Hard Rain (23 page)

T
he guy with the urn on his back was loitering outside the Charisma, plying the tourist trade. My cab caught his attention as it pulled up, but his eyes slid off my face when I got out. This was one ambulance he’d given up chasing.

I crossed the empty foyer to the elevator, which happened to arrive with a perfectly timed
ping
as I stepped up to it. The doors parted, revealing Lieutenant Colonel Wadding. He was staring at the floor as if a good friend had just been buried there. The noise of the elevator against its stops snapped the guy out of it.

‘Special Agent Vincent Cooper,’ he said when he raised his head and saw me, hitting the charm button. ‘I’ve been hoping to run into you.’ I noted that the guy’s hair was wet. I wondered how clean his back was.

‘I’d like to say the feeling’s mutual, Colonel, only I don’t happen to be driving a bus.’

Wadding bared his dental veneers at me. ‘You’re a funny man, Cooper. Say, I checked up on your friend – Tyler Dean. Y’know, it’s such a shame he’s gone. As a good friend of yours, I’d have enjoyed . . . well, I’d have enjoyed making his life even more miserable than it already was.’

I saw the red mist. ‘You need to get out of my way before we both regret it.’

‘Unless you’ve forgotten, Cooper, I’m JAG, as well as being a superior officer – a colonel, remember? So, as they say, go ahead and make my day.’

‘You’re not worth the skinned knuckle, Dick Wad.’

His eyes narrowed at the mention of his call sign. Maybe he wasn’t aware it had gone public. ‘You can refer to me as “sir”.’

‘I think that’s unlikely.’

Wadding gave a small snort and a smile crept over his lips like something out of a hole. ‘Anna told me you and she used to be involved. Now that I know a little about you – your prospects, your attitudes – I really do find it hard to believe.’ He shook his head to further illustrate his point. ‘Y’all know what I love most about your ex-girlfriend?’

I’d changed my mind about wanting to hit the guy. My new problem was deciding where.

Wadding took half a step forward and whispered in my ear, ‘It’s the way she shudders when she comes.’

‘Vin,’ said Masters, suddenly appearing on the stairs beside the elevator shaft. ‘Is that your foot jammed against the door?’ She peered around the corner to confirm it. ‘So
you’re
the hold-up. You know you’re keeping the whole damn building waiting?’ She was smiling, but the smile faded when she caught the mood. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing, Anna,’ Wadding replied. ‘Vin and I were just exchanging pleasantries. Call you later.’ He kissed her on the cheek and strode off into the gathering dusk.

Emir was angry, throwing us around as he carved up the traffic. As for Masters, she hadn’t said a word since we’d left the hotel.

‘So, what do you see in this guy?’ I asked, kicking things off.

‘Which guy? Emir?’

‘She speaks . . . No, not Emir.’

‘Which reminds me. Why did you fire him?’ Masters asked.

Emir’s eyes were hot, flitting from the road ahead to the rear-view
mirror. He dragged on his Camel and the orange embers gave his features an evil cast.

‘We die, Emir, and you’re a dead man,’ I warned.

‘Vin!’

‘Forget Emir,’ I said. ‘I’m talking about Wadding.’

‘I won’t have that conversation with you, Vin. Not here, not now. And maybe not ever.’

‘Over at Ramstein. You said you were helping Wadding. What were you helping him with?’

‘I’m not a hundred-per-cent certain but I think that’s classified. And if it’s not classified, it’s privileged.’

‘You’re not a lawyer, so those rules don’t apply. Just tell me what you were doing and quit stalling.’

Masters turned away, adjusted her jacket, thinking about it. ‘I was his liaison.’

‘His liaison for what?’

‘There were experiments with armour on the base. They shot it up with DU.’

‘What did the tests show?’

‘Look, I can’t –’

‘What did they show, damn it?’ I asked again.

‘What do you think they showed, for Christ’s sake? You subject anything to a hard rain of depleted uranium ammunition and what’s left is radioactive and stays that way for four-and-a-half-billion years.’

‘And the guy who’s going to twist that up so that the men and women who fought our wars lose their battles with cancer – he’s the guy you’re going to spend the rest of your life with?’

‘Oh, come on . . .’

‘Well, aren’t you?’

‘Look, I’m sorry about Tyler,’

‘Then why don’t you call his wife?’ I challenged. ‘Her name’s Katie, by the way. Yeah, call Katie and let her know just how sorry you are for her and the twins – their names are Talia and Montana. You’ve known Wadding for maybe six weeks plus change. Do you really have any
idea what you’re letting yourself in for with this asshole?’

‘He’s an advocate, Vin – an attorney. Attorneys sometimes take unpopular cases, root for what seems like the wrong team, unpopular causes. But that’s the system, that’s how it works. You can’t hate him for it.’

No, now it was a lot more than that.
It’s the way she shudders when she comes
.

Masters folded her arms tight like they were secured that way with straps. I went into a huddle with the door. Emir swerved into Kaplicalar Mevkii. The asphalt snaked up the hill towards the peach consulate-general building lit up bright enough to be seen from space.

‘Stop the car!’ Masters snapped.

Emir stood on the brakes.

‘What?’ I asked, thrown hard against the seatbelt.

‘Look . . .’

She was pointing at a human column standing in the parking lot. It was Ocirik. He was waiting for something, maybe for us.

‘Ocirik!’ I called as I got out. ‘What brings you all the way out here? Changed your mind about letting us search your place?’

It was clear from the deep lines of concentration across Ocirik’s bus-shelter brow that he understood possibly less than every third or fourth word I spoke. ‘I bring message,’ he said, pulling on a cigar big enough to hit a home run with.

‘Who for?’ I asked.

‘For you. Adem Fedai ask me.’

Okay, now the guy had my full attention. Masters’, too.

‘You been waiting long?’ Masters enquired.

‘Just one hours only.’

‘Why us?’ I asked.

‘You give me card, I give to him. He scare.’

‘He’s scared?’ Masters interpreted.

‘Yes. He trust America.’

‘Now I
have
heard everything,’ I said.

‘Vin!’ Masters was annoyed. ‘Go on, Ocirik. What’s the message?’

The big man took a cell phone from his pocket, dialled what I took to be his message bank, then put it on speaker. ‘You listen,’ he said. He puffed on his cigar then blew more smoke than an old Turkish Fiat.

A small, frightened voice began squeaking from the palm of Ocirik’s immense hand. ‘My name is Adem Fedai,’ it said. ‘I worked for Colonel Portman. I know you are looking for me. You must know I did not kill him. I have something you want. I took it from the colonel’s safe. I will meet you. You come to Ephesus – I will meet you at the top gate tomorrow, half an hour from closing. Before you come, you must look at the town of Kumayt in Iraq.’

The number that Fedai had called from to leave the message was an unlisted one. We couldn’t find him, but he could find us – tomorrow, sunset, at the top gate of a place called Ephesus.

We thanked Ocirik and raced inside the building or, at least, I raced. Masters took it slow, watching her shoes as she walked. As we stood in the elevator, I said, ‘Ku-may-et, my Lord, Ku-may-et . . .’

‘Perhaps Colonel Woodward was listening harder than he thought after all,’ Masters said.

She looked pale. ‘You okay?’ I asked.

‘I’m fine.’

‘You don’t look it.’

‘I’m
fine
.’

I shrugged. Normally, the deeply sensitive guy that I am would have been more concerned. ‘This is the break we’ve been hoping for,’ I told her.

‘Yeah, sounds like it could be,’ came the reply, a little low on energy. But then, nothing cools a conversation quicker than an elevator journey.

‘I went back over Portman’s place today.’

‘Why?’

‘No reason. Just went over to have another look around. Something interesting turned up.’

‘What?’

‘The postman.’ I reached into my jacket, pulled out the letter and handed it to her.

‘And here I was thinking you might have grabbed the opportunity to pay a house call on the good doctor.’

‘Nope,
way
too busy for that,’ I replied.

‘Sultan Mehmet, eh?’ She checked the return address. ‘So, Portman sent a letter he knew would get returned?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why’d he do that? What did he have to say to himself?’

‘He wrote down the combination to his floor safe, which he then sent on a round trip that’d take several weeks. I think the guy knew his goose was cooked and he wanted this to turn up should any investigation into his death be under way. This combination wouldn’t open the wall safe, and that would indicate the existence of a second safe if we hadn’t already found it.’ The elevator came to a stop with a jolt and let us out.

‘Only, Fedai got to it before us and removed the contents,’ said Masters. ‘Still doesn’t take us anywhere new, though, does it?’

No, it didn’t, but it provided a window into Portman’s state of mind leading up to his murder.

We walked into the office, the one with the painting of Mehmet stepping all over people on his way to the top. The place felt empty, on account of it was. The clock on the wall indicated eight o’clock, the darkness outside narrowing it further to eight in the evening. For us, however, the day was just starting. We both had catching up to do. I went to my desk.

‘I’m just going to take a moment,’ said Masters. She removed her jacket and ball cap, lay herself out full length on the sofa and stretched. She was wearing a lowish-cut red fitted T-shirt. If I looked I could see the tops of her breasts straining against her white lace bra. Okay, so I looked.

I tore myself away from the show and on to the package sitting on my desk. Further investigation revealed it to be a printer cartridge. The IT guy must have brought it up. I wondered if maybe there was some union rule against him installing it.

I opened the drawer of the unit, extracted the old cartridge, unpacked the new one and inserted it. After hitting the on button, I reached over to the Dell and pressed command-print. From memory, I had quite a few documents backed up in the queue.

A
ding
sounded and a box appeared on the computer screen informing me that now the printer was suffering from a paper jam. I was on the verge of making the damn thing suffer a hell of a lot worse. I breathed the deep sigh reserved for recalcitrant computer gear, got up, opened the slot, removed the new cassette and checked the rollers. Nothing. A little diagram on the unit’s control panel flashed, telling me to keep looking. So I got down on my knees, opened another slot and peered into the plastic bowels. Ah, there it was – a sheet of paper concertinaed and compressed below one of the rollers. I pulled it out, ripping the paper in half. I then dropped it in the trash, scanning it as my fingers let it go. Something told me to retrieve it. I obeyed, smoothed out the folds, and read it properly.

Goddamn . . .

I picked up the phone and called IT. Everyone had gone home – 8:05 pm. A recorded message provided an emergency after-hours cell number to call. This was an emergency. I dialled the number.

‘Hello, Special Agent Cooper here . . . Yeah, I know it’s late.’

The voice on the line was young, male and pissed.

‘Yeah, well, maybe next time don’t leave a number. Do you know anything about a printer brought up to my office? . . . You do? Who had it before me? . . . Uh-huh . . . uh-huh. Okay, thanks.’ My spine tingled like it had been sprinkled with sherbet.

I walked over to Masters. She was frowning and her eyes were closed. I dropped the sheet of paper onto her stomach.

‘What’s this?’ she asked.

‘Read it.’

She sat up and read it aloud. ‘
You know the score better than anyone. We’ll hold you to your promise that the mess down there won’t sour our chances on future contracts. All the best, B.
What’s this?’

‘Part of an email.’

‘I can see that, but –’

‘I just dug it out of my printer. IT services brought it up
from Portman’s office
.’

‘
This was Portman’s printer?’ Masters blinked. ‘So who’s B? Burnbaum?’

I shook my head. ‘From what I’ve seen, and I’ve read hundreds of Burnbaum’s emails to Portman, he always signs off “Ward” when it’s informal and “Ambassador Burnbaum” when it’s not. Also, it doesn’t seem to be the kind of email you’d send to someone who works in the room down the hall. So, I have no idea who this is from. There is something, though.’

‘What?’

‘Like I said, I’ve been through Portman’s emails. And funnily enough, I don’t recall seeing this one.’

‘Which means Portman’s email has been edited,’ she said.

‘I’d have said, “fucked with”. There’s also the issue of Portman’s conveniently corrupted diary. From the guy’s service record – in fact, from everything we know about him – he’s an over-achiever, a workaholic. The biggest slice of work on his plate takes up one or two days of his working week, according to Artie Farquar at TEI. Allow around one day a week for official duties, plus maybe half a day for admin, and I can see Portman sitting around for fifty per cent of the week twiddling his thumbs.’

‘Only he’s not a thumbs-twiddling kind of guy,’ Masters added.

‘He doesn’t seem to be a party animal, doesn’t have a girlfriend . . . What’s he doing to keep himself occupied?’

Masters nodded.

‘Let’s speculate here and join a few dots . . . What if “the mess down there” was something at Kumayt keeping Portman busy? What if it’s an infrastructure project, something to do with water or a hospital – like Block recalled Portman had told him.’

‘Go on.’

‘And let’s also speculate,’ I said, ‘that something about this project was sitting in Portman’s secret floor safe. I know it’s a bit of a leap, but
I’m thinking Portman probably duplicated this unknown information and put copies in
both
safes.’