Degrees of Darkness, page 95
Head cocked to the side, Scarface examined her. “Funeral for who?”
“One of the guys in my dad’s squad. It was right after he was discharged from the army.”
Scarface laughed, backing a step from Heath. “Oh, the tangled web they wove. What kind of lies did you feed your child, Logan?”
A chill not brought on by her damp and barefoot condition raked Cody. “Who are you?”
He held out his hands in a grand gesture. “I am every man’s worst nightmare. I am ngươ ἲ hung ác. Satan, the curator of hell and bringer of death.”
“The master of lies.”
He waved a finger at her. “Ah, ah, I have not lied to you. No, that department is best served by your father.” He returned to standing in front of her, grabbed hold of her face, and pinched her cheeks. “Liars are not welcome in my presence, because liars are what made me into the monster you see before you.”
Roughly releasing her, he lifted his pistol and pointed it directly at her forehead. Fear trembled through her, but she held fast.
“Tell me, Cody, how far do you think your father will go to rescue you?”
Deep from within her soul a tiny ember sparked. She’d felt that spark before, many times before, when things were at their worst. Closing her eyes, she mentally took hold of that burning ember, that hope, and drew strength from it. When she opened her eyes again, Scarface was frowning at her.
“My father will go through the pits of hell to rescue me. But it’s not my father you should be worried about coming for me.”
Scar-face chuckled. “Your brave husband? By now he’s chasing his tail in circles like the dog he is.”
Words. All this man could spew was words. Cody took a risk, reached up and placed a finger on the tip of the barrel. If this man wanted her dead, he would’ve done it by now. But it was clear he was using her as bait, incentive, for now. Slowly, she pushed the barrel down, away from her face.
“How much do you know about my husband? What can you tell me about him that isn’t written down?”
Scarface scowled. “You will not mock me, woman.”
“No one said I was. You, however, have mocked me from the moment you dragged me out of that truck. But there’s one thing you sorely underestimated. A man possessed. My husband isn’t one to piss off or trifle with.” Cody smiled for the first time since the attack. “You’ve just unleashed the true meaning of hell.”
• • •
Through a virtual back door in the DPD’s system, Remy located Steele’s home address. The rain had stopped by the time he reached her little one-bedroom bungalow on the outskirts of Dallas. He made sure she was there before parking a good distance away, then he stalked to her front door. The entire time since he’d left the abandoned house his mind turned over fabricated images of Cody’s death. He couldn’t shake the feeling she wasn’t dead yet. Wouldn’t he know if she were, wouldn’t he feel it in his soul if she were ripped away from him? She better not be, or Steele would pay the price.
At the door, he scanned the area for any unwanted attention. The nearest house was a block away, and a high fence blocked the street from the yard. He rapped on the door, then slid to the side to avoid being seen. A moment later the lock rattled and the door swung inward. Remy pushed his way inside, startling Steele. Before she could react, his hand wrapped around her neck, and, kicking the door shut behind him, he propelled her backward into a wall.
“Where is she?”
Steele’s eyes bulged and she choked.
“Answer me!”
Her hands slammed against the sides of his head, making his ears ring and his vision spotty. He released her and staggered a few steps away. Squeezing his eyes shut, he shook his head to get rid of the effects of her blows.
“LeBeau, what the hell are you doing in my home?” she croaked.
The spots cleared. With a snarl, he moved in for another go.
She stopped rubbing her neck in time to deflect his arm, then dropped, and before he could react, she swept his legs out from under him with a sweeper kick. Remy crashed to the floor on his backside.
Straddling his body, Steele stood poised over him in a fighter’s stance. “Stand down, detective, or get the beating you deserve for attacking your superior.”
He spat an acidic word. His rage-filled response earned him a blow to the chest that left him gasping for air.
“Last chance.”
The rage blinding him retreated long enough for him to realize he was being a fool. Then the short-lived realization dissipated. “No, not until you tell me where my wife is.”
“Shit.” Her stance slackened.
Just the opening he needed. His arm shot out and he latched onto her lowered arm. Yanking, he threw her off-balance and flipped her to the floor. Remy rolled, prepared to pin her, but she somersaulted away and popped up into a crouch. Staring at her from a pushup position, he seethed. How the hell was he going to knock this woman down? She was like a freaking cat.
Steele pressed her fingers into the floor and glared at him. “I don’t know where he took your wife. Beating a confession out of me won’t get you anywhere on it either.”
“But you know who took her?” he growled.
An array of emotions played across her smooth features. Her dark eyes dulled as her glare faded, but she remained tight-lipped.
Remy slapped the floor and vaulted onto his feet. “Tell me.”
Steele moved with him, bracing in her stance again. “I don’t have to tell you a thing, detective. But I can file assault charges against you and have you fired for this.”
“And I can reveal that you knew all along who murdered the Hammonds, Leland Kent, and Jack Humphrey, and that you hid the evidence from the police.”
She couldn’t hide the brief flash of shock from him. Eyes narrowed to slits, she clenched her fists. “You know nothing.”
Humphing, he dragged from his pants’ pocket the folded pages he stole from the abandoned house and chucked them at her. “You’re a piss-poor cop, Steele. You couldn’t even tag someone tailing you.”
She caught the paper and unfolded the sheets. “You had no right.”
“I had every right. Since the moment you took over Moreno’s job, you’ve known the identity of the killer and said nothing.”
“It’s because I wasn’t certain!” Steele tore the papers. “I couldn’t stop him any more than you can now.”
Suddenly her phone went off. Three rings in, Remy’s BlackBerry went off, too. Neither one of them moved to answer the calls. First one, then the other went to voice mail.
Narrowing her eyes, Steele shifted. “Do that often, LeBeau? Ignore what could be important calls?”
“Only when I’m facing off against someone who aided and abetted in the death of my wife.”
“I did nothing to her.” She wagged the ripped sheets at his face. “In fact, I handed you the chance to save your bride and her father, but you were too thickheaded to figure it out.”
“What are you talking about?”
“All those files, all that evidence. I practically spoon-fed you the connections to them. And if she’s missing, then you’re too late.”
Letting out a tortured roar, he grabbed her by the collar and slammed her into the wall. “I will not be late again. Tell me where she is.”
Steele didn’t struggle or fight back; she just sagged in his grasp. “I don’t know. That’s why I went to the house. I was hoping to stop him.”
“Him? Who is he?”
Shame dragged on her lovely face. She avoided looking Remy directly in the eye. “I had nothing to do with this. I was trying to help you stop him.”
He shook her hard, making her head bang against the wall. “Answer me.”
With her chin tilted up, she finally met his gaze. “It’s my father.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Remy reeled away from Steele. Her father? “You better start explaining or I’m calling in units.”
“Keep them out of this. It’ll only make things worse for your wife.”
“Then start talking.”
Pushing off the wall, Steele walked past him to a small bookshelf and picked up an aged wooden box. She flicked the lid open and pulled out blackened dog tags and a damaged playing card. She clenched the items in her fist for a moment, then tossed them onto the chair next to Remy.
“I stole those from him when I was a little girl. He thought one of his men had done it and tortured him to death for something he never did. After I watched him do that, I was too scared to tell him it was me.”
Slowly, Remy picked up the ten of diamonds. The edges were browned and curled, like it had survived a fire. “What is this supposed to tell me?”
“From what he told me, those cards represented certain men in his squad. It had been their way to get around calling out the ranks and names to stop the enemy from killing their commanding officers and sergeants. The idea came from his sergeant.”
“Let me guess, Logan Lewis?”
Steele’s eyebrows arched, but she remained quiet.
Once again, both of their phones started ringing. For the second time, they ignored the calls.
“You know, we really should be answering. They’ll send units to come find us,” Steele pointed out.
“Let ’em,” Remy muttered as he grabbed the blackened dog tags.
The damage was clearly fire related, and he could barely see the information stamped into the pieces of metal. He ran his thumb over the raised print on the back, making out the capital letters R and Z and what he assumed was a number sequence that would have been the man’s Social Security number.
“His name was Russel Zhao.”
He scowled. “If he’s alive, how does that make it was?”
“Because the man named Russel Zhao doesn’t exist any more. He died the day my mother was murdered. In his place is the man the Vietnamese call ngươ ἲ hung ác, or Satan.”
A man from Logan’s old squad. How was that possible if—from what Anderson discovered—Logan, Hammond, Humphrey, and one other man were the only ones to survive that botched mission? Remy examined the items Steele had given him. The damage would indicate he’d survived a fire. A shiver raced through Remy’s body at the thought of being burned alive. And if the living men in his squad had left him behind … burned and dying would make any person go mad.
“Trying to piece this whole mess together?” Steele asked.
“Why call him Satan?”
“Because he looks like the devil incarnate. He lost his right foot from the ankle down and half of his body was burned by napalm.”
“Napalm? No one ever survived that.”
She smoothed back her mussed hair. “He did, simply because he was on the outer fringes of the drop zone but close enough to get the backdraft.”
Remy hissed. “You said he changed his name after your mother was murdered.”
“He didn’t change it, those who feared him did. A guerrilla group called ‘The Hell Eaters,’ imprisoned and tortured him. My mother rescued him, brought him back from death, fell in love with him, and gave him a child. In repayment for defying them, The Hell Eaters sniffed her out and murdered her in the open, where Father could see it.” She shuddered. “That was after every man took his turn with her. Father believed they raped her to death.”
Remy recoiled at her words. The same could be said of what happened to Marie. Was that Cody’s fate if he didn’t get to her in time? God, no, don’t let it be true. She’d suffered under that once before. A second time would destroy her, if she survived.
Swallowing against the tightness in his throat, Remy forged ahead. “What did he do?”
“Retaliated. Attacked the camp alone and tortured their leader until he begged for mercy. Sadly, Father lost all of his compassion. He gouged out the leader’s eyes while he was still alive, then slit his throat. After that, Father became their leader and brought a bloody hell down on the entire area.”
That was how Jack Humphrey suffered. Remy schooled his features to resist the urge to cringe when he recalled the image of Humphrey hanging upside down. “How does an American get that far?”
Steele sniffed. “Live through the hell he did and you’d understand.”
Again, their phones rang. He growled in response to the incessant intrusion and dragged his BlackBerry out to hit ignore. If the department was trying to get a hold of him about his partner and his wife, they could damn well wait. He was getting his info right from the source. Once he and Steele had this hashed out, then he’d answer their biddings.
“How do you know all of this?” He slid the phone back in his pocket. “You couldn’t have been very old.”
“Father made certain I knew the whole story and fed off his bitterness.”
He handed the dog tags and card back to her. “How did you end up here and working in DPD?”
She returned the items to the box and set it back on the self. “Long story short, my mission was simple: become an American and find the men who abandoned him so he could repay them for the horrors he suffered. Except he hadn’t figured that I wouldn’t retain his bloodthirsty desire.”
This beating around the bush had gone on long enough. “Nothing you’ve told me convinces me that my wife isn’t being tortured to death or already dead.”
“Father’s ruthless, but he can’t bring himself to torture a woman. Never has. I’ve seen him abuse or kill them, but he never made them suffer the way he’s made men suffer. I can’t say the same about some of the men he commands.”
Dread replaced Remy’s irritation. “That doesn’t reassure me either.”
Steele hung her head. “I am sorry, LeBeau. I had hoped to help you protect your bride. It’s out of my hands.”
He fisted his hands, fissures of his previous anger returned. “It’s not over yet.”
“Unless you know where to find Father, it’s done. He will complete the mission and return to Vietnam.”
“The mission? What are you talking about?”
This time the text message alert toned on his BlackBerry, stopping Steele’s answer. Since her phone didn’t respond in kind, it must be someone different. Growling, he dug out the BlackBerry from his pocket and opened the message without first checking who it was from. An address blinked back at him. What the …?
He scrolled to the sender and his body went cold. Logan.
“I know where your father has my wife.”
“How?”
Remy pinned Steele with a glare. “My father-in-law is taking matters into his own hands.”
She groaned. “He’s already dead.”
“Not if I have any say.” Remy shoved the BlackBerry into his pocket. “And you’re going with me.”
• • •
The dark and the rain made it difficult to get to this out-of-the-way hellhole. How reminiscent of Vietnam. Waterlogged mud caked up to the ankles and danger everywhere. The lone difference: it wasn’t so blasted muggy.
Logan shed his coat and hat and tossed them inside the truck cab. Settling the palm of his hand over the butt of his sidearm, he flipped the snap off and pulled the gun out of its holster. He’d thought long and hard on the drive here about what it would take to get Cody safely out of this mess. He placed the gun on the seat and left it. Shutting the door, he walked away from the truck and didn’t look back.
Whereas before he’d been determined to fight it out, this time, with his daughter’s and unborn grandchild’s lives at stake, Logan would not purposely provoke his enemy.
He slogged through the muck toward the dimly lit house, waiting for them to step out of the shadows. They had always moved as a pack in Nam—why would they be any different more than forty years later? As he breached the yard’s perimeter he spotted four men emerging from behind the corners of the house. Logan didn’t slow his pace, and they converged with him at the base of the house. Only then did he stop.
The main door screeched open and a figure hobbled out from the interior. Logan couldn’t make out the man’s features other than he was short, stocky, and one leg appeared shorter than the other, causing him to walk with the limp. The man chuckled as he halted halfway across the old porch.
“I came,” Logan said.
“Yes, yes, you did.” The voice was raspy and carried the lilt of an accent. He spoke to the men in what Logan remembered as Vietnamese.
Though he’d fallen out of practice speaking the language, Logan could pick out a few words, among them “bring the girl.” It meant Cody was still alive. Two of the men disappeared, leaving the other two to bracket Logan.
“She better be in perfect condition.” To his ears, his tone held the menace he spoke with.
“She is not dead. Be grateful for that, Sarge.” The moniker was spewed with enough venom to make Logan recoil. Shuffling forward, the man on the porch flicked on a flashlight and held the beam under his face. “Oh, my King, thy reckoning has come.”
“Zhao?” Shock reverberated through Logan, making his legs weak.
How? He was dead. Logan had watched him fall under the barrage of gunfire that erupted from the village. Zhao’s body had burned up in the napalm drop—it was why they hadn’t found it and half the bodies of the massacred villagers.
“Can’t wrap your head around it, can you?” Zhao lowered the flashlight and flicked it off. “Hump said it was impossible. Prophet, well, Prophet wasn’t able to say much of anything.”
“You let us believe you were dead for more than forty years?”
“I didn’t let you believe anything. You were the one who called the retreat and left me—injured and screaming—to avoid burning to death.”
“That still doesn’t excuse you from not making any attempt to contact us and evacuate you out of there. Had we known, we would’ve come—”
“Enough!” Zhao smashed the flashlight against the porch railing. The shattered pieces clanged against the wood. “You are not in charge any more, Lewis. This time, I’m the one giving the orders.”
“You can take your orders and shove ’em.”
Logan turned at his daughter’s bold remark. He could barely make her out marching between her guards, and from the way she moved, something was off. “Cody, are you okay?”
