex had the telephoto lens extended and appeared to be using it to consider others.

“Te haz convertido en un pescador hecho y derecho,
Jake,” Miguel
said, telling Jake that now he had become a real fisherman. “You come back next year and we’ll catch a marlin together.”

He pointed to the end of the pier where a flurry of Mexicans had gathered, negotiating the cost of stuffing or cutting up the marlins, tuna, and other fish that had been caught. Tina followed Jake and made arrangements to have the fish photographed so that its dimensions could be replicated and the copy shipped back to the States, despite a pricey cost. As she and Jake rejoined Alex, she was surprised that Vincent and his two fraternity brothers were also waiting for them.

“Our hotels are just down the street from one another,” Alex said. “Vincent has invited us to have a drink and celebrate Jake’s fish.”

Tina forced a smile. “Why don’t we go back to the hotel and shower? We can meet there.”

“We don’t need to shower,” Alex said. “Let’s all stay together.”

Sensing Alex did not want to separate from the men, Tina agreed. At the end of the dock, as they approached a line of taxis, Alex turned to Tina and Jake and the other two men: “Why don’t you four grab a taxi together and we’ll meet you at the restaurant.”

Tina felt a lump in her throat but continued to follow Alex’s lead. “Okay. We’ll see you there,” she said, hearing her voice flutter.

U.S. ATTORNEY'S OFFICE SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

WHEN SLOANE PUSHED
back through the glass doors into the lobby of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Tom Pendergrass stood waiting.

“Sorry about that,” Sloane said. “I had to take a call.”

“Thanks for coming.” Pendergrass made it sound like a social visit.

“I haven’t been inside this building before. They did a nice job on the exterior.”

“I’ll give you the five-minute tour,” Pendergrass offered. “There’s a place with a great view.”

“Just let me grab my coat and briefcase.”

Sloane slipped his coat back on and followed Pendergrass onto an elevator. On the nineteenth floor Pendergrass stepped through glass doors out onto an observation deck with half a dozen unoccupied white tables and chairs. They stood at the railing looking at a view of downtown Seattle. Though the sun shone, the temperature was brisk. A breeze blew in their faces.

After admiring the view for a moment, Pendergrass spoke. “It’s tragic when a soldier dies.”

Sloane agreed. “I’m a marine, Tom. Ironically, I was wounded in Grenada
because
I gave up my flak jacket.” Pendergrass turned from the view to look at him. Sloane shrugged, and told Pendergrass the same story that he had told to the military doctor who had questioned him after the incident. “Damn things were heavy back then. I felt like it was weighing me down.” He looked back toward the buildings. “I watched two soldiers die, and as tragic as their deaths were, they didn’t leave behind a wife and four children.”

Pendergrass nodded. “Bullets don’t discriminate. We’re losing good men over there. I wish I could compensate the families of every one of them. I really do. I’m on their side. I’m one of them. But I can’t. My job is to determine whether the death is compensable. It’s difficult at times, as I’m sure you can appreciate, but it has to be done.”

“We all have jobs to do.”

“I’m surprised you filed the complaint.”

“I’m surprised you’re handling it,” Sloane countered.

“I think we both know that Mrs. Ford’s claim is not compensable.”

Sloane shrugged. “The administrative claims office had Mrs. Ford’s claim for over a year. They had ample opportunity to act on it. They didn’t. There’s no authority for it to be reopened.”

“We can debate the court’s jurisdiction, but we can’t debate the merits,” Pendergrass said, as Sloane had predicted. “Specialist Ford was killed while serving his country during a war in a foreign country. I’ve handled a dozen of these claims. It will never get past a motion to dismiss.”

“Then tell me what caused the military to reopen it?”

Surprisingly, the question seemed to catch Pendergrass off guard. He fumbled for an answer. “A claim can be reopened for any number of reasons. I could ask you the same question. What evidence do you have to support an allegation that James Ford was not killed incident to his service? If it exists, let me have it so that I can evaluate it and recommend that his family be compensated.”

That was, of course, the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. “I can’t give you that now.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“We’re just getting started investigating,” Sloane said. “You have the file.”