Chapter 21
Chapter 21
T he look on Steve’s face said the pain was excruciating and the fentanyl was starting to mess with his head. I held up the picture of Miriam, Ruth, and Sadie. “Steve. They matter. You don’t.”
“And my girls?”
I shook my head. “I’m not like you.”
The relief on his face was palatable.
I glanced at my watch. “You might have sixty seconds.”
I placed a phone in front of him.
I knew he could easily call someone and use predetermined words to signal that he was under duress. Need help. Come heavy. I’d done it with Summer. “Midnight ballet.” I also knew that he probably knew that I knew.
He eyed the phone. “If I initiate contact in the next seven days, they’ll know I’m in a bad way. You won’t have much time.”
“I expected as much. I’d feel let down if you didn’t have protocols. Who else can you call?”
He spoke the number from memory. I dialed. It rang twice when somebody with a thick New York accent picked up. “What!”
Steve attempted to sound like he was not in pain. “Problem with the transfer.”
The man cussed and responded, “No. You’re milking me.” Followed with more cuss words mixed in for color.
“Follow the money. Where’d it come from?”
“An offshore account. Transferred in from another offshore account that came from a third and so on.”
Steve tried to sound tough but his resolve was waning. “Do you make money off me?”
“Don’t start that. I perform a service.”
“Do I have friends?”
The vulgar, accented voice on the other end didn’t sound so certain at the mention of “friends.” “Hey, I don’t rat on you. And I don’t rat on your customers.”
Steve’s eyes rolled back in his head and stayed there for several seconds before he shook it off. “Not asking you to rat. Asking you to text me the trail of transfers.”
A pause. I heard keystrokes in the background. By now, I was pretty sure Eddie had discovered the identity of the mysterious voice on the other end. Anything more out of him was gravy. “Check your phone.”
Steve motioned to me to hang up, which I did.
“That will buy you a little time, but not much. When...” Steve eyed the phone. “He gets to drinking tonight, he’ll get mad, rerun this conversation in his mind out loud, at the bar, and then he’ll start dialing for sympathy. Eventually he’ll dial one of the guys on my team. In a few hours, they’ll figure it out.” He looked around the room, then at me. “Then we’ll start hunting you.”
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
What Steve didn’t know was that as soon as we left this room, Stackhouse and a few of his government buddies were going to enter this room like cats and silently remove Steve to a room that doesn’t exist in a military prison—a room from which he would not soon see the light of day. And his friends wouldn’t be as kind as me. I stared at him a minute. Studying his tattoos. His left, unbroken, forearm contained a US flag. Stars and stripes. The ink on the flag was older. The ink on the flames surrounding and now consuming the flag was not.
My observation brought a realization to mind. Steve was fit. Cool under pressure. Calculating. At one time, Steve had been idealistic. Probably a gifted soldier. Fought for a cause. Then something happened and he became disillusioned. Something doused his passion. Steve sold out. And burned his flag. I leaned in close. I eyed the ink. Then him. “What happened to you?”
He paused. My question seemed to make him more uncomfortable than Clay’s cane. He squirmed. “The money.”
I shook my head. “No. Before that. Before the money bought you.”
More squirming. “That’s classified.”
Camp handed me his phone. Eddie had uncovered it. Steve was telling the truth. I sat back. “Steve, did people betray you, or did your country?”
“What’s the difference?”
“I’m your country. Aaron Ashley is your country. His daughters are your country. You took an oath.”
“They left us, sir.”
I don’t know if it was the pain or my words, but Steve’s eyes became glassy. I paused. “Was it worth it?”
He studied the girl. The penthouse. His broken arm.
So I asked again, “What have you gained?”
Steve shook his head. “Can’t seem to find my way back, sir.”
Staring at Steve, I knew one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt: Without Bones, that could have been me. I could be Steve. Disillusioned. Sold out. A broken man filled with regret. But Steve didn’t have my commanding officer. He didn’t have Ezekiel Walker. Bones had walked down into my disillusion and turned on a light. He’d rescued me before I walked into the darkness. Before I ended up right here. A singular thought echoed through my mind: Then Bones...
I injected the Narcan into Steve’s nose. The effect was immediate.
I stood, studied Steve, and felt the pain of Bones’s absence. Camp studied Steve’s burner phone and the text received from the vulgar voice in New York. Camp read the text, then nodded. I turned to Clay, who was still standing within a cane’s reach of Steve. “You have anything you want to say?”
He shook his head once. “Already said it.”
Steve knew his die was cast. “Sir? ”
Halfway out the door, I turned.
He swallowed, and judging from the look on his face, the truth was not sitting well. “Any possible way for a return?”
I knew what he was asking. “To what?”
He shook his head. “Just lost my way, sir.”
Eddie spoke in my ear. “Stackhouse is three minutes out.”
I turned back to Steve. “That’s up to you. But if Aaron Ashley’s daughters don’t make it out alive, unmolested, and soon, then the answer is not just ‘no’ but ‘no forever.’”
Steve hung his head and didn’t plead. Didn’t beg me to give him one more chance. He’d had too many already. He knew that. Steve was surrendering. He knew it was time.
As I pulled out of the parking lot, my phone rang. Caller ID read “Stackhouse.”
“Yes.”
Stackhouse sounded amused. “Somebody wants to talk with you.”
Steve did not sound good, suggesting that whoever Stackhouse had brought had put the leather to him. Steve sounded as though he was speaking through a mouthful of marbles. “Check your phone. He’s not one of my team, but he will know who hired us.”
“How do you know him?”
“We worked together.” A prolonged pause. “Before.”
I knew what he was saying, but I wanted to hear him say it. I wanted the reality to set in, and I knew it would if it came out of his mouth. “Before?”
“Before I lost my way.” A pause. “Sir?”
I waited.
“If I could ever help you . . .”
“Help me what?”
“Just trying to get back to good, sir.”
I hung up rather certain I’d not seen the last of Steve Plexis.