A Concealed Universe, page 3
“Be glad Adam slapped you down, D. Ever since you got here, I’ve wanted to tape your jump-ass hands together. When you die, I’ll wrap your headstone in gray, sticky tape, so you don’t scare the other dead people.”
“Sorry, Sal. Since the kids tagged along, they gonna have an accident, same as her?”
Only Ryan could answer that. “What you gave me is good, but it ain’t all. Keep walking through it. What about Matthew, the husband?”
With an edgy tug on the bill of his ball cap, Duct Tape’s explanation trailed off. “The doctor dude? Sure. He’s extra baggage unless we’re told to grab him, or . . . Whatever. I’d come back if we need to.”
Glancing left, he saw Adam grin. The kid has the brains Duct Tape lacks. “Okay Adam, your turn. Because her children are with her, we have to worry about three. If we grab ‘em all, what changes do we make?”
Tall, with curly, auburn hair he’d grown to cover a three-inch shrapnel scar, the handsome Iraq and Afghanistan combat vet looked older than his twenty-six years. A shrug showed his confidence.
“We still escape the building without a firefight, evade the police, ditch the vehicles, and exfil to Mr. Ryan’s warehouse on Sand Island. We add the kids to the first load we helicopter to Kaua’i, but nothing else changes.”
He slapped the back of Duct Tape’s seat. “See? That’s how a soldier gives a report. Finish it, kid.”
“While the Kaua’i crew completes preflight on Mr. Ryan’s 737, the same chopper brings the rest of the team to Kaua’i. When we’re all there, the 737 takes us to Charlotte for the final leg to his estate.”
“Who is Ryan, Sal?”
He wasn’t surprised by the question. Ryan refused to mix with the hired help. “He is ex-SAS. That’s British, hardass, Special Forces. He took shrapnel in his ankle during the dustup the Brits had in the Falklands. He is also the planner who never goes near his target.” Forming imaginary guns with his thumbs and index fingers, he jammed a grim warning into each young man’s skull.
“Here’s good advice, gentlemen. Some things will get your ass dead, and curiosity about Ryan is one of them.”
~
Four floors above, Roderick Charles, Ph.D., Duct Tape’s fake doctor, congratulated himself on the best luck he’d had in years.
“This couldn’t be easier. It’s perfect. I get my money after one answer to one question from one patient,” the psychologist said from behind the massive, multi-hued, Koa wood desk. When they told him the job was in Honolulu, that only sweetened the deal and today, four days later, the curtain would rise on his single performance.
The office secretary was an added treat for a man whose taste ran to young women. Most of those he groomed were girls – by legal definition, but thoughts of the small Leilani shot electricity across his groin.
“Yeah, she’ll do,” he smiled until another feeling grew with an eagerness no mistress could match. This need wasn’t sex, though, it was the shiny glassine bag, small mirror, and bone-handled blade he’d placed in the left-hand desk drawer minutes before.
Sliding that drawer open was easy but resisting the urge to rearrange his muse forced his trembling fingers to stroke the wooden box with a lover’s shy touch. He’d started with pain meds he stole or coaxed from colleagues. When that wasn’t enough, he jumped a few rungs on self-destruction’s ladder to smoking heroin. Now, it was cocaine. He’d gotten clean once – he’d had to, but his hunger was a relentless lover he could never satisfy.
“I need to record her conversation, but I’m no good with technology,” he mumbled with a glance from his shaking hand to the smartphone Ryan’s man gave him yesterday. “Mr. Ryan wants you to know there will be consequences if you fail. Me? That Irish bastard told his goon to threaten me?” Squeezing the phone in his hand, he fought back. “I’ll show them. Today I’ll have my payback,” he said, and with a discipline he didn’t own, he keyed the old-style intercom.
Leilani’s return beep was his final cue, and the short, balding man with the pallor of a Midwesterner who dreaded the sun stood to practice his opening lines. He’d skimmed Dr. Gould’s recent summaries in the thick, flagged file under his sweating hands and glanced over the file’s first page, but nothing else. He didn’t need to.
“Her recovery isn’t important. No, not today. Today, only her memories matter.”
10:00 AM Tuesday
Honolulu HI
“Mrs. Travis? Come in. I’m Rod Charles, Dr. Charles. Please accept my apology for Dr. Gould’s absence – I mean Dr. Mary, your regular therapist. I can say her absence was unavoidable and urgent, but nothing more. She did send her regards, though.”
“Thank you. But . . .”
“You’re welcome. We don’t have much time, so let’s start. Every patient has a routine. Do you prefer the couch or the chair?”
His toneless greeting was a rehearsed jumble of words, she knew, as she chose her regular spot on the leather couch. “But when will she be back? We’ve been together for years, and this is sudden. Even if you can’t give me the details, I still want a reason.”
Instead of an answer, Charles moved behind the ornate desk’s protective barrier. “I’m familiar with the issues you and she discussed. May we begin?”
That was bumpy. That nervous tic weakens his smile. “Okay. I had an attack in the elevator but I built my dam, my wall, and I forced it away. It was the worst one in six months.”
“I understand a book is the cause of those flashbacks. Tell me about that.”
Dr. Mary is genuine, but this guy? “No, that was later. Did you review my file?”
“Again, I apologize,” he said, tweaking an already-perfect tie. “I want to help each patient, but I’ve been over- eager. I’ll slow down. I see you prefer Andy. Is that because your given name is unusual?”
“My parents are proud of their Czech heritage, but I didn’t want my teenage friends in Minnesota calling me by my birth name. Marketa isn’t exactly Midwest comfortable. That decision was easy, but if my parents called me Margaret or Maggie, they said my grandmother’s candles would burn down every church in Prague. I know my babička, and they were right.”
Looking toward the tall windows, she smiled at the thought of revisiting her fiery grandmother. When she looked back, he was staring at his phone.
“Interesting, please continue.”
Her naïve unease accepted his indifference, but the room was off. It was the credenza. The pictures of Dr. Mary’s daughter and granddaughter were gone. Why he would clear her desk if he were a stand-in?
“Mrs. Travis?”
“Sorry, reminiscing. My parents call me Markie but no one else does, not even my husband. Since my maiden name is Andel, Andy was the best deal for everyone else. Now I’m Andy Travis.”
“Your husband? Children?”
I guess he missed that in my file. “My husband Matthew is a second-year pediatric resident here, in Honolulu. My twin boys are Joshua and Matthew Junior. Matty is The Tank because he’s indestructible. Joshua asks the questions. He is the logical, problem solver. My husband says he’s like me.”
“A resident? He must work long hours for not much pay.”
Added to the other slights, that question proved it. She was insignificant, and she locked her arms around a color-splashed, blue pillow from the couch’s other side. She needed to protect her emotional space from this small man.
“Those useless answers are in my file, and they aren’t the reason I’m here. I want to talk about today’s flashback. Since we’re not, tell me again. Two years ago, Dr. Mary’s daughter had her first grandchild. She wanted to go back East to see the baby, but she cares about her patients. She went, but we talked on the phone. Every time I needed her, she was there. That worked, so why you?”
“Didn’t you understand? She had no choice. Let’s get back to this Kristen woman and The Book. That’s your problem, isn’t it?” he asked with a nervous tug on his suit coat’s sleeves.
I forced him off-script. That was anger. Since he claimed he didn’t know my background, where did he find Kristen’s name?
She almost blurted a sarcastic reply, but something else made her wary. Buying time until she could figure it out, she played to his ego.
“I’m sorry. You mentioned Kristen and The Book. Did you read that in my file, sir?”
“Oh, yes. Dr. Gould told me about Kristen and your book. Shall we continue?”
That last vacant smile confirmed it. He was back on-script, but that was the second time he’d pronounced Dr. Mary’s name wrong. With her drawl Mary Gould spoke with a lazy “d,” and they’d laughed about a psychologist named Ghoul. Charles said Gold.
“Okay, but it wasn’t my book.”
“I stand corrected. If you would continue?”
“This is the end,” she began with an indifference matching his. “In the beginning Kristen’s father played a part, but now he was dead. I mean, in the end it was Kristen, her grandfather, and me. Should I start when her father was alive? If that’s what you want, there isn’t enough time. I’ll do it with Dr. Mary the next time we meet.”
“No, you’re doing fine. Begin here.”
She did as he asked, but her explanation slowed to the mechanical monotone matching her suspicions.
“Evil shall slay the wicked.” - Psalm 34:21 (KJV)
10:10 AM Tuesday
Honolulu HI
Sal depended on his hunches. Sometimes he got it wrong, but Charles?
“Move ‘em, Adam. Charles will screw this up.”
At sixteen Sal Martino was a teenager who needed something to keep him out of more trouble with the NYPD. Aggressive and arrogant, he was drawn to the Police Athletic League’s boxing program, but his contempt for ring discipline, his need to throw wild punches, and his slow hands rated him average. Then a hunch told him he could be a Golden Gloves champ. Certain he was right he trained every day, while at night he watched his challengers’ best fights on PAL’s free videos. As he strengthened every weakness and designed his offense and defense, he realized something important: intelligence and willpower could make him successful. For a final test he spent weeks fighting bigger, more experienced fighters in a second gym. Two months later, he wore that champion’s belt.
During his senior year in high school, a friend hacked his grades up. That cost him the thousand dollars he’d made boosting TVs from the backs of trucks, but it got him into Columbia. Marine Corps ROTC saved the stocky, dark-haired man’s, C-average ass, and six years as a Marine Recon Team Leader fused the young lieutenant’s warrior ethos with machine-like precision. The Corps jettisoned the cocky man after a murder in a Japanese bar– one he didn’t commit, but he left with marketable skills.
A year later the dark side’s big money called. When it did, an angry Sal Martino answered. Was it immoral to fight without rules for the world’s dictators and warlords? Yes, but those times honed him to a samurai’s calling.
“The target is in play,” Adam said into his scrambled headset. “Find her.”
With a parent’s satisfaction, he pictured his three other SUVs searching the six-story garage. His window of opportunity was small, but Adam anticipated before he could remind him.
“Where’s she parked? C’mon people, we’re on the clock.”
Levels two and three came up empty, but the last hunters found their prey. “Relax, newbie. She’s on the empty roof deck, like always.”
He smiled. It was going as planned. “Okay kid, it’s playtime. Park on four, same as the therapist’s office.”
~
Each garage floor was an open concrete wafer poured one atop another, like the layers of a cake. Wanting to boost their cash beyond parking fees but still needing to stay competitive, the owners sold each gray, support pillar for advertising. In an irony lost on the three men, Adam chose a parking space calling young men and women to careers as Honolulu Police officers.
“You’re a detail guy, huh Sal?” Adam asked as the piercing squeal of a driver taking an exit ramp too fast echoed.
“And you’re a smart kid,” he replied as the sound faded. “Mr. Ryan expects things to go as planned, so be sure you killed the garage’s surveillance cams.”
“Re-format every security camera’s hard drive from zero-six-hundred till now, crash the rest of the system, but keep the exit cams running, right?”
Was there anything a Gen Y Millennial couldn’t hack with a discount laptop? “Yeah, we’ll need the exit cams when we leave the building.”
Adam nodded. Breaking the network security, he keyed in the code. Then he opened his mike. “Rooftop? If it’s clear, wire the explosives to her van.”
“Relax, Grandma, it’s already done,” the hunter answered.
His heart rate began to climb. That was the first sign a hunch would gnaw at his psyche. It was this doctor, the Charles character. When he gave him the phone the other day, he knew he was a weak link. If the man screwed up, he could get killed. He did not intend to die today.
“This fake doctor won’t get it done, so we’ll visit him. Tell the wingnuts we’re moving, Adam. They’d better be ready. Let’s go DT.”
Seconds later, they stood at the bronze plaque announcing suite four-fifteen.
“Remember,” he said, tapping the plate with his automatic, “Ryan doesn’t excuse mistakes. If you want to live, don’t make one. Gloves on and no names,” he reminded before slamming through the solid corridor door.
“Stay with the children,” he ordered Duct Tape before turning to the Secretary. If she sounded the alarm, they would need to fight their way from the building. “Stay away from the alarm button, ma’am. Where is your cell phone?”
“Under the desk . . . in my purse. What do you want?”
A picture with her Army paratrooper husband and two young, serious children sat near the desk’s center. Every eye in that photograph sparkled with a hope of a long life together. Now, her eyes shone with fear.
“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling the connector from the surveillance camera over the door. “Kid? Freeze the panic alarm circuit. Then cut the hard-wired office phone, crush her cell, and take the videodisk. Charles?” he shouted without turning from Leilani.
“Come in,” was the weak reply from behind the inner office door.
That was his cue, and after giving DT instructions to watch Leilani and the children, he motioned Adam to his side.
“You take the Travis woman. I want the doctor.”
The door wasn’t locked and the psychologist smiled for an instant, but his look flickered to danger as he forced Charles back with a forearm to the throat.
“Talk. Where’s the recording?”
“I never turned my phone on,” the man said in a raspy whisper.
Sickened his prediction had come true, he knocked an empty file box to the carpet. “You’re worthless, Charles. Get the memory card and crush the phone, kid,” he called over his shoulder.
“Bug too, right?” Adam asked, and with a nod, the young man pulled the shade from a corner lamp.
The move shocked Charles. “You bugged my office?”
Sickened by the man’s fear, a smile signaled the grim victory to come. “Yeah, we did. Yesterday, after the FBI sweepers left. And you’re offended? You have no right. You’re a coke-addicted asshole who molests little girls.”
Turning to Andy, he took a risk. He would change Ryan’s plan. “Too bad you brought the kids. Now, everybody comes with us.”
“My children? No, we’ll leave.” When she couldn’t break Adam’s hold, she pointed to Charles. “He’s a fake.”
“Yeah, I know,” he smiled. But there was something else. She should be afraid, but she’s not. She’s mad. “You are much more than meets the eye, aren’t you, Mrs. Travis?”
Leaping from Adam’s hold, she slapped his face. “You work for Kristen, don’t you? It wasn’t my fault. Can’t she forget?”
He trapped her arms, but it was no easy task. “Lady, I have no idea what that means or the time to figure it out. Now, go with my young man. He will take you to your kids. I need a minute with Charles.”
Even with her crazy outburst and the kids to worry about, things were going as planned. But hubris was his drug. He’d been cocky before, and it should have killed him.
~
Alone with Charles, his rising automatic forced the man to lock eyes through the barrel’s front sight.
“You’re an arrogant son of a bitch, Charles. Is your shit in the desk? Don’t look surprised, your file says it’s always close by.”
Charles glanced from the blackened sight to the dark grooved barrel, but he didn’t answer. Instead, his hand trembled toward the left side drawer.
He knew a dweeb like Charles could still kill, so this was no time to relax. “Careful. If you have a gun, I’ll drop you before it clears the drawer.” But the box only hid Charles’ stash. “That’s disappointing. If you’d gone for the knife, I would have pistol whipped you. Still, this will be better.”
He’d met men like Charles before and he despised each one. This one would get what he deserved.
“You’re gonna die, so pour your blow on the desk,” he ordered, but the sobbing psychologist could neither talk nor move. “For Christ’s sake,” he said crafting Charles’ white powder into the long, thick lines he’d seen in Asia, “you molested little kids. They trusted you. You got off easy, you creep, so snort that.” Charles’ strangled appeal was all he needed to hear.
“No. I only take a little – to focus.”
Stepping right, he moved the automatic to the base of Charles’ skull. “You’re a dead man walking and you want a choice? Okay, its either a bullet or the blow. The bullet will be worse, so I vote for you to enjoy the ride.”
The death sentence pronounced, his barrel forced Charles’ head into the white powder. With no other option, the sobbing psychologist ran each line.
Satisfied, he gave a final command. “Don’t wipe anything off your nose or mouth. It’ll convince them.”
But only a dusty, unfocused stare returned his order until Charles’ head swung a slow left to right circle. Then, with one massive heave, the man vomited on the desk.
