Deep Ice (25 page)

“Damn,” said Henry to Sarah. “How come the man split so fast? Do you think we – that he was tipped off somehow?”

Sarah was holding Shep’s leash, so she was first to notice the dog’s low growl. Shep started to pul her away. She looked in the direction he was tugging her and saw two men moving across a darkened hall that led to a nightclub near the restaurant.

“Henry – it’s him!”

Shep yelped unexpectedly and lunged forward. The leash slipped easily from her hand as the dog ran off towards the men he’d seen.

Henry looked around in total confusion.

The three military agents were already in the elevator, and his dog was suddenly in pursuit of terrorists.

“Stop, Shep!” he yelled as though commanding a sled team.

Immediately the dog slowed to a walk, looking back at his master.

Henry ran to grab the leash. As soon as he’d done so, Shep leapt forward again, this time with his pink tongue dangling happily from his open jaws.

Sarah nervously followed.

When Henry got to the door he’d seen the terrorists enter, he stopped and reached into his pocket for the gun. His fingers brushed its steel handle, but then he took his hand away. He had no authority to pul a gun. If a Chilean cop spotted him it might be him, not Suarez, who got shot.

When Sarah caught up to him he handed her the leash. “Take him, use two hands. Don’t come in the bar.”

Then he opened the door slowly and entered.

By contrast with the brightness of the lobby, the room was dimly lit. Henry walked as casually as he could through the thick smell of coffee, beer and cigarettes to the bar, trying to scan the room as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Gradually he could make out booths and tables all about him, most of them full of the lunchtime crowd. The bar itself had half a dozen men seated around it; they seemed to be watching a soccer game on the TV above the bar. As he reached the bar, two more couples came into the room from a far entrance.

He could see no sign of the men he’d been following.

Henry edged up to the bar and rested his elbows on it, continuing to survey the room as furtively as possible.

The bartender came over immediately and tapped Henry’s shoulder to get his attention.

“
Como esta, señor? Cerveza?
”

“Two men came in here a moment ago. Where did they go?”

The barman said nothing but pointed to an exit sign at the far end of the room. Henry could make out that the bar was situated between the hotel and a mal of stores that ran through an adjoining building. The fugitives could be anywhere.

Cursing under his breath, he decided the best thing was to let the professionals handle the chase.

Sarah and Shep were waiting outside the door where he’d left them. They gazed at him the same way: wide-eyed.

“Are they in there?” said Sarah.

“Just passed through, I guess. There’s at least one other entrance to the bar. They could have gone anywhere. I think we should let the pros do the chasing.”

“Fine with me.” She handed Henry the leash. “Shep didn’t like you being out of sight.”

Henry took the leash without comment and headed back to the hotel lobby. At the front desk he breathlessly explained the situation to the manager. The man reached for the phone and gave instructions as calmly as before. “Have the American police contact me immediately.”

Sarah had decided to sit down and wait this out in the atrium. Once more Henry found himself gazing at her, noticing how lovely she looked as the light streamed down on her from above.

Then he saw Grimes and Hayes walking towards him from the main entrance. Grimes carried a small black machine gun loosely under his right arm. The general was in full uniform, wearing a long unbuttoned topcoat.

“Henry!” said Hayes. “How’s the party?”

Grimes studied Sarah for a moment, then turned his attention to Henry. He gave Henry a half-smile and nodded but said nothing.

“Party?” said Henry.

The general looked around the room, glared at the manager, then began grilling Henry for information. He was surprisingly efficient at extracting the core data. Within moments he was on a cel phone and heading with Grimes towards the elevator. As he went he told Henry to stay in the lobby and keep his eyes open.

“There are still three men in the room. This is what we’ve been waiting for.”

Henry pulled Shep to his feet and went to join Sarah in the atrium. He sighed and leaned back on the sleek black leather upholstery.

“Damn,” he said. “It’s all happening too fast.”

“I wasn’t surprised to see the general and his war dog march in here.” Sarah seemed calm again. “Just surprised it took them so long – with their Stealth planes and whatnot.”

He told her about the three men still up in the room.

“Good. Someone for Grimes to kill. I’ll bet he’s happy as a kid in a toystore right now.”

“I was hoping he’d get to kill someone before too long,” replied Henry with a straight face. “That’s nice, isn’t it?”

“Terrific.”

#

Five floors directly over their heads, Lieutenant Tilbury and his two military agents waited by the elevators for the arrival of Hayes and Grimes. Their eyes never left the hallway or the door to room 555. Finally the elevator door opened and they were joined by the general and the SEAL.

“Where’s the rest of your men?” asked Tilbury.

“Three on the roof,” said Grimes. “Show me the room.”

When the door to room 555 flew open, only one of the three men inside jumped to his feet and drew a pistol. The other two remained momentarily frozen in their seats, holding beers and staring at Grimes and the three military agents with their jaws agape. Then suddenly the beer cans crashed to the floor as they went for their weapons.

Grimes fired his Uzi with deadly precision. Hodges’s thigh exploded, and he went reeling to the floor. The other two were shot by Tilbury and his men as they dove for cover.

Grimes walked over to Hodges and knelt down so that his knee pressed into the man’s temple. “We want info, not bodies!” he remarked to Tilbury as he casually broke Hodges’s thumb pulling the automatic weapon from the man’s hand. “Oops.”

As Hayes came in he winced at the sound of splintering bone.

“Jesus, Kai! Is that real y necessary?”

“Call an ambulance,” said Grimes to one of the agents. “See if either of those two is alive.” He pointed to the bodies strewn on the carpet.

Already a large pool of blood was growing around the face of the man in front of the sofa – he was obviously dead. But a soft moan came from man lying half-behind it. One of his feet twitched as he regained consciousness and tried to move, crammed as he was between the furniture and the wall.

With two fingers, Tilbury picked up the man’s pistol by its barrel and slipped it into a plastic bag he’d taken from his pocket.

Hayes saw the bag and gave a watery smile.

“Where’d you get the bag, Lieutenant? Are you always ready for evidence-gathering?”

“It’s from my lunch, sir,” said the lieutenant with a sheepish grin.

The general grinned more broadly.

“That’ll do fine,” said Grimes, without cracking a smile. “Good work.”

The SEAL’s cold response froze the general’s smile.

Behind him, one of Tilbury’s men stood by the open door. “Close that, soldier,” snapped Hayes. “We don’t want hotel guests wandering in here.”

Grimes had Hodges sitting up in a chair. He’d watched the man’s responses careful y as he’d methodical y wrapped a large room-service napkin around the smashed leg. He knew shock would set in soon. Already Hodges was beginning to shake as numbness was replaced by pain. Grimes knew that any information from Hodges would have to come soon or it wouldn’t come at all.

“Do you hear me?” he asked politely. “I hurt you bad, didn’t I?”

The man’s eyes met the SEAL’s as Grimes twisted his broken thumb a bit.

“Listening to me?” said Grimes.

Hodges grimaced in pain, nodded and looked down at the wet red pool growing in the middle of the napkin on his leg. He coughed spasmodically.

“I’ll get you to a doctor soon,” continued Grimes, “but first I have to know where Suarez has gone, and you have to tell me that.”

Hodges looked back at Grimes. His eyes began to fill with red rage.

“Before you decline to tell me,” said Grimes in the same courteous tone, “and I know you do
want
to decline to tell me, I should let you know that I will kill you very painful y if you do.
Very
painful y.”

Grimes moved Hodges’s thumb a fraction of an inch to the right, and Hodges made a sound he’d never made before in his life.

Grimes stood up. “You’re not saying anything?”

He shot Hodges in the right arm, slightly above the elbow.

“You sure?” shouted Grimes above the man’s gasping screams.

The general, about to protest, decided instead to leave the room. In the hallway he pulled out his cel phone and tried to dial the number of the
Enterprise
, but his fingers were shaking too much. He heard Hodges scream at least twice more before he got connected to Halsey.

“What’s that noise behind you, General? Is that some guy screaming?”

“Just Grimes doing research, Brad.”

He told Halsey the few details he had.

“Shit!” snarled Halsey’s voice from the phone. “We have to be careful not to tip off Suarez before we nab him. He might be able to detonate the remaining nukes from anywhere. He’s probably spent years setting all this up.”

“At least now we can be pretty certain it’s him,” said Hayes mildly.

#

Henry knew it was over when the ambulance arrived. As three gurneys were wheeled into the lobby and loaded onto the elevator, he nodded significantly to Sarah, but said nothing. Then they settled to watch the action like any other spectator in the hotel that day.

“This is interesting,” she said.

He didn’t answer. He just sat there holding Shep’s leash. All he could imagine was the worst. Which three bodies would be coming down in those elevators?

By now the lobby was full of people, all of them speculating as to the nature of the emergency. The most they knew was that no one was being allowed on the fifth floor.

Soon a squad of armoured Chilean soldiers entered the hotel, followed by advance members of the media.

“ ‘Interesting’,” said Henry, turning to catch Sarah’s eye. “Just like every other piece of history, I guess.

Somebody’s bad luck is somebody else’s morning news.”

Time passed. Still no stretchers returned to the lobby.

A half-hour went by.

Eventually the crowd began to thin, but there was still a sizeable bunch of curious onlookers when final y Grimes and Hayes appeared in the lobby. Hayes came smartly across and murmured for the two of them to follow Grimes and himself to the bar.

Once away from the buzzing mob in the lobby, Henry stopped in his tracks. “What’s going on?”

Grimes reached for Henry’s arm to pul him along, but quickly withdrew his hand when Shep let out a growl. “Reel in that hound of yours. We’ve got talking to do and we can’t do it here.”

Henry patted Shep’s side. “Easy, there. You’re bitchin’ at the wrong dude. Besides, you don’t like seal meat, remember?”

Following Hayes, they entered the bar and chose a table in a far corner. Shep seemed pleased to lie down. He shimmied his body awkwardly under the table, forcing them to tuck their feet under their chairs.

“Jesus M. Joseph,” said Hayes. “You and this fucking dog, Gibbs, pardon my French, Miss. . . er, French. I swear to God I. . .”

“Glad you like him, General. You gonna tell us what’s going on or are we here to talk about our pets?”

“You’re in a swell mood, aren’t you, hero?” said Grimes.

Hayes told them tersely about the three men in room 555. He spared them the more painful details of Grimes’s interrogation of the man they’d discovered from his wall et was called Trevor Hodges.

“Commander Grimes is surprisingly good at encouraging terrorists to divulge information,” he said in conclusion. “I was. . . very impressed.”

“But you don’t have Suarez,” said Henry.

“Nope,” said Grimes. “But you’ve seen him here, we understand. Right?”

“
We’ve
seen him,” said Henry, pointing to himself and Sarah. “You know, he doesn’t really look too much like his picture – the one you have.”

“What?” said Hayes, rearing back from the table.

“What are you telling us, Gibbs?”

“Henry’s right,” said Sarah. “I talked to him. His face is tanned. He has a well kept short beard, and he wears sunglasses. That picture must have been from when he was in Germany, years ago. He looked thinner, more – I don’t know –
ruddy
.”

“ ‘Ruddy’?” said Grimes. “What the hell is that?”

“Used,” said Sarah.

“Weathered,” corrected Henry. “From sun – sun, wind and cold.”

“Are you saying our people, if they see him, won’t be able to identify him from that picture?” asked Hayes.

“I’m – we’re – telling you what he looks like,” said Henry.

Grimes looked around for a waiter. “I need a fucking drink.”

“No, you don’t,” said the general. “We all need to stay as sober as possible, Kai.”

“I’m
thirsty
, sir,” said Grimes. “Torture and murder dry a body out, you know.”

“You killed someone?” said Sarah, looking appalled.

“Just a little bit.”

They were silent for a moment. Then Hayes told Henry and Sarah that only one of the three men had been killed in the short gunfight. The name Trevor Hodges matched that of one of Suarez’s employees – a goon. Though he didn’t detail how it had been handled, the general mentioned that the interrogation of Hodges had been fruitless. So far.

“Are you sure he doesn’t know where Suarez is going?” asked Henry, looking at Grimes.

“Oh, yes, he definitely doesn’t know where
Rudy
went,” said the SEAL, still trying for the waitress’s attention.

She finally saw his hand in the air and came over.

“Pepsi?” said Grimes.

“
Si, señor.
”

“They always have Pepsi,” said Grimes with a grim laugh. “I guess Coke is something else down here.”