CHAPTER 3 #4
“But you’re obviously soul mates. How long have you had him?”
“Four years. He was a year old when I saw him at the ATF training school.” She smiled reminiscently. “He’d just flunked out of guide dog school and ATF picked him up.”
“He flunked out?”
“Not because he wasn’t smart enough,” she said defensively. “He would just get distracted and that could have been a danger.”
“Attention deficit disorder?”
“It’s his nose. He was only a puppy and his sense of smell is probably the keenest ATF has ever run across. When he’s constantly bombarded with scents, it’s natural that he’d become distracted.”
He held up his hands. “I didn’t mean to insult your dog. I have too much respect for dogs. I’ve seen them work during combat conditions and I’d rather have one of them as a buddy than anyone on two legs.”
“Sorry. I overreacted. Roll over, Monty.” She started clipping his belly. “You have an accent. English?”
“I was born and raised in Liverpool.”
“Logan says you met years ago in Japan.”
He nodded. “When we were both young and green. Well, younger and greener. I was hard as nails and Logan was no pussycat even before Chen Li died.”
“Chen Li?”
“His wife. She died of leukemia a few years after I met Logan. Not an easy death and not an easy time for him either. He was crazy about her.”
Personal problems. Yes, that would be classified as personal problems. She wished she hadn’t asked the question that had led to this revelation. So he’d had a tragedy in his life. Life was full of hard knocks. She would not feel sorry for him, dammit. “I’m sure he was able to handle it.”
“Oh, yes, he handled it.” Galen finished washing the last plate. “It turned him a little nuts for a while and then the scars formed and he was okay. We batted around the Pacific for about a year before he went back to Tokyo.”
“That’s when you introduced him to grubs?”
He smiled. “No, that was later. After the first edge had dulled. He would have broken my neck if I’d tried that the first year after Chen Li died.” He looked at Monty appraisingly. “He looks like a big yellow bear without all that hair.”
“At least he’s cooler.” She sat back on her heels and began to pick up the shorn hair on the ground. “I wonder where Logan is. He’s been gone longer than I thought.”
“He might have walked over to the ruins after he left Castleton.” He frowned. “Nasty. They must have been like sitting ducks for Rudzak.”
She shivered. “Why would he go there?”
“Maybe he didn’t. But I’d bet on it. Logan feels very bad about what happened here. Perhaps he’s trying to make some sense of it.”
“I can’t see Logan being that sensitive.”
“But then, you don’t want to see him like that, do you?” He wiped his hands on a towel. “Never mind. I’m bored with all this meaningful chatter. It offends my shallow soul. I need a bit of mindless recreation before I hit the sack. Do you play poker?”
“Why did you want to come back here?” Castleton swallowed hard as he glanced around the charred ruins. “God, it’s hard for me. We’re not going to find anything. I told you I’d retrieved every bit of information that wasn’t destroyed. I didn’t slip up, Logan.”
“I believe you. I know how efficient you are.” He didn’t look at Castleton as he knelt and picked up a scorched wooden box. “What do you suppose was in this?”
“I don’t know. Computer disks, maybe.”
Logan was silent a moment. “Four dead. Carl Jenkins, Betty Krenski, Dorothy Desmond, Bob Simms. Did you know Betty Krenski was trying to adopt an HIV baby from an orphanage in South Africa?”
“Yes, but I didn’t know that you did.”
“She asked for my help. She said that someone had to care for those children. I tried to talk her out of it. Assuming responsibility for a baby with HIV is a heart-breaker.”
“But you agreed to help her?”
“People have to make their own decisions. We can influence but we can’t dictate. I told her if she still wanted to do it at the end of the year, I’d help her.”
“I wish she’d gone through me. It was my job to take care of personal problems.”
“Did you think I stopped being responsible for the people I sent down here when I hired you?”
“You’re a busy man.”
“Not that busy. This was a very special project to me. I read every one of their dossiers when you hired them, and I can quote passages from your monthly reports. I never met those people, but I felt as if I had.”
“They were all good people. No one knows that better than me.” Castleton paused. “I don’t mean to be unsympathetic, but I have to go. I can’t do anything about the people who were killed, but I can get those wounded into a hospital in the States.”
“Yes, I know. You’re in a hurry.” He stood up. “And coming here must upset you.”
“Why are we here?” Castleton repeated.
“I thought it fitting. Galen says I have no sense of ceremony or protocol, but that’s not quite true. Not when it comes to this particular business.”
“What business? What did you want me to do, Logan?”
“Just die.” He whirled and smashed the ball of his hand upward under Castleton’s nose, splintering the bones and driving them into his brain.