Close Up the Sky (18 page)

The radio monitor
he kept in his apartment had alerted him that a helicopter bearing the remains
of someone killed in the desert was approaching Apache Point, and he had rushed
to the rooftop of the research building to watch it land. A feeling akin to
ecstasy had flooded over him when they unloaded the body and laid it on the
concrete landing pad. With the death of the man whose corpse lay before him, a
major obstacle in bringing his plans to fruition had been eliminated. But his
elation had turned to cold fury when he saw the detective emerge from the
helicopter still alive. He knew then that Osterman had failed, and that it was
his
body they had brought back. The
assassin's face materialized in his mind. The vision made him wish Osterman
was
still alive and within his reach. If he
was
, he would suffer a more painful death than all the
demons of hell could devise. Those who served him always paid a high price for
failure. It was obvious now that he would have to find another way to kill
Leahy. Suddenly, the time and place to accomplish it occurred to him. It was
just a matter of waiting for the right moment. The thought brought some reason
back to him, and the rage began to subside. He pulled a great draught of air
into his lungs and let it out slowly. Glistening sweat stood out on his upper
body, and his eyes, bloodshot from strain, slowly began to clear.

For a few seconds he looked around the room, trying to reorient himself
to his surroundings. When he had regained full control, a smile spread across
his face. All was not lost. Everything else was going according to plan. Osterman's
failure was just a minor setback, a slight flaw in the fabric of a greater
whole. In the final analysis it would make no difference. He looked at the clay
shards scattered about the floor. A feeling of regret at the wanton act of
destruction passed through him, but disappeared almost as quickly as it had
come. Some things were ephemeral, just momentary sandbars in the relentless
tide of history; but others lasted forever. A new plan of attack was beginning
to form in his mind as he began picking up the shattered remains of the ancient
king.

Detective Sergeant
Ryan Pierce pushed the up button on the elevator bank at Albuquerque General
Hospital. The indicator above the doors showed the nearest one was on its way
down from the seventh floor. It was still dark outside and the hospital lobby
was almost deserted. It was too early for the day shift to begin making their
rounds, so if he was going to pull off what Leahy wanted him to do, this was
the best time. In another hour there would be too many eyes and ears around.

While he waited he
reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out the envelope given to him by the
taciturn Marine officer an hour earlier. The pilot of the military helicopter
had not even stopped his engine while the delivery was being made. The officer
had simply asked for his identification, then handed him the envelope and a
rifle. He was gone before he had a chance to ask any questions.

He rubbed the
envelope between his fingers and
thumb
a few times
then took out the paper and read it for the third time. The instructions were
strange, even for someone connected with Apache Point. He turned his back to
the elevators and looked around to check if anyone was standing nearby. He
glanced down at the note. It was handwritten and terse:

Ryan - The man delivering this note is
Captain Charles Williams. A lot of lives may depend on this. Colonel Robert
Pope from Apache Point was admitted to Albuquerque General in the last few days
as a stroke victim. Imperative to get blood and urine samples from him and
process through crime lab toxicology. Look for poison or chemicals of some
type. If anything found ask forensic if it could induce coma. No time to
process this through official channels, results needed by tonight. Also
important you tell no one. Will explain details later. Rifle used by sniper
last night in attempt to kill me. Sniper dead and had no ID. See if lab can
raise any numbers and trace if possible. Will contact you at your office by
telephone later today. Phones here not secure so use caution. Can meet in
person if necessary. Taylor and I are depending on you. I owe you one. Matt
Leahy

He bit his lower
lip and frowned at the note. The reference to Taylor disturbed him. Besides his
wife, there were only two women in his life who really mattered. One of them
had been his sister; Taylor was the other. Kathy was dead, supposedly in a
plane crash at sea. Now the mysterious research facility was threatening Taylor
in some unexplained way. He remembered the night she had told him about Kathy's
death. The pain she felt from the personal loss, and her remorse from having to
fabricate a clumsy lie, had shown in her face like a beacon. She was not the
type to invent such a story without overwhelming reasons. He knew that if he
had pressed her for details she would have broken easily, so he had simply
acted as though he accepted the story at face value. Her sincerity and tender
heart were among the qualities that made him love her so much. For those
reasons he had asked no questions, later conducting his own investigation into
the matter.

Anyone who had
been in police work for any length of time always knew a few ranking officers
in sister law enforcement agencies. Methodically, he began contacting each of
them. Neither the Coast Guard nor the National Transportation Safety Board had
any record of a plane crash at sea during the time Kathy had supposedly been
killed. A contact inside Interpol made inquiries for him with foreign police
and military agencies, all with negative results. The FBI knew about Apache
Point, yet they didn't
really
know
about it. A friend inside the Bureau tried to get some information on what kind
of research was done there, but came up with nothing. All information about the
facility was officially blocked to those without a top-secret clearance. Inquiries
inside the Secret Service met with the same response. He tried going through
the military police and hit a block wall. They suggested he drop the matter. As
a last resort he rented a jeep and tried gaining access to the facility by
driving through the desert. Less than a mile inside its security zone he had
been stopped by a military helicopter and forced to turn back. He never got
close enough to actually see the buildings. Within twenty-four hours his
captain had called him in and ordered him to stay away from the place.

For the first time
in his fifteen-year police career, Ryan Pierce was completely stymied. Now,
after so many weeks of frustration, the door was being opened by the most
unlikely of sources: An Atlanta police detective. Leahy's note contained just
enough information to be tantalizing. It was like being given a few pieces of a
puzzle and trying to put them together without knowing what the finished
picture was supposed to look like. But it was more than he had before, and he
expected to get the rest of the pieces very soon.

The elevator doors
slid open with a musical tone. A dark haired female technician carrying a tray
of test tubes stepped out and smiled tiredly as she swept passed him. He got on
and punched a button. When he reached the fifth floor he exited and took the
dimly lit hallway to the nurse's station. An attractive blonde in her late
thirties sat inside the glass cubical thumbing through the pages of a medical
chart. He had checked earlier to make sure that this particular nurse was on
duty. He slipped through the door and sat down on the edge of the desk before
she looked up.

"Mornin',
sweet thing," he said cheerfully.

"Ryan!" Her
face showed surprise, obviously glad to see him. "What are you doing here
this time of the morning?" Her name was Carla Toole. He had known her
since he had been a rookie patrolman and she had been a student nurse just
starting her training in the emergency room. Over the years they had become
good friends, and together they had seen more than their share of blood and
death.

"I got to
thinking about you and just couldn't sleep," he joked, leaning over and
kissing her on the cheek.

"You're the
worst liar I ever saw," she said with a grin. "What are you up
to?"

"How come
you're always so suspicious?"

"You can ask
me that, knowing how well I know you?"

He laughed. "You
really know how to hurt a guy, don't you, Toole?"

"Only in self
defense," she responded with a playful jab to his stomach. "Where've
you been keeping yourself lately? How are Jenny and the kids?"

"Fat and
sassy as ever." He leaned back and looked both ways along the deserted
hallway. "Where is everybody, or do you have the night duty all
alone?" He knew the answer before she responded. The fifth floor was the
hospital's intensive care unit. It never had less than three or four nurses on
duty, even at night.

"Taking
vitals and checking monitors. You looking for someone in particular?"

"Just you,
babe. I need some help."

"You can say
that again," she said, still joking with him.

"You've got a
patient here by the name of Robert Pope?"

She looked pensive
for a couple of seconds, and then said, "Yeah, the army guy. You know
him?"

"Marine,"
he corrected her. "How is he?"

"In a
coma." She fished one of the metal-bound charts out of a file holder on
the desk and flipped it open. "Been that way since he was admitted. Has he
done something wrong?"

"It may be a
question of what's been done to him. What's the prognosis?"

"He's right
on the brink. His vital signs are just high enough for him to be alive. I doubt
he'll last much longer."

"Has anybody
been around to see him?"

"Like
who?"

"Friends, relatives,
anybody like that?"

"Just a
couple of military doctors."

"From
where?"

"I don't
know, Ryan,” she answered shaking her head. “What are you looking for?"

He picked up a
loose paper clip from the desk and began bending it at odd angles. She waited
patiently while he played with it. He seemed to be weighing whether or not he
was going to tell her anything. The clip finally broke in half and he tossed
the pieces into a trashcan beside her desk.

"We go back a
long way, Carla. This could be big trouble, so what I'm telling you is strictly
on the QT, okay?"

She leaned back in
her chair and gave him a look loaded with disdain. Her silence lasted so long
it made him nervous.

"You know you
can trust me, Ryan Pierce," she finally said in an indignant tone. "Besides,
so far you haven't told me anything. Now, what is it?"

"This guy's
from that secret military base out at Apache Point."

She considered
that for a minute. Like most people who had lived in the Albuquerque area for
any length of time, she knew the Apache Point area was forbidden to air and
foot traffic. Neither she, nor anybody she knew, had the
vaguest
idea of what went on there. Because of the secrecy involved, the installation
usually left an impression of danger in everyone's mind. The comatose man in
ICU bed number ten was, as far as she knew, the only person she had ever seen
who actually worked there. There were the occasional military people around the
airport, but no one ever knew who
they
were or where
they were going; they were just there. Over the years the mystique had spawned
stories of strange occurrences in the desert. There were reports of aircraft
disappearing after accidentally straying into the Apache Point area, and
sinister forms had been seen moving through the darkness near its perimeter. Hunters
told stories of how animals avoided the place, even though the land was their
natural habitat. Of course no one really believed the stories, but superstition
still held sway over a small portion of the local population.

Carla pursed her
lips and knitted her brows. "That gives me the willies just a
little."

He responded with
a patronizing grin. "You don't believe all those stories do you?"

"You know me
better than that," she shot back. "But you'll have to admit there's
something mighty strange about a place you can't even get close to. And why
don't we ever see anybody who works there?
All these military
helicopters coming and going all the time, but no soldiers on the streets.
It's not like any army base I've ever heard of. Ought to be a lot of GI's
hanging around the bars looking for girls or something."

"Yeah, I
know." The memory of his experience with the stone-faced Marine in the
helicopter was still fresh in his mind. "That's why I came to see you. I
need a big favor. I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important, and I'll understand if
you can't do it."

"What is
it?" She looked expectant.

"I need blood
and urine samples from him."

Her mouth dropped
open. "What on earth for?"

"For the
crime lab. And I don't want anybody to know I have them."

"What's wrong
with the hospital tests? I can give you the results of those right now." She
reached for the chart, but he put out his hand and stopped her.

"What I'm
looking for probably wouldn't show up in them. I need our forensic pathology
boys to check it."

Carla got up and
leaned out the door. She looked down the hallway toward the ICU entrance. One
of the other nurses was standing just outside the doors discussing some
paperwork with an aid. No one else was in sight.

"You know
what could happen?" she asked Pierce. "The urine I can handle, but
drawing blood without a doctor's authorization?" She sounded doubtful.

"Like I said,
I'll understand if you can't do it." He could tell she was shaken, and he
hated asking her to put her job on the line for something he could not even
explain to himself, much less to anyone else.